Culinary Circle

Although we hadn't been doing much new exciting cooking around our apartment the past few months things are picking up lately. Here's some pictures. First a delicious Greek dinner, both recipes from the cookbook, The Olive and the Caper, (I highly recommend it), we had salmon with a caper and shallot sauce and a side salad with a classic Greek dressing that is honey and vinegar. It was excellent.



Next up two other new dishes that we tried from an Armenian cookbook that we got for Christmas The Cuisine of Armenia, we've only made a few things from this cookbook but the recipes have all been excellent. We made a filling that had ground lamb, pine nuts, cinnamon, allspice and onion, half the filling was used to fill the pastries the other half as a mix in for rice pilaf. Wa-la another excellent dinner.

I can't find my notes on this root beer but I remember it being quite tasty and I wouldn't hesitate to pick one up again. Also I like the label art.

With all our fall veggie bounty from the farm and the cool weather lately it was high time for a new soup. The plan at first was cream of broccoli soup, plus we had a lot of carrots so we thought that'd be a nice addition. The night we were making the soup was also a farm pickup and we were lucky enough to receive some celeriac. We both have a thing in that we like the flavor celery adds to soup but we don't like eating stringy celery pieces. Celeriac solves this problem, it has the exact same celery flavor packed in a nice root vegetable, it cooks up similar to potatoes but more solid and more smooth in texture, which is perfect. I know that celeriac looks really really funky, but I highly recommend it if you ever find some at the store.

The soup turned out excellent here's our final recipe:

1 onion
2 small heads of broccoli
3 medium carrots
1 medium celeraic
2 tsp salt
2 tbsp flour
1/2 gallon of milk (I used 1-2 cups less than the full 1/2 gallon)
3/4 cup light cream
1 1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
salt and pepper to taste

Sweat chopped onion, carrot, and celeriac for 15 minutes with 2 tsp salt. Add chopped broccoli and sweat for an additional 5 minutes or until all the veggies are soft. Sprinkle flour over veggies and cook for 2 more minutes. Slowly add milk and simmer lightly for 30 minutes. After soup is cooked add light cream and slowly add in cheddar. Salt and pepper to taste. Serve.

We've been experimenting with making panini this summer. Our first sucess was with fresh grilled veggies (eggplant, peppers and zuchini) fresh mozerlla, sundried tomatos, and basil, using some bakery bought country sourdough. Next up we tried grilled chicken, fresh tomato, pesto mayonaise, marinated artichokes, red onion and mozzerlla using fresh ciabatta bread that I had made, with all the fresh ingredients and homemade bread these cannot be beat!

For pressing and heating the sandwiches Tom had devised a method to use a bottom fry pan and for the top he heats up the cast iron skillet and puts that over and it has enough weight and heat to cook the top and press the sandwich, not perfect but it works. We're in the market to get a cast iron grill press, a large round one, but we're going to have to order it online and I haven't gotten around to it yet.

We stopped at the local Beverages and More store on our recent trip to CA and discovered and amazing selection of root beers. Since we were only in CA for a few days and new that whatever we didn't finish would be coming home with us in our luggage we only got a couple root beers to try along with a bunch of our favorite Henry Weinhards (root beer and cream soda).

Here is the first one that we tried, Barrel Brothers Creamy Vanilla Root Beer. We've got some extra notes on the tasting on Tom's computer but I'll just post the picture now along with the brief comment that I really enjoyed this it was smooth creamy with a nice vanilla flavor. I'd definitely get it again.

It's been three weeks now, but it's officially apple season. We got our first round of cider from the Davis Farmstand two weeks ago, excellent as always. This week they switched over to the next batch (we religiously follow the expiration dates on the cider, as that is an indication of whether you are getting the same batch as last time our not). I love how the flavor of the cider changes with the season progresses and the types of apples they use in the cider changes.

Along with picking up fresh cider every week we're also getting an apple share that we pick up with our farm share. Every week we're getting 1/2 peck of fresh picked apples. One of my favorite easy recipes for apples is caramel apple oatmeal.



Recipe (one serving doubles or triples easier for more topping or more bowls of oatmeal)
time ~10-15 min:

1 apple
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp brown sugar
sprinkle of cinnamon
1 bowl of oatmeal (cook per manufactures recommendations)

Dice the apple into 1/2 squares, I usually leave on the skins just because it's easier, but you could peel them if you'd really like. Heat up the butter in a frying pan until melted, add apples, brown sugar and cinnamon. Cook until apples are tender and the brown sugar has melted and carmelized, add more butter or sugar if you feel it is necessary, I just add the cinnamon to taste. Mix in with oatmeal and enjoy. I always add some milk or cream to the oatmeal too because that's the way I like it, Tom eats it with out the extra liquid though. Enjoy!

Tom created this recipe on his own. Everyone that's tried it loves it! This summer was the summer of balsamic vinaigrette salad dressing, last summer it was buttermilk ranch (also another one of Tom's creations). This base recipe is good for 2-4 salads, we've been making a triple batch to fit in our salad dressing jar and it'll last us a few weeks then (we average 4-6 salads a week).

Honey Balsamic vinaigrette
1T honey
1t Dijon mustard
2T balsamic vinegar
5T olive oil

Mix and enjoy. The olive oil congeals a bit in the cold of the fridge so if refridgerated we usually let it sit out 10-20 minutes before serving.

Photo of most of one of our Farm shares from a few weeks ago. We're in prime summer season getting tons of lettuce, eggplant, summer squash, basil, swiss chard and much much more. I have a few salad dressing recipes Tom created that I really need to get to post. Maybe next week.