just because
Grilled Basque Sausage, Green Salad
Author Archives: Eric
Perfect Grilled Dinner
…except for the oops.
Wednesday, I got together a perfect dinner for the grill:
Marinated pork brochette from Fatted Calf,
New potatoes from Marquita Farm,
Romano Beans from Iacopi Farm and
a lovely spring onion.
When I lit the grill, it caught rather slowly, I just closed the lid and went in the kitchen to finish prepping the vegetables. But I had this nagging thought… “could I be out of gas?”
The timer went off at 15 minutes to signal the grill is hot and I went to the back porch only to find the grill temperature about 250°F, not the 600 it should be. No panic, just get out the cast iron.
I got the gas grill because it takes less time for the fire to be ready, and clean-up is way easier than charcoal. Conversely, it’s not as aesthetically swell and unlike charcoal, you cannot tell when you run out of fuel. For the first couple years, I kept a log of when I used the grill, so I’d know when I was nearing the tank’s 20 hour capacity. That was cumbersome, and I gave it up.
Pork and onions and beans will cook nicely in the cast iron grill pan, just fry the potatoes in the cast iron skillet.
Except for the grill pan throwing off some serious smoke, that worked fine. It ain’t the same as grilling and we could tell, but that pork — I’m not sure how or in what it was marinated — was fabulous. Just goes to show… start with good stuff.
Y’know, sometimes I’m inclined to write about a meal just because the pictures are good (not to mention that the meal was good). That might be the case here.
Good Dinner; chicken, tomato, corn
So Carol said, “What a good dinner.”
Wow. Don’t hear that very often. The thing is, it was dead simple: looed chicken over rice, roasted Costaluto Genovese tomatoes, faux grilled Mexican corn; but I do have some ‘splainin’ to do.
LOOED CHICKEN
I wrote about that last September when I unearthed my recipe from back in Jerusalem days. On this occasion, I did three bone-in chicken thighs. I removed the skin before looing… the skin would just add fat to the sauce and not really contribute any flavor to the chicken as it would if it were fried or roasted. Good and juicy and yummy. There’s no way to screw it up.
RICE
For small amounts of straightforward long grain boiled rice, I cook the rice in my new favorite throw-it-in-boiling-water-like-pasta method. Throw whatever amount in boiling water; 10 minutes later, taste for doneness and strain it. Keep it warm in the strainer in the same pot with the lid on over a little bit of hot water.
ROASTED TOMATOES
I wrote about roasted tomatoes just last May 2010 when I discovered Costaluto Genovese tomatoes. I did the same way with bread crumbs (fresh from an Acme Herb Loaf) and a bit of butter and cheese — this time mozzarella remaining from what I used for a pizza last week.
Instead of roasting in the oven, I put the pan on the grill while I was grilling the corn (10 minutes). Didn’t really get any “grilled flavor,” but didn’t have to heat up the oven.
CORN
I’m not a fan of corn-on-the-cob, but I am a fan of grilled corn. I have a recipe for Mexican Grilled Corn that I like from Readers Digest Recipes – probably a newspaper insert – in 2007. (Guess what, Mark Bittman did an almost identical recipe in the New York Times in 2010.) In any case, I made it my way for off-the-cob eating.
I just mixed the butter, mayo, parmesan and chili powder together and mixed that up with the hot corn cut off the cob. I used a little less parmesan and a little extra chili powder. My convoluted reasoning was that when you roll the corn-on-the-cob in the Parmesan, you don’t use it all, so use a little less to mix. Likewise, when you sprinkle with chili powder, that’s right up against your lips, so it’s like mainlining chili powder; thus, mixed in, use a little more. Carol thought it was pretty spicy (just the way I like it).
and that was dinner. yum
Mexican Grilled Corn
Readers Digest Recipes 2007
4 ears corn, cleaned
1 tablespoon butter
salt & pepper
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
1/3 cup grated Parmesan
1/4 teaspoon chili powder
lime wedges
Brush corn with butter and season with salt & pepper.
Grill over high heat, turning every 2 to 3 minutes until tender and slightly charred, 10 to 12 minutes. Rest 2 to 3 minutes.
Brush corn with mayo and roll in cheese to coat. Sprinkle with chili powder. Serve with lime wedges.
July 23, 2010
Grilled Corn, Mexican Style
NYT Mark Bittman Yield: 4 servings.
Time: About 20 minutes
4 ears of corn, husked
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
1 to 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lime juice, or to taste
1/4 teaspoon chili powder, or to taste
Salt and freshly ground black pepper.
1. Prepare a grill, with heat medium-high and rack about 4 inches from the fire. Put corn on grill and cook until kernels begin to char, about 5 minutes, then turn. Continue cooking and turning until all sides are slightly blackened.
2. Mix together mayonnaise, lime juice, chili powder and some salt and pepper in a small bowl. Taste and adjust seasoning, adding more lime juice or chili powder if you like. Serve corn with chili-lime mayo.
There are other options: olive oil, chopped basil and Parmesan make an unexpected and very good combo; crumbled feta mixed with plain yogurt, lemon juice, oregano and cumin is amazing; and you can’t go wrong with mayo mixed with minced garlic, pimentón and parsley.
Tomato Another Way
Tomato season is on us again and I am loving it. This is not news… I’ve written about tomatoes many times. Just put tomato in the “search” deal and you’ll find stuff.
Today at lunch, I hit upon a new way (for me) of preparing and serving a tomato. Imagine that. I was about to heat up a piece of swordfish (white) and a potato cake (also white) from yesterday’s lunch at Sam’s Chowder House in Half Moon Bay and thought, “I need something colorful and bright-tasting to go with this.”
The big bowl of tomatoes from Saturday’s Farmer’s Market sat on the table and invited itself into my brain. By that time, the fish and potato were in the warming oven and I didn’t want to boil water and peel a tomato and I didn’t want to get juices on my potato and swordfish and I didn’t want a cold sliced tomato.
This morning, I peeled and sliced a tomato and cooked it in a skillet just long enough to warm it… that was good. I’ll bet if I slice a tomato and cook it in a skillet, the skin will slip right off. So that’s just what I did.
So, the idea for that tomato and today’s lunch, started with Sunday’s lunch. Sunday’s dinner contributed, as did this morning’s breakfast. Continue reading
ROASTED HEIRLOOM TOMATO SAUCE
You read my Sardinian Meatball story and I promised Roasted Cherokee Purple Tomato Sauce. 
Today I deliver, even though Cherokee Purple Tomatoes are not yet in season; you’ll be ready when they come. Actually, the recipe is for “Heirloom Tomatoes,” and these pictures show a mixed variety of heirlooms, but the Cherokee Purple, by themselves, are my favorite.
In July of 2009, Georgeanne Brennan, in a Special to The Chronicle, wrote an excellent story on various tomatoes and sauces that included Roasted Heirloom Tomato Sauce. She grows her own tomatoes, so she has plenty to deal with and experiment with. Like me, she likes making her own sauce:
“I like being able to use my own ready-made sauce. I don’t even thaw it. I just put the frozen block in a pan, along with about a quarter cup of water, cover the pan and simmer until the block has melted. Then I remove the cover, turn up the heat and cook until the sauce is the consistency I want, usually thick enough for me to trace a clean path across the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon, with no sauce rushing to cover the path.
Ideally, my husband and I make and freeze enough tomato sauce to supply ourselves from late October through June, those months when tomatoes are out of season. We start making our sauce in mid-August, when the tomatoes are ripening in the full summer heat, and continue until the first freeze arrives and our tomato vines blacken and shrivel.”
But she grows her own tomatoes and was educated in France. I’m just a city-boy, buying my tomatoes at the Farmers Market or direct from farmers and picking up recipes and techniques as I go along. I’ve used the “bag and freeze” method she describes. I also like to store 3-cups of my sauce in Quart containers with lids that stack nicely in the freezer. They’re easy to open and pop into a pan for thawing. Last year, I tried canning, which has its advantages and disadvantages. Continue reading
Joyce Goldstein's Sardinian Meatballs
LA Times via Wednesday Chef
I got this recipe from the Wednesday Chef who got it from the LA Times and I’ve been cooking it since at least 2006… that’s what my notes say. So it’s got to be a favorite.
Here are some of my notes:
Cooked 6.06… I made the simple tomato sauce she suggested using my frozen San Marzano sauce. Made CI Buttermilk Mashed Potatoes to go with. That’s good-eatin’ comfort food… couldn’t put down my fork.
Cooked 4.08 – Just keeps on bein’ good. – see below
Cooked 3.11 — Dang all, these are good… why don’t I do them more often? Mixed about 1/4 ground beef and 3/4 sausage in the Kitchen Aid. The recipe doesn’t say to brown the balls, but I did. Used my chunky tomato sauce.
Why don’t I do them more often? As you readers of eats… know, I’m always up for trying new stuff, so that’s one reason. But then, I have several other good meatball recipes and really, how often does a meatball craving come around on the big wheel?
I’ve written about meatballs only twice on eats: Polly Dutton Meatballs in ‘aught six and Pappardelle with a ragu of tiny meatballs in 2008; so it’s been a while.
Generally I vary the ingredients for these Sardinian Meatballs each time, depending on whim or what I have on hand. Joyce Goldstein calls for all pork, but for this occasion, I used 3 Italian sausages from Golden Gate Meat — about 5/8 pound — and the balance ground beef. I’ve incorporated beef before, but never more than a quarter of a pound. They seemed a little heavier than usual this time. Just go with Joyce… pork rules, let it rule.
So, just assemble the ingredients and mix ‘em together. Its easy to mix by hand, but since I got my Kitchen Aid stand mixer, that is my preferred method; easy, clean and more thorough mixing without overmixing.
The recipe suggests that they be served over spaghetti or mashed potatoes. I have gone both ways, but today I was in the mood for spaghetti.
A word about spaghetti. For long pasta, I like thin spaghetti or store-bought fresh fettuccine or especially my homemade egg noodles. I find “regular spaghetti” too fat and heavy — just me. At my local Real Food market, they had shelves of DeCecco dried pasta, but no thin spaghetti. I could have walked two blocks to Cheese Plus, but instead bought a box of Bella Italia Capellini. That was fine (in more ways than one), but I still prefer thin spaghetti.
For sauce, I got out a container of roasted cherokee purple tomato sauce that I made and froze last fall. That stuff is serious good; rich and dark and sweet and dense and perfect. (I thought I had featured this sauce on eats, but no. Good subject for the next entry.)
The meatballs with their sauce were served over capellini with a side dish of braised carrots, a hunk of pecorino to grate and a very nice Simi Cabernet Sauvignon.
Sardinian Meatballs
Serves 4 to 6
1 pound ground pork
1/4 cup dried or 1/2 cup fresh bread crumbs [I almost always make my own breadcrumbs. This time from an Acme Herb Slab about three days old.]
6 tablespoons grated pecorino cheese
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepperGive these ingredients an initial brief mix, then add
2 eggs [I prefer to lightly beat the eggs before adding.]
For the sauce:
2 to 3 tablespoons olive oil
1 yellow onion, chopped
1 3/4 cups canned tomatoes, seeded and chopped
1/2 cup water
I always use my own tomato sauce, made with fresh tomatoes.1. In a bowl, combine the pork, bread crumbs, eggs, cheese, garlic, parsley, salt and pepper and mixed together until smooth. Form the mixture into balls about 1 inch in diameter.
In a saute pan, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the onion and saute until softened, about 8 minutes. Add the tomatoes and water, mix well, and then add the meatballs.
Here, I depart from the recipe. I brown the meatballs lightly in olive oil, then pour my sauce over them to continue cooking.
4. Bring the sauce to a gentle boil, reduce the heat to low and simmer, covered, until the meatballs are cooked through and tender, about 45 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Serve with mashed potatoes or spaghetti.
meatballs brown
meatballs cook in tomato sauce
Yum. Good stuff.
SEA RANCH day three
Sunday; Monday getaway
A four day odyssey to the north for food from the Blue Bird Diner to a stop for the Oyster Crossing… Sea Ranch wanderings and celebrations tucked in between. And there was so much more… a rare visit by Eric and Alison to the Bay Area and a chance for us Rectors — at least the MCEA Division — to cook together. So here’s how it went down as we wound things up…
Carol and I were staying in the master bedroom and woke to this...
Alison and Paula left early to meet with “the girls” at Two Fish, a tiny restaurant up on the hill, to make “back-East” travel plans and have breakfast. Carol and I joined them just in time to finish off a decadent Morning Bun (pecan roll) and enjoy a cup of coffee. Coming back down the hill, we spotted the sheep herd from above.
sheep graze below us as we return from breakfast
When we received the wedding invitation, we quickly agreed with Eric and Alison to rent a house together. We asked Paula to join us. With five folks, it was about the same price as rooms at the lodge and had the obvious advantage of being “our own place.” Of the houses available, we chose CROW’S NEST, situated on the hill side of Sea Ranch, east of Route 1. We were particularly taken by the deck and hot tub as Eric and Alison were planning a welcoming dinner for those arriving on Friday evening. As a bonus, Sea Ranch had a special going on: Stay for three nights for the price of two. WooHoo.
As our time approached, Sea Ranch called to say that Crow’s Nest had discovered problems with their deck and hot tub and it had to be rebuilt. Consequently, we were obliged to change to OCEAN WATCH, near Pebble Beach on the Bluff Trail. Bummer… bummer? I wasn’t totally conversant with Sea Ranch geography, but there are two major zones, divided by Route 1; the west, ocean side and the east, hill side. So by virtue of the Crow’s Nest misfortune, we came out smellin’ like a rose. I’m sure we would have enjoyed Crow’s Nest immensely, but I did a lot of walking on the Bluff Trail, and that would have been cumbersome from Crow’s Nest. Besides, being next to the mighty Pacific is compelling in itself, as you saw from the previous pictures. I would say we caught a “member’s bounce.”
So after another hot dog lunch, we decided to drive up to Crow’s Nest to see what we missed. I checked the map and figured that since I skipped my “morning walk,” I could drive up and walk back while Carol drove the car back down. That’s just what I did. Continue reading
SEA RANCH day two
A four day odyssey to the north for food from the Blue Bird Diner to a stop for the Oyster Crossing… Sea Ranch wanderings and celebrations tucked in between. And there was so much more… a rare visit by Eric and Alison to the Bay Area and a chance for us Rectors — at least the MCEA Division — to cook together. So here’s how it went down on day two…
saturday morning
What does one do on a spectacular morning at Sea Ranch? The first thing we did was leave to go to the Gualala Farmers Market. We’re crazy for farmers markets — Eric sells his cheese, eggs and yogurt at the Belfast, Maine farmers market and I shop every Saturday at the Ferry Plaza in San Francisco.
I believe I'm negotiating for potatoes here.
Gualala borders the northern end of Sea Ranch at the Sonoma Mendocino county line. Don’t blink, or you’ll miss it. The market is not large, but it had some nice stuff, fresh and local. We also found some nice mustard, made locally and bought three jars.
the mustard and bracelet lady
Here's what we bought. I especially like the spicy titles: Hone Hotflash, Dijon Delight and Sunny Sensation.
On the way back from Gualala we did some auto exploring. Leslie had told us to pay a visit to the chapel, for sure, and right beside it, another public building, the fire house. Continue reading
SEA RANCH day one
A four day odyssey to the north for food from the Blue Bird Diner to a stop for the Oyster Crossing… Sea Ranch wanderings and celebrations tucked in between. And there was so much more… a rare visit by Eric and Alison to the Bay Area and a chance for us Rectors — at least the MCEA Division — to cook together. So here’s how it went down on day one…
SEA RANCH
The short history is that in the early 1960’s, American architects Charles Moore (one of my heros), Joseph Esherick, William Turnbull, Jr. and landscape architect Lawrence Halprin (another one) got together and designed a special place at a sheep ranch on the Northern California coast, near nothing, as a way to provide vacation home needs for themselves and others, and preserve open space along ten miles of coastline. You will see from my pictures that it is a spectacular place to be and like no other place.
So what took me so long to get there? Our first year in California we made the architectural pilgrimage. But we had to be invited to Leslie and Rick’s Wedding to get back after almost 20 years for a long weekend of immersed exploration. You want more history, just Google “Sea Ranch.” There’s a plethora of information and it is, for the most part, as interesting as you can imagine. You want more on Leslie and Rick’s Wedding? Read on.
As a gift to Leslie and Rick, Eric and Alison promised a welcome dinner for the nearly 30 folks invited to the wedding. Carol and I enthusiastically joined the effort. We did shopping in San Francisco at the Ferry Plaza Thursday Market (vegetables), Golden Gate Meat Co. (leg o lamb) and Fatted Calf (30 crepinettes). In the afternoon we chopped and diced and blanched and prepped.
Alison strings snap peas
Eric carves up broccoli
Eric and cauliflower
Eric carves cauliflower, Marc shells fava beans
blanch all vegetables
cauliflower broccoli favas blanched and prepped to pack
We planned our Friday trip north, the long way, up US 101 and CA 128 through the Anderson Valley wine country, then back south on CA 1 to Sea Ranch. We stopped at the Blue Bird diner in Hopland for lunch – a place that Carol and I had been a few times on such wine trips, usually for a stay in Mendocino. Continue reading
OhiO Eats twentyleven
We’re just back from our what-has-become-annual Ohio trip. This one marking the happy occasion of Carol’s Mom’s 90th birthday, a memorable event, indeed.
Happy 90th Liz.
As usual, the Ohio food scene — at least that which we experience — is a mixed bag, from soup to nuts (Carol’s sister DeeDee’s Barley Soup to the Delta Airlines Nuts) and various grades of good in between, as you shall see.
Our first real food experience after airport and airplane and road food was Carol’s brother Alan taking us to Rhapsody, the restaurant of the Culinary Arts School at Hocking College in Nelsonville, Ohio, a town about 30 miles southeast of Lancaster. Situated on the Town Square, Alan thinks its wonderful and has taken many people there over the years.
We entered a very nice room with exposed brick walls and high ceilings. Jazz wafted softly from a piano in the back of the room. The food and service were good — hell, very good — but definitely student work, ambitious and just about perfect, but not quite. For example, we ordered an Ohio Cabernet from the wine list. When the wine steward brought the bottle, it was Cabernet Franc — not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I expected Cabernet Sauvignon, the more familiar varietal. She said, “Well sometimes we have Cabernet Sauvignon and sometimes Cabernet Franc, so we just say Cabernet.”
I started with the Deep Fried Farmstead Cheese Balls appetizer with a creamy blue cheese dip. Can’t go wrong there. A bite through the crispy crust revealed a warm and tender, but not melty, cheese center. Yum. Carol had the Lime Cucumber Rolls with Peanut Butter Dip. Yummy again. We’re off to a fine start.
eats for one 