Category Archives: recipes etc

handy cross reference catagories

10.16.12
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We went to a movie and a swell dinner broke out.

Friday afternoon. “Let’s go see Trouble with the Curve.”
Turns out we had waited too long and it was playing in only one Reno Cineplex, the Century 16 Park Lane, south of Downtown, not our regular Riverside on Sierra by the river.

We left early, hoping to find a place for a bite before the film. Yelp said there were a few places nearby. We knew nothing about any of the places mentioned, so we had to go by name and curb appeal. We passed by Lulou’s on Virginia, which looked very modern and colorful, and opted for The Gas Lamp, a homey looking place, just off Virginia.

Wow! What a find. We walked in before the 6:30 end of Happy Hour, and sat at the bar, so all appetizers and drinks were half price. Better yet, the menu was creative and the food delicious; well prepared and presented.

We each ordered two appetizers — not because they were half price, well maybe — they looked great and we weren’t up for actual dinner-dinner.

smoked salmon carpaccio

I started off with the Smoked Salmon Carpaccio, thin slices of smoked salmon garnished with lots of capers and shaved parmesan, just enough to play a supporting role to the salmon. It was dressed with a non-assertive cream dressing. The grilled breads are very thin slices of baguette, “grilled to perfection.” I stretched those lovely things over my entire meal.

small ceasar salad with shrimp

For my second appetizer or first salad, I chose the Small Ceasar Salad and sprung for Shrimp to go with. It is what you think it is, expertly prepared and as Carol said, “They aren’t afraid to let you taste the anchovies.” (C had the small Ceasar as her first course.)

steamed clams

Carol’s ‘main’ appetizer course of Steamed Clams. I always think of steamed clams as “longneck or soft shell clams,” but these were cherrystone (littleneck). C said the juice was divine, and besides using her ample supply of bread, begged for my last piece of grilled bread to soak up the sauce. All in all, an extra-fine pre-film repast.

We’re learning that Reno offers many, many good local restaurants outside the casinos. I suspect we’ll be back to the Gas Light and pay a visit to Lulou’s, as well. Continue reading →

10.04.12
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Macaroni and Cheese… d’best

Tipsy Pig on Chestnut, San Francisco

I clipped this article as soon as it appeared in the Chronicle and right away, just had to make this mac n cheese. Being a mac n cheese lover, I have many macaroni and cheese recipes from such diverse sources as the NY Times, LA Times, Thomas Keller’s Bouchon Cookbook, and — Praise the Lord — the Annie’s “Shells and Real Aged Cheddar”box.

This is good stuff and plenty easy to make. Here are my Cook’s Notes:

Dis is good and EZ. Made a half-pound of ditalini pasta with 2 cups of cheese sauce, so I’ve got 4 cups of cheese sauce in the fridge/freezer. Used supermarket cheeses. Ground the cheeses in the Kitchen Aid grinder attachment. That is EZ, ‘cept for the clean-up, but still… Served with baby back ribs and a first course of Cook’s Illustrated Cream of Tomato soup. Plenty LO for lunches. Now I’ll have it at Tipsy Pig, see how mine stood up. [Mine stood up well.]

Tipsy Pig Mac n Cheese served at my house with sausage and mashed squash.

And here, I’ll share Michael Bauer’s article (slightly edited):
Why Tipsy Pig’s macaroni and cheese is so good
by Michael Bauer, San Francisco Chronicle’s restaurant critic Sunday, February 7, 2010

One bite of the macaroni and cheese at the Tipsy Pig, and all other versions I’d tasted through the years slipped from my memory. I had found the best.
Why is this version so much better than others I’ve tasted?
I truly wanted to know so I called chef/co-owner Sam Josi, and he shared the recipe, which we tested in The Chronicle’s kitchen. We discovered several elements or “secrets” that set this recipe apart.

cream, pasta, cheeses, butter, flour

Ditalini pasta: These short pasta tubes, often used in soups, capture more of the creamy, cheesy sauce. Make sure the water used to cook the pasta is “salty like the sea,” otherwise the dish may taste flat.
The cheeses: White cheddar adds a sharper high note, Dutch Gouda lends exceptional creaminess, and Shropshire blue has an orange gold color and a sharp tang. Parmesan, sprinkled on at the end, adds a distinct nutty, salty quality that rounds out the blend.
Bacon fat: Many versions garnish with bacon, but using the fat distributes the flavor throughout.
Timing: It’s important to combine the pasta and sauce just before serving. The sauce is simply tossed with the pasta instead of being baked before serving so the dish tastes extra rich and creamy.
Tipsy Pig, which opened a little more than a year ago in the Marina, serves down-home American food, including first-rate pulled pork sliders and chicken pot pie whose puff pastry dome caps rich gravy filled with chunks of white meat, peas, carrots, turnips and other vegetables.
When Josi was conceiving the menu, he knew that macaroni and cheese would have to be on the menu, so the chef started playing with the classic recipe. He remembers making macaroni and cheese in cooking school with a standard bechamel sauce and wondered why he couldn’t substitute bacon fat for butter. He was chastised for the idea and put it away for another day.
Then years later… he concocted a bacon-infused version of macaroni and cheese in individual containers, but it took too long to heat up. When Tipsy Pig opened, he decided to separate the pasta from the sauce and stir them together at the last minute so the dish would be hot and creamy. The combination of cheeses came about partly by chance because the white Cheddar was being used for burgers and he needed Shropshire for its bright yellow color. He ended up with a combination of four cheeses that taste so good together they should be married for life.
So here’s the recipe. If you don’t feel like making the dish at home, you can always make reservations at Tipsy Pig. Continue reading →

09.18.12
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BALLS TO THE GRILL

And off the grill

Just walk out the door…

Enamored as I am with the ability to walk out onto my terrace and grill, I want to grill EVERYTHING.
I’ve been thinking about meatballs, but that seems like a cool weather thing — not August in the high desert — but loving meatballs as I do, I got some ground beef at the Saturday Farmer’s Market.

Why not do meatballs on the grill? My swell grill pan should make that possible, at least on the no-stick front.

My recipe files produced only one recipe suitable — Marlena Spieler’s Big Meatballs, but those are kind of boring. The others are braised, rather than fried or broiled. Better to adapt something from meatloaf. I spied two major candidates:
K-Paul Cajun Meatloaf and Sam Sifton’s Fancy Meatloaf (NYT) that he made for Nora Ephron.

The very next day the RGJ (Reno Gazette Journal, a pretty good local rag) published “Make It Easy: Meatloaf burgers look ahead to Labor Day”. How’s that for timing? The recipe is eerily similar to K-Paul meatloaf, using cooked onion and green bell peppers, lots of good spices and ketchup. I decided to go with the RGJ version; see what it’s like.

And since I still have some caul fat in the freezer, I’ll just make some of the burgers as crepinettes. I’m using grass fed Angus ground beef from Hole-in-One Ranch and that is very lean, so I substituted 1/4 pound of ground pork for that amount of beef.

Here it is, mixed up and ready to be wrapped.

The meatloaf mixture is a bit loose and moist, but certainly formable. I wrapped 4 burgers and made two plain patties, put them in the refrigerator overnight to rest and get their act together.

The next day, I got the grill going, unwrapped two crepinettes and two plain meatloaf burgers.

Ready for grilling…

I used my grill pan for its non stick qualities. Once the grill was pre-heated, I turned off the center burner and turned the outside burner to medium. They took about 15 minutes to cook to 135°F. Continue reading →

09.12.12
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"D’oh!" Fork the Noodles

I’ve been cooking a long time, and yet, just last week I learned to Fork the Noodles. “D’oh!” I said, slapping my head just as Homer Simpson does.

Those bundles of noodles, a fork, those noodles in boiling water.

For lunch — usually — I’ll cook up a bundle of noodles to go with a can of soup or a leftover this or that. The Chinese kind that cook in three minutes.

Throw a bundle in a pot of boiling water, break up the bundle so the noodles are loose in the water before you start your timer, so you don’t get clumps. Trouble is, you’re working with boiling water and those bundles of noodles don’t want to break up… they’ll slosh around under your wooden spoon, boiling water sloshes out of the pot and puts out your fire. Bad.

Those noodles and a cheap cooking fork.

One day, I grabbed a cheap cooking fork and speared the noodles with that… holds them in place while I break that bundle with my wooden spoon. “D’oh!” That’s great! What took me so long?

These particular noodles will go with a sliced leftover meatball and a can of Amy’s Tomato Bisque soup. Yum.

09.06.12
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Anatomy of an Asian Fête

Chinese Fete

When I offered to make a birthday dinner of any dish and/or cuisine, the request was for a chinese dumpling dinner for a family gathering over Labor Day weekend. Not content to roll a bunch of dumplings, boil them up, and call it good, I used the occasion as an excuse to pull together many different asian recipes that I’ve been cooking recently, or wanting to cook, and introduce the family to my obsession with trying to grok all asian cuisines after visiting China in 2009.

The thunderbolt that hit me in China was exposure to several *different* cuisines within China — saying “Chinese cooking” is just like saying “American cooking” — it depends on who is cooking, where they are cooking, and what their cultural background is. Since then I’ve studied more about the many different Asian takes on food preparations and ingredients (from India to Japan) to try to understand the things they share, as well as what made them different.

The birthday dinner audience consisted of adults and children, many of whom had traveled and eaten around the world (including the children) but may NOT have focused their attention on Chinese or asian cuisine. Also, for family gatherings, they were accustomed to straight-forward dinner menus consisting of a big plate of meat, one or two side veggies and/or starch, and a big salad for dinner.

As I indicate in the title here with the French word “Fête” this was NOT intended to be an authentic meal by any stretch. Along with the odd mish-mash of cuisines and ignorance of proper banquet service I sought to use familiar and local ingredients where ever possible: smoked salmon, instead of ham; lobster instead of crab, etc. The intention was to create a tasty meal that exposed some of the diners to new flavors and/or textures but was not completely unfamiliar, as much as to just create a tasty meal that included dumplings. I hope that I succeeded.
Continue reading →

08.08.12
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Noodles Make Everything Better

We often stop at Dottie’s in Colfax CA on our way from San Francisco to Reno. The food is real good and served in two-meal size portions for a one-meal price.

The Special on Sunday was a prime rib sandwich — thin sliced prime rib of beef, caramelized onions, peppers and parmesan, onna soft roll. For an extra buck, they jazzed the fries with parmesan and garlic. We got one order each, Carol’s with a salad.

Ranch dipping sauce for the oh so good fries

I will admit to eating half of my sandwich and we licked the platter clean of the fries. So good.

Here’s the half-sandwich I brought home. I wasn’t sure what to do with it. Looks forlorn, but I remember how good it was. The microwave is rarely the answer for me, and besides, I doubt it would heat evenly, and what would become of the bread.

So, I’ll deconstruct the sandwich, heat the meat and top with noodles and “tomato sauce.” Sounds like a lunch.

The noodles I’m talking about are my favorite Chinese Noodles, Green Dragon brand Oriental Style Imitation Egg Noodles. They take only 3 minutes to cook.

Slice the LO sandwich and warm in a frying pan, move to a plate and keep warm in the oven.

Cook a bundle of noodles and drain. Heat a 5 1/2 oz can Spicy V8 in the pan, add noodles and cook down a bit. Turn the noodles over the sandwich slices.

eat it all

08.08.12
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Sea Scallops Jacques

… And what does FAS (Frozen At Sea) mean to me?

So often, I write up a fabulous and easy recipe and then file it away and forget about it. (On the other hand, I discover new things in the meantime.)

At the Friday Farmers Market at Garden Shop Nursery on Mayberry Drive in Reno, I found a fish guy. He had a nice selection of FAS (Frozen At Sea) fish, as well as FAS scallops. He claimed that they were frozen within hours of being caught and were virtually fresh. And if you’re living more than 200 miles from the sea, as we are, chances are, any fish you buy has been frozen at some point.

OK, I bought the scallops. I know a little bit about what fresh scallops look, feel and taste like, so this will be a good test.

what’s left of the frozen scallops

I got out THAT RECIPE, but planned to grill the scallops on my swell grill pan, rather that sear in oil. Hmmm, when thawed and opened, I found that they were not the large whole, round scallops that I’m used to, but rather, thicker, smaller scallops. But they looked wonderful and fresh.

red bell pepper oil (except I used a yellow pepper), pimento and black olive relish, scallops

I cooked them in oil for about 1 1/2 minutes a side, served them as I had those real fresh scallops, and dang-all, they were GOOD. To my mind, they would have stood up in a blind tasting.

scallops and baked potato

The recipe is at the end of this piece, and in the linked “Scallops” on eats… Continue reading →

08.07.12
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Jon vs Food

We have a guest columnist this week. My brother-in-law, the Honorable Jon Hale, Lancaster (Ohio) City Councilman, sent this to his sister, my wife, knowing full well that I write and publish eatsforone. Jon vs. Food is hereby reprinted, in its entirety, with permission.

The Max & Erma’s Landfill

From: Jon
Date: August 5, 2012 10:38:58 AM PDT
To: “Marc & Carol”
Subject: “Jon vs Food!” Additional pix on the way too!

So, the Max & Erma’s chain – corporately based in Columbus with decent food, but admittedly not nearly as fun as when they used to feature phones on each table – has introduced their own eating contest called the Landfill Burger Challenge.

“Complete a huge 4.5 pound three-pattie burger piled up with multiple cheeses, onions, lettuce, tomato, mushrooms, fried pickles, salsa, guacamole, ham and pulled pork, plus a generous one pound serving of chili cheese fries and you win a t-shirt, commemorative photo displayed and a gift card for your next visit.”

Since the beginning of July only one person from seven who’d tried had actually done it, until Saturday, August 4.  Having watched “Man vs Food” over the past few years and hearing Michelle (wife) comment “You could do that” numerous times, I decided to actually give this a try once it came to Lancaster.  Out to dinner with friends Ed & Pam H and Michele, I confidently ordered the Landfill. The rules are that once started you cannot get up from the table and cannot receive assistance from anyone. There is no time limit, but aside from the ultimate goal of being a clean-plater, my first goal was to try to beat the 43 minute time set by the other guy (friend Michele offered to buy me a beer if I could do it in 40 minutes). It soon became apparent that wasn’t going to happen, even matching the other guys 43 minutes wasn’t in the cards either – so, I decided to shoot for under an hour.

Jon attacks.

I found that Adam Richman isn’t kidding when he talks about hitting a food wall – 30 minutes and about 2/3 of the Landfill gone was my wall, but I steadily kept going.  Under the encouragement of my dinner companions, as well as a genuinely supportive wait staff, the final bite went down at the 54:24 mark!

“clean-plater”

Surprisingly, I was very full, but not all that uncomfortable.  Three laps walking around the restaurant helped, as did getting up to pose for my commemorative photo.  The next day, as promised to several friends, I even wore my t-shirt to church.  Facebook has been well adorned with photos and accounts, and I’m glad I can scratch this one off my list of things to try to do!

Subject: Oops almost forgot…

The Landfill also had bacon on it too! Mmm, bacon…

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

07.23.12
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Go Do Spaghetti Sauce

[Editor’s Note: Ironically, I was writing this when Eric called his mom to interview her about her handed-down Sugo (The Whole Recipe – Sugo). These sauces are different, but not so much; and both are worth cooking and worth eating… maybe the best two sauces you’ve made.]

I have a “Go To” sauce for spaghetti, been cooking it for years. I got it from Nancy Harmon Jenkins book, The Mediterranean Diet Cookbook. (That’s “diet” as in “cusine, the diet of the Mediterranean culture,” not “diet: to lose weight.”)

MITA’S TUSCAN SUGO
“Mita Antolini, my Tuscan neighbor, uses this sauce to dress pasta or gnocchi di patate, little potato dumplings, that she makes for Sunday lunch.” [See full recipe at the end.]
— Nancy Harmon Jenkins

Uncharacteristically, I never transcribed this recipe into my computer files. After I made it a few times from the book, I knew it and just cooked it. Anyway, this is how I cooked it last Friday — I call it “go do” because I just go and do it, varying it a bit each time.

celery and spring onions

I rough chopped a few spring onions and tossed them into my mini-food processor — the Breville “Control Grip.”
I chopped some celery from the top of a head, leaves and all and threw that in.

Normally, I would put in a carrot, but I had two small pasilla chilis I got at the farmers market. This will make the sauce a bit “Southwestern”-Italian for a change of pace. [NOTE] (These are actually the dark green poblano chilis, often called pasilla chilis in the US.).

the Breville Control Grip: chopper/processor, motor and immersion blender

So, I fine chopped those in the mini-processor and got them going in olive oil in my skillet over a very low flame. These will need to cook for a while – at least 15 minutes – until beyond soft. Ideally, the vegetables will disappear into the sauce.

Added some white wine and cooked that down to nearly dry.

Sliced two Niman Ranch Spicy Italian Sausages in half lengthwise, cleared a space in the center of the skillet and added a little olive oil, fried those, cut side down, until browned.

Tomatoes: Normally, I use a can of San Marzano tomatoes, but I have these pickled tomatoes that I canned last fall. Why not process those — basil and peppercorns and garlic and all — in the mini-processor, since I have it out.

Added the tomato sauce and some dried Italian Seasoning, and slowly cooked that down, seasoning with salt and pepper. That sauce is good.

the sugo cooks

The Pasta
When I don’t make pasta or buy fresh pasta, I like thin spaghetti, its very comforting to me. Scanning the Barilla shelf in the supermarket, I saw Spaghetti Rigati. Hmmm. Its thin, has ridges to hold sauce, and I’ve never tried it… three good reasons to buy. For just me and Carol, I use a third of a pound of pasta for a meal. I cooked that, tossed it with the sauce, and served.

That’s darned good. Yum. (Otherwise, I wouldn’t be writing about it.) I served it with tomato and cucumber salad with fresh mozzarella balls, dressed with a balsamic vinaigrette, and Bonny Doon Le Cigare Volant red wine. Yum. Continue reading →

07.23.12
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The Whole Recipe — Sugo

Sugo alla South Roanoke Apartment Villages Pool

Every family has a few recipes that are ALWAYS served. For us one of those is a spaghetti sauce that was handed down to my mother almost directly from a buonafide Italian grandmother. It was referenced in a very early Eats article on different kinds of tomato sauces, which even has a comment that echos a very important part of this sauce: you add the tomato paste to the onions and garlic in oil and “fry” the paste a bit to caramelize some of the concentrated sugars before adding the wet tomato sauce and plum tomatoes to simmer.

With this communal nature of recipes in mind I thought it would be interesting to learn more about this “handing down” of food knowledge because the process of teaching cooking has always (and continues to be) one of master-and-apprentice. This model is codified in the culinary world where every serious chef has worked their way up from dishwasher to prep to line, but that’s just a reflection of how humans have always learned to cook: watching someone with more skill, and listening to them explain why they are doing it. Since I knew a bit, but not the whole story, about how this family favorite was acquired, I decided to capture the Whole Recipe for anyone who is interested in it, not just the ingredients and preparation.

As you can see in the photo at the top, I made a batch of this over the weekend — a bit for dinner and mostly to freeze for many easy future dinners. I was inspired to make it because I had defrosted our kitchen freezer and found some frozen spare ribs hiding in the drifts of ice in the back, and I was sure they were dried out, but would still be able to flavor a long cooked dish, and pork-on-the-bone is a critical component of this dish, in my opinion. The great thing about using spare ribs in this sauce is that by hour four or five the meat falls off the bone and pretty much melts into the sauce — you don’t really see chunks of meat in your sauce (unless you add it to the end as Carol recommends) — which I’ve learned is one of the characteristics of a classic Italian sugo. Continue reading →