CM # 63 The Food You Crave

First things first, there is no place like home. 

I don’t usually miss not having TV anymore, but I do miss Food Network. Bobby, Tyler, Ina and Jamie were all like family to me. Though I hear a rumor that if I bothered to figure out how TV works without cable, I could catch Jamie’s fabulous show “Food Revolution” on network TV. Kind of sounds like a lot of work though.

One of the less recognized geniuses of Food Network is Ellie Krieger. Her recipes are usually inventive and tasty. Registered dieticians are pretty impressive in general.

Ellie’s cookbook is full of those sticky flags I seem to love throwing around. Marked for the future are recipes for Hummus and Grilled Vegetable Wraps, Chickpea and Spinach Salad, Noodles with Lime-Peanut Sauce, Mushroom Barley Risotto and Poached Salmon with Lemon-Mint Tzatziki.

I am however always an advocate of “Simple but Good.” Grab the best produce and let the flavors speak for themselves. I found some beautiful vine tomatoes at the store--I could sit and smell them for hours. Yes, they smell like a garden vine, but that’s what’s so perfect about them. Tomato sandwiches made with toasted bread, sea salt, pepper and olive oil is quite possibly the most perfect sandwich in the world

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Ellie had a recipe for tomatoes topped with a bit of Green Goddess dressing so I gave it a shot.. It’s creamy from the avocado, but the tomato is still the star. Pure genius.

All recipes however are not perfect. Or rather, all not cooks are not perfect. I made an attempt at her Energy Bar recipe. I mean it starts out on the right track….

It even looks pretty good going into the pan…

And it even looks not so bad out of the pan. But looks can be deceiving. Amidst the nuts and fruit peeking out hides a layer of industrial grade cardboard. I kind of feel bad because I love Ellie and am sure she can do no wrong. I just can’t figure out what I missed in mine. Just a lesson learned that cooking and trying new recipes will always be an an experiment and an adventure.

Green Goddess Dressing

Adapted from The Food You Crave by Ellie Krieger

½ ripe avocado, flesh scooped out
½ cup lowfat buttermilk

3 tbsp white wine vinegar

1 tbsp fresh tarragon

1 green onion, sliced

3/4 tsp salt

Freshly ground pepper to taste

Blend all ingredients until smooth and serve over salad. Dressing will keep 2-3 days in refrigerator

Cheddar Ale Soup

All the kind comments on my last post were greatly appreciated.  I felt a bit dramatic in apparently self-nominating myself for the Laura Ingalls Wilder Pioneer of the Year award.  I should clarify that I do always have the nation's fastest 3g network at my fingertips so am not really living the minimalistic life.  I think blogger even makes a mobile blogging application.   But alas, the nation's fastest 3g network does not necessarily translate to the nation's most reliable network and I would rather poke my eyeballs out King Lear style than type mass amounts of text using a  touchpad. I'm a  full qwerty keyboard kind of girl--just little old school.  Okay, I'm not going to lie to you.  In high school typing, we had typwriters.  I'm way old school.

The lack of blogging has left me with an abundance of useless photos.  You would think that no blogging = no photos of food.  I can't seem to put down my camera when there's food or a little Peanut involved.  And truly, Guinness in soup deserves a post.  I followed this recipe pretty closely with just a substitution of leeks for onions. And of course the Guinness.  The recipe calls for ale but one must use Guinness since it's arguably the only drinkable beer type substance out there.   My only other input would be to use caution when adding the cheese.  Do it slowly and then turn the heat off if immediately if you don't want congealed cheese gunge.  The pan and the soup will thank you.

 Cheddar Ale Soup
Adapted from Williams Sonoma

2 tbs. unsalted butter
2 leeks , sliced thin
2 celery stalks, finely diced
2 carrots, peeled and finely diced
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 3/4 cups chicken stock
1 bottle (12 fl. oz.) ale
1 Tbs. Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp. dry mustard
1 1/4 lb. sharp cheddar cheese, grated
Salt, to taste
Cayenne pepper, to taste

Directions:
In a stockpot over medium-low heat, melt the butter. Add the onion, celery and carrots and cook, stirring occasionally, until very soft, 10 to 15 minutes. Stir in the flour and cook for 3 to 5 minutes. Increase the heat to medium-high and whisk in the milk and stock. Bring to a simmer and cook, stirring often, until thickened, about 10 minutes.

Using an immersion blender, puree the soup until smooth.
Return the mixture to the pot and set over medium heat. Add the ale, Worcestershire and mustard and simmer for 5 minutes. Whisk in the cheese 1/2 cup at a time, letting each addition melt before adding more; do not allow the soup to boil. Season with salt and cayenne.
Ladle the soup into warmed bowls and serve immediately. Serves 4 to 6.

Hong Kong Salmon Cakes with Bok Choy

You can have all the cookbooks in the world, but you always come back to Tyler.  I won't wax romantic about how much I love Tyler Florence, as long as we all understand he's pure genius.

This time around, I opted for his Hong Kong Salmon Cakes and Bok Choy recipe found in this favorite cookbook.  I love, this cookbook.  It's probably apparent as my other cookbooks have one, possibly two recipes highlighted.  It seems I really just can't stay away from this Tyler cookbook.  I am not even a little apologetic. The recipe was perfect--the cubed salmon had a texture unlike any other crab or salmon cake I've ever had. 

Salmon Cakes and Bok Choy
Adapted from Tyler Forence's Real Kitchen

Salmon Cakes:
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger
1 to 2 red or green chiles, minced
1 1/2 pounds skinless boneless salmon fillets, cut in small cubes
1 cup fresh bread crumbs (4 slices whole wheat bread with crusts removed pulsed in the food processor)
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh cilantro leaves
2 tablespoons greek yogurt
1 lemon, juiced
1 large egg white
Sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons peanut oil

Bok Choy:
2 tablespoons peanut oil
2-inch piece fresh ginger, sliced
2 heads baby bok choy, halved lengthwise
1/4 cup water
3 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce
1/2 lemon, juiced
1 tablespoon brown sugar
Toasted sesame seeds, chopped cilantro leaves, and sliced green onion, for garnish

To make the salmon cakes: Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add the garlic, shallot, ginger, and chiles; saute for a few minutes to release the flavor. Remove from heat to cool slightly.
In a mixing bowl, combine the salmon, bread crumbs, cilantro, yogurt, lemon juice and egg white. Scrape the garlic/ginger oil into the salmon mixture; season with salt and pepper. Fold the ingredients together gently but thoroughly, taking care not to mash the salmon too much. Using your hands, form the mixture into 4 salmon cakes, they should be moist and just hold together.
Coat a non-stick skillet with the 2 tablespoons of peanut oil and bring it to a slight smoke over medium heat. Fry the salmon cakes until brown, about 4 minutes on each side, turning carefully with a spatula. Keep warm on a plate lined with paper towels.

To make the bok choy: Return the skillet to the heat and coat with the 2 tablespoons of peanut oil and heat until almost smoking. Split the piece of ginger open with a knife then whack it with the flat side of the knife. Lay the ginger pieces in the oil, cut-side down to let it start to perfume. Pan-fry the bok choy, cut-side down, for a couple of minutes to give it some color. Add the water and cook another minute to steam the bok choy; carefully remove it to a plate. Add the soy sauce, oyster sauce, lemon juice, and brown sugar. Cook and stir for 3 minutes until the sauce is the consistency of syrup.
Serve the salmon cakes with the bok choy, and drizzle the brown sauce over the whole thing. Garnish the dish with the toasted sesame seeds, cilantro, and green onion.

Belated Thank You

I suck.  Most of the time I just go with it, but sometimes, when it's me being ungrateful, I want to slap my own hand and stand myself in the corner. 

When I went on my Amy Butler binge, another blogger offered to gift me with an Amy Butler pattern.  It took me almost two weeks to take a photo so I could say a huge "thank you!!!!" to her on my blog.

Karen at Maggie's Secret Garden sent me the above pattern--just because.  Thank you Karen--"Just because" is my all time favorite sentiment-- I just need to come up with some plan to pay it forward. And of course, I can't wait to be the sewer of new Amy Butler mp3 case. 

Before There Were Kids

Just a heads up that this post may be the death of me.  Dad--look the other way, and no one tell mom it exists.

My mom raised us to be pretty darned independent. She was not the type that I could just bring a load of laundry home to after a tough week in college. But who am I kidding? I am not the type to let someone else do my laundry. I can't bring myself to share that kind of fun.

When it comes to food though, she is 100% doting mama.  One of us needs to merely mention a craving and the next thing we know, that food is sitting in front of us.  I like to think we try to control this incredible power we have, but in truth, we don't.  And the funny thing is, it doesn't matter how independent a girl is or how much she likes to cook for herself, there's always something so comforting about mom making you food. 

Som Tum.   When you have tickets booked to head back to Thailand this April, you have to start prepping for the daily consumption. As my Dad kept asking as my mom was pounding away....couldn't I make this myself?  Of course.  But it's so much better when mom makes it.

I didn't plan on going back to Thailand this year, but my parents planned a trip this April.  I couldn't pass on that opportunity.  As I visited with family over there last year, I heard stories about my mom and about my parents.  This was my mom's home, her family and where my parents met and got married.  There were stories here that I wanted to see and hear again with my parents there as well.

See, apparently, before she was a mom who jumped at every food request we made, before there was even a Mary, Mikey or Monica(or Mark and Matt)...

She was actually, well, not a mom. It's hard to believe.

I can't even imagine her outside of our family, having a life that didn't include us.  But alas there was a time that she hung out with her friends posing for pictures that look like something from an Amy Tan novel.

Eventually, this young woman fell in love with an American GI with sweet TEDs and superstar bike skills.

(A bike skill, if we recall from this past 4th of July, was not passed in the genes to me.)

But I digress.  So when I see these old photos and hear these stories, there is a fascination in two lives lived before I even existed.  And when presented with the opportunity to visit Thailand with them, and see my mom's homeland through her eyes, or even through the eyes of a father who first experienced it as a 20 year old, how do you pass up that opportunity?  And the view's not so bad either....