July KTC Event: KTC "Lite" at Meg's

Well, kids, we managed to pull it together and wedge in a FABULOUS July KTC event!

In spite of our smaller group-size, we had an absolutely mah-velous time at Chez Meg for a David Lebovitz-inspired brunch adventure. The menu included these delectable delights:

• Fancy buckwheat crepes with savory spinach and egg filling
• Goat cheese custards with berries and red wine syrup
• Fennel salad [no recipe: just finely sliced raw fennel with black olive pieces mixed with orange juice, a touch of good olive oil, and a sprinkle of coarse sea salt]

We were a smaller-than-normal group, but had even bigger-than-normal fun, woo! In attendance were Meg, William, Joyce, Jessica, Damian, Shawn, Fernando, and Henry (Rick and Anne’s Henry). And Meg’s brother Fred joined us for lunch! Did I miss anyone?

Meg got our morning started off right with a finely-executed mimosa station – Yum!

And some wonderful pastries from Essential Baking Company, served with Meg’s own homemade strawberry freezer jam (OMG so delicious!!)…

Here’s William showing us how it’s done…

I got started on the goat cheese custards using yolks from these beauties…

Then we added some really cool vanilla paste, courtesy of William…

And mixed it up with some heavy cream and 8 oz of goat cheese…

Then we poured the custard into ramekins…

We poured some warm water around the half-full ramekins to create a bain-marie, and into the oven they went!

Meanwhile, Joyce (was it Joyce?) was hard at work frying up the thinnest bacon I’d ever seen.

Meg hadn’t been able to find sustainably-sourced prosciutto, so we improvised, using a sustainably-sourced, thinly-sliced bacon that she’d found via Bill the Butcher (I think…?).

And now, for your viewing pleasure, bacon porn…

Jessica put the red wine syrup together…

Fernando cleaned up these gorgeous local strawberries for the goat cheese custards…

And Damian sliced fennel for a simple fennel salad with the unexpected addition of chopped kalamata olives.

Next up were the crepes. Here’s a video of Henry showing us how it’s done using William’s fancy-pants crepe-maker…

And the results were wonderful-look how thin they are! At this point, they have only been cooked on one side – we’ll cook the other side when we add the crepe filling.

Joyce got to work crumbling up a bunch of bacony deliciousness. She says her fingers may have, at one time or another, been that greasy before, but that she felt thankful that she couldn’t remember the occasion. We felt even more thankful to have crumbled bacon to put in our crepes!

Henry triple-washed and then squeezed spinach, to which we added grated Gruyere cheese and the crumbled bacon. This would be the filling for the crepes [Again, no real recipe here, just spinach, salt, pepper, Gruyere cheese, crumbled bacon]…

We measured out 9 ounces per crepe.* Each crepe returned to the griddle, cooked side up, and we topped it with the filling. Then, we crimped the edges of each crepe to make a rustic-looking sort of galette or tart.

*For the record, kiddos, Meg pointed out an error here: "…that “9 ounces” of filling included the weight of the pyrex bowl; it was actually a little over 2 oz of filling. Personally, I thought it could have used a bit more.  Maybe 3 oz?  And I agree with William – it needed a bit more bite…maybe some red pepper or hot paprika..."

Also for the record, I would be totally down with trying these with red pepper!

Here’s the finished product—oh la la!

We put some eggs on to fry in these cute little egg rings, reserving one to make chicharrón de huevo for Fernando, who prefers his fried eggs to be extra-super-duper-crunchy-cooked.

And now, even if you weren’t in attendance, I’m pretty sure you can guess what comes next…

If your guess involved plopping those beautiful eggs right on top of the finished crepes, you win!

(Best. Eggs. Ever.)

But actually, we all won, because it was a heavenly combination. We quickly readied the table…

And then fiddled around just a teeny bit with our food and the blasted camera…

Meg’s brother Fred joined us for lunch, and we all had a wonderful time. Topics of conversation included Betty White’s muffins, so you know we had a ton of fun! The crepes were delicious, and that super-thin bacon was the crispiest thing ever!

Next up, the goat cheese custards. These were supposed to cook for 15-20 minutes and cool completely. It actually took them more like an HOUR to cook, maybe a bit longer.

Nevertheless, I daresay they were definitely worth the wait and a terrific alternative to regular flan/custard/crème caramel kinds of desserts. The goat cheese really adds an extra depth of flavor and a different density. Would be marvelous to try as cheesecake! Feast your eyes on these…

No gratuitous kitty photos this month, folks – sorry! Seems like Meg’s kitty-cat had recently had surgery and wasn’t feeling spry enough to hang out with a big group of crazy cooks like us. Pobrecita!

Looking forward to seeing you all at Anne and Rick’s on the 22nd – Until then, Kissers! oxox

June KTC Event: Persian food with Frank and Damian

Whoa! July’s KTC is TOMORROW, and I still haven’t managed to post about June yet!! So sorry, folks!

June’s KTC brought us together for a taste of the exotic. Damian and Frank invited the knowledgeable Clydia (whom I believe Jessica knows from dragonboating) to give us all a crash course in Persian food.

We certainly had a packed house: Nearly all our KTC’ers (we missed you, Joyce!), our guest expert in Persian food Clydia, our two auction winners Lillian and George, Frank’s and Damian’s houseguests Mifune and Paul, and their two impeccably-behaved kiddos, Ken and Marina. Whew!

On the menu:

• Dolmeh (Stuffed Grape Leaves)
• Homemade pita bread (woot! Recipe coming soon...)
• Saffron chicken
• Salat Shirazi (Traditional Iranian salad with tomatoes, cucumbers, onion, parsley, lime juice, and olive oil.

And a pair of delectable desserts:

• Bread baked with honey and cream
• Cardamom milk pudding

By the time I remembered to pull out the camera, we’d already begun making the filling for the Dolmeh. Yellow split peas, onion, garlic, rice, lime juice, and a heckuva lot of parsley!!!

To this mixture we added ground meats – one batch of beef chicken, and one batch of lamb, and mixed together...

Meanwhile, we prepared the grape leaves for our dolmeh. To our grand delight, someone (who?) brought fresh grape leaves, which we rinsed, blanched, and shocked to soften up the tough veins for user-friendly rolling.

In a different corner of the kitchen, some serious salad-making was going on...

A cucumber yogurt sauce was prepared...

Clydia walked us through the process for filling and rolling the grape leaves, and she made it look REALLY easy...

Voila! Dolmeh, ready for a-steamin’! Note that some leaves have the veins rolled outside, and some inside. This was our very clever way to differentiate which dolmeh were made with beef chicken and which with lamb.

Homemade pita bread was next: The dough was put together and had rested and risen. The next step was shaping these small rounds of deliciousness for baking...

Holy cow, that's a lot of pita! (note the chicken marinating in the background, heh heh)...

We placed them onto a pizza stone and smeared the tops with a bit of olive oil. Then, and into a 500-degree oven they went...

We peeped through the steam to see that our pitas were puffing up nicely...

And we enjoyed a gorgeous (and delicious!!) finished product...

William enjoyed some fine American-style confections...

Paul’s and Mifune’s daughter, Marina, made a peel-able banana out of a paper napkin...

And their son Ken enjoyed the kitties...

Remember that chicken marinating on the counter? The menfolk, as I recall, put it on the grill in the backyard. Thanks to William’s fool-proof tip for how to determine when the chicken was cooked without being over-cooked, said chicken emerged looking as pretty as a picture. As THIS picture, as a matter of fact...

We prepared our serving platters...

The tables were set...

Every time I saw this guy I thought of Arthur "Fonzie" Fonzarelli saying “Eeeeeeeeyyyyy!”

In addition to our aforementioned passel-and-a-half o' guests, to our absolute delight, we were able to add one more: Clydia's husband Ali was able to join us for dinner. Our efforts earned us an enthusiastic Persian thumbs-up, which was a lot of fun for all involved. We followed our extraordinary meal with some equally-extraordinary desserts:

Bread, baked with honey and cream (Author's note: I can die, now that I've eaten this!)...Here's the before photo (and yes, that is creme fraiche slathered all over the top!)...

And, after (YUM!)...

As you can see, bread baked with honey and cream was a popular option...

Also, Frank and Damian prepared a marvelous cardamom milk pudding (Extra yum!!!). There is no way to display how popular this pudding was, because there wasn't a gram of it left over - folks were sneaking pudding from the other table, and I saw more than one finger in the serving bowl. SO delicious!

Someone (who?) had also brought an impressive selection of Persian-style pastries, and somehow those M & Ms never managed to run out...

By the end of the evening, we were miserably stuffed. Even the kitty looks like he ate too much...

Gruet in the New York Times!

Neat article about our favorite sparkling wine! Read it here.

Need help cracking an egg? Or, a lesson in TV ridiculousness!

Seriously?

 

http://vodpod.com/watch/2939189-ez-cracker

Mario Cantone does Julia Child

Cute - Comedian and actor Mario Cantone appeared recently on the Rachael Ray show, and pulled out an impromptu impersonation of our favorite celebrity cook. I couldn't figure out how to embed the video here, but here's the link.

I found the beginning of the interview a bit annoying, but you can skip straight to Our Lady Julia by going ahead to 2:30. Enjoy!

via Slashfood

Want locally-sourced, humanely-raised meat? Read this and act now!

Joe Cloud, from T&E Meats, says, "Small, community-based meat processing plants have become an endangered species in America, done in by an ocean of super-cheap industrial meat and the challenges and costs of meeting one-size-fits-all regulations..."

The USDA has evidently introduced new regulations for higher testing requirements that will essentially prevent local farmers from being able to process and provide meat to their local customers.

Joe Cloud explains, "Now, the reason these rules are being proposed is clear: millions of pounds of recalled hamburger, e. coli food poisoning incidents and distrust by consumers and foreign trading partners of U.S. produced meat. But these problems have arisen at plants that handle thousands of animals a day in extremely fast-moving production lines. 

Small plants operate quite differently. At T&E, for example, we process around 20 animals a day. I know which farmer delivered each animal, often because that same farmer wants his butchered animal back so he can sell it. We're not mixing thousands of animals of unknown provenance into piles of hamburger meat and then sending it all around the country. 

Perhaps a large plant slaughtering 5,000 animals per day can afford its own lab and microbiology staff, and can pass the cost along to the consumer. And perhaps they should, given the recalls arising from these large-scale facilities. But most small plants can’t handle it. 

The USDA needs to recognize that "One Size Fits All" inspection no longer works. The risks arising from mega agribusiness plants are far different from community-based plants and they should be regulated appropriately. This does not mean lowering the hurdles for small processors. Rather it means tailoring regulations to the scale and risks of an operation. That way we can provide what the consumer wants – safe AND local food, not just the shrink-wrapped anonymous meat in the supermarket."

You can help: pass on your opinion before June 19th! 

"The USDA is accepting comments on this matter until June 19th, 2010. The original deadline was April 19. You can learn more at the Association of American Meat Processors web site, or the Niche Meat Processors Assistance Network.

Please submit a comment if you care about community-based meat processing and humanely produced meats. Your comments really do matter. Submit your comments to the email address DraftValidationGuideComments@fsis.usda.gov or to the Docket Clerk, USDA, FSIS, Room 2-2127, 5601 Sunnyside Avenue, Beltsville, MD 20705."

Savory Cherry Compote

Holy cow, this looks and sounds delicious. Both my dear F and I love them as-is, but I think my purist streak just ended with "a quick and easy savory compote made with fresh cherries, walnuts, rosemary, and shallots in a wine reduction." I can't wait to try this!

* 3 Tbsp olive oil
* 2 Tbsp minced shallots (can sub red onion)
* 2 1/2 cups pitted cherries, quartered
* 1 cup walnuts, chopped
* 1 Tsp minced rosemary
* Salt and pepper to taste
* 1/4 cup Port, red wine, cassis, or cherry juice (or water)
* 1 Tbsp honey

Method

1 Heat the olive oil in a pan in a frying pan on medium high heat. Add the shallots and sauté until they just begin to color on the edges, about 2-3 minutes. Stir a few times while they’re cooking.

2 Add the walnuts, rosemary and cherries and stir everything to combine. Turn the heat down to medium and cook until the cherries are soft, about 4-5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add a little black pepper and taste for salt.

3 Pour in the Port, wine or cassis and the honey, and stir again. Boil this down slowly until the softening cherries and the liquid cook down to a syrupy texture.

Makes a couple cups, enough to accompany meat dish for 4 to 6 people. Serve with pork chops, pork tenderloin, seared duck breasts, or baked chicken.

via Simply Recipes