Yesterday when I was mixing up the spicy/soy marinade for the salmon, I took the other piece of fish and marinated it in a mixture of miso and some chicken stock. The fish had been sitting in the marinade overnight in the fridge and it was ready to go. As I was looking through our pantry I discovered we had five different packages of Asian noodles, soba, udon, more soba, another kind with only a Japanese label, so I decided to use one of these in tonight's dinner.
A quick trip to Dan's (http://www.dansfreshproduce.com/) for some veggies and I was ready to start cooking. (Dan's is awesome, my favorite place to grab produce on the Island, great prices, nice people, good seasonal selection) I decided to make a veggie stir-fry with Soba noodles to go with the broiled salmon. I grabbed some carrots, celery, broccoli, bok choy and shitake mushrooms. I pulled out the wok, prepped the veggies and was ready to go. I parboiled the broccoli for a minute, but otherwise just through the veggies in the wok and stirred them around. I boiled the soba noodles and threw them in with the stir-fry. A quick sauce of soy, miso and some chili paste and dinner was ready. The fish I broiled like the night before.
On a side note, the leftovers are awesome for lunch the next day. Cold soba/veggie salad and some salmon, excellent!
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Monday, April 12, 2010
Cooking at Home Week
We just finished our taxes. Scary and not fun. In doing so we also had to look through lots of old credit card statements and realized we were spending waayyyyy too much money going out to eat. Plus, we both like to cook and are both reasonably good at it. So this week, all meals are at home. This has also turned out to be a great way to use up pantry and freezer items. So, meal one.
Monday night we were going back to meet with our tax person for the second time, better prepared, so it was stressful already and neither us felt like cooking. Luckily we had picked up a side of Salmon at Costco on Sunday and it was in the fridge, an easy dinner calling out to us. Normally I don't like buying meat or fish at Costco, I prefer to go to our local places and just buy what we'll need for that day, but it was a really good price and looked good and was fresh, so fine. I put on the rice cooker (an awesome thing to have, we have rice all the time, this is so easy) and cut the side of Salmon in half so I could try two different marinades.
First marinade, and the piece we had on Monday night was a simple, but awesome one. It's easy if you have a cabinet full of Asian sauces, which we do! Soy sauce, sambal (chili/garlic sauce- adds a serious punch), mirin, pepper, ginger, garlic and a little rice wine vinegar. Mix this up, pour it over the fish and wait until there are about 5 minutes left on the rice. I start the fish flesh side up under the broiler for about 3-4 minutes, but watch so it doesn't burn. Flip it and go for about 5-6 minutes, depending on how cooked you want it to be. If it starts to burn, either move it a little further away from the broiler or cover it partially with some foil.
Normally I would try to make a simple veggie side, but no time tonight. A good, light meal that took about 10 minutes of actual work!
Monday night we were going back to meet with our tax person for the second time, better prepared, so it was stressful already and neither us felt like cooking. Luckily we had picked up a side of Salmon at Costco on Sunday and it was in the fridge, an easy dinner calling out to us. Normally I don't like buying meat or fish at Costco, I prefer to go to our local places and just buy what we'll need for that day, but it was a really good price and looked good and was fresh, so fine. I put on the rice cooker (an awesome thing to have, we have rice all the time, this is so easy) and cut the side of Salmon in half so I could try two different marinades.
First marinade, and the piece we had on Monday night was a simple, but awesome one. It's easy if you have a cabinet full of Asian sauces, which we do! Soy sauce, sambal (chili/garlic sauce- adds a serious punch), mirin, pepper, ginger, garlic and a little rice wine vinegar. Mix this up, pour it over the fish and wait until there are about 5 minutes left on the rice. I start the fish flesh side up under the broiler for about 3-4 minutes, but watch so it doesn't burn. Flip it and go for about 5-6 minutes, depending on how cooked you want it to be. If it starts to burn, either move it a little further away from the broiler or cover it partially with some foil.
Normally I would try to make a simple veggie side, but no time tonight. A good, light meal that took about 10 minutes of actual work!
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Cute Picture
This doesn't really have to do with anything, I just saw it on my computer when I was looking for another picture and it's too cute to not post. It's Ezra, Marley, Marcus and me in Eureka for Christmas a few years ago. We were waving hi and sending the picture to the rest of the family.
How cute are we all!
Wine Gavel Wine Auction
Today we went to a wine auction in San Francisco at Ame restaurant in the St. Regis hotel. I like attending wine auctions, it's a really good way to keep up with the market and see what people are actually willing to pay for wine. Wine Gavel is a relatively new company based in SF, so it was a smaller auction, about 300 lots. There was a lot of older Bordeaux (1909 Lafite, 47 Cheval, 61 Petrus, etc), as well as some California wines and some Burgundies. There were some deals to be had, although not on the wines I was interested in, but that's ok. There were many retailers in the room trying to grab up a few bargains, but the Internet was were most of the action was.
There was a special 3 course meal available during the auction and I'm glad we decided to stay and have lunch. I've only been to Ame once before, years ago, and had an appetizer at the bar with friends. This is a great restaurant and I'll definitely be back. The first course was interesting, but worked. It was smoked trout with tuna tartar over a barely poached egg. Really nice, the trout was mostly raw with just a bit of smokiness and the runny yolk made a sauce for the fish. Very good. This was served with a glass of Champagne that we unfortunately didn't get the name of, but I like it. It was a lighter style Champagne with a lot of crispness and nice apple and floral flavors.
The main course was a choice of their house speciality of broiled sake marinated cod or grilled quail over mushroom risotto. We got one of each so we could share and try more things. The quail was good, but not great. It was on the rare side, which is fine, but the skin wasn't crisp or golden so the plate was a bit drab looking. The risotto was fine, but it needed a bit more seasoning. The cod was awesome. It was perfectly cooked and served in a shiso broth with mushrooms, carrots and spinach leaves. There were also two fish filled raviolis in the broth that were amazing. Clearly homemade, the texture of the ravioli was perfect. A great dish. With this course they opened a real treat, a 1952 Echezeaux, Remoissenet. There was no label on the bottle, it was old and funky, always a good sign. The wine was dark and a bit rusty in color out of the bottle and we got one of the first pours so there was very little sediment in the glass. It was still young, lots of fruit on the nose. Not a really long finish, but still very impressive given the age of the wine.
We finished with a cheese course and some 1979 Chateau Palmer. The cheeses were a smoked blue cheese from Oregon and a truffle goat cheese. I liked them both and it was a nice way to finish the meal while the auction was winding now. On the nose the Palmer was a bit green when it was first poured, but that blew off and there was a good amount of fruit. It had a short finish, but went well with the cheese.
Not a bad Saturday afternoon.
There was a special 3 course meal available during the auction and I'm glad we decided to stay and have lunch. I've only been to Ame once before, years ago, and had an appetizer at the bar with friends. This is a great restaurant and I'll definitely be back. The first course was interesting, but worked. It was smoked trout with tuna tartar over a barely poached egg. Really nice, the trout was mostly raw with just a bit of smokiness and the runny yolk made a sauce for the fish. Very good. This was served with a glass of Champagne that we unfortunately didn't get the name of, but I like it. It was a lighter style Champagne with a lot of crispness and nice apple and floral flavors.
The main course was a choice of their house speciality of broiled sake marinated cod or grilled quail over mushroom risotto. We got one of each so we could share and try more things. The quail was good, but not great. It was on the rare side, which is fine, but the skin wasn't crisp or golden so the plate was a bit drab looking. The risotto was fine, but it needed a bit more seasoning. The cod was awesome. It was perfectly cooked and served in a shiso broth with mushrooms, carrots and spinach leaves. There were also two fish filled raviolis in the broth that were amazing. Clearly homemade, the texture of the ravioli was perfect. A great dish. With this course they opened a real treat, a 1952 Echezeaux, Remoissenet. There was no label on the bottle, it was old and funky, always a good sign. The wine was dark and a bit rusty in color out of the bottle and we got one of the first pours so there was very little sediment in the glass. It was still young, lots of fruit on the nose. Not a really long finish, but still very impressive given the age of the wine.
We finished with a cheese course and some 1979 Chateau Palmer. The cheeses were a smoked blue cheese from Oregon and a truffle goat cheese. I liked them both and it was a nice way to finish the meal while the auction was winding now. On the nose the Palmer was a bit green when it was first poured, but that blew off and there was a good amount of fruit. It had a short finish, but went well with the cheese.
Not a bad Saturday afternoon.
Friday, April 9, 2010
A trip across the bridge
We always think, 'we live so close to San Francisco, why don't we go there?' So, last night after being shut out by our favorite sushi restaurant (they ran out of rice prior to 8pm -they'll be featured later), we decided to head over the bridge and check out someplace new to us in SF. We've been hearing a lot of great things about Flour + Water in the Mission so we started off there. Minimal parking stress, always a good sign, we wander into the restaurant where the hostess promptly tells us it will be an hour and 30 minutes for a table. Thanks. And we're off. We called Nopa and were told and hour and 40 minute wait. Seriously, people, who waits that long for dinner (except said Sushi restaurant, later post)? Quick search on the open table IPhone app and we're off to Bar Tartine (http://www.bartartine.com/) , also in the Mission. Score on parking yet again, we had a lots of good parking karma and a little car and we were sitting down in no time.
We check out the menu while sipping on their complementary house filtered sparkling water and dig in to some awesome rustic bread. The menu looks great. We decided on the gougers, because who doesn't like bread and cheese, to start. They are served warm from the oven with lots of black pepper and cheesy goodness. For our appetizers I got the house pickled sardines with white bean puree and chervil. Delish. The sardines were spicy and fishy and briny, the white bean was like hummus, but it worked. Brian got the endive salad with crab, egg and radish. This was a very funny looking plate, all white with loads of endive. It was a nice salad, but we're not actually sure if there was any crab on it, if there was it was minimal. Nobody asked us if we liked it and we finished, so it's fine -just not a crab salad (as it was listed on the bill).
For our mains we shared the semolina gnocchi with black chanterelles and a roast chicken with fried onions and giblet gravy. Like the salad, the gnocchi was not exactly heavy in chanterelle goodness, we actually weren't sure they were even there until the waitress said that the black shreds on top were the mushrooms, just sliced very thinly and cooked in a way that masked the awesome mushroominess of them. The dish was OK, a bit heavy, but fine. The roast chicken was excellent. It had been cooked sous vide so the meat was really moist and then the skin was crisped up in a cast iron skillet prior to serving. Nice and juicy, a huge serving and rich giblet gravy, my favorite thing of the night.
Since Brian was driving and not drinking, I had a glass of the the 08 Domaine Fonsainte Rose. It was nice and matched well with the food.
We check out the menu while sipping on their complementary house filtered sparkling water and dig in to some awesome rustic bread. The menu looks great. We decided on the gougers, because who doesn't like bread and cheese, to start. They are served warm from the oven with lots of black pepper and cheesy goodness. For our appetizers I got the house pickled sardines with white bean puree and chervil. Delish. The sardines were spicy and fishy and briny, the white bean was like hummus, but it worked. Brian got the endive salad with crab, egg and radish. This was a very funny looking plate, all white with loads of endive. It was a nice salad, but we're not actually sure if there was any crab on it, if there was it was minimal. Nobody asked us if we liked it and we finished, so it's fine -just not a crab salad (as it was listed on the bill).
For our mains we shared the semolina gnocchi with black chanterelles and a roast chicken with fried onions and giblet gravy. Like the salad, the gnocchi was not exactly heavy in chanterelle goodness, we actually weren't sure they were even there until the waitress said that the black shreds on top were the mushrooms, just sliced very thinly and cooked in a way that masked the awesome mushroominess of them. The dish was OK, a bit heavy, but fine. The roast chicken was excellent. It had been cooked sous vide so the meat was really moist and then the skin was crisped up in a cast iron skillet prior to serving. Nice and juicy, a huge serving and rich giblet gravy, my favorite thing of the night.
Since Brian was driving and not drinking, I had a glass of the the 08 Domaine Fonsainte Rose. It was nice and matched well with the food.
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