Autumn's Up

When I got home from work this evening I was knocked squarely in the face with the full force of fall.  A crisp bike commute and the fact that it's Halloween did no little work to invigorate me to the season of spices and woodsmoke, so I went inside to get my camera and came back out to just sort of roll around in the leaves a bit.  You know when the clouds get that fuzzy, quilted effect?  (See above picture for a pathetic representation.)  Like the whole world is tucking in and hunkering down.  Which reminded me: I went inside and tossed some firewood into our new favorite contraption, the woodstove, and got it goin' nice and cracklin' hot.  Woodstoves are what every home should come with, because we have not turned on our heat but once or twice this year.  We've also been sleeping on the foldout couch in the living room because our bedroom, on the other side of the house, is the approximate temperature of a meatlocker.  But anyway.

The evening called for something hearty, and the last of the late season's crop of tomatoes, courtesy of our friend Raina, were duly chopped, tossed with a bit of olive oil, salt, pepper, and thyme, and roasted in a big Pyrex with garlic.  I kept the cloves whole, but probably wouldn't again with this recipe.  If you decide to give this a whirl, give your garlic a nice chop.

Meanwhile I boiled a mess of spaghetti and when I poured it out to drain, I let some ricotta melt in the hot pot.  Suggested ratio of pasta to ricotta: about a half pound of pasta to 1 cup ricotta.  For greater richness and fat content, add more ricotta to taste.  

When the tomatoes are shriveled and brown around the edges, spoon them with all their attendant juices into the pot with the ricotta.  Mix the two till you get a thick, pink sauce and add more salt and pepper to taste.  Stir in pasta, and if too thick, add a couple tablespoons of the pasta water, which you have wisely reserved.

Enjoy in front of a hot woodstove.

Bare Naked Fridge

Dear Confessions of a Food Nazi,

I can't resist a good, weird challenge.  When you defied your fellow bloggers to reveal the contents of their fridge I felt that inexplicable, sadistic call toward complete self-exposure.  So here it is.  If I am what I eat, then... hmm.  I must not be very exciting.  

A large tupperware full of shredded purple cabbage, leftover rice, soy milk, homemade vinaigrette, tortillas, cornmeal, pickles, cheap parmesan/sawdust... God, what do I EAT?  I swear I put together round meals on a regular basis...

The funniest part of this exercise, and really, the only reason I published the stricken state of my fridge for all to see, is my freezer.  Aside from a few non-descripts and some ice trays, check out the three main items, from left to right.  Ice cream.  Vodka.  Shrimp skins.

Come on, they're for stock!!

Thanks for the challenge,

Megan.

P.S.  Melbourne rocks!  I spent a few happy weeks there once.  Betcha never heard of Hood River, Oregon.

Sumptuous Sushi

For some reason I have to be in just the right mood for sushi.  But then, when I'm eating it, I think "I love this stuff.  I need to be eating this on a very regular basis."  Happily, there is an incredible sushi bar in town called Sushi Okalani.  It is the spot that I will be indulging in what I hope to be a much more frequent communication with this fresh and sort of funny dish.  The owner, a balding and bespectacled Rick Moranis-type, stood behind the bar with his sous chefs the entire time Adam and I were there, with his hands wrist-deep in sticky rice and strips of raw fish.  I like it when a proprietor is down in the trenches like that-- it conveys a sense of pride, and the notion that "if you want something done... ."

But I'm glad for selfish reasons too, because I had the pleasure of sampling some of this man's truly heavenly creations.  To start we had a filet of Crispy Grilled Trout.  It arrived unassumingly, with only some scant sliced cabbage beneath it which seemed to serve less as a garnish than as a ventilating method to prevent the fish from getting soggy on the plate.  The filet itself wore a thin, crispy, tempura-type batter and came with a bowl of dipping sauce on the side.  The sauce was awesome: sweet and salty and suggestive (not the harsh, jelly-like teriyaki glaze you'll find at a lesser joint), but it was just the icing on the cake because the fish itself was fresh, tender and flavorful.  Even the skin was yummy and oily but not rubbery in the way that fish skin can too often become.

But here was the real star of the show: 

Called the Locals Only Te Maki, this gorgeous sushi roll contained smoked Steelhead, sauteed lobster mushrooms, and I believe some slivers of cucumber.  It was absolute heaven.  There are few things tastier to my mind than a well-smoked piece of fish.  To pair it with some pretty dang interesting mushrooms, and then to wrap it all in the perennially yummy combo of seaweed and sticky rice... well, let's just say you've got some serious moaning and groaning going on.

Interesting note: I just looked up Steelhead on wikipedia and you might like to know that Steelhead and Rainbow Trout are exactly the same species, but only Steelhead go to the ocean for a few years and then return to fresh water to spawn.  Rainbow Trout live in fresh water their whole lives.  The flesh of Rainbow Trout is white and the flesh of the Steelhead, as you can see, is pink like salmon.  I'm not sure why this is, since they are virtually the same species.  I imagine it's due to varying diets, but my cursory research didn't shed any light on that.

The roll was so good that, after we had cleaned our plate (even munching down all the pickled ginger when the sushi was gone), we called for another order and happily put that away too.  This on top of a Spicy Tuna roll and some Inari!  What's that you say?  Smoked fish has no place in a sushi roll?  You're not supposed to cook the veggies first?  Well, my friends, I guess only locals would understand.
The meal was rounded out by a great bottle of sake, called Hakutsuru Junmai Daiginjo.  Hakutsuru is the name, but Junmai Daiginjo refers to the production method of the sake.  The rice used has a high polish, which means a large percentage of each grain of rice (at least 50%!) is buffered off, leaving only the creamy, flawless inner part.  The brewing methods are much more careful, too, and sake of this quality is often handmade, instead of being entrusted to machines.  The restaurant served it chilled with a highball class, instead of one of those thimble sized-ones we're all used to.  Easier to get a good nose on it that way.  (The only reason I know any of this stuff is that I wrote an article for the Portland Monthly on another kind of sake, to be published in November!  More on that when the article comes out.)

It was an exquisite meal.  Perhaps my reticence toward sushi was just proof that I hadn't found the right purveyor, because it's only been 24 hours and I'm already sensing a craving coming on...

Another Old Standby

Back when I lived in Santa Fe, I had the great good pleasure of having The Best Neighbors Ever.  And, yes, by those capital letters, I mean to say that it's official.  They are the best.  Ever.  Among the many things that Doug and Jenni did to support, entertain, counsel, and just all around make us feel good, they also had us over for dinner.  And since you know that the most direct route to my heart is through my stomach, I thought it was very cool that our neighbors took it upon themselves to feed us every once in a while.

And one evening Jenni whipped up some of her Curried Red Lentils.  I immediately requested the recipe, and I've been making this lovely, simple dish once every few months ever since.  Since Jenni was so cheerfully willing to part with the How-To, I'm sure she wouldn't mind if I shared it with you here.

In order to keep this recipe as UN-time-consuming as possible, here's what you can do the night before.

--Cook enough rice to yield 2 or 3 cups (with, as Jenni suggested, but I've never been willing to spring for it, a pinch of saffron) and just leave it in the pot with the lid on in the fridge.

--Chop one small or half a large onion, a clove or two of garlic, a red bell pepper (and I threw in a couple ribs of celery for the first time tonight), and store in the fridge.

When you want to eat,

-- Saute your chopped veggies in a splash of evoo "until softish," as Jenni writes in my recipe book.

--Rinse a cup or so of red lentils, add to the pot with the veggies, and add water to cover.  You can add more water as it cooks down, if you like.  You'll find the consistency that you dig after you make it a couple times.

--While it simmers add any or all of these spices: curry*, s&p*, cumin*, coriander, allspice, turmeric, and tonight I thought "What the Hey," and I tossed in a little cinnamon and ground cloves.  *= most important.

--As the lentils are cooking, add a couple tablespoons of water to the rice, and re-heat on a low burner.

--When lentils are tender and spices are adjusted, serve spooned over rice.

--Garnish with yogurt, chopped parsley or cilantro, and a small squirt of Bragg's Liquid Aminos or soy sauce.

Not only is this recipe utterly delicious and fantastically easy, it reminds me of friendship.  Here's to that!

Tuck in Thyme

At last!  The season for justified vegetating on the couch all day is here!  And thank god, because I've got some serious reading and movie-watching to catch up on.  I must say, I'm a bit relieved too that the spectacular, but let's admit it, rather fragile produce of the spring and summer is no longer around for us to exalt and make a fuss over.  (Full disclosure: I'll be exalting with the best of them come May.)  But now is the time for hardy fruits and veggies, like tubers and apples and pumpkins.  Good, wholesome, blue-collar vegetables that can sit in the produce bowl or in the crisper for a few weeks until you rediscover them.  And when you do discover them and cut off a few brown spots, you can throw them all in a pot and their flavors all come together unpretentiously to make a delicious soup.  Like so: 

This yummy concoction was born of no recipe at all, which is the great thing about veggie soup.  It's spontaneous, and it's a fabulous way to clean out the fridge.  This particular batch contains a russet potato (bought a couple weeks ago for breakfast burritos that never came to be), celery (purchased by Adam for some reason but never used), carrots (which are always sitting around), half an onion, a leek (the only ingredient bought special for the soup, for its flavor), garlic, a yam (not sure where that came from) and spinach (bought on sale a few days ago because it was old and ready to meet it's maker).  

The hardest part about it all is the cleaning, peeling, and chopping.  Luckily you don't need to be pretty about it.  Saute all the hard, dense veggies (in my case, everything but the spinach) for five or eight minutes in a big soup pot with some olive oil.  By the way, I'm noticing lately that recipes are telling me to wait a few minutes before adding the garlic to a saute.  I've tried it a couple times, and I think I like this new method-- it seems to prevent the garlic from burning.  While you're stirring the saute, mortar and pestle a few herbs that you like, such as thyme, oregano, salt, pepper, and toss in.

Pour stock, water, bouillion, or any combination thereof to cover.  Put a lid on the pot and just leave it alone for an hour or so.  Stir once in a while.  When the veggies were tender, I turned off the heat and stirred in the chopped spinach.  Season to taste with more s&p, a sprinkling of parmesan, or if you really want to get fancy, a dollop of pesto.

Instead of messing with pesto, I decided to focus on the other integral part of soup: the bread.  If all you've got in the house is sliced, storebought wheat and some oyster crackers then it's time to roll up your sleeves and fish out a packet of yeast from the fridge, where you have wisely stored it.  Then you can make some of this utterly delicious focaccia, whose recipe you can find here.  In the recipe, it tells you to make one "loaf" with thyme kneaded into it, and the other with parmesan sprinkled on top, which to me is sort of like eating a peanut butter sandwich one day and a jelly sandwich the next.  So I made BOTH loaves with thyme and parmesan and threw some sliced tomatoes on (before baking) to boot.

The hot soup and warm crusty/chewy focaccia were pure comfort, so delicious and homey that after dinner Adam and I immediately retreated to the couch to snuggle.  Not long after, the kids followed suit:  

Sipping Pretty

One of the great things about living in a small town is taking trips to the big city.  Last night I went to a French short film festival at the Portland Art Museum and then went out for a late-night artichoke and arugula dip at an old favorite, The Sapphire Hotel.  I was practically overdosing on culture after such a prolonged stretch without it.  Don't get me wrong: I love my orchards and countryside bike rides and killer farmer's markets.  It's just nice to get gussied up and stay out past 9pm every once in a while.

Last week, for example, I made the trip out to Portland and engaged in a nice, close examination of the fine art of cocktails.  And no better place to do research than at the Nuevo Latino-inspired Andina restaurant in the Pearl district.  And though Raina and I munched on Yucca croquettes dipped in three different kinds of salsa, and shrimp-salad-stuffed avocado halves, the snacks were really just there to accessorize the true purpose of our visit.  Mine, a cocktail I now daydream about at the end of a long workday at the rural community college, is called the Sacsayhuaman (sound it out).  It consists of habanero-infused vodka, passion-fruit
puree, cane sugar, a sugar rim, and a cilantro leaf garnish.  It's darn near perfect: spicy, sweet, tropical.  It's hard not to suck it down and order two more.

And here's Raina's: the Atardecer Porteno.  To quote from the menu, because I couldn't top this description: "pink quava nectar shaken with honey infused vodka and lime juice topped with a float of ruby port and a spritz of lime zest, served up with an anise sugar rim."  Whoa.  As you can see it looks like a sunset, which reminds me of the exact time of day I'd like it to be when I'm sitting on a cafe terrace in Rio de Janeiro, sipping on this very drink and happily regarding the Atlantic.

Modern Day Madeleine

It takes a lot to be able to call a place home.  When I moved from San Francisco to Santa Fe-- i.e., from my hometown and the greatest city on earth to some dusty, forgotten trading post in the middle of a state a lot of Americans have never heard of-- I had no intention of putting down roots.  Funny how fast a girl can eat her words.  As it turned out, Santa Fe was such a magical place that just one blog post could never do it justice.  I might be a bit biased-- after all, I spent two years at a wonderful school, I met my future husband, I got a really fantastic dog, and had some great friends during the time I spent in The City Different.  The cards really were stacked in my favor.

But let me describe one of the things that makes Santa Fe, and the southwest as a whole, objectively special: chile.  My first night in Santa Fe, I arrived at the hostel after dark.  Hungry and tired, I asked at the front desk if there were any decent restaurants close by that would still be open.  Ten minutes later I was sitting at a little two-top tucked in the corner of one of the dark, labyrinthine rooms of a Santa Fe institution, Maria's New Mexican Kitchen.  While I stared at a margarita menu several pages long, a waiter who looked and acted like he'd been working there for 20 years (and I later found out that he had), asked me what'll I have.  Cheese enchiladas, please.  Red, green, or Christmas? he asked.  When I looked up at him blankly, he actually cracked a smile and said, Red chile, Green chile, or both?  And right then and there, yet another fierce addiction to chile was born.  

Some people adhere to red chile, the chile which has been allowed to ripen to redness and is then dried-- it's a much smokier, earthier flavor, and often much spicier than the green.  And others are intense supporters of the green chile, picked while still young and then roasted in massive, rotating metal roasters till the skins blister off.  Green chile, since it is cooked fresh, is always chunky; red chile, since it's made from dried chiles that must be blended, is always smooth.  Both, especially in late fall right after harvest, are as spicy as anything you have ever eaten.  I myself, ever since my first night in Maria's, have always been a Christmas girl.

After Adam and I graduated from school, curiosity brought us to Portland, and then a year and a half later, a job opportunity brought us out to Hood River.  We love it here, and I hope we stay a long time, but we are both homesick for Santa Fe, there's no denying it.  But as luck would have it, New Mexicans are not as few and far between as I thought, and I discovered that not only is one of my new co-workers from Albuquerque, but she loves chile too!  Loves it so much that she stocks up on it when she goes home to visit, and even had enough to give me a bag of it!  I couldn't believe my luck, and after some cursory protestations, I happily received her kind gift.

A couple nights later, look what Adam and I had for dinner:  

Green chile enchiladas!  Though the October Gorge winds whipped around outside our house, and the snow-capped Mt. Adams sat stately in the dining room window, we were transported to the dry sunny heat of the high desert for a few happy minutes.

My coworker gave me a great recipe for green chile sauce, too-- after thawing the raw green chile, you just stir it into a roux and then thin or thicken to your contentment with water.  You may also add oregano and cumin if you like.  If your chile is from New Mexico, you will NOT need to make it any spicier than it already is.  Case in point, my shiny forehead:

As we gasped and exhaled and chugged water, Adam said, "Woo!  I'm starting to get leaky."  and he blew his nose.  We laughed, and reminisced some more about our beloved southwestern town.

 

Garden Nymphs

My friend Raina is "that friend," the friend that each of us has at least one of, the friend who has an incredible garden.  The garden that, if you weren't so proud of your friend, you'd be extremely jealous of.  A recent evening when Raina had a few of us over for dinner, us girls went out to take a look at the finale of her veggies.  As we discovered, the veggies were still going strong in late September.  The tomatoes were almost shoulder high, and hid tons of little, red ripe ones under her skirts; the cucumbers yielded almost five massive fruits; and the chard just wouldn't quit-- Raina said she was harvesting it for the fifth time that season.  There were carrots too-- cute, crisp ones, and as you can probably see in the background of some of the shots, Raina's nasturtium is aspiring to a mountainous size.  Berkeley (curly hair) and I were so excited by the bounty and thrilled by Raina's (blue tank top) handiwork, we decided to have an impromptu photo shoot.  Here we are rolling around in the garden, picking veggies, eating them straight from the vine, and just all around loving and relishing the fact that you can grow what you eat.  Astonishing.

Hoppy Boy

Here's a shot of a festive-looking Adam right at the start of our shift as pourers at the 2008 Annual Hood River HopsFest.  It was also taken right before my camera died, so I don't have any other documentation of the next three hours of rain-soaked beer drinkers wandering among the dozen or so breweries' tables tasting, quaffing, or otherwise chugging the fruits of this year's hops harvest.  It was fun, though it is rather unfortunate that hops have to be harvested late enough in the year that the beer they end up going into won't be ready till October; I had to sit through untold demonstrations of Adam literally pouring water out of his shoes, a sight to momentarily dampen even the most voracious appetite for a good local microbrew.

Easy Weeknight Recipe

Has it really been a week since my last post?  Being a working girl now whose day ends at 7pm, far too late to serve a decent dinner before 9pm, I've had to make some adjustments.  I will admit there was a little bit of a tantrum last week, when I threw down the kitchen towel and made some comment along the lines of not being able to let my artistry shine under these conditions, and we went to the (very cheap and very delicious) taco truck on Cascade Ave. for dinner.

Luckily, in my search for recipes that are relatively quick, yummy, and healthy, I came across this winner.  The tofu did take a little longer than I had hoped to roast, but maybe a firmer tofu and a higher temperature would help this problem.  So, on a hectic weeknight when you can't in good conscience go the taco truck again, try:

Roasted Tofu with Shiitake and Ginger Over Spinach

6 Tbsp. soy sauce

6 Tbsp. rice wine vinegar

3 Tbsp. plus 1 Tbsp. evoo

2 1/2 Tbsp. honey

2 1/2 Tbsp. minced fresh ginger

2 cloves garlic, minced

3/4 lb. shiitake and/or crimini mushrooms, sliced*

1 lb. firm tofu, patted dry, sliced 1/2 inch thick

1 quart baby spinach leaves

*For the record, crimini mushrooms are young portabellas.  Consider this when paying twice as much per pound for their parents in the grocery store.

1.  Preheat the oven to 400.  In a bowl whisk together the soy sauce, vinegar, oil, honey, ginger, and garlic.  Place the mushrooms in a bowl and add enough marinade to evenly cover them.  In the remaining marinade, bathe each tofu slice and then arrange in a baking dish.  Bake tofu, pouring remaining marinade over halfway through, until marinade is evaporated and tofu is brown around the edges, about 30 minutes.  Spread the mushrooms out in a large baking dish and transfer to oven, baking until tender and golden, about 10 to 15 minutes.

2.  In about a tablespoon of evoo (or sesame oil, if you've got it), briefly saute the spinach until just tender.  Turn off heat even before you think it's done.  It'll wilt while it sits in the pan.  When tofu and mushrooms are done, arrange spinach on plates; top with slices of tofu, followed by mushrooms.  Sprinkle with sesame seeds for garnish (optional).