Sausage Pasta Soup with Chiptole and Herbs

Again, you don't need to start with bacon, but I did.

1. Start a pot of salted water on a path to boil.
2. Mince up a few slices of bacon and put in thick heavy pot like a Crueset.
3. While bacon cooks, thinly slice up an onion, chop up some carrots in desired shape and chop up some celery in desired shape.
4. When bacon has rendered its fat, add sausage to pan. Tonight we used Mild Italian Turkey Sausage from Rainbow.
5. When Sausage is done, remove and add more fat if necessary to pan. We used olive oil tonight.
6. Add onions, carrots and celery. Stir and allow to cook to your liking. I like them browned.
7. Add stalks of thyme, a bay leaf, some chopped rosemary and what ever else you want. I also added a lot of ground black pepper. Stir and allow herbs to get in there.
8. Add 1/2 cup of Muir Fire Roasted Crushed Tomatoes and stir.
9. Add two canned chiptoles in adobo sauce and some of the adobo sauce.
10. By this time water should be boiling. Add your pasta. We used Strangled Priest Noodles. They take 8 minutes.
11. Add the broth to your soup pot and bring to a boil. Allow to simmer a bit. Add the sausage back in and salt to taste. Add chopped parsley if you like.
12. Drain pasta when done.
13. To serve, put some pasta in a bowl, and pour soup over it. Sprinkle bacon on if you made it.
    

Pan Baked Eggs with Sun Dried Tomotoes and Dill

I know that I have mentioned my favorite Cutco pot before. When cooking for 1 or 2, I would choose this pot over all my All Clad, Creuset and other fanciness any day.

1. Mince up 2 slices of bacon (optional) and begin cooking in the Cutco pan or equivalent.
2. Mince a little red onion.
3. When bacon done, remove and leave desired amount of grease, or simply start with another fat like olive oil.
4. Cook onions for a little bit, add Mexican oregano or other herb of choice and add 5 or so perfectly dried Sun Dried Tomatoes from Farmer and the Cook. Stir to coat the tomatoes in oil.
5. Crack four eggs onto of the onions and sun dried tomatoes. Cover and set timer for 6 minutes.
6. Poke at yokes to check for "doneness". (Lately I like my yokes cooked and semi firm).
7. Remove from heat and using your Cutco spatula, cut into pieces and remove from pan.
8. Sprinkle with bacon if using. Sprinkle with Olivia's amazing dried dill, maybe some fresh ground pepper and or her latest smokey paprika salt.

Pork chops with Poblano Creme Sauce

Eric was on the East end of town at Westridge picking up some pork chops. (Did you notice that I was not a vegetarian for very long?). I was on the West side near Farmer and the Cook.

Olivia has just put out the most beautiful selection of dried chilies and she is carrying anchovies.

She fed me the most Delicious tomato with some mozzarella and basil mixture in her kitchen. Tasting anything Olivia makes inspires one back into the kitchen. So, based on what I could get at FNC today, the menu tonight was this:

Pork chops with Poblano Creme Sauce
Steamed Green Beans with Lemon and Dillweed
Roasted Potatoes sliced Chip Style

I posted the green beans below.
You know how to roast potatoes.

Here is how I made the sauce for the Chops.

1. Boil some water and pour over 3 dried Poblano Chilies to hydrate. (Let sit 30 minutes)

2. Meanwhile, mince up a big shallot from Steve and Olivia's Farm.

3. Mince up a few anchovies.

4. Mince up some garlic.

5. When chilies are ready, remove seeds and veins and mince up. (Note: the poblanos were not as hot as I wanted them to be so I wish I had left the seeds in. Each chili is different, so experiment). Mix the garlic, anchovies, and chili into a paste.

6. Heat some olive oil in a pan and pan roast the peppered porkchops to brown on both sides. (I cover the pan to keep the splatter down and hurry up the cooking inside the meat). Remove chops to a plate.

7. Add shallots to the pan. Stir. Add chili paste to the pan and stir. I let it cook for about a minute. Add a little brandy or other choice cooking liqueur to deglaze the pan. Add some beef broth. Allow to simmer. I tasted it and it was not hot enough, so I added some red pepper flakes. Add some heavy whipping creme. Allow to reduce.

8. I put the chops back in for a little bit to steam in the creme sauce.

Then, to serve. I put the beans and the potatoes on a plate. Put the chop on top and spooned some of the sauce over.

Big Green Beans with Lemon and Dill

1. Bring some water to a boil with a "steamer" thing above it.

2. Place 2 handfuls of fresh green beans from Steve and Olivia's farm in the steamer and close the lid.

3. In a bowl, Zest and Squeeze one lemon from your tree or someone elses. Add some olive oil. Add some green peppercorn dijon or other favorite mustard. Add some minced basil and some of Olivia's Dillweed from Farmer and the Cook. Salt and Pepper too.

4. When beans are done to your liking (we like them still a little crunchy), add to the lemon mustard herb dressing and toss to coat.

Late Summer Guacamole

1. Finely mince up 2 of Olivia's fresh local organic serrano chillies that she picked at 10pm on Saturday night by iphone light.

2. Mash up one clove of fresh garlic from Steve's farm

3. Mince up 1/2 red onion from same farm

4. Chop and mix the above together with some good salt. Squeeze in one or two limes. Add a little olive oil and stir.

5. Core and chop up several almost too ripe red heriloom tomotoes from the Sunday farmer's market. Mix in with the above.

6. Finely chop some cilantro from the Steve's Farm and mix in.

7. Open, Core and Cube several local avocados picked up at FnC. Gently mix in, not mashing.

8. Serve with favorite chips. Ours our 'Have a Corn Chip' made in Laguna Beach.



5.

Raw Corn Salad with Cherry Tomotoes and Avocado

Now that I am sober I am aware of how much of what I ate depended on how it went with red wine. Now what I make for dinner is pretty much only about what is available locally, as in local to my fridge.

After tonight's meeting I was right down the street from Farmer and the Cook, so I picked up some:

- golden cherry tomatoes
- 2 ripe avocados
- a bag of pre husked corn
- cilantro
- 2 jalepenos
- 3 limes
- some spelt tortillas
- some cheese
- some chips

All the produce was grown by Steve.

Obviously I was thinking quesadillas or just guacamole but when I got home eric said cheese sounded heavy.

So I made up a corn salad with the raw corn, halved cherry tomatoes, serranos olivia had given me the other day, red onion, cilantro, lime and salt.

Fried the tortillas up in olive oil.

Spooned the salad on top.
Sliced an avocado on top of each.
And put the last of the smoked salmon on top of that.

YUM.

Grilled Sea Bass "Ceviche"

Olivia and Steve came over last night. We had already eaten too much food and Steve's Potato Salad is so incredibly good, it's hard not to eat A LOT. But we still decided to grill the big beautiful piece of Sea Bass anyway.

So we had a lot left over this evening.

This is what I did with it.

1. Mince up 1/4 of one of Steve's amazing red onions.
2. "Chop" already grilled Sea Bass into the right size pieces for eating with a chip
3. Thinly slice up some of Steve's fresh basil
4. Zest and squeeze a lime into the mixture
5. Add just enough organic mayo to bind.
6. Salt and Pepper.

We ate it with "Have a Chip" Chips.
Perfect meal after a HOT day.


Note: I tried being a Vegetarian again for a while. I have gone back to eating meat.

Chard Pasta

Again, dinner depends on what is in the fridge and what got brought to the studio.

1. In a non-stick pan, heat a little olive oil and pan toast some pine nuts. Remove and reuse same pan.

2. Thinly slice up some shallots or onions or such
3. Mince up that last carrot or two from Steve's Farm
4. Thinly slice the stalks of home grown Rainbow Chard brought to you by Dennis in yesterday's yoga class.
5. Continue to thinly slice the chard leaves, separating them from the chard stalks.

6. Heat too much olive oil and some butter if you like in that non-stick pan.
7. Add 2 cloves of smooshed garlic and some red pepper flakes. Stir and quickly add the onions, carrots and chard stalks. Stir and eventually add the pasta. Stir and allow pasta to get chewy.

8. Eventually add the chard. Stir in and allow to wilt. Squeeze in some lemon juice. Add some lemon rind, some Parmesan, salt and pepper, stirring.

Fried Pasta with Fat and Salt

Olivia, my dear friend is teasing me about not cooking anymore. Steve, her husband even said the other day, "You used to be such a good cook."

But what about Eric? Does he feel tricked? What if he announced that he did want to take care of the cars anymore? We so easily find ourselves in roles and assume we will do them forever.

Fried Rice has been replaced with Fried Pasta.

Tonight I came home at around 11 famished. My Ayurvedic pal, Jackie would be appalled.

1. Find leftover plain already cooked strangled priest pasta in the fridge
2. Heat too much olive oil in a pan
3. Mash up some garlic.
4. When oil is hot, put in garlic, stir and add pasta. Stir well to coat and mix garlic with pasta.
5. I needed more fat, so I added some butter too.
6. Then I added some chopped up dill, salt and pepper and lots of Parmesan, all as it was still in the pan.
7. I poured it into a bowl and came over to the computer to write about it.

It's already gone.

Steamed Salmon and Chard with Lemon Dill Mustard Sauce

So fast, so good.  So easy.  Recipe is for 2.  

The problem with this method is that it has no fat.  And I like fat.  So I made a fat sauce and used fat in my rice.   If you did not want any fat in your dinner, make sauce without the olive oil and butter and cook your rice without it.

1. Slice up 1/2 a head of beautiful yellow rainbow chard from Steve Sprinkle's Gozo Farm.  Wash.

2. Start rice if having.  Tonight I heated up some olive oil, threw in a bunch of fennel seeds and turmeric for a pretty color. Added the white basmati rice and toasted for a moment, then added the water.  Brought to boil and covered.  Takes 10 minutes.  About as long as the fish.

3. Heat a non stick pan and add the wet chard.  Add a little extra water.  Lay the two beautiful salmon fillets from Gee What a Deal Seafood on top of the chard.  Grind a little pepper and sprinkle some salt.  Cover and allow to steam.  (Takes between 8 to 10 minutes depending on size of fish, etc).

4. Meanwhile, make the sauce.  In a small saucepan, heat some butter and olive oil.  Add some fresh chopped scallions from B.D.  Eventually add some green peppercorn mustard (or other favorite Dijon), fresh chopped dill from B.D.,  a few dashes of  worshteshire sauce, tiny grated Meyer lemon rind, juice of one Meyer lemon and lots of black pepper.  Stir with enthusiasm to combine.  The worshteshire sauce is usually salty enough, but salt to your taste.

Everything finishes at once.  And the fish comes out so perfectly tender and tasty.  It's not as pretty as grilled or broiled fish, so the sauce is necessary.  Crispy potatoes would have been a nice textural addition, but crispy potatoes take time...

Garbanzo Flour Shrimp Flapjacks

Steve and Olivia came over last night.  It's always relaxed and easy to have dinner together. And nobody minds trying new things.

Mark Bitman calls these Spanish Tortillatas.  

I watched his video and made them for when Steve and Olivia came over last night.  They are good.  But too many has the same effect on your digestion as too many garbanzo beans.  Keep them as an appetizer.

1. 1 cup garbanzo bean flour
2. 1 cup white flour
3. 1 tbl + baking soda
4. 1 tbl salt or more
5. Stir the dry ingredients and add enough water, stirring to get a thin "pancake like" batter.   Mark described it as the consistency of heavy creme.
6. Add what ever you want.  Last night we had chives, tarragon, parsley, cilantro, red onion, and cut up shrimp to add.  And lots of ground pepper.  Like a lot.
7. Heat too much olive oil in a pan and fry them up like you would a pancake fritter.

I made a cilantro sauce from Cuisinart-ing ginger, garlic, some peeled almonds, cilantro, mint, lemon, a pinch of sugar, and yogurt.

I also served some mixed pickle from ushci.

Olivia made an amazing salad of cocktail grapefruit, kalamata olives, red onion, avocado and mixed greens.

Olivia also pan roasted some leeks and fennel and oven roasted some raddicho from Gozo Farm

YUM!

"Italian Style" Fried Rice for One

1. In a non-stick pan, heat too much olive oil.
2. Pan Roast a handful of cashews. Remove with slotted spoon.
3. To pan, add 1/4 cup or so of minced onion and a mashed up clove of garlic. Add some red pepper flakes, thyme and a little turmeric for color.
4. Add leftover cooked cold white rice (about 1.5 cups).
5. Stir and mix and saute until starts to brown.
6. Add leftover baby spinach and mix up to wilt.
7. Push rice to the side and crack egg into pan and scramble. Mix into rice mixture.

8. Remove from pan. Grate lots of Parmesan into Rice. Stir in Cashews. Add Lots of Ground Pepper. Salt. Some Meyer lemon zest and a little lemon juice.

Refridgerator Fried Rice

We returned from a hike and we only had one egg left. Starving and reliant on what was in the fridge, here is what we made:

1. Mince up the 1/2 yellow onion left over from last night's dinner
2. Mince of some of the 2 stalks celery you left out from last nights dinner
3. Mince up some of the left over packaged Lassen's ham
4. In a small non stick pan, heat a little olive oil or other fat and add the above ingredients
5. When soft, add the rice left over from Chinese food on Friday. About a generous cup. Saute until starting to brown. Grind lots of pepper into mixture.
6. In a small bowl, whisk up egg. Push rice aside and allow egg to start to fry. Then eventually ix into rice and toss and continue to fry. Add some soy sauce. Continue to cook until egg are sufficiently dry. Serve.

This was ridiculously tasty.

Garlic Bread

Tonight Eric came home with the groceries and there was not enough pasta in the package to feed 3. I think I have mentioned that my little brother now lives with us. We had some leftover french loaf from last night (used to make croutons for Cesear salad) so I decided to make garlic bread. I have never made garlic bread. Here is what I did:

1. Blanched a lot of garlic cloves in boiling water for about a minute. (Got this idea from an Italian cookbook on instructions of how to make garlic butter).
2. After blanching, used a masher to mash.
3. Mashed up a stick of butter with the garlic and then melted.
4. Sliced up the French Loaf and Toasted one Side under the broiler.
5. Added some Mexican Oregano, Thyme and Salt to butter mixture.
6. When Bread was toasted, removed and dunked the "untoasted" side in the butter. (That bread soaked up a lot of butter).
7. Grated a little Parmesan on each slice and placed back under the broiler until toasty brown.

Serve HOT. The garlic bread was unfortunately delicious.

Buffalo Pasta Sauce

I went to farmer and the cook tonight to pick up ingredients for dinner.  We have been sick for like 2 weeks in my house and i was tired of soup.  It felt like we needed more fortification.  Sometimes getting dinner stuff at FnC is hard.  They have the freshest most amazing local organic produce in town but the shelves are lacking the other stuff that I want.

I left with some frozen ground buffalo, kale, egg noodle pasta and a can of crushed tomatoes.

Here is what I did:

1. Defrosted buffalo meat under warm water.
2. Start pot of water to boil
3. In a heavy Crueset dutch oven like pot, heat some olive oil.
4. Break up buffalo meat and brown.  Grind some fresh pepper into the meat while browning
5. While meat is browning, find some bacon(!) in your fridge left over from the holidays.
6. Slice up 3 strips of bacon.  
7. While meat is still browning, mince up 1/2 a yellow onion and the rest of the carrots from Sunday's farmer's market.
8. When meat has browned, remove from pan and add bacon.  Cook up bacon until fat has been rendered and done to your liking.  Remove.
9. Add a little extra olive oil to pot and add onions and carrots.  (If I had had celery or fennel, I would have used some of that too.)  Stir and start the saute process.  Add your desired herbs and spices.  Tonight I had some fresh sage in the fridge so I minced up some of that and added dried thyme, Mexican oregano, red chili flakes.  Once the onions and carrots were browned, I poured a little port into pot to deglaze it.  (If wine were open, I would have used that).
10. I added the meats back in and mixed well, then added the tomato mixture back in.  
11. By this time the water was boiling, but I wanted the sauce to have a chance to meld, so I turned the water off.  
12. I found some sun dried tomatoes in the fridge, so I thinly sliced about 5 of those up and added them to the pan.  I added a little extra pepper flakes and ground pepper for more spice.
13. I thinly sliced up the beautiful amazing kale from Steve and added that and stirred it in.  (We need the Kale in this house for fortification).
14. Turned the water back on.  That egg pasta cooks in 4 minutes.
15. I tossed the egg pasta with a little butter (this is totally cheating).  And served the pasta with a little splash of olive oil and Parmesan for grating.

Both Geordie and Eric liked it.  I did too.

Ginger Steamed Golden Sea Bass with Greens; Side of Roasted Lemon Verbena Potatoes

I have not had meat for about 4 weeks.  Fish seemed a reasonable route to see if I wanted it again and notice how I felt.

My little brother moved in from across the country yesterday and I have found myself in the position of "head chef" of my new 3 person household and this is what we made tonight.  

The men in my life love carbs. You could serve this dish with rice, but both Eric and Geordie love potatoes. Also, since this was an experiment, I knew that if it failed, at least they would be happy with the potatoes.   (If Marty Nation was cooking we could have had that amazing potato puree he used to make at the IRON PAN...oh! I miss those!)

Roasted Potatoes

1. Heat Oven to 400.
2. Scrub Little Red Potatoes (from Farmer's Market)
3. Thinly Slice
4. Toss with Favorite Olive Oil, crumbled Dried Lemon Verbena (from BD) and Freshly ground Pepper
5. Lay out on Baking Sheet in Single Layer
6. Bake for about 30 to 40 minutes until desired crispiness is achieved.

The Fish

1. Mince too much ginger.  Mince or smash 3 cloves or more if you prefer of garlic.  Wash and thinly slice 1/2 bunch of scallions all the way into the deep greens.
2. Wash greens.  Tonight we used a combo of dandelion greens and baby bok choy.  I was looking for mustard greens, but to no avail.  I left the stems whole.  (I might at some mustard seed to the dish to get this...but the wasabi served at the end pulled it together).
3. In a large Pan (I used a Crueset Enameled Cast Iron) heat toasted sesame oil.  When hot, add garlic and ginger and some red pepper flakes if desired.  Saute briefly until fragrant.  Add the greens, tamari soy sauce (or other favorite), rice wine vinegar and toss.  Cook until they start to wilt, about 3 minutes.  Lay fillets of Golden Sea Bass on top.  (I split the fillets into half pieces so they were smaller).  Shake a little extra soy sauce onto fish and rub in.  Sprinkle scallions on top.  Cover.  Set timer to 10 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, mix the wasabi powder with water as directed and let sit for 5 minutes to make Wasabi.
5. Meanwhile, pan toast whole slice almonds in a little olive oil.
6. When potatoes are done, remove.
7. Check Fish at 10 minutes.  Tonight I set the timer for 3 more minutes and that was PERFECT.  Moist, flaky and infused with the ginger flavor.
8. To serve, arrange potatoes on plate.  Scoop fish and greens next to potatoes.  Sprinkle with  little lemon zest.  (My brother does not like lemon zest and went for the juice instead).  Sprinkle with the roasted almonds.  Serve with wasabi and soy sauce.  
9. I think it would have been better to make a "sauce" of the wasabi and soy to dip the fish into....Next iteration to be revealed soon, I suppose.

Ayurvedic Cleanse

I am on a 21 day Ayurvedic Cleanse. Cleanse is the modern spiritual word for a "diet" and can be a dangerous hiding place for eating disorders. But the Ayurvedic method is pretty relaxed. You are still eating and the emphasis is on detoxing the mental and emotional layers as well as the digestive system through a sattvic diet and scheudle. The plan has you eating your biggest meal in the middle of the day and not eating after 6:00pm.

My main reason is that I am in the process of unraveling some old crusty and deep unconscious patterns and food and drink would be the natural escape route and rest place. So, in anticipation of that, I asked my pal Jackie Parker to put me on a cleanse.

For about 15 days I have been eating bowls of basmati rice with ghee, lots of Indian spices and a variety of approved vegetables that I can get at the farmer's market.

I make my meal in one pot. My favorite cutco pot left over from when I used to sell their knives door to door. I heat up the ghee, add mustard seed, whole cumin, whole corriander, whole fennel seed, some other spices Uschi brought back from India, Curry Powder or Garam Masala, Hing and Tumeric. Then a scoop of rice. I add sliced carrots or fennel or turnips. Letting the water come to a boil, I usually throw some green beans or sliced kale or other green on top. Cover with the lid and set timer for 10 minutes.

Fresh Tomato Sauce

Late Summer Tomatoes Rule!

Tonight, we oven roasted a selection of local heirlooms and vine ripes from Steve's Farm.  

Mashed them up.  Added some basil from B.D.'s Farm, minced raw red onion from Steve's Farm, olive oil and balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper.

Maybe the best tomato sauce ever.

Added some browned turkey sausage and served with Strangled Priest Pasta topped with some fresh mozzarella.

Anniversary Panini

Tonight is eric and my 11th wedding anniversary.

We made paninis.

I made eric's with salami, goat cheese, Basil and red onion.

Mine was Dublin Cheddar and Basil.

Too much olive oil in a pan.

Fry sandwich in the olive oil.

yum.

Potato, Fennel, Tomato and Olive and Gratin

inspired by old Green's recipe i used to make and what was in the fridge.

1. In one pan heat too much olive oil and start browning thin slices of red potatoes.  (tonight i had lots of little ones from the market). Drain and continue until you have enough.

2. In another oven proof pan (i have an all clad that i love), heat too much olive olive and start sauteing thinly sliced 1/4 moon shaped red onion.

3. Slice up a big heirloom tomato from Tutti Frutti

4. Pit some dried cured black olives from the Paradise Cafe in Ventura

5. Thinly slice some of B.D.s Fennel.

6. Preheat Oven to about 400 degrees.

7. When the onions are halfway done, add some crushed fennel seed, thyme, red pepper flakes,and pepper.  When onions are about 2 minutes from being done, add a clove of minced garlic. Turn off heat when as brown as you like them and start to pile on the tomatoes, potatoes and fennel and scattering the olives.  Tonight, I did not make enuf of everything to make attractive "layers" so it all just got kind of piled in there.  Dot with generous pinches of goat cheese and pour the leftover olive oil from frying up the potatoes on top.  Put in oven with lid on and set for about 20 minutes.

8. After 20 minutes, remove pan from oven, turn on broiler.  Grate fresh Parmesan cheese all over the top and pour on a little extra olive oil.  Put on broiler for about 2 minutes or more until brown and crispy.  

9. To serve scoop into shallow bowls, mince lemon basil from B.D and scatter on top, and sprinkle with good salt.

Note: potatoes could have been prepped by slicing and boiling, but e likes his potatoes crispier.