notfainthearted Food Journal

I had a crazy idea on the way home so I stopped at the market and picked up the following:

1 box of frozen (organic) asparagus
.3 pound of Pyrenees au poivre vert (a fancy french cheese)
1/4 c pine nuts
box of puff pastry

1.5 pounds of salmon

Spring greens

I also used -

1 egg
balsamic vinaigrette dressing
salt and pepper
butter
olive oil
******************
Preheat the oven to 400.

Thaw the puff pastry according to the package directions. It takes about 30 minutes.

Whenever I unfold the pastry there's always the little splits in the dough (probably because I don't wait until it's completely thawed.)

Simply use a little warm water on your finger-tips and pinch those seams back together. If you have a little pastry roller you can roll them down to make sure they're sealed up.

Melt a little butter in a pan and saute the asparagus until it's almost tender. I also sauted the pine nuts a little bit, too.

Cut each sheet of pastry into four pieces. Put a little of the crumbled cheese and a teaspoon of pine nuts in the center of each little square.

This cheese is delightful. I really like the little green pepper corns; they're like capers. It's a soft, fairly mild tasting cheese.

Add about a Tablespoon of the cooked asparagus on top of the cheese and the nutes. Using a little water on the edges, bring all four corners to the center and seal the little packets up. Pinch tight so they're closed well.

Brush on a light wash of egg-white and water. Bake in the oven (at 400) for 20 minutes.

While that is cooking, heat some oil in a heavy (cast iron) pan until hot. Place the salmon skin-side up into the hot oil. When that side is nicely seared, turn the fish over so the skin side is down and cover loosely. The skin will get nicely crisped. Cook until just done.

This is what the little packets looked like when I took them out of the oven.

A light touch on the vinaigrette and there's a nice balance of flavors for a spring evening. The only thing I was missing was a nice little French chardonnay. Next time.

This is my own recipe. It's very simple and has subtle flavors. I made this last Sunday afternoon. AB (my friend on chemo) says it's good too.

2 leeks. Cleaned and sliced fairly thin into half moons. Include some of the greens if they look OK.
5 lbs Yukon Gold potatoes, washed but leave skins on. Cut into quarters.
1/2 C butter (I used unsalted)
3 boneless skinless chicken breasts. Cut into bite-site pieces
8 C Swanson's chicken broth (2 boxes)
1/2 C white wine
Salt and Pepper
1 bay leaf
1-2 teaspoons dried thyme

Melt the butter in the bottom of your soup pot. When the butter is melted, throw the leeks in. Saute for a few minutes until they start to wilt. Throw the chicken in with them and let them sit so they brown a little bit.

When the leeks look translucent, add the wine and the stock. Add the potatoes and bay leaf. Bring to a boil and then reduce to a fast simmer. Cook for about an hour or until the potatoes are very well done. Add the thyme when the potatoes are well done but before you've mashed them.

Using a slotted spoon, scoop out the potatoes in small batches and put into a heat resistant bowl. Mash the potatoes and return them to the soup pot. Continue until mostly all the potatoes are mashed.

Add salt and pepper. Give it a good stir and serve with a crusty bread. You could also garnish with a bit of cream or sour cream.

I improvised this recipe for New Years' Eve. It turned out quite well, no doubt in large part to the quality of the Salmon (which I got from the fresh fish market here in town. Alaskan Coho)

Quantities are approximate because I didn't measure. And I didn't take pictures but I think I'll make this again next weekend and give details.

About 1/2 cup of raw hazelnuts
1 egg white and a little water whisked until a little frothy
2 salmon fillets
oil for frying
salt & pepper

Pan roast the hazelnuts in a skillet until the papers start to fall off. Rub them in a dishtowel until the brown paper husks fall off. Chop by hand until a uniform small piece size (I wouldn't use a food processor. Too easy to get to hazelnut butter that way.) Place in a shallow flat pan/bowl.

Separate an egg and put the white in a similar flat pan/bowl. Whisk in a little water.

Begin heating the oil in the pan. Rinse the fish and pat dry. Salt and pepper both sides. Dip in the egg white and then in the chopped hazelnuts.

Lay fish in hot pan skin side up first and let that side get crusted and brown. Flip the fish once. Cover the pan to finish cooking the fillets through. Watch them so they don't get over done.

Like I said, simple. But quite delicious.

Suggestions for a sauce would be appreciated.

Santa has a habit of bringing a cooking gadget to Chez Journey every now and again.

The first year it was a electric chicken rotisserie oven. DS2 had seen them advertised on teevee that year and just thought that we HAD to have one.

The next year, it was a smoothie maker. Which, frankly saved the blender for more, uh adult beverage applications.

Last year, a toaster oven for making the hot-pockets and pizza rolls that the boys love so much.

This year, a smoker.

It's a big one. Big enough to hold a turkey and a ham.

Problem is, it only came with directions for assembly and a vague set of instructions for lining charcoal and water bowls and warnings about NOT LETTING OUT THE HEAT by checking too often. And a table of how long certain things will take to reach temperature.

But it doesn't seem too complete. I mean, it says "Ribs - 6 hours." Is that for one rack of ribs or 4? Or doesn't it matter?

How do you check the level of the charcoal or water without letting out all the heat?

Can I use my regular probe thermometer (which has a cord that comes out of the oven and connects to the LCD display on the counter) or do I need a different one?

It says to add an hour of cooking time if the outside temperature is under 50 degrees. what if the temperature is, like, 15 degrees? Would you expect to add more than an hour for that much below 50?

See. All I have is questions.

Well, questions and a rack of spare ribs in the freezer.

Weigh in on the comments, won't you?? Your own advice and learnings are most welcome but a recommendation of a cookbook won't be sneered at.

(Promoted from the diaries to the front page - Kate)

For many years when I was growing up, my family would spend the day after Thanksgiving baking. My grandmother from Norway would come over with my grandpa and my mom and I (and sometimes my brother and sister would join in for a time) would bake from early in the morning until supper time. We'd make 10 to 12 different kinds of cookies and not all bar cookies either!

Every year, the highlight of the baking for me was making the Norwegian cookies. Here is grandma's krumkake recipe and some pictures of the process.

Krumkake (crumb cake) are thin waffle like cookies baked on an iron and then rolled around a dowel while still warm to form a tube. They are not filled, although grandpa and my uncle were known to take the ReadyWhip to a couple when grandma wasn't looking.

3 eggs, well beaten
1/2 C. sugar
1/2 C. melted butter
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. crushed cardamom
1/2 C. flour

Combine ingredients in order listed. Bake on a Krumkake iron and roll around the dowel while warm.

Do not store with other cookies or they'll get soft.

Step-by-step pictures at Flickr!

Test link back to my home blog.

I'm not all that Irish really (only 1/8th) but I find that I'm suggesting dinner and lunch at a certain local Irish Pub more and more. And it's not for the men in kilts (although that doesn't hurt!) It's for their food.

In an era of food service food even at restaurants, this is a place that actually cooks their pub food and doesn't just heat it up from a frozen package.

Today I'm heading to Keegan's Irish Pub in Minneapolis to have lunch with a friend. And that means I'm looking specifically, to their Shepherd's Pie. Comfort food at it's finest. I'll bring home pictures. But what I'm really looking for now is a good recipe.

Got one?