Day 129: The Great Dinner Experiment

Down with recipes!  Down with cookbooks!  Tonight I made things up as I went along and it was pretty damn good!

We recently discovered this jarred salsa verde, made from tomatillos and limes and some other ingredients.  It's just a little bit spicy with a great fresh taste and was the basis of our chicken dish tonight.

I heated the oven to 400 degrees.  I sliced a couple of chicken breasts in half so that I had four thin slices of breast rather than two fat breasts to ensure quicker cooking.  Then, I spooned a thin layer of salsa into a glass baking dish and then placed the chicken over it in a single layer and set the dish in the oven to bake for about 20 minutes, turning the chicken slices over about half way through.

I also improvised a delicious brussels sprout recipe tonight:

Coat a saute pan with olive oil and heat.  If you like some spice in your food, infuse your oil by throwing in a couple of shakes of red pepper at the start.

Once the oil is hot, add a pound of brussels sprouts, sliced vertically in half.  Turn the sprouts cut side down, sprinkle them with salt,  and leave them alone for a couple of minutes.  Check them from time to time and once they are beginning to brown, stir them up.

Pour in some apple juice or cider so that it's about 1/4 inch deep in the pan.  Add 1 T of butter and 3 smashed cloves of garlic, turn the temperature down to low, cover, and allow to simmer for about 10 minutes.  You want the sprouts to be soft, but not mushy.

The sprouts will absorb the sweetness of the apple juice and the red pepper flakes add just the right amount of heat.  This is a great, low fat, healthy recipe - at least compared to some of the bacon heavy sprouts recipes I've been cooking lately.  You could probably leave out the butter - but we all know - butter makes everything taste better.  For that matter, so does bacon!

Day 128: Exhibition of Restraint

We spent the afternoon in wine country and after a day of sampling from numerous bottles, I was craving some warm and cozy comfort food. Specifically, I was ready to tuck into some meatloaf and garlic mashed potatoes at Cindy’s Backstreet Kitchen, one of my favorite restaurants and the location of this blog’s very first entry.

Once we arrived at Cindy’s however, I thought better of the indulgence. This week was one long indulgence, really, and it was time for me to get back on track.

I started tonight’s dinner with a bowl of beef, barley, and vegetable soup. Warm and meaty, this was a great compromise that gave me the same cozy feeling for a lot fewer calories than the meatloaf & potatoes would have!

Next, I had grilled mahi-mahi, which was off the specials list. If you read my previous Cindy’s entries (Day #1 or Day #86) or have heard me rave about Cindy’s before 365daysofdinner.com launched, you’ll be as surprised to hear that this dish was so-so at best. I found the fish to be dry and rather bland. The tomato and olive sauce it came with was tasty, but lacked richness and deep flavor.

I was able to compensate for this disappointment by 1)eating french fries off of my husband’s plate (Cindy’s french fries are to die for!!) and 2)sharing a slice of pumpkin and caramel pie for dessert. That made it all okay.

I still love Cindy’s. The ambience and service are warm and welcoming and with this one exception, the food is amazing. I will still come back time and time again and I still highly recommend that you check it out for yourself next time you are in the St. Helena area.

Day 127: You Always Remember Your First

The first time I had duck was November 2002 in Quebec City. It was Thanksgiving weekend I opted to use my 4-day weekend to travel around French Canada rather than to have the traditional holiday meal with my family.

Despite shunning tradition, I had my heart set on enjoying some sort of poultry for dinner on Thanksgiving. Turkey is not a very common menu item in that part of the world, apparently, so I had to be a bit more creative – hence, the duck. I remember loving it instantly – I mean, other than China, where better to first try duck than in a quaint little French restaurant in beautiful Quebec City?

Duck has been a favorite of mine ever since and yet I was intimidated by the idea of cooking it.  With Thanksgiving around the corner once again, I was reminiscing recently about that first delicious duck and decided that tonight was the night I was going to attempt making it.  I turned to a recipe from the tried and true Williams-Sonoma Grilling Essentials cookbook. As usual, I did all of the pre-cooking prep and my husband fired it up.

Orange-Glazed Duck Breasts:

Mix the following ingredients in a bowl:

1 T orange zest

6 T orange juice

1 tsp lemon zest

3 T lemon juice

3 T olive oil

1.5 T freshly chopped tarragon

1/4 tsp red pepper flakes

Use half of the mixture to marinate your duck breasts for up to 4 hours.  Set the other half aside to be used as the glaze later.

Once ready to cook, heat up the reserved marinade and mix in 6 T orange marmalade.  As you grill the duck, brush it from time to time with the warm mixture.

To be honest, the duck was tasty, but not delicious.  It didn't compare to any of the duck dishes I have ever had.  The glaze was barely detectable - and considering the lengthly marinating time, there was surprisingly little citrus flavor.  I'll definitely try to cook duck again, but with a different recipe or method next time.

On the other hand, I give rave reviews to the cauliflower side dish I made.  It came from Epicurious.com and was so stellar that I have added it to this year’s Thanksgiving menu (Yes! I am hosting Thanksgiving this year!).

Click here for the original recipe, or do it my way (I left out two ingredients):

1 small-medium head of cauliflower, sliced and lightly salted

4 T butter

2 T fresh lemon juice

2 T Dijon mustard

Heat oven to 400 degrees.  Lay cauliflower slices in a single layer on a baking sheet (spray sheet with Pam).

Roast cauliflower for about 15 minutes or until it begins to soften up.

Meanwhile, melt butter in a small saucepan.  Add mustard and lemon juice and whisk until mixed.

Spoon mixture evenly over cauliflower and continue to roast for another 15 minutes.  Yum!!

Day 126: Election Week Special Part 5 (Cheeseburger)

Tonight concludes my All American theme week in honor of this week's historic election.  Let's review:

Monday:  Homemade Chili

Tuesday (Election Night):  Chicken Wings

Wednesday: Chili Dogs

Thursday:  Grilled Cheese

What a week of gluttony!  If you're a regular reader of this blog, you probably think I've flipped my lid.  A normal week of dinner in our house usually includes at least two nights of fish, something grilled, lots of salad, and other green sides.  But this week was all about celebrating what's unique about America and apparently, that's a lot of high calorie food!

We wanted to wrap the week up with a cheeseburger and so we returned to The Balboa Cafe.  Considering the zillions of visits we've made to The Bal, it's quite shocking that neither my husband nor I had ever had a burger there.  Every time we go, though, we see that they leave the kitchen in droves, so we knew they had to be good.

Once we got there and heard that their nightly pasta special was macaroni and cheese, my husband bailed on the cheeseburger plan.  I stuck with it, though, and am so glad I did!  The burger was perfectly seasoned and served in a baguette.  I'm sure it helped that I added bacon, Monterey Jack cheese, and some good old California avocado but I think that even without all of those tasty extras, that burger would have been the bomb.

And as with every other night this week, our meal was accompanied by a good made-in-the-USA beverage.  Tonight we enjoyed a bottle of Geyser Peak Cabernet Sauvignon, produced in Sonoma County here in California.

Tomorrow we will return to regular life.  That means no fried food, much more fish, and much less cheese.  But theme week was fun and I'd love to do another sometime.  If you have an idea for a future theme, please leave a comment!

Day 125: Election Week Special Part 4 (Grilled Cheese)

Welcome to Part 4 of our first ever theme week on 365daysofdinner.com.  In case you haven't checked in in awhile, I have been celebrating this historic presidential election with All American dinners.  

Tonight, we created some awesome grilled cheese sandwiches.  Never one to go with the ultra traditional, I jazzed it up while keeping with the week's theme.

First of all, there was no plain old white bread here!  Instead, we used San Francisco sourdough, purchased today at the farmer's market.

For cheese, we used a mix of deli sliced American cheese and Muenster.  And because everything is better with pork products, we added some Boar's Head ham, straight from Brooklyn, NY USA.

I opted to add a couple of slices of heirloom tomato and a few fresh basil leaves to my sandwich, which pushed the sandwich over the edge of tasty into the land of deliciousness.

Whereas my husband opted to have multiple sandwiches, I paired my one sandwich with a bowl of Amy's Chunky Tomato Bisque, because there is not more American way to eat a grilled cheese sandwich than to pair it with tomato soup.  And of course, we each had a pickle.

This meal, like all of our others this week, was paired with a good made-in-America beverage.  Bartholomew Park Winery, located in the Sonoma Valley, is our latest winery find.  We joined their wine club and are enjoying our first shipment which featured 2006 Syrah.  You probably won't find anything by Bartholomew Park in your local wine shop - you'll just have to come out to California to try it for yourself.

Tune in tomorrow to see how we wrap up this amazing week of exciting news and tasty dinners!