A Quick and Simple Appetizer

January 1, 2013

Here’s a great tasting, easy to make appetizer I found a while back in Bon Appetit: Make a single layer of kettle cooked sea salt and black pepper potato chips, top each with some of  smoked salmon, top each with a dab of creme fraiche mixed with lemon juice and then sprinkle with diced chives. Eat quickly.

(The kettle cooked chips tend to be sturdier and hold up a bit longer.)

Tip: Seaport Fish in Rye, NH has there own hot smoked salmon that is really amazing. Or try their smoked salmon pastrami.

Pan-Fried Trout with Smoky Bacon and Sage

December 2, 2012
 –

Take off from old recipe from NYT. Fry three bacon slices in 12″ cast iron skillet and remove. Saute thinly sliced shallots and chopped garlic in a small skillet with olive oil, just enough to moisten.  Add some Finessence.  Line the cavity of the fish with whole sage leaves then stuff with the shallot and garlic mixture.

Dip the outside of the fish in milk then coat with flour. Pan fry about 4 minutes each side in the bacon drippings and additional olive oil. Remove and keep warm.

Add butter to the pan, chopped sage and lemon juice to make a sauce. Wine? maybe, don’t remember. Top the trout with the crumbled bacon and sauce on the serving plate.

Kathy says this is the best ever! – the taste of the trout comes through. Even though they were bone-in, the skin was easy to remove and the meat from the upper half come off easy, then the bones and spine came off in one piece.

Herbed Green Beans was the usual, with basil and other herbs this time.

Grilled Chicken and Pork with Many Salads

August 3, 2012

30 June 2009

Grilled Chicken and Pork with Many Salads

Grilled Mushrooms

Radish-Cucumber Salad

Chickpea Salad

Green Bean Salad

Tomato Salad

Took recipes from Gourmet July 2009, pg 84. Made it look like the photo.

Used both pork and chicken from several days before.

Tossed chicken and pork pieces in pan with mushrooms using Lemon-Basil dressing.

Pork was Grilled Pork Tenderloin Marinated in Citrus Herb Marinade and then Seasoned with Kathy’s Hotter or Feather Dustings from 6/27

Chicken was whole breasts from 6/26, grilled, probably with Feather Dustings or Sprinkle Plenty.

Lunch at The Landing and then Anniversary Eve Dinner at Cafe Zelda, Newport RI

April 15, 2012

We did a number on ourselves at lunch, it was a beautiful day, sunny and warn if you were in the sun and out of the wind and we were hungry for lunch when we discovered The Landing Restaurant on Bowens Wharf had just opened for the season. We got a table that was in the sun, on the water, out of the sun and ordered more than we should have.

We had to start with oysters on the half shell, a local one, and some were huge. We have to try the calamari and it was delicious! With battered and fried cherry peppers mixed in along with the squid and the batter had a nice zing to it as well. I had fish and chips, a huge chunk of fish battered with panko and spicy fries and plenty of malt vinegar to go with it. Kathy loves shrimp but these were no “shrimps”, five huge ones!

Did lots of walking. Ho boy!

We were just barely able to think about food again when we got to Cafe Zelda for our 7:30 reservation but it turned out to be a good choice.

More oyster to start:

Sakonnet River oysters on the half shell with migonette, $2.75 each.  Very nice, just right.

We needed greens  so we tried:

Baby Arugula and Belgian Endive Salad toasted almonds, marinated Vermont goat cheese, dried cranberries, apricot vinaigrette  which they split for us, very nice. Kathy wants to try it at home. I don’t recall ours having goat cheese though, I think it was shaved parmesan.

One dinner special I had to try;

Roasted Salmon with Fiddlehead and Wild Mushroom Cream Sauce served with roasted fingerling potatoes. I had to ask, were was the salmon caught. The waitress seemed a bit confused and had to check, wild Atlantic, Nova Scotia she came back with. The taste was diffiently wild. Very good.

Kathy spotted the other item on the menu that I had also considered:

Seared rare (sashimi) ahi tuna seaweed salad, rice maki nori, ponzu sauce, a four ounce serving for $20.

Very nice, light, just what she wanted.

Wines by the glass, Kathy had a Reiesling but they ran out, I had a Murphy Goode Chardonay

Pre Annivearsary Dinner at Fluke’s, Newport RI

April 13, 2012

Nice views from the third floor dining room over the water front with the well known bridge in the distance as a rain shower passed by. Staff is very good, customers friendly.

Jonah Crab Salad, Asparagus, Watercress Pesto, Cilantro 13
Grilled Crab Stuffed Squid, Tomato, Fennel 11
Fire Roasted Octopus, Gigante Beans, Pickled Ramps, Mint 12
Sauteed Skate—Green Onion Cous Cous, Roasted Asparagus , Meyer Lemon Caper Vinaigrette 28

Roasted Asparagus with Lemon Aioli 8

The skate was so very delicate and delicious, served over asparagus spears with a side of quinoa with herbs. The “ken-wa” is very delicate and perfect with the skate. Rice would have been to course.

We had a desert that was like a small tart with berries? and a glass of tawny port.

Chicken in Riesling

February 21, 2012

19 February 2012

Chicken in Riesling

Taken from recipe Gourmet, March 2008. I used a 4 1/2 pound chicken, 3 1/2 pound chickens are scarce these days, and did cut it up the “french” style as suggested. Which simply means leaving the wing attached to the breast and cutting the breasts in half. So one piece looks like it is flying. Sometimes called “airline” cut. I don’t see the need in peeling potatoes in most cases so I didn’t. The big 5 quart Cafalon pan was just big enough, they suggest a 3 to 5 quart. Used a Sea Glass 2010 Monterey County Riesling but had a 2010 HigHDdef Riesling from Mosel with the meal. Yes, they mean “high def”.  I used creme fraiche to thicken.

Sooo gooood! I kept looking at it when we finished wishing it would be OK to have another helping.

Bacon Wrapped Bluefish

January 16, 2012

Dinner

11 June 2010

Bacon Wrapped Bluefish

Bulgar Salad

Sauteed Baby and Mustard Greens

Idea taken from Saveur June 2010
Removed skin, good idea, folded length wise and the tail in to make a log, then laid over four strips of bacon and lots of sprigs of thyme, wrapped and held with toothpicks. Seasoned with Finessence and salt.

Grilled on Weber, two zone fire, off direct heat for about 25 minutes. 

Heated pan for greens, added olive oil and garlic, then lowered heat and tossed greens until wilted.

Bulger Salad was from another meal recently.

January 6, 2012

29 January 2011

(and 29 January 2010)

Smoked Fish Chowder

(Finnan Haddie)

With Acme Smoked Whiting from MB, $7.99 a pound, 1 1/4 lbs. Used edamame again instead of Lima beans.  Lots of printouts, followed Gourmet 3/94. Bacon, Onions, russets, celery, frozen edamame, frozen corn, half and half and milk.

With a green salad with pear, pistachios, champagne vinegar and Sicilian olive all. Pears bathed in lime juice.

Irony Chardonnay, Napa 2008, Hannaford $10. Portuguese rolls.

Ancho Pork with Pigeon Peas and Rice

January 6, 2012

16 January 2011

Asado de Puerco

(Pork Braised with Ancho Chiles)

Peas and Rice

Ensalada de Nopalitos

Pork from the 9th and the Pigeon Peas and Rice, or Arroz de Grandules made on the 12th was from TV-Web printouts 1/12/2011, it was probably the Tyler Florence recipe I followed the closest. That used achiote oil that I made to dress the peas and rice.

Salad used jarred nopalitos drained, lime juice, garlic, oil, scallions, plum tomatoes, cilantro, jalapenos.

Asado de Puerco

January 6, 2012

9 January 2011

Asado de Puerco

Asado de Puerco

(Pork Braised with Ancho Chiles)

over warm Polenta

Carrots in Mole

Spinach in Wine Sauce

Pork was based on Saveur #76 but used a 4 1/4 pound pork butt and doubled the sauce. First made this 12/11/2005. The carrots from Border Cooking, but using Donna Maria Mole, whole baby carrots. Kathy called them, “Carrots in Mud.” But they were good. The spinach if the Rachael Ray recipe.

Had 6 cups of liquid at the end. Saved some of the “venom.”