roasted balsamic tomatoes

I haven’t been feeling a lot of inspiration this week, so I’ve been depending on stopping by the co-op after work each day and seeing what catches my eye first. One night it resulted in a very nice pork tenderloin , with a pilaf of wild rice, mushrooms, shallot, spinach and roasted sweet potatoes, so that worked out all right.

For the next night I had an idea that I would get some fish, probably salmon. No idea what I wanted for a side dish, so I grabbed a cookbook that I hadn’t yet done a thing with, Jamie’s Kitchen by Jamie Oliver. After a quick flip through I was struck by a lovely photo of a panful of roasted tomatoes stuffed with bay leaves (I guess I am all about the pretty pictures), and decided that if I could find the ingredients I would do it. Of course tomatoes are SO not in season right now, but the co-op had some decent hothouse romas, and I had basil in the fridge and my own garlic and bay leaves from the garden. Jamie calls for baby leeks, but that just wasn’t going to happen.

Mexican food in the Bavarian Village

There haven’t been more than a handful of restaurants that we’ve liked in Leavenworth over the past thirty years (we miss you, Österreich!), but I’m happy to say we’ve just found a new one, called South. My parents had been there for dinner recently and had a great experience, so before J and I headed home last weekend we stopped in for lunch.

What an amazing place! It’s just a Mexican restaurant, of which we have vast quantities here in Skagit Valley, but it’s not your usual rice-and-beans kind of place. We were struck immediately by the drinks list, which had an excellent selection of beers, plus some really cool cocktails (not many places offer caipirinha) and an amazing bourbon and tequila list. I wasn’t sure I was up to a cocktail yet, so I got a Leavenworth IPA (a really nice beer, much like the Boundary Bay IPA), but J went for the house margarita, and my father asked for soda with fresh lime. Both of their drinks were excellent, made with just-squeezed lime juice.

On to the food: I saw roasted green beans on the appetizer list and was instantly in love. We ordered them, and shortly received a dish full of sweet shriveled beans doused in salt and lime juice - fantastic! So few restaurants offer vegetables straight up, and these were delicious. Their only fault was that they weren’t crispy, but I didn’t really mind.

For our lunches, my mother and I each ordered the tomatillo chicken as a sandwich, my father got the carne asada as a taco, and J got the black mole enchilada with pork. All were tasty, and I was especially impressed by the chicken - it was perfectly cooked and very juicy, a real accomplishment with breast meat. The sandwiches and taco came with house-made tortilla chips, and there was a buffet of salsas available, some of which could blow the top of your head off.

Suffice to say, we’ll be coming back here! We are officially jealous that we don’t live closer to this place.

khachapuri again

A while back I mentioned a batch of khachapuri that I had made, but I didn’t go into detail about them because I was seriously distracted by the gougères I was making at the same time. Last week I made them again, though, so I thought I’d do some fuller coverage.

Khachapuri are cheese-and-egg filled flatbreads from the Republic of Georgia. The bread itself is a yogurt and white flour dough which is very simple to make and very tasty as well. The variety I always make are the “emeruli khachapuri” out of Flatbreads and Flavors; the book has some variations stuffed with red beans or potatoes, but I haven’t really branched out yet - these are too good.

emeruli khachapuri

from Flatbreads and Flavors by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid

The full recipe makes 8 flatbreads. The breads are very filling, so I usually just make a half batch, which works fine. Leftovers are tasty for breakfast, too.

for the dough:

• 3 to 4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 cups plain yogurt

for the filling:

• 4 oz cheddar or mozzarella cheese, finely grated
• 2 oz feta cheese, crumbled
• 2 Tbsp plain yogurt
• 1 egg

Preheat the oven to 450°.

In the garden: the crocuses are out!

Every year in Skagit County we slog into February feeling like spring will never come. It’s been windy and wet and cold for months, and we know perfectly well that summer won’t really get under way until July. But then in February, every year, there’s a spot of warm sunny weather. Just enough to get people out into their yards and start thinking about the possibility of spring.

The timing of our sunny weather often coincides with the blooming of the first round of crocus, letting the flowers open up wide to the sky. A good rainstorm will flatten them, but while the weather’s warm nothing is so jolly as a lawn spread with purple and yellow crocus. Soon it’ll start raining again, but by then we’ll have the daffodils, which can stand up to it.

a weekend in Portland: day three

After our dinner at Sel Gris the night before, we didn’t really feel up to much on our last morning in Portland. I snagged coffee and a bagel from the guesthouse kitchen, then we staggered up the street to Haven for a little extra caffeine and sugar. Sitting in the sun with the Sunday funnies and a cup of hot chocolate was about the right speed.

Afterwards, somewhat fortified, we boldly found what I believe to be one of the fastest (and maybe stupidest) routes up Mount Tabor, an extinct volcano that sits at the east end of the Hawthorne district and is covered with roads and paths of all sorts. We weren’t sure where the road started, so instead we found a trail and went straight up. It was a gorgeous day, and the view was fantastic, with both Mount Hood and Mount Saint Helens out in the sun.

weekend in Portland: day two

A full day of walking and eating in Portland! We started out with coffee at our most excellent guesthouse, then headed down the street to the highly recommended Detour Cafe. After our last visit to Portland, we figured any good breakfast place would be crammed full of people on a sunny Saturday morning, but there were plenty of free tables.

The Detour’s a great place - sunny, colorful, and casual. Good coffee, of course (it is Portland, after all). Then menu isn’t huge, but it looked like they had some good stuff - we both got breakfast sandwiches, and were very happy with them. Mine had a fried egg, mixed salad greens, bacon and fresh tomato on foccaccia - my dream breakfast sandwich, really. It reminded me of one I had in Tofino, on Vancouver Island, and have remembered fondly ever since.

weekend in Portland: day one

We amused ourselves this weekend by taking the train down to Portland. It’s a great way to go: the train goes right along the coast, so the scenery is wonderful. You don’t have to deal with I-5 traffic, and Portland has a very good public transportation system and is very walkable. And the food scene there is just amazing. We spent three days and barely scratched the surface.

The train has a bistro car, but we usually prefer to bring a lunch along. For this trip, J made sandwiches out of a baguette and some ham, with brie and fresh basil. We had leftovers of a truly splendid bottle of wine, a Sones petite syrah from the central coast of California, so we brought that along as well. The train was so full that it was a little awkward to eat - we felt like we should have brought enough for everyone. Ah, well.

Our first stop in Portland, after dropping off our bags at our guesthouse, was the Hedge House, one of the Old Lompoc Brewery pubs. We just got beer and salads, but it was just what we needed to wind down. More on the Hedge House later…

In the garden: blue iris

This is iris reticulata “Harmony.” It’s only a few inches high, but that shot of clear blue in the garden at this time of year is just mind blowing. They don’t last long, either - a good rainstorm or one bite from a slug knocks the flowers right down - but it’s still worth it. I wish everyone had these in their yard, it would cheer things up enormously.

making it up as I go along

This was an impromptu sort of dinner. I had gotten a couple things out of the freezer the day before - a smoked andouille sausage (left over from the cassoulet) and a container of pesto from a long-gone summer. There was a bunch of (very non-local) asparagus in the fridge that I had bought on spec and done nothing with, and half a box of macaroni sitting in the cupboard.

So, making it up as I went along, I put on pasta water to boil and put together a small pan of bechamel sauce. Once the sauce was thickened I stirred a heaping spoonful of pesto into it. I warmed up the andouille and sliced it thinly, and chopped the asparagus into inch-long pieces. When the macaroni was almost cooked, I dropped the asparagus into the water with the pasta to blanch it, then drained it all at once. I mixed the macaroni and asparagus with the pesto bechamel and the sliced sausage in a gratin pan, then grated fresh parmesan over it all and sprinkled breadcrumbs on top. I let it sit in a 450° oven for ten minutes or so until we got hungry and ate it.

Not the sort of dinner I make very often, but strangely comforting. And easy, too.

maple-rosemary-horseradish glaze for short ribs (and post #100!)

I’ve already talked about Molly Stevens’ recipe for braised short ribs with porter, but I did leave one thing out when I made it before: the glaze. I really think I like short ribs best as a kind of stew, with everything mushed up in the pot together and served over noodles, but we thought it was worth a try to do the recipe in its entirety at least once.

The idea is, after you’ve done your braise, you arrange your short ribs in a single layer in a heavy pan, tuck the vegetables around the sides, then paint them with a glaze made of rosemary-infused maple syrup mixed with prepared horseradish (the recipe uses 3 Tbsp syrup to 1 Tbsp horseradish). The pan goes under the broiler until the glaze is glossy and caramelized. Then, finally, you can eat them.