German Dinner

One of my favorite things lately has been how much Aaron has been cooking. I’ve been behind in my posting, so there will be a number of Aaron made recipes coming up soon!

This meal was all Aaron’s idea. He saw chicken bratwursts at Freddie’s and the whole plan came together. We made pretzels again earlier in the day and he went about making everything delicious. And it was quite the dinner.

German Dinner by Aaron:

Serves 2

Soft pretzels
Two chicken bratwursts
A small jar of sauerkraut
One delicious tasting bottle of beer
A few cloves of garlic, chopped
Mustards galore





The first thing Aaron did was poach the sausages in beer. He poked a few holes in each, added the beer to pot, brought it to a boil, and reduced it to a simmer. He then added the sausages, allowing them to cook for about 15 minutes.



Because sauerkraut from the jar is kind of lame, he jazzed it up by adding chopped garlic and some of the remaining beer from the sausage pot.



The brats went onto the grill and they cooked for about ten minutes.



After the sausages were done, everything was served with mustard. This was a fun dinner and a great mid-week meal. You will have leftover kraut, but I promise you it will taste better and you can use it for sandwiches.

Anniversary Dinner

On February 2nd, Aaron and I celebrated nine years together. Over time our celebrations have gotten a bit smaller, especially since we also have our wedding anniversary to celebrate, and now we mostly cook for each other. I kept it fairly simple this time around and I think it was really nice.

We had baked salmon, spicy broccoli, dill Israeli couscous, and garlic crostini. I didn’t follow recipes for any of these, but it was such a fantastic dinner that I had to share.

This is what I did:

The salmon was a gorgeous about one pound piece of sockeye. I heated the oven to 350 degrees. In a big casserole dish, Aaron rubbed it down with butter. I cut the skin off of the filet and he rubbed both sides with kosher salt and freshly ground pepper. We then dotted the salmon with butter, squeezed some lemon juice on it, and sprinkled it with diced garlic.

It went into the oven for about 20 minutes. You can tell when the salmon is done when it turns a much lighter pink and it just looks tasty.

For the Israeli couscous, I put it in a pot with water, mixed in dill, pepper, garlic, and kosher salt and brought the water to a boil. It’s a similar ratio of couscous to water like rice to water. I reduced to a simmer and covered it while it cooked for another eight minutes or so. The consistency is a lot more like pasta, but it cooks like rice. I love it.

While the couscous was going and the salmon was in the oven, I heated olive oil in a medium skillet over medium-high heat, tossed in broccoli florets, crushed red pepper, my ubiquitous garlic, salt, and pepper, and cooked that for about 30-45 seconds. When the broccoli was still bright green, but a little toasty, I turned the heat down, added about ½ a cup of water, and covered until the broccoli was cooked through, about 4-5 minutes.

Finally, while the salmon was cooking, I cut up a couple of pieces of rosemary loaf, brushed them with garlic olive oil, and put them in the oven with the salmon until they were crispy and browned. While the salmon was resting, I pulled them out and rubbed them with a cut clove of garlic.



Overall, the dinner was delicious and it was a great way to celebrate another year with my baby.

Things I Love Thursday: The Beginning

Frency Fry Love by Warwickshire College LRC Blog

This new feature is inspired by one of my favorite blogs, icing by Gala Darling. It’s filled with tons of cute outfits and positive ideas. I adore it and so should you. Anyway, she does this feature every week called Things I Love Thursday and on Friday’s she does Carousel. TILT is filled with things that make her happy and that she loved. Carousel is a collection of awesome links from all over the internet. My version of TILT is going to be a combination of her two features, all related to the cool food stuff I see. It might not be every week because, well because, but I’ll endeavor to do it as often as possible. There’s lots of really great food articles and such out there and I want to share with you. So this is what I’ve got!

Playing with food by Towergirl

The 25 Most Awesome Mugs Ever Created: My favorites are this one,and also this, this, and of course this. I find these especially cool after Renai’s post about tea. I also don’t have a ton of very nice mugs, but I do have some serviceable ones. I may have to invest in a nice mug. Or Darth Vader. Whatever.

Coffee Foam Art: I don’t drink coffee, but this makes me wish I did. Especially this one.

Coolest Teabag Ever: I swear these won’t all be about tea/coffee, but this is amazing! Want, want, want. I'm singing it in my head now.

Message in a Cookie Cutter: Since baked goods are already a great way to say thank you, you can make it even better by having the cookie itself ACTUALLY say thank you. This would work out well for me because my penmanship, particularly my icing penmanship, leaves something to be desired.

Space Cupcake by Natalie Dee

Lady Gaga Cupcakes: Heck yes.

Speaking of cupcakes, here are 100 Game Cupcakes: It didn’t surprise me much how many of these games I’ve played.

200 Food T-Shirts: This is an amazing list. Found it through a friend’s mom posting it on her Facebook page. The magic of social networking! Favorites includes this, this, this, this one because it reminds me of my dad, and this one. This one is really cute too. I’ve seen this one in person and I still think it’s funny. Oh, just go look at the list!

PS: These are acceptable presents. Just FYI.

Legos + Kitchen = AMAZING! Two things I love in the same place.

Lego Waffle by Brickshelf

What are you loving in food this week?

Calzones and More Pizza

Pizza is a fantastic thing. I know I already posted this recipe back in October, but there’s been a revelation plus I did something different with it.

First, the revelation. I made the full recipe and instead of making four pizzas, I divided the dough into three. 1/3 of it remained in the fridge for a couple of days until part two. Anyway, the other 2/3 made two perfect sized pizzas that were phenomenally easy to shape and work with. These are my prettiest pizzas to date and I just wanted to show them with all of you.







We bought some nice salami and Aaron cooked up some ground beef with oregano, basil, thyme, marjoram, and rosemary. Along with a heaping of mozzarella, we also used Tillamook aged white cheddar, and parmesan. I also infused olive oil with garlic and we used that to brush on the crust. We added some oregano to the marinara and just look at those pizzas. Seriously, I am so proud.

Now, part two. After a great achievement in pizza, we decided to make calzones. That was a brilliant idea.

Calzones:

Serves two or four, depending on how hungry you are

1/3 pizza dough
Mini meatballs (basic recipe here)
1 c. mozzarella, grated
½ c. aged white cheddar, grated
¼ c. parmesan, grated
2 c. broccoli, chopped and steamed
4 cloves garlic, diced
Tomato sauce
Oregano
Garlic olive oil

Roll out remaining third of pizza dough to desired thickness, shape into a circle and cut in half. Heat oven to 450 degrees.





In the center of each, paint on tomato sauce, not making it too saucy (haha). Make sure you leave a border so you can fold over the dough when you’re done filling it. Sprinkle on oregano. Fill with mini meatballs, broccoli and cheese. Fold over top and pinch down the sides. Brush with garlic olive oil (or regular extra virgin olive oil if you don’t have infused oil) and cut three slits into the top.





Sprinkle corn meal on a baking sheet and place calzones on pan. Bake for about 20 minutes. Allow to cool for another 5 minutes and dig in. We had ours with the remaining tomato sauce warmed up for dunking. These were so good! They’re huge, so you could cut them in half to serve four. The options for filling them, like making pizza, are quite varied, so mess around with it and see what you get. I was really impressed and I am looking forward to doing this again.

Salmon Chowder

What would you say if I told you I made chowder just because I had already purchased oyster crackers? Because yeah, I made chowder because Trader Joe’s was selling boxes of oyster crackers. This chowder, though, is quite worthy of all those crackers. The original recipe is here and it has been modified quite a bit. I do like the note in it that says preferably wild on the salmon filet. I’m from Alaska. Aaron’s from Alaska. We only eat wild salmon in this house. Whenever we go out, we check if the salmon on the menu is wild. If not, we don’t eat it. I even make sure my friends ask (if they’re not from AK. If they are, they already do).

Anyway, not the point. Salmon is delicious and wonderful though and sockeye has always been my favorite. I just love the color and the taste. Plus, it makes for amazing lox. And apparently chowder too.

Salmon Chowder modified from Gourmet via epicurious.com:

Makes 6 servings

About 1 lb. red potatoes
6 oz. sliced bacon (we used about 2 oz. regular thick cut bacon and the rest turkey bacon)
2-3 Tb. butter
1 bunch scallions
¼ sweet onion
6 cloves garlic (they said 3. Ha!)
1 c. frozen corn
Dash of thyme
1 bay leaf
Few dashes of crushed red pepper
3 c. whole milk
2/3 c. heavy cream
1 lb. sockeye salmon filet (always wild. Always), skin discarded and fish cut into 1” pieces
Kosher salt and ground pepper to taste
Roux



Accidentally dice up ¾ lb of red potatoes. Cut remaining potatoes into ½” cubes. Boil water in pot and add potatoes, cooking until the large pieces are tender. Drain in colander and set aside.

Add scallions, onion and garlic into a food processor and pulse until diced (about 5-6 pulses).







Cook bacon in heavy pot over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until crisp, about 8 minutes. Transfer with a slotted spoon to paper towels to drain. If you use mostly turkey bacon, add in butter with the bacon fat, otherwise there won’t be enough fat to cook with. Cook scallions, corn, garlic, thyme, bay leaf, and red-pepper flakes in fat in pot over moderately low heat, stirring occasionally, until scallions are tender, about 5 minutes. Add milk and cream and bring just to a boil. Reduce heat to moderately low, then add potatoes, salmon, bacon, salt, and pepper and cook, gently stirring occasionally, until salmon is just cooked through and begins to break up as you stir, 5 to 8 minutes.

At this point, Aaron and I realized that the chowder, while smelling and tasting delicious, wasn’t really thick enough to call chowder. So I threw together a roux and we mixed that in and it thickened right up. So delicious. Discard bay leaf before serving.





Ladle into individual bowls and cover with an insane number of oyster crackers.

This chowder (or should I say chowda?) was so delicious, I can’t believe I ever stopped eating it. It’s got just the right amount of salt, salmon, potato. It is perfect in every way. Next time, it’s going in a bread bowl!

Bob's Red Mill Factory Tour

This past week, I got to do something amazing with my friend Brittany. I got to tour the factory of Bob's Red Mill. Yes, that fabulous purveyor of whole grains (including steel cut oats!) is stationed in Milwaukie, Oregon, which is not very far from me. I learned a whole lot about whole grains, saw some interesting equipment, and, oh yeah, met Bob! Yeah, Bob! He was coming through with some Scottish people as Bob's Red Mill recently won the Golden Spurtle (first place) in the World Porridge Making Contest (read more about it here). They wanted to see the factory and we got to see Bob. He came over to our tour group just as Brittany and I were squealing. It's so strange to meet someone whose face you've seen time and again on your flour bags. Anyway, it was a great day.

The following are all pictures taken by Brittany, except the one with her and Bob, obviously.


The tour is about to begin!


Quartz millstone


Here comes Bob!


Brittany and Bob


Packing my favorite steel cut oats


Far too excited about my free sample of muesli and free bowl scraper


Out front (and staring into the sun)

Oatmeal Cakes

I love oatmeal. It’s one of my favorite breakfasts. I came to love oatmeal even more when I discovered the glory that is steel cut oats. While I know many people don’t like oatmeal because it’s mushy, I do also enjoy rolled oats. However, steel cut oats are something else. They’re chewy and delicious and they’re a labor of love, taking longer to cook than rolled oats. I love them.

So the other day I made a massive amount of oatmeal and didn’t eat all of it because as much as I love it, I do have a limit. Anyway, I decided that instead of just heating up the rest of it later, I’d try something else. And this is that strange, delicious experiment.

Oatmeal Cakes:

1 c. cooked steel cut oats
Lemon zest
Dash of lemon juice
¼ c.-ish honey plus a bit more for garnish
Two big dashes of cinnamon
A bit of flour
Coconut oil







Heat coconut oil in a medium size saucepan over medium heat. Mix together all of the ingredients and form into palm size cakes (I have small palms, so you may want to make them a bit bigger). Cook each side until a nice light brown crust has formed. Serve with additional honey.

These didn’t stay together perfectly, but they were so good I didn’t care. The coconut oil adds an extra little bit of flavor and also makes these bad boys vegan, so there you go. It’s a fantastic breakfast. Next time, I’m going to mix in fruit.