Where has the thyme gone?

No seriously, where has the time gone? I have done a great injustice to the 3 maybe 4 people who read this blog when I started it. I slacked, I haven't updated in, oh, 10 months and 10 days give or take a couple.

I have good reasons, really good reasons, first I got married, and in the midst of finalizing plans for the wedding Rob and I decided we might as well throw common sense to the wind and sell our condo and buy a new house. Let me the preface the following by saying I love love love my new house. That being said, what idiot decides to concurrently plan a wedding and try to sell/buy a piece of real estate, and oh wait, also Captain an Ultimate Frisbee team, work a full time job, and maybe spend time with a new husband and beloved dog? This idiot that's who. Seriously, looking back I should have screamed at myself not to overextend, don't stress yourself out too much, really just a wedding is a big thing for one year. But no, I stressed, overextended, and embittered the crap out of myself. By the end of the year I had become one, large mess of a person. I'm sure I was just a joy to be around too.

And so begins 2011, full of nothing, I've stepped back from former major commitments (obviously not the marriage one, I think I'll keep that guy around for quite a long long time ;-) and have a spate of free time on my hands that I must fill. A few things are brewing, but nothing big. The focus of this year, healthier eating (much), and running a couple of half-marathons; basically getting myself into the happiest shape I've ever been in. That may also equal best shape, but really I'm just going for being happy. I am also going to restart this blog. The recipes might look, for the most part, a little different, expect lots and lots of veggies and lean meats, and not much of anything else. Hell I'm eating spinach for part of my breakfast, seriously.

So until I post tomorrow I leave you with this thought provoking question: Who needs potatoes when you can have mashed cauliflower?

Recipe Re-Creations, Pasta a la Sonoma

A long, long time ago, in a place far, far away, a woman tasted the most wonderful, simple pasta dish she had ever tasted. For the first time in her life she said, "I must try to make this myself." She did, and all was right with the world.

Ok, so a long long time ago was 10 days, and a place far, far away was oh roughly 15 blocks from my house (which we drove). But that pasta was so good I have spent the last 10 days plotting it's return to tantalize my taste buds. Rob is out at a meeting this evening, so I gathered my ingredients, and set about the recipe's re-creation.

First, I am going to tell you what information I was able to discern from eating the original dish, and then I will give you the exact recipe I came up with. A note when trying to make something for the first time: I measured, almost double of what I thought I would need out and then added a little at a time, keeping track of how much I used as I went along so as to figure out how much I used. For example, I ended up using 1/4 cup creme fraiche, in reality I measured out 1/2 a cup and added it 1 TBSP at a time until the sauce looked right (I picked TBSP b/c there are 8 TBSP in 1/2 a cup, I just happen to know that so TBSP was an easy way for me to count what I used).

Ok, on to the fun. What did I know about this dish before I began? Well, it was yummy. It used fresh Paccheri (wide tube pasta) noodles, it had Creme Fraiche, Black Pepper, Chives, Red Chilis, and Ricotta Salata in it. I also was smart enough to think to ask the waitress about the base and she said it was a combination of chicken broth and butter. That is what I had to go on.

Onto gathering my ingredients. First, I didn't use fresh pasta, I couldn't find paccheri, and actually only saw ravoli and other filled pastas at the market. So instead I bought a 1/5 inch long "ribbon" pasta, it looks like it was cut off the end of a ribbon after you use it to tie a bow on a present. This pasta worked out just fine, I would like to use fresh next time, but that will depend upon availability. I used probably 3/4 lb of pasta, and I have quite a bit of leftovers. You will also need, 1 shallot, 1 garlic clove, 1 cup chicken stock, 1 cup white wine, 1/4 butter, 1/4 cup creme fraiche, 1 dried red chili crumbled, 2 tbsp fresh chives, chopped, 1 big handful finely (as fine as possible) grated ricotta salata, olive oil, and freshly ground pepper.

First start by bringing a medium pot of water to a boil and putting in the pasta, cook until just a bit softer than al dente, just a bit. Drain.

While the water is coming to a boil and the pasta is cooking, mince both the shallot and garlic clove, Put a small glug of olive oil into a saucepan, and gently cook the shallot and garlic over medium heat for a few minutes. You do not want the shallot or garlic to burn at all so keep stirring and really just a few minutes are needed. Add in the chicken broth and the white wine and bring to a boil, then simmer until the wine/broth mix reduces to about 1 cup of liquid. (Err on the side of caution here and reduce more than you think if necessary. You can always add a little more chicken broth to a too thick sauce, but after you move onto the next step of adding butter and creme fraiche you won't want to need to simmer and reduce more, because the dairy will burn too easily.) Once the wine/broth has reduced to where you are happy, add in the butter and the creme fraiche, stir constantly to mix everything into a nice smooth texture. Add the chives and the crumbled dried red chili.

Stir everything together and add the pasta and the finely grated ricotta salata, grind fresh pepper atop and toss. Serve in a bowl.

My version of this dish, tasted quite nice, it wasn't as thick as I would have liked, and it wasn't as good as a restaurant, but I will definitely make this again.

Things I will change: I will reduce my broth/wine mixture more, I may just use chicken broth I don't think Sonoma used wine in it's dish, I will grate the ricotta more finely (my biggest mistake by far) or as finely as possible. I will use more dried red chili and black pepper, my dish didn't quite have the little kick the original did. But overall, pretty darn good for my first attempt.

And voila that is what I had for dinner this evening!

Sonoma DC: Sonoma good for my belly!

Rob and I have a tradition of celebrating Valentine's Day with a meal out, and preferably not on the actual Hallmark mandated date. This year we waited a little later than usual to make a reservation on one of the days surrounding the 14th, so our first choice was booked. This ended up being a fortuitous problem, as we ended up at Sonoma restaurant near our home on Capitol Hill. What a meal.

Throughout the meal we shared a bottle of a Primitivo Puglia by Matane vineyard. Such a fantastic wine we are figuring out how to get some to have at home. It is a lighter red, so it went really well with both of our main dishes: I had pacherri with black pepper, chives, ricotta salata, chiles, and creme fraiche. Rob had a deconstructed lasagna with veal ragu and maderia fonduta. But first let's discuss our first and second course. Oh yes we had a three course (ok actually four course) meal. That in and of itself was heavenly. And we weren't rushed at all, we had time between each course to sip some wine and chat. It was soooo nice.

For our first course we had the house-made burratta cheese with tomato jam and fried bread. Did you read those words, fried bread, yea the whole thing was amazing. I have never had such a wonderful combination. The cheese had a great creamy center, but was a perfect smooth companian for the tomato jam. I should mention I don't like tomatoes, but apparently tomato jam is just fine thank you very much. Along with the burratta cheese we had the pei mussels with paprika, chorizo, and focaccia. The mussels were perfectly cooked, and the chorizo and paprika gave them such a nice spice; they complemented each other perfectly.

Next course: boston bibb salad with roasted apples, goat cheddar, toasted walnuts and vincotto. We split this, and they brought it out on two separate plates, how nice! We didn't have to fight over the last piece of cheddar, and trust me we would have fought over the last piece of anything of this salad.

Finally onto our entrees. First I should mention that we ordered pasta dishes, which are not actually entrees according to the menu. Those will have to wait for another trip to this restaurant. As I mentioned I had the paccheri which is a long tube shaped pasta. The best part about my dish was how simple it really was. The pasta was obviously freshly made and perfectly cooked, just a bit al dente. The chilis, ricotta, and black pepper worked perfectly together. It had a peppery spicyness but at the same time it was smooth and welcoming. Really it was a grown up comfort dish. I plan to try to recreate this recipe in my kitchen. I have a plan as to how I think I can do it, I just need to find some fresh paccheri in DC.

Finishing up the post, Rob had a sort of deconstructed Lasagna, where the lasagna noodles were cut up to be slightly larger than fettucine and they were mixed in with the veal ragu and maderia fonduta, topped with parmesan cheese. Rob thoroughly enjoyed this and said the ragu was excellent, but in hindsight he wished he had gone with a different pasta dish, the papperdelle.

And on to dessert, which I still have dreams about, because oh my goodness homemade salted carmel ice cream is the best ice cream I have ever had. Yes this is above any ice cream containing cookie dough, shocking I know. We had this ice cream over apple bread pudding which is super yummy too, but really the ice cream was the best (it was so good we had to order an extra scoop!).

So to summarize, Sonoma rocks, it is definitely a special occasion restaurant where the checkbook is concerned (and this is probably a good thing as I would be there far too often if it wasn't). But a fantastic and fun restaurant. I look forward to another meal there, hopefully sooner rather than later!

Let's Talk about Salmon...

Let's talk about you and me, Let's talk about all the good things...whoops sorry wrong song.

Salmon, this was supposed to be a post about Salmon, however I am faced with a conundrum. Steelhead Salmon, or rather trout, as it is the same species as the rainbow trout, except that the Steelhead, like salmon, lives in both fresh and salt water. This is where the confusion lies; some fish markets, like the Whole Foods counter correctly label this fish Steelhead Trout (which was actually what I used to think it was), but then the Eastern Market fish counter labels it Steelhead Salmon. Since I have bought almost all of my fish from the Eastern Market fish counter, I have called it Salmon for the last oh 2 years and 8 months. According to the internet I am wrong. It is trout. And really it tastes like a red meat trout, it doesn't taste a lot like any of the varieties of Salmon I have eaten.

So why do some erroneously call it Salmon, well I think the word Salmon probably sells more fish. I think a lot of people think trout is really fishy, and many people don't like fishy fish. I like pretty much all fish, except flounder and cat fish. I just can't do those.

On to our Steelhead trout. It was really yummy and super fresh (even in the midst of 2 snowstorms). I did this fish really simply, I'm not even sure I would call this recipe so much as a preparation. There were 2 of us eating so I bought 3/4 lb of fish. Pre-heat the oven to 375 degrees. I placed the fish skin side down on a cookie sheet. I brushed it with olive oil, and then sprinkled 2 chopped garlic cloves and a littel kosher salt on the fish. Then into the oven. That is it, all there is to it. You just let the fish cook until you think it was done. We usually like our fish medium rareish, the inside is a always just a little undercooked. Most of you will probably like your fish cooked completely all the way through.

Accompaniment, can be anything, a salad, broccoli, brussel sprouts, potatoes, really anything goes with fish this way.

And viola, that is the fish I had for dinner Tuesday evening.

(Pizza) Muffins, they're not just for breakfast anymore!

Well, I did it. I made pizza muffins. It's amazing how a blizzard, and impromptu Superbowl party at my house, and no trips to the supermarket will spark the cooking imagination. Ok, fine, I have mentioned pizza muffins here before so I guess that wasn't imaginative, but Rob and I had homemade pizza the night before so I wasn't really in the mood to "just" have pizza again. I'm not sure if these are anything like what I vaguely recall making with my Dad, but they got rave reviews at the Superbowl party so I'm going to go with it.

First, you will need the dough recipe from here and the marinara recipe from here. You will also need grated mozzarella cheese, italian seasoning, crushed red pepper, olive oil, a muffin tin capable of making 12 muffins and Pam (or something like Pam). Pre-heat your oven to 400 degrees. Take your dough and divide into 12 little balls (I was only able to make 11 muffins, but I was too generous with my early dough balls and I was too lazy to remeasure to get the 12th but I am positive you can easily get 12 muffins out of 1 dough recipe. I promise.). Take your rolling pin (or empty wine bottle) and roll out each little ball into little round dough circles. After spraying the muffin tin with Pam, press each little round dough circle down into the muffin openings. You want there to be a bit of dough sticking above the top of each opening. After your press down all the little dough circles, brush them with olive oil and, using a fork, make little holes all around each dough circle to better aerate while baking. Place the muffin tin in the oven to pre-bake the dough, they should be in the oven for just a few mins, you want the dough to be slightly baked, but the edges over the top of the muffin tin should still be malleable.

In each muffin, place a dollop of marinara sauce in the bottom, stuff in a bunch of mozzarella cheese, and sprinkle with italian seasoning and crushed red pepper. Next carefully fold over the dough edges into the middle of the muffin tin. place another dollop of marinara sauce on top of the edges and a little bunch of mozzarella. Place back into the oven until the dough looks slightly browned and the cheese on top is bubbly. The muffins should be nice and firm at the bottom.

I left out a little bowl of warmed marinara for a dipping sauce as well. These muffins only had cheese and sauce in them, but I am sure you could add pepperoni, mushrooms, salami etc to the muffin, though you might have to sacrifice a little cheese and that, my friends, would be a travesty.

A slight disclaimer: I didn't actually eat one of these pizza muffins. I had had pizza the night before and was well, pizza'd out after making dough and smelling pizza smells for two days. But really I was told they were quite yummy. Maybe Rich will post a comment to corroborate that last statement :-) Hi Rich!

And voila, that is what I made for my Superbowl guests yesterday!

What's white and green and yummy all over?

Well a brief break from food, other than dry toast and chicken broth, has left me several posts behind from meals I made last week but never wrote about. We'll start with White Beans and Spinach. I borrowed this recipe from my Oma (Grandmother in German), I'm not sure I made in exactly as she did but it is how I remember it.

I made this because, well, Rob and I found ourselves with pretty much only spinach and beans in the house. Luckily we very much enjoyed this "stewy" meal. I do remember this having much more broth in it when Oma made it, so I think you can vary the amount you use based on what you are in the mood for.

For this recipe you will need: Olive Oil, 2 Garlic cloves, 1 medium onion, 1 can white beans (I used cannellini), 1 cup chicken or vegetable broth, 1 bunch spinach leaves, salt, and pepper. First we are going to mince the garlic and chop up the onion. In a skillet, pour in a couple of glugs of olive oil and turn the heat to medium, add the garlic and onions. While that is sauteing, drain and rinse the beans, and wash the spinach and remove the stems. Once the onion is nice and soft add the beans to the skillet, let them warm for a while and then add your cup of broth, cook until everything is bubbling. Now stir in handfuls of spinach until it is wilted, but still a nice green color. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

We ate the bean and spinach with just salt and pepper for seasoning. I think you could probably use many other seasonings to give this dish a different taste. I'll update if I make this again with other spices. I also think that some good toast, pumpernickel perhaps, would be good with this as well. So not the liveliest of posts, but a good hearty meal. A special thanks to Oma for giving me the recipe!

And voila, that is what I had for dinner one night last week.

When the moon hits your eye....

Let's talk about pizza. Pizza is wonderful. Pizza has cheese on it. Pizza can have pretty much anything you want on it. Making pizza dough is my earliest cooking memory; I think I was about 4 years old. I can remember vaguely making dough with my Dad, and then also making something called "pizza muffins" with the leftover dough.

I'm also from near New Haven, CT. The best pizza is from New Haven, CT (I'm a "Modern" person). In fact DC even has a "New Haven style" pizza restaurant, Pete's Apizza in Columbia Heights, their dough style tends more towards Sally's or Pepe's than Modern (they are saltier than I prefer, Modern slightly less salty), but it is definitely New Haven style. So I have spent a lot of time refining my pizza dough recipe. I have tweaked it many different ways; at this point I wouldn't say I'm done tweaking, but I'm pretty happy with where it is. This recipe will make enough dough for 2 thin crust pizza's or 1 thick crust.

Since we have switched to all whole grains here at Chateau Rob/Michelle, I have switched to a Whole Wheat pizza dough recipe. I also have been making dough for so long that I don't really measure out much stuff. I sort of eyeball things, I've given measurements that are about what I go for. For a few things I really do just use a pinch or a palmful, so try a pinch or a palmful, you can always change the amounts next time. For this recipe you will need: 1 1/4 cups warm water, 2 1/4 tsps Active dry Yeast (this is also the amount in 1 package of yeast), a pinch of sugar, 1/2 palmful of salt (preferably kosher), 2 glugs of olive oil, 1/2 cup unbleached white flour, 2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour, 2 pizza pans brushed with olive oil and sprinkled with corn meal (not necessary if you don't have any), and whatever toppings you would like.

"Michelle, wait, what do you mean 1/2 cup unbleached white flour? I thought this was whole wheat dough?" Well here's the deal, whole wheat flour made into dough, all by itself, well it's a little dry. In my tweaking of this recipe, I found that adding 1/2 cup unbleached flour, well it cuts the dryness. Makes the dough better. Trust me or ask Rob he was on the receiving end of all of my attempts.

First up we are going to take the warm water and pour it into a large glass mixing bowl. Add the yeast to the warm water, stir it, and let it sit for a few minutes. I let it sit until a see a few bubbles, or I get a good yeast smell from the bowl. This step allows the yeast to "wake up". Side note: always keep your yeast in the refrigerator, keeps it fresher and livelier, longer. Back to the bowl of water and yeast, after you let it sit, add the sugar, salt and 1 glug of olive oil, stir to mix. Now it is time for the flour, I start by adding the unbleached flour first, and then immediately 1/2 cup of whole wheat flour. Mix it all up, the bowl will be a watery gloppy mess. Next we are going to add the rest of the flour slowly, about a 1/2 a cup at a time, stirring constantly. At some point you really won't be able to stir any longer. You're going to need to mix it with your hands; get in there and knead the flour into the dough. After you have kneaded in all the flour, we are going to let the dough rise, pour the 2nd glug of olive oil over the dough, put saran wrap over the top of the bowl and wrap in a towel, or with a couple of hand towels, place in a warm spot. In total the dough will need a little over an hour to rise. After about 45 minutes I usually punch down the dough and then let it rise for 30 mins more.

If your dough is not rising, you could try turning your oven on, and placing the bowl on top of the stove top by the back vent, it will be warmer there. If it still isn't rising, well the yeast might not have been good, or the water not warm enough. In this case I suggest you throw out your dough, go to your takeout menu drawer and call the nearest pizza place. If it is early enough in the evening you can try again.

After the dough has risen, preheat the oven to 400 degrees, and split the dough in half. Lightly dust a clean counter top with flour and roll it out with a light floured rolling pin, or an empty wine bottle works just as well. You need to roll out the dough until it is slightly larger than the pizza pan you are using. While you are rolling out the dough, you should flip it over a few times. Once the dough is large enough place it on top of the pan, roll the edges over to form the crust. Then brush the dough with olive oil and using a fork aerate it. The aeration marks with keep the dough from bubbling when baking. Place the dough in the oven to pre-cook it for about 7 minutes. Yes 7 minute.

The pre-cooking will ensure that your crust can hold all of the toppings, and not be too limp. Now as for toppings, you can use whatever you would like, I'm personally fond of my marinara sauce, fresh basil, and buffalo mozzarella. Rob likes marinara, mushrooms, salami, and mozzarella. Be creative.

And voila, that is what I'm making for football watching tomorrow.