Burrata Nada

The last two weeks we have made Sunday sojourns to San Francisco. The destinations varied but all ended with a trip through the Ferry Building Market Place. We picked up bread from Acme Bread, cheese from the Cowgirl Creamery counter and a bento boxes from Delica rf1. The bento boxes only last the length of the Golden Gate ferry ride back to Larkspur. The bread and cheese are horded as a gourmet treats for our weekly menus. Recent food articles have touted the luscious taste of burrata. Gioia, a Los Angeles cheese maker is reported to make a great version of burrata. The only problem is availability. The creamy cheese has a short shelf life and sells out quickly. One day we will try this cheese, I promise.

For the short term we will feed our cheese cravings with Parmesan cheese crisps, AKA fricos. Put a piece of parchment paper on a baking pan and sprinkle small piles of shredded Parmesan on it. Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven until they melt into spiderweb shapes. Remove from the oven and cool. If you are feeling really creative you can make the warm crisps into shapes by wrapping them around a rolling pin. They make a great garnish for salads and soups, but are just fine going from pan to mouth.

start with shredded parm

roll if you want to

Stackable Fricos

Great Minds Think Alike

Had a little scare this week and ended up in the emergency room. Turns out my overindulgence on Valentines day gave me a gas bubble the size of Texas. The bubble in turn mimicked a heart attack. After a night in the coronary care unit, a treadmill test and a whole bunch of needles I find my heart is strong. Good news to say the least.

While in the hospital my wife and friends brought me a boatload of healthy living magazines thinking I might get the hint. Upon my escape from the hospital I stopped at Trader Joe's and picked up some fruits and veg. One of the articles I read mentioned the health benefits of blueberries so I bought a couple of boxes. It turns out my wife had read the same article and had bought two boxes as well. What you going to do with all those blueberries? Let's make pancakes.

I would have made good old Krusteaz but my wife adapted the recipe from the Joy of Cooking. In my mind the best way to add blueberries to pancakes is push them into the batter after you put it on the griddle. When you flip them the berries heat, burst open and ooze out the top. Yummy stuff!

Here's to healthy living.

push berries into batter

berry berry good

Old is new again

It’s Valentine’s Day and I fell in love once again. Last Saturday my wife and I attended a party thrown by her company in San Francisco. We secured a great room rate so we decided to start our stay on Friday and have a mini vacation. It was a grand weekend.

It seemed to me that old was new again. Every part of our trip reminded me why I fell in love with San Francisco and my wife many moons ago. We stayed near the Fisherman’s Wharf, because the party was nearby. I know it’s touristy but the area holds some great memories for me. When I first came to the city my dad housed us in a motel near Bay and Columbus for several weeks until our house was ready. I remember it was round and for the life of me I can’t remember the name of it. My brother and I prowled the wharf and North Beach trying our best not to get in trouble but you know how that goes. We drank white port with the drum playing hippies down by the Hyde Street Pier which led to the worst hangover of my life. Imagine two young guys in the seventies with time and money to spend. Let’s just say it was “far out”. It wasn’t much later I met my wife and we went on our first official date. We went out to dinner on Fisherman’s Wharf where my wife freaked me out by ordering frog’s legs. Her legs were hot in a miniskirt but those frogs’ legs were nasty.

On our way to the hotel we walked through the Wharf area and were amused by the addition of a Hooter’s Restaurant. It seemed a little unlike San Francisco until we remembered The Condor Club and Carol Doda. I guess men’s fascination with breasts is timeless. On Friday we saw Beach Blanket Babylon, an old San Francisco tradition, for the first time. I laughed so hard I fogged my glasses. On Saturday we walked North Beach, Chinatown and Union Square. We ate lunch at another San Francisco tradition, Molinari’s Deli on Columbus. Try the Renzo’s special, a combination of fresh mozzarella; sun dried tomatoes, coppa, and prosciutto on a roll.

Sunday we were slightly hung over by Saturday’s adventures but we made a few more observations about the city. The old Ferry Building is new again. Beautiful old street cars glide the Embarcadero where the hideous raised freeway once stood. A portion of the Embarcadero is now called Herb Caen Way. I miss Mr. Caen. I laughed and cried at his funeral. I submit to you that Herb Caen was a blogger before there was a weblog.

I had a great time with a lovely wife in a beautiful city. What’s not to love?
Have a happy Valentines Day.

I left my heart in San Francisco

Souper Bowl

Today is Super Bowl. Of course we'll have all the standard snacks, burgers,beer and such. Go team !

Instead of Super Bowl, today's blog is about soup. Earlier in the week my daughter brought home some canned roasted garlic and potato soup from the supermarket. It was nasty! I decided to use up some of foodstuffs hanging around the house to create an edible version of this soup.

I peeled four large baking potatoes and cut them into six pieces each. Two large sweet onions were peeled and cut in quarters. Both were put in a bowl with two glugs of olive oil, salt and pepper and tossed to coat. They were poured on a baking sheet and placed into a 400 degree oven.Two whole heads of garlic, with tops removed and a drizzled with olive oil ,were wrapped in foil and placed on the same baking pan.

My oven took about 45 minutes to cook everything. The cooked vegetables were placed into a large pot with a quart of chicken stock and simmered for 20 minutes. The soup was put into a blender and pureed. Be careful at this point because the product is screaming hot and tends to expand when blended. The blended soup was placed back into the soup pot and heated. I added four ounces of heavy cream and two handfuls of grated Parmesan Cheese. The resulting soup appears to be quite popular because it has disappeared at a rapid pace.

Flip That Toast

In addition to my self admitted fascination to cooking shows I have been recently enthralled by home improvement shows. The most favored are Flip That House and Property Ladder both of The Learning Channel (TLC). It’s a kick to watch naïve and, for the most part, unskilled people redecorate homes to try and turn a profit. They stumble and bumble while in the end they have a magically transformed money maker on their hands.

We are not ready to sell our place, but it has some miles on it and is in need of some improvements. Watching these shows has emboldened us to give do it yourself a try. If those knuckleheads can do home improvement why not us? Our first project began yesterday. We decided to cut down half the wall between the kitchen and living room to add a counter bar. Milwaukee Sawzall in hand we demolished lots of sheetrock and other good stuff. Happy with our day’s work I looked at my wife who had a lovely patina of sheetrock dust covering her. It kind of reminded me of powdered sugar on French toast.

Guess what I made for brunch today? You guessed it French toast, stuffed French toast to be exact. A simple recipe I’ve had on my mind for a while. I wish I could remember where I saw it first so I could give credit. But my mind fails.

I began by making a cream cheese and cherry jam sandwich on egg bread. I dipped each side of the sandwich in a mixture of beaten egg, heavy cream and a splash of vanilla. Then I pan grilled them in a little melted butter. Shook on powdered sugar and feeling decadent drizzled on some maple syrup. I have to say the results of both my projects were fulfilling,



Stuffed French toast

Little Burgers

I was kicked back watching Giada De Laurentiis’s new show Weekend Getaways. The location was Cascadia Restaurant in Seattle. During happy hour the restaurant offers their Miniburgers at a dollar apiece. My attention was immediately piqued. I grabbed the Tivo remote and replayed several scenes that showed the making and serving of the burgers. The presentation was inventive and I just wanted to reach into the television and snatch one of the little guys. Why did this product evoke such a reaction? It took me a couple of days to figure out.

During my teen years growing up in Maryland, just outside Washington D.C. one only had to be eighteen to drink beer. The identification cards of that day were not sophisticated and an enterprising seventeen year old could make a reasonable copy and go party in D.C. After the party one would stop at The Little Tavern hamburger stand whose motto was “buy ‘em by the bag”. I won’t entirely date myself and tell you the price but they were little, cheap and four or five hit the spot after a few brews. The little square patties of beef were cooked on a flat top grill with dehydrated onions and placed on little square buns. Later in life I found out that this recipe was probably a rip off of White Castle. At the time they really seemed unique. Well doctor, that’s what evoked a happy response to the burgers. That’s it! Little burgers + brew = party.

With The Super Bowl coming up how can I get some little burgers? Little Tavern is long since gone. Cascadia has a catering branch that will come out and cook some of their Miniburgers on site. They even have a Mini Cooper painted up real cool with their logo. This low bucks blog doesn’t have the coin to drag the Cascadia crew to Nor Cal from Seattle. Guess what? Sometimes you got to do things for yourself.

Life’s a Picnic little burgers.

The Menu
Little Burgers with condiments

Food Cost

40 cents each

Logistics
Just like hamburgers only smaller. Two ounce portions of ground beef with a 25% fat ratio were formed using a metal ring.

Small dinner rolls from the local super substituted for hamburger rolls.

It's a party!

Family Dinner

Without thinking about a reason or motivation I've removed myself from the blogosphere for a while now. Work and family life have separated me from my passion/addiction of food and bloggging. Just this week I've started taking a peak at the food news and felt that urge to jump back into the pool. I stumbled across several mentions of Thomas Keller's new restaurant Ad Hoc in Napa. The writers described family style service of luscious home style dishes at $45 dollars a person before beverage, wine, tax and tip. I thought about my shoestring budget, did the math and determined that if I took my family of six to this restaurant I would set myself back close to 500 large. Could I come close to feeding my gang a menu like that at Ad Hoc and not break the bank? I could and here's the result.

The Menu
Smoasted Trip Tip (smoked/roasted) with Chimichurri Sauce
Roasted fingerling potatoes and asparagus
Sautéed crimmini mushrooms with sherry and butter glaze
Mesclum salad with Meyer lemon dressing
Giant Cream Puffs from Costco
Two Buck Chuck Merlot

Food Cost
$55

Logistics
The Trip was brushed with olive oil and seasoned with salt, pepper and garlic powder. Cooked on a Weber Kettle with charcoal and mesquite wood.

Mushrooms were sautéed in olive oil and chopped garlic. Sherry added and reduced. Butter melted in after cooking.

Fingerling potatoes and asparagus roasted in 350 degree oven with a little olive oil

Come on over I’ll only charge you $25 a person including wine!