Lamb tenderloin with tomatoes and white wine reduction

Step 1: Travel to another country for a conference. Feel a bit lonely and sorry for yourself, because you miss your fiancé. Meet new people, work hard, and wish the local food were better.

Step 2: During the weekend break between the two weeks of the conference, walk to the local Farmers' Market with one of your new friends. Find a meat stand selling lamb tenderloin, and buy one (about 200g). Spend the afternoon hanging out and talking and having the best day all week.

Step 3: Call your fiancé on Skype. Crush four cloves of garlic and set aside. Slice in half eight plum tomatoes and set aside. Heat 100 ml cheap olive oil (the one the "guest house" stocks in your small shared kitchen) in a small sauté pan.

Step 4: With a sharp knife, trim the tenderloin of its membrane and remove the tendon. Meanwhile, discover that last night both you and your fiancé made whole wheat pasta with mozzarella cheese, tomatoes, fresh basil, crushed garlic, and olive oil. He had access to buffalo mozzarella and expensive olive oil. When the tenderloin is trimmed, add it to the hot pan.

Step 5: The tenderloin should begin to brown quickly. After a few minutes of discussion about bison steaks (your fiancé's dinner tonight, with sweet potato), turn the tenderloin. Pour yourself a glass of very cheap white wine, and a few minutes later add about a glass to the cooking meat (enough to get about 1/3 of the way up the side).

Step 6: The meat will cook quite quickly. Turn it once more, and check it with a knife: you want the meat still a little pink in the middle, but with no dark red. When it is cooked, remove it to a plate to relax. Add the halved tomatoes, skin side down, to the pan, all in a single layer. Sprinkle liberally with salt and white sugar. Cook for a few minutes.

Step 7: Destem some fresh thyme and add it to the garlic. When the tomatoes are starting to cook, turn them onto their faces in the wine-and-jus. Cook the tomatoes a few minutes longer, and then add them to your bowl with the mashed garlic and thyme. Toss to combine, and pour over the tenderloin.

Step 8: Bon appetite! You should eat everything in combination, but leave a pile of tomato skins on the side of your plate: the tomato flesh will separate easily, and the skins toughen with any heat. While writing up everything for your blog (you still miss your fiancé, afterall, and the blog reminds you of him), mop up the remaining juices with the leftover baguette from your bread-and-cheese lunch at the Farmers' Market.

Dehlinger Wine

A friend of mine makes very good wine. We drove up for their winter tasting our last weekend before heading to Oregon for Christmas. Since it gets dark early, we only got twilight pictures of the winery.

Christmas Eve and Christmas dinners

On Christmas Eve, or the day before if they will close, pick up two rabbits (about two and a half pounds each) from the butcher, along with half a pound of bacon. Have the butcher cut each rabbit into six pieces: the saddle into two, each hind leg, and the fore-section in half through the backbone (so that the forelegs are attached to the ribs). Each rabbit feeds four people, or three if they're very hungry.

From the fish market, collect live crabs (one per every two people) and oysters (small is easier; two to four per person).

Also have the following vegetables from the local organic market: lettuce for two nights, one head celery, a few carrots, some fennel, six or eight parsnips, and plenty of Brussels sprouts. I assume you have plenty of dried herbs and spices on hand, but be sure also to have some white wine for cooking, two pints of heavy cream, and your best wine for the table.

From the bakery, pick up a loaf of good bread for Christmas Eve, and another for Christmas for good measure (they'll be closed).

Early in the afternoon, prepare the rabbit. Remove the livers, hearts, and kidneys and set aside in a covered bowl in the fridge for some other project (the hearts can go in a bad labeled "soup stock", or saute them and enjoy; use the offal within a few days, says the internet). Transfer the meat to a large bowl, season generously with salt and pepper, and add ¾ cup prepared Dijon mustard, 2 teaspoons ground mustard seed, 2 cups heavy cream (or 1 ½ cup crème fraîche), 8 large garlic cloves (peeled and barley crushed), 4 bay leaves, 2 tablespoons fresh or 2 teaspoons dried thyme, and 2 tablespoons fresh chopped sage. Cut the ½ pound high-end thick-sliced bacon into ¼-inch lardons, and add to the rabbit. With your hands, smear the ingredients all over the rabbit pieces to mix and coat evenly. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

Bring water to a boil in every large pot you have. Get very good at pot-juggling.

Melt a tablespoon or two butter in a medium pan. Add most of a head of celery, chopped (save the rest of the celery in a bag labeled "soup stock"). You can also add a leek if you like. Salt the celery, cover the pot, and let it saute until the celery is very tender, about twenty minutes. When ready, transfer celery and 1 cup dry white cooking wine to a blender and puree until smooth. Return to the pot. Add another cup wine and one to two cups cream, and bring to a boil. Simmer a little, adjust the salt, and keep hot.

Meanwhile, wash the oysters, and then shuck them. (Or try to anyway. Discover that the shucking knife you bought at the grocery store is useless. Call all the neighbors asking to borrow a replacement, only to discover that none of your neighbors have ever shucked an oyster. Eventually get into the oysters with an old-fashioned can opener and a large flat-head screwdriver.) Provided you do not break two many shells, prepare a platter with some of the nicer oysters for serving on the half-shell as finger food while the family waits for dinner. Save the rest of the shucked oysters and their juices in a bowl set over a little ice.

When the water is fully a boil, cook the crabs. Twenty minutes is usually the right amount of time; drain them, rinse in cold water until you can handle them, and proceed to clean them out and break the bodies into two pieces each. Save the outer shells in a bag marked "crab stock". The yellow "crab butter" is good too (if you trust that your crabs came from a clean stretch of ocean), but not so much the mustard-colored stuff near the inner organs. Don't save the inner organs — the gills in particular you should throw away, as they accumulate pollutants throughout the crab's life. At the end of the meal, gather the shells for the crab stock bag.

Wash lettuce for a salad, and thinly slice the fennel bulb into it. Dress the salad lightly with a vinaigrette made with a nice white wine or champagne vinegar.

When the crabs are about ready, return the celery puree to a full boil, and add the shucked oysters and their liquid. Poach the oysters in the bisque for three to five minutes, and then serve in small bowls or tea cups.

Serve the oyster-and-celery bisque and the crabs with a good French or sourdough bread, and a fine white wine. The meal appreciates slightly sweeter table wines; this is a good night to have that expensive Riesling you've been saving.

Happy Christmas Eve!

Begin the following day with the traditional presents rituals and a large breakfast of quince pancakes with maple syrup.

In the mid-afternoon, remove the rabbit from the refrigerator and let it begin to return to room temperature. Preheat both ovens to 400°F, and get out every glass lasagna pan you have in the kitchen.

Transfer the rabbit to two 9x13 pans. The meat should fit in a single layer but fairly snugly. Pour all the sauce and bacon over the rabbit. Bake 1 hour, checking occasionally and turning the meat as it browns. The juices should reduce a bit; if they reduce too much, add some white wine or chicken broth or rabbit broth. The rabbit should be cooked throughout and browned on top when ready; serve in its pan and juices, and set a spoon out at the table along with the meat fork.

While the rabbit is baking, halve the Brussels sprouts and slice the parsnips into ¼-inch rounds. Butter two lasagna pans, one for the sprouts and one for the roots. Add the vegetables and mix each with some dried thyme and salt. Top each pan with slices of butter. Add some broth or wine to the Brussels sprouts, and cover them with foil. Bake both Brussles sprouts (covered) and parsnips (uncovered) for thirty minutes or so; check them occasionally, and stir them if you don't feel like they're cooking evenly.

Wash lettuce for a salad. Slice up some carrots and green peppers. Dress it with plenty of olive oil and red wine vinegar.

Open a very good bottle of red wine — we had the Cakebread merlot — and enjoy the company of your family while dinner is in the oven. Set the table with enough pads to protect the table from four different hot lasagna pans. Serve the feast.

Merry Christmas!

The rabbit in mustard sauce is from the inestimable Platter of Figs by David Tanis, and was definitely the high point of quite a few meals. The rest of the two dinners did not follow published recipes, but were also delicious.

Roast goat

Long-time readers of this blog know that a few years ago we were fairly committed vegetarians — I used to be the kitchen manager at a vegetarian/vegan co-op! But we have in the last few months started eating fish at every meal, and "lapsing" further: pork from our CSA, rabbit in Spain. I think we're currently not so much "vegetarians" as "Farmers' Marketarians".

To this end, for our second and final dinner with my dad in Eugene, we brought home two and a half pounds of leg-of-goat from the Eugene Saturday Market. We also bought potatoes, for mashing with garlic from my parents CSA; beets, onions, and carrots, for roasting with the goal; and green figs, for pickling. Yes, pickled figs: a week ago or so, B's uncle took us out to eat at Revival Bar and Kitchen (the new restaurant started by the owner of Venus), where I ordered the goat, and it was served with pickled figs. So, while I was out getting my hair cut, B began by bringing to a boil equal parts water and vinegar, with salt and whole cumin, and pouring the mixture over quartered figs packed into a jar.

Then he prepared the roast. (Did I mention that B did all the cooking, and made it all fantastic?) He chopped the root vegetables and layered them in a glass baking pan. We had some shallot-and-sage butter from the previous night, and he used it to stuff and tenderize the meat. The roast and a bouquet garni followed, and then red wine. He baked the roast for about an hour, basting it regularly. He added about half the figs near the end of cooking, and the acidity provided a nice counterpoint to the sugars in the root roasted root veggies.

Finally, B mashed some potatoes with the roasted garlic from the previous dinner. My dad broke out a particularly nice bottle of wine for the occasion, and we had a wonderful dinner.

Camping: farfalle with red sauce

For our last night camping, we made pasta. For the sauce, we sauteed onions and garlic, added bell peppers, mushrooms, and tomatoes, and topped it off with herbs we had brought from our garden at home. We served the dinner with the Pinot Noir from Territorial, a Willamette Valley vineyard.

Salmon baked with honey-mustard glaze; scallion mashed potatoes

Whenever we visit Ashland, we like to stay at the cute Columbia Hotel. Most of the rooms do not have private bathrooms — there are showers off the halls — but the room we stay in does have a kitchen (although it is small, with only a minifridge, and minimally equipped). Having a kitchen is a huge benefit when traveling: between dinner and breakfast, we save $40 or $50 per night, and we get to enjoy the cooking and the better food. Columbia Hotel also offers free wireless.

In previous visits to Ashland we've shopped at the Safeway. This time, we looked online, and found the excellent Ashland Food Coop. Organic almost-everything, decent wine selection, good produce and cheese — definitely the supermarket for us. We bought some Alaskan salmon and red potatoes; we baked the salmon with a glaze of mustard, honey, garlic, and olive oil, and we boiled the potatoes and mashed them with olive oil and minced scallions. To pair with the dinner we had a Pinot Gris from Montinore Estate, a Willamette Valley vineyard. It's amazing how much better Willamette Valley pinots (gris and noir) are than similar wines from almost anywhere else.

Nicoise salad with grilled tuna

S came over shortly before leaving for Austin, where she has now started law school. We made Niçoise salad, one of our favorite dinners, as readers of this blog know well. This salad featured grilled tuna in the center, surrounded by cooked shrimp, hard boiled egg, grated carrot, olives and capers, and fava beans, cherry tomatoes, and green beans all from the garden. S brought a nice bottle of wine, the merlot by Butner Cellars. We finished dinner with a blackberry pie.

Three dinners: Asparagus pizza; Pasta primavera; Broiled salmon with red wine reduction

Clams

One of our favorite television shows to watch before bed is Floyd on France, in which Briton Kieth Floyd wanders around France with his cameraman Clive, get drunk, and cook very good food in the kitchens of random French women. Oh, and it's all in the 1980s. In any case, Floyd gives very simple instructions for how to cook shell fish — mussels in his case, but it has become our clam recipe. Namely, coarsely chop onions and saute with a little salt and pepper in butter, and after not very long add plenty of white wine, the scrubbed shell fish, and coarsely chopped garlic and parsley. You do not need to cover the shellfish in the wine — you only need enough to provide some steam. Cover, cook about 10 minutes until the shellfish have opened, and enjoy.

Polenta gnocchi with leeks and peppers

Bring to a boil one cup water with two cups red wine and a small handful of salt. Then remove from heat, whisk in one cup corn meal, cover, and let the polenta cook for at least twenty minutes.

When the polenta has cooked, mix in an egg. Pour a small pile of semolina flour onto the counter, flour your hands, and roll the polenta into small gnocchi, rolling each gnocco in the semolina flour.

Julienne leeks, sweet peppers, and garlic, and sauté in olive oil, adding a little salt. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil, drop in the gnocchi, and cook until they float, about five to ten minutes. Remove the gnocchi from the water with a slotted spoon, toss with the vegetable sauce, and serve with red wine and pecorino cheese.

Billi Bi take one

We based this dinner on the following recipe from The Joy of Cooking (we simplified a lot):

Scrub individually with a vegetable brush:

• 3 pounds small mussels

Remove the beards. Discard any damaged mussels or those that do not close with a sharp tap on the counter. Place the mussels in a large soup pot with:

• 1 1/2 cups dry white wine
• 1/3 cup chopped shallots
• 5 sprigs fresh parsley
• 3 sprigs fresh thyme

Cover and steam over medium heat until the mussels are completely open. Discard any that do not open. Pour the cooking liquid through a sieve lined with several layers of dampened cheesecloth or paper towels into a medium saucepan. Bring to a low simmer. When the mussels are cool enough to handle, remove form their shells. Whisk together in a small bowl:

• 1 cup heavy cream or half-and-half
• 1 large egg yolk

Gradually whisk about 1 cup of the cooking liquid into the egg mixture, then whisk back into the saucepan. Heat gently, but do not boil. Season with:

• Salt to taste
• Pinch of ground red or white pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon curry powder

Ladle into warmed bowls. Garnish with the reserved mussels and sprinkle with:

• Snipped fresh chives

In particular, as you can see we did not remove and shell the mussels. We also did not strain the cooking liquid, having scrubbed the shells very well. The curry powder is perfect.

Red stew with tempeh, cabbage, leeks, and potatoes

My boyfriend and I were planning on a movie and a late dinner afterwards. I wanted a stew I could prep in twenty minutes or less, and leave simmering for two or more hours to eat upon return. I also wanted to use up the three-weeks-old half-bottle of red wine we had left from a picnic he and I had had.

In a dutch oven or large pot (the stew can cook in the oven or on the burner on low), combine:

• 1 red cabbage, cut into small pieces
  
• 1 lb tempeh, in large cubes
  
• 1 large leek, washed and cut into small pieces (with, as always, tips and roots reserved for a vegetable stock
  
• Up to a bottle of red wine — cooking wines that have started to go acrid are fine
  
• A fair amount of soy sauce, but not so much as to overpower anything
  
• A handful of star anise
  
• A spoonful of sugar
  
• Enough water so bring level close to covering, but not too much; cabbage will release liquid.

Cover, bring to boil, reduce to simmer, and let stew on low for more than an hour, but up to all afternoon. Ten minutes before you are ready to eat, bring back to high, and add

• 3/4 lb red fingerling or Russian Banana potatoes

and boil ten minutes. Serve in wide bowls.

Wine is a meat tenderizer, so this broth is great for stewing tough meats (guinnea hen, mutton, etc.). If you are not trying to play the timing game, you can also thicken the stew with some corn starch at the end and serve over rice.

Christmas Carnivory part 2: Guinea hen with red wine, leeks, and mushrooms

Originally posted on 26 December 2007.

For Christmas dinner, we always eschew the traditional ham (my brother and I do not eat mammal, and have not for many years) in favor of also-traditional fowl. Sometimes goose or duck (we also always go feed the ducks at the Millrace as an after-presents family activity, so rarely bring ourselves to feast on duck in the evening); last year's dinner was pheasant. This year we had guinea hen. Given my commitment to ethical eating, we make sure to purchase free-range grass-finished organic bird from trusted local suppliers; ours is a good town for finding such a product. The birds come whole, and the giblets should be saved in the freezer for later soup making.

Guinea hen can be an awfully dry bird, and is traditionally cooked with pork fat. Another popular meat tenderizer is to stew in red wine, which is what we did. Dried morel mushrooms are reconstituted in warm water (enough to cover), and leeks are cleaned, chopped, and cooked in butter. The guinea hen is quartered and browned in the butter on both sides. (Use a deep large saucepan with a bottom that can accommodate frying. You still may need to do the hen in batches, depending on how many people you are serving.) Then fit all the quarters into the pan, and add two to three bottles of inexpensive red cooking wine and the mushrooms with their mushroom-flavored reconstituting water (the mushrooms should be coarsely chopped). Also add yellow potato, washed and chopped into regular-sized pieces but not peeled.

Bring to boil, reduce to simmer, cover, and cook for some time.