Oh Hey its Pozole!

Dad got a little excited over the weekend to cook and broke out the La Caja China and some pork. What resulted was a 20 lb pork leg slow roasted for 12 hours with nowhere to go. So for the past week, we have been eating pork, and lots of it. A success that was turned into dinner then lunch and lunch again was Pozole, a yummy Mexican corn and pork soup. Traditionally, the soup is cooked with the pigs head and trotters, put in the pot in the morning and cooked on a slow simmer for the entire day. I didn't have that, but I still wanted to keep the soup as traditional (and yummy) as I could. My family thought it was successful, but the true test was to bring a bowl to my co-worker, born and raised in Mexico and claims to have a mean pozole himself. The result? ¡Que Delicioso!

Recipe:
For Soup 
2 Tablespoon cooking oil
1 onion, finely sliced
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 jalapeno, seeds removed, sliced
4 stalks celery, chopped
1 Tablespoon cumin
1 Teaspoon coriander
1/2 Teaspoon each salt and pepper {more to taste}
1 T ground chili (ancho chili powder if you have it)
1 Tablespoon oregano (Mexican oregano if you can get it)
Approx 2 pounds SLOW ROASTED pork leg (could be shoulder, or the aforementioned head and trotters)
1/2 Cup Tequila
29 oz can of hominy corn
32 oz chicken broth
32 oz water

For Salsa Roja
2 dried pasilla peppers
2 dried guajillo peppers
2 Tablespoons cooking oil
1/2 onion
4 clove garlic
1 Teaspoon oregano
1/2 Teaspoon cumin
1/2 Teaspoon salt
Juice of one lime


Okay, don't be concerned by the long list of ingredients. Its super easy to throw together and all you have to do is walk away and let it simmer for some time. And for me, it was way faster with having the pork cooked aka perfect for a bunch of leftover pork!


To start, grab a soup pot to cook in. Slice the dried peppers for the Salsa Roja in thin strips, remove the sees and place in a bowl of water for them to rehydrate.  Over medium heat, saute the onions in the oil until just translucent. Add the garlic, jalapeno, and celery cooking till celery is just soft. Careful not to burn the garlic! Add the spices, (all of em!) and cook until you start to smell them, about a minute. Add tequila, and cook down till its not such a sharp alcohol smell, approximately two minutes. Add the chicken broth and water and hominy corn. Now is where the recipe could change. If starting with RAW meat, add and cook for at least one and a half hour, or at least till the meat is falling off the bone, but please please consult another source to make sure!!  If starting with COOKED meat, cut into a bit smaller then bite size and cook for about twenty minutes, till the meat is soft and warmed through.


Either way, while the meat is cooking or re-heating, make the Salsa Roja! Grab the now soaked peppers from the bowl of water, careful to save about 1/2 cup of the 'soaking' water for reserve. Saute the onion and garlic on low till the onion is translucent. Add the spices and cook about a minute. Add the peppers, onion mix, lime juice and reserved water into a food processor and pulse till smooth. I didn't toss any of the reserve water till I was confident that salsa was smooth enough in the processor. 


When the meat is done (whichever way you choose) add the Salsa Roja to the mix and simmer for about ten minutes. Serve up in soup bowls with all the traditional fixings-cilantro, avocado, radishes, and my favorite crumbled cotija cheese. 

I would be interested to try a non-traditional Pozole now. Maybe with lamb and some Moroccan or Greek spices and vegetables??  Possibilities are endless.


Thanks to RadioGastronomy and Good Food, Good Wine, and a Bad Girl for recipe help!!!

Over the River & Through the Woods to the Sonoma Coast We Go

Sometimes it takes an outsider to introduce you to something that is right in your own backyard. In this case, two people, one from Washington and the other from Tennessee showed me a plentiful treasure known in my own Sonoma Coast this time of year, as mushrooms. We set out on a gorgeous Saturday morning, five people with muckboots, baskets, and field guides, in a search for our own gold-chanterelles.

Perfect place for finding treasures

Sadly, we weren't the only people who had treasures on our minds, and though the drive was effortlessly beautiful, it became quite important to find our own secret "X" on the map. Spot one turned out to be nothing but a false alarm, and the what seemed like endless row of cars parked on the side of the road, we finally found our mile marker.

Searching for mushrooms is a very interesting task. First of course, is the finding of a good spot, not trampled and picked over. Second, is not picking up mushrooms that could kill you. Third, is not picking up the mushrooms that are going to inhibit your driving skills (amongst others) for the next few hours. Our goal was that elusive chanterelle, a wildly sought after edible mushroom, first gaining popularity in French cuisine in the 1700s. Since, they have been harvested for use in personal and professional kitchens alitke. Our hope, since the season started a few months ago, and tapers off in a few weeks, was that we would be lucky enough to find some left, or some new growth after a perfect combination of weather in the last few days.

All these pictured here, not what we were looking for, but beautiful nonetheless

After about five hours of searching, one lunch, two spots, and ten muddy feet later, we ended our treasure hunt with less gold than we had hoped, but something equally as exciting, black trumpet mushrooms.

Trumpets sounding

The black trumpet is hard to spot, as it seems to perfectly blend in with the dirt, moss, and decaying wood around it. People can literally walk over patches of it. Once we found our first batch, our eyes became more peeled then before, looking for these little guys. Once we felt as we had our fill we headed back to town.

One of  the baskets of goods

Upon returning back to town, we decided to make a homemade pizza with our bounty. The dough was almost focaccia-like, fluffy and perfectly crisped. We topped the pizza with a scrounged together pesto (the best with just basil, garlic, olive oil and walnuts), shredded some cheese (Parmesan and mozzarella), topped with some various veggies, and proudly laid those trumpet mushrooms all across the dough.

Preparing the dough

Spreading the pesto

Almost gone

 

 

One of my slices, a whole perfect black trumpet in one bite.

The meal was fabulously homemade and went perfectly with the mushrooms. It was just quite the legendary day, filled with all the treasures a girl needs.

Ski Bum

Living in Northern California, I am very fortunate to live so close to one of the States most beautiful areas, Lake Tahoe. I have spent at least seven of the last ten days in Tahoe, skiing, snowboarding, sledding, basically being the biggest ski bum I could possibly be before heading into some semi-sorta real world life for a little while. The first weekend was spent in South Shore, for some New Years celebrating, and some fresh powder on New Years Morning.

Early Morning Snow

10 am blizzard

Frolicking

New Years Day was spent in the fresh snow, cooking for some friends (and friends cooking for me), and a fabulous rowdy game of Taboo.

I braced home for two days before heading back up to the snow with the family for four nights. With a house full of 18-24 year old boys and girls (the house held 15 and my parents were the only 'adults'), we planned feasts to feed the masses. Days were spent skiing our hearts out, and nights were pleasantly filled with good food, wine and great people. Night one had rib-eye steaks, night two was a duck chili that had been simmering on the stove for two days, night three had ribs slow roasting in the oven for five hours, and night four we had roast beef.

Cheers to a great day

Ribs, potatoes, broccoli

Slicing the roast

Whewwww! Then there was dessert, a Dutch Apple Pie from Ikeda's, which was eaten too quickly to get a photo of but for anyone who is heading to North Shore from the Bay Area, a stop at the cute country store is a must. We also brought up some Payard chocolates from New York, and Peanut Butter Cups from Bert's Desserts in Petaluma. Both very decadent and delicious.

Pretty patterns

Like a Reese's but WAY better

Of course, you can't forget breakfast, in which a pound of bacon was eaten in the morning. Hello food coma. Luckily, the skiing burns a calorie or two!

Kitchen-ing

In my now month-plus I have been at home from Europe,  I have been experimenting with different recipes. I think while I was there I gained so much more knowledge about food and cooking. I learned that recipes can be altered, and often should to fit your everyday needs. I discovered that sometimes the most simple few ingredients can make the best meals. But most importantly, I think I gained confidence in myself, and in my cooking. I know that I do not want to be a chef. The hours are long, and its a brutal life. I look at most chefs in awe, how can they accomplish such food-feats five, six, seven nights a week is something that I never could do. However, I also know that I love to cook, it is a stress relief, it is comforting, it allows me to spend time with the ones I love.

So my time in my slightly-dysfunctional family kitchen, is time well spent. Though lacking in space, it does not lack in kitchen-utensils, as Dad is some sort of kitchen tool junkie. Food processors, knives of any kind, and enough tongs for each day of the week, I am never short handed. I spend spare time rummaging through dusty recipe books on the shelves and scouring sleek blogs on the computer. I believe I have enough recipes saved that I could cook three times a day and still not get through them all in a year. But the fun is comparing, seeking the similarities and adding my own spin on them to make them different.

Most recently, I took a simple staple-the Meatloaf-and transformed it to its more sophisticated, rich cousin. Meet the DuckLoaf.

 Ok, so its hard to make any sort of Meatloaf look great in a picture. But let me tell you, this was good, great even. I will admit, it is slightly easier to make duckloaf when duck is the family business, but, as I said before, I had been altering recipes to do my own thing.

I started with Saveur's Meat Loaf recipe and expanded from there, enjoying the use of a newly found again food processor. To try your own Duck Loaf, here's what you need:

1 lb Lean (or the fattiest you can find) Ground Chuck
Approx 1 lb duck breast (I used two skinless breast and one with the skin on)
1 and a half large red onions
5 (or so) garlic cloves
Olive Oil
1 Egg
1 Cup Bread Crumbs ( I started with a purposely stale loaf of Della Fattoria's fabulous bread, cut into pieces, toasted, then processed in the food processor to make  crumbs)
1 8-oz can of tomato sauce (perferably your own, or organic)
1 T each salt and pepper (more or less each, depending on your tastes)
Ketchup and BBQ sauce for the top

For the recipe:

1-Take the meat out of the fridge and let it warm up to about room temperature, so much easier to cook with
2-When the meat is warmed, heat the oven to 350 degrees
3-In a food processor, pulse the duck meat until it is coarse. It does not have to be as ground as the chuck, but should be in fairly small sizes. Put the duck meat and the ground chuck in a bowl.
4-Peel both the onion and the garlic, then using the food processor again, pulse into small pieces (smaller then diced, is what I did, but a "diced" size would be okay too)
5-Heat some olive oil in a pan, and add the onion and garlic, sauteing for about ten minutes or until the onions are translucent. Once it has cooled off to the point you could touch it, add to the meat in the bowl
6-Add the egg, bread crumbs, and can of tomato sauce to the bowl and mix it all well, and I think that works best with just your hands (why the onions/garlic should be cooled off enough)
7-Place the mixture into a loaf pan, with the top shaped in a crown
8-Spread enough Ketchup and BBQ sauce on the top. I used Bone Suckin' Sauce, a North Carolina-style BBQ Sauce

9-Cook the Duck Loaf for about 45 minutes, or until it reaches an internal temperature of 150 degrees

10-Serve, and enjoy!!

I served it with a mashed potato. I cooked the potatoes in boiling water, then mashed with butter, sour cream, and heavy cream. I put them in another loaf pan (it was what I had handy), sprinkled the leftover bread crumbs I had made over the top, and placed them in the oven alongside the "loaf" for about 30 minutes.


It was a super yummy and successful meal. The best part almost came two days later, when we made a ragu with the leftover meatloaf. I am ever so encouraged to keep on cooking in the kitchen, exploring new foods to try and new techniques to tackle. And sometimes, maybe a variation on a old staple,  just might become your new favorite dish.

Giving Thanks

Thanksgiving.  A time of good friends, good family times, and hopefully some good eats. My Thanksgiving was absolutely lovely this year and very luckily was spread over a few weeks. Yes I said it, a few weeks.

It started out a couple of weekends ago at Slow Food’s 4^th annual “Renewing America’s Food Traditions” dinner. The event every year is put on to raise awareness and raise money for the 4H Heritage Breed project. For seven years, 4H kids have raised heritage breed turkeys to sell at Thanksgiving time. It helps not only bring our community closer by bringing the consumer back together again with the producer, but helps preserve heritage breeds from disappearing from our tables.

This year, Slow Food Russian River teamed up with bio-dynamic and very sustainable winery Quivira, to put on a wonderful event. Quivira is nestled quaintly in the Dry Creek Valley, among Sonoma County’s most beautiful vineyards and hills. The dinner was skillfully put together by Chris Cosintino and the rest of his crew at Incanto in San Francisco and included some turkey that had been raised by the kids.

Chris, browning the Confit Turkey wings

Chris and one of Quivera's freshly picked onions

Loading up the cooker with the turkey and lamb

Chris and Tony in the kitchen

Fabulous Salumi Spread pre-dinner. Courtesy of Fatted Calf and Perbacco

Live music

Quivira's Gardens

Heritage Turkey Dinner for 100

Turkey Breast, Turkey Thigh, Confit Wings along with Quivira''s Carrots and Parsnips

Towards the end of the meal, Sonoma County native, Rex Williams, auctioned off nine of the beautiful turkeys that the kids had raised.

Auctioning so fast you can't even see him!

The event raised a lot of money for Slow Food Russian River and most importantly the 4H kids and their projects. Last week, the fun continued with the “transforming” of the turkeys and of course, the distribution for Thanksgiving. Dad’s office was distribution center and we spent two days distributing and delivering 225 Heritage Turkeys, with the 4H kid’s help again. These kids work hard and take pride in what they do, staying involved in the whole process.  For more information about heritage breeds in general, check out the America Breeds Livestock Conservancy.

Tradition seemed to be in the forefront of my own Thanksgiving, celebrating at our dear family friends house. Our job? Bring a pumpkin pie. I was very lucky this year in my harvest 

Planted seeds, Go to Europe for three months, come home to this!!

I planted pie pumpkins specifically, in anticipation that I would hopefully be making a pie. So Thursday morning, I roasted, pureed, and made a pie out of that pumpkin.

Roasting

SO proud of my homemade crust!

I tried the dough press for the middle decor, but took it off mid-cook because it lost this shape. But it looks good for this photo!

I think it turned out ok, especially since I brought home an empty pie pan! You can find the recipe here. The rest of our meal was very traditional, very beautiful, and most importantly, very good.

The boys

One of TWO turkeys for the 24 of us!

Maggie's fantastic butternut, pomegrante salad

The Spread

The plate of plates!

I have to give my thanks to my friends and family. I have been very lucky and very fortunate to have amazing experiences this year and none of it could have been done with out them.

Alba & Out!

I think this may be my last post from my trip abroad. It has now been two weeks since I have been home, and I think it is time to hang up the hat on this one. It has been delightfully busy since I have been back, and should have posted this a long time ago. But there was just one more excursion that I must write about. Just an hour away from Torino, where all the Slow Food activities took place is a town called Alba. Alba is known for one of my most favorite foods, the white truffle. But, it is also nestled in between some of Piedmont’s delicious wineries.

Hills around Alba

Dad and I had the very fortunate chance to go along wine tasting with Ron, with some of our friends from Lagunitas Brewery,  who had their beers proudly on display in the Salone Del Gusto. We left Torino on a cold and rainy day, and carefully followed their car up into the hills above Alba. Our destination was Pietro Rinaldi, a family-run operation since the 1920’s. Monica and Paolo, the owners and operators, opened up their home for the tasting and lunch. They served a delightful yet simple meal full of yummy antipastos and pasta.

Outside their home, the dog is in the wine barrel

Homemade ragu

Cheese, a mix between sheep and cows milk, with homemade jams

Along with the food, we tasted six of their wines and thoroughly enjoyed them all. 

Four of the Six

They take pride in what they make and really like to have fun with the wines. They were all fabulous, and I really enjoyed their 2009 Moscato called D’Ampess, which they explained meant its liking meeting a friend you haven’t seen in a long time. 

Naturally, since we were in Alba, we had to have some of their infamous truffles. We had dinner the night of the wine tasting in the middle of the heart of Alba

The Main Church

I had nice pasta called Tajarin, an egg pasta that is a favorite in the area. It is a perfect accompaniment to the truffles, I just only wished I had more truffles!

Bringing them out to the table

Box of truffles!

Check out a similar  RECIPE here

The next day was our final day in Alba, and Dad’s final day in Italy. I sought out the truffles again and we managed to find a wonderful restaurant in a back alley called Osteria La Libera.  We walked right in and immediately got seated for their lunch service. For starters, Dad ordered a GREAT crudo.

The kitchen

THE crudo

For the main coarse, I ordered, of course, another pasta with truffles. But this was completely different then the night before. First, it had oodles and oodles of truffles on it, shaven right in front of me, so they we fresh. Second, it was one ravioli, stuffed with a pecorino and spinach. And third, it had an egg on it, so once cut into, egg yolk just oozed down the sides. Fantastic!

The smell of these guys permeated the whole restaurant

Shaving away

Helllloooooo Truffles

As if lunch couldn’t get any better, we got dessert, and it was just heavenly. Dad ordered a pannacotta that he argues is one of the best, if not THE best one he has ever had. I ordered a chocolate soufflé with a fabulous cinnamon ice cream (my new obsession) and some caramel. YUM

Pannacotta

Souffle

Oozing with chocolatey goodness

It was the perfect way to end the trip with Dad. We packed up the car and he head back out to the West Coast of California, while I headed up North to Switzerland to meet up with Lexi again. The food was uber expensive so Lexi and I cooked in our really awesome hostel.  It was really good food that we made, but what was missing with the foods was replaced with views. Just fantastic!

Interlaken

Interlaken

"Hello Swan!" Cue Sex & the City 2 reference...

Hiking in Grindenwald

Gettin' in touch with the locals

Lexi & I in Interlaken

Hellooooo Glacier

Montreaux

 And that’s it! I left Switzerland for two nights in Milan, which I wrote about here. I couldn’t believe that my trip had ended and to be honest, now that I have been home for two weeks, it seems so surreal that I was there. I had so much fun, met so many amazing people and most of all, ate some REALLY good food.

But really, that’s not it! Well it is for Europe, but my adventures in food (& wine) are still continuing up in Northern California and beyond. So stayed tuned for them. This area has so much to offer, to see and explore, and to taste. So really, I’m just getting started….