Eating My Way Across LA

Recently I had to go to Los Angeles for business. While there, we ate at Gratitude, a wonderful vegan/raw food restaurant where other people seem to spot celebs left and right. Not me - I'm basically clueless and (I suspect) more interested in looking at my food that some vaguely familiar schmuck also trying to just get a meal.

This time I had "Warm-hearted". The fun thing about Gratitude is that they set the plates down and tell you you are whatever it was that you eat -- "You *are* Warm-hearted!" This never fails to crack me up.

Warm-hearted is grilled polenta, topped with mushroom ragu, sautéed spinach, cashew ricotta, brazil nut parmesan,  and basil. I think J will love it, and it will improve my vegan offerings.

Vegan Brazil Nut Parmesan Cheese

The original recipe is from here. 

Ingredients
	1 Cup Brazil nuts
Method	1 teaspoon chopped garlic 1/3 teaspoon salt Place nute, garlic and salt in food processor and pulse until combined. That's it! Be sure to store it in the fridge in an airtight container.

Cashew Ricotta
The original recipe is from here.

Ingredients
	1 1/2 cup raw cashews, soaked
	1/2 cup water
	juice of 1 large lemon or 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
	1 tablespoon nutritional yeast*
	1 garlic clove
	dash of onion powder
	himalayan sea salt and cracked pepper, to taste
Method	Soak the cashews for at least two hours in a bowl of water, covering the cashews about an inch of water as they will puff up a bit.
	Drain cashews and place all remaining ingredients into a blender or food processor, blend scraping down sides as needed until creamy. Taste for flavors adding any additional ingredients. Some like a salty ricotta so feel free to add as much salt as you want.
	Store in refrigerator in an air tight container for an hour or two, this will stiffen the mixture a bit. You can also just prepare your dish with it straight away without refrigeration if needed.
	Makes appx. 2 cups. Stores in refrigerator for up to a week.
	*You could do just as well without the nutritional yeast if you don't have it. I only added a small amount, probably pretty unnoticeable. I will be trying more next time to play around with it a bit. If you do add it, it will add a bit more cheesy flavor and some good nutritional value.

Haricots Verts and Artichoke Salad with Hazelnut Vinaigrette

Well, the holidays are over, and life is slowing down a little at Chez Felgerts. We are mostly just trying to get through this freaky cold winter we seem to have been dealt this year. I renewed my subscription to Food & Wine because I like it, but also because they offered me a free subscription for a friend. So I'm hoping Julie will be also cooking some of the yummy recipes and invite us over to enjoy them!

 

Tonight we had rotisserie chicken made on our little rotisserie that makes the nicest, juiciest chicken you can imagine. I decided to try the Haricots Verts and Artichoke Salad to go with it. It was a little fussy. I think next time I would just try using the frozen artichoke hearts, rather than having to prepare, cook, and de-choke a couple of fresh artichokes. Especially since it's winter and heaven only knows where those came from!

You can read the original recipe here.

Haricots Verts and Artichoke Salad with Hazelnut Vinaigrette

 

Ingredients

2 large artichokes
1 pound haricots verts (I used fresh green beans because that's what I could get)
3 tablespoons hazelnut oil
1 tablespoon peanut oil
1 tablespoon sherry vinegar
Kosher salt
Freshly ground pepper
2 tablespoons finely chopped shallot
3 tablespoons chopped, toasted hazelnuts

Method

1. Fill a medium bowl with water. Working with 1 artichoke at a time, snap off the tough outer leaves and trim the stem. Cut off all the remaining leaves. Peel and trim the bottom and stem; add to the water. Repeat with the remaining artichoke.
2. In a medium saucepan of salted boiling water, cook the artichokes over moderate heat until tender, 18 to 20 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer them to a cutting board; let cool slightly. Scoop out the furry chokes with a melon baller or spoon. Cut each into quarters.
3. Prepare a medium bowl of ice water. In the same saucepan, cook the haricots verts for 3 minutes. Drain and transfer to the ice water to cool; drain. Dry on paper towels, then cut in half.
4. In a large bowl, whisk the hazelnut oil, peanut oil, sherry vinegar, salt and pepper. Add the beans, artichokes and shallot; toss. Sprinkle with the hazelnuts and serve.

Rosemary Citrus Sparkler

It seems like most of my friends don't drink much anymore. I can invite over most of the family of choice and we won't finish off a single bottle of wine. But on an occasion, it is nice to be able to offer a cocktail -- or "mocktail" if you can stand that moniker! Here's one that is really wonderful. I made the syrup up a few days in advance and saved it in the fridge. The big night, we poured an ounce over ice and topped with seltzer. Try it! You will love it!

The original recipe came from here. I've modified it.


Rosemary Citrus Spritzer

Ingredients:
Zest of 2 oranges
Juice of lemons and oranges to make a cup of juice. I used Cara Cara oranges and Meyer lemons
3/4 cup sugar
4 3" pieces of Rosemary, washed

Ice
Sparkling water

Instructions:
Add the lemon zest, lemon juice, orange juice, sugar, and rosemary to a small saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat.  Boil the mixture for one minute, stirring constantly, then remove the pan from the heat and let it sit for about 10 minutes.  Strain out the solids and pour the syrup into a container.  Refrigerate it until you’re ready to use it.

To serve, add ice to a glass, pour in as much gin as desired, add a couple of tablespoons of rosemary citrus syrup, and top with sparkling water

Meemaw's Pate

The last time we were in Paris (I love the way that sounds!), we had lunch at a restaurant famous for it's Onion Soup. Au Pied de Cochon is within sight of Les Halles  if I recall correctly. And the soup was good. But as is often the case, it isn't the soup that has made that meal one of my favorites. It was the little pot of pork spread that was on the table, like we would offer olive oil or butter.

And was it good! I don't know what all was in this delicious, soft, porky, spread but it was worth every calorie. For a while I mistakenly thought I had been feasting on pate, but now I'm better educated and know that it was pork rillettes that I was feasting on. But that's what got me interested in trying to make pate or rillettes myself.

So, for this year's New Year's Eve feast I decided that I would give pate a try. I didn't have the darling little crocks needed for rillettes, and I was afraid I would have so much of the stuff that it would never be eaten. I did a lot of research, and decided that the kind of pate I wanted to make was a country-style pork pate. I looked at a lot of recipes, and finally settled on this one, which I modified and cut in half.

Out of the pan, ready to cut

Charcuterie Plate 2013!

Post dinner report: The pate was a huge hit! Although it was risky to make something for the first time for the dinner, it was a success. Delicious!

Country Style Pork Pate

Makes about a small loaf


1 tablespoons unsalted butter
2large shallots, minced
3/4 pounds ground pork
1/4 pound pork shoulder, cut by hand into small pieces.
8 slices of bacon, 2 chopped into small pieces and the others left whole
2 chicken livers, rinsed, patted dry, trimmed, and cut into ½‐inch pieces
1 large egg
1/4 cup cognac
1/6 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoons minced fresh thyme
1 garlic clove, minced
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
⅛ teaspoon ground nutmeg
⅛ teaspoon ground cloves
⅛ teaspoon ground ginger
 3/8 cup shelled pistachios, toasted and chopped coarse
3 fresh bay leaves

1. Adjust oven rack to lowest position and heat oven to 350 degrees. Bring kettle of water to boil.
2. Melt butter in 10-inch skillet over medium heat. add shallots and cook until softened, about 5 minutes. remove from heat and let cool to room temperature.
3. Mix pork, chopped bacon, and chicken livers together in large bowl until thoroughly combined. In separate bowl, beat eggs, cognac, and cream together with fork until combined, then stir in thyme, garlic, salt, pepper, nutmeg, cloves, and ginger. Add egg mixture, softened shallots, pistachios, and peppercorns to meat mixture and mix with your hands until thoroughly combined.
4. Arrange bay leaves, bright green side down, in the loaf pan. Line pan with bacon slices. Transfer pâté mixture to bacon-lined pan, using hands to press mixture firmly into pan (pan will be very full). Fold bacon slices over mixture and cover tightly with aluminum foil.
5. Place pan in 13 by 9-inch baking dish and transfer to oven. Pour boiling water into baking dish until it comes halfway up sides of pan. Bake pâté until it registers 165 degrees, about 1.5 hours.
6. Remove pan from baking dish and transfer to rimmed baking sheet. Place heavy skillet or small baking dish filled with heavy cans on top of pâté to weigh down. Let cool at room temperature for 1 hour. Remove skillet and refrigerate pâté until completely chilled and set, about 8 hours.
7. Fill baking dish with hot water. Place pâté (still in loaf pan) in baking dish for 1 minute. Remove foil. Using paring knife, loosen edges of pâté from pan, then invert pan onto cutting board. Pâté can be wrapped tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerated for up to 1 week or frozen for up to 1 month; it should be left whole and not sliced until ready to serve. Bring to room temperature before serving.

New Year's Eve Dinner Party: Menu!

The table is set...

It's that time again, when we blow out all the stops for our family of choice! The annual New Year's Eve dinner party! Sadly, a couple of us won't be able to attend. I'm always happiest with everyone around my table.

My normal strategy is to pour all my efforts into one or two components of the menu, and for the rest, cook things I've done a million times and can do in my sleep. Here's this year's menu. Recipes and post-meal reviews to follow.

As always, I like to offer my dear guests a choice on some parts of the menu.

Salad

Caesar Salad with Garlic Toasts

or

Baby Greens with Beet, Goat Cheese, and Cara Cara Orange Fillets

Appetizer Plate

Charcuterie  Plate with Housemade Pate de Camapagne

or

Shrimp Cocktail

Cocktails (all non-alcoholic)

Rosemary Citrus Cocktail

Sour Cherry-Pomegranate Sparkler

Elderberry with Mulled Berries Sparkler

 

Main Course

Rack of Lamb

Roasted "Windy Night Farms" Squash with Dates and Seeds

Rice Byrani ala Felgerts

Desert

Profiteroles with Carmel Macadamia Nut Ice Cream and Hot Carmel Sauce

 

The Venn Diagram of Christmas Traditions

This graphic is from: The Reason Stick: The Venn Diagram of Christmas Traditions.  You can see the original here. I love to celebrate Christmas. When I first started practicing Buddhism, I thought my Christmas celebrations were over. That made me sad. But then I met this nice Nyingmapa who was a Christmas Tree ornament saleswoman. She told me that some of her congregation had berated her for her job, and she told them, "Consider it a Shambhala Bush and get over it!" After that I celebrated with great glee! So Merry Christmas, everyone! And may all suffering CEASE!

Alertos Mexican

How much do I miss eating good Mexican food? You will never know. So there I was, in Anaheim, in a sea of PF Changs and IHoPs and California Pizza Kitchens, and Jack-in- Boxes. So boring. Can you blame me for having Cheerios and milk in my room while watching "Say Yes to  the Dress." Tragic. But then, as I was strolling around the block, I caught sight of Alerto's. It was tucked into a nondescript strip mall. Clean but un-distinguished.

But oh my.

Chile rellanos, refritos, creamy and with the lovely taste --- could it be lard? And handmade four tortillas. It was heaven! If you are ever there, you should definitely check it out.