Dinner the other night included these.  They were really yummy so I thought I would share my recipe with you.

Serves 6 - 8 as a side dish.

4 large baking potatoes, peeled and cut into thirds

3/4 cup sour cream (light or regular fat)

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

1/2 cup milk, cream, half and half or any combination (I prefer 1/4 cup non-fat milk with 1/4 cup cream)

1 cup caramelized shallots (see recipe below)

Salt and pepper to taste

Put potatoes in a pot of water with 1 inch to cover.  Bring to a boil and boil until a fork goes to the center of a potato chunk.  Drain and return to the pot.  Mash the potatoes or use a ricer until the chunks are gone.

Heat milk in microwave until warmed, about 60 seconds.  Add milk, sour cream, and butter to the potatoes then mix until the consistency you want.

Add the shallots, salt and pepper.  Serve and enjoy!

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Caramelized Shallots (get these started before the potatoes and they will get done around the same time)

1 tablespoon olive oil

4 large shallots, peeled and sliced thin

1/2 teaspoon salt

Put in a medium non-stick skillet and cook on low until browned, 30 - 40 minutes.  Remove from pan and blot with a paper towel to absorb any oil.  Use as desired.

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Most people like one pot meals for their ease in preparation.  I like them due to their ease of cleaning up.  This one pot meal fits into both categories.  You cook some vegetables.  You cook some chicken, sausage, and shrimp.  You add a little rice and some spice.  Your result is one pot meal that will satisfy all.   This is perfect for company and can be doubled or tripled as needed.  Ross makes it throughout the year when we want to feed a crowd or for a quick and casual dinner party.  No matter how much you make it will be gone and the dishes will be done in no time.

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Something to make alcohol taste better.  A wine glass in a beer stein.  Pizza at home from your counter top.  Color, color, and more color.  Water, spices, and mustard.  The 2012 show was great.

Here is a list of my 10 favorite things from this years show.  I hope you make some of these your favorite things soon.

1.  You may have seen Vinturi red wine aerators before. They now have them for white wine and for spirits.  Both make a big difference in how the wine or spirit tastes.  You have to try them to believe it.  I did.  Believe me.

2.  So much color.  Such cool looking products. I am so glad I found this booth.  Zeal Kitchen Products are stainless steel utensils coated in bright beautiful silicon colors making them heat resistant and sturdy.  Other products are the same colorful silicon and are made and look different from the silicon we see today.

Love the colors!

They are hoping to have them available in the US by October 2012.  I am really looking forward to the steamer basket.

I want one of these.

If you search the internet you can find some of their products but for the UK market.

3.  Pizza from a counter top oven?  Is it possible it would be any good?  Yes it is.  The Pizza Perfector Countertop Pizza Oven makes crispy crust with a gooey melt of cheese and cooks the meat all in about 8 minutes!  The oven comes with every tool you need to make a pizza including a cook book.  I saw it last year and fell in love with it but it was not available in the US yet.  Well pizza lovers, it is on it’s way to being available so sign up on the website for more information or contact them directly.

4.  Some people think Curtis Stone is gorgeous.  Others think he’s funny.  I think he’s a very smart talented guy.  His brand new tabletop and bake ware lines are beautiful and functional.  He is not endorsing someone else’s product. He has developed and is marketing his own.  I respect him for that.  Watch his website for the new table top products.

5.  Filtered water to carry with you!  Gobie water bottles are cool.  They are the first one I was ever willing to buy.  I have it right by me, right now.  Their web site says it all.

6. A really nice woman making a really cool product.  Gotta love it.  Anupy Singla is the founder of Indian as Apple Pie, cookbook author, and designer of her Spice Tiffin (spice box to me!) and has taken the tiffin to  a new level.  This box has a half moon leveler and comes with spoons.  Here is a video where you can see Anupy and learn more about the Tiffin Box.  Traditionally they house Indian spices but with her spice name labels you can have a different box for every cuisine you cook.  I have been shopping for one for a while and this is the one I will purchase.

7.  I love mustard and once in a while one comes along and reaches the top of my mustard loving list.  Braswell’s Honey Mustard has been on the top for a couple years but has now been replaced with Braswell’s Smoky Chipotle Mustard.  It has a smoky hot sweet taste that will go great on your burgers, dogs, and any other sandwich you create.  When the mustard is gone, you can peel the label off (very easy to do), wash it out, and you have a nice glass dipping dish!

8.  Snappi! A clam shaped server that can grab just about anything you need it to.  Use it for salads, rice, chips, anything you need to grab!  Whatever color you want, they probably have it.  Closes shut for easy storage.  This is great for casual indoor and outdoor dining.

9.  Who knew a guy named Fred could be so creative?  I have loved Fred and Friends for years and want you to love them too.  The WineStein is my new favorite along with the Cake Candelabra which has  been a huge hit at all the birthday celebrations it has been part of.  You can search their catalog to see these and other clever products.

10.  Chris Consentino, the Voltaggio brothers, Emeril Lagassi, Fabio Viviani, Sara Grueneberg, Ming Tsai, Michael Symon, Todd English, Anupy Singla, Pam Anderson, Curtis Stone, Guy Fieri, Stephanie Izard, George Duran, Duff Goldman, Sarah Kallio and Stacy Krastins………..need I go on!  So much fun watching the chefs cook, talking with them, and adding to my signed cookbook and photo collection.

Some of the products mentioned and cookbooks from the chefs can be found at Amazon.  Others can be found from the links above if they are currently available.

The show was a great event. I look forward to what 2013 will bring.

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Piece of Do-Rite Donut Box

We pulled up in front at about 6:50am.  I got out of the car and went in to Do-Rite Donuts.  1 person was in there ordering, 2 were working.  Within 2 minutes I was walking out with a 6 pack consisting of:

Peanut Butter and Grape Jelly:  Still whole in the box.  Part of this will more than likely be dessert after lunch since you have to eat dessert with every meal when the day starts with sugar……only way I can keep going all day.
Bacon Maple:  This is a cruller (my favorite type of donut) topped with maple frosting and fresh cooked bacon.  This is awesome!  Half a donut left in the box.  Since this is bacon maybe it will be lunch!
Chocolate Frosted:  Vahlrona dark chocolate frosted cake donut.  Really good.  Half a donut left in the box.
Meyer Lemon Pistachio:  Cake donut topped with a too sweet meyer lemon frosting and fresh chopped pistachios.  Donut was very greasy.  3/4 of donut left in box and may end up in trash.  Least favorite.
Buttermilk Old Fashioned:  Crunchy and soft.  A little gooeyness to it.  This is awesome and only 1 small bite left.  This was easiest to eat in the car since we were able to just pull pieces of crunchy goodness right off and shove it in our mouths with no mess.
Glazed Donut: Plain and simple.  Good.  3/4 still in the box.  Suspect it will be part of our lunchtime dessert.

This is definitely a great spot for an awesome treat on an occasional basis.

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It was so exciting to see skinny asparagus spears at the market the other day.  This means spring is coming (although we are expecting 4-9 inches of snow tonight!) and the produce selection will be changing from week to week for the better.

Asparagus is my favorite vegetable so when it is in season we eat a lot of it.  My favorite cooked preparation is roasted with a little olive oil and freshly ground pepper then topped with Fleur de Sel.  I also like it steamed then topped with some truffle salt and freshly ground pepper.  For those times I want to eat it raw I slice it up and put it in a salad with fresh mushrooms, some radish and a little dressing.  Then I top it with some freshly grated Parmesan (please don’t get your Parmesan out of a can).  If you’ve never tried raw asparagus I suggest you try it.  Here is a recipe for Asparagus Mushroom Salad to get you started.

Enjoy!

P.S.  You can buy various types of Fleur de Sel at any specialty grocery.  This includes Williams-Sonoma, Sur la table, Whole Foods Market, and, of course, Amazon.com.

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13 courses (over 3 1/2 hours), a salty chocolate ball, BYOB (no corkage) and a $30 car service ride home were all great! 

You book a table at EL through a lottery-type reservation system which is worth the effort.  Four of us (me, Ross, Tina, and Rich) were able to get a reservation without waiting too long and we were psyched about dining there.  When you first arrive you’re not sure you’re in the right place but once you step inside you know you’re in for quite  an experience.  

Bill, our server, was friendly, funny, and provided excellent service.  He is the only server.  The chefs are visible to all the seats in the restaurant and invite you to come watch, help plate, ask questions, and then ask you to serve your own table (if you were with them for any amount of time).  All of this is possible since the restaurant only has 10 seats.  Yes, only 10 seats.

The 13 courses began with Tasmanian trout served 5 ways.  Then a black olive sorbet that was so good Rich said “That was a little bit of all right” and he was right.  The lamb tenderloin was a beautiful plate with baba ganoush and some raw shaved beans.  Tortellini stuffed with crab, along side cucumber and ginger packed a lot of flavor but we found it a bit salty (the only negative of the night).  The rabbit course had some ricotta gnocchi served underneath that was so soft and flavorful it made me want to eat gnocchi more often.  This was followed by a shot glass full of ham, almond, and fig which had a cream soup-like texture and was served to all of us in the kitchen to get us up and moving.  It was a nice mid course.  Next we had some rreally good sweet gamey skate with veal heart (which I don’t need to eat again).  My favorite course was the pork belly with itty-bitty bbq potato chips the size of my thumb nail which rested on top of a bed of orzo cheddar mac and cheese.  It was too good to be true.  Mac and cheese is my favorite comfort food and this version was very comfortable.  Foie gras was next and amazing.  Ross helped plate the ribeye with a tweezer as the little bits of maitake mushroom needed to be placed oh so perfectly on top.  Tina and I served a pecorino toscano which when made into a little sandwich was very refreshing and the perfect dish to move us towards dessert.

The first part of dessert was a bowl filled with rooibos tea leaves that was ”activated” with steaming water giving off a delightful aroma and then a bowl of pumpkin gelato with pear and pomegranate was placed on top of the tea leaves.  This was definitely a sensory dessert mixing taste and smell.  The last menu course was apple pie ice cream on top of pound cake with an apple cider caramel.  The salty chocolate balls came with the bill and were the perfect ending to a terrific meal.

EL is not a place you would go to every week or even every month; however, it is a perfect spot for a special occassion.  We will be going back.  If you get the chance you should try it!

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and you will not be disappointed.  Last night Ross and I along with our friend Nim tested the water based foods at GT Fish and Oyster on Wells St. in Chicago and we were pleased over and over again with the flavors, the portions, the selection, the service, well just about everything was perfection.

The miracle of the evening was Ross eating raw oysters and liking them.  Finally.  We tried 4 different kinds plain and with the Ponzu Mignonette (I loved it) and the GT Cocktail Sauce.  I preferred them plain.  Ross liked them drowned in the sauce and horseradish which is fine by me as long as he now eats them.

After the oysters at the bar we went to a table in the bar where the scene was quiet (it was only 5:45pm on a Tuesday night) and our server was very knowledgeable and fun.  She advised this was a small plates to share menu which we love so we were off to a good start.  If she recommended it, we ordered it.  We ordered 11 different items, 6 from the COLD menu and 5 from the HOT menu.  We ignored the NOT FISH menu.  I am not going to bore you with all the details of what we ate.  Instead here are some thoughts on the bright spots of the meal.

Our favorites of the night were the OYSTER PO’BOY SLIDER with Kimchee and peanuts on little bitty rolls.  These come by the piece so you can order as many as you want.  We ordered 3…..then ordered 3 more.  I think we probably would have gone for another round if we had not ordered so many other items.  Next in line of what we would order again is BENTO.  A combination of tuna sashimi, octopus carpaccio, and king salmon tartare.  Each one was better than the one before no matter which order you ate them in.  The SUNFISH CEVICHE appeared to be guacamole but turned out to be a lovely creamy fish dish with a chimichurri and avocado puree that surprised the palette.  FISH TACO was really fresh and had a little bit of heat with a lot of flavor.  Unlike most LOBSTER ROLLS this one had no mayo on it and there were chunks of lobster meat.  It was a regular size portion and better than any lobster roll I have had outside of Fisherman’s Wharf (where the lobster is so fresh I can get over the mayo!).  The TUNA POKE was a bit too mangoey for me but it was still really good (but not as good as the one Sola used to have on their menu).  We ate other things I would be more than happy to tell you about if you ask me.

Would we go back….oh yeah.  Especially for those PO’BOYS.

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Once in a while you hear about a place and see the menu and think “yeah, I’d like to try that”.  You find a friend to go along and when you get there the menu isn’t quite what you remember seeing but it still looks good and you are ok.  Then you really see something that looks good and nothing else on the menu will suffice.

This happened to me today at Bite Cafe (website under construction) at 1039 N. Western Ave., Chicago.  The really something good was BREAKFAST POUTINE.  French Fries, Smoked Bacon Gravy, Cheese Curds, Poached Eggs, Pickled Chilies.  Jane, who I was with is a vegetarian so my excitement was not as greatly received as delivered.  The fries were perfect, a little crunch on the outside and mushy on the inside.  Chunks of bacon laced the gravy and the curds were gooey melted soft luscious bits buried under the perfectly cooked poached eggs oozing over it all.  The first 3 bites were me just picking at the fries.  Then I opened the eggs and from then I was hooked.  Half way through eating it I knew I should stop but I was not leaving anything in that shallow bowl perfect for scooping up the remains at the end.  If this dish was, and I am so glad it wasn’t, served with bread that bowl would have been so clean it would not have needed to be washed (Jane told the waitress that even though I had no bread).

Jane had the special omelet which I don’t recall all the details (she really liked it) of what was inside.  The mashed and chunks of potatoes mixed with green onions, rolled in potato flour as a coating, and fried (go figure), was the accompanying side and was incredible.  It was a great alternative to hash browns or breakfast potatoes.

For Ross, I brought home a Philly Cheese Fake (smoked portabella, green peppers, onion, provolone) and a Veggie Muffaletta (roasted red pepper, over cured tomato, olive, provolone) and they were really good even after being boxed over 90 minutes.  As full as I still was I had to try them both to be sure this place was not a two option wonder.

Service was great.  Our server was friendly, knew the menu very well, and had a great sense of humor.  We like that a lot in a server.

I have every intention of going back to Bite Cafe and no intention of eating Breakfast Poutine again.  Well, maybe, probably, OK, I am sure I will again but first I will try a lot of their other items.  Yes, really, I will.

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My friends Sandy and Stuart went to Naha last weekend to celebrate her birthday.  The next day she asked me how to make tubular cucumbers like those in her greek salad.  I thought for a moment and decided a straw would do the trick.  I took an English cucumber and started going around the cucumber seeds and had some issues due to the straw not being rigid enough. 

Not happy with the results and effort, off I went to the hardware store in search of something shaped like bucatini.  The hardware guy asked me what I was going to use it for (I told him I needed a round, hollow in the middle, rigid pipe or something like it).  After he looked at me like I was crazy, he walked around and showed me a few options then came upon exactly what I needed.  A metal straw!  These came in all sizes and not only round but square too.  I bought one of each.

On the way home I realized I could cut squares myself but was still excited about the possibility of 2 different shapes of cucumbers completely uniform in size resting on the top of a salad.

Once home I cut the cucumber into 2″ chunks, poked the pipe through the outer edge over and over around the cucumber.  After a few pokes the first one came out of the top.  If you were watching you would have been worried about how excited I got seeing it pop out of there.  In the end I had to take a skewer, flat end in, and push the remaining ones out.  I then did the square ones. 

This was such a fun exercise I had to share it with you.  Thanks Sandy for asking me how to do this.

Tonight they will go into a simple salad I’m making for dinner.  I wonder if Ross will notice!

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We had been wanting to try this vegetarian restaurant since it opened….we finally did and the results were not quite what we expected.

We started with the Mushroom Pate which was amazing.  It was served with bread coated in a date mustard jam.  The combination of the flavors (pretty sure there was truffle oil involved in the pate!) was incredible.  Next up was some Burrata (cheese) with little bits of salty things which was ok.  The trio of Onion Soup was a bowl of way too sweet onions, leeks and shallots.  In fact this dish I gave to Ross since I did not want to eat it.  The salty Shitake Mushrooms with savoy cabbage wrapped in crispy potato tasted really good even though you could taste the salt.  My favorite was the Poached Farm Egg with smoked potato puree (I could eat bowls of that!) and country sourdough bread.  It was fatty and creamy and crunchy and smoky in every bite.  I could eat it daily!  Mushroom Bread Pudding was salty and gloppy. Didn’t care for it at all.  In fact, we agreed my savory bread pudding was much better.  The Flatbread with goat cheese, mushrooms, onion jam, and pumpkin seeds needed some pancetta or something fatty to give it what I want out of a flatbread.

We ate a lot of salt and mushrooms leaving us feeling full but not thrilled with our experience at Green Zebra.  We will go back with vegetarians who will appreciate the food much more than us carnivores!

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