Surly, Summit

Link to the Heavy Table review of recent food shindigs in the kitchen where I cook - Tracy's Saloon & Eatery, Minneapolis, MN.

goose bump clouds

ain't nothing better than a minnesota, summertime storm. yummm.

A CHICKEN...

.....COOKED IN........














....A CHICKEN.

a fairly perfect day

   

It started out well.  A rainy morning.  A french press steeping strong brew.  A hutch of pillows, and a well worn book.  Then, a bowl of stoned peaches and nectarines blanketed in yogurt and laced with wildflower honey.  An afternoon of cleaning and packing, of cocktail sipping and treasure finding.

Once the kitchen was cleaned, we turned it a mess.  We were hungry for breakfast, and I had a few tricks up my sleeve.  Came across a magic recipe- biscuits stuffed with jam. 
Unsurprisingly called "Jammers."  Butter crumbled into flour, salt, sugar, baking sodas and powders, and lemon zest, blended with buttermilk, then turned onto the counter and stamped out monstrous biscuits.  Pinch-pot style, the biscuits were hollowed and filled with blackberry preserves and baked off until golden and crunchy and jam cascaded over the sides and sizzled on the hot pans. 

A frittata, too, was in order.  Little yellow summer squash, with necks curved like a sleeping goose, roasted, and a half-dozen eggs and a half pound of ricotta cozied in the bowl.  Fresh thyme and basil, shallots that melted with olive oil and sea salt in the skillet, and a sprinkle of hot pepper flakes and parmesan cheese came in at the last moment for a fine finish, and the cake hit the oven.

A salad of sorts was required to tie up loose ends.  These days, I like to layer my salads, color by color, and make a big show of tossing the handsome dish table-side.  This one began with spicy arugula and mustard greens.  Then thinly sliced cucumber, blanched purple and white Dragon's Tongue beans, fresh basil and dill, sweet cherry tomatoes, and toasted pinenuts, sea salt, and sweet balsalmic vinegar.  We opened the windows to catch the rain and ate in the almost dark.

When the plates were cleared, we crawled into bed to finish our bottle of wine and watch Moonstruck.  Later yet, we hollowed and carved a watermelon, then shook out our tennis shoes and made for a midnight walk.  And then, finally, the fairly perfect day ended as it had begun, back in bed, with the rain and the pillows and the book, winding down well into the early hours of the morning until I lost my grip on the day and fell soundly into sleep.

Snotty Frenchmen

During our most recent trip to the Lake Ella farmers market, a trip that Logan dragged me on, we came across an old man with youthful spirits hoping to sell us multi colored potatoes. Cut them open and they could be purple, pink or even...WHITE! The action of buying the potatoes lead to an inexplicable chain of events, one of which was logan suggesting we make potato salad. You can imagine my disapointment. Rikki and I say "if it don't have lettuce in it don't call it a salad". Honestly I don't want some nasty mayoed up potato cube that for some reason is yellow! I instead fantasized about making purple and pink french fries. However Logs had a different potato salad in mind and insisted mustardy mayo sauce (I was just informed the yellow in potato salad is mustard) will not be a part of it, instead it shall be a French potato salad.

Ok. I have accepted the idea of a potato salad. It has evolved from a fear of mine to a perfectly suitable side dish. I want to emphasis the side dish because no matter what happens, potato salad will always and forever be a side dish. So what next, what would go well with this side dish-0-potato? Well she did say its french... what's a french main course? To be honest I'm still a little lost on what french food is. My lack of understanding how to define this type of food reminds me of the time logan was trying to teach me what savory was. "It just means salty right?" i insisted. I just didn't get it. Anyways, I understand french cuisine is good food, expensive and looks pretty, but what is it? Italian food is easy for me to imagine but not french. My mind turned to a nice little french lunch place in Naples where I had a lovely baguette sandwich with nice roast beast.

Logan comes back from the store with a pasty white baguette and 3 lbs. of smoked Boston pork butt. The butt was pink and reminded me of ham and we were unsure if it was fully cooked so we decided to call the expert. Mom. Unfortunately I called the wrong expert, i should have called my father the resident Hamxpert (Ham expert), because my mom didn't know if a pink smoked ham-looking boston pork butt was fully cooked.

In the end the potato salad was a smash hit. The salad of course had the three varieties of heirloom potatoes, dill, garlic, basil, onions, chardonnay, mustard and shallots. The sandwich was toasted with a sharp aged gouda and some capital T tender pork butt that was cooked with the said chardonnay to ensure the cookedness of the butt.

French? i dunno maybe... A satisfying dinner for two? Duh.

Don't try to bake when you're hung over

Last night was 80's night at Broadway's. Crown Royal was on special. I was cuttin' rugs to PYT until 3 AM. Woke up exhausted, and decided to do penance by feeding myself something healthy. Enter banana braaaaan muffins. Logan used to make the best braaaan muffins. But in my foggy state, I misread the recipe and used two cups of flour instead of one. When I realized this, I made a feeble attempt to remedy my mistake by just dumping in more milk, instead of just making the effort to double the whole recipe, as I should have. The result was bland, rubbery, branny, basically inedible blobs. BOO. Meara told me to feed them to the birds. What birds?

ahh... summer

I'm pissed, so let me cook.

Today I'm feeling crabby. I don't really have a good reason for it either, which makes me crabbier. But I decided to make it up to my mom, for putting up with my foul mood, and try out some new recipes that she can use for her cooking business. The two recipes I used came from the righteous food blog, 101cookbooks. The first thing I made was Hummus en Fuego, using fire oil, made by heating olive oil with red pepper flakes. I held off on putting all the pepper flakes directing into the hummus because this batch is going to a mild friend, but for those who like it hot-I would advise putting all of the fire oil (and flakes floating on the bottom) in the hummus-it's a nice kick. 

My second endeavor was the Quinoa Skillet Bread. In my house, we eat quinoa by the quart and I thought it would be nice to enjoy our favorite staple food in a new way. I followed the recipe exactly except I held off on the cup of heavy cream just to keep it a little healthier, but I'm sure it's only more delicious with it! I used a cast iron skillet to bake the bread, which worked beautifully. The final product is similar to a moist cornbread, slightly sweet and nutty. mmm.