Be sure and check out the update at the top of page. Now I have a job, so updates will be less frequent and different. The current job isn't surrounded by lunch places, so I'll be taking my lunch in more often than I used to.

But for New Year's Day, business was normal at our place. I had saved some of the beef I boiled to make the stock for the soup, and all it needed to become falling-apart tender was more time in the rest of the soup's liquid. Though there wasn't quite enough of that left, so I mixed in some of the turkey stock from Thanksgiving.

I also added leftover onions, and a little bit of rice to thicken everything up into a nice stew. I garnished the whole thing with leftover Gruyere. We served it with one of the cheap wines in our cellar, the 2001 Alamos Malbec from Argentina. We first had this at a tasting a few months ago, and liked it quite a bit. When we tasted it last night, it was still good, but had a lot more smokiness than we noticed before. Still plenty of fruitiness, especially berry, and just hints of leather.

No costs for last night's dinner. Everything was leftover from something else
posted by Derrick at 11:18 PM

Melissa and I have a quasi-tradition for New Year's Eve: French Onion Soup. In the past, I have made an intense mushroom stock as the base, as only recently has Melissa started eating beef. This year, I made a beef stock for the soup. I didn't include any bones (the butcher had none available, oddly), and perhaps that's why it was a bit thin. But in a nod to former years, I added the last of the frozen porcini liquid from Thanksgiving. This added a nice depth of flavor, and I finished off the stock with a little vinegar. The onions I cut thin and sautéed until nicely brown. For the crouton on top, I used leftover soda bread, and bought gruyère for the classic finish.

But I suspect we now also have a new tradition. Melissa suggested I get oysters for us, and I was game, even though I've never dealt with preparing oysters before. I was surprised that the oysters were very cheap from Monterey Fish Market. $.95 for Kumamotos, and $.75 for Pacific Oysters from various spots. Well, maybe "very cheap" isn't the right phrase, but much cheaper than the $3-4 per you pay in a restaurant.

So we learned to shuck oysters. Maybe $3-4 isn't so unreasonable after all. Shucking them is a lot of work, but as everyone says, gets easier with practice. I served them with some lemon wedges as well as a classic mignonette sauce, vinegar with cracked peppercorns and shallot. I'm pretty sure we once had this as a warmed sauce, which was quite good (we had it cold, which seems to be standard). Maybe sometime soon I'll try this other version. We did learn the value of buying, if you can, crushed ice. Sheesh. What a pain. That probably took more time than shucking the oysters, and the ice didn't get fully crushed! I was amused to read a note that the ice isn't actually to keep the oysters chilled. Or at least not fully. It's other purpose is to stabilize the shells to prevent the precious juice from running out as the shells tip and turn.

It being New Year's Eve, and with the oysters and all, the obvious wine choice was a sparkling wine from California. For perhaps the very first time, I used Wine Spectator as a guide for buying something. I've subscribed for a year or more, but haven't used their buying guide yet. We got the Pacific Echo Brut from Mendocino County (non-vintage), which was only $15 at Beverages & more.

I wouldn't say that Melissa and I agreed with the floral, apple, and vanilla notes described by the taster, but it was good, if not spectacular (it got an 89 from that taster, so I'll have to try more of his suggestions to see how much I agree or disagree with him). On the other hand, I don't know a lot about sparkling wines, so it may indeed have been vastly better than the average.

For dessert, I made sugar cookies and we ate them with slices of the Mt. Tam triple cream which Melissa's mom Kathy got us for Christmas. An unusual combination, perhaps, but it worked fairly well. I chose the garnish from the wine we drank with it (see below). I juiced several oranges, and then mixed them with sugar and created a thick syrup, reducing, skimming, and straining the mixture for a good long time. To plate the dessert, I put two cookies on one side, a slice of cheese on the other, and separated them by a long squiggle of the orange syrup.

The dessert wine, a 2000 Essensia, was from Quady Winery. I had seen their wines before, but I saw them positively remarked upon by Karen MacNeil in her Wine Bible so decided to actively seek them out. This was a really nice dessert wine, though the nose really came across as Hall's cough drops to me. Once I got past that though, I got lots of intense spice, anise and clove. It had a nice orange-y ness on the finish, not a surprise given that the wine is made with Orange Muscat, a grape known for its orange blossom and apricot aromas. And it's only $10 for a half-bottle. It's not on par with my beloved ice wines, or any other really prestigious dessert wine, but it's a great value, and I'd happily serve it again.

Costs: (I went a little overboard; I have all but signed the paperwork on a job offer, so was feeling a little flush)
Oysters: $19.60 for 24 oysters
Beef for stock: $15
Onions: $3 (I bought way too many onions)
Gruyere: $6
Oranges: $5
Total cost: $48.60
posted by Derrick at 10:03 PM

A cheese plate is a good way to use up a lot of things, it turns out. For dinner Monday night, I made a simple plate featuring Cowgirl Creamery's Red Hawk cheese (part of the cheese gift from Melissa's parents), some leftover dates, and some more of our seemingly inexhaustible supply of prosciutto salami. The only thing I bought was oranges and lemons for fried citrus à la Zuni café (which I made a week or so ago). Melissa and I have decided that we like the fried orange slices better than sliced lemons, though I could see serving the fried lemons with fish. They're just very tart on their own, whereas the oranges have a better balance.

And since I had bought buttermilk to test out frying the citrus slices last week, I also made Irish soda bread as the "bread" to accompany dinner.

As I was fed up keeping a bunch of Grüner Veltliner for some mythical future entertaining, I opened one of our bottles for us to enjoy last night. I like anything produced by the Salomon brothers, and had a bunch of them sitting around. It worked quite nicely, its pronounced acidity cutting through all the fat.

Costs:
Oranges: $2
Lemon: $.50
Total cost: $2.50
posted by Derrick at 11:27 PM

Simple is sometimes good. Even I can appreciate this, I who was enamored of Judy Rodgers's summary of her cooking style: "Stop. Think. There must be a harder way." So wandering the farmer's market yesterday, Melissa and I decided to do a pasta dish. We still had sausage from the other day (intended to be used for brunch, but it never made it to the table), and we found kale and some gourmet mushrooms at the farmer's market (we got a deal on the mushrooms 'cause the market was almost over: $5 for half a pound).

So I sautéed the sausage and mushrooms, and wilted the kale. I also made a bechamel sauce, finishing it off with some more of the Pierce Point cheese from Cowgirl Creamery. Once the pasta was cooked, I mixed in the goodies and then sauced it. Finally, I toasted some of the leftover bread from brunch and served that alongside.

A cop-out? Fear not! I served the entire dinner in one dish, but cooked it in five separate pots/pans (1 for the pasta, 1 for the kale, 1 for the sausage and mushrooms and 2 for the sauce). An object lesson on how to turn a seemingly simple dish into a intricate affair involving more burners than I actually have.

For dessert, I did something fairly simple. I had leftover whipping cream from the waffles, I think, so I mixed in some cinnamon and whipped it into stiff peaks. Then I blanched some apples Melissa bought in a simple syrup, and tossed in some candied ginger I made. I served the apple/ginger mixture in a bowl with a little of the syrup I used to blanch the apples, and topped the assembly with the whipping cream. Quite good, for an improv dish.

To drink with dinner, we tried a bottle of Pepperwood Grove's 2000 Syrah. This wine is a great value, with lots of fruitiness and a character which changes markedly as it breathes. I got smokiness on the finish, presumably from its oak. Though it lacked Syrah's characteristic pepperiness, it had good acidity and surprisingly mild tannins. All for only $6 or so.

Costs:
Kale: $.75
Sausage: $2.50
Mushrooms: $5
Pasta and bechamel all came from pantry
Apples: $2.50
Ginger: $.70
Cream and cinnamon in pantry.
Total cost: $11.45
posted by Derrick at 12:34 AM

Ah, how nice to entertain. Melissa's sister and best friend were in town, which is a rare treat for Melissa and me. While we can't afford one of our normal menus, we were able to provide a nice brunch. Melissa managed to convince me that waffles and homemade croissants might be a bit much. So I only made waffles (with my sourdough starter), but we rounded it out with eggs, toast, bacon and some Satsuma mandarins.

Oh, and a Moscato d'Asti, a low-alcohol sparkling wine from the Piedmont district. Moscato d'Asti is a wonderful wine. It not only tastes great (because the wine carries a DOCG from Italy, it has to meet stricter standards than the DOC wines), but I don't think I've ever seen a bottle for more than $20.

That said, the bottle of 2001 Cascina del Santuario we had was good but not up to par with our current favorite Moscato d'Asti, the Saracco bottling. Just something not as refined in the Santuario, which Melissa and I both noticed. The Saracco is definitely worth the extra $2, but I didn't have time to get to K & L in San Francisco to buy it.

But I digress. In addition to all the goodies I cooked, we served some of Cowgirl Creamery's Mt. Tam cheese, a tripe creme that is delicious. Maybe all triple cremes are delicious, though. This was part of a cheese gift set from Cowgirl Creamery which Melissa's mom gave me for Christmas. A very generous gift, even if it did need to live in the garage until Christmas morning because it smelled so strongly.

Costs (not including wine):
Satsumas: $1
Bacon: $3
Eggs (only because I used so many): $2
Bread: $3
Total cost: $9

And then there was dinner. We have a couple of good friends who are vegetarians, and a part of my mind always works on good vegetarian dishes to serve them. I prefer not to fall into the trap of serving pasta with tomato sauce and/or fake meat. It's too much of a cop-out, and I like to believe I can be more creative.

So I concocted this idea for a dish, a stuffed and roasted portobello mushroom cap. I was mostly interested in an idea for presenting it. And what did I think was a perfect stuffing? Sausages. So, okay. This defeats the purpose, but I figured if I got the concept working, I could tinker with the stuffing later. I also decided to use some more of the cheese from the aforementioned cheese box, this time the Pierce Pt., which features an herbed rind. I decided to de-rind the tiny amount I used in the mushrooms.

I should point out that stuffing and baking portobello mushrooms is not an earth-shattering concept, so I found a good basic technique in one of my cookbooks. Heat up some garlic in some olive oil, just until it's aromatic. De-stem the mushrooms (and since you're doing that, you might as well mince the stems and put them in the stuffing), and brush them with the hot garlic oil. The author of the recipe wants you to smear the stuffing over the upside-down mushroom cap, which I did after I tried the other way: cutting a slit in the cap and stuffing food into it. This doesn't work. If you're like me and you try this, you'll be very frustrated that the mushrooms are not slicing perfectly into a nice little pocket you can stretch and fill as you like. Next time, I might just cut the mushrooms in half across the cap and make a sandwich.

However you stuff them, cook them for 10-15 minutes in a 500° oven. They taste fantastic and as a bonus you get the potent earthy smell of roasted mushroom throughout the house.

The presentation on this was quite nice, for once. I bought some arugula, and laid that in a mound in the middle of the plate. I drizzled pumpkinseed oil over that. Going from left to right on the plate, I laid four turnip batons, sautéed and braised, parallel to each other. Then I sliced the "stuffed" cap into 5 strips, and laid them parallel going from top to bottom. It worked very nicely. The mushrooms are a deep brown to black, and make a stark contrast against the green of the arugula.

And the wine. We have exhausted our supply of "try-'em-they're-cheap" wines from Trader Joe's. But, ho ho! We had some more wine in our "cellar." Buying wine from scratch, I probably would've bought a Syrah. But I pulled out a 2000 Ridge Geyserville Zinfandel. And it was great. A welcome respite from the merely drinkable wines we've been pairing with our dinners recently.

Costs (the receipt has gone missing, so these are approximate):
Portobello: $3
Turnip: $.59
Arugula: $2
Sausage: $1.25 (for one sausage; I had bought a bunch for brunch but we never used them)
Total: $6.84
posted by Derrick at 12:48 AM