Our House Favorite Made Even Better

Not just cake, James' birthday nearly always calls for his favorite -- spaghetti and clam sauce. Though I make this favorite throughout the year for a special birthday dinner I slip in a little smoky bacon.
While the spaghetti is cooking I sauté 3 slices of chopped bacon in about 1/4 cup of hot olive oil. Next I add 2 chopped garlic cloves and a pinch of chile flakes to the pan followed (after about a minute) by the juice of one lemon, a good sized handful of chopped parsley and about 3/4 cups of white wine. After the wine cooked down by about half I tossed in about 4 pounds of very small little neck clams.
Honestly I prefer manilla clams which are small and sweet and James and I both think are perfect for spaghetti but so hard to find these days.
With the pan tightly covered it takes about 7 minutes for all the clams to open.
Meanwhile the pasta is cooking and when it's ready and drained I add it and about 3 TB butter to the pan with the clams, give everything a good toss around, add in another small bunch of fresh parsley and bring dinner to the table.

Chicken and Spinach Salad

One of James' favorites and maybe the quickest dinner ever -- crisply fried chicken cutlet over -- in this case -- a warm spinach salad. A rare treat, with these bright green super fresh leaves I tossed up a warm bacon vinaigrette.
First I fried several slices of bacon over medium heat to render out the fat. I removed the bacon from the pan (leaving about 3 TB bacon fat) and added in a thinly sliced shallot. After about 30 seconds -- just long enough for the shallot to soften I poured in 3 TB of red wine vinegar and a half teaspoon of dijon mustard and whisked over low heat. Just when the dressing had come together I poured the vinaigrette over the waiting spinach mixed with sliced hard boiled eggs (wish I had a couple mushrooms) and served before the leaves really had a chance to wilt.

A New Kind Of Potato Salad

 As a treat for James I reached down into our potato hills to dig up a couple fresh spuds for dinner.
I wanted a recipe to feature those tubers and show off the plentiful greens growing in our vegetable beds. As luck would have it I came across a recipe from one of my favorite chefs, Suzanne Goin, for a warm potato, frisée and dandelion salad. Now we've got plenty of dandelions but no frisée so I substituted some young kale, a few handfuls of oak leaf lettuce growing nearby and a bit of basil along with the cup of parsley leaves the chef calls for.
Goin's recipe couldn't be simpler. I tossed the potatoes with olive oil, thyme and salt and set them in a 400º oven (covered with foil) for 40 minutes. As the potatoes cooled for about 10 minutes I started cooking bacon (cut in 1/2" pieces) in a skillet. When the bacon was golden brown I added in a sliced onion and the potatoes cut into big (bigger than a mouthful) pieces. Goin uses beautiful fingerling potatoes but we don't have any of those ready to harvest so I went for the yukon golds and purple vikings ready to pull. After two minutes I tossed in a mixture of 3TB sherry vinegar and 2 TB of olive oil (I actually doubled it since we had such a big bowl of greens) and let everything heat through. I poured the warm dressing over the waiting mixed greens and tossed everything together, wilting the greens and spreading the bacony goodness through the salad.
"I like dinners like this," James declared between bites.
Three of his favorite things (potatoes, bacon, bitter greens) in one bowl. I'll be making this one again.

Think Of Something Quick

After a whole day weeding and digging in the garden I was too tired to move much less think about dinner. But there dinnertime was, staring me in the face with no plan in sight.
I started with the rice cooker. We'd have something over rice.
I was moving kind of slowly so I decided on a slow dinner -- slow-cooked broccoli and pancetta over rice. I only had to get up every few minutes or so to stir.  It doesn't look like much, but with a drizzle of oregano vinaigrette James thought it was pretty special -- just like I had it planned.

Nothing Pretty About Stew

Not exactly a photogenic dinner dish. But this chicken stew, flavored with bacon and white wine, was just what today's early winter weather demanded -- and simple. I started with chopped carrots, onion, celery and plenty of thick chunks of double smoked bacon sautéing in hot olive oil. I added in the chicken (I used bone in leg and thighs)  to brown a bit and then tossed in about 2 cups of white wine, around a pound of diced tomatoes (I used yellow ones from our garden), 4 sprigs of thyme and brought everything up to a boil. The stew simmered for about an hour and a half until the meat was tender. I took the chicken off the bone and returned it to the pot along with a good quantity of cut up potatoes and shredded kale. After about 10 minutes I added in fresh green beans cut into about 2 inch pieces and let everything simmer together until the potatoes and vegetables were cooked through. Nothing much to look at but warm and tasty and right to eat by the fire.

Spaghetti With Bacon And Chard

I'm on my way out of town again. I scoured the fridge for bits that might not be at their prime by the time I get back and came up with the ends of a variety of fatty, porky, meats-- yum. Bacon, pancetta, Canadian bacon and even a little sausage. While the pasta water boiled I started the chopped bacons rendering in a hot pan and let them crisp up for about 10 minutes. I piled those into a waiting dish and then added sausage slices (it was a cooked Italian not fresh so it didn't really need more than to crisp up in the hot fat). I added the sausage to the dish and added a whole sliced onion (and a dash of chili peppers) to the fat remaining in the pan and let it sauté until just soft -- about 7 minutes. Meanwhile the spaghetti was in the pot and I added a good quantity of chopped chard (I cleared out the garden too) along with about 1/2 a cup of the pasta cooking water to the pan. While the chard wilted I drained the pasta and added it back into the pan along with the chard, bacons, sausage, about 3 TB of olive oil and a good splash (maybe 1- 1/2 TB) or balsamic vinegar. Everything got a good stir. I served James' garden fresh spaghetti topped with a heavy sprinkling of parmesan cheese.

The End Of A Culinary Quest

About three years ago I read an article where Thomas Keller called Hobbs bacon "the best in the word." I have been looking for it ever since. Whenever a fellow food fan friend came up to the bay area I would ask him/her to look for it. Endless reports of the smoked delight's whereabouts proved to be false. I always kept the search in the back of my mind. Today the holy grail was captured during a brief stop over in Mill Valley. Taste test reports to follow.

Mixed By Hand, Crisped In A Pan

Every now and then a girl has to do something a little special. I wanted a dinner that would make james happy so I rounded up a few of his favorite ingredients. First layer; arugula avocado and bacon salad lightly dressed with lemon juice and olive oil. Center stage; dungeness crabcakes. the crab may be West coast but the recipe is all East, flavored with dry mustard, Old Bay, tabasco, and bound with just the barest amount of cracker crumbs. The cakes were lightly fried in peanut oil and butter (in the same pan where I fried the bacon) for just the right bit of crunch.

Alas, the crowning touch -- I forgot the cocktail sauce with no horseradish or ketchup in the house. A good excuse to make crabcakes another night.

Chicken Club

Sandwiches for dinner. A grilled chicken club sandwich. Simple.

Following a recipe from Bill and Cheryl Alters Jamison, I marinated chicken breasts in worcestershire sauce and a tiny dash of canola oil for about an hour in the fridge. Meanwhile I cooked up a couple slices of bacon and made up a spicy pecan butter by cooking 1/4 cup of diced onion in 6 TBs of butter, along with a good dash of cayenne, until the onion had softened. I brushed the chicken with the butter and grilled for about four minutes on a side until just cooked through.

I layered mustard, red onion, lettuce, chicken, and bacon -- drizzling with pecan butter as I built -- and topped the now towering sandwich with a slice of Swiss cheese. After a turn under the broiler to melt the cheese I served up James' dinner with a side of olive oil fried potatoes -- home-grown, of course.

Cauliflower Spaghetti

I generally feel that pretty much anything can be made into spaghetti sauce, or more properly a "condimento" as Mario Batali would no doubt clearly annunciate. Though in all my years in Italy I never heard it said. Hmm must be the company I keep.

In any case for James' pasta tonight I sautéed cauliflower florets in olive oil until they were just a bit brown and added in a good handful of chopped pancetta, minced garlic, and red pepper flakes and let the mixture cook over medium heat until the bacon was crispy. I deglazed the pan with a splash of white wine (I had some open) and added in about 2 cups of chicken broth. I left the cauliflower to simmer until tender with the pan partially covered. All of the similar recipes I read said to toast breadcrumbs in olive oil and set aside before cooking the cauliflower. I was just to lazy to involve more dishes and for just a minute after the cauliflower was cooked and the liquid evaporated off, I moved the vegetables to one side of the pan, added in a couple TB of olive oil and toasted a handful of breadcrumbs right in the same pan.

I added my "condimento" to the drained pasta along with a handful of shredded parmesan cheese and about 1/2 cup of the pasta cooking water. After a good hard stir the cheese and water formed a creamy sauce to coat the bits of bacon and cauliflower. The bread crumbs gave the dish a little crunch and body.

More Clams

We eat a lot of clams. Whenever I feel like I haven't been very nice to James. Or he does something particularly thoughtful. I generally think I should make clams for dinner. I'm not even sure James likes clams as much as I think he does, but still I present them as a recurring special treat -- and I never like to serve them the same way twice.

Tonight I stared off with diced bacon. The meat crisped in the pan in a little olive oil and rendered out some tasty fat. Next I added in chopped garlic, crushed red chiles, sprigs of thyme, chopped parsley, chopped chervil, one cup of white wine and diced home-grown potatoes. I covered the pan and let the potatoes simmer (maybe a bit more than simmer) for about 5 minutes and then added in the washed clams and a good sized (dare I say it almost a stick) of butter. I turned the heat up to high and let the clams steam, covered, for about another 6 minutes (these were small clams). After the clams were opened I let the sauce boil just a bit longer (I should have done this after removing the clams but with the potatoes and bacon it was just too busy in there) to thicken up.

I served up this latest clam recipe with lots of crusty bread to soak up the deliciously buttery sauce.

Connie's Big Day

Connie, our Cuckoo Maran hen, lays dark brown, sometimes speckled eggs and every now and then delights us with an extra large double yolker. Her latest had a starring role in James' favorite breakfast of 2 slices of Neuske's applewood smoked peppered bacon, 2 eggs (today in one shell) and two slices of toast. Thanks Connie!

Potato Salad

I dug up the last of our winter potatoes today. Red and purple fingerlings so delicious they don't need anything elaborate to mask their fresh flavor. I steamed the potatoes and when they were tender laid them on a bed of fresh arugula. Meanwhile I chopped 3 slices of bacon and cooked them in a skillet over medium heat to crisp the meat and render the fat. When the pork was crispy I removed it from the skillet with a slotted spoon and added 3 TB of white wine tarragon vinegar to the remaining fat to make a warm vinaigrette. I poured the dressing over the potatoes, sprinkled on coarse salt an a little pepper, and brought it to the table.

Pasta Is Our Standby

I've been coddled at sea level for a long time.

As I set out to make a quick pasta dinner for James in the dreaded hotel "kitchenette" I remembered my time in Colorado and my neighbor Roger (a flatlander and a Kansas native) saying -- "it's darn near impossible to fry chicken at 10,000 feet." Years of California cooking have nearly erased the memory of special instructions for baking cakes and the lower temperature, slower cooking boiling water dishes from my mountain cuisine. At higher elevations water boils at a lower temperature -- great for a braise or a simmering stew but not exactly the ticket for pasta which becomes tender and magically still toothy in rapidly boiling, super hot water with the shortest cooking time possible. An easy 10 minute dinner in California became a half hour of worrying and stirring in New Mexico.

All I did was sauté some chopped bacon (pancetta would have been the thing if I'd had it), onion, garlic, and lots of pepper (wish I'd had some crushed red pepper handy -- bought a bunch for gifts but none to use it seems) in some olive oil. When the bacon was getting crisp -- that took a bit, still have the smoke alarm issue -- and the onions softened I tossed in about a cup of artichoke hearts (chopped) I bought from the olive bar at Whole Foods and gave it all a good stir around with a healthy knob of butter.

When the pasta was finally cooked I reserved about 3/4 of the nice starchy water and stirred it, the drained pasta, the sautéed mixture, a good dose of parmesan cheese and a quick squeeze of lemon over medium heat until warmed through and nicely combined.

Hmm . . . spaghetti at 7000 feet, no wonder slow simmering rice and polenta took hold in the Alps. Next time a nice risotto.

Better With Bacon

Somehow I feel if there is slab bacon in the house we will always have something for dinner. And, the bacon from Nueske's is so insanely delicious (yes there really is a difference) that I could serve boiled cardboard with lardons of the Wisconsin smokehouse's specialty and still get rave reviews. In short it is the perfect ingredient when creativity wanes, James is hungry and we need dinner in a hurry. Salad, spaghetti, meatballs, soups, macaroni and cheese -- let's face it, bacon makes it better.

Tonight's quick fix was bacon and onions cooked slowly in a bit of olive oil with a sprinkling of fennel seeds, crushed red pepper, black pepper and garlic. I let that cook while the water boiled (and the pasta cooked) until the bacon was nice and crisp. Halfway through the pasta cooking I added a couple handfuls of chopped broccoli and let the spaghetti and vegetables continue cooking together. After I drained the pasta (and reserved a cup of the pasta cooking water -- kitchen gold I tell you!) I put the spaghetti, broccoli, bacon mixture, the reserved cooking water and a heavy mound of grated parmesan and hard goat's cheese into the cooking pot and gave it a stir over medium heat until the cheese had melted into a light (if you can call anything about a dish with this much pig in it "light") sauce. Season with salt and serve, sprinkled with a bit more grated cheese.

A hurry up weeknight dinner -- courtesy of the "gateway meat."

A Sort Of Keller Christmas Eve

A couple weeks ago James and I went to Thomas Keller's new LA outpost -- Bouchon, where the big man met and fell in love with Frissée Au Lardon. While thumbing through ideas and recipes for our Christmas Eve for two I thought -- why not try the salad at home (James gave me the Bouchon cookbook last year). It's not exactly Revillion, but I settled on a bistro style tasting menu . . . Kathy Cooks Keller.

As a first course a bit of traditional Christmas. Beignets of salt cod brandade, quickly fried in Keller's batter of cake flour, cornstarch, baking powder and beer, served on TK's oven-baked tomato confit. This time of year doesn't bring the best tomatoes but after 5 hours slow cooking (250º) in olive oil and thyme pretty much shoe leather would be sweet and tender. To be honest I cheated a bit -- I had brandade I made (well actually this year my friend Martha made it for me) for our oyster roast (it freezes well). I serve it every year and count on a bit to use on Christmas. Scorecard -- half Keller.
I would think Oyster Stew would be the kind of thing Keller would revel in. It's mostly milk and cream and butter cooked together and called a soup, but his cookbooks barely acknowledge the joy of cooked oysters, so this one I have to credit to my grandmother. I tried to improve on her stew with a recipe form Antoine's in New Orleans (it is a French theme after all). Antoine's poaches the oysters separately and makes a soup base of butter, minced celery, onion, parsley, S&P, and cayenne cooked together for 25 minutes. Milk and cream are added to the soup base and then the oysters and their poaching liquid. Everything is simmered until just hot. Rich, creamy, and good -- yes. An improvement over the pure white Maryland style stew from childhood memories -- maybe not. But, the big man seemed pretty pleased.
Here's the dish that started the idea. And brought me to my very first (and not so beautiful) poached egg. To make the simple dish stand out I ordered slab bacon from Neuske's -- our favorite brand (and because the Hobb's bacon Thomas Keller favors is near impossible to find) and waited in line for the perfect pain de mie (okay I didn't bake it myself) to serve on the side. To make the dressing I cooked the lardons (slab bacon cut in to sticks about 3/4 inch x 3/4 inch) over medium heat for about 10 minutes to render the fat and crisp the meat. I set the bacon aside for a bit and added 5 tablespoons of the rendered bacon fat to sherry vinegar (2TB), whole grain (1 TB) and Dijon mustards (2 tsp) to make the dressing. While I re-crisped the bacon and reheated the poached egg I tossed the frisée with finely chopped shallot, parsley, chervil, chives and basil (TK uses tarragon but -- well, we grow basil and there was no tarragon at Whole Foods). I added in the hot lardons and dressing, tossed again and served with the gently (but not so beautifully) poached egg on top. His Highness has declared this salad our new Christmas Eve tradition. So much for the Cioppino of years past.
There was another course but we just couldn't budge. So now the Christmas question is "How well does Thomas Keller's Coquille St Jacques freeze?"

We never got to dessert even. I made this thematic, but not Keller, poached pear tart thinking we'd have fruit tart for Christmas Eve and Gingerbread cake (this is one I do make every year -- always to rave reviews) for Christmas Day. Well, it may be a year without gingerbread, but from now on, Santa brings lardons.