vegetarian

Made at home

Everything gets roasted Wednesday!

Aside | Posted on by Brian and Jim

Wednesday is clean out the produce day before tomorrow/tonight’s produce delivery.  And magically was inspired by an email from Bon Appetit today: Surprising roasted vegetables

What does the cabbage say?  “Roast me!”  

(I promise that I’ve only had one beer…)   
Leek, tomatoe, squash, broccoli, fennel and tomato…everything with its own penzey spice—curry for the squash, sea salt for fennel, tarragon for broccoli, roasted garlic on the tomato, and mural of flavor for the leek

 
I bought a case of these in my Amazon subscription this month so thought I’d roast them like I do garbanzos and cannelini 

   
Look good…olive oil and penzeys rogan josh blend

 
Fail!    They exploded in about five minutes so they got added to the original blight tomato sauce I was simmering with the San Marizanos below that Amazon sent instead of my subscription garbanzos today

  

The sauce tastes better with the addition of the beans …just not as attractive

Midway through:   
 

Almost final

   
I removed the broccoli and leaks, flipped the fennel and squash and gave the tomatoes a hint of Asiago/parm 

  This is how they looked on the platter (need to

Keep them heated for when Jim best home)  
Plated 

 

This was better than I dreamed!

The sweet dumpling squash was perfect with curry and the fennel was excellent with just the sea salt.  The cabbage was also good and would be perfect with some roasted apple (and sausage if I was being flexitarian :-))….frankly it was all good…..when I was 14 I thought I was cutting edge because I broiled everything—tomatoes, grapefruit…now I realize I was just on the verge of becoming a roasting fan.  I’m serious that roasting may be better than grilling…so I’m guessing that I need to start trying to grill my veggies low and slow..

Worry not friends…roasted turkey will not replace my  grilled bird for tday!

Restaurants

El Cholo, Los Angeles, the original

Aside | Posted on by Brian and Jim

 It’s been like 20 years since I have been to El Cholo…near USC it used to be a frequent place to eat…I swear to this day I sat at the table next to George Takei one night…but I digress…

Returning from the doll show in Orange County Sunday and I was mulling over non valley spots to dine and then the 101 was closed north of the 10 which caused the 5 to get gnarly causing me to hop on the 10 and el cholo became the obvious choice…

  
I’ve always loved the original menus on display with 1920s prices (no pics today, but like a nickel for a taco…)

    
I got the Cadillac which is made from a house bottled mix (which they sell)

 
And Jim got the pineapple-Serrano.  This puppy had a nice burn on the way down

   
Enchilada mariscos for me….lobster scallop and shrimp with a nice sauce

 
Jim got the “special” mariscos fajitas 

(Did you notice the green rice)

 

This is Jim looking sad because we missed the seasonal green corn tamale by a week  
 

  
If you have ever been to el cholo, you know they wrap up the meal with house made pralines

 

Nice flashbacks today from my earlier years 🙂

Check them out online Elcholo.com

 

Made at home, Uncategorized

Game of thrones risk and snacks…gluten free vegetarian finger sandwiches I might add.

Aside | Posted on by Brian and Jim

Friends coming for Game of Thrones Risk!  Snacks needed!  So obviously I chose to try out gluten free finger sandwiches…duh

It’s been years since I slaves over finger sandwiches slowly to ensure perfect shapes and filling and slicing without glopping, etc

Not Saturday…this was all about efficiency and flavor…not beauty (I and I swear I’m missing pics..,)   
The sandwiches picture here were made using 1 loaf of Udi’a bread (the small 6 dollar loaf not the big 12 dollar loaf)…but the bread has a very uneven top crust making cutting the sandwiches without too much waste difficult so the shapes are not uniform.

Above is pictured the grated carrot, curry, and some hot Indian spices…I loved it!
   
Also involved was cucumber dill, and my favorite-olive.  The loaf of Udi’s made precisely 6 sandwiches…two of each type which were cut into thirds

    
The typical veggie tray with an appearance by some Tokyo turnips

 

Creamy peppercorn dressing with penzeys spice base…and some cream cheese stuffed celery with a penzeys chipotle sprinkle
   
Yup…an attempt at pinwheels with Mission gluten free tortillas….garlic spinach cream cheese, and avocado/onion sprout/cream cheese…

    
Maria and Ryan brought a nice Espelon blanco tequila and Bloody Mary mix for a nice bloody Maria 

 

Sometime in the middle I broke free of the bloody Maria and Ryan and I shared my Stone vertical epic 12-12-12 that I have been clutching.
   

Jim and Maria were well and truly into the game even though Jim won..
 

Ryan was the first man out and spent time with his secret Ryan notebook.

Made at home

Breakfast for dinner

Aside | Posted on by Brian and Jim

Home alone tonight so I made the perfect dinner (since no one was here to share it)…meatless sausage, 4 potato fries potatoes, gluten free biscuits and perfectly fried eggs.   
  Hmmm…my biscuits look over town in the pic but nicely light brown at home.  
I remembered I had some gluten free fake meat at home so decided to make it into sausage

 
I added two eggs (should have been one egg and a little water), a little tvp to stretch it (wasn’t a ton left in the bag), fresh sage, Penzeys mural of flavor, marjoram and let it rest. Patties it became!

   
The egg kinda yellowed at the top so I flipped them and cooked the other sized then flipped again and the top was far less yellow

 
The original idea had been to make waffles so I had the last of the better batter mix out when I shifted gears to biscuits

   
So they are slightly dry for drop biscuits but I’m still not too skilled with gluten free baking so I rolled with it since I used more liquid than the directions said to

 
I threw in some shredded cheese and Penzeys mural of flavor

   
Next my four potato fries potatoes

Purple yam

Yam 

White

And a German butterball
    
    
I have never made fired potatoes that didn’t stick before!  Low and slow…I finally get it

 

The eggs were just like I love them…white was cooked and yoke was runny with the base slightly thickened
   
 

Restaurants

Sushi Sunday 

Aside | Posted on by Brian and Jim

we are way behind in our usual sushi consumption and after our lunch date stood us up….I figure let’s have some sushi!

   
   Cho Cho San is super close to our house and tasty and busy enough to justify their goodness
  
  
  
   
 For starters we had shishitos without soy sauce

  
And Hokkaido scallop carpaccio

  
Followed by spicy scallop hand roll

   
 
Black snapper

  
  A “hurricane” roll
  
And sashimi sampler

  And bam!  Saw people we knew at the sushi bar
   
   

Ingredients

Farmers market 11/1

Aside | Posted on by Brian and Jim

whats this?

  

Can you see the lines that run along it?  It sorta looks like a long bean but not really and it has basically no smell…anyone?

Also the radishes and carrots are in which are pretty

   
    
  
    
    
 
Persimmons and apples

  

I did get onion sprouts and wheat grass (the latter for the cats)

  
 

Made at home

Halloween dinner

Aside | Posted on by Brian and Jim

todays finds combined with the farm fresh to you box became…

   
What starts as a simple orange, olive and fennel salad evolved into this covered in orange juice and olive oil.

    
Gnocchi, oyster mushrooms, elephant garlic, pesto and parsley

My Halloween helper wookie    
 

The finished gnocchi
   
The cider../very hoppy and very un appricot
Our trick or treaters

    
 

See the hot dog boy?
   
This is the hot dog boys “hot dog!”

🙂

    
Concerned cats

 

Ingredients

Food finds 10/31

Aside | Posted on by Brian and Jim

So today was more foodventure than normal…started out like a Saturday with a trip to Santa Monica farmers market…which blossomed in whole foods (a new location) and Bristol Farms which I didn’t even know what still around!

Leaving home a tad later than normal meant that Starbucks was insane so we had to hit the one at third street promenade inside Barnes and noble.

  
(He hasn’t had coffee yet)

Which led to me buying the new George RR Martin book and, I believe , my 30th consecutive Food and Wine magazine thanksgiving edition

  
Santa Monica farmers market Saturday is always one of the biggest around and the weather can’t be beat!  
This week I took some random shots of interesting things:   
Fresh peanuts, some baby jicama near the back    
I just loved the color of these…they weren’t the deep purple of all the others

    
 

Notice the quail eggs too…
   
Picked up some spring hill garlic jack

 

Kinda the last remaining non hothouse tomatoes…

I ended up with a few things…Thai green onion, garlic jack cheese, tomatoes, eggplant and that about it.   I’m still missing the avocado!!!!

Next stop was a whole foods bigger and larger than the one in downtown Santa Monica for a change…and boy was it a change!  They had things that my uber large new store in Tarzana doesn’t even have and I loved it! This is going to be our new goto Whole foods

 Look!   Mochi !  
Macaron!   
The olive bar was large than normal and I left with Castelvetrano olives 

    
   And the cause of much excitement resulting in it being our dinner tonight—gluten free gnocchi! 
Somewhere I thought I took pictures of cheese–and oh yeah we bought some because this store has samples unlike ours so I end up buying any cheese I sample!

  
 I grabbed this for dinner or maybe a wine but I couldn’t find any decent lambrusco–last time, I ended up having a case shipped from Italy because it’s so hard to find any here that’s not Riunite…but I digress

 

  
The jackfruit faux meat is in many recipes as being yummy so we are trying it out without the elbow grease of making it from scratch  So driving onward towards the 405…I spy Bristol farms  I had no idea one was here…I thought they close down! So in I pulled

   

Omg

Baby cauliflower and romanesco…but 2.99 each I could buy a whole romanesco
    
    

Radishes!!!!!  It’s better than the farmers market today!
    
  
Gluten free ravioli  
  

The high end tequilas locked in a case….I have the Don Julio Real and am eyeing the 1942 and the 1800 milennia, and the stuff from San Miguel de Allende (my friend just moved there so I’m hoping for the peso price not the dollar price)

  
  

Holiday chocolate treats

  
   

I think there is more but I’m simply overwhelmed by the bounty and all the new finds.  We have a whole new way to venture home after the farmers market now….wow!

Made at home

Lacto fermentation ?!?

Aside | Posted on by Brian and Jim

okay…and we are off to lacto fermentation experiment number 1

I’ve made canned pickles like nobodies business but this lacto business is a whole new deal.   I’m trying it out with the help of Phat beets youth pickle company and their kit

  
I found these beautiful pickling cucumbers at Sprouts.

  
Pickling spice on the bottom and bay leaf (the recipe said to use and oak leaf or grape leaf for the tannins to help keep them crisp…I’m hoping the bay leaves work:-/?!  
I found this sea salt hanging about and I needed a NON iodized salt   
Hers the finished product (well finished for now)…I filled it with dasani as that was the only still water I had about.  Notice the bubbler air trap thingy in the lid.  That is filled with water as a trap for badness coming into my fermenting cucs.

 
Now we wait five days.

  
Day two: I’m not pleased that everything has floated up a bit … I think it’s supposed to stay submerged…I shook it but hey didn’t sink

So I opened it and shoved them down with a spoon

  

Next day

  
Tasted one.  Still crunchy. Extremely salty…not sure I can taste lactic acid pickle or just salt at this point.  Plus I kinda killed it with pickling spice.

Day three

  
Kids…the coriander is way over the top and a tad too much….but the saltiness is still high but oddly mellowed since yesterday.  I’m thinking tomorrow is when I will slow fermentation by adding them to the fridge…but we will see

  
Done!

A little scum today that I swept off….an interesting first try  

 
This arrived today to supplement the next attempts:-)

Ingredients

Farm fresh to you week of 10/28

Aside | Posted on by Brian and Jim

  
Once again there is all kinds of stuff

I added on blackberry honey which is yummy but I think wildflower is still my favorite (yes, the box arrived a few minutes ago and I already have sampled the honey)

Also added is the chai current oatmeal 

As for the rest:

Delicate squash

Butternut

Cabbage

Persimmons

Green beans

Fuji apple

Purple daikon…yep purple daikon

Kale

Red leaf lettuce

Potatoes

Grapefruit

Beets

Tomatoes….um they are not meant to be green so I’m gonna deal with that.

Lots of good things to make:-)