Roasted Beets with Feta, Baby Mesclun, and a Beet Glaze

I normally don't like feta cheese, but at our Temecula Farmers Market, there's an old Greek guy there who has the best tasting feta. It is not tangy, but it is very mild and very smooth. I thought that it would go perfect with some roasted beets. (Chessa hates beets so I can't do these too often). The Foxes came over Sunday evening and I was able to get Erin to try this. I love it... Beets are growing on me. I didn't always like them. I just roasted whole beets wrapped individually in foil with a tablespoon of butter for about 2 hours at 350 degrees. They come out very tender with a lot of juice in the foil wrapper. Pour this juice into a small sauce pan and reduce slightly to thicken. Peel the beets and cut them into about 1/3" slices. I cut the slices with a 2" ring mould so that they'd all be the same size. I also cut the feta with the same mould so that it would stack nicely with the beets. When the beet juice (sauce) had reduced slightly, I added a couple table spoons of cold butter and swirled the pan to melt. (this makes for a very smooth rich tasting sauce). Spoon a couple of tablespoons of the sauce onto a plate, stack the beets and feta on top of the sauce and top with some baby greens. (I have these mesclun greens growing in my herb garden. I love them). Sprinkle some of your favorite sea salt, drizzle with a little olive oil and you're done.... You'll love beets done this way.

Happy Mother's Day Chessa!

To the best mother in the world!!!

We're deviating a bit from the food part of this blog (but only just a bit, because what would Mother's Day be with out a great breakfast and dinner?), and the focus of this post is to our lovely wife and mom... Where would we be without all of her hard work and caring? The kids and I wanted to list just a few of the things of why we love having Chessa as our mother and wife....

Quotes:
She's awesome!
She's THE BEST
She takes us on trips
She's fun
She treats me extra special on my birthday
She takes care of me when I'm sick
She cooks me "fantabulous" meals
She lets me live in her house (I liked this one from Brennan)
She helps me with the dishes
She takes me to school
She gives me money for lunch
She gives me hugs and kisses
She is so sweet
She buys nice flowers
She loves and cares for me
She drives me to practice
She's pretty
She has nice legs
She works hard for us at the school
She does a great job with the girls hair (I'm most thankful for this because I had to do Lorien's hair yesterday for soccer and it was a bit of a nightmare... the girls are very lucky that they don't have to rely on me to look nice... I'd fail)...
She makes our house look nice
She takes us fun places
She makes me feel special
Most importantly, she loves us....

We love you Chessa!!!

Lorien helped pick out these flowers and the fresh strawberries at the farmer's market yesterday

Mother's Day Cards & Breakfast

Chesse filled Crepes (blintzes) with fresh strawberries, chantilly cream, and strawberry puree
Maddyn wanted to take a picture of the plates being built... Man, I'm I really that bald???

Mother's Day Crepes

Basic Crepe Batter
1 cup milk
1/4 cup cold water
2 eggs
1 cup all-purpose flour
Pinch salt
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted, plus more for cooking the crepes

Chesse Filling, (recipe follows)

Combine the milk, water, eggs, flour, salt and sugar in a blender. Blend on medium speed for 15 seconds, until the batter is smooth and lump-free. Scrape down the sides of the blender and pour in 3 tablespoons of melted butter. Blend it again for a second just to incorporate. Refrigerate the batter for 1 hour to let it rest. If the crepes are made immediately, they have a tendency to be rubbery; when you let the batter rest, the crepes have a better texture and a softer bite.

Put an 8-inch crepe pan or nonstick skillet over medium heat and brush with a little melted butter for added assurance. Pour 1/4 cup of batter into the pan and swirl it around so it covers the bottom evenly; pour back any excess. Cook for 30 to 45 seconds, until the crepe batter sets. Flip the crepe and cook the other side for an additional 30-45 seconds. The crepes should be pliable, not crisp, and lightly brown. Slide them onto a platter and continue making the crepes until all the batter is used. Cover the stack of crepes with a towel to keep them from drying out. This makes 10 crepes.

Assembly: Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Forming the blintzes is kind of like making burritos. Spoon 1/4 cup of the cheese filling along the lower third of the crepe. Fold the bottom edge away from you to just cover the filling; then fold the 2 sides in to the center. Roll the crepe away from you a couple of times to make a package, ending with the seam side down. Put an ovenproof skillet over medium heat. Brush with melted butter. Pan-fry the blintzes for 2 minutes per side until crisp and golden.

Transfer the pan to the oven and bake for 10 minutes so the egg in the filling cooks slightly and the cheese sets. Dust some plates with powdered sugar. Fan out some cut strawberries and place two blintzes on top. Top with a little chantilly cream (freshly whipped cream) and a few dots of strawberry puree.

Cheese Filling
1/2 cup ricotta cheese
6 oz cream cheese
3 tablespoons confectioners sugar
zest of one lemon
1 egg

In a food processor, combine the ricotta cheese, cream cheese, confectioners' sugar, lemon zest, and egg and blend until smooth. Chill the filling to firm it up a bit so it doesn't squirt out of the blintzes.

Strawberry Puree
6 ripe strawberries
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tabespoon water

In a food processor, combine all ingredients and blend until smooth. Pass through a fine mesh sieve (to strain out all the seeds) and put in a small squirt bottle.

Cedar Plank Salmon with Grilled Romaine

I think that this is one of the coolest ways to do salmon. It is very easy and very quick. You can have everything done in about 20 minutes. (if you've pre-soaked your boards). The brown sugar creates an awesome glaze and the cedar impregnates the fish with a wonderful smoky flavor. The best place to get cedar planks??? Costco... They run about $8 for 6 of them. I soak them all at one time overnight and then just put the planks in the freezer until I'm ready to use them. My kids love salmon done this way.

Cedar Plank Salmon
One salmon filet
1-2 cups of brown sugar
little olive oil
Sea Salt
1 Cedar plank (soaked in water for at least 4 hours)

Lay out your cedar board that has been soaked in water for at least 4 hours (I prefer overnight), sprinkle sea salt over the board and place your fish, skin side down right on the plank. Drizzle with a little olive oil and season with a little sea salt. Cover the top of the fish with brown sugar. It will look like a lot of sugar, but most of it runs off when it caramelizes. Place on a hot grill and let it do it's thing for about 12 minutes. The bottom of the board will probably be on fire (this is ok) and there will be a ton of great smelling smoke (you want this)... Pull the board off the grill and let sit for a couple of minutes (until it stops flaming). Place on a platter you're done....

Grilled Romaine??? I thought the same thing, but brushed with a little olive oil and quickly grilled it's awesome. We drizzle more olive oil and some really good balsamic vinagre on top, shave some parmesan cheese and add a few teaspoons of pine nuts.... (Don't let the romaine sit too long on the grill or it will burn. You just want to lightly char both sides. It goes great with the cedar salmon....

Salmon served with grilled romaine and brown rice

Courgette Salad with Fresh Herbs

I don't really like raw zucchini and other squashes, but I have to admit, doing it this way changed my mind. I just used two small straight zucchini and two fairly straight yellow squash and cut them into long match sticks on a mandoline. I made a simple dressing of 3 parts olive oil, 1 part fresh lemon juice, salt and black pepper to taste and a handful of chopped flat leaf parsley and cilantro. I tossed it all with some julienned radishes and some finely diced jalapeno and tried to pile it all high onto the dinner plates.... My kids loved it.... I was surprised at how crunchy everything was.... A great way to get your kids to each raw squash...

Vanilla Bean Pots de Creme

I think that this has got to be my favorite dessert. Cream, eggs, sugar and vanilla... what can be better? If you ask my kids what they want for dessert, they always ask if we can make pots de creme. I just like the cool little moulds that we use for this dessert. We've tried infusing the custard with rich dark chocolate, cinnamon, or mint, but our favorite is just the simple vanilla bean. It just has a very clean taste to it. Chessa and I found these spoons (they had exactly 14... the same number of pots de creme moulds that we have) in a "misc" jar on the counter at the Sur la Table in Carlsbad... my kids love them. They only get to use the spoons when we have this dessert....

Cream, Milk, Sugar, Eggs and Vanilla Beans.... (that's it)

The custards ready for their water bath

The warm custards cool before going in the refrigerator to "age" for 24 hours

A happy five year old

Blackened Ahi with Soy Mustard and Beurre Blanc Sauces

Henry's had some good looking ahi on sale so I grabbed a small piece and decided to try some quick searing. The sauces come from Roy's fish and Seafood cookbook.... There are a lot of great fish recipes in that book. I love tuna this way, but I couldn't get my kids to eat a lot of it (they each tried a bite, but politely told me "no, I'm ok" when offered a second bite... I was missing some wasabi and ginger, otherwise, this was pretty tasty.

Blackening Spices
1.5 tablespoons paprika
.5 tablespoon cayenne pepper
.5 tablespoon chili powder
.25 tablespoon freshly ground white pepper
.5 tablespoon ground sandalwood (optional)

Mix all spices and place on a plate. Dredge your ahi to coat on all sides. Heat a couple of table spoons canola oil until almost smoking. Sear ahi over high heat for about 15-30 seconds on all sides. Remove and cut into thin slices

Soy-Mustard Sauce
1/4 cup mustard powder (colman's)
2 tablespoons hot water
2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
1/4 cup soy sauce

Mix mustard powder and hot water together in a cup to form a paste. Let sit for a few minutes to allow the flavors and heat to develop. Add the vinegar and soy sauce, mix together and pass through a fine mesh sieve into a bowl. Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour to allow the flavors to develop.

Beurre Blanc Sauce
1/2 cup dry white wine
2 teaspoons white wine vinegar
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon minced shallots
2 tablespoons heavy cream
1 stick cold butter, cut into slices
salt and white pepper to taste

Combine wine, vinegar, lemon juice and shallots in a heavy stainless-steel saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat and cook to reduce the liquid until it becomes syrupy. Add the cream and cook to reduce by half. Decrease the heat to low and gradually add the butter, stirring slowly; do not whisk. Take care not to let the mixture boil, or it will separate. When the butter is incorporated, season with salt and pepper to taste and strain through a fine-mesh sieve into the top of a double-boiler. Keep warm over barely simmering water until ready to use.

"Date Night" Shrimp Pasta - Linguini with Shrimp, Shallots and Roasted Tomatoes

Our kids were complaining one Friday night that they never got anything good when Chessa and I went out on our date night. We had some frozen shrimp in the freezer and some pasta in the pantry so I threw a few things together and we came up with "Date Night Shrimp Pasta". You can have this dish ready in about 15 minutes. The most time consuming part is just prepping the tomatoes.

Ingredients
1/2 bag frozen shrimp (pre-cooked costco shrimp. I normally get 21/25's but I think that we used smaller ones in the picture above).
Few Roma Tomatoes (seeded and cut into diamonds)
3 cloves of garlic
2-3 shallots finely diced
jalapeno (seeded and finely chopped)
Olive Oil
Flat Leaf Parsley
Shaved Parmesan
(whatever other vegetable you want to add or none at all)
Choice of Pasta (I like angle hair or linguini)

Cook what ever pasta you plan on using according to the package directions. While the pasta is cooking do the following:

Heat the olive oil in a saute pan (I have a 14" chef's pan that's really easy to use for this recipe), and chuck in the shallots, garlic and jalapenos and saute for a few minutes until they're softened. I then add 1/2 the tomatoes and cook for another 1-2 minutes. (this will soften the tomatoes and will start to create the base of your sauce as they begin to release their juices). Add your frozen shrimp and toss to coat. As the shrimp cooks (or thaws as they are already pre-cooked), they'll release a lot of liquid. This is great as it will mix with the shallots, garlic and tomatoes creating the sauce that will coat your pasta. Continue tossing until the shrimp are hot all the way through. Add sea salt and fresh ground pepper to taste. Once your pasta is done, drain and return to the pan you cooked it in. Pour all of your shrimp/shallots/tomatoes/garlic over the top, add the rest of your tomato diamonds, and toss in your chopped parsley. Toss everything to coat the pasta in those great pan juices and to distribute all the ingredients. Plate the pasta in nice tall mounds in the center of a warm dinner plate, shave some fresh parmesan over the top and you're done. Your kids will love you for this one....

(Left overs are a favorite for Brennan in his school lunch the next day). You really can knock this one out in about 15-20 minutes. I think that the entire dish costs about $12 total to make... Much better than a bowl of mac-n-cheese and chicken dinos....

Tomatoes, Shallots, Garlic, Parsley, and Jalapenos

Sauteing the shallots, garlic, chilis and tomotoes

Shrimp and the sauce - all ready to be poured over the pasta