Tag: local

Categories
Recipes San Francisco

our csa from eatwell farm

Jordan and I have been enjoying the bounty of spring through our CSA with Eatwell Farm. We’ve been obsessed with their strawberries and fava beans (maybe you’ve noticed), and we now count cherries and radishes among those obsessions as well.  The cherries were so good that they didn’t even make it into a recipe. We ate them straight from the bag the day we got them. The radishes were also wonderful – crunchy and spicy. We used them in a salad and also pickled a few. I’d never had them before, but pickled radishes are a good idea. Trust us.

 

 

Pickled Radishes
1/2 bunch radishes, quartered
1 t salt
1 t sugar
1/4 cup vinegar
1 clove garlic
1/4 t fennel seed

Heat the sugar, salt and vinegar in a small pot until dissolved. Pour over the radishes, garlic and fennel seeds. Seal the jar and place in the fridge to marinate overnight or up to 1 month. We ate these with some leftover cheese nubbins from a dinner party and they were awesome.

If you are interested in joining a CSA and getting in on this incredible produce, check out LocalHarvest to find on in your area.

-Emily

Categories
Randomness

celebrity chefs!

Who are these talented, creative celebrity chefs giving a revolutionary cooking demonstration at a first-class, exotic locale? Why, yours truly, of course!

Next Sunday, Jordan and I will be giving a seasonal cooking demonstration at El Dorado Nursery and Garden. Our demo is paired with a discussion on fruit and vegetable gardening by Farmer Fred from the KFBK Garden Show.  This event is your one-stop-shop for local and seasonal produce from start to finish. If you’re in the area, please stop by!

Event Details
Sunday, May 22nd
1 pm – 4 pm
El Dorado Nursery and Garden
3931 Durock Rd. Shingle Springs, CA
FREE! No reservations are needed.

We’ll post the recipes we prepare after the event, if you can’t make it but still want to expand your seasonal cooking repertoire.

-Emily

Categories
Randomness Uncategorized

our csa from eatwell farms

We’ve been a member of the Eatwell Farms Community Supported Agriculture program for several months now and we couldn’t be happier! The produce is amazing, the variety inspiring and we’ve been forced to experiment. So many great recipes have been born out of “tricky” ingredients. Another awesome thing about eating with the seasons is how excited we get about new produce as it comes into season. We haven’t had strawberries since last July and that makes the first spring strawberries absolutely amazing! Perfectly sweet-tart, a deep red all the way through, and they go bad in about a day – that’s how you know they’re the real deal.

In this week’s box we received: strawberries, navel oranges, marjoram, parsley, lemons, sugar snap peas, green garlic, spring onions, stir-fry mix, radishes and carrots. Yum!

If you are interested in joining a CSA, please visit Local Harvest to find one in your area.

Happy Spring!

-Emily

Categories
Recipes

braised duck legs

The answer is always pork … except when it’s butter … or when it’s the topic of today’s post: duck fat!  I’ve been wanting to experiment with duck for quite some time, so I rode down to the Fatted Calf, picked up 2 duck legs and got to work.

I began by scoring the fat in a cross-hatched pattern so that it can render out.  I then seasoned the duck with salt, let it rest, and prepared mirepoix (half an onion, a carrot, and a stalk of celery, all finely diced).  Once everything was ready, I got to rendering. Just put the duck skin side down in a skillet over low heat and you’ll see the lovely fat fill the pan.

The picture above was after about 20 minutes and there was no fat in the pan when I started!

After you’ve rendered off most of the fat and the skin starts to brown (about 3o-40 minutes), flip and repeat on the other side.  Since there is much less fat on the other side, it will render much more quickly (maybe 5-10 minutes).  Remove the fat from the pan and save it; don’t throw it away!  Increase the heat to get good browning on both sides of the duck.  Remove the duck, lower the heat to medium, add the mirepoix, and cook until the onion is translucent (2-3 minutes).  Deglaze with about half a cup of wine, add a cup of broth, and bring to a simmer.  Put the duck back in the pan, cover, and place in a 300 degree oven for 2.5-3 hours.  I also added a sprig of rosemary, some fresh oregano, and a couple cloves of garlic for good measure.

Once the duck is tender, remove it from the oven, set aside and keep warm.  You can make a sauce from the braising liquid if you’d like.  When you’re ready to serve, just throw those legs under the broiler skin side up until it’s brown and crispy.

Conclusions:
This was delicious and a simple sauce made from the braising liquid added some nice flavor.  I just took out the herbs and then blended, strained, slightly reduced it, and adjusted the flavors in accordance my current mood.  This dish was also quite easy because you leave it alone most of the time; while the duck was rendering I was in the kitchen reading for school, and the rest of the time I simply ignored it all together.  One final thought: the same rendering technique can be used for duck breasts as well if you feel like being fancy, just render the skin side nice and slow until it’s brown, then sear the other side over high heat until medium-rare.

-Jordan

Categories
Randomness

our csa from eatwell farms

As we described a couple of months ago, Jordan and I joined a CSA (community supported agriculture) group. We’ve been enjoying our boxes of super seasonal and fresh produce and trying new recipes like linguini with leeks and fresh ricotta and strawberry lemonade sorbet. Our farm is Eatwell Farms and I want to share the beautiful produce we just picked up!

This week we received: oregano, navel oranges, lemons, dandelion greens, chard, green garlic, leeks, pink lady apples, carrots, savoy cabbage, and sweet potatoes.

If you are interested in joining a CSA, visit LocalHarvest.org to find one in your area.

-Emily

Categories
Recipes

celeriac and leek gratin

One of my favorite things about this time of year is all the wonderful root vegetables that are available, and I think the best way to utilize them is to make a gratin.  You can make a gratin with just about anything, but today’s awesomely cheesy preparation includes celeriac (a.k.a. celery root), some yukon gold potatoes, leeks, and gruyere.  Assembly is very simple and if you have a nifty Japanese mandolin, the dish practically makes itself.

A note on quantities: I’ve found that one medium celery root, two potatoes, and two leeks filled an eight inch round casserole that was about 4 inches high, but this recipe can easily be adjusted to fit whatever size or shape dish you have.

First, peel the potatoes and celeriac and cut them into very thin slices (imagine a thick potato chip) and cut the leeks into similarly thin rings.  Wash the leeks in a bowl of water to remove the grit.  Then, butter up a casserole or, if you have one, an au gratin dish and begin layering.  Just make a thin layer of each vegetable and sprinkle with salt and pepper; you can put some parmesan if you like, I did … of course.  Then repeat until you’ve used up all your ingredients.  Last, pour about a cup of cream over the top and plenty of grated gruyere.  I had some homemade breadcrumbs lying around, so I through those on too, but that’s optional.  Bake with the lid on at 375 until the vegetables are tender (I stick a fork in and if there’s no resistance, it’s done).  Broil to get the top brown and serve after it’s had a chance to cool for a few minutes.

Conclusions: What’s not to love?  This is a rich, satisfying dish, perfect for these rainy San Francisco days we’ve been having.  Also, the nerd in me loves how evenly the vegetables cook because they’re sliced to the same thickness; the mandolin makes this impressive dish so easy to throw together.  Go get one and make this dish!  You won’t regret it!

-Jordan

P.S.  I haven’t specified what all this mandolin business is about.  I know that there are these products out there that cost $50-150 and look completely impractical, but Japanese mandolins are much simpler and more cost effective.  Specifically, the Benriner brand is great and the best price you can get is from Jon at Japanese Knife Imports. They’re only $20 there (compared to at least $30 from other stores) and he sells the replacement blades.  I take knives and such very seriously and I can tell you, these things are sharp.  Enjoy!

Categories
San Francisco

our csa from eatwell farms

As we described a few weeks ago, Jordan and I joined a CSA (community supported agriculture) group. We’ve been enjoying our boxes of super seasonal and fresh produce and trying new recipes like mussels with clams and fennel, un wok and leek and tomato chowder with dover fillets. Our farm is Eatwell Farms and I want to share the beautiful produce we just picked up!

This week we received: navel oranges, pomelo, dandelion greens, winter green mix, green garlic, savoy cabbage, leeks, celeriac, carrots,  pink lady apples and eggs.

How cute are these eggs!

Stay tuned for a delicious celeriac and leek gratin recipe.

-Emily

Categories
Randomness San Francisco

our csa box from eatwell farms

As we described a few weeks ago, Jordan and I joined a CSA (community supported agriculture) group. We’ve been enjoying our boxes of super seasonal and fresh produce and trying new recipes like pasta with kale and portobello, leek bread pudding and blood orange olive oil cake. Our farm is Eatwell Farms and I want to share the beautiful produce we just picked up!

This week we received: lemons, navel oranges, lettuce, parsley, broccoli, spring onions, collards, green garlic, carrots, pink lady apples and butternut squash.

Another awesome thing about receiving a CSA box that I didn’t expect is that it really motivates Jordan and I to plan ahead. We plan our week of meals and shop for additional ingredients on Sunday night, trying tofit each of these delicious edible pieces into our meal puzzle. This culinary problem solving has been really fun – it removes a lot of the I just got home from a long day at work and I have no idea what I’m eating tonight stress and we eat healthier because we’re planning dishes around vegetables. Win-win-win!

-Emily

Categories
Randomness

our csa box from eatwell farms

As we described a few weeks ago, Jordan and I joined a CSA (community supported agriculture) group. We’ve been enjoying our box of super seasonal and fresh produce and trying new recipes. Our farm is Eatwell Farms and I want to share the beautiful produce we just picked up!

This week we received: navel oranges, lettuce, stir-fry mix (kale, chard, other winter greens), romanesco, box choy, turnips, leeks, carrots, red beets, apples and butternut squash.

So pretty! So tasty! And, honestly, how adorable is that little group of leeks! I squealed when Jordan showed them to me and Willow came rushing over to see what the excitement was all about.

If you are interested in joining a CSA in your area please visit LocalHarvest.org.

-Emily

Categories
Restaurant Reviews San Francisco

bar tartine

Emily and I celebrated our fifth anniversary last week, so we treated ourselves to a nice dinner.  Since it falls so close to the holidays, we choose not to purchase each other gifts, but we still splurged a bit for a nice meal.  After much deliberation, we settled on Bar Tartine in the mission, on Valencia between 16th and 17th.  The “bar” is more of a restaurant that happens to have bar seating; this trait usually lends itself to a cozy and intimate dining experience, and Bar Tartine is no exception.  Because of this, I would now like to apologize in advance for the lack of photos; the tables are fairly close together and the lighting from the antler chandelier was not exactly photo friendly.  As well as being cozy, the space feels calm and the creative touches are interesting.  Bar Tartine kind of sums up what the food and people are like in this part of the mission; it shares this with its sister eatery: Tartine bakery.  There’s another thing it shares with Tartine Bakery: the quality of the food.

We decided to neglect the traditional dining progression and instead shared the four things on the menu that looked best.  First was a frisée salad with prosciutto and a soft boiled egg ($9).  The greens were fresh and dressed very well, the egg was cooked perfectly, and the cooked prosciutto added a satisfying crispy component.  This was a good salad, but a bit forgettable.  Also, I’m not a huge fan of prosciutto prepared in this way; I think you lose most its the subtlety as well as the delicacy of the fat which melts on your tongue.  For this salad, I think bacon would have been a better choice.  Next was the big one: bone marrow ($15).  Three bones with a garlicky, herby, crusty top filled with what can only be described as butter of the gods.  Imagine the most meaty, perfectly salty, creamy, deliciousness and spread it on toasted Tartine bread (which is also wonderful).  We’ve had bone marrow other places and it’s almost always great, but this is something special.  For a main course, we shared the boudin noir ($24).  Blood sausage is one of my favorite treats; I fell in love with it at a parrilla in Uruguay and indulge in this porky, creamy sausage whenever I can.  It may sound gross, but trust me, it’s not.  Bar Tartine put forth a good effort resulting in probably the second best I’ve had, defeated only by my first love from Uruguay, but that was an emotional day for me (soooo much good food).  Okay, I’ll stop reminiscing and get back to the meal.  The boudin was served with braised cabbage and sweet potatoes, both of which complimented the sausage very well.  To accompany our main dish Emily and I indulged in yet more of Tartine’s lovely bread; this time it came in the form of a savory bread pudding with leeks and plenty of pepper ($6).  It was super crispy on top, and creamy and hearty in the middle.  This final course was loaded with flavor and we were ready to move onto something sweet.  Everything that comes out of the bakery is perfect, so we had to get something from Bar Tartine’s dessert menu.  While the menu looked interesting, the night we were  there they had run out of a couple things, so we settled on the Passion Fruit Lime Bavarian ($7.5).  The cake was very nice and the passion fruit and lime filling was fantastic (by the way, passion fruit is like the bacon of the dessert realm, so we MUST eat it when it’s available; it’s compulsive and not our fault), the only downside was that this cake is also served at Tartine Bakery so it didn’t seem as special or unique.

Conclusions:  The meal was great and although we didn’t follow the traditional dining format it allowed us to try all the things we wanted without spending too much or eating an obscene amount.  If I had to sum up Bar Tartine in one sentence, I would say: it’s good, simple food with the flavor dial turned up to 11.  This is definitely the place to go for uncomplicated food executed wonderfully.

-Jordan