Okay, vacations are hard. I mean, it’s hard to get into the posting habit after a break. But I’ll try my best.

The other night — fine, last Sunday — jwa and I had some grilled salmon and a salsa with avocado, pomegranate seeds and grapefruit. This is a recipe I came across last year at the blog Frugal Cuisine, and one that I so fell in love with that I made as part of Christmas dinner. Recently, I thought it might go well with salmon. It did. In addition to the pomm, avocado and grapefruit, I added a bit of diced red onion and chopped cilantro for this version.

And we’ll probably have it again on Christmas. So good.

Grilled Salmon w/ Pomegranate, Avocado & Grapefruit
1 grapefruit
1 pomegranate (you’ll have some seeds leftover)
2 tbsp finely diced red onion
1 avocado, peeled and diced
1 handful cilantro, chopped
2 salmon fillets
another handful of cilantro
1/4 cup olive oil
2 tbsp white wine vinegar
2 cloves garlic
salt and pepper

To start, I made a quick marinade by combining the olive oil, vinegar, 1 handful cilantro, a little red onion and garlic in a food processor. Then, I marinaded the salmon in the fridge for a couple of hours.

To make the salsa peel and cut the segments out of the grapefruit. Cut those in half and toss with any grapefruit juice that has accumulated on your cutting board, a little diced red onion, the avocado, a little red onion and the chopped cilantro. Add maybe half your pomm seeds. Season a little with salt and pepper. Let it hang out while you cook your fish.

Heat up a grill (or other) pan and cook the salmon (season it first with salt and pepper) about 3-5 minutes per side, depending on the thickness. I did mine about 5 minutes and then 4 minutes on the other side. Remove from the pan and cover with foil. Let it sit for about 5 minutes.

Put a salmon fillet on each plate and top with the salsa. We had this with a side of steamed broccoli. Healthy!

Now, pass the Christmas cookies…

PS: Hooray for Hadley August!

We had this meal a couple of weeks ago and I think we’ll have to have it again soon. It was really tasty. The original recipe called for chicken thighs but it worked really well with chicken breasts. You could probably go with skinless and boneless (that would take less cooking time) but go ahead and live a little and use bone-in breasts.

Seriously, this was really good. Give it a few days before you actually want to cook again after Thursday and then make this…

Braised Chicken with Apples and Sage
Adapted from a recipe in Gourmet magazine
2 big chicken breasts with skin and bones (you could probably get away with 3-4 breasts with the amount of sauce that this makes, but lost of sauce is good so it woks with 2 breasts fine)
1 1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp unsalted butter
1 tbsp packed brown sugar
2 apples (preferably Gala; 3/4 lb total), peeled, cored, and cut into 1/2-inch-thick wedges — I used one Gala and one Granny Smith, and I didn’t peel
1/4 cup toasted walnuts
1/2 cup chopped shallots (2 to 3) — I subbed half a white onion as I didn’t have any shallots
2/3 cup reduced-sodium chicken broth
1 tsp cider vinegar
1/2 tsp chopped fresh sage (rosemary would work well too)

Pat chicken dry and sprinkle all over with salt and pepper. Heat oil in a 12-inch heavy skillet over moderately high heat until hot but not smoking, then brown chicken well, starting with skin sides down and turning over once, 10 to 12 minutes total. Transfer chicken to a plate and pour off some of the fat if you have a lot in the pan — you want about 1 tablespoon in the skillet.

Add butter, brown sugar, apples, walnuts and shallots to fat in skillet and cook over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until apples are browned, about 5 minutes.

Add broth, vinegar, and sage and deglaze skillet by boiling, stirring and scraping up any brown bits, 1 minute. Return chicken, skin sides up, to skillet along with any juices accumulated on plate. Reduce heat and simmer, loosely covered with foil, until chicken is cooked through and sauce is slightly reduced, 30-35 minutes. Check the temperature — you want it to be about 165 degrees.

Mmmm….it’s moist and tasty!

Okay, off to California Wednesday. Have a nice Thanksgiving, everyone!

Ah, a challenge that involves math. How fun. The theme was supplied by Cady at $40 a Week, which as you might see coming, was to spend $40 a week on groceries (per person) and come up with a meal based on those constraints.

Here, I will admit my laziness at not entirely sticking to the challenge as written. Although our grocery budget (for 2) is about $80/week, I didn’t specifically track that and actually, this week, I think we were a tad over since we decided to stock up on some wine.

But, through the magic of calculations, I deduced that if the budget was $40/week, that would work out to $5.72/day. Times two that’s $11.44 per day for two. And sure, that would mean that fish tacos are the only meal of the day but I am assuming that eating out doesn’t count. Right?

Plus, if I don’t see what jwa eats during the day and he doesn’t actually see what I eat — well, then that too doesn’t count. For the record, I had a cereal bar for breakfast and a turkey and cheese sandwich (and cup of lentil soup) for lunch. And I uh, found them. Yeah. I found them so they were free. So, I get the whole $11 amount for the dinner. Hooray!

fish: $4.50
4 corn tortillas: $1
romaine lettuce: $1
1 can beans: .99
1 cup shredded cheese: $1
tomatoes: $1
lime: .33
jalapeno: .20
cilantro: .79
assorted spices: free (’cuz I already had them)
oil: free (see assorted spices)

Total: $10.81 Woo!

This recipe is based on one from Bobby Flay which I’m sure is in one of his cookbooks. And yeah, I still am not a fan but whatever. I’ll use his recipe as long as I don’t have to interact with him or anything. ‘Cause that would be annoying.

Fish Tacos
(Feeds 2)
1/2 pound white flaky fish, such as mahi mahi, tilapia or turbot, which is what I used
1/4 cup canola oil
1 lime, juiced
1 tbsp chili powder
1 jalapeno, coarsely chopped
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro leaves
4 flour tortillas

Garnish:
Shredded romaine lettuce
Hot sauce
Shredded cheddar cheese
Chopped cilantro leaves
Chopped cherry tomatoes

Place fish in a medium size dish. Whisk together the oil, lime juice, chili powder and jalapeno and pour over the fish. Let marinate for 15 to 20 minutes.

Preheat a pan over medium heat. Remove the fish from the marinade place into the hot pan. Grill the fish for 4 minutes on the first side and then flip for 30 seconds and remove. Let rest for 5 minutes then flake the fish with a fork.

Wipe the pan out and return it to the heat. Place a tortilla in the pan and heat for about 30 seconds per side. Divide the fish among the tortillas and garnish with any or all of the garnishes.

Thanks again to $40 a Week for a great and challenging theme!

And bag. Which was something that I wasn’t going to get but then I changed my mind when I saw this bag at Zappos. Besides, what if I want to bring the camera? Or Lipstick? The room key? See, I need a bag! Especially when it is an awesome light green bag. I really had no choice.

The shoes are a citron-y green (Zappos called them yellow but I call them citron-y green) and the purse is celadon but pretty much matches the shoes. Perfect! Oh and the shoes are so comfy! Hooray! Shoes are J Shoes and the bag is by Inge Christopher. I have no idea why the picture has keys in it. The bags did not come with keys…

And I still love the brown pumps, but I can wear those normally, so I’ll still get use out of them. Okay, I’m going to try really hard to get my WCC post up tomorrow.

The other day I was searching around and came across a recipe for onion marmalade. I tried it, tweaking it quite a bit so let’s just call it mine. Okay then. Anyway, here’s what I ended up with. Delicious! Great on bread, chicken, uh, turkey* and anything else you could think to slather it on.

Sweet Onion Marmalade
1 tbsp unsalted butter
1 tbsp olive oil
3 cups chopped onions (about 1 huge onion — I used a sweet onion)
1.5 tbsp sugar
1/4 cup Balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup port wine
1 sprig rosemary
1/4 tsp chopped fresh rosemary
2 tbsp currants
Salt & pepper

Heat the butter and olive oil in medium heavy saucepan. Add onions and a light sprinkle of kosher salt. Cook for about 6 minutes.

Next, add the sugar and rosemary sprig and continue cooking until onions are very soft and browned, about 15 minutes. Adjust the heat as needed.

Add the vinegar and port and simmer for a while, about 5 minutes. A lot of the liquid will evaporate and you’ll be left with a loose, syrupy brown glob. It’s done! Remove the rosemary sprig and stir in the currants.

Taste and then salt and pepper as needed. Before serving, sprinkle the top with the fresh chopped rosemary.

Store in the fridge and then serve at room temperature.

* Ahhh, Thanksgiving. It’s kind of nice to say that this year we are going to James’ aunt’s house (hooray!) and I am not cooking. That gives me a year to think about next year’s menu! Ha!

Country Cat Dinnerhouse
7937 SE Stark
Portland, OR 97215

Finally, jwa and I made it to the Country Cat on Sunday night. I know it’s been open for quite a while, but this is actually ahead of schedule for us. Typically, we seem to not get to a new place until it has been open for a year or two. (Okay, no one burst my bubble and tell me CC has been open for like the past three years..)

Going in, I kind of knew I would be having the skillet fried chicken. Specifically, the Cast Iron Skillet Fried Chicken, with a sweet cream biscuit & bacon braised collard greens. jwa went back and forth and finally decided on the Heritage Burger on a French onion bun with cheddar cheese, garlic mayonnaise & onion rings.

Mmmm! Okay, but I’m getting ahead of myself. We got there right around 5:15 and got a nice big booth by the open kitchen. jwa saw the pretzels and mustard written by the bar and ordered that first thing while we were still looking at the menu — he has a fondness for soft pretzels and mustard. I thought they were very good, even though I gave jwa about half of my pretzel. Even then, I knew I was saving myself for the chicken.

We each got salads (huge!) and then settled in for the entrees — the chicken and jwa’s burger. We traded bites and enjoyed our meal quite a bit. We will definitely be back. The chicken was boneless and crispy and completely non-greasy. The greens had a smokey and sweet taste to them and I fell in love with my biscuit.

Next, I want to try the Grilled Leg of Lamb on scalloped potatoes with parmesan bread crumbs. Or maybe the Red Wine Braised Strawberry Mountain Beef on sour cream mashed potatoes with chanterelles, & chestnuts. Huh, the Cornmeal Fried Dover Sole on a chopped vegetable salad with a chunky olive & caper sauce sounds good too. This may be difficult.

Oh, and I love the t-shirts. I want one. We ended the meal with some chocolate and coconut sorbet. I ate the macaroon while jwa was away from the table washing his hands. Too bad for him. Ma ha ha ha ha ha ha!

Afterwards, we went to Home Depot and bought lightbulbs and cleaning supplies. It was a good night.

***

Battle of the Toppers

We have two wedding cake toppers and I can’t decide which couple I like better. I think we will use them both at the wedding — one set as toppers and the other as something else you might need a small bride and groom for. Sure, I know we could do flowers on top of the cake but I want to do the little bride and groom cake toppers. I don’t know why — I just like them. Maybe it’s because everyone does flowers on their cakes now, maybe it’s because I just want little plastic people standing on our cake.

The first set is a bit big and they sit on the edge of a tier on the cake. They are a bit awkward and dorky looking. Perfect for us! You’ll notice that I have also outfitted the groom with some big glasses for that touch of realism. My only concern here is that they might be a bit big for our size cake and they might fall off and plop onto the floor and end up covered in frosting and floor fuzz. Certainly not the end of the world but something to think about.

Set number two is smaller and stands on the top of the cake. They are a bit more sophisticated in appearance. They are designed after a retro set and produced by Martha Stewart but they are new and made of resin (instead of actually vintage and made of lead paint and asbestos). The glasses look a little big here but I think that makes it just the right amount of awesome. Currently, both sets are on our fireplace mantle looking spiffy and prepared to duke it out. We’ll see which couple reigns supreme…

This is an easy oven-stovetop-blender soup. It might sound complicated because of all the appliances involved but it is S-I-M-P-L-E. Roast your potatoes and garlic. Heat up your broth. throw it all in the broth pot. Puree *whir* *whir* in your blender. Done.

I think without the orange juice it might be a bit too heavy and rich, but the citrus really evens it out nicely. I dare say this might even make a tasty Thanksgiving side. But, please, test run it first and make sure you like it because that’s a lot of pressure, man.

Also, there is a lot of garlic in this soup, if you are a normal person, you might want to dial that down a bit.

Roasted Sweet Potato and Hazelnut Soup
This will feed 2 — double, triple or quadruple to meet your needs
1 large sweet potato, peeled and diced into about 8 chunks
3 large cloves garlic
salt and pepper
2 tbsp olive oil
1/4 cup toasted hazelnuts
1/4 cup fresh orange juice (about 1/2 an orange)
1/2 cup chicken or vegetable broth
1/4 cup marscapone cheese
1 - 2 sage leaves
1 sprig rosemary
Optional: I’m thinking that if you want to get all fancy and special occasion-y, you could also add some cream or half and half at the end — you know, just because it’s the holidays
Possible garnish: A few drops of chili oil looks nice — as does a rogue sage leaf…

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees. Toss the sweet potato chunks and the unwrapped garlic cloves with the oil and spread out on a baking sheet. Salt and pepper and bake until nicely caramelized — about 20 - 30 minutes.

In a pot, add the chicken stock, cooked potatoes, toasted hazelnuts*, sage and rosemary. Bring to a boil and squeeze out the garlic paste into the pot. Let simmer for about 5 minutes just to get all the flavors melding and enjoying each other’s company.

Turn off the heat and remove the rosemary sprig (a lot of the rosemary oils already came off the rosemary into the broth). Add the marscapone cheese and orange juice and head to your blender.

Blend until very smooth. Add more broth and/or OJ to get the soup to your desired consistency. Taste and salt/pepper as needed.

Like a lot of soups, this is even better the next day. So, maybe make it the day before you want to eat it. T’is very tasty!

* I toasted my hazelnuts after the potatoes came out of the oven. I turned the heat down to about 350 and put them in there for about 5 minutes. Then, wrapped them in a towel and rubbed them together to try to get as much of the brown papery skin off that I could.

New Subject Starts Now
We are having a Thanksgiving potluck at work next week and I am trying to figure out what to make and bring — some kind of soup like this in a crockpot? The most awesomest cheeseball in the whole world? Martha Stewart cranberry-orange relish? Gingerbread-espresso-pecan brownies? Hmmmm….

Ah, the wonders of the Trader Joe’s frozen fish section. I give you turbot — $3.90 worth of turbot. Woo! That’s two meal-sized fillets for under $4. Now that’s cheap…er economical. What’s turbot? Yeah, I didn’t know either. Thank you, wikipedia! And it even gets a good rating from the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Excellent.

Now, the frozen turbot from TJ’s comes with some paprika already sprinkled on it. So, I decided to work with that and have the fish with a tomato-olive-caper salsa. Brown rice (with diced roasted carrots and garlic) and braised Brussels sprouts round out the meal.

If you can’t find turbot, tilipia would probably work just fine!

Turbot with Tomato-Olive-Caper Salsa
2 turbot fillets
2 tbsp olive oil
1/2 cup flour
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
2 vine-ripened tomatos, diced
4-5 cherry tomatoes, quartered (You can also use fancy tomatoes — I found some green, purple and yellow cherry tomatoes and I used those, plain old red cherry tomatoes will work fine too)
1 tbsp finely diced red onion
1 tbsp capers
1 tbsp chopped kalamata olives
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbsp fresh orange juice
1 tbsp olive oil
a couple of basil leaves, torn
salt and pepper to taste

Mix up your salsa — that’s the tomatoes, onion, capers, olives, orange juice, garlic, and olive oil. Taste and adjust the salt and pepper to your liking. Maybe add more garlic — it’s up to you. Add the torn basil leaves and let it hang about the kitchen while you continue on with your business.

In a bowl, combine the flour, paprika, oregano, salt and pepper. Lightly salt and pepper the defrosted fillets and dredge in the flour mixture.

Heat a pan. Add the two tablespoons of oil over medium heat, until pretty hot. Add the fish and cook for about 2-3 minutes per side. Depending on the thickness. It should develop a nice, golden color. Adjust your pan heat as necessary.

Serve the fish with the salsa.

This meal also marks the return of the braised Brussels sprouts — oh! How we’ve missed you!

***

And then there were shoes…

My cute green and brown mules hurt. Also, size 9.5 mules are not as cute as the previous picture — scroll down — would lead you to believe. They have been returned. And so, here are the new awesome wedding shoes (I think).

The new contenders are –

They are by Tsubo and they are so-so-so comfy. Plus, I can wear them more than once, not just at the wedding. I already have the brown ones at home and they passed the tried-them-on-and-they-don’t-hurt test. I also ordered a pair in off-white that were on sale. The “off-white” ones looked more tan and seemed a bit tight. I returned them. It looks like suede chocolate pumps win! Hooray! So, I am still pleased.

Bridgewater Bistro
20 Basin Street
Astoria, Oregon
503-325-6777

So, jwa and I headed out to Astoria this weekend (such a pretty drive along highway 30 with the leaves and the sun and all) to have dinner at Bridgewater Bistro. It’s the new restaurant by Ann and Tony Kischner of the Shoalwater Restaurant in Seaview, WA. Not to put any pressure on the meal or anything, but they are catering our wedding at the Hotel Elliott in May and we wanted to go there and eat as many things on our menu as we could. Oh and we did.

First off, the space at Bridgewater is Beautiful. It’s a big, red barn-like building right on the waterfront. There’s a downstairs seating room, an upstairs mezzanine, tons of windows and multiple fireplaces. So warm and inviting. And one thing that I really like is that the space is not over-crowded with too many tables crammed into the space. There’s a nice amount of space between each table.

To start the meal we had a little complimentary glass of crisp fries and ketchup. I would have taken a pictures of these but we ate them too quickly.

One of the appetizers on our menu is halibut cakes with green apple and avocado salsa. While this was not on the current bridgewater menu, they did have fish cakes (halibut, salmon & cod) with a mango-ginger sauce. We tried the two-cake version of this as an appetizer to our meal. Really good — lots of fish. As the bride, I will be demanding extra halibut cakes and green salsa at the wedding. So you know, you’ve been warned. I can come by and steal your halibut cake. Back off — I’m the bride.

Next, jwa did the salad with salalberry vinaigrette and I did the French mushroom soup. Excellent all around. I loved the salad and the soup was really mushroom-y and good. We were trying to decide between a tomato soup and a mushroom soup as the second course and I think we’ll be going with the mushroom. And the salad (the fourth course) will be a great transition between the entree and the wedding cake.

Now, for our main meals — jwa had the salmon (served here with a cranberry-mustard sauce, a side of rice pilaf and sautéed swiss chard) and I had the Moroccan chicken. The salmon on our menu will be grilled (we love grill marks) and finished in the oven with a dill sauce and a side asparagus. That said, the salmon at this meal was very good. And jwa especially loved the rice.

My Moroccan chicken was the surprise hit of the meal. Not that I didn’t think it wouldn’t be good, just that I had already decided that I would get the salmon at the wedding. And we were kind of going back and forth between the Moroccan chicken and coq au vin. Not anymore. Moroccan chicken all the way, baby. So tasty. If I get this at the wedding, I will have to fashion some sort of bridal bib as the sauce is very red and my dress is very ivory and that sort of set up pretty much has disaster written all over it.

Desserts were a pear-fig-honey cobbler with vanilla ice cream and a bourbon-chocolate-pecan tart with vanilla ice cream. They were both delicious.

Price-wise jwa and I were trying to guess (before the check came) if this meal would be over or under what we just spent at Iorio for the Harvest Dinner we attended. And…Bridgewater was about $20 cheaper. We were both kind of surprised as we got a soup, a salad, three entrees (the fish cakes were an entree, not an appetizer) a bottle of wine and two desserts at Bridgewater.

Also, while we were at the restaurant, they were having a wedding reception in the upstairs private dining room! That makes me super happy too — that they can handle a full house of regular diners and also be catering a wedding at the same time. Awesome.

I’m just so happy we chose to go with them for our wedding catering. On top of the food, they’re just so nice to work with while planning a reception meal culinary extranvganza — friendly, calm, knowledgeable and skilled with northwest ingredients. The whole wedding planning can all be so stressful it’s a huge relief to have faith that the meal will be delicious and go smoothly. Hooray for Bridgewater Bistro!