What is this? Another post? Holy crap, yes, it’s another post. This was another meal we had over the Memorial Day Weekend. It was a very green meal with green herb risotto and some (leftover) pea puree bruschetta. We even had matcha creme brulee for desert. See? very green!

The risotto was good, but I will confess to adding a tad more cheese that the original recipe called for — mainly a few tablespoons of herbed goat cheese and about twice as much Parmesan. That’s just how I roll.

The bruschetta was an afterthought, a little side-snack and a way to show off these awesome garden radishes that jwa pulled up. Grilled, sliced baguette, toasted and rubbed with garlic, then slathered with a bit of the puree, a half cherry tomato and a sliver of robusto cheese. Drizzled with a little balsamic vinegar and sprinkle some chopped chives (also from the garden) to finish. Surround the bruschetta on the platter with the aforementioned radishes.

Pea puree recipe is here.

Green Herb Risotto
Adapted from a recipe in Bon Appétit (July 2007)
1 1/2 cups (loosely packed) fresh baby spinach leaves
1/2 cup (loosely packed) fresh basil leaves
1/2 cup (loosely packed) fresh Italian parsley leaves
2 tbsp (1/4 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 tbsp sliced, toasted almonds
2 garlic cloves
6 cups chicken broth
2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
1 medium white onion, diced
1 medium orange or yellow bell pepper, diced
1 1/2 cups arborio rice
1/2 cup dry white wine
2-3 tbsp goat cheese
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese plus additional for serving
salt & pepper

Blend first 6 ingredients in processor until thick paste forms. You can do this a few hours ahead of time, just wrap up and stick in the refrigerator.

Bring the broth to simmer in saucepan over medium heat. Reduce heat to very low; cover to keep warm. Heat 2 tablespoons oil in heavy medium saucepan over medium-low heat. Add the onion and bell pepper; sauté until soft, stirring often, about 10 minutes.

Add rice; stir until heated through, about 3 minutes. Add wine; simmer until absorbed, stirring often. Add warm broth mixture 1 cup at a time, allowing each addition to be absorbed before adding next and stirring often, until rice is tender but still firm to bite, about 20 minutes. You’ll use most if not all of the broth.

Stir in herb paste and the cheeses.

Season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve immediately in warm bowls, passing additional Parmesan cheese alongside. I garnished with a few chopped green onions and thyme sprigs. A nice drizzle of ilove oil would be good too on top!

I’ll try to get the matcha creme brulee recipe up this week too!

Memorial Day Weekend. Portland. Sunny. 70+ degrees. No rain. Really, no rain. What to do? Make lamb burgers!

Wow, these were good. Juicy and flavorful. The recipe is very easy to halve and make just two burgers (what I did). I found some kalamata ciabatta rolls at New Seasons which worked perfectly with these burgers.

Middle Eastern Lamb Burgers
Adapted from a recipe in Everyday with Rachael Ray
1 1/2 pounds ground lamb
1/4 cup chopped cilantro (you could sub flat-leaf parsley)
1 tbsp ground coriander
1 tbsp ground cumin
1 tsp turmeric
3/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 cup low fat, plain yogurt, mixed with 1 clove crushed garlic and 1/2 a grated English cucumber
4 crusty kalamata olive rolls, split
spinach leaves
1/2 cup feta cheese
1 tomato, sliced

In a large bowl, combine the lamb, cilantro, coriander, cumin, turmeric, cinnamon, salt and pepper. Form into 4 patties.

In a grill pan, set over medium-high heat, toast the rolls, set aside. In the same pan, heat 1 teaspoon olive oil and brush it onto the pan’s surface.

Add the burgers and cook, turning once, for 5 minutes each side for medium-rare.

After the first side cooks, add some feta to each burger top. Slather each roll top with the yogurt and stack some spinach leaves and tomato slices on the other side of the roll.

When the burgers are done, place each on top of the tomato slices, place the top roll in place and nom-nom-nom!

On the side we had a salad with 1 cup cooked lima beans, some halved cherry tomatoes, diced red onion, kalamata olives, fresh oregano leaves and crumbled feta. The dressing was some red wine vinegar, lemon zest, crushed garlic and olive oil. Delicious!

This was part of our new vegetarian Saturday night schedule! We’ve actually followed this for about 2 months — uh, except last Saturday when we went to Country Cat after a movie and I had duck legs. Oops. But other than that, it’s been vegetarian Saturdays! Woo!

This was good. It’s from one of my most beloved cookbook’s ever — The Enchanted Broccoli Forest. It’s pretty easy to make too. The only slightly intimidating part is the flip. And you really don’t have to do that if you don’t want to. But, you should live a little and give it a try.

Worst thing? You have vegetable upside-down cake on your floor and you order a pizza.

Vegetable Upside-Down Cake
adapted from Enchanted Broccoli Forest, by Mollie Katzen
Olive oil & non-stick spray
1 onion, chopped
1 head broccoli, chopped
1 large carrot, chopped
1 tsp salt (or to taste)
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 medium zucchini , chopped
1 cup corn (frozen/defrosted)
5 cloves garlic, minced
Black Pepper + Cayenne pepper
bunch of scallions, chopped
1 cup cheddar cheese, grated (or other cheeses work well too, I used sliced, smoked Fontina)

Preheat oven to 350 F. Spray canola oil into an 8″-ish baking dish (mine was — I think — 7″ X 9″) and set aside. Now, rather than boiling some of the vegetables in water, I just heated them all in one pan.

Heat about 1 tablespoon of oil in a large skillet and sauté the onion for 4-5 minutes. Add the broccoli, zucchini, carrot and cover. Cook for 7-8 minutes, until the vegetables are barely tender. Add the bell pepper, corn and garlic, stir and cook for a minute or two more. Season with salt, black pepper, and a pinch of cayenne. Stir in the scallions.

Spread the hot vegetables in the baking dish and allow them to rest while you make the quick bread.

For the Cake:
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp dried thyme
2 tbsp fresh dill
1 egg
1 cup yogurt or buttermilk (I used low-fat yogurt)
2 tbsp melted butter

Stir the flours, baking powder & soda, and salt in a large bowl. Add the sugar and herbs. Make an indentation in the center.

In a separate medium-sized bowl, beat the egg, buttermilk or yogurt and melted butter. Pour the wet ingredients into the well made in the dry ingredients and mix until just combined. Be sure to scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl.

Spread the batter over the vegetables. You might have to piece it together, taking batter from one part and moving it to another so that the vegetables are covered. Also, I think that using sliced cheese helped me a little here as I had a nice, flat surface to spread the dough on.

Bake for 40-45 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. Let the cake cool in the pan for about 10 minutes. Then, invert your serving plate or tray over the cake pan and flip it, using well-fitting oven mitts. Do it quickly and confidently — it’ll smell your fear.

Remove the baking dish and serve! Voila!

So, I was planing on making banana bread tonight but then I realized I didn’t have any apple sauce (yes, I’m one of those people that replaces the oil or butter with apple sauce). But then, I thought — hey! why don’t I just make apple sauce?

I hunted around online a bit and combined a couple of recipes together. And then added a rosemary sprig to the mix.

This is the easiest thing ever. Maybe 10-15 minutes prep time and 30 minutes cooking time. You can also skip the rosemary and add a little cinnamon or even a little piece of ginger! I plan on playing with this recipe a lot, and moving it to the crockpot when it gets hot out.

Rosemary-Scented Apple Sauce
Makes about 3 cups
4 apples, peeled, quartered and chopped into pieces (edited to add: I used gala apples)
juice of 1/2 lemon
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 2-inch sprig of rosemary
pinch of salt

In a heavy bottomed pan, combine the water with the lemon juice. As you chop up the apples, put them in the lemon water.

It won’t seem like you have enough water, but you do. When all the apples are in the pot, stir in the brown sugar, salt and the rosemary. Put the pan over medium high heat and bring the water to a boil.

Then, turn the heat to low and simmer for 30 minutes. Stir occasionally. I was watching a Gilmore Girls rerun while making this, and I got up to stir during commercials.

Let cool for a few minutes and mash with a potato masher (you can also use a stick blender). Remove the rosemary sprig and eat warm or cool in the refrigerator.

Use of freeze within 3-4 days.

Beet salad at the Peerless restaurant — with goat cheese, poblano peppers, pumpkin seeds, orange segments, micro greens and stuff like that

Where we stayed: Peerless Hotel
Where we ate: Peerless Restaurant, Dragonfly Cafe & Gardens
What we saw: Macbeth, Dead Man’s Cell Phone

Lodging:
This was a quick, fun trip. Alas, it was supposed to be part of a much larger trip to California too, but that got postponed due to work issues (not mine). I haz a sad. Anyway, we did still go to Ashland but then drove back to Portland Monday instead of Northern California.

We stayed at the Peerless for the first time. Normally, I like staying in a cottage-type set up where we have a kitchen but since we were going to just be there for two nights, we opted for a regular-type hotel room.

This was nice! Room number 5. Good size, awesomely huge tub (w/ jacuzzi jets and a shower), ambiance, and a relaxing atmosphere.

Breakfast was included with the room, although we slept in through breakfast on Sunday. Monday AM was a grapefruit half with caramelized sugar, an orange-amaretto muffin, a lemon ricotta waffle w/ boysenberry sauce and pepper bacon.

The sun room was one of my favorite parts of the hotel. We hung out here for a bit before driving home Monday, while jwa did work (they have wifi) and I read.

If we ever stay in Ashland overnight in the Winter ie: Quiet Season, I really want to stay in room #7 because it looks awesome but it is $$$, hence the quiet season requirements.

Eating in Ashland:

The first night, we ate at the Peerless restaurant, as we’d driven down that day and were seeing a play that night, so I didn’t want to have to hunt all over for dinner. We were ON A SCHEDULE!. Anyway, we started with a small plate, the Calamari. It had some fried leaves of some sort. We both enjoyed it’s crispy goodness very much.

jwa got the beet salad and I was presented with a bowl of the tomato-basil soup. There was a mix-up in the kitchen and they wound up with a extra bowl plated (bowled?). Our waiter brought it over and asked if I wanted it. Yes, please. Also very good, light & brothy with a tomatoey, spicy flavor.

For my main entree, I ordered two small plates — the Moroccan chicken tagine & the butternut squash gnocchi. Our server actually forgot to bring the gnocchi but that turned out to be fine as the chicken tagine was a pretty big serving — a thigh and a leg. Plus cinnamon couscous. And ginger jam. Fabulous! I actually emailed and asked for the recipe. If I don’t hear back, I will have to try and reverse-engineer. jwa got a huge hamburger and homemade potato chips. He was happy.

Oh and I got the soup for free (which I think was more expensive on the menu than the gnocchi anway), so we just let the gnocchi slide. No big deal, especially with all the drinks and tasty stuff. Dessert was gelatto for me and sorbet for jwa. A very good meal!

I almost forgot, Sunday we stopped at Agave for lunch. Tacos! Chips! Beer!

I got a fish and a pork taco and jwa got a chicken taco and a tamale. A very tasty lunch before the Sunday matinee. Next time, I think I will try the duck confit taco. Because really, why not?

painting at Agave

The second night we went to Dragongly Cafe & Gardens. There’s one of these in Portland too, in the Pearl, the Isabel Cruz place, called aptly enough Isabel. Anyway, in Ashland, we started with drinks — I got the Vodka Kiss (Equal Grey Goose and Cointreau, Lots of Lime Juice, Fresh Lime Slices and a Dash of Cranberry) and jwa had a Persphone (a Pomegranate Cosmo). Yum.

Next came the Ahi Wontons (Wonton crisps topped with seared ahi, avocado, sweet soy and wasabi cream), which were delious. There was also shredded, crispy seaweed (nori) on the top. Salads came next — the Tiger garden Salad for me and the Tomato Pesto salad for jwa. This was also about the time I switched to Sokol Blosser Evolution and jwa got a beer.

The Udon Bowl

For the entrees: I got the Buddha Bowl with char-grilled chicken (Big bowl of steamy lemongrass and coconut milk broth with shiitake mushrooms, noodles, veggies and cilantro) and jwa had the Udon Noodle Bowl (Slippery udon noodles with vegetable rainbow, portabello mushrooms, peanuts and slightly spicy Asian peanut sauce). They also brought out a little bowl of hot lemon water for chickeny hands and a selection of garnishes — lime wedges, chili sauce, a citrus zest oil, and peanuts. We garnished happily.

Dessert? Sure why not, we split the coconut flan. It was good. The whole meal, like the one before it, was quite satisfying. This was actually the second time we’d been to Dragonfly, we went a couple of years ago too. It’s good food, but also for Ashland, it’s quite reasonably priced. Bonus!

Walking around town, a big, flowering tree

The Plays We Saw:
We really liked both this year! Excellent!

Macbeth (Shakespeare):
Bloody, violent, mesmerizing, powerful, creepy witches.
Review

Dead Man’s Cell Phone (Sarah Ruhl):
Funny, quirky, cute, amusing, cell phones.
Plus, the actress that played the Log Lady in Twin Peaks (Catherine E. Coulson) has been in the Oregon Shakespeare Festival company for a while now. We usually see her in something when we go to Ashland. She played Gordon’s (the ‘dead man’) mother in this — god, so funny! “The log lady was a hoot”, as jwa proclaimed.

Review