By mlb, on June 26th, 2009%
I made this the other night based on what I had in the fridge, freezer and assorted cabinets. Two cans of black beans? Check. Actually, I have five cans of black beans in the cabinet. Every time I go to the store, I can’t remember if I have black beans, so I buy another can. *sigh*
Anyway, to continue, a bag in the freezer of about 1 cup fire-roasted, diced tomatoes? Check. Jalapeno that I really need to use…? Well, you get the idea. For a things-I-need-to-use-in-the-kitchen project, it turned out really tasty!
Pretty Good Black Bean Soup
1 1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1 tbsp olive oil
3 slices Canadian bacon, diced (you can skip this, or substitute sausage, bacon, some other kind of pork product, etc…)
1 small white onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, . . . → Read More: Pretty Good Black Bean Soup
By mlb, on June 21st, 2009%
Still pretty warm from the oven!
Okay, so this pie has been out of the oven for about 18 hours now and it is 3/4 gone. Did I mention that we were asleep for like 8 of those hours? Right, so this is a really good pie!
The crust recipe is Dorie Greenspan’s Good for Almost Everything Pie Dough which is quite simply, the best pie dough I have ever made. Start with the pie dough. You can even make it a day ahead. I did this, rolling my bottom crust out the and letting it sit in the pie pan overnight in the refrigerator. The top crust just hung out in disc-form and then I rolled that one out before baking.
I kind of based the filling recipe on a number . . . → Read More: Awesome Strawberry Rhubarb Pie
By mlb, on June 19th, 2009%
jwa and I went out for a nice Thursday night meal and FINALLY tried Tabla Mediterranean Bistro. So good! Excellent deal with the three courses for $24. We did the wine pairings for an extra $16.
I’m kind of sleepy so this post will be mostly pictures.
Just for fun, we both started the meal with a cocktail — the isadora duncan, housemade lemon-verbena vodka, cassis, tonic, rocks. Mmm!
Okay, three courses (plus desert), let’s go! For the first course, we both had the baby lettuce salad with deviled egg dressing, spiced pepitas, grilled garlic whips, shaved grana padano. It was paired with a 2006 domaine lafond, grenache blanc/rousanne/viognier, from Lirac, France. We both loved the pumpkin seeds (pepitas) here. Note to self: toast pumpkin seeds more often!
For the pasta . . . → Read More: Tabla Mediterranean Bistro
By mlb, on June 14th, 2009%
This makes a very good weekend meal. There are a lot of steps and ingredients but it is so worth it in the end (like a lot of long-cooking, multi-stepped recipes). It’s very similar to coq au vin, but with beer (duh). Use a good dark beer, Belgian-style if you’ve got it. I used half belgian, half regular dark. Four cups is about 2.5 bottles of beer, so you’ll have half a beer to drink while you start cooking. So, bonus points there.
Let’s see, what else? We had this with crusty bread but you could also add polenta or noodles to serve it over. I added garlic to this and subbed pancetta for the bacon but that’s about it. Oh yeah, I didn’t have leek leaves. Skipped that . . . → Read More: Chicken Braised in Beer (Coq à la Bière)
