Hmmm…we used to (every so often) get these pre-made at Trader Joe’s. They don’t seem to have them anymore which is just fine — they are very easy to make yourself! Give it a try! Plus, nothing says “I love you” like red meat and a bottle of wine! Grrrr!!!

Besides, this was jwa’s request for Valentine’s dinner!

Flank Steak Pinwheels with Boursin, Spinach and Sun-Dried Tomatoes
Based on a recipe from Eating Well magazine
2/3 cup sun-dried tomatoes (not packed in oil)
2 cups boiling water
1 pound flank steak, trimmed of fat
1 clove garlic, minced
3 oz herbed cheese spread, such as Boursin
1 cup baby spinach leaves
2 tbsp olive oil
kosher salt & freshly ground pepper
15 or so button mushrooms, sliced
1/4 cup Cabernet Sauvignon wine (plus the rest of the bottle for drinkin’!)

Place sun-dried tomatoes in a bowl; pour boiling water over them and let steep until softened, about 10 minutes. Drain and chop. Meanwhile, place steak between 2 large pieces of plastic wrap. Pound each side of the steak thoroughly with the pointed side of a meat mallet until the steak is an even 1/4-inch thickness. Salt and pepper it good.

Align steak so the the grain is running horizontally. Rub garlic all over one side of the steak. Spread cheese lengthwise in a 3-inch-wide strip down the middle of the steak.

Top with the sun-dried tomatoes and spinach. Starting at one edge of a long side, roll the steak up tightly, tucking in the filling as you go.

Carefully rub a bit more salt and pepper all over the outside of the steak roll. Turn the roll so the overlapping edge is on top. Use 4 pieces of kitchen twine and secure steak roll in four places. Slice between the twine to make 4 pinwheels. Trim the edge pieces if necessary to keep it all nice looking. .

Oil your skillet and cook the the pinwheels 5-7 minutes per side for medium-rare. After you flip them, add the mushrooms to the pan and let them start to golden up.

Use a spatula when turning them to prevent too much filling from falling out. Let the pinwheels rest for 5 minutes before serving. Remove the twine from each piece.

While the beef is resting, continue to cook the mushrooms in the tasty, tasty beef drippings. Mmm….beef drippings. Saute for about 3-4 more minutes and at the end pour in the wine and let it reduce about a minute or two. Serve the steaks with the mushrooms. Now, if this doesn’t get you some love, I don’t know what will…

Oh, and besides being delicious, deglazing the mushrooms with some wine should get up any cheese that is stuck to your pan. Awesome!

Resolution #1 — post more.
So, here we go. This was our stay at home, New Year’s Eve meal. Yep, instead of going out, we opted to stay in and eat a lot of beef. Mmmmm… I’ve wanted to make beef wellingtons for quite a while and finally, the time was right. Oh, was it right. Deliciously right.

In the original recipe, this was paired with a Madeira, beef demi-glace sauce but I just opted to use some tawny port that I already had and some beef broth. In a pinch, I would think you could also just use a cabernet in the sauce as well. Also, I heeded the advice of those on Epicurious who came before me and instead of pre-baking the beef (seriously?), I just seared it first in a pan. That was great advice and worked quite well.

The best thing about this recipe, though, is it’s make-ahead-ability. We came home from the store on Dec 30th and put the wellingtons together and kept them in the fridge until New Year’s Eve night. Tackling it that way, I’d think this would even be a great main course for a big dinner party. If you’re into sharing your beef wellingtons like that…

Beef Wellingtons with Gorgonzola & Mushrooms
Adapted from Gourmet magazine
2 center-cut beef tenderloins or filet mignons to the fancy-pants (about 6-8 ounces each)
1 tbsp canola oil
4 large mushrooms (about 1/4 pound total)
1 tbsp unsalted butter
1 tbsp finely chopped shallot
1 tbsp tawny port
1 clove minced garlic
1 large egg
1 puff pastry sheet (from a 17 1/4-ounce package frozen puff pastry), thawed
2 tbsp Gorgonzola cheese

Heat the tablespoon of oil in a heavy skillet and get it really hot. Salt and pepper each piece of meat and sear the steaks about 60-90 seconds on each side (salt and pepper the other side before turning over). Remove from the pan and let cool down a bit.

Thinly slice the mushrooms for the beef wellington and in a heavy skillet cook in butter with shallot, garlic, and salt and pepper to taste over moderate heat, stirring, until mushrooms are lightly browned. Add the port and stir until it has mostly evaporated. Transfer mushroom mixture to a bowl to cool completely. In a small bowl lightly beat egg to make an egg wash.

On a lightly floured surface roll out puff pastry sheet into a square. Cut in half and roll out a bit more as needed to make it big enough to fit each tenderloin.

Put a nice layer of mushroom mixture and about 1 tablespoon Gorgonzola in center of each square. Top mushroom mixture with a piece of beef, pressing it down gently, and wrap 2 opposite corners of puff pastry over the beef, overlapping them. Seal seam with egg wash or just dip your finger in a little water and seal that way.

Wrap remaining 2 corners of pastry over the beef and seal in same manner. Seal any gaps with egg wash and press pastry around the beefy goodness to enclose completely. Chances are, this will not work out exactly as described. There will be some wrapping and then perhaps a pause for a few sketches, calculations or whatnot and more wrapping and eventually, you will end up with a nicely enclosed beef wellington. Hang in there, it’ll happen.

Use any leftover pastry scraps and cookie cutter (or just mad knife skillz) to decorate the top. jwa made a giant eyeball on his.

Wrap up the beef wellingtons for chilling. I set them on a plate that I had lightly floured and covered with plastic wrap. Chill at least one hour and up to one day. Like I mentioned in the intro, we did these the day before and that worked really well.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees with your baking sheet in the oven. When you are ready to bake the wellingtons, arrange them, seam side down, on the hot baking sheet. Brush top and sides of each beef Wellington with some egg wash (you can save your leftover egg wash from the day before) and bake 20 minutes, or until pastry is golden. Twenty minutes should yield beef that is medium rare. You will have to adjust this time based on your doneness preference and the size of your wellington. If in doubt, medium rare is 145 degrees, just give it a quick check with the meat thermometer.

For sauce
5 mushrooms (button or crimini)
1 shallot, diced
1 1/2 cups beef broth
1/3 cup Madeira (you can also use plain red wine here or a port)
1 tbsp fresh thyme leave

To make the sauce (and this is doable the day before too), heat a pan with a little oil. If you are super smart, you can make the sauce in the same pan that you seared the beef in. Alas, I did not think of this at the time. I am sad.

Anyway, saute the shallot and mushrooms until soft and add the wine of your choice to deglaze the pan. Next add the broth and reduce by about half, 15-20 minutes. Stir in the thyme; salt and pepper as needed. Refrigerate (if you are making this ahead of time) and reheat with the beef as needed.

Other Optional Condiment
1 tbsp horseradish
1 cup Greek yogurt (regular yogurt will work too — the Greek kind is just extra creamy)

Mix and serve on the side. The sauce was very tasty but I think the horseradish-yogurt was my favorite. What else did we have on the side? Well, scalloped potatoes and braised Brussels sprouts. Then we retired to the couch and rang in the New Year with some season one Buffy.

Here’s a holiday side dish that we had on Christmas. It has all the things that make a holiday meal great — fatty, delicious, forbidden pork products, heavy cream and cheese. But, you know, it’ll still work after the holidays. It’s just a bit harder to justify…maybe if you only have a small taste. Yeah.

Parsnip and Hazlenut Gratin with Pancetta
Adapted from a recipe in Bon Appétit
2 oz pancetta, chopped
2 pounds parsnips, peeled, trimmed, thinly sliced lengthwise
1/2 cup hazelnuts, chopped, toasted, divided
2 cups whipping cream
1 tsp dried, rubbed sage
1 cup low-salt chicken broth
1 1/2 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp ground black pepper
1/4 cup parmesan cheese + 2 more tbsp
2 tbsp minced fresh sage

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Sauté the pancetta in a heavy, medium skillet over medium-high heat until golden brown, about 6 minutes. Using slotted spoon, transfer to large bowl.

Stir in parsnips and 1/4 cup hazelnuts into the bowl with the pancetta. Then, arrange mixture in even layer in 2-quart baking dish. In a small pot, combine the cream, broth, salt, dried sage and pepper and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Stir in the 1/4 cup of parmesan and then pour over parsnip mixture in the baking dish. Sprinkle with the remaining parmesan cheese and a few grinds more of black pepper.

Bake gratin 30 minutes. Press down on parsnips with spatula to moisten evenly. Continue baking until parsnips are tender and liquid bubbles thickly, about 35 minutes longer. Let stand 10 minutes. Sprinkle with remaining hazelnuts and sage.

This was seriously good. You must make it. That is all.

***

Public Service Announcement — Because I am Looking Out for You

On a completely, unrelated note, I bought a frozen Lean Cuisine the other day thinking I could bring it for lunch one day when I was desperate and had nothing else. I try to bring leftovers for lunch but occasionally, we have none or I am too lazy to get everything together.

But, today, I got home from running some errands and I was starving. Reluctantly, I grabbed the frozen ravioli bistro fare :: snort:: out of the freezer and popped it on the microwave. Okay, hmmm, I have to admit it, I was pleasantly surprised — it was actually edible.

Lots of good, non-soggy vegetables and the ravioli were well-flavored and I could even taste the walnuts in the sauce. Sure, homemade ravioli will always be better, and yes, most frozen meals generally kind of suck as a rule, but, if you need a cache of lean cuisine for an emergency…well, get this kind. It actually tastes good. Especially since Fred Meyer and other places seem to put the low fat frozen stuff on sale after the holidays. Oh, I have been burned by that deal before (damn you crappy chicken in gross basil sauce that I brought to work for lunch about two years ago*) but, Lean Cuisine butternut squash ravioli, you are okay in my book.

* I hold a grudge.

My mom came to visit us and we had a very nice holiday. We ate a little fruitcake and a lot of pix and today, I knocked the leftover Shazam! over and broke it. That’s okay — it’s still tasty!

Here’s a picture of the holiday table featuring — Cornish Game Hens, Stuffing, Roasted Vegetables, Cranberry Relish and a Parsnip-Hazelnut-Sage Gratin. I’ll try to post the gratin recipe this weekend as it was so very good.

Let’s see — we also got a futon for my office/the guest room. I like it a lot so far and it looks a lot better than the hairballed, cat-stained, old, cheap couch that was there. Go figure…

Hope everyone had a great holiday!

We got our tree up this weekend and celebrated in the usual way — lox, bagels, veggies, dip and champagne.

We decorated in between bites of bagels and assorted snacks. A very nice evening!

We also had a really tasty salad recently. It consisted of spinach, halved cherry tomatoes, mint, goat cheese and toasted pine nuts. Just all mixed up and dished out.

The dressing was a simple mix of olive oil and red wine vinegar. When it was tossed together, the goat cheese kind of worked itself into the dressing and it became this creamy mix of flavors and textures. I’m pretty sure we’ll be having this one again.

Just a bit lazy. Look at my ring!

I need to get some actual food posts up but in the meantime, check out these cute little robots I made for wedding-related-stuff. jwa likes the robots…

groom-robot

bride-robot

Food-wise I am trying to finalize the Christmas Dinner plan. So far it’s —

I have always been fruitcake-curious. So, this year, I decided what the hell, I’ll make one. The recipe is Alton Brown’s Free Range Fruitcake. And I made a special trip (to Trader Joe’s) for all the dried fruit and everything. We had the rum and the brandy already. Go figure.

This is a Part I, as I will have to baste the fruitcake(s) with brandy every 2-3 days for the next 2-3 weeks. How fun! It’s like an ongoing project with alcohol.

AB’s Free Range Fruitcake
1 cup golden raisins
1 cup currants
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup dried blueberries
1/2 cup dried cherries
1/2 cup dried apricots, chopped (I used dried peaches)
Zest of one lemon, chopped coarsely
Zest of one orange, chopped coarsely
1/4 cup candied ginger, chopped
1 cup gold rum (I used dark rum)
1 cup sugar
1 1/4 sticks (not cups!) unsalted butter (that’s 10 tbsp)
1 cup apple juice
1/4 tsp ground cloves (or 6 whole cloves, ground)
6 allspice berries, ground (I had whole allspice berries but I was too lazy to clean out my coffee grinder,and grind them, so I just skipped them)
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
2 eggs
1/4 cup toasted pecans, broken
1/4 cup toasted hazelnuts, broken
Brandy for basting and/or spritzing

Combine dried fruits, candied ginger and both zests. Add rum and macerate overnight, or microwave for 5 minutes to re-hydrate fruit. I went the microwave route — it worked fine!

Place fruit and liquid in a non-reactive pot with the sugar, butter, apple juice and spices. Bring mixture to a boil stirring often, then reduce heat and simmer for 5 to 10 minutes. At this point, I must confess, I grabbed a spoon and tasted it. Wow. It was so good! I was on the phone with my mom at the time (who likes fruitcake, btw) and told her how good it was as well. She is looking forward to trying some when she is here for Christmas.

So, remove your pot of fruit, rum and butter from heat and cool for at least 15 minutes. (Batter can be completed up to this point, then covered and refrigerated for up to 2 days. Bring to room temperature before completing cake.) Heat oven to 325 degrees.

Combine dry ingredients and sift into fruit mixture. Quickly bring batter together with a large wooden spoon, then stir in eggs one at a time until completely integrated, then fold in nuts. Here, I used half toasted hazelnuts and half pecans. About 1/2 cup total.

Spoon into a 10-inch non-stick loaf pan and bake for 1 hour. But here’s the thing — I had enough batter for 2 loaf pans! They each got filled up about 2/3’s of the way but it would have been way too much for one pan. If you’ve got a huge loaf pan, you might be fine with just one. Since my loaf pans were of the slightly smaller variety and not filled all the way up, mine were done in about 42-45 minutes. Check for doneness by inserting toothpick into the middle of the cake. If it comes out clean, it’s done.

If the toothpick (or knife) does not com out clean, bake another 5-10 minutes, and check again. Remove cake(s) from oven and place on cooling rack or trivet. Baste or spritz top with brandy and allow to cool completely before turning out from pan. My cakes came out pretty easily. I ran a knife around the edges and the used a metal spatula to start lifting up from the sides and loosening the cakes from the bottom. Then I turned them upside-down and out they came.

When cake is completely cooled, seal in a tight sealing, food safe container. I am using freezer bags. Every 2 to 3 days, feel the cake and if dry, spritz with brandy. The cake’s flavor will enhance considerably over the next two - three weeks. Come Christmas time, you will have one tasty, boozey cake! Hooray!

Okay, so I’ll probably do a mini-update each week on my fruitcakes basting until Christmas. Stay tuned…

First of all, thanks so much to Sara of Weekend Cookbook Challenge for letting me guest-host this month! I had a great time picking a theme and I hope everyone had fun participating. And here are some nifty new seasonal recipes to try this month.

So, what kind of food does Halloween evoke? Soups, root vegetables, apples, huge fancy meals, snacks and sweets. Plus scary meat products! There’s a little bit of everything — something for everyone!

Okay, first up is the above mentioned Sara of WCC and I Like to Cook fame with this wonderful looking Pam’s Ham and Apple Breakfast Pie adapted from Bruce Aidells’s Complete Book of Pork: A Guide to Buying, Storing, and Cooking the World’s Favorite Meat. I bet her house smelled amazing while this was baking in the oven.

Gretchen, over at Canela y Comino in Peru turned to Cooking Light for inspiration and came up with a batch of Chocolate Gingersnap Cookies. Mmmmmm…ginger. Now these would sure be a great post snack after a Halloween meal!

My friend Vanessa sent me an awesome sounding recipe from one of her favorite cookbooks, Zuppa! by Annie Bianchi. Here’s a recipe for Ceci, Mele, Salisoccia E Patate Alla Garfagnana (Chickpeas, Apples, Sausage and Potatoes Garfangnana Style). Although she forgot to take a picture, I think we can imagine how tasty it looked!

Next up is Colleen, from Naperville, IL. Hey — that’s kind of by where I grew up! Neat. Colleen also picked a soup, Gelbe Erbsen Suppe, auf Berliner Art (Berlin Style Split Pea Soup. Like all good Fall meals, she says it’s “a wonderful tummy-warming dinner when you add warm bread and a nice side salad of baby greens & sauteed pears.”

My friend Christy at Beehive, who besides being like seven months pregnant, made an amazing Fall Feast for her Denver friends including Martha Stewart’s Pumpkin Cake with Brown Butter Icing. Damn! That all looks so good!

Okay. Who’s next? It’s LizG from Bits ‘n Bites who made a highly snackable Toasted Pepita Dip from the Whole Foods Market Cookbook. I’m not sure it gets any more Halloween-y than pumpkin seeds.

Molly at Batter-Splattered (great blog name!) created some delicious looking Quick and Easy Pumpkin Pie Bars from Heartland Baking from the Midwest’s Best Cooks. She says, “The crust and the topping gets plump and crispy and chewy while still maintaining its crustyness on the bottom layer.” Mmmmm!

Deborah of What’s in my Kitchen? asks, “Polenta = Halloween?” Uh, yes, I say! Yes! The answer to every question is polenta! Here she decides on Crispy Polenta with Mushrooms, from Cooking for Two by Bruce Weinstein & Mark Scarbrough. This was her first time joining in WCC and I’m really glad she did. Oh and I love the Halloween bowl.

Cady at $40 a Week went all out and prepared Poulet a la Normande from Chez Panisse Fruit, while taking advantage of a yard full of apples ready to be harvested. Also, what’s more festive than lighting your Fall foods on fire? Exactly. A meal that’s both entertaining and delicious!

Into the homestretch here, people! Now Mike at Mel’s Diner took one for the whole WCC21 team and made the scariest recipe of the bunch — Zungenwurst. Not sure what that is? Well, it’s tongue pieces with pork fat in blood. Boo! Of his special WCC Halloween experiment he says, “I didn’t like it. I didn’t hate it, but it left a odd, disgusting aftertaste in my mouth.” Aw, poor Mike will need lots of Halloween candy to make the taste go away.

Finally, I made Honey Roasted Parsnip Bisque from Talk with Your Mouth Full. Both jwa and I liked it quite a bit and it was suitably Halloween-ish as we typically use parsnips for the noses on our jack o’lanterns!

Okay, whew! We made it through. If I missed your entry please send me an email and let me know. I’ll get it up asap.

Thanks again to Sara for letting me guest-host. I certainly have gained a newfound appreciation for how much work she must put into WCC each month!

For Easter this year, instead of making a brunch at home, jwa and I headed off to Heceta Head Lighthouse, on the coast between Yachats and Florence. Okay, we actually headed there Saturday as it’s a 3+ hour drive and that’s pretty far to drive all in one day — even for a seven-course brunch.

I’m not saying we wouldn’t do that, just that it would be far.

We stayed at the Ocean Cove Inn in Yachats that first night (Perpetua Room, no two night minimum, good price and it was sufficiently cute) and went to the Drift Inn for a huuuuge dinner of nachos, fish, key lime pie and beer. The nachos, beer and key lime pie were all awesome, the fish, sadly, was not. *sigh* Lying people on tripadvisor.com! You bastards! It did, however, remind both jwa and I of Flagstaff. Must have been the hippie waitress. Not to be confused with the more-prevalent-in-Portland, hip, indie waitress.

Anyway, the real reason for this post — The Lighthouse and the Never-Ending Brunch of Easter Awesomeness.

Coming up the trail from the beach…the house.

So, so good. Two hours of good. Geez. Where to start? Fruit. Salmon. Blueberry frappe. Strata-frittata thing. Chicken apple sausage. Apple strudel. Cheese and fruit. A bathroom full of ladybugs.

Oregon Pinot Gris Cocktail
Fresh strawberries, honeydew, Asian pear and watermelon infused with an Oregon Pinot Gris syrup, topped with marscapone cheese and candied roasted hazelnuts. This was served with some Heceta Bright Bread– zucchinis, cranberries, apricots and candied ginger baked together in a firm yet cheerfully crumbly treat.

Oregon Lox & Bagels
with shaved onion. English cucumber, daikon and baby dill.

Oregon Blueberry Citrus and White Chocolate Frappe — A very nice palate cleanser after the fish.

Heceta Head Strata
Garnet yams, caramelized onion, fresh garden sage and Juniper Grove Thor smoked chevre. Served with Taylor’s Chicken Apple & Cherry sausage.

The sausages were so good, I had to take a picture of them too!

Grandma Marie’s Apple Strudel
Served warm with fresh whipped cream. Unfortunately, I could not finish my strudel. It was very good, though. jwa finished his without hesitation.

And last, we have: Melon & Apple Jazz
Lavender Farmers cheese from Juniper Grove Farm. Yeah. I made a little room for the cheese!

After brunch, we hiked up the trail to the lighthouse and took a tour. It’s a very cute and squat lighthouse, with less than 108 stairs.

Looking up into the lighthouse light.

Looking at the ocean from the lighthouse bluff.

Highway 101 bridge as seen from the beach.

After brunch and the lighthouse exploring, we made our way up the coast and back home, choosing to cut over at Tillamook. It was rainy most of the way back but still a very pleasant drive. Oh and the lighthouse is one of the places we are considering for Wedding 08. The food would be amazing, that’s for sure…

Strangely, the bathroom upstairs had about 10 ladybugs on the ceiling. Just hanging out. Wandering about. Being ladybugs and such. Not at all icky, though. I like ladybugs. They’re cute!

Edited to add, yay! It got there to Andrew at Spittoon Extra. It’s really cool to think that my art project from the basement last weekend is now in England!

I recently registered for What’s for Lunch Honey’s Blogger Postcards Around the World event. So fun. Buy or make a postcard for your secret postcard buddy, mail it off and receive another postcard from your own food blogging sender. I’ve received my recipient (not telling yet!), made my postcard this weekend, and it’s all ready to go in the mail Monday. Going to the post office and everything.

The one thing is as it’s a whole lot of acrylic paint and ink jet ink, I’ve decided to put the postcard in a vellum envelope, lest the receiver open their mailbox to a gloopy, wet mess if the postcard gets rained or snowed on en route.

I think I’m still honoring the spirit of the postcard as you can see the postcard clearly through the envelope, this way, it should just get there all intact. And cost a bit more in postage but no big deal.

The green smudgy thing is sort of the Hawthorne Bridge — eh, it’s expressionist!

The recipe on the back is for a quick pasta sauce that I make occasionally — it’s especially good with gnocchi. It’s also nice as you can add to it — feta, meatballs, sausage, more veggies, whatever you are in the mood for.

Spicy Valentine Tomato Sauce
1 tbsp olive oil
1/3 cup white onion, chopped
1/4 cup carrots, finely diced
Salt & pepper
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 cups tomatoes, seeded and chopped
1 tbsp fresh basil, chopped
1/4 cup green or black olives, chopped
1 tsp fresh oregano
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper or red pepper flakes
1 cup chicken stock
1/4 cup red wine

Heat the oil in a large saucepan over high heat. Add the onions, a little salt and black pepper and sauté until the onions are translucent. Add the garlic, carrots, tomatoes, wine, olives, basil, oregano, and cayenne. Stir in the stock and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 20 minutes.

Remove from the heat and purée in a food processor or blender. Serve with pasta.

Thanks again to What’s for Lunch Honey for arranging this whole valentine postcard exchange. I hope my postcard gets to where it’s going safely and I’m also really looking forward to my postcard! Who will it be from??? Where will it be from???

Updated to add that my postcard is officially on its way! I even guessed correctly at the postage needed. Gave it to the mail man and everything. It should be there in about a week.

Stay tuned…