Relaxed Weekend Meals: Friday

The past couple of weeks have been hectic for CW and me.  Consequently we decided that this past weekend was going to be a bit of "us" time, filled with nothing but relaxing together and spending some time getting massages, catching up on DVR, and of course, eating comfortable, easy to prepare, meals at home.

Friday night I was exhausted.  Luckily, my wife, CW, remembered that we had a bunch of leftover mixed greens and some white beans from a few days prior.  She was able to put together a nice little salad for us using them, along with the leftover radicchio, red peppers, mixed herbs, and Parmesan vinaigrette we had from The Meal that Inspired the Blog.  The result was quite appetizing to look at and tasty to eat. 

Naturally, the end of a hard week of work deserves appropriate liquid compensation.  While CW worked on the salad, I whipped up a little sipper using a grapefruit from our backyard tree and some distilled favorites we keep at the ready.   Recipe makes 2 cocktails:

LBW's Ginger-Grapefruit Sipper

4 ounces Vodka
1.5 ounces Ginger Liquor
4-6 dashes Orange Bitters
Juice of One Grapefruit **

Combine  in shaker with ice, shake vigorously, pour strained over ice.

** this was a small-medium sized grapefruit, for a really big grapefruit, may only need half of it


This first sipper was just the right cocktail to enjoy on a summer night with a light meal.  The grapefruit keeps it light and refreshing, while the ginger adds a touch of sweetness and spice, making a potentially sour drink more palatable.  Orange bitters added a bit of that tongue-puckering sensation that I usually describe as making a drink feel "more adult."  I realize that means nothing in terms of actually describing what it tastes like, but I don't really know what bitters tastes like.  What I do know, is that adding some bitters to citrus based cocktails makes the flavor a bit more "serious" and less fruity/sweet.   Through the years, I have found my taste changing so that I prefer dryer and less obviously sweet drinks; I think that bitters helps in this regard.

After dinner we were in the mood to continue our (still early - we act really old most nights) evening with another tasty sipper.  Note that I will often refer to cocktails as "sippers", which is kind of an inside joke between CW and me.  My wife started referring to them as sippers some time ago, which ends up being a misnomer in many cases, as CW has a recurring pattern of drinking things very quickly when they taste good.  It used to be that a straw was a prerequisite for her drinking quickly, but happily her skills have advanced to the point that all she needs is decent flavor and ethanol.  That combination doesn't often last more than a few minutes.  Yes, we love our "sippers."

For this round I decided to use some limes that we had (cocktails usually stem from whatever fruit is the oldest and needs to be used the soonest)  I wanted to add in a bit of a different flavor so I used some Genever style gin, along with the staple vodka, lime juice, some triple sec for sweetness, and a splash of cranberry (after discovering it wasn't quite sweet enough)  Again, for 2 cocktails:

LBW's "Dutch Cosmo"

3 ounces Vodka
3/4 ounce Genever Style gin
1 ounce Triple Sec
Juice of One Lime
1 ounce Cranberry Juice

shake well over ice and strain over the rocks or in chilled martini glass.

** feel free to add a bit more triple sec or cranberry to your desired sweetness


This cocktail has some semblance to the Cosmo, but the Genever gin adds a flavor punch that can take a bit of getting used to.  I first tried Genever in Amesterdam, while on vacation there in 2002.  There, it is often served ice cold as a small shot.  I had largely forgotten about the spirit until earlier this year when CW and I were enjoying a drink at Craft and Commerce, near San Diego's Little Italy. We had a drink called the Dutch Flower, made with Genever, St. Germaine, Cointreau, lemon juice, and absinthe.  Already gin lovers, we decided to buy some genever gin and incorporate it into concoctions at home.  Bols Genever, an iconic Dutch brand, can be hard to find here, so we found a similar spirit called Anchor Genevieve Gin.  Our first trials using it as a gin substitute were a bit rough, as it is a harsher spirit, with less herbal juniper flavor.  Used in smaller ratios however, it can add an unexpected kick to your cocktails.

Don't recall much else from Friday night after the Dutch Cosmo, though I think that's more a product of going to sleep early rather than the drinks being too weighty.  They are sippers, after all.

Making a Monster

I started this blog as a surprise for LBW (as he will now be known). I sent him a text asking him to check his gmail, so that he would see his invite to be an author for the Impeccable Palate. As expected, he was excited to start posting his culinary adventures with visitors who make their way to the site. We agreed that this would be a fun hobby for us to share.

Almost immediately, the gravity of what I'd done became apparent. The camera was quickly brought out for our dinner last night - leftover greens, homemade dressing and chopped herbs, canned white beans and some torn red pepper. The drinks required an assembly of the ingredients to set the scene, then he held the camera in one hand, outstretched his other to display the drink and snapped a few photos.

An impromptu trip to Pizza Port today will show up here soon. Not just the pizza, but the two beers LBW had and probably the glass of wine I had (I believe my eyes were rolling and not paying attention to whether every moment was captured). To be fair, it was our first time there, the pizza (garlic veggie on wholegrain beer crust) was excellent, the beer list extensive and the setting was exactly what we wanted for a quiet Saturday together.

So, I guess I can't really blame him for doing exactly what we've set out to do with these posts. I tease him, but it's really quite adorable. Yes, I've exacerbated his food documentation, but I'm looking forward to doing this together. I'm just glad we had a big lunch, because our spinach, red lentil and bean curry recipe that we have planned for tonight might be held up with Ansel for a while.

The Meal that Inspired the Blog

For those who have read CW's "Getting Started" post, this may be a little redundant. Over the past couple of years I have gotten really into eating and cooking.... and taking pictures of many of the dishes I have either made or ordered. All along, my wife - the lovely and talented CW - would ask why!? Why the pics? Who will ever see them? I replied that I would create my own food blog. Only, I never did. Time went by, meals were eaten and photographed, and no one knew about any of it. If it weren't for the wonder of digital photography, I would have a stack of dusty, faded, food images in a closet somewhere. How sad would that be? All those recipes. All that time spent cropping photos.... for what? Well I guess our dinner party with good friends this past Thursday was the tipping point. CW decided that it was now or never, and took the initiative of starting the blog herself (for which I am incredibly grateful since my computer/internet skills are primitive compared with hers). My first entry here will recount the dinner and describe the courses served. When possible, I will include recipes, and let you know where I found them.

The couple we had over are quite the foodies. They have an active interest in gardening and get very excited about big food projects and fresh ingredients. I knew that we'd have to step up our game and pull off a meal to remember. This get together had been in the works for a couple of months, with several delays secondary to scheduling issues. With each new delay they would joke that I would have to add another course to the menu... I think we were up to a five course meal. Being a weeknight, that was a little unrealistic for me, so I settled on making two courses: a salad and a main with sides. Being the sweet closer that she is, my wife CW would provide the dessert and all would be (hopefully) tasty.

I had been poring over my Bon Appetit and Food & Wine magazines for ideas. Wanting a fresh seasonal introduction to our dinner, I picked a salad from the August, 2011 Food & Wine: The Endive and Snap Pea Salad with Parmesan Dressing. This recipe seemed simple to prepare, but looked strikingly elegant in the pictures. Plus, how could endive, fresh herbs, snap peas and a dressing containing pureed Parmesan cheese NOT taste great? Before I get to the picture I must give CW yet another shout-out. While I was stuck working a long shift, she went to 3 different stores to find all of the ingredients. Apparently fresh chervil is not a staple everywhere. Also, endive and radicchio (which was subbed in for red endive) are kind of pricey. Luckily we didn't need too much of either and were able to make 4 good sized salads with one head of each. One other change I made was substituting Canola Oil for the Sunflower Oil, because my wife is kind of allergic to sunflower seeds. Here is a pic.... wish me luck as this is my first posting and therefore my first photo insertion!


Phew... the photo looks good. Moving on to the main dish, I opted to revisit a chicken dish from Ted Allen's cookbook The Food You Want to Eat. I love this book. The recipes are simple to follow and targeted towards the beginner chef. Further, everything I have made from it has worked and been tasty. For this meal, I made the Tandoori(ish) Chicken, so named for its spice profile but lack of being prepared in an actual clay Tandoor. I chose this because the marinade is really easy to prepare and it can be done well ahead of time, so all that is left to do when guests arrive is throw it on the grill. And it's yummy. Sadly, I didn't photograph this, but it was delicious. The trickiest part of skinless chicken breasts is having the nerve to pull it off the heat before it gets dry. I would gladly risk a little intestinal distress to avoid dry chicken, as would any decent self respectin' food lover!

The Tandoori (ish) chicken was accompanied by sides of grilled baby broccoli and chopped red potatoes. For the broccoli, I did a very simple marinade of olive oil with kosher salt and pepper. When you grill broccolini over direct heat, the florets caramelize and create a great smokey flavor, so you don't really need anything else. The potatoes were tossed with olive oil, salt pepper, and the leftover herbs from the salad, then cooked in a grill pan until browned and fork tender.

So that was my meal... almost. Having finished my prep work, I found myself with a couple of hours and decided to do an amuse bouche. We get great corn here in the summertime so I knew that would be part of the dish. I also love shrimp, and think it is a nice succulent way to whet the palate. My initial idea was for a play on shrimp cocktail, serving a sauteed shrimp in a martini glass with a corn and red pepper hash. The red pepper was incorporated because I knew that I wanted to flavor the shrimp with paprika.

I cooked some fresh corn cut off the cob (one cob) along with diced red pepper (1/2 medium size pepper, fine dice), paprika and some lime juice (from about 1/2 lime). That was set aside to cool. I wanted the shrimp to keep a nice shape so that I could put them on the side of the martini glass. Alas, I cooked them without shells and they totally curled up. It was time to improvise, so I chopped up all the shrimp and stirred it into the corn mixture to make more of a corn and shrimp hash. When I put it into the martini glasses, there wasn't enough and the servings looked paltry. So I opted to stuff the hash into small cordial glasses and garnish with parsley.

This concludes my contribution to the dinner party.

Corn & Shrimp Amuse-bouche
Endive and Snap Pea Salad
Tandoori (ish) Chicken with grilled baby broccoli and herb red potatoes

All that remained was CW's excellent dessert, which she had made just that morning. In her profile, CW says that she is sweet and I am savory, and that was the case here. She loves baking and prides herself in trying new recipes and making everything from scratch. For our party, CW made delicious lemon cheesecake squares with fresh berries. The cake was a nice blend of tangy, sour and sweet, which complemented the rich graham cracker crust perfectly. Her only modifications were to use low-fat cream cheese and sour cream. While concerned that it would affect the consistency, this was not the case. It was a great ending to a big tasty meal.



Before I sign off, let me just mention a couple of more things. First, our friends brought an amazing homemade heirloom tomato bruschetta that they served with garlic bread crisps. It was like a gazpacho salsa - so fresh and satisfying (I drank the leftovers). Secondly, it would be an oversight not to mention the cocktail with which we started the night. It is a home-made creation:

2 oz. Gin
3/4 oz. Elderflower Liquor
Juice of 1/2 Lemon
2 dashes orange bitters

Place in a cocktail shaker with ice and shake... serve over ice

No name for it yet, but it was tasty!

With dinner, we drank a bottle of red from one of our favorite vineyards, the 2009 Beckmen Cuvee Le Bec. It is a Syrah-Grenache blend that is fruit forward and delicious.

This finally concludes my inaugural posting. I believe future entries will be shorter for the most part. Many thanks to my wife CW for putting this site together.

Getting Started

We've had holidays go by without a single picture of family members (including a new baby), but the latest meal is imported to iPhoto almost immediately. For more than two years, meals made at home and enjoyed at restaurants have been well documented. Yet, nothing happens with these photos, despite my husband's claims that they would make their way into a food blog. After threatening to delete them if he didn't follow through on this, I decided to just do it myself.

I don't enjoy cooking. I'm horrible at keeping track of the different components to properly time side dishes with the main course. I can do one pot meals, but I'm somewhat afraid of touching uncooked meat. I peeled and deveined shrimp for the first time the other day - requiring gloves and a disdainful look on my face the whole time. I don't actually eat red meat or pork and try to eat vegetarian as much as possible (often succumbing to the temptation of ground turkey). I also have frequent heartburn and a number of food allergies.

My husband not only puts up with these limitations, but uses them to spark his creativity. He will occasionally make steak or a pork product just for himself. For the most part, though, he tries to use ingredients that we'll both enjoy.

I accuse him of always making pasta, but this is completely false and, even though he does make a lot of pasta, he finds ways to make every pasta dish a little different. He gets excited for new issues of Bon Appetit or Food and Wine, recently discovered the wonder of a good farmers' market and challenges himself to learn new skills. I love him, his food and the fact that his desire to cook means that I don't have to survive on veggie burgers, Lean Pockets and cereal for dinner.

Meanwhile, his enthusiasm encourages me to be a good closer. The only thing I like to do in the kitchen is bake. The precision of measuring and the sweetness of the final product are perfect for me. I think because I grew up with grandmothers who only made cookies, pies, etc. from scratch, I feel like I'm cheating if I use a mix to make anything. So, after a few years of only occasionally contributing cookies or cakes to dinner parties or family gatherings, I started to look to my husband's magazines and allrecipes to help me be a better and more adventurous baker.

Now, my husband I are a good food team. We both express amazement at the others' abilities in our respective culinary hobbies. We hosted a multi-course dinner party last night that led me to finally start his blog. It will essentially be his blog, or at least his work that fills this blog. With last night as an example, his three courses to my one means that he will always outnumber me in contributions. Plus, for the most part, his creations are really his own. I will offer attribution wherever appropriate or remembered, but this will largely apply to my recipes. He likes to annoy me by not using recipes, but he's good at improvising. I will tweak, but I don't invent (at least not yet).

I hope you find the combination of our dishes intriguing. At the very least, we can recommend some good restaurants. Trips are usually planned around restaurants. Even when we don't have pictures, my husband will remember exactly what we had on a given trip. There are usually pictures though.