Main Course

Cannellini Bean Soup With Beef, Roasted Eggplant and Orange Gremolata

December 7, 2011

Last week was one of the most personally challenging in recent memory. You know the expression “when life hands you lemons…”? Last week, life threw oranges the size of softballs at me. The week included the death of our beloved cat Basil (ode below), a wicked cold which left me gasping for breath (still am), and hurricane force winds (in Los Angeles!) which caused damage to our roof, left debris all over our yard and left us without power for 36 hours, all while I was working extra long hours. Any one of those things alone could leave a girl searching the heavens and asking “Why me?”, yet all together, I just had to laugh (after I stopped crying) and say “Seriously??”

The last thing I wanted to do was cook, and for the most part I didn’t. But when I read about the “Souperbowl” challenge my …

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Slow Roasted Tomato and Fennel Soup with Smoked Paprika

October 30, 2011

The height of tomato season in my garden seems to be mid August. It doesn’t matter when I plant, or how I stagger the planting, every August shows the bulk of the tomato crop. This year I did a little better, getting some tomatoes to last into September, including a second crop off my Celebrity plant. Some of you who live in colder climates may not start planting until later (I plant in April and May) and might still have plants still with fruit on the vine, or at least tomatoes picked a little green and ripening inside away from the first frost. Here is a way to use up those not-so-perfect tomatoes and the last of the ripe ones. The soup is also warm and hearty enough to say, “ah, Fall…” and the smoked paprika give it a nice little spicy kick.

I know people will ask, can …

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Fig, Caramelized Onion, and Bacon Jam

October 3, 2011

When our neighbor offered figs from her tree, I called my mother and asked her if she wanted some to make jam. She had been in a jam making frenzy this summer making over 100 jars of various flavors (strawberry vanilla bean being my favorite) to the point where I threatened a canning intervention. But since neither of us could let good home grown food go to waste, she took some and I used the rest of the figs to make flatbread and fig and goat’s milk ice cream.

While mom made some regular fig jam, she also surprised us with this fig, caramelized onion and bacon jam which she swore would be fantastic on a fried egg sandwich. I tend to like my jam plain on toast (as opposed to exotic combonations of flavors and spices) but this jam is amazing, especially on the egg sandwich, and that was the end of it or so …

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Slow Simmered Pork Ragú With Handkerchief Pasta

September 26, 2011

In Southern California summer starts early and ends late. Some people say we have no real “seasons” here, but that’s not really true. We have them, they’re just a little more muted than in other places. That, and we don’t have to suffer things like ice storms or 90% humidity, so really, I can’t complain. Still, as we head into October, I find myself craving those heartier dishes which say “Fall” even if the temperature outside is still hovering near 80 degrees.

Recently I made this slow simmered ragú using one of the last roasts from our pig. I decided to serve it with handkerchief pasta, a cut of pasta I’ve wanted to make ever since I had it at Delfina in San Francisco a couple of years ago. There are a lot of different recipes out there for a “traditional” Italian ragú; some have beef, some pork. Some ragús include sausage …

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Grilled Flatbread with Figs, Goat Cheese, Prosciutto and Arugula

August 22, 2011

There is a saying, “Want to make God laugh? Tell him your plans.”

We had plans for this weekend, oh yes. Big ones which involved flying to another city, a nice hotel room and dinner at a Michelin starred restaurant with friends. We’d been planning it for months. Those four days were going to be the only getaway my husband David and I would have together this summer and we were both looking forward to it.

Then fate intervened.

A few weeks ago we noticed that one of our two cats, our boy named Basil, had a problem with his left eye. Over the next few weeks, David took Basil to see three different vets for tests to only figure out what it was not (an infection, a fungus, a virus, cancer spread to other organs). There was no real diagnosis, only that he had a mass growing behind his left eye, but not what caused it. …

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Grilled Goat Skewers with Cucumber Yogurt Sauce

July 11, 2011

Got goat?

If you live in the United States, chances are the answer to that question is “no.” However, something like 70% of the world regularly eats goat meat. Goat meat is under appreciated here, which is unfortunate because it’s low in fat and considered a sustainable meat.

Recently on twitter, a group of food bloggers started discussing cooking with goat (meat, milk, and cheese), and my mother, who like me, is always up for cooking something new, got involved and tagged me on it. The discussion went from cooking with goat, to an actual event called #goaterie (if you are on twitter, follow the hashtag). To read all about how #goaterie started, check out Creative Culinary’s post on goat sfeeha orFujimama’s post on the goaterie challenge. Also involved is Mark Scarbrough, one of the authors of the book, “Goat: Meat, Milk, Cheese.”