Baked Alaska

I don't seem to cook from recipes much anymore. I tend to just throw things together when I make our dinners, and yes, if we do have guests over, I follow recipes. But we haven't had anyone over for dinner in a long time.

This morning, I watched Barefoot Contessa. She made what she called a Fig and Fennel Caponata. Caponata usually contains eggplant. Instead, she used fennel. I love fennel, and had to make this. As soon as possible. Never mind that my husband was out of town and I knew I would probably end up eating the entire recipe myself. In one sitting, I was afraid.

So I went to the store and picked up a few ingredients, and a short while after that I had this amazing appetizer. Sweet and salty and tangy. The best flavor combinations. I've only had it on toasted bread so far, but later this week I'm going to serve it on top of halibut, as I think this topping will go really well with the mild fish.

So run to the store and pick up the ingredients to make this. I think you'll be very happy. This might just become my signature appetizer.

Fig and Fennel Caponata
Adapted from Foodtv.com Serves:6 to 8
(If you want specific measurements, look up the recipe at foodtv.com. I didn't measure the onion or fennel, but instead just used what I list below.)

Ingredients:
3 tablespoons good olive oil
1 medium red onion, finely diced
1 large fennel, diced (1/2-inch-dice)
3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1/3 cup good sherry vinegar (my store was out of sherry vinegar so I used 1/2 sherry wine and 1/2 champagne vinegar)
1 cup canned crushed tomatoes in puree
8 dried Calmyrna figs, stems removed and 1/4-inch-diced
2 1/2 tablespoons light brown sugar, lightly packed
2 tablespoons drained capers
1/2 cup green olives, pitted and coarsely chopped, such as Cerignola
1 teaspoon grated orange zest
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/3 cup freshly squeezed orange juice
3 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley
Grilled bread for serving

Heat the olive oil over medium heat in a 10-inch saute pan. Add the onions and fennel and saute for 7 to 8 minutes, stirring occasionally, until softened. Add the garlic and cook for one more minute. Stir in the vinegar, tomatoes, figs, and brown sugar, stirring to coat everything with the tomatoes. Stir in the capers, olives, orange zest, 1 1/2 teaspoons salt, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer for 8 to 10 minutes, until thickened. Stir in the orange juice and parsley. Taste for seasonings; it should be very highly seasoned. Serve the caponata warm or at room temperature with slices of grilled bread.

Last night, I was feeling a little (okay, a lot) blah, and I decided to try to cheer myself up by making a simple French country dinner to have in front of the fireplace with my husband. Good food often has a way of cheering me up. And good wine also. I thought I'd open a bottle of Sonja's Suds, a wine I had brought home from our Los Alamos, California trip.

Sonja's Suds is from Casa Dumetz Wines. Their tasting room, called Babi's Tasting Room, is right on the main road in Los Alamos. Sonja's Suds is a sparkling syrah rose. It was a small batch production; only 75 cases were made. Drinking sparkling wines always add a touch of fun to the drink. This wine is not only fun to drink, but delicious also!

Casa Dumetz was started by Sonja Magdevski. Sonja is an adorable, bubbly blond lady who happens to be engaged to Emilio Estevez. They have their own vineyard in Malibu, but most of the grapes used for their wines are from Tierra Alta Vineyard in the Santa Ynez Valley. She makes a variety of wines, including Gewurztraminer, Viognier, Syrah, 2 kinds of Grenache, and the sparkling syrah. Her wines were so good we brought home over a case and had her ship another case to us. Happy me! To read more about Casa Dumetz wines, click here for their website.

Back to the dinner. I started us off with a typical French salad - green salad with goat cheese toasts. Make a simple vinegrette of red wine vingar, Dijon mustard, grainy mustard, and olive oil. Set aside, and make the goat cheese toasts. Cut a couple of slices each of a baguette, spread a soft goat cheese on top, and place under the broiler until it all begins to brown. Toss mixed greens with a little of the dressing, top with toasted walnuts (or if you're like me and out of walnuts, substitute pecans) and top with the toasts. Yum!

Our entree was a Country French Omelet. I didn't want to cook fish last night, and wanted to use ingredients I had on hand. The recipe is an Ina Garten recipe which was found on the Food Network website.

Country French Omelet Serves 2
1 tablespoon olive oil
3 slices thick-cut bacon, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 cup (1-inch-diced) unpeeled Yukon Gold potatoes
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
5 extra-large eggs
3 tablespoons milk
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 tablespoon fresh chopped chives

Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Heat the olive oil in a 10-inch ovenproof pan over medium heat. Add the bacon and cook for 3 to 5 minutes over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, until the bacon is browned but not crisp. Take the bacon out of the pan with a slotted spoon and set aside on a plate.

Place the potatoes in the pan and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Continue to cook over medium-low heat for 8 to 10 minutes, until very tender and browned, tossing occasionally to brown evenly. Remove with a slotted spoon to the same plate with the bacon.

Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, beat the eggs, milk, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper together with a fork. After the potatoes are removed, pour the fat out of the pan and discard. Add the butter, lower the heat to low, and pour the eggs into the hot pan. Sprinkle the bacon, potatoes, and chives evenly over the top and place the pan in the oven for about 8 minutes, just until the eggs are set. Slide onto a plate, divide in half, and serve hot.

We had a very nice evening, and even Bella loved joining us in front of the fireplace.
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The day I made this soup it was a strange weather day in Alaska. It's winter and there's supposed to be lots of snow on the ground and it should be really cold. But instead, we had very strong winds at our house and the temperature hovered around 42 degrees all day. While I like the warmer temperatures, I don't like the freeze/thaw that happens, making the roads really slick. And time will tell how many of my flowers will make it through the winter, considering they've spent a lot of time this winter without their nice thick blanket of protective snow.

Being as the weather was blustery and my husband felt like he was coming down with a cold, it felt like a perfect evening for a bowl of soup. I knew I wanted to do something with shrimp, and I also had broccoli I wanted to use. So I found a recipe for Thai Chicken Soup and made some adjustments. I added a lot of healthy broccoli and carrots and used shrimp instead of chicken. The soup is very flavorful with all of the spices, and quite filling with the noodles and coconut milk. It would be very good topped with cilantro. Feel free to adjust the variety or quantity of vegetables or use more chili paste if you want it really hot. If you're not a huge fan of coconut milk I think you could use 1can and add extra chicken or vegetable broth. I have lots of leftovers for tomorrow, so this made probably 4 very large bowls or 6 regular sized bowls of soup.

SHRIMP AND VEGETABLE CURRY SOUP

2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 small onion, finely diced
2 tablespoons minced ginger
2 tablespoons minced lemon grass
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons dark red chili paste, such as sambal, more for serving
1 small head broccoli, chopped into small pieces
2 lg carrots, chopped into small pieces
1 lb peeled shrimp
3 tablespoons curry powder, preferably Malaysian, Thai or Vietnamese
1/2 teaspoon paprika
2 cans (14 ounces) light coconut milk
4 cups chicken stock
1/4 teaspoon ground turmeric
2 tablespoons fish sauce
1 tablespoon sugar, more to taste
Juice of 1 lime
2 small pkgs bean thread noodles

1. Heat oil in a medium pot over medium heat. Add onion, ginger and lemon grass and cook, stirring, until softened, about 10 minutes. Do not brown; reduce heat if necessary. Add garlic and chili paste and stir until fragrant. Add broccoli and carrots and stir fry until just beginning to soften. Add shrimp and stir-fry one minute. Add curry powder and paprika and stir to coat. Then add coconut milk, chicken stock, turmeric, fish sauce, sugar and lime juice. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until shrimp is cooked through, about 5 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, soak noodles in hot water according to package directions (about 5 minutes). Drain. drain.

3. Taste broth and adjust seasonings with salt and sugar and garlic sauce. Add noodles to soup and warm through. Ladle into bowls.

I haven't posted on my blog in a long time. I lost my motivation and have had trouble getting it back. It's not fun trying to take food photos in the winter in Alaska. I cannot time my food photos to be taken during the few hours of sunlight. So I have to use artificial light, and the Ego lights seem to do a good job.

I was in California last week and ate some fabulous food along with drinking some really good wines. I think this might have been enough to stir my interest back into blogging. I'm still trying to eat very healthy and I make a lot of baked fish and vegetables, which is nothing to put on the blog. But I think I'll try to cook something special once a week and post about that.

On to the food and wine....Last night I opened a bottle of a new wine we tried while in California. It's from a really great place called Casa Dumetz Wines. I'll go into more detail in an upcoming post, but I'll give you a little information here today. The winery's tasting room is named Babi's Tasting Room and it's in Los Alamos, California. The winery is owned by the really sweet Sonja Magdevski. The wine we had last night was Gravitas Grenache 2011. I'm sure I had tasted grenache before, but really didn't know anything about it. The is a really nice wine, with lots of berry flavor.

The wine paired very well with my entree, which was salmon. I'm not going to give you a recipe for the salmon, but instead will explain my method.

First, I cooked a pot of farro. I bought some packages of 10 minute farro at Trader Joe's (oh, how I wish there was a Trader Joe's in Alaska). Just the farro cooked in chicken broth. Full of that chewy texture with the earthy taste. Next, I heated a little olive oil in a large skillet. I added 1 chopped onion and 1 chopped fresh fennel bulb and sauteed until beginning to soften. Then I added a cup or two each of sliced cremini mushrooms and shitake mushrooms, and fresh thyme. I deglazed the pan with some sherry, seasoned with salt and pepper and some porcinin mushroom rub. I continued cooking until all was soft. Next, I took a salmon fillet and placed it skin side down on a foil-covered baking sheet. I mixed together some plum jam (the best I've ever tasted, which I brought back from Paris), dijon mustard and a little olive oil. I spread that over the salmon and seasoned with salt and pepper. I baked that in a 325 degree oven until just firm to the touch. Do not overcook - you want your salmon to be rare in the middle. I then plated by placing a scoop of the farro on a plate, placing a piece of salmon on next, then topping it with the mushroom mixture. It was delicous. I love the earthy flavor of mushrooms and farro together, and they pair beautifully with salmon.

If you want to read about some wineries around Los Alamos, California, check back on my blog soon. I'm going to do a write up on our trip and I'll write about the wineries we visited and some of the great food we ate.

On a recent Sunday, I made two kinds of soup. The first one you saw posted earlier - Mushroom Farro Soup. I also decided to try a soup from a new cookbook I got - True Food by Andrew Weil. Well, I sort of tried the soup from the book. The soup turned out thinner than I wanted, so I added black beans (and more corn) to the soup. That also adds more protein, making this soup more of a complete meal. I'm also giving the recipe with less water. I didn't like the soup as thin as it was. The soup tasted good. It was different to have the flavors of the southwest (poblano peppers, chili powder, cumim) combined with coconut milk. The coconut milk added richness to the soup.

Sweet Potato Black Bean Poblano Soup

1 large sweet potato, peeled and diced
1 small onion, diced
1 cup corn kernels (I used frozen corn but fresh would be great)
2 carrots, diced
1 small fennel bulb, diced
4 garlic cloves, mashed
1 poblano chili, seeded and diced
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1/2 to 1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup white wine
1 (14 oz) can light coconut milk
2 cans black beans, rinsed and drained
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
2 or 3 scallions, thinly sliced

1. Turn oven to broil. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil.
2. In a large bowl, toss together the sweet potato, onion, carrot, corn, fennel, garlic and poblano. Add the olive oil and toss to coat. Spread the vegetables in a single layer on the prepared pan and broil for 5 to 7 minutes. Remove from oven, stir, place back under broiler for another 5 to 7 minutes, or until the tops of vegetables are brown. Be sure not to burn.
3. Transfer the vegetables to a large stock pot. Add the drained beans, chili powder, cumin, oregano, cayenne, turmeric, salt, pepper, wine and 2 quarts of water (or enough water to cover vegetables). Bring to a simmer over medium-high heat. Reduce the heat and simmer for 45 minutes.
4. Remove the soup from the heat and stir in the coconut milk. Serve topped with cilantro and scallions.