What Begat Steak Tips with Peppered Mushroom Sauce

As Kate from Mi Piace Kate Design has told you, G and I went down to San Francisco to visit the rest of the Meals Across America team and to celebrate the new year.  As hoped, we had a fabulous time and the most common word we have used to describe the experience was "indulgent."

The most indulgent day of the trip was our final day in town when we toured about in the Mission district with our other two Seattle friends and The Intern. Unfortunately Mi Piace Kate had some projects going on at home, so she could not join us.  On that day we stopped and ate.  Five. Different. Times.  Here's a quick rundown:

Breakfast goodies at Tartine.  We had the open-faced Croque Monsieur -- which has delicious although difficult to eat with a knife and fork while standing.  For dessert (don't judge us having breakfast dessert... in our defense we didn't eat breakfast until after 12pm) we had bread pudding with seasonal fruit.  'Tis the season for cranberries and this bread pudding was amazing and G commented how she loved how eggy it was.  After this meal, I was full for the rest of the day.

However, after some shopping we stopped at Farina.  We had decided that it was high time for a Bloody Mary. Luckily, this place fit the bill perfectly and we rounded out those Marys with the complimentary focaccia bread (thinner than most, crispy, and delicious) and some fresh fried calimari.  We also took some time to remember a fallen comrade.  He fell into a great job in NYC and thus no longer hangs out with us.  We decided to send him a postcard and we all took some time to write part of the message.  Then... shopping!

In no time at all, we ended up at Regalito Rosticeria where most of us enjoyed a bright pitcher of sangria.  One odd duck chose to have a beer.  I guess he wasn't quite as full as the rest of us.  This might have changed after we ordered chips w/ guacamole, taquitos, and some pollo con mole to share.  Wow... again, lovely fresh flavors and it was amazing how quickly the food disappeared from the table.

With full bellies, we had decided to walk it off... so we went shopping again!  To our surprise, this caused us to want to take another break.  So, we stopped and looked at the Foreign Cinema.   What a gorgeous setting to watch dinner and take in a movie!  We were strong though, and resisted eating or drinking anything here. Mainly because we ended up stopping at the bar that was attached to it called Laszlo for beers and cocktails.  No food!  And Mi Piace Kate joined us and gave us an injection of fresh energy.

So, we trotted back outside and headed for dinner.  Our plan was to go to Dosa for some Indian food that the Intern gauranteed us would be delicious.  Unfortunately it was going to be at least an hour before we could get a table.  Undaunted, we put in our names and headed outside again to waste some time.  "Hey!" we exclaimed, "We can go get some drinks and appetizers!"  This brilliant idea brought us to The Corner.  We were ushered to a cozy table in the upstairs loft where we had a bottle of rosé (some of us had a champagne cocktail instead) and shared a cauliflower appetizer and a cheese plate.  Twenty minutes into our enjoyment, the phone rings and our table is ready... already!  So, the boys ran out the door and back to Dosa to ensure that they would not give our table away.  I'm sure the girls sat around, giggled, and other such girly nonsense.  Oh, and hopefully they paid the bill.

At Dosa we could not resist the signature dish... a dosa.  These are like giant crepes filled with vegetables of various sorts and tons of spices. They are served with a couple of different sauce options for dipping.  I think we ordered four different stuffed dosas... and seriously, we waited longer for the food than it took to eat it.  This is not a slam of Dosa at all, but rather an illustration of how quickly the food went.  Seriously, four giant dosas and a prawn dish were devoured in five minutes.  Tops.  We had sauce left over, so we ordered another plain dosa so that we could continue dipping.  We still had some of the lentil sauce (soup) left over, so The Intern sucked it up and well, sucked up all that soup.  I think he ate four bowls.

Then we went to... home.  Happy.  Engorged.  Indulged.

Where's the post about Steak Tips with Peppered Mushroom Sauce?  Well, the whole point with starting with a description of our trip was to show you why all of our meals since then have come from Cooking Light.  Steak with mushroom sauce doesn't sound like cooking light to me... and it certainly didn't taste like it!  But, I'll save that for the next post.

To round it out, here are some other photos from the day:

Stretching out before shopping

If the one on the left were for sale, I'd put in an offer

Writing the postcard at Farina

U.S.P.S. picking up our postcard

Self-portraits and mexican food

Nothing was this spicy

Mission District Wildlife

The Meals Across America Crew at The Corner

Mi Piace Kate Design noticing design-y things
(This also doubled as our tripod to do the group photo above)

Good Lighting & Team Update

Good lighting follows this cooking team everywhere

 

 

Two new food-enthusiasts are joining Meals Across America.

They will take this whole blogging thing very mostly seriously.

Welcome Josh and Rachel!

French Onion Soup

Hello Internet,
Since Ed and Gina are off gallivanting on a vacation in SF (lazy, both of them) I thought I would take the time to update Meals Across America, the very neglected blog-child of ours.  I hope they appreciate all the effort I put into our 1/2 of this baby.

I have been craving French onion soup for the last few weeks, but haven't had the time or energy to learn how to make it. With winter break, and relatively no homework, I pulled out the Cuisinart and Julia Child's recipe for French onion soup, and set to work. I was very diligent, and took lots of photos along the way. It took about two hours, maybe longer to make the soup. Aside from caramelizing the onions, the soup is really very simple and easy, and a child with a sharp knife could do it. I really recommend the soup, and not the child-knife thing.

I also really recommend using a Cuisinart to slice the onions rather than doing it all by hand, because you'll be crying like a baby. I only teared up a little bit when using the Cuisinart, and the slicing blade cut the onions perfectly thin, just like Julia would have wanted. I was free to have a beer while the onions practically sliced themselves. Then I did the mixing and more slicing, and a lot of stirring. We had the soup for dinner and lunch the next day, then we froze the rest to eat in a few weeks, when classes have started again, and we're a little too tired to chop 2 lbs of onions.

Ingredients:

5-6 cups yellow onions, thinly sliced (about 1 1/2 to 2 lbs)

1 tablespoon cooking oil

2 tablespoons butter

1/2 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons flour

6 cups beef stock (preferably homemade of course, but I used some from Whole Foods)

1 cup wine (dry red or white, I used French red wine)

1 bay leaf

1/2 teaspoon ground sage

salt and pepper

12 ounces swiss cheese, grated

4 ounces parmesan cheese, grated

1/2 raw yellow onion

2-3 tablespoons cognac

8 slices French bread (about 1 inch thick)

4 tablespoons olive oil, for drizzling

Directions:

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-Place heavy bottom stock pot or dutch over over medium-low heat.

-Add 1 Tbs cooking oil, 2Tbs butter to pot.

-Add sliced onions and stir until they are evenly coated with the oil.

-Cover and cook for about 20 minutes until they are very tender and translucent.

-To brown or caramelize the onions turn heat under pot to medium or medium high heat.

-Add 1/2 tsp sugar and 1 tsp salt and continue to cook uncovered, stirring frequently until the onions have browned and reduced significantly.

-Once caramelized, reduce heat to medium-low and add 3 Tbs flour to the onions.

-Brown the flour for about 2-3 minutes trying not to scorch it. (If the flour does not form a thick paste, you can add a bit more butter here).

-Stir in about 1 cup of warm stock, scraping the bottom of the pan to get up all of the cooked-on bits.

-Add the rest of the stock, wine, sage, and bay leaf to the soup.

-Simmer for 30 minutes.

-To make the "croutes" (toasted bread), heat oven to 325 degrees F.

-Drizzle each side of the bread slices with a bit of olive oil and place on baking sheet.

-Cook the croutes for 15 minutes in oven on each side (30 minutes total).

-Check the soup for seasoning and add salt and pepper if needed.

-Remove the bay leaf (if you can find it).

-Transfer to a casserole dish.

-At this point you can add the 2-3 Tbs cognac and grate the 1/2 raw onion into the soup.

-Add a few ounces of the swiss cheese directly into the soup and stir.

-Place the toasted bread in a single layer on top of the soup.

-Sprinkle the rest of the cheese in a thick layer on top of the bread making sure to cover the edges of the toast to prevent burning.

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-Drizzle with a little oil or melted butter.

-Place in a 350 degree oven for about 30 minutes.

-Turn on broiler and brown cheese well.

-Let cool for a few minutes, otherwise your tongue will be ruined forever.

 

 

Pasta with brussel sprouts and prosciutto

Look! Another recipe from The Intern and Kate! 

The Intern and I adapted this recipe from thekitchn.com based on what we had in the fridge and pantry. If you are a stickler for the original rules of the recipe, check it out here, and ignore everything I am about to write.

This is a really simple pasta that is quick, and calls for lots of brussel sprouts, which happen to be delicious, and in season right now. The ratios of vegetable to pasta is a little uneven, with more green than pasta. Don't fight it, just try it. The trick is to do everything quickly, and not let the brussel sprouts overcook, or you are going to get that stinky cabbage-y smell, and the brussel sprouts will be limp and not so good.

Pasta with Shaved Brussels Sprouts and Prosciutto

Ingredients:

1 pound brussels sprouts
1 tablespoon olive oil
Several slices of good prosciutto, chopped into thin strips
2 shallots, thinly sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup chicken broth
1/2 pound spaghetti or capellini pasta (we used trader joes lemon pepper pappardelle)
1/3 cup pine nuts, toasted (we were out of pine nuts, but they really would have been delicious in this dish)
salt and pepper
balsamic vinegar
pecorino romano cheese

Directions: 
 
Bring a large pot of water to boil. Season generously with salt.

Trim the ends off of the brussels sprouts and remove the toughest outer leaves. Shred them in a food processor, using the slicing attachment (not the normal chopping blade), or slice them carefully on a mandoline. You can also slice them as thin as possible with a knife. (This may seem like a lot of brussel sprouts, and it is, but trust us, its good)

Heat a large skillet (14-inch if you have one) over medium-high heat and add the olive oil. Add the prosciutto and cook until fairly crispy. Remove from heat, and set aside in another bowl to use at the end.

In the same pan and add the shallots and garlic. Cook for about 5 minutes, until the shallots are soft.
While the shallots are cooking, add the pasta to the boiling water and cook until al dente.

Add the brussels sprouts and the chicken broth to the large skillet, season with salt and pepper, and toss all of the ingredients together. Cook, tossing occasionally, until the brussels sprouts are tender but not too soft, about 5 minutes. (REALLY! Don't overdo it!)

When the pasta is finished cooking, drain and add it to the skillet. You can add a splash of the pasta water (or more broth) if the mixture seems dry. Add the pine nuts, toss everything together with a little balsamic drizzled over the top, and serve with Pecorino Romano.

Alimentación en España, Primera parte: Barcelona

Food in Spain, Part One:  Barcelona

As some of you may know, part of the Meals Across America staff recently went overseas.  We were instructed by the rest of the Meals Across America staff to not come back unless we brought some amazing food stories back with us.

Well, we're back.  Actually we came back a long time ago, but we've been in hiding while trying to figure out what to write.  We're ready now.  Hopefully we don't disappoint.

Maybe we will disappoint... because the only pictures we have are from La Boqueria.  This is the main market located right off of Las Ramblas.  Beautiful food in there... so, we'll sprinkle those pics throughout this posting.

Our trip started in Barcelona.  Although we arrived in the early evening, we were both pretty wiped out by the flight, so we just went to the hotel and crashed. We slept straight through the night and most of the next morning. Needless to say, we were famished... and lost.  So, we walked and walked and walked.  Eventually we made it to Las Ramblas and wandered there for a while.  As is my norm, I dragged G past many restaurants trying to gauge her interest.  As is G's norm, she also would not make a decision until she hit the proverbial wall.  At that point, we had ten minutes left before meltdown, so we backtracked and found the place with the least amount of wait and people who seemed to be enjoying their food.  We ate on the sidewalk at Ciutat Comtal.

This was our first foray into the world of Spanish restaurants and tapas.  As such, it was some work. Although the servers spoke a fair amount of English, we were unsure of ourselves, what to order, how much to order, what was appropriate to order at that time of day, and many other paranoia-enducing concerns. We ended up with patatas bravas, some chorizo and bread, croquetas, and some rose.  For me, the best part of the meal was the rose.

I have a special place in my heart for patatas bravas, but on this trip I found that none of the places I tried matched up with a place in Ballard that I can go to anytime I want--Ocho(http://ochoballard.com/).  Ocho has the right combination of spicy brava sauce, crispiness of the potatoes, and the aioli is present enough to make an impact, but the dish isn't drowning in the sauce.  Ciutat Comtal's patatas bravas was mushy and swimming in ailoi.

Unfortunately, this would be the theme for many of our stops in Barcelona.  I am sure that we simply ended up at the wrong restaurants.  They weren't horrible -- just pedestrian and certainly not up to the hype that we had heard regarding Spanish food.  Here's a quick rundown of some of the rest of the places we ate:

Daps:
We ended up here after trying to find another restaurant in the area that sounded delicious.  Unfortunately, it must have closed down because we could find no trace of it.  We had dinner at Daps which was more upscale with great wine.

Bilbao Berria:
This place actually had great pinxos, plus it's in a great location by the Cathedral in the Barri Gotic.  Later in the trip we went on to Bilbao and San Sebastian, so we were able to compare pinxos.  These were right up there in quality and variety.

Taller de Tapas:
We actually didn't eat here, but had some cava before taking in a classical guitar concert at a small cathedral nearby.  We met two friendly German women who shared their table with us -- much to the annoyance of the server. I'm still not sure why he was so put off and rude about it.  He was able to get more money out of the table than he would have otherwise.

Les Quinze Nits:
I really enjoyed the atmosphere of Placa Reial where this restaurant was located.  We stopped here after the concert after walking for quite a while through the Barri Gotic.  Again, we had some decision making problems.  The info we had said that this was a great place to check out some more traditional Catalan food which we wanted to try.  The line to the restaurant stretched halfway out into the Placa though, so we kept walking around to try and find something else.  When nothing looked good after about 30 minutes, we wandered back and to our surprise the line was only about five people long.  We had no idea, but the inside of the restaurant was immense.  They had tons of tables spread throughout two floors and multiple rooms.  Unfortunately, instead of traditional Catalan cuisine, the food seemed more continental to us.  I fear that it was just too overrun by tourists and thus they had dumbed all the food down.

Sanshirou:
I think this was the last night we were in Barcelona.  I was pretty wiped out from our adventures and just wanted to rest before having to get up early to catch a train to Valencia.  So, I suggested that we just go to this Japanese restaurant by the hotel.  It received good reviews online, but coming from Seattle it just wasn't up to our standards.  It wasn't horrible, but it wouldn't be in the top 5 or maybe even 10 here in Seattle.

G would also want me to mention a great little cafe that was near our hotel.  Unfortunately, I don't remember the name of it.  I tried to find it using Google Maps Street View, but at the time that they took the pictures it was a place that sold copiers.

Part Two will focus on Valencia where things definitely started to pick up!

Too easy beer bread

This isn't really a meal, but this recipe for beer bread belongs here just as much as a real meal does. This recipe is so easy, you could probably still pull it off if you've had a few beers first. Be careful with the oven if you choose this option.

ingredients:
1 1/2 c all purpose flour, sifted
1 1/2 c wheat flour, sifted
1/3 c brown sugar, packed
4 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 beer (12 ounces) (it can be any kind of beer, even a really bad beer)
1/3-1/2 stick of butter (more is better)

directions:
set oven to 350. Mix dry ingredients together first in a large bowl, then mix in the beer and stir with a wooden spoon until a stiff batter forms. Pour batter into greased and floured loaf pan. melt butter and pour over the top of the dough, and bake for 50 minutes. The butter will make a thick crispy butter crust. Eat hot.

Better than Ocho- Fried Artichoke hearts with Za'atar aioli

We've all tried the fried artichoke hearts at Ocho in Ballard. They are really good, so we tried to recreate them. In the process, we made them much, much better. Sorry Ocho. The Intern made a mean Za'atar aioli to dip the fried artichoke hearts and zuchini rounds in... and oh boy, you should come over and have some. The beer batter is delicious, the aioli is delicious, we're fun.

Fried Artichoke Hearts with Za'atar Aioli

Ingredients:
1 bag of frozen artichoke hearts-we like the ones from Trader Joe (don't you dare try to use canned artichoke hearts)
panko
flour
1 beer
salt
Vegetable oil

Directions:
-Defrost the artichoke hearts and set aside. Be sure to drain them, so they aren't soggy.
-Make a batter with flour, beer, and a dash of salt. Make sure your batter is thick, but not too thick.
-Roll artichoke hearts in batter until completely covered, then roll in panko. Be sure to do the same with the other vegetables you might also be frying (like zucchini, eggplant...)
-Fry the battered pieces in oil until golden on all sides.

While you're frying, your intern will be making the aioli. If you don't have one, ask your wife or husband, or special someone to help you.

Za'atar Aioli (from Bon Appetit)

Ingredients:

1 large garlic clove, peeled
1 cup mayonnaise
4 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 cup za'atar

Directions:

-Mince the garlic, then just put all the ingredients together in a bowl and stir then keep chilled until it is time to eat (I think that is how the intern does it)

{Trust me, it is not the photo that is blurry, it's just your eyesight}

Enjoy with Vinho Verde and friends.