Blue Cheese and Beet Salad

(Photo from Epicurious)

For a few weeks now, I have been getting a produce delivery from Mile High Organics.  Every week they deliver a selection of seasonal fruits and veggies to my office. Normally I leave all the fruit in my office for daily snacking and take all the veggies home for dinners. I have really enjoyed these deliveries and coupled with my weekly Royal Crest milk delivery I have significantly pared down my grocery trips and eliminated a lot of my meat intake. This week I received Bananas, Apples, Oranges, Romaine, Beets, Celery and Broccoli. On Tuesday night I made Pam's Caesar Salad, found on Pioneer Woman Cooks (delicious, but be warned you will end the day a bit garliky) and while toasting the croutons, I roasted the beets.

Last night after the beets had chilled for a day, I peeled them and made a beet salad for dinner. Now don’t get me wrong… there are a million delicious beet salads floating around cyberspace, my favorites usually involve a combination of beets, nuts and blue cheese. I wanted to try this recipe because it also includes two of my other favorites – dill and cider vinegar (which I could drink).

Sorry, no photo included today.   My night time food shots are not coming out to well and shooting in natural light is hard for a working girl.


Beet Salad with Blue Cheese
(adapted from a recipe found at widmerscheese.com)

Salad:
2 pounds golden beets (or red beets), roasted in an oven for an hour and chilled
4 green onions, thinly sliced
2 tablespoons fresh dill, chopped (I used a ¼ a teaspoon of dried)
3/4 cups Blue cheese, crumbled
1/2 cup hickory nuts, toasted in the oven (I used toasted walnuts)

Dressing:
1-1/2 tablespoons lemon juice
3 tablespoons cider vinegar
2 tablespoons honey
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
4 tablespoons canola oil
1/4 teaspoon salt

Peel cooked beets, chill and cut into slices or batons. Whisk together all the ingredients for the dressing. Mix the dressing with the beet mixture. Combine with green onions, dill and half of the blue cheese. Arrange the salad in bowl or platter and sprinkle the top with the remaining blue cheese and toasted nuts.

Scrapboxes

Recently I have started saving mementos from trips thinking I would make some artwork with them.   I haven't put any of them together, as I can't seem to find the perfect shadowbox.   I saw these recently, they are a collection of scrapboxes by Darcy Miller, editorial director of Martha Stewart Weddings.   Aren't they fabulous?

(Pictures at Martha Stewart and see the rest of them there)

Sandwich Bread

Last week, I was finally on deck to receive a copy of Peter Reinhart’s new cookbook - Artisan Breads Every Day from the library.  After reading it like a novel for two days, I decided I needed to try out some of the recipes before my checkout date passed me by.  On Friday night I baked his soft sandwich bread, but replaced some of the white flour with whole wheat...mostly because I constanly have at least one of  Mr. Pollan’s mantras ringing constanly in my head and currently on tap: the whiter the bread the sooner you’ll be dead… the whiter the bread the sooner you will be dead… the whiter the bread the sooner you’ll be dead.  This dough is basically a milk dough and can be baked off in a loaf or into rolls. I loved this bread and have been enjoying it all week. I hope to try the laminated dough (for Danish) and English muffins this week.

Soft Sandwich Bread or Rolls
(adapted from Artisan Breads Every Day)
Makes two large loaves or many rolls - I halved the recipe

1 Tablespoon of instant yeast
1 3/4 cups plus two tablespoons of lukewarm milk at 95 degrees F
6 1/2 cups of unbleached bread flour (substituted 2 cups of whole wheat)
2 teaspoons of salt
5 ½ Tablespoons of sugar or honey (I used half brown sugar and half honey)
6 tablespoons of unsalted butter or vegetable oil (I used butter)
1 egg

Whisk the yeast into the lukewarm milk until dissolved . Set aside for 1-5 minutes.

Combine the flour, salt, sugar, oil and egg in a mixing bowl, then pour in the milk mixture. If using a mixed, use the paddle attachment and mix on the lowest speed for 2 minutes. If mixing by hand, use a large spoon and stir for about 2 minutes. The dough should be course and slightly sticky.

Switch to the dough hook and mix on medium speed for 10 minutes or knead by hand on a lightly floured surface, until the dough is soft and supple, and tacky but not sticky.

Place in a clean oiled bowl and refrigerate for up to 4 days. If you want to bake it immediately then leave in bowl and allow it to rise for 2 hours – divide it in half (perfect for 4 ½ by 8 inch pans). Shape into sandwich loaves, then place them into greased loaf pans to rise. Allow dough to rise in the pans for about 1 hour or until the dough domes about 1 inch above the rims of the pans.

Bake for 20 minutes in a 350 degree oven rotate the pans and bake for another 15 minutes, or until the loaf sounds hollow when thumped.

Allow bread to cool.   And enjoy... yum

Sausage Class

(picture via Wiki)

This weekend I participated in a whole hog class offered by Il Mondo Vecchio. Mondo is a new USDA dry cured facility in Denver where some very talented chefs are creating salumi. Now, don’t confuse salumi with salami…that is a no-no… silly American.

Salumi (sing: salume) are Italian cured meat products and predominantly made from pork. The term also encompasses bresaola, which is made from beef, and also cooked products such as mortadella and prosciutto cotto. The word salumi is not a misspelling or variant of salami (sing: salame). Salame is a specific type of salume. Examples of salumi are Prosciutto, conna, bresaola, cotechino, guanciale, lardo, panchetta and soppressata.

I have always been fascinated by dry curing meats and jumped at the chance to participate. These guys are spectacular. We were first shown how to piece out and butcher a small pig and saving each piece for its specific use. We even separated the face from the skull to create Porchetta di Testa, although I am not sure if our Porchetta is traditional or not because we stuffed our pig face with Italian sausage and then rolled up. I think traditionally Porchetta is just stuffed with other parts of the head and then rolled.

(Lardo picture via Boston.com)

Once we completed the butchering seminar we got to sample some of Mondo Vecchio’s products:

Duck Breast Prosciuttinni dell’ Oro – Duck Procuitto
Guancie Baciate – cured pork cheeks
Calabrese Style Vino e Pepe Nero - spiced with, Red Wine, Black Pepper and Spice.
Pepperoni Piccolo - Classic flavors with a touch of heat, anise and spices.
Portuguese Longanzia – spiced with sweet smokey paprika with hints of Sherry wine.
Salsiccia Cinese - Lop Chong Chinese Sausage - one teacher was quoted as saying: "It is a roller coaster of flavors in your mouth".   This sweet and spicy Asian salumi was fantastic from start to finish - from the sweetness of soy and pomegranate, gingery notes with a slow heat finish.
Salsiccia Francese - French Saucisse Sec - Classic Dry Sausage a reflection of tradition from the French Mountains made with Pork, Sea Salt and Spice
Nonno's Italian Sweet Sausage
Spanish Style Chorizo

Once we completed our tasting (my personal favorite was the Pepe Nero and the fresh sweet Italian) we went in to try our hand at making sausages. We made breakfast sausage, chorizo, Italian sausage (for the Porchetta di Testa), pancetta, pepperoni, lardo and procuitto. In the end, we divvied up all of our fresh pig parts and sausages and will return in 2-8 months for all of our dry cured creations.

I had such a fantastic time! Their next class is featuring lamb and it is scheduled for March 20th. Hurry and sign up it is well worth the time and expense. Now I just need to find a charcuterie class!

Soundtrack delights...

For the past week I have been listening to two great soundtracks: An Education and Crazy Heart.  The soundtrack for An Education is of course my favorite of the two with its flirty 60's french vibe.  It is divine and would go perfectly with the St. Germain Manhattan.   Funny that two movies this year (An Education and A Single Man) have made me want to rock the 60's black eyeliner.    I have even bought a new tube of liquid liner and have been practicing, much to the chagrin of my coworkers who think I come to work ready to audition for the role of Cleopatra!

A Crazy Heart is a good sountrack that includes an exceptional song by Ryan Bingham who is from my home state.   I will be rooting for him next Sunday during the Oscars... I wonder if anyone from New Mexico has ever won an Oscar?

Cocktail... St. Germain Manhattan

So I mentioned earlier this week about having a delicious Manhattan at Indulge resturant last weekend.   So I worked on recreating it this week. 

St. Germain Manhattan
1 3/4 ounces of rye or bourbon
1 ounce of St. Germain
2 teaspoons of sweet vermouth
3 dashes of bitters (I used orange and on my second try peach)
1 orange twist
1 Maraschino or brandied cherry

Fill two-thirds of a pint glass with ice.   Add the rye or bourbon, St. Germain, sweet vermouth and bitters and stir or shake briskly for 30 secons to chill.   Strain into a chilled martini glass and garnish with the orange twist and cherry.

Been a bit distracted...

Been busy trying to help my sister with some wedding arrangements on this beautiful little island.   Which is why I have done nothing interesting this week... blame Piper.