Things About This Week

1)Going to see the Pixies in Boston on Friday.
2)Celebrating my 5th Anniversary of moving to Portland this Saturday
3)My Father's 65th Birthday is Saturday.
4)My partner officially becomes unemployed again on Wednesday, as her temp job comes to an end.
5)Thanksgiving.

I'm looking forward to 4 of these things and I'm sure you can guess which ones. As our finances crunch once again, we're going out with a bang this coming week. Because of getting food poisoning last Thanksgiving, from a raw oyster that never made it into the stuffing, I decided to go a different route this year and cook a rack of venison that I purchased when I was home last month.




While I'm still unsure of the preparation of the venison, I know I've got a killer Cranberry Apple and Pear sauce to go with it.



Before hand, to avoid having to do anything for a pre-meal snack, we swung into the Cheese Iron after hearing Vince had brought in some duck prosciutto. I am a bit conflicted about even mentioning it because it's good enough to horde for yourself--in fact, it's a bit mind blowing. Sliced perfectly thin, the thin line of fat at the top simply dissolves the second it hits your tongue.




It will be coupled with a boar salami, Rolf Beeler ForsterKase, Uplands Pleasant Ridge Reserve and the von Trapp Family Oma, which I first had at Evangeline.
And, like every other time I've walked through their doors, I had a set budget... and to stay true to form, I spent twice as much. But, really, who can blame me when something like this:

is put in my face.

This week is set to be a truly hectic, gluttonous and thanks filled one and I'll probably post about how it truly went sometime next week... until then, a happy one to you.

Craving New Orleans

This was what I ate one weekend last year in New Orleans... and I'm craving all of it, right at this very moment--reminiscing with serious munchies is not good for anyone, anywhere.

9/26/08

Cochon—right off the plane

~~Wood-fired oyster roast

~~Fried Alligator w/chili garlic aioli

~~Louisiana Cochon w/turnips, cabbage and cracklins

~~Smoked Beef Brisket w/horseradish potato salad



Desire Oyster Bar

~~Turtle Soup

~~Mixed Greens

~~Dzn raw Oysters

~~Gulf Shrimp and Oyster Po'Boy

~~Hush puppies



9/27/08





Café DuMonde

~~Café Au Lait

~~Beignets







ACME Oyster Bar

~~Dzn Raw Oyster

~~Chargrilled Oysters w/seasoned butter and Romano cheese

~~Oysters Remoulade

~~Fried Oysters w/Hush Puppies







The Clover Grill

~~Pecan Pie ala mode

~~Vanilla Milkshake



9/28/08

Café Envive

~~Southern biscuits and sausage gravy w/hashbrowns

~~Brie and Ham omlette on croissant

~~Café au lait




Croissant D'or

~~Pan au chocolat

~~Brioche




The Saddest Dog in NOLA


_________________

Fattening up in Fall

Pumpkin Bread with Caramel Cream Cheese Icing

My first job in a kitchen involved desserts and every winter I let that side come out to play. This bread was more like a cake, extremely moist, strong in pumpkin flavor and puffed up nicely in the oven.
I grabbed the frosting recipe from here and the pumpkin bread recipe from over yon, to which I added some chopped pecans to the top of it, instead of inside the bread, in hopes they crunch up a bit. They did and I've gorged myself on it for the past three days. One other note--it was baked in a large glass dish, rather than bread pans, adding about 10 minutes to the baking time.

When I stored this I kept the frosting and the bread separate which worked out as the frosting is a bit on the sweeter side. Don't be afraid to use a little less powdered sugar than is called for in the recipe.

Llama--it's what's for dinner

Every time I venture home to NY I manage to disturb members of my family with the food that I eat, which generally isn't hard because they're very much a meat and potatoes kind of group. Going home, I gorged on things from my childhood--fish fry from down the road, cider donuts and hot fudge sundaes--comfort foods that are only that when they spark a good food memory.
The last day in NY I had one goal, to go to Adventures in Food Trading and get us something different for Thanksgiving dinner. While I had dreams of caribou or elk, both of which we've had before in the form of jerky and steak, I left their warehouse with a 5# rack of venison and a ribeye of llama.
I had all good hopes that the llama would be part of a celebratory meal, planning to cook it on Election Day, as Mainers went to the polls to vote on gay marriage and medical marijuana. While the day only turned out to be half a success, the meal proved more satisfying than the results.
Needless to say, there aren't many recipes for llama online, so I treated it like a typical ribeye of beef, it was seasoned, seared and finished off in the oven until the middle was barely warm. As it cooked, it smelled heavily of lamb, but when eaten it proved to be the perfect middle ground between that and beef. Like many, i sometimes find lamb a bit gamey--depending on the prep--and this was lacking any edge. As the package stated, it was mild and lean, and honestly one of the best game meats I've ever had.





deep red and gorgeous


Roasted maple and brown sugar squash


resting

Braised Lamb Shanks with Mascarpone Polenta

Icelandic Lamb shanks--I treat myself once or twice a year when it's available.


Rubbed down and marinated for 14 hours in toasted cumin, garlic, coriander, aleppo pepper, salt and olive oil


After browning the shanks, sliced fennel, shallot, garlic was sauteed. Then Royal Trumpet mushies were added and browned, then diced celery and carrot and tomato paste.


Deglazed with a 1/2 bottle of Ravenswood Petite Syrah--any red will do. Added Beef stock, two rosemary branches, brought up to a boil, covered and removed from heat and placed in a 300 degree oven and cooked for 10 hours.


Removed shanks from liquid and reduced down until sauce was thick enough to start coating a spoon and served on top of Polenta mixed with mascarpone cheese.


Best braise ever

2nd Round of Carving

Just about two weeks ago I asked if I should"Cook or Carve? the "Stella Blue Pumpkin" aka Japanese Hokkaido squash. I declared this being the first and only year we carve gourds with 2" thick shells. Not only that, but it was waste of good flesh. My partner had picked out a pink French ‘Brodé Galeux D’Eysines’ or 'embroidered with warts from Eysines.' So, with knives laid out in front, stencils taped and the Simpsons Tree House of Horror on, we carved.

Tis the Season

Last night a group of seven friends gathered on the West End for a good ole timey pumpkin carving. I'm more of a kid around Halloween than Christmas, so I get really into pumpkin carving as you can see from of my past ones:



2006



2007



2008


2009--so far--i still have 2 to carve

I think it's funny that I can do this--albeit not freehand--but I can't muster more than a stick figure when I try to draw.

Now, because this is serious business to me, I brought several knives and a tupperware container to take home the guts for seed roasting. Because, let's be honest... when you spend almost two hours meticulously sawing at the flesh of a large gourd, you better get something more out of the deal then the rotting shell.



So, on this bitter gray morning, I've started roasting up those seeds. Normally, I'm a straight olive oil/kosher salt girl. However, this year I've decided to break tradition and am doing a trio of pumpkin seeds using this recipe posted on Epicurious.com::

I tried a recipe for toasted pumpkin seeds based on one for toasted butternut squash seeds with outstanding results. Boil fresh pumpkin seeds in salted water for about 5 minutes. Drain seeds; salt damp seeds generously with popcorn salt (superfine). Spread out on nonstick cookie sheet and bake 20-30 minutes at 325 degrees until seeds are dried out and some very slightly browned.

The seasonings are: Maple syrup w/Denny Mike's Cowbell Hell; Olive Oil and Pink Hawaiian Sea Salt; Olive Oil and Bacon Salt.



The Bacon Salt one was ok. Faint hints of smoke came through, kind of like a nice bbq sauce, but was neither very salty nor bacony. Next batch gets twice as much and perhaps instead of oil, I'll use some rendered bacon fat that I have on hand.



The Hawaiian Sea Salt ones rocked. The texture of the very coarse salted offered a fuller crunch to the seeds which were perfectly crunchy in their own right.




The Cowbell Maple seeds were just about perfect--sweet, smokey and very spicy.


When we carve our other pumpkins on Sunday, I'll try some other blends and am definitely open to suggestions..