Some dinners I've made...or will

So I got this new job i which I cook dinner for a family 4?3?5? nights a week. This means that I get to cook a lot! Yay!

I made some delicious food the other night, which I'll share with you... no photos though. Perhaps when I get my groove on I'll have time to photograph the food before I deliver it to the dining room...

Little gems with herby crème fraîche dressing, pancetta, and beets

Sautéed Georgia white shrimp with fresh corn polenta, buttery zucchini, and lemon-scallion salsa

Blueberry buckle with whipped cream

Another highlight: fresh tomato soup; flatiron steak, potatoes, spinach; melon granita with ginger chewies.

Coming soon: black cod with soba noodles, ginger, sesame and greens, plus 'elephant heart' plum sherbet...

Also, be on the lookout for a caramel ice cream recipe...

(someday it will get colder and I'll stop making so much ice cream, promise.)

UPDATE! Chocolate Ice Cream

More testing reveals the new, improved, easier recipe for chocolate ice cream. No more greasy spoon, and just one dairy product to buy. I've edited the previous post, so check it out!

Chocolate Ice Cream

Ok, so it's been a few months. But now I have a link here from my website, so I better step it up. Or at least start recording the minutiae of my cooking and eating.

I had some leftover cream, and some leftover streaky chocolate from a failed tempering project, and I thought, "I don't have a go-to recipe for chocolate ice cream."

...et Voilá! I really just tweaked a recipe from the Chez Panisse Desserts book, Clay's Chocolate Ice Cream, because I thought it was a little sweet. I also wanted to use one kind of chocolate, for ease. But it's basically the same, including that little trick of melting the chocolate with some butter. Yum!!!!

Makes a quart+.

3 c half&half

6 egg yolks

1/2 c sugar

6 oz. bittersweet chocolate, chopped (I used 72%)

1 oz. butter (aka 2 tbs)

pinch of salt

1/2 tsp vanilla, optional

Melt the chocolate and butter in a double boiler. Heat 2 c of the half&half with the sugar and salt until steamy and a little bubbly at the edges. Gradually add to the egg yolks, whisking all the while. Return the mixture to the saucepan and, stirring constantly, heat over low until it is well thickened. (I usually know it's done when I scrape the bottom of the pan with my silicone spatula, and a little bit of more solid custard comes with. Then I remove it from the heat and continue to stir for a few minutes so the custard is cooked evenly.)

Add the custard very gradually to the melted chocolate(it will do a seizing-like thing), stirring, and when that's done, strain it into a bowl and add the remaining cream. Add the vanilla, if you want, and chill very thoroughly, best overnight. Then churn in an ice cream maker of your choice, and savor some really rich, creamy, perfectly-chocolatey ice cream!

Tiny Green Tomatoes!!!!!

Soon they'll be red and sweet and delicious...

Yogurt Panna Cotta

Panna cotta is one of my favorite desserts. It's so simple, yet so many are not quite right - too stiff, too fatty, too sweet. It's a delicate game to achieve the perfect balance.

Fortunately, we here in the Bay Area are blessed with some delicious dairy products, and I pretty much use exclusively Straus. We consume a lot of Straus yogurt in our house, and as far as yogurts go, it is quite thin, and quite tart. I imagined that in the right quantity, it would the perfect lift to the cream in the panna cotta. After a few batches, I came up with this recipe, which I think is delectable. It is yogurty, rich with cream, and unmuddled by vanilla or other flavorings. It makes the greatest breakfast. (For a lovely photo with all the accoutrements, check Danielle's blog entry.)

I urge you to consider the yogurt you are using as an indicator of the amount of sugar needed: for a mild yogurt, you could decrease the sugar by a few teaspoons, and/or just replace a bit of the cream with more yogurt. The point is that it's ridiculously easy, can be made in 10 minutes, and would probably take major deviance from this basic recipe before it tastes bad. The one thing that needs to stay the same is the 2+ish cups of liquid to 1 teaspoon of gelatin; better to err on the side of a little less gelatin when measuring.

YOGURT PANNA COTTA (4-6 individual panne cotte, depending on the size of your dishes)

1+1/2 c cream

2/3 c yogurt

5 tbs + 2 tsp sugar

pinch of salt

1 tbs cold water (tap temp)

1 tsp powdered gelatin

Put the water in a little bowl and sprinkle the gelatin over it. There’s just the right amount of water so that in a few minutes, the whole thing will come out in a blob.

In a saucepan, heat 2/3 c of the cream, the sugar, and the salt, until the sugar is dissolved and it’s quite hot. It can simmer around the edges. Mix the remaining 2/3 c cream and the yogurt in a bowl.

If you want to unmold them, grease your ramekins with a little plain vegetable oil: most easily done by swiping them with an oily paper towel.

When the sugar has dissolved, turn off the heat and stir in the gelatin mixture, until it is dissolved. Then gently whisk the warm cream mixture into the cold yogurt mixture. You don’t want too many air bubbles, so after it is fairly well combined, you can stir again with a spatula to be thorough and to calm the mixture down a bit.

Divide the mixture among your dishes, and cover and chill! They need at least 2 hours before they are set at all, and really should be chilled for 5-8 hours if you want to unmold them. They are delicious with any fruit, and most cookies, preferably something crisp and light.

Fried Chicken Sandwich

I've finally eaten the infamous fried chicken sandwich from Bakesale Betty! It's been years, and I've heard all sorts of wonderful things, but it just has never happened. So we blasted over there yesterday afternoon, ordered some, and pretty much inhaled them.

And my verdict was: Pretty Darn Good. Nice coleslaw, plenty of it, nice chile heat and pleasant pickley onions. The chicken was moist, the right temperature, and there were 2 hunks - the right amount. I felt like the "fried" of the chicken was a little hard and crunchy for my sensitive teeth, and everything was a touch dry and underseasoned. With a lighter, crisper coating on the chicken, more salt on everything, and a smear of mayo on the roll, this sandwich would be really good. For $7.xx, it's still a good lunch.

p.s. I asked them where all their ingredients come from, and a friendly employee came right out from behind the counter to rattle off the list of sources: Acme torpedo roll, Fulton Valley chicken, Bariani olive oil, and they were using Swanton's strawberries on the shortcake that day, which we didn't eat. They do get a bunch of produce from Berkeley Bowl, but I can understand a little bit because they make about a thousand sandwiches a day (and had almost 30 people working there)!

Gardenous Wonderment

I'm really excited about my garden right now. I started digging up part of the lawn almost the same day we moved into this flat, about 3 months ago. Although space is a bit limited, we've already harvested multiple rounds of radishes and kales, and will soon have a never-ending supply of lettuces. It's been fun working in this milder weather; I put things in the ground weeks earlier than I would have up in Sonoma County.