Coleslaw with vinegar dressing

Mmmmm, coleslaw--a staple of any good summer meal.
Last week in our CSA box we received a head of cabbage--what is better to make with it than homemade coleslaw. Normally I make a creamy coleslaw as that is how my mother and her mother made it but this time I wanted something different. There is this amazing search engine out there called "Google". You may have heard of it before.  You want to know the best way to slice a tomato, Google it. You want to know how long to cook a 1 pound, 1 inch thick ribeye with a gas grill; Google it. I love Google. Sooo many times people ask where I found a recipe--GOOGLE!!
For this recipe all I did was enter "vinegar dressing coleslaw". I mixed and matched several recipes and below is the final product.

Dressing:
Combine the following ingredients--
2 1/2 T Cider Vinegar
3 T vegetable oil
2 T sugar
*pinch of tarragon
*2 tsp chopped fresh parsley
*the last two ingredients were not in any of the recipes I found but I thought they would add a nice balance to the dressing. Ooh-I was right! It was delicious! The parsley made the dish taste really fresh and light. As an added bonus it was parsley from our own garden. I love cooking with local ingredients, especially when they are from our back yard.

For the "meat" of the slaw Olivier used our handy-dandy mandolin to slice half the head of cabbage and 1 small white onion. We tossed that together with the dressed and voila, coleslaw. It was super easy to make and took no time at all. You can do this. You can take the time to make a great salad dressing with ingredients you have at home. You do not have to buy the dressing! Make it yourself. You'll surprise yourself at how easy it can be.

What I made with our CSA week 2

I always seem to start out each post talking about how I haven't posted in a long time. Maybe, just maybe, I have an excuse this time; we bought a house. No more tiny kitchen!! Whoo--hoo! I'm keeping the name though. It has a nice ring. Besides, our new kitchen is smaller than my dream kitchen so...

We started with our CSA again this year. This is week 2 of our CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) from Bluebird Gardens. The CSA is the best money we can spend on food. We get fresh veggies once a week and we get to go pick veggies at the farm. I love it. Last year, at the end of the season, we picked so many awesome things; pumpkins, melon, mushrooms, brussel sprouts, beets, carrots, and tomatoes to name a few.

In this week's box we received turnips, spinach, green onions (my fav), romaine lettuce, garlic scapes, and cabbage. The head of cabbage this week was pretty small which is fine for the two of us. Last year when we went picking the heads were as big as a human head!

Last night we made grilled pork chops, hash-browns and sauteed spinach. I was able to use the spinach, green onions and garlic scapes for this yummy side-dish.

France!

I'm baacck! Well, for today I'm back. I can't say for certain I'll return tomorrow.

Last week Olivier and I were in France--the south of France to be exact. We were in Aix-en-Provence and Marseille; Aix is where his mother lives and Marseille is where he used to live. We had a lovely time even though it was a really quick trip (arrived on a Friday and left on a Friday.)

One of my very favorite things about France is the food, of course! For our first meal his mom always makes sure it's kind of a plowman's style lunch-- picnic-y types of food. We had olives to start--I'm not sure what kind they were or where they were from but they were fabulous. They had just the right amount of olive-ness to them--if that makes any kind of sense. The rest of our dinner consisted of saucisson (dried, cured sausage), prosciutto, ham and magret seche--this is like duck prosciutto. It's salty and fatty and melts in your mouth. I'm sure some people are probably cringing because I wrote "fatty" and "melt in your mouth" in the same sentence but it's delicious and a "must try" when you go to France.

The best part of the meal was the REAL baguette, butter and spring onions. I don't know what it is but the butter is different, the bread is different and so are the onions. The crustiness of the bread mixed with the creamy-salty butter and then the crunch and pungent taste of the onion send me straight over the edge! If it weren't for the taste of onions in my mouth morning, noon and night I would eat this morning, noon and night. You know me, I love butter and I love onions. I'm pretty sure all good things start with those two ingredients.

His mom also made asparagus with vinaigrette. Basically you cook your asparagus and then instead of butter and salt you just pour a little of your homemade mustard vinaigrette over it and voila, done. It's so easy and it's a nice change from the usual way I eat asparagus. Wait, what? What did I hear you say, you don't make your own dressing?! You buy it out of a bottle!? It's ok--I'm not judging but a simple mustard vinaigrette is one of the easiest things to make. Here is a great article on how to do so.

This was by far my favorite meal but we also had leg of lamb, the French version of a shepherd's pie (made with duck), veal roast, his mother's garlicky zucchini au gratin, cheese, cheese and more cheese, pan au chocolat, macaroons and lots and lots of wine!  

We did not however have brains or hearts although we could buy them. How would one even cook this stuff!??!?

Green Machine Soup

This recipe comes from Bon Appetit magazine and was originally called Herb, Chard and Feta Soup. I used basically the same ingredients but switched up a couple of things. I call it the Green Machine Soup for starters. 
It's not a pretty green. Not the bright green of the spinach or cilantro but the color of an actual machine. It also is a machine. I remember what Mrs. Maudal used to say, "Eat your dark-green leafys". And so we did. Sunday night.



The originally recipe called for Swiss chard or spinach. We used red Swiss chard AND spinach. We also let the onions cook longer and added a tiny handful of arborio rice (I heard this idea on the Splendid Table on MPR.) Next time though I'm going to cook the onions even longer until they are at that perfect, melt-in-your-mouth-carmelized-goodness state And I will also add more aborio rice to give it a nice creaminess without the cream. I know, amazing. ME!? Not using cream! It's true people, I did it. Arborio rice is the key.

You can find the recipe here.

Bon Appétit

It's been awhile, eh?

Wow! My last post was in August. So much has happened since August!
Happy New Year! I've noticed a lot of people are either starting blogs or starting to write on theirs again and I figured perhaps it was time for me to do the same.
Let's see...what have we been doing? We continue to cook a variety of things and we continue to eat out at the same old places. I am trying to write a review on the Hodo but it's proving to be difficult because it's so good I can't keep all the thoughts in my brain straight!
Since August I've been to Berlin, Las Vegas and NYC!! Berlin was for work and was a lot of fun. Las Vegas was for our 1st anniversary and we both think it's the forgotten circle of hell. We don't drink a lot, we're not cool enough to go to clubs and we like our money too much to give it away to gambling--although we did anyway.
NYC was for Christmas and was spectacular!!!

The food was amazing. The shopping was great. No, not Prada/Gucci shopping--FOOD shopping! We went to Chelsea Market twice! We bought freshly made country pâté (that even I like) and a jar of mushroom flavored lardo. Yes, it's made from lard and yes, lard as in fat. The guy at Dickson's Farmstead Meats said this wasn't for cooking but instead of putting on your toast or as a condiment for your sandwiches. Umm...not so much for me. I used it instead of butter/olive oil when we fried up some potatoes. YUMMMMM!!! I'm going to fry an egg in it too someday (eggs, btw, are my all time favorite food.)
We also went to the seafood market within Chelsea Market. It was here Olivier was finally able to eat his beloved oysters. He had 6 the first visit and 8 the second. It was cute to watch him eat them. He was like me eating a really good chocolate bar.
After the seafood market we went to some little Italian grocery store. We loaded up on pasta, honey, smoked duck, sopressata sausage links and some dried porcini mushrooms. We then found magret de canard which is duck breast but not like duck breast from a wild duck. It's like a steak; huge, red and always eaten medium rare. This is not something we can find in Fargo. We have had duck at the Hodo and while it's good it isn't the same. It's like trying to find a good burger anywhere outside the US. it's just not going to happen.




The next stop was The Filling Station! I've become a salt connoisseur and this was the perfect store for me. I think I have around 10 different kinds of salt at home and yes, they each have a purpose. I bought the Spanish Rosemary salt--it's a very herbilicious sea salt that leaves you feeling as though you just picked the rosemary from your garden. It's a course grain and would be perfect for lamb or pork. I also bought Velvet De Guérande Salt which has a very fine grain. It's almost buttery in texture and melts in your mouth. This is a good salt for baking or for popcorn! I adore this salt.
Conveniently Olivier gave me Fleu de Sel for Christmas as well. Fleur de sel, literally means "flower of salt," and has been collected off France's Atlantic coast since the seventh century. This is the foie gras of salts. The fine, light crystals have a delicate flavor and high concentration of minerals, making them the perfect finishing salt. Don't bother cooking with it. It's too expensive to be put into your soup; top your eggs, soup, pasta, or duck with it. It has a nice delicate crunch to it--like a pop rock!

My favorite part about our vacation was coming home and spending New Year's Eve together. I had my hair done and bought a new dress and we went to the Hodo for the 7 course dinner with wine pairing. O.M.G. This was the best food I had had all year. I ate an oyster!!! I ate lobster ravioli and crab stuffed chicken. Ahhh-mazing. 

Update (10 minutes after I posted)--I went to Mumbai!!!!! How could I not mention this. Other than NYC this was the highlight of the last several months. Words cannot begin to describe what a trip this was. I'll save that for another post.