So, it has been a while since the last update.  Don’t worry, I have been eating, daily even.   Just nothing I would consider blog worthy.  Sure, I made the odd roast chicken and pasta dish, but nothing out of the ordinary….  So, this installment brings you an almost verbatim meal from JamieOliver.com.  This is a great dish, that’s easy, flavorful, and best of all an easy clean up!  The meal in question is a Moroccan inspired roasted chicken with potatoes.  Yes, that is perhaps the most Midwestern comfort food combination possible, but with some spices, turns it into a Haute meal!

You start with some nice red potatoes, which you chop into cubes, then put them in COLD salted water (always do this when boiling potatoes), bringing to a boil for a minute, then drain.  Then you place a mixture of turmeric, cumin, ginger (fresh if possible), cilantro, and what ever other spices you like in… I used a bit of cinnamon, some chili powder for heat, and some fresh cut red pepper.  This is where cooking becomes an art, and you must taste taste taste!  Whatever you desire for flavor, now is the time to exercise it.  Use whatever ratio you wish, just taste taste taste!  Add to this spice mixture, zest of one lemon, along with half of the juice, toss the potatoes i this mixture.  Now, once these are nice and coated, add a chicken breast (skin on!) and mix with some olive oil, salt and pepper.  Once all of these are coated, take the chicken out.  Turn you oven on about 375F, and now make a small tray out of foil, place the potatoes as a base, then place the piece of chicken on top and place in the oven for 25-30 min.  Remove, and enjoy with a nice fresh salad and a fruity red wine!

Before:

After:

Enjoy!  Don’t fear my fellow foodies, coming this weekend is a new review of the Wilmington haute of www.DomaineHudson.com  !  Yum!

So, here’s another pasta dish I made, beet and ricotta ravioli with a lemon, honey, and poppy seed butter sauce.  It is based on a wonderful ravioli we tasted at Melgranos in Philly.  A great BYOB on 21st and Spruce you must check out.  Its the real deal Italian, but get there early as there’s no reservations accepted!  I finally found some Tipo 00 flour at Di Bruno’s in Philly, so this ravioli I used a half and half mixture of Tipo 00 and Semolina.  I used a total of 3 cups of flour, and enough eggs and yolks (yes a combination) to make the dough the proper consistency.  I would tell you how many, but it varies so much with the eggs that you have, I would ball park, 6 yolks, and 3 eggs, maybe?  Just try it and see! Take these:    Mix with with eggs and get this:   Now, roast your beets for about 30 mins, or until done.  Peel, chop, then get medieval on their asses (use a food processor if you have one):  Take a good amount of cheese, and mix with your beets to get a wonderfully colourful filling!  Now, after your dough has rested for an hour, roll and use this guy to make it uber thin! And voila! Wonder ravioli! The key is: after you made the sauce put your cooked ravioli in the same pan to coat.  Serve with a nice red and enjoy!    

So, its been a while since the last post (as this guy reminds me on a daily basis).  I’m sure I could give you a myriad of excuses, but that would not interest you at all.  So, this post will be a restaurant review!  I decided to take Megs out for the Hallmark holiday know to the world as Valentine’s day.  The restaurant of choice was was Alma de Cuba,  the Steven Starr haute spot in Philly.  Now, this also happens to be one of Meg’s favorite places, so I was trying to throw her off the scent all week.  I suceeded in this, even as we were walking past, she was saying how much she would have liked to go there, as we turned in, a big smile went across her face.  Onto the review…  We sat down, and after a bit of a wait for the server, were given menus.  We both started with the Mojitos, which were excellent as always.  Wonderfully sweet and refreshing.  The menu has a great diversity of proteins and veg alike.  The ceviche is one of the dishes they are known for and they don’t dissapoint in variety. I started my meal with a special of Blue Fin Tuna, sliced thin, and place on Grapefruit slices, with a grapefruit foam.  The tuna was almost the same color as the fruit, so it was as if you had one bite sized, homogeneous pink slice that was both acidic and fatty at the same time.  It was fantastic to say the lease, very light on the palet and a wonderful starter.  Megs went with an arugula salad, with a peanut dressing, also very good.  I moved on to a nice Malbec, that I thought would go well with my Tenderloin that was coated in coco.  This was an interesting combination, and went it came out sliced and cooked to a perfect medium rare, it looked like a great contrast of black and red.  The coco was not sweet at all, but provided that subtle hint of flavor that made you wonder what it was.  It was served on some braised fennel (which I love and eat weekly) and a very light and foamy whip of baby potatos, all served with a white chocolate demi.  A great meal to say the least.  Meg went with a maple glazed chicken breast on the bone, served with a pomagranet sauce.  This was also fantsastic, the sweet flavors of the maple and fruit went great together, and the meat was so moist and flavorful, you would have thought you were eating a thigh.  Dinner concluded for me with a Cubano coffee and some crepes filled with a sweet cream, wonderfully light yet rich.  Megs had a chocolate peanut butter tart.  Its hard to go wrong with that combination of flavors. All in all, the meal was superb and the service equally so.   Say what you want about Starr, his restaurants have always treated us well (save for a poor experience during Restaurant week at Tangerine but we don’t count that) and we would recommend them to all.  From Alma de Cuba to the great tapas at The Continental (we prefer mid town because of the great swinging chairs!). Sorry for the lack of photos, I forgot my camera!  Until this weekend, when I make yet another set of Ravioli, this time with beets and marscapone!  

So Meg and I headed up to New Hampshaa this past weekend for a bit of skiing and some quiet time at this great B&B.  The Twin Doors was fantastic, great rooms, wicked nice older couple that ran the place and some killer breakfast each morning.  The drive up Thursday night was great, we even made it though the GW bridge without incident, a cool 6 hour drive, even with a stop of Connecticut’s Largest cooking store.  Dinner that night was a local brew house, food was OK, but the beer was pretty good, I even think Buddy would have approved. I had the IPA, followed by the Stout, both excellent! The next morning we awoke to 5* temps, but a clear sky for a great day of skiing, if you can call what we do skiing.  Breakfast was some wonderful French Toast with warm fruit compote and bacon as accompaniments.   This was NOT your normal, take some bread dredge it in egg mixture and through it on the skillet.  It was some haute French Toast!  It was baked in a cassarole dish, it consisted of torn bread, cream cheese, and the standard egg mixture.  It was creamy and wonderful the only downer was the New Hampshire Maple Syrup it came with, that aside it WILL be on my weekend menu in the near future (with VERMONT syrup of course).  After fueling up, it was off to the Mt. Sunapee for day 1 on the slopes.  Meg and I don’t ski much, she’s been a few times in the past couple years and I haven’t been for, ummm, about 12 years (and that was only 1 day).  I will say, I did a lot more snowboarding back in day, and got pretty good at that, however I figured we’d both try skiing, as it would level the playing field a bit.  Well, it was a learning experience.  Good thing I learn quick.  After the first run, falling mulitple times, I was pretty much ready to call it a day and get a board.  I stuck it out and by the end of day two, was railing some turns pretty well and felt comfortable on skis, not quite to the snowboard level I have, but getting there for sure.

Big lake, frozen, yeah it was cold!

 On to breakfast two.  Some nice yoghurt with fresh fruit to start then onto some homemade (what else) waffles with caramelized banana topping.  Yeah, they rocked, but at this point, I wasn’t surprised.  I surprised our host with how quickly I put her food away, what can I say, I’m an eater.

 Our final evening there, we ventured into town for a bit of the local Haute.   My meal started with a nice salad, mixed greens, apples, dried cherries, walnuts, and some maple balsamic dressing, it was light, sweet and satisfying.  I moved onto a peppercorn encrusted venison (medium rare) with whipped potatos and some mixed veg.  I have to say, I generally enjoy peppercorn encrusted meats, but this was a little off.  Too much pepper hit the back of my throat and made the taste too spicey for me.  Even the cherry demi glace was not enough to sweeten up the meal.  The potatos were very good however, needed a bit of salt, but with some sour cream whipped in, they were quite tastey.  The meal finished off with a medicore single malt of Glenlivet (the waitress was like a deer in headlights when I asked for single malt) and some chocolate mouse pie.  The pie was nice, but nothing to write home about (or blog for that matter.)

All in all a great weekend away, and it made getting up for the job on Monday very difficult indeed.

So, Wednesday night Potty Mouth decides to try one of sell out’s recipes for Tandoori Chicken, with mashed chick peas and pepper and onion salad.  The rub for the Chicken was made up of around $50 worth of spices (at least we have them now), and some Greek yoghurt.  I enjoy it, though we both agreed that there could have been a great proportion of spices to yoghurt.  The mashed chick peas was pretty much a warmed up hummus, so that was quite nice.  Overall, it was solid, but lacking in some flavor. 

 Thursday, I ventured to the market for some squash, ricotta (say ri-go-ta for proper pronunciation), and herbs to make a nice fresh ravioli.  And by fresh i mean start with flour and eggs, mix together, let dough rest, then roll paper thin and fill.  Really quite easy, a bit time consuming, but trust me, anyone can do it, so give it a try.  I proceeded to roast the squash whilst making my dough; once that was cooked through I combined it with some nice sweet, creamy ricotta, salt, and pepper.  After putting these in some SALTED boiling water, I made a simple sauce of melted butter and pasta water.  This combination makes the sauce emulsify, creating thick creamy goodness.  Toss with some fresh sage and the nicely cooked ravioli  topped with fresh parmesan and you’ve got a wonderful meal.  We ate this with a wonder salad of spring mix, fennel, and what has become my favorite dressing of late, olive oil and fresh lemon juice.  To top off this mid week feast, a nice bottle of Cliff Lede Claret 2005.  If you don’t have this already, go buy now, best $30 you will ever spend.

 Now go try it for yourself, it’s dead easy and way cheaper then dining out! Enjoy!

 Over and out,

So Haute 

I enter the apartment door to the smell of rich dark chocolate.  Potty Mouth was whipping up some wonderful chocolate souffle for my birthday.  First time she’d ever attempted this tricky dessert, and I have to say I was impressed with the result, as was she.  Look at the nice rise on these babies, even without a souffle collar.

 And yes, they tasted even better than they looked.  Nice and fluffy with a bit of creamy mousse left right in the center.  Then it was off to a great little pub in Old New Castle called Jessops.  

This is the type of food we all love to eat, it’s comfort food.  Easy to eat and easy to make ourselves.  I had my favorite pub food, fish and chips.  These also happen to be the best I’ve had in this area.  They key for me is the batter: it must be both crispy at the first contact with your mouth, yet have some airyness and spounge to it as well.  These have yet to dissapoint.  When accopandied by a fine ale by Victory Brewery, it was wonderful birthday meal.

Note the pewter plates, uber authentic. 

That concludes the first regurgitation of my meals on the net.  I’ll be continuing to grace the internerd with my meals, restaurant reviews, and other culinary based musings.   I might even talk about this other little hobby of mine.