Boigah Night

Maybe I watch too much Family Guy. I don't know. But I can't help but pronounce "burger" like "boigah". Also, 5 readers, my house became predominantly vegetarian in the last year, if you've noticed a shift in content lately. Hence, the veggie burger. But here's the deal. I'm not a devout vegetarian and I LOVE cheeseburgers. So for the whole household to be happy, I need a pretty damn hefty burger or I'm going to feel unsatisfied the rest of the night.

INGREDIENTS:

1. Veggie patty (Whatever - gardenburger, Amy's, Morning Star)
2. Grilled tomatoes, red onions, and 1 fat portobello. Salt and pepper all of it.
3. Butter lettuce
4. Sliced cheese (the one in the pic is a super melty vegan one from Trader Joes)
5. THE KICKER: the special sauce. Now the special sauce is what some of you would consider the Big Mac sauce aka thousand island. Chopped pickles, ketchup, and mayo/vegannaise.
6. Stir the special sauce together and salt it well to bring out the pickle more.
   

Mushroom Soup

Last night, amidst watching the Top Chef marathon before the finale, (Woot Stephanie!), I had a major craving for a super earthy soup and happened to have a giant bag of shitake mushrooms in my fridge. See, at Chinese stores, they don't try to make you think shitake are delicacies and therefore need to be like $6.99/lb. They just throw a bunch in a bag and put on a sticker that says $2.00.

Since I really just wanted the deep earthy flavor of mushrooms, I used as few ingredients as possible: 3 shallots, shitakes, a teeny douse of heavy cream, salt and white pepper. I add salt and cream after pureeing it to control the flavor better.

For the cornbread, I used a mix but I shaved 2 corn cobs and put the fresh kernels in the mix with some paprika and coriander.

For the herbed butter ... yes, I know it kind of looks really weird ... but it was my first attempt and all I had was parsley. Not even Italian parsley -- just parsley. When I placed the butter on the hot cornbread I thought it would melt all over so I could take a picture but it didn't quite happen like that. Next time.

Valentine's Day

I like Valentine's Day but I never go to dinner at a restaurant because it's just not as valuable as creating your own menu at home and taking the time to follow through on every step. I just wanted to capture the items in my 4-course meal here but have not outlined any recipes.

1st course: hamachi-in-a-blanket

I marinated fresh slices of hamachi in soy sauce, rice vinegar, yuzu, lemon, and pulverized cilantro. Then I wrapped the pieces in a thin crepe, tied with a chive to keep it together and topped it with wasabi tobiko. It was my dining companion's favorite of the night.

2nd course: cauliflower & basil soup,

seared scallop, truffle oil

If you don't own a chinois already then buy one. It really makes all the difference when presenting a soup and gives it that really flavorful fine restaurant quality and consistency. For this I just cooked cauliflower, a teeny bit of butter, and onions in a pot. Once they softened, I added chicken stock, salt, and pepper. I then took a hand blender, pureed everything and added chopped up basil. This ingredient really made all the difference in flavor. Once through the strainer, I added a seasoned seared scallop and dotted truffle oil on the surface.

3rd course: homemade ravioli in a saffron cream

sauce with lobster and morels

So yeah, this wasn't cheap or easy by any means but it was fun and I learned a lot! Making your own fresh homemade pasta is empowering. I highly recommend it. My ravioli kind of fell flat because it was an arduous task for a first-timer, but the stuffing worked great: goat cheese, seared endive, and bland oyster mushrooms.

The lobster is from a lobster tail and the morels were dried and rehydrated. For the sauce, I cooked stock and a little cream with shallots, used my mortar and pestle to crush up saffron, added it to the sauce and it immediately turned a brilliant yellow. I strained the sauce through mesh, then added the lobster, morels, and ravioli and cooked together for about 5 minutes.

The fourth course was a spiced carrot cake but I didn't get photos. Maybe next year.