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Smoked Salmon Spread

Smoked Salmon Spread is my favorite smoker appetizer. It's both incredibly easy to make and amazingly delicious. It's something I try to make just about any time I fire up the smoker with guests coming over, and dinner with Yvi and Scott last week was no exception. I'd make it every time I fire up the smoker, but it's not a very healthy snack option.

The key is that there are really only two ingredients: an individual portion of salmon and a brick of cream cheese. You do need get a rub you like on the salmon before smoking it. Last week I used Penzey'z Northwoods Seasoning, salt, pepper, and quite a lot of brown sugar. Take the rubbed salmon piece, toss it on the smoker, let it smoke until well done. Last week it was on about 90 minutes at 225° F. Put the salmon and cream cheese in the bowl of a food processor and mix until well combined. Spread on stuff: crackers, chips, bagels, toast, most everything is better with smoked salmon.

The salmon spread is always a hit. Yesterday Sarah went and got bagels from Panera and I finished the last of it with an asiago bagel. Getting rid of the smoked salmon cream cheese was a mistake that Panera (St Louis Bread Co) made a few years back. Getting to indulge with homemade spread is a tasty treat.

Coolest Birthday Gift Ever - Cheese Making Kit

My birthday was this weekend and Sarah got me what is probably the coolest birthday gift I've ever gotten. The gift being a cheese making kit makes me a pretty big dork. We've been on a kick of producing our own food whenever possible (going on three months of no bread buying). We joined a farm-share coop. Our milk comes from a local, natural dairy.

Sarah's knitting has been a big part of the joke that developed into this gift. I've for the most part been against her spinning yarn. I put up with the room dedicated to yarn. I put up with the supplies for dying stuff. Spinning was out of the question. The rule was no spinning unless we had the sheep and I could quit my job and make artisinal sheep's milk cheese. I'm wondering if there is a plot that involves a spinning wheel given that the cheese making kit includes supplies to make mozzarella, ricotta, an instructional DVD and a book of 75 cheese recipes. Several of the recipes use sheep's milk. Hmm.

I'm going to start with the quick, soft cheeses first, then try goat cheese. I'm hoping that if all goes well I can start a hard cheese or two after the first of the year. I think the crawl space under our living room is the perfect temperature/humidity to be a cheese cellar. If not there's the spare dorm fridge in the garage. On second thought the dorm fridge might be a better idea to start.

Homemade Hamburger Buns

Sarh and I have been on a quest for quite some time to eliminate high fructose corn syrup from our diet. We've also tried to reduce the amount of processed food that we eat - which means we limit the amount of processed food we buy. As many people have noticed it's almost impossible to buy any food without HFCS in it - even bread. Before we got married I baked almost every day for about a year to have fresh bread on a regular basis. The hustle of life got in the way of the baking fairly quickly though. A while back we made the switch to baking our own bread rather than buying it (although not quite daily baking). The bread has been much better.

The exception has been when we would have burgers or bbq or some other food that requires a bun. I'd never had great luck with making buns. I'm guessing it's because I usually tend to bake a hard-crusted, rustic bread - not good bun material. I came across this recipe the other day and had to try it:

Homemade Hamburger Buns 

This recipe is great. It's incredibly easy, taking less than an hour from start to finish. I substituted a cup of the flour with whole wheat flour and the results were great. This marks the end of buying hamburger buns in my book. 

Sushi at Kubota - Japantown, San Jose, Ca

A group of us went out last night to Japantown in San Jose.  It is one of only three such communities left in the US (there were more than 40 before the internment of Japanese during WWII). At a tip from Rob Brooks-Bilson we went to Kubota for dinner. 

Several of us ordered the chef special sushi, which is essentially all you know before it shows up. This is a picture of my plate, although I'd already eaten a couple of pieces. One measure of good sushi is whether or not you need to use soy sauce and/or wasabi. I'd poured some soy sauce into the little bowl, but after lightly dipping the first piece realized it wasn't at all needed. Each piece had a different amount of wasabi that provided varying levels of heat to each piece. The toro and the hokkigai were easily the best two pieces. We finished the dinner with mochi ice cream, always a treat.

We took the light rail to Japantown but by the time we left it had finally cooled down enough to walk back. This evening, the group of people and the sushi, was one of the highlights of the week. 

Mardi Gras in Columbia

I had to come to Columbia for the pitch related to our college ministry grant proposal. I think the presentation went pretty well - it was very brief though. I've got to say I think it's a bit ridiculous to drive six hours round trip for a 10 minute presentation followed by five minutes of questions. Thankfully I was able to schedule some other work doing some tech training and a few other meetings. I'm just wrapping up the last of my business in town and headed back to Springfield for Ash Wednesday services (including our first stab at architectural projection).

I was looking for something to do for Mardi Gras but I was in Columbia by myself which doesn't lend itself to going out. That said, I didn't want to spend the night in my hotel room. One of the people I met with yesterday suggested that I go to Village Wine and Cheese for dinner, they had a special Mardi Gras menu. VWC has been a great Columbia establishment for years. They used to mainly focus on selling high-end cheese and wine (think Brown Derby IWC for you Springfieldians). About a year ago they pulled out the cheese case, put in a bar, and began serving dinner. They always used to have outstanding brunch, sandwiches, and other food that would go with being a purveyor of cheese/meats. Now as a dinner establishment they have great choices with a rotating menu.

The entire menu looked great, but I opted to have the crab stuffed trout. The trout was perfectly cooked and lightly brushed with a spicy butter. It was served on a garlic pilaf that had both white and wild rice and sauteed vegetables. The crab stuffing was a perfect compliment to the spice of the dish. The sweetness of the crab and carmelized onions was delicious. Starting with a salad and closing with a cup of coffee made for a wonderful cajun themed meal. 

Indian Feast From the Pantry

Chicken Tikka & Aloo Gobi
Originally uploaded by kerner.

This morning when we talked about dinner we decided that we'd do something Indian to get rid of two chicken breasts we had in the fridge. The original plan was to use a prepackaged sauce, cook some rice, and make naan. Should have been simple. I missed a text from Sarah when I was leaving the church about our not having a sauce on hand and didn't go to the store. A quick pantry search confirmed her finding. I should have assumed she was right, I can't find anything. The naan was already rising so we had to do something. The solution was an aloo gobi type dish and a makeshift chicken tikka. The chicken came out perfectly, the aloo gobi didn't taste quite right, but it's good. Everything tastes inspired by the subcontinent. 

We ended up using evaporated milk instead of either yogurt or cream and incorporated other pantry staples like green chile sauce from New Mexico chiles. I'm pretty impressed that the entire meal was made from things we almost always have on hand. Served with homemade naan and jasmine rice with raisins it made the perfect meal.

Chicken Tikka

Chicken

• 3tbs butter
• 1/2 onion chopped
• 2 garlic cloves
  
• 2 chicken breasts cut into bite sized pieces

Marinade

• 3tbs lemon juice
• 2tsp ground cumin
• 2 tsp ground red pepper
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp ginger
• 2 tsp black pepper
• 2 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup milk

Sauce

• 3tbs green chile sauce
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• 3 tsp paprika
• 8oz pureed tomato
  
• 1 cup evaporated milk

Grind cumin seeds and add to other marinade ingredients. Cover chicken with marinade in a plastic bag or a bowl. We only marinated the chicken for 30 minutes, but it should probably marinate for two hours. Grind coriander and combine with other sauce ingredients, set aside until the chicken is done marinating. Drain marinade from chicken into sauce ingredients (this may not be necessary, but I did to offset the short marinade time). Melt butter in a saute pan over medium heat. Cook onions and garlic until slightly translucent and add chicken. Cook chicken. Add sauce ingredients, reduce heat and simmer for 10-15 minutes.

Aloo Gobi

• 3tbs vegetable oil
• 1/4tsp mustard seed
• 1/4tsp cumin seeds
• 1tsp ground turmeric
• 3 chopped tomatoes (from a 28oz can)
• 2tbs minced fresh ginger
• 1 garlic clove
  
• 1/2tsp white sugar
• 1tsp salt
• 2 potato, cubed (we used cubed hash browns)
  
• 1 head cauliflower, broken into small florets
• 1/2 cup peas
  

Combine turmeric, tomatoes, ginger, garlic, sugar and salt in a bowl. Heat vegetable oil over medium heat in a dutch oven until shimmery. Add mustard and cumin seeds (whole), swirl them in the oil as they pop being careful not to burn them. Add onion, potatoes and cook (if using large potatoes this may take awhile, the hash browns cooked very quickly). Add the cauliflower and spice mixture to the pan. Stir to mix well (be careful not to turn it to mush). Reduce heat to low, cover, and cook until cauliflower and potatoes are soft stirring occasionally. Stir in peas and cook until warmed.

 

Sausage, Red Onion, and Sun Dried Tomato Lasagna

I'm a huge fan of lasagna, but every time I make it I like to mix things up a bit. Earlier this week I had the chance to make a quick lasagna for dinner. A quick lasagna is one that doesn't require an exceptional amount of prep work - it still takes an hour in the oven, but prior to baking is fairly fast. One of the ways to achieve this to not boil the pasta - it cooks just fine while the lasagna bakes. Another key is that all of the ingredients are purchased - no homemade pasta or sauce.

In addition to the standard ingredients I combined a finely diced red onion, a chopped head of garlic, and 3oz of sun dried tomatoes. The sweetness from the sun dried tomato and carmalized onion is quite noticeable in this dish. The garlic is strong, but not overpowering. 

Sausage, Red Onion, and Sun Dried Tomato Lasagna

• 1lb Italian sausage
• large red onion, chopped finely
• head of garlic, chopped finely
• 3oz sun dried tomatoes, chopped finely
• 1 tbs dried red pepper flakes
  
• 1 package ricotta cheese (I used light)
• 3 cups shredded mozzarella, reserve 1 cup for top of lasagna
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan
  
• 1 egg (apparently optional as it got left out with no ill effect)
• 1-2 jars of sauce
  

Preheat oven to 350° F. In a saute pan, brown sausage, and drain leaving enough fat in the pan for onions. Sweat onions over medium-low heat until carmalized. Add garlic, sun dried tomato, and red pepper flakes and cook over medium heat until garlic is cooked. Return sausage to pan,  add 1 cup of sauce, and combine well. Remove from heat to cool slightly. Combine cheeses and egg and mix well. Pour 1 cup of sauce into the bottom of a lasagna pan and add a layer of noodles. Top noodles with sausage mixture, then cheese mixture. Repeat with additional layers of noodles. Top the last layer with noodles and cover with sauce. Bake covered for 40 minutes. Uncover, add remaining mozzarella and bake for another 15-20 minutes. Let rest for 10 minutes and serve. 

Prep: 35 minutes Cook: 60 minutes 

New Mexico Pulled Pork

Last night the men's group I'm in at church came over for dinner and to discuss the second half of Integrity. I made a chile rubbed pork shoulder served with beans, tortillas, guacamole, and chile sauce (both green and red). The event used up the last of our frozen stash so I had to order more (which will be here next week). I love alternative bbq uses and the New Mexican cuisine seemed like a good choice.

I started two pork butts around 10:30 on Thursday night. I ground four dried red chiles in the spice mill (two mild and two hot) then combined them with my standard bbq rub for the pork. I fired the WSM with the Minion method and cooked them at 225° until 4:30 PM. I really thought that they would have reached 190°, but they stayed in the 170° zone from 10 AM and had only gotten to 180° when I took them off the smoker (if I'd have had a bit more time they probably would have gotten to 190°). I let the butts rest wrapped in foil for 30 minutes then pulled them into a crock pot set on low.

My presentation of choice is to wrap the pork with a little bit of cheese and sour cream in a tortilla and then cover it with chile sauce Christmas style (red on one end and green on the other). Refried beans, some guacamole, and chips with the Rancho de Chimayo cheese dip finish the plate of nicely.

Fire & Ice

Friday night we joined Steve & Tammy Kirks and Greg Holman for a happy hour at Hickok's. During the course of the time there we goaded Chris into creating a drink for the table with suggestions of 417 bartender of the year. He came up with what is now being called "The Steve" which was quite good - a modified Rum Runner with whiskey. The base rules were 4 ingredients, no vodka, and whiskey. Chris did add a fifth ingredient - grenadine - for a splash of color. The drink was quite good. I'll be doing some experiements soon to get exact proportions for a recipe. The goal is for The Steve to be the popular new drink.

Leaving Hickok's we went to Fire & Ice which is located in the Oasis hotel at the north side of town. A lot of money has gone into restoring what was once a run-down facility and the decor is great. The bar at Fire & Ice also includes the only ice bar in the city - a strip of super chilled metal that will keep your drink cold. The food is  exceptional with good prices something we noticed  when Sarah and I went there during restaurant week. With a second visit Fire & Ice didn't disappoint. We intoduced The Steve to the bartender there and everybody ordered different food and then we sampled around the table.

Tammy had the cashew chicken skewers. I'm not a fan of cashew chicken and these were great. The chef at Fire and Ice is related to the man who invented cashew chicken and it's not shocking that this is better than anyplace else in town - I'm going to have go back when I can get a full order, not just the skewers (on Wednesdays I think). 

Steve ordered meatloaf which was made with pork, beef, and chorizo. It's served with a side of mashed potatoes and a vegetable. The chorizo adds a great spicy flavor. I'm going to have to try adding it to my smoked meatloaf recipe.

Sarah ordered crab cakes - her standard appetizer. We've had crabcakes just about everywhere and these were good but nothing to write home about. The sauces with the crab cakes were more unique than the cakes themselves.

I had the empandas - spicy beef baked into a pocket pie with a spicy dough. I was originally concerned about them being beef, but ordered them anyway. I wasn't expecting them to be spicy which was a great surprise. I also had a side of their great garlic mashed potatoes.

Greg ordered a duck napoleon and the crab and corn bisque. The presentation of the napoleon was great - duck meat, a salsa, and quacamole all layered between crispy pastry (possibly fried tortilla?). The duck was colder than I would have liked - room temperature would have been better than chilled. The crab and corn bisque was outstanding. It was rich and creamy with significant flavor from both the crab and the corn. Often places will go heavy on one which overshadows the other - not the case.

Overall it was a great evening with friends. Fire and Ice will get more visits in the future despite it's location in north Springfield. 

Adobe Community Summit 2006

 I'm on my way back from the Adobe Community Summit - an event for User Group Managers and Community Experts. It was a phenomenal week of networking, learning more about the Adobe strategy and product lines, and training. After going through two days of Flex training I've got to say Flex is absolutely going to rock the RIA world and when Apollo comes along the desktop environment.

Monday night I ate dinner with my dad at Loft - a sort of mediteranean/american cafe. We sat on the rooftop patio which was great. As hot as it is in San Jose right now it's nothing like the heatwave in Missouri. I ordered the chicken parmesan which was breaded with panko bread crumbs. After using them for the croquettes I've decided that anything that is fried is better with the super crispy panko.

Tuesday several of us went to Tied House - a local microbrewery. The beer was good, but not exceptional the food however was pretty good. I had their game burger which was buffalo. The fries were your standard variety bar & grill french fry - nothing special.

Thursday night was Indian night at Tandori - a small, almost hole in the wall establishment on 1st street behind the  Fairmont. The food was outstanding, the prices are great with large portion sizes. It's done in a quick service style which actually works pretty well.

Friday a group of us went to Bella Mia and celebrated Joey's birthday. Several people had suggested Bella Mia, but I wasn't very pleased with it. I ordered grilled lamb which was served with creamed corn and a potato goat cheese gallete. The food was good, but not worth the price. I'm curious how it is for lunch.

I wish I'd gotten to eat at E&O Trading Company, but I think I'll be coming to San Jose more often in the next couple of years so there's always more opportunities.