A brain freeze and a sandwich to go, please

Posted on March 10, 2012 by floricooks

This post was going to have a couple of photos with it but though I followed all of the prompts exactly, the upgrade to IOS5.1 did not go smoothly. I spent part of the morning troubleshooting on my own, part of it trying to get though to tech support and the rest of the morning at the Apple store. Oops! I seem to have wandered into a tech blog…let me get back on track… Anyway they gave me a new phone and ALMOST everything was backed up on my computer but I lost photos from the last few days.

So, as I was saying – I decided to stop at Lee’s Sandwiches on the way home from the OC yesterday, and after I ordered I noticed avocado smoothy on the menu. After asking for a description I decided to order one. It was a lovely pale green (needed more avocado) and too sweet and vanilla-y but was somehow compelling enough to drink too fast. I picked up a couple of avocados and will make one tomorrow that will please me more. The sandwich was delicious though – BBQ pork and pate with all those crisp pickled carrots and onions with cilantro and sliced jalapenos. I came home and blasted some asparagus in the oven to go with the sandwich and a opened a bottle of white Bordeaux. YUM!

Here’s a final thought for today and a photo to go with it. There is a fish in the photo, so that’s food. Peter passed away this morning. Often a pain in the neck but always smart and funny, he was 25% of the Firesign Theater, 50% of Proctor & Bergman and 100% himself.

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Clean out the refrigerator

Posted on March 5, 2012 by floricooks

More often than not when I was a kid Sunday supper was either hot dogs, tacos (with some exotic avocado), something off the grill or what my mother called “clean out the refrigerator”. When I came home tonight with a bag of groceries from Trader Joe’s I realized what I needed to have for dinner.  So,

Add a glass of wine and a slice of fresh rye bread.  What more do you need to go with 60 Minutes?

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The jury is still out

Posted on March 4, 2012 by floricooks

Sticking with testing recipes for the NCJW/LA cookbook I have a seriously weird one for you today. The title on the page that gave us pause was “Marge’s famous mustard ring”. For some reason this struck me as having possibilities… Now I know that both brother and sister are shaking their heads in wonder. I HATED mustard as a kid but now not only love good interesting (and usually hot mustards) I make my own. So I followed the recipe (pretty much) and then after tasting it added some of my homemade whole grain mustard. But I’m going to write up what I will do the next time I make this. It didn’t really hold up well as a mold and I don’t think I would want to add more gelatin to get it to do so so I will keep it as a sauce. As I suspected it went well with cold leftover chicken.

Here’s what I’ll do next time (and the original)

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Don’t say “ew” and “yuck” until you taste them…

Posted on March 2, 2012 by floricooks

I’m on a cookbook committee for the LA section of the National Council of Jewish Women, and a couple of the recipes struck us all as so odd that someone needed to cook them to know whether we wanted to include them.  The original recipe was for “Roasted Radishes with Brown Butter”, but since the thing that really needed investigated was the idea of cooked radishes I decided to improvise.  The radishes and parsnips are tossed in olive oil and flake salt then roasted at 450° for about 15 minutes.  Well, kids, we have a winner! I already knew I loved roasted parsnips and the radishes amazed me –  roasting them softened the acidic bite, but there was still radish flavor.  This would make a good addition to an appetizer spread or a brunch buffet.

Next to try is “Marge’s Famous Mustard Ring”. Yup – it’s a mustard jello mold. As bizarre as that sounds I have a feeling that it will be a good condiment with cold roast chicken or roast beef.

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More about the olive curing

Posted on February 29, 2012 by floricooks

It was a fabulous weekend.  Most years Pasolivo does an olive oil pressing. I’ve never managed to get up there for that due to work conflicts, but my brother has gone every year. That’s his photo on the top of the PRESS CLUB page with my sister-in-law on the pasolivo.com site. This event is open to Press Club members only and has a limited number of spots.

In the spring of 2011 there was a late frost and the central coast of California lost about 80% of olive production. Now you know why California oil has been kind of pricey this year. So, the event was re-imagined since it takes fewer olives to cure than to press oil. I will have to wait until 2012 to get the oil pressing experience.  We did get to taste oil that had been pressed just days before, which is like nothing on this planet!

We were wined (house blend red from a nearby winery) and dined (local baker came in with a brick pizza oven on wheels) all day. The weather was spectacular. Once again here’s a link to the rest of my photos.

This is a small family owned farm using organic methods. Please support them. Buy some oil. Join the club. Maybe we’ll meet next December in Paso Robles! And here’s a recipe for the olives that are in the back of my refrigerator getting yummier by the day.

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