Now that I have stopped crying for the moment after the burial of our beloved cat Marcus (brother of Neiman), here is a look at the “sitting shiva” dinner we had that evening. This included delicious smoked salmon from Bryan’s Market (some of the best in the City) garnished with wonderfully fragrant dill and onion, deviled eggs and sweet potato chips. The potato was simply sliced crosswise, brushed with oil, salted and then baked. Instead of using bagels, I served Miltons multi-grain crackers since we have a huge box that we had purchased at Costco. We were too full and too exhausted to eat the dessert I had purchased – rugelach from Sweet Things Bakery located within CalMart – so we had them for breakfast the next morning. FYI Marcus now rests below a Meyer Lemon tree we recently purchased at Flora Grubb Gardens. We await the beautiful blossoms.
Bon Voyage Dinner
In celebration of my husband’s upcoming trip to Burning Man (see his Mind Shaft Society web site for images of Uncle Sam’ Elvis Island Immigration Station) and my whirlwind trip to Louisville, Kentucky to visit my room mate from college, I prepared this casual dinner. It consisted of shrimp antipasto and lemon with mint and parmesan pasta. Martha Stewart Living was the source for both recipes, however, the shrimp antipasto was a recipe card I had saved from years ago and the pasta was from the current issue. It called for fettuccine but I used a sprouted whole wheat pappardelle instead and added sweet cherry tomatoes since I had them on hand. A Russian River chardonnay accompanied our dinner. The easy dessert was Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia ice cream. We ate straight from the quart container I bought at Trader Joe’s which cost little more than the pints sold in other stores!
 |
 |
No Ordinary Soup & Sandwich
This casual Saturday night repast included Jamaican Carrot Soup, one of my favorite recipes received years ago from a Project Open Hand newsletter. It tastes different every time I make it! I used a bit more ginger this time than I usually do so it really had a kick to it. The accompanying Tuscan Tuna-and-Bean sandwich is a great recipe from Gourmet Magazine using cannellini beans. I used whole wheat hamburger buns (extras defrosted from our July 4 barbecue) instead of bread to make this even healthier. The wine I selected was a 2006 Dry Reisling from Pacific Rim Winemakers. As a member of the San Francisco Professional Food Society, I first tasted this wine at a food and wine pairing event and really enjoyed it. When I buy white wine, it is usually Chardonnay but I learned at the event how this wine worked so well with seafood or spicy food. Happily, I found this on sale at BevMo for $8.99! Our wine glass was a souvenir from the grand opening of the beautiful Cavallo Point eco-resort in Sausalito. Check it out!
Mexican Sunday Supper
The perfect conclusion to a day of ice-skating at Zeum, shopping and seeing the spectacular Dale Chihuly exhibit at the deYoung Museum for my visiting family was a casual, colorful Mexican Sunday Supper. Roasted butternut squash with peppers and white cheddar with pumpkin Primavera Tamales were the featured entree. (NB You can buy these at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market for $8.00, but at Cal-Mart or Bryan’s they are $9.99, as I sadly found out.) The tamales were accompanied by artichokes purchased from Pezzini’s in Castroville, black beans and a lentil rice pilaf that my sister provided. tortilla chips (the end of a 5lb. bag from Costco so they were more like tortilla crumbs) with salsa completed the main course. Dessert took advantage of this wonderful stone fruit season with a grilled nectarine and ice cream sundae topped with a Pecan-Oatmeal Crumble, served in the crystal goblets shown. The dessert inspiration and crumble recipe came from the new issue of Martha Stewart Living. Ice creams served were Haagen-Daz Dulce de Leche (Yum!) and a non-dairy vanilla bean frozen yogurt for my vegan niece. (I made the crumble using oil instead of butter so that she could eat it.) This was ultimately named the No-Peach Grilled Nectarine Sundae as a result of my husband’s end of a long weekend RAM capacity, filled with way too much fun! You had to be there . . .
 |
 |
Passover Brunch
Our celebration of Passover was not the traditional Seder, but a last day of Passover brunch!
Since this was a Sunday, we kicked off with Mimosas (made with either orange juice or home-made Meyer lemonade and Vueve Clicquot Ponsardin champagne) and almonds. Martha Stewart Living provided a delicious recipe for Skillet Matzo Brei so this was our main course accompanied by creme fraiche and Greek haroset, made with dates and green apples. NB: Yehuda matzot were used in the matzo brei since they won the recently published tasting contest by the San Francisco Chronicle. We also served steam-baked potatoes (a recipe from HomeChef), a fruit salad with tangerines and blueberries and smoked salmon.
Exotically flavored macaroons – think lavender, hazelnut and chocolate – from Boulange finished our meal!
Broccoli Soup
An enticing broccoli soup with cheddar crisps recipe from Food & Wine magazine was the catalyst for this dinner. After a trip to the Farmers’ Market at the Ferry Plaza, I was armed with a gloriously green head of broccoli and some glistening greens. However, not paying attention closely enough to the recipe, I missed seeing the need for celery! This sent me running to my Google dashboard and did a search for broccoli soup recipes that did not require celery. I found a wonderfully simple recipe requiring only broccoli, water and salt. This one also introduced the idea of placing walnuts and goat cheese at the center of the of the bowl and then surrounding these with the soup. Since I had already made the cheddar crisps (delicious!), I used those this time but will use goat cheese another time. To accompany the soup, I prepared baked tilapia and served it over the greens with a Meyer lemon shallot vinaigrette, garnished with pine nuts. Thanks to our neighbor Kevin who gave us a bucket of beautiful Meyer lemons from their tree!
New Year’s Eve
In the midst of holiday parties, my husband and I decided to celebrate New Year’s Eve with a movie and dinner for just the two of us. We walked down to the Balboa, our neighborhood theater, to see “Charlie Wilson’s War” which we really enjoyed. (FYI – the next day we went back to the Balboa to see “Juno” – great movie). Before we left for the movie, I prepared our starter course – mushroom caps filled with blue cheese – which then required only simple reheating. This course was served with a bottle of Champagne Taittinger. The main course was the most delicious crab we ever had, purchased the prior day in Pillar Point near Half Moon Bay. We dipped this into unsalted butter being warmed by gracefully shaped porcelain warmers. This was accompanied by a caesar salad, a recipe I found in Epicurious. Our wine for this course was our favorite “house Chardonnay” – Rodney Strong Chalk Hill. We waited to have dessert with our dear friends and neighbors, Nanci and Andrew. Check out Andrew’s Blue Turtle Spa!
Mind Shaft Society Expedition Gathering
My husband Freddy and his Burning Man theme camp, the “Mind Shaft Society” went on an expedition to the deYoung Museum to begin their brainstorming for 2008. It was a cold, wet day so when they returned to our house from their expedition, I was prepared with sun-dried tomato soup, a recipe from Food & Wine. Everyone really enjoyed that! To accompany the soup, I also served a variety of cheeses and crackers and carrots and olives. Also, thanks to Freddy’s sister Barbara we had an array of great nuts from Christmas plus some chocolates, grapes and cherries. Refueled, the Mind Shaft Society actually starting talking about fuel for their camp in ’08. Stay tuned!
Thanksgiving ’07
It was a nuclear family Thanksgiving, graced by my Mom and Sister and family visiting from out of town. The menu was traditional with kosher and vegan accents. My husband is master of roasting turkey on the Weber. Along with the turkey, he also barbecued petite yams purchased at the Ferry Building Farmers’ Market – no need for marshmallows or brown sugar! We had traditional stuffing using lots of celery and onion and a green bean casserole. My sister also made delicious Yukon Gold mashed potatoes. A meal highlight was the cranberry sauce. Using a recipe from Epicurious, the ingredients include tart dried cherries (from Trader Joe’s) and cinnamon. For dessert we had a vegan pumpkin pie purchased in San Luis Obispo and a chocolate pecan pie with whipped cream made from a recipe in Gourmet. Beverages included cherry cider and Zinfandel. The table setting was the creation of my mother using a new napkin fold and “turkeys” made from pine cones with old silk flowers for tails.
Fresh Mahi Mahi
The inspiration for this evening’s ChezHelvetica dinner was the wild fresh fish available at Safeway which was Mahi Mahi. I grilled the Mahi Mahi in a grill pan indoors and placed it on a bed of fresh greens with sliced mangoes. It was topped with a salsa verde (using mint from our garden as well as parsley, garlic, capers, lemon, oil and vinegar), a recipe from the current issue of Martha Stewart Living. The side dish was whole wheat couscous.
A journey through the wine section revealed the best deal on the shelf (of the wines we would consider), a bottle of 2005 DeLoach Chardonnay from Russian River Valley in Sonoma County. The wine had that double malolactic taste that was smooth, buttery and slightly oakey.
The dinner turned out to be excellent and was easy to prepare and not cost prohibitive.