Eat in Albany

Are you ever in the mood for lobster?  This is what happens when you go to the store to get lobster and there was a massive sale the day before so there was only one lobster left.  We actually didn’t even eat the tail because the claws were enough, but I did make a really nice lobster salad the next day out of it.

The lobster was a hair over 6 lbs.

One large lobster claw.

The other large claw.

These are a wee bit pudgy. Next time I'll roll them out more.

Have you ever wanted to try making your own pasta but lack any specialized equipment? Do what I did: give cavatelli a try! While cavatelli makers do exist, all you really need are a flat blade (like a spatula edge, butter knife, or pastry cutter) and your two hands.

I began obsessing about these little bullets of deliciousness after dinner with BK’s family at Cornell’s Restaurant in Schenectady. Usually I can take or leave Italian cuisine, but JoAnn’s homemade cavatelli was so very tasty and delectably textured I couldn’t stop stealing forkfulls from BKs plate (sorry, mister).

A quick search led me to this post on making dough and hand-rolling the nuggets, which worked out extremely well for me. I made the dough late one evening and let it rest, tightly wrapped, overnight. The next day I pushed up my sleeves and got to rolling.

Honesty time: shaping them is kind of a pain. The first dozen or so I made were pretty awkward looking. Give yourself a chance to get in a groove and it will go far more smoothly. And since cooking goes quickly just remember that once you get tired of rolling you can be eating your delicious fresh pasta bites in mere minutes. That was enough to keep me going.

In the end BK and I decided to change gears and play hooky from various festivities. Instead we arranged an impromptu dinner in: lobster, bubbles, pjs and live stream of the NYE countdown. Couldn’t be happier.

Hope you and yours have a delicious 2010!

Browning the edges of the ribeye

This Ribeye is 28 ounces.  I bought it at the Price Chopper in Westgate plaza.  The butchers at Hannaford (where I usually shop) aren’t very good, so I’ve been going to Price Chopper.  Their butchers were willing to cut whatever I wanted, even a 2″+ Ribeye.

Cooking the ribeye in butter and garlic

I cooked it in my cast iron on medium.  I started by browning all the sides first and then cooked it for about 15 minutes on each side, with a large amount of butter and some garlic and kosher salt.

Finished product

The next time I make this I am going to cook it a little bit hotter and a little faster, but overall the flavor was amazing.  I can’t wait to make another one.

I’m loving that pomegranate season is in full swing! Even though the pomegranate flavor/juice trend is so played out they still remain one of my very favorite seasonal treats.

Growing up I’d see one pomegranate a year: on Christmas Eve. My parents, along with the relatives on my mother’s side, put on an elaborate and extensive Christmas Eve dinner every year. The pause between dinner and dessert courses, as a child, seemed interminable. Luckily the adults would let us open the traditional fruit basket while we waited. And there it would be: one solitary strange red leathery sphere snuggled among more pedestrian apples and oranges. And I’d go right for it. Someone (usually my dad) would slice it open and my fingers would grow stained as I picked out every juicy little aril.

Now I buy them frequently, but still feel that tickle of excitement every time it’s time to open one up. They’ve been a little ugly-looking this year, but with good yield. Just under $2 per is the best price I’ve seen locally at both Hannaford and Price Chopper. Surprisingly, the best looking and best yielding fruit I’ve gotten so far was from the Chopper on Delaware, a store not typically known for its produce.

In my misguided youth I’d blithely buy a wooden cutting board, use it for a year or so while it grew drier and drier and more and more stained and nicked. Then I’d start thinking it looked gross and would throw it out, or perhaps I’d accidentally leave it in the sink soaking in water and the thirsty wood would suck up too much moisture and crack and then I’d throw it out. Looking back I’m a bit embarassed. But I just didn’t know any better.

Then a woman named Frances took me in hand and taught me her ways. Not only did I learn to care for my boards, but I stopped being fearful of butcher block counters and tables, too. Now, I’m not claiming to be the ultimate expert on the care and maintenance of wood. But the following simple techniques, built on from Frances’ first lessons, have been working for me for years. And I haven’t had to chuck anything since.

1. Clean
   Google will provide you with plenty of opinions on how to keep wood clean and sanitary. For me the everyday answer is soap and water. If extra vigilance is needed I’ll wipe down the surface with full strength vinegar. For lingering onion and garlic odors I use ‘The Frances Method’ which consists of scrubbing with a lemon that’s been cut in half, letting it sit a bit, then wiping it off.
2. Sand
   To remove roughness and nicks use the finest sandpaper you can find and rub in the direction of the grain to smooth the surface. This will help with stubborn stains, too. Sand with a light hand all over vs. focusing on one spot in order to keep things even. When finished, wipe down surface with a barely wet cloth to remove dust.
3. Season
   Apply a thin coat of oil, wiping with the grain. Forget the fancy branded wood treatment stuff, just get regular old mineral oil. I get mine from our local CVS. Don’t freak out that they sometimes keep it in the laxative section, you won’t be ingesting it in any significant amount.
   Let the oil soak in for a bit, then wipe away any excess. If it’s been a while you may need to do this a few times. But, please note: if your wood is really dried out don’t try to make up for it by slopping on a lot of oil! Be sparing and build up coats gradually. Too much moisture too quickly is the culprit that causes cracks–the same reason you don’t want to let your boards soak in the sink.
   I usually treat my wood about once a month, more like once a week in the winter when the heat is on.
4. “Seal”
   The prep surface of our island gets an extra step after seasoning: beeswax. For this I did splurge on a premixed mineral oil/beeswax blend, but you can mix your own (Google if you’re feeling motivated). The beeswax makes the surface slightly more water-resistant, fills in tiny nicks, and helps keep moisture in the wood.

I’ve been putting off oiling the legs of the island. Check out the difference in color between the seasoned tabletop and the untreated legs–

Bottom line: don’t treat wood like it’s disposable. With a little easy maintenance you’ll be able to love it for years.

Some shots from this summer, enjoying the bounty of our basil plants. Tiger shrimp and homemade pesto with fettucine:

One of the things that BK and I did during our blogging hiatus was move into a new apartment. Can I just say, I’m in love? I am! I really adore our new home. And while it’s actually smaller overall (two less rooms) the kitchen is ever-so-slightly larger. And ever-so-slightly is enough to make a very large difference indeed. I’m also ecstatic we’ll never again have to deal with the old kitchen’s water-damaged cupboards or aging and peeling off-white linoleum that never, ever, ever looked clean no matter how often we scrubbed. With bleach. But I have to admit, my favorite part of our new kitchen didn’t come with the place. It was a wishlist gift we hunted down: the IKEA Groland kitchen island.

While the new kitchen is a big improvement from the one prior, it still needed a little more counter space, and on our dream list was a butcher block surface for prep. I first saw the Groland mentioned at Apartment Therapy and after extensive research on what was out there at various price points, BK and I decided this was the table for us.

It’s been a dream. After trying a few placements, we settled on having it jut out into the middle of the kitchen, like a peninsula. It’s easily reachable from the stove area and keeping both long sides open allows two people (one on each long side) ample room to prep.

BK and Joe making meatballs.

Now, wood comes with a bit of responsibility. It’s absolutely necessary to care for wood surfaces, especially when the weather cools and heat has been turned on. Even boards need maintenance, but often people don’t take the time or energy, or just aren’t aware. Next time we’ll talk about caring for wood, and why it makes me sad when people throw out old wooden cutting boards because they have dried and cracked, or even worse: because they look ‘dirty’ or ‘gross’ from knife marks or food stains accumulated over time.

Every October the charity I am involved in holds an event that is very dear to my heart.  That event is called Meatfest.  One finds all sorts of amazing items at an event named Meatfest.  Last year the event volunteers ate deep-fried prime rib.

Deep-fried prime rib.

For this year’s Meatfest I decided to contribute meatballs. Making sauce and five pounds of meatballs from scratch is a time-consuming process. So, the morning of Meatfest I called upon my trusty pal Joe to help me assemble things. O volunteered to sample our mini test meatballs as we experimented with the proportions.

5 pounds of meatballs requires hours of prep.

We started with 85% Angus. In the end we added two pounds of Romano cheese from the local co-op and two packets of organic parsley. We also used a lot of breadcrumbs. I really don’t know how much. On top of all of that we used 12 bulbs of garlic from the organic CSA we joined this past spring. I love garlic and their garlic in particular. So much that when I picked up our last CSA share this week I worried because I didn’t want to run out during the winter season. So I bought all they had: 25 bulbs.

Some of the 12 bulbs of garlic that went into the meatballs.

With all of the previous ingredients mixed I added some eggs from Feather Ridge Farms.  I met Katie a few years ago, so when I saw her eggs at the Albany co-op I couldn’t resist.  They were great. Good eggs, Katie! Added some fresh oregano and arrived at what a finished batch looks like before mixing it and frying it.

As you can see, a lot goes into meatballs.

Moving on. I used a 75/25 blend of olive oil and extra virgin to fry all of those meatballs.  It is harder to fry in these oils but it adds flavor.  I used my favorite pan, a 12″ All-Clad copper core, which definitely helped to fry a large amount of meatballs at a time in tricky oil.

Meatballs frying.

Finally, with a sauce complete and 5 pounds of meatballs done, we had our finished product.

Meatballs in sauce.

With the cooking finally behind us we headed to Meatfest, where the meatballs were offered alongside of pounds and pounds of other proteins and cold drinks to be enjoyed by all who attended.

Meatfest at night, after a few brews and a lot of protein.

Hey, how’ve you been? Good? Good. Let’s get back into it then, shall we?

If you’re like me you’ve got a large collection of bookmarked websites, ripped out magazine pages, recipe cards and scribbled notes from friends and family that piles up far too easily. So many tasty things to try, so little time in our busy schedules. A few days ago I decided I would make the time needed, and dug into my cooking to-do list. First up: a stuffed eggplant dish from Beatrice Peltre’s site La Tartine Gourmande, originally published in the Boston Globe’s Seasons column. 
 
BK was into all of the fillings–eggplant, of course, as well as ham, tomato, coriander, and romano and ricotta cheese–but remained skeptical about one thing: “It doesn’t call for breadcrumbs?” he said. “Don’t you think it would taste better with a little breadcrumbs?” Undeterred, I waved him off (“No! Bah! Filler!”) and set to work.
 
It seems like ages since I’ve made a meal with more than 5 minutes prep time and it felt like a nice change to try something a bit more complex, thought I was rushing around a bit. Having an extra set of willing hands bashing coriander seeds while I chopped helped. And I did try to save time by skimping on the first “let it cool” directive, but wasn’t very successful. Lesson learned: when it says let it cool, let it cool.

How did it turn out? To me, every bit as delicious as hoped. It had that satisfying combination of warm and savory that I crave once the weather turns cold. And the leftovers the following night when I came home too exhausted to move? Equally delicious.

Eggplants stuffed with ricotta and ham: warm, savory, delicious.

Of course, never one to leave well enough alone, on the second night BK decided to gently stir in a small amount (about 1T) of breadcrumbs before he popped the eggplant in the oven to reheat. Begrudgingly, I admit: the contrasting texture from the resultant slight crust that formed on the surface of the filling was a nice touch. Though perhaps sprinkling the top with extra grated cheese might have done the trick, too. Humph.