A restaurant review...

I don't normally do reviews, but I want to review my dinner the other night. 

This is about The Greene House, a Sam Fox restaurant concept located in Kierland Commons in Scottsdale. I met the mrs here during the past week for a quick dinner before a lacrosse game. 

If you live anywhere in the Valley, you know of Sam Fox. His restaurants are everywhere and usually are above average in the service and food that is served. I have said many times "Can't we just go to a non-Sam Fox restaurant for once." 

I don't actually remember all that we ordered, except for my entree. I had a nice IPA and then ordered the bacon-wrapped pork tenderloin. I wanted to get this as I have made this several times before. It was tasty and was served with cheesy scalloped potatoes, Brussels sprouts and mushrooms. 

 

The pork and potatoes were great, but as I was eating I noticed that it had probably 1 Brussel sprout that was cooked, cut up, and sprinkled around. Also the mushrooms were rather hard to find as well. 

I really found it hard to believe that there was so little veggies on the plate. To list Brussels and mushrooms on the menu implies to me that they should be more than a garnish. 

Maybe we should have gone to a healthier Sam Fox restaurant, but I'm guessing that you all can understand my bitch with this plate. I think that I will have to order a salad next time if I want to get some veggies in... Later until next time. 

 

The Secret Behind the Pic

This is a little behind the scenes information about a recent dinner pic that I posted on Instagram. 

2 weeks back I made dinner on a Sunday. Grilled salmon and Fava Beans salad with Fennel and Radish. It got the most likes that I have ever received for a food pic, but there is a little secret behind this photo. 

The right side of the salmon is cut from a larger fillet and not very attractive. I had grilled several skin-on fillets and after they were done, I cut them into serving sizes. This left a ragged edge as a cooked piece doesn't cut very well. Well, I used this salad to just kind of cozy up next to the salmon and cover it up. Secret revealed!

Now I had read about this salad on La Fuji Mama's blog. She had mentioned it in her recipe for chocolate pots de creme as yet another snowstorm swept through her neighborhood. I'm thinking that she is quite ready for spring to arrive and is dreaming of some Springtime recipes. This is from the April issue of Cooking Light...

This salad uses fava beans which are in season right now and I had just bought some at the farmers market the day before. I really enjoy them, but they are a bit of a pain to prepare. 

                                             

First, they must be taken from there shells. I used my vegetable peeler to take a thin strip from each pod. This makes it easier to get them out of there. Then the beans are blanched in boiling water for 20 seconds and dropped into an ice bath. Now they are ready to lose their shells. 

                                               

A little pinch to open the shell and they squeeze right out. Probably 20 minutes of work to get about a cup of favas ready to use. Next I assembled the rest of the ingredients. 

                                               

I went out to my garden and picked a bit of wild arugula (with an adult beverage as I tend to cook this way).

                                               

Fennel, i'itoi onions, radishes, walnut pieces and Romano cheese were readied along with a lemon for the dressing. I pan toasted the walnuts and used my mandolin to shave the fennel and radishes into thin slices. Once all this is ready, just a simple lemon vinaigrette is whisked together and tossed with the salad. Top with the walnuts and serve. Relatively simple and fresh, it went very well with the grilled salmon (and covers up my not so photogenic piece of fish). 

I'm thinking that I will make it again soon as Spring seems to be fading fast here in Phoenix. We are going to have our first 90° + day today. Ugh, summer is just around the corner I fear!

Saturday at the Market

This is a little glimpse of my farmers market trip this morning. This is as close to a live blogging that I have ever attempted. Enjoy!

 Fresh sugar snap peas

 Fresh multi colored carrots

 Peacock kale 

 I also noticed this suggestive sign

 Flowers are showing up in this warm weather 

 

 

 and lots of doggies. 

I ended up at home with a lot of stuff. Carrots, radishes, daikon, spigarello, artichokes, Brussels sprouts, romanesco, rainbow chard, red kale, sugar snap peas, spring onions, green garlic, cara cara oranges, medjool dates and some candy. 

I ended up having a fresh chocolate chip scone with coffee as I prepped and stored all or this.

 Until next time, Hefe out.

The Clean Up

Ok so I have obviously forgotten about my blog. What happened? I don't know except life I guess.

So I am going straight to the worst part of the kitchen, the clean up.

I hate it, you hate it, we all hate it. I even made a big deal about closing my kitchen on Instagram once because I was getting sick about it.

Maybe I thought that if you cook, you don't have to clean up. Maybe I thought that my family would want to help out. Well that is just not true. If you are going to cook, you will have to cleanup. 

Of course this got me several snarky comments from people that I likely deserved. 

I even thought that Charleen of FnB commented that I had better just deal with it, but I couldn't find that in my pictures. 

And then I received the following comment from a Middle Eastern chef that lives in London:

                         

Now I was probably being stupid & pissy about cleaning up but I took this comment to heart. I was not going to let the cleanup determine how I was going to cook. 

Anyone that follows me on Instagram knows that I love going to the farmers markets and buying lots of organic produce. I am becoming a Clean eater. I want to know what is going into my pan and where it is from. I have read so many crummy things about the food production industry that it is downright scary to think about. 

So while I have failed in updating my blog, it's not like I haven't been cooking. I've been cooking like crazy. I've even wanted to call myself the #530chef because I get home from work, and then I jump right into the kitchen working on some part of dinner. So of course I have been cleaning like crazy as well. So here are a few cleanup tips I like. 

1. Try and cleanup as you go. Rinse boards, bowls and knives. It can make the final cleanup a bit easier. 

2. Use the dishwasher. Rinse off plates and utensils and put em in. Throw the cutting boards and mixing bowls in. Well just throw the pots and pans in if there is room. Most things these days are dishwasher safe, so just use it to your advantage. 

                                         

3. Soak baked on stuff in hot soapy water, but don't just forget about it overnight. Above is a pan that was just left to soak. The grease will be getting all over that knfe and spatula and even all over the sides of the pan. Just use a little muscle and scrub away the baked on stuff.

Well I have scraped the bottom with this post, so I am hoping that I can climb out of this rut and write some interesting posts in the future. Until next time, Hefe out. 

Farmers Market Heaven

I went on a road trip last weekend to Santa Barbara. I had to get my son to a lacrosse camp in the area. I really wasn't sure what I was going to do besides eat and sight see.

Now I can't remember when or if I have ever been to the Santa Barbara area before, so I was pretty excited to check it out. It is a beautiful California beach town even if it is a large city and probably overrun by tourists in the summer.

Thanks to my friend Erin's idea, I checked out if they might have any farmers markets in the area. This turned out to be a really good idea, as they have them 6 days during the week.

I went to the downtown market on Saturday morning. Once I started walking around it was apparent that this one was a lot different. Compared to the ones that I go to in Phoenix and Flagstaff, the SB market is much more focused on farmers. There are not as many vendors selling sauces, honey, and prepared foods, etc. I guess there were probably 40 farmer stalls selling almost any type of produce imaginable. 

Walking around it was apparent that I had discovered farmers market heaven. 

Walk with me and check it out...

To the right is a table of heirloom tomatoes and to the left is a pile of corn that could have concealed a body, it was that large!

                                      This was a stunning display of peppers and eggplants.

         Squash blossoms and massive artichokes!                                          

Tomatillos and peppers including spicy green apple peppers in the front.


Many types of basil ready for someones home garden.



                       Kale, leeks, carrots and celery roots.

 

There were many types of grapes even though these are the only ones I got pics of. Tons of avocados were everywhere. I felt lost. I wanted to buy so many things. I guess I became flustered and didn't buy a lot of sweet corn and avocados as I was too worried about getting this stuff home. 

I did buy some stuff to put in the styrofoam cooler that I bought (because I forgot to bring one). I bought Chinese long beans, shishito peppers, lemon cucumbers, Japanese eggplant, Cherokee and Indigo Cherry heirloom tomatoes, sweet white peaches, snap peas and 2 little Bitter melons.

These goodies are keeping me extra busy trying to figure out what to make with them. I wish I could go back to the Santa Barbara farmers market this weekend, but these memories will have to do...

Heirloom Garlic

I'm writing today about some heirloom garlic that I picked up at the Flagstaff farmers market a week ago.

I've never bought this before although I've seen it. This time I decided to pick up 2.
Of course I have lost the piece of paper with the farmers information on it, so I will just have to say that they are grown in Arizona. I think lots of other shoppers decided to as well because many were carrying these funny stalks around. The mrs thought I was nuts, but as one that buys market oddities, I had to get some.

Heirloom garlic leaning against the car.

These things are over 4 feet tall. Of course after we got a bite to eat after the market, the car smelled very strongly of garlic.

This is some serious garlic!

Of course I have lost the piece of paper with the farmers information on it, so I will just have to say that they are grown in Arizona.

They told me that most all of it is edible and they were handing out tastes of the small flower buds which I have come to find out are called bulbils. These ones appear smaller than the bulbils that I found via Google. Supposedly they can be planted and will grow a better strain of garlic than just by planting the garlic cloves. I will have to try and plant some when the weather here starts to cool down a bit.

These garlic bulbils have a nice garlic flavor and I have been adding them to several things since I have a whole bunch of them. I also put a large bunch in the freezer as well.










I cut off the bottoms about 18 inches above the bulbs so that they could dry and be ready to use like regular garlic in a few weeks. Here they are hanging in the kitchen.




I also saved several sections of the slender middle stalk but I think that this is rather woody and might just be a flavoring agent for something in the future.







I had tried putting some chopped stalk with some carrot tops, green onion and cilantro in a food processor. The taste was ok but there was some that just didn't seem to get chopped up. Oh well, I'm just trying out this as best as I can figure out.

Here is a pic of some roasted chicken with
large pieces of grilled pattypan squash with the garlic enhanced chimichurri like sauce. I also
sprinkled a few bulbils around the chicken.
Tasty if you could look past having to dig
out the woody pieces. Fail.








Here is something that turned out well.

I had slowly roasted these Corno di Toro peppers and then mixed some chived goat cheese with minced cilantro, serrano pepper and some bulbils. Then I stuffed the peppers and grilled them just a bit to melt the cheese inside.

This one was a winner except that I didn't make enough.

Don't worry, I won't make that mistake next time.

Realization...

Time for a little realization about my cooking.

If anyone read this post, I wrote about how I had entered the Arizona Republic's Best Home Chef contest. I had hoped to reach the final 3 and then would have hosted a dinner for the Dining & Entertainment people from the newspaper. 

After reading the articles about the 3 dinners all I can say is 'What was I thinking'! I've come to realize that I am glad that I wasn't picked. All 3 put on fantastic dinners that most anyone that loves fine food would have wanted to eat. For your reading pleasure here are the top 3 starting with the winner.

Win Thomas

Shereen Thomas

Anthony Coury

I tip my hat to all 3 and hope that it was fun having food critics over to your homes. My wife says she has known Win's wife for years, now she just needs to get us invited over for dinner...

I guess I was thinking that if I was chosen I would have broken out some tequila along with my sangrita chaser so that the judges would be sufficiently impaired for my unfocused dinner.

The realization to me is that cooking is like my hobby. I really enjoy picking out interesting stuff and then trying to figure out what to do with it. Sometimes it works out and other times I am the only one to try the crappy food. I don't really have a plan until like 5:15pm when I get home from work, and then I go to work on some food.

So here is a little impromptu grain salad that I put together the other night.

I started by cooking a cup of Hayden Flour Mills farro berries. They took around 40 minutes to get tender. While that was cooking, I assembled the ingredients to make a tabouli type salad.









I chopped up a bunch of Italian parsley and a large beefsteak tomato. I also used some cilantro, green onion, radish, jalapeno and red bell pepper. Then I made a simple vinaigrette with the juice of a tangerine and a little lemon juice. When the farro berries were done, I cooled them off and added all the ingredients. Tasted and added some salt and pepper and sprinkled some za'atar on top.







Pretty good with the fresh veggies, dressing and chewy farro berries.

Until next time when I realize something else to write about...