This was dinner last night. This is one of those meals that takes me back to my childhood. Steak and potatoes. I spent years rejecting this meal after leaving home. I'd eaten so much steak and so many potatoes as a kid, that I thought I'd never eat another bite of read meat or another potato ever again. Now that I'm in my 40's, I crave this. It was pure heaven for me last night to dive into a creamy baked potato slathered in sour cream and chives. The steak, it was divine! And as always, I have to have something green on my plate, and the asparagus, was unusually tender. Not a stringy piece in the bunch. Oh, man! now I'm hungry again. Off to eat some leftover steak. Excuse the drool.

Busy Weekend

So, this weekend, rather than take the time to post about our dining in Reno I spent the time getting our finances together and recovering from our Christmas splurge and to do the big bulk buying/ stocking up for the kitchen. With all the crazy Nostradamus shows on and the bad economy news it seems like I'm jumping on the "oh crap" band wagon, but I'm not, really. This is just what I do. I love to shop for groceries, I know, I'm weird. I love having a full freezer of meat, ice cream, pizza dough various homemade stocks and other staples. It makes me feel safe. It must come from having parents who grew up during the depression and lived through WWII. I consider myself lucky to have picked up their frugalness.

I also felt inspired by the Homesteading Housewife's post about batch cooking breakfast burrito's which I tried on a micro level and was super pleased with the results. So after I got home from my trip to Winco/Costco/Grocery Outlet I proceeded to make 20 some odd buckwheat applesauce (used my own homemade canned sauce) pancakes and set them up to freeze for breakfasts throughout the next couple of weeks. I also engaged my bread making machine in some pizza dough creation while I was cooking up pancakes. I now have two big balls of pizza dough in my freezer just waiting to be thawed, covered in sauce, cheese and leftovers from the fridge (so much cheaper then buying the tube of dough, the Boboli things which are nasty, doing take and bake from a place like Papa Murpy's or having it delivered, which isn't an option where I live. Gotta love being rural). Then I proceeded to separate and seal up all the different meat I bought with my trusty Foodsaver so that the meat was all in manageable levels for our family. I hope to do more breakfast burritos plus some dinner burrito's. Tomorrow the slow cooker will be pulled out and readied for a pork rib roast and I'm leaning towards some kind of Mexican recipe. Something we can eat with refried beans, rice and warm tortillas, and then I can take the leftovers and freeze in burrito's or set aside for tacos for lunch.

Man! I'm on food fire!

Vacation Wrap Up

Okay, let's finish this vacation story up. Now comes one of the coolest segments. The Oakland segment.

We have a very dear friend (he was our best man,not just my husbands best man, but ours)who lives in Oakland. Since it's such a long drive from Monterey to our home with two kids we decided it would be nice to stop part way and visit Josh. One of the things we have in common with Josh is he loves to eat and cook. He appreciates good food and will try just about anything. He's almost as adventurous as Andrew Zimmerman, which makes going out to dinner with him fun.

I had mentioned to Josh that I'd never had dim sum and would really like to try some. So our first night in Oakland we ate at a little place called Old Place Tea House.

I can't even begin to tell you everything we ate, because we tried so many things. Some sweet some savory, all very good. And this is where we tried jelly fish salad, which was surprisingly good. The texture was like nothing I'd ever had before. Chewy and crunchy at the same time. It was mild and pleasant. The only thing I didn't try, and I'm sorry I didn't, was the chicken feet. I'd really like to say I've eaten them. The one caveat I'll put out about eating dim sum. Don't eat too much of it like we did, or you'll be spending your next day close to the bathroom. It is rich and a bit greasy, so it can cause digestive issues. The food wasn't bad, because our girls ate it too and they were fine, we just ate far too much.

The next day Josh took us to Oakland's Chinatown. This place is nothing like San Francisco's Chinatown. It's not touristy, this is just where people live and work.

We hit up all of the grocery stores and I bought all the dried ingredients I need to make Buddha's Delight, or Jai, a soup that is traditionally made by the Chinese on Chinese New Years Day. I found the recipe in my cookbook The Wisdom of the Chinese Kitchen by Grace Young. I'll post the recipe and how it turns out after I make it.

After quite a bit of shopping in the various markets. We decided to go eat at a place I had read about on the internet called Restaurant Peony.

Our biggest mistake here was we showed up right at the end of lunch service, and we didn't realize they close between lunch and dinner. They were very gracious and accommodating to the silly white tourists. We did get to try some of their dim sum which was excellent! Even better then what we had had the night before. But, we wanted more then dim sum, but we couldn't figure out how to order more, or even who to order from, since virtually no one spoke English and the menu's were all in Chinese. We finally found one very kind waitress who with broken English and hand gestures suggested we order the special like the Chinese family behind us was eating. We couldn't really see what it was, but said OK. This is what we were served:



Isn't that cool? I couldn't help but wonder if it was the same chicken I saw hanging in a window in one of the markets earlier. It may look creepy to you, but it was some of the best chicken I've ever eaten. Juicy and tender. The sauce was mild, salty and slightly sweet. And very difficult to eat with chopsticks. It was served with steamed rice and a side of Chinese Broccoli, which is nothing like our Western broccoli. All very simple and delicious. It all turned out very good, for showing up at the wrong time and not speaking the language. As I walked out after a very satisfying lunch I snapped one last picture.

Those tanks you see in the background are full of live fish, lobster and crab that you can order up for your dinner. I hope to come back to this place for dinner some day.

The next day we headed home. We decided to venture through San Francisco and get some breakfast. We stopped down by the wharf and ate at this little place.
Beach Street Grill



Everything was homemade, not out of cans or jars. The service was prompt and very friendly. The food was good enough to keep me going until we got home. And now home we are and back into the grind of things. It was a great trip and I can't wait to get back to Monterey and to go see Oakland's Chinatown again, what a blast! But for now, it's back to work, tending the garden, chickens and goats. Time to focus on the harvest.
Bon Appetite!

Love That Meatloaf

NO! NOT THAT MEATLOAF!

THIS!




It's cold and rainy outside. It's a good night for comfort food, and what better comfort food than MEATLOAF? Not too many that I know of. So here's the deal tonight. I happened to have some left over ground deer meat blended with Italian sausage spices. I searched meatloaf recipes on Epicurious.com, and I found a buffalo meatloaf recipe. I thought, "what the hay. Why not use that? Venison, buffalo, it can't be too different, right?" Yeah I know, it can be quite different. But, the fat content may be similar, so I thought it just might work, plus the fact that one of the recipe reviewers used straight beef and loved the recipe told me it would be a go. So if you want to check out the recipe go here: Buffalo Meatloaf With Spinach and Roasted Baby Potatoes I have made some minor adjustments. First and foremost, the meat. I'm using a half pound of organic grass fed beef (all I can afford ....that stuff is ridiculously overpriced!) and a half pound of the ground venison "Italian sausage". I lowered the red pepper content since I'm serving it to my kids. I kept the spices the same, except for a little garlic powder being mixed in with the tomato sauce that I put on top ( instead of red pepper). Let's see, is that it? The only other changes were to the rest of the menu. I used fingerlings instead of the baby potatoes they called for, and since my kids, or at least one of them, has an issue with spinach, I steamed broccoli for them. I still sauteed spinach in olive oil and seasoned it with salt and fresh lemon juice and dinner was served. I will give you the family verdict asap!
Happy dinning!

Places to eat in Mendocino

I finally have some time to write a bit today. I've been wanting to list some of the great places my husband and I ate at a couple of weekends ago in Mendocino County.
Obviously from my last post you can see we had dinner at the Ledford House and found it to be a great place to eat. If I get the chance, I will definitely eat there again. The next morning we found a little restaurant in the town of Mendocino called Bayview Cafe'. It was upstairs on Main Street and has a great view of the bay, just as the name implies. The menu wasn't fancy, but the eggs florentine I had was excellent. John had eggs benedict and really enjoyed them. I never got a chance to get a bite of his food, so I'll have to take his word for it. Mendocino, being a tourist town, provided some great people watching while we ate, when it was possible to take your eyes off of the view outside. It's such a pretty little town. (if you go to Bayview Cafe' be aware that they do not take credit or debit cards. Cash or check only)

After lunch we went out to Point Cabrillo Light house and walked breakfast off. We enjoyed checking out the historical light keepers house and were surprised to see that it was possible to stay in one of the restored houses. They are in the process of restoring a third building which will probably be available for lodging in the future. After that we headed north to Fort Bragg to explore. On our way we ran on to the little town of Casper celebrating their Abalone Festival. The urge to stop dissipated as we drove through and saw the lack of parking and the masses of people. We also knew that only "judges" were allowed to eat the abalone. I really didn't feel like going to an abalone festival where I can't eat abalone. So we continued on to Fort Bragg.

John drove around scoping out all of the taqueria's in town so he'll be able to try them out next time he's in town for work. Hopefully I'll get to try a few out too. We ended up driving down to Noyo Harbor and checked out the local color. We decided to go to Silvers at the Warf and have a couple of cocktails. We ended up ordering fried calamari and oysters on the half shell. Yum! The calamari was great, but the oysters were amazing. They were so fresh, they tasted like the ocean smells on a clear breezy day on the Pacific Northwest. They didn't need a sauce, but the one provided was delicious. It was sweet, but with a heat that showed up a few seconds after swallowing the oyster. It had an Asian flavor to it, and would be great with shrimp. I definitely want to come back to Silvers for dinner. Oh, and the bartender makes a great bloody mary.

By evening John was feeling bloated and not so hot after so much rich food. We ended up eating at the Mendocino Hotel in Mendocino. We just had soup and starters, but I very much enjoyed my dinner. I had a french onion soup and John had the clam chowder. He enjoyed it, in spite of not feeling all that well. He ordered a ceasar salad, but didn't feel well enough to eat it. Next I had the Napoleon of Ahi Tuna Tartare which was chopped and mixed with a sweet sauce and served on top of crisp won ton's with cucumbers and a siracha emulsion. Nicely presented and very good. I also ordered their California Artisanal Cheese Plate. I wasn't too impressed with this. First of all no one told me what kind of cheese I was being served. I figured out that one was a Chevre, and the other some type of blue cheese. There was a hard cheese with peppercorns in it. I think it was a sheep cheese and it resembled a mild parmesan. These were served in two very large triangles, which seemed odd. There were basic water crackers, chutney, and fruit on the plate as well. I would have preferred crisp baguette with the soft cheeses. I was too full to eat much, and decided it was good enough to take back to our room for a midnight snack. What most impressed me about the Mendocino Hotel was the craftsman style decor. A very pretty place and the food and service is good enough that I would be happy to come back and try a full dinner, but I'll skip the cheese plate next time.

The next morning before heading home, we had to try one more place. We went back to Noyo Harbor in Fort Bragg and found a tiny little restaurant, right on the water called Chapter and Moon. We were greeted (if you can call it that) by a grumpy looking old man, who looked like he was tired out from busting knee caps for the mob the night before. He handed us a one page menu with 3 items on it. Egg's cooked any way you like with your choice of meat, which included bacon, sausage and ham. There was also French toast, and Omelet of the day. Uncle Guido informed us that the omelet of the day was, "a sausage omelet with some other stuff in it. You know, like peppers and things." Well all righty then! He did get around to asking us if we would like coffee, which we were pleasantly surprised to be served a very strong, dark and delicious cup of joe. I assume other beverages were available because I saw customers drinking tea, orange juice and other juices. They also appeared to have a bar of some kind. Well, we went for the sausage and stuff omelet and were not disappointed. The eggs were light and fluffy. Cooked perfectly. The sausage tasted like it was home made and I liked that the omelet wasn't loaded down with a ton of cheese. There were no peppers in it, but there were carmelized onions and tomatoes. The hash browns were unusual and very good. They were more like tiny little fries, cooked to a perfect crisp and they were light and crunchy in your mouth. Other than Uncle Guido, who actually added to the charm of the place in his disturbing demeanor, the service was excellent. It turns out that the chef is locally very well known from working in several of the great restaurants in the area and decided to start her own restaurant. She bakes all of her own bread for the meals, and the sourdough toast we had with breakfast was yummy. I would loved to come back to this place and try one of the pulled pork sandwiches I saw on the lunch menu. I highly recommend this place. Especially to people who have a hard time deciding what to have for breakfast. Your options are limited, so it's easy to decide, and you can bet whatever you order is going to be good.

So there you have it. A fun and food filled weekend. And I actually managed to not gain a single pound through it all! Woo Hoo!