Piña Colada Cake


So you say that you want a piece of cake that is sweet, fruity and somewhat rummy? Oh, my! Then give this one a try. Robin found it on the Smitten Kitchen website and it is awesome. One ingredient may take some time to find: Coconut Cream. I found it in our local Albertson’s Market (actually the original Albertson’s!) at the end of the wine isle. The cake is a Piña Colada Cake and it is delightfully sinful! Enjoy this. We did.

St David’s Day


I really do receive many cooking/food blog articles. Here is one from About.com: British and Irish Food.

From Elaine Lemm, your Guide to British and Irish Food
Wishing everyone a very happy St David’s Day today. It is the celebration of all things welsh on this their patron saints day.

St David’s is just the start of a season of celebrations coming up, next week is not only Pancake Day it is also National Pie Week followed a week later with one of the busiest saint’s day, St Patrick’s. Loads of great food and recipes coming up then, what fun.

Shrove Tuesday, also known as Pancake Day in Britain , is the day before Ash Wednesday and the start of Lent. Apart from eating pancakes, throughout England there are Pancake Day Races which are always great fun to to watch. The typical English pancake is thin and light and not dissimilar to a French crepe and usually eaten with sugar and lemon, or Golden Syrup.

And let’s not forget Shrove Tuesday when we make Fasnachts. Most IHOP’s here in Boise are offering a free short stack of pancakes today! I think we’ll go again this year. It helps to support the St Luke’s Hospital Children’s Fund.

Welsh Breakfast Treats – Crempog
A stack of delicious Crempog, Welsh Pancakes, are better started the night before making them quick to finish before breakfast. Crempog is not dissimilar to American Pancakes and can be served the same way with some crispy bacon and a drizzle of maple syrup or simply with butter and maybe a drzzle of Golden Syrup. Yum.

Welsh pancakes – Crempog – are different to the traditional British ‘crepe’ normally eaten on Pancake Day. The pancakes are thicker and slightly risen and cooked on a griddle.
They are quick and easy to make and make a delicious tea time treat or eaten for breakfast.

Welsh Pancakes, Crempog – Welsh Pancake Recipe

By Elaine Lemm, About.com Guide
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 5 minutes
Total Time: 20 minutes
Ingredients:
•2 oz/ 55g butter
•15 fl oz/ 450 ml warm buttermilk
•10 oz/ 275g all purpose/plain flour
•3 oz/ 75g sugar
•1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
•½ tsp salt
•1 tbsp vinegar
•2 eggs, well beaten


Preparation:
•Stir the butter into the warmed buttermilk until melted. Gradually pour the milk and butter into the the flour and beat well. Leave the mixture to stand (for a few hours if possible)for at least 30 minutes.
•Stir the sugar, bicarbonate of soda, salt and vinegar into the beaten eggs. Pour this mixture into the flour and milk mixture and beat well to form a smooth batter.
•Heavily grease a griddle or hot-stone and heat. Drop the batter, a tablespoon at a time onto the heated griddle and bake over a moderate heat until golden brown on both sides, then keep warm. Continue until all the batter is used up.
Spread butter on each pancake and eat while warm.


Based on a recipe by Gilli Davies from her book Celtic Cuisine.

A Kiss and a Coddle – Dublin Coddle Recipe
On a day when the British government is telling us to eat less meat I am skipping over the water to Ireland and to a meaty dish of Coddle. Dublin Coddle as it is more commonly called is a traditional Irish dish usually associated with Dublin. It is comfort food of the highest degree; a hearty nutritious stew-like dish made from either thick slices or chunks of salty bacon, pork sausages and potatoes … Coddle is a traditional Irish dish usually associated with Dublin and known also as Dublin Coddle. It is comfort food of the highest degree; a hearty nutritious stew-like dish made from salty bacon, pork sausages and potatoes.
The name comes from the long, slow simmering or ‘coddling’ of the dish. It has been suggested the popularity of coddle arose because it can be left simmering on the stove till the man comes in from the pub long after the wife had gone to bed
There are as many recipes for Dublin Coddle as there are bars in the city, and everyone’s mother has their own version which of course, is always the best.

A Kiss and a Coddle – Dublin Coddle Recipe

By Elaine Lemm, About.com Guide
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 1 hour, 30 minutes
Total Time: 1 hour, 40 minutes
Yield: Serves 4 as a starter, 2 mains.

Ingredients:
•2 tbsp vegetable oil
•2 medium onions, thinly sliced
•4 oz/115g piece salty back bacon, weight after the rind removed
•6 fat, traditional pork sausages
•2 carrots, peeled and finely sliced
•8 oz/250g white potatoes, finely sliced
•Salt and pepper
•2 cups/500 ml rich beef st

Preparation:
Heat the oven to 425°F/220 °C/ gas 7
•In a large frying pan or skillet, heat the oil, add the onions and cook on a medium heat for abut 4 minutes. Cut the bacon piece into ½”/1 cm cubes. Add the bacon to the onions and stir well. Cut the sausages in half and add these to the onion and bacon.
•Raise the heat and stirring constantly, cook until the sausages start to brown taking care not to burn the onions.
•In a heat proof casserole, place a layer of the onion, bacon and sausage mixture followed by the layer of sliced carrots and the a layer of potato. Season with salt and pepper. Repeat the layering until used up, finishing with a layer of potato.
•Carefully pour over the stock. Cover with a lid or a double layer of aluminum foil. Place in the centre of the oven and cook for 45 minutes. Take a peek to make sure the coddle isn’t drying out (if necessary top up with a little boiling water but don’t flood the stew). Lower the heat to 350°F/175°C/gas 4 and cook for a further 30 minutes until bubbling and the potatoes are cooked through.
•Remove from the oven and rest for 10 minutes before serving. Serve with Irish Soda Bread to soak up all the lovely juices.

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I hope you have enjoyed this article and the recipes. Cheers!

A Vignette of a Wine Dinner of the Rhone Valley


Another wonderful vignette dinner of wines and food parings from the Rhone Valley. And Le Café de Paris did another awesome job. Thank-You Matheiu and your excellent staff!

The photo to the left is one of the wines we had. A 2006 Hect and Bannier Cotes du Roussillon Villages that was rich and smooth. A blend of Grenache, Syrah and Carignon. Full of fruit and well balenced. It was superb with our meal. From the Costco Wine Blog, “… They really did an excellent job balancing the varieties – Grenache, Syrah and Carignan – to create an expressive, rich and velvety wine. It has a beautiful nose that’s smells of (French) quality, with great fruit flavors, and a mild spice on the finish.” Natalie MacLean agrees with this evaluation when she says, “… Terrific notes of cedar, black raspberry, cherry pit and smoke. Full-bodied with supple layers of lasting flavour.”
We also had a 2009 Château Miraval “Clara Lua” that went extremely well with the salad. From K&L Wine Merchant, “Château Miraval’s “Clara Lua” is composed of 95% rolle and 5% grenache blanc. Rolle, which is also know as vermentino in Italy, imparts vibrant citric and slightly leesy nuances, while a touch of grenache blanc provides hints white peach and fresh herb notes. Pairing: Fennel stuffed grilled Bronzino, brandade on crostini, rosemary roasted chicken. Produced from organically grown grapes.” This was a delight with our salad. Here was our great dinner last night. Cheers!

First Course
Salade Lyonnaise
field greens, chicken livers, poached duck egg, bacon, mustard vinaigrette

Second Course
Soupe a l’Oignon
classic French onion soup, calvados, gruyere

Main Course
Blanquette de Veau
(French Veal Ragout)
tender veal, root vegetables, cream sauce, wild rice

Dessert
Bugnes
Rhone Valley Style Beignets

Breakfast – The Next Day
Apple Tart

So there you have it. These Wine Dinners are a wonderful experience in eating here in Boise. You will learn a lot from the food selections – the menu – and the parings of wines that they select. Get on their mailing list by following the link in the sidebar.

Good Trout Meal


After a great day today in the field searching and finding Merlins and Sharp-Shinned Hawks – more on that tomorrow on the Flight of the Peregrine Blog – it was good to have a meatless Monday.

Trout Almondine

Spring Mixed Greens
with
Broccoli and Asparagus

Baked Sweet Potato

What a wonderful way to end a great day. Enjoy the recipe. Cheers and Keep Looking Up!

Mexican Chocolate Tofu Pudding


Ok. Ok! I know. Some of you have been turned off and you will no longer follow this blog. Tofu, you say? Yuk! But don’t be fooled by this. This pudding is awesomely delicious! It is smoooooth! It is chocolate! It has a slight bite! Robin can make this any time she wants. And from The Minimalist: Out Of The Wok at the New York Times, we learn this:

… I can almost guarantee you will be impressed by this dessert, a pudding that takes about as much time to make as hot chocolate. But there are a few qualifiers. Without chocolate, the flavor is unimpressive; it tastes like sweetened tofu. Add chocolate and a few Mexican spices, however, and you have a real winner. And certainly no one I’ve fed it to had any inkling that it was dairy free.

The texture of the pudding … is almost unbelievably good … Without mentioning names, let me just suggest that you use the highest quality chocolate — semisweet or bittersweet, please — you can lay your hands on. After all, it’s the flavor of the chocolate, not of the tofu, that will dominate.

To see the original recipe, Click Here. All of this information, and the original recipe, comes from the New York Times. But for now, here is how Robin adapted the recipe. Look at the changes. Give it a try. You’ll love it!

Mexican Chocolate Tofu Pudding
(Hot Link To Our Recipe File)

By: Mark Bittman, New York Times
Adapted By: Robin Young
Source: The Minimalist: Out of the Wok (May 20, 2009)
Yield: 8 to 12 servings.
Time: 10 minutes, plus 30 minutes’ chilling

Ingredients:
½ c Sugar
½ c Water
2 lbs Silken Tofu
8 oz Hersey’s Dark Chocolate
3 oz unsweetened Bakers Chocolate
1 T Vanilla extract
1½ T Cinnamon
1 t Ancho Chili powder, or more to taste (We made our own. Roast chilies, cool, grind))
1 lg Banana, ripe

Directions:
1. In a double boiler, combine sugar and cinnamon with ½ cup water; bring to a boil and cook until sugar is dissolved, stirring occasionally. Add pieces of chocolate to melt and temper with the syrup. Cool slightly.

2. Put all ingredients in a blender and purée until completely smooth, stopping machine to scrape down its sides if necessary. Divide among 8 to 12 ramekins and chill for at least 30 minutes. If you like, garnish with chocolate shavings before serving.

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Cheers and please let us know how you liked this or how you adapted the recipe. Why not count the calories as compared to a cream based pudding. Good luck!

Super Bowl Party



Sunday evening found us at the Buzz for a great Super Bowl party! What a great place for family and friends to meet and just hang out and watch the game! Cristi and Tom supplied the bulk of the food buffet with brats, sauerkraut, pulled pork, cheese soup with popcorn, chips and dip and cup cakes. (I know I forgot something.) Then beer and wine were also available. The photo to the left is the buffet line.

Robin and I made some pickled cauliflower, string beans and carrot and some Super Bowl Tostados to add to the party. The tostados were different and really added to the menu. Easy to make. Here is the recipe. Enjoy!

Robin’s Super Bowl Tostados

Serves: 24
Oven Temp: 250 ºF

Ingredients:
½ lbs Sirloin steak
1 Lime
1 Lemon
1 Orange
Salt and Pepper to taste
16 Los Pericos Tostados, sodium free
8 oz Refried Beans
1 c Mexican Blend Grated Cheese

Embellishments:
Sliced Avocado Or Guacamole, Salsa, Pico de Gallo, Pickled Jalapeños, chopped Green Chiles, sliced Black Olives, shredded Lettuce and Sour Cream.

Directions:
Pound the steak to tenderize and thin. Salt and pepper to taste. Combine the juice of the lime, lemon and orange in a zip lock bag. Place the pounded steak in the bag and marinate for 2 – 8 hours in the refrigerator.

Bring the steak up to room temperature. Sear both sides of the steak and cook to medium rare, about 3 – 5 minutes on each side. Cool to room temperature before cutting. Slice thin and cut each slice into about 1” cubes.

Place 8 tostados on a cookie sheet or jelly roll pan. Spread with refried beans and sprinkle about ⅛ cup of the Mexican cheese on top. Bake in the oven until cheese just melts. (We made two trays of these.)

Cut each tostado into quarters while still warm. They should not break if cut warm. Place a piece of beef on each tostado quarter. Serve on a platter with the embellishments listed above. Enjoy!

Robin’s Mushroom Soup


Robin came across this awesome mushroom soup on one of her food blogs. She took the recipe and adapted it as listed. Do enjoy this soup.

Robin’s Mushroom Soup


Adapted From: Smitten Kitchen

Ingredients:
1 c Farro or Barley
½ c Dried Mushrooms
2 c Water
6 Beef Bullion Cubes
1 lbs Cremini Mushrooms, sliced
1 Onion, diced
2 Carrots, Diced
3 cloves Garlic, diced
Salt and Pepper to taste
2 T Olive Oil
2 T Butter
1 pt Veal Stock
2 T Sherry Vinegar
2 T Sherry

Directions:
Place the farro and the dried mushrooms in 2 cups of water and the bullion cubes. Simmer for 2 hours, replacing the water as necessary.

Place 1 Tablespoon of olive oil and 1 Tablespoon of butter and salt and pepper in a skillet. Sauté the sliced mushrooms until golden brown. Add to the dried mushrooms.

Sauté the onion, carrot and garlic, in the remaining olive oil and butter and salt and pepper, until soft and very slightly caramelized. Add to the pot of mushrooms. Add the veal stock. Bring the pot up to a low simmer.

Add the sherry vinegar and the sherry, Salt and Pepper to taste.

Serve with buttered toast and a 1988 Côtes du Rhône.

"Westside Drive-In", Boise, Goes National!


The Westside Drive-In on W State Street in Boise is going national! (The marquee is correct … the Foodnetwork ad is old.) Tonight on KTVB-TV, they had a segment on the drive-in and Chef Lou Aaron. (I worked 3 seasons for him in his catering section.) Here is that segment and here is a link to The Video of Westside Drive-In. It’s just down the alley from us! Close.

Local chef featured in national business magazine

by KTVB
KTVB.COM
Posted on February 5, 2011 at 3:40 PM
Updated today at 5:23 PM

BOISE — Chef Lou Aaron, owner of Westside Drive-in in Boise is on the cover of the latest My Business magazine – a magazine that reaches almost a half-million small business owners across America.
Aaron was a part of a larger story that addresses how small business owners use technology in their businesses.
“I’ve tapped into Facebook, and the Blackberry Apps, and the iPhone Apps, or I could send a text to somebody and say hey, ‘Come down to Westside right now and get two bucks off this,'” Aaron said. “And we’re just beginning to experiment with that, and it’s working.”
Aaron said he didn’t expect to be on the cover, but that it is an honor to bring the extra attention to Boise, especially in a time when many small businesses are struggling.
My Business magazine, which is the publication for the National Federation of Independent Business, only goes out to NFIB members.

The article listed by KTVB about Chef Lou in My Business Magazine, is listed here.

NFIB member company Chef Lou’s Westside Drive-In, a 1950s-style drive-thru restaurant in Boise, Idaho, started selling frozen dinners and restaurant souvenirs online about 10 years ago. While online sales only account for about 2 percent of the company’s $1.2 million in annual sales, owner and founder Lou Aaron sees big potential for expanding his operation online—particularly because social media tools make it easier than ever to spread the word about his site. The diner manages a Facebook page, uses mobile marketing to text coupons to customers’ mobile phones, and emails website promotions to a growing list of customers.
It takes an offline effort, too, to drive ecommerce sales. Each order at Aaron’s restaurant comes with a small card informing customers that they can purchase frozen dinners and other souvenirs online, and Aaron makes sure all print, radio and TV ads mention his Web address, ChefLou.com. He hosts a Saturday morning cooking show on his local NBC affiliate and mentions his Web address so that viewers will check it out.
Aaron plans to soon sell spices and pre-made sauces online and says he will try to get local media coverage to drum up interest. “Everybody goes online now” to shop, he says. “We need to be there, too.”

Our congratulations to Chef Lou, the Westside Drive-In and the staff that serves us so well. Cheers and hope to see you here sometime.

New York Deli Rye Bread


Robin found this really very good Deli Rye bread from one of her blog subscriptions, the Smitten Kitchen. The directions are somewhat long and involved, but the end result is great. Give it a try.

New York Deli Rye Bread

Adapted from The Bread Bible by The Smitten Kitchen
Notes From The Smitten Kitchen: I have trimmed Beranbaum’s directions significantly. The thing is, she gives great and extensively detailed directions, but my thing is, I like to pare things down a little bit, especially when it comes to bread. I honestly believe that once you are certain your yeast is working, it’s harder to mess up a loaf of bread than it is to make it delicious. Follow the rising times and size pointers, see that it’s kneaded well and baked at the right temperature and you can have a little bit of New York City in your kitchen without a lot less dingy gray snow and loud sirens.
Set aside 8 hours for this. Yes, eight. You’ll only need to be hands-on for about 30 minutes of it, and you’re welcome to run errands in the rising intervals, but you need to be able to check in every hour or two. It’s worth it, promise.
Yield: 1 3/4-pound round loaf
Sponge:
¾ c (4 ounces, 117 grams) Bread Flour
¾ c (3.3 ounces, 95 grams) Rye Flour
½ t (1.6 grams) Instant Yeast
1½ T (0.6 ounces, 18.7 grams) Sugar
½ T (4.6 grams) Malt Powder (or Barley Malt syrup or Honey (10.5 grams), or Sugar (6.2 grams))
1½ c (12.5 ounces, 354 grams) Water, at room temperature
Flour Mixture:
2¼ c (12.5 ounces, 351 grams) Bread Flour
½ plus 1/8 t (2 grams) Instant Yeast
2 T (0.5 ounces, 14 grams) Caraway seeds (you can grind these if you want to avoid the crunch)
½ T (0.3 ounces, 10.5 grams) Coarse Salt
Dough and Baking:
½ T (0.25 ounces, 6.7 grams) Vegetable Oil
2 t (about 0.5 ounces, 16 grams) Cornmeal for sprinkling
Make the sponge: Combine sponge ingredients in a large or mixer bowl and whisk until very smooth, to intentionally incorporate air — this will yield a thick batter. Set it aside.

Make the flour mixture and cover the sponge: In a separate large bowl, whisk together the flour mixture and gently scoop it over the sponge to cover it completely. Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap and allow it to ferment for 1 to 4 hours at room temperature. (The sponge will bubble through the flour mixture in places.)
Mix the dough: Add the oil and mix with the dough hook on low speed for about 1 minute, until the flour is moistened enough to form a rough dough. Raise the speed to medium and mix it for 10 minutes. The dough should be very smooth and elastic, and it should jump back when pressed with a fingertip; if it is sticky, turn it out on a counter and knead in a little extra flour.
[Or by hand] Add the oil and, with a wooden spoon or your hand, stir until the flour is moistened. Knead the dough in the bowl until it comes together, then scrape it onto a very lightly floured counter. Knead the dough for 5 minutes, after which it might be a little sticky. Cover it with the inverted bowl and allow it to rest for 20 minutes. (Resting the dough makes it less sticky and magically easier to work with. Trust me.) Knead the dough for another 5 to 10 minutes or until it is very smooth and elastic and your upper arms are strapless gown-ready.
Let the dough rise: Place the dough in a large container or bowl, lightly oiled. Oil the top of the dough as well. Allow the dough to rise until doubled, 1½ to 2 hours. Flip the bowl over and let the dough fall out on to a lightly floured counter, press it down gently, fold or form it back into a square-ish ball and allow it to rise a second time, back in the (re-oiled) bowl covered with plastic wrap for about 45 minutes.

Shape it and wait out the final rise: Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured counter and gently press it down again. Round it into a ball and set it on a cornmeal sprinkled baking sheet. (You can also use a 12”x4”x4” loaf pan.) Cover it with oiled plastic wrap and let it rise until almost doubled, about 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes. When it is gently press with a fingertip, the depression will very slowly fill in.
Preheat the oven: Preheat the oven to 450°F.


On a shelf at the lowest level, place a baking sheet or bread stone. [If you want to get fancy and bread-oven like: Place a cast-iron skillet or sheet pan on the floor of the oven to preheat.]

Slash and bake the bread: With a sharp knife or singled-edged razor blade, make ¼ – to ½ -inch-deep slashes in the top of the dough. Mist the dough with water and quickly but gently set the baking sheet on the hot stone or hot baking sheet.
Bake for 15 minutes, lower the temperature to 400°F and continue baking for 30 to 40 minutes or until the bread is golden brown and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean (or a thermometer inserted into the center reads 190°F; I prefer this method because you’ve done much too much work to possibly end up with an under- or over-baked loaf of bread).


Cool the bread on a wire rack.

Tapas Night At Le Café de Paris


Once again, we treated ourselves to a Tapas Night at Le Café de Paris in Boise and, once again, it was great! And it seemed as though the lighted fountains around city hall, set the mood. One can select anywhere from one to ten tapas to try. And wines are suggested to go with the meal. Robin and I usually select all and then share. It works out just great for us. Enjoy the photos!

The suggested wines for the evening.

Duck Confit Salad
field greens, lemon honey vinagrette
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Tomato Provençal
puff pastry, basil pesto, parmesean
—–
Potage Paysanne
potato leek soup, Le Café Classic

Chèvre Chaud
warm goat cheese, fig compote, honey
—–
Escartgots
bourgogne butter, voul-au-vent
—–
Tartines
mushroom duxelle, gruyère

Seafood Terrine
—–
Croquettes
potato and ham
—–
Mini Quiche Lorraine
bacon and gruyère cheese

Berry Crepe
red wine poached pear, chantilly, fresh crepe

Wow! What a great evening. Cheers!