Thanks to facebook, I’ve reconnected with old school friends. One is Danielle, both my brother and I took an after-school Chinese class with her. She’s back in town, slowly developing a confectionery business.
With my brother also visiting this weekend, we all got together for a Sunday lunch. The weather, while a little blustery, was still sunny. Just fine for some outdoor grilling and indoor eating.
 
 
The tri-tip came from Whitefoot, initially unseasoned and the butcher seasoned it for me with a dry rub. The grilled winter squash came from the garden, a sort of hybrid between a butternut and a kabocha. I only seasoned it with olive oil, salt and pepper and let the flavor of the squash do the rest. My mother prepared some homemade salsa to spoon on the tri-tip, which we ate with warm toasted tortillas.
My secret to the tri-tip is initially searing the fatty side on medium high heat on the grill for about 5 minutes, then turning it over, and turning the grill down to medium-low for a combination of even heating and indirect heat. It doesn’t burn, and the fat on top now starts rendering into the meat.
I grill it for an additional 30 minutes, then leave it to sit and rest for another 10 minutes. This results in a medium tri-tip. Well-done on the outside and edges, and pink in the middle.
Finally, I slice it very thin against the grain, pile it into a wide shallow bowl or a deep platter and pour over any remaining juices that may have escaped during slicing.
The beans are Santa Maria style pinquitos, with the pink beans coming from Shepherd Farms at the Saturday morning farmers market. Although I made them beforehand in my pressure cooker, I poured the beans into a heat-proof casserole and set them on a high rack in the grill so any smoke from the grilling would seep into the beans. Plus, it kept them warm. I added a couple tablespoons of water to the casserole to keep the top of the beans from drying out.
Finally, dessert was my homemade strawberry and orange marmalade frozen yoghurt, topped with Danielle’s homemade chocolate caramel sauce and a little whipped cream.
We spent the lunch catching up on our lives and reminiscing a few high school memories. Good times!
Nathan, Erin and I met up on the Mesa at one of Nathan and Erin’s friends and got our hands right into another round of sausage making.
R&R’s place was lovely, with a well-appointed kitchen and plenty of room to work in. I brought most of my own spices, but many of them were already available. Not all, however, and I had some specific combinations in mind.
First up was a Moroccan spiced chicken sausage with preserved lemon and olives. This is a classic tagine, or clay pot stew, neatly packed into a sausage casing. It was great fun to make, smelled wonderful, and Nathan reported it was the most unique spice combination he’d had yet in a sausage. It was a combination of ground pepper, ground ginger, salt, ras al hanout, tumeric, a secret Morrocan spice packet, fresh chopped parsley, and chopped green olives and preserved lemon.
 
 
My second sausage was a Chinese flavored pork, with fresh ginger, spring onions, white pepper, toasted sesame oil and Chinese 5 spice. It was simple, and nicely spiced.
 
Nathan had tried to make bratwurst a month earlier, using bacon instead of fatback. It resulted in a pork sausage that tasted like bacon! No complaints about a bacon sausage, except that it wasn’t much like bratwurst. So he tried again today, using fatback and the results were perfect.
  
His final sausage was a chicken parmesan. All in all, this sausage fest was a big success, from the flavor combinations, to the fact that the casings cooperated perfectly, no big bubbles or bursts. We whisked a pile of the fresh sausages over to a friends that very night and grilled them up as the appetizers to a dinner party.
Good times!
 
I recently had lunch at Via Maestra 42, and near my table sat a man who had a 25 pound tub of Italian flour brought to him. It’s hardly an item one orders from a menu, so it got my interest. It came to pass in conversation that he was private chef, and would be holding a wine and pasta demonstration evening in town, as part of a month long event called Epicure SB.
I’d heard murmurings of the event, yet had seen very little advertising for it. And a while back I’d glanced at the website, and there was very little information available at that time. Browsing the site now, there considerably more listings available around town, starting with a grand kick-off during First Thursday that included a number of free events. Primarily, though, the special events cost money, as these were special dinners by local restaurants. Most were in the $60-$100 range, which suddenly made the $30 price to attend the wine and pasta evening quite reasonable.
We attended the evening of 8 October, held at the Hayward Center demonstration kitchen near downtown Santa Barbara. I was worried it wouldn’t have many participants, but the turn-out was decent, about a dozen people.
The chef was John Fernandez, owner of a private catering and teaching business, A Tavola! And our wine hostess was Carolyn Turner of Carina Cellars in Los Olivos. Throughout the evening, John prepared six pastas and sauces, and Carolyn poured six wines. It was very enjoyable and educational to me.
  
  
  
For each pasta dish, Carolyn introduced a wine, and poured for the group. Our area tends towards pinot, but Carina Cellars sure can do syrahs! Really delicious stuff.
  
It was an evening well-spent, and my own pasta making skills have greatly improved since then.
We also foraged around town in the following days for Tipo “00″ flour to make our own pasta and found three varieties at the Italian Grocery, 415 E De La Guerra Street in Santa Barbara. All-purpose can work as well in a resource and financial pinch, but it won’t be as nice, due to it being a mixture of hard and soft flour.
John and Carolyn ran the pasta and wine demonstration for two additional evenings, one in Los Olivos and another back at the Hayward Center a week later. I’ve heard the Hayward Center one was sold out. As it should have been.
The full photoset of 95 images is available here, on flickr. It includes the names of the pasta dishes and its wine pairing.
Ooooh, look what one co-worker made for another co-worker.
Chocolate chipotle cupcake!
Jealous? You should be. I ate two. I’m feeling golden.
Nathan and Erin offered to share their sausage-making gear with me. We set aside a Friday evening for a big sausage fest, making piles of sausages for grilling on the spot and for freezing for later.
  
  
We had chicken and pork, which were first coarsely ground. Then we added seasonings. We used natural intestines for casings, which came from the Whitefoot Meat Market on Milpas. Nathan and Erin did the following with the chicken:
* Sweet curry with apricots, parsley and spices.
* Smoked chicken with caramelized onion.
I took charge of the ground pork and made two experimental recipes.
* Thai chile sauce with fresh lemongrass and garlic.
* Smoked pork with fresh sage and pepper.
Additional friends were nearby to assist with chopping, grinding and extruding. They also kept us stocked with beverages to get us through the hard work. Thank goodness for friends!
I tried my hand at nearly all the tasks, including the sausage twisting. I tried to make my sausages like the ones I had in england, about three inches long. Good times!
  
Finally, there were plenty of people on hand to help us eat them. But really, the sausages got even better after a day or two when the flavors began to mingle more with the meat. The curry sausage the next day? Oh so good. That, and the Thai chile sausages have been delicious sliced and served in lettuce wraps.
The full photoset of the sausage-making is here, including some video. Best viewed as a slideshow.
I was hoping for a cool and misty morning for a big oven session this weekend, after the surprise rainstorm on Friday. I didn’t quite get the drizzle, but it was also hardly beach weather. I’m okay with being in the middle.
I worked on several baking and roasting projects, including some small cakes, a roasted pork loin with Thai chile sauce, fresh garlic and lemongrass from the garden. I also roasted farmers market beets, caramelized a batch of onions, and cooked down some large cans of diced tomatoes to a thick sauce for cooking later this week.
But the main item was a nice loaf of plain white bread, for general snacking and lunch sandwiches. I used the bread lab recipe.
The yeast was from costco, a 2 lb bag for about $5, that I split up and share with family and another baking friend. My last tub of yeast was several years old and, well, pretty dead. This yeast made my bread rise up like a champ, and the only additional warmth came from the rising bowl sitting partially in a sunny window.
Here’s the little baby on its final rise in the loaf pan. I use a small ceramic paring knife to make the slashes in the dough.
For baking, I could have brushed the dough with melted butter for a soft crust, or water for a crisper crust. I opted not to use anything, but perhaps I’ll try a little olive oil next time.
The bread came out nicely browned and with a satisfactory crust. I had a slice when it was fresh from the oven, using sweet butter and a crank of sea salt. The rest is going to sandwiches for lunch. In fact, I’m going to put one sandwich of gruyere cheese and caramelized onions through the sweet panini press in the office today.
Sarita and Heather are the proud owners of a walnut tree in their yard and this year they offered up the green walnuts at their peak for making nocino. Matthew and I were there in a heartbeat to get started.
Nocino is a walnut infused liqueur, using green walnuts that are still soft enough to slice though with a knife. Combined with vodka, sugar, and a variety of spices like cinnamon, vanilla, clove, and lemon peel, the liqueur turns a deep dark green-brown as to appear almost black. Websites recommend using nocino over ice cream, or in custard, and it can be drank straight for the purist fans. It also takes about six months to infuse. About one-two months infusing with the walnuts and the remaining time to darken and mellow into a smooth liqueur.
We met up in late May, laden with vodka, sugar, spices, grungy clothing and gloves.
  
  
  
Within minutes of cutting open the walnuts, their dark stain was amply shared with the vodka, and our gloves and shirts.
The nocino, once assembled, is to be shaken every day in their jars, to stir up all the liqueur goodness. Within a day or two, the liquid was noticeably darkening. Only 6 months left to go!
|
