The Great Scapes

You don't often come across garlic scapes, so we wanted to make something that really let them shine.  We put a little twist on your traditional pesto, and rather than use basil, we used the scapes.

We started by cutting off the scapes from the garlic bulbs.  Then we pulled off the outer greens so we could just use the tendrils within.  The outer greens kind of reminded me of green onions.  But once you peel those off, you have the more garlicky scapes.

The scapes have a definite garlic flavor, but is much milder than the actual cloves.  So in this pesto, it acts as the herb and the garlic, though we did add a little bit of basil that we had laying around.  We tossed the scapes into the food processor with some pistachios, rather than the traditional pine nuts.  And to make it Paleo-friendly, we just excluded the cheese.  If you want to add cheese, then you'll want to make sure your pistachios are not salted.  The cheese itself is salty, so if you have salty cheese and salty nuts, you'll end up with salty pesto.  That said, we didn't have to add any additional salt to ours...just a few pinches of pepper.  As with any pesto, you'll want to process the dry ingredients before you add the olive oil.  Once the garlic scapes and nuts are all chopped up nice and fine, you can start to stream in your olive oil until it reaches your desired consistency.

And then you're done.  That's how simple pesto is.  We tossed ours with some chicken, and just served it up with some roasted cauliflower, tossed in brown butter and lemon juice.  It made for another quick and tasty weeknight meal!

Paleo Shake-n-Bake...and I helped!

We had some umami dust leftover from our burgers, so we decided to jump a little outside the box, and try it on some pork chops.

Let's start with the cauliflower.  It wasn't too different from when we made the kimchi brussels sprouts.  The cauliflower was chopped up into more manageable, bite-sized pieces, and we crisped up some pancetta bits.  We poured a bit of the rendered fat over the cauliflower before popping it into the oven to roast.

Once the cauliflower was a bit charred, we pulled them out of the oven, and tossed them with the crisped pancetta, sliced kimchi, and some freshly sliced green onion.

Now, onto the pork chops.  Since we can't use panko or bread crumbs, we used some unsweetened, shredded coconut, and mixed some of the umami dust, minced garlic and ginger, and some black and regular sesame seeds

Then we just coated the chops in the mixture, and popped them into the broiler on some cooling racks.  Doing that allows the air to circulate around the chops, so all sides get crispy.  If you just place them on the baking sheet directly, the bottom will end up soggy.

To finish the dish, we placed our chop on a bed of creasy greens, lightly dressed in some rice wine vinegar, a dash of black vinegar, garlic, ginger and sesame oil.  The greens added a bit of acidity to the umami chops, while the roasted cauliflower added a nice kick of spice.

Valentine's on the Range

If you're anything like me, Valentine's Day is just another day on the calendar.  Personally, I think you should tell/express your love for the special people in your life EVERYday...not when Hallmark tells you to, once a year.  And fellas (if there are any fellas out there reading this), don't be like every other dude out there and send red roses.  That takes no thought whatsoever.  What's more impressive and more meaninful to us women, is if you've paid attention, and know what our favorite flowers are, and send us those.  Even better is if you just surprise us on a random day with a few fresh blooms.  Those thoughtful gestures go a much longer way throughout the year than a dozen red roses from the guy on the corner on February 14th.

Anyway...I'll step off my soapbox, and get back to the food.  Justin surprised me with reservations at Range, the newest restaurant by Bryan Voltaggio.  It's unique in its location (within a mall), and it's size (it used to be a Stein Mart), but the decor and ambiance within the restaurant make up for it.  We were seated near one of the many open kitchens, where you can sit at a counter and watch the chefs prepare food.  It's a small plate concept, but the dishes are larger than your typical tapas, and there is quite the range of food to choose from.  I guess that's where the name comes from?  We'd dined at his more casual spot, Family Meal, back in August when we made a road trip out to Frederick, so we were expecting another delicious meal, and that's exactly what we got.

We started at the bar since we arrived early, and found a menu of unusual ingredients and combinations.  I started with the "Wonder of Neglect", a gin-based drink that included pineapple shrub, vermouth, and oak.  Now when I saw "shrub" as one of the ingredients, I assumed that just meant it was part of the pineapple...maybe some of the green leaves, or the pith?  But the bartender explained that shrub is a vinegar-based syrup.  He likened its unique flavor and tang to kombucha.  Justin also opted for a gin-based drink, though his included kombu broth, st. germaine, and hellfire bitters.  Both drinks were unique in their flavors, but really tasty. 

Once we were seated, our server guided us through the menu, recommending how many dishes to order, etc.  There is so much to choose from, and it was a bit overwhelming when we first sat down.  We started with the bread basket & spreads, which offered a skillet cornbread with bacon marmalade, cheddar chive biscuits with pepper jelly, flat bread with some hummus, and a couple other standard breads with smoked cream cheese and rosemary lardo, as additional spreads.  The bacon marmalade was the standout favorite.  It was so smoky, with a hint of sweetness.  I could've eaten jars upon jars of it.  I was expecting some heat from the pepper jelly, but instead found it to be on the sweet side, which I enjoyed with the cheddar biscuits.  Next time though, I think I'll just stick with the cornbread.

Next up was the rockfish collar.  You may be familiar with himachi cheek, which you can sometimes find at Japanese/sushi restaurants.  This is similar.  It was roasted and served with some sofrito and lemon.  Shout out to our server who put the order in first so we could score one of the 3 remaining collars!  Thank you, Sam!

The fish was followed up by the kimchi linguini with uni and scallops.  I know Justin had had his eye on that dish ever since news broke about the restaurant.  Sadly, the pasta lacked any kimchi flavor, and probably could've used another minute to cook, but the rich, brininess of the uni, and the perfectly cooked scallops brought the dish around.  The nasturtium on top added a nice freshness to the dish as well.

Then came the "main" courses.  We went with venison, served with espresso spaetzle, and the pork cheeks on celery root puree.  The venison was cooked perfectly, and the spaetzle had a nice, subtle espresso flavor that paired nicely with the meat.  The pork cheeks just melted in your mouth, and the puree was so smooth and creamy, yet still had a fresh, celery flavor.

For sides/vegetables, we went with roasted cauliflower with almonds, golden raisins and zhatar, and the roasted salsify that was served with hazelnuts, and some crispy citrus bits on top.  The cauliflower was a bit forgettable, but I really enjoyed the salsify.

This was the perfect amount of food, but we couldn't resist the desserts, and the rolling cart of confections that had passed us by throughout the meal, filled with jars and cloches or sweet treats.  I'm not a big sweets person, so we opted for the goat cheesecake for dessert.  Out came 4 little squares of cheesecake, 2 topped with blood orange, and 2 topped with kumquat, with a cannele of meyer lemon sorbet.  The tang of the goat cheese really came through, but it was balanced out by the sweetness of the blood orange and kumquat, and by the tartness of the sorbet.  And of course, we had to get a close-up look of all the delicious confections.  There were 13 kinds of truffles, brittle, biscotti, cookies, rice crispy treats, oh my!  There was so much to choose from.  The nice thing was you had the option of eating it there, or having it wrapped up to take home.  So we came home with 2 pistachio yuzu truffles, a gingerbread spiced marshmallow, and some smoked cashew brittle.  While finishing up this post, we decided to bit into the brittle.  It's nice and smoky, but not overpowering, with the sweetness from the brittle to balance it out.  The marshmallow was light, and fluffy with a nice gingersnap taste.

The other nice thing about this venue is that it is so big that it wasn't jam packed with people.  I don't know if they did that on purpose, but there were a few empty seats and tables scattered throughout the restaurant, so it didn't feel like you were being rushed out of there so they could turn the table.  The bartenders, servers, and sommelier are super knowledgeable and very friendly.  It was just great food, great service, and great company!  We will definitely be back to try some of the many, many dishes still awaiting us on the menu.

CSA Recap

Tomorrow we pick up another share of food, so I thought I'd give you a quick recap of how we used all the items from our previous share.  As a refresher, here's what we picked up 2 weeks ago...

And here's what we made...

• Po' Boys, Clam Chowder and Sweet Potato Fries
• clams
• oysters
• sweet potato (from a previous share)
• half of the onion
• Beet Chips
• beets
• Lamb Chops with Roasted Cauliflower & Beet Greens
• lamb chops (from a previous share)
• beet greens
• cauliflower
• creasy greens (for salad)
• Gnocchi
• sweet potatoes
• butternut squash
• Spaghetti & Meatballs
• spaghetti squash
• ground beef (from a previous share)

The rest of the creasy greens were used for salads throughout the week too.  The cilantro is still in the fridge, waiting to be used, and we used the broccoli as part of a crudite spread for a party 2 weekends ago.  We haven't done anything with the cabbage yet, but we're planning on making more sauerkraut.  More to come on that.

We can't wait to pick up tomorrow's share and make some more delicious dishes.  Stay tuned!

Sunday Dinner

We usually take a bit of a break from cooking once the weekend hits, but tonight we got back in the kitchen for some lamb chops, beet greens, and roasted cauliflower.  We kept the lamb simple, seasoning them with a little salt, pepper, and fresh rosemary, and threw them on the grill pan.  Though things got a little smokey, we managed to not set off the smoke detector, and get some perfectly medium chops.

The beet greens were saved after making some beet chips earlier in the day.  More on those in a little bit though.  We just sauteed the greens with a little garlic, olive oil and butter.  I hadn't had them before, but they were really tasty...similar in texture to sauteed spinach, but they still had the sweetness of the beets.  The roasted cauliflower is one of our favorite side dishes.  We first had it at Graffiato, Mike Isabella's restaurant in DC.  The seasonal, Italian-inspired, small plates never disappoint.  We've made a few attempts at recreating this dish, and have come pretty close, considering the menu simply lists roasted cauliflower, mint and pecorino as the ingredients.  But now that Chef Isabella's cookbook is out, we have the recipe in hand.  Its super simple, and super tasty.  Between the 2 of us, we almost ate a ginormous head of cauliflower in one sitting.

are you drooling yet?

We capped it off with a little salad to finish off our creasy greens, topped with some red onion, chopped walnuts and gorgonzola.  We usually make our own dressing when we have salad.  In this case, we used some orange muscat champagne vinegar that we picked up on a recent expedition to Trader Joe's and some olive oil.  The sweetness and citrus was a perfect complement for our salad.

As for the beet chips I mentioned a little earlier...I like beets, but they aren't something I would normally buy. When I hear beets, I think back to my childhood and the cartoon "Doug".  The beauty of the CSA is that it gives you a chance to try something out of your normal routine.  So what were we to do with these beets?

We turned to our friend Gojee for some ideas.  If you haven't heard of Gojee, you need to check them out.  You can tell them what you're craving, what ingredients you have, ingredients you don't like, etc. and it will search the interwebs for recipes that fit your criteria.  That's how we stumbled upon the recipe for beet chips.  They couldn't be simpler: peel the beets, slice the beets, brush with olive oil, sprinkle with salt, and pop 'em in the oven.  

A simple, tasty and healthy little treat!  Now if only we could get a few more weekend days before heading back to work tomorrow.  The weekend always flies by too fast.