a birthday dinner

Today for my birthday we decided to make sauteed bay scallops over sauteed spinach with pancetta and shallots, potato parsnip puree, and roasted cherry tomatoes and zucchini with mint. This was, surprisingly, not an expensive meal. The tomatoes, zucchini, and mint came from our garden, the rest of the food cost about $15, and it took about 30-40 minutes to make.

Here are the recipes:

Sauteed Spinach with Pancetta and shallots

Ingredients
2 lb spinach, coarse stems removed
1 oz pancetta, cut into 1/4-inch dice (3 tablespoons)
1 shallot, finely chopped
1/2 tablespoon olive oil

Directions

1. Cook pancetta and shallots in oil in a skillet over moderately high heat, stirring, until browned, about 3 minutes.
2. Remove pancetta and shallots from skillet.
3. Cook spinach in 1 inch of boiling salted water, 1 tbsp dry white wine, and 1 tbsp butter in skillet, stirring occasionally, until wilted, about 2 minutes.
4. Remove spinach from skillet.
5. Add scallops into skillet, cook until just opaque
6. Add pancetta and shallots back into skillet and mix well, until everything is warm.
7. Serve scallop, pancetta and shallot mix over spinach.

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Potato/Parsnip Puree

Ingredients
1 large parsnip, peeled and cut into 1-inch pieces
3-4 medium yellow potatoes, peeled and cut into 2-inch pieces
1 tablespoon plus 1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 stick (1/4 cup) unsalted butter
1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Directions

1. Cover parsnips and potatoes with cold water by 1 inch in a pot, then add 1 tablespoon salt and bring to a boil, partially covered.
2. Reduce heat and simmer vegetables, partially covered, until very tender but not falling apart, 30 to 40 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, bring cream, butter, pepper, and remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt to a simmer in 4-quart heavy pot over moderate heat.
4. Drain vegetables in a colander. Force warm vegetables through potato ricer into cream mixture, then stir to combine well.

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Roasted Cherry Tomatoes and Zucchini With Mint

Ingredients
1 pint cherry or grape tomatoes
1 medium sized zucchini
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh mint

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 425 F.
2. Cut tomatoes in half and zucchini in 1/2 inch slices.
3. In a mixing bowl, toss tomatoes and zucchini gently with olive oil, salt and pepper.
4. Spread tomatoes and zucchini on a baking sheet so that it forms a single layer.
5. Roast vegetables in oven for about 5-10 minutes, until tomato skins are just starting to come off.
6. After serving tomatoes and zucchini, sprinkle chopped mint on top.

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And now, for the pictures :)







I don't know what makes it so good, but this is the most wonderful peeler we have ever found. You won't know how wonderful a peeler can be until you get one of these, seriously.

Okonomiyaki

Okonomiyaki is a Japanese dish we learned to make while visiting our friend in Tokyo recently. We had dinner at the home of a Japanese friend of hers and she taught us to make this. It's really easy, cheap and tasty.

Okonomiyaki basically means "cooked whatever" in Japanese, and it seems like a great way to just use up bits of things you have sitting around the house, so just follow the basic cabbage, egg, flour recipe, and throw in bits of whatever you need to use up. You can also add seafood instead of bacon (or in addition to). Experiment and make what sounds good to you.

Okonomiyaki

Ingredients

• 4 eggs
• 2 cups flour
• 1 cup water
• 1/4 medium sized cabbage
• bacon- I used about 12oz in slices, chopped into bite-sized bits
• diced onion, I used 1/2 an onion
• frozen corn, I used 1 cup (optional)
• grated pickled ginger, I used 1/4 cup

Toppings:
Grated pickled ginger

Okonomi Sauce

Katsuobushi (dried shaved fish)

Aonori (roasted seaweed strips)
Mayonnaise/miracle whip mix, equal parts

Directions

1. In a large mixing bowl, crack the eggs and scramble
2. Add the flour and water to eggs and mix
3. Cut about a quarter of a medium sized cabbage, and cut the quarter into shreds
4. Mix the shredded cabbage with the egg/flour/water mixture
5. Mix the bacon, diced onion and frozen corn in with the mixture, as much or as little as you would like
6. Mix the grated pickled ginger into the mixture, as much or as little as you would like
7. Put a large skillet over medium to medium-high heat with some cooking oil (if you don't have a non-stick skillet, be liberal with the oil to prevent sticking - I used the bacon fat from cooking the bacon used in the recipe)
8. Spoon the mixture into the skillet to form a pancake-like blob.
9. Cook the mixture a few minutes on each side, until it is well browned, then remove from skillet. You can do this in batches if you need to.
10. Once cooked, top with okonomiyaki sauce, mayo mix, katsuobushi and aonori to taste.

japanese curry

On a recent trip to Uwajimaya, we picked up a box of japanese curry paste, and thought we'd try making it for dinner the other night.



Japanese curry is decidedly different than either Thai or Indian curries - it's a much darker flavor than Thai curries, more like a gravy almost - though of course it is still in the same category of flavor. Anyway, having had some really good curry in Japan, we thought we'd try this one out and see how it was.



You can put almost anything in it - the serving suggestion is for cubes of beef - we used ground - you could also use tofu as well, just adjust how you cook it since the tofu won't need to be cooked like the beef would. We also put in two carrots, one onion, one small bunch of celery, and four potatoes.









We ended up having too much stuff to put in it, so we had to get another box. The boxes have instructions on them to make the right amount for the curry included in the box - but basically the instructions go like this:

1. Brown your meat in a large saucepan
2. Add vegetables and cook until onions are slightly browned (you can do this differently depending on what vegetables you're going to add, if some of them require dramatically less cooking time than others you can add them in stages or not add them until later)
3. Add the designated amount of water (one package said 3 cups, the other said 6 cups, so we made 9 cups altogether)
4. Bring water to a boil, lower temperature and let simmer until meat is tender (or in our case, until potatoes are tender, since we used ground beef)
5. Break curry paste into pieces and stir into pot until it all dissolves (it comes in blocks almost like really soft chocolate)
6. Let simmer for several minutes to thicken and for the curry flavor to get into everything a bit
7. Serve over rice or noodles.

Really simple, and it turned out really well. It turns out that 9 cups was enough for about a week of meals, so we froze a bunch of it to use later. Try it sometime, you just might like it! :) The cost of the rice, curry, and veggies to make that 9 cups of curry was probably around $15. Not bad for a week of meals :)

Asian Markets

So, having just returned from Asia, we've been cooking a lot of Asian food the last week or so. Given that fact, I thought I would post about a few places we like to get ingredients to make Asian food. If you know of other places in Portland that are worth visiting, please let me know.

An Dong mostly has Southeast Asian stuff - Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese - but it does also have some Japanese, Korean, etc. They have a nice produce section and a lot of teas.

Fubonn is both a market and a shopping center - the market inside the shopping center focuses largely on Thai and Vietnamese foods, but also has Japanese, Korean, Indian and Mexican foods (don't ask, I don't know). Good choice for sauces (we always get soy and fish sauce here as well as rice vinegar and rice cooking wine). Their butcher section is decent, and they have thinly sliced meats for Pho, as well as some fresh and live fish. Produce is decent as well, and they carry a decent selection of veggies you won't find at an American grocery. They also carry some housewares, restaurant supply stuff, and a pretty large selection of sake. In the shopping center there are a number of boutiques selling music, books, trinkets, there is a bakery, an herb store, a bubble tea store, and a shiseido cosmetics store.

Uwajimaya is of course mainly Japanese foods, though they do carry some other Asian items. They have some decorative and housewares, a big bookstore, good selection of bottled, bagged and loose teas, a pretty nice produce section, good butcher and fish section - and they sell sashimi, which is nice if you want to make sushi at home. We found a number of things here that we didn't see elsewhere in town, such as okonomiyaki sauce, Japanese curry (sometimes the other stores have some of this), Meiji brand chocolate covered almonds, and these particular rice crackers that have beans in them. Uwajimaya also has a Japanese restaurant attached that is supposed to be quite good (though we've never been).

Of course any of these will have a good selection of basics like rice, tea, noodles, etc.

I don't know what it is exactly, but there's something I really enjoy about being in Asian food stores - maybe it's just that the smells and so many of the products are so different from what you would find in any American grocery store - maybe it's that you get to mingle with other cultures more - I'm not sure. But I really enjoy them, one way or the other.

Again, if you know of other places that you love going, please leave comments, we're always excited to find and try new things and places!

An Dong Market (I'll post a picture once I take or find one)
5441 SE Powell Blvd
Portland, OR 97206


photo from www.fubonn.com

Fubonn Shopping Center
2850 SE 82nd Avenue Suite #80
Portland, OR 97266


photo from www.uwajimaya.com

Uwajimaya Beaverton
10500 SW Beaverton-Hillsdale HWY
Beaverton, OR 97005