Reviving this blog...

Dear all,

It is quite sad for me to see how this blog flat-lined after few months of inactivity, and the fault is entirely mine. Much has happened since the last post in our lives, and I should have kept up with it on this blog. Well, at least with the writing on the food-related happenings, and there were plenty of those - few more brewery dinners, Denver Burger Battle, Great American Beer Festival just to mention the big ones. I will try to have a few post about those and they will be back-dated.

For those who are curious about the overall happenings in our life and the cause of the inactivity on this blog, here it goes. Summer season came, and with it we just go outdoors and while kitchen is still gets actively used (we do need to eat!), I just couldn't find any time to actually write about it. Shyam's cricket season went well, although unlike last year, this year CCB did not win. We also started running much more and participated in several races - we both completed our first half-marathon (Slacker Half), did couple of 5K (Colfax in Denver, Keystone trail race) races, I also did some trail races - 10K (copper Mountain trail race) and a half (Glenwood Springs trail race), while Shyam was cheering for me at the finish line. While getting this active, we learned quite a bit more on nutrition specifically for runners, and it is definitely worth a post on this blog about what we discovered. We also went hiking and camping and added a few more 14ers to our list of accomplishments (Pikes Peak, Mt. Shavano, and Mount of the Holy Cross).

But days are getting shorter, weather - colder, cricket season - over, so hang on tight, for this blog is coming back to life, and better than ever! Stay tuned for few posts on events this summer and much more of the happenings out of our new kitchen.

Cheers!

TAG Brewery Dinner #4

Tonight was the fourth brewery dinner at TAG, featuring Avery Brewing Company and game birds presented by Strasburg Game Birds. Unlike previous dinners, it took awhile to release menu to the public, and we were guessing until close to the dinner about what was expecting us this time. Menu didn't disappoint, and moreover it included a twist - instead of a single beer with each course, we were presented with "a daring invitation to challenge your palate" with two beers with each course. For the first time, brewery dinner was sold out.

Back to blogging...

Hi All,

Sorry for a long gap (almost a month) in my writings here, but I think I am getting back into the right groove and right schedule to fit blogging back in my busy life. So stay tuned - TAG brewery dinner #4 coming up very soon.

Cheers!

Pasta With Meat Sauce

Braising is such an amazing technique - not only you get most delicious and tender meat, but leftovers - that liquid with vegetables and herbs and drippings of fat and flavor from the meat - are amazing too! After braising chicken for tacos (read here), it is now turn to deal with that wonderful sauce. What I had left in the pan was white wine, chicken drippings and onions.

Simple Dinner - Chicken Tacos

Nothing fancy tonight - just tacos. Can't say that it is fast though. I am braising chicken and that takes time. But it certainly is simple. I have half a whole chicken breast (bones in). I slice half an onion and line a bottom of a small braising pan with it. Place seasoned (salt and pepper) chicken on top, and add white wine - just enough to cover the onions, but not the chicken.

Tuna Tartare and Lobster Tail

And to finish the weekend off, two seafood plates - one is from a cookbook from Melisse restaurant, In Pursuit Of Excellence - ahi tuna tartare (although I'm not sure the tuna I have is ahi tuna), and then a very simple lobster tail, just because we happened to pick it up in the grocery store today.

First up, an "official" recipe from the book.

Peppers Stuffed With Cod On Roasted Tomatoes

My best friend went back to school to get her MBA and then went off for a semester abroad to Barcelona, Spain. I am quite jealous of all the wonderful food she gets to experience there, and her common photo postings on facebook only feed my jealousy more. But is is also quite inspirational. And although some ingredients, such as jamon (prohibited in US) and caught-this-morning-fresh seafood, are out of my reach, others I can get my hands on and can recreate a similar dish. Today I will use her photo as an inspiration and cook something similar - I have only a photo and a brief description (peppers stuffed with cod) to work of - no exact list of ingredients or a recipe here.

TAG U - Roasting

Today was a cooking class at TAG, subject - roasting. 3 delicious dishes to watch chefs make, 3 recipes provided to take home, mixology lesson at the bar with cocktails to sip, and a delicious lunch - that's TAG University.

Celebrating Ugadi

Today is actually a New Year. Yes, New Year. Celebrated in Karnataka as Ugadi, and also in Andhra and Maharashtra, today is a beginning of a new year for many Indians. As any other festive day, it must be a vegetarian day (see my previous post), but it is also a day to eat sweets. I am going back to the wonderful 1000 Indian recipes book for a new dessert recipe - Pistachio Burfee.

Shyam's Special Vegetable Pulao

I did write about how 1000 Indian Recipes book helped my Indian cooking a lot. It is a great book. Even Shyam consults it every now and then. But more as a guideline rather than following a recipe to a T. This post is about Shyam's own original recipe which was inspired by a vegetable pulao out of that book. But he changed the kind of vegetables, the spices, changed yogurt to coconut milk - it is entirely Shyam's specialty now. And while he is the one to usually cook this, since cricket season began and he is off to practice with his team, the honors of cooking it fall to me. Let's begin!

Parsnip Risotto

In search of an easy (relatively) meal idea, I browsed a few cookbooks, and something caught my eye in Mourad New Moroccan - Parsnip Risotto. What he suggests is absolutely brilliant - extract juice from parsnips and cook the rice in that juice. This way rice will absorbed the parsnip flavor but there will be no visible clues to any parsnip in the risotto. If only I had a juicer!

Great Espresso and Cappuccino At Home

I have been eyeing a good espresso machine to buy for home use for a long time. Breville is my favorite appliance brand and I must have had Breville Barista Express BES860XL machine with grinder in my Amazon shopping cart's "saved for later" for a year (click here for listing). Finally price decreased last week to $539 - still pricey, but lower than before (at the time of writing this post, price is $599) and would still be well worth it. Both I and Shyam had a discussion about this purchase (it is a lot of money) and finally agreed to go for it. To our surprise, there was an additional $108 discount (ends up, Amazon is running this discount: "Through April 9, 2012, you can save 20% on select Kitchen & Dining products when you use your Amazon.com Store Card" - pretty darn neat!), and we got this baby for only $430, which is a great bargain for this machine. Few days later we had it delivered and today we finally had our first home-made espresso and cappuccino.

TAG Brewery Dinner #3

Tonight was the third installment of brewery dinners at TAG featuring Great Divide brewery and M.T.H. Natural Lamb Farm. What a wonderful evening it was! We knew the menu prior to dinner, and it was supposed to be quite a dinner. Of course, there is always a risk of disappointment when expectations are high, but not this time. We expected it to be amazing, and amazing it was.

Shyam's Wonderful Saag Paneer

Saag paneer (creamy spinach cheese curry) is not an unusual Indian dish. I have tasted it enough times in various restaurants, and I can definitely say that Shyam cooks the best saag paneer by far!

Next Sushi Attempt

And to finish this weekend off - sushi! After the first attempt going rather well (read here), there is no reason not to try it again. Why do I call my sushi "cooking" attempts? Well, I am pretty sure that if a sushi chef, a true sushi chef, either reading this and previous posts or overseeing me in the kitchen will most certainly be outraged. What sushi chef does is like painting Mona Lisa, by comparison what I do is like drawing stick figures. But one only gets better with experience. So here we go.

To start easy, I prepared the same octopus dish as last time.

More Pork Belly - Another Delicious Yet Quick Dish

Recall the pork belly I braised earlier this week? Click here for my post. For a quick lunch today, I will be using a few pieces of that braised goodness. For this dish, jasmine rice is needed, so it helps to cook it ahead or time your rice-cooker to make some for lunch. I am also using a bit of preserve I cooked earlier for a dish from Jean-Georges VonGerichten's book - Asian Flavors of Jean-George. Preserve is made of ginger, shallots and garlic in honey. Something with a similar flavor profile can be used instead.

Sunday Morning - Rolled Omelet

Another lazy Sunday morning, another Sunday breakfast trick - rolled omelet pan.

This is a cute little pan by Nordic Ware, sold by Williams-Sonoma (click here for listing). Like other Nordic Ware pans I have (ebelskivers and waffle), this is an aluminum pan with non-stick coating and it has a specific shape for its task - there are two sections with a ridge in a middle that make rolling an omelet very easy.

Indian Sweets

Even though I have been cooking Indian savory dishes for several years now, it is only few months ago, for Diwali, that I tried to make my first-ever Indian dessert. We asked Shyam's mom for a recipe, and I prepared carrot halva. For no particular reason, I felt like making it again.

Homemade Meatballs

Meatballs! We used to buy them, but after I started making our own at home, store-bought ones just don't do it for us anymore. And meatballs are probably the simplest of the make-ahead foods you can do at home - very little effort, resources and ingredients compared to, for example, ravioli. I usually make enough to eat in the evening I make them, and then a few servings for later use. Frozen, they can store in the fridge for a long time.

Shyam Cooks French

This is an unexpected twist on our usual cooking arrangements. Shyam mostly cooks only Indian and quite often vegetarian. Not tonight! A new Food & Wine annual cookbook arrived yesterday, and he picked a French recipe to cook for dinner tonight, much to my surprise, a very pleasant surprise. For dinner tonight - chicken Dijon - click here for recipe.

More On Wine - Does Glass Shape Really Matter?

In our further exploration of wine, tonight we will be testing if the varietal-specific shape of the wine glass really makes a difference or not. I have long been intrigued by the many shapes that Riedel produces that are specific to a particular grape. I have always had two type for wine glasses and that is it - one for whites, another - for reds. Well, and then flutes for Champagne and other sparkling wines, but those are much different and I won't concern about them here.

Finally I took a plunge and bought a tasting set from Riedel (click here) - five varietal-specific glasses on a budget. These are from the "O" series, which is their collection of stemware without stems! I do love stems on my wine glasses, but at $50 for one tasting set, it is a bargain and a good way to discover whether grape-specific glasses really enhance the wine or it is just an elaborate marketing campaign to get people to spend more on fancy stemware.

Few More of Our Kitchen Favorites

I missed a perfect excuse to bake a pie yesterday (3/14) and share that with you, but to make up for that, I will share a few more of very useful items we have in our kitchen. These items aren't necessities in the kitchen, but they are certainly very helpful and convenient, and none of them are expensive.

Oil mister

I think I got this cute little gadget because it was on sale. But once I started using it, I actually purchased two more - these things are great! They are sold by Williams-Sonoma: click here for listing. This is the most natural way to spray a fine mist of oil as no aerosols are involved.

Pork Belly - Braising and Further Preparations

Ah, pork belly... how can you go wrong with it?! There are so many ways to cook with it, and all - so delicious! Hardly a healthy choice, we can however indulge in it today as we had a 4 mile run outside thanks to the summer weather we are having all this week. It helps to have a strong alcohol with pork belly to help break down the fats. Today I will braise a whole lot of it, then use some for dinner while saving the rest for later uses.

More On Truffles, and Quick Dinner Dish

I certainly knew that when I was buying Oregon black truffles (see my earlier post), I won't be getting the same variety as featured in most of my French and European cookbooks. From the description on the Earthy Delight's site (click here):

"Fresh Black Truffles (Leucangium carthusianum) from Oregon look somewhat similar in appearance to Black Summer Truffles from Europe, but the resemblance ends there. Chefs and adventurous cooks across the country prize Oregon Black Truffles as a uniquely American delicacy, but one that is just as delicious and intriguing as their better-known (and much pricier) European cousins.

Oregon black truffles have a pronounced pungent, fruity-musky aroma and a strong flavor. While fresh Oregon black truffles don't have quite the same intensity as fresh European truffles, they are far less expensive and offer their own uniquely distinctive truffle flavor."

Sunday Morning - Waffles

I recently got another kitchen "toy" - a waffle pan, and this morning is the time to play with it.

I have been eyeing it for awhile in Williams-Sonoma catalog, and I finally placed and order and few days later a nice man in brown uniform arrived at the door with it. Here is the listing on Williams-Sonoma's website: click here. A basic recipe is included.

The Buckhorn Exchange Experience

We have long been hearing about a restaurant in Denver that serves exotic meats like rattle snake and alligator tail. Tonight we finally got to experience it. Restaurant is located at 1000 Osage St in Denver, website: http://www.buckhorn.com/ . Prior to going there, we have look at the menu and were excited about some options. We also have read the history on the website - this is Denver's oldest restaurant and also the holder of #1 liquor license in the state of Colorado. It is 119 years old and has been in the same location since the time it was established. Pretty impressive, right?

Home-made vs Store-bought

Convenience, cost or quality?

There is no simple answer to which is better - home-made or store-bought food, although most people will likely think that home-made is a unanimous winner. But consider the complexity of the question - how do you define "better"? Although I take pride in making home-made pastas, sauces and other foods from scratch as much as possible, even though equivalents are readily available in a store, I would not claim that this is absolutely the only and best choice to eat well and is always superior to store-bought foods that one simply needs to heat up at home. There are many brands out there that are very good and nearly equal to home-made foods. On the other side of the spectrum are people who only buy ready-made foods in the store and rarely or never cook at home. And then there are people in between who buy some pre-made ingredients and use them in their cooking. For example, although I do make pasta at home, I take shortcuts and buy pasta in the store too. So why choose one over another?

Cooking With "Black Gold" - Truffles!

First and foremost, Happy 8th of March - International Women's day!

Cheers, ladies!

Indian Cuisine Improvisations By Shyam

Whenever somebody asks me "what is Russian food?", I have hard time answering it. It is whatever we cooked at home in Russia. Same goes for Shyam and Indian food. It is only as being an outsider to any country or region, one can fit a whole cuisine of that region/country into few specific dishes and blissfully ignore all the other dishes that can be produced with any number of ingredients from that region/country. One has to go beyond a few specific recipes to truly cook a dish from a different cuisine. One has to understand the local ingredients and methods and then a whole new world of possibilities opens up.

New Home-brew - Black IPA, and Blind Tasting

Yesterday we finally opened and tasted a bottle of our home-brew that we brewed a month or so ago. And out of the beers we brewed so far (we started with our first attempt in June 2011), this one is the best. So good, in fact, when we tasted it yesterday first, we thought it was on the level with the beers with buy in a liquor store. We finally made it! Then an idea came to me - to truly compare our beer with brews we get at a store, let's do a blind tasting. This time we brewed Black IPA, and not long ago we tasted a Black IPA from Tommyknocker right at the brewery from the tap, and a bit before that we had Pitch Black IPA from Widmer Brothers. So I thought of buying those two and then tasting it with ours. Liqour store was out of Widmer's this time, but instead we got Uinta Dubhe Imperial Black IPA and Tommyknocker Hop Strike Black IPA.

Comfort Food - My Special Chicken Soup

I haven't written anything in a couple of days, and even today's post will be short. I have a simple remedy for when misery strikes, be it cold or flu, being frozen to the bones after a long day out (skiing or otherwise) in wintry weather or even when we are sitting inside watching nasty weather rage outside and want some extra warmth and comfort. Chicken soup is that magic potion that makes a cold more bearable or thaws us out after skiing. I "indianized" a basic chicken soup just a bit, not only to add flavor, but also to tap into ayurvedic properties of certain spices, but it is still a very simple and fast dish to prepare.

My Indian Cooking And Hyderabadi Chicken Curry For Dinner

My Indian Cooking

I am Russian, I grew up in Russia, and I grew up eating Russian food (whatever that is, don't ask me). When my family moved to US, I did get a chance to experience new cuisines - Italian, Chinese, Indian, etc. But prior to starting my relationship with Shyam, most Indian cooking I did was get some meat (chicken, usually), and cook it with some "Indian" sauce out of a can. At the time I thought that was some great tasting meal. Boy, was I wrong. Then I starting dating Shyam. So I tried harder to cook an authentic Indian meal. It took me several tries before I got it right. I needed proper resources. I was brought up to believe in power of knowledge in books, so I knew I needed to get some great reading on Indian cooking. I went on Amazon, and eventually I got to 1000 Indian recipes.

Food&Wine Wine Club Dinner and Some Wine Basics

Tonight we did another wine club dinner - next of the wines was a full-bodied red from Mendocino County, CA, and suggested pairing is pasta with meat sauce. Specific recipe provided is orecchiette with sausage and cherry tomatoes (click here for recipe on F&W website) - a super easy and fast dinner dish (less than 20 mins!). Because this particular dish is so simple, even though I will go over it later, I would like to first share with you our tools and methods to enjoy wine.

Wine is a complicated drink, and proper ways to consume and enjoy it are a matter of taste. However, there are certain guidelines coming from sommeliers that are supposed to enhance the experience. Of course, most of us do not have the skill of a sommelier and won't be able to tell terroir of a wine down to a mile, just as an example, or recognize that a certain wine is better when drank one degree warmer or colder. But in general, we do know some guidelines and we do accept and follow them, for example most of us drink white wine chilled and red wine at room temperature, and we let the wine "breathe" a bit before consuming it. Over time we have acquired some wine accessoires that are helpful in getting our wines to the right state for consumption.

Quick and Delicious Dinner - Fennel Risotto and Arak Scallops

Before I cooked my first risotto, I always thought of it as a very complicated and time-consuming dish - for no particular reason there seemed to be some magic in turning simple grains of rice into creamy delicious goodness. I've had many different risottos in various restaurants - truffle, seafood, veggie, etc, and all were absolutely delightful. Of course, as is usually the case with me, my admiration for risotto and my excessive curiosity (you know, the one that made me make sushi with raw fish at home one day, and foie gras pate - the next) eventually pushed me to investigate the magic behind it. Ends up, it is actually very easy! It is certainly an involved process as you have to be at the stove all the time while cooking it, but in no way is cooking a risotto complicated. Today I decided to make fennel risotto, and to go with it I decide to cook scallops, and as a finishing touch and to extend the anise flavor of fennel, scallops will be flambeed with Arak. Let's begin!

Terrine de Foie Gras

Foie gras (fattened liver, usually of a goose or a duck) is not an unfamiliar food to me. Both Shyam and I enjoyed foie gras pate before (store-bought) as well as nice seared melt-in-your-mouth slices of foie gras in restaurants. But that was awhile ago, and somehow foie gras fell off my radar for quite some time. Until now. My current affair with foie gras started after we attended a cooking class at TAG. It was a Saturday right before Valentine's day, and theme of the class was cooking with chocolate and appropriate wine pairings (click here for flyer). One of the dishes was Vichyssoise served warm with seared foie gras and bitter-sweet chocolate shavings. Needless to say, I was excited to recreate the dish at home. Vichyssoise doesn't require any exotic ingredients: leeks, onions, potatoes, cream, and you're all set. Foie gras, on the other hand, is a much more difficult proposition. After unsuccessfully trying to obtain this magic ingredient, Shyam called the restaurant and asked the chef where we could get it (and at a reasonable price), after mentioning all the places we have already tried. Chef Sam was nice enough to offer us to add what we needed to restaurant's order and we'd pick up the item when it arrives, two days later. The day before I was set to cook up a feast for Valentine's dinner (that's right, some women do enjoy spending that day in the kitchen!) I was in possession of a 2 lb fattened duck liver. Yay! I only needed a bit of it for Vichyssoise dish, but I couldn't pass an opportunity to be able to cook some more later with such a wonderful ingredient. After the soup, I used foie gras to make an exciting take on Peruvian dish tacu tacu (read about it here). But time was running out - unfortunately foie gras won't stay fresh long. One option was to freeze it, but that supposedly destroys some of the flavors. So I decided to preserve the remaining liver by making a foie gras pate.

First Time Ever - Sushi!

Both Shyam and I love sushi, and it's been a long wish of mine to try to make my own. Finally, I've assembled enough needed ingredients and equipment to make my first attempt. Earlier today we bought some fresh sashimi-grade seafood. I started our evening meal with a Japanese-Peruvian fusion dish out of Art of Peruvian cuisine book with octopus (cooked), and then it is on to actual raw stuff - some nigiri rolls, maki rolls, and, it so happened, sashimi. Let's get started!

Some of My Favorite Kitchen Items

That's right, no fancy recipes today, just some pasta for dinner. Instead I want to share some of my biggest helpers in the kitchen. These items will help you with organization, storage, and efficiency when cooking. Some people will say that a lot of women in the world cook without any fancy gadgets, with very limited equipment. I know that and I respect that - ability to do a lot with very little is certainly admirable. But that is not my point here. None of the items below are so essential that you can't survive without them (we do go overnight camping into wilderness -  no cars, no electric outlets, just what we bring on our back! we do know minimalism!). What I am about to share here are nice-to-have extras in your kitchen for when you can afford to spend a few extra dollars and you can also afford some space to keep them, although some are meant to save you money in long run and others are meant to optimize your space usage - planning ahead and considering all scenarios does help. Despite their non-essential nature, once you have these items, you'll appreciate them and will wonder how rest of the world functions without them.

Food&Wine Wine Club Dinner

Wine Clubs

Are wine clubs a great deal? Great - no, but I would say they are a fair deal. We used to have Williams-Sonoma wine club subscription when we lived in New Jersey. It was very nice. Unfortunately they won't ship to Colorado, so I had to cancel. Food&Wine wine club does ship to Colorado, and that is what we have now. I would recommend both of these clubs to anyone who is interested in this sort of thing. The very first thing you should check is that you can receive wines from the wine club you are considering in your state before you get too excited with all the details to avoid disappointment if they can't ship to you.

TAG Brewery Dinner #2

Tonight was second brewery dinner at TAG, featuring Left Hand Brewery and Ralston Valley Beef. We have tried Left Hand beers before and we did enjoy them. Menu for the dinner was advertised prior to the event, so we knew what we were in for and we were excited.

Quick And Delicious Vegetarian Dinner

Dressing down Foie Gras con Tacu Tacu de Lentejas

Last night's dinner was delicious...Just looking back at the photo of that plate makes my mouth water. Tonight's dinner will be a simpler version of that, as I still have all the ingredients ready, why not use them. Stripping foie gras out of the dish makes it vegetarian too.

Haute Peruvian Cuisine

And this Sunday's dinner I went for something new and special: a recipe from a restaurant in Peru - Foie Gras con Tacu Tacu de Lentejas. Description from the book reads:

"This is one of Coque's wonderful 'nouvelle cuisine peruvienne' dishes served at 'Le Bistrot de mes Fils'. The pairing of lentils with foie gras and fruit works particularly well. The result is a spectacularly innovative way to serve traditional Peruvian tacu tacu."

Exciting, isn't it?

Sunday Morning - Ebelskivers

This morning was one of those easy mornings when alarm is off, we don't have to get up early and rush to get ready for something, be it skiing, hiking or going to office... just a take it easy morning that can last until lunch. And that means I can do some more for breakfast beyond a bowl or cereal or scrambled eggs. And this particular morning my heart was set on ebelskivers - light and fluffy Danish filled pancakes.

Our Usual Apres-ski - Local Brewery Visit

Tommyknocker Brewery

Sunny weather, barely a cloud in the sky, reasonable temperatures, fresh snow on the slopes - you guessed it, it's a ski day! And with a number of times we went for beer and food to some local brewery on the way back home after skiing it is almost time to declare it a tradition.

My Take on Chiles Rellenos

Happy Friday, everyone!

It has been a long week and I really want to take it easy on Friday night, so nothing fancy tonight, simple chiles rellenos and that's it. I have used most of the foods that I had already prepared for tonight's dinner. The only thing I had to invest my time in is getting ancho/poblano chiles ready. That involves scorching the skins under broiler until they blister and after few more manipulations with steam and ice bath, removing the outer skin and then cleaning out the seeds and pith. This step can be done some time ahead. I prepped the chiles right after I got home from work and then went off to gym.

General Thoughts and Quick Dinner Tonight - Chicken Liver

Efficiency in the kitchen

Sometimes I love spending hours and hours in the kitchen, but often, especially on weeknights after coming home from work, I want to be done with dinner fast. After being in a restaurant kitchen and watching chefs cook, it gave me a new perspective on my own kitchen. It isn't really a secret. But growing up, cooking was just that, and not much thought was given to why things are done a certain way, but rather it was simply doing things the way previous generations of women (my mom, my grandmothers and other female relatives) had done. With new gadgets, better technologies, simply more space in my kitchen (compared to my grandmother's that measures 2 by 2 meters/about 6 by 6 ft!) and just having the financial means to acquire more and better tools, the new name of the game is efficiency.

Testing testing...

Hello all,

My first blog post ever. :) Testing 1 2 3

Finally I've decided to start a blog about all our kitchen adventures, not just a few pictures I or Shyam usually post on facebook every now and then, but the whole story and for everyone to see, not just my friends. I hope I can keep up, I hope I won't get lazy and abandon this blog, and most of all I hope that my posts will be interesting, informative and helpful to everyone out there.

Cheers!