Valentine’s Day dinner 2014

The table was set:
table

First, the raclette:

raclette

  • Emmentaler cheese
  • carrots
  • cornichons
  • radishes

Melt the cheese and layer over the other items.

Then, there was the cocktail:

drink

  • 1 1/2 oz vodka
  • 2 oz carrot juice
  • 1 oz apple cider
  • grated ginger
  • lime juice

Next, the white bean chili with carrots:

chili

  • 2 cups white beans, picked over and soaked overnight
  • 1 tbsp chili powder
  • 1/2 tsp ground cumin
  • 1/2 tsp ground thyme
  • 1/2 tsp ground oregano
  • 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
  • 1/2 tsp garlic powder
  • 1 tbsp flour
  • 3 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
  • 2 tbsp veg. oil
  • 1 onion, chopped
  • 1 celery stalk, chopped
  • 2 cups chicken stock
  • 4 Anaheim chilies, roasted, peeled, and chopped
  • shredded carrots
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1/4 cut freshly chopped cilantro

Drain the beans, put them in a large pan and barely cover with fresh water.  Bring to a boil, boil hard for 5 minutes, the reduce heat to a simmer.

Mix the spices, herbs, seasonings, and flour in a strong plastic bag.  Add the chicken cubes and toss them until they are evenly coated with the spice mix.  Set aside.

Heat 1 tbsp oil in a skillet and saute the onion and celery for 6 minutes.  Add the vegetables to the beans.

Heat the remaining oil in the cleaned skillet and cook the chicken, turning often, until all sides are lightly browned.  Add the chicken  to the beans with the chicken stock and chilies.  Simmer for 1 1/2 hours, until the beans are tender, adding water or chicken stock if the chili looks too dry.  Add the carrots.  Add salt to taste.  Sprinkle in the cilantro just before serving.

And the Thai salad:

thai_salsd

  • 1 pound  carrots — peeled  /cut into thin strands / or grated
  • 1/4 cup  unseasoned rice vinegar
  • juice of 1 lime — about 2 to 3 tablespoons
  • 1 tablespoon  lime zest — grated
  • 2 tablespoons  honey
  • 1/4 teaspoon  hot red pepper flakes
  • 1 1/2 cups  spanish peanuts — coarsely chopped
  • 1/4 cup  crystallized ginger — julienned or regular ginger
  • 1/2 cup  pepitas (roasted pumpkin seeds)
  • 1/4 cup  cilantro
  • 2 tablespoons  chopped fresh mint

Place the carrots in a large mixing bowl.  Blend together the vinegar, lime juice, lime zest, honey, and red pepper flakes.  Add the dressing to the carrot mixture and let stand for about 14 minutes. Toss in the remaining ingredients at the last minute.

And, of course, the pudding:

pudding

  • 2 eggs
  • 1/3 cup sugar
  • 1 cup milk
  • 2 cups finely shredded carrots
  • 3 tablespoons melted butter
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1 teaspoon allspice
  • 1 teaspoon nutmeg

Beat eggs.  Add sugar and milk and blend.  Add remaining ingredients and mix.  Pour into a buttered baking dish and bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour or until firm.  Makes 6 servings.

Which made for one happy girl:

happy

 

Veenie cheese night

veenieAKT’s inlaws/(my outlaws) were here for a few days.  We forced them to have a cheese tasting.  No blue, not much brie, but some good semi-hard aged cheeses.

Trader Joe’s Brie:  we needed to have a soft cheese, and we were at Trader Joe’s the other day, so this was it.  It was ok, but we’ve had better brie.  JV, who doesn’t normally like brie, liked this one.  I told here that there are better bries out there.

Invierneo, from Vermont Shepherd, is a nice mixed milk (cow & sheep) cheese.

Prairie Breeze, from Milton Creamery, Iowa, was their interpretation of a white cheddar.  GV liked it.

Bomboloni was a sheep cheese, which of course I liked (not sure where it was from, possibly Chester County, PA).

 

Cowgirl cheeses after Wings

Cowgirl cheeses

We sent to see Wings, the 1927 silent film, with live piano accompaniment by Andrew Simpson.  It won the first Academy Award for Best Picture.  The showing was at the Portrait Gallery, and since that is near Cowgirl Creamery, we went there afterwards.  All of the cheeses we got were very good.

Gabietou, an Alpine cheese made from French cow’s and goat’s milk, was a semi-soft cheese.

Colvander, was from Chapel Hill Creamery, in North Carolina.  I generally stay away from anything to do with Chapel Hill, but as this is about cheese, I’ll let it slide this time.  It was a firm cheese made from raw cow’s milk.

Baserri, from the Barinaga Ranch Farm, in California, is made from sheep’s milk.

California brie

California brie

While I was in Mountain View & Milpitas earlier this week I went to a wine & cheese shop and found a Marin French Brie which was from Marin county in California.  It was a triple cream, which we always like.

 

La Petite Reine Camembert

La Petite Reine Camembert

Camembert, poetry,
Bouquet of our meals,
What would become life,
If you did not exist?

We got another Camembert when we were at Cheesetique the other day.  As it says “Fabrique en Normandie”, it was made there, but since it does not say “Camembert de Normandie”, it may not be AOC.  La Petite Reine may be made from “lightly pasteurized milk”, which must be why it is not AOC, but it was good anyway.

Uh oh.  I can’t read French, but I think I’ve stumbled upon a cool site that has Camembert posters.  This could be dangerous, as I’m running out of wall space for all of my airline posters.

Abondance cheese

Abondance is an AOC cheese from French Abondance cows, and aged.  The recipe has been unchanged since the 12th century.  It was a little bitter (tart?), which was fine, as the other cheese we tried later tasted sweet by comparison.  Don’t eat the rind.

Prima Donna at Cheesetique

Prima-Donna cheese tray at Cheesetique
We were meeting friends at RTs in Arlandria, so we stopped at Cheesetique — in Del Ray, also on Mount Vernon Ave. before dinner.
We sat at the bar and had a mac-and-cheese with cauliflower, cheese, and bacon. The also have a large seating area in the back and a front patio.

Then the cheese trays looked so pretty, I had to order one — I chose Prima Donna, a Dutch gouda, aged a year. Nice, but not too salty. It came on a wooden cheeseboard with bread, crackers, cornichons and red grapes. The oniony crackers were a bit much with the mild cheese, but the rest worked. $8 for one cheese plate.

We had a North Carolina IPA with it (Brevard Brewing Company) — don’t know enough to know if a wine would have been better.

You get 10% off your store order if you buy at the restaurant, but I forgot to ask. I wanted to get a French and a German cheese for a friend. They had a ton of French cheeses, and only one German one —  Cambozola, a blue cheese.