Holiday Meals 2018

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Here are some photos from around our table Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

On Christmas Eve, Claudia prepared a lovely meal for after Mass. There was a shrimp ring, lobster and crab cakes, crudités, Feta stuffed phyllo, and a choice of potato soup or oyster stew. The oyster stew is our Christmas Eve tradition, and it was the most delicious ever this year. Wine was a very nice Chardonnay from Franc Dusak.

On Christmas Day, we cooked a ham on the Weber Genesis, using Jamie Purviance’s molasses and mustard glaze. Claudia also made pasta shells with cheese sauce, a Pampered Chef holiday appetizer wreath, and a lovely green salad. Grammy brought a tasty cauliflower, broccoli and raisin salad, and Aunt Pat brought a vibrant and fresh Jello and fruit salad. The wine was Jacqueline Bahue’s 2015 Santa Rita Hills Pinot Noir.

Of course, there was an incredible variety of Christmasy baked goods – cookies, candies, fudge and more.

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Alder Planked Salmon

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Sunday Dinner – 23 December 2018

Grilled Salmon

It was Alder Planked Salmon (and near disaster) this week.

We love salmon cooked on the grill, and alder wood is our favorite smoke flavoring for it. We’ve had good luck in the past cooking fish on cedar planks, so we decided to try alder planks this time. I soaked four planks in water for a couple hours before beginning to cook. Here’s how they looked on the Weber Genesis.

Alder Planks

The process for the plank grilling is to char the planks on one side, flip them over, and then cook the fish on the charred side. The planks didn’t get very charred in the first few minutes, so I turned up the burners to high. That was my first mistake. The second mistake was to leave them unattended for four minutes.

When I went back to check them and opened the hood, there was a backdraft and a huge flameup that singed the hair off my left forearm. I was lucky that it didn’t catch my clothes (or rather longish hair) on fire. When the flames died down, the planks were nearly cinders.

Improvising, I scooped the mess toward the back of the grill, turned the burners to low, and closed the hood. I had four remaining planks that hadn’t been soaked, and decided to risk using them to cook the salmon steaks on over very low heat. I watched them closely, peeking under the hood every two minutes. Fortune was with us, and they turned out delicious, despite more than a “kiss of smoke.”

We’d grilled some asparagus and baked some potatoes on the Genesis earlier, and they were waiting in a warm oven while I finished the fish. Claudia also made a nice salad, and we served it with a simple creamy garlic dressing. That’s always Grampy’s favorite that he asks for when dining out. We found the old recipe from the Blue Mill restaurant in Decatur, Illinois online and decided to try it out.

  • 1 qt Mayonaise
  • 3/4 oz Lemon Juice
  • 4 t Worcestershire Sauce
  • 1.2 oz Grated Parmigiana
  • 1 1/4 t Garlic Powder
  • 1/4 c Water

Alder Planked Salmon

Wines were a 2016 Marchesi Sauvignon Blanc and a 2017 Jacqueline Bahue.

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Grilled Pork Chops and Vinegar Potatoes

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Sunday Dinner – 16 December 2018

Pork Chop Dinner

This week it was grilled pork chops, vinegar potatoes and sautéed green beans for Sunday Dinner.

I usually marinate the chops, but this time I simply seasoned with Custom Culinary Spice and grilled them. I used the Salt & Vinegar Potatoes recipe from Kitchn, and it came out even more delicious this time, roasting the par cooked potatoes on the Genesis. Claudia steamed the green beans for a bit, and then sautéed them with some onions and Penzey’s Mural of Flavor herb mix. She and Aunt Pat made a nice salad with raspberry vinaigrette too.

Wine was the 2017 Crowdpleazin Dry Creek Zinfandel. Really tasty, and we got to try out a Rabbit aerator that Pat gave us. I’d always thought that it was only old, high-tannin reds that could benefit from aeration, but it amped up the bouquet and flavor of this young jammy Cali Zinfandel nicely. Looking forward to trying it on a bottle of white wine soon.

Caroline baked cookies to go with ice cream for dessert.

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Grilled Chicken with Pasta Bake

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Sunday Dinner – 9 December 2018

Grilled Chicken with Pasta Bake

This week we grilled chicken on the Genesis and Claudia made a nice pasta bake with Ricotta. Wine was a Calavaras County cuvée from F. Stephen Millier.

We have some white meat and some dark meat fans in the group, and it’s taken me awhile to learn how to cook the leg quarters properly. This time, they turned out perfect. I seasoned them with coarse salt, black pepper, Herbs du Provence, garlic and onion powder, and a little MSG. The grill was set up with the outer burners on medium and the center burner off. The chicken went on the cooler part, in the middle, skin side down at first for about twenty minutes. Then I flipped them and let them cook another twenty minutes indirect. This allows the fat underneath the skin to render. Once the internal temperature was around 170 °F I turned the middle burner on as well, and finished them skin side down over direct heat. This crisped up the skin nicely and brought the temp up to 185 in the thigh. I put the breasts on over direct medium heat (one of the outside burners) as the leg quarters were finishing. The legs came off first to rest, so that we could serve everything as soon as the breasts were done (they cooked about twenty minutes total).

The pasta bake was made with Ricotta, Mozzarella and Parmigiana, with a red sauce on top. Claudia also made a fresh green salad and steamed some broccoli and cauliflower with garlic. Aunt Pat brought cookies and ice cream for dessert.

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Linguine con Vongole

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Sunday Dinner – 2 December 2018

Linguine con Vongole

This week, I made Linguini with Clam Sauce, an adaptation of a recipe from my friend, Joe Placido.

If you’re an American of a certain age, it’s very likely that you have heard Giuseppe “Joe” Placido’s voice. In the 1980s, he was the announcer for Chrysler Corporation’s “Guaranteed Rebate” advertising campaign. Lee Iacocca heard Joe’s voice on local Detroit radio, and nabbed him right up as the voice of the campaign.

I met Joe in the mid 1970s when we were both working in Decatur, Illinois at WSOY radio. He introduced me to some great music, and some great food. The first “authentic” Italian cuisine I ever tasted was around the table of he and his wife Jini’s apartment. This is one of my favorite recipes, and one of the first things I attempted to cook on my own.

It starts with a sauté of onions and garlic in butter and olive oil. Then you add some salt, Italian herbs and white pepper. Then the juice of a couple cans of chopped clams, and some white wine. Eventually, you add the clams. I usually add some cream or half and half as well. That, the pasta and shredded Parm, and you’re ready to eat.

We enjoyed this with a lovely salad with raspberry vinaigrette that Claudia made, some pesto stuffed mushrooms, and bread with drizzles of Bahue Olive Oil, herbs and Parm shreds. The wines were Sauvignon Blancs. Aunt Pat brought a coconut cream pie for dessert.

Here are some shots from around the table.

 

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