Thursday, February 12, 2009

99 Bottles of Beer

I know Seattlites, I know you think the beer store on 45th Street in Wallingford, Bottleworks, has it all, all the time - it's going on and it is BUT the next time you are in Federal Way, which could be never, check out 99 Bottles...they have it going on with 900 different beers.

I Swear, it was the best dinner of my life.

Meatballs. Made with ground pork from the farm.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Rice and Beans

Black beans with onion, sweet red pepper, garlic, cumin, jalapenos, salt and pepper. I am generally in awe when eating black beans. They are a completely satisfying food.

Last night I served them next to a hearty green salad, a slice of a whole wheat cheese quesadilla and a glass of beer.

When I lived in Montana a group of friends and I formed a buying club and bought bulk dried black beans, rice and canned Muri Glen whole tomatoes. For the next year or so we had each-other-over for dinners and lunches serving some form of black beans rice and salsa. I never got tired of it.

Cilantro, capsicums, raw onion, corn tortillas, avocado, creme frishe at Erin's...some kind of white cheese at Dicks. We were producing theater together and hung as a gang. Family. I roasted chicken. Erin baked salmon. I made Spanish omelets and soup. David hunted elk and I made elk ragu. These were our main meals.
Nutritious and affordable.

The chickens were raised by the Hutterite colony over in Martinsdale. They were fresh, free range and large.

Saturday, February 7, 2009

Full and happy

I am sitting here full and happy - just having finished a dinner of chicken soup and a green salad. (I've been making the best salads lately, hardy salads with escarole and romaine, red onion, chopped celery, Nash carrots, which seem to be the sweetest carrots ever..(must be the soil)..and a dressing heavy on mustard, lemon and Parmesan cheese. Bow wow.

The soup came about from a chicken I roasted six days ago or so..did what Mark Bittman told me to do for a classic quick french roast. I heated the oven to 450 and on a low rack placed a roasting pan to heat. I smeared the bird with butter, salt and pepper, placed it in the hot pan and roasted it for close to an hour. I did not open the oven. The result - a perfectly roasted bird.

Following the initial chicken dinner, I made a Thai chicken green curry, constructed several chicken sandwiches and then the soup, making of course a rich broth from the stripped down bird. To this I added onions, garlic, carrot, celery and at the last minute, sweet potato gnocci from Italy, a gift from Philadelphia. Made me happy...as did the Panzanella Grissioni and glass of Red Rhone.