Labor Day Salmon

It's been a busy time!  Brownie has been working a swing shift, which leaves little time for cooking anything :-(  Now we need to get caught up.

So, a while back someone gifted us with salmon fillets and BONUS the eggs from a salmon they had found when cleaning the fish.  They have been waiting patiently in the freezer for Brownie to process them.

If you've never made your own salmon caviar - it is a looooong process and will certainly clue you in to why caviar is so expensive. Brownie powered through on our long Labor Day weekend and it was delicious!!!

He grilled the salmon and potatoes, made a nasturtium pesto, and flash-pickled some cucumbers and onion.  All from our garden, thank you very much!

The freshness in every bite of this dish was amazing!  I expected the pesto to be too peppery with the nasturtium, but it wasn't at all.













Brownie joked about calling this 'Mother and Child' but he agreed to settle on 'Labor Day' Salmon instead :-)  Much less macabre.  If you come across salmon eggs in your fishing adventures, we highly suggest freezing them for future projects!  Googling how to process the eggs is simple, but you better have an entire day set aside to do this before you try cooking anything to accompany them.

Happy Cooking!

Jen's Teriyaki Chicken

This is a recipe we make often. It was a recipe my mom learned from one of my Japanese Aunties while living in Hawai'i and one of the first things I learned to cook as a teenager. It is now one of Brownie's favorites and was requested by Thing #4 as part of our weekend menu. It never fails and is always delicious!

I know, why make teriyaki when you can just buy it in a jar? Because MSG is evil and this is SO much better!!! :-)

So here it is, in all its glory:















Ingredients:

• Chicken thighs (we used 4 lbs of chicken - we're a big family.)
• 2 bottles Aloha Shoyu (If you can find it - Winco has this brand's lower salt soy sauce, which is what I use) or any low-salt soy sauce, though popular brands are waaaaay too salty for marinating in my opinion.
• Green onions
• 1 cup Brown Sugar
• 1 Tablespoon fresh ground ginger (when I make this for the kiddos, I use probably 3 tablespoons dry ground ginger because if they get one bite with fresh ginger, they freak out)
• 3 or 4 large cloves fresh minced garlic (more if you're inclined)
• Cooked white rice and steamed broccoli

Directions:

• Pour 1 bottle of soy sauce into large baking pan
• Mix in brown sugar, minced garlic, ginger and 4 chopped green onions - adjust to taste
• Place chicken thighs in marinade and let sit for 1/2 hour
• Turn chicken thighs over in marinade and let sit for another 1/2 hour
• Option #1: put pan in oven at 350 for about 30 minutes, turning chicken once 1/2 way through, remove from marinade with tongs as soon as you take it out of the oven (the cooked marinade is amazing over rice, BTW)
• Option #2: grill chicken on the BBQ grill and discard the marinade - use second bottle of soy sauce to sprinkle over your rice

Rice and sides are totally your choice - this goes good with pretty much anything! This marinade is delicious with steaks as well!

Grilled Steak w/Bleu Cheese Figs

I love to give Brownie cooking challenges!  No, I'm sadistic; I love to watch him create!  Giving him ingredients that seemingly don't go together traditionally and watching what he comes up with ... it's a fascinating process, let me tell you.

He's been wanting to utilize figs since they're in season, so on my way home last night, I bought some gorgeous grass-fed beef steaks and got him some figs!

Yes, it was just as delicious as it looks!!!!  You have to try this one while figs are in season!!!!

When Brownie does cooking challenges, the end result is always a surprise for me, so I didn't get to watch him cook.  When I was finally presented with the final product and took my first bite ... I would have sworn he put chocolate in that sauce!  It was so good!

A few tips:  Figs are best when they feel mushy and 'overripe.'  They are also incredibly sweet on their own - in this recipe, you're adding honey to an already sweet fruit.  Our suggestion is not to be shy with the bleu cheese or the rosemary - both help cut that sweetness!

So if you're feeling ambitious, here's your recipe:

Ingredients:

• 9 or 10 Ripe Figs
• 2 Top Loin New York Strip Steaks (we bought McK Ranch grass-fed steaks that we find at our local Co-op.
• Garlic Powder
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO)
• Truffle Salt (we find this at Market of Choice up near the cheese section - the sample sizes are amazingly inexpensive and fun to play with)
• Fresh Ground Black Pepper
• Fresh Rosemary Sprigs (we just snip a few from the garden)
• Raw Honey
• 1 Vanilla Bean (our Co-op has these fresh in bulk)
• 1 Bottle Pinot Noir (more about the wine we used later)
• Bleu Cheese crumbles

Directions:

Always drink wine while cooking!

• Marinate steaks w/garlic powder, truffle salt, fresh ground black pepper, EVOO and fresh rosemary sprigs - set aside while they come up to room temperature
• Half 4 of your figs and scoop out the insides into a saucepan with 1 Tablespoon EVOO
• Start reducing over medium heat
• Add 2 tablespoons raw honey, insides of 1 vanilla bean, 1/2 cup pinot noir and 1 rosemary sprig
• Reduce to desired thickness of sauce - remove rosemary sprig
• Half 5 figs and place in baking pan (a pie plate will work)
• Sprinkle figs with bleu cheese crumbles and put in the oven at 375 Degrees until cheese is melted
• Grill steaks to medium rare and let rest for 5 minutes before slicing
• Plate your sliced steak and bleu cheese figs, drizzle sauce over the top
• Optional - garnish with fresh rosemary and fresh bleu cheese crumbles

Now the wine.  Pino Noir is Brownie's wine of choice, and I grabbed a bottle of Fractal Cellars 2011 Pinot Noir on my way out of the store.  In hindsight ... I should have considered the flavors Brownie would be cooking with while I chose the wine.  Whoops!  I'm not the wine palate in this house.

This wine IS delicious, but it didn't pair well with the figs, which was the main flavor in this plate.  Remember that figs are actually an inverted flower! So a wine with less berry flavors and more of a flowery essence would have been a better choice.  Maybe even a white wine?

We still drank the bottle! hahaha  But it wasn't a stellar pairing with our food.  Just a head's up!

Try this recipe at home and share with us!!!!

Vegan BBQ

I have a dear friend who is trying to get back to eating vegan and we were long overdue for a visit.  Since we asked him over, we made sure that all of our snacks and everything we grilled was vegan.

Brownie sure does some amazing things with herbs and spices and vegetables!  We were all so full and everything was delicious.  If you think you can't fill up on vegan food - think again!  Portabello mushrooms are an amazing grilling substitute for meat and they have such a rich, meaty flavor.

Vegan BBQ was a success!  What other challenges can we throw around here!?

Elk Burger

Just a quickie to show off our gift for the week:  Ground Elk Venison!  Brownie made burgers with this because we just wanted to savor the meat!

So, officially the description is:  Elk Venison Burgers topped with shiitake mushrooms and Dubliner Cheese with spicy mustard!

They were scrumptious.  Now if Brownie would just go hunting with friends and bring us home some other cuts of venison to experiment with .....