goodbye 09

sloppy joes, one of life’s great comfort foods

This was a year of growth.  I ate a lot of takeout (which, incidentally, happens to be one of life’s greatest pleasures).  I discovered new interests, cooked new recipes, made a valiant attempt to organize my photos and raged at bad lighting and focus.  I made a concerted effort to put away the phone and camera when out with friends or having dinner and mostly succeeded. But for those times I did have a camera… a summary:

soda bread

I’m not a bread baker. Well, unless you count hockey pucks, I’m a CHAMPION hockey puck baker. This makes me sad, because I’m a champion bread EATER. When you start talking about “kneading to a smooth ball” and “punch down” I’m totally lost. Enter, Irish soda bread. Baking soda, you complete me.

garlic granules

I’m a cheat! I love garlic granules when I forget or am too lazy to use real garlic.

puff pastries

Puff pastries filled with ground pork, carmelized shallots, golden raisins, cinnamon, Brillat Savarin. Though I loved Brillat when I tried it at 13Celsius, it proved too delicate and melty for this combination.

herbs

Rosemary, oregano, and thyme picked from my garden in December. Just another reason why I love Houston.

braised chicken with olives and tomatoes

An absolute gem of a recipe made all the more delicious with juicy, local pastured chicken from Georgia’s Grassfed Beef.

butternut squash latkes

Oh those silly people over at Gourmet.  Leave it up to them to take a perfectly good thing (potatoes + hot oil) that I could eat all day and make it even better.  Here, traditionally potato latkes are made with sweet butternut squash and paired with a savory yogurt sauce.  They’re addictive!

The original recipe works pretty well.  But as you may notice from the comments, people seem to run into issues, as the mushiness of the squash makes the latkes fall apart when fried.  Here’s my take, from some trial and error:

Halve a butternut squash, sprinkle the open sides with garlic granules, and cook most of the way.  30-40 minutes in a 425 oven or 4-6 minutes in the microwave should do – keep a close eye on it.  Take the squash out and pop it in the freezer to cool so it can be handled.  Meanwhile, thinly slice an onion and matchstick half a granny smith apple.  Melt 2 T butter in a pan and brown the onion and apple in the pan with some minced garlic.

Peel the squash halves – they should be soft but not completely mushy.  Using the large holes of a box grater, grate as much of the squash as you can, and, using your hands, mush the rest.  By not cooking the squash all the way you avoid releasing all the moisture that causes issues for the recipe.  Add the onion mixture to the squash, one egg, and about 1/2 a cup of flour.  Mix together gently with your hands.  It should have the consistency of a sticky dough, like cookie dough.

Set the dough/batter aside and make the pine nut and sage yogurt.  I like to use Greek yogurt, or anything that’s a little thicker than the usual Dannon brand.  Gently melt 4T butter and over low heat, sweat 4-5 chopped sage leaves and a handful of pine nuts.  I used slivered almonds on this occasion and they were also lovely.  Stir the butter into 1 cup of yogurt and set aside.

Heat about 1/2 inch of oil in a pan until it shimmers.  You can drop a tiny piece of dough/batter in to see if it’s hot enough.  When the dough starts to pop, slide tablespoons of latke batter into the oil and use an oiled fork to flatten them into discs about 3 inches wide.  If you flatten them all the way, you won’t end up with any soft butternut squash in the middle, which might be preferable to your tastes – but as fair warning, they can be hard to scrape off the pan if you push them down too hard.

My latkes end up being about 1/2 inch thick.  I don’t mind that they aren’t crunchy all the way through, but your tastes may differ.  Drain on paper towels and serve with the sage butter yogurt.

Raku Japanese Charcoal Grill

I was in Vegas in September for a convention, following a week spent backpacking in the Grand Canyon.  After days in the remote desert wearing the same t shirt with no proper showers, it was difficult to adjust to the glitz and excess of the city.  A full day spent schmoozing with my fellow convention goers turned out to be exhausting, and the idea of cocktails, followed by dinner, followed by more cocktails, was daunting, to say the least.

Relief came in the form of dinner with Misha, who picked a restaurant appropriately off the beaten path but still stunning.  In a city so self conscious of the number of Michelin stars each resort has it’s refreshing to find a place like Raku.

squid sashimi

The best tactic at Raku is the order off the specials board for the day.  Just get a whole mess of things and be completely shocked at the non-Vegas prices.  I think the most expensive thing we ordered was a “steamed egg custard with foie gras” for a whopping $9.00.  It was so worth it.

steamed egg custard with foie gras

Our dishes ranged from earnestly Japanese (sea urchin, squid, agedashi tofu) to whimsical and possibly adventurous…

pig ear

fried crabs

These tiny fried river crabs are no bigger than an inch and crispy all the way through.  Though I’ve tried to find them since, other variations on fried river crabs have been chewy, with thin fins and covered in batter.

agedashi tofu

Possibly the crowning dish of the night was Raku’s agedashi tofu.  No mushy batter dipped in a meager pool of dashi here.  Raku’s dashi is rich and studded with tiny mushrooms.  The huge piece of tofu is swaddled in a firm and flavorful batter, and instead of a few shavings of bonito, Raku tops their tofu with a glistening pile of ikura.

Don’t skip dessert.  We had both the “fluffy” cheesecake and the brown sugar “bubbly” pudding and were ready to come to blows over the scraps.  Raku is a true gem among Vegas restaurants.