Sunday Night Dinners

SUNDAY NIGHT DINNER
June 29, 2008

Cheese Plate
Fraga Farm Cheddar – a raw cheddar
Fraga Farm Farm House Goat
Pepperoni
Local Cherry Tomatoes
Hideaway Bakery Whole Grain Bread

Dinner
Oregon Lingcod
French Green Lentils, Local Vegetables, Yogurt-Green Onion Sauce

This dinner was inspired by Hideaway Bakery‘s awesome bread! I wanted everyone to enjoy the bread before the meal so I bought some local cheeses from Fraga Farm in Sweet Home, Oregon, grilled the bread and allowed some time for cheese, wine and bread. The cheeses from Fraga Farm are wonderful if you haven’t tried them yet, do!

For the dinner I started at Capella’s, a small market that sells locally grown and sourced foods. Wandering through the store I started with lentils. Don’t know why but I just decided I hadn’t eaten lentils in awhile. From there what goes with lentils? Yogurt. I picked out a local, plain yogurt from Nancy’s. Hhmmm…What should I put in the yogurt, how about the local green onions that looks so young and fresh. I have my sauce and lentils, now what?

Yogurt sauce and lentils are a very Mediterranean influenced choice and those two could go with a number of protein items such as lamb, chicken or fish. Since it was about 92 degrees outside and we were drinking Tabula de Rasa (a light, fruity white wine) from Carlton Winemakers Studio I decided to go with the lighter option of fish. That I wouldn’t get at Capella’s though, the fish market is just a few blocks down the road so that will come after the rest of the shopping.

Wandering through the store they had a wonderful selection of local produce from Oregon so I let that lead the way. Thinking along Mediterranean lines I wanted to just do a simple saute of fresh vegetalbe, garlic and olive oil. A preparation that would allow the great flavors of these local, fresh foods to shine through. I found some patty pan squash, rond de nice squash (appropriate for my Mediterranean inspired meal), young onions and shallots. I checked out and ran to the fish market.

At Newman’s Fish Market I was able to find an Oregon caught Lingcod to serve along with all the other foods I already purchased. Back home to cook now. With all these locally sourced, wonderful foods there wasn’t much work for me to do except wash, cut and cook.

I seared the onions and squashes in a pan together, added some garlic, shallots, olive oil, salt, pepper and butter. Done.

The lentils were boiled in water, drained and sauteed with shallots, garlic, oil, salt and pepper.

For the yogurt sauce I just added sliced green onions, salt pepper and citrus juice. Easy, done.

The fish was seasoned with salt, pepper and seared in a very hot pan, serving side down first. I allowed the skin to sear and get nice and crispy on the first side before flipping to the other side. Added a little butter, spooned it over the fish and viola!

Sunday Night Dinners

Almost every Sunday night I go out to my parents house and cook a meal, usually another sibling shows up, maybe more. It’s a dinner that could be for as many as four to ten people, and I usually don’t know about the extra six until I get there. These dinners are a good time for experimenting, trying new products and working on my improv skills. Since some of these dinners turn out to be something pretty cool I thought I would start keeping track of them. And, it’s a good way to see how my mind works in creating these menus off the top of my head.

SUNDAY NIGHT DINNER
June 22, 2008

Farmers Market Salad
Broccoli, Dried Cranberries, Blue Cheese, Balsamic Vinaigrette

Spicy Cabezon
Seared Potatoes, Olives, Herbs, Oranges, Avocados

This weekend the products I had to work with were very exciting, this was the Cabezon (a rockfish) that I had just bought at the farmer’s market! So fresh, I didn’t need to do much to the fish to make it taste great. This is what I did:

Cabezon – I found chilies and garlic in my Mom’s pantry and I had just clipped some fresh herbs out of my garden before I came over. So I seasoned the fish with salt and pepper, seared it (serving side down first) in a hot saute pan. Once could see the fish starting to cook up the side and it had come loose in the pan, meaning it was sufficiently seared, I flipped it.
Once flipped I added some sliced garlic, sliced chilies and a pat of butter. Then tilt the pan to the side and start spooning the butter over the fish, this helps to cook it but it also adds another level of flavor. Just a couple minutes and it’s done. Fish should still be transparent when you cut into it, not dry and flaky, perfectly cooked fish is a very wonderful thing.

Potatoes – These were made just from random items found in the fridges and cupboards of my parents house. I took some Yukon Gold potatoes, simmered them whole in salted water until they were a little more than half way cooked. Then I took them out, cooled them just a bit and sliced them into 1/2″ thick rounds. In a saute pan I sauteed some onions, olives and garlic then pulled them out and heated the pan back up. In that very hot pan with oil I seared the potatoes, making sure to keep plenty of oil in the pan for the potatoes to fry in. Once they were all seared I added the onions and other pre-cooked items back in, along with some orange zest, orange juice, avocados and fresh herbs.

Local Fish!

I am so very excited about this, I got in touch with a local fisherman! He’s going to be my fish supplier, I want fish I call him. It was very strange how I met him, I was on my way over to Coos Bay and stopped in Elkton 45 miles outside of Eugene. I overheard this woman talking about her son selling fish at the farmer’s market and quickly asked where I could get some.

The next weekend we met at the Farmer’s Market in Eugene this man, Tyler Long, has been a fisherman for many years and is just now starting to sell directly to customers. He spent an hour showing me the fish he catches, talked about seasonality with fish and about him coming up to do a Barn Dinner. He has one of the only fresh catch licenses in the state where he catches fish and they go straight into a pool on his boat and direct to the customer. He has the ability to do quick freezing on his boat as well, which freezes the fish at the moment it comes out of the water.

One of the fishes that he catches, Cabezon, is a rare fish and he has one of the only licenses to catch it. Cabezon is a rockfish that lives deep in the ocean it feeds on squid and octopus and because of that diet the fish sometimes has neon blue lips from the ink! The flesh of the fish will also be a slight green color from the ingestion of the squid close to the time of being caught. Tyler also catches halibut, crab, other rockfish, snappers, lingcod and coming up soon he’ll start having albacore tuna!

He can also use his connections to other fishermen to get me products that he doesn’t catch such as, Winchester Bay oysters and shrimp (Spot Prawns). For my next upcoming Carlton Winemakers Studio dinner he said he may be able to get me Spot Prawns! Spot Prawns are huge shrimp that taste more like a lobster than a shrimp.

Last weekend I bought some of his Cabezon and took it home to cook for my parents and siblings. This was the freshest fish I’ve ever had, it was incredible. The fillets that were green once cooked were pure white, like he said they would be.