1. What are you currently working on other than making sure the restaurant and bar are running smoothly 24/7?
"As usual, I’m working on a number of catering and benefit dinner menus, as well as instituting some menu upgrades for the restaurant.  Keeping it seasonal and fun.  Our Q Bar menu is the best in town and it is fun keeping it that way.

I got bored with doing the same stuff for too long.  I’ve been doing a lot of reading and brainstorming to try to recharge my culinary batteries. Also trying to come up with a theme for our next Q’s Food and Wine Series dinner….maybe old world vs. new world wine styles and varietals? I am also looking forward to spring and getting my garden going!”

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From the Flavorista Archives, originally published on October 9th 2009:

From Barr:

As we are in seasonal transition, it is decidedly colder here in Colorado. My tastes have been for heartier fare.  Here is a recipe to excite you about broccoli. As luck would have it, broccoli is the one vegetable that my most finicky eater likes.  Of course the other two only "tolerate" it.  This dinner was a huge hit with all three!

I highly recommend that you serve this on a ridged pasta, like rotini. We enjoyed it on wide fettuccine egg noodles. My favorite boxed pasta, Barilla Plus, adds to the "stealth health" appeal that this dinner has for moms.

This pesto could also be easily worked into a warm pasta salad with some white beans, lots of freshly chopped parsley and a splash of red wine vinegar.

Pasta with Broccoli "Pesto"

1 (14.5-oz.) box Barilla Plus Pasta
1 lb. steamed broccoli
1 small onion, chopped
1 small clove of garlic
1/3 cup chopped fresh parsley
1/2 cup feta cheese (or Parmesan)
1 Tbsp. lemon zest
1/4 cup pasta cooking water
Juice from 1/2 large lemon (about 1 Tbsp)
1 - 2 Tbsp. olive oil, as needed

Put your pasta water on to boil. Set up your steamer and steam the broccoli.

Saute the diced onion in a little olive oil until soft. Place the still warm, steamed broccoli in the bowl of a food processor with the garlic clove and onion.  Pulse until evenly chopped. Add the parsley, lemon zest and cheese and a 1/4 cup of the pasta water, process again.  Add the lemon juice and blend well. Use a little olive oil to loosen it up.

Once the pasta is cooked, place it in a warmed bowl and add the "pesto" and stir well. Serve with freshly grated Parmesan, ground pepper and salt.

Recipe Note: To make this dinner gluten-free, substitute your favorite gluten-free pasta or toss the pesto with 1 lb. of oven roasted potatoes.

FMI on Meatless Monday click here.

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In the winter, one can only eat so much oatmeal.  So when you are tired of dreary mornings and warm cereal, start off with a bright fruit plate made of sliced bananas, kiwi and oranges (with a few almonds tossed in for good measure).

Maverick has enthusiastically jumped onto the kiwi bandwagon.  I sliced up 4 kiwis for him and a friend the other day.  Before I blinked, the entire plate was devoured.  I would venture to say that he loves kiwi as much as Lollie loves pomegranates.

The time to enjoy California kiwi is November to May.  At roughly 50 calories each, kiwis are very nutrient dense. One kiwi delivers about as much vitamin C as an orange in addition to Vitamn K and E.  All those little seeds equal 2 1/2 grams of fiber, 10% of the RDA.

For youger children, I like to peel and slice kiwi.  For solo snacking, I simply cut the fruit in half and scoop out the middle with a spoon.

Maverick’s Strawberry Kiwi Milkshake adapted from All Recipes
Serves 2

1 banana, sliced
6 frozen strawberries (or 1 cup frozen raspberies)
1/2 cup vanilla ice cream (or frozen yogurt)
1 kiwi, peeled and roughly chopped
1/3 cup milk

Add everything to a blender and process until smooth.

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Garnacha is the same as the grenache grape of France.  It is a grape that thrives in hot climates and is typically the base grape of blended reds like Chateauneuf du Pape and Cotes du Rhone.  These wines are bigger, bolder reds made from a blends of grapes that makes them more complex (and more expensive).  I loves me some Chateauneuf du Pape but until I hit the lottery, it will remain a special occasion wine.

The first garnacha I ever sampled was at Duckfat in Portland and it was easy to surmise that garnacha is a very food-friendly wine.  Priced between $6 - $8/bottle, this wine could easily become a house sip.  One might say that garnacha is the red cousin of Vinho Verde.

So if dinner happens to be burgers, a hearty bean soup or even simple, roasted chicken, this wine would work quite nicely.

Cheers.

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One of our favorite restaurants here in Boulder is Alba. Owned by Rick Stein with executive chef Alex Feldman , Alba is one of Boulder’s best. We love their regional wine dinners, featured on the 3rd Wednesday of every month, they are the epitome of traveling vicariously.

In January, he featured the food and wine from the Campania region. One of the more unique items on the menu was an sweet eggplant budino, an Italian pudding. In March, we will experience food and wine from the Veneto.

Some highlights of Alex’s career: He started with his mentor, Chris Schlesinger at the East Coast Grill then he moved to his first Italian inspired restaurant in Waltham, MA the Tuscan Grill .  He did a short stint as the Culinary Institute of America (C.I.A.) but found that what he really needed to do was move to Italy and work there. He landed a job at Il Cibreo in Florence and then at Al Cambio in Bologna.

Back in the states he worked at Babbo with Mario Battali then eventually  he moved to Vail and worked at Sweet Basil.  Rick offered him the job here in Boulder at Alba just over a year ago.

Earlier this fall when I started thinking about posting recipes on fish stews, I had dinner at Alba and fell in love with Alex’s Brodetto.  His anchovies wrapped in sage and quickly fried are unbelievably delectable. I implored him to share the recipe with Flavorista

 Wish granted!

Brodetto Recipe from Alba

Note: you can adjust the variety of seafood for whatever is freshest at your fish
market.

Serves 2

4 large “dry” scallops
6 tiger shrimp
4 oz calamari rings and tentacles
1/2 lb. mussels, scrubbed
1 large clove garlic, sliced thinly
2 Tbsp. chopped parsley
3 sprigs marjoram
pepperoncino, chopped to taste
16 canned peeled cherry tomatoes and a little juice or 1 can diced tomatoes
( Alex uses the canned tomatoes from Academia Barilla)
3 oz. dry white wine
1 cup fish stock (frozen or use clam juice)
zest of 1/2 lemon (use a microplane)
Good EVOO
Cooking oil
Salt and pepper

Heat a shallow 12" sauce pan with enough cooking oil to coat the bottom, until the
first tendrils of smoke arise.

Season the seafood with salt and pepper, and spread out into the pan.

After 30 seconds, sprinkle the garlic, herbs, and pepperoncino in the pan.
Continue cooking over medium high heat for another minute, stirring constantly.

Deglaze with 3 oz white wine, reduce until mostly evaporated, add 1 c fish stock.

Cover and simmer for 3 minutes or until the mussels have opened

Remove from heat. Mix in the zest and 2 Tbsp. EVOO, Taste, season, and serve.

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I love the straightfoward simplicity of this recipe.  Ingredient-wise, it is uncomplicated.  Flavor-wise, it sings with the bright notes of Thai cuisine.  Mellow yellow tofu is greatly enhanced by the sour lime and the heat of the chilies.  Sweet bell pepper and onion slices mingle with fresh ginger and crunchy peanuts (or cashews).  The whole dish is finished with a generous dose of aromatic, peppery basil.  My mouth is watering, just writing about it.  Quite frankly, this is the dish that made me embrace tofu.

Sweet and Sour Spicy Thai Stir Fry

Be sure to really press the water out of the tofu, this not only helps it to crisp up in the pan, but also helps it to absorb the flavors of the piquant sauce.

1 cup jasmine rice
1 2/3 cups water

2 Tbsp. brown sugar
1/4 cup lime juice
1/4 cup Thai fish sauce (or soy sauce)
2 Tbsp canola oil, divided
1 lb. extra firm tofu, drained, patted dry, and cut into 1-inch cubes
1 Tbsp.chili garlic sauce, more to taste
1 Tbsp. grated ginger
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
1 red bell pepper, thinly sliced
1 yellow bell pepper, thinly sliced
2/3 cup roasted peanuts (or cashews)
1/2 cup thinly sliced fresh basil

Add rice to a medium saucepan, rinse, and drain, keeping rice in pan. Add water and bring to a simmer over high heat. Stir well. Cover and reduce heat to medium-low. Cook for exactly 10 minutes, then remove from heat. Do not remove lid. Set aside.

While rice is cooking, whisk together brown sugar, lime juice, and fish sauce in a small bowl. Set aside.  In a large nonstick skillet or wok, heat 1 Tbsp. of the oil over medium-high heat. When hot, add tofu and cook until it’s lightly browned, about 6 to 8 minutes. Transfer tofu to a plate and cover loosely with foil to keep warm.

In same pan, add remaining 1 Tbsp. oil. When hot, add chili garlic sauce and ginger. Cook and stir until fragrant, about 30 seconds.  Add vegetables.  Cook and stir for about 3 minutes.

Re-whisk sauce. Add sauce, peanuts and tofu to the vegetables.  Bring sauce to a simmer and heat the tofu through, about 3 minutes.  Add basil to the stir fry and stir well to combine.  Remove lid from rice and fluff with a fork. Divide rice and tofu among four plates. Serve immediately.

Adapted from Hannaford Fresh Magazine, May/June 2008

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This past weekend  Dive! Living Off America’s Trash was featured at the Boulder International Film Festival. Jeremy Seifert is my new Michael Pollan, Morgan Spurlock and Chef Ann Cooper in that he brings to our attention - for lack of a better term, an inconvenient truth: We waste too much food in this country, not just in our homes, but at the grocery store. It’s the food we don’t purchase that gets wasted.

My cousin introduced me to the concept of dumpster diving years ago. I was aghast but have come to find that he has never been sickened by the food that he has retrieved from grocery store dumpsters. Certainly if you google dumpster diving, there is an abundance of advice and information on Wikihow, Wikipedia, and Youtube. Olivia Zaleski wrote a great piece about dumpster diving on the Huffington Post. But Seifert didn’t just set out alarm folks. He really was wondering if perhaps there is a better way to distribute food that is no logner deemed safe to sell.

In San Francisco, Mary Risley, founder of the Tante Marie Cooking  School felt the same way.  Many years ago she founded Food Runners. She knew that you can’t put the onus on food banks to not only distribute but also pick up food from all over a bustling city. Food Runners’ mission is simple: "To help alleviate hunger in San Francisco, to help prevent waste and to help create community." With a band of volunteers, unwanted food is just a phone call away from being picked up and delivered to an organization that can distribute it to those in need. While the mission is simple, the logistics are not. 

Do you have an organization like this in your community? Tell us about it. If you want to see Seifert’s movie, his website has viewing times.  The video below is the trailer for Dive!

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Over the years, I have shaken things up with whole grain flours, toasted nuts and even mini chocolate chips, but ultimately, I always go back to the basic, unadulterated recipe, just the right size, tender yet dense and so much banana flavor.  Yum!

These muffins are also Lollie’s self proclaimed "favorite" as in "these are really good Mom?!"  Lollie and I often battle it out in the kitchen because she tends to reside in the land of picky eaters (with King Marco at the helm) rather than in my world of "Just try it, you might like it!"

In Lollie’s defense, she has an exceptional palate and many boldly flavored foods are off-putting to her.  Give the girl a flaky croissant or a giant noodle bowl (minus the hot sauce) and she is on the moon.  With regard to these muffins however, we have total agreement.  If only bedtime could be so easy…

Fabulous Banana Muffins from Muffins A to Z by Marie Simmons

When bananas are too brown to enjoy out of hand, freeze them for smoothies or for baked goods. 

cooking spray
2 cups flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 1/2 cups mashed ripe bananas
2/3 cup light brown sugar
1/3 cup butter, melted
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 Tbsp. pearl sugar or turbinado sugar (optional)

Preheat the oven to 400°F.  Spray a 12-cup muffin tin with non-stick cooking spray.  In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.  Set aside.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the mashed bananas, brown sugar, melted butter, egg and vanilla until smooth.  Add the banana mixture to the dry ingredients.  Mix until just blended and evenly moistened.  Do not overmix.

Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups.  If desired, sprinkle each muffin with 1/2 tsp. sugar.  Bake until the tops are golden and an inserted toothpick comes out clean, 20 - 25 minutes.  Cool on a wire rack before removing muffins from the tin.

Other Flavorista Muffin Faves:
Healthier Crumb Topped Blueberry Muffins
Rich Chocolate Muffins
Pumpkin Praline Muffins

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We started off with Salmon Loaf from the Better Homes and Garden cookbook circa 1958. The recipe is not on their website but the salmon was from a can and had loads of pepper.  Cheese squares with canned olives and pretzels were artfully presented along with canned crab on cream cheese with chili sauce pour over the top. Of course there was a can of Cheese Whiz and Ritz Crackers and Saltines.

For starters there was canned fruit cocktail replete with the cherries!  Being overly exposed to canned fruit cocktail as a child has scarred me for life, I still can not eat fruit salad of any kind, fresh or otherwise.

For the main course we were treated to ham studded with canned pineapple and cherries, canned butter beans (creamy white beans that were perty darn tasty), canned black eyed peas and scalloped potatoes from a box! O.K., O.K., I was indeed surprised at the texture of the potatoes. They were firm and actually tasted like potatoes. Ahhhh, food technology at its finest. Meatballs in canned tomato sauce and Russian Salad rounded out the meal. Green bean casserole was missed.

For dessert we enjoyed Mock Apple Pie (a true marvel from the 1930’s made almost entirely out of Ritz crackers) and a green giggly molded Jello (the kind that scared me as a kid with canned mandarins trapped inside) also from the vintage BHG cookbook.  The piece de la resistance was Classic Banana Pudding with Nilla Wafers and Cool Whip.

In real life our hostesses are wonderful cooks who adore food and entertaining. They both commented that they had never opened so many cans to cook in their life but also said this was one of the cheaper meals they had ever made.

This meal made me thank Julie Child, Madeleine Kamman, Jacques Pepin and Alice Waters (just to name a few foodie pioneers) for introducing Americans to the delicious (uncanned) food revolution!

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Not all the recipes on Cook’s Country are stellar but this one caught my eye and has now won my heart. The sliced apples on top are reminiscent of homemade applesauce and the light batter below is the perfect compliment.

Apple Preparation
4 Granny Smith apples, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch slices
     (an apple peeler is perfect for this)
4 Tbsp. butter
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/8 tsp. salt

Heat a heavy pan (not cast iron) and add the butter. Once the butter stops foaming, add the brown sugar and cook until it turns a dark color, about 2 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the apples and cook for about 5 to 7 minutes or until the apples are soft.

Meanwhile, prepare a 9-inch cake pan by buttering the sides and the bottom. I think a springform pan works best. Once the apple are cooked, spread into the bottom of the cake pan and allow to cool.

Cake Batter
1/2 cup sour cream (or creme fraiche), divided
1 large egg plus 1 yolk
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups flour, sifted
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 stick of butter, at room temerature and cut into small chunks

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Whisk together 1/4 cup of sour cream, egg and egg yolk and vanilla. Set aside. Place dry ingredients into a large bowl and blend well on low speed with an electric mixer, adding the remaining 1/4 cup of sour cream and softened butter.

Once that is well incorporated and the dry ingredients are moistened, increase the speed to medium and add the egg/sour cream mixture. Mix for about 1 minute. Pour over the apples and spread evenly.

Bake for 40 minutes.  Test for doness with a toothpick. It should come out clean when inserted in the center of the cake. Allow cake to cool for 10 minutes. Run a knife around the edge of the pan and gently release the springform.  Invert the cake onto a plate.

Allow the cake to rest inverted on the plate for about a minute. Give it a gentle tap and carefully remove the pan bottom. If some of the apple comes off, it is easily replaced. This cake is best served slightly warm, but I also loved it the next day for breakfast.

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