SightTasteSound

practice rehearsal slideshow

2013-08-28T12:43:00.000-07:00

A Shared CSA Story, or Root Vegetables and More Root Vegetables

2011-10-14T10:59:00.000-07:00

We have very special guests in today’s post who you may be seeing a lot more – Rachel and Jon! For those who do not know these two, they live directly across the street from Mark and me and we now share a bimonthlyCSA box. We’ve crossed the street on vegetable box delivery days with the goal of using as many items from our shared box as possible for dinner.

This week our box contained:

Green peppers
Chives
Romaine (maybe? No one is quite sure – if it was romaine, it was the biggest romaine I have ever seen)
Another mystery green we made up a name for
White turnips
A sweet potato
Kale
Butternut squash

Not in the box, but worth a mention:

Farm-fresh eggs and tomatoes from Jon’s family in Indiana

While we didn’t use everything in the box, I think we made a good showing. Plus, this entire dinner is vegetarian! I should quote here, although some of you will not believe me, Mark said the following after cleaning his plate: “I really didn’t miss the meat.”

Honey-Roasted Root Vegetable Salad

(We started with this recipe from Food & Wine, but adjusted it to use what we had in our CSA box.)

Roasted Veggies:

1 big sweet potato, peeled and cut into 1 1/2 inch pieces
1 pound turnips, cut into 1 1/2-inch pieces
3 tablespoons olive oil
Salt and freshly ground pepper
3 tablespoons honey, warmed
1 tablespoon chopped sage leaves
4 ounces fresh goat cheese, at room temperature
1/4 cup minced fresh herbs (we used chives and flat-leaf parsley)
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil (I would skip that next time, personally)

Salad:

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1 large garlic clove, minced
1 tablespoon minced herbs, such as chives, tarragon and flat-leaf parsley
Salt and freshly ground pepper
4 cups romaine or whatever that thing was

Preheat oven to 400. Toss the sweet potato and turnip pieces with olive oil and spread on a baking sheet. The recipe asks you to salt and pepper them here, but some of us forgot and so we added it after roasted and no one cared. Roast until soft, about 40 minutes. Remove from oven and drizzle with honey and chopped sage leaves. Roast again for about 20 minutes. If they are soft and looked glazed, these guys are done!

In a bowl mix the goat cheese with the olive oil, then stir in the herbs. I would not add the olive oil if I make this again. As Mark said, it made the goat cheese look like tuna salad. It was still delicious though.

Wash the greens well, rip them up and toss them in a salad bowl. Whisk up the dressing. Add one or two tablespoons to the greens. Add the rest to the roasted veggies and toss.

Arrange the greens on the plate, top with veggies and a dollop of the goat cheese and you're done!

A close up:

Butternut Squash Lasagna

For our main course, we made a butternut squash lasagna with homemade noodles. We used this recipe from epicurious.com as our base, but skipped the hazelnuts. No one missed them!

For squash filling

1 large onion, chopped
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
3 lb butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon white pepper
2 tablespoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
4 teaspoons chopped fresh sage

For sauce

1 teaspoon minced garlic
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
5 tablespoons all-purpose flour
5 cups milk
1 bay leaf (not California)
1 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon white pepper

For assembling lasagne

1 lb fresh mozzarella, coarsely grated (4 cups)
1 cup finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano (3 oz)
Jon's lasagna noodles, or a box of no boil noodles

Have Mark make the filling:
Cook onion in butter in a deep 12-inch heavy skillet over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until golden, about 10 minutes. Add squash, garlic, salt, and white pepper and cook, stirring occasionally, until squash is just tender, about 15 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in parsley, and sage. Cool filling.

Have Jon make the noodles. All I know about this is that the farm eggs were used the noodles were bright yellow. You'll have to ask him the rest...

Make sauce while squash cooks:
Cook garlic in butter in a 3-quart heavy saucepan over moderately low heat, stirring, 1 minute. Whisk in flour and cook roux, whisking, 3 minutes. Add milk in a stream, whisking. Add bay leaf and bring to a boil, whisking constantly, then reduce heat and simmer, whisking occasionally, 10 minutes. Whisk in salt and white pepper and remove from heat. Discard bay leaf. (Cover surface of sauce with wax paper if not using immediately.)

Assemble lasagne (and yes, we doubled the cheese):

Preheat oven to 425°F.

Toss cheeses together. Spread 1/2 cup sauce in a buttered 13- by 9- by 2-inch glass baking dish (or other shallow 3-quart baking dish) and cover with 3 pasta sheets, leaving spaces between sheets. Spread with 2/3 cup sauce and one third of filling, then sprinkle with a heaping 1/2 cup cheese. Repeat layering 2 more times, beginning with pasta sheets and ending with cheese. Top with remaining 3 pasta sheets, remaining sauce, and remaining cheese.

Tightly cover baking dish with buttered foil and bake lasagne in middle of oven 30 minutes. Remove foil and and bake (we broiled!) until golden and bubbling, 10 to 15 minutes more. Let lasagne stand 15 to 20 minutes before serving. Or 10 minutes if you can't wait.

Pizza Party!

2011-09-18T16:42:00.000-07:00

Snacking is always an integral part of any football game, but when the Bears lose the food takes on a newfound import. I ate Chinese leftovers from Friendship while Bridget brunched with some family ladies. By early in the 2nd half, it became clear that the food I was making had to kick ass since the Bears wouldn't be doing any of that.

Now, I've been baking a bunch lately-- just trying to get good crumb from my loaves of bread and attempting to come up with a pizza crust that's both chewy and crisp in all the right ways. Some of my trials have been quite good, some have been fed mostly to Millie. We have lots of cookbooks and so I finally swallowed my pride and turned to a recipe for "basic pizza dough" out of Stephanie Izard's new Girl In the Kitchen.

I took Bridgie to a birthday dinner in February to Izard's Girl & the Goat, and we were treated like royalty: kitchen two-top where the chefs all chatted us up, fed us complimentary tastes, Stephanie said "Hi!" and "Happy Birthday!" to Bridge, and the wine flowed like...well, wine. So I turn to Steph for a good dough because she seems like a great gal.

Basic Pizza Dough

3/4 cup warm water
2 1/2 tsp dry yeast
1/4 cup dry white wine
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp honey
1 tsp salt
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup stone ground cornmeal (not necessary)

Combine water, yeast, and wine in a large bowl and stir vigorously until yeast dissolves and mixture begins to bubble.

Add salt, olive oil, and honey until fully combined.

Add 1 cup of flour and mix with a wooden spoon (or dough hook) until it's a wet, loose batter.

Add 2 more cups of flour slowly until you can work the dough by hand (without getting super sticky hands). Knead for about 10 mins until smooth and firm. Form a loose round and rub with olive oil. Set round in a glass or wooden bowl and cover with a kitchen towel for about an hour, until doubled in size.

Pound down and knead for another few minutes. Roll out into a sheet and then...this is crucial, let it PROOF for 2 hours. The thin sheet of dough should once again double in size after this 2 hour proofing process.

Finally, simply roll this large buncha dough into one large round (or 4 personal pizza-sized rounds (only if you read enough books, kiddo). Sprinkle your stone or mat with cornmeal and preheat for 30 minutes. This preheating is key so the bottom of your crust get crisp as quick as top and inner dough cook up.

Put your pie on a stone or mat and load into the hottest oven you can -- I used a silicone pizza mat on top of a stone in a 550+ oven.

Oh yeah, you need to put stuff onto your p'zone!

Put whatever you want on there! Make an awesome red sauce and cook some sausage and toss that with some fresh basil. Do mushrooms and then put cheese on there. Whatever. Here, though, is what I did with this fashionably local and organic treat...

White Balsamic Black Mission Fig, Prosciutto, Melted Onion and Three Cheese Pizza

Lightly pan fry prosciutto or bacon-- set aside
Sprinkle a handful of figs with a capful of white balsamic
Handfuls each of Bleu Cheese, Mozz and Parm
Melt 3 small onions or 1 large onion for 20 mins on med-high heat (I use some sugar or cola about 5 mins in)

Sprinkle and layer over rolled out dough and bake at a HIGH temp for 10 mins (or 15 for lesser oven temps)

****We have a badass 1982 Kenmore double-oven that bakes at 550+ degrees****

...and an Early-Fall Stew

2011-09-15T10:55:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago we were complaining that our A/C was broken and dug out the extra fans from the closet. This morning I was digging around for my coat. Fall has arrived quickly this year. I still have to reset my brain, but in general Mark and I love the fall. To welcome in the cooler weather, we made a hearty – but not too hearty -- stew the other night.

White Coq au Vin

2 pounds chicken thighs – we trimmed most of the skin off

1 jar pearl onions (the recipe called for frozen, which I couldn’t find)

1 8 oz package baby bella mushrooms

3oz prosciutto, minced

3-4 minced garlic cloves

¾ teaspoon dried tarragon

¼ cup flour

1 cup dry white wine

2 cups chicken broth

1 can artichoke hearts

1 ½ pounds baby yellow potatoes

Mark trimmed up the thighs and seasoned them with salt and pepper. We heated some olive oil in a deep pan and browned the chicken for a few minutes on each side. Set those aside.

Add a little more olive oil and add the onions, scrapping up the good bits from the bottom of the pan. After they get soft, put them aside with the chicken.

Add a little more oil and sauté the mushrooms until they get brown and season with salt and pepper. Then add the prosciutto, garlic and tarragon and stir around for about one minute or so.

Dump in the flour, then pour in the wine and broth. Now time to add the chicken and onions back in the pot along with the artichoke and potatoes. This is the part of the recipe that gets weird, in my opinion. It says to bring to a boil and then simmer for 15 minutes. Our potatoes were nowhere near soft enough after 15 minutes, and we figured the longer the better anyway, so we simmered our stew for 45 minutes.

Mark has taken over spaetzle duties in our house. He whipped up a batch. Pour the stew on top and eat!

(And yes, I see that spaetzle could look like brains...)

A Perfect Summer Soup

2011-08-16T15:04:00.000-07:00

I am pretty bummed that our first trip to the outdoor farmer’s market this year happened just last week. The upside of our delayed farmer’s marketing is that tomatoes are perfect now -- they really can’t be compared to the things that call themselves tomatoes the rest of the year.

Last year we stumbled across some sun gold tomato beauties at the Green City Market and whipped up Thomas Keller’s recipe for Sun Gold Tomato Gazpacho from Ad Hoc at Home. This is not the first time we’ve posted about this cook book and probably will not be the past – this book is the best. Unlike most of the recipes in Ad Hoc at Home, this soup comes together really quickly and does not get every pot in your kitchen dirty.

With tomatoes being as awesome as they are right now, we had this gazpacho on the brain when we stopped by the market the other day. It is definitely worthy of a post.

Sun Gold Gazpacho, the Perfect Summer Soup

1 cup cold water

2 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed

¼ cup coarsely chopped onion

2 lbs sun gold tomatoes, we used two heaping cartons and called it a day, stemmed and cut in half

1 cucumber, peeled and cut in half lengthwise with seeds scooped out

1 large yellow pepper, but in coarse pieces

1 large red bell pepper (honestly, half of one will do the trick)

1 T sherry vinegar, then maybe just a splash more

½ tsp smoky paprika

¾ - 1 cup olive oil

Handful of chives, diced

Put the water in a big bowl and add the garlic and onion. Get the tomatoes ready if they are not already and add all but one cup to the bowl with any juices leftover on the cutting board. Save that cup you set aside for garnish.

Slice half that cuc into half moon shapes and toss into the bowl. Save the other half for garnish. Toss the coarsely cut yellow pepper into the bowl too.

Let these guys hang out for five minutes, stirring around once or twice. Get the garnishes ready if you haven’t yet. Dice up the chives, finely dice the red pepper and the other half of the cucumber. Put the garnishes in the fridge.

Now back to the veggies in their bowl of water. Pour the whole thing into your blender. Or food processor if you want a mess. Keller calls for a Vita Mix, which I am sure is very awesome, but who has that?

Blend it all up. Strain through a fine-meshed strainer. You will probably have to do that in batches since the tomato skins get caught and you end up pushing the concoction through. Rinse out the blender. Toss the strained soup back in and add the paprika, sherry vinegar and some salt and pepper (Keller calls for white pepper, which I did not have so I used black). While blending, slowly start pouring the oil in until the soup gets “velvety.”

Add more vinegar or paprika, salt or pepper if you think it needs it. Garnish with your collection of garnishes and voila! Perfect with a grilled sandwich of prosciutto, fontina, goat cheese and basil.

Arancini: The Noble 10th Century Sicilian Treat That Forced Me From an Early Blog Retirement

2011-07-22T14:55:00.000-07:00

There are but a few places I've made a consistent habit of visitng throughout the past 10 or so years of living in Chicago. Bridget and I have definitely added to that list which once seemed only to include Hot Doug's, Kuma's, Cafe Central, Borinquen, the Flying Chicken and Aloha Grill (to get a rather infrequent Hawaiian plate-lunch fix). Of those, I can only claim to have discovered the Flying Chicken's Colombian-style Pollo a La Brasa (roasted chicken) I love so dearly. It moved from Lincoln Ave to 3402 W Montrose in Albany Park a few years ago but I continue to make the trip. Anyway, go there and get 1 of everything to go.

Strangely, almost every other place I crave and cannot imagine living without came from Eric Kraus, close friend of my brother Brian and later myself. We worked together for years and our lunch options got creative lest they get monotonous. We mourned the closing of Randolph St.'s strange, giant, sterile, and short-lived "Market" as we simply called it: an Italian grocer that had some choice hot grilled food and a ridiculous salad bar--the source from which I developed my true, lasting love affair with hard-boiled eggs simply but heavily salted and peppered. Eric loved the subsequent car rides, I know.

Another, more important Italian place that Eric introduced me to was Bari. Now I've heard the hubbub about Graziano's, but I continue to give my quick and convenient dinner-shopping and sandwich business to Bari. This place is no flash in the pan and so I feel as though I can give them my heart completely and not live in fear of their doors closing. The barese sausage, its casing filled with basil and garlic, is almost too flavorful to eat regularly. Their selection of fresh pasta, cheese, and cured meats remains second to none, in my opinion. I am half italian, but I never ate prosciutto, salami, or romano/parmesan cheeses like it was my job until about 8 years ago when I first walked into Bari for an italian sub. I rarely eat the sandwiches anymore, but their meatball with provolone or the sausage with sweet are both revelations. The meatballs, geniously sliced in half for easier face-jamming, are tucked into a slightly crusty but warm bread with marinara and thinly sliced provolone...see below.

Anyway, two doors west of Bari is D'Amato's Bakery, which supplies a lot of area restaurants with French and Italian loaves, rounds, etc. This, of course, is also where Bari sources the breads for their fine sammies. They also have an amazing selection of focaccia's and pizzas as well as sweets (cherry slices, cannoli) that are well worth checking into. Anyhow, I began heading into D'Amato's after Bari as part of my dinner shopping ritual-- rather Euro of me, to grab fresh things I intend to cook and enjoy that night, rather than hitting Strack or Costco for frozen things or skids of Ragu sauce. One fateful day at D'Amato's I decided to try what looked to be an oversized scotch egg or some bastardization of an empenada-- of course, it was an arancini filled with beef and peas. The arancini is essentially a risotto ball stuffed with any number of things-- most typically you will find beef or spinach and cheese-- and then rolled in bread cumbs and lightly fried. The resultant crust is more soft n' spongy than KFCextracrispy. Bridget and I have taken to grabbing a couple of these from D'Amato's every few months and have proceeded to serve them to (and melt the faces of) not a small number of dinner guests. Based on our love of these treats, we decided to give them a whirl and I'm happy to report that it was a smashing success and that they will become an integral part of our Italian repertoire. Here, with pictures, is the recipe for Arancini. Keep in mind that you can stuff the risotto with whatever meats or veggies or cheeses your little heart desires. Also bear in mind that this is rather time-consuming and labor-intensive-- so make sure you're armed to the teeth with Barolo or beer.

Ingredients:

2 Tblsp butter
olive oil
2 cups arborio (sp?) rice
6-8 cups water or chicken broth
1/2 cup white wine
1 onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, diced
3/4 cup grated parm
2 eggs, beaten

Breadcrumbs

Optional Fillings:

Ground Beef & Peas

Spinach & Cheese (cubed Mozz or Ricotta)

Mushrooms

Sausage

Basil

Prosciutto

Here is our spread:

Instructions:

Get water simmering over med-high heat. (This will be added to risotto in another pot but needs to be hot)

Heat oil and butter and saute onions and garlic together for a few minutes, until transluscent and fragrant.

Add some salt and pepper.

Add rice and stir around until toasty, about two minutes.

Rice toasting with sauteed onion and garlic:

Add wine and stir until mostly absorbed.

Add water/broth a ladle full at a time, stirring until the rice absorbs it before adding more. You may not need all the liquid, so start testing doneness as you cook.

Once risotto is done, transfer to a bowl to cool for 15 minutes or so.

Stir in cheese and beaten eggs once risotto is cool. Let cool some more in fridge until ready to form into balls.

Heat oil in a pan to 375 degrees (med-high)

Once you're ready to do the dirtywork, get your breadcrumbs in a bowl.

Dirtywork:

Form sticky risotto into your palm and load with any desired fillings, covering filling with more risotto and forming a ball. This doesn't need to be an exact science: some of ours were golfball-sized and others baseballs. Some filling was completely hidden inside while others resembled sloppy Lush bath bombs with spinach hanging out or sausage dotting the exterior. The important thing is to cover as much of the exterior with risotto, as that creates the glue to hold the breadcrumbs.

Cover risotto balls with breadcrumbs (panko works though we enjoyed italian-style) and drop into hot oil, turning every few minutes or until golden brown.

Drain excess oil when done, frying arancini in small batches

Once finished, serve with any sauce that sounds good with your particular brand of arancini.

Here is a shot of me preparing my famous red sauce, but since I have no actual recipe written that will have to wait for another day...

Enjoy! We certainly hope your arancini experience turns out-- but if it doesn't please know that you're always welcome to come over to our place and sit down to a piping hot plate of this:

A Plant Project

2011-07-12T10:25:00.000-07:00

We've covered a lot of "taste" in this blog so far, but have left the "sight" and "sound" parts seriously neglected. To that end, here's something to file under "sight" -- a little home decorating project.

While we've been in our new place for a little more than two months now, this summer has been really busy and some of our ideas for decorating the new place have fallen by the wayside. A few weeks ago we hung up our birch tree mural. (Hanging up that birch was kinda a bi*ch, so to speak.) During the last week we finally got around to painting our dining room (beach grass).

Here is an action shot of Mark mid-painting. He's so good and fast at painting, he's a blur in this picture!

One feature of our new place that we loved right away was the built-in planter connecting our spiral stairs to the wall. It is right next to a huge window and is perfect for viney plants, which can hang down into the dining room.

This weekend we ventured up to Gethsemane Garden in Uptown, which ranks as one of my favorite stores in Chicago. I could go broke here, and I'm not even much of a gardener. We got a bunch of different plants for the house, including the planter box. We didn't want the black bottom of the planter to show through, though, and we weren't up for filling the entire box with soil, so we got two big bags of river stones and Home Depot and a bunch of bags of preserved moss in different varieties. We arranged the plants, dumped in some rocks, and spread the moss on top. Here's the result:

Mark nixed my idea of putting a tiny gnome in there. Here's what it looks like from below:

We still have more ideas for around the house, but this may end up being my favorite!

Eating My Way Through Paris

2011-06-21T13:36:00.000-07:00

Last week I got back from a fantastic trip to Paris. I am lucky enough to have parents who come up with brilliant ideas like renting apartments overlooking Notre Dame. We walked, we shopped, we saw the sights, but mainly we ate. Here are some of the highlights, many of which I may try my hand at reproducing at home.

French onion soup (check out all that cheese!)

Smoked Duck Salad from Chez Toinette in Montmarte

Beef Tenderloin with Madeira Sauce also at Chez Toinette

Roquefort Fondue, yum

Sometimes the best thing is just a hot latte.

The only thing that would have made the trip any better would be if Mark had been there with us, but for now, I will have to try to make the French onion soup for him.

No New Posts Lately, But a New Home!

2011-05-12T11:14:00.000-07:00

Haven't posted lately because we've been busy busy packing up and moving into our new apartment! Here is a picture of Millie nervously navigating the spiral stairs in our new place:

After much initial nervousness, she's a pro at it now, and if you come over she will probably show off her walking up and down the spiral stairs skills for you.

We have some ideas to spruce the new place up, so expect a few crafty-type posts mixed in with the usual recipes. Until then, here's the quick dinner we made last night before heading out to see the hilarious TJ Miller at the Lincoln Lodge.

Quick BBQ Chicken Pizza

This one is not much of a recipe since we used pizza dough from Trader Joe's and you can top pizza dough with pretty much anything (Cuban pizza from Boiler Room...mmm...), but here is what we did for our pizza last night:

Caramelized onions
Chicken, cooked and chopped up
Tomatoes, chopped (Mark got some great heirloom tomatoes at Stanley's, the best tomatoes I've had this year by far)
Red pepper, sliced and sauteed for a couple minutes with plenty of...
Garlic, minced
Green onions
BBQ sauce (we used Sweet Baby Ray's, which we had in the fridge)
Cilantro
Fresh pizza dough from Trader Joe's
Shredded cheddar and shredded Italian cheese blend, also from TJ's

Aside from the cilantro and green onions, throw everything on top of the rolled out dough and pop it in the oven until the crust is crispy. This was about 20 minutes for us. Top with the cilantro and green onions and eat!

Getting Rid of the Cabbage (A Salad Recipe)

2011-04-06T10:43:00.000-07:00

My New Year’s resolution this year is to cut down on stuff. This is partly motivated by an upcoming apartment move, but also seems like a good idea in general (except when Mark catches you sneaking his things into the box destined for Goodwill). One of the small ways I am trying to declutter is to not hold onto magazines. Pre-resolution, I’d hold onto cooking magazines and old issues of The New Yorker for years – yes, years – thinking I’d need a recipe or really be in the mood for that 2008 article on the economics of cashew nut farming in developing countries that I skipped the first time around.

I mention all this because it serves, in a way, as the inspiration for this dinner. A few weeks back I clipped a red cabbage salad recipe from an issue of Bon Appetit magazine before it made its way into the trash. Last week we had half a head of red cabbage a few days away from desperately needing to join the magazine in the trash. I tweaked this recipe using other ingredients we already had and served it with tilapia. We got rid of the magazine and we got rid of the cabbage. Here is the original recip e and here is the version I made:

Red Cabbage Salad with Bacon & Pecans

Half a head of red cabbage, finely sliced (I used our mandolin)
¼ cup dried cranberries
3 T balsamic vinegar
4 slices bacon
1 shallot, finely diced
1 T olive oil
½ cup pecans, toasted and roughly chopped

Soak the dried cranberries in the vinegar for at least 20 minutes. Set aside like so:

Put your sliced cabbage in a large bowl (aka, the bowl you'll serve it out of). Finely dice the shallot and set it aside. Roughly chop the pecans.

Saute the bacon until crispy. Add the shallots and cook for just a few minutes more with the bacon. Remove from heat and stir in the cranberry/vinegar mix.

This will be the salad dressing. Its sweet and tangy qualities work really well with the cabbage. Add the chopped pecans to the cabbage, then the dressing and season with salt and pepper. Mix well:

This went really well with some tilapia that I quickly crusted with panko and sauteed:

Mussels from...Milwaukee

2011-03-29T10:46:00.000-07:00

We think Milwaukee is totally underrated. About a year and a half ago we discovered The Iron Horse Hotel in Milwaukee, and since then it's been our go-to when we want to get out of town for the weekend. We took our third trip up there this past weekend to check out the band Volcano Choir (Justin Vernon from Bon Iver) playing at Turner Hall. Look how cool this place is:

Anyway, Mark should do the we-love-Milwaukee post since he was busy taking pictures all weekend. I will post on the bounty we brought home from one of our favorite spots in that city, the Milwaukee Public Market -- fresh mussels.

Mussels from Milwaukee
1 pounds fresh mussels, from the Milwaukee Public Market or otherwise, picked over (this left us with about half a pound)
1 large carrot, diced
1 large celery stick, diced
1 medium onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
About 1 cup of wine
About 4-5 cups chicken stock
Sage
Basil
About 2 T butter

Pick over your mussels and toss any that are open already or cracked. This left us with a little over half out original amount. Better safe than sorry. I've heard the horror stories of bad shellfish. Clean your mussels. I scrubbed each one, removed any beards that remained, and got them soaking for 20 minutes in ice water. Then I placed them one by one (Mark was very adamant that I move them one by one...) into another, fresh bowl of water. Keep them there until you're ready to cook them.

Make your mirepoix by finely dicing the carrot, celery and onion. Heat some butter and get those sauteing. Once they start to get soft, add the garlic and some salt and pepper. Saute for another minute or two then toss in a splash of wine. Let that reduce a bit -- five minutes or so -- and then add the stock.

Here is what that will look like (minus the stock in this pic):

Let that cook for a while and chop your herbs:

These will go in right near the end. Gently move the mussels (minus their water) into the pot:

Yum. Let that simmer for a while until the majority of the mussels open up. If they don't, toss 'em. Dish these guys up and sop up the broth with some good bread. Or decent bread you get at Target, like us...

Of course when you just come from Wisconsin, have a New Glarus Spotted Cow alongside.

Crepes: Sweet & Savory

2011-03-18T10:51:00.000-07:00

Neither Mark nor I are much of a breakfast eater. We’ll do the occasional egg sandwich on a Sunday morning, but, who are we kidding, by the time we get up and organized enough to cook on a Sunday, it really could count for lunch anyway.

So who knows where my inexplicable craving for crepes came from the other week. Or why I was up and ready for cooking hours before Mark got out of bed, but the stars aligned for Mark to wake up to a crepe breakfast.

I used Alton Brown’s recipe for crepes because it was among the first to come up on Google. I may have been awake enough to try out a new recipe, but not awake enough to dig out the cookbooks and look for recipes.

Crepes – Sweet & Savory

Batter (according to Alton):

2 large eggs
3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup water
1 cup flour
3 tablespoons melted butter
Butter, for coating the pan

*I divided our batter into two: one for savory fillings, to which I added a little salt and other seasonings, and one for sweet fillings, to which I added a tablespoon of powdered sugar

You can add any fillings you’d like. We used:

Savory:

Ham (I used leftover thick-cut lunch meat)

Shredded Gruyere (leftover from the greens casserole from the last post)

Sauteed red pepper strips

Sauteed mushrooms

Garlic

Chopped green onions

Sweet:

Homemade blueberry compote

Ricotta cheese mixed with a little powdered sugar and lemon juice

Powdered sugar for the top.

Combine all the batter ingredients in a blender and pulse. Refrigerate for at least one hour. While the batter was chilling, I got the fillings ready. You can really add anything you'd like. Since this was spur-of-the-moment crepe making, I just dug through the fridge.

After the batter has chilled for an hour, I divided into two and added salt and herbs to the batter I was going to use for the savory crepes, and a little powdered sugar to the sweet batter.

Heat a small non-stick pan over medium-high heat and add a pat of butter and swirl it to coat as it melts. Add about a small ladle-full of batter. I used a rubber spatula to loosen the edges as it cooked for about 10-30 seconds, then flip and cook for another few seconds.

I added the fillings just before it was done cooking so they could warm back up and the cheese would melt. Fold and carefully move to a serving dish. That's it. These were so much easier than I would have guessed.

Mushroom and Greens (and Sausage) Gratin

2011-03-08T14:45:00.000-08:00

The original plan was to make a meat-free casserole for dinner one Sunday a few weeks ago. Not for any particular reason, but I’d seen a recipe for a mushroom and greens gratin in the New York Times’ Dining Section and I had mentally filed it.

Then enter Nick Spencer of Spencer’s Traditional Pork Bangers. Mark and I struck up a conversation with him at the indoor Logan Square Farmer’s Market. We had a heated debate about whether to buy traditional bangers, herb bangers or back bacon. We came home with the traditional variety with the idea to add them to the gratin. So much for the vegetarian dinner aspirations.

I can't find the link to the NYT recipe that inspired this, but we changed it enough that you wouldn't recognize it anyway:

Mushroom and Greens (and Sausage) Gratin

About 1.5 pounds of greens -- I used a big bag of pre-cut collard greens

1 onion, finely chopped

1/2 pound mushrooms (I used baby bellas), sliced

1/2 to 1 pound sausage (or leave out altogether)

3 cloves garlic, finely minced

1/2 cup grated Gruyere

1/2 cup grated Parmesan (split in half since you'll use this in two steps)

1/2 cup panko breadcrumbs

3 eggs

1/2 cup milk

Preheat oven to 375, grease a medium casserole dish

Bring a pot of heavily salted water to a boil and blanch the greens for 3-4 minutes to soften. Use tongs to move them to a pot of ice water to stop the cooking after this step. Once cooled, drain and squeeze the water out, chop if your greens aren't already.

Heat some olive oil in a pan and saute the onion and mushroom for a few minutes until the mushrooms soften up. I, personally, hate raw mushroom, so I tend to let them get nice and brown. Add the garlic and softened greens during the last few minutes of cooking. Salt and pepper to taste - but remember you're adding salty cheese and sausage, so don't go nuts.

Mark came into the kitchen around this time (I suspect it was to make sure I didn't short change the sausage) and he cut up and browned the bangers. They really are good -- a nice little hint of nutmeg (I think?). If you didn't have the meat police taking matters into their own hands, you could brown the sausage first, drain it, and cook the veggies in the sausage grease. Just sayin.

Add the sausage to the veggies, which will look like this:

Whisk together the eggs, milk and Gruyere. Whisk in half the Parmesan, but make sure to save some to mix with the breadcrumbs. Season with a little salt and pepper and mix this in with the veggie/sausage mix. Spread everything into your greased casserole.

Toss your panko with a little bit of olive oil to coat them so they brown up nice, add the rest of the Parmesan and mix well. Sprinkle on top of everything and bake for 35-40 minutes. We ate this up in no time and I'd make it for brunch some time, especially if we get our hands on more of Spencer's bangers.

On Eating More Sweet Potatoes, Take 2

2011-03-01T10:45:00.000-08:00

Although we haven't quite met our weekly goal of eating sweet potatoes, we have been pretty close. Last week we made some great sweet potato oven fries to go with sandwiches and yesterday we made this dish of tilapia with bacony breadcrumbs and garlic mashed sweet potatoes. It's really tasty and really quick and easy.

Tilapia with Bacony Breadcrumbs and Garlic Mashed Sweet Potatoes

This recipe is for two:

2 tilapia filets
3-6 pieces of bacon
About 1/2 cup panko breadcrumbs
1/4 cup grated parmesan

2 sweet potatoes
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup grated parmesan
1 T butter

Saute the bacon (I voted three pieces, Mark voted six and six won) until crispy, drain on paper towels and crumble. Save enough of the grease to brown the panko in. Mix that around till the panko is nice and bacony. Take off the heat and let cool a bit and stir in the cheese.

Meanwhile, get your taters boiling in salted water and preheat your oven to 375 or 400 -- we started at 375 and turned it up to 400 during the cooking.

Season your fish with salt pepper and any other dried herbs you like -- we used Lake Shore Drive seasoning from The Spice House, which we put on nearly everything. Put them in a pan and drizzle with a little olive oil and get those in the oven.

When your potatoes are soft, drain them and mash them, mixing in the garlic and butter. Salt and pepper to taste.

Your fish should be close to done. If it flakes easily with a form you are good to go. Top with the panko mix and pop back in the oven for two to three more minutes to get that nice and browned.

If you have extra panko topping, it's pretty darn good sprinkled on top of the potatoes too.

A Chicken Pot Pie for Mark

2011-02-21T10:59:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned in the beef pot pie post from a few weeks ago, Mark has been craving a chicken pot pie for a while now. A long while. I thought that beef pot pie with the cheddar biscuits would scratch that itch, but it only made his chicken pot pie cravings worse.

So I turned to Thomas Keller's Ad Hoc at Home to try out his chicken pot pie recipe. This book has yet to let us down, and this was no exception.

One thing you should know about this recipe, like a lot of recipes from Ad Hoc -- expect to use nearly every pot and pan you own and don't expect it to be quick.

Here's what you'll need:

Basic Pie Crust

Filling:

1 cup 1/2-inch pieces red-skinned potatoes (I used regular Idaho taters since we have an enormous bag at home that is not getting any younger)

1 1/4 cups 1/2-inch pieces carrots (cut on the diagonal)

12 white pearl onions

3 bay leaves

3 thyme sprigs

24 black peppercorns

1 1/4 cups 1/2-inch pieces of celery (cut on the diagonal)

2 cups shredded cooked chicken (I boiled my chicken with herbs for this, but if you have leftover roasted chicken on hand, that would be incredible in this recipe.)

Bechamel:

3 tablespoons unsalted butter

3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

3 cups whole milk

1 teaspoon kosher salt, or to taste

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, or to taste

1 tablespoon finely chopped flat-leaf parsley

1/2 teaspoon finely chopped thyme

Pinch of cayenne

1 egg, beaten

Make your pie crust and get that in the fridge. Meanwhile, chop your veggies. Mine looked like so (minus the celery):

In three separate sauce pans (this is the start of Thomas going through every pot you own) cover the veggies with water, add one bay leaf, eight peppercorns (really Thomas? not nine? not seven?), and one spring of fresh thyme to each pot. Boil until just tender.

As you get those softened up, boil yet another saucepan with water for blanching the celery. Blanche for one to two minutes and then drain and add to an ice bath to stop the cooking. This also helps keep your celery nice and bright green. Very pretty.

At this point I transferred all the veggies to a cooking sheet to wait while I made the bechamel.

In a medium sauce, add three tablespoons of butter. Once melted, add three tablespoons of flour and whisk constantly for two to three minutes. Then slowly pour in your three cups of milk while whisking. Lower heat so this stays at a simmer and let it reduce to about two cups, which takes about 30 minutes, even after accidentally turning the burner off for a few minutes...

In between whisking the bechamel, I took the bottom pie crust dough out of the fridge. It had been chilling for about an hour. I rolled it out and fit it into the bottom of my pie pan:

Mark scattered the veggies and chicken on top:

At this point the sauce was thickened and I strained it through a fine-mesh strainer. I seasoned it with chopped parsley, thyme, a pinch of cayenne and salt and pepper before pouring it on top of the pie filling.

Next, on with the top pie crust:

I brushed it with a beaten egg and made a steam vent, which was an "M" so there was no confusion whose pie this was:

We popped it in the oven for 50 minutes and dug in:

Mark declared it the best pot pie he's ever had. I would have to agree!

My Clandestino Valentine

2011-02-15T10:57:00.000-08:00

Mark and I were planning a low-key, special dinner at home to celebrate Valentine's Day this year when a few weeks ago I got Clandestino Chicago's email about February underground dinners. These dinners are not cheap, but seemed like an interesting way to celebrate Valentine's Day, so we bought our tickets to the Pilsen Clandestino dinner.

We had no idea what to expect -- location, size, food? The day before our dinner we got the details on the location -- the New Arts Club Building just off 18th in Pilsen. Turns out the building was one of the treats of the night. It was built in 1906, as it current owner and resident shared before dinner. It was unusual, according to him, because of its beaux-arts exterior and arts and crafts style interior. I don't know much about that, but we were immediately impressed with the old woodwork and other preserved details throughout the house.

The building had numerous iterations, including a social club (from what I could gather) for Slovenian immigrants around the turn of the century. The room we had our cocktail hour in was the old billiards room, an exposed-brick room towards the back of the house was the old gym, and the room where we ate was a small ballroom. More recently, the building was a book store and the old stock of books is now stored in the former gym.

Here is a pretty poor picture of the second-floor ballroom where we ate:

The menu of the night combined flavors from the history of Pilsen and called itself Bohemian-Mexican fusion, although I found it leaned more heavily on the Mexican. You can find more details of our menu on the Clandestino site (and I don't feel like repeating that word-for-word here), but I will share our favorite course: lobster dumplings, lobster mushroom consomme and brown butter:

All the ingredients were extremely fresh -- I believe the chef mentioned the mushrooms in the picture above were picked the day before we ate them. Overall, I'd have to the food a solid "B" -- very good, but not great. The entire experience, however, gets an "A." Sign up for their emails if you want to check out a future event. We might.

Beef & Veggie Pot Pie with Cheddar Biscuit Topping

2011-02-08T10:22:00.000-08:00

Yes, it's true, this winter in Chicago has been pretty brutal. Last week we were stuck in the house for two days while we dug out from the blizzard. Today the high temperature is in the single digits and I don't even want to look at the low for tonight. Alas, it is a good excuse to make some comfort foods, if we're trying to find a bright side here.

A few weeks ago we made this beef and vegetable pot pie from Food & Wine. It wasn't quite the chicken pot pie Mark has been asking me to make for him, but no one complained with the finished product. You can make that version if you want to eat pot pie for two weeks (which you may), or you could go with our modified version, which is also a little lighter since all this comfort food is making my jeans snug:

Beef & Veggie Pot Pie with Cheddar Biscuits (adapted from F&W)

3/4 of a stick of butter, cubed & chilled
1/2 a large onion, coarsely chopped
About 3/4 pound of carrots, chopped
About 3/4 pound of parsnips, peeled and chopped
1 1/2 pounds beef (I used extra lean here and it worked fine since it's not the main player in this recipe)
1/2 T thyme
2 1/8 cups flour
About 2 3/4 cup milk (we only had skim at hand and it worked fine)
1 cup chicken broth
1/2 bag frozen peas
3/4 cup sharp cheddar (we used an English Coastal Cheddar I picked up at Trader Joe's and it was awesome all around)

Heat oven to 350

Put the oven racks with the top one in the upper third and the bottom one in the lower third. This recipe tells you to put a pan to catch the drippings on the bottom rack, but I put our casserole dish right on a pan covered in aluminum. Do not skip that step unless you enjoy cleaning your oven.

In a large pot, heat some olive oil and saute the onions, carrots and parsnips until tender. Season with salt and pepper as you go. Add the beef and thyme and cook until browned. Stir in 1/8 cup flour and cook for a few minutes. Stir in 1 1/2 cups milk and your stock and simmer until it thickens. Stir in the peas and season with salt and pepper again. Pour into a 9x13 baking dish.
Time for the biscuits. Mix 2 cups flour with the cubed 3/4 cup of butter. I used a pastry cutter. When it gets a sandy texture, stir in the shredded cheddar. Add a little more than a cup of milk until a smooth dough forms.

I used an ice cream scooper to scoop balls of the dough onto the beef mixture. Bake for 40 minutes and then broil for another minute to brown the biscuits. This ended up delicious with a really nice thyme flavor. With how well this turned out, Mark's chicken pot pie may be next.

On Eating More Sweet Potatoes

2011-01-21T10:52:00.000-08:00

Not all that long ago Mark read that the number one healthiest food is the sweet potato. We arbitrarily decided on the spot to have sweet potato at least once a week, which we are happy with because we both really love them. We've had them mashed with garlic, baked into spicy oven fries, as a hash for breakfast, and tossed into soup. Honestly, if anyone out there has some good sweet potato recipes, send them our way because we're starting to run out...

After Christmas we were browsing through Williams Sonoma, debating how to spend our very generous gift card from Mr. Jim Henry, and we picked up this recipe for Spiced Carrot Soup. As written, this recipe calls for some bizarre product called a soup maker, which I can't figure out the point of since a pot and an immersion blender seem to work just fine.

We ended up fiddling with things and tossed in some peeled and cubed sweet potatoes in addition to the carrots, which then required about twice the amount of stock. We also used sour cream instead of the Greek yogurt, but same idea. I'd skip the crispy prosciutto next time since it seemed out of place to me, but I bet Mark would disagree with me on that point.

Detox and Daquiris

2011-01-17T10:56:00.000-08:00

I realize posting the recipe for lime daquiris on the day Mark and I start our post-holiday detox regimen is ironic, but these suckers are way too good not to share. If your idea of a daquiri resembles an alcoholic slurpee, I recommend you redeem the good name of daquiri, favorite drink of Ernest Hemingway, with these superior homemade libations.

Classic Daquiri
1 1/2 oz. rum (we like Plantation brand)
3/4 oz. fresh lime juice
1 oz simple syrup
Twist of lime peel for garnish

Shake all ingredients with ice and strain into martini glasses. Add your twist of lime to make it pretty.

Since we stocked up the home bar over the holidays, complete with cocktail recipe book, expect more drink recipes posted here.

Spicy Pork and Udon Soup

2010-11-15T16:11:00.000-08:00

This is the finest spicy Asian soup this side of momofuku, urban belly, or whichever place combines delicious broth, noodles, meat, herbs and veggies where you live. The udon was bought at Target (just bear with me)—and you should run (not walk) to buy a few packages before they sever their relationship with Myojo (as Bridget believes they eventually will).

Some folk don’t appreciate udon: too thick? too chewy? too…???? I don’t understand those folk. Udon, for me, is like “Well, I really like spaghetti and egg noodles and…but do you have anything more noodley”. So yeah, I don’t understand those folk.

Anyway, on with the recipe. Shit, it’s a real hodgepodge pot of things now that I think of it. Do you have mirin? Lemon grass? Sesame oil? Sriracha? Some trusty sambal oelek (garlic chile sauce)? Well, they’re not necessarily vital to this soup, but if you answered “no” you ought to seriously consider having them on hand if you like things that taste good or spicy or genuinely Asian.

Ingredients (you can add some or leave some out—it’s really just about what flavors and the rating on the spice index you wish to achieve). Here is what we used and loved:

2 packets udon noodle soup mix

½ cup Cilantro

½ large Carrot

4 cloves Garlic

1 Tblsp sliced Lemon Grass

1 lime

1 small onion

~1 cup meat (shrimp, chicken, pork or beef work well)

Salt & Pepper to taste

Soy Sauce

Mirin

Garlic Chili sauce (or Sriracha)

For this particular round, which is decidedly the best we’ve ever made, we combined one package of “spicy” and one of the “oriental”-flavored udon noodles “from the Target”. Get the requisite amount of water going, add some lemon grass. Meanwhile, chop ½ cup cilantro, crudely knife up a protein if you like, dice about 4 cloves garlic, shred ½ a large carrot, and thinly slice 1 small onion. Sautee onion and optional meat (in our case some previously prepared and thinly sliced pork tenderloin) in sesame oil over medium-low heat. Once the onions are softening and fragrant, you should add the garlic, toss in about half the cilantro, a splash of soy sauce, mirin, and the juice of ½ a lime into the pan. Let this mixture simmer for a few minutes, adding the shredded carrot last for about 1 minute. Then, transfer entire sauté pan into broth and add udon noodles and flavor packets.

Serve in bowls with either chopsticks or a spoon-fork combo (Bridget’s Thai habit), depending on both your level of stick mastery and desire to slurp. Garnish with the rest of the chopped cilantro and, according to your tolerance for heat, some Garlic Chili sauce or Sriracha and then get your bibs on.

Watching Too Much Chopped is Not a Bad Thing

2010-10-28T10:12:00.000-07:00

Being slightly competitive people who like to cook, the TV show Chopped is an obvious choice for weeknight couch time. If you're unfamiliar with the show, the premise is that contestants each get a basket filled with random "mystery ingredients" that they must then use to cook a dish in a set amount of time, which is something ridiculous like 20 minutes. It usually takes me 20 minutes to figure out where I put the bottle of olive oil when I am cooking dinner, but no matter.

Last week we combined the random odds and ends in our fridge to make the above: Goat Cheese and Sun Dried Tomato Chicken. Our ingredients weren't nearly as bizarre as the ones on Chopped, but I was quite happy to have a delicious dinner and clean out the fridge at the same time.

4 chicken breasts (we planned on leftovers)
~8 tablespoons goat cheese
A handful of sun-dried tomatoes, finely chopped
2-3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 tablespoon capers, rinsed and chopped
1/2 small onion, finely diced
Salt & pepper

Mark seasoned the chicken breasts and browned them a bit in a pan. Meanwhile, combine the rest of the ingredients and mix well. Preheat the oven to 375. Once the chicken is browned and cooled a bit, spread the cheese mixture on top and pop in the oven. We cooked them for 10 minutes or so and then turned on the broiler for a few to brown up the cheese a bit. We served them with Israeli couscous and sauteed broccoli and probably ate them while placing bets on mystery ingredients while watching Chopped.

Potato-Bacon Gratin

2010-10-03T17:31:00.000-07:00

I'll miss summer and Sunday mornings filling our bags at the farmer's market, but I'll take a crisp fall afternoon spent checking out pumpkins and eating apple cider donuts still warm in the paper bag (like we did today). I also love the excuse to cook and eat big warm meals. I can't remember exactly what the occasion was last year around this time, but Mark and I decided to spend a Saturday night making a complicated, multi-course dinner for ourselves. We'd never cooked duck at home before, so that became our project.

The duck was fabulous, but I'll save that for another post. Today I'm going to share the recipe for one of our sides, a recipe we've made again since and shared with family: Potato-Bacon Gratin. The recipe comes from Sunday Suppers at Lucques by Suzanne Goin. I love that this cookbook divides itself not by ingredient or course, but by season. For this meal, we also made a great salad from this book, Barbara's apples and Asian pears with radicchio, mint and buttermilk dressing. That also deserves its own post.

Anyway, back to bacon. This recipe is beautiful in its simplicity, but don't be deceived by that either -- the flavors are more than the sum of their parts:

1/2 pound slab applewood smoked bacon
4 cups thinly sliced onions
1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons thyme leaves
2 1/4 pound Yukon Gold potatoes
About 2 cups heavy cream
Kosher salt and black pepper

Heat the oven to 350. Cut the bacon into pieces (lardons) and cook in a large saute pan over medium-high heat for five minutes or so. Remove the bacon to drain but leave the fat in the pan.

Add the onions, two teaspoons thyme, one teaspoon salt and some pepper. Cook for 15 minutes or until the onions start to caramelize. Turn the heat down to low and cook another 10 minutes, stirring often, until the onions are deep, golden brown. Remove from heat.

Use a mandoline to slice the potatoes into the thinnest rounds you can handle. We bought our mandoline specifically for this recipe and we use it all the time now; I recommend investing in one!

Pour 1/2 cup cream evenly onto the bottom of a 9x9 gratin dish. Place one layer of potatoes side-by-side, slightly overlapping, on the bottom. Top with a third of the onions, scatter a third of the bacon on top. Arrange a second layer of potatoes, drizzle 1/4 cup cream over it, season with salt, pepper and a pinch of thyme. Press the potatoes down to let the cream soak up through the layers.

Top with another layer of potatoes, onions and bacon. Drizzle over a little more cream and salt and pepper. Press down again. Drizzle with 1/2 cup cream and two layers of potatoes, salt and pepper. Press. Scatter the rest of the onions and bacon over the potatoes and drizzle with 1/3 cup cream. Season one last time. The cream should cover the potatoes but not be soupy.

Cover tightly with two layers of foil. Bake an hour and a half. Uncover and turn the oven up to 425 and bake for another 20 minutes or until the top is golden brown.

Roasted Tomato Salsa

2010-09-26T17:32:00.000-07:00

Alright, something simple and universal for the first recipe. I'd told Bridgie about a place my brother Brian took me a long long time ago (I think when I was visiting him for my 21st birthday) in Berkeley, CA. Well, thoughtful gal she is, I wound up with a cookbook from the place for Christmas this past year. She has a knack for remembering things you tell her in passing and then BOOM-- you have an argyle vest you may have mentioned you thought you might like after a bottle of wine. Anyway, the place in Bezerkeley is called The Cheese Board Collective, and the eponymous cookbook has amazing bread recipes, cheese pairing advice, etc-- and here all I knew was that you waited in line for a good half hour for a great pizza. We tried out some time-consuming but delicious and crowd-pleasing breads, but the thing we've been using most from the hippy tome is their salsa recipe. It is actually more liquid than chunky in texture, like something waiting on the table for you at a great mexican joint. It can be tweaked to be as spicy or as mild as you want it. It's easy and it rules. Here it is:

from "The Cheese Board Collective Works"

Roasted Tomato Salsa

5 Roma Tomatoes
3 Jalapeno chiles, stemmed
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 cup finely chopped green onions
1/2 cup loosely packed fresh cilantro leaves, chopped
1/8 teaspoon kosher salt

In a cast-iron skillet over medium heat, roast the tomatoes and chiles until the tomato skins are blackened and beginning to fall off, about 10 minutes. Put the tomatoes and chiles in a food processor with the garlic and green onions and pulse for 15 seconds, or until the salsa has a chunky consistency. Pour the mixture into a bowl and stir in the cilantro and salt. Taste and adjust the seasoning.

and Here are the Main Players of SightTasteSound....

2010-09-22T10:40:00.000-07:00

Mark

Bridget

Millie

Our new blog!

2010-09-22T09:38:00.000-07:00

Hello and welcome to SightTasteSound! Bridget, Millie and I are going to be writing about, linking to and photographing a wide variety of topics and things that interest us. The name of the blog is pretty lame, admittedly, but I chose it in a hurry and it seemed to best encompass the senses we'll be focusing on. Some thoughts on music, some recipes we're working on, some books we're reading, some places we've visited...you get the idea. We're not reinventing the wheel here, just putting our brand of fancy rims on it.

We have been together about a year and a half now and have already had some really wonderful experiences together, with many many more planned for the future. We do a LOT of cooking together and like to stretch ourselves in the kitchen, and so we've been thinking about doing a cookbook for friends and family before the holidays.

Onto the title of the blog, then:

SIGHT- some pics of places we go, food we eat, drinks we love, us hugging, our pup Millie doing funny things.

TASTE- I'm thinking we'll be putting some recipes on here, some pics of food, some thoughts on restaurants and bars in Chicago and elsewhere, and-- well, we can use the term "taste" figuratively here and include basically anything that has to do with style, opinion or preference.

SOUND- Music has been of huge importance to us both independently and as a couple. It was one of the things we quickly discovered we had in common that brought us together, and one we have subsequently enjoyed as a couple. We can agree to disagree about the importance of 1980's kiwi pop just as effortlessly as we can make up words to "Alouette" that concern Millie and her eating habits or "aromas". SO yeah, expect some reviews (from 2 totally unqualified people) of shows we go to, albums we're digging, podcasts, whatever.

I hope you'll check in on us once in a while, cook something we've made and enjoy it, check out a band you may otherwise not, give us some suggestions of places to visit, and just interact with us and be a part of this fun experiment.