First Post / Alex's Graduation

I've been meaning to start tracking meals that I've prepared and food interests for a while now and finally found a little bit of time to do so. It has also helped that Melissa was able to take some photos -- my focus is elsewhere while things are hopping in the kitchen.

On Wednesday, Iris and I shopped for ingredients -- we tried to get as many ingredients from our favorite local farm, Willow Creek Orchards. It is a bit early in the season but asparagus is at its peak and there are a lot of root vegetables and spring greens.

In order to streamline preparation on Thursday I made a dinner salad based on a Fine Cooking recipe from June/July 2009 for "spinach and artichoke salad with couscous cakes and feta" to cover lunch and dinner. I was able to use local fresh spinach and supplemented the salad with chicken sausage from Hendrick's Dairy. I varied the recipe by using dried mint instead of fresh (I need the requisite green thumb for an herb garden) and using mature spinach. The end result was quite good and stretched for two meals (after doubling).


The graduation meal was:

• roasted yukon gold potatoes
• pan roasted asparagus (Cook's Illustrated March / April 2007)
• root vegetable (radish, turnip, carrot, cabbage) cole slaw (adapted from Fine Cooking June/July 2009)
• lump crab cakes (Fine Cooking June/July 2009)
• wasabi cucumber salad
• salsa fresca with pickled onion
• cocktail sauce
• cinnamon, brandied raisin, toasted walnut ice cream (Fine Cooking June/July 2009).

Overall the meal went without a hitch. Of note: wasabi powder does not do well as a primary flavor (nor does it present well), infusing cream with cinnamon stick does not work well -- I resorted to using ground cinnamon, handling a large quantity of custard is a bit tricky (better to do multiple smaller batches) and it leaves a lot of homeless egg whites.


With so much family in town we also did a special dinner the next night. My mother had some venison that I planned to roast. The intent was to truss two oblong roasts together until it was discovered that one of the packages was ground venison. In the end we managed to serve 12 with a 2.5 pound roast supplemented with some venison meatballs courtesy of my brother. I don't have any pictures but the meal was:

• mashed yukon gold
• sauted cremini and yellow onion
• pan roasted potatoes, onions and carrots
• slow roasted venison wrapped with Hendrick's Farm and Dairy bacon (I have no idea what cut or the age of the deer) -- Cook's Illustrated January / February 2008
  
• cold beet, asparagus salad with toasted sunflower seeds, feta and balsamic vinegar, olive oil and shallot reduction

The venison worked out well with the slow oven technique from the recipe and it did not taste gamy at all. Normally I would have made a pan gravy but we were serving a family member with Celiac disease so I played things safe. This recipe does not generate enough heat to properly cook vegetables with the drippings. While the roast stood I finished the vegetables with the bacon from the roast in a frying pan. The beet and asparagus salad worked very well although the beets really discolor the feta.

Sunday breakfast was rich corn cake (Fanny Farmer cookbook) muffins, fresh chunky Jonagold apple sauce and Hendrick's Farm bacon. Of note: the corn cakes dry out quickly. For lunch I did a variation on the asparagus and beet salad (but using greens instead of the root) and I got a photo: