Saturday Brunch and Flour Cookbook Review

We've been on an at-home brunch kick for the last few weeks; last week I hosted wine club at my place for brunch and this week, A. and I made a nice brunch for the guys yesterday. Our friends from Boston had given us the Joanne Chang's "Flour" cookbook earlier in the week and I've been eager to try out her delicious looking (and fortunately, not too complicated) pastry recipes. I really like Joanne Chang's story; she is a Taiwanese American who graduated from Harvard with a degree in applied mathematics and econ, went into management consulting and left to pursue her culinary dreams instead, working her way up various Boston fine dining establishments and eventually finding pastry as her calling. She founded and owns three Flour Bakery & Cafes around Boston.

We made the raspberry rhubarb muffin from her cookbook to go along with Giada's Italian Sausage Egg Bake which was on a recent episode of Giada's foodnetwork show. We followed both recipes closely; the muffins took about 20 minutes to cook (rotating a few times) and we had enough batter to make 12 regular size and 12 mini size muffins. The only change to the sausage and egg dish was using chicken sausage as opposed to turkey sausage. Both dishes were delicious and I would definitely make both again; the rhubarb gave the muffin a lovely tart flavor and the texture and consistency of the muffin were perfect: light and fluffy on the inside with a beautiful smooth crust on the outside. I think the creme fraiche in the recipe made all the difference. It had just the right amount of sweetness too, often I find recipes to use too much sugar. In the future, orange zest might be a nice addition and I would probably use fresh raspberries so that they maintain their structure better. The savory dish:,the sausage and egg bake was delicious too; lots of bright contrasting flavors and textures: the sweet and chewy sundried tomatoes, tangy goat cheese, savory sausage, fresh spinach and basil, crunchy croutons, topped off by a soft runny egg.

Muffins "before"

"After"

Italian Sausage Egg Bake before the eggs

After the eggs

Done! We cooked it for about 19 minutes because we didn't want the eggs too runny

I've only made one recipe so far, but I look forward to trying many more!

Manhattan Beach Wine Club

Last Saturday was the perfect night for wine club at R's place just a block from the beach in Manhattan Beach. I really like Manhattan Beach; it has more of a quaint beach town vibe vs. Santa Monica / Venice, generally cleaner, nicer and less touristy.

2nd Annual Westside Wine Club Trip

Last weekend, I headed up north to Santa Barbara for a weekend of wine tasting and fun with my Westside Wine Club girls. The 11 of us had a blast; we had a private shuttle and tasted at Roblar, Rusack, Buttonwood Farms, Longoria and Tensley. We ordered pizza and stayed overnight at a big house right by the beach in Mesa, Santa Barbara and my group hung out the next day as well doing what girls do best: shopping in downtown Santa Barbara and having a great lunch (despite the hour wait) at La Super-Rica, before heading back to LA and the real world.

Roblar

The lovely Rusack where we had a private tasting and also picnicked

We learned that they plant rose bushes at the ends of the rows of grapevines because pests will first attack the roses, so that they will get the heads up to protect the wine grapes. It's also pretty

I find being in wine country immediately relaxing

In the barrel room at Buttonwood

Love barrel tasting

I love seeing the whole wine making operation from beginning to end

Nothing like a private tour with the assistant winemaker

Can you see the baby grape cluster

Showing Westside love

I love Los Olivos, so quaint. Hard to not love a town centered around wine. Everyone just seems so...happy

Longoria, always one of my favorites

Shopping in Santa Barbara on Sunday. Such a lovely town to leisurely stroll around

Lunch at La Super-Rica

Yes, we waited about an hour

Finally inside the front door

But oh so worth it: the special Calabacita taco with zucchini and pork

Al Pastor pork taco. They handmake fresh all their corn tortillas

Cheese and chorizo to be wrapped in warm tortillas. What could be better

Super Rica Especial, chili with pork and cheese

La Super Rica

622 North Milpas Street

Santa Barbara, CA

Sausage Peppers and Onions Pizza

Last night was wine club for the girls and whiskey night for the guys so pizza tonight seemed like a good recovery meal to cure the previous night's excesses.  We've been on a vegetarian pizza kick lately, so I decided to make a traditional sausage, peppers and onions pizza as our first pie (and our favorite spinach pizza as our second pie).  I cheated and tried out Trader Joe's premade pizza dough.  It was fine, but made for two small pizzas and was still expensive relative to making our own dough so I would probably continue making my own dough in the future.  For the first pie, I sliced half an onion, one large red bell pepper, 4 cloves of garlic and 2 links of mild italian sausage.  I heated up a saute pan with a little olive oil over medium heat and first sauteed the onions until soft (10 minutes), then added the peppers until soft (another 10 minutes or so; I really wanted the onions and peppers to caramelize), and then added the sausage and cooked it until it was fully cooked through.  I stretched out the dough, brushed it with some olive oil, spooned on tomato sauce (tomato puree, salt and pepper, a few cloves of garlic, and a few shakes of dried oregano), sprinkled with grated light jarlsberg and aged peppered pecorino romano, ladled the sausage, pepper and onion mixture, and topped with some sliced garlic.  I baked the pizza on the pizza stone at 525 degrees for about 8 minutes and it was done.  It was really tasty; the onions and peppers caramelized nicely and were soft and sweet, and there were nice meaty bites of sausage with the cheese and hint of tomato sauce.  After the spinach pie, we were totally stuffed.  Perfect meal after a night of drinking.  We've been doing a really good job of cooking at home lately; K. cooked at home all 10 days that I was in Asia (very proud of him), and I've cooked every meal in the week since I got back from Asia.  Sounds a bit odd, but I like the feeling of filling our fridge completely with groceries and watching it disappear as we cook our way through everything, very satisfying.

Everyone Loves New Shoes

Thank you S. for my new sandals! I've been admiring these Tory Burch sandals ever since S. wore them on our Santa Barbara wine club trip and have been trying to track them down since then with zero luck.  Not only did S. remember how much I adored her shoes, she managed to find them and get them for me, even after all these months.  We have very similar tastes in clothes and shoes :).  I also received my Nike Free Runs from Finish Line yesterday.  I really like the Nike Free line; the shoes are comfortable, very lightweight, great for walking the dogs and travel since they pack down to nothing and are easy to slip on and off.  I tried to look for more inexpensive lightweight walking / running shoes but I couldn't find any.  I don't run that much in them except when I travel because I prefer more support with my knee problems; I like to run in my more supportive Sauconys, which also help with my overpronation issues.  I've completely worn out my two previous pairs of Nike Frees 5.0 which have actually torn in multiple places.  They've improved the updated versions, the Free Runs, and they should be much more durable.  Plus, I love the combination of gray and hot pink; I was happy to find this pair since they were sold out everywhere! I was also able to get 15% off and free shipping; you can easily find Finish Line coupon codes online; always worth checking!  I'll be bringing both these pairs of shoes with me on my upcoming Taiwan / China trip.

Hot Tub Time Machine Wine Club

We had wine club on Saturday night in my backyard; the theme was hot tub time machine and everyone came dressed up in their finest 80's gear and brought white wine that we blind tasted in paper bags.  In addition to an antipasti plate, I made roasted tomato, burrata, pesto crostinis, smoked salmon mousse on crackers, salad with roasted beets, roasted almonds and a shallot champagne vinaigrette dressing and a turkey kale lasagna (not pictured unfortunately).  I kept everything relatively fresh and healthy; almost everything was organic and mostly from the farmer's market and Whole Foods.  More pictures here.

Roasted Tomato, Burrata, Pesto Crostinis:

• Wash and slice 1.5 lbs of organic roma tomatoes
• Layout on a large sheet pan, drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper and roast in an oven at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes, until the tomatoes and nice and soft.  Roasting the tomatoes really brings out the sweetness in the tomatoes
• Slice on a diagonal 1 large baguette (from Bay Cities), layout on a large sheet pan and toast in the oven at 400 degrees for 5-10 minutes until the top is just crunchy
• Spread one layer of pesto (recipe), layer on one tomato, a scoop of fresh burrata from Gioia, drizzle with a little olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper and serve

Smoked Salmon Mousse

• Chop up 1/2 lb of smoked salmon filet (not thinly sliced, you can find smoked salmon at both Trader Joes and Whole Foods) in a food processor
• Add ~4-5 TBs of light soft cream cheese to the food processor and blend.  Adjust cream cheese accordingly; add cream cheese until the mixture is smooth, with no dry flakes of salmon visible
• Add 1/2 tsp of horseradish, 1 tsp of worcestershire sauce, a drizzle of honey, a squeeze of lemon and white pepper to taste, and blend all together (you can play around with these ingredients, you don't necessarily need all them)
• Pipe the smoked salmon mousse onto round crackers (I cut a small hole in the corner of a ziploc bag and squeezed the salmon mousse through the hole onto the crackers)
• Sprinkle chopped chives over the crackers and salmon mousse

Turkey and Kale Lasagna (I made two 9x13 pans, but this is a single pan recipe)

• Over medium heat in a 5 quart Le Creuset oval french oven, heat up a couple TB of olive oil and saute 1 chopped large organic onion for 5-10 minutes until softened.  Add 4 cloves of minced garlic towards the end and saute for 1-2 minutes (one thing that I meant to do but forgot is to first saute 1/4 lb of cubed pancetta, and then cook the onion and garlic in the leftover oil)
• Add 1 large organic orange pepper (or red or yellow) and two chopped carrots and saute until starting to soften
• Add 1/2 lb of hot italian turkey sausage, 1/2 lb of mild italian turkey sausage (sausages removed from casings) and 1/2 lb of organic dark ground turkey meat (all from Whole Foods).  Saute until cooked, and break up the turkey as much as possible
• Add a little milk (I used a little heavy cream since I had it in the fridge) to the turkey to tenderize it a bit
• Add tomato paste (I used half a 6 oz can of tomato paste and a couple squeezes of san marzano tomato paste) to the meat and stir it around until the tomato paste caramelizes a bit and turns a rust color
• Add ~1 cup of red wine and 1 28oz can of organic diced tomatoes, handful of minced parsley, a few basil leaves, 1 tsp of fresh thyme leaves, 1/2 tsp of dried oregano, bring to a boil and simmer uncovered for at least 1/2 hour
• Blanch 1 bunch of kale (stems removed) and add to the pot towards the end.  The red sauce part of the lasagna is done (I made this part the night before)
• For the white part of the lasagna: combine 1 lb of fresh ricotta from Gioia, 1/4 lb of fresh goat cheese, 1 large egg, handful of minced parsley, 1/2- 1 cup of grated parmigiana reggiano, 1/2 tsp of salt, 1/4 tsp of ground pepper and mix it all together
• Slice 1 lb of fresh mozzarella
• To assemble the lasagna, in a 9x13 baking dish, layer 1 cup of red meat sauce, 3 pieces of lasagna noodle, 2 cups of red meat sauce, 1-2 cups of the ricotta mixture, slices of mozzarella cheese, 3 pieces of lasagna, 2 cups of red meat sauce, 1-2 cups of the ricotta mixture, slices of mozzarella cheese, 3 pieces of lasagna, 2 cups of red meat sauce, slices of mozzarella cheese and top with grated parmigiana reggiano
• Baked covered in foil in a 375 degree oven for 30 minutes, uncover, and then bake until bubbling throughout the pan

Shallot and Champagne Vinaigrette Dressing:

• Mince finely 1 small shallot; about 1 TB 
• Add 1/4 - 1/3 cup of champagne vinegar
• 1-2 tsp of dijon mustard
• 1-2 tsp of agave nectar
• Salt and pepper and whisk together and let sit for at least half hour to let the flavors combine 
• Add 1/4 cup of olive oil and whisk it all together.  Taste for seasoning

August Wine Club

Sunday, Tracy hosted a lovely champagne brunch at her new place in Santa Monica.  For pictures and details, visit the Westside Wine Club blog.

The Ricochet

Last night, a bunch of us went to Hollywood to attend the debut of a short film that a couple of wine clubbers and their husbands produced / edited / starred in, "The Ricochet" at the LA Shorts Film Festival.  It was so exciting to see their film on the big screen and it turned out really well! Check out their trailer on youtube.

June Wine Club

Michelle hosted June wine club at Bin 73.  Click here for more pictures and details...

For real, our waiter's tattoo