Surrey, England with the Bemis's

I have been in England since Thursday visiting the most fabulous couple in the world.  I have been playing house in Surrey County and it is really hard.  We are packing and cleaning for the upcoming move to another home in the County.  To gear up for the week, we relaxed at a few gastro pubs.  These pubs still have the feel of pubs but they also have sections that have the feel of fine dining.  This past weekend we had a quick dinner at the Horse & Groom in Guildford while Nathan was fencing.  Cory and I had pizzas and Dale ate the Chicken and Leek pie.  Local ingredients are big over here, too, so everything was made fresh and the pizzas were similar to our artisan pizzas in the states.  And it happens to be Cask Ale week ~ how convenient.  28 September to 7 October.  Our pints were Red Fox, Doombar & Bombardier. 

Saturday, with a full moon, we did the mountain bike pub ride (or race if Cory is leading).  We had dinner (fish & chips!!) and pints at the Rose and Thistle.  We rode to the Olde Wheatsheaf, Ye Olde White Hart, then the Embers Inn's Crab & Dragon.   All the beers I drank were traditional English cask red ales.  When Dale reports home from work, he will have to fill me in on the pints we had.  I know we had Young's Special Ale, Doombar and Nichols.

Okay, I need to get back to packing ~ maybe I will have to open a bottle as I am knackered and hoping for some cask ales later.

Music Fridays Downtown Lancaster

We rode the pub bikes downtown for music Friday.  Every third Friday of the month musicians fill businesses, restaurants and the streets of Lancaster with wonderful sounds.  The humidity of summer broke last week so the weather has been glorious with sunshine and breezes.  Pour on Prince posted on facebook they tapped one of our favorite beers, tripel karmeliet so Brad winds us through the streets of Lancaster to enjoy a short jaunt on the bikes.  We sat outside on the patio devouring duck fat fries drinking a tripel karmeliet.  An hour later, we rode two blocks to Carr's and there in the alley of Central Market was heaven; great food, drink and music.  Carr's developed a wonderful relationship with Sakura, a Japanese restaurant that has the best sushi in town and they had a portable sushi bar set up for the evening.  With a couple of Hennipens with three plates of sushi and music from two of the musicians from Vinegar Creek Constituency, we were set for a fabulous evening downtown.  They played some Dylan, Blue Grassy, Old Tyme music.  Life is good.

Checkers Bistro

Awesome; I have jury duty for three days!!  Got laptop and ESPN so I am set in the juror's lounge for  now.  Already ate all my granola bars by 10 a.m. so I had to buy a dry soft pretzel from the courthouse cafe.

Time to blog...  And dream about the fabulous meal I had Friday night at Checkers Bistro .  I am assuming David Payne was working in the kitchen as the cod was made to perfection with an Asian glaze. He made a cod melt in my mouth like Sea Bass.  The oyster mushrooms were tasty, asparagus crisp and the wide rice noodles rolled into chewy tubes that were made with the same Asian glaze that had a bit of a kick to it.  YUM!  And I almost forgot about my tomato almond bisque.  Amazing and these were the specials for the evening.  You can count on an excellent meal every time at Checkers Bistro.  Carr's Restaurant & Crush Wine Bar is the same way. You can never go wrong with what is on the menu or the specials.  The best two restaurants in Lancaster City.  Come on downtown and enjoy!!

Smith Island Cake

In May, I attempted to make a Smith Island Cake which has made Smith Island, Maryland, famous.  Saveur magazine has again afforded me with a wonderful recipe that I was able to mess up for the good (ended up add too much butter). It is an eight layer cake that I don't have the patience to slice the layers so when I read that I should bake the cakes in four pans at a time made perfect sense.  Brilliant!! I would have chopped the cake to shreds instead of slicing it.  I had so much fun and overloaded on a lot of sugar as I made the frosting, too.  All natural!  It did not look as professional with a "flat" top to the cake but it sure tasted really good even though I added an extra stick of butter in the batter (I am a space cadet with math).

FOR THE CAKE:

24 tbsp. unsalted butter, melted, plus more for pans

3 1/2 cups flour, plus more for pans

4 tsp. baking powder

1 1/2 tsp. kosher salt

2 1/4 cups sugar

2 cups milk

1 tbsp. vanilla extract

6 eggs

FOR THE ICING:

2 oz. unsweetened chocolate, chopped

2 oz. semisweet chocolate, chopped

2 cups sugar

1 cup evaporated milk

6 tbsp. unsalted butter, melted

2 tsp. vanilla extract

The Comfort of Soup

Life happens or can take over and it had for a few months. I have regained some of my normalcy and finally had a good weekend and I think I can credit it to being able to cook soups, dig in the garden and ride my bike.

Yesterday was a perfect day to be prepping for the week with our meals except we are pretty good plowing through them quickly. With the ease of buying broth in cans or cardboard, making soup is easy. Although, it can get costly. One has the option of bouillon cubes but they tend to have either MSG or partially-hydrogenated oils. Lately, I have fallen back on the old fashion, make my own, vegetable stock and it has turned out great.

In a 16 quart, stainless steel stock pot made in the USA, I had about 12 quarts of water, two chopped carrots, one large onion-chopped, one stalk of bok choy, four smashed garlic gloves, green part of two leeks (not the white part - I use that for stir frys and not the end, too tough) and salt and pepper. I brought it to a boil then let it simmer for hours because I had other stuff to do. I split the soup stock and made an Asian noodle soup and my mainstay mushroom barley soup.

What is great about making soups is you do not have to measure anything. I did not use a recipe for the Asian noodle soup. I sauteed about a pound of chopped bok choy (leaves and white stems) in olive oil and a little sesame oil with three garlic cloves, shittake mushrooms, and some carrots for color. I brought the stock to a boil and added the dry soba noodles. Once the noodles were al dente, I added the bok choy, stir-fry. I love a great noodle soup.
Mushroom barley is a great comfort food, too. The first time I made this soup, I followed Zingerman's Ann Arbor recipe from Epicurious.com. I am not a fan of celery or parsley so I leave those out and add about a half cup of shittake mushrooms and the liquid after rehydrating them for the soup. I pass on the flour, use butter or olive oil to saute the veggies and use a vegetable stock, too. Brad loves those dill pickles so I save those jars to keep my soups in if there is any left over.

Swedish Pancakes ~ again

I posted this recipe in 2007 and here it is again to get me started on blogging again. I should be studying for my comprehensive exams but I am very good at procrastinating. I let the mix marinate overnight. It is oh, so good with real maple syrup and fried in a pan of butter.

This is the the same recipe but doubled. I use the 8 quart, Pampered Chef measuring bowl. One of my favorites along with their cooking stone I use for pizza & nachos.

4 cups of rolled oats

1 cup of flour

1/4 cup of sugar (I usually don't have white sugar so I use brown or honey)

2 tsp baking soda

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

4 cups of buttermilk (Maplehofe's)

4 eggs, beaten

1 stick of butter

2 tsp vanilla

Look at them oats! Hmmm.

Egg and Spinach Stuffed Meatloaf

Awesome recipe and easy to make; my best meatloaf yet. Picture credit to Saveur.com (Todd Coleman) magazine and the recipe, too. Of course I improvised because I don't like to waste (used the crust-minus one slice), no mortadella available, lazy so I chopped the onions not minced, didn't have garlic, no nutmeg either, and used chicken broth instead of beef. The chardonnay was pretty yummy for the white wine. Ober loves meatloaf, I love eggs and spinach. Perfect mix.

Serves 4

3 slices crustless white bread

Kosher salt, to taste

16 oz. spinach leaves, stemmed

12 oz. ground beef chuck

12 oz. ground pork

4 oz. thinly sliced mortadella, minced

1 cup finely grated Pecorino Romano or Parmesan

1 tsp. minced fresh rosemary leaves

1⁄4 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg

2 eggs, lightly beaten, plus 3 hard-boiled eggs

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 medium onion, minced

Freshly ground black pepper, 
to taste

2 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil

1⁄2 cup beef broth

1⁄2 cup white wine

1. Tear bread into small pieces and transfer to bowl of food processor. Process until finely ground; set aside. Bring a 4-qt. saucepan of salted water to a boil. Add spinach and cook, stirring, until just wilted, 15–30 seconds. Using a slotted spoon, transfer spinach to a bowl of ice water. Drain spinach and squeeze it with your hands to remove excess water. Set spinach aside.

2. Heat oven to 400°. In a large bowl, combine the bread crumbs with the beef, pork, mortadella, cheese, rosemary, nutmeg, beaten eggs, garlic, and onions, and season with salt and pepper. Transfer half of the meat mixture to a 9" x 13" baking dish. Using your hands, form meat mixture into a 4" x 8" rectangle about 1" thick. Arrange half of the spinach on top of rectangle in a 2"-wide strip down the middle. Arrange the hard-boiled eggs end to end on top of the strip of spinach, and top eggs with remaining spinach. Using your hands, shape the remaining meat mixture on a sheet of parchment paper into a rectangle roughly 4" x 8" and lay it over the spinach, eggs, and meat. Press the meat gently around the eggs to form a uniform loaf, pinching top half of meat together with bottom half and smoothing any seams.

3. Brush meat loaf with oil and bake for 30 minutes. Pour in broth and wine and continue cooking meat loaf, basting every 10 minutes or so with liquid, until an instant-read thermometer inserted into the loaf registers 155°, about 20 minutes more. Using a spatula, transfer meat loaf to a cutting board and let rest for 5 minutes. Strain cooking liquid; set aside. To serve, cut meat loaf into thick slices, transfer to a serving platter, and spoon some of the reserved cooking liquid over the top.