The Cynosural Blog

I've been making this coleslaw for a few years, now, but somehow never blogged it. It's a bit different in that it contains sour cream, walnuts and dried cherries. If I can find them, I use a combination of dried Bing and Rainier cherries.

Start by soaking for 30 minutes, a total of an half-cup of dried cherries in warm sherry, brandy or wine, just enough to cover the cherries.

Quarter & core one small green cabbage and one small red cabbage. Slice the pieces very thinly. If you have a mandolin, this works great to slice the quarters of cabbage. You should wind up with about 2 quarts of cabbage. Put the shredded cabbage into a large bowl.

Peel and shred two medium, sweet carrots and mix with the cabbage. That mandolin will come in handy here, or just use the vegetable peeler, whittling away at the carrots as if you were making toothpicks.

Slowly pour in around a third of a cup of extra-virgin olive oil over the shredded cabbage/carrot mixture.

If you mix it with your hands, you can feel when you have enough oil to just lightly but completely, coat the cabbage. If you don't like to use your hands, just pour in a third of a cup of oil and hope it's the right amount.

Grind sea salt and rainbow pepper corns over the oiled cabbage to taste, and continue to mix. Set aside.

Juice a quarter to the whole of a small, sweet yellow onion (Walla-Walla, Visalia, or Maui). The amount of onion is really a matter of taste. To juice an onion, peel the amount to be juiced, and rub it over a ceramic, hole-less grater, collecting the juice in a mixing bowl.

Whisk together a quarter of a cup of tarragon white vinegar (wine or rice), a cup of sour cream, a teaspoon of freshly toasted caraway seeds - ground fine, a tablespoon of fine (quick-dissolving) white sugar and the onion juice.

Pour the dressing over the oiled, shredded cabbage.

Drain the cherries, and coarsely slice them; add to the dressed cabbage, and mix.

Chill for at least an hour, but overnight or even a day or two is fine.

Toast an half cup of walnut halves, dice and add to dressed cabbage, right before serving.

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And there you have it.

When I arrived home this past Friday night, there was a fire truck in front of my house, and a group of folk in my back yard. A tabby kitten belonging to new neighbors had run up the cypress tree in our back yard. The general consensus was that she would come down when she was hungry, and an opened can of tuna was left as an inducement.

Several times throughout the night, I went out to check on the kitten, who was mewing quite piteously, between naps. I even tried to get her to chase a spot of light from a flashlight, to get her to lower branches. She watched it, but never budged. I heard others come into our yard during the night, trying to induce the kitten down. But she was unmoved.

I later learned that the owner had come by with an arborist who used my ladder to climb into the tree, which only served to drive the kitten higher.

On Saturday morning, the owners, Sunshine and Leor, convinced the firefighters to come back, this time with a 75-foot hook and ladder truck, and another truck. I think all the on-duty firefighters from the Point Montara Coastside Fire Protection District were there, as well as a bunch of neighbors.

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Chip, whose backyard abuts ours, and who is also a firefighter, directed and photographed from on-high.

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The hook and ladder truck couldn't quite reach the tree from the street.

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But the arborist, using a regular ladder from the fire company, managed to lure the kitten into his arms, and brought her down.

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And all's well that ends well.

Even though I've come down with the flu [while I love working at my current customer, and I'm thankful for all the great people with whom I'm working, a flu has vectored through the place like a wildfire] we managed to make our reservation at the Sardine Factory in Monterey, continuing a tradition of many years.

The menu was much the same: abalone bisque or acorn squash soup, arugala & pear salad with blue cheese or autumn greens fancifully presented, Diestel Turkey with stuffing and gravy, a white & sweet potato tort, green beans and baby carrots, and whole cranberry-orange relish, with a choice of pumpkin bread pudding or pumpkin pie or chocolate pecan tart for desert.

The abalone bisque was a bit disappointing this year. Normally it is a light brown in colour, and redolent of abalone and sherry. This year it was white, thick like a bad chowder and the predominant flavour was of raw flour. Methinks the cook didst slip with the thickening.

The ride down was great. The traffic was light and sky was bright, blue and beautiful along CA Route 1. The Pacific was swollen and foamy, and surfers were everywhere. The ride home was equally great. Again light on traffic and timed for the sunset.

If I do cook this weekend, as I often wind up doing, I'll follow my traditional recipes as described last year. With one exception… I want to recreate the Colonial Virginia Peanut and Chestnut soup that I had when Mike and Chris brought us to Mt. Vernon for the Campus Technology 2007 visit & presentation. I've done research, but haven't been able to find the recipe online, only a forum of frustrated folk who also can't find it, not even in the Mt. Vernon cookbook.

Here's what I'm planning. Parboil raw peanuts in the shell for about 10 minutes, then roast them for another 10 in a medium oven. Cut an X in the shells of raw chestnuts and roast in the medium oven for about 20 minutes. Allow the peanuts to cool, and then put the chestnuts in a brown paper bag, just until they're cool enough to handle, and then shell them. Cook a rich vegetable stock that includes the normal onion, parsnip, carrot, celery, bouquet garni and garlic, but also has a diced turnip in it. When the stock has been simmering on the bricks for most of the day, add the peanuts, still in the shell, as well as the shelled and skinned chestnuts into the stock. After about 10 minutes, remove the peanuts and allow to cool, and then shell. Using a stick blender or a food mill, purée the stock, leaving all the vegetables and chestnuts. If too thick, add more stock or hot water to thin. Shave a raw turnip with a mandolin or slice it thinly with your favorite, sharpest knife, and add the cooked, shelled peanuts and slices of turnip to the soup, and cook for another half hour - salt to taste. I'll let you know how it comes out.

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving Day.

I truly enjoy Shepherds' Pie. I've always wondered though why most recipes call for beef - one would think that Shepherds would have easy access to lamb. Maybe they're raiding the cattle rancher across the ridge

Start by making a soffritto of 2 leeks - sliced, a crushed garlic clove, a sweet red pepper - fired and peeled then diced, a stalk of celery and a peeled carrot - chopped, freshly ground black peppercorns, and 1/2-teaspoon of sweet Hungarian paprika. Salt to taste when the vegetables are fully softened.

Make garlic mashed potatoes with three medium sized yukon golds, peeled, halved and boiled with a crushed clove of garlic for 15 minutes, drained, and reheated with a tablespoon of sweet butter and a 1/3-cup of heavy cream.

Blanch 1/2-pound of blue lake green beans, and dice.

Brown a pound of ground meat - I use a mixture of beef and lamb, sometimes weighted more towards one type, and sometimes more towards the other. Tonight I used 2/3 beef and 1/3 lamb. Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of flour over the meat and brown for 3 more minutes. Use a cast iron skillet that can be put in the oven.

Add the soffritto to the browned ground meat plus 1 tablespoon of HP Brown Sauce, 1/2 bottle of Anchor Steam and 1 cup of beef stock. Simmer until thick.

Mix in the green beans and some freshly chopped parsley, cover with the mashed potatoes and place in a 325ºF oven until the potato topping browns.

Serve with more HP Brown Sauce, crusty bread hot from the oven and Anchor steam - and a salad, if you like that sort of thing.

Enjoy.

I think that the most famous and tasty chicken and rice dish is the Cubano Arroz con Pollo. Look at any recipe for this dish, and you can see elements of Spanish Paella. As I seek to incorporate more of my Italian heritage into my life, I've come to prefer rice done risotto style. So, here's what I did to satisfy that chick and rice craving.

The first thing to remember is the pimiento is an heart-shaped, red pepper that is much meatier, sweeter than, and with no trace of the bitterness that a bell pepper has. You may need to substitute a bell pepper, or you may choose to use jarred pimiento or roasted red pepper. Your choice will have a major impact on the final flavour of the dish.

The second thing is that there are a wide variety of saffron out there. Again, choosing wisely will bring great flavour to the dish.

Start by soaking for an half hour or more, an half teaspoon of good saffron threads in a glass of warmed white wine, hopefully the wine that you'll be serving with the meal. At the same time, preheat your oven to 325°F, and preheat your simmering bricks.

Heat a large, heavy cast-iron skillet over a medium flame; once a drop of water goes skittering across the surface of the pan, add 3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil and 3 tablespoons of unsalted butter. On a back burner, begin simmering 2 cups or so of your most wonderful homemade chicken stock.

As the pan is heating, slice a large white onion, mild green chili such as an Anaheim, and a pimiento. Put into the pan, and transfer to the simmering bricks or a very low flame. Cook the vegetables until translucent, neither brown nor caramelized. Remove the vegetables from the pan with a slotted spoon, retaining as much oil and butter in the pan as possible, and add more if needed, before returning the pan to medium high heat. Peel, core and dice one large Roma tomato.

Coat the pieces of one or two organic frying chickens, along with their livers, heart and gizzard, if you have them, with freshly ground black pepper, sweet paprika, and one-quarter teaspoon of oregano, and brown for about 20 minutes in the pan that held the veggies. Remove the chicken to a flat baking pan, and place in the oven, reducing the heat to 275°F.

As the chicken is sautéeing, to the chicken stock, add the onion and pepper mixture, the tomato, the saffron and wine, two bay leaves, 4 peeled & crushed garlic cloves, a grind or three of nutmeg, a teaspoon of sweet paprika, a teaspoon of toasted cumin seeds after crushing in a mortar and pestle, a few drops or more of your favorite pepper sauce, and a bottle of warm beer [I use Anchor Steam], and bring back to a simmer.

Add a cup [for four people] of arborio rice to the pan, still at medium heat, and sautée until the grains of rice become translucent with an opalescent core. Slowly add a ladle of the spiced chicken stock to the rice, stirring until all the liquid is absorbed, lower the heat or place the pan on the simmering bricks, then add another ladle of stock, and another, until your stock is used up.

Level the rice, arrange the chicken pieces over the rice in the pan, and place in the oven, at 275°F if you have a convection oven, or higher if you have a standard oven, and cook for another twenty minutes or until the chicken is at 185°F to a meat thermometer.

Readers of my blog know that my grandfather spoiled me from eating peas unless they are fresh from the pod, still on the vine. So I use snap peas: clean and pull the string, parboil just until the salted, boiling water comes back to boiling after adding the snap pea pods to the water, and then plunge them in an ice bath.

Steam white or green asparagus.

Take a whole pimiento or other red pepper, core it, and stuff it with the snap peas. Place the stuffed pimiento in the center of the rice still in the pan, and push it down into the rice; arrange the asparagus around the chicken, and cook for another five minutes.

Remove the pan from the oven, and garnish with fresh, clean Italian Parsley or Cilantro leaves, and place the pan on the table.

Some nice white wine, beer or even better, Mojitos, a loaf of crusty peasant style bread, and you have the best chicken and rice around. Buon Gusto.