Grilling season has begun !

Here is the photographer for this post taking a selfie.

I have discovered flank steak !!
We don't eat a lot of meat on a daily basis, I do get the hankering every so often for some nice red meat. Bob and I usually will share half a pound of flank steak, that's 4 ounces each. I have been getting the flank steak at my favorite butcher , El Salchichero.
I prefer my meat to be local and grass fed.

The first time I made this version of grilled flank steak, I didn't realize it would come out so tasty. The next time Genna came home, I made it again, this time with photos and measurements.

Here is the naked flank steak, it's about 1/2 to 3/4 inch thick.
I made this great rub to put on it.

Laurie's Flank Steak Rub

3 teaspoons powdered mustard
2 teaspoons dried thyme
2 teaspoons paprika
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
1 teaspoon celery seeds
1 teaspoon dried summer savory or basil
2-3 teaspoons salt

Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl, store whatever you don't use in a bottle for next time. If making the rub is just too much bother you can use whatever rubs you have laying around or just add some salt and dried thyme to chili powder.

Lightly rub the steak with olive oil, then rub on the rub. You can put it on thick or thin depending on your tastes. Be sure to do both sides.

Allow your grill to heat up before placing the steak on it. For a 1/2 inch steak, 3 minutes a side on direct heat is plenty. One of the recipes I read had me leave it on the grill but with indirect heat for a minute each side. Slightly longer for a thicker steak.

It is very important to let your steak rest for at least 5 minutes once you have removed it from the grill. Resting will keep the juices from flowing out when you cut it. Bob read me this long explanation about why this happens that had water balloons and cells in it, just trust me*.  Set the timer, go set the table, finish the salad and the side dishes.

Now comes another very important part, cutting the meat against the grain. I recommend looking carefully at your meat before you cook it. As you can see above the grill marks might throw you off but if you look beyond those marks you can see the long striation that are horizontal in this photograph.
 Cutting the meat in the other direction with cut those long fibers and make your steak more tender and easy to chew.

Now you are ready to eat that delicious steak. My photographer was so ready she forgot to take a photo of the meat plated with Laurie's Potatoes and a huge green salad.

Here she is taking another selfie as she tests the raspberry crisp I made for dessert.


* Bob sent me this brief explanation about resting the steak:

"As is the case with so much to do with cooking steaks, there is a key temperature involved in resting a steak. The idea with resting is basically allowing the hot steak to cool to about 120° to 125°F. At that temperature, the cells have relaxed enough so that the juices can flow back in. "

 He added this admonishment:
 DO NOT POKE THE STEAK WITH A MEAT THERMOMETER.
The juices will run out and you will defeat your purposed. Instead just let the damn thing rest for 5-10 minutes before cutting it.

Natural Bridges Farm Stand: your secret garden.

We bought all of this organic produce for $20.

The Natural Bridges Farm Stand is not really YOUR secret garden but it could be.
A few weeks ago we were taking a walk out to Terrace Point with some friends.

At the end of Delaware St. we saw these signs.

Our friends wanted to check it out, we walked down Shaffer Road to the farm.

We were greeted by row and rows of beautiful organic produce. I knew that the Homeless Garden Project was out this way but I had no idea how big, well organized and welcoming it was.

It is officially called the Natural Bridges Farm Stand, it's open 10 AM to 4PM , EVERYDAY !!!

Here's how it works, you show up with your grocery list, some bags and cash. You look at the menu of what you can harvest.

 

They will supply you with a basket and clippers. All three times we have gone, someone has been happy to show us the correct rows, how to select the best veggies and what else might be available to harvest.

Genna could choose carrots the size she wanted.

I love being able to literally hand pick my veggies. The cabbage from that row was so sweet, the kale so succulent and we tried kohlrabi for the first time and loved it. I will post more about that :-)

They grow three varieties of strawberries. Today the gent in the patch told us we had to sample them as we picked !! We came home with four baskets of strawberries !!

They have flowers and herbs for the picking as well.

AND if coming out to pick your own vegetables seems like too much work, they offer CSAs.
That means they will deliver this beautiful stuff to your door weekly !!

For us Natural Bridges Farm Stand is such a great solution.
We get just as much fresh organic produce as we need each week, if I can contain myself.
We pick it, so it is as fresh as it can be.
Shopping in a garden can't be beat for ambiance.
We are supporting a non-profit community organization to boot.

Index in progress !

Sometimes I don't start at the beginning, I jump in the middle and go from there.
That's how I started this blog three years ago. I never took the time to learn "how to do a food blog", I just started doing it. It was mostly so I would have a way to keep all my recipes in one place AND be able to easily share them with friends. I have been trying to improve it in little steps as I go along.

I  posted about how search on this blog at the end of last year.

Now I have finally figured out how to make an index !!!
It is a work in progress. I will have to do some back tracking to make it fully functional.

For now you can see the index on the right side of the page. If you click on the label it will show you all the recipes or posts with that label.

I will see if I can make it show you just a list...another thing to try and figure out :-)

Anyway, it's a step in the right direction.

Strawberry "shortcake" for the chocolate lover.

A couple weekends ago our friends, Rex and Margaret, came for a visit. Rex is a true chocoholic, so I usually try to come up with some new amazing chocolate dessert.
It is strawberry season, I really wanted to showcase our local fruit and I had made almost every very chocolate dessert in my repertoire...

Somehow I had to get chocolate into my strawberry shortcake, suddenly it hit me, use a brownie for the "shortcake" !!

I love my brownie recipe. It calls for 3 ounces of cream cheese which I didn't have handy so I used the same amount of my thick yogurt instead. And instead of chocolate chips, I took the time to chop some nice dark chocolate into small pieces. The results were fantastic. The brownies were great by themselves and as a base for the strawberries and whipped cream.

It's always a food festival with Rex and Margaret in the house. Here is the rest of the menu from that evening.

Freshly picked asparagus roasted on the grill. Margaret brought us a huge bag from her brother's farm.

Laurie's potatoes.

Three different kinds of sausages from local charcuterie, El Sachichero, also on the grill.

A huge green salad.

Here is happy Rex and that's even before dessert !!

Baklava, patience in a pastry.

Baklava is one of those baked good that takes time and patience to make but if you love it like I do, it's worth making yourself at least once or maybe twice... If you don't have the patience then go ahead and buy it at Trader Joe's or better yet from the Greek Food Fair that happens a couple of times a year in downtown Santa Cruz.

I had not made baklava in several years and the filo( or phyllo) dough in my freezer kept calling to me.

Use me !!

I had a recipe I had clipped from some food magazine plus the one from a favorite international cookbook, I decided to take ideas from both.

One recipe used ghee or clarified butter, which is now carried at Trader Joe's.











The same recipe called for saffron, also carried at Trader Joe's.

The last odd ingredient is either rosewater or orange blossom water. I allowed Bob to choose which one he preferred, that may have been a mistake. These flower waters can be found in most full service grocery stores, Cost Plus or ethnic markets.







Don't let these unusual ingredients scare you away. I have made baklava with regular butter, in fact I may prefer it that way. I will have to make it again to tell for sure. The saffron and the flower water are not essential either. Next time I would omit the saffron, the flavor while intriguing was strong, I prefer the flavor of the spices, honey and flower water. I will use rosewater next time so Bob doesn't eat as much ;-)

Baklava

Ingredients

1 pound filo dough
1 to1 1/4 cup ghee or melted butter

filling:
1 cup raw walnuts
2/3 cup raw almonds
1 tsp. cardamom powder
1/2 tsp. grated nutmeg

syrup:
1 cup raw sugar or 1 cup honey or half of each
1 cup water
1/8 tsp. saffron ( optional)
1 Tbsp. orange blossom water or rose water ( optional)
2 tsp lemon juice




topping:
1-2 tablespoons finely chopped/ground pistachio nuts

1) Defrost filo dough in your fridge overnight.
2) Preheat oven to 325 F, butter a 9 by 13 inch baking pan.
3) Mix together and bring to a simmer the sugar/honey, water and saffron.

4) Cook for 5 to 8 minutes.
5) Allow to cool add the flower water and lemon juice.
6) Strain and set aside. Some recipes want the syrup to be cold when you put it on the baklava. I didn't with the recipe and it came out just fine.


7) In the food processor mix together all the filling ingredients until the nuts are coarsely chopped.

8) Carefully unroll the filo dough, cut into two 9 by 13 sections.

You will want to keep a dish cloth over the sheets of dough you are not using to keep it from drying out while you work. Here comes the part with you need your patience.











9) Carefully place 1-2 sheets of filo dough in your pan, brush with ghee, repeat for 10 layers.
I found that the ghee was too chunky to spread. I heated it up for 20-30 seconds in the microwave which made it perfect for brushing on the dough. Don't worry if the sheets tear a little or are not precisely on top of each other. My big cheat was to do two at once, there is still plenty of ghee/butter between the layers and it makes the whole process slightly quicker.

10) Add one third of the nut mixture sprinkled evenly over the pan.

11) Add more 6-8 more layers of filo, brushing with ghee.
12) Another third of the nuts, another 6-8 layers of filo, another layer of nuts, the remaining filo sheets. Butter the top.
How you do the layering is really up to you. I like the nuts spread through several layers of dough, some recipes call for it in one or two thick layers, your choice.
13) Cut into squares, before you bake it. I like this technique.

14) Bake at 325 for 1 1/2 hours. I know that sounds like a long time but the temperature is low and it did come out a very lovely golden brown.

15) Pour the syrup over the warm baklava and allow to soak in for at least 3 hours if you can wait that long. Sprinkle each section with the ground pistachio nuts.

Now try not to eat 3 or 4 pieces each time you walk by the pan !!

French Lentil Salad !!

I discovered French lentils in Paris, no big surprise I guess. I had no idea they were that different from other lentils I have know. They seem to be quite popular in Paris, all sorts of  lentils in fact. I had them as side dishes several times and once as a salad. It is the salad made with these special French lentils that I want to try and recreate.

I went to the bulk section of my local market and found them, French lentils. They are tiny and green. Before you cook them for any recipe, you must sort out any small rocks or other bits that are not lentils.

They cook very quickly, which is a nice feature. I was quite pleased with my first try and will definitely keep making them. Here is what I did and what I would do differently next time.

French Lentil Salad

Ingredients

1 1/4 cup uncooked French lentils
1 bay leaf
2-3 springs fresh thyme
water to cover for cooking

juice of one lemon
I teaspoon Dijon mustard
one clove grated garlic
two small sprigs of thyme, chopped ( or 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme)
1/4-1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup olive oil

1 cup feta cheese in cubes or crumbles
3-4 radishes
2 cups baby greens or lettuce
1-2 tsp olive oil to drizzle
a few grounds of fresh pepper (optional)

1) As mentioned above you should sort the lentils then rinse them.

2) Place them in a large saucepan with plenty of water to cover them plus a couple of inches.

3) Bring to a boil, then allow to simmer for 25-30 minutes. All the recipes I read stressed NOT to over cook them. So check them after 20 minutes, they should be easy to bite, not too tough but still a bit "al dente".

4) While the lentils are cooking make the vinaigrette. In a small bowl add the juice of one lemon, a clove of grated garlic, a teaspoon of Dijon mustard and the chopped fresh thyme.
Mix together.

I took this photo before I added the thyme, oops.

 5) Slowly whisk in the 1/2 cup of olive oil.

6) Once the lentils are cooked, drain them well and add vinaigrette. Mix it in gently.
     At this point you can serve them warm or chill them for later use.

7) When you are ready to serve, thinly slice the radishes, chop or crumble the feta and wash and dry your greens.

8) To plate, I originally made a bed of butter lettuce, which you will see in the photos. It turned out to be hard to serve and eat that way. In the future, I will make a lovely mound of lentils in the middle of the serving plate and surround it with baby greens, the feta cheese and the radishes. Drizzle the greens with olive oil, lightly dust with fresh pepper.