Broccoli and Cauliflower and Carrots, Oh My

For dinner I fixed Tiger Butter curry chicken along with two new side dishes. THey both turned out pretty good. Another ten servings to add to Dani’s freezer.

Broccoli and Cauliflower Casserole

Ingredients

  • white rice
  • broccoli florets
  • cauliflower florets
  • olive oil
  • onion, chopped
  • cheese, cubed
  • can condensed cream of chicken soup
  • bacon
  • crushed Club crackers
  • fresh tarragon
  • allspice

Directions

Cook rice. Steam broccoli and cauliflower.

In a large saucepan, saute onion in oil. Add other ingredients. Transfer the entire mixture to a 9×13 inch baking dish and sprinkle the crackers on top.

Bake in a preheated 350 degrees F oven for 30 minutes.

Orange Glazed Carrots

Ingredients

  • 1 pound baby carrots
  • 1/4 cup orange juice
  • 3 tablespoons brown sugar
  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • 1 tsp of five spice

Directions

Place carrots in a shallow saucepan, and cover with water. Boil until tender. Drain, and return carrots to pan.

Pour orange juice over carrots, and mix well. Simmer over medium heat for about 5 minutes. Stir in brown sugar, butter, and salt. Heat until butter and sugar melt.

Hall and Oates at Ravinia

Here’s a trivia question for you:

What is the biggest selling musical duo of all time?

Awww, you peeked. Yup, it’s Hall and Oates. Don’t bother to try to guess who’s number two. (It’s The Pet Shop Boys.) Clearly, there are not a lot of musical duos.

When we were at Ravinia for Deep Purple last week, I thought it was sold out. Turns out, though that the lawn can hold a lot more people. I mean, a LOT more people:

Basically, Hall and Oates is mostly Hall (the blond with the personality, who sings almost every song). Of the eight piece band, the sax player and lead guitarist do most of the heavy lifting. They put on a good show, but were hampered by audio problems that kept the crowd from really getting into it until the end of their less than 90 minute set.

Before the show we talked our way into the Park View restaurant, although our reservations were really for the Mirabella buffet downstairs. Really impressive food for a seasonal restaurant staffed by college kids.

Leaving the concert during the second encore was a good move, as we rolled home on the Metra train as thousands of people gathered to wait for the next one.

Songwriters Showcase

Last night we attended the Johnny Mercer Songwriters Showcase, where 16 incredibly talented young songwriters show off the songs they’ve written during the past week’s workshop. Last year it was the highlight of the summer shows we saw, and it didn’t disappoint this year. Every song was a winner.

Tonight we attended Applause! Applause! where the best of those songs were presented to a larger audience, along with professional performances from the songbook of Charles Strouse, who was honored with an award. Strouse wrote Bye, Bye Birdie, Applause, Annie, and quite a few other musicals, as well as the theme song from All In The Family. At the end of the evening he received his award and entertained at the piano and told some hilarious stories; he’s quite the card for an 83 year old.

Earlier today Dani and I walked through the closed streets of Evanston, where there was an art festival, and then walked up to Central to buy some spices at The Spice House and some cheese and bread at the gourmet market. All together it was a five mile walk, and her ankle held up well, its first real outing since taking her cast off and starting physical therapy.

During our walk we revisited some of the fallen trees from last week’s storm, which have now been cut up and cleared. It’s not hard to figure out why this large branch—that I photographed previously—broke off:

Painting

Last night an impressive storm blew through Evanston, knocking out our power five times. This morning 48 buildings on the Northwestern campus were still without power, according to an email sent to Dani. Fortunately, Dani’s German class was unaffected.

The storm left a gorgeous morning in its wake, and I took advantage of it to walk up to Expo Paint on Green Bay near Central Avenue, a mile or so to the north.

Along the way I was surprised to see how many large tree limbs were down, on lawns, the sidewalk, and in the roads. The storm must have been a lot stronger to the north. City crews were already clearing away the bits and pieces, and the park was full of day camp kids enjoying a truly beautiful day.

My mission at Expo Paint was to buy some paint to match the ugly green color that’s coating the walls of the condo bedroom. This is necessary because one of Dani’s roommates used double stick tape on the walls, and it’s removed large chunks of the textured surface. I dropped off a chunk at Expo and went over to the market to get some fresh baked bread while I waited. In a few minutes they called me and said my paint was ready.

I guess they scanned the paint chip I took them, because the match is almost exact. Let me tell you that lugging a gallon of paint for a mile is not fun! Now the trick is to get the paint on so that it matches the original texture. My first attempt with a brush failed, so I went back to Ace Hardware for a roller.

For lunch Dani and I went to Cafe 527. It’s a new Asian place that had the nerve to open next door to the popular Joy Yee’s Noodle Shop. The plan seems to be working, as 527 was packed. The Korean BBQ taco I had was delicious, filled with bulgogi beef, kimchee, rice and cilantro, and served on seaweed rather than a tortilla. The miso shrimp salad was also tasty, although the shrimp was the least interesting part. The crunchy lettuce and cabbage mixture was enhanced by green peppers, scallions, and edamame. It went well with a miso based honey mustard dressing.

My other home improvement project was accomplished a lot quicker than the paint touchups. I ordered a wallpaper mural for the bare spot over the sink. It took about a minute to install, and really makes the kitchen look nice.

The rain is teasing us this afternoon, looking threatening, but then barely sprinkling. For dinner I’m fixing hamburgers unless it’s pouring, in which case they will turn into meatloaf.

Basil Chicken, Sweet Potato Casserole, Brussels Sprouts

Basil Chicken

I thought I had memorialized Linda’s Basil Chicken recipe on this blog, but apparently not, so here’s my version:

Ingredients

  • Boneless chicken breasts
  • Onion
  • Lemon
  • Basil leaves
  • White Wine
  • Milk
  • Olive Oil
  • Salt and Pepper or Poultry Seasoning

Directions

Pound the chicken breasts. Sauté the onions in oil, add chicken breasts and sauté until brown. Remove breasts, place basil leaves on them. Deglaze the pan, add white wine, lemon juice and a dash of milk, and reduce. Pour over breasts and basil.

To accompany it, I made a…

Sweet Potato Casserole

This turns out fluffy enough that it’s almost a souffle with a topping:

Ingredients

  • 4 cups sweet potato
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 2 eggs, beaten
  • Five spice
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Topping:

  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
  • 3 tablespoons butter
  • 1/2 cup chopped pecans
  • Five spice

Directions

Boil chunked potatoes and mash. Add sugar, beaten eggs, vanilla extract and five spice. Some recipes add milk or butter but I didn’t. Mix and place in baking dish.

For topping, mix brown sugar, flour, butter and pecans. Layer on top of sweet potatoes.

May be refrigerated until time for dinner.

Bake at 325 degrees for 30 minutes, or until brown.

Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Balsamic Vinegar

Ingredients

  • Brussels Sprouts
  • Olive Oil
  • Balsamic Vinegar
  • Salt and Pepper

Cut brussels sprouts in half, toss ingredients together.

Roast at 375°F, cut side down, 15 minutes, flip, roast ten minutes more.

Cleaning House

In other news, today I had Dial-a-Maid come for four hours and unearth the condo. The sink is now white again.

Lock & Lock Korma

One of my missions this year in Evanston is to make lots of one-serving meals for Dani’s freezer. I ran errands to Ace Hardware and Whole Foods, returning with about 50 pounds of stuff in the poor shopping basket cart. After restocking the fridge I set out to make Lamb Korma with Moroccan basmati raisin rice, sweet potatoes and Caesar salad.

I boxed the leftover rice and korma into some nifty containers I got on Amazon. They’re called Lock & Lock (not a great name, I know) and are very durable, microwave and freezer safe, and they have a gasket that seals them completely with locks on all four sides. I bought them because of the good reviews on Amazon, without completely understanding what they were, but they’ve worked out perfectly. The ones I got are fairly small, about 3x5x2 inches, so just right for one entree serving. Five down, about a zillion to go.

Father’s Day at The Stained Glass

Dani and I spent a pleasant day in Evanston before the start of summer session at Northwestern. We walked up to Al’s Deli for lunch. Al’s is an interesting place, because it sounds very American, but is, in fact, French. They make wonderful soups, and sandwiches on  baguettes or croissants.

On the way back, we picked up Dani’s German class notes and restocked at CVS. In the evening we swapped some books at Market Fresh Books and then had dinner at our favorite Evanston restaurant, The Stained Glass, where we were served by our favorite waiter, the extremely knowledgeable wine instructor, Scot Morton.

 

Deep Purple at the Ravinia Festival

Ravinia is an outdoor music festival founded in 1904. It’s a few miles North of Evanston.

Dani and I went to see Deep Purple with the Ravinia Festival Orchestra and opening band Ernie and the Automatics.

Dinner at the upstairs restaurant was quite pleasant. It’s amazing to have to kick start a fine dining restaurant every summer.

It was an unexpected treat that two members of Ernie and the Automatics were the guitarist and drummer from Boston, who played a Boston medley.

Deep Purple was excellent– very talented guitarist and keyboard player– and it was fun to hear them with an orchestra.

Owl City

Dani and I went to see Owl City at The House of Blues. The first warm-up band, Unwed Sailor, consisted of a talented drummer and three people who stared at the floor.  In the absence of any melody or words (no singer) all of their songs sounded like the first five seconds, repeated for five minutes.

The second act was Mat Kearney, who was quite good.

But the audience was clearly there to see Owl City. This was a very different audience than I’d ever encountered at House of Blues, which normally attracts—how can I put this—drunk Gen Xers. Owl City attracts ages 8 to 60, but the average was probably 14. We also noticed the audience was essentially 100% Caucasion. The place was packed, upstairs and down.

I was afraid Owl City would turn out to be one guy (Adam Young) with a Macbook, but there were actually six talented musicians, and an assortment of instruments: two drum sets, many keyboards, cello, violin, bass, vibraphone, xylophone, and many guitars.  Since there is almost no guitar in their music as first I thought the guitars were just props, but they did play a couple of songs where Adam demonstrated excellent guitar proficiency.

It was surprising that the music sounded completely different when played live. They used almost no auto-tune on the voices, and there was much more acoustic stuff. Definitely more complex than the typical tween band. They played two hours, which was great, but it meant we were standing for four hours. House of Blues is still the worst venue in town, but this was an excellent concert.

Bull and Bear

Ron organized a last dinner before my trip to Evanston, and we met at The Bull and Bear at the Waldorf Astoria. Dani flew in Friday, so she was able to join us. The five of us spent a lovely five hours in the private room, with great service by Arnaud. Even though Chef was out of town, Arnaud found plenty of interesting selections to keep the courses coming.

The Wines

We need to stop pouring the Burgundies first! These were mostly great wines, but the memory of the 49 Burgs blew everything else away. Those two continued to evolve for hours. I selected six wines from our cellar, and Ron matched them:

Mumm de Cramant Champagne (Ron)
Citrus, cream, 93

2005 Henri Boillot Corton Charlemagne (Ron)
Ash, vanilla, floral, lemon, hibiscus flower petal flavor, expect butter but ends with citrus peel, 96

2001 Ch. Carbonnieux (Steve)
corked

1949 Liger-Belair Charmes-Chambertin (Steve)
Earth, complex, bacon fat, campfire smoke, iron, mushroom, citrus, forest floor, dried fruits, vanilla, dessert room at Berns (bananas foster and barrel), slightly faded, 96

1949 Ponelle Corton Clos de Roi (Ron)
Cherries, rose petals, soy sauce, meat, mint, sawdust, fruity, smoke, fresh, 98

1955 Louis M. Martini Cabernet Sauvignon Private Reserve (Steve)
Young, peppers, fruity, leather, 95

1965 Louis M. Martini Cabernet Sauvignon California Mountain (Steve)
Dusty, wax, musty, black pepper, 88

1962 Château Gruaud Larose (Steve)
Leather, worchestshire sauce, soy, complex but unusual, (low fill) 90

1966 Chateau La Mission Haut Brion (Steve)
Lead pencil, peppers, tobacco, 95

2000 Ch. Pavie (Ron)
Parker 100
Meaty, vanilla, chewy, lanolin, very tannic, candy, a huge wine, drinkable in 2044, 96

1983 Ch. Suideraut (Ron)
Peach, citrus, dried orange peel, 90

1982 Bodegas Toro Albala Montilla-Moriles Don PX Gran Reserva (Steve)
Syrup, chocolate, raisins, 92

Mussels!

When I was at Publix I spotted these frozen mussels and thought I’d take a leap of faith. Wow! Linda fixed them on some scampi flavored pasta and they were delicious, as good as at a restaurant. They’re made by Bantry Bay. Two servings for $8, what a deal.

They went great with the Burgan’s Albarino from Spain. $14 from B-21 and rated 90 by Wine Advocate.

As a side we had a vegetable souffle from Garden Lites. This is also a delicious dish, and turns out with a nice crust, even when microwaved.

I’ll classify this blog entry as “cooking” but it’s more like heat and serve!

Blind Misconceptions

For our Wine Syndicate group’s quarterly dinner we challenged ourselves to correlate price with quality. We failed.

Meeting at The Capital Grille, we poured six pairs of wine, completely blind except for knowing the wines’ prices, but not which price went with which wine. The results were eye opening. Here are the six flights, and how things turned out:

1988 Haut Brion Blanc ($490) vs. 2006 Ramey Ritchie Vineyard Chardonnay ($50)

The group unanimously preferred the Ramey (ash, oak butter, opulent, 95 pts), and thought it was the better wine! After a couple of hours the Haut Brion became a lot more interesting (waxy, candy, minerals, gigs, nuts, vanilla, honey, 90 pts), but my scoring was unchanged. No one caught the almost 20 year spread between the wines, and everyone thought the Ramey was a white Burgundy.

1973 BV Special Label “Burgundy” ($75) vs. 1983 DRC Echezeaux ($680)

This was the only flight where the group was evenly split as far as popularity. Most identified the true Echezeaux (mint, delicate, 93 pts), and Debbie named the BV Special Label (redwood, sweet, 92 pts). Good job Debbie!

1979 Opus One ($357) vs. 1979 Inglenook Petite Sirah ($30)

The group unanimously preferred the Inglenook (paint thinner, wood, figs, 89 pts). This was the first vintage of Opus (mint, vanilla, pencil shavings, 87 pts), and it was the worst wine of the tasting.

2007 Jean Royer Chateauneuf Prestige ($40) vs. 1989 Jaboulet Hermitage La Chapelle ($230)

The group almost unanimously preferred the Hermitage (meat, smoke, bacon fat, mint, 90 pts) which was correctly identified by Ron. Good job Ron! The Chateauneuf was odd (candy, berries, fruit wrap, jam, smoke, 88 pts).

1986 Chateau Mouton Rothschild ($900) vs. 1991 Dominus ($220)

The group unanimously preferred the Dominus (green pepper, gravel, lead pencil, mint, 97 pts) and thought it was old world and the more expensive wine! The Mouton (coffee, smoke, tar, green peppers, rubber, bacon, smoke, 95 pts) was a Parker 100 point wine that everyone thought was new world! To make matters worse, Ron, Bev, Linda and I had tasted both of these wines at events within the last two months, and none of us identified them or had them associated with the correct continent!

1963 Graham Port ($300) vs. 1992 Guenoc “Port” ($20)

A solid majority identified the real port (soft, delicate, complex, red-wine nose, 92 pts). The Guenoc (woody, 90 pts) was a fine product but was overshadowed by a great vintage of the real thing.

The Bottom Line

Out of six flights, we were unanimously wrong half the time, identifying the cheaper wine as the more expensive! Spend those dollars wisely, folks!

Cocina 214

Most restaurants open to indifference and close within a year. But every once in a while someplace hits upon exactly what the public wants and is an instant success. Cocina 214 is not a place I would have predicted would fall into the latter category, which is why I’m not in the restaurant business.

Located on an obscure side street off of Park Avenue in Winter Park, it’s even hard to find the door. But last month, when we heard about the place opening online and checked out their interesting modern Tex Mex menu, we decided to try it before they went out of business. No worries there. When we arrived today for lunch the valet was having trouble finding places to park cars, and there were at least a hundred people packing the restaurant’s dining rooms. Clearly there is an unsatisfied demand for gourmet Mexican food in this town.

Everything we had was good, especially Linda’s ceviche, and her chicken quesadilla, which was the best quesadilla I ever tasted — except for the ones Linda makes herself (and this one probably had about 5000 fewer calories). I also liked my fish tacos, and the verde y verde salsa we ordered was a great blend of lime, cilantro and jalapeno.

Prices were reasonable. Our waiter should return to whatever his former profession was, but I noticed that everyone working the dining rooms, kitchen and front desk seemed to be really happy to be there. The place is pretty noisy when it’s full, so I recommend dining outside on the patio.

In case you’re wondering, Cocina is Spanish for kitchen and 214 is the area code for Dallas, which is not where this restaurant is. But it’s definitely worth checking out Cocina 214 in Winter Park.

Nine 18

One of the under-appreciated restaurants in town is actually the closest to us (well, not counting sneaking in the back entrance to Victoria & Alberts). It’s Nine 18 at the Grand Cypress Golf Resort. The restaurant used to be The Black Swan, but about ten years ago they changed the name and reduced the prices, while keeping the menu pretty much the same. I’m not sure how that worked out for them, because the place is still usually empty, but they need to stay open to cater to their resort guests. Anyway, you can reliably get an almost great meal there for a reasonable price, and the service is terrific.