Christmas Dinner: Timpano a la Big Night

This year for Christmas, we essentially had one very long Sunday Night Dinner, which started on Friday afternoon and ended on Sunday morning - complete with two sleep overs. For Christmas Eve we made Kev's beef stew and for Christmas morning I made this strata.  None of that compares though with what we ate on Christmas night.  If you've seen the movie Big Night, you probably know what a Timpano is. If you haven't - you can check it out here.  

I wish I could take credit for this creation, but it was really all Simon. He had been talking about making a timpano for well over a year and this seemed like the perfect time to do it. The recipe isn't hard, but it is super time consuming and labor intensive.  He prepared the meatballs and sauce a couple of days in advance and then the rest of the steps were done on Christmas day. 

While he made the dough, we drank some tea and ate some of Heather's amazing linzer torte. 

And then the assembly began.  We prepared two different timpanos - one meat and one veggie.

(click on any photo to make it bigger) 

 Got all that? Once the timpano comes out of the oven, you let it sit in the bowl for 30 minutes and then you very delicately flip it over onto a plate - this requires two people.  Let that sit there for another 20 minutes. 

Here's one of our timpanos (timpani?) patiently waiting its required 20 minutes. 

And then, very very carefully, we sliced into it. 

This is the veggie version. We held off slicing the meat version until we had all had a slice of the veggie. By the time we made it into the meat version, I was already in a food coma so don't expect any photos of that one.

After we were all thoroughly stuffed and couldn't possibly eat another bite, we had dessert.  I made this Pear and Raspberry Crostata, from a new cookbook I received as a present.  I love that the pears are halved and not thinly sliced.  I also love the little hints of ginger in there and the tartness of the cranberries. This recipe is a keeper. 

We used the timpano recipe from the official Big Night Cookbook. If you don't have $1,000 to spend on a cookbook (Simon found his in a used bookstore), you can look here for the recipe.

Hope you all had a happy Christmas as well.

Sunday Night Dinner: Slow Cooked Brisket + a Whole Lot of Other Stuff

Hello Internet! I took an unintended break from writing/photographing, for no real reason actually, but then one week became two then two became... six and then here we are. So annnyway...

Here's a meal from a few weeks ago that makes me super happy.  It was our turn to cook Sunday Night Dinner, and it was a cold and gray day, so I took the opportunity to spend the day in the kitchen, something I really wish I would do more of.  The starting point for the meal was that I wanted to slow cook something, and I thought that this pulled brisket recipe sounded pretty good.  But that didn't take all day, because basically you just brown it, add some spices and let that thing sit in the slow cooker all day. And by all day I mean, all day - a good 8 - 10 hours. Make sure you start early. 

What did take all day were the accessories.  The Smitten Kitchen recipe suggests serving the pulled pork with pickled onions and some slaw. Those things all sounded good to me, so I got to work on that.  Because we weren't going to be eating though for another 8-10 hours, I just prepped what I could ahead of time, which meant getting those onions pickling, making the dressing for the slaw and chopping up a bunch of cabbage.  Also, because we were transporting all of this stuff over to our friends' house I got to use our fancy new glass storage containers, which I highly recommend.

And then the baking began. I wanted to bring some cookies into work, and I frequently check out the Smitten Kitchen cookie section and think, "I wish I had time to make those" about pretty much everything on there. And since I was already having a love affair with Smitten Kitchen, and spending the day in my kitchen, I decided to make two different types: Oatmeal, Chocolate Chip and Pecan and Chocolate Toffee.

These are the Oatmeal, Chocolate Chip, Pecan (but you knew that). I forgot to take pictures of the Chocolate Toffee cookies, which is just as well because I didn't think that they looked nearly as pretty as they should have.  I highly recommend these oatmeal ones though, especially for this time of year. They taste like fall, due to the orange zest, clove, nutmeg and cinnamon, but still have that good old fashioned chocolate chip texture thing going on. These are a keeper.  I personally didn't love the chocolate toffee cookies, but others preferred them, so go figure. 

After all the cookies finally finished baking, we transported ourselves, the glass containers, and a slow cooker full of brisket over to our friends' house.  We plugged the slower cooker back in for another two hours, and got back to work - next up was Mac and Cheese.  I decided to use the Jamie Oliver version, because well, I love Jamie Oliver and also I liked that he used tomatoes in his as well as breadcrumbs on the top.  We also added in what we like to call "cheesy nuggets" - basically the rinds of the parmesan that are set aside when the cheese is all done.  These little bits add lots of chewy, cheesy surprises in the dish. While that was baking, we assembled all the other ingredients.. and then had ourselves a feast. 

The only low point of the meal for me were the rolls - they just weren't very good.  The brisket was excellent, and super super easy.  The verdict on the mac n cheese was: More Cheese! (and that was after we had added well more than was called for) but I'd still make it again. 

It was a long day and in the end, I wasn't very hungry - somehow being around all the food all day just completely made me lose my appetite - but it was extremely satisfying. I am very much looking forward to having some time off in the next few weeks to get back to making some more big meals.

Sunday Night Dinner: Chicken and Pasta

I'm a week behind, since this is last Sunday night's dinner.  I love both of these recipes because they take almost no time, look good on the plate and taste amazing.  The chicken recipe is from here, no surprise it's Jamie Oliver.  The pasta recipe is from an old issue of Domino Magazine. I can't find any links to it online since Domino is no longer around (boo) so instead I'll post it below.  We also made a modified version of our favorite summer salad.  Can you tell I love tomatoes?

(click below for recipe)

Student Meal

Can't beat beans on toast.  Toast some bread, don't forget to butter the toast, add the beans, salt, pepper and grated cheddar cheese and you're set. 

Favorite Summer Meal for Reasonably Lazy People

Lately we've been obsessed with this salad. While it may seem like all we do is eat, during the week we are pretty lazy about making dinner. This salad is SO good and all the ingredients are so fresh and in season right now that it's become our go-to meal after work.  If you have some good bread around you can also do it as a sandwich.

I give Kev full credit for this as it was all his idea. All you need is some combination of arugula, nectarines or peaches (we've also used raspberries), avocado, tomato, prosciutto. I also put crumbled goat cheese on mine.   A little salt, pepper, lemon juice and olive oil and you're set.

Sunday Night Dinner: More This and That

Another Sunday, another random assortment of food for dinner. This time though there was a main dish, which was an herb crusted salmon from an old issue of Blueprint magazine.  It is ridiculously easy and quick to make and it's one of those recipes that you really can't screw up.  You can find the recipe here.

I also had some ricotta cheese left over from the penne frittata  that I didn't want to go to waste, so I was very excited when Smitten Kitchen posted this recipe for zucchini and ricotta galette.  This is much more complicated to make in that there are a ton of steps - but it turned out very well and I'd make it again. 

We also made a jicama salad that my friend Lex has been raving about - it's just jicama, tomatoes and green apples, tossed with lime juice and goat cheese (Lex had it with cotija cheese but I had goat cheese at home so used that instead).

And last but not least... yup, more tartine bread and a simple green salad.

(click on picture for better viewing)

Sunday Night Dinner: This and That

This was an untraditional Sunday night dinner. We invited a couple of friends over for what I have been calling "snacks".  It wasn't really intended to be dinner, since it was more just some stuff thrown together. I love these kinds of meals. 

I had made a couple of things earlier that day that we snacked on:

That is a cauliflower and carmelized onion tart, from Smitten Kitchen. I had made this once before, a long time ago and had forgotten about this recipe. I'm hoping that by posting it here I won't forget it again. It's pretty time consuming but the results are fantastic. 

I also made this penne frittata with basil and ricotta which I found off of Sunday Suppers. I love how the cross section of this looks. Kev insisted that it "tasted like Christmas".  I still can't figure out why that would be.  I think we all liked the cauliflower tart better - I'm not sure that I would make the frittata again. It was good - just not anything special.

Throw in some cherry tomatoes, avocado and the famous Tartine bread that we love and you've got yourself a meal. 

And if you're still hungry you can always make some (very rustic looking) ice cream sandwiches.

Sunday Night Dinner: Jamie Oliver Style

I love Jamie Oliver. His recipes are always straight forward and even better, so so tasty. Last Sunday, Kev and I made his Spanish Roast Chicken as well as his peach and mozzarella salad. We've made the chicken before and I don't know why we don't make it more often -- it was better than I remembered. 

Kev had fun decorating the chicken with chorizo.

This salad is perfect for summer. Here's how you make it: take a whole bunch of mint leaves, combine it with whatever salad leaves you have on hand, throw in some slices of ripe peach and rip up some buffalo mozzarella. Oh and prosciutto! Tear off some pieces of prosciutto and throw that in there as well.  Top with salt, pepper, lemon juice and olive oil.  We used the Nudo lemon olive oil and it worked really nicely with this.

 

You might want to click on this picture to fully appreciate the potatoes. They cook with the chicken and the chorizo and absorb the flavors of both and cook for long enough that they get almost caramelized on the outside.  The chicken stays incredibly juicy thanks to the whole lemons that are steaming inside it as it cooks. 

If you're having a small dinner party, I highly recommend this recipe - it is so simple but a big crowd pleaser. 

Sunday Night Dinner: Steak and Potatoes

I've been delinquent posting about Sunday Night Dinners. This dinner took place on Memorial Day and was a great way to welcome in the summer.  The barbecue was bought earlier that morning and these steaks were the perfect thing to christen them with. 

Some drawings and drinking were done while we waited to eat.

(UPDATE: you can vote on this as a t-shirt design here).
 

That's chive cream cheese on those steaks. That was not my idea - but now I think all steaks should be accompanied with cream cheese. Try it.

 

Happy Summer!

Dinner at home: Prosciutto wrapped chicken, potatoes and asparagus

Last night we wound up doing some last minute babysitting, and were paid with a fantastic dinner. I forgot to bring my camera, so my iPhone filled in. 

Have you had the black olives from the olive bar at Whole Foods? They are my favorite.
(That's the chef with his striped socks on the striped rug).

You can't really go wrong with prosciutto, rosemary, cheese and butter.

Sunday Night Dinner: Tortilla Soup + Coconut Cupcakes

Four years ago we had friends over for Oscar night and I made tortilla soup.  Because I love traditions, we've been doing it every year since then. Yesterday afternoon I made a big batch, and also some coconut cupcakes, and we had ourselves a little party. 

 

 

 

I think my favorite part is all the toppings you can have with the soup, that also go perfectly with tortilla chips and quesadillas. We held back on making the quesadillas this year, since we were all too full from the soup.  No pictures of the soup itself - I forgot to take any! I was too excited to eat it.

 

I'm pretty sure that coconut cupcakes don't actually go with tortilla soup, but I had been wanting to try these ones for awhile, and really, anything goes with cupcakes.

Sunday Night Dinner: Four Cheese Risotto

Really this dinner was on Wednesday, but it seemed like our normal Sunday night dinner, so I'm posting under this category.

Tonia's cousin Sylvia and her two friends have been visiting from Italy and volunteered to make us (and teach me to make) four cheese risotto.  They are from Asiago, so it was going to include asiago cheese, but they couldn't find it so in its place was: Swiss Emmental, Parmesan, Gorgonzola and Pecorino.

We sliced the cheese and diced half an onion, then sauteed the onion with some oil and butter. If you want to do this the true Italian way, you must say, "bellisima!" many times throughout this process. 

Sylvia discarded the onion after it had been sauteed (I think to infuse the oil and butter with the onion flavor, but we had a language barrier issue so I'm just inferring that) and then added many handfuls of arborio rice and began the stirring, stirring, stirring process that makes risotto. 

We gradually added some beef broth, did more stirring, then stirred some more, then added some more broth. Finally we added our cheese ("Bellisima!"). If you're like me and you don't like Gorgonzola, you take your portion before that bit is added.

Sylvia and friends also bought us this lemon meringue cake from Tartine. This is one of those cakes I see in their display and wonder if it tastes as good as it looks.  I really liked the meringue and the caramel/lemon creme filling but didn't love the cake layers. I realize I may get thrown out of San Francisco for saying this, but I haven't been that impressed with any of the cakes I've had at Tartine. I'd much rather have a tart or some bread or the quiche. Ohhh the quiche. We'll save that for another day.

Grazie, Sylvia, for a lovely meal (and not minding me taking a million photos)!

Sunday Night Dinner: Coq Au Vin

Even though we were supposed to cook this week, we once again had a lovely meal prepared for us. This week's recipe was Coq Au Vin, from this cookbook. So far everything out of this book has been a winner, and the coq au vin was no exception.

Usually while the meal is cooking, we have these bread sticks as a snack. The Smiths seem to have a never ending supply of these. They come from Noe Valley Bakery if you're wondering.  I hear that usually there is also cheese tasting pre-dinner, but somehow, even though there are only four of us, I  have been totally unaware that this has been going on. Next time I would like some cheese please.  And maybe a photo or two. 

I like how the table always looks so elegant at our dinners when really, the table top is just an old door! Throw in a few wine glasses and candles and you've got yourself a fancy looking table.

How have I never had this meal before? It was fantastic! Shallots + wine + garlic + butter... obviously this was going to be a winning combination. This is one of those dishes that I have wanted to make before, but all the steps in the preparation have put me off. After eating it though, I want to put it on my list of things I want to make in the future.

Because we were concenred that we hadn't consumed enough calories for one day, we followed up dinner with an apple pie, also from Noe Valley Bakery. The pie crust was much more cinnamon-y than I've had before, but I thought it really worked with the texture of the pastry.

There is something really nice about having these dinners as a way to cap off the weekend, and get yourself ready for the week.