Meatloaf to the Stars

One of the best leftovers for making sandwiches is meatloaf. The flavors only get better the next day! My favorite meatloaf recipe is from 72 Market Street. It is not your average meatloaf. Sausage and beef, tender fresh vegetables, and loads of seasonings make it a moist and flavorful dish. Once a celebrity owned restaurant in Venice, CA, 72 Market Street closed its doors in 2000. The meatloaf lives on!

Ingredients:
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
3/4 cup onion, finely chopped
3/4 cup scallions, finely chopped
1/2 cup carrots, finely chopped
1/4 cup celery, finely chopped
1/4 cup red bell pepper, minced
1/4 cup green bell pepper, minced
2 teaspoons of minced garlic
1-2 teaspoons Salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
3 eggs, well beaten
1/2 cup ketchup
1/2 cup half-and-half
2 pounds lean ground beef chuck
12 ounces sausage meat (not Italian sausage)
3/4 cup fine fresh bread crumbs, toasted

Procedure:
Melt the butter in a heavy skillet, and add the onion, scallions, carrots, celery, bell peppers, and garlic. Cook until the moisture from the vegetables has evaporated, about 10 minutes. Set aside to cool; then refrigerate, covered, until chilled, about 1 hour. Preheat oven to 375°F. Combine the salt, black pepper, white pepper, cayenne, cumin, nutmeg, and eggs in a mixing bowl, and beat well. Add the ketchup and half-and-half. Blend thoroughly. Add the ground beef, sausage, and bread crumbs to the egg mixture. Then add the chilled vegetables and mix thoroughly with your hands, kneading for 5 minutes. With damp hands to keep the mixture from sticking, gently press into one large or two small loaf pans. Put loaf pans in one large baking pan. Pour boiling water into the larger pan until it reaches halfway up the sides of the loaf pans. Place the loaf pans in their water bath into the oven and bake for 35 to 40 minutes. Remove the loaf pans from the water bath, and let the meat loaf rest for 20 minutes before slicing and serving.

What's In The Box?

Filling a lunch box with healthy, hearty and wholesome foods is a task that requires persistent energy, creative solutions, and careful planning. Or does it?
Packing a lunch to take to the office is quite easy. It’s simple to make a quick sandwich, salad or wrap with what’s on hand. Adding a piece of fruit or yogurt to a container of a favorite leftover meal is a thrifty habit. Including a special sweet gives the meal a little sparkle and becomes something to look forward to while working.
However, when one is packing a school lunch, things can get complicated. A successful lunch is one that gets eaten. Many a school lunches are thrown away each day, and the time and love spent packing them goes to waste. Involving the child in the process of making the lunch helps to ensure it’s edibility. Don’t complicate things by packing new foods or too many items into your children’s lunch box. For most kids, the golden rule is “Keep It Simple” - a sandwich, a fruit or vegetable, a healthy snack item and water or milk (no juice, no soda!). That’s it, nothing more.
Make a sandwich your child enjoys. Don’t make it too fancy. Giving your child a few basic choices each day will help simplify things. Turkey or Ham? PB&THKJ or Tuna? Egg Salad or Avocado, Sprouts and Tomato?
Pack a fruit or vegetable you know will be eaten and that travels well. Bananas, citrus and apples are fine whole. Berries, stone fruits, and grapes do well when portioned into reusable containers. Vegetables may be more appealing if packed with a favorite dipping sauce or sprinkled with a bit of seasoned rice vinegar.
Including a third item balances out the meal. A container of yogurt, a cheese stick, some crackers, a few almonds or walnuts, a piece of beef jerky, a hard boiled egg, fruit leather, a handful of savory Farmer’s Market kettle corn, or a rice cake are all fun choices.
Save the sweets for after school. Not including the tempting dessert makes healthy eating the only choice. Saving the sweet reward for the afterschool homework hour, creates a wholesome habit the whole family can enjoy!

It's Come To This

I've been using email consistently since the 1980's. I was working at an Internet research institute when the World Wide Web (which is what those three little w's stand for kiddies!) was first created. Before the first Internet browser was created I was logging into Usenet groups to swap recipes and download free cookbooks. So, let's just say, I'm a bit tech savvy.

Two years ago I created this blog so that I'd have a creative outlet for my food writing. Last year I discovered Facebook and found it to be a fun and easy way to keep in touch with many friends. Last month I created a twitter account and have thoroughly enjoyed tweeting daily about my culinary life. But now I find that my writing time has diminished. I'm working at the Farmer's Market on Sunday's. I'm taking care of my kids, husband and our life during the rest of the week. I'm tweeting, facebooking, blogging... and I believe the blog gets the short end of things. It's much easier to tweet and update your status than it is to write a decent article.

So, it's come to this, I'm recycling writing I've been doing for The Heritage Kitchen, and posting it here on my blog. The following recipe comes from our August newsletter. We've been publishing a monthly one-pager since February which contains a feature article, product highlight, Back To The Future rant and a seasonal recipe. Stop by our booth on Sundays,at the Pacific Palisades Farmer's Market between the hours of 8am - 1pm and you can pick up a copy. Sample some cheese while you are there!

V





Market Fresh Black-Eyed Pea Salad

Fresh black-eyed peas are an August special at the Farmer’s market. Cooked for four hours on high in a slow cooker, they become a hearty ingredient ready to use in soups, salads, or with rice for a nutritious meal.


Ingredients:
1 lb cooked—fresh black eyed peas
4 ears fresh corn
3 small zucchini diced
3 small yellow squash diced
6 Roma tomatoes, cored, diced
8 green onions, sliced
1/4 Cup Sherry vinegar
1/2 Cup Plain yogurt
1/2 Cup Extra-virgin Olive Oil
1 bunch Italian parsley, coarsely chopped
Salt and Pepper to taste







Method:
Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add two tablespoons of salt to the water. Shuck the ears of corn and put in the pot to cook for 2-3 minutes. Remove cobs from the water, drain and let cool. Cut the corn from the cobs and place in a large bowl. Add the zucchini, squash, tomatoes, green onions and cooled black eyed peas.
Pour the vinegar into a medium bowl and whisk in the yogurt, and a little salt and pepper. Continue to whisk as you slowly pour in the olive oil creating an emulsion. Taste the dressing for salt and pepper, adding more to taste. Pour the dressing over the vegetables and combine gently. Sprinkle the parsley over the top.


Serves 8 as a main, 12 as a side dish.

Figaro and Hooligan

Here they are, today's cheese selections...

Figaro from Andante Dairy in Petaluma, CA. This cheese comes from a
small batch artisan, Soyoung Scanlan who is famous for the care she
gives to her craft. Figaro is a very seasonal cow and goat cheese
wrapped in wine soaked fig leaves. Lovely fruit notes on a creamy
spraedable texture.

Hooligan is a cow milk cheese with a buttermilk washed rind from Cato
Corner Farms in Connecticut. Stinky on the nose, very rich creamy
center with a mild flavor.

Loved them both. Bruce says they went well together. Thank you Edythe
for sharing!

Pastie Report

The pasties were a big hit. The dough was nice and light even with the whole wheat flour. The beef and pork filling turned out amazingly tender. I used Clyde Hooper's recipe with the following substitutions:

• I used butter instead of beef suet


• Took out the turnips, used carrots


• 2 Cups whole wheat flour were substituted for 2 C of the All Purpose flour


• 2 Tablespoons of Worchestershire sauce was added to the stuffing

I made a Chimmichurri type sauce using Italian parsley, cilantro, a serrano chile, a jalapeno chile, red wine vinegar, olive oil salt and pepper. I purreed it in a food processor until smooth and bright green.

It had a nice kick and really added a nice acidic balance to the basic meat and potato filling.

The Hooper kids tell me that Clyde would have paired his with Malt Vinegar and Catsup. Yum!

Here's a pic of the one I sampled.

Bruce making the pasties in honor of Clyde Hooper

Just like in the UP 'eh...

We used beef and pork with potatoes, carrots and onions. We made the
dough using half whole wheat and half AP.

I will post pics once they come out of the oven an we have a taste.

Fabulous Pie!

In the Eastern Sierra Nevada Mountains of Northern California, six miles down a county road which leads only to a trail head, lies a tiny rustic lunch counter called Pie in the Sky Café at the Rock Creek Lakes Resort (http://www.rockcreeklake.com/resort/). We were camping near the resort this week and stopped in for a burger and pie lunch. This place is famous for their homemade pies. Even in the winter people hike or snowshoe in to get a piece. Approximately ten different pies are available each day, sold by the slice. The pies sell out every day, one flavor after another getting crossed out on the white board at the lunch counter. By the time we arrived Fresh Peach was already gone. We decided on one slice of Boysenberry and one slice of Lemon Crème. They were awesome! We loved the contrast between the fruity bright boysenberry with its delicate top crust and the light lemon fililng with whipped cream topping of the other. Great lunch, excellent pie!

Mother of a Gift

I went on a foodie adventure with Edythe and my kids today. We scoured an estate sale for kitchen kitsch, dug through the garden for any bits to harvest, and best of all, she gave us a mother! Edythe has been feeding her mother of vinegar for a few years. She generously gave me a few nice pieces to take home. I fed her the remains of a bottle of red wine which was left on the counter over our vacation. The mother seems happy in her new home, a large Ball jar with a paper towel lid allowing air in. I'm looking forward to the amazing vinegar she'll help me produce with the dribs and drabs of left over wine from our kitchen. I'm also hoping I can collect a white wine mother as well. I love vinegar! So much fun to be able to make my own good quality supply!