“A cup of goodness to warm the soul”

27 Jan Cup of choc#2

There is nothing like a cup of really good hot chocolate to warm the body and soul.  Hot chocolate always brings me back to two places.  Winter nights at home with family, and camping.  My daughter loves hot chocolate.  Don’t forget the marshmallows she hails.  In a pinch we would cheat with the pre-made stuff, but when we have the time we would make our own with whole milk, shaved chocolate and a touch of cinnamon. We slowly heat it on the stove, making sure the milk doesn’t burn and all the chocolate melts. Stir, stir, stir.

It is a ritual when we go camping to have hot chocolate and smores.  We sit around the fire and talk stories and weave tales of the fish we lost or an exceptional hike that day.   Usually it’s the pre-made mix, but it does the trick.  I can feel the crisp mountain air nipping at my nostrils and the campfire heating your pants forcing you to scoot back from the edge.  You sit there with your hands warming as they wrap around the cup.  The sweet aroma wafting up filling your nose.  It transports me there now even as I am sitting here in my dark cave pounding away on my keyboard.  How the sweet elixir coats your mouth as you sip the hot liquid.  Its familiar comfort is always good.

Joanna has a killer recipe for Hot Coco and real homemade marshmallows.  Give it a try on a cold evening.

 

Hot Cocoa

2 cups milk of choice ( use the whole milk it is way creamier)
¼ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
¼ cup sugar (depending on desired sweetness)
Pinch of cinnamon
Pinch of salt

Place all ingredients in pot over med-high heat and cook about 5 min to desired temp.
Pour into 2 big mugs or 4 small ones and top with marshmallows and a shaving of
chocolate or a dash of cinnamon or use a cinnamon stick as a stirrer. Enjoy!

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What do you mean Red Walnuts? WTF?

27 Jan Red Walnuts#1

I was talking with Joanna the other day about some upcoming shots and she mentioned she had some really cool walnuts. I say, “Walnuts?”  Great, how cool can they be?  She shows up for the shoot and what does she have, Red Walnuts.  Okay, I must be living in the dark ages and just crawled out from under my rock.  In my little world I am thinking the only walnuts I ever have known were black or English.  The latter I shelled for my Grandmother.  She used to candy them for the Holidays. Yum!  She wouldn’t accept any that were not complete halves, so as a result we ate a lot of the remains.

Red Walnuts are not genetically modified and were created using natural methods of grafting Persian red-skinned walnuts onto larger and creamier English walnuts. Red walnuts are only red on the inside, the tree and the shells look just like your typical English Walnuts.

She drops down this bag and of walnuts and cracks open a few.  Before my eyes are these gorgeous burgundy colored nuts.  They don’t taste of burgundy, just a magnificent color.  The color of them contrasts with the brown shell so nicely.  Wow, fun stuff.  We set out to see how we could use them in a dish.  After several swings at the plate we decide on a compote with brie cheese.  We tried several recipes and just had some fun playing with these cool nuts.  I gotta be careful about using playing and nuts in the same sentence.  People might get the wrong idea of what we shoot around here.

Red Walnuts are hard to come by.  They grow slowly and are a late producing. The red coating on the flesh is very delicate.  They grow in the San Joaquin Valley and are also know as Livermore Walnuts.  You can order them from specialty online stores.

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“Slicing of the Lamb”

27 Jan Spring Rack of Lamb crusted#2

I know it just isn’t right to talk about such cute little creatures in any way where they will be harmed or even, God-forbid, eaten!  Oh well. Yes, it is coming up on Lamb season where we live.  That means tasty treats with crusty crispy outsides and tender succulent insides.  Lamb is a wonderful meat.  I fondly remember my parents getting a lamb every year at the county fair.  To some lovely 4-H youngster who put their hard work into raising the young creature, I thank you for opening my eyes to a lifetime of enjoyment.  It never went to waste.  At least not when I was at the table.  My siblings on the other hand hated it. Not just disliked it, flat out wouldn’t eat the stuff.  They missed out and I on the other hand, began…and still do.appreciate it every time I eat it.

I remember my Dad butterflying the leg of Lamb and coating the inside with a mixture of Dijon mustard, I won’t mention any names but,”Perhaps do you have any?”  A sprig of rosemary from the garden and liberal amounts of salt and pepper. He would grill it until the crust from the mustard browned, flip it, turn down the heat and slowly let it cook, rest on the counter covered in foil.  Sliced thin and served with oven baked veggies, I was in heaven.  Alright, I was a teenage boy who could eat half a house, but I loved it.

As time moved on, I got away from Lamb. Maybe because of the cost? Perhaps the college student budget wasn’t enough to mosey on down to the meat market and grab a rack for what would end up being a light snack for the roommates. No, unfortunately during the Mac and Cheese years I suffered. If I would have known that I could use the trimmings from the rack for a wicked Lamb, bacon and mint sausage I might have reconsidered the absence.  Enough said, we thought we would share a nice dish of Rack of Lamb crusted with a Red Walnut, garlic, mixed herbs and Panko bread crumbs.  Enjoy.

Rack of Lamb with Herb Citrus Rub

Rack of Lamb
Variety of herbs (rosemary, sage, parsley, marjoram) whatever you have in your garden
Citrus zest – blood orange, lemon or orange
Good quality olive oil
Salt and pepper
Panko bread crumbs
Garlic

You may buy your rack of lamb already frenched or you may want to do it yourself. We will show you the
way we do it. You cut the top fat layer off and then cut as much fat off as you wish. We chose to leave a
thin layer. Then cut all the fat away from the bones and scrape them with a small knife. There is a really
thin layer of sinew that is important to cut off as it is very tough and will make it hard for you to cut and eat
your lamb. It takes a little patience to cut and scrape the bones but it’s worth it.
If your lamb is frenched it is best to leave out of refrigerator 30-45 minutes before cooking.

To make the citrus crust:
1 cup panko bread crumbs
½ cup chopped herbs of choice
Zest of 1 blood orange and 1-2 tbsp of juice
2-3 cloves crushed and chopped garlic
Mix the above ingredients in a bowl and add enough olive oil to make a paste
Add a big pinch of salt and several grinds of pepper

Place the Rack of Lamb on a piece of parchment on a sheet pan and using your fingers press the citrus crust
firmly on the meat side until there is a nice thick layer. Place in pre-heated 400 degree oven for 15-25 min.
Check after 15’ with your thermometer, meat is med-rare roughly at 140-145. Cook until desired temp. rare
is roughly 130-135 and medium is roughly 160. Loosely tent with a piece of foil and let meat rest 5 min.
before slicing. Enjoy with some roasted potatoes, a fresh salad and some fine red wine!

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Shrimp Scampi with Meyer Lemon Flavors

27 Jan Shrimp scampi scoop Final

Shrimp is good food.  I prefer my shrimp USA wild caught, however that isn’t always available.  I do always ask for frozen shrimp from the back rather than the stuff that has been defrosting in the counter display.  I personally like shrimp as simple as possible.  Just boiled, grilled with a little butter and garlic or pan saute’ with sea salt and olive oil.  Any of these dishes and I will be elbows deep with a bib on sucking the last tasty bits from my fingers.  For our dish today we have some leftover Meyer Lemons from our cookie shots.  I slipped down to our local market and grabbed some large white shrimp for this recipe.  We really wanted to feature the great flavor of these lemons.  We used the zest and the juice and some slices for garnish.  A quick demo on peeling and deveining shrimp can be seen on one of our other pages.

Meyer Lemon Shrimp Scampi
serves 4
Cleaned and deveined 16-20 (1 lb.) Large shrimp
2 chopped garlic cloves
1/4 cup finely chopped onion or shallot
2-3 Tbl of good olive oil
3-4 Tbl of butter
6-8 cups cooked brown or white rice of choice
Lemon zest from 2 lemons using a zester or micro-plain
2-3 Tbl lemon juice
chopped parsley or argula leaves for garnish
Heat oil and butter in pan over med-heat. Add garlic, onion and saute’ for 2-3 min, add pinch of salt and fresh grind of pepper, shrimp and
1/2 of zest and juice of lemon and cook until shrimp begin to turn pink and curl about 4-5 minutes. Taste for seasoning
To Serve:

On warm plates place 1-2 cups rice then 4-5 shrimp with some sauce over and sprinkle with parsley or argula and the remaining zest and freshly ground pepper.

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Meyer Lemon Rosemary Shortbread Cookies

27 Jan Lemon Cookies side #1

This is our first post.  We decided to go with a sour subject and just get it out of the way.  It really ends up being sweet.

This site was born because we love to cook, style, shoot and eat.

We are Joanna Badano and Alan Campbell.  Joanna is a food stylist and Alan is a food and wine photographer.  We are based about 60 minutes North of San Francisco in the heart of Sonoma County.  An incredibly diverse and wonderful area that is the home to many  specialty foods, fine wines, great people and wonderful weather.  We can’t be more blessed.  We shoot and style for a wide variety of clients and the more we do it the more we want to explore different dishes, techniques, tastes and have fun while we gather more knowledge taste yummy food.  We decided to create this blog to share with you our passion for food.  Food is the common thread that brings all people together at least 3 times a day. The sheer variety in its flavor, appearance, aroma and taste demands that we spend more time looking at it. We hope you enjoy this journey.  We are going to include recipes, photos on how to do stuff as well as images of finished dishes.  We like seasonal items as well as unusual ingredients.  There are 52 weeks in a year and we plan to bring you an update each week.  We are a week late so we better get started.  Bare with us as we are a little new in this arena and are going to make mistakes along the way.  Please comment often and share with your friends. Try the dishes and let us know what you think.  If it is no good let us know and we will try to improve it.  This blog is not a soapbox for us to tell you what we think, just a vehicle to funnel our creativity out to the world.  We look forward to meeting you and sharing along the way.  Thanks Jo and Alan.

Right now it is lemon time around here.  They are wonderful, we chose to share a cookie recipe using the juice and zest from these wonderful beauties.

Meyer Lemon shortbread cookies.

Meyer Lemons fresh from the garden.

Slicing the cookies into rounds.

Mixing the glaze.

Adding the zest.

Applying the glaze.

A sprig for decoration.

Let them cool and you are ready to eat!

Lemon & Rosemary Shortbread cookies
2 cups flour
1 cup cold unsalted butter, cubed
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 tsp salt
zest from 2 lemons
1 1/2 tsp finely chopped rosemary
20-30 small 2 piece sprigs of rosemary for garnish
Lemon Glaze
1 Tbl fresh lemon juice
3/4-1 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp lemon zest
Cookies:
In stand-up mixer put all ingredients for cookies and mix until just comes together.
Take dough and form into a log in between parchment paper, twist ends to seal and
refrigerate for 1-2 hours.
Set Oven to 325. Take cold dough, unwrap and slice off into 1/4″ coins and place
on parchment and into oven for 12-15′ or until slightly brown on outside. Cool on rack.
Makes 20-30 cookies depending on thickness of roll.
To make Glaze:
In bowl mix lemon juice, zest and sugar with fork, keep adding sugar until the glaze is
thick enough to spread.
Spread glaze on cooled cookies and add sprig of rosemary immediately.
An off-set spatula works well.

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