Bay Scallop Ceviche

Red Snapper

Red Snapper with Leeks and Quinoa

Tomato Salad

Gazpacho Again...

Shrimp and Grits

Blackberry Sorbet with Garden Figs

Caprese

Caprese Plates

Pork Chop with Succotash Grilled Eggplant

Rhubarb Pie

Shrimp Dumplings

Shrimp Dumplings

Just Crab Cake, Fava and Okra

Gazpacho

Gazpacho

Scallops, Fava Pesto

Braised Fennel, Parma

Soba with Tofu

Ceviche in its extreme washed out close-up

Haricot Verts, Heirloom Tomatoes, Quail Eggs, Basil Puree (washed out)

White Peach Sorbet Embarrassingly Blurry

I want to first apologize for my hiatus from my blog.  I was at the beach and the kitchen was not a convenient  place to photograph without disturbing the guests.  In the time I went to the beach I also apparently lost what little ability I had gained in the last couple entries photographing my plates.  Sorry for the washed out photos, but I’m sure you can get the basic idea of what went on.

The first dish of the night was classic soba tossed in soy, lime, and scallion sauce.  The dish was served very cold and I thought it was a great summer starter. Soba is such a satisfying ingredient and I recently got a soba lesson from a very capable Chinese chef. Before my lesson I felt like soba was impossible to keep from breaking up, but now the mysteries have become clear.  Mystery one: soba is not pasta and can’t tolerate being treated as such.  Mystery two: you do not need to have the water on a full boil. You can start it at a full boil, then drop the temp to a simmer – this has proven better results for me. Mystery three: when the noodle is al dente, shock it in the coldest water possible.  I almost forgot the most important thing: when you drop the starchy noodles in the boiling water, you must gently move it around in the pot with a chopstick to keep it from sticking. This also makes it seem like your doing it the authentic way.

Following the soba was yet another ceviche of scallops.  Pretty straight forward – lots of lime juice herbs and some terrific little tomatoes that I got from Feast.  I forget which farm they came from, but they were very special.  The haricot vert salad was the last plate and it came out very well.  It was an interpretation of a dish that I saw in Thomas Keller’s Bouchon cookbook. If you do not own Bouchon it is a must have and a necessary addition to a cookbook library.  Get the book, look up the dish, and you will not regret it.  I finished the meal with white peach sorbet, but the pictures all were washed out and I am apparently a failure at taking pictures.  All and all, I thought these small plates made for a very nutritious and fresh summer dinner and it paired nicely with a few pink wines and humid summer air.

Until next time …

C.O.

Scallop Ceviche Encore

Whole roasted Tile Fish

Tile Fish, Red Quinoa, Okra

Tomato Salad

Peaches on the Rocks

Ceviche, Scallops, Heirloom Tomatoes

Marinating Vitello for the Vitello Tonnato

Vitello Tonnato

Grattoni Pasta Salad With Garden Vegetables

Fruit and Nothing

Friday evening was pretty warm, so the food did not need to be.  The meal began with scallop ceviche that was cool and herbaceous.  Good word – herbaceous – is that a word?  It is now.  The next course – Vitello Tonnato – was an adaptation of a classic Italian delicacy.  Classically, the method is to marinate veal rump in white wine and herbs and roast it until fork tender.  The final roast is sliced thin and smeared with a emulsion of anchovies, capers, egg yolks and canned tuna.  The sauce is seasoned with lemon and pepper.  The salt content is already pretty good from all the anchovies and capers.  In my method, I marinated veal loin and tenderloin in wine and herbs and cooked it rare in a saute pan.  I sliced it thin, dowsed it in tuna sauce, and topped it with a celery heart and fennel salad.  A bit of crunch and freshness added to the plate …I also made a huge pasta salad as a side dish.  The pasta is called grattoni, which means grated.  It’s like a dried spatzel and a little more interesting than orzo or cous cous.  I liked it better the next day, but that is the rule for pasta salad right? The end came with fruit.  The peaches and berry did not need anything.  They stood alone effortlessly.

Until we eat again.

C.O.

Garden Gazpacho, Fresh Mozzarella (1)

Garden Figs

The Fig Grove

Duck Breast with Fava and Figs (2)

Peach Sorbet with Peaches (3)

Pommard 2002

Corton-Renardes Pinot Noir

Dinner on Thursday started with great wine (Corton -Renardes, Grand Cru 2002) and finished with great wine (Pommard Noixons 2002).  The food began with a very fresh garden gazpacho with vegetables from the garden and super ripe heirloom tomatoes from the Saturday Farmers Market in Charlottesville.  The gazpacho was topped with fresh mozzarella and amazingly good olive oil – a good way to start a summer meal, especially in the heat we have been enduring lately.  The next course was inspired by the fig grove on the property, which is about to explode with green figs.  I slowly rendered leeks in white wine and balsamic, then added the ripe figs and chicken stock, cooking it down until I found the flavor I liked, but without turning the figs to mushy fig goop – no one likes mushy figs!  The figs were topping for crispy duck breast, along with soft fava beans sauteed in lemon and stock.  It was a magical combination, if i do say so.  It’s my blog, I can say whatever I want.   You’re just going to have to take my word for it.  It was pretty good.  The dinner for two ended with a peach sorbet with the most perfectly ripe peaches.  I can’t get enough of the peaches this year.  They are out of this world!

Until tomorrow.

C.O.

Wild Salmon Tartare, Avocado, Ginger (1)

Blossoms

Ricotta Stuffed Squash Blossoms, Baby Squash, Pea Shoots (2)

Sweet Pea Agnolotti

Sweet Pea and Robiolo Agnolotti, Oyster Mushrooms, Lemon Broth (3)

Dinner for four last night went pretty well.  It started with the freshest wild salmon I had seen in a long time.  The tartare (1) came out very well due to the fact that the salmon was so good and the quail eggs are always a crowd pleaser.  The squash blossoms came straight from the garden and were as fresh as they could be.  The tempura batter did not crisp up as well as I would have liked, but the warm ricotta oozed out onto the pea shoots and baby squash as planned. (2)  The greens were lightly dressed in balsamic and finished with aged balsamic and olive oil.  The last course prepared was sweet pea and robiolo agnolotti with oyster mushrooms from Sharondale Farms and lemon broth. (3) My only critique of this dish was the robiolo was a tad too pungent for my taste.  Sweetness from the pea puree needed to come through more, but overall the dish was pretty strong.  I loved the contrast of the lemon broth with the peas and nutty cheese.  If the cheese were a little less ripe it would have been closer to perfect–for me at least.  Dessert was popsicles from Planet Earth Diversified which are incredible.  If you at the Charlottesville City Market on Sat. check them out!

C.O.