Monday, April 28, 2008

Tzaziki

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In the previous post, I promised the tzaziki recipe. This one isn't exactly traditional, but pretty close. I should have used yogurt, b...
1 comment:
Saturday, April 26, 2008

strawberry season

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April in North Texas is Strawberry time, so Madame and I always head to Gnismer Farms on Bowen Rd. in Arlington to pick them. Today was this...
1 comment:
Friday, April 18, 2008

Cooking school day 3

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If I thought day 2 was intense, I was in for a real shock on day 3. The menu looked straightforward - Beef pot roast Grilled rib eye steaks ...

Cooking school Day 2

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Day 2 at the Milestone Cooking School proved as useful and interesting as day 1. I was still the only student, so was able to continue to wo...
Saturday, April 12, 2008

Seabirdskitchen decamps to cooking school - day 1

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This weekend I am attending cooking classes at the Milestone School in the Viking kitchen in Dallas. 3 pretty intense days. The class is sup...

Bread starter

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I had been wondering how long my bread starter would keep without the normal care and feeding. So 2 weeks ago I put cling wrap on it and put...
Saturday, March 22, 2008

The rites of spring

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Spring has most definitely sprung. There are so many terrific things in the stores, it is hard to know where to start. Today Madame was read...
1 comment:
Sunday, March 16, 2008

Spring time in Texas

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The danger of frost has not completely past, but we are feeling safe now. The weather has been spectcular this weekend, so I have been fille...
Thursday, March 13, 2008

OTBN

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Open That Bottle Night – Feb 23, 2008 The event For the Wall Street Journal Open That Bottle Night party we chose to invite some fri...
Tuesday, March 11, 2008

The Moroccan Dinner

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Our Sunday dining group (Sundays at 4) met this weekend for a dinner that had a Moroccan theme. The idea of the event is for all of us to re...
3 comments:
Sunday, February 24, 2008

Bread tribulations

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In previous posts, I have described the no-knead bread. ( http://seabirdskitchen.blogspot.com/2008/02/more-fun-with-bread.html ). We have ha...
1 comment:

Carved olive garnish

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As a garnish for the caponata ( http://seabirdskitchen.blogspot.com/2008/01/caponata.html ) I thought it would be fun to lay out some leaves...
Saturday, February 16, 2008

Valentine's Day 2008

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Madame has decided that winter is too long and that she is tired of winter vegetables and hearty dishes. So she muttered something about a s...
Sunday, February 10, 2008

An unnerving experience with flour

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I was setting up yesterday morning to make bread. That was going to be a white loaf with a little pasta flour to give some extra texture and...
1 comment:
Friday, February 8, 2008

Butternut squash

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With some inspiration from Jamie Oliver (The Naked Chef), I did some butternut squash in the oven a couple of days ago. A quick, easy dish t...
Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Chicken, leek and potato soup

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It was cold this evening in Dallas, so a warm soup seemed like a good idea. Also, I wanted it to fit into my tight schedule so it would be r...

Shrove Tuesday

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Where I am from it is traditional to have pancakes on Shrove Tuesday. Traditionally it is thought that pancakes were a good way to use up th...
Friday, February 1, 2008

More fun with bread

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We now haven't bought bread for over a month. The no-knead variety has been working well for us - except for some occasional lapses. I u...
Saturday, January 26, 2008

Caponata

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This story goes back a fair distance. Rocco (a Sicilian), Judy, Madame and I went to eat at Daniele Osteria in Dallas a couple of years ba...
1 comment:
Sunday, January 20, 2008

Chai

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Last week I was in the land of the chai drinkers - Silicon Valley. Since I don't drink coffee and I needed to be sociable, I learned to...
2 comments:
Sunday, January 13, 2008

When Celestina delivers lemons....

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Celestina, one of Madame's former students, is a girl from the "Valley" that fertile stretch of South Texas down near the Mexi...
Tuesday, January 1, 2008

New Years Day 2008

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We had a simple celebration of New Year's day. Vince and Gayle, and Steve and Ellen came over. Starting with tea and Christmas cake at 5...
1 comment:

When will it be cooked?

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This posting is a bit technical, but it is all to do with predicting when something will be cooked/ready to serve. Let's assume that we ...

Oven temperatures

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My friend Judy, from Germany has asked that I post temperatures in Celsius and Fahrenheit. She mentioned that she had ruined a dinner becaus...
1 comment:
Thursday, December 27, 2007

Warmed plates

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At this time of year, especially, when things cool quickly it is so important to warm the serving dishes and the eating dishes too. If thing...

Mashed potatoes - with a difference

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For dinner tonight we had some simple grilled steak, steamed carrots and mashed potatoes. One of the best flavors for carrots is ginger, so ...
1 comment:
Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Christmas dinner

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Madame and I thought we would be on our own for Christmas this year. Our neighbours, John and Lydia called at the last minute and asked if w...
Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Eggs

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We typically buy our eggs at the farmers' market in Dallas. They seem to taste better and appear fresher. However they don't come wi...
Sunday, December 23, 2007

A trip to the Farmers' Market

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In Dallas we have a year round farmers' market and it carries some locally grown produce at the right season. Many of the stalls are jus...

No wimpy food!

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I have just come back from a few days in Boston - well Cambridge really where everything I had to eat could be summed up in one word - wimpy...
Wednesday, December 19, 2007

The second loaf

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As I mentioned in a previous post, I had made a double batch of dough. So, you might wonder, what happened to the second loaf? I had stored ...
Sunday, December 16, 2007

The bread saga continues

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The first couple of loaves were pretty good - great taste, but the overbrowning was annoying me. I went back to the original NY Times recip...
Thursday, December 13, 2007

A celery trick

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I like to try to do things efficiently in the kitchen. One of my pet peeves is dealing with celery. The ribs are long and cumbersome and var...

French Bistro Chicken in a Pot

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I tried another recipe from the recent Cooks Illustrated last evening. This was the French Bistro Chicken in a Pot. The idea is that if you ...
3 comments:
Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Leaving comments on blogs

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Several friends have told me that it is not obvious how to post comments to a blog. It is a bit weird, and the design of the form is poor. S...
1 comment:

Caraway seeds

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When I was about 8 years old, I was living with my beloved grandmother .We lived in a small town in Dorset on the south coast of England. Sh...

The bread

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In previous posts, I have been anticipating the making of bread the (almost) no-knead way. After the dutch oven trials and tribulations, we ...
Monday, December 10, 2007

Trouble with heat

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We had a weekend of quite rich food, so Madame was a bit out of sorts yesterday evening. I had made a fairly rich stew that had been simmeri...
1 comment:
Sunday, December 9, 2007

A much anticipated event

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Every couple of months the America's Test Kitchen crew publish Cooks Illustrated Magazine. It is my favorite publication - their unrelen...
Monday, December 3, 2007

A seasonal cocktail...

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At this time of the year, clementines are cheap and prevalent. They are juicy, have a great sweet/tart citrusy flavor and are seedless. So, ...
Saturday, December 1, 2007

What to do with left over vege trays?

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We hosted a wedding shower a week ago. Lots of food, including the mandatory vegetable tray (lots of cut up raw vegetables with a dipping sa...