Food and Cooking
Food, wine, restaurants, even home cooking.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Home Made Camembert
I mentioned we’d be having a home made Camembert cheese with our Christmas dinner. Here is the recipe for that cheese. I made it on 15 November. It made four rounds of cheese. We tried one in early December and while the consistency and texture was good, the cheese was not very well flavored. We tried another round last week and it was very good. I expect this cheese will be perfect on Christmas.
2 gallons whole milk from Shop Rite.
Warmed to 85° F.
1/4 tsp mesophilic culture, MM100.
1/8 tsp P. Candidum bacteria.
Tiny amount G. Candidum bacteria.
Let set for a few minutes and stirred bacteria into milk.
1/4 tsp of CaCl dissolved in 1/4 cup distilled water. Stirred in.
1/4 tsp of rennet dissolved in 1/4 cup distilled water. Stirred in.
Let set for 2 hours to clean break. Cut curds into 1/2” cubes (as best I can).
Stirred very gently for 5 minutes. Allowed to settle for 10 minutes.
Drained into cheesecloth-lined collander and allowed to drain for 15 minutes.
Scooped curds into molds on cheesecloth-lined drying rack in plastic container. Lift out cheese and pour out accumulated whey periodically.
After 2 hours, turn the molds over. After about 5 or 6 more hours, unmolded, turned and placed back in plastic box, covered to sit overnight.
Sprinkled 1/2 tsp of course salt on each side of each round and place in box in refrigerator with lid askew. Turned every day or two.
Some white fuzz started to grow at 5 days.
On 11/26, the rounds had a nice covering of white mold, so I wrapped all 4 rounds in cheese paper, put two in fridge at 40 degrees and 2 in fridge around 54 degrees. Plan to eat first two (54) in a few weeks and the other two a couple of weeks later.
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Friday, December 19, 2008
Vegetable Terrine
Let’s start off with the Vegetable Terrine. I’ve only made this once at that was at Sylvie Lallemand’s home-based cooking school in Provence. I recall that it was beautiful and made a good side-dish for a seafood recipe. For Christmas dinner, I’ll serve it as a side-dish with our duck, so may skip or modify the recommended sauce. Since this needs to set overnight in the fridge, I’ll make it on Wednesday. Obviously, I’ll update this post with photos next week.
I’ll put a photo here, once it is made!
Update: Here is the promised photo:
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Christmas Dinner
I’m in charge of Christmas dinner, and thought it would be fun to document the process over the next week as I plan and prepare.
I’ve already purchased some Champagne. And, we have a bottle of 1982 Tignanello that I have been dying to drink. That along with eggnog that Lynne will make and a good stock of coffee, and I think we are set on drinks.
Here is what I think the menu will be:
Foie Gras Chaude (a nice salad of sauteed duck foie gras on a bed of apples and endives)
Roasted duck breast with a classic orange sauce
A vegetable terrine, maybe with some kind of chutney-like topping
A mushroom tarte
Dessert will be a Buche Noel cake followed by some home-made Camembert cheese
So, with that as a probable menu, the next step is to get a list of ingredients. We’ll do some shopping this weekend, weather permitting, because some things can be made a few days ahead of time. But, most shopping will come early next week with Wednesday and Thursday as the main cooking days. I’ll keep you informed and share the recipes and experience.
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Thursday, July 21, 2005
Recipe Site Upgrade
I’ve significantly upgraded the recipe site. The recipe search capabilities are much improved as is the user interface. Check it out by clicking on “Our Favorite Recipes” in the links on the right-hand side of the page. Site membership is still required to view recipes.
Rick
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Thursday, June 23, 2005
Monaco Trattoria in Loveland
Tonight we decided to eat out again. (That is twice in as many weeks, unusual for us!) We went to an Italian restaurant in Loveland called Monaco Trattoria. I don’t know how long it has been open, but I heard from a work colleague that it was good.
The atmosphere was good. It is not an intimate place, the seating is all in one room side-by-side, but not inappropriate for an Italian restaurant.
I think a lot of people think of pasta and tomato sauce when they think of Italian food. But, the Monaco serves authentic Southern Italian food. The chef, Guiseppe, is from the Sorrento area, I think. There are painting of the Blue Grotto on the walls and a great mural of what could be Sorrento.
The service was good. I think they are still working out some of the kinks. But, we were taken care of in a professional manner. We never wanted for anything, all the wait staff pitched in together to make the service pleasant. And, we were not put though the pain of personal introductions and trading names…what a relief.
The wine list is enormous, and about 95% of the wines are Italian. At leasat 1/4 of the wines are available by the glass—a good thing if they are getting the volume they need to keep the open bottles fresh.
The menu is very ambitious with many great choices for appetizers, pasta, meat, fish, rissoto, and salads. They have a wood-fired oven which they use for great foccacia and for pizzas at lunchtime.
The food was good. On a scale of 1 to 10, I’d give them a 7. Not a bad score for Northern Colorado and not bad given the ambitiousness of the menu. We had a wonderful fresh calamari appetizer—just fresh calamari, lightly breaded, quickly fried, and topped with a squeeze of lemon and some salt—too much salt for my taste, but apparently the chef likes it that way. Lynne had a breaded veal scaloppini and the breading was not crisp but a bit mushy. Still the garlic-lemon sauce was great. I had some red snapper, braised in some capers, olives, a little lemon juice and some wine—excellent.
In summary, a very pleasant meal. Good service. Nice atmosphere. And, I’m sure we’ll be back.
Monaco Trattoria
218 E. 4th Street
Loveland, CO 80537
(970) 461-1889
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