On a budget of $120 for four people, a good friend and “astro-twin” who claims herself as a vegetarian but eats seafood and strangely, bacon, asked me to make a belated birthday dinner for her friend (my acquaintance). Because of the graces the bay area allows us in grocery shopping, and with many thanks to cheap, beautiful produce at Tokyo Fish Market in Albany, CA (plus some gorgeous seafood), and the amazingness that is Masse’s Pastries here in my neighborhood, we made a lovely dinner materialize complete with wine right here in the kitchen.

Monster Fresh Bay Scallop on Vanilla-Orange Risotto with Mint (Failed to take a picture of this, but we ate it up with Gloria Ferrer sparkling wine from Northern California, very reasonable ~ $14)

Start the risotto with half a medium shallot, diced, olive oil, and the pulp of one vanilla bean. Add the vanilla bean shell to your vegetable or fish stock–in this case I used a watered down vegetable stock so that the risotto did not take on too strong a flavor to avoid overpowering the scallop. Once the shallot begins to gain color, add the risotto rice, and a touch of salt & pepper. Once the rice is toasted, begin adding liquid, keeping the quantity such that the rice does not boil, and does not fry. This will take 25-40 minutes depending on the quantity of rice, in order to cook through. In the final minutes of cooking, when the rice is near tender, add the zest of one orange. Once tender, keep cooking until liquid has reduced a bit more, turn off heat. Add 1.5 T of butter, and one mineola segmented & cut in cubes. Add julienned mint at the end.

The scallop should sit in milk for about 1 hour before cooking. Heat a skillet to very high heat with olive oil, and sear the scallop, turning once golden or brown on the edges and achieving the same on the other side, keeping the inside rare. Serve on top of the risotto.

Sesame Seared Maguro on Yuzu Mixed Greens

This dish depends completely on the quality of the fish. Blocked tuna works best, in this case I used tuna from two different parts of the fish–thus the difference in color between each slice. Simply pat the fish dry and roll it in sesame seeds. In a hot skillet add olive oil and while holding the fish with your hands or tongs sear it on each side about 20 seconds, let it rest off the heat for 30 seconds and then slice and serve. The greens were dressed with a mixture of yuzu juice, olive oil, shallot, salt & pepper.

Spinach Salad with Bacon, Fried Chevre, Grapefruit

Ahead of time, slice the chevre into medallions, coat in egg and then bread crumbs and set back in refrigerator to firm (makes them fry more easily). I like to use Capricho Di Cabra goat cheese from Spain, but any fresh chevre will work, the moister the texture the better.

Cut 7 or so slices of bacon into smaller pieces and add to a hot, dry skillet, let fry until crispy, drain on paper towels and add 1-2 T of bacon fat to a bowl to make salad dressing.

For the greens, add to the bacon fat 1-2 T of olive oil, juice of 1/2 lemon, salt, pepper, and a small amount of minced shallot or garlic. Dress the spinach and portion the salad out.

Segment one grapefruit by cutting the top and bottom off, then using a large knife remove the pith and skin from around, then follow the interior membranes to segment the grapefruit, leaving the membrane as waste.

In a hot non-stick skillet, add olive oil to high heat. Be careful not to pass the smoking point, as olive oil burns very close to its frying heat. Add the cold, breaded cheve medallions to the oil, letting them color on each side, serving hot on top of the spinach along with some of the bacon and several segments of grapefruit.

We ate the 2nd & 3rd courses with a Rhone red and a lighter Rioja, both in the $10-15 range.

We had some Australian port with the miniature cakes ($4/each–an incredible bargain saiting 2 people per cake) from Masse’s pastries–we had chocolate-rapsberry, bloodorange-chocolate, and mango. They were out of the amazing caramel mousse with poached pear! :( Even still, delicious.

For two, Spanish Spicy Shrimp:

10 shrimp–shell & de-vein them yourself
8 slices baguette, toasted with raw garlic rubbed on them
5 cloves garlic, minced coarsely
1/2 cap san marzano tomatoes or package fresh cherry tomatoes (cut in 1/2)
olive oil
vegetable stock
1/2 tsp thyme
salt
pepper
chili flakes

Two skillets: start one cold with olive oil & chili flakes (about 1/2 tsp), heat on low until chili flakes start to brown, strain and put the oil back in the pan to pan-fry the shrimp later. In the other skillet, sautee the garlic in the oil until beginning to color; add tomatoes, 1 tsp chili flakes, & thyme, and let simmer. When reduced and broken down, add vegetable stock until “minestrone” consistency.

Heat chili oil to medium high, sautee shrimp. Serve shrimp on top of tomato “stew” with crotistin (toasted bread with raw garlic rubbed on) in a shallow bowl.

Pan-Seared Chicken with Wilted Spinach

1/3rd orange bell pepper, diced
1 small shallot, minced
1 large clove garlic, minced
olive oil
salt
pepper
spinach
zest & juice of 1/2 lemon
1 boneless chicken breast, skin on

Preheat oven to 375. Use a oven-safe skillet for the chicken. Sautee on medium low bell pepper, shallot, and garlic in olive oil with salt & pepper. On high heat, with 1-2 tbsp of olive oil in a separate skillet, sear chicken skin-down (season skin with salt & pepper), until skin is golden. Turn over, move skillet to oven.

When chicken is finished cooking (by sight; should become constrained on sides and generally thicker), remove from oven and place on cutting board to rest for 5 minutes. Meanwhile, add spinach to bell pepper mixture, and turn off heat. Zest the 1/2 lemon on top and add the juice. Put a lid on top of it and let it sit in the heat to wilt 70%.

Slice chicken and serve on top of spinach mixture.

A friend boyfriend of mine kindly not once but on two different occasions recently provided my cocktail-sipping self with much needed pizza delivered to my hand inside a bar (it was from the “outside”), and to thank him for not only 1. going to get it but 2. paying for it, I offered to cook him dinner. We drank a Sicilian white wine with the first two courses and a cabernet franc from Carmody McKnight in Paso Robles for the duck. There were also some bottles of cabernet sauvignon, but let’s not talk about that.

Beet Salad  – I used baby bitter greens (in this case, baby kale and arugula) and tossed it in my garlic-lemon-olive oil-salt-pepper dressing, roasted three small red beets in the oven (inside foil, with olive oil, salt, pepper for 1 hr at 400 degrees), peeled them and sliced them in wedges, and served it all up with a slice of the wonderful french goat cheese ($34.50/lb) Tomme Affinee Grandmere.  The beets were still warm, but feel free to roast them in advance.

Pasta with Roast Tomato Sauce, Fried Eggplant & Mussels – I made fresh pasta, cut the noodles quite thin, dressed them in a food-processor sauce of two roasted heirloom tomatoes, roasted shallots, garlic, fresh thyme, fresh rosemary, salt, and pepper, and added several cloves of fresh garlic at the end, then topped it off with two slices of eggplant fried in olive oil (very thin) and two mussels for each serving.

Pan-seared Duck Breast with Rum Pears & Almond-shallot Risotto – I scored the duck breast in a diamond pattern, seared it fat side down on very high heat, flipped it over, threw the whole pan in the oven at 350 for a few minutes, took the duck out of the pan to rest, threw the pan back on the burner, tossed in sliced pears and let them brown,  poured some rum in and let it reduce. Meanwhile, I made risotto with home made chicken stock, shallot, and onion, and at the end I mixed in some hazelnut oil, and toasted marcona and sliced almonds, along with some rum & amaratto soaked raisins.

We ate it right up.

Spring-Summer Gnocchetti with Pancetta, Squash & Arugula in Lemon-Thyme sauce

1 1/8th in slice pancetta, diced
1 small zucchini
1/4 cup chicken stock (otherwise omit)
1 small shallot, diced
1 clove garlic, course mince
Zest of 1 small meyer lemon or 1/4 regular lemon
Handful Arugula
Fresh Thyme (~1/2T leaves before chopping)
Piave, Parmesean, Asiago or other grated hard cheese

Start water boiling for gnocchetti. Meanwhile, dice zucchini, shallot, garlic, thyme. Seperately dice pancetta , and add to hot non-stick skillet on medium high. Let begin to crisp, gain color, and let fat out into the pan.

Add zucchini and thyme. Add salt & pepper. Let zucchini begin to brown, add garlic and shallot, turning heat down to medium. Water should be ready at this point–cook gnocchetti (alternatively use gnocci). Add chicken stock to zucchini mixture, let reduce.

Add grated cheese (~1 T before grating), lemon zest, toss. Turn off heat. Add gnocchetti to pan, toss, add arugula to pan, serve with Thyme sprig on top.

Plantains with Creme Fraiche Nutmeg Whip, Green Apple & Blueberries

1 Plantain (for 2-3 servings)
2 T butter
1/3 C Creme Fraiche
1/3 C Heavy Whipping cream
1/2 small green apple
Handful blueberries
Pinch salt
Ground nutmeg

Peel plantain and slice diagonally. Melt butter in non-stick pan on medium-high heat. When bubbles mostly gone, add plantains with each slice down flat to the surface. Let brown, turn slices over, then reduce heat to medium until browned on the 2nd side. Meanwhile, whip heavy cream into whipped cream. Add creme fraiche, and a dusting of nutmeg on the top of the mixture (just enough to notice some brown specks), whip together. Slice green apple thinly. Assemble and serve.