A very lovely coworker surprised me a few days ago with a gigantic bag of meyer lemons from a family tree in Napa. I sent about 1/3rd of them to my mom, used several in smoothies (which are not so blog worthy and are certainly very ugly looking with all the chard and other hippie hoo-da I’ve been drinking up, thus, the blog has been rather neglected lately for my newfound need to eat more vegetables in very boring forms), and the rest are either in these lemon bars or waiting to be devoured in the coming days.

This recipe is only slightly modified from David Lebovitz’s Whole Lemon Bars recipe, with my notes and adjustments below. My favorite frequent visitor to Paris (who has on several occasions rubbed shoulders with Mr. Labovitz at certain company events!)  is coming for dinner Sunday and I imagine I’ll find some new, delightful way to use the lemons in our meal. You, reader, can look forward to that!

I did make these by weight and recommend you do the same if possible.

Crust
1 C flour (140g)
1/4 C sugar (50g)
1 stick butter, melted (113-115g)
1/2 tsp vanilla

Topping
2.5 small organic meyer lemons
3/4 C sugar (150g)
3 large eggs
4 tsp corn starch
1/4 tsp salt
3 T melted butter (45g)

Powdered sugar for top

Oven to 350–line a 8×8 inch pan in foil as smoothly as possible, matte side of the foil touching the bars/filling. Get the foil crisply into the corners.

Mix the flour, 1/4C sugar, 1/4 tsp salt, stick melted butter and vanilla until just smoothly combined. Distribute the dough into the bottom of the pan evenly using hands or a spatula.  Bake for 25 minutes until golden brown.

While crust is cooking, cut lemons in half and remove seeds. In a blender (I used my wonderful vitamix, but if you have a regular blender you may want to chop the lemons a bit), pulverize two lemons and the juice of 1/2 a lemon with the sugar until mostly smooth, a few chunks are good. Add the eggs, corn starch, salt and the rest of the butter, blending until smooth.

Pour the lemon topping onto the crust when it’s done cooking, reduce the heat to 300 and return the dish to the oven for 25 more minutes, or until it stops jiggling and is set.

Remove from oven, let it cool COMPLETELY before messing with it, then cut with a very heavy sharp knife into squares! Consider topping with powdered sugar and serving with tea.

I recommend NOT leaving these in an air-tight container as I foudn it to make them go very soggy very quickly. Foil wrapped in bunches works much better, at least in SF climate!

I’ve mentioned this before–when you start cooking Japanese food at home, it makes sense to just keep doing it. The ingredients effectively make you stock an entirely new kitchen, and while each step of most dishes is very simple, they almost always require making ingredients to be used–layer upon layer. So you may as well make extra stock, extra sauce, and repurpose it later in the week.

On that note, I have found several new Japanese cookbooks that I adore. I’ve mentioned the fabulous Washoku before, but the new ones I am in love with are more like encyclopedias of Japanese cooking, with huge selections of traditional hot dishes, allowing you to perhaps recreate something you’ve eaten in a quality Japanese restaurant. Japanese Cooking: a Simple Art &  perhaps now my all-time favorite, The Japanese Kitchen–it lacks photos, but provides great instruction and is excellent for those of us who know roughly what we want to make.

Age Dashi Tofu (Fried tofu with broth sauce)
1 10-oz block tofu; you can use firm sprouted tofu for full flavor or silken tofu for a nice play on soft-vs-crunchy
1/2 C potato starch (can sub corn starch if you must)
A lot of frying oil such as sunflower or safflower oil
2 green onions, sliced thinly on the diagonal

Drain the tofu well and pat dry, using some firm pressure but not breaking the tofu. If using firm or extra firm tofu, wrap in paper towels and place heavy dinner plate on top, letting sit 30 minutes. Next, slice along each axis of the block and then several times more to end up with 8 even rectangles. Dredge the rectangles in potato starch , tap excess off and let sit 5 minutes while your oil heats. Fry the blocks until slightly golden, about 5 minutes and then drain on a rack or paper towels. Serve half covered in sauce with green onion on top, and the tempura sauce’s ginger or daikon.

Tempura Dipping Sauce
1 C dashi (kelp/tuna flake stock)
5 T soy sauce
3 T mirin
1 T sugar
1/2 C katsuo bushi (tuna flakes)
2 tsp grated ginger or daikon, served with the sauce

Combine all ingredients except ginger/daikon, and bring to a boil. Add the katsuo bushi and turn off the heat. Let stand 2 minutes, strain and reserve. Lasts up to 1 week in refrigerator. Serve Warm.

For those of you in San Francisco, you can go and make your own comparison–but for the rest of you, you’ll have to trust me: the best French toast you’ll ever have is at Park Chow in San Francisco. It’s light, it’s crispy, it’s moist, it’s sweet and cinnamony. And, for weeks, I worked on perfecting my own version for a cinnamon french toast recipe. Here you have it–enjoy! (and if you’re really in for the whole experience, get some coffee from Thanksgiving Coffee Company–it’s where they get their custom blend!)

Mascarpone Cream Topping Recipe
1/2 C heavy whipping cream, whipped very firm
1/2 C room temperature mascarpone cheese
1/2 C powdered sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 T whiskey, creme de cocoa or other liquor of your preference

Mix all ingredients with a hand mixer. In an ideal world, you’ll cover it (or put it in a mason jar like I do) and refrigerate it until very firm.

Cinnamon French Toast Recipe – serves 3-4
4-5 1 inch thick slices Semifreddi’s cinnamon twist bread (a brioche style loaf with a slightly stick outside & cinnamon layers), quartered to triangles
3 eggs, whisked
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 cup milk

Whisk everything but the bread together, and then begin soaking the bread slices in the mixture. They should be pretty darn soggy.

Cook in 1-2 T butter in a 10-12 inch skillet at medium high heat. If your slices are very thick, or seem not to be drying out, reduce heat and cover lightly with a lid to steam through. Serve with real maple syrup, warm.

The hiatus was not entirely my fault. We had an issue with the kitchen sink’s piping, which, once we went in to fix what seemed simple, turned into quite a mess of replacing one part after another, the crescendo being when the disposal decided to actually fall out.

I was not very motivated to create more messes with no great way to clean them, and shortly after that was fixed the hot water decided to turn a lovely rusty brown. Anyway, we are all back in action and, I’m happy to say, fully functional again!

About this time last year I began cooking lots of Japanese food, mainly from a great cook book I own called Washoku Kitchen ($24.50 at the time of this post)– “recipes for Japanese home cooking.” I picked it back up yesterday and started cooking, with a few modifications.

The thing about good Japanese cooking is that the most delicious items seem to take many steps–5 ingredients, but each one you must create. A soy concentrate. A dashi. A miso mixture. It takes time, and works best if you start cooking a LOT of Japanese food, so you can make these things and use them more than once without duplicating efforts.

Udon noodles with pork & sweet potatoes/yams

For 3-4 people as a main course
12 oz fresh udon noodles, cooked*
8 cups dashi with shitake**
4 T seasoned soy concentrate***
1/2 large sweet potato, peeled & cubed
1/2 lb pork tenderloin, sliced thinly
2 green onions, sliced thinly on the diagonal

Bring the dashi to a light simmer, adding the soy concentrate. Place the cooked udon noodles in heated bowls. Using a large skillet and a lightly flavored oil such as avocado, cook the sweet potato on medium high heat until color is deepened, adding a touch of salt.

Add 1 T sake and 2 T water, and cover to steam 3-4 minutes. Push potatoes to side of pan and add pork, trying not to pile the pieces on top of each other. When pork is cooked, pour broth over noodles, add potatoes & pork to one side of bowl and sprinkle green onion over the top.

*cooked in a wide, not too deep pot with plenty of water for 2 minutes boiling, then drained and rinsed in cool water

**combine cold water with strip of kombu (thick kelp) and two dried shitake mushrooms. After 10 minutes, bring to just under a boil and then turn off. Add 1 cup unpacked bonito flakes (large tuna flakes). Let steep 2 minutes, then strain and return to clean pot

***Combine 2/3 cup soy, 1/3 cup sake, 1 dried shitake mushroom & 1/4 cup bonito or other tuna flakes, let steep 1hour-12 hours. Add 2T mirin, 3T water, 3T sugar. Bring to a simmer and reduce by 1/4. Strain and reserve.

No-stress Sunday Brunch

- Almond Beignets using Cafe du Monde mix and adding 1 tsp almond extract

- Baked eggs in dandelion greens & collards with nutmeg & cream (modified from smitten kitchen)

- Arugula salad with yogurt-citrus dressing, cara cara oranges, watermelon radish & ruby grapefruit

- Butternut squash-lentil hash with goat cheese (make ahead)

- Lots and lots of mimosas

- A bit of coffee to straighten up

Creamy winter citrus salad with Crab

For four:
1 dungeness crab, picked for meat (or about 8 legs/1.25 lbs in-shell)
2 small, tasty oranges
2 grapefruit
1 ripe avocado
1/2 C pepitas (pumpkin seeds, raw preferably)
3T plain greek yogurt
1 shallot
Juice of 1 lemon
1 T good, mild olive oil
bunch watercress
bunch frisee

Pick the crab meat and mince the shallot. Toast the pepitas in a hot pan, moving constantly for a few minutes. Zest the oranges and grapefruit a bit to get about 1-2 tsp of zest into a small bowl. Section the fruits by slicing the stem/flower ends off and cutting the pith away. Hold the fruit in your hand and cut* along the membranes to section the fruit out.

Drain the excess juice into the zest bowl, and add the yogurt, shallot, lemon juice, olive oil and a bit of salt. Whisk together and let stand. Slice your avocado thinly and portion 1/4 for each serving. Dress the frisee and watercress in the creamy citrus dressing, and assemble the citrus segments, crab, avocado and pepitas on top.

*If you’re afraid of doing this, watch a youtube video; if you’re still afraid, cut them in rounds instead.

Sometimes you just feel like a good meal, and if you can cook, you know you can either make a much nicer one for less money at home, or something better than what you could eat out. So, when my gentleman asked me what I’d like to do that evening, I said, “cook.”

For the Steak
2 filet mignons of a size appropriate to you
1/2 lb crimini or other meaty mushrooms, diced
1/2 leek, sliced finely and sauteed in butter, set aside
dry sherry
leftover bechamel sauce or some cream if you’re desperate (or make a roux and add some milk and salt)
butter

Heat the oven to 375. Using a metal skillet (not non stick) big enough for both steaks, heat enough olive oil to coat the bottom of the pan and add 1-2 T butter, melting at high heat. Salt & pepper the raw steaks. Add to the pan, cooking on one side until browned (about 2 minutes). Flip the steaks, cook 2 more minutes and then without moving the steaks, put the whole pan in the oven. For medium/medium rare, it should take about as long as it takes to make the sauce (5-8 minutes).

In a sautee pan of your choosing, heat 1-2 T butter until melted. Add the chopped mushrooms, cooking at medium heat until slightly shriveled and browned. Raise heat slightly and add 1/2 C sherry, cooking until mostly reduced. Add the bechamel sauce, warming and combining. Add salt & pepper to taste, keep warm.

I served this with wilted spinach (zest of 1 small lemon, juice of same lemon, into a big, hot pan), and couscous (cooked in vegetable stock).

For the salad
2 endives, cleaned and trimmed into seperate leaves
1/3 C candied walnuts (or plain ones, but why bother with going halfway?)
1 bosc pear (or apple, etc), sliced thinly
Blue cheese
Juice of 1 lemon
1-2 tsp walnut oil

Whisk lemon juice and blue cheese together. Use a bit of heat if necessary, the dressing should be fairly thick. Add oil and salt & pepper. Taste and adjust. Dress the endive leaves and assemble on plates, alternating with pear slices. Add more blue cheese crumbles on top and place the walnuts into the salad.

For the lasagna assembly:
1 pack no-boil lasagna sheets (GASP, a shortcut!)
2 small sweet potatoes, peeled and sliced thinly
2 lbs kale (mixed is OK), blanched, drained, and chopped finely
1 lb sweet italian sausage, no casing, pan fried and set aside
2 large leeks sliced thinly and cooked at medium low heat in fat from sausage

Bechamel sauce for white lasagna

8T butter
1/2 C flour
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp garlic powder or 1 clove fresh garlic
3 3/4 C milk
1 C chicken or vegetable stock
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 C marsala
1 C mixed grated cheese such as parmesan, pecorino, fontina, gruyere
salt & pepper

Melt the butter. Once it reduces spitting/bubbling, add flour and whisk, cooking for 3 minutes at medium heat. Slowly add the milk and the stock, raising heat to high. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly, until sauce coats the back of a spoon. Set aside to cool until warm to touch.

Once warm to touch, add the beaten eggs, 1/2 C marsala, 1/2 C of cheese and salt & pepper to taste.

Assemble the lasagna

Preheat oven to 375. Pour a thin layer of bechamel sauce on the bottom of your lasagna pan (preferably 8×10 or something similar/bigger), add two layers of lasagne sheets. Spread the sausage evenly, add salt & pepper, and cover with more sauce.

Add another 2 layers of lasagna sheets, next adding the kale. Top with salt & pepper, sauce, and more lasagna sheets.

Add a thin layer of leeks, and then as if making a gratin spread the sweet potato slices in a single overlapping layer.

Add more salt & pepper, sauce, and the final layer of lasagna sheets. Top with sauce and remaining cheese.  Bake for 40 minutes to 1 hour.

I hosted 8 (including myself) for dinner on Friday to celebrate my gentleman’s birthday; it was lively all night, everybody got full and we washed about 25 wine glasses. We drank champagne, prosecco, sparkling wine from california; we drank mouvedre from Chateau Margene, cuvee from Beckmen, a roussane blend from Tablas Creek–we had delicious wine, and the food came out great.

Recipes to follow in the next day or two. I wish I’d taken a photo of the refuse after making the crab stock, it was a pretty mess in my backyard compost container.

This recipe will feed about 4 people with a side dish or 3 hungry people without one. It helps to have a food processor available.

Filling
2/3 lb spicy or sweet Italian pork sausage, out of casing
3 cups chopped chard and/or spinach
1 cup ricotta cheese (preferably sheep’s ricotta)
1/2 yellow or white onion, diced

Cook the sausage in a medium high heat skillet in a little chunks, seperating with your fingers, until brown on one side. Add the onions, and cook until mostly tender. Add the chard/spinich, and cook briefly until wilted. Allow mixture to cool slightly in pan or in thin metal bowl, and if you have one, use a food processor to make the mixture more even/fine. Once cooled to room temperature or close to it, add the ricotta and stir until blended. Adjust seasoning.

Red Sauce
1 container chopped or strained tomatoes (I used a carton of POMI)
1 stick butter
1/2 onion, peeled and intact

Combine all ingredients in sauce pan and simmer until delicious. Add salt. About 30 minutes. Can make ahead.

White Sauce
1 T butter
2 T flour
1-2 cups milk
salt & pepper
1/2 tsp thyme or 2 tsp fresh thyme chopped

Melt the butter until the water content has fizzled off, add the flour and whisk, cooking about 1 min until slightly darker. Slowly add milk until you have a nice, somewhat thick consistency sauce. Set aside. You’ll be reheating this shortly and possibly adding more milk to pour over the cannelloni.

Pasta
2 eggs
00 white wheat flour if possible
0 semola / semolina flour

Use this recipe and roll out as thin as possible into sheets, cutting into strips about 10 inches long by 4 inches wide, roughly. It is ok if the sheets vary in size, so long as they’ll roll into a cannelloni giving it a few layers around. Boil water, add salt, and one at a time blanch the strips for 30 seconds or so, until they toughen up a bit. Remove, set on paper towels flat, not touching other pasta, in layers, to reserve for use.

Alternatively you can buy cannelloni tubes from the grocery or lasagna sheets without the ruffles.

Assembly

Put a thin layer of red sauce in your baking/casserole dish to prevent pasta from sticking to bottom. Roll several spoonfuls of filling into each pasta sheet, placing each closely against the next in the dish. Once finished, top with red sauce thoroughly, then white sauce. Top with grated parmesan or asiago, bake at 375 for 25 minutes until golden and beautiful on top.