California Christmas: Chopped

I am not sure if anyone else watches Chopped but it's a show on the Food Network where people have to make an appetizer, main course, and dessert using specific ingredients. The challenge is that the ingredients are not always "normal". I have to use candy canes in my appetizer? Or bacon in my dessert?

Needless to say, watching it is a guilty pleasure of mine. And my aunt and uncle are fans of the show as well. As entertainment on a blustery evening in Northern California, we created a chopped challenge of our own!

The Rules:

My aunt and I had to make appetizers using cucumbers, my foraged chanterelles, and persimmons; a entree using salmon, asparagus, and (I can't remember what else); a dessert using pomegranates, quinoa, and chocolate.

Appetizer: Cucumber Disks with a Roasted Red Pepper-Walnut Spread, Wild Chanterelle Crostinis, Spicy Lime Tortilla Chips with Persimmon Chips and an Orange-Persimmon

Roasted Red Pepper-Walnut Spread

Also known as muhammara (I LOVE this word). Recipe from the NY Times.

Ingredients:
3/4 c walnuts, toasted and chopped

3 red bell peppers, roasted
3/4 c fresh bread crumbs*

1 jalapeño or other small hot chili pepper, stemmed and seeded
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 T pomegranate molasses
1 T lemon juice
1 t ground cumin
salt and pepper
2 T olive oil.

Directions:

Put all ingredients (except oil) in food processor and pulse until smooth.

Slowly pour in olive oil into running food processor.

Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary.

Eat with anything and everything: cucumbers, pita bread, your hands...

Entree: Asparagus and Red Onion Salad, Miso-glazed Wild Alaskan Salmon, Sweet Potato Latkes with Cranberry Relish, garnished with mixed salad greens.

Sweet Potato Latkes

Ingredients:

2 sweet potatoes, peeled

1 green onion, finely chopped

1/4 c whole wheat flour

1 T ground flax seeds, whisked into 3 T water

salt, pepper, smoked paprika

oil

Directions:

Grate the sweet potatoes (my aunt had a fancy grater feature on her food processor which made this process VERY easy)

Mix together all the ingredients, except the oil.

Heat oil in a frying pan over medium-high heat.

Take a handful of sweet potato mixture and form a patty.

Fry in oil until dark brown, about 5 minutes.

Flip to fry the other side.

Allow to cool on a rag (to wick away excess oil)

Serve with cranberry chutney!

Dessert: Spicy Chocolate-Dipped Date-Walnut Truffles, Pomegranate Quinoa Patties

My first pomegranate! Too pretty.

California Farmer's Market

This trip was very full of my uncle making fun of my obsession with taking pictures of fruits and vegetables. But you know what? I think it's crazy that people don't! Also, cooking locally during a Michigan winter = me very very excited to eat a locally grown avocado.

Buddha's Fingers

Pomegranates

 Persimmons

 I drooled over a booth that was selling about 10 different kinds of greens...

California Christmas: Boiled Artichokes

Finger food, seafood themed dinner? Not exactly vegetarian friendly... But a ton of fun and who doesn't like artichokes?

Carnage

Clean up crew

Look at em go!

Boiled Artichokes with Lemon

Ingredients:
artichokes
lemon

Directions:
Remove small, discolored leaves from the artichokes.
Slice a lemon or two.
Place artichokes and lemon slices in a pot of water.
Bring water to a boil then reduce to a simmer.
Simmer until chokes are tender, about an hour.
Serve with fresh lemon juice.

A few other dip ideas:
Dijon Dipping Sauce
Spicy Garlic Dipping Sauce
Creamy, Tangy Dipping Sauce
Quite a few more here...

Don't know how to eat an artichoke? Here's how!

California Christmas: Fruit Salad

Planning the christmas brunch menu with my aunt and uncle was legitimately a bizarre experience for me the other day. Fruit salad is a classic choice for such an occasion but fruit in the winter? Want to know what fruit is in season in Michigan right now? There isn't any... Unless you count apples that are in cold storage or the decent variety that I have been collecting in my freezer.

California Fruit Salad
Obviously not a very practical recipe for a Michigan winter but I do get to step out of my comfort zone (root veggies and greens) this christmas.

Ingredients:
3 c seedless grapes, cut in half
3 tangerines, peeled, sectioned, and cut in half
1 melon, balled
about 10 raspberries
juice of 2 lemons
a hefty T of local honey
1/2 c of fresh mint, chopped

Directions:
Mix grapes, tangerines, and melon in a large bowl.
Whisk together lemon and honey.
Mix in mint.
Pour liquid mixture over fruit.
Sprinkle raspberries over top.
Garnish with a few mint leaves.

Foraging for chanterelles

Lucky me, a foraging enthusiast lives next door to my aunt and uncle in Los Altos Hills, CA!

I got to go on a walk with him to a few places that he knew they typically grow. Literally on the side of the road. I don't think that people realize how many mushrooms are growing around us unless they look for them!

One statement that stuck was in reference to the thought process that he has on foraging for mushrooms. If you think about it as a walk in the woods, then you won't be disappointed if the search is not fruitful (or fungi-ful). But we found some beauties!

A little about chanterelles:

• Bright orange, bald cap, usually concave or wavy when mature.
• Well spaced gills, shallow, blunt-edged, and fairly thick, often with connecting veins in between.
• Gills are the same color as the cap or paler, running down the stalk.
• Stalk colored like cap or a little paler, solid (as in not hollow)
• White flesh, or tinge of yellow

The tricky part was that they were growing beneath a layer of leaves on the ground, not exactly the easiest thing to see. However, they bloom in the same place every year so once you find a patch, you know that in a years time, there will be more.

Can't wait to cook these buggers up! I'm thinking sauteed and served crostini style?

post cleaning