FrogPrincesse

In the mean time, our daugther was enjoying her breakfast. She had one of the peaches we bought yesterday. She tried it both with and without the skin, and decided that she liked it better without the skin (like her mom! This is a source of constant debate in our household). The peach was nice, altough it could have been sweeter. She also had a glass of milk and nutella on toast, again, since it's the weekend (her rationale). We had a couple of espressos.

Here is a summary of my morning. I started by draining the fromage blanc that I made last night. After about 12 hours it was quite thick and ready to go into the colander. I am using a synthetic reusable cheesecloth that I got at Curds and Wine. I drained it for about an hour. It can be drained much longer depending on what texture you want. Since I was doing to use it to make raita I wanted to keep it pretty loose. Then I gave it a whirl in a blender, about one minute to make it smooth. I followed the recipe from Vij's for the raita and grated my cucumber directly into the fromage blanc. Their recipe calls for yogurt but really I don't think that you can taste the difference in this recipe. I added salt, pepper, and garam masala. Normally I would keep the whey and use it in smoothies, but since my fridge is pretty full, I discarded it.

Thanks Kim! I am glad you are enjoying my blog. I am having a lot of fun doing it as well.

Hi Genkinaonna, Thank you. I just use piment d'espelette in recipes that call for cayenne. I find the flavor more nuanced and interesting. It's excellent in the Basque dish piperade (bell peppers, onions, and tomatoes).

Thanks for chiming in, Mike! What vertical stuffer do you use? Your blog is great, by the way.

kalyspo, I got the pasta attachment too, to replace an old manual pasta machine that was no longer working properly. I am hoping to use it soon. The casings that I used at "Nature's Best", from International Casing Group.

Thank you, Michaela!

I am happy to report that I have successfully stuffed sausage tonight! It was a little involved but went quite well thanks to my husband who was in charge of pushing the sausage in the stuffer attachment (and taking pictures at regular intervals...). It was a bonding exercise for us (only half kidding). The 4th is also our wedding anniversary! To the ground meat from yesterday, I added red wine and water, then mixed everything together in the Kitchenaid for a couple of minutes. The mixture tried to climb out of the bowl a few times so I had to keep a close watch. The casings had been soaking in water for > 30 minutes. I gave them a good rinse. I was having fun with the casing which surprisingly did not smell much (but you have to keep in mind that this comment comes from someone who considers andouilette, a kind of tripe sausage, as a delicacy...). My husband refused to get too close. The setup. Sliding the casing onto the stuffer attachment was not very difficult. With a little water, it slid on fairly easily. Then we started stuffing. At first, it was hard to control the stuffing and we were under-stuffing for a while. Then we started getting the hang of it. I decided not to form the links during stuffing, which may have been a mistake. When I twisted the links at the end of the process, a couple of them ended up bursting open... Next time I will try forming them as I go. Overall, my yield was 21 sausages. I am calling it a night. See you all tomorrow!

Finally getting to post tonight's dinner. The key words for our meal were fast and simple. We had done so much today, there was not a lot of energy left for something too elaborate. So I cooked the French version of fast food - steamed shellfish. Here are the ingredients. Notice the espelette pepper that I bought during my recent trip to Paris. It definitely has a kick, but is extremely flavorful at the same time. It smells sweet and a little fruity, almost like roasted bell peppers. A couple of other favorite ingredients are herbes de Provence, and dry vermouth that I use instead of white wine to add extra flavor. Here I am blanching some baby bok choy that I got in my farmers' basket/CSA last week. Then I diced the onion and peeled the garlic. I gave a quick rinse to the cockles. At that point, I started frying the onions in a mixture of butter and olive oil, to which I added herbes de Provence and the espelette pepper. Then it was time to add the cockles. I also added the bok choy after getting rid of as much water as possible by squeezing them dry. Adding vermouth. I closed the lid and cooked the cockles for about 5 minutes, until all of them were open. The plated dish with a little drizzle of arbequina olive oil, and toasted rosemary bread with a light garlic rub on the side.

Hi kalypso, It's nice to see all the San Diegans on this thread! Not all my days are as jam packed, but we had a lot to do to get ready for the 4th.

While my daughter was having dinner, I made a quick batch of fromage blanc that I plan on using to make raita to go with the lamb kebabs. Half a gallon of organic whole milk from Trader Joe's, 1/2 packet of direct-set fromage blanc starter. I get all of my cheese-making supplies at Curds and Wine. Their cultures and enzymes are from New England Cheesemaking supplies. I heated the milk to 86F, then added the culture and mixed. Now it's covered and setting at room temperautre for 12 hours. I will be draining it first thing in the morning.

I undertook another meat grinder project this afternoon. Yesterday I ground meat for sweet Italian sausage. Today I made an Indian lamb sausage, based on a recipe from Vij's, a great restaurant in Vancouver. My brother lives there so we had a chance to go to this restaurant. Here are the ingredients for the lamb sausage. For the meat, I used lamb shoulder, which was surprisingly hard to find. Also, the butcher refused to debone it (they were quite busy as the store was flooded with people shopping for the celebrations on the 4th) and tried to convince my husband - who was doing the shopping - that he should be buying leg of lamb instead for the sausage (which would have been a very expensive sausage). But we got the shoulder in the end, and I was able to debone it relatively quickly. Ingredients ready to go. I was a little optimistic with my large dice for the onion, and ended up having to cut it finer for the next step. Pureeing the onions in my mini food processor. I had to do this in two batches. Frying the onions in peanut oil Then everything was combined together, chilled in the freezer for about 45 min, and then went in the grinder. It came out of the grinder super fast at first, and then about mid-way through, I got up close and personal with sinew again as a large piece got stuck in the blade. But overall it went relatively fast. I guess I just need to be more careful when I trim the meat.

Our daugther had her favorite meal tonight - oeufs a la coque, aka soft boiled eggs, with "mouillettes", which are strips of toasted white bread with butter, used for dipping. Her French grandmother gave her the little "egg cosy". The cat egg cup belonged to me as a child.

After 99 Ranch, we came back home and spent some time in the pool. Then I decided a tiki drink was in order. I settled for an Ancient Mariner from Beachbum Berry Remixed, which is my go-to book for tiki drinks. This cocktail includes lime juice, grapefruit juice (the recipe calls for white, but I used a star ruby grapefruit from my farmers' market bag), simple syrup, allspice/pimento liqueur, Demerara and dark Jamaican rums, with a mint and lime garnish. This was my very first attempt at scoring lime for the garnish, and I need a little practice.

We had to do a quick run to 99 Ranch today after Stone. One of our guests doesn't eat red meat, and I wanted to get some head-on shrimp. Initially we wanted get them at Catalina Offshore, however they were not open today. So we ended up going to 99 Ranch, which has a pretty amazing seafood section (amongst other interesting things). 99 Ranch is a an Asian supermarket chain, primarily Chinese. We only spent about 10 minutes there, but here is a sampling of the seafood section. Live blue crabs There is a large selection of fish that you don't typically find in other places. Oysters and stone crabs For a quick meal tonight we bought some cockles. Everything looked good but there was little, if any, local seafood which is why we generally prefer Catalina Offshore, Point Loma Seafoods or Bay Park Fish, which is next door to Siesel's and five minutes from our place. The cockles were from New Zealand.

This is what we ended up buying today at Chino Farm. Yellow and bicolor corn for tomorrow's barbecue, yellow peaches, and raspberries.

Hi LindaK, We are lucky in San Diego, but I am sure your area has a lot to offer as well.

Wow, this paragraph caught my attention. Will be very interested to see how much you can cover in a week, because it sounds like you have a lot to offer! I'm especially interested in fresh cheese and homemade bread, but would love to know how you use your CSA produce. I LOVE the Food Blogs!!!! Hi FauxPas, You are right, there is a lot to cover. It's my first food blog so I will be trying to cram in as much as I can! I should have time to cover fresh cheese this week. I make ricotta almost every week so I should be able to fit that into the schedule (after tomorrow's barbecue). I'll see what I can do for the homemade bread.

We also had some food with our beer. While Stone is not exactly a gourmet restaurant, they make a point of using local organic produce. The bold flavors of the food reflect their beer. Our lunch started with a bowl of garlic cheddar and Stone Ruination IPA soup for me, and wild boar baby back ribs with apple slaw for him. I had another order of the ribs as my main, and he had the duck tacos. The food is unpretentious and fun, and we always have a good time there (the beer helps!). Before leaving we filled our growler in preparation for our barbecue with Cali-Belgique, a Californian-style Indian Pale Ale with a Belgian influence.

After Chino Farm we went to Stone Brewing in Escondido. We've been frequenting Stone since its earlier days in San Marcos. Five years ago they moved to Escondido and opened a large restaurant in their new location. The restaurant is a good place to go with kids as it's in the middle of a large garden. So, if service is sometimes slow, kids can have fun running around in the garden. Their style of beer is not exactly subtle but we enjoy their very hop-forward beers. They also have hundreds of choices from other local breweries and around the world. But one thing they don't serve is anything resembling fizzy, yellow beer. It's also fun to visit the brewery and see how everything is made. Today we both ordered from the very extensive list of beers on tap. I had the dark (almost black!) Stone BELGO anise imperial russian stout, a 2011 release. My husband had an "Iron Fist" saison from another local brewery, Off Hand in Vista.

This morning we went to Chino Farm, which is located in Rancho Santa Fe, amongst the most expensive real estate in San Diego. It's always been farmland and luckily the locals like to keep it that way. This small farm is legendary. It provides top-quality produce to a number of restaurants in California, such as Panisse in Berkeley, and Spago in LA. There is no "Chino Farm" sign when you get there. What you see is farm land with this sign. The little farm stand is very unassuming but the variety and freshness is quite remarkable. They got a little nervous when my husband started taking pictures with his big camera, but he managed to take a few shots of the beautiful produce. The most beautiful squash blossoms I've ever seen I was there to buy some corn for our barbecue tomorrow. They had 3 kinds - yellow, bicolor, and white. I got half a dozen each of yellow and bicolor. Here are the fields they come from.

Thanks for the tips, Honkman. I've never had much luck with Whole Foods in LJ for Puy lentils but you are right, Jonathan's is a good place for that kind of thing. I am familiar with Ranch 99 and Lucky Seafood. Actually I was just there today (more on that later). They do have a great selection of meat and seafood, but I am not always sure about the quality. Tip Top and Bisher's Meat are good too, but a little far for me.

Hi SusieQ, You are right, I should have been more specific. We can also find lentils in grocery stores in San Diego. I was referring to the Puy lentils, which are green lentils from France. They are so delicious that they are the only ones I use. They keep their shape better after cooking and have a wonderful taste. My favorite thing to do with them is a warm lentil salad with a drizzle of red wine vinegar and some herbs, especially in winter.

Here is the equipment that I use for grinding. I just bought this Kitchenaid as a birthday present to myself in May, and also got the grinder attachment. Even with the careful trimming, there was still some sinew left, and I had to clean the grinder once during the process. Sorry for the unappetizing picture! But this is what happens when sinew gets stuck on your grinder blade. It has a detrimental effect on the texture of the sausage so I tried to avoid it as much as possible. Overall, it was a much smoother process than my first attempt at sausage last month. The key was to keep the meet very cold before and during grinding. I put it in the freezer for about 30 minutes pre-grinding. I was very happy with the final texture. I will be stuffing the sausage this evening, so wish me good luck! Now, on our way to Chinos farms to get some things for our barbecue.

Then I added the garlic. I use a press for large quantities of garlic, because I am rather slow at mincing garlic by hand. All the ingredients are now together. Mixing everything. It was a good idea to use a metal bowl as it kept everything cold during the process.