And We Don't Even Have to Hire Movers

We've moved our blog to: awinkandapinch.com.

Hope to see you there!

Don't Burn Down the Rental: Mimi's Pepper Steak with Garlic Scapes and Rice

As a child, one of my favorite dishes was a pepper steak my mom used to make. Unlike the recipes that use a mixture of stewed bell peppers and tomatoes, this one is a rich combination of whole peppercorns, a sour cream sauce, and a flambé-style brandy finish. When I told Elliott about my dramatic experience the last time I made this dish, he assured me that he had everything under control.

The recipe calls for you to deglaze the pan with a 1/3 cup of brandy and even though Elliott only used a 1/4 cup, the show was just as spectacular. We realized that when there is an explosive flame that reaches to the ceiling, it would probably be a good idea to have an exit strategy. (After a search on the internet we learned that a nearby metal lid is the best way to snuff out pan fires) The flaming brandy was easy enough to blow out but it still got our hearts pumping and filled our already smokey apartment with another wave of brandy-flavored smoke.

Considering my mom made this recipe multiple times in our small kitchen growing up, I realized we must have either had really high ceilings or she was a bad-ass cook. Elliott and I both agree that this recipe would be best executed in larger, more modern kitchens outfitted with vented hoods. Even though most of the alcohol burns off relatively quickly, it definitely gets your pulse going.

Pepper Steak:
4 small steaks (tenderloin, rib eye or spencer cuts)
Whole peppercorns
1/3 cup brandy
2 tsp. beef bouillon
Splash of red or white wine
1 tbsp. butter
2/3 cup sour cream

Lightly pound peppercorns or leave whole as we did. Press pepper into both sides of steak and let stand for 10 minutes. Heat a skillet and rub with meat fat. Cook steak on both sides until medium rare and season with salt. Add brandy and light, covering the pan with a metal lid, if necessary. Remove meat to platter. Add the beef stock and wine and cook for 1 minute. Finish with butter and sour cream.

Garlic Scapes:
Fresh garlic scapes, trimmed
1/2 fresh tomato
Butter
Olive oil
1/2 cup of white wine

Elliott's cousin Cisco recently told us about garlic scapes, a tender offshoot of the garlic plant that is only available at the beginning of the summer season. They look like a long green bean but with the subtle flavors of garlic. Since we both love garlic, it was a great change from our usual broccoli or asparagus. Their season is short so don't miss the chance to try these curly wonders!

Sauté the scapes in a little butter and olive oil. When heated through, add the tomatoes. Once the scapes have caramelized, deglaze the pan with the wine and serve.

Family Style Pasta with a Zucchini Marinara

The other night I was feeling a bit under the weather and Elliott made me a pasta I couldn't refuse. It was a simple marinara made with zucchini, white wine, and tons of garlic. Paired with a showing of The Godfather II, it was the perfect meal to get me up and running again.

Homegrown Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie

We got off the island, as we say here in West Seattle, and headed to Kent, WA last Saturday for a early Father’s Day brunch with Elliott’s family. His aunt and uncle have a great piece of property that is surrounded by rolling green hills, picket fences, and some neighboring horses. After a tasty meal and a tour of the garden, we headed back to the city life with two bags of fresh kale, chard, and rhubarb. Since we are currently addicted to strawberries, we thought what better use for the rhubarb than to mix them together and stick it all in a buttery, flakey pie crust?

Greekgasm: Lamb Sliders on Pita with an Apricot-Onion Relish

This last Sunday we had the rare treat to eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner together. It felt like a vacation - especially with the weather jumping to the 70s - so we decided to end the day with a Greek-inspired meal. This dinner materialized partly due to our passionate love for sweet potato fries, and partly from another round of "Let's Play...Clean Out the Fridge!" 

Weather Getting You Down? Don't Get Mad, Get Stewed: Rib Eye Stew with Butternut Squash

Whenever the sun is on strike, as it so often seems to be in this part of the country, the best way to warm up is to take a hot yoga class or make a big pot of stew. Since we were both still recovering from our latest yoga adventure, we chose the easier and tastier option. Plus it seemed like the perfect companion for that night's "Game of Thrones" (Little did we know they were skipping a week for Memorial Day).

Johnny Cakes with a Twist: Heirloom Purple Corn

There's nothing better than a Sunday morning spent in bed with a good New York Times article. This last Sunday we came across a fascinating piece on how we are breeding the nutritional content out of our foods in favor of sweeter, less nutritious varieties (New York Times article). Blue corn, for example, has almost 65 times more phytonutrients than the super sweet white corn we're all familiar with. We began to brainstorm what we could do with blue or purple corn and immediately thought of Johnny Cakes. 

Soft-core Albacore with Bok Choy, Portabella and Red Bell Pepper

When you sear albacore or ahi tuna on the grill, it doesn't even resemble the stuff you get in the can. The fleshy, medium-rare middle is like candy with just the right touch of salt on the edge. It is the perfect execution of cooked fish, without any hint of fishiness. 

Poor Man's Paella with Chicken, Chorizo and Shrimp

Technically this dish is more "middle class" thanks to the saffron, one of the most expensive spices in the world by weight. The cheapest jar we found was just under $15 and though it was hard to see the value in these tiny red strands, a little goes far and the taste is totally unique.

Paella is a Spanish mash-up of rice, veggies and surf and turf ingredients. While most recipes we found were a seafood extravaganza of clams, mussels, squid, and lobster tails, we opted for jumbo shrimp. Hence, the "poor" in our title.

This Ain't Our First Fiesta - Slow Cooked Carnitas with Ancho Chile Sauce

There is no better way to honor Cinco de Mayo than to slow cook a pork roast in the crock pot for 12 hours. You simply rub the roast with spices, dump in some beer and forget about it. We started ours at 10 o'clock the night before so by the next morning the whole house smelled amazing and the pork was falling apart mid-air from pot to plate. By the time dinner rolled around, we had plenty of time to grill some peppers, make an ancho sauce and salsa from scratch and chill out from our day in the sun. ¡Salud!

Guy's Night Gratin Potatoes with Leeks and Gruyere

When you're cooking dinner for a big group of guys, you can't go wrong with meat and potatoes. Marinated flank steak is easy and (somewhat) affordable and gratin potatoes are a good dish to make ahead of time with little cooking fuss during the party. Throw some in-season vegetables on the bbq and there's plenty of time to catch up at the meeting of the grill masters.

Morning in the Mediterranean: A Turkish Inspired Breakfast

Many years ago I visited Turkey and found that each hotel I stayed at served a variation on a deconstructed Greek salad. Sometimes there were hard boiled eggs or fresh fruit, but always some cucumber, tomatoes, and feta. At first I thought it was strange to not not have a warm, freshly cooked breakfast but after a week, I began to look forward to it.

Bu-Tang Tacos

Every so often it's a necessary step in the cooking process to pilfer through the contents of your fridge. It's so easy to forget about what lurks in the depths of the beast that you'd be surprised when you do go spelunking, there can be quite a few treasures to be found. On this particular night, we discovered some butternut squash living next to the stack of cookbooks we keep stored in our freezer (it's a long, soggy story). 

Brown Butter Duet

One of our go-to dishes when we're feeling decadent is Panko-Crusted Halibut over Gnocchi in a Brown Butter Sage Sauce. It was originally inspired by a gnocchi-making class we took at PCC. Our teacher was a flamboyant Italian woman named Iole and after tasting her homemade gnocchi with the brown butter sage sauce, we knew we'd found a keeper.  Although this night we opted for the store-bought version, it's surprisingly easy and fun to make the gnocchi from scratch.

Where Fish Go to Fry

We popped into The Seattle Fish Company on California Ave. for a quick lunch and to pick up some fresh halibut for our weekend dinner. It used to be that you'd head to Alki Beach for the best fish and chips in West Seattle, but we're firm believers that the title now belongs to this establishment. 

Bob's Slaw Blog

As all of you Arrested Development fans know, season 4 drops on Netflix on May 26th. We're currently working our way through season 3 and had to give a shout out to everyone's favorite dysfunctional attorney, Bob Loblaw. The slaw we created is healthier than the corn baller, more original than a chocolate covered banana, and just as colorful as the characters on the show. Enjoy!

April Flurries Bring Green Curries

Mid April in Seattle is usually mild (in rainy terms), but this year some parts of town got hail and snow. What better way to warm up from this freakishly cold weather than to make some homemade green curry? Ever since we used the recipe from the cookbook, Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet, we've never gone back to store-bought curry paste. Even though it takes a long list of ingredients and some elbow grease, the flavor is totally unmatched by what you can get in the jar. Plus, you can control the spice level and freeze the leftover paste for quick meals during the week.

Sick of Meat? Don't Be Radicchio!

It's been almost two weeks since our trip to Argentina and we've been experiencing some serious meat withdrawals. Or perhaps our desire comes from watching back to back episodes of The Walking Dead.

Not Your Cardamom's Oatmeal

For Labor Day weekend last year, we headed to the Olympic Peninsula for some good ol' fashioned beach camping. It had been almost ten years since I'd gone camping at this spot and a lot of things had changed. For one, we sadly brought an iPad loaded with movies so we wouldn't have to stare at the stars all night. For another, we traded cheap beer for actual sustenance and hiked in enough food to last us a week.

You Say Picatta, I Say Marsala

There's something about a really thin slice of pan-fried chicken that is so appealing. When you sear chicken and braise it in a sauce, the meat becomes so juicy and tender, you'll be wondering why you didn't buy a bigger piece. The best options for this cooking method are Chicken Picatta and Chicken Marsala. Two wildly different recipes but equally delicious in their own right.

Scampi's Inferno

Shrimp scampi is technically a very simple dish. The fundamental ingredients are shrimp, garlic, parsley, lemon juice, wine, butter and red pepper flakes. Sounds like a no-brainer, right? Well for some reason, this dish has eluded us on two separate attempts. On our first try, we followed a recipe only to burn the garlic beyond recognition. For our second outing, we sauteed the garlic and shrimp to perfection only to learn that both of us had salted the dish, resulting in a scampi quite literally from the sea. So we brave this dish once again with all of our past mistakes in clear view. We've picked out the perfect shrimp, combined just the right elements...should we be worried that our grocery bill was $86.66? Are we forever stuck in the purgatory of scampi hell?

Chocolate Double Date

What do you get when a self-imposed cleanse meets dessert? Chocolate covered prunes and toasted almonds! We were out of our usual favorite go-to fruit, the strawberry, so we combed our reserves for the perfect substitute. D'noir prunes are some of the juiciest we've ever tasted and nothing beats toasting your own nuts.

For the dark chocolate we got two different varieties from South America. Place a glass bowl above a pan of water and melt the chocolate pieces with a few pats of butter, vanilla extract, and fresh vanilla bean.When the chocolate has reached a smooth consistency, remove the bowl from the heat. Line a plate with parchment paper and start dipping. For the chocolate covered almonds, pour a layer of chocolate over the nuts and finish with some sea salt. Refrigerate until hardened. Enjoy!

Don't Cry for My Big Toe, Argentina

On our last full day in Buenos Aires, we took a short trip to the town of Tigres, a river delta region where a number of tributaries flow into the massive Rio de la Plata. We hopped on a rather large tour boat and spent an hour getting a peak at all the islands and waterways that are only accessible by boat and understandably, a top vacation spot for Porteños. The water is colored brown by silt and quite rough at times, but is teaming with other boaters, kayakers, wake-boarders, and swimmers. We wished we were on our own boat so we could explore all the waterways that snaked back into the trees.

Bolitas, Milanesas, y Libres...Oh My!

For the entire trip so far we've been on the hunt for a bead shop for Carinn’s jewelry, with low expectations of finding one. Imagine our surprise when we finally Googled bead shops and found one literally across the street from our hotel. It was the quintessential example of finding a needle in a haystack and was a good sign for the beginning of our designated shopping day. All you beadies out there know that each bead shop is unique in its own right and this one yielded many treasures. Unlike ones in the States, the beads in this shop are in individual jars that the shopkeeper must climb a ladder to retrieve.

Over the Pond and Through the Park...

Elliott discovered a great park on one of his runs so we took a detour on our way to the Evita Museum. Situated near the Palermo neighborhood, this park is a cross between Greenlake, an English rose garden, and a tropical resort. Argentine couples cuddled on benches as gaggles of geese roamed the grounds. Except for the occasional honking horn, it really was an oasis in the middle of the city.

Tango in an Elevator

We'd heard a lot about the neighborhood La Boca and decided to brave the crazy taxi ride in rush hour traffic to get there (traffic laws and stoplights are clearly just a suggestion here). La Boca was originally settled by poor Italian immigrants who would paint their homes with any color that was available. It's still a working class neighborhood with a small tourist center called El Caminito, an amateur photographer's dream. All of the guidebooks were clear about not staying after dark for safety reasons, which led to a mass exodus of the tourist-lemmings 45 minutes before sunset. This gave us the opportunity to stick around for a bit longer to take advantage of the empty streets and the perfect light.

A (Monday) Night Out With a Local

This is what a photo looks like when your battery dies in the middle of a shot...
or maybe Martin is just a figment of our imagination.

Last night we connected with a family friend and got a Porteño's tour of the city. Martin was super friendly and as good a host as two touristas could hope for. He took us to dinner in Cañitas, a chic neighborhood just outside of Palermo. Even though Monday night is not the hot night to go out in Buenos Aires, the large restaurant was filled to capacity by 9:30. We told Martin that we love to eat so he took charge of ordering for the table. The first round consisted of some of the best chorizo we've tasted, grilled cheese with oregano, and a mystery meat that Carinn would like to keep that way. From what we could gather it came from the "other" category of a cow but was extremely tender and succulent. 

Two Little Tourists Went to the Market

After an 11 hour coma to recover from our travel day, we were ready for an adventure. We'd heard about the Sunday market at San Telmo but the scope of it was way beyond our expectations. 

What's New Buenos Aires?

¡Buenos Días Desde Argentina! Well we finally made it after 23 hours of travel and less than 2 hours of sleep. Our first stop was lunch at The Natural Deli, a local hang-out with surprisingly good food. The menu didn't have a lick of English so we played our first round of Eating-Out Roulette. Not too bad for a couple of zonked touristas! 

Habañero-Slaw Redux

Last night I pulled up our blog so I could consult Elliott’s method for the Habañero-Slaw. He’s usually the one in charge of making it on taco night but I thought I’d get a head start with recipe in hand. In the process I discovered a key ingredient was missing. Then I tasted the slaw and found the seasoning to be way off. I put everything on hold until Elliott returned and wondered where I went wrong.

A few problems were discovered. First off, the head of cabbage I was using was quite a bit smaller than what he typically uses. Another key part was in the directions. Elliott guesstimated a bit on the high side when he wrote “add 2 teaspoons of salt to the cabbage and set aside.” I just drained the excess liquid when I should have really been squeezing it. We also adjusted the amount of rice wine vinegar and added in the lime juice. It is a crucial part of the dressing but somehow was left out of the original recipe. You’ll know the slaw is perfect when you get the perfect combination of the four S’s: salt, sweet, sour, spice.

A key lesson in all of this is in the wildly different ways we tackle cooking. Elliott tends to cook by taste and feel while I tend to follow recipes with a variation here and there. I need to tap into my senses more and Elliott needs to hone in on his measurements. In the future we will try to look at our posts from both viewpoints so we can give you the best possible recipe! 

Alliteration Chicken (a.k.a. Cheddar & Chutney Stuffed Chicken Breasts)

The idea for this chicken actually came from Rachel Ray’s “Big Orange Book,” a solid collection of totally manageable recipes. This is technically my second attempt at this dish. When I tried it years ago, I wasn’t quite sure how to stuff the chicken so the cheese ended up oozing out into the pan instead of on my plate. With Elliott at the helm however, I knew this chicken recipe had a fighting chance. White Cheddar and chutney may sound counter-intuitive, but the flavors are actually quite complimentary.

Strawberry Clouds

On a recent Saturday morning I had a hankering for pancakes. Elliott is usually up for a weekend feast but he wanted to somehow offset the white flour. He threw some flax seeds into the batter and voila, our version of a compromise: I got my flapjacks and he got his fiber. What I didn’t expect was the dreamy concoction he created for the topping. It was like dessert in the morning but so much more subtle and sophisticated than your typical maple syrup. And don't let the flax seeds scare you. Their nutty flavor and slight crunchiness turn your old friendly pancake into a completely new experience. You can change up the berries if you like, but it will still be a meal straight from heaven!

Pasta for Grown-Ups (a.k.a. Pasta Puttanesca)

I first stumbled across a Pasta Puttanesca-like recipe a few years ago when I was trying to put together a meal from the meager supplies I had in my cupboards and fridge. I usually always have a tomato on hand and with some capers, canned tuna, and some questionable parsley, I had a quick and easy Italian dinner. Since that night, I’ve perused a few recipes and added more of the staples like olives and anchovies. I know what you’re thinking. Anchovies? I remember as a kid making a face anytime I saw someone order that stinky pizza with the fish on it. It took about twenty years for me to actually get over the fishy part and value them for their unique salty flavor. Once they melt in the sauce and meld with all the other ingredients, you won’t even notice them. All you’ll be able to taste is how just a few simple ingredients can transform into something so complex. What literally translates as “whore’s pasta” keeps you coming back for seconds…and thirds.

Feast of the Southern Wild (Grilled Pork Chops with Apricot-Dijon Relish)

Carinn and I met working in the deli of the West Seattle PCC (that's the Puget Consumers Cooperative for all you foreigners). We actually started on the same day, as the only two 'West Side' employees at orientation. PCC is definitely a bit on the "crunchy" side (ok, maybe more than a bit), and the person hosting the orientation gave a rather in-depth lecture on NOT wearing any scented products so as to avoid offending customers. I have one of those brains that shoots first and asks questions later but not in the badass, John Wayne sort of way. I blurted out, "Do I smell? Can you smell me?" I was really referring to the strength of my deodorant, but it didn't exactly come out gracefully. The fact that Carinn would even speak to me, let alone invite me into her home after that spectacle is a testament to her kindness. Anyhow, on to the food. 

A Bacon Lover's Paradise

When Elliott asked me if I'd ever been to The Swinery, I didn't quite know how to react. He wanted me to have lunch at a butcher shop?

Elliott assured me with a signature "trust me" and we swung in for lunch one day. As it turns out, they grind their beef for burgers in-house and add pork belly to the mix. They're rich, greasy, and totally worth it. But what really got me was what they sold on top of the case. Chocolate chip cookies with BACON. It was my dream meal in one and I've been a fan ever since.

Elliott's Habañero-Slaw Fish Tacos

We took a trip to Maui a couple of years ago and had our minds blown by the fish tacos at Coconut's in Kihei - We had to figure out how to make these on our own. On our first attempt we made habañero ranch to put on top of the slaw, but on the second attempt we incorporated the habañero directly into the slaw dressing. This allowed the heat to incorporate more evenly into the cabbage, which we think is way better. We have two versions of these tacos: the "payday" version with seared ahi, and the "rent-is-due-tomorrow" version with battered fish filets from Safeway. Honestly, the version with the fish filets is equally as satisfying, just not as 'special'.

Two Cooks, One Pot

We are known to most as Carinn and Elliott and creating over-the-top meals at home is the foundation of our relationship. We met while working in a kitchen and we've been cooking together ever since.  We spend an obscene percentage of our income on ingredients like chanterelles, pancetta and locally produced artisan cheeses (so. much. cheese.); This blog is our attempt to justify the extravagance.

We will do our best to include recipes along with photos of our creations, but most of the time our meals start with a recipe and quickly become improvisational (courtesy of Elliott and his endless tinkering). We look forward to sharing our culinary adventures with you!