Monday, December 27, 2010

Porcini and Bacon Sauce

    
     
Picture Homer Simpson saying "Mmmmm, doughnuts..."  Actually, that's more the sound you will make when you have this sauce.  Really, the picture should be of you tasting this sauce, sneaking it from the gravy boat, putting a dab of it behind your ears, filling the tub with it and swimming around slurping it up.  This sauce is that good.  It is not a heavy roux based gravy.  It is not a light sauce per se, but it is so savory, so sublime, so simply...unctuous.  Like all truly good things, it starts with rendered bacon.  It includes reduced wine, it includes more garlic than you would imagine.  Two kinds of broth, two kinds of mushrooms, but really it is not complicated.  It just requires a little patience to simmer down all that goodness into greatness.  That's ok, because I serve it with a Christmas roast, so there is time while that roasts.  Indeed, this is my Christmas menu every year: a standing rib roast, Yorkshire pudding style popovers, green beans, and this sauce.  It comes from Bon Appetit, December 2005.  I am sharing this secret with you, only because I know that at the end of the meal, when you volunteer to clear the table, when it is just you in the kitchen, you will secretly sneak a last mouthful of this sauce straight from the gravy boat.  It is Christmas after all...Makes 2 cups.

Ingredients:
2 oz dried porcini mushrooms 
2 cups boiling water
1/4 lb sliced bacon, chopped
9 garlic cloves, minced
2 shallots, thinly sliced 
1 lb button mushrooms, sliced
3 cups dry red wine
4 cups low-salt chicken broth
1 cup beef broth
1 large fresh rosemary sprig
4 tbsp butter, diced

Directions:
Place the dried mushrooms in the boiling water and soak for 30 minutes.  Meanwhile, cook the bacon in a large saute pan over medium heat until golden.  Add the garlic and shallots and cook another 3 minutes.  Add the fresh mushrooms, stir, and cook for 8 minutes.  Transfer half of the mushroom mixture to a bowl and reserve.  Strain the porcini mushrooms, saving the liquid, and add the drained mushrooms and wine to the pan.  Boil for 15 minutes and then mix in the broths.  Add the porcini liquid minus any sediment, bring to a boil, turn down the heat, and simmer until reduced to 5 cups, about an hour or more.  At this point, add the sprig of rosemary and simmer for 5 more minutes.  If preparing for a roast, after the roast is done and removed, pour off the fat from the roasting pan and place on the stove top over a hot burner.  Add the mushroom sauce to the pan and scrape up the browned bits, stirring them in to mix.  Strain the mixture back into the saute pan, pressing  out all liquid.  Simmer until reduced to 2 cups, about 5 minutes.  Turn off the heat, mix in the butter and the reserved mushrooms and bacon.  Season with salt and pepper.  Serve.


  

Pepper Onion and Ricotta Omelette

Follow the instructions from the 3/17/2010 post for making a fluffy egg white omelette . Fill with the cooked peppers and onions posted on  11/22/2010 post..add dollops of part-skim ricotta and salt and pepper. Serve alone or with a slice of canadian bacon or turkey bacon.










Pepper Onion and Ricotta Omelette

Follow the instructions from the 3/17/2010 post for making a fluffy egg white omelette . Fill with the cooked peppers and onions posted on  11/22/2010 post..add dollops of part-skim ricotta and salt and pepper. Serve alone or with a slice of canadian bacon or turkey bacon.










Haven't been posting..here we go again!

I am as you may know blogging to keep to a good healthy plan of eating..and while I have  not been blogging much lately I have continued to stay on the plan and now intend to add all the things I have been cooking and eating..Happily I have lost 10 pounds on my diet and lowered my blood pressure considerably!
So dear readers..Thanks for your patience and I look forward to your comments and ideas in the coming months!

Haven't been posting..here we go again!

I am as you may know blogging to keep to a good healthy plan of eating..and while I have  not been blogging much lately I have continued to stay on the plan and now intend to add all the things I have been cooking and eating..Happily I have lost 10 pounds on my diet and lowered my blood pressure considerably!
So dear readers..Thanks for your patience and I look forward to your comments and ideas in the coming months!

"Chunky" Walnut Basil Pesto


I really want a food processor, then I can start making more of my own dips and sauces and spice pastes. But today I was watching a video of how Italians traditionally made pesto. They made it by hand, with a mortar and pestle! The word "pesto" is literally translated as "pounded" so the food processor, which chops up the basil instead of grinding it, is actually less desirable. Time to put my "ancient" kitchen utensils and biceps to good use.

Walnut Basil Pesto
Ingredients
1 clove garlic
sea salt, black pepper
3 handfuls of fresh basil leaves
1 handful of walnuts, lightly toasted
1 handful of grated good parmesan
good extra virgin olive oil
squeeze of lemon

Method
1. Crush garlic with the sea salt and black pepper.
2. Add the basil a handful at a time and continue pounding/grinding.
3. Crush the toasted walnuts with your hands first, then add in and continue pounding/grinding.
4. When you get a creamy consistency (I left mine quite chunky), add the grated parmesan.
5. Stir in extra virgin olive oil till you get a smooth enough mixture. It depends on the dryness of the cheese.
6. Add a squeeze of lemon, to taste.

Authentic pesto calls for pine nuts, but I didn't have any, so I used walnuts instead. It's more fun experimenting with other types of herbs or leaves and other nuts actually.
I liked it, the texture was very rustic, so it's more like a chimichurri. To be honest, that's because I got tired. I still want a food processor...

Leftover Roast Chicken and Fried Leftover Mash, with Roasted Chestnut and Celery Salad


The Christmas and New Year holiday period is the time of year where leftovers form a huge part of many meals. Whether it be leftover turkey on sandwiches, leftover trimmings picked at as snacks, or leftover cakes and desserts eaten when desired, millions of people are looking to ensure that the excess food which they bought but were never likely to need does not go to waste. This recipe is therefore devoted to leftovers. It is composed of leftover roast chicken and mashed potatoes, with an interesting and delicious little salad served as an accompaniment. (Note that the salad was a last minute experiment but it did work very well!)

Ingredients

4 slices of leftover roast chicken breast
3 tbsp leftover mashed potatoes
1 celery stick
1 tbsp raisins
6 chestnuts
2 tbsp low fat natural yoghurt
Mixed pickles of choice
Salt and pepper
Butter for frying

Method

It is important to start the preparation of the salad first. This is principally so that the raisins can soak up some of the yoghurt liquid, both that they may soften and that the salad will not be too fluid. The celery stalk should be washed and sliced across the way to a thickness of 1/4". The celery pieces, raisins and yoghurt should be mixed together in a small bowl, covered with clingfilm and refrigerated.

Although I have eaten roasted chestnuts many times in my life, I had never attempted to roast them myself until a few days ago. I therefore did the obvious and consulted Google for instructions/advice. I used only a few chestnuts on each occasion but the first four or five attempts were disastrous - the chestnuts were not only over-cooked but, frankly, wholly inedible! It actually quite literally left me wondering whether the people who published these recipes had indeed actually ever attempted them...

It is only fair, I feel, in this respect that I present the perfect recipe which I discovered for roasting chestnuts:

How to Roast Chestnuts

When the chestnuts are ready, they should be left to cool before being halved to peel them and then halved again in to quarters. Make sure that you remove the brown inner skin, as well as the shell. The quartered chestnuts should then be mixed in to the yoghurt salad and the dish returned to the refrigerator.


A little bit of butter should be melted in a non-stick frying pan. The cold mashed potato should be compressed in to a ball and flattened in to a disc, exactly the same way as when making hamburgers. It should then be fried in the butter over a medium heat for around five minutes each side until nicely browned.

The chicken should be arranged on a plate, the fried mashed potato added and a spoonful of salad and pickles of choice served as a final garnish.

Talk about feeling

Hello people, hows you? I hope youre in good mood and condition.
I will share about something so crutial for us, feeling.

Here, in Indonesia, labil (unstable emotion/labile) and galau (confusion/hubbub) are very very very popular. Because its usually happens. When people feels it, spontanously their tweets so emotional. And some of them put witty status or quotes. Do not be surprised, if account like The Daily Love, Itwitquote, ihatequotes, damnitstrue, etc being popular and got alot followers.

Have you felt like that? No? yes? Doesnt matter, its a normal life.
And enjoy this all.














Well to be honest, im often feel galau or labil too. So thats why i have it all. HAHAHA.
But seriously, im happy with my love.

the greatest thing i feel now is, i feel loved and loving.


Love y'all,

Ketty Tressianah
xoxo avdp xoxo

Project Organization

This past week, right before Christmas, I finally talked my husband into organizing the basement with me. We have been putting this off for a long time, well a couple months. I did have it all nice and organized at one point, then we had the basement re-sealed so we had to move everything to the middle so they could jack-hammer around the perimeter. So everything has been sitting in the middle of the basement since then, like this...


I brought a radio player down with Christmas music and we got to work! David took care of the camping equipment and his tools, I organized all my decorating things and the books. We both had school books from when we were in college. We decided to only keep the ones from our majors and got rid of  sell the rest on ebay. So after about 4 hours of huffing and puffing, we finally finished!



The mattresses in the middle are going to be donated to our churches disaster relief program and there is a huge pile of trash that is hiding in one of the rooms off to the left in the first picture. There is also a little pile that is going to be donated to Good Will.

My next organization projects: 
The upstairs closets
The kitchen cupboards
The linen closets
The bookcases in the dining room

Hopefully a lot of this will get done this week since I am off work. I plan on working on the kitchen and bookcases hopefully today. My head will feel so much clearer after this is all done!

Now to get off of here and get to work; I think hubby is cooking me a yummy breakfast too! :)



Do you enjoy what you read on Golden Reflections? Please vote for this blog at The Picket Fence Blogs. Click on the button below once daily! 

Underwater Videos Are on the Way!

Santa was good to me this year!


How about you? What kind of loot did you score?

A birthday after Christmas!


Last 25th of December was Vic's birthday. Vic os one of the cutest boys I've ever met. We've been friends for about two years now, as we met in a forum about the tv show Skins. And yesterday, a bunch of people from the forum decided to give him a surprise!

So he came home for having lunch with me, and after lunch we met the rest of the people... and we gave him his cake!
 
 
 
 

We had a lovely time yesterday. Finally, I met some girls, like Julia or Alicia, that I wanted to meet so much. I could see again this lovely group, they're so great... all of them!

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Ari took a couple of pictures in wich you can see the Christmas' lights on the street... and my outfit!

 
 
 Dress - Vintage
Scarf (used as belt) - Offbrand
Boots - Aces of London
Headband with butterfly - Handmade by me!

So, how was your Christmas' day? Did you had lots of presents? I had a lovely t-shirt by Junko Mizuno, one of my favourite drawers!