Kashmera and Krushna Cook

Kashmera Cooks!

Another Old Tom Please

Crab Dynamite on the Deck

Chicken and Spinach

Swordfish with Sauce Vierge

Cathy found a recipe for Grilled Bass with Sauce Vierge. The recipe calls for Grilled Bass but we used Swordfish. I like this sauce it is very much tastes like Provence. It has the added bonus of not being very difficult to make. We started with Prosciutto and Melon. It is was a very good dinner.

Grilled Bass with Sauce Vierge

Good Food Magazine

Ingredients

50g butter, melted

4 sea bass fillets

For the sauce

100g cherry tomatoes, finely chopped

2 tsp small capers

juice of ½ lemon

1 shallot, finely chopped

100ml extra-virgin olive oil

handful torn basil leaves and chopped chives, to garnish

Method

1.   Line a grill pan with foil and brush lightly with butter. Brush the fish on both sides with butter and season. Lay on the foil, skin-side up.

2.   Put the tomatoes and shallot in a pan with the capers, lemon juice and oil, and season.

3.   Grill the bass for 5-7 mins under a hot grill until just cooked and the skin is starting to brown. Meanwhile, warm the sauce through for 2 mins, then stir in some of the torn basil leaves. Lift the bass onto warmed plates using a fish slice and spoon the sauce around. Serve with steamed new potatoes or small baked potatoes, and add the remaining basil and chives.

Salmon Teriyake

Continuing with our fish dinners we made Salmon Teriyaki. We purchased the beautiful salmon fillets at McCalls Meat and Fish. We proceeded the fish with a Chopped Tomato Salad. The Salmon was delicious. You can find the recipe on our blog of: November 17, 2014. Click the date to get the recipe.

Baked Fish Fez Style

Beautiful Sunset Through Our Living Room Window

Gazpacho 

We purchased prepared Gazpacho at Cookbook in Echo Park. It was exceptional. One more dish, that it makes sense to buy rather than make!

We have been eating a lot of fish and decided to make Baked Fish Fez Style. This is a great recipe. You can get it from our blog of: July 1, 2014. Click the date to get the recipe. We used Striped Bass for the fish, and jointly decided we don't like it as much as Halibut.

Chicken Cob Salad

We had left over Green Goddess Chicken. We decided to make a Chicken Cobb Salad. We found a wonderful recipe from a web site called: Simply Recipes. It is an excellent Chicken Cobb Salad recipe.

Cobb Salad

Simply Recipes

Cobb salad is the quintessential American salad, first pulled together on a whim by Robert Cobb of the former Los Angeles landmark Brown Derby restaurant when he needed to feed Sid Grauman late one night (1937). It was such a hit, movie stars started requesting “Cobb’s salad”, and soon its popularity spread.

The original Brown Derby restaurant on Wilshire Blvd. was eventually torn down in the 80s, like so many downtown LA landmarks—Perinos, the Ambassador Hotel—leaving a swath of strip malls in their place.

I fondly remember the Brown Derby.It was in the shape of huge brown hat (you couldn’t miss it) and within a few blocks of where we lived when I was a kid. Ah well, big brown hat gone, but thank goodness the salad remains, a legacy of the Golden Era of Hollywood.

Ingredients

½            head of romaine

½            head of Boston lettuce

1            small bunch of frisée (curly endive)

½            bunch of watercress, coarse stems discarded

All lettuces should be rinsed, spun or patted dry, and coarsely chopped

6            slices of bacon

2            ripe avocados, seed removed, peeled, and cut into 1/2-inch pieces

1            whole skinless boneless chicken breast (about 3/4 pound total), halved, cooked, and diced

1            tomato, seeded and chopped fine

2            hard-boiled large eggs, separated, the yolk finely chopped and the white finely chopped

2            tablespoons chopped fresh chives

1/3            cup red-wine vinegar

1            tablespoon Dijon-style mustard

1-2            teaspoons sugar

Salt and pepper

2/3            cup olive oil

½            cup finely grated Roquefort

Method

1.    Cook the bacon in a skillet on medium heat until crisp on both sides. Remove from skillet and lay out on paper towels to absorb the excess fat. Allow the bacon to cool. Crumble the bacon and set aside.

2.    In a large salad bowl, toss together well the various lettuces and watercress.

3.    Compose the salad. Arrange the chicken, the bacon, the tomato, and the avocado decoratively over the greens and garnish the salad with the grated egg and the chives.

4.    In a small bowl whisk together the vinegar, the mustard, and salt and pepper to taste, add the oil in a slow stream, whisking, and whisk the dressing until it is emulsified. Stir in the Roquefort. Add sugar to taste, 1/2 teaspoon at a time. Whisk the dressing. Serve separately or toss in with the salad.

Scallop Curry

Green Godess

We found a new recipe for Green Goddess Chicken in the New York Times. We were very surprised by the idea. It turns out it is a great recipe. We started with a Tomato Salad and then had the Chicken with Cous-Cous. I subsequently had chicken sandwiches for lunch and we made a great Chicken Cobb Salad. We will definitely make this new to us recipe again.

Green Goddess Roasted Chicken

New York Times

Green Goddess dressing — a creamy, piquant blend of herbs, garlic and anchovies — is good to eat on salad. And it’s wonderful as a dipping sauce for vegetables. But its best use may be as a marinade for roast chicken. The mild chicken absorbs all the zippy flavors of the dressing, to emerge from the oven fragrant and golden, flecked with green. To intensify the herbal flavor, some of the green goddess mixture is set aside to use as a sauce. You could even pour a little on a salad or some vegetables on the side, and enjoy the best of all the Green Goddess variations in one savory bite.

INGREDIENTS

1 ½ cups         buttermilk or plain yogurt

1 cup                  packed basil leaves

¼ cup         packed chives

2 garlic         cloves, peeled

2 anchovy         fillets (optional)

1 scallion,         white and green parts

Finely grated zest and juice of 1 lime

2 tsp         coarse kosher salt

1 teaspoon black pepper

1 (4- to 5-pound) chicken, halved through the breast and back bones, patted dry with paper towels

1 to 2 TBL         extra-virgin olive oil, for drizzling

PREPARATION

1.   In a blender, purée buttermilk, basil, chives, garlic, anchovies (if using), scallion, lime zest and juice, salt and pepper until smooth.

2.   Put chicken halves in a bowl or large heavy-duty resealable plastic bag and cover with three-quarters of the Green Goddess marinade. (Save the rest to serve as a sauce.) Refrigerate for at least 6 hours or up to overnight.

3.   Heat oven to 500 degrees. Remove chicken from the marinade, shaking off as much liquid as possible, and lay the halves on a rimmed baking sheet. (Discard the used marinade.) Pat chicken tops dry with paper towels and drizzle with oil. Roast until cooked through, about 30 to 45 minutes. Let rest for 10 minutes before serving, with some of the reserved sauce if you like.

Chicken and Figs

The melons are exceptional this year. Maybe it has something to do with the drought, who knows? Melons with a squeeze of Fresh Limes and then topped with Prosciutto, makes for a perfect starter on a warm summer night. There are two season’s for figs in the market, and this is one of them. CHICKEN BRAISED with FIGS, HONEY & VINEGAR is a great dish. It is definitely one of our go to dishes. You can find the recipe on our blog of: June 27, 2007. Click the date to get the recipe. We served the Chicken with Cous-Cous.

Salmon Rice Bowl

Prosciutto and Melon

Salmon Rice Bowl

One of our favorite uses for left over salmon is to make a salmon rice bowl. Rice, Salmon, Ginger, Seaweed and Furikake.

Scarpetta's Spaghetti With Tomato and Basil

Shumon joined us for dinner. It was a warm night and once again we ate outside on the deck. We made the Scarpetta’s Pasta we liked so much. We also made the Greek Salad again. These are two favorites that make for a wonderful dinner.

You can get the recipe for Scarpetta’s Pasta from our blog of: August 24, 2015. Click the date to get the recipe. The recipe for the Greek Salad is on our blog of: September 1, 2015. Click the date to get the recipe. They are both great!

Labor Day Salmon

Tom and Scott hosted a Labor Day dinner at their house. It was a pot luck. We Smoked a beautiful Salmon in the Egg. We purchased the salmon at McCall's Meat and Fish. You can get the recipe for Honey-Curred Smoked Salmon from our blog of: Jan. 15, 2009. Click the date to get the recipe. It makes for a perfect salmon.

Jar-B-Que

Tom and Scott joined us for dinner. We had cheese and wine before the main course.

I call these Hosin-Marinated Pork Chops which I call “Jar-B-Que”. The recipe is from Jar Restaurant. The chops are cooked in the oven, no need to cook on the grill. We usually marinate them for 3 or 4 days so the flavors get infused into the meat. Of course we purchased the beautiful chops at McCall’s Meat and Fish. You can get the recipe from our blog of: July 30, 2012. Click the date to get the recipe.

We started with a new salad, that has become a favorite for me. It is a Greek Salad from a recipe in the New York Times. It surprised me because it doesn’t have any vinegar. At the end the salad has dried Oregano sprinkled on top. We also used Malden Flaked Salt. It is substantially different from regular salt, and I will be using it a lot more in the future.

We served Corn with the chops.  For dessert we had Brownies and Ice Cream. It was a very tasty meal!

Greek Tomato Salad

New York Times

The Greek approach to a good tomato salad, whether it has cucumbers and lettuce or not (this one doesn’t), is all about keeping it simple. Sweet, ripe summer tomatoes, salt and olive oil are all you need. The flourishes here — green pepper, red onion, chopped mint and pinch of oregano — are optional, but they add brightness. Good Greek feta cheese takes it over the top.

TOTAL TIME

20 minutes

INGREDIENTS

                  3 to 4 pounds ripe tomatoes, preferably heirloom

                  1 small red onion, sliced thinly crosswise

                  1 or 2 small sweet peppers, such as bell or corno di toro, sliced into thin rings

                  Flaky sea salt, such as Maldon

                  4 ounces Greek feta cheese

                  2 tablespoons roughly chopped mint

                  1/2 teaspoon dried oregano

                  Fruity extra-virgin olive oil, for drizzling

PREPARATION

1. Wash, core and slice tomatoes 1/2-inch thick. Arrange slices on a platter or in a shallow wide bowl.

2. Scatter onion and pepper slices over tomatoes and season everything with sea salt. Let sit 10 minutes to draw out juices.

3. Break feta into rough chunks and scatter over salad. Sprinkle mint and oregano over top, drizzle generously with olive oil and serve.

YIELD

4 to 6 servings