Roasted Potatoes with Chimichurri Sauce

This is my second time making these potatoes and chimichurri sauce though it's the first time I've taken photos highlighting the potatoes.  The first time I made them was for the steak portion of the Donna Hay Challenge last month.  We had the choice of trying to duplicate the photo for steak or potatoes and had two months to work on them. Most people did one or the other but I decided to try both.

Finding the right props for the potato challenge was the most challenging part of creating this photo.  I went to several different thrift stores trying to find a square wire holder to use for the photo but did not have much luck.  I know other people had similar issues and some decided to not use a holder at all and I almost did that too.  We made a stop at the Goodwill in Monroe, WA and again couldn't find anything that came close but we did come across this rectangular container that we made some modifications to that actually turned out pretty well.  A few cuts and bends and we had something to work with.

The original photo, taken by Ben Dearnley and styled by Steve Pearce has two butter knives in it and I actually found some butter knives that had a similar design at a thrift store I went to a few weeks ago that I've been holding onto for this photo. I even took one of the knives with me to Portland and I think I may have left it in Portland because it was no where to be found so my photo unfortunately only has one of the knives.  The knife and spoon were also thrift store items.  My props shelves are going to grow fast doing all these challenges.  The only props I didn't have to buy were the salad bowl and the glasses which I had left over from my jam and candle making.

I didn't take this photo in the same place as the steak photo mainly because it was raining and the sidewalk was all wet.  I decided to take the photo in my laundry room which has a nice smooth cement floor which I thought worked out pretty well.  I didn't take a behind the scenes photo this time because I didn't use any off camera flash for this shot.  I used my flash on camera and pointed it at the left wall at about 1/4 power.   I probably could have turned it down even more and used a larger aperature to get a little more dof on the salad.  The cup in front is a bit of red wine vinegar which is an ingredient in the chimichurri sauce though I didn't actually use it. For one thing my red wine vinegar is several months expired and my candida diet only allows cider vinegar so that's what I used in the sauce.  The cider vinegar wouldn't have looked as good so luckily I had the old red wine vinegar otherwise I would have just opened a bottle of red wine for the shot.

To go along with the crispy roasted potatoes I made up a batch of pork and beef meatloaf using a recipe I found on Simply Recipes.  It's a little different than the meatloaf recipe I usually make.  This one has more vegetables and doesn't contain any milk.  I also substituted some garbonzo bean flour for bread crumbs. I need to find me some gluten free bread crumbs. The meatloaf seemed a little greasy to me but that might be in part because it got a little cold while I was taking pictures of the potatoes.  I have another loaf of it to eat as leftovers this week.

Chimichurri Sauce

1/3 cup flat leaf parsley (chopped)
1 tablespoon oregano (chopped)
2 teaspoons rosemary (chopped)
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/2 teaspoon dried chili flakes
1 clove garlic (crushed)

1 bay leaf
3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
3 tablespoons olive oil
sea salt
cracked black pepper

place the parsley, oregano, rosemary, paprika, chilli flakes, garlic, bay leaf, vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper in a bowl and mix to combine. Set aside.

Roasted Potatoes

1,5kg large sebago (starchy) potatoes
(peeled and chopped)
2 tablespoons olive oil

sea salt
cracked black pepper
100g wild rocket (arugula) leaves (to serve)

Preheat oven to 220 C (425 F). Place the potato in a large saucepan of salted cold water over high heat and bring to the boil. Cook for 10 minutes or until the potato is just tender. Drain, return the potato to the pan and cook for 1 minte to remove excess moisture. Shake the pan to fluff the potato. Place on a baking tray, drizzle with the olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper and roast for 40-45 minutes or until crisp and golden. Serve the potatoes with the chimichurri sauce and rocket leaves.

Left: My version; Right: Original from Donna Hay Magazine

Steak Skewer Challenge

This will be my second month participating in the Donna Hay Styling and Photography Challenge, organized by Jungle Frog Cooking. In case you missed my post last month, the challenge is to follow a recipe in the Donna Hay magazine and duplicate the photo that goes along with it.

This month we had the choice between Salted Rump Steak and Potatoes.  This was a much more difficult photo to duplicate than last month.  So difficult that it was decided to extend the challenge for another month.  I chose to do the steak however I may also do the potatoes later this month.  Ben Dearnley photographed the pictures we were to duplicate. Both photos were beautifully styled by Steve Pearce. They have a very rustic feel with old rusty props.

I had never seen or heard of rump steak so I decided to pay a visit to a local butcher specializing in organic, natural grass fed meats.  He mentioned how tough a cut of meat rump steak was and recommended new york steak instead.  So I got 2 steaks, a little over half a pound each.  I have bought new york steaks at Whole Foods for my Xavier Steak and was impressed with how tender they were.  Unfortunately these steaks were pale in comparison.  Not so thick and they had a surprising amount of fat on them and they weren't as tender either.  I was a little disappointed considering how much I paid for them.  They also got quite cold since I did the photo shoot outside so that didn't help.

Even though I didn't do the potato photo, I did make the potatoes and chimichurri sauce since those were elements in the steak photo.  The potatoes turned out great. They were nice and crispy and I look forward to making them again.  The chimichurri sauce didn't have quite the same look as the photo since I substituted cider vinegar for the red wine vinegar so it wasn't nearly as red but it still tasted good.

I ended up buying a few props for the photo since I didn't really have anything that looked close to what was in the picture.  I paid a visit to a few Goodwill stores to find a knife to use.  None of them were nearly as dark and rusty as the one in the photo.  Mark Lea helped take care of that by rubbing a combination of muriatic acid, hydrogen peroxide and some blue steel making solution on the blade.  I also bought some new pizza stones because the one I have is too big and square and I couldn't find any used at Goodwill.  In order to get it to look used I rubbed some tomato sauce on it and put it in the oven until it got dark. It worked like a charm!  I also bought some metal skewers which I've been meaning to buy anyway. I've been using bamboo skewers and had planned to buy metal ones after finishing those off so now I don't have to.  I ordered them on Amazon and when they arrived they turned out to not be the right ones and had to return them because they just were not right for the shot.  They were quick to send me the correct ones in time for the shoot.

As for the making of the photo, I didn't spend nearly as much time as I would have liked on the lighting.  It was getting dark and was trying to rush so the food didn't get too cold but it did anyway.  I shot it out in my backyard on a not very clean cement patio to give it that old look.  I didn't even use an umbrella this time and simply put the flash on my camera and hand held a large white reflector to bounce the light onto the food.  If I could do it again I would definitely use an umbrella to get a softer shadow.

Left: My version; Right: Original from Donna Hay Magazine  

Recipes from Donna Hay Magazine:

Salted rump steak

1kg rump steak (cut into large pieces)
1 tablespoon olive oil

1 cup rocksalt (300 gr)
cracked black pepper

Thread the steak onto metal skewers and rub with olive oil. Place on a baking tray and cover completely with the rock salt. Place in the fridge for 1 hour. Wipe with absorbent paper to remove the rock salt and sprinkle with pepper. Heat a char-grill pan or BBQ over high heat. Add the skewers and cook for 7 minutes each side for medium rare or until cooked to your liking. Serve with the chimichurri saue (see below)

Chimichurri Sauce

1/3 cup flat leaf parsley (chopped)
1 tablespoon oregano (chopped)
2 teaspoons rosemary (chopped)
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/2 teaspoon dried chili flakes
1 clove garlic (crushed)

1 bay leaf
3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
3 tablespoons olive oil
sea salt
cracked black pepper

place the parsley, oregano, rosemary, paprika, chilli flakes, garlic, bay leaf, vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper in a bowl and mix to combine. Set aside.

Roasted Potatoes

1,5kg large sebago (starchy) potatoes
(peeled and chopped)
2 tablespoons olive oil

sea salt
cracked black pepper
100g wild rocket (arugula) leaves (to serve)

Preheat oven to 220 C (425 F). Place the potato in a large saucepan of salted cold water over high heat and bring to the boil. Cook for 10 minutes or until the potato is just tender. Drain, return the potato to the pan and cook for 1 minte to remove excess moisture. Shake the pan to fluff the potato. Place on a baking tray, drizzle with the olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper and roast for 40-45 minutes or until crisp and golden. Serve the potatoes with the chimichurri sauce and rocket leaves.

Naturally Dyed Easter Eggs

It's been who knows how long since I've dyed Easter eggs. It's been many many years. I've always used what most people color eggs with, food coloring and vinegar. I thought I'd try something a little different this year. I did use vinegar but instead of food coloring I used some natural and safe ingredients.

I tried four different ingredients for my colors:

• Dark Blue/Purple: Simmer 3/4 Cup blueberries in 1/2 cup of water and 1/4 cup of vinegar for 10-15 minutes. Crush blueberries with a potato masher to release all the juices. Cool and strain liquid into small bowl or jar.
• Yellow: Simmer 1/2 Cup of water and 1/4 Cup of vinegar with 2 tbs turmeric for 10 minutes. Pour into small bowl or jar.
• Light Blue: Simmer 1 Cup chopped red cabbage in 1/2 cup of water and 1/4 cup of vinegar for 10-15 minutes. Cool and strain liquid into small bowl or jar.
• Brown: Mix 1 Cup cooled strong coffee with 1/4 cup vinegar in small bowl or jar.
• Green: Can be done by dipping egg in yellow then blue.

I attempted to use plants from around the yard like grass, chives and leaves as a stencil and wrapped the egg in cheese cloth before dipping. It didn't work out quite the way I had hoped. The grass didn't come out too bad but the other things were a little too stiff and didn't stick to the egg very well so the dye got around it. I also wrapped some of the eggs in rubber bands and those turned out pretty well. The rubber band was tight and didn't move.

If you want to try doing a stencil using leaves or grass, make sure the leaf is very flexible and will stick well to the egg without leaving any space. You can wet the leaf to help it stick. Wrap the egg with cheese cloth if you are using a leaf and tie the end together with a string or rubber band. You can also put rubber bands around the egg if you want to add white lines.

Dip the eggs in your jar or bowl. The egg should be completely submerged. If it's not you can add a little more vinegar or color solution if you have extra. Be sure to check on them every once in a while. If the cheese cloth is draped over the bowl/jar it may start dripping onto whatever surface you have it on. It might be a good idea to set them on plates to avoid a big mess. I let my eggs soak for an hour or two for darker coloring but you can test it out and soak for less.

I'm pretty happy with the way all the colors came out. I did make the mistake of rinsing some of them in water to get off the excess color which turned out to be a bad idea because it ripped off some of the color. This was such a success that I don't think I will ever go back to using food coloring for dying eggs again.

Artichoke and Feta Tarts

I like a photography challenge, especially if it's food related.  I've participated in a few on Flickr in the past. I came across a monthly food styling and photography challenge by Jungle Frog Cooking via a Google+ contact and decided to participate in this month's challenge. Each month a recipe and photo are provided from Donna Hay Magazine and the challenge is to make the recipe and duplicate the photo. Minor alterations are ok but it should look similar to the photo used in the magazine. Sounds like fun right? You can get more details/rules for the contest on the Donna Hay Styling and Photography Challenge page.

Artichoke and Feta Tarts is the 7th challenge and it appears to be an easy one compared to some of the ones they've done in the past. The recipe was very simple.  It's always the easy recipes I seem to mess up.  I did read through all of the instructions before starting but didn't follow the instructions as carefully as I should have.

My first goof was putting the peas and tomatoes on the puff pastry before baking it.  I was thinking they would be baked too but I was wrong. Luckily I realized this mistake just before putting them in the oven so I was able to scrape off most of the tomatoes and peas but didn't get all of peas.  You'll notice a few brown wrinkled peas in the photo, sure I could have picked them off but I figured it would add to the photo and be a little different than the other submissions.

My second goof was on the temperature of the oven.  I saw 200 degrees in the recipe and so I set my oven to 200 degrees, baked the puff pastry for 14 minutes as suggested but it was not puffing up. at. all.  I checked the recipe again to make sure I got the temperature right and sure enough it said 200 degrees but wait what is that after 200?  Yeah that's a C meaning Celsius. Doh!  So I cranked up the heat to 400 and cooked it a while longer and it puffed up and was nice and golden brown and flakey like it should be. Whew!

I made some minor changes to the original recipe.  I used grape tomatoes rather than cherry tomatoes.  I left out the white balsamic vinegar and I used much less feta cheese than instructed.  250g is more than a small tub of crumbled feta and I only used about half of one.  I wasn't sure how 62g would even fit on one square of puff pastry. Cheese isn't really in my diet and neither is the puff  pasty so I did cheat a little for this little project.

I styled the tarts pretty closely to how they were styled in the original photo.  I used a two light setup on my dining room table.  I used Metz strobes on each side of the table, both set at 1/4 power.  One was shot through an umbrella and the other bounced into an umbrella and triggered them using Pocket Wizard Plus II's.  I put my tripod on the table and carefully weighed down two of the legs with diving ankle weights so it wouldn't tip over from the weight of the camera.  I used a step ladder to frame the shot in live view and triggered the shutter with a remote.

Camera Equipment: Olympus E-5 with 12-60mm lens
Settings: 30mm, F5.6, 1/60, ISO 200.

Setup Shot

Artichoke and Feta Tarts Recipe

Serves: 4

Prep time: 10 minutes

Cook time: 15 minutes

Total time: 25 minutes

From: Donna Hay Magazine

Ingredients

• 1 sheet store bought puff pastry (thawed)
• 250g feta (crumbled)
• 4 artichoke hearts (marinated and halved)
• 1 egg (lightly beaten)
• 100g mixed cherry tomatoes (halved)
• 120g frozen peas (thawed)
• 1/4 cup mint leaves
• olive oil (for drizzling)
• white balsamic vinegar (for drizzling)

Directions

Preheat oven to 200 C (390 F). Cut the pastry into 4 squares and score a 1 cm border around each square. Place the square on a baking tray lined with non stick baking paper and top with feta and artichoke. Brush the pastry borers with the egg and bake for 12-14 minutes or until golden

Place the tomato, peas and mint in a medium bowl, drizzle with olive oil and white balsamic and toss to combine. Top the tarts with the tomatoe salad to serve. Original Magazine Photo My Version

Whole Foods Lynnwood Opening

It's always exciting to hear about a new market opening. Whole Foods isn't a 100% organic grocery but it does carry quite a bit of organics and prides itself in not carrying products with any artificial colors and flavorings.  Their meats come from animals raised on vegetation and without antibiotics or growth hormones.  The quality of their products are much healthier than what you'd find at a regular grocery store.  This new store is located where the old Circuit City was, on 196th Street and 28th Ave W.

I had the opportunity to take a tour of the new store a week before opening with a few other people in the community.  We talked to several people from each of the different departments to hear about the high quality products they will be offering and answer any questions we had.

This particular store is a little different than some of the others.  It is geared more toward families.  Here's a list of some of the unique things you'll find:

• some bulk products for families
• a butter station where you can grind nuts to make your own nut butters 
• kids play area near the front of the store
• Saturday Kids Club with activities like cooking, gardening and recycling
• a demo station by produce where cooking demos and classes will take place

I gotta be honest, I don't usually pay that much attention to the decor of grocery stores. I kind of get tunnel vision and go in for what I need and get out as quickly as possible.  Since I didn't do any shopping during the tour I was able to take time to really look around and I gotta say it was pretty impressive.  There are a lot of fun colors throughout the store. Much of the store was decorated with reclaimed Douglas Fir and is lit with LED lighting.

There will be a grand opening celebration on Thursday, March 15th. Festivities will begin at 8:00 with a bread breaking ceremony.  The first 100 people will get a free baguette and a reusable shopping bag.  The Lynnwood High School band will be performing, free coffee, breakfast and lots of samples from vendors will be served.  So if you are free on Wednesday stop by and check out the new store.  You won't be disappointed.

Here are a few photos I took during the tour I went on last week.

Pork Belly Roast

I think I've only had pork belly once in my life but I can't think of where it was.  I saw some at PCC last week and decided to get some, not knowing what I was going to do with it.  This is the same cut of meat that bacon is made from. As you might imagine, it is a very fatty piece of meat. But don't let that scare you.  Most of the fat melts while roasting and keeps the meat nice and juicy.  Next time I get some I might try making my own bacon.

I spent just a few minutes looking for a recipe online and came across Jamie Oliver's Pork Belly recipe.  I followed it pretty closely.  My belly was a little smaller than the one in his recipe so I reduced the cook time by a little.  The only thing I didn't use from his recipe is celery. I even had some but forgot about it.  You can use any vegetables or fresh herbs you want and I'm sure it will turn out fine.

It turned out nice and tender with a crispy crust on it.  If it doesn't get crispy enough for you, you can always put it under the broiler for a few minutes. It's best fresh from the oven because you lose that crispy crust once it's refrigerated.  Below is a slightly modified recipe to Jamie's.

Ingredients:
• 3 lb pork belly
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 large red onion, quartered
• 2 carrots, peeled and halved lengthways
• 1 bulb of garlic, skin on, broken into cloves
• a small bunch of fresh thyme, leaves picked
• 600ml water or stock


Directions:
Preheat oven to 425°F.

Place pork belly on a clean work surface, skin-side upwards. Make scores about 1/2 inch apart through the skin into the fat, but not so deep that you cut into the meat. Rub salt into all the scores, pulling the skin apart a little if you have to. Brush any excess salt off the surface of the skin and turn it over. Season the underside of the meat with a little more salt and black pepper. Place skin side-up in a roasting tray big enough to hold the pork and vegetables, and place in the hot oven.

Roast for about half an hour until the skin of the pork has started to puff up and you can see it turning into crackling. Turn the heat down to 350 and roast for another hour.

Take out of the oven and baste with the fat in the bottom of the tray. Carefully transfer pork to a chopping board. Add all the veg, garlic and thyme to the tray and stir them into the fat. Place the pork on top of the vegetables and place back in the oven. Roast for another hour. By this time the meat should be meltingly soft and tender. Carefully move the meat to a serving dish lined with aluminum foil and fold the ends up the sides of the pork but don't cover or you'll lose the crispy skin.

Spoon away any fat in the tray, then add the water or stock and place the tray on the stove.  Bring to a boil and simmer for a few minutes, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon to scrape up all brown tasty bits on the bottom of the tray. When you’ve got a nice, dark gravy, pour it through a sieve into a bowl or gravy boat, using your spoon to really push all the goodness of the veg through the sieve. Add a little more salt and pepper if it needs it. Serve the pork with the crackling topped with the gravy.

Foodspotting at Hitchcock

Hitchcock restaurant seems to be Bainbridge Island's best kept secret.  This local farm to table restaurant has been open for about 2 years and is a nice 15 minute walk from the ferry terminal. They just recently opened a deli and charcuterie next door with house cured fish and meats.  But it doesn't stop there, they also have butchered meats, poultry, seafood and even serve soups, salads and sandwiches. The word is starting to get out about how good this place is as they are getting more and more customers coming over from Seattle.  If you're up for a little adventure and some good food, this place won't disappoint.

I went to Hitchock with a group of 10 Foodspotters from the Seattle area.  Foodspotting is a website where you can post photos of food you eat at restaurants using your phone.  It's available for Windows, iphone, Android and Blackberry.  You can also use it to find restaurants or just look at what pictures people have posted at a particular restaurant.  I like taking photos with my camera so I post my pics from my computer to their website: http://www.foodspotting.com/311654-paula-thomas.  There's usually a foodspotting eatup at least once a month in the Seattle area.  You can follow @foodspottingsea to find out where the next one will be.  Invites are usually sent via Facebook and depending on the location may be open to a limited number of people.  Valentina Vitols has been a wonderful organizer for these events.

Getting back to Hitchcock. We were seated in the back room near the kitchen and were all able to sit at the same table which made conversing with each other much easier.  Hitchcock put together a special Foodspotting menu just for us.  I am currently on a strict diet of no sugar, sweeteners, alcohol and gluten so there were a few things on the menu I wasn't able to try but there wasn't anything we were served that didn't go uneaten.

After our appetizers of oysters, mussels, a charcuterie plate and cotechino, we had two options for dinner.  I went with the root vegetable soup and pacific albacore.  The other choice was heirloom chicories and wood-fire Mad Hatcher chicken.  I admit I haven't eaten tuna besides the canned stuff or the raw stuff that's on sushi very often and wanted to try something new.  I was not disappointed with my choice.  The sear on the tuna was just perfect. I don't know how they made it so crispy without overcooking it but they did and it was the best tuna I've ever had.  Those that had the chicken claimed it was some of the best chicken they've had too.

Then there was dessert.  We ordered a variety of desserts, all 6 of them, to try out.  Unfortunately due to my diet, I was unable to try any of them.  They all looked so good.  The prosecco sorbet seemed to be people's favorite but they seemed to enjoy them all because there wasn't anything left on any of the plates.  I hope to make another visit after my health issues clear up so I can try some of those desserts.

*Click on the photo to see a detailed description of the food.*

Gluten Free Thai Amazing Chicken

This recipe was just posted on the Simply Gluten Free blog last week and it looked and sounded so good I decided to pin it to Pinterest to try.  It didn't take long for me to try it. I made it for dinner on Saturday.

I cut the recipe in half and only made one substitution and that was the Sunbutter. I didn't happen to have any but I did have some hazelnut butter so I used that instead and it still turned out pretty good.  I am on a pretty strict diet and I did cheat a little on my diet for this recipe.  The agave nectar and fish sauce are not part of my diet. My eczema acted up a little the next day but it wasn't too bad.

I served it over gluten free brown rice pasta which is another thing not on my diet but I occasionally treat myself with some gluten free grains/pasta once in a while.  I cooked the broccoli longer than recommended because I don't like my broccoli very crunchy.  I probably could have cooked it a little less than I did.  The pasta ended up taking longer to cook than I thought.  It still turned out pretty good and had enough leftovers to have some for lunch the next day.