10/12/06 - Boarlets

We recently took advantage of Arianne's freezer sale at d'Artagnan to buy some wild boar miniroasts, as she calls them. We called them boarlets, and we bought two. We used the recipe from The D'Artagnan Cookbook, except we used Westwind Farm shallots instead of onions, and Westwind's excellent carrots. We cooked it in a Dutch oven in the oven instead of a casserole on the stove top. We left the bouquet garnis in the mix while it cooked, and we ate the vegetables.

So, how were the boarlets? Kaleberg Kitchens says that they were great, or as Variety would put it, Boarlets Boffo!

10/01/06 - BLTs and Fire

When there are good tomatoes, there are good BLTs. There is nothing like a well made bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich. We at Kaleberg Research have been episodically tinkering and improving this good thing, and our latest product is a winner. In a recent breakthrough, we have applied our experience working with nature's perfect food, pizza, and produced what may be the perfect BLT.

Our grilled pizza experiments, building on the work of others, have demonstrated the superiority grilled pizza crust. Grilled pizza crust is just grilled flat bread, and with a topping of olive oil and chopped garlic, what could make a better base for a BLT? So, we made up a batch of pizza dough, fired up the charcoal grill, and set to work. The olive oil and garlic served as the traditional mayonaisse, comprising 2/3 of an aioli, and with fresh local salad greens, Sunny Farms' bacon and our own tomatoes, we produced the masterpiece on the right.

09/14/06 - Goan Spiced Shrimp With Summer Vegetables

We are making the most of the late season romano beans, and we've been craving spices as of late. In fact, we've been craving the spices of Goa, much as the Portuguese were when they took over the place over 400 years ago. So, we made up some white shrimp with Goan spices and romano beans, and we threw in some New Zealand spinach as well. For our recipe, and the results, click here.

08/23/06 - Summer Harvest - Johnston Farms

We were out at Johnston Farms today and decided to grab a few items that don't even make it as far as the Farmers' Market. To start with, we grabbed some pumpkin flowers, and we plan to fry them tempura style. We also grabbed their entire basket of Costoluto tomatoes, fresh from the greenhouse. These are a relatively dry, firm tomato, with an incredibly rich, summery flavor. We just had to fire up the grill and make pizza with minced garlic, olive oil, basil, Costoluto tomato slices and grated parmesan cheese. If you have never had a grilled pizza, you don't know the heights to which pizza, nature's perfect food, can ascend. We'd do an entire web page on these pizzas, but the fire is hot, and our hands are full grilling them. We couldn't resist. Check out our grilled pizza guide.

08/17/06 - A Summer Pork Chop Dinner

We have been terrible about posting this month. On the other hand, we have been eating well, and the pork chop dinner, shown on the left, was one of the triumphs. We have a page full of notes, recipes, and dime store philosophy, if you care to learn more.

06/05 - Our Own Ricotta Cheese

Now that we have our own local creamery to provide us with whole, raw Jersey cow milk how could we resist making our own cheese. We started simple, with a home brew ricotta, and the results were spectacular. Who says you need a six ton cooling unit and gigantic stainless steel tanks to make your own cheese? We cooked this one up on our stove top, and we tell you how in our Dungeness Valley Creamery web page.

04/29/06 - The Kaleberg Recipe Collection

We were asked about a recipe for herb jam at the Farmers' Market today, so we decided to post our entire recipe dump, that is, our list of recipes adopted and stolen from a variety of cookbooks and magazine articles. It is a rather uneven batch, but one of our favorites is Paula Wolfert's herb jam as reprinted in the Los Angeles Times.

04/24/06 - A Kaleberg Russian Easter

Every year Russian Easter comes to the Kaleberg household, and that means butter, and more butter, and even more butter. That's right, Russian Easter means butter, and fish eggs, and buckwheat pancakes and a sink full of champagne. Every year we make buckwheat pancakes, blini, and we make our own pork sausage with carroway seeds, and we drink quarts of champagne.

This year, we wanted to try something different, so we broke open our Kaleberg Russian Kookbook [sic] and found a few more authentic Russian recipes. To find out more, check out this Kaleberg special report.

04/01/06 - Farmers' Market Nettle Soup

We were pleased to see more farmers and more spring vegetables at the Port Angeles Farmers' Market. As one might expect, things were slow this winter, especially with the market moving from downtown back to the Clallam County Courthouse parking lot. As usual, we went to town, buying carrots, salad greens, flowering arugula, blue hubbard squash and farm fresh eggs. As we always say, "Round up the usual vegetables". (You can tell we are big Casablanca fans).

One big surprise was a bunch of plastic bags marked with a big sign saying DO NOT TOUCH. Needless to say, we did not touch. What was in the bags? Nettles!

One of the local farmers has been gathering the nettles that bloom in the spring and are the despair of all too many gardeners. It is a very good idea not to touch nettles, at least not without a pair of good gloves. Of course, cooked nettles are another matter entirely.

We bought a bag and boiled up some heritage breed turkey stock. Using a pair of ultra sturdy, bright blue silicone rubber gloves, we washed the nettles and popped them into the boiling broth. We also cut up and added some potatoes, and some salt and cracked pepper. A half an hour later, we were in heaven.

Nettles taste somewhere between artichokes and snails. They taste little like kale or collards. Their flavor is much deeper and darker, with a little musty, minty twang. Needless to say, we won't get to have a soup like this very often, but it was rich and hearty, and a definite harbinger of spring.

10/17/05 - Romanesco: Our Local Fractal Vegetable

You've probably seen these vegetables on sale at the Farmer's Market. They look like a cross between broccoli and cauliflower, though they taste more like the latter. We roast ours with olive oil, salt, pepper, and crushed star anise and coriander seeds.

It turns out that romanesco is a fractal vegetable. You see the same patterns up close as you do at a distance. For a more scientific analysis, from Fourmilab in Switzerland, there is now a web page discussing the vegetable and its fractal properties. There is even some cooking advice, but we'll stick with roasting.

07/27/05 - Lau Lau for the Luau

06/20/05 - Our Dry Creek Piperade

05/21/05 - Pea Shoots Stir Fried

04/22/05 - Recipe for Spinach, Pine Nuts and Currants

03/23/05 - Fish and Nuts Recipe Generator

03/01/05 - Stewing Hen

07/09/04 - Stuffed Salmon, CostCo Style

05/09/04 - Salmon Rollup

Here is another recipe we really like. This one is for a spicy, hearty salmon rollup made with bread crumbs and coriander seed. The sauce is sweet and sour, with honey and lime juice.

05/08/04 - Pasta, Cauliflower, Parmesan & Pancetta