Olive Oil Appreciation 101

Every year, in spring, is "girls weekend."  This year's destination, Ojai, CA.  A destination I've been trying to get hubby to for years, my girlfriends chose this spot with great enthusiasm.  Let's go!

**If you're so inspired, John's Nutty Pesto Recipe Below**

Now in our 6th year, we've treated ourselves to many wonderful locales across So Cal including spas in Laguna and Palm Springs, wine tasting in Temecula and celebrating Royal Tea in Beverly Hills.  This year, we explored our inner foodie-selves and took on olive oil tasting.

We started our quest at the Ojai Olive Oil Company.  Unfortunately, we arrived too late to join the formal ranch tour.  What can I say, The Arcade in town distracted us.

The ever so gracious owners invited us to stroll the grounds and of course sample their oils and vinegars in their humble tasting room.

We sampled with bits of bread and ood and awed at the magnificent variety.  Probably my fave was the Cinnamon Pear infused Balsamic.

Taking advantage of the invitation, we indeed strolled the grove.

The official greeter pulled out all the stops with wags, belly rubs and kisses. No doubt, we were to make ourselves at home.

The olive trees were in their spring mode sending out young shoots for fruiting the following year.  The trees that didn't have young shoots had already done so the previous year, hence the trees are classified as Alternate Bearing.  Needless to say our timing didn't reveal fruit or blossoms.  Harvest season falls in October till the trees are all shaken of their production.

So what is a girl to do to show off the trees; some of which were planted in the late 1800's?  Perhaps our theater upbringing allowed us to ham it up.

Sufficiently entertained, our palates were primed but not necessarily educated.  We drove down to our next stop ... Regalo Olive Oil, Omaggio Farm.

If I could choose where my last days would be, it would be here.  The setting transported us to fantasies of living in the Italian countryside.

It is here, where we learned olive oil is produced within 24 hours or less of harvest.  They are washed, ground to a paste, warmed to release the oil and centrifuged to extract the impurities. 

Learning to savor olive oil is best done straight (drinking a sample).  But if you can't fathom doing that, than a bit of bread to soak the flavors is the next best option.

Timely for this post, the NY Times reported this last week that in addition to the health merits of olive oil having a wealth of antioxidants and monounsaturated fat for protecting the heart, it may also increase the feeling of feeling full by just smelling it.  Could this be another key to limiting obesity?

So many variables can impact the taste including growing region, olive type, soil, blend and how it was produced.  We COULD tell the difference from the farm we just visited just a couple of miles away.  Both supremely good, just different.

Yes, we purchased.  What did I do with my acquisitions?  I implored John to make his "famous" nutty pesto.

Hi!  John here and I will now share my famous nutty pesto recipe with you.  First, send me $1,000.  

While I wait for your check, here is the recipe -- I trust you!

      

As Sylvia has pointed out, starting with high quality "extra virgin" olive oil is a must.  Place a large hand full of pistachios and pine nuts in a food processor.  I have made this without garlic and it's fine but I prefer 2 large or several small cloves of garlic.  Blend these three items for 10 to 20 seconds just until it's granular like the photo below.  Take the lid off the processor and give this first step a whiff.  Someday I am going to make a pasta "sauce" with just these ingredients.

Next, add basil leaves (I remove the stems) -- the equivalent of one of those large plastic containers you find at the grocery.  Sylvia and I grow our own all summer...

Blend the basil leaf, nutty mixture until the leaves are just minced.  Add quality grated Parmesan -- an entire wedge saving back a little for topping the pasta when it's served. Do a few turns of a pepper mill if desired.

Start the processor again and start to slowly pour olive oil into the spinning blades.  The mixture will first "bunch up" and then start to smooth out, becoming more liquid.  Take the top off again and taste.  You may need a dash of salt or a teaspoon of lemon juice -- or both.  Crazy, I know...

Re-blend briefly to mix -- be careful not to over mix.  During the summer, when we have basil abundance, I freeze Mason jars of this stuff.  Keeps us in pesto until Christmas.  Makes a great cracker spread -- stunningly good on grilled salmon...

and of course, pasta!

Sunday Supper's Happy Ending - Pomme Tarte

Another Sunday and I'm wondering just what we are going to make which gives us a lovely dinner and leftovers during the week.  Leave it to me to have criteria attached to making that mere simple decision.  Criteria includes ingredients being in season and "localesque," healthy and something we wouldn't normally tackle during our busy work week.

This particular week, my first weekend at home in weeks where I wasn't pulled in a million different directions revealed I was out of practice of imagining a satisfying home cooked meal.  My busy work week sucked all the imagination right out of me.  The world was my oyster and I just couldn't make a decision....except for what I wanted for dessert.  Behold my inspiration which appeared right under my nose...

Braeburn Apples

"Oyster" being the key phrase, I plotted to have John make his scrumptious Oyster stew which would leave us the room to enjoy my version of a Pomme Tarte.

I think Joy's article on her "Evening in Paris" dinner also inspired my decision on what I would bring for dessert had we lived in the same city.  Voila!  Pomme Tarte.  Time to bring out my Julia Child book for a starting point.

Pre-heat the oven

Julia's pastry recipe is lush but I thought I would go with a lighter version.  I dusted off my Jacques Pepin's Today's Gourmet Light and Healthy Cooking for the 90's cookbook.  His version achieves a very similar outcome. 

Dough Ingredients

3/4 Cup all purpose flour (3 oz)
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, cold
1/2 teaspoon granulated sugar
3 tablespoons, ice-cold water

Place the flour, butter cut into 1/2 inch pieces and sugar into the bowl of a food processor.  Process for 5 seconds.

Then add the ice-cold water and process for 5 more seconds.

It may not look like dough yet, but I promise you it is. 

Take the mixture and form into a ball with your hands lightly and place on a piece of plastic wrap.  Place an additional piece of plastic wrap and roll out to the size of your baking dish.

Transfer the flattened dough to a cookie sheet and refrigerate.  This will give it a nice chill while you work on the apple filling.

Apple Filling Ingredients

3 small cooking apples or 2 large ones

Half Lemon

1 tablespoon sugar

Sprinkle of Cinnamon

Sprinkle of Nutmeg

1/3 cup of Raspberry jam

Thinly slice apples.  Squeeze lemon juice on the apples to maintain their delicate color from turning brown.  Lightly cook sliced apples to soften with a tablespoon of sugar and sprinkle of your favorite apple seasonings (i.e. cinnamon and nutmeg).   This is where I'm getting better at winging recipes.

Take rolled dough out of the fridge and place in tarte pan or you could go galette style and put on a cookie sheet and fold the dough over the filling.

Going rogue again from the Julia's original recipe,  I chose a more colorful addition to the already yellow dish and went with Raspberry jam instead of the traditional apricot jam.

My not nearly Julia-like placement of the apple slices: 

Fold dough over (galette style) or flute to the edges.  Bake for 45 minutes in the pre-heated 400 degree oven.

Remove from oven and cool a bit to savour to your heart's content.

Did we have enough for leftovers during the week?  You bet we did since there is only two of us.  Did we enjoy for a weeknight dinner?  I am my grandmother's granddaughter after all.  It has fruit and protein in it...why not?

The JOY of Cooking

A note from Sly

I'm so glad I asked Joy to write this article.  I had no idea there was a time Joy wasn't as talented in the kitchen as she is today.  We all have a  back story don't we?

 

By NEW Guest Blogger, Joy Malaise

The fact I can cook at all is quite a feat, given I learned from my Grandmother, who was, in essence, an awful cook.  She quite successfully taught me how to burn everything.  I didn’t realize that not everyone charred their toast, then scraped it, and THEN put the butter on.  I also thought that bacon snapped when eaten, and that eggs were solid, with no beautiful golden soft yolk.  Chewy pot roasts, and vegetables cooked to mush.   It was just her way.  But she could bake a pie like no one else, from scratch, and with flaky golden crusts.  So there is the yin and yang of my humble cooking start.

I took to cooking at a very young age, always wanting to experiment and always looking for ways to make it “taste better.”  Being from Iowa, we had a bounty of fresh garden vegetables in the summer, which we canned for eating in the long winter months.  I still remember the pop, pop, pop, of the Ball jars in the pressure cooker as they sealed in their goodness.

At 19 young years of age, I loaded up my Ford Maverick, along with my two girlfriends and headed to California to visit my sister in San Diego.  My girlfriends returned back home, but I decided to stay.  And stay.  It’s been 37 years now, so it’s home.   

I’ll never forget the first time I was asked to bring guacamole to a party and said “sure, how much do you need?” not having a clue what it was. “Oh just a medium sized bowl, should do it”, she replied.  So I went to the supermarket and found some avocados, which felt like rocks to me, and headed home to prepare my guacamole.  I wanted to impress this group, because they were my sister and her husband’s friends and colleagues from the U.S. Navy, and the party was aboard a yacht in Coronado!   I was so young, and everyone else was much older and sophisticated.  I pulled out one of my three pots, and filled it with water to boil.  I tossed in my six hard-as-a-rock avocados and waited fifteen minutes.  When I opened the lid and to test them, not only were they still hard, but there was a green slime surfacing at the top of the water line.  It just didn’t look right.  Given there was no Internet in 1976, and I didn’t own a cookbook that included a recipe for guacamole, I called my neighbor over to take a look.  She burst out laughing and asked what it was I was trying to do.  I told her that I assumed they were like potatoes and when cooked would soften enough for me to peel them and mash them up.  Needless to say, I did NOT bring guacamole to that party and I still have flashbacks of that boiling pot of green slime many years ago.

I worked my way up to casseroles at dinner parties, where I thought adding some chicken to a pan of Rice-a-Roni, and tossing in a few diced carrots and celery was gourmet.  Then shortly after that, a miracle happened.  I got a roommate and she could cook!  Yes …California style.  Her name is Nomah.  She even had a braid of garlic hanging in the kitchen for heaven’s sake!  And she could make homemade cannelloni.  It was magic watching her prepare things, and reading from her cookbooks.  I learned so much from her, and still do.

I got into hosting dinner parties and inviting people over to try my new repertoire of California cuisine.  I got better and better, and accumulated more pots and pans, cookbooks and kitchen gadgets.

Fast forward to Valentine’s Day weekend 2013 and my dinner party aptly themed “An Evening in Paris.”  Yes, I decided to channel Amy Adams, who channeled Julia Child, and made beouf bourguignon from “Mastering the Art of French Cooking.”  My hubby, Gary, bought me the cookbook a few years ago, and while I have read many of the recipes, I had not yet tried making one of her savory meals!

"Midnight in Paris" Helps Set the Mood During Appetizers

Gary went to the supermarket and bought all the ingredients for me, except lardons.  "WTH …lardons?"  Okay, honey, we can use bacon.  Just get some thick bacon.  I trimmed the meat to Julia's precise measurements of 2” cubed, and dried them with paper towels so when they hit the hot oil they would sear and seal in their goodness.  Even using my large Le Crueset roasting pan, it took three batches to get the meat seared.  Our  house was smelling wonderful and it was only 10:30 in the morning! 
    

I had prepared my garlic soup (see my recipe below), chicken liver pate’, and palmierres the evening before, which turned out to be a great idea, realizing how deep into this thing I was getting.  I needed to blanch and ice my haricot verts, so that I only needed to flash fry them in hot olive oil just before serving.  On those lovely beans I made a gremulata of fresh parsley, lemon zest, toasted pine nuts, garlic and Parmesan cheese.  I was able to prep that in advance, and simply toss it in at the end of searing the beans.

Now Julia said that the beef would be best served over noodles or small potatoes.  Knowing how much au jus there would be in the bottom of the pan, I opted for noodles to soak up those layers of goodness.  And it worked.  It was divine!!!!!!!!  And the haricot verts, (recipe compliments of the Barefoot Contessa’s latest cookbook “Foolproof”) were a perfect side dish.  And though we didn’t need it, how could we serve a French meal without a baguette!  

  

Gary took me to Paris for my 50^th birthday, and every single day we went to the bakery and purchased a baguette.  I shall never forget the memory of us walking down the Champs de Elyse with a baguette in our backpack.  But that’s quite another article.

Whether it’s food from a farm in Iowa, or from Paris, France, I’m a good little eater.  I love to eat!  There I go channeling Amy channeling Julia again …

Joy’s Scrumptious Garlic Soup

(makes 6 small cups, perfect for dinner party) 

Recipe is easily doubled for 6 bowls, and can be made the day before and re-heated.  Who doesn’t love that?

  1   TBL Olive Oil

  1   Cup thinly sliced white/brown onion

12   Garlic cloves, smashed

  1   Cup dry white wine

  1   Quart chicken stock

 1    Bay leaf

 2    Cups French bread, 2-inch pieces (crust okay)

 ¾    Cup heavy cream (half/half okay too)

Salt and pepper

½   Cup Gruyere cheese, grated

Heat the oil in a large soup pot, and add onion and garlic.  Cook over medium heat for 10-12 minutes, stirring occasionally, until they begin to caramelize.  Add the wine and continue cooking for 10 more minutes.

Add the stock and bay leaf and bring to a bowl.  Reduce the heat, and simmer for 3- minutes.  Add the bread cubes and allow them to soak in the sup off the heat for 10 minutes.

Remove the bay leaf, and using a hand-held immersion blender, puree until smooth.  Add the cream and add your seasons.  Garnish with the cheese on top.