Radish Salad and Pea Soup with Chevre

I never got any presents like a giant bag of just-picked radishes from my neighbors at 223 Manhattan Ave. But I came home to that a few days ago in my new city!

This is part of the reason San Francisco is The Best. 

I am on a radish kick right now, so I felt pretty bowled over and ready to stuff my face with this recipe I've been ogling: http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/11/recipe-of-the-day-radish-salad/

I also felt the need to put the kibosh on a bag of frozen peas now that fresh ones are all up in my space, so I whizzed them together with homemade veggie stock, fresh mint and a healthy dose of salt and pepper.

Finally, I got a riotously tasty fresh chèvre from Bi-Rite (thank you, girl with short hair, for the rec as I stared blankly at the cheese wall). I dolloped it on the soup and also smeared that all over a baguette (for good measure) and called this my first Perfect Spring Dinner of 2011.

Still Life: Tacos

Last night I made a lemon pepper-crusted pork tenderloin with smashed new potatoes and mint as well as a roasted kale salad. Tonight, the pork was sliced thinly and heated quickly with a touch of stock and tangerine juice and smoked paprika, then covered in radishes, cilantro, onions and homemade guacamole. We also couldn't help but grate a bit of Irish cheddar over the whole mess. Tacos! One of my favorite meals. Witness the still life we were loathe to clean up after stuffing ourselves.

Homemade Peach Salsa

Same day as the olive bread rat-like nibbling, I bought all the makings for homemade salsa, taking inspiration from last weekend in North Fork when we made our own with fresh peaches.

I had leftover cilantro and onion on hand, then I got a peach, three different tomatoes, a jalapeno and a tomatillo to throw in. I chopped everything up in the Crush tasting room and then sat down with a bag of chips and my afternoon's work.

Quite simply, the best salsa I've ever had.

Like Fast Food, But Not

The other day, while searching for what to do with last weekend's leftover pork chops and avocado, I came across this delectable discovery and couldn't stop fantasizing over it.

We finally made them last night (with fresh pork, fear not!), and there was just enough of everything for one messy leftover spicy pork burger tonight, totally disheveled even as it was with sloppy grilled jalapeno and onion and tomatillo, cilantro, mushy creamy avocado and generous shmears of stinky munster on one side of the challah bun and homemade chipotle mayonnaise on the other.

Incidentally--or not so incidentally--the chipotle mayonnaise was naughty on the duck fat fries, too.

Then I took some leftover grilled corn and shaved it off into a salad with leftover onion, cilantro, a tiny bit of lemon juice I'd saved, some fresh black pepper and a kick of Sriracha.

For dessert, Oloroso-and-orange-zest-spiked homemade rice pudding! A virginal attempt, and a damn good one if I do say so myself.

The 22.5LB Wild Striped Bass: Part II

Here's the second meal from our friend, now affectionately known as Albert, the giant striped bass. I will admit to having turned up my nose to fish tacos almost all my life, but this was a game changer. Honestly, the fish wasn't remotely fishy or stinky, even when it got dredged in flour and some seasoning and then lightly fried. Fried fish! Under my own roof! Well, I never...

Then we splashed copious amounts of fresh lemon juice on the succulent little fish bits, and lots of lime on the avocado and cilantro and salted, julienned radishes and chopped onion (very, very conveniently, I had all of these on hand except for the avocado--in fact, having all these ingredients was my impetus for actually giving fried fish a go). Rounding out the lovely little color spectrum was a deep blue-gray tortilla and a chilly, pale pink Chinon rosé.

 

Poppa Provides: The 22.5LB Wild Striped Bass

Yo. This is massive. So massive that Josiah actually won discounted fishing trips for the rest of his life. Also so massive that we have enough fish to feed us for about a month. We literally made 22 1/3-pound bass fillets from this mother!

Here's dinner number one...

This erases my carbon footprint from those stupid tomatoes I bought earlier this week: A completely sustainable and local meal of wild, line-caught striped bass and peas, potatoes, baby fennel, green garlic and herbs all bought from the farmer's market. 

This was really simple, involving just boiling the fingerlings until they were tender, then sauteeing them up with green garlic and little bits of baby fennel with snap peas thrown in at the last moment to keep them crisp and fresh. Then we chopped up a bunch of dill, cilantro, parsley and fennel fronds while the fish were seared, two minutes a side, in a pan with butter before being finished in the oven for another two minutes. Butter, lemon and herbs were mixed together, then slathered over the fresh, tender, slightly sweet and very mild fish.

Ridiculously delicious.

Tacos Without the Truck

I love me a taco. I love tacos sometimes more than I love pizza. And I love pizza a lot.

After living in Los Angeles for seven years, I got this taste for great tacos--preferably from trucks, preferably extra-greasy and absolutely smothered with cilantro and onions that came out of a plastic jug on the truck's side shelf. I can't find tacos like that here, so I have to make my own.

My refrigerator had a half a piece of steak leftover from the Farewell Winter meal, and I had a half a lime, some onion and fresh baby spinach in there, so all I had to buy was corn tortillas and cilantro... oh, and avocado, because I love those so much I could possibly live on them.

Pee Foods Key Foods has Chinantla tortillas which are made just literally down the street from me in Brooklyn, so I felt like a happy locavore buying them, and they're blue corn! These are pretty tasty when slightly charred over an open flame, but they're really tasty fried up in some vegetable oil until they're half-crisp, half-chewy-floppy.

I seasoned the steak with a bit of paprika, cumin, chili powder, cayenne and salt, sliced it really thinly so plenty of flavor coated each bite, and then really quickly heated it up in sauté pan.

All of the green ingredients and the onions were splashed with lime juice and some salt and black pepper before they were piled over the steak.

Add beer; the end.