Cosmopolitans and Turkey Sausage Penne Alla Vodka

Last night I looked in my freezer and all I had left was three one pound packages of Verde Farms Organic ground beef, a huge Costco pork loin and a package of turkey sausage. I guess the turkey sausage was the only thing that looked reasonable to me so I had to figure out something to do with it.

I was craving a little vodka sauce, but we'd run out of vodka after the last batch...okay, and there were maybe a couple of dirty martinis involved one evening during a sunset on the beach. I hadn't been out of the house all day because I am still working on my video, and so I decided that maybe going to the liquor store was just the outing I needed! I put Baz in the stroller and off we went.

It was worth it. I plopped the sausages into a frying pan and browned them in a couple drops of oil olive. I took them out of the pan and sliced them before returning to the pan so that they would cook faster. At this point Damien came home, noticed the fresh bottle of vodka and asked me if I knew how to make Cosmopolitans. I didn't, but I sure wouldn't mind finding out!

This is what we discovered:

Cosmopolitans alla Damien (makes 2 servings)
3 ounces vodka
1 ounce Cointreau or Triple Sec (we used Cointreau)
2 ounce cranberry juice
1 lime

Pour all liquid ingredients in a martini shaker with ice and shake. Squeeze the juice of 1/2 of the lime into each of two chilled martini glasses. Pour contents of the shaker over the lime juice. Garnish with a wedge of lime.

You can adjust the ingredients to your taste. Apparently, there really isn't a right or wrong way to do it.

Now armed with my pre-dinner cocktail, I continued making my vodka sauce. I put the pasta in to boil and removed the sausages from the frying pan, cleaned it out and continued to make the vodka sauce like I did in my post a here.

This recipe is becoming a real favorite around here, and the sausage added a new twist. It was really tasty.

Today, I am getting ready to go on my first trip sans baby. While I am very excited for the reunion with some of my dearest friends in Denver, CO, I am also very nervous about leaving Baz behind. I know he's in good hands -- in fact, Damien has his two brothers coming in this weekend so he'll have reinforcements (even though I was sort of looking forward to him experiencing a full two days alone with the baby.) But I've never been away from him for more than a few hours. And to make matters more difficult, he has started saying "Mama" this week. Way to break my heart, baby.

My First Slow Cooker Experience - Chicken and Mushrooms

A year or so ago, Damien told his mom that we'd like a slow cooker for Christmas. I am not sure what possessed him to say this. I have never used a crock pot in my life, and while Damien does do some of the cooking around here, I just couldn't imagine him thinking of a recipe to throw in the thing before he went off to report on something.

Well, a couple of years later, it has never seen the outside of a closet -- and it takes up a lot of room in that closet cuz it ain't a tiny piece of equipment. That is until today. I have absolutely no idea how to use a slow cooker, but it seems pretty easy -- I mean, just throw a few ingredients in there and set to cook. Right?

I guess the idea of ending up with a nice meal in 4 to 6 hours with minimal effort sounds good to me right now. I have been having some trouble budgeting my time since I have an actual paying job to do this week. The tough part of being a freelancer and a mom is that when I have real work to do for someone other than my family, my job of taking care of Baz and keeping the Oliva Cave house in order doesn't just get put on hold. Baz still needs to be dressed, fed and entertained, laundry still needs to get done if I want something to wear, and, of course, dinner needs to be made. And since it is just freelance, it's not like I get into a rhythm. Things are too erratic for that.

Now, Damien is really great -- much better than average -- so this is not to say that my husband is good for nothing or that men just don't get it. He gets it, but he has a demanding, full time job every day.

It's just that even with his help, being a mom is a full time job, more so than I ever imagined. In fact, I'd actually like to apologize right now to my mom and my mom friends who have known this for a long time. I was insensitive. So, when I add to my schedule -- even when it's not as demanding as a breaking news video for The New York Times -- that means I have a second full-time job. People will say, why don't you just get a babysitter and I do. I do get someone to help me out for a few hours here and there, but that can only cover so much time and, quite frankly, finding people and getting them organized takes a bunch of time, too, not to mention that since I work from home the distractions are endless even when someone is watching him. And it's limited. Before baby, I'd just work all day and night until the job was done. Now I have to be ready to work during the time I have help, and if you work in something creative you know that sometimes your creative juices aren't quite as disciplined as your schedule.

I really am not complaining so much as I am trying to figure this out. I mean, hell, I'm super lucky -- my husband is great, I can afford to get some help and at least I actually have some work, work that I can do at home no less. It's just is it possible to have a successful part-time freelance career and take care of babies? If any of you have any tips for how you organize your work/baby life, I'd love to hear them.

In the meantime, I'm still cooking with that slow cooker. I put some cut up chicken breast in there with about 10 sliced up mushrooms, 1 small diced onion, 2 chopped up carrots,2 chopped up cloves of garlic, some fresh thyme, a bay leaf, 1/2 cup of wine, 1/2 cup cream and 1 cup of chicken broth. I'll let you know how it goes. Maybe this crock pot will become a big help as I go forward. Oh, and thanks for the gift, Mrs. Cave.

Chicken and Shrimp Enchiladas

Tonight, I decided to go back to my friend, Kita's, enchilada recommendation.  Her sister sent her this recipe and I have adapted a few things to my taste and what I had available.

For tonight's version, I replaced the beef I originally used with both chicken and shrimp (since I realized a little late in the game that I was running low on shrimp, I just sauteed a chicken breast that I had seasoned with salt and pepper.)  I didn't use them together but instead made two different kinds of enchiladas.  I also used two kinds of red salsa instead of green salsa because the Publix I went to only had some lame El Paso Salsa Verde available.  I used the mango and peach salsa I bought a Costco a while ago as well as Publix brand of medium salsa which was actually quite nice.

The mango/peach salsa was pretty tasty with the shrimp enchiladas in particular.  The only thing I didn't like was that it didn't taste particularly Mexican.  But, whatever, it was a little gourmet and Damien seemed to like it, too.

I also mixed up the veggies a bit.  I did use the squash and corn like the recipe calls for, but I also threw in a poblano pepper and a half of a jalapeno to make things a little spicier.

All in all, it was pretty good.  My apologies to Kita and her sister, Mollie for screwing with an already terrific recipe.  You're original is still the best. 

Verde Farms Organic Beef

A little dismayed by the New York Times piece about how we're all going to die from eating ground beef (okay, so maybe it wasn't that bad), I decided to send an email to the producer of the organic ground beef I've been purchasing from Costco -- Verde Farms.

I was happy to get a reply within an hour.  Dana Ehrlich, the founder of Verde Farms sent me this email in response to my questions about the way they handle their ground beef production:

Hi Diana,
Thanks for your message and patronage.  I assume you are referring to the NY Times articles which has received a lot of attention. 

We take a number of steps beyond that which the large, conventional grinders and USDA requires such as:
.    Food safety audits by independent companies of our slaughtering and processing facilities
.    HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point) plans to identify high risk areas
.    No bench trim used from the grinding facility
.    Slow line speeds at the slaughterhouse in Australia and US which reduces risk of fecal contamination
.    Majority of beef is free-range which minimizes fecal contamination on the hide and moving to 100% free-range, grass-fed cattle
.    No organ meats, no old dairy cows, no reconstitution, no fine textured meat or rendering, etc.only meat from healthy animals
.    Require Certificate of Analysis for negative E Coli 0157:H7 for all incoming raw material
.    First production of the day after nightly sanitation
.    Test and hold of finished product for E Coli 0157:H7, generic E Coli, aerobic plate counts, and coliforms

A good customer is an educated customer.let me know if you have any additional questions that I would be happy to answer. 

Thanks, Dana

I still have a few questions for Mr. Ehrlich.  For instance, does requiring a certificate of analysis for negative E Coli for all incoming raw material mean that they test the incoming beef themselves?  But, I suppose their handling seems better than most places.

In the meantime, I'll stick to whole cuts of beef and other types of meat.  And I suggest everyone be very careful with their handling of food in their kitchens.

Yesterday's New York Times Article on Ground Beef

Not sure how many of your saw this yesterday, but the New York Times did a very disturbing article about ground beef production and as much as I love hamburgers -- it's one of the foods I most craved while I was pregnant -- it has me reconsidering whether I should ever eat one again.

I guess I could always have a whole piece of meat ground for me, but how much is that gonna cost?

You can read the article here.

Also take a look at Gabe Johnson's video that's embedded in the article.

The Coconut Grove Farmer's Market To Which We Can Never Return

Yesterday Balthazar was in a real state because the night before he was kept awake by a tooth that seems to be emerging from his little gums. The teething is also causing a bit of a runny nose so he was very uncomfortable lying down. That made napping a little tricky, too. And no napping plus a bad night of sleep equals one cranky baby and two exhausted parents.

So, Damien and I thought our best course of action would be to drive somewhere, anywhere. That way Baz would maybe sleep because he now usually falls asleep within minutes of getting in the car and the car seat keeps him in an upright position. We pretty much used up all of our brain power coming up with that part of the plan so figuring out a destination was nearly impossible. We started out towards Lincoln Road -- the pedestrian shopping zone in South Beach. But as we reached our initial destination, Baz was so soundly asleep that we decided we needed to go somewhere further to continue the glorious, quiet siesta. We just kept driving south and somehow found ourselves on I-95 heading to Coconut Grove -- another Miami neighborhood famous for its Bohemian feel even though it is now mostly known for the big outdoor mall, Cocowalk, and all of it's Gap, Victoria Secret and Cheesecake Factory glory.

After about an hour of driving around (I know, we're terrible, but it's the small carbon footprint we need to make in order to rest our child,) we stumbled upon the Coconut Grove Farmers Market. I like farmers markets, I really do. But, I like farmers markets because the ones I've been to in San Francisco and New York usually offer local produce -- fresh stuff that didn't require cargo planes to get it to me (especially since we now need to reserve our gas-guzzling for restful car rides). The farmers markets in Miami however, aren't quite like that. This one, like another I have visited, offered produce from one supplier and while it was organic, most of it was from far away. We were in Coconut Grove, one of the lushest places in Miami -- proof that basically anything can grow here -- yet they were selling avocados and tomatoes in addition to lots of other produce from California and other far away places. I mean, Hello! Immokalee, Florida grows something like 90% of the tomatoes consumed in this country. Why bring tomatoes from California for your farmers market? Just because someone slapped an "organic" label on it? What does that really mean, anyway? That you can charge exorbitant prices? What about the amount of fuel that had to be used to get all of this produce here to Miami? I might as well buy the local stuff at Whole Foods or Publix even.

Then two things happened which made me hate the Coconut Grove Farmers Market even more. Seduced by some lovely leeks they had and some shitake mushrooms I haven't been able to pick up Publix, I thought I'd get over myself and buy something. When I finally figured out where to pay there was a guy ahead of me buying 100 things and then there was me with my three items (I also picked up a couple of onions since I was running low) and another guy behind me with his two or three items. The cashier went so slowly with the guy ahead of me, calling out each of his 100 items, looking up their prices on his list of about a million things. "Wow, look at these beautiful poblano peppers. These are, let me just find it on this here piece of paper, oh, I see, $3.60 a pound. And you have about 2 pounds. That's, let me see, $7.20. Next, you have these gorgeous bundles of parsley...." It took him forever.

When he finally finished, he looked at me and the guy behind me and pronounced, "Sorry folks, I'm parched. Before I do anything, I need to get some water." And he skipped away. Wait, was he kidding me? It literally should have taken him two seconds to ring us both up. It was past 4pm, not the busiest time of the market. There was sure to be some time after us. And we had just waited patiently....really? I didn't freak out. But, I calmly returned all of my items to their cardboard boxes and decided to find Damien who had gone to the other side to buy us some fresh juice from the prepared food side (which did look like homemade, local stuff, by the way, and the juice was very tasty and delicious.)

That's where we encountered strike three.

As we finished up our pineapple/lemon/ginger and watermelon juices, we encountered this woman (you can see a picture of her to the left that I got from the Glaser Farms web site) who was selling glass straws. Seriously, glass straws. She spent 10 minutes trying to convince me I needed to buy one for Baz because plastic ones are dangerous for babies -- they can drown or slice themselves with the rough edges, as if glass ones won't break or anything especially being used by a baby. She was admiring Baz and his fat, pork chop thighs that were sticking out of the Baby Bjorn Damien was holding him in. She asked if they were the result of breastfeeding. Uh oh. I could see where this was going. Calmly, I told her that they were the result of everything since I am now breastfeeding, formula feeding and giving him solids. She asked if he ate grains. I said yes, and then she went on to explain that in India babies don't start eating grains until they have their four front teeth because that is a sign that their intestines are developed enough for grains. Now maybe it was just the bad night's sleep he had suffered the night before, or perhaps he is suffering from PTSD from our time in a war zone, or maybe he's lost his patience for Eat, Pray, Love wannabes and their romanticism of anything Indian, exotic or, really, anything not American. Whatever it was, he jumped down her throat! What kind of research did she have to back up that claim?! Who was she to judge how we decided to feed our own, obviously healthy baby?! She started criticizing his inability to stop talking and listen to her. He pressed her for her credentials.

Part of me was mortified as I watched him and this woman going at it in the middle of the farmers market. But a bigger part of me was completely amused and entertained by the loud fight that had started. My favorite part might have been when she asked him if he was a lawyer. Or when she tried to convince us that she had spent many years assisting a scholar in India giving her the authority to comment on the nutritional needs of infants. Regardless, my job in these situations is usually to get Damien out of them. I politely apologize for his fiestiness and pull him away. But this time I couldn't. It was too much fun and I liked watching her try to match Damien punch for punch. And all this while Baz was just sitting there, dangling from his daddy's puffed up chest. It was great.

Eventually, I offered a qualified apology. "Thank you for the tip. We have to go." I latched my arm around Damien's and we laughed as we made our way to Cocowalk to check out if they had any baby pajamas on sale at the Gap. I think they're made in India.

Balthazar's Mustard Crusted Salmon Over Lentils

On Friday night, after we had a chance to adjust to being back, I thought I'd try a more ambitious recipe to get us back on our Friday night ritual of a great meal with a nice bottle of wine. I hit up Publix and Costco earlier in the day to restock. At Costco I was able to buy a great piece of salmon, so I decided to check out The Balthazar Cookbook for a salmon recipe.

I settled on the Mustard-Crusted Salmon because it sounded fairly easy -- and let's face it, not all the recipes in the cookbook are that simple. It also suggested serving the salmon with lentils which I had been wanting to try and make since they could also be a great addition to Baz's diet.

It went really well. There were couple of kitchen limitations I encountered. I just hate my stove and oven. Gas would make it much easier to control the temperature and I probably could have achieved the beautiful golden crust like the photograph they use. Instead, I got a slightly darker, almost burned look to my salmon crust. Then of course with my new fear of the smoke detector in our building, I was a little tense about setting my smoky oven to 500 degrees. But, I positioned Damien just under then alarm waving a dish towel and in the end not a peep was heard.

So, without further ado, here is the recipe:

Mustard-Crusted Salmon over Lentils (adapted from The Balthazar Cookbook)

Cook the lentils first:
1 cup lentils (the cookbook suggests French green du Puy lentils)
2 slices of bacon, diced
4 sprigs of thyme
1/2 medium onions, diced
1 garlic clove, pressed
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 medium carrot, diced
1 celery stalk, diced
1/4 teaspoon white pepper (I used black pepper because I didn't have white pepper)

Rinse the lentils in cold water and then place them in a medium saucepan and cover with 4 cups of water. Bring to a gentle simmer and cook for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, cook the bacon with the thyme in a saute pan. When the bacon starts to brown and the fat has liquefied, add the onion, garlic and salt. Cook for about 5 minutes until the onions are translucent. Add the butter, carrots, celery, pepper and 1 cup of water. Bring to a simmer and cook for 5 more minutes.

Drain the lentils and put them back into the pot. Add the bacon and vegetable mixture to the lentils and stir. Simmer for 7 to 10 minutes or until the lentils are very tender.

Mustard-Crusted Salmon
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 salmon fillets, about 7 ounces each, skinned
2 teaspoons dijon mustard (I used 1 teaspoon of honey dijon mixed with 1 teaspoon of regular dijon)
2 teaspoons bread crumbs

Preheat the oven to 500 degrees.

Rinse and dry the salmon fillets. Mix the two dijon mustards if you are using both honey and regular. Spread one teaspoon of the mustard on the side of the salmon that was skinless to start. Sprinkle 1 teaspoon of bread crumbs over each fillet. Use your fingers to press the bread crumbs evenly into the mustard.

Heat the vegetable oil in a large overproof saute pan over high heat. When the oil begins to smoke, place the fillets in the oil, mustard side down. Reduce the heat to medium and cook the fish for 2 minutes. Flip the fillet over and cook the other side for one more minute.

Move the pan into the preheated oven and finish cooking for 3 or 4 more minutes depending on the thickness of the fillets.

I think it would probably okay to keep the fish on the stovetop and simply cover the pan to cook for the additional 3 or 4 minutes, but I went with the original recipe.

To serve, place a bed of lentils in a shallow bowl and arrange the fish on top of them. It looks and tastes beautiful.



We ate it outside on our balcony looking out at the nearly full moon over the calm ocean while the baby slept soundly downstairs. Paired with a nice bottle of South African sauvignon blanc, it was a memorable meal. We topped it off with some delicious cupcakes Damien picked up at Books and Books and a glass of port. Then we slipped away to the television to watch an episode of the first season of Mad Men, which is a really great show : )