One Meal Three Ways - Ground Beef with Spinach and Mushrooms

Start out with ground beef, spinach and mushrooms rolled up

in a spinach-lined tortilla.

When I pick up our newspapers and see the words “collapse,” “crisis," and “catastrophe" (and that’s just on the comics page), it’s time for a little belt tightening. Or as my friend Altadena Hiker says, we need to exercise “fooduciary responsibility.”

That starts with letting no food go to waste. After all, leftovers, are not the fiscal equivalent of recycling bad debt. With a little ingenuity and pre-planning, their stock can go up, even when the Dow Jones is sinking faster than a failed souffle.

Take for example, one of my favorite dishes, ground beef with spinach and mushrooms. I’m a big fan of the leafy green vegetable. My family – not so much.
So when I cook up a skillet of ground beef with spinach and mushrooms, leftovers are a part of the equation.

With a little improvisation, I can take the base for the ground beef with spinach and mushrooms and create three completely different dishes:

• lunch in a pita
• dinner with penne pasta
• breakfast with eggs

What you’ll need:
For base:
- Red onion
- Minced garlic
- 1 lb. ground beef
- 2 tsp. curry powder
- ½ lb. sliced mushrooms
- 1 bunch of spinach

For pasta topping:
- ¼ C. marinara sauce
- Penne pasta (or any pasta you prefer)

For Eggs Florentine
- 3 eggs
- Freshly grated parmesan cheese

Meal 1: LUNCH

1) Brown one pound of ground beef with red onion and three minced garlic cloves.

2) When beef is still slightly pink, add approximately ½ pound of sliced mushrooms and sauté for about two minutes.

3) Drain excess grease.
4) Throw in enough spinach leaves to cover top of meat mixture. Stir, reduce heat, add lid and let simmer for approximately 3 minutes, stirring occasionally.

6) Take out 2/3 of the mixture and save for later.

7) Add curry to taste. I use about two teaspoons.
8) Serve in a pita pocket or a flour tortilla lined with fresh spinach leaves.

Top with a dollop of sour cream if you like. Roll up the tortilla and congratulate
yourself for preparing the first of three great meals.

MEAL 2: DINNER

Heat up the leftover beef and spinach with a little marinara sauce and toss over the pasta of your choice.

I had a small container of penne pasta with marinara sauce in the freezer, so I was technically having double leftovers. I think I get extra credit.

Meal 3: BREAKFAST

1) Add a few more fresh spinach leaves to the leftover meat mixture.
2) In a separate bowl, whisk three eggs, a little milk and salt and pepper.
3) Add to meat mixture.

4) Scramble mixture, top with a little grated parmesan cheese and serve.

A hearty, yummy easy eggs Florentine

What are you doing to exercise "fooduciary responsibility"?

A Fresh Look at Fraiche and the Ultimate Buns

Both Angeleno Magazino Magazine and the LA Times Magazine named it "Best New Restaurant." Irene Virbilia of the LA Times and Jonathan "Mr. Pulitzer" Gold of the LA Weekly undoubtedly salivated all over their keyboards when they wrote their reviews. And New York Times columnist Frank Bruni put it on his list of top ten restaurants in the United States.

Even though the raves for Culver City's Fraiche Restaurant had been pouring in faster than opinions after a Sarah Palin interview, I still hadn't bellied up to the bistro. It took Jen at Oishii Eats to get me to cross to the "other" side of town to sample one of the best restaurants in LA.

After I commented on Jen's blog about my love affair with the gougères at Tartines in SF, she clued me in that I could get a burger on a golden roll at Fraiche. I've always considered the bun the weak link of the hamburger, but a gougères, a savory cream puff, could become the ultimate bun. I hadn't been this excited about a new food pairing since I dumped my sour Gummis into my popcorn at the movie theatre.

So when a friend asked me where I'd like to go for my birthday lunch, I didn't hesitate. "Let's get Fraiche," I answered.

With all the accolades, I was prepared for a bit of airs from our waiter, but he couldn't have been more unpretentious. I asked him, "Now how do you pronounce that wonderful French bread that comes with the hamburger?" (Strangely enough, the menu doesn't mention the type of bread.) He hadn't a clue, but looked at the menu and saw the word "gruyère" and attempted to pronounce that. I explained, "No, gruyère is the cheese that's in the gougères and on top of the hamburger." Even though he didn't know a gougères from a gruyère and I still couldn't pronounce gougères, I liked our waiter.

The burger was everything that I dreamed it would be. Prime beef cooked to perfection, melted gruyère on the ultimate bun - crusty on the outside, light and airy on the inside and infused with herbs and the same yummy "king of the Swiss cheese" that tops the meat.

I ate mine with just a touch of homemade mayo, but my friend loaded up her medium rare burger with the tomatoes and lettuce.

These photos are fuzzy, but check out Eat Drink & Be Merry's review for some tantalizing shots and a more comprehensive rundown of lunch items at Fraiche.


Check out the golden gougères surrounding the cash register.

Look for the "Royale with Cheese" on the menu. It's served with a side of herb fries for $13 and is only available at lunch. No matter how you order it ("The hamburger on the French bread I can't pronounce"), you're in for a treat.

Fraiche
9411 Culver Blvd
Culver City
310-839-6800
www.fraicherestaurantla.com

Consider combining a visit to Fraiche with one or more of these other Culver City activities:

- Do the write thing at an IWOSC (Independent Writers of Southern California) meeting on the fourth Monday of the month.
- Get lost at Surfas, the Mecca for cooks and food lovers.
- Yield to affordable massages and facials at the Massage Garage.
- Sip a Manhattan at the bar and check out the historic Culver Hotel, where parts of The Wizard of Oz were filmed in 1939. Find out if those rumors about the Munchkins are true.
- Catch a play at the Actors' Gang at the Ivy Substation.

Saying Goodbye to Summer

Bare feet on the first day of fall in So Cal

I love fall, but I find myself reluctant to let go of summer this year. In Southern California, the temperatures are still in the low 80s. My toddler nephew watered plants in his bare feet in the morning and dipped those same toes in the surf at Newport Beach in the afternoon.

I especially want to hang on to the tastes of summer for just a little longer. That's why I've been on a tomato and basil binge. In the last two days, we've enjoyed penne pasta with tomato and basil; BLTs with ripe, juicy tomatoes; and bruschetta with more tomatoes and basil. When the last tomato has ripened on the vine, I won't be able to eat another red fruit until next summer. (I cannot stomach the thought of eating a tasteless store-bought facsimile.)

Even though I want to cling to summer , threre's a part of me that's eager to move on. The angle of the light has already shifted. I sensed it the moment I woke up on September 22, the first day of autumn. And, in spite of the warm temperatures, the air is just a little crisper. As the thermometer drops, I look forward to indulging in curl-up-by-the-fire, hearty soups and stews.

Goodbye tomatoes and basil. Hello soups and stews.

Here are three that I'm itching to try:

Black bean pumpkin soup (Smitten Kitchen)

Beef stew (For the Love of Cooking)

Navy bean and ham soup (Kitchen Girl)

Because, even in Southern California, summer doesn't last forever.

Martha Immersion Monday: Chocolate Chip Cookies and the Martha Stewart Show

Thin, chewy and buttery - Alexis's Brown Sugar Chocolate Chip Cookies

What do you call an afternoon spent eating Martha Stewart's Fried Chicken 101 for lunch and baking Martha's daughter's favorite chocolate cookies while watching the Martha Stewart Show? I call it Martha Immersion Monday. The only things missing were a Chow at my feet and a celebrity at my elbow.

With out-of-town guests coming for a Saturday wedding at our house, I decided to create a little care package that included Alexis's favorite brown sugar chocolate chip cookies. These became our family favorite after I baked them for the Take Comfort party I hosted in March.

The care packages, along with a bottle of sparkling lemonade, are ready for hotel delivery.

Unlike more traditional chocolate chip cookies, these chewy treats are so thin that the chocolate chips rise up like mini Mount Whitneys. I think it's the mass quantity of butter - one whole pound (four sticks) of it - that's responsible for the rich taste and the flat-as-a-crepe shape.

The Alexis favorite uses twice the amount of butter found in classic Nestles Toll House recipe. And it's four times the amount of butter used in the infamous Neiman Marcus chocolate chip cookie recipe that went viral before personal computers even existed. (Remember Xerox machines and intra-company memo envelopes?) Even the recipe that the NY Times recently dubbed "the best" comes up a stick and a half short.

Alexis's Favorite

Brown Sugar Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients

• 1 pound (4 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more for baking sheets (No need for the "more" butter if you're using Silpat mats or parchment paper)
  
• 3 cups packed light-brown sugar
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 1/2 cups best-quality chocolate chips (I use 2 cups.)
  

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line two baking sheets with Silpat baking mats or parchment; set aside.
   
2. Cream butter until smooth; add sugars, and beat until smooth.
   
3. Beat in eggs and vanilla.
   
4. Into a large bowl, sift together dry ingredients. Slowly beat dry ingredients into wet mixture.
   
5. Fold in chocolate chips.
6. Drop 2 to 3 tablespoons dough per cookie onto prepared baking sheets; space dough at least 2 inches apart to allow for spreading. Bake until golden, 8 to 10 minutes.
   
7. Remove cookies from baking sheets, and allow to cool on baking racks.

Makes fifty 4-inch cookies

So when people ask me, "What makes these cookies so good?" I answer, "It's the butter, baby."

Cauliflower Cravings

Some crave dark chocolate.

Others get yearnings for Ben and Jerry's Chunky Monkey ice cream.

Still others go through withdraw without daily infusions of caffeine.

Me? Well, there are times when a bag of salty chips and a cheap sour cream dip hit just the right spot, but lately I've been craving cauliflower. Not the mushy kind with cheese in the frozen foods section. And not the crunchy stuff that usually goes untouched on the crudite' platter at the Super Bowl party.

What I crave is roasted cauliflower with garlic and Italian parsley - the kind I first tasted at Zinc Cafe and Market in Corona Del Mar a year ago. Since I first sank my teeth into this easy, tasty concoction, I find myself craving the roasted flower in the same way that other friends long for Valrona chocolate.

And, in case you haven't noticed, I lean toward dishes that are simple and have less than a handful of ingredients. When they're delicious and nutritious, like this one, that's just like dip on the chip.

What you'll need:
- One head of cauliflower
- Garlic (to taste)
- Italian parsley (to taste)
- Olive oil
- Sea salt

1) Preheat the over to 450 degrees.
2) Break the cauliflower into little florets.
3) Slice three or four cloves of garlic.
4) Chop a handful of parsley
5) Spread caulifllower, garlic and parsley on a rimmed baking sheet. Douse with olive oil and sprinkle with sea salt.

6) Roast for 20 to 30 minutes, turning the veggies after 10 to 15 minutes.

I ate this for lunch as a side dish with a piece of cold fried chicken left over from the trespassers picnic. Then I had it again for dinner the next day over penne pasta with a little extra olive oil and some freshly grated parmesan cheese. (Sorry I don't have a photo. I was too busy eating.)

This proves that I can have my cauliflower and eat it two (times that is).

Bounty Hunting

When we moved into our Altadena home on a third of an acre, we inherited an orchard.

The problem was that there was no way that a family of three could use all of the lemons, oranges, grapefruits, pomelos, avocados, persimmons, plums, apricots and figs that our yard produced.

Thanks to COFE, the coop food exchange of Altadena, that's no longer a problem. You can read my first-person account of the group in the Home and Garden Section of the LA Times.

It will hit the stands on Saturday, September 13, but you can read it online by going here.

Old Fashioned, End-of-Summer Picnic

Southern-fried chicken on an old-fashioned picnic basket herald the end of summer.

Where did the summer go?

Kids are back in school, moms and dads are packing lunches and driving car pools, the days are getting shorter and Target is already hawking Halloween candy and costumes. Thanksgiving and Christmas can't be far away.

To celebrate (and mourn) the end of summer, I invited some friends for an old-fashioned trespassing picnic. We could have enjoyed our picnic lunch in our back yard, any one of the dozens of parks in Altadena/Pasadena or a nearby wilderness area, such as Eaton Canyon, but what would have been the fun of any of these perfectly legal options?

Instead, we packed up our baskets and blankets and walked a few feet down our street to a small, private vacant wooded lot. The owner of the lot, which is scattered with California Live Oak trees and native plants, lives in an imposing Mediterranean home next door. So we felt a little naughty trespassing on her lovely undeveloped property, but that always makes the chicken taste just a little better.

When our daughter, now 19, was in elementary school, we often smuggled peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to our "secret garden." It had been nearly a decade since I'd enjoyed a picnic among the oaks.

Not your typical "vacant lot"

We started with an assortment of appetizers.

A simple crab salad served on endive on a bed of tarragon. Rainy Days and Sundays served a similar salad at her father's retirement party.

No picnic would be complete without deviled eggs. These, filled with sour cream, Japanese Kewpie mayo, a touch of dijon and dill, are served on a bed of dill. I got a little carried away with the condiments, so these were a little too "wet," but still tasted great.

One friend brought homemade pesto and home-grown tomatoes, garlic and basil served on a crusty French bread

Our main course was the buttermilk fried chicken from Martha Stewart's Fried Chicken 101. The secret is an 8-hour brine bath followed by an 8-hour buttermilk bath. Hey, I think I'd be pretty succulent too after all that soaking. Then the chicken is dredged in flour, salt and pepper and fried to a deep mahogany color. Another friend provided a crisp green salad filled with vegetables from her garden.

And, of course, no picnic would be complete without a chocolate layer cake. This decadently delicious one was a belated birthday cake baked by another friend.


Just for good measure, another friend brought yummy chocolate cookie bars.

I came home, cleaned the ants out of the picnic basket, took a well deserved nap and dreamed of throwing an Autumn picnic.

(And don't worry. I have my neighbor's "tacit" permission to use the secret garden.)