Vegetables | Wrightfood

I LOVE Summer

July 22 nd 2008

16 Comments

OK, I am crazy busy right now with my day job, but just wanted to say how much I am completely in love with summer in Seattle this year. The fresh local produce available at the markets right now is outstanding… outstanding!!!!

Take this for example. It has been done a million times. Tomatoes, fresh mozzarella and basil – and not forgetting lashings, yes lashings of the most awesome French sea salt you can find. Oh, and topping it off with the equally most awesome olive oil.

It doesn’t get better than this. It can’t. Oh, wait, yes it can. The perfect summer pork belly post I have to write (that I cooked this weekend) when I get a free second. I love pork belly. Mmmmmm. I have always struggled to make pork belly light enough for summer though.. This little concoction that I speak of however well and truly kept the pork belly light and crisp. Yay! perfect for pork belly every week!!!

But until then, cheers to the awesome farmers and producers that make farmers markets as great as they are. And of course also to everyone that has decided they want the best produce and want to support local farmers. It’s inspirational, it really is.

Posted in vegetables | 16 Comments »

Caramelized Miso Rice cakes, crsipy skin salmon, sesame julienne vegetables

June 3 rd 2008

14 Comments

I was wondering this weekend what to cook for a blog post. We normally trot off to a farmers market, get something special, and I work a decent(ish) dish out of it for a nice, lovely blog post. This weekend I was stumped. I normally muse over things a bit through the week, so that I have an idea of what I want to do at the weekend. I didn’t this week. Work has been crazy, and I haven’t thought about much else.

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Posted in Seafood Recipes, vegetables | 14 Comments »

Miners Lettuce Salad, with baby beets, beet greens, rapini, spring garlic

May 29 th 2008

16 Comments

This dish really came about from a walk around the Ballard farmers market on Sunday. A lot of stands were just bursting with vibrant greens, the most awesome spring garlic that I have ever seen. The star, the complete star is the miners lettuce. I have never used this before, and think it is the darn coolest green I have come across. Visually it is stunning, you get this nice round leaf with this awesome little “flower” (if that is what it is) in the middle. You look at it and think that the leaves might be a little chewy. You pick a leaf off and eat it, and it is nothing but soft, subtle and gentle. Just amazing.

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Posted in Uncategorized, lunch, vegetables | 16 Comments »

Fava bean, pea and mint Ravioli - basil oil and pine nuts

May 26 th 2008

12 Comments

A little while ago now we stopped on the way home from work at Cafe Lago, in Seattle. The place is just down the road from us, so we often end up there. Most Seattlites I am sure will know the place - pretty decent pizza and pasta, and ridiculously high prices for what they serve. The problem there is competition - there isn’t any.. unless you talk of Vios Cafe - another place that does great food, but you pay through the nose for it. Anyhow, I digress.. I had a special there which was a pea ravioli. They had it served smothered in a heavy marinara sauce, which completely overpowered the delicate nature of the ravioli themselves, which actually were little stars.

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Posted in vegetables | 12 Comments »

Halibut, saffron-mussel liquor velouté, fava beans, watercress and fresh peas

May 6 th 2008

20 Comments

I have been thinking of sauces somewhat of late. I used to cook a lot more with a French influence, mainly thanks to the simply incredible book French Provincial Cooking, by Elizabeth David. This book is a complete classic. No pictures, and it can be a nightmare to cook from, especially if you are a new cook. Saying that however, this is the book that I really started cooking from. She is so descriptive with her prose that there is honestly no picture that could do the recipes in here justice. She seems like a colorful character, extremely blunt and to the point, with a huge passion and love of French cooking, history, and the people of such an amazing country. This is honestly a cookbook that everyone should have. We aren’t talking haute cuisine here at all - this is basic French food, with tons of character. Everything however is about technique. It was this book that really made me focus on getting things perfect, and not ever sitting back - always pushing forwards, experimenting, and trying to perfect a dish.

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Posted in Seafood Recipes, vegetables | 20 Comments »

Pimm’s No. 1 cup (cocktail) and Dama Bianca (fennel and celery salad)

April 16 th 2008

7 Comments

Ahhhh Pimm’s. Nothing quite says a lazy day on a river bank, watching a bunch of toff’s row boats down a river. This drink doesn’t quite have the best of images in England. It is quintessentially British, but also has a reputation as a drink for toff’s (posh people with more money than sense). God knows why to be honest - it tastes bloody great, and really isn’t expensive at all.

Whenever the sun comes out, I always end up making this great little cocktail. There are few drinks as honestly refreshing as this one. Pimm’s No.1 is gin that has been infused with herbs and spices. The recipe is a closely guarded secret apparently, so god knows what really goes into it. If you drink it straight, it has quite a herbal note, that is refreshing and somewhat sweet.

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Posted in drinks, vegetables | 7 Comments »

Pan seared True cod, fiddleheads, fava’s, peas and asparagus, olive tapenade

April 8 th 2008

15 Comments

“You say bloody hell a lot in your blog posts” said my father in a recent IM conversation with me. “Well, it is better than saying f***, I suppose” was the reply.. something I generally wouldn’t say to his face! He is a bright bloke, with an annoyingly large vocabulary - I haven’t often heard him swear, but when he did it would normally be some pretty minor words.

So, I am going to try and make it through this whole blog post without saying bloody hell, or any other swear word for that matter.

This is going to be tough, because this really sodding tasty. (sodding doesn’t count, right?)

Fiddleheads, fava beans, fresh shelled peas and asparagus are all sauteed in some butter and oil, with slices of garlic. The addition of basil right at the end really lightens the dish, and kicks it forwards towards the sun of summer.

The last week I have been thinking a bit about really light, clean, crisp flavors, but still with a little earthiness.

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Posted in Seafood Recipes, vegetables | 15 Comments »

The easiest, tastiest grilled leeks ever

March 27 th 2008

12 Comments

I should start by saying that I have contracted a rather nasty stomach virus from our little lad Drake. Hardly any food is sounding good at all, and the sight of most food is pretty horrible to me as I write this. Strangely however leeks are not one of them right now (the list seems to change hourly).

So before they start making me swear off vegetables for life, I figured I should get this post out.

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Posted in lunch, vegetables | 12 Comments »

Lunch: Spring Rolls three ways

March 24 th 2008

22 Comments

Just for fun one night (haha) started to add up what we spend on food in a month. This included grocery shopping, and eating out. It was bloody ridiculous. I am not going to tell you the final amount, but my guess was so far off it wasn’t funny.

The crappy thing is that quite a bit of the cash went on rubbish lunches in the culinary wasteland of Bellevue. We work out that way (we work together.. how cute), and the options for lunch in Bellevue is pretty terrible, unless you have a decent amount of cash in your pocket. The best cheap place we have found is What the Pho, however that still comes out at nearly $20 for lunch if we don’t split. The pho tastes a touch salty too, so I know the sodium levels are crazy in it. If we were loaded with cash, we would eat at Flo’s (great sushi in Bellevue) every day. But we aren’t, so we can’t.

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Posted in Seafood Recipes, lunch, vegetables | 22 Comments »

WFD: Pan seared scallops, roasted beets, Russian kale, horseradish emulsion. Not forgetting a side of great rosemary roasted potatoes

March 11 th 2008

9 Comments

I get impatient for new seasons. Spring is almost here (technically it starts next week), but if you ask me, we are in Spring. The weather has got a wee bit better, the days seem longer. Season changes are always exciting as a cook. Each visit to the farmers market yields new finds , and new ideas for recipes.

Of course, I want all of the great spring produce now, and that isn’t going to happen! I wanted to create something spring-like, but which still had winter undertones.

A lot of this actually just comes down to presentation. If the plating is a little more delicate then it hints towards the freshness of spring and summer.

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Posted in Seafood Recipes, vegetables | 9 Comments »

WFD: Spice rubbed Sturgeon, roasted parsnips and sauteed dino kale. Oh, and not forgetting one rather spicy boy

March 6 th 2008

6 Comments

I wasn’t sure whether to post this one or not. I rather quickly decided to take photos, and didn’t have any kind of lighting setup, or any idea about a game-plan for photographing. Yep, it is true, now-a-days when I am going to photograph a recipe, I haul a light, bounce sheets, and sometimes my laptop into the kitchen, and make a few notes about what I want to shoot, and even do some rather bad drawings.

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Posted in Seafood Recipes, vegetables | 6 Comments »