Portland, Oregon Chef’s Table Cookbook Signing + Reception

30. September 2012 · 2 comments · Categories: Green Living, Movie Reviews/Book Reviews, Oregon, Recipes · Tags: , , , , , , ,

One of the things that made Portland an attractive city for my husband and I to move to is that it is fast becoming a foodie destination, especially in regards to the farm-to-table movement. One can easily have a meal comprised entirely of ingredients from within a 50 mile radius of your home.

It’s also one of the things that attracted food stylist and writer, Laurie Wolf, and her award-winning photographer husband Bruce, to Portland in 2008. And now they’ve collaborated on the recently-released cookbook Portland, Oregon Chef’s Table: Extraordinary Recipes from the City of Roses, which is the first cookbook to gather Portland’s top chefs and restaurants under one cover. The book features over 70 recipes from more than 60 of Portland’s best restaurants, and it’s rumored that a sequel cookbook is in the works.

This afternoon local gourmet grocer Pastaworks hosted not only a book signing, but also a reception that featured over a half-dozen chefs from restaurants highlighted in the book.

There were mini berry tarts from Random Order Coffehouse & Bakery…

Deviled eggs with freshly grated horseradish and brioche crumbs from Evoe. I can’t wait to try this recipe out.

Kale salad from Dove Vivi, matzo ball soup from Mother’s Bistro & Bar, a tasty spice cake from Screen Door and shaibeyet (a Lebanese phyllo pastry) with cream and rose water syrup from Ya Hala.

The cookbook features gourmet-restaurant-approved recipes designed for the home cook. The recipes range from containing only a few ingredients that can be easily made in under an hour (such as the deviled eggs above) to complex recipes with several dozen ingredients (such as Grilled Flat Iron Steaks with Tomato Salad, Spicy Remoulade & Espelette Oil). Recipes are helpfully divided into sections such as small plates, soups, brunch, sandwiches, large plates, desserts & pastries.

Full color photographs are found on nearly every page and foodie anecdotes are interspersed throughout the text such as “truffle hunting in the forest” and the importance of coffee to Portland culture. But perhaps my favorite part of the cookbook thus far is the full-page intros to each restaurant, which serve as a sort-of restaurant review with tips on some of Wolf’s favorite dishes. This is great for someone who has just moved to the Portland area and who is looking for tips on local restaurants to try.

And of course, I can’t wait to try the recipes out too.

Carrot Mango Gelato

22. August 2012 · 1 comment · Categories: DIY, Green Living, Healthy Living, Recipes, The Simple Living Experiment · Tags: , , , ,

Last week I attended a Raw Food cooking demonstration at my local Whole Foods. Chef Stacey Dougan and RAW Mixologist Shane Stewart showed that you can get pretty creative in whipping up tasty raw food dishes. To add to the challenge, everything they made was not only 100% uncooked and unprocessed, it was also 100% vegan.

On the menu for the night was a Mock Tuna Sandwich with Stone-Ground Cashew Mayo, Cucumber-Jicama Asian Pear Salad, Thai Pumpkin Soup and Carrot Mango Gelato. The mock tuna sandwich was especially tasty. Instead of using fish, Chef Stacey substituted with what the fish eat — several type of kelp and seaweed. It did have that slight tuna fish taste, and I decided that I actually liked the mock tuna sandwich better than the real thing. With the addition of the cashew mayo, it was spot on.

While I like the idea of adding raw, vegan meals to my diet occasionally, I don’t think I could do it in the long-term. For starters, I would have to give up many dishes that I currently love, especially baked bread. Also, it seems that many raw food recipes have expensive ingredients, and there would be a rather large upfront investment cost. Most of the recipes made at the cooking demo were made it a VitaMix, which costs in excess of $400, and some contained pricy ingredients such as nutritional yeast and liquid aminos.

For the record, neither of our instructors admitted to eating raw, vegan foods all the time. Although Chef Stacey is vegan, she does enjoy an occasional cooked meal, and Shane indicated he’s a pescatarian. Still, an occasional raw food meal could add a bit of (healthful) diversity to one’s diet.

After the class, I was anxious to try out one of the recipes, so I chose the most simple and budget-friendly: Carrot Mango Gelato.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup frozen mango

1/2 cup ice

1 oz carrot (Shane recommended baby carrots, but I used a sliced whole carrot)

3/4 cup white grape juice

1/2 banana

To make, it’s as simple as combining all ingredients into a high-speed blender and mixing for about 20 seconds.

The gelato I made at home came out with more of a pudding-type consistency, but the one made at the cooking demo with a VitaMix actually had more of the consistency of true gelato. However, my ‘home version’ was just as tasty as the one we sampled in class. You can’t go wrong when mango is involved.

If anyone has recommendations of low-cost, raw, vegan recipes please send them my way!

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