That's What Bob's Cooking: September 2020

Thursday, September 3, 2020

OSU Pop up Dinner

My husband, Craig, is known for finding some of the most unique things (but I’ll get back to this later).

Quite a few years ago we were introduced to CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture) and quickly became spoiled!! A CSA project is a system that connects local producers/farmers with consumers (that’s me), allowing the consumers to subscribe to the harvest of a farm or group of farms. Generally, you buy a share of that year’s crop, which then gets delivered on a regular schedule (usually once a week). Some CSA’s even include farm events throughout the growing season. By attending these CSA farm events, Craig and I have expanded our knowledge of chickens, farming and canning as well as having the opportunity to try “new to us” produce items we would have not probably tried (Kohlrabi and Broccoli Rabe, just to name a couple).

Now, back to Craig and his ability to find unique opportunities, He found a seafood CSA. What? Mind blown! Soon after signing up, we received a pound (plus) of fish every Tuesday. The fish we received was absolutely the freshest fish I’ve ever tasted, straight out of the waters of Juan de Fuca. Black Cod, Striped Salmon, Coho. I’m drooling just thinking about it.

Since moving to Portland, we’ve tried a few different CSA options. We even tried an egg CSA. Nothing ever really seemed to fit our needs.

So that brings me to today (remember those unique abilities of Craig?). He asked me if I was interested in signing up for a Pop up Dinner. Okay, that peaked my curiosity. OSU was offering a vegetarian dinner (for two). I’m game, let’s do it!

A bit of background information about me, in our house I plan every meal down to the pepper grains. Seriously. And I don’t like to divert my meal plans either. I quickly catch myself from being offended if someone spontaneously invites us for dinner. I’m like, what the hell, now I have to shift the menu. With this new adventure, I shifted Taco Tuesday to accommodate our Pop up Dinner, as well as added some fresh salmon as a side (our neighbor had just returned home from fishing and offered us a HUGE salmon fillet).

The OSU Pop up Dinner box included items to prepare Baked Ratatouille, Nectarine Radish Fennel Salad and Apple Pear Blueberry Crisp. All of these recipes are vegetarian and gluten free.

Baked Ratatouille

12oz tomato sauce

1 eggplant, thinly sliced

1 zucchini, thinly sliced

1 yellow squash, thinly sliced

3 heirloom tomatoes, thinly sliced

1 yellow onion, thinly sliced

Herb topping:

1 T basil, minced

1 T thyme, minced

1 T parsley, minced

1 clove garlic , minced

olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Mix herb topping together. Set aside.

Preheat oven to 375°.

Place the tomato sauce in the bottom of a 10 inch round pan.

Stack 1 slice each of eggplant, zucchini, tomato, yellow squash and onion. Repeat this step until all vegetables have been used, Then place vegetable stacks around the pan, on top of the tomato sauce.

Lightly salt and pepper. Top the vegetable stacks with the herb mixture.

Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes. Remove the foil and bake another 20 minutes. Let rest 10 minutes before serving.

Nectarine Radish and Fennel Salad

Vinaigrette:

1/2 cup olive oil

3 T white balsamic

1 T honey

1 t dijon mustard

2 T lemon juice

4 T mixed chopped fresh herbs (mint, tarragon, thyme)

Salt to taste

Salad:

2 nectarines, diced

1 bunch small radishes, very thinly sliced

1 small fennel bulb, very thinly sliced

1 shallot, very thinly slice and separated

2 green onions, thinly sliced

In a medium bowl, combine all the vinaigrette ingredients. Mix to blend. Set aside.

Place all the sliced vegetables and fruit into the bowl and toss to coat, making sure to separate the radishes and shallots, so they don’t stick together.

Pear, Apple & Blueberry Crisp

Filling:

2 pears, peeled, cored and diced

2 green apples, peeled, cored and diced

1 cup frozen blueberries

1 t cinnamon

1/2 cup sugar

1 t lemon juice

2 t cornstarch

Topping:

1 cup oatmeal (I used 2 Bob’s Red Mill Blueberry Oatmeal Cups)

1/2 cup butter, melted

Combine apples, pears and blueberries in a bowl. Add lemon juice, sugar and cinnamon. Toss to coat.

In a separate bowl, mix together the oatmeal and butter until combined.

Preheat oven to 350°.

I divided the fruit filling between 6 greased ramikins, but you can place the fruit filling into a greased glass

bakeware.

Bake for 35 minutes or until golden and bubbly. Let rest 10 minutes before serving. Top with fresh whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

My Complete Profile

I was born and raised on the East side of Portland Oregon, by two native and second generation, Oregonians, my Mom and Dad (Jack and Joan). Oregon, and the Northwest are deep in my blood. That being said, I have always had an interest in cooking. I would love to add a warm loving story here about how my Mom nurtured my love of cooking by setting me up on or near the counter top to help with whatever she was cooking. Well, that's not exactly the case.

Being a child of the 70's and 80's, I had a great exposure to classic foods like Spam, Tang, Rice-a-Roni and Hamburger Helper. While many of these premade, sodium roller coaster, treats where regulars on our table, my Mom would have to hold the title as "casserole queen". Casseroles are her favorite and her specialty. Whereas, my Dad was more of a spur of the moment kind of cook. His creations included many of the items from our makeshift pantry. Sometimes, i think he was thinking, "the more ingredients, the better it'll be!". I think my first attempt at cooking would have to have been making cookies, either peanut butter (with the criss-cross fork tine print on top), or chocolate chip cookies. Over the years I have made so many of both of these recipes, I have surely lost count.

During middle school, my Mom encouraged me to take Home Economics, thinking that all kids, boy or girl, should know how to cook out in this world. This sparked a growing interest in cooking. So when I entered my junior year of High School, at David Douglas, I enrolled in the culinary arts program, we called it Food Services I. This was a class that had been offered many years before, where the students ran a restaurant, The Kilt, during the lunch periods. Unfortunately, since the class had not been offered in several years, so we didn’t have enough students to open the restaurant, that year. Within the first few weeks of this class, my instructor asked if I'd like to be involved in an outside "club" (kind of like a version of Eagle Scouts) that was mentored by local business owners. It sounded interesting so I joined (not to mention it got me out of the first 2 periods of the day).

At our first meeting I was approached by Sylvia Poesdel, the owner of the Portland landmark restaurant, Sylvia's Italian Restaurant & Dinner Theatre. She asked me if I would be interested in an afterschool job, coming to work for her to learn the cooking/chef trade on the job. I jumped at the chance and started in October of 1985. During my senior year I rejoined the culinary arts program (Food Services II) and this year we were able to reopened the restaurant, which the rest of the students voted me to manage. I just absolutely loved it! I worked at Sylvia's until after I graduated, in 1989. I learned a lot about the restaurant industry, and I would have to say it would be one of just a few life altering jobs I have had throughout my career.

After high school, while I was working at Sylvia's, I applied to culinary arts school. The Two things kept me from continuing my career in culinary arts, were financial and having worked out in the field, I saw so many negative attributes to being a chef, I decided that since I love to cook, I wanted it to be a hobby, and not a drag to go work each day.

When I left Sylvia's, I worked at a hotel, then Safeway. From there I joined Fred Meyer in the Service Deli, and was quickly promoted to a manager. During the next 8 years, I worked throughout the Portland and Southern Oregon areas. In 1998, I earned a promotion to the regional specialist position (District Manager) in Seattle. During this career move, I learned so much about the Food Service industry. I was charged to develop a new service salad case program, as well as work on a new catering program. I had the opportunity to work with manufacturers to develop these new programs.

In 2000, I met the love of my life, Craig. I also, moved from the food service program to the grocery department as an assistant manager. In the capacity I learned to develop my management skills as well as managing inventory. By being the best in my category, I earned the position of manager, where I moved from store to store cleaning up and reorganizing as I went. I also was entrusted with training future Food managers for the region. At which point I was pursued by another company to run a store for them, and enter back into the restaurant industry. During these 3 years, I learned the Restaurant Supplier side of the business. While I enjoyed the time I spent in this opportunity, I yearned to go back to the Grocery industry, and spend more time with my first love, cooking, and writing about my adventures….in the kitchen!