Birthday Dinner, Grand Cafe

So yesterday was my 35th birthday (I know! Weird, huh?) and to celebrate Julie, my mom and I went out to Grand Cafe on Grand and 38th, here in Minneapolis. In warmer weather it would be walking distance from our house, but the idea of combining walking with such a wonderfully decadent meal seems positively bulimic.

My mom and I had been there this summer, and had an absolutely fabulous meal, elements of which I later tried to recreate, with mixed results. I won't be attempting such a feat with last night's meal, not because it wasn't great, but because it's elements were either beyond me or more decadent than I can usually bring myself to cook at home.

Before discussing the individual dishes, let me give our overall impressions. This place is fabulous. The space is really nice combination of fancy and unpretentious: small neighborhood restaurant setting (in that converted-retail-space-of-some-kind way), with white table cloths and silver (the bill arrives rolled in a silver egg cup). The food is French-American with an emphasis on seasonal and local ingredients. I know. It sounds like I just described nearly every newish restaurant, but these folks do it up right. By contrast, last year at this time we went to Corner Table and found it decidedly underwhelming, at least from a vegetarian perspective, because their winter seasonal offerings just weren't all that flavorful. Grand Cafe is by no means a vegetarian place, but is insanely vegetarian friendly. How friendly? The soup of the day was prepared with vegetable stock. It's one of those small touches that most restaurants can't be bothered with even when, as in this case, it just makes more sense with the dish. The service was friendly and wonderful: attentive without being intrusive and gracious in answering all of our questions. The wine list is nice and has a number of good reasonably priced bottles for us less wealthy folks (we shared a bottle of a nice Côtes du Rhone). We got a number of dishes (the soup, a salad, the one veg entree, two starters, and a de-fished special) and shared around, which was an advantage both because it gave each of us the chance to try a number of different dishes and because a number of dishes had such intense flavors that they would have become overwhelming if that were the whole of your meal (this is how I always feel about a dish like szechuan eggplant -- I love it when it is part of number of dishes being passed around a table, but don't enjoy eating an entire plate of it). Finally, everything was delicious, but evidently butter is also a seasonal food (I remember our summer meal as being lighter), so by the end of the meal we did start to feel slightly bloated from all the richness. OK, onto the food.

The soup of the day was a sweet potato and apple base with gruyere folded in and bay leaf oil. The soup was really nicely seasonal, both in it's ingredients (winter seasonal produce up here on the tundra presumably being things that keep well in cellars) and in the feeling that it gave: warm with a hint a crispness in the background. The gruyere was fine, but didn't add a lot, and the bay oil was disorienting, but a really interesting way (I felt the same way about the chili oil that floated atop our delicious cantaloupe soup this summer). We also shared the warm beet salad: circles of sweet red beets that sandwich Stickney's goat's milk cheese (so creamy and good) which are served with caramelized pears and greens tossed with toasted walnuts and a really rich vinaigrette (our one complaint was that the greens -- mostly frisée -- were overly salted).

The two starters that we shared as entrees were the leek and mushroom gratin and the potato gnocchi. The gratin was rich and wonderful, really well balanced with the toasted baguette. The gnocchi were among the best I've every had -- light, soft inside, slight crispy outside and flavorful, and I don't think I've ever had celery taste better than in the celery and onion confit that it and the wild mushrooms (black trumpet? I'm not sure) were tossed with. I could have eaten the gnocchi with a salad as my meal and been incredibly happy.

The crispy polenta cakes entree was Julie's favorite, and something of a revelation for her, as she's been generally suspicious of polenta up til now. The polenta cakes were creamy and savory inside, and the sweet-sour sherry and golden raisin sauce nicely complemented the accompanying roasted carrots and onions (I don't think I've ever thought of pearl onions as a flavor element before, but they were really fab here). Our final dish was the vegetable elements of the steelhead trout special (my mom sweetly decided to fore go meat in order to facilitate veggie sharing with us): dill risotto with chickpea puree and roasted brussels sprouts. The brussels sprouts were perfectly prepared and like a much more butter intensive version of what we prepare at home, and the chickpea puree was a nice accent, but the risotto was something of a revelation. It had the full flavor of fresh green dill, so that the first taste hits you in this incredibly herbal clean way, and later bite reveal other aspects of the dill flavor. I can only believe that this would be amazing with the trout. As it was, it was really nice to have a couple of bites of this and savor the tasty and surprising combination of flavors, then go eat something else for a while, and then return to be struck by the flavors anew.

For dessert we shared gingerbread bread pudding with white chocolate cream and sour cherries. It was good, in keeping with the warm, rich clean flavors of the evening, but not fabulous. We would not get it again, but happy for a sweet end to a sweet evening.

I'll be excited to back to the Grand Cafe during the summer months. It's a wonderful place, but the combination of richness and price mean this is a twice a year sort of place.

Peanut butter balls*

My family has few traditions, which always baffled me growing up. We're sturdy German stock, and you'd figure we'd claim something from our heritage to recreate every year. Nope. No beer, no sausage, no Black Forest cake, no pretzels, not even German potato salad. Likewise, my family didn't bind days with food (no Friday pizza nights at my house.) One of the only constants was a handful of holiday treats we would make every single year. Some have come and gone as my mom discovered new recipes and our tastes changed, but the only one to remain is Peanut Butter Balls. Without fail, we'd make two batches of peanut butter balls every single Christmas, as did my aunt and Grandma (although theirs tasted different.) It's a super sweet concoction and despite the few ingredients involved, I soon noticed subtle differences between our peanut butter balls and others. My Grandma's were smaller, and she used a different coating chocolate (plus she used wax, which is pretty common with the recipe but fills me with horror.) My aunt's version was closer to my grandmothers, but she only used creamy peanut butter and melted chocolate chips. Ours were bigger and more irregularly shaped, with crunchy peanut butter and NO WAX. Over the years, however, I've become so accustomed to rolling these cookies that I can usually make a whole batch of them nearly the same size. That's what three decades of rolling can do, I guess.

Peanut butter balls were an addiction, and despite our love of them, they were only made in December. The only time I strayed from this concept was when we were moving from Atlanta. I made a batch for our goodbye party. Folks loved them (although they were gooier in the heat), but I felt like I was being sacrilegious making them five months too early. (I'm still fascinated by these delicious or holiday foods that are never made outside of Christmas or Thanksgiving. Who says you can't have green bean casserole in February or pumpkin pie in June?)

Peanut butter balls conjure up the idea of family, of delicious comfort foods, of holiday get-togethers. I love them. Even now, when Jeremy and I make entirely new cookies and candies each year, I still make peanut butter balls.

Here's the original recipe (with comments and revisions later)

2 c. crushed graham cracker crumbs

2 c. powdered sugar

2 c. peanut butter (creamy or crunchy)

1/4 c. melted margerine or butter

A large block of confectioner's chocolate or chocolate of your choice

Mix the first four ingredients in a bowl. It will be messy, but it's easier to mix with your hands. When thoroughly mixed, roll into 1 - 1 1/2 inch balls and stack in a separate container. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least two hours, or until the balls are more solid and easier to handle. Melt chocolate over low heat or a double broiler (some use the microwave, which is okay too). Jeremy prefers to add a small handful of finely chopped chocolate at this point to temper the chocolate and make it set better, but you don't have to. Dip balls in chocolate until coated, and using two forks, try to drain as much excess chocolate as possible. Place on cookie sheets covered in wax paper and refrigerate until the chocolate is set. Transfer to a tupperware container and keep in a cool place.

Growing up, we always used the Skippy-esque processed peanut butter and chunks of milk chocolate. It's too sweet for me these days, so these are my suggestions. This morning I'm wondering if you could cut the powdered sugar by 1/2 c. I now use organic no-salt, no-added sugar creamy peanut butter from the co-op (I tried using the jarred oil-on-top peanut butter once, and it was too dry to combine with the other ingredients.) For true decadence or for those with peanut allergies, you could use almond butter instead. We buy large blocks of 70% cacao dark chocolate from Trader Joe's, which produces a much richer, less sweeter coating. (Although my sister, a milk chocolate eater, doesn't like our version. But we do.)

They're easy and yummy and my favorite food tradition.

*My friend is hosting an online food blog theme party about food that is closely linked to memory, so this is my contribution. Here's her blog: The Skinny Gourmet

Cannellini, Couscous and Pomegranate Salad

We've had some really tasty meals these last couple of weeks that we simply haven't managed to photograph, including a potato gratin with sliced mushrooms and brussel sprouts that was a perfect winter fridge cleaner and a very satisfying treat.

This one we did manage to capture, though. Pomegranates are still relatively cheap and plentiful, and this is one of those dishes where they really shine. We tried it once before with my mom, and it turned out decently, but, with some modifications, this time was even better. The sesame flavored eggplant, the couscous and the cannellinis (we threw in some tofu too, which was also fine) combined for a rich nutty goodness, against which the pomegranate pods and the chopped herbs really popped.

As a side note, I recently tried a new technique for harvesting pomegranate seeds that works really well (or at least much better than our old peeling-like-an-orange method). Run a serrated knife horizontally around the pomegranate, about halfway between the stem and flower ends, being careful not to cut too deeply. When you pull these two halves apart, the seed clusters should be nicely exposed and easy to separate from the membrane and pith. Voilà!

The recipe called for pomegranate vinegar, but we couldn't find such a thing and instead found pomegranate molasses, this thick, rich, sour-sweet syrup, at Bill's, the Greek store down the street.

The origins of the recipe are now lost (xeroxed page from something, we thank you), but here it is in our slightly modified form.

Cannellini, Couscous and Pomegranate Salad

Prepare either one cup of dried -- soak overnight, boil for 30-45 minutes, until tender -- or one 16 oz can prepared cannellini beans --rinse thoroughly. (The type of bean is pretty important here, so substitute at your own risk. Personally, I'd substitute chickpeas before I'd use navy beans or such.)

Dice two cups Chinese or Japanese eggplants. Heat 1T sesame oil in a non-stick skillet until just under smoke and add the eggplant (and tofu if you feel like it). Saute, stirring, five minute or until tender. Add 2T sesame seeds and stir until they start to brown. Add 1T minced shallot and 2T minced garlic and stir one more minute before removing from heat and setting aside.

Bring 2C water to a boil and stir in 12oz couscous. Return to a boil, cover, and turn off the heat to allow the water to absorb (5-10 minutes). While the water is absorbing prepare a vinaigrette of 2T white wine or apple cider vinegar combined with 1.5T pomegranate molasses with 3T olive oil whisked in.

Fluff the finished couscous with a fork and turn into a large bowl. With two spoons, toss in the eggplant mixture, 1/2C chopped cilantro (and scallions and/or parsley) and the seeds of one pomegranate. Drizzle the vinaigrette over the top, add salt and pepper to taste, toss to combine and serve at room temperature. Works as a side or main dish.