Recipe: Bacon and cheese quesadilla (aka dinner for a tired boy)

I just finished pouring Weston, my seven-year-old, into bed. He spent the day asea on the boat of a school friend, and I'm not sure exactly what they did all day (because he was way too tired for details), but he came home exhausted and hungry. On a night like this, when tired and crabby walk in the door together and quickly dissolve into frustrated tears, only a bacon and cheese quesadilla will do.

You may already have read about Mirna's squash blossom quesadillas, which still rank high among our family quesadilla requests. The other day I picked two zucchini flowers from the garden and, while washing one, found a happy bumblebee stuck inside one of the blossoms. He was so content he didn't even have the energy required to sting me before I washed him down the drain. I chopped the zucchini flowers and made the boys their breakfast, and Weston went to camp with pollen on his chin.

Tonight, though, there was neither time nor impetus to head to the garden. It was dusk, the boy was melting, and every second counted. So I put together the tried and true: a fresh tortilla filled with "Mexican blend" cheese and crumbled cooked bacon. And, after it was gone, the boy shuffled slowly toward bed.

Note: Emery, my ten-year-old (ten and a half, he'd remind me to write), likes this quesadilla with a bit of hot sauce splashed in. Their dad takes it with or without.

Bacon and cheese quesadilla

• 2 flour tortillas (I buy the unbaked ones at Costco and griddle them for 30 seconds on each side in a nonstick pan)
• 1/2 cup shredded Mexican blend cheese (or substitute Monterey Jack)
• 1/4 cup crumbled cooked bacon (I use the ready-to-use stuff in the bag, also from Costco - we buy it by the dozen)

Put a tortilla in a nonstick pan over medium-high heat - you can coat the pan with cooking spray if you like, but it's not necessary, and I usually don't. Add half the cheese and half the bacon. Fold the tortilla in half and grill, pressing down with a spatula, until golden; flip and do the same on the other side. Repeat with the second tortilla. Serve immediately to two hungry boys or girls.

Recipe: Emery's salad with crumbled bacon and truffle vinaigrette

When Emery, my 10-year-old son, isn't particularly hungry at dinnertime, he asks for salad. Tonight he specifically wanted this sophisticated version, with slightly bitter lettuce, crumbled bacon, white truffle oil and Meyer lemon juice.

Now let's just pause a moment to consider how lucky I am to have a kid who likes eating salad for dinner.

And then another moment to consider how lucky he is that salad is such a meaningful part of his life at age 10. This salad made him happy. Let me tell you, the only foods that made me that happy at his age were much, much unhealthier. (I am not naming them specifically because I'm sure the cravings would start anew.) And I have the Weight Watchers membership to prove it.

This salad is based on one we've had several times at Le Saint Amour, a lovely French restaurant in Culver City. Bruno and Florence, the owners, shared the recipe for their frisee salad with truffle vinaigrette with me a few weeks ago, and it's posted here. Emery's version is much simpler but equally elegant and aromatic - just perfect for a summer evening.

Emery's salad with crumbled bacon and truffle vinaigrette

• 3 cups of any slightly bitter lettuce, torn into bite-size pieces (we used green leaf lettuce, but frisee would do nicely too - don't use Romaine or iceberg)
• 2 tsp white truffle oil
• pinch of truffle salt (optional - can substitute sea salt)
  
• juice of 1/2 small Meyer lemon
• 1/4 cup crumbled cooked bacon

Put the lettuce in a large bowl. Drizzle with the truffle oil and dust with the truffle salt. Squeeze the lemon over the salad and toss. Add the bacon and toss again. Taste and adjust the seasonings.

Product review: POURfect measuring cups and spoons

One of the benefits of being a food blogger is that sometimes nice companies send you free stuff. I've gotten a few things I'm not particularly interested in, and when that happens I don't write about them (much to the dismay of the PR people involved). But last week I got a pretty cool sample I wanted to share with you. It's a new line of measuring cups and spoons called POURfect.

Yes, I am such a kitchen geek that measuring cups and spoons can get me breathing heavily. So sue me.

The POURfect gadgets have two distinct advantages over the other measuring devices I usually use. One, they pour beautifully because they have little spouts at the front - a big deal for me, because I am left-handed and most measuring cups or spoons that have spouts or lips have them on the side (the WRONG side, if you ask me). And two, the sets I got each have at least twice as many sizes as what you normally find. The spoons, which clip onto a rubber ring (but can be easily removed while you're using them), go from 1/64 tsp to 2 Tbsp. And the cups go from 1/8 cup to 2 cups, with many gradations in between.

I have not seen the POURfect bowls, beaker and Scrape-A-Bowl (pictured above), so I can't comment on those, but I imagine the beaker and bowl pour similarly to the cups and spoons.

All the POURfect items are dishwasher and microwave safe - a must in my kitchen.

All items are available on the POURfect website at http://www.pourfectbowl.com/. The set of spoons lists for $12, the measuring cups $18.

Polenta pesto zucchini casserole recipe (or at least a methodology)

Every year, the city of Santa Monica has a big fireworks show on the Saturday before the 4th of July. When we're in town we always go, and this year we were lucky enough to be invited to a festive potluck around the corner before the fireworks. I can never keep track of exactly who in Sue and Paul's house is or is not eating meat, but I think the answer right now is no one - which is why I brought a vegetarian dish.

I had some leftover polenta in the house, which, when I made it, I'd mixed with some homemade pesto sauce. I picked some basil and a few zucchini from the garden. My son thinly sliced a few of the small sweet bell peppers he and his brother like to snack on. I chiffonaded (is that a verb?) the basil. Somehow I knew it would all go together.

I sliced the zucchini thinly on a mandoline (come to think of it, we could have used the mandoline for the peppers, too - ah, but then the son wouldn't have had the chance to practice his knife skills). Then I sprinkled them with a little salt and left them to sit for 20 minutes, to draw out some of the water.

I sprayed a baking dish with cooking spray. Then I started layering. Chunks of polenta, which I crumbled with my fingers as I dropped it in. Zucchini. Peppers. A sprinkle of basil. A shower of shredded mozzarella cheese. A few dollops of goat cheese. Salt and pepper. And start again.

I think I made everything come out evenly for three rounds. I finished with the shredded cheese, although by that time I had run out of mozzarella and was using a Mexican shredded blend. I sprinkled it all with olive oil, popped it into a 350-degree oven, and baked it about 45 minutes.

I suppose that if the polenta had been in neat rectangles instead of uneven clumps, it might have looked more like lasagne. But as it was, it had a sort of rustic look. And it went quite quickly on the buffet. In fact, I only got the photo above because when I realized how fast it was disappearing I hijacked the plate of a complete stranger before he took a bite. Thanks, Michael (I think that was your name!).

I'm becoming a bigger fan of polenta. Gluten-free, right? It's always good to have a few gluten-free recipes in the hole for when those celiacs come around.

A riff on peaches and cream at Santa Monica's Hotel Shangri-La

[Note: I just heard that Nick, mentioned below, is no longer the pastry chef at the Hotel Shangri-La. Lots of turnover for a new venture. Now how am I going to taste that whole wheat ice cream? Darn.]

Last week my friend Sarah took me to lunch at the Hotel Shangri-La in Santa Monica. It's a beautifully renovated deco-ish building that looks as though it belongs in South Beach rather than California.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I will tell you that we ate there because Sarah does publicity for the hotel (which is also why I didn't pay for lunch). After my first visit to the Shangri-La, I wrote a little article about Noah Rosen, the chef who was heading the restaurant last month when it opened (he left shortly after the article was posted). Not a review - I don't really do reviews - but some random things I learned about him from our conversation during the half-hour I spent with him in the kitchen watching him cook this amazing wild Alaskan cod. But I didn't actually get to taste the food, so when Sarah and I made lunch plans, she suggested we eat there.

Despite the fact that the restaurant is between head chefs, I thought the kitchen turned out a pretty good soft shell crab open-faced sandwich:


It was light, not at all greasy, and it came with a salad of Little Gem lettuce (I think) with a delicate vinaigrette. I was pleased.

I'm not much of a dessert person, but Sarah talked me into sharing the donut. I wasn't expecting much, but then this gorgeous plate came out:


The sorbet on the left I assumed to be peach. But Sarah and I both tasted something boozy. When the pastry chef came out - Nick, last name a mystery, looks like he might just barely be old enough to have graduated from high school - he explained that it was a Bellini sorbet. Peaches and champagne. Of course. The peaches on the right, intense in flavor and soft enough in texture to make me believe they'd been cooked, had been marinated (raw) in orange juice with lemon verbena - that's the brown squiggle you see on the bottom slice of peach. The acid in the orange juice softens the fruit, especially when it's sliced thinly like that. It made the slices almost transparent.

Oh, yes, and the donut was fine. I suppose, anyway - I don't remember much about the donut compared with the sorbet and the fruit.

I got into a fascinating conversation with pastry chef Nick about ice cream. He likes making bread ice creams - yes, you heard me right. Whole wheat ice cream, he says, where the custard is infused with wheat bran. Sourdough ice cream. French toast ice cream. He promised to invite me back to the kitchen to show me how to make that one. I'm not the biggest ice cream fan, but now I'm obsessed with these unusual approaches - I can't imagine what they'll taste like, so, of course, I have to taste them.

The best part of the lunch was reconnecting with my friend Sarah. Our children went to preschool together and we'd fallen out of touch. My food blogging brought us together, actually - when the hotel opened and sent out a release about the new chef, I inquired about a sit-down, and there was Sarah's name on the return email. Luck? Fate? Small world? No matter. As Martha would say, it's a good thing.

Artichoke advice from Hans Rockenwagner himself

It's a whole week of date nights, because our kids are visiting their grandparents until Friday (thank you, thank you, thank you V & Z for giving us time to reconnect!). Tonight my husband and I walked through the blissful Santa Monica evening down to Abbott Kinney Boulevard in Venice, a chic street of boutiques and beautiful-people restaurants. We had dinner at 3 Square, the latest in Hans Rockenwagner's string of very pleasing eating establishments.

I had an appetizer of grilled baby artichokes with chipotle aioli. They weren't the tiny little ones I've been seeing at the farmer's market - they looked like normal artichoke hearts and stems with just a few of the inside leaves left on. The flavor was incredible, and the texture a perfect blend of smoky-charred outside with tender, smooth flesh inside.

I assumed the artichokes had been cooked before they went on the grill, but I wasn't sure how. Luckily, Hans Rockenwagner himself sat down at the table next to us as our drinks arrived. I asked whether the artichokes had been steamed before grilling. Actually, he said, they're stewed in white wine with carrots, shallots, and a few other things he named but I can't remember. Truthfully, I was a little star-struck: I've eaten at his restaurants many times over the years I've lived in California, and I've seen him from a distance before, but he's - ahem - quite a pleasant-looking guy. And talented, and creative. So I got distracted before he got to the end of the ingredient list for the artichoke bath.

I wish I'd had the courage to introduce myself and tell him about this blog and my LA Cooking Examiner column while he was still at the table by himself. But then his chef came out, and another guy who might have been a supplier or perhaps just a friend, and by the time we were ready to leave they were engrossed in conversation. So I gave my card to the waiter and asked him to tell Hans it was from the woman who asked about the artichokes.

Chicken.

Oh, what else did we eat? White asparagus soup with shrimp, very light and delicate, not too creamy. A bowl of chili. And a pretzel burger, with Swiss cheese and carmelized onions on one of their famous pretzel rolls. A really excellent dinner.

A foodie day in San Diego

My husband took our kids to see his parents this weekend. It was the first 48-hour period I've had alone in my house for more than eight years. I needed it. Looked forward to it. And planned it meticulously.

I know you don't want to hear about how I cleaned out my closet (I did) and made bags of clothes and shoes for Goodwill (seven) and a neighbor (one). Or how I spent many hours on the couch watching reruns of House and Big Love.

What you want to hear about is the day I spent "foodblog geeking" in San Diego. Lucky for you, I took lots of pictures.

First I met up with Caron Golden, a San Diego food writer I met via Twitter. She took me to the Little Italy Mercato (farmers market), with its gorgeous view of the water and luscious artisan foodstuffs.


I was starving when we got there, and Caron recommended the tiny Thai coconut pancakes, so I tried them. They were soft on the inside, crispy on the outside, and absolutely delicious.


The produce didn't interest me much - I get plenty of that, and probably better, at the Santa Monica farmers markets - so we concentrated on the unique food products not available up here. I started at Heartland Harvest, where Seth, the owner's son, did a fine sales job, nudging me to sample their honeys and grain mixes. I came away with a spicy ginger honey mixed with bee pollen, plus packages of Moroccan Chowder, Bolivian Pilaf and East Indian Khichiri (Seth gave me a taste of that, and it was outstanding).

Next I sampled, and bought, some handmade sausages from Knight Salumi Co: uncured soppresatte and cacciatori, both dry salumi with a smooth, spicy flavor. That was for my husband (lucky guy).


I also bought the husband some dark bar chocolate from Eclipse Chocolat, in exotic flavors: Moroccan spice, blackberry sage, and sea salt with cocoa nibs. He's only tried the blackberry sage so far, but he seems to like it - it's almost gone. And he is indeed picky about his chocolate.

I came home with two bottles of avocado oil, a product I'd never seen before. According to the young woman from Bella Vado who sold it to us, it's equally good on salads and on your face. Avocados have a lot of vitamin E, so I can imagine it would be great for your skin, but I haven't tried it yet. Anyway, I bought one bottle of straight avocado oil, and one flavored with lemon. For the latter, they press the lemons with the avocados, rather than adding the essence afterward, and it was certainly intense and aromatic.


I finished up my market morning with a very, very nice soy latte from a lovely guy in a big orange truck. Embarrassingly, I can remember the names of neither the guy nor the truck. But he makes a mean coffee. (Note: Caron kindly supplied me with the names: David Wasserman of Joes on the Nose. Sorry, David, and thank you for the delicious latte!)


Then Caron and I continued on to Specialty Produce, a gourmet produce distributor. Kelly, who works there, is also a Twitter friend, and she very graciously came to work on a Saturday to show me around. She also slipped a few treats into my bag for me to take home and play with. Recipes to come, I promise.


We wandered the aisles of the warehouse, peeking into boxes, thinking aloud about what we'd do with this or that. For example, coconuts:


Micro-greens of all colors and flavors:


Dragon fruit (tastes like melon, I'm told) - this is Caron holding one:


Fresh taro root (it took us a while to figure out what this was):


and popcorn shoots, which really do taste like corn. They're yellow because they're grown in the dark.


There were all kinds of other things on the shelves, like truffle stuff, oils and vinegars, and salt of all kinds:


I brought home some of the popcorn shoots, which I think I'll use in a little salad dressed with walnut oil, lemon and coarse salt. I also got a few apriums, a celery root, a few small watermelon radishes (they're green on the outside and veined pink inside), a bunch of baby white carrots, and a large golden beet. What will I do with them? Wait and see....

After our tour of Specialty Produce, Caron, Kelly and I had lunch at Saffron, a local and much-loved Thai place. The noodles were terrific, as was the house-made ginger beer.

Many thanks to both Caron and Kelly for showing me around. I really enjoyed myself.