Mild Squash Soup

It is definitely becoming squash and gourd season, so here's a soup that's milder than the link I just sent you to...

Mild Winter Squash Soup

Serves 6

4 black peppercorns, plus ½ teaspoon black pepper

4 sprigs cilantro, chopped

1 cup vegetable or chicken stock

2 cups water

4 cloves garlic, minced

2 cups peeled and diced winter squash

3-4 tablespoons soy sauce

1 tablespoon cider vinegar

Using a mortar and pestle, crush the whole peppercorns with the cilantro sprigs.  

In a soup pot over medium-high heat, bring the stock and water to a boil, then add the pepper mixture, garlic, and squash.  Return the mixture to a boil and add the soy sauce.  Cover and let cook until squash is fork-tender, about 7 minutes.  

Turn of heat, stir in vinegar, and hand mash the soup a bit with a potato masher, leaving some chunks for texture.  Garnish with extra cilantro leaves and pepper if desired.  

Eating tapas across the street from Macy's

Ondo’s Tapas Bar at Cherry Creek

Just a half-story beneath the street is a calm, chic haven from the shopping madness that is Cherry Creek.  Its spare, boldly colored décor and flamenco guitar music, while corny-sounding, is rather pleasant, and the wall fountain cleverly disguising the concrete wall that lines the front “patio” is as inviting an eating area as anything I’ve experienced in Denver. Ondo’s offers a menu exclusively comprised of tapas, heavy on the Northern Spanish culinary influence, carafes if homemade sangria, and clever twists in classic cocktails.  Sounds like a nice place after a long work week to gather with friends, right?  It is.

Cute patio at Ondo's.

Happy hour, which runs from 4-6:30pm weekdays, is worth going early: half-off sangria and 2$ pintxos (individual portions of tapas) served under glass domes at the bar encourages the spirit of taking you time and sampling at a great discount.

Northern Spanish cuisine is not exceptionally bright or spicy in flavor, but what Ondo’s does with mild staple ingredients like potato and egg is well-balanced and finely executed.  It really is a lot of egg and potato, though.  And lots of ham and cheese, as well.  I found the tapas I tried to be satisfying, but nothing knocked me over the head or caused obsessive research on my part to find out how to recreate the recipe.  I ate egg and potato torta on a piece of bread, Serrano ham and manchego cheese, Monte Enebro cheese with quince paste, pecans, and honey (that was a good one!),  and chick peas in a mild broth with little bits of charred chorizo.  They were all tasty, but I think I can make them at home.  That is not to say you shouldn’t go to Ondo’s; there is certainly a value in appreciating someone else’s high standards and letting them do the dishes.  I’m just warning you that you will not learn new truths about the universe from anything you try here.

Our exceptionally competent waitress (really--whoever you were serving the girl with the glasses and her bald husband, you deserve a raise) informed us that Ondo’s is particularly known for their cured meats and croquetas, and I appreciate the tip.  Their lomo (salt-cured pork) had a salty, briny taste you cannot easily pick up at Safeway, and the croquetas were a marvel of creamed spinach and pine nuts encased in the most delicate batter I have ever seen, deep fried to crisp perfection.  If I can amend my previous statement, that was the one recipe that boggled my mind, for sheer execution alone.  These were definitely the two stars on our table.

Serrano ham and manchego cheese tapas

The sangria was fine; the red wine is freshened with sparkling water and has some chopped green apple in it.  I always prefer harder stuff, but it seemed more socially acceptable before a long drive back to Greeley, and it complimented everything I ate just fine.  Everything we ate was well prepared with high-quality ingredients.  It was dressed up comfort food, to my taste, but along with the clean, urban atmosphere and peaceful, very knowledgeable service, it was a nice night out.  And we still made it home in time for Law and Order.

My favorite disguise for cauliflower...

I actually love cauliflower; as a kid, I loved my Grandma's heavily steamed (disintegrating) cauliflower drowning in butter that she used to serve for Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Unlike all the other sides, this one didn't go into one of her fancy crystal serving dishes--she plopped it down on the table in the saucepan where it was cooked.  Maybe she didn't want to bother because she knew what I had yet to learn: a lot of people don't like cauliflower.  I don't know why, but I have seen grown adults act like total babies when they see a piece of cooked cauliflower in their food.  But it's cheap (most of the time), nutritious, and relatively free of pesticides and other scary modern things you have all over your nice, juicy strawberries and apples from Safeway.  And if I haven't sold you yet, maybe some fried onions and a whole bunch of cheese will do the trick.  

Cheesy Cauliflower Pie

Serve 6

1 frozen or refrigerated premade crust

2 teaspoons olive oil

1 small yellow onion, diced

1 head cauliflower, chopped into bite-size pieces (about 1 1/2 cups florets)

2 teaspoons salt, divided

1 teaspoon dried thyme

freshly ground black pepper to taste

2 eggs

1/4 cup milk

1 teaspoon prepared mustard (I prefer Dijon)

1 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese

Place frozen pie crust on a baking sheet, poke with a fork in a few places, and prebake at 400°F for about ten minutes, or until crust is getting flaky on bottom.  

Meanwhile, in a parge skillet, heat the oil over medium heat.  When it shimmers, add the onion and cook until it begins to soften, about 5 minutes.  Add the cauliflower,  teaspoon of the salt, and thyme, and continue to cook, stirring occasionally, until cauliflower softens, about 10 minutes.  Season with pepper and set aside.  

In a small bowl, whisk together the eggs, the other teaspoon of salt, mustard, and the milk.  When the pie crust is ready, remove it from the oven and build your pie: sprinkle half of the cheese over the bottom, spread the cauliflower mixture evenly over that, pour the eggs mixture on top, and sprinkle the other half of the cheese on top.  I generally place a pie crust shield around the outside of the pie at this point to keep the edges of the crust from burning.

Place the pie in the oven, reduce heat to 375°F, and bake until golden, about 35 minutes.  Serve with tossed salad for a filling meal! 

Eating in the City of Presidents

Last Saturday night, I found myself in charming Rapid City looking for a good meal and a generous glass of wine (the wine goes without saying, right?).  Extensive research on Open Table yielded four restaurants in the city, and after a complex equation involving reading reviews and checking time availability (I‘m too old to eat dinner at 9pm, thank you very much, Corn Exchange), I chose Delmonico Grill on Main Street.

Main Street in downtown Rapid City, by the way, is adorable; a cute central area with fountains and impromptu live concerts, boutiques, the four “foodie” restaurants Open Table noted, and for some odd reason, at least eight coffee shops within a four-block radius.

I don’t know if the other three restaurants acknowledged as being “Fit for Foodies” are, but Delmonico is not.  Nicely decorated with the uniform slate gray walls, high ceilings of an early 20th century building, distressed hardwood floors, and  lots of space around tables, the look is decidedly “Midwest tries to do fancy“.  Which is fine, but nothing special.

Organization, or perhaps work schedule,  was the first apparent problem at Delmonico.  My friend and I had a reservation for 7pm; it took us ten minutes of standing at the front of the house before the hostess appeared to even take our names.  She was visible, don’t get me wrong--she was bussing tables and appeared to be trying to placate a rather fussy-looking two-top the whole time we waited.  But as a result, no one was there to actually do the job of a hostess.  Fifteen minutes more, and we were finally seated, at 7:25pm, for our 7pm dinner reservation, after watching the hostess set our table in fits and starts amidst interruptions from other customers and wait staff.  Sigh.

Our table service was excellent (thanks, Matt); the waiter appeared quickly to get our drink orders, was knowledgeable about the menu, and had that knack for appearing just when we were ready to order or had a question.  The restaurant’s policy, or perhaps it was Matt’s, regarding substitutions was also very friendly; my companion easily changed the side that was supposed to come with her dish, which is an understandably frustrating thing for some chefs to handle.

The wine list was long and represented Midwestern tastes--Jam Jar Merlot was as sweet as the Lambrusco I used to drink as a twenty-something in Italy, and there were several Rieslings and Piesporters.  There were others, too, but if you have a sweet tooth, you will definitely be satisfied with the wine selection.  I ordered the seared ahi tuna with Tonoto sauce and asparagus as my side (I loved that I got to choose my side), and it was really lovely.  The thin, mild tomato (Tonoto) blended sauce in the bottom of the dish was nothing special, but the ahi was seared to perfection and topped with a wonderful, generous garnish of fresh parsley, red onion, diced tomato, and capers.  The asparagus was not seasoned at all, but its crisp-tender consistency was just right.  I also had a homemade Caesar salad to start, and the dressing was quite assertive.  Except for the lack of salt, I loved it, actually--present anchovy and a bracing garlic flavor showed an aesthetic towards actually being able to taste flavors in your food--but it was a bold move for a restaurant filled with middle-age couples and business professionals.  I can imagine some complaints about it, but perhaps I’m wrong.  Perhaps Rapid City likes its garlic as much as I do.

My friend did not fare as well.  She started with the French onion soup, which was salty and pleasantly flavorful, with a strong presence of sherry.  Again, bravo on the bold flavors, but some may describe the lack of balance in these starters as a bit too rough for fine dining.  She then ordered the seafood of the day, which was a chili-lime rubbed seared salmon.  The sear was incredibly thick and hard, the fish inside was bordering on dry-- in other words, too much time in the pan.  The most unfortunate aspect to the fish was its flavor, however: no chili-lime to speak of, but rather fishy.  (It always strikes me as humorous when we complain about fish being too “fishy”, but after all, that strong flavor is a sign that it’s none-too-fresh, isn’t it?)   She substituted the chili-lime rice (I wonder if that flavor would have appeared!) for the rosemary-garlic mashed potatoes.  She thought they were bland; I thought they were subtly scented with rosemary and appropriately salted, like good comfort food.  We both agreed, however, that they were over-whipped to the point of being almost gummy.   I would suggest, if one is to offer something as down-home as mashed potatoes with the skins in, hand “smashed” potatoes might be more appropriate.  This over processed mash needed some texture and levity.

I will say this for Delmonico Grill: on a Saturday night in mid-October, it was filled to the gills, with no sign of slowing down when we left after 8:30pm.  This might mean it really is one of the best restaurants in town, but if so, Rapid needs a new kid on the block.  The front of the house was a hectic mess, the food was quite mixed in quality, and this made Delmonico far from the home-run that a restaurant with $30+ entrees should offer.  One would need to become a regular to learn which menu items are worth ordering, but it’s not worth the expense.