Wasabi Prime

It's the last day of July and this will be the last new post for Wasabi Prime on Vox, but fear not, it lives on at another location, so if you hadn't already heard about it, rush to your nearest computer to bookmark it like mad!! I look forward to growing into the new format, continuing with photography improvements, and as always, trekking forward like the members of the Starship Enterprise, boldly going wherever hunger takes me. Thank you for your continued readership and I appreciate your patience during this changeover. Good things most certainly lie ahead on the foodie highway!

Head on over to http://wasabiprime.blogspot.com and see what's cookin'! Many, many thanks!

The house is almost ninety degrees and it's 10pm at night. Earlier in the afternoon, I looked outside and the tall evergreens looked like they were wilting from the oppressive heat. It's official: the Pacific Northwest is in Hell. I'm not entirely sure what mortal sin the Puget Sound Area committed, but it must have been pretty serious to cast us into the flaming pit of Hades without easy access to air conditioning. All that being said, a girl still needs to eat, so I had another dinner, sans heating element.

It's gettin' hot in herrre... so have a salad - Photo by Wasabi Prime

To see more pictures and read more about un-cooking with WP, go to the new location of the blog at http://wasabiprime.blogspot.com I know, I know -- laaaaaame, putting such a teasery post and making you go somewhere's else. But I swear, you won't be disappointed! There's more pretty pictures and the eventual total move-over is coming soon, so please bookmark the new location, as I would be most grateful. I appreciate your support and following!!

The summer heat caused a serious case of Couch Potato-itis in the Wasabi household this weekend. I tend to develop a mild addiction to the Turner Classic Movie channel in the summers, and recently recorded King Solomon's Mines (1950) starring Deborah Kerr and Stewart Granger on our DVR. It's a gorgeous Technicolor-riffic movie and both the leading actors are rather gorgeous themselves. I think given the hot weather, I wanted to see people suffering in the heat along with me, and searching for the fabled diamond mines in the deepest, darkest heart of Africa seemed a lot worse than languishing on the sofa.

O bring us a figgy dinner... and bring it RIGHT NOW - photo by Wasabi Prime

Given that state of inactivity, there was no way in hell I was going to turn on the stove or even BBQ. Thankfully, a bounty of summer goodies were at the ready, from both the store and our garden, so an uncooked summer dinner was on the menu for the warm evening.

Embrace of proscuitto and cheese? Yes, please - photo by Wasabi Prime

The star of this meal was undoubtedly a pile of fresh figs from Whole Foods, courtesy of Michelle, a fellow foodie-in-arms. I do love figs. They have a light, nuanced flavor that plays nice with both sweet and savory pairings, and the texture of soft and crunchy is just fun. Along with the figgy bunch, we had multicolored heirloom grape tomatoes, goat cheese crumbles, Sopressata salami, and proscuitto, procured from Trader Joe's. Our garden was able to provide more fresh snowpeas, basil, and romaine lettuce. A slice here, a chop there, and a caprese-inspired salad with the tomatoes, cheese, and basil was paired with goat cheese-stuffed figs, wrapped in proscuitto, and finished off with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar. Chunks of the Sopressata were nestled alongside some garlic-stuffed olives for snacking. I like my bubbly, so I always keep a bottle of the very affordable Domaine Ste Michelle Blanc de Blanc in the fridge. It helped cool our jets while we sat in the backyard with our faithful dog, Indy. She sure looked cute, but not cute enough for proscuitto-wrapped figs stuffed with goat cheese. Sorry, pup.

A dinner of fig-gasmic proportions - photos by Wasabi Prime

To further add to the evening's atmosphere, Brock had music from Hey Marseilles playing. They're a local group with a delightful Parisian sound that is reminiscent of the movie Amelie. They were playing at the Capitol Hill Block Party this weekend, but our summer laziness prevented us from attending. If anyone went and heard them perform, drop the WP a line!

** NOTE** In the very near future, I will be moving Wasabi Prime over to Blogspot, at this NEW ADDRESS. In the interim, I will do dual postings, so feel free to bookmark the new location. Stay tuned -- Wasabi Prime is movin' on up, Jefferson's style!

I saw this on a license plate frame today: "I used to be schizo, but we're OK now." That's a good description for how things are while I move the Old Wasabi at Vox to the New Wasabi  at Blogspot. I promise the recent confusion will subside, and I thank everyone for being patient with the changeover. To alleviate some of this self-imposed busybody-ness, I decided to bake blueberry muffins, as baking can sometimes be a calming thing. Everything leading up to the baking part went smoothly, but I was telling fellow blogger, Ms. Picket Fence, that I wished I lived near or around Crater Lake, Oregon, because then I could have called these Crater Muffins. Let's not ruin the post quite yet and just gaze for a moment at this serene tableaux of ingredients, shall we?

Still life with muffin ingredients, prior to "the Crater Incident" - photo by Wasabi Prime

Per some earlier Tweets this week, I was inspired to do something with blueberries. They're in season and incredibly well-priced right now. I decided to go with the blueberry muffin recipe I found on the charmingly funny blog, Omnomicon. The recipe was originally from Food Happens, and Omnomicon's Aleta had given it a foodie thumb's up. Bless her heart, she wisely advised to lighten up on the pecan and brown sugar topping, as that tends to cause the center of the muffins to collapse a bit while baking. I made sure to heed that bit of advice.

Food pr0n alert!! - Photo by Wasabi Prime

However, I'll be the first to admit that I made a substitution mistake, replacing the buttermilk part of the recipe with Greek yogurt. The recipe said yogurt could be used as a swap, but I think the thicker Greek-style yogurt made the batter more concentrated. I don't know what kind of mad science took place during the baking process, but it wasn't the kind of mad science that creates sexy Kelly LeBrocks from Barbie dolls. No, this crazy mad science created Crater Muffins that, instead of rising into fluffy mounds of goodness, they made a vertical dash for their neighbor and I wound up with sunken-in, crazy Siamese Twin pastries. But you know what? They were still damned tasty.

Pecan and brown sugar topping. It looked better before it went into the oven - photo by Wasabi Prime

While not pleasing in an aesthetic sort of way, the finished muffins were still pleasing in an om-nom-nommic sort of way. I had no trouble eating a couple, and in an act of nutritional defiance, calling it dinner. This was probably the least offensive photo I could take of the finished muffins. I placed a little coffee mug with the Finnish cartoon characters, Moomin, as a crutch of happiness to lighten the gravity-stricken baked goods.

Moomin make everything better - photo by Wasabi Prime

Overall, I can't be that discouraged over the result, especially since I knowingly put the batter in harm's way with an untested substitution. I also swapped regular flour with whole wheat, hence the darker color, but I think the Greek yogurt 'twas what done this batter in. Live and learn. I'm still pleased with the photos and weather permitting, may try this recipe again, minus ingredient swaps, before the blueberry harvest peters-out.

I believe it's time for an ingredient montage! - photo by Wasabi Prime

 

** NOTE** In the very near future, I will be moving Wasabi Prime over to Blogspot, at this NEW ADDRESS. In the interim, I will do dual postings, so feel free to bookmark the new location. Stay tuned -- Wasabi Prime is movin' on up, Jefferson's style!

I discovered two things today: our laundry room makes for a halfway decent photo studio, and Pad Thai is just as delicious without the rice noodles!

The Puget Soundians were given a day of respite from the summer heat, so efforts were quickly mobilized to use the stove and play around with the digital camera to actually take some halfway decent photos of ingredients and the plated food. I notice when it's hot, I tend not to feel the Epic Hunger that I normally do, so maybe that's what allowed me the virtue of patience to make a better effort towards food photography. At the risk of sounding like the star of the I'm Awesome Show, I'm quite pleased with the efforts, and it's encouraged me to put forth more effort in future posts!

The motivation behind this dish was a major jonesin' for pad thai. I have the exact opposite effect with food -- I had Thai food recently and instead of feeling satisfied, I felt like the Audrey II, hungry for seconds. Feed me, Seymour! Sadly, as I write this entry, I just realized I totally forgot to add peanuts into the dish. Crap. And I made the extra trip to the store to make sure I had them! The little Homer Simpson that lives in my head is yelling DOH! right now. What... no one else has a little Homer Simpson living in their head...? No...? Well, moving on...

In lieu of the traditional rice noodles, I was able to use half of the bountiful harvest of snowpeas that are taking over our garden. We went from a small handful of peas to a green pod invasion within the last month. Thankfully the bugs and backyard wildlife have not seen fit to feast upon them, so with any luck, we will be blessed with an abundance of green pea-ness. *giggle*

Along with the snowpeas, I snipped some garlic chives and some of the heartier scallion greens from our veggie garden. A few defrosted chicken breasts sliced thin, stir-fried in a wok with diced tofu, scrambled eggs, and then a healthy dose of the premade Por Kwan pad thai sauce from Uwajimaya, and it was a picture-perfect dinner made for the om-nomming.

 

** NOTE** In the very near future, I will be moving Wasabi Prime over to Blogspot, at this NEW ADDRESS. In the interim, I will do dual postings, so feel free to bookmark the new location. Stay tuned -- Wasabi Prime is movin' on up, Jefferson's style!

There's another Wasabi on the block -- Wasabi Prime is now also on the Seattle Post-Intelligencer site, in their local blog section. Instead of the full posts, this will be like a mini-nibble of each full post that will still be featured at this location. Go to this location on the P-I's site to view the mini-version of Wasabi Prime.

So now you have two ways of getting your dose of Wasabi, just a little taste, or the full-course meal!

The summer heat cast a shadow of trepidation over fulfilling a serious crave for the all-American comfort food of spaghetti and meatballs, but for what hurdles the flaming orb in the sky created, ingenuity and sheer hunger overcame. There was no pasta involved in this dish, but hearty balls of meat in a marinara sauce would not be denied. So out came the grill, and the Unspaghetti and Meatball Sunday dinner was born.

 

It's hard to tell from the finished picture, but with the exception of the sauce that was left to simmer over the stove, everything else was grilled. I was inspired by an earlier summer month edition of Gourmet Magazine that was full of grilled food of all sorts. It was a nice reminder that hey, dummy, want to avoid overheating the house to make a hot meal? Drag out the grill and heat things up al fresco!

The pasta replacements were a variety of zucchini, yellow squash, portobello mushrooms, and red onion. Sadly, the summer squash was not from our garden. I'd really hoped to have something from our plants by now, but they've only just started to flower, and even then, there's no guarantee we'll get anything. The one thing from the garden that was a big flavorful helping hand to this meal was the abundance of fresh herbs. There's a small forest of parsley growing in a few different containers around the yard, which respond well to regular pruning for meals. The basil plants have been surviving the heat well and are thriving despite the summer sun and the hungry bugs. These two Wondertwins of Flavor combined to form a Justice League of Deliciousness when used in the marinara sauce and the meatballs.

There's the traditional way of making meatballs, there's the gourmet way of making meatballs, and then there's my way, which is probably worthy of a lot of funny looks and sidelong glances. I mix ground turkey meat with Italian sausage, throw in an egg for binder, some breadcrumbs, chopped garlic, oregano, red pepper flakes, fresh parsley and basil, and mash away until it's combined between my grubby mitts. I chopped down two cheese sticks and inserted a little wedge of mozzarella inside of each meatball and threw each plum-sized protein bomb onto the grill.

I couldn't get the perfect crosshatch grill marks across the curved surface. If I did, it would be super cool, but I just managed a random batch of sear lines on a few sides. They would be covered in sauce, so I didn't care so much about how they looked so much as getting them cooked all the way through. They shared the grill surface with all the vegetables, which had spent the afternoon in a soak of olive oil and herbed salt. Not quite a marinade, but enough flavor and oil to cook some extra somethin-somethin' into each chunk of vegetable.

While looking a bit like a savage feast, all the grilled vegetables and meatballs got a nice bit of color from the hot iron. The meatballs were cooked to perfection and didn't dry out, probably thanks to the fattier sausage meat and the fact that there was a molten nugget of cheese sitting inside each one.

Grilling the strips of zucchini and summer squash inspired me to do it again and incorporate them into a nice vegetable side dish. I've been seeing a lot of recipes with grilled squash strips or eggplant slices, branded with the grillmarks of tastiness. Usually drizzled with olive oil and a sprinkling of feta or goat cheese, and a confetti of mint or parsley. I think the zucchini would do well with a mint and feta combination.

The outdoor activity definitely piqued the interest of the all-curious Indy, who hovered around the smells emanating from the big green grilling beast called Weber. Sadly, she was given the ultimate shutdown. Sorry, pup, but it's kibbletown for you. No grilled meatballs or veggie handouts, no matter how cute you look, head tilted and paw resting on the ball.

 

Oh be still my beating heart... no, really... I think it's starting to slow down a bit, from all the bacony inspiration I've absorbed from being a faithful and hungry follower of Bacon Today. So it gives me great pleasure to announce that Wasabi Prime has been most fortunate to have a link on their site for today's edition. They were very kind to feature the proscuitto-wrapped, sage and cheese-stuffed sausage, aka Hautedog, that was posted a short time ago.

I can't say enough how this has totally made my day -- it's bacon fatty-phat, yo. Much smoky bacon thanks to Corey James and the stalwart aortas of the Bacon Today team for including Wasabi Prime amongst the hallowed, delicious halls of this dedicated porcine news source. If you haven't already bookmarked these guys, do so immediately, but not before running to the store to pick up a meaty slab of the Magical Animal. I guarantee reading BT will guarantee an unholy hunger that only the fat-beribboned slices of bacon can quench.

I was very fortunate to be invited to a Taste and Tweet event at the Bellevue El Gaucho on the very sunny afternoon of Tuesday, July 16th (aka yesterday). Less than 24 hours later, my belly is still basking in the afterglow of this wonderful experience. I'm not gonna lie -- I'm a tech-noob when it comes to adopting new things. I'd still be using a rotary phone if I could, just because I think they're quite keen. So it took me a while to get on board with Twitter, but glad I did, as this event was a really inventive way to combine the new social networking revolution with fellow foodies and the restaurant industry. By signing up with Taste and Tweet, a lucky Twitter user is invited to meet up at a restaurant who hosts a tasting of their signature menu items, and the flock of Twitterbirds partake of the delicious bounty while sending kudos, descriptions, and general om-nom-servations to the Twitter-verse. A chance to try some really amazing food, meet the chef and general manager of a well-known restaurant, and spend an afternoon chatting with social media supastaaaahs? Wasabi Prime felt like the nerd who got asked to sit with the cool kids for a day -- she was tickled pink!

I apologize for the grainy pictures -- I forgot my camera so had to rely on my phone. Thanks to Taylor Peterson's photo, you can see by this group shot that it was a good-sized group of au courant foodies and social networkistas, organized by Blaine Millet and Clay Loges of Social Media for Executives, hosted by Eastside El Gaucho's General Manager, David Scherling, and the awesome culinary powers of Chef Steve Cain.

The knowledgeable GM David Scherling described each item as it was brought out, providing a detailed description of each dish's ingredients and a Yoda-worthy library of answers to everyone's foodie questions. He's got a great blog that features all the latest and greatest over the restaurant and a peek into the hard work they all do to ensure a quality meal and that the Power of Beef prevails.  

The tasting menu was a mix of El Gaucho's signature items, including their Eastside Salad, Flatbread, and two sandwiches featuring ground sirloin and tenderloin. Each selection was paired with unique cocktails designed to enhance each menu selection. Without further adieu, I will sprinkle this post with visual tastes of the delightful menu.

The Force was clearly not with the photos I took of the Eastside Seafood Salad or the Oven Roasted Tomato Flatbread, so please let the images on the El Gaucho food blog do these items justice. Both dishes are a fresh choice for a summer day. I'm not a big seafood eater, but I would order the Eastside salad. You would expect it to have a creamy, heavier dressing, but Chef Cain went the Asian route and used a soy vinaigrette with sesame oil. I appreciated sesame flavor, which was a lovely nuance with the crab and shrimp; they all play together, never competing. From a not-big-seafood-eater, that is high praise! I've preached over the power of El Gaucho's flatbread before, as I've had the crispy proscuitto selection -- they're all good, hands-down. This one was particularly nice, as the use of ricotta made for a really creamy texture, which contrasted nicely against the crispy crunch of the bread.

 

Between the two beef sandwiches presented, I must say the Grilled Medallions of Tenderloin Sandwich was my favorite of the two they presented. The El Gaucho Sirloin Burger will not fail to quench the jones for a mighty hamburger, but the Tenderloin Sandwich was the one I took seconds of, as the 28-day aged tenderloin was butter-soft, rich in the beef's natural flavor, and their 8-hour simmered Au Jus is Au-Yeah-delicious. In the end, simplicity can be the winning edge on what makes something a favorite. I was chatting with Ms Incredible Chef, Karen Rosenzweig, who also found the tenderloin sandwich to be the blue-ribbon favorite. Simple is good, and these guys know how to treat a nice cut of beef.

Along with all these edible treats, those crafty El Gauchoians knew how to ply their Tweeting guests with fancy cocktails in a rainbow of fruit flavors. I'll just say that my favorite was the first one, the Mexican Gimlet. It was almost like an extra-sour margarita that let the flavor of the tequila get its due. The Tender Rita, which looked deceptively sweet and kind in its baby-pink visage, had a nice kick that I quite liked as well. The last two were a mix of sweet and mellow (Blue Meanie and Acapulco Zombie), not to my taste, but I'm a vodka straight-up kind of girl, so it just comes down to preference. I think they'd be a bang-on choice for those who like a pineapple or minty-orange flavor.

Overall, I felt very fortunate and thankful to have been invited to this event. Many thanks to the organizers, Blaine Millet and Clay Loges of Social Media for Executives, and El Gaucho's GM David Scherling, Chef Steve Cain, and all the amazing people that came out to Tweet and chat over food and drink for an afternoon. Thanks for letting the uncool kid sit at the table for a day.

To see my full list of Tweets and view other guests' Tweets for this event, go to Wasabi Prime's Twitter page and search with the #egb tag to find all the posts referencing this event. (I'm a big fool and tagged #ebg, so sorry for that!) There are still so many more experiences and photos to share about this, and there's just not enough space on this post to begin to share it all. I'll finish off this post with a photo of the very kind Chef Steve Cain and Wasabi Prime herself!

 

Don't worry, no dogs were harmed in the taking of this photo. We just have a very trusting and snuggle-hungry dog. The Amazing Indy performed the edible-defying feat of being turned into a laundry burrito while we were doing chores today.

Kind of stretching it when it comes to a food blog, but she appears as a food-like item. Either that or it looks like we just rolled our pet into a giant furry spliff. Thanks for being a good sport, Miss Indy -- belly rubs to the tenth degree for you!