Friday, April 23 Fresh & Frozen: Farmers' Market Meets Costco

This morning, we strolled to the Venice farmers' market, which is a 3 minute walk from our place.  We go every week if the weather permits (and since this is LA, it usually does). It's our best source for organic, local food.  Today we picked up a bag of Meyer lemons, broccoli, onion, zucchini, maple walnuts, quiche, an apple croissant for Laura, a bouquet of gerbera daisies and two cilantro plants.  We spent about $25. We're huge fans of actually knowing where our food comes from, but more on that in a later post.

For dinner, we want to use the fresh ingredients we bought this morning.  The onion and zucchini are easy to prepare on a grill; the broccoli is easy to steam and top with lemon juice, salt and pepper.  We have a few frozen strip steaks in the freezer (love that Costco), teriyaki/honey/salt/pepper for a marinade.  We've got it all.  Steak and veggies it is. 

We dove into our wine racks (we have 3 of them) in search of tonight's bottle.
Laura suggests we go with a 2002 Trefethen Library Selection Cabernet Sauvignon.  We picked this up on our last trip to Napa. This is a REAL splurge for us...we don't normally drink $80 bottles except on special occasions, but why postpone joy?

As we've crafted our first several posts, we've found ourselves wanting to promote our favorite wineries.  We've already mentioned Cambria and V. Sattui.  Trefethen definitely rounds out our top three.  They deliver chardonnays and cabs on par with Napa's best wineries.  Their estate chardonnay ($30) is easy to find in California grocery stores for well under the retail price.  So is their estate cab ($50); we've seen it priced around $35 at times.  These two wines are outstanding every year and are an absolute steal if you can find them at a nice price.  Tonight's wine should be a very special treat. 

So, the dinner and wine are set.  But, we're starting to get hungry.  We decide to open the dinner at 6:00-ish with a shrimp scampi appetizer.  We'll grill the steak and veggies at 7:00.  Dinner plans are set.  We pull one strip steak and ten large shrimp out of the freezer to defrost.

Two hours later, we're ready to prep for dinner.  First step, open that bottle!  We crack the wine and splash two-ounce pours in big, round cab glasses (Waterford by Robert Mondavi) that we got as wedding presents. (Thanks, Pete Lefkin!)  This juice merits the proper vessel.  A few big swirls in the glass.  This wine looks delicious.  A big whiff.  It smells delicious.  It has that unmistakeable nose that screams big, expensive Napa cab.  We toast.  A long taste.  Wow.  Licorice....berries.....black olive???  We pour full glasses.  Outstanding.

Now we're ready to chop and marinade.

Prep work is easy for these two dishes.  Mike pulls the shells off the defrosted shrimp and sets them aside.  He minces a few cloves of garlic and slices an onion and two zucchini into 4 thick slices each.  Laura splashes the steak with teriyaki, drizzles it with honey and tops it with salt and pepper.

Shrimp Scampi

2 tbsp butter

3 clove garlic, minced

½ lb shrimp, deveined

a few pinches of bread crumbs

½ tsp dried oregano, crushed

½ lemon

Saute garlic in butter for a minute or two.  Spread a pinch of bread crumbs in the bottom of two 14 oz. ramekins.  Add shrimp in a single layer in each.  Squeeze lemon juice on top of shrimp.  Top with oregano then butter/garlic mixture.  Top with another pinch of bread crumbs.  Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 10 - 15 minutes, depending on size of shrimp. 

Honey/Teriyaki Marinade

a few splashes of teriyaki sauce

a few drizzles of honey

salt/pepper

Season steak.  Drizzle with teriyaki.  Drizzle with honey.  Let marinate for an hour.

The steak only take about 7 minutes each side on the grill until it's done to our liking. Now, as we've gotten older, we like our steaks closer to medium rare. That would be a little red and very juicy. If you like your steak a little more pink or well done, grill at your own risk a bit longer. While a fresh steak still tastes the best, don't discriminate over foraging in your freezer every now and then. Offset with the vegetables and the wine, the steak is still extremely flavorful.

Now, it's time to clean up and watch Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story.

See you tomorrow!