Hat trick, three nights, three dinners

Wednesday Night. Tomorrow we will host Dileep and his wife Muktha, as well as Cynthia and John. They attend All Saints. 

Play list:
Coarse salad. This will be watercress, tomatoes, cabbage, spinach, a couple pieces of tofu, and carrots. Dressing will be another tumeric/ginger/pepper aioli, but I plan to ramp this one up a bit. I also sprinkled some tarragon leaves,

Tofurky and opo, (long squash) with tumeric and ginger rice.

I found long squash at Big Save. I made this a couple days ahead and sealed it. Opo is kind of cool, a bit like breadfruit in that it will absorb flavors. I will cook it in a skillet at the dinner party.

Beef or tofu taco. I went back to Kojima store and got a bit more of the grass fed beef and marinated it yesterday in a chimmichurri sauce, ( yes, I am aware this is a repeat, but I still have half a bunch of cilantro). The beef will be slow cooked, if there is any salad left over I will add it, (when you are cooking three in a row, leftovers need to get recycled immediately) and some of the sauce will be poured out into two other skillets for the previous course.

Fish or tofu taco. I know, I know, repeatsville. I can't help it. I try to take a walk everyday and all those fish taco restaurant signs drive me crazy.

Saffron Quinoa and Ono Tarragon  serve with sweet potato puree. John gave me some just caught yesterday Ono, so I am giving it back to him cooked in a low fat tarragon cream sauce. I also gave them a dish I just created, can't wait to hear their thoughts! It is below!

Pollo Volcan Barcena

 I like Chicken Vesuvio, but did not want to produce a potato dish. I made some brown rice with red pepper seeds, added some fresh oregano, (the ruling spice) and some garlic. Then I diced three young cactus leaves and added a fresh tomato for color. This will also be cooked in a skillet before serving.

Dessert, another shot at a ginger/almond flour/fruit tell. This is a style of food I call a tell. Layer after layer like the ancient middle east cities. The main building blocks are ginger and almond flour with egg white as the "mortar". There is a dark chocolate layer, dried ground fruits and finally a mix of sweet and tart apples and blueberry.

Thursday night, Luis & Jocelyn and Harry

Luis and his brother Eddie are some of the best builders on island (it is hotly debated who the best builder really is), but their company HAS to be in the top three. Luis, (yes, that Luis), took mercy on us a long time ago when we had a house on the Wailua rim that failed suddenly. The floor exploded, it was pretty scary, lucky we weren't hit with the shrapnel. The house was built right after Iniki and the owner/builders took some shortcuts. Anyway, the Soltrens and Northcutts have a long and rich history together. He may be bringing his daughter and possibly her boyfriend. Not sure who is coming, but we are cooking.

Let's start with tea, a combination of lemongrass, coconut husk and a touch of tumeric sounds fun. Let's serve it cold.



Now for the big bowl service :)

It will be buffet style, but I will suggest folks start with a salad again, the trade winds have died down, it is too hot and muggy for soup, (though this is perfect swimming weather, I will take that every time). I think a play on a spinach salad with some surprises. Also need to create a dressing, they wiped Wednesday's out which is a good thing. I think I will stick with the basic aioli theme. I will bind the salad with long rice, chill it and put it in the big bowl.

In the center of the bowl I will have a small pottery bowl to hold a sweet potato pate'. When I served Wednesday night was apparently too spicy, (I noticed most people still had it on their plates), so add one more sweet to the mix, no more spice, (maybe some vanilla), and call it done. Serve cold.

Ham soaked for three hours in cloves and Chinese five spice, served with Polenta with hearts of artichoke sauce should be next to ham.

Long rice with nopales, served cold.

Chicken long rice.

Spicy fish long rice.

Potato cake. I think this came out fabulous. I bought one of those Costco eight packs of shredded potatoes, opened the carton, poured in hot water, let it sit for 15 minutes. Poured it into a bowl, added egg white, Parmesan cheese, rosemary, ( could have been even more aggressive with the rosemary), and some salt, took about 1/3 of the mixture and any liquid that was left and blended it. Then I mounded it in my smallest skillet and put it in the oven at 350, (325 might work better). Tossed in some cooked bacon, cause I am a guy. One of the best dishes I have created on this trip to Kauai. Note to self, what can I do to lower the glycemic index since one of my guests last night and one tonight are pre-diabetic.

After the bowl service we served ono with a cream of tarragon and mustard sauce. People ate it, but I do not think it wowed them. Maybe next time try it without mustard.

Dessert

I purchased a pack of Washington State granny smith apples at Costco.  What about an oatmeal/blueberry base, topped with apple, egg white, walnut, cinnamon, maybe a clove or two, and finish off with a tropical fruit and nut mixture on top.

Friday night, Bruce and Janet, pastors at Calvary Chapel Lihue and Harry

We know how busy Bruce and Janet are and really appreciate them taking the time to come visit. For starters we had home smoked, home made turkey sausage and sweet potato patties. The salad was a spinach salad with pineapple and tart apple. I need to dig around a see if I still have my pineapple coring tool, cutting it by hand was a bit of a chore.

Still with the salad plates I served a long rice, (also called mung bean or transparent noodle), cordon bleu. It looks like the mounds you see in the big bowl buffet, but inside is chicken, ham, cheese and paprika. It is tasty and a bit of fun. Note, if you use sprinkle cheese it may be best to oil the bowl, it it sticks, mine did, put it in the microwave for 30 seconds upside down on a plate. Note: since that dinner I have learned to use coconut oil, preferably in its solid state, to grease the shaping container and powered cheddar cheese works much better than shredded cheese.

We had two mains, first was lemon grass house smoked marinated beef from Kojima store and with it corn of the cob. I sauteed the corn in olive oil, people were quite concerned that something was amiss in the kitchen, but the pan was covered and on medium heat. I had tried to corn from Safeway earlier this week and it was sweet, but a bit tough, this softens it just a bit. Used salt, cumin and tumeric as my spices; sorry no butter in Stephen's kitchen unless we are cooking French cuisine. The beef came out quite tender as well it should, I beat the heck out of it with the back of a kitchen knife.

The second main was rosemary smoked fresh ahi, (thanks Captain Nakamura from Kauai Fishing). To amp up the ahi, I gave it a squirt of Aunty Zena's secret sauce :) This was served with baby squash sauteed with leeks and oregano and some saffron rice.

I stuck with the theme of a baked tell. This time I made the crust out of ginger cake, almond flour and the liquid from a granny smith apple. The next layer was pineapple and ripe banana, oh and whoops. I topped it with blueberries and dark chocolate chips.




A little before 8:30 PM, I thanked everyone for coming, I know Bruce and Harry have a big day with the parking lot tomorrow. Harry offered to help reset the kitchen, but I told him no, it will help me wind down.

Looking ahead

After three days of fairly intense cooking, I am looking forward to slowing down a bit. Breakfast was an egg white omelet and lunch was a smoothie. Not sure what dinner is going to be, but I am pretty sure a can of chicken broth and garbanzo bean with some veggies are involved.

I am very thankful for the rain to wash the VOG out of the sky!