Sunday Dinner

OK, so my full plate shot didn't turn out very well. I have yet to figure out what makes a plate of food look as good as in a magazine/real life. I need my foodie photographer family members to make those pics. But it all tasted damn good. Tim made salmon with horseradish cream sauce, roasted beets, parsnips, carrots and sweet potatoes. I made a mushroom risotto, using beef stock I made out of simmering the short rib bones from the previous Sunday Dinner post. And of course, the side salad of mixed dark leafy greens. We have them just about every single day, and I credit a lot of our good health to those big Costco tubs packed full of those.

What made it even better was that it was cold and snowing(!) outside. There's now enough on the ground to actually make it white. And we lit the fireplace. And I did NOT have to go to work.

With this, we enjoyed some shockingly good Michigan wines. The Bowers Harbor Red, and the 2006 Block II Riesling. I put a little of each into the risotto, too. The red was full of cranberry and bright red fruit, and the riesling--pear, apricot and mineral. We've been enjoying Bowers Harbor Vinyards offerings for years (since before we got married). They were good in 1991 and continue to get better. We talked to the owner's son when we went tasting during our weekend up north in October, so it's good to know the operation will stay in the family. And he seemed quite devoted about what he was doing.

Dessert... Dessert took me two days to make. Timmeh says 'You know what I want? I want some kind of apple turnover. With caramel sauce.' So I got out my Baking Illustrated book, and made turnovers. Did I go out and buy puff pastry? Oh, no. I made it.



I think this is the first time I have ever used the fraisage technique. You literally smear the dough in sections on your work surface to work the flour and butter together. And you don't want to be wearing bracelets or big jewelry when you're doing this, either. You don't want to be wearing that stuff when you're cooking anyway, but definitely take it off for this.



You fold and roll and you chill and you fold and roll some more. It was a lot like making croissant or danish dough. Then when it's time to make the turnovers, you roll that whole thing out into a big rectagle so you can cut it into squares. People, I broke into a sweat. This is one of the reasons I work out. And the reason most sensible people just go out and buy puff pastry. But this was a lot easier using a French rolling pin. You can really get more torque on whatever you are flattening than a regular cylindrical rolling pin.



The filling is grated Granny Smith apples, sugar and lemon juice. Squeezed of all excess juice, so that was more mess. Just before you pop them in the oven, you moisten the surface with a little water and sprinkle them with cinnamon sugar.



Look at the layyyy-ers (of course there were the usual Shrek/Donkey references at that point).



The sauce was our favorite Port Caramel Sauce. I must make that at least 4 times every fall/winter. These were a fine ending to a wonderful teamwork Sunday night effort.