Panorama's

Sawtooth mountain range, Eastern Sierra, California







Topaz lake, Eastern Sierra, California







Twin lakes, Eastern Sierra, California







San Gregorio Valley, California



This is country I live in. I love it here and it inspires me more and more to photograph it. Please enjoy.

Your pantry

Hello again, here is your pantry. Just few important ingredients you should have on hand if you want to cook with me. I have photographed some ingredients, because they may be new to you. I shop in supermarkets, Costco, Asian stores. If there are some ingredients you can not get in these stores I will provide you with addresses where you can buy them.

FATS:
EXTRA VIRGIN OLIVE OIL
UNSALTED BUTTER ( salted butter is old, if you need it salted just add salt. I keep my butter in freezer, so it says fresh. This is only butter I use.)

PASTES:
WASABI ( Japanese horseradish, can find in Asian section of supermarket or Asian store, see photo)
ANCHOVY PASTE (find in supermarket, see photo)
GARLIC PASTE ( find in refrigerated part of vegetable section of supermarket, see photo)
GINGER PASTE (find in refrigerated part of vegetable section of supermarket, see photo)
HOISIN SAUCE (find in Asian store)

LIQUIDS:
SWANSON'S CHICKEN BROTH (find in any supermarket)
MIRIN ( find in supermarket or I specifically like Takara Masamune Mirin, you can order from Takara sake USA, 708 Addison St., Berkeley, Ca 94710, 510 540-8250, www.takarasake.com)
RICE VINEGAR (Asian part of supermarket, Asian store)

SEASONINGS:
SALT
PEPPER
CAYENNE
SAFFRON
MRS.DASH ORIGINAL ( salt replacement-herbs)
SUGAR

DRY INGREDIENTS:
PANKO BREAD CRUMBS (Japanese crunchy breadcrumbs find in supermarket)
CORN STARCH (supermarket)
ALL PURPOSE FLOWER (supermarket)

WET INGREDIENTS:
EGGS
MAYONNAISE(I like Best Foods or Hellman's real mayonnaise, all the diet once are poisons filled with chemicals. Use real mayonnaise and use less)

Pork roll with egg

Pork roll with egg( Czech - Rolada )



2 pork tenderloins
1 pkg of naturally smoked bacon (16oz)
16 hard boiled eggs
1 can Swanson's chicken broth
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
5 tbsp olive oil
5 tbsp unsalted butter
Baking string (cut 12" long, 12 pcs)


Hard boil eggs, peel and cut ends of, until you see yolks. I like to have yolk in every slice.

Cook bacon until brown, put on paper towel.

Clean pork. Take all fat of, clean silver skin (really important, silver skin is inedible and it will deform your meat). Cut pork the long way but not all the way through, cut sides again not all the way through. Open like a book and pound with meat tenderizer, until flat. Salt and pepper.

Put bacon on, to cover, put eggs on top in line. Take front part of meat and fold over first egg, take sides and cover the egg, tie first tie. Do the same on the other end. Then start to tie next egg in and so on. Do the same with the second piece of meat.

Put butter and olive oil in large saute pan , put both rolls in and on large flame brown all the sides. Lower flame and saute, add chicken broth when it starts to burn. Takes about 10 minutes.

Serve with rice (SAFFRON RICE recipe), no saffron. Cut slices of pork, possibly with whole yolk showing. Put sauce on rice.

Czech strudel

This recipe makes 3 strudels of 4 servings each


1 Phyllo dough package from frozen part of supermarket
3 large Granny Smith apples peeled and cut in slices
3 sticks of unsalted butter (12 oz)
2 bags Panko bread crumbs (Japanese bread crumbs) 7oz
3 cups walnuts
1 tsp cinnamon
1 cup white raisins
5 tbsp dark rum
4 lemons
1 1/2 cup sugar
1/4 tsp salt


Set Phyllo dough on counter top to unfreeze. Package has 18 leaves of dough. Use 6 leaves per strudel. It makes 3 strudels.
Zest all lemons.
Prepare apples, peel and cut. Put into juice of 4 lemons, mix ( important for flavor and to keep apples from darkening).
Process 1 1/2 cups of walnuts in food processor.
Cook raisins with rum for 10 min and let sit over night.
Take one stick of butter and saute all Panko bread on it until golden.
Mix 1 cup of sugar, Panko bread, processed walnuts, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, salt.
1 1/2 cups of walnuts cut into chunks.
Drain raisins.
Drain apples add 1/2 cup of sugar, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, raisins, cut walnuts mix.

Warm your oven to 350F.

Open dough and separate into 3 parts of 6 pcs. Wrap 2 parts so they do not dry. Take one part and separate into 3 parts (2 sheets each). Take two sheets, brush with liquid butter put mixture of bread crumbs on, put other two sheets on, butter, bread crumbs mixture, third 2 sheets brush with butter, put bread crumbs mixture on, apples, cut walnuts, raisins.
Roll all into roll put on baking sheet and repeat two more times.
Melt one stick of butter (4 oz) and brush on prepared three strudels.
Bake for 30 min, turn half way in oven.
Sprinkle with powdered sugar, cut and serve with scoop of ice cream.

Scallop with carrot powder

Starter or dinner

Ingredients:

1 large scallop (8-12 per lb) a person (small starter)
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp of clarified unsalted butter
1 tsp carrot powder

Serving 1 scallop as small starter or multiply as needed. You can serve them as dinner with rice (SAFFRON RICE). The main thing is to buy scallops with no chemicals (sometimes they add chemicals in, to retain water, it gives scallops chemical taste and too much water to cook them properly)
Unfreeze scallops, drain liquid, save.
The best pan is small cast iron. Heat oil hot, add maximum 4 large scallops and sear one side(do not look, let sear), turn the scallop and add liquid butter on each scallop, let sear on the other side. If scallops dry put some of the saved scallop juice and butter on. Do not add any seasonings. The butter will season the scallops. Put carrot powder (or not) on top and serve.

Carrot powder:

You can make this only if you have juicer and dehydrator. Juice carrots, drink the juice, take carrot pulp and put in dehydrator. Let dry, when dry, put powder in food processor.
If you do not have any of these machines. Do not put carrot powder on scallop, just put a little of butter from pan. Serve creatively.

Tuna tartar

Serves 4 for dinner

1lb sashimi quality tuna
2 tbsp real mayonnaise
1" squirt wasabi
2 tsp chopped pickled ginger and some not cut for decoration
1 small clove garlic mashed
1 tbsp mirin( I like Takara Masamune from Asian store) or buy some in supermarket
1 tbsp low sodium soy sauce
1 serving of SAFFRON RICE


First you have to be able to get sushi grade yellow fin tuna. I get it in my Asian supermarket. It has to be frozen from ship and it will be in small packages( about a lb).

For tuna: unfreeze tuna in refrigerator (about 12 hrs), then chop by hand in small pieces.
For dressing: mix together mayonnaise, wasabi, chopped ginger, garlic, mirin and soy sauce. Mix with tuna just before serving.
To serve: make nice shape of tuna, serve with rice ( Saffron rice recipe ). Decorate top of tuna with maybe radish sprouts, or chopped scallions, squirt of wasabi, few pieces of tuna , water cress etc., be creative.

Poached salmon with dill sauce

Serving 4 people for dinner


For the fish:

1 salmon fillet
4 lemons(I use Mayor lemon)
1/2 bundle fresh dill
3 cans Swanson's chicken stock(or vegetable)


For dill sauce:

1/2 lb(8 oz)natural sour cream
1/2 bundle finely chopped dill
2 tbsp Mirin (Japanese cooking sweet sake from Asian market,
I like Takara Masamune or get one in supermarket)
1 tsp rice vinegar


How to poach salmon:


You do not want to put the fish in the liquid, it will cook not poach. If you have poaching dish (if not get large pot with steamer in it, you have to cut the fish to fit), put first slices of lemon and top it with slices of dill. Put as much soup in the bottom so it does not reach the fish. Put fish on top and again put lemon and dill on top of that. Bring the liquid to boil and poach until done. You will have to check the inside, if it is still very pink it is not done.


For dill sauce:

Take all ingredients and mix together. Serve with fish

To accompany all, serve with SAFFRON RICE. Find the recipe in the blog. This is very mild and enjoyable meal.