Recently we signed up for Organics to You, a local organization that delivers organic produce (mostly local, farm-grown) straight to your doorstep. Part of the reason we wanted to sign up for this service is also a bit of a challenge: we have no idea how to cook many of the contents they deliver.

This recipe, after just one try, has already become a new favorite. While we had had collard greens before, we didn’t know a good recipe to cook them at home. Also, neither of us could even recall eating radishes, let alone cooking them!

After some searching in recipe books and blogs, we tried a make-shift recipe trying out some suggestions that sounded good from various sources. The result was an amazingly delicious, interesting recipe combining the bitterness of the greens (any greens could be used here, not just collards) and the semi-sweet tinge of radishes. The two ingredients complimented each other better than we could have anticipated, and we will make this many times to come.

Recipe

• 1 large bunch collard greens (or other greens would likely be awesome as well)
• 1 bunch radishes (note: the quantities don’t really matter here, you could just toss in however much you have of either)
• 2-5 cloves garlic (depending on how much you like, we like lots)
• 1 tsp ground mustard
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• 1 tbs butter
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1/2 c. water

First, add 1/2 the butter to a large pan. Add radishes and cover. Cook until tender and browned, stirring frequently. Set aside.

Next, heat up 2nd half of the butter with garlic in a large pan, cook until garlic becomes fragrant, about 1 minute. Add the greens and water, cover. Cook greens until tender—if they’ve started losing color (turning a pale yellowy color) they’re overdone.

Once done, drain excess liquid and add remainder of contents (mustard, lemon juice, salt and pepper) and radishes and mix well. Serve immediately, as greens get cold quickly.

Last weekend we had beautiful weather (in March in PDX, no less!) and so took advantage by driving out to a few of the many fantastic vineyards within an hour of our abode. As always, included in our visits was a favorite: Cliff Creek Vineyards tasting room in Carlton, OR.

Just over a year ago Cliff Creek wowed us with their Claret, (pronounced “clarette” not “claray”), which continues to be one of our favorite wines. In fact, it wasn’t on their flight list this time and we had to request a special taste, after which we of course bought a supply for home. It was surprisingly less expensive than we remembered at $22.50/bottle (club price).  And well worth it!

A new surprise from Cliff Creek in this recent flight were their Syrahs. They featured a 2005 and 2004, and while the 2005 was tasty, the 2004 blew it (and our taste buds) away. We regret not taking home more than we did of the 2004, and if it’s still there we will likely grab a bit of both.

Another gem by Cliff Creek is a simple table wine, their “Red, Red Wine.” This yummy wine will please anyone with it’s full bodied flavor and low-cost at $12-15/bottle.

Also worth noting is that Cliff Creek has recently opened their new tasting room, just a few blocks away from their previous location, and it is gorgeous. They now sell by the glass, have outdoor seating, and an overall charming atmosphere. If you are ever tasting in the Willamette Valley, or just happen to be in Carlton, it’s a must-do!

A pleasant surprise during our trip to the Willamette Valley was Troon’s tasting room in Carlton, Oregon.

The highlight of the wines we tasted was the “Kubli Bench Cabernet Sauvingnon” (2006). This wine was superb, light yet full bodied, all in all a very well-rounded cab. Yes, we know, that’s not very descriptive–you’ll just have to trust us, it was awesome! We definitely brought some home.

In general, while last year their “high-end” wines seemed overpriced and didn’t quite deliver, this year they were excellent and you could tell they had put lots of care into developing them.

One disappointment, however, was that one of the best $10 table wines we’ve ever tasted, Druid’s Fluid, really went down hill with this year’s release. The 2007, which we tasted last year,  was delicious and full-bodied like a nice, dark cab. However, this year our Troon ‘guide’ told us that they had changed the grape formula (most notably, from a majority cab to a minority) and the result was rather shallow and overly sweet. Additionally they have added a white and blush variety, which we think has something to do with the decline in the red. We do hope that next year’s Druid Fluid makes a come-back so that we can re-stock!

We’ve made this curry a couple of times and it’s quickly becoming one of our staples. Really, the whole reason that this dish is amazing is the red curry paste from Thai Kitchen. Prior to using this, we relied on a hacky recipe involving squash soup and way too much curry powder. Much better now that we’re using the real deal.

Now excellent curry just means mixing a spoonful of this red curry paste with a can of coconut milk, then throwing in our favorite in-season veggies. We really love the versatility of this recipe.

Additionally, we have been able to make it much healthier by using lite coconut milk. Now don’t get me wrong, normally we’ll opt for the most fatty, artery-clogging option out there. But this curry is actually better with lite coconut milk. In a way, the heavier stuff actually masks the wonderful flavor of the veggies and the curry, and definitely doesn’t add anything.

Recipe

• 1-2 tablespoons red curry paste
• 1 can (12 fluid oz.) lite cocounut milk
• 1 package firm tofu
• 1 organic red pepper
• 1 cups sugar snap peas or green beans
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon fish sauce (optional, can also use tamari or just leave out.)
• 1 cup fresh thai basil, chopped

Cut tofu into inch-long strips, pat dry with paper towel, then pan-fry until golden brown, set aside.
Warm coconut milk and add curry paste, brown sugar (and fish sauce if desired). Whisk until blended.
Add firmer veggies (e.g snap peas), cook until slightly firm.
Add less firm veggies (e.g. pepper), cook until softened.
Take off heat, add tofu and basil.
Serve over white or brown rice.

Although I have been going to Montage since high school, I have a continued appreciation for the tastiness of their food as well as the set-apart atmosphere that they offer.

Montage is best known for their out-of-this-world mac and cheese menu–that’s right, not one, but many kinds of mac! Traditional “old” mac and cheese, spicy mac (with a cajun gravy), or “spold” (half traditional, half spicy; my favorite option) as well as some more adventurous ones, such as pesto. Not only is this mac delicious (my favorite in Portland, now that Velour has closed), but it is also very affordable–around $6-$8.

This last time I ventured to try some other items, and found that they have some tasty vegetarian gumbo and jumbalaya options, and Jon swears by the “mad good” chicken fried steak.

Of course, my favorite part is the creative tin-foil structures they construct for your leftovers (see our most recent takeaways, pictured)—each visit means a different animal! Just be prepared for a slightly dated, “edgy” 90′s feel—aloof servers, kitchen staff yelling in the background, sitting close to people you don’t know, and potentially a wait.

See Montage’s website for more info

Bamboo Sushi is by far our favorite sushi place in Portland. But it’s bigger than Portland: in my NYC days I got used to going to fancy sushi, and generally spending around $100 a person. But the quality of Bamboo’s sushi exceeds my favorite spots in New York, and at about half the price.

Best of all, Bamboo does a bitchin’ happy hour, where the prices on sushi are downright insane. You can get the four piece nigiri set (pictured here) for $5. That’s right $1.25 a piece – for some of the highest end sushi I’ve ever had. And take a look at the salmon piece – that shit is neon (sorry for the lousy iPhone pic).

Additionally, Bamboo provides a ton of vegetarian options. I’ve always made fun of Kate for liking sushi and being vegetarian, to me sushi is all about the high quality of the fish (and yes she’s REALLY vegetarian, meaning she doesn’t eat fish, that’s called pescetarian ). But the vegetarian specialty rolls at Bamboo are really elaborate and yummy—enough to actually tempt someone who’s allowed to eat fish.

Finally (and no they’re not paying us for this review) the cocktails at Bamboo are amazing. I normally hate fancy cocktails—I’m reminded of happy hours spent with Kate and her friends at Bartini: “Try this one, it tastes just like strawberry cheesecake” (ew…) But the cocktails at Bamboo are really spicy, gingery and generally devoid of sweetness. My favorite is the “Gin Henson” which is basically a gin and ginger mojito.

Last but not least, for all the hippies out there, Bamboo claims to be the only sustainable sushi restaurant in the US.

Check out Bamboo’s website

We picked up this gem a few months ago in the Troon Vineyards tasting room in Carlton. Although the majority of their wines were fairly standard in my opinion, Druid’s Fluid really stood out. It’s a wonderfully full-bodied red table wine.

A lot of Troon’s wines were on the pricier side ($30-$50 a bottle) but Druid’s Fluid was under $20. Each time we open a bottle, we are glad that we brought some home.

Celebration Ale is a pretty good winter beer that I like to have around the holidays (yes the cheesy “celebration” in the name is probably 75% of why). Like a lot of winter ales, Celebration Ale is very full bodied and hoppy but it goes the extra mile of being nicely balanced with some sweeter nodes.

And finally this beer has a special place in my heart because it was my sister’s favorite when she came to visit me in Portland .

The other night we were lucky enough to have our good friend Felicity invite us over to dinner to show off her mad cooking skills. The theme of the meal was Indian—a cuisine that we love and is somewhat hard to find in Portland. Best of all, whenever we cook with Felicity she teaches us a lot of her cooking knowhow, and we come away able to better prepare our own meals. So we jumped at this opportunity to pick up some pointers.

One thing we learned is to use lots of garlic (don’t have to tell me twice ). Felicity also taught us about a few Indian spices that we don’t ever really use: coriander and turmeric. Besides these new additions to our spice rack, Felicity also showed us why she uses grape seed oil for Indian frying: since it has one of the highest burning temperatures of any oil, it really sears in flavor well.

For her Indian feast, Felicity prepared a number of dishes: channa masala, saag paneer, and vegetable pulao (an Indian fried rice). The highlight of the meal for both of us, however, was fried sweet potato cakes. To make these, Felicity started by boiling chopped sweet potatoes and then mashing. She then mixed in peas, paneer, garlic and seasonings, then formed patties with the mixture which she coated in flour and fried on a griddle until browned.

It was some amazing comfort food goodness. We both ate way more than we should have and ended up waddling home.

The other day at Fred Meyer we saw acorn squash on sale for 50 cents. Although neither of us had ever tried acorn squash, I had just read an article in Edible Portland about various types of squash, and we have also been wanting to cook more seasonally: which means lots of root vegetables for fall / winter.

After browsing a few acorn squash recipes online, we decided on Moroccan-style stuffed acorn squash. In this simple recipe, the acorn squash is stuffed with a mix of couscous for sustenance, garbanzo beans for protein, carrots and celery for crunch, and finally raisins for a little bit of sweetness. This sweet and salty stuffing combines wonderfully with the flavorful creaminess of the acorn squash.

Since the ribbing on acorn squash makes it difficult to cut, pretty much everywhere recommends cutting the squash into halves and roasting. We pretty much followed the Moroccan-style recipe exactly, except for how we roasted the acorn squash. Most of the other recipes we looked at suggested cooking the squash with the cut side up, so we decided not to use the recipe’s recommendation of cut side down. Additionally we added some of the butter to the squash to help it roast. (Vegans can use vegan butter )

Of course we subbed veggie broth for the chicken broth, and we were a bit skeptical of the raisins, but they turned out to be a delicious addition. We should probably learn to cook with fruit more.

One last thing to note is that the recipe does not allot enough time for cooking the carrots and celery, which really take more like 10 minutes to cook down (the recipe calls for 5).