A Holiday Party at Adam’s Place

Being the local food junkies that we are, its odd that we rarely go to Adams Place, and have never actually eaten in the dining room.  We sometimes meet friends there on Fridays after work for a little bite to eat and a drink or two, but never dinner.  Adam’s Place gets great reviews and is a perennial “Northwest Best Places” listee.  They do a great job of using local ingredients and was one of the first restaurants in Eugene to source directly from farmers.  So, you ask, what has taken you so long to go to Adams?

The prices for one – it’s not a place that you go to if you realize that you just don’t feel like cooking dinner.  It’s really a place you go for special meals, like anniversaries or birthdays.  The dining room atmosphere has also felt a little formal for our taste.  So enough with the lame excuses…

We finally ate dinner at Adam’s Place for the first time ever.  Matt’s company holiday party was held there last night and it was the best food and service I can remember at a holiday party.  They have a great room for hosting these types of events for small-ish groups (30 or so people) which we were in last night.

The passed appetizers consisting of butternut squash mousse on a homemade potato chip, various bruschetta including roasted chanterelle mushroom and white bean with sundried tomato were enough to send me home a content woman.  Not to mention the cheese and fruit plate with shropshire, chevre, cambozola, dried figs, apples and pears.  Oh yum.  And we hadn’t even sat down for the four course dinner.

The four courses all hit the mark equally as well.  The first course was a simple mixed green salad with a cranberry vinaigrette, hazelnuts and sugar crusted cranberries. The pasta course consisted of bolognese fettucini  and roasted chanterelle mushroom and spinach fettucini.  Even though I knew the main course was still coming, I had to have an extra couple of bites of the bolognese.

The main course was equally delicious – chicken piccata, beef skewers, and roasted fall vegetables.  I was particularly taken by the chicken piccata.  Normally I don’t think of chicken as being a special meal, but this fit the bill.  It was covered in a light, fluffy parmesan crust and served with a lemon caper beurre blanc sauce.  I want to go back just have another meal of the chicken piccata.

Finally, we ended the feast with an eggnog pannacota and chocolate volcano cake.   They were both amazing, but I was so full (imagine that) I couldn’t properly enjoy them.

All in all, I am sorry it took us so long to enjoy a meal at Adams.  We have been missing out on some great food.  It will definitely be considered the next time we have a special meal opportunity, despite the formal-ish dining room.  It may be a little easier on our pocketbook too.   I read in the Register Guard that they are reinventing the restaurant to lower prices a bit, while maintaining the high quality of ingredients.

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Oh Christmas tree

For the last couple of years, we cut down our own Christmas tree in the Willamette National Forest.  We take the trip with another couple and we all agree that it is one of the highlights of the holiday season.  We bring a picnic lunch and hot drinks to enjoy after finding our “perfect” tree.

I highly recommend making this a part of your holiday tradition.  In addition to exchanging homemade gifts with family and friends (instead of purchased gifts) and an annual cookie decorating party, this has really brought back some of the spirit of Christmas for me.

On the way, we stop at the Ranger Station and pick up a map and permit, along with a candy cane.  The forest service employees are always really helpful in providing directions to places to find your desired tree species.  The tree never ends up being quite as perfect as those that you buy in the lot, but that’s part of the charm.  A tree permit costs only $5, making it a bargain compared to lot prices of $50+.

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Crab bisque

This week marked the start of dungeness crab season.  Growing up on the east coast, I had many a crab cake made with the Maryland blue crab.  I had no idea what I was missing.  This rendition of dungeness crab was no exception.

This recipe really lets the crab steal the show.  Although it is a little time consuming because of the added time to make the shellfish fumet, the extra time is well worth it.  We put it in Stanley Thermos’ (like the kind my dad used to take to work) and brought it to our annual Christmas tree cutting trip in the National Forest.  For some reason, bisque just feels right for the holidays.

In season, dungeness crab is not terribly expensive if you are willing to do a little work (i.e. buy whole crabs and take the meat out yourself instead of buying lump crab meat).  I went to Newman’s yesterday and picked up 3 whole crabs that were caught early that morning.  They sell them cooked and cleaned, so I only had to remove the crab meat.  I saved the shells to make shellfish fumet for the base of the bisque.  Making fumet is alot like making chicken stock – in fact, most of the ingredients are the same.  I used a recipe from The Zuni Cafe Cookbook.

This bisque recipe makes a more brothy bisque, which I prefer.  Use less fumet is your prefer a heavier bisque.  Although you could use chicken stock in place of the fumet, I highly recommend using the fumet.

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Thanksgiving Leftovers

We always end up with leftovers from Thanksgiving and there are only so many times you can reheat leftovers as is. And we really don’t like wasting food, so we’ve developed some creative ways to use up our leftovers – shepherd’s pie and tom kha turkey (a variation of tom kha gai, the broth, coconut milk based Thai soup).    I hope that these ideas will be helpful for you in using up some of your leftovers.

 

If you are wondering about the photo, the pumpkin tart is still making appearances.  That was my slice for dessert.  I don’t think I could get tired of eating pumpkin tart.

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A Local Thanksgiving

We have a tradition of gathering in Sunriver, OR for Thanksgiving with about 10-12 friends that are also Oregon transplants. This is my 10^th Sunriver Thanksgiving and Matt’s 12^th. We rent a big house that fits all of us and everyone pitches in with some part of the meal either by making a dish or cleaning up. It is one of my favorite weekends of the year. The last few years, we have made more of an effort to use local foods. We even won a Farmaid contest last year.

We neglected to order a turkey from Deck early enough this year so when we contacted them, they were all gone. We tried a few other potential sources with no luck, so our turkey this year was from California. Besides the turkey, most of our other main ingredients were local. A detailed ingredient source list is below.

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Pumpkin love

I think I have always loved pumpkins.  They say fall better than anything and I love fall.  My grandma made delicious pumpkin pie (something I have never been able to figure out) and my sister Ally makes the most amazing pumpkin bread.   (Was than an obvious hint?)  Our CSA has an annual farm tour before Halloween and they plant a pumpkin patch just for the occasion.  We always pick a couple Cinderella pumpkins for pumpkin muffins, my annual attempt at pumpkin pie, and homemade pumpkin ice cream.

We baked our pumpkins last night (after scooping away the stringy bits and saving the seeds), let them cool and then scooped the flesh away from the skin.  Rather than putting the scooped out flesh in the food processor to reduce the stringiness like years past, I used our food mill that I purchased this summer for tomato sauce.  This removed all of the stringy pieces and made a beautiful puree.  I am so glad that my $70 splurge is good for tomato sauce, applesauce, and pumpkin puree.  With all the puree made and seeds saved, I set to work at making some local pumpkin treats.

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Apricot brandy & cherry cordial

In an effort to reduce the crazy consumerism around the holidays, a few years back our family decided to do homemade gifts for each other instead of buying everyone a gift.  It has made the holidays a lot more special for all of us not to mention leaving our bank accounts in better shape come January.  Last year I made pear brandy and Matt mixed a holiday CD.

This year I decided to make a few different fruit liqueurs including strawberry sherry, apricot brandy, and cherry cordial all made from local fruit.  (Sorry family, no surprises on Christmas morning…)  I bottled the strawberry sherry about a month ago, but decided it was time to bottle up the apricot brandy and cherry cordial this weekend.

Fruit liqueurs are ridiculously easy to make and they make a wonderful after dinner drink.  I bought a few 4-5 quart clamp-top jars to make the liqueurs and a couple dozen 8 oz decorative clamp-top jars to bottle the finished products from Down to Earth.  It’s a shame that they need to be stored in a dark place while they are processing because they are really beautiful to look at.  I adapted both recipes from Blue Ribbon Preserves by Linda J. Amendt.

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