Two at the Table_Menu_Week of September 14 2014

We took a day trip out to Greenport, Long Island on Saturday to take a break and make one last run at the farm stands.  We stocked up on local seafood at the Southold Fish Market for the paella we made Saturday (and scored some smoked bluefish pate!) and fresh duck for the duck at one of our favorite farm stands for the duck tacos we made on Sunday. We were also very happy to find some beautiful heirloom tomatoes and corn and very pleasantly surprised to find tomatillos, which we didn’t think grew on Long Island, and some heirloom carrots, all at Long Season Farms. As no trip would be complete for us without a visit to the goats at Catapano Dairy Farm (www.catapanodairyfarm.com), we stopped there and bought a good supply of goat cheese. This week was definitely a case of the ingredients setting the menu, as we really had no dinner ideas until we finished all of our shopping. We have a couple of new things planned plus some variations on old favorites.

On Sunday night, Kim is making Duck Tacos with Chipotle Cherry Salsa and Goat Cheese, a completely new recipe for us. While we’ve made a lot of great dinner using duck breasts (like the Crispy Skinned Duck Breast with a Cherry Sauce and Creamy Spinach and Polenta we made a few weeks ago), we wanted to try something different. We’re going to have the tacos with the fresh corn on the side.

Monday will probably be a busy day without much time for cooking, so we’re keeping it simple. We’ll have some Paella with Seafood, Chicken, and Chorizo left over from Saturday’s dinner and some of the Smoked Bluefish Pate we bought at the Southold Fish Market.

We’ll have more seafood on Tuesday, specifically Grilled Swordfish with Romesco Sauce and Grilled Zucchini. We’re cheating a bit here, as we already have some romesco sauce in the freezer, but it’s not that hard to make, even on a weeknight. We’ll also have a Heirloom Tomato and Goat Cheese salad on the side.

Wednesday night will feature an old favorite: Ina Garten’s Chicken with Goat Cheese and Sun Dried Tomatoes. We’re putting a very slight spin on this by using lemon-pepper goat cheese instead of herbed goat cheese; we saw this new (new for us at least!) variety of goat cheese at Catapano Dairy Farm and thought it would be perfect in this dish. We’ll roast the beautiful carrots we bought at Long Season Farms to have alongside the chicken.

For the past couple of years, we’ve had a mini Oktoberfest where we’ve sampled a few different varieties of Oktoberfest beer and tried to make dishes that pair well. This year, we’re going to invite a couple of friends over, so we wanted to experiment with a few recipes for main courses to find the perfect one. This week, we’re going to make Beer-Marinated Pork Tenderloin with Red Cabbage, using local red cabbage. Pork tenderloin is a great dish for company as it cooks very quickly and is pretty easy to get right, so we’re hoping this recipe turns out well.

We’ll take a break from cooking on Friday night, but on Saturday night, Tony will make one of the first dishes her ever made for Kim: Green Chilaquiles With Chicken and Squash. We’ll probably need to do a little extra shopping Saturday morning, as an internet outage made it impossible to look up this recipe while we were putting in our Fresh Direct order. Tony made this dish a while ago and he remembers it being easy but requiring a bit of time, so it’s a perfect dish for a Saturday night.