Mussels from...Milwaukee

We think Milwaukee is totally underrated.  About a year and a half ago we discovered The Iron Horse Hotel in Milwaukee, and since then it's been our go-to when we want to get out of town for the weekend.  We took our third trip up there this past weekend to check out the band Volcano Choir (Justin Vernon from Bon Iver) playing at Turner Hall. Look how cool this place is:

Anyway, Mark should do the we-love-Milwaukee post since he was busy taking pictures all weekend.  I will post on the bounty we brought home from one of our favorite spots in that city, the Milwaukee Public Market -- fresh mussels.


Mussels from Milwaukee
1 pounds fresh mussels, from the Milwaukee Public Market or otherwise, picked over (this left us with about half a pound)
1 large carrot, diced
1 large celery stick, diced
1 medium onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
About 1 cup of wine
About 4-5 cups chicken stock
Sage
Basil
About 2 T butter

Pick over your mussels and toss any that are open already or cracked.  This left us with a little over half out original amount.  Better safe than sorry.  I've heard the horror stories of bad shellfish.  Clean your mussels.  I scrubbed each one, removed any beards that remained, and got them soaking for 20 minutes in ice water.  Then I placed them one by one (Mark was very adamant that I move them one by one...) into another, fresh bowl of water.  Keep them there until you're ready to cook them.

Make your mirepoix by finely dicing the carrot, celery and onion.  Heat some butter and get those sauteing. Once they start to get soft, add the garlic and some salt and pepper.  Saute for another minute or two then toss in a splash of wine.  Let that reduce a bit -- five minutes or so -- and then add the stock.

Here is what that will look like (minus the stock in this pic):

Let that cook for a while and chop your herbs:

 These will go in right near the end.  Gently move the mussels (minus their water) into the pot:

Yum.  Let that simmer for a while until the majority of the mussels open up.  If they don't, toss 'em.  Dish these guys up and sop up the broth with some good bread.  Or decent bread you get at Target, like us...

Of course when you just come from Wisconsin, have a New Glarus Spotted Cow alongside.

Crepes: Sweet & Savory

Neither Mark nor I are much of a breakfast eater.  We’ll do the occasional egg sandwich on a Sunday morning, but, who are we kidding, by the time we get up and organized enough to cook on a Sunday, it really could count for lunch anyway.

So who knows where my inexplicable craving for crepes came from the other week.  Or why I was up and ready for cooking hours before Mark got out of bed, but the stars aligned for Mark to wake up to a crepe breakfast. 

I used Alton Brown’s recipe for crepes because it was among the first to come up on Google.  I may have been awake enough to try out a new recipe, but not awake enough to dig out the cookbooks and look for recipes. 

Crepes – Sweet & Savory

Batter (according to Alton):

• 2 large eggs
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 cup flour
• 3 tablespoons melted butter
• Butter, for coating the pan

*I divided our batter into two: one for savory fillings, to which I added a little salt and other seasonings, and one for sweet fillings, to which I added a tablespoon of powdered sugar

You can add any fillings you’d like.  We used:

Savory:

Ham (I used leftover thick-cut lunch meat)

Shredded Gruyere (leftover from the greens casserole from the last post)

Sauteed red pepper strips

Sauteed mushrooms

Garlic

Chopped green onions

Sweet:

Homemade blueberry compote

Ricotta cheese mixed with a little powdered sugar and lemon juice

Powdered sugar for the top.

Combine all the batter ingredients in a blender and pulse.  Refrigerate for at least one hour.  While the batter was chilling, I got the fillings ready.  You can really add anything you'd like.  Since this was spur-of-the-moment crepe making, I just dug through the fridge.

After the batter has chilled for an hour, I divided into two and added salt and herbs to the batter I was going to use for the savory crepes, and a little powdered sugar to the sweet batter.

Heat a small non-stick pan over medium-high heat and add a pat of butter and swirl it to coat as it melts.  Add about a small ladle-full of batter.  I used a rubber spatula to loosen the edges as it cooked for about 10-30 seconds, then flip and cook for another few seconds.  

I added the fillings just before it was done cooking so they could warm back up and the cheese would melt.  Fold and carefully move to a serving dish.  That's it.  These were so much easier than I would have guessed.

Mushroom and Greens (and Sausage) Gratin

The original plan was to make a meat-free casserole for dinner one Sunday a few weeks ago.  Not for any particular reason, but I’d seen a recipe for a mushroom and greens gratin in the New York Times’ Dining Section and I had mentally filed it.

Then enter Nick Spencer of Spencer’s Traditional Pork Bangers.  Mark and I struck up a conversation with him at the indoor Logan Square Farmer’s Market.  We had a heated debate about whether to buy traditional bangers, herb bangers or back bacon.  We came home with the traditional variety with the idea to add them to the gratin.  So much for the vegetarian dinner aspirations.

I can't find the link to the NYT recipe that inspired this, but we changed it enough that you wouldn't recognize it anyway:

Mushroom and Greens (and Sausage) Gratin

About 1.5 pounds of greens -- I used a big bag of pre-cut collard greens

1 onion, finely chopped

1/2 pound mushrooms (I used baby bellas), sliced

1/2 to 1 pound sausage (or leave out altogether)

3 cloves garlic, finely minced

1/2 cup grated Gruyere

1/2 cup grated Parmesan (split in half since you'll use this in two steps)

1/2 cup panko breadcrumbs

3 eggs

1/2 cup milk

Preheat oven to 375, grease a medium casserole dish

Bring a pot of heavily salted water to a boil and blanch the greens for 3-4 minutes to soften.  Use tongs to move them to a pot of ice water to stop the cooking after this step.  Once cooled, drain and squeeze the water out, chop if your greens aren't already.

Heat some olive oil in a pan and saute the onion and mushroom for a few minutes until the mushrooms soften up.  I, personally, hate raw mushroom, so I tend to let them get nice and brown.  Add the garlic and softened greens during the last few minutes of cooking.  Salt and pepper to taste - but remember you're adding salty cheese and sausage, so don't go nuts.

Mark came into the kitchen around this time (I suspect it was to make sure I didn't short change the sausage) and he cut up and browned the bangers.  They really are good -- a nice little hint of nutmeg (I think?).  If you didn't have the meat police taking matters into their own hands, you could brown the sausage first, drain it, and cook the veggies in the sausage grease.  Just sayin.

Add the sausage to the veggies, which will look like this:

Whisk together the eggs, milk and Gruyere.  Whisk in half the Parmesan, but make sure to save some to mix with the breadcrumbs. Season with a little salt and pepper and mix this in with the veggie/sausage mix.  Spread everything into your greased casserole.

Toss your panko with a little bit of olive oil to coat them so they brown up nice, add the rest of the Parmesan and mix well.  Sprinkle on top of everything and bake for 35-40 minutes.  We ate this up in no time and I'd make it for brunch some time, especially if we get our hands on more of Spencer's bangers.

On Eating More Sweet Potatoes, Take 2

Although we haven't quite met our weekly goal of eating sweet potatoes, we have been pretty close.  Last week we made some great sweet potato oven fries to go with sandwiches and yesterday we made this dish of tilapia with bacony breadcrumbs and garlic mashed sweet potatoes.  It's really tasty and really quick and easy.

Tilapia with Bacony Breadcrumbs and Garlic Mashed Sweet Potatoes

This recipe is for two:

2 tilapia filets
3-6 pieces of bacon
About 1/2 cup panko breadcrumbs
1/4 cup grated parmesan

2 sweet potatoes
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup grated parmesan
1 T butter

Saute the bacon (I voted three pieces, Mark voted six and six won) until crispy, drain on paper towels and crumble.  Save enough of the grease to brown the panko in.  Mix that around till the panko is nice and bacony. Take off the heat and let cool a bit and stir in the cheese.

Meanwhile, get your taters boiling in salted water and preheat your oven to 375 or 400 -- we started at 375 and turned it up to 400 during the cooking.

Season your fish with salt pepper and any other dried herbs you like -- we used Lake Shore Drive seasoning from The Spice House, which we put on nearly everything.  Put them in a pan and drizzle with a little olive oil and get those in the oven.

When your potatoes are soft, drain them and mash them, mixing in the garlic and butter.  Salt and pepper to taste. 

Your fish should be close to done.  If it flakes easily with a form you are good to go.  Top with the panko mix and pop back in the oven for two to three more minutes to get that nice and browned.

If you have extra panko topping, it's pretty darn good sprinkled on top of the potatoes too.