Turnips – Two Fat Bellies

Ad Hoc – Yountville, CA

virginia — Thu, 09 Oct 2014 21:34:52 +0000

Even though I knew we were going to be in Sonoma, not Napa, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to eat at a Thomas Keller restaurant, especially because it’ll probably be years before we’ll be “in the neighborhood” again. I know we have Bouchon Bakery in NYC, but it’s not quite the same as a regular sit-down restaurant. The drive from Healdsburg to Yountville was actually over an hour, but it was a pretty scenic trip past rolling hills of vineyards. While I would have loved to eat at the French Laundry, logistically, and budget-wise, Ad Hoc made more sense for us. Originally we had made a reservation for a party of ten, but our group dwindled down to four, which fortunately was not an issue.

I was actually surprised by the decor of the restaurant when we walked in. I don’t know why, but in my mind, I was picturing something a little more casual and countrified. Instead, it was a beautifully modern space with tall ceilings, large windows, and a contemporary vibe. Even though we had a somewhat early reservation, the place was packed and the atmosphere was hopping.

The menu at Ad Hoc changes every day, but whatever is on the menu that day is what you get. There is usually a salad to start, a main course with the option to add a supplemental dish, a cheese course, and dessert. The meal costs $52, plus an extra supplement cost if you choose to add the supplemental dish, and you get everything. It’s all served family style, with enough portions for everyone at the table to have a healthy serving.

On the night that we dined there, the salad course featured a gorgeous mix of little gem lettuce, shaved fennel, apricots, radishes, pickled red onions, and ricotta, with a chamomile vinaigrette. The gem lettuce, which is similar to baby romaine, was unbelievably fresh, with such a crisp texture and intense lettuce flavor. The radishes fortunately were not too bitter, and the fennel was pretty mild as well. The apricots were a great addition – sweet and juicy, while the dollops of ricotta added a nice creaminess to the greens. We all thought the salad was slightly under-dressed, until we discovered that they had brought us a gravy boat of extra dressing that no one had noticed until we were almost finished eating. Oh well. The vegetables were so fresh anyway that we were sort of glad to have tasted them in all their semi-naked glory.

Salad with little gem lettuce, fennel, apricots, radishes, pickled red onions, and ricotta

The main course was grilled hanger steak, which was nicely browned on the outside and perfectly medium rare on the inside. The steak was topped with wilted mustard greens, fried polenta, bell pepper stew, and turnip agrodolce. The mustard greens were soft but not overcooked, and the slight bitterness of the turnips was counteracted by the sweet bell peppers. My favorite part of the dish, aside from the steak, was the fried polenta, which had a perfectly crisp shell and a creamy center. It was a hearty, homey dish and they definitely didn’t skimp on the meat. We wound up boxing up the leftovers.

Hanger steak with mustard greens, turnips, bell pepper stew, and fried polenta

The supplemental dish was shrimp scampi, which we added to our meal without hesitation (the additional cost was $16). It was a good call, as the shrimp were perfectly cooked and the pasta was clearly homemade, with chewy strands that clung to the well balanced scampi sauce. The dish wasn’t overly garlicky and had just the right amount of acid.

Shrimp scampi

The cheese course was the Lamb Chopper from Cyprus Grove, a sheep’s milk cheese that has a mild gamey flavor to it. It’s a hard cheese but texturally smooth, and it was served toasted cashews and honey. The sweetness of the honey really brought out the tang of the sheep’s milk. It was a nice palate cleansing course.

Lamb Chopper cheese with honey and cashews

Dessert was ice cream sandwiches with sweet corn ice cream between shortbread cookies, rolled in blackberries. They were impossibly messy (the ice cream squeezed out the back when you bit into the cookies, and the blackberry juice got all over our hands), but they were delicious, whimsical, and just plain fun to eat. The shortbread cookies tasted like sugar cookies, though not too sugary, and the ice cream had a subtle hint of corn flavor. I was hoping to taste more of the corn, but the sandwich was just the perfect amount of sweetness to end the gluttonous meal.

Sweet corn ice cream sandwiches with blackberries

Immediately after our meal, we had kind of mixed emotions about the dinner at Ad Hoc. The food was really good – seasonal, well prepared, and plentiful. But there was nothing that knocked our socks off. Everything was properly seasoned and tasted great, but it was simple, homey fare, and I think we were expecting something a little more extraordinary from a Thomas Keller restaurant. In hindsight though, it was our own preconceived notions that had us a little disappointed at the end of the meal. Thinking back, we truly did enjoy our meal, and each course was amazing in its own right. The salad was unbelievably fresh, the steak was expertly cooked, as were the sides, the shrimp scampi was nicely balanced, the cheese course was simple but delicious, and the ice cream sandwiches put smiles on all of our faces. It was a meal I would happily eat again, and a complete bargain considering the quality of the food and the size of the portions. If you’re expecting more composed dishes and creative combinations, then this isn’t the place. But if you’re looking for uncomplicated, straightforward, and perfectly executed food that is also unbelievably tasty, don’t hesitate to make a reservation at Ad Hoc.

Ad Hoc
6476 Washington St.
Yountville, CA

While we would have loved to eat here (French Laundry), which is just down the street, we wound up having an amazing meal at Ad Hoc

CSA2 Week #20

virginia — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 02:30:58 +0000

Josh is in town this week (finally!) so he picked up our CSA share on his way home from work. It was a fairly light week, which is good because we will be away for the next two weeks and I’m worried about things spoiling. The leafy vegetables are already being prepared for dinner as I write! This week our share contents included:

Sweet Potatoes – 1.5 lbs
Greens – 0.75 lbs
Turnips – 5 each
Bok Choy – 1 large
Butternut Squash – 2 small
Carrots – 1.5 lbs
Green Tomatoes – 1 lb
Green Peppers – 2 each

Bok choy, green peppers, kale, butternut squash, carrots, sweet potatoes, green tomatoes, turnips, mizuna

I was surprised to see green tomatoes on the list, as I thought tomato season was long over. I’m hoping that since these are fairly firm, they’ll last until we get back. Maybe I can turn them into some sort of fried green tomatoes.

For our greens, Josh picked a mix of kale and mizuna, a slightly bitter salad green that is similar to arugula, though not as peppery. The kale has already been turned into the kale chips, and the bok choy has been roasted as well. I plan on using the mizuna to top some prosciutto and mozzarella pizzas that I’ll be making tomorrow (we went to DiPalo’s this weekend).

The turnips, butternut squash, carrots, sweet potatoes, and green peppers will just have to wait until we get back. They’re pretty hearty though so I’m not worried about spoilage. Although we’ll be missing the next two weeks of our CSA, I’m sure our vegetables will be going to good use, and I’m super excited about our upcoming trip – more details to come!

CSA2 Week #19

virginia — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 02:30:06 +0000

Josh was supposed to pick up our CSA share this week but wasn’t able to get back in time so I stopped off on my way home from work. There were a few new items this week and items that we haven’t seen in a while, which always gets me excited. This week our share contents included:

Garlic – 1 each
Onions – 3/4 lbs
Popcorn – 4 each
Bok Choy – 1 each
Greens – 1/2 lb
Carrots – 1 lb
Turnips – 4 each
Mini Bell Peppers – 6 each
Acorn Squash – 1 each

Kale, mini bell peppers, carrots, onion, acorn squash, garlic, popcorn, turnips, bok choy

We got popcorn this week! How awesome is that? Looks like the “popcorn” is actually dried corn on the cob. According to the instructions we received, we’re supposed to place the popcorn in a brown paper bag and microwave on high until we hear gaps of silence in between popping that lasts for approximately 2 seconds. Josh and I don’t have a microwave that really works, so we’ll have to try this the next time we’re in NJ.

Other new items this week were acorn squash and garlic. We got spring garlic earlier in the season, but this is the garlic with the dried white skins that we’re used to.

We also got kale again! After all the swiss chard this season, I was happy to see kale. Unfortunately, the kale leaves are sort of small, which will make it hard for me to make kale chips. Nevertheless, I’m excited to make them again.

We didn’t get radishes this week but we did get some baby turnips, which I plan on eating raw like radishes. Hopefully they won’t be too bitter.

We also got more peppers, carrots, and boy choy. I wonder what new items we’ll get next week? (I’m hoping for brussels sprouts)

CSA2 Week #4

virginia — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 01:22:28 +0000

We were in Grand Cayman last Wednesday for the wedding of our friends Sean and Claire (more on that soon!) so we missed out on last week’s CSA share. No worries, the veggies didn’t go to waste as our Aussie friends L & R took our share for the week. I hope they enjoyed everything!

According to the report we got from the farm this week, the heat has caused a lot of the veggies to ripen quickly, meaning that they had to be harvested sooner than expected. While that translated into a large share for us this week, it may also mean that shares later on in the season will be smaller. I just feel bad for the farm workers who have to be in the heat all day, and we definitely appreciate their efforts.

This week our share contents included:

Garlic Scapes – .25 lbs
Cucumbers – 1.1 lbs
Red Kale – .25 lbs
Swiss Chard – .65 lbs
Dandelion – .25 lbs
Turnips – .5 lbs
Fava Beans – 1 lb
Lettuce – 1 each
Squash – 2.3 lbs
Beans – .5 lbs

Kale, squash, fava beans, turnips, lettuce, pole beans, cucumbers, dandelion, swiss chard, garlic scapes

I was happy to see that we were getting both kale and swiss chard this week, so that I wouldn’t have to choose between the two again. Sadly, we only got 1/4 pound of the kale, which isn’t very much once you account for the inedible thick stems. Hmm.. Josh is currently out of town on business.. maybe I can make kale chips for one? Just kidding – he’d be upset with me if I did that!

I was glad that we got a lot of fava beans – I’m still trying to decide if we should make more Egyptian falafel with them, or if we should try something new. I’m also not sure how to prepare the turnips, dandelions, or the pole beans. Usually we just roast the turnips, but I’d be interested in doing something different. The pole beans we typically just saute with garlic and olive oil. The dandelion greens are tough to prepare because they can be extremely bitter. I’ll need to do some recipe research!

We didn’t get enough cucumbers for me to make pickles, so I think we’ll just eat them fresh with the lettuce. Josh made a great curry vinaigrette yesterday for the red leaf lettuce we got two weeks ago (yes, it was still good!) using a recipe by Thomas Keller. He forgot to half the recipe so we still have lots of dressing left, which I think will go nicely with the young head of romaine we got this week.

The squash will either go into a ratatouille or a pureed squash soup. Both are some of my favorite recipes, and I’m glad that we always get a lot of squash each week. As for the garlic scapes, we have quite a stock pile right now. I tweaked a garlic scape pesto recipe that I liked a lot better than my first attempt at scape pesto, so I’ll need to write a post about that.

I definitely have a lot of catching up to do, post wise. I’ve got so much to write about and not enough time. I’m happy to report though that we’ve been sticking to our workout regiment. Having the CSA share has only made it easier for us to eat more healthfully, and more importantly, everything is fresh and delicious. I may finally be starting to see some results from all of our hard work!!

CSA Week #21

virginia — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 02:01:56 +0000

Oy vey, what a day. Josh and I were supposed to meet up to get our CSA share together at 5:30 but I got stuck at work so he had to go by himself this week. Not a big deal, except that he got there so late they ran out of leeks! Darn, I had already been planning on making a potato leek soup this week. Oh well. This week our vegetable share included:

Potatoes – 1/2 lb
Greens – 1 lb
Radishes – 5 each
Green Tomatoes – 1 lb
Turnips – 3 each
Brussels Sprouts – 1 each

Turnips, radishes, brussels sprouts, kale, green tomatoes, potatoes

The potatoes we got were absolutely covered in mud, but apparently that’s how they stay preserved. Interesting, but super messy. The green tomatoes look like the heirloom variety and I plan on making fried green tomatoes. The brussels sprouts look absolutely amazing and I can’t wait to eat them. For the greens, Josh picked up purple kale, which will of course be made into chips.

For the fruit share, we got apples, apples, and more apples. The share contents included:

Macoun Apples – 5 lbs
Empires Apples – 5 lbs

Apples, apples, and more apples

I really need to do something with the apples in our fridge, and applesauce looks like the best bet. Claire also recommended a bunch of recipes to us, which I might try out this weekend. I think next week is our last week of CSA, and I’m absolutely devastated!

CSA Week #20

virginia — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 23:11:09 +0000

It is really starting to feel like fall out there! The weather is definitely cooling down, and the trees in Central Park are just about ready to change colors. Our CSA share will be ending soon, and it makes me sad to think about that. I think there are only a few weeks left, since the share ends in November. There is a winter share available but it seems to be less vegetables and more dairy and/or meat products, plus there’s only delivery once a month. It doesn’t seem like something that Josh and I would be interested in doing, so we’ll just have to savor our veggies and fruits while we’re still getting them.

This week our vegetable share contents included:

Celery – 1 each
Greens – 1 lb
Carrots – 1 lb
Turnips – 1 each
Winter Squash – 1 each
Leeks – 1 each

Winter squash, leek, kale, turnips, carrots, celery

I’m curious about the winter squash because we got one a few weeks back but we haven’t eaten yet. I think it’s buried in our fridge somewhere so I hope it’s still ok! I wonder if we’re just supposed to bake it? It has a super hard shell and reminds me of one of those gourds people put out during Thanksgiving. Anyone have suggestions on how to cook it?

The leek is a new item for us, but unfortunately it’s pretty small so I’m not sure what we’ll do with it. The turnips are pretty tiny as well. The carrots I’m already planning on turning into soup. We made a really great carrot ginger soup a while back, but I never got around to posting about it. I should, because it was really yummy. For the greens we got kale, as usual, since we’ll never tire of eating kale chips. Those chips rock! As for the celery, we’ve been making bloody marys out of the previous batches, since these are pretty thin and spindly celery stalks, not the fat watery kind you get from the supermarket. They have a much more concentrated celery flavor, but they’re also kind of bitter.

As for our fruit share, we are getting buried by even more apples and pears. This week our fruit share contents included:

Apples – 5 lb
Pears – 3 lbs

Apples and pears

I’ve been snacking on apple slices with peanut butter, but that gets tiring very quickly. It doesn’t help that Josh and I aren’t really “dessert” people, so when I make a cake or tart out of the fruit, we still have trouble eating it. I’m considering just making a huge batch of applesauce, since some of the apples are starting to get mealy from sitting in the fridge for so long. I’m trying not to let anything go to waste!

CSA Week #19

virginia — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 23:39:55 +0000

No, we haven’t given up on our CSA share. It’s been a while since I’ve written about it but we’re still getting tons of veggies and fruits. We managed to clean out a lot of our fridge before we left for Peru, and while we were away, Felipe and Silva picked up our shares for us. The first week we asked Silva to take some pictures of the share, cook up something, and blog about it. She took gorgeous pics, as always, and posted a few recipes on her blog, Postcards and Snapshots.

The second week, they also picked up our share for us and left the goodies with our doorman. Lisa put them in the fridge for us so that when we got home on Sunday, we had fresh food on hand. We cooked up a feast in honor of Lisa’s birthday that week, using a lot of our CSA items. I didn’t take any pictures but everything turned out so well that we’ll probably make each dish again sometime in the future. As a pre-dinner snack, we served up heirloom tomato bruschetta on slices of baguette from Amy’s Bread. We noshed on this while drinking some Pisco sours that I whipped up using Pisco that I brought home from Peru.

The first course was a creamy zucchini soup, followed by a roasted beet salad with arugula and radishes tossed in a balsamic vinaigrette. The main course was chicken that Josh butterflied and brined before roasting in the oven. The skin was crisp and the meat was tender and juicy. As for sides, we roasted potatoes underneath the chicken so that they basted in the juices and fat that ran off – yum! We also made a rustic ratatouille with zucchini, eggplant, and red pepper. Finally, for dessert, I made a buttery apple tart that paired perfectly with Josh’s homemade vanilla ice cream. We had prepped most things the night before so the dinner was relaxing for all of us, and we were able to enjoy our company.

Going back to the CSA shares, Josh picked up our produce last week before he and Lisa went to the Roger Waters concert at MSG, but I was too lazy to take pictures and post. I had met them for dinner before the show, and then afterward I went home to pack since we left for San Francisco the next day. Now that we’re back, with no travel planned for another month, I hope to get back on track with everything.

This week Josh and I met up to get our share together, which was good because even though the veggie side was a bit light, we got a ton of fruit. This week our vegetable share contents included:

Radishes – 5 each
Broccoli – 1 each
Greens – 1 lb
Fennel – 1 each
Squash – 2 lbs
Turnips – 5 each

Radishes, kale, turnips, squash, broccoli, fennel

The original list also said onions, but we didn’t see any at the pickup site. For the greens, we got kale, which we absolutely love. I made a huge batch of kale chips last night and we gobbled them right up. The secret is to make sure you salt them liberally before putting them into the oven. For the squash, we picked up a large zucchini because those are heartier and last longer in the fridge. The broccoli is a new item for us, and although it’s quite small, I can’t wait to see how it tastes.

For the fruit, we’ve just been getting tons of apples and our fridge is totally packed. I see a lot of apple pies, apple tarts, and apple chips in our future. This week our fruit share contents included:

Macoun Apples – 4 3/4 lbs
Seckle Pears – 1 quart
Honey Crisps Apples – 2 lbs

Apples and little pears

We now also have tons of these little pears, and a few quarts of plums as well leftover from previous weeks. Anyone know of any good recipes I could try?

CSA Week #7

virginia — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 04:04:28 +0000

No, I didn’t forget about CSA Wednesday. Due to a previous commitment for the church where we pick up our shares, this week our distribution was moved to Thursday. I was super excited when we got the email this morning that listed our share contents, as there were lots of new vegetables for us to try. Much to our dismay, however, when we went to get our share, three items were missing – basil, cucumbers, and purslane. We’re not really sure why those items weren’t delivered, and while our share was still pretty robust, I had already been thinking about the basil pesto I wanted to make, and I was looking forward to trying braised cucumbers, the highly touted Julia Child recipe.

Oh well. We did get some things that weren’t on the emailed list, like lettuce and greens, so I guess it works out in the end. Our share contents this week included:

Squash – 3 lbs
Fava Beans – 1 lb
Carrots – 5 each
Turnips – 4 each
String Beans – 1lb
Lettuce – 1 head
Greens – 1/2 lb

Turnips, string beans, lettuce, greens, fava beans, carrots, squash

For the lettuce, it looked like we had a choice between green leaf and Boston lettuce. Because we’ve already tried the green leaf lettuce before, we chose the Boston even though the heads were tiny. The greens turned out to be kale, which means we can make kale chips again! For the squash, there were lots of different varieties so we picked up a standard yellow one, a smaller, round yellow one, and a large, pear shaped pale green one.

Our fruit share this week was the best one yet, with several different items. The contents included:

Sugar Plums – 1 quart
Apricots – 1 quart
Red Plums – 1 pint

Sugar plums, apricots, and red plums in front

The apricots look gorgeous, and I really liked the sugar plums from last week, though the skin is a bit tart. Josh made a lovely salsa with it that I’ll be posting about. Unfortunately, Josh will be on the road for work the next two weeks, which makes it tough for me to enjoy our bounty. I don’t want him to feel like he’s missing out, but then again, he’s going to have a lot of access to great restaurants while he’s away so I’m the one who’s going to end up feeling jealous. I’ll just have to figure out some really awesome things to make so that maybe he’ll have incentive to travel less!