Happy V-Day Sweetie!

I saw this cake at Sherman's Deli, in Palm Springs. It gave me NOLA memories!

Happy happy Valentine's, my dear. We shall reconvene soon and eat some treats!

YOU are the sweetest treat of all!

MWAH!

A Mini Vacation on the West Side

Severo and I both had two days off. 

We ate well! 

Friday started with getting me new tires. Delicious! (kidding) 

While the car was in the shop, we had breakfast at J Nichols Kitchen (sorry, no photo). Nichols (which is what it used to be called), in Marina Del Rey, used to have a classic diner menu (the meatloaf was awesome). It has recently undergone a rebranding and with that came a whole new Nichols. Breakfast was delicious -- I had a Fried Egg and Arugula Sandwich, Severo had a Cobb  Scramble. Much pricier than the old Nichols, yet delicious. My only question is, NOW where do the seniors go for cheap classic diner food? I guess there's always Cafe 50s. [ps: I checked the dinner menu and the Meatloaf is still there. Granted, it's maybe $9 more than it was on the old menu. Sigh.]

We realized that it was our anniversary -- #18!!!
I've now known Severo longer than the wasbund. Severo for the win!
Cause for continued gluttony (as if we need an excuse)!

After an afternoon of working independently on various projects, we reconvened for dinner at Versailles in Culver City.
We opted for old favorites: Camarones Al Ajillo - Shrimp In Garlic Sauce for me, Rabo Encendido - Oxtail Stew for Severo. 

Thus concludes Friday's repasts. 

Saturday was a late start, Severo had slept in. No problem!
I wanted to go to Earl's Gourmet Grub in Mar Vista. I was hankering for something with lots of greenery and found just that in an A.M. Salad. Severo had Duck Hash. Both were amazing. Coffee came from Venice Grind, which shares a lovely outdoor patio with Earl's. 

After breakfast, we walked over to Mitsuwa and got some Salmon cheeks and bits to grill for dinner. Severo makes a delicious fish marinade with sesame oil, dark soy sauce, ginger, and lots of minced garlic. Mmmmmmmm. 

We had it with rice and a simple salad of lettuce, arugula, and onions.
On the bottom right are two pieces of komochi mamakari [seasoned sardines] -- intense.

The night ended with a DVD of Grand Budapest Hotel. A fun conclusion to two days in our own neighborhood. 

Happy Anne-Severo-sary, my dear!

Easy Seville Orange (or any citrus) Marmalade Recipe

I posted a Seville Orange Marmalade recipe back in December. Later I found out that Roxanne and I used Calamondins, another variety of bitter orange. Sevilles have a thick wrinkly skin.

For the following batch, I used the recipes that I also used to make Lemon Marmalade back in February.
I didn't have a printout and was using my tablet and found I was jumping between my recipe and another source recipe.
To make things easy, I've combined both of them here, with lots of photos.
Text version is at the bottom.

I noticed that I was losing lots of precious juice onto the cutting board as I extracted the seeds, so I juiced the oranges before removing the seeds.

Here is the recipe in text:

Orange (or any citrus) Marmalade
for any quantity of fruit

1) Cut oranges in half and squeeze the juice. Pour juice into a food processor.

2) Remove seeds with a grapefruit knife.

3) Cut into 3/4" sized chunks, place in food processor and grind to a mash. Small chunks are OK.

4) Pour into LARGE sauce pan (I use a stock pot).

5) HERE IS THE WATER : SUGAR RATIO (from above source)
Pour in water a cup at a time until the fruit is almost covered.
Then add the exact same quantity of sugar.

6) Stir and heat to rolling boil. Be sure to supervise this step.
You don't want the mixture to boil over and get all over the stove. It is no fun to clean. I speak from experience!

7) Reduce heat enough so that the boil is maintained but not so furious that you have to stay in the same room.

8) In 30-60 min, it should start to gel. Avoid overcooking, or it will turn to rubber.
The "spoon test" is the best method to determine gel state if you don't have a candy thermometer.
If you do, cook until it reaches 220°F.
After a few batches, you'll get a "feel" for it -- gelled jam gets a heaviness when stirred and wrinkles start to form on the top surface.

9) Pour into jars and process, store in freezer, or consume.

For this batch, I had 8 baseball-sized oranges, which yielded  10.5 8oz jars.