Blue Palate

I was in a car accident the other day. Not major, but my first and enough to warrant a trip to the ER for whiplash. I’m glad to only have had a few days of neck and back pain and nothing more serious, except the hassle of a totaled car. To celebrate my survival, I cooked up the perfect remedy: steak.

Saturday’s menu started with a Camembert cheese plate with apples and sparkling wine. For dinner I made pan-seared sirloin fillets with caramelized onions and red-wine pan sauce, green salad with lemon and oil dressing, garlic Parmesan bread, all complemented with a fruity, velvety Washington cabernet. Warm cookies and vanilla ice cream for dessert. Lots of love and attention from husband. Wounds healed.

And it’s always empowering to prepare a fall-off-your-seat meal for a quarter of the restaurant price. A couple of friends recently spent $300 at a popular Portland steakhouse and left feeling undernourished. I spent less than $50 and was healed head to toe.

While I don’t believe eating is the best method of dealing with one’s emotions, a little comfort food can go a long way to heal temporary wounds. It’s not so much the food, but the power restored to my body and mind knowing I still have the ability to create something spectacular.

I had a hankering for happy hour the other day, and while Portland is filled with a cornucopia of choices for cheap eats after the work day, I am pretty budget conscious these days. I’ve been trying hard to limit eating at bars and restaurants, despite inexpensive options some might offer. Instead, I visited my good neighbor Trader Joe’s to see if I could mimic the happy hour experience, recession style.

Alcohol: Since Oregon’s archaic liquor laws prohibit selling hard liquor in grocery stores, I had to stick with wine or beer. Beer from a bottle didn’t seem quite conducive to the happy hour experience so I chose a bottle of Valreas Cuvee Prestige from Cotes du Rhone for $5.99. The wine was delicious, and way more drinkable any bar’s house red.

Appetizers: Trader Joe’s knows frozen food. Spanikopita, mini quiche, empanadas. Even taquitos. I went for the samosas for $3.29 and a jar of mango chutney for $2.99. The samosas were crispy but not too greasy. Just the right amount of salt and fat to feel like a real happy hour experience.

Grand total: $12.17 for about 2 glasses of good quality wine and 3 samosas each. At a bar or restaurant, even during happy hour, we would have spent around $20-$25 including tip. Plus we had chutney left over and didn’t have  to deal with noisy professionals elbowing for a table.

Nosh on!

I was on my Mac dashboard using the dictionary widget to look up the word foodie (def: a person with a particular interest in food; a gourmet). A message on my Epicurious widget caught my eye:

“Shopping for a foodie friend? Epicurious has found 16 gorgeous gourmet goodies for everyone on your list  ——– and they’re all under $100.”

I’m not usually a fan of food gift baskets, unless they’re filled with wine. But I couldn’t resist seeing what Epicurious had to offer. (If you are unfamiliar with Epicurious, it is one of the best recipe sites ever.) The site featured a slide show of 16 gift basket of varying contents. Some were undeniably gorgeous and delicious looking, especially the Spices and Herbs tins from TSP Spices, the only one that was somewhat reasonably priced at $42. (Mom, Dad…hint.)

The Microbrew Beer Bucket was my favorite, but I almost blew a keg when I saw the price. $70 for six bottles of beer and some snacks? I challenged myself to make a Beer Bucket for less than half that price.

I love sampling microbrews and am a sucker for markets that let you buy a six pack sampler (Woodstock Wine and Deli and Otto’s Sausage Kitchen in my neighborhood.) This is not the cheapest way to buy beer, but a great way to get to know some great beers without investing in a whole six pack of one variety. Last time I was at Woodstock Wine and Deli, they charged around $1.60 to $2.00 a bottle, with 10% off if you buy six. They had some great snacks there, but you could spend way less on gifty snacks at your local grocery bulk section or Trader Joe’s.

In my DIY Beer Bucket, I substituted salami and crackers for jerky. (To me, jerky is road trip food not beer food.) You could use any kind of snack that goes well with beer. The nice thing about DIY gift baskets is the opportunity to personalize according to the giftee’s taste. Here’s what I came up with:

• One small aluminum bucket from local hardware store - $8.00
• Six 12 oz bottles of microbrew beer, averaging around $1.80 each with 10% off - $9.72
• Chocolate Covered Pretzels, I like Trader Joe’s brand - $2.99
• 1/4 pound salted nuts. Peppered cashews or Tamari almonds from the bulk section - $2.50
• Dry salami. Trader Joe’s salami is GREAT, and amazing with beer. - $4.29
• Crackers. Milton’s Brand come in a long box that would fit nicely in a bucket. - $3.99

Total - $31.49, less than half of the $70 Gourmet Gift Baskets charges for their Beer Bucket. You could knock even more off the cost by using home made snacks and goodies. Plus, you can make your bucket more personal, use beer from local brewers and support your local vendors. Epicurious might want to stick to publishing great recipes.