More Kitchen Trends 2010 (NKBA)

Last week I revealed some results from the National Kitchen and Bath Association's annual Design Trend Survey. In case you missed it, you can go here to learn about current trends in kitchen cabinetry styles, wood species, finishes, countertops and flooring. And now for the rest of their findings:

Faucet fashion:  Pull-out styles are most in demand. The top finish choice is brushed nickel, followed by stainless steel, satin nickel and finally, polished chrome. Extra-tall Pot filling faucets are gaining popularity, creating convenience at the cooking center.

Delta's Pilar Faucet with Touch20 Technology. Messy hands? Use your arm to touch on/touch off.

Brizo's Florio Pull-Out faucet. Their fashion-forward designer lineup is refreshingly chic.

The go-to cooking appliance is still the Range, but the combination of a Cooktop and Wall Oven is gaining steam. Home owners still crave a Gas Cooktop, but they are beginning to appreciate the energy-saving advantages of Induction Cooking.

There is growing enthusiasm for Drawer Dishwashers, but a full, standard Dishwasher continues as the best-seller.

 

Consumers will continue to be wildly infatuated with Bottom Freezer Refrigerators, with or without French Doors, while Side-By-Side is still a popular choice. Refrigerator Drawers are coming in vogue, as are Undercounter Wine Refrigerators.

This graceful kitchen features a number of trendy appliances including the ever-popular range, undercounter wine refrigerator, warming drawer and undercounter microwave. Cabinetry by Fieldstone.

I encourage you to read a comprehensive and entertaining review of Delta's Pilar Faucet from Susan Serra, The Kitchen Designer, here.

Susan Serra also provides insight into Brizo's fashionable faucet line-up here.

Read Kitchen & Bath Professional Laurie Burke's inside look at Brizo's fashionable faucet line-up here.

Giada and The Case of The Contraband Oranges

I confess that sometimes while cooking I imagine myself a winsome celebrity chef like Giada De Laurentiis. Skillfully I prepare Capellini Piedmontese while impressed onlookers take notes and smile appreciatively. My charismatic alter-ego vanishes, however, as I rummage ungracefully through drawers for the right whisk, peeler or pastry brush to put to task. So it seems that until I invest in a few stylish kitchen gadgets or some new Rachel Ray Cookware, the celebrity chef gig is kind of on hold.

Last month I was preparing Savory & Sweet Spiced Walnuts to give as Christmas gifts. The recipe called for orange zest and my blessed husband made a special trip to the store for the two navel oranges I required. I don’t own one of those slick zesting tools, but I managed well enough with my all-purpose grater. When I was through assaulting them, the oranges looked, well, sort of forlorn (I will hereafter refer to them as for-lor-anges) but I slipped them each into a plastic baggy for later snacking.

While packing a cooler the next day for a family trip to California, I grabbed those disfigured forloranges thinking one of us might enjoy them on the road. Just past the Oregon-California border on Highway 97 is a sometimes-mandatory Agricultural Checkpoint that is notorious to my children. It was here that a full, two-pound, clamshell box of juicy Costco cherries was surrendered last summer. The kids have not yet extended grace to the officers who took those cherries and in fact, they are convinced that the officers confiscate fruit randomly, according to their own personal cravings.


So this time, as our car approached the official in the khaki uniform, three voices from the backseat pleaded “No! Don’t tell them we have fruit! They’ll take it!” My husband politely greeted the female officer who, of course, asked if we were carrying any fruit with us. Hubby turned to me for the answer. “Bananas, apples and, um, oranges,” said I, seizing the opportunity to model honesty isn’t always convenient for the children.

“May I see the oranges?” asked the officer. From the cooler I hesitantly produced one of those pitiful forloranges in its plastic sandwich bag. She looked as surprised as if I’d handed her a dirty diaper but she inspected it dutifully.

Awkward silence. I said, “I zested it.”

“Hmm. Well, there’s still a little bit of skin on it,” she said as she pointed to the orange splotches left by my not-nearly-as-professional-as-Giada zesting technique. “We’re concerned about oranges; but without the skin, well, I don’t know...” For what seemed like a long minute she appeared dumbfounded but never dropped her professional demeanor. “Does the other one look like this?” she finally asked.

Upon learning that it did, the befuddled produce officer, with the apparently unprecedented case before her, decided we could keep them but with the following mandate: “Be sure to eat them soon”. As if that settled the matter. I persuaded my son to eat one right away, but the other forlorange flew under the radar all the way to Central California and I still feel some guilt about that.

I’m not sure there's a moral to this story, but I know this: I'd like a new zester. And if you too could use some newer kitchen gadgetry, be sure to stop back on Thursday when I will announce a FABULOUS GIVE-AWAY! You won’t want to miss it! Oh, one more thing: always eat your cherries before you get to the Ag stop! They take their work very seriously there.

Primo! Polenta (With Lotsa Options)

Gourmet Gayle has always emphasized that when it comes to food presentation, color is paramount. If you plate something green with something red and something yellow, you have achieved that delightfully dynamic culinary combination that typifies mediterranean cuisine.

Polenta provides a sunny yellow foundation for a variety of sauces. Here are two ways to prepare this creamy dish. Gayle and I prefer traditional cornmeal over "polenta" style cornmeal (simply means it has been ground finer). Gayle recently experimented with doing it in the crockpot and reports that it comes out perfectly, requires less of that naughty butter and cream and is more hands-off! Woo hoo!

Gayle is sharing her go-to fresh sauces with us also or you can use your favorite ready-made sauce. If you've got 'em, fresh basil leaves add a lovely touch of "green" for your platescape!

Basic Polenta
(Serves 3-4)

Bring 4 cups of water to a boil with ½ tsp. salt. SLOWLY whisk in 1 cup of corn meal. Turn heat down low enough that the polenta doesn’t pop.

Keep stirring and cook for about 10-15 minutes. You can do other things, just keep passing by and stirring. Polenta will become thick like Cream of Wheat.

Add 2 T butter, ¼ c Parmesan and 2 T cream (you can substitute sour cream or plain yogurt for the cream).

Serve warm with fresh Tomato and Basil Sauce or Porcini Mushroom Sauce.

Crockpot Method

4 cups boiling water

1 tsp salt
2 tsp butter
1 cup corn meal

Put everything in the crockpot and stir. Place lid on top and cook on high for 5 hours. Turn to low and cook as long as you want. Stir it occasionally as you walk by and think how yummy it will be. Add 1/4 parmesan before serving, if you like.

Fresh Tomato and Basil Sauce

2 or 3 T olive oil
2 large garlic cloves, minced
3 medium ripe tomatoes, cut up
¼ cup white wine
1/4 cup chicken broth
Optional: 2 T capers and/or 2 T pine nuts (add after tomatoes and wine have been cooked)
Lots of fresh black pepper
Salt to taste
2/3 cup torn basil leaves
grated parmesan cheese

Heat olive oil. Sauté the tomatoes and garlic in the oil for no more than 2 minutes. Add the wine, chicken broth, capers (optional), pine nuts (optional) and pepper and cook for another minute. Season with S & P to taste. Add the basil leaves just before serving and serve with cheese on top and a few decorative basil leaves.

Porcini Mushroom Sauce

½ cup dry porcini mushrooms

3T olive oil

1/8 of an onion, chopped (it’s about ½ cup)

6 cups sliced white mushrooms (or crimini or whatever you want)
1 clove garlic, minced
2T flour
Salt
Cream

 Soak ½ cup of porcinis in ½ C boiling water. Let them soak at least 30 minutes or longer (shorter if you are desperate).

Meanwhile sauté the onion just until it starts to get brown. Add the regular mushrooms and sauté a few minutes (keep turning them). Then add the garlic. The liquid should start coming out of the mushrooms by then.

Add ¼ tsp. salt and 2-tsp. flour. Add porcinis and their liquid and let cook 3 or 4 minutes. Add 3 or 4 T cream.

Cook on low for no more than 3 minutes. Serve over pasta or polenta.

As an Appetizer or a hot day meal:

Add sun-dried tomatoes, black olives, chopped green onions, red peppers, grated Parmesan cheese, fresh basil and/or oregano.
Line a spring form pan with plastic wrap and spoon polenta into pan. Refrigerate.

To serve: Flip onto a plate. Pull plastic wrap off and slice into wedges. Warm it, grill it or serve it at room temperature.

Introducing: Gourmet Gayle and the Breakfast Calzone

It's high time you met Gayle Tosello.

I have dubbed her Gourmet Gayle and she is a superhero in our family. She doesn't have a cape but she has a jar of capers...and she knows how to use them.

She doesn't have a time machine but she can whip up a wholesome and tantalizing dish faster than you can say "Buon Apetito!" Vivaciously she bounces from kitchen to dining room to sewing room, then out for a 5 mile walk, a swim or round of golf. Or all of the above.

Gourmet Gayle is living proof of the energy payoff of a mostly Mediterranean diet. In fact I'm convinced there is nothing she can't do. Except sit down.

Lucky me to have this polenta-making, biscotti-baking resource as mother-in-law and friend. I'm so excited to be able to share some of her fast and fabulous recipes with you here at the High Desert Home Companion. If I could bottle some of her enthusiasm I would share that also!

Gourmet Gayle prepares Breakfast Calzones with her granddaughter.

Gayle makes bread/pizza dough throughout the week; I think for her it's like brushing her teeth or putting on lipstick. But if that's too much fuss, which it is for me sometimes, use refrigerated pizza dough. This is a good candidate for "Breakfast For Dinner" nights. It is so simple but will impress your family (let them think you slaved):

Breakfast Calzones

Cook scrambled eggs (1-2 per serving).

Saute some veggies in olive oil: onion, mushrooms, zucchini, asparagus, tomatoes, spinach...whatever is in season or needs to be used up. Season with salt and pepper.

On floured board, roll out the dough into circles (about 6").
Layer eggs, veggies and top with cheese (Trader Joe's 4 Cheeses is great).

Fold over, pinch edges together and brush with egg. Then bake about 25 minutes at 400.