Burlingame | Caliblini Personal Chef's Blog

Last winter day’s menu

By polina, on March 1st, 2013%

Today’s menu was mostly client-requested comfort foods, with a few of my seasonal favorites thrown in.

Chicken soup with mushrooms and brown rice

Hake, creamy mushroom sauce
Farro risotto

Tuna and noodles casserole
Spinach salad with oranges and walnuts

Lemon and herb roasted chicken
Baby root vegetables bagna cauda

Beef and beer stew
Herbed smashed potatoes

I used a Weiss bier for the stew this time. The aroma was unbelievable.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Burlingame, CA

Using kitchen technology, today’s menu

By polina, on March 29th, 2012%

My Burlingame clients love a good kitchen gadget even more then I, and I get to play with their gadgets on a regular basis.

Besides the Tec super grill that I use in summer to prepare whole menus, they have a bread machine and a VitaMix blender. And of course they have a microwave oven, that most people use just to reheat food, but in fact it’s an excellent tool for steaming small amounts of vegetables too.

Today’s menu was prepared with extensive use of their kitchen technology.

The menu:

Soup
Borscht; whole wheat piroshki with mushrooms

Main
Garlic shrimps
Quinoa pasta with chicken, mushrooms, and vegetables
Pork tenderloin roast
Beef stir-fry with spring vegetables

Sides
Roasted beets
Sautéed greens
Broccoli salad with cranberries and hazelnuts
Brown rice with garlic and herbs

Borscht is a delicious, but very labor-intensive soup, and using VitaMix to prep the ingredients cuts the manual work by 50 %.

The bread machine kneads and raises the whole-wheat dough for the piroshkis, while the blender chops the mushrooms, garlic, and onions for the filling.

I blanch broccoli, green beans, asparagus, and other green vegetables in the microwave to make them soft without losing their vibrant green color before adding them to the stir-fry, pasta sauce, etc.

Recipes to follow.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Burlingame, CA

Today’s menu

By polina, on March 7th, 2012%

Since I got my own VitaMix blender, I’ve been playing with it every spare minute, learning new techniques.

Today’s clients have a VitaMix blender too, so a big part of their menu was made in the blender:
Soup
Cream of asparagus
Salad
Cabbage and carrot slaw
Main
Salmon with gremolata
Chicken roasted with olives, sweet onions, and lemon
Beef pot roast
Meatballs, sage and onion gravy
Sides
Roasted asparagus
Smashed potatoes with garlic and herbs
Buckwheat pancakes
Cabbage with bacon and caraway

Zucchini puree for the baby

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Burlingame, CA

Today’s menu, with pictures

By polina, on February 16th, 2012%

Soup
Lentil soup

Salad
Fennel and orange salad

Main
Sautéed Chilean sea bass, yogurt sauce
Turkey and pumpkin chili
Coq au vin
Lamb chops with figs and rosemary

Sides
Cauliflower gratin
Baked mixed winter vegetables
Quinoa with mushrooms
Sautéed sweet potatoes

And from yesterday, the result of my day’s labor, a finished 4×6 menu, individually packaged, with calorie counts:

I have to apologize for the quality of the photos – they were taken by my iPhone, in a mix of natural and artificial light, while preparing all these dishes at the same time (hands permanently wet, something is threatening to burn), and trying to keep out of the way of the housecleaners; then quickly processed with Photoshop Express on my iPad while recovering from a busy day in the kitchen with a glass of wine on the sofa
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Burlingame, CA

Today’s menu

By polina, on July 20th, 2011%

Soup
Summer minestrone

Salad
Caprece

Main
Wild salmon with lemon and thyme
Chicken Marsala
Pork loin with peaches
Meatballs in sage-tomato sauce

Sides
Quinoa with lemon and zucchini
Sautéed bell peppers
Ratatouille
Corn ragout with peppers and spinach

All summer fruits and vegetables are at their best right now: heirloom tomatoes, eggplant, summer squashes, bell peppers. Cherries and strawberries are still available, peaches, apricots and figs are in. Corn is wonderfully sweet and tender. Alaskan sockeye salmon season is going strong, the salmon is everywhere, and at very good prices.

I love summer!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Burlingame, CA

What I love about being a personal chef #1: Clients enjoy the food!

By polina, on May 13th, 2011%

S., my long-time friend and client from Burlingame, wrote me this wonderful heartwarming review:

Polina’s cooking for us has changed our life style in three important ways.First, the food is outstandingly tasty, stylish, and diverse. This creates quite exquisite feeling of a food fest that continues every day.

Second, my wife and I got much more free time because cooking time, shopping time, or time to pick up food from a restaurant has been simply returned to us and we can spend more time with each other and our family.

Third, healthy and diverse food with no artificial sugar and no refined flour helped me to stay fitter than I have ever been last 10 years.

This is what keeps the personal chefs going: in our profession, we are able to make people happy and help them stay healthy, and we get to see the results every day!

This week’s menu for S. and his family:

SOUP
Summer vegetable soup

SALAD
Baby greens with orange and walnuts

MAIN
King salmon with white wine sauce
Chicken with tomatoes and portabello mushrooms (Marengo)
Moroccan braised lamb with eggplant
Meatballs in tomato sauce

SIDES
Roasted new potatoes
Sweet potato and carrot puree
Pea and green bean ragout
Brown rice pilaf with spring vegetables

Cooking in Burlingame

By polina, on February 25th, 2011%

MENU

Soup:

            Beets with white beans

Salad:

            Beet salad with grapefruit and romaine

Entrees:

           Garlic and lemon shrimp

            Bison meatballs with sage tomato sauce

            Cuban style brisket (ropa vieja)

            Lamb chops with goat cheese sauce

Sides:

            Sweet potato and carrot puree

            Buckwheat kasha

            Brussels sprouts with lemon and garlic

            Prosciutto wrapped asparagus

Bison meatballs

The majority of recipes in this service are adapted from Whole Foods website. I access them through their iPad application, and I am very happy with both the easy to use application and the variety of healthy recipes that are easy to fine-tune to particular clients requirements. The meatballs are made with packaged groung bison meat, seasoned with soy and worcestershire sauces, eggs and Panko breadcrumbs, browned in olive oil, then simmered in tomato sauce made with fresh sage, white wine, and red pepper flakes

The kasha recipe is my own. I brought it with me from Russia many years ago, then adapted it to California ingredients. The secret here is to use buckwheat imported from Russia or Poland, that can be found in Eastern-European grocery stores – it is less processed that the supermarket brands, so the grains stay whole and hold their texture well during cooking. I saute thinly sliced onions and shitake mushrooms in half olive oil and half butter, add rinsed buckwheat and two cups of water for each cup of buckwheat, season with sea salt, bring to a boil, cover, and simmer over low heat until kasha is cooked, 20-25 minutes.

Ropa vieja

The “Cuban” brisket recipe from Whole Foods doesn’t sound very authentic, but my clients love it anyway. It works even for the client who cannot stand onions and celery: there is enough flavor from the spices, raisins, and olives. The balance of sweet, salty, and spicy is perfect.

First day of winter menu for my Burlingame clients

By polina, on December 2nd, 2010%

It’s officially winter here: the days are short and cold, the Angel Island ferry doesn’t run on weekdays anymore, the Brussels sprouts are in and the tomatoes are out, the persimmons are big and the apples are almost gone, the ski season has started, I spend more of my free time in front of the fireplace than out in the garden, and it’s the 1st of December.

My clients in Burlingame don’t have any dietary restrictions – they would eat anything as long as it’s tasty, fresh, locally grown and organic, and they usually trust me to select a menu for them. So this menu is what I came up with for this first day of winter.

I was hesitating between stuffed bell peppers and more winter-like (and more Eastern Europe, where both I and the clients are from) stuffed cabbage leaves. Then I realized that we have a long winter of cabbages ahead of us, but the bell peppers will be gone any day now, and went for the peppers. The ones that I got this morning at the farmers market were huge and beautiful, and I stuffed them with a mixture of cooked brown rice, ground grass fed beef from Whole Foods, and sauteed onions and carrots, seasoned just with salt and pepper, and cooked them in chicken broth low and slow until tender and cooked through, about 2 hours.

On short and cold days like this, a mushroom soup is required. Mine is made with leeks, carrots, onions, fresh white and dried porcini mushrooms (soaked in hot water to rehydrate), chicken stock and filtered mushroom soaking liquid, and a handful of organic barley, and served with creme fraiche.

Here is today’s menu:

Soup:

Chunky mushroom soup

Salad:

Baby greens with fennel and pomegranate

Entrees:

Prosciutto wrapped shrimps

Stuffed peppers

Duck legs braised with red wine

Sides:

Orange-glazed carrots

Green rice (brown rice with spinach)

Steamed Brussels sprouts