Category Archives: cooking

Mmm, rabbits. That sounds delicious.
I’m out of time before I’ve started but the good news is: slept from 8:30pm to 5:30am. I feel human again. I’m also loving the sunshine. I don’t even have the light on in my office.

Today’s Foodday includes a recipe for Welsh Rarebit. The NYT had a WR recipe awhile back that I had cut out and finally tried this weekend. The recipes are similar except the NYT has twice as much cheese. Glad I found that one first.

The basic recipe is that you get a hunk of cheese about the size of your head and melt it with butter, seasonings and a tasty beer (not like Coors Lite). You let it cool and thicken and bit and then spread it on toast and put it under the broiler. It’s just as fantastic as it sounds.

How Euphemism Ruined Discussion of the Tossed Salad

I didn’t eat very much yesterday so I’m starving this morning.

I just read FoodDay and thought every recipe needed to be clipped and tried as soon as possible. Sort of like going to the grocery store hungry.

The feature article highlights three people who donate time cooking for fundraisers. There’s a gumbo lady, a cabbage roll guy and a loukoumades (honey dipped donut hole) lady. I don’t like frying and neither does my digestive system so the donuts are out, but the other recipes are a must try. I don’t like beef or pork very much either so my cabbage rolls will have ground turkey. I bet if that guy knew I was even considering this substitution he’d come to my house and confiscate my cabbage.

As I was reading the article I was thinking of how great it would be to learn to make different kinds of foods standing elbow to elbow with people who’ve been making them for years after learning from their parents. Then I thought about how many of such opportunities I’ve squandered because I was too busy visiting in the other room.

There’s another article on salad dressings. This is another type of recipe that I always clip and hardly ever use. I’m not fond of creamy dressings. I hate bottled dressings for any reason except convenience. I have a standard vinaigrette that I make with slight variations.

I’ve developed a genius salad making technique over the past year. We get huge bags of fresh greens from a local farmer so we have salad almost every day. I make a two serving salad in a shallow bowl and use designer salt and a couple twirls of designer pepper. I throw on a variety of other chopped vegetables and depending on my ambition level, add crumbled cheese, toasted nuts, maybe some dried fruit and possibly some other random leftover that might fit in. Then I drizzle on the dressing and toss until the leaves are coated. Then it goes into serving bowls and onto the table.

Have you ever run into these annoying people who spent a semester in France and can’t stop telling you how brilliant France is because they eat the salad after the entree? Oh, so great, just because it’s France. What if the U.S. served the salad last and France served it first. Would that be the better way? What if Tunisia served the salad last? Would anyone talk about how awesome Tunisia is? I like the salad with the meal.

What I think is wrong is when you’re served a salad heaped in a dinky bowl with a little side serving of separated vinaigrette that you’re supposed to add. No wonder people don’t eat more vegetables.

I have an epic post for this weekend but I didn’t get to it yet. I spent all day working on my final project for Illustrator. I’m slow and not especially artistic and having a hard time.

Meanwhile, the non-traditional Thanksgiving dinner went fantastic.

I ran into trouble with the pasta maker because the person who designed it had a limited idea of how thick a kitchen counter might be, as if we had kitchen counters/tables/whatever made out of a sheet of plywood. I couldn’t clamp it down. For the first rounds of flattening it didn’t matter but as I got to the last couple of levels I needed more muscle and I couldn’t hold the pasta maker down, crank the handle and manage the pasta at the same time so it got all gummed up which lead to me opening the dinner wine a couple hours early. I ended up finishing it with a rolling pin which required a lot of brute strength, it’s not like rolling cookie dough. The strands were all different shapes and some with rough edges but turned out fine when it was cooked. It was excellent pasta but I’m not sure worth that much extra work.

Now that I’ve done it once I think I can make it easier next time. I’m going to try at least once more before I give up on homemade pasta.

The linguine turned out excellent. I sauteed Prosciutto with leeks and garlic and then added some cheapo white wine and chucked my very thoroughly scrubbed clams in there. I had clam paranoia so they were sparkling by the time I got through with them. The recipe called for cherry tomatoes which are out of season and I don’t like to cook with them anyway. I used a half a jar of sun-dried which was a good call. The cooked noodles get added last and after letting it all mingle together for a few minutes, it gets heaped on warmed plates and sprinkled with parsley and toasted pine nuts. Excellent.

The bread didn’t rise into a pretty dome but tasted great and the roasted potato and spinach salad had a nice zing from the dressing, a fairly generic vinaigrette with tons of shallots. I ate leftover salad for lunch today.

The brulee turned out creamy delicious but the torch was a little scary. It doesn’t come with many pictures but tons of directions with millions of danger disclaimers so I was afraid I’d blow up myself and/or the house. Filling it with the butane is also scary and I had some dripping down my arm which I then washed for 20 minutes so as not to accidentally ignite it.

The directions weren’t clear on how much sugar to put on so I used a lot and the torch is like a extra-hot hair dryer and blew the sugar around which I didn’t expect. Also the sugar didn’t slowly burble, it melted and pooled into a brown mass. At that point I figured it was done. It tasted fantastic.

Priscila brought crab and shrimp and crudités so we did end up with way too much food. But we’ve got all weekend to eat it.

I do not do crowds if I don’t have to. I don’t wait in long lines. I’d skip my own funeral if it took more than 5 minutes to find a parking place.

I took today off partly to get started on my final project for my Illustrator class, partly to do some day-before cooking projects and partly to avoid the evening commute. Between the weather and the holiday traffic, it will no doubt be a long, slow haul.

Bob had to work late last night so I made plans for some dinner and drinks with a friend downtown and then I wanted to stop at the New Seasons on Interstate on my way home. All the upscale-natural type food stores near our house have moved across town or closed so as part of my holiday weekend planning strategy, I thought this stop would make my life easier. HA HA

I won’t bore you with the details but I’ve never been there before and almost never drive to that part of town so I got completely lost and it was dark and raining and my windows all foggy so pretty much optimal driving conditions. When I finally found it there was a line to get into the parking lot.

I optimistically inched along and then joined the dozen SUVs that circled the world’s smallest parking lot, in the rain, dodging customers, can’t see for crap. Who builds a market with 20 parking spaces?

The earlier D&D at least kept me sedated so I exited the micro-park as soon as I possibly could, who knows how long and how violent it would get for parking and the area is not set up for street parking. Then got lost finding my way back home again. That aspect of the plan failed on all levels.

This morning I got going early and did the shopping and finally got a much needed haircut. Now I’m not in the mood for Illustrator or cooking and I’m tempted to say, aw screw it and panic about it later.

I read over my recipes and then decide.

Start with a your favorite large coffee mug and fill it with milk.

Pour the milk into a blender and add a heaping tablespoon of cocoa. I recommend Penzey’s Dutch Process. Hershey’s also works. Unsweetened is ideal because then you can sweeten to taste.

Next, add any or all of the following to the blender:
Pinch salt
Pinch Cayenne
Tiny splash of vanilla (careful on this because too much wrecks it)
Sugar. The cocoa is much tastier if it’s not too sweet so don’t be afraid to be stingy with the sugar.

Next, put the top on the blender, hold it down just to be safe, and hit any button. The speed isn’t important. Once you’re sure the lid is secure, you can step away from the blender and let it do its thing while you find a pan to heat your chocolatey treat.

When your cocoa is sufficiently frothy (use your judgment) turn off the blender and pour the mix into your pan. Heat at a low temperature and don’t go into the other room to check your email and forget about it. Most people would prefer if it didn’t boil. I like to stir with a whisk.

It’s ready when you stick your finger in the mix and go, “ack, that’s hot.” Pour into your mug.

At this point you can add mini-marshmallows, a quick shaving of chocolate, a splash of adult beverage or anything else you think might be good. I know some people who like to add a tablespoon of flax seeds to the mix. I can see why this might be hard to sell to the public-at-large but you never know, try it.

Since you’ve spend this much time and gotten this many dishes dirty, you need to take the time to enjoy this cocoa. Sit down by the window and watch the wind and rain. Pull your sweater a little more tightly around your shoulders. Enjoy.

One of this weekend’s projects is figuring out what I’m going to make for Thanksgiving.

We’re a very small crowd (3) and I decided months ago that I didn’t want to make turkey. I was sure that as the holiday got closer I would change my mind but I haven’t. I’m not sure what this is all about because I love the traditional Thanksgiving dinner but I don’t want to do it.

Part of me says it’s the work. But the things I’m thinking of making would also be lots of work.

Anyway, I need to go through my giant recipe files and books with marked pages and figure out what it’s going to be.

At the moment I’m thinking handmade pasta because I’ve always wanted to do that. I recently ran across a recipe for pasta with pancetta and something else. I can’t remember exactly but it sounded like it would be good.

Yesterday’s New York Times had a fantastic looking bread recipe that I think I might try. Bob and I have been talking about making a bean store run so I could grab some special flour along with all my other treats.

I’d need some sort of vegetable side. I need to do some homework on that one. And dessert.

As my regular readers know, I’m all about all things pumpkin and I have a bushel sitting on my counter just longing to fulfill their life purpose to be baked into a pie. BUT Cooks Illustrated just had a Pots de Crème recipe that was very tempting. And I’ve been dying to try Crème Brûlée. I have a Kitchen Kaboodle gift certificate burning (heh heh) a hole in my pocket. Could a home kitchen blow torch be far behind?

When I was at Jenny’s this summer, one of the many things we talked about was cooking and recipes. Jenny said one of the things she always had in her freezer was puff pastry.

What is this puff pastry thing?

She said it was handy when you had to make something to bring to a party.

Fast forward to Thursday night when Bob and I were putting our groceries into the trunk after a wild evening of food gathering at Safeway and as he closed the trunk he said: I didn’t get anything for Joe’s party. (Annual Day of the Dead Party – super fun time. They make this punch that’s sort of like hot apple cider only with tequila in it. Two drink limit recommended.)

Bringing party food has morphed into an awkward issue at our house, mostly because of bad communication. No one wants to hear on Friday morning when there’s a party that evening, that someone assumed you were going to make something to bring. No one wants to come in the door on Thursday night after working all day and then sitting in traffic and then be standing there violently yanking the cork out of a $5 red wine blend from Trader Joes and be asked if she’s planning on bringing something to a party the next day.

Can you blame a person for a head that swivels 360 degrees while flames shoot out of her eyes?

So often, rather than tempt the wrath of the dragon lady, someone else deals with party food by stopping at Safeway on his way to the outing and picking up one of their pre-made convenient party foods. This leaves the other someone feeling less put upon but somewhat embarrassed about the lameness of the party offering.

So when the topic came up on Thursday, I thought: Hey, this may be the time to try that puff pastry thing. But first, I needed to do some research.

On Friday, in computer lab, I plugged: puff pastry, appetizer and recipe into a search engine and what did I find?

puffpastry.com. Is this a great country or what?

After a quick scan of a few recipes, I learned that puff pastry is a Pepperidge Farm product that you thaw on the counter and then unfold and spread with a mix of several high-fat items, roll up, slice and bake for a delicious treat. The high-fat items can be mixed with high sugar items as well or folded into different shapes depending on the effect you’re going for.

I chose the Artichoke and Spinach swirls because everybody loves artichoke and spinach dip. How could baking it into a crust not make a million times better?

It did. Bob loved it and the pan emptied right out. And this was a party with tons of fantastic food. Puff Pastry gets 10 stars.

Last night was grocery shopping night and we were both running late. Bob had a meeting and I was going to pick him up at school so we could go forage for food together.

But there was a stall on I5 and only one lane could get by, so it took me an hour to get home and by then Bob had walked 9/10ths of the way home so we didn’t hit the store until after 7pm.

We forgot the list. We were tired, hungry and just trying to get it over with. The whole thing was not optimal for effective grocery procurement. (The next day we were laughing because other than buying batteries and “lots of juice” we didn’t get anything useful.)

As we finished up, tossing a few onions into the cart, we tried to figure out what would be dinner. We didn’t want to do any work. We both sidestepped over to that heat table thing with the bright lights and sweating roast chickens in plastic bags. We shrugged at each other as if to says, ‘Sure, if YOU want to.’ We stuck one in our cart.

When we got home we put leftover microwaved rice on a plate, tore off chicken meat and poured on some juice from the bottom of the bag. We hoovered it, looking at each other as if ashamed to admit it. “This is good.”

Tonight I picked the rest of the meat off the chicken of shame and made a peanut sauce and some udon noodles that I’ve had in the cupboard for ages and finally used. The instructions are as follows (edited very slightly for length.)

1. Loosen Udon and put it in an ample boiling water. Boil for about 20 minutes (do not steam it for the food served in the pot).
2. If steam for about 10 minutes over a weak fire by keeping the lid covered, gentle and nice Udon is ready. You may enjoy the great variety of dishes according to your preference, for example.

We did.