Pasta and Bread

I've been in sort of a cooking funk recently, but two of my friends were coming over tonight and I knew I needed to come up with something.  I don't typically do pasta dishes for guests, but like I said, cooking funk, so I made Mark Bittman's multi-grain pasta with butternut squash and ground lamb.

The recipe calls for packaged cubed butternut squash, which baffles me for a lot of reasons.  Can't someone just do some of the tedious prep work the night before instead of wasting money?  Cripes.  Order take out or cook for real.  Anyway, I didn't take any pictures, but my friend Chris did so maybe I will post those another time.  The dish was pretty delicious and hearty, and the flavors were described as "subtle."  I could tell with Adam's first bite he was wishing it was covered in a heap of tomato sauce.  This is not that kind of pasta dish - how could it be with cinnamon and cumin?

I served it with some homemade bread from the Master Recipe from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, which is a recent addition to my culinary library.

After Meredith asked me to start blogging here, I realized I liked writing about food a lot and started my own blog called The Pineapple Spoon Rest.  I recently wrote a very brief entry about the sham that is bread in five minutes a day. After baking and eating mini-boules three nights in a row, I can say it's delicious, but five minutes?  PLEASE. I read the introduction for the book after I got in the mail, and already forgot what it said (oops), so maybe it described what they actually meant by five minutes (the ease in having fresh bread once you make the initial recipe and can lob off chunks of dough while you're prepping the real dinner), but I don't get how twenty minutes of preheating/dough resting and half an hour of baking equal five minutes.  They should rename the book Easy Artisan Bread and call it a day, and then I would be a lot less agitated.

recipe minimalism

I made my own tomato sauce. I hate tomatoes. I respect tomato sauce conceptually, but have only met one or two versions that didn't make me gag or at least where I could hold off picking around for the first few bites. As I've gotten older, I've grown out of my childhood preference for perfectly smooth sauces that are basically watered down tomato paste, which don't cut it texture-wise, though they do have the advantage of not having any offensive tomato pieces or skins.
I decided now that I don't have 20398542 things to do every second of every day, I could try to tackle this thing in a responsible way. Basically, I made my own sauce and it was pretty great. The end.

Part of the reason for this sauce story is that when I was puttering around the house running this entry in my head, it occurred to me that, much is the style here generally, transmitting a recipe on a blog for people who already know how to cook doesn't require much more than a list of ingredients and cooking method. Variation is inevitable whether ther is a proper recipe or not, but personally, I end up changing it anyway (unless it's dessert/baking). Sooooo, I was flipping through this guy recently:

The recipes are paragraphs outlining what's in the dish and anything notable about the process. For people who are into cooking and reading about cooking in this way, check out this and everything else that Mark Bittman ever does. I remember reading in one of his "101" recipes collections a "recipe" that was something like "take x and wrap it in bacon."

America's Test Kitchen FTW

America's Test Kitchen, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways. You help me make the winningest risotto cakes on Earth. We at the Maxwell (my new apartment) have been struck with a terrible conundrum. We all love to cook as much as possible. Almost as much as we love interesting beers. Why do these two facts cause a problem? Because we can't fit shit in our fridge. The fridge is constantly overflowing with exotic beers, fresh ingredients, and tupperwares stuffed to the brim with wonderful leftover goodies. Luckily for me, while flipping through my favorite cookbook (supplied by Diane and Larry), I discovered a wonderful recipe for risotto cakes. Just my luck, Jenn had just made a killer risotto earlier that week. I took the opportunity to pounce on that tupperware like a crackhead on a dollar. Using my recently honed onigiri (japanese rice balls) making skills, I molded the risotto and stuffed them with provolone cheese. I then dipped them in beaten egg (which I had intended but forgotten to lace with paprika as per Kyle) and then rolled them in bread crumbs which I had mixed up with cracked pepper. I tossed them in some heated oil to deep fry untill golden and then baked them a little after draining excess oil.Here's a picture of all the happy little bastards sitting on the plate together before the first cut. I was thinking about squirting some lemon juice on them but maybe next time. This time I was too damn hungry. Jenn and I cut right in and enjoyed ourselves a wonderful snack. As the cookbook said, after making these badboys, you will forever be making extra risotto just in hopes of leftovers. We at the Maxwell wholeheartedly agree.

vegetarians know how to make crap taste delicious

i've lately been reading this book to enhance my culinary knowledge. lettin' it slap me around a little for my ignorance, you know. like the other day, i was reading about grains. this book has chapters on grains i've never even heard of! frickin quinoa (pronounced keen-wah or something), rye-berries... oh man. it was like walking into Whole Foods for the first time.

So, obviously, i decided to break some of it out. i've been looking for some foods that i can make and freeze, and also eat cold - the kinds of foods i could theoretically take out of the freezer and put in my car and that would be delicious around lunch time. i spend a lot of my time at construction sites and such, and there's not really a whole lot of kitchen areas at places like that, and frankly i'm sick of all fast foods. even wawa (sacraligious, i know). So. Also, i found a large amount of barly in my cupboard! wooo barley! i love some beef and barley soup - so good. but i digress.

I decided to make a modified version of a summer salad i found in the Book. (yes, i'm capitalizing it - this Book is just THAT GOOD. A TOME OF KNOWLEDGE)

1 cup barley - cooked
1 cup peas - shocked (now, for those of you who are as un-savvy as i am and dont/didnt know what that means, it means dump those peas in some boiling water for like 30 seconds, and then strain em out and dump them in ice water! delicious! no over cooking! and they dont get mushy!)
some lemon juice
some pepper
some olive oil
some herbs from the garden

now the recipe originally called for cucumbers instead of peas, and also threw some yogurt all over the everything once you were ready to serve. i'm not that kind of gal.

you take your barley and toss it with 2 tbsp of EVOO (just like rachel ray says it), some pepper. i used one of those garlic-pepper grinders and i dont regret it one bit. take the peas out of the ice water and shake some salt on em and let them sit for about 5. then throw them in the barley (taste first, if they're too salty, rinse them off prior to tossing). squeeze some lemons all over that mother, and then go out in the garden and get some mint or basil or lemon thyme or golden oregono, or all of the above and dice it all and throw it in the salad. (ed. note - the original recipe calls for basil only. i took some liberties)

take it all, toss it, and then fork it into your hungry, gaping mouth. mmmm. so good. so damned good.



oh, and just a quick post script: to get the most out of your lemons, some people will say to roll them on the counter. this is for suckers. take those little lemons (or limes, or any other citrus fruit that you might want to suck the juice from) and stick em in the microwave for about 15 seconds each. be careful, you want them warm to the touch but not hot - if they get hot, run them under cold water for a minute or so. then cut in half and shield your eyes! these guys will be the juciest fruits you've ever tried to squeeze! the theory is that the microwave makes the juice in each little juice sack boil just enough so that the sacks all burst. this bursting of sacks is essentially what you'd be doing if you rolled the fruit, but our good friend the microwave does a much more thorough and quicker job than my silly hands.

Are you cooking with dog?

http://www.youtube.com/user/cookingwithdog


ok after you're done being amazed watch one of them only paying attention to the dog.

Math and cooking