The heat is on

It was over 30 degrees today (For you Americans, that’s like 100 and something), so I had convinced myself that I would just assemble some salads for dinner.  At most, I would get a piece of fish or slice up some chicken to go alongside them.

But as always, I got caught up in the excitement of creating something, with the possibility of it being memorable and/or fabulous, so by the time I had reached the grocery store, I was a quivering hot mess of enthusiasm.

Here’s what I decided on:

Crudites of carrots, yellow pepper, celery, including cucumber spears drizzled with lime juice and sprinkled with chili peppers

Arugula salad with warm, sauteed wild mushrooms

Fresh salmon with pasta and peas in a homemade, dill cream sauce

Broiled prosciutto-wrapped asparagus

It was pretty fantastic, though next time when I’m making the cream sauce, I’ll add a little stock to thin it out.  Somehow though, the pasta took to it extremely well.

As did my fella.

I considered making a dessert too, but I’m not quite there yet – still haven’t got back my fingerprints yet from the forever-to-be-known-as “chocolate incident.”

There’s mango gelato in the freezer if the boy gets a hankering…

Balls!

So excited to be cooking again last night, I went for a walk to think through what I’d make.

Do you ever get so wrapped up in something that you can’t see your way out?  I was all over the place – minestrone soup, empanadas, homemade pizza, baked trout, keftas over quinoa salad.  I had looked through some cookbooks before heading out to get some ideas, but went to some fine food stores for further inspiration.

Thinking about how much fresh food I had in the fridge, I bought only an apple to eat on my way back, some sesame flatbreads to snack on throughout the week, some muffins for my fella and some pasta for either pasta salad (in case I just made a bunch of cold salads – it was almost too hot to cook) or to keep on hand for a baked pasta dish I had yet to try.

Since I had many of the ingredients on hand, I came back and decided to make Southern Sausage Stew from Jamie’s America, Jamie Oliver’s latest cookbook.

I loved Jamie when he was first starting out – his take on everything was so invigorating and refreshing.  But these last few cookbooks, I’ve found little to get excited about.  This stew sounded good though.

But after looking at it closely, I decided that some of my own additions would make it even better.

Instead of green and red peppers, I used yellow and purple carrots and I added in a Chinese eggplant, portobello mushrooms, black beans, leftover kale from the night before, along with the ingredients and spices he listed.

I have to say it turned out beautifully.

My dessert however, did not.

Having worked on this dessert for two night and many stages, I can’t believe that the part I couldn’t do was melting the chocolate.

As you know, I do not bake, so anytime anything calls for chocolate, I get nervous.  I mean, I barely eat it to begin with, so handling it doesn’t inspire confidence in me like working with any savory ingredient.

I was making surprise Cake Balls for my fella.  I had made an orange cake and left it in the fridge overnight so that it would be cold enough to form into big meatball size balls.

Done.  B-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l.

I simmered water in a pan and melted really good chocolate over it.

Good.

Now all I had to do was dip the balls into the chocolate and cover them, put them on wax paper and set back into the fridge to chill.

My sexy beau would be having delicious orange delights in just about an hour or two.

Except that the chocolate was so thick it didn’t really cover the ball, but swathed thickly around it, pulling it down into the chocolate.

F————————————–!

Then, I did the worst thing I could possible do – I added a little water to try and thin it out.

I don’t know these things.  I’ve baked about 10 times out of my life, so I didn’t realize this would create an immovable fudge!

I tried adding a little milk to further thin it.  Now I had a Dairy Queen Blizzard on my hands.

So I tried to save it by putting it in the microwave to melt it at least enough that I could hand form it around the balls.

Three fingers on my right hand have chocolate second degree burns and my wonderful little Cake Balls that I wanted to surprise the love of my life with now look like Tim Bits with sad melted fudge chunks on the top.

I was feeling really cocky earlier in the evening, because I thought my version of the stew was more Southern and creative than Jamie’s.

He must have heard me.

I think it will be awhile before I get the confidence to bake again (and I didn’t have any to begin with, so now I’m starting at like negative 10 or something).

Great.  And I just ordered 10 new baking books from the library…

Food, glorious food

I finally made it back to the stove.

After a long day of walking the city, I came back to my hood to do a big grocery shop.

Ahh, so nice to have fresh goodies in the house!  But before putting them away, I cleaned out the fridge – ooh, there’s that lovely chicken chili I made last week and the pesto pasta that I thought we finished…

Then I put everything away.  With one small cupboard and one small fridge, this always means that I have to take out the majority of the items before I can make room for everything.

Really, it’s a whole thing.

Two hours after I had come through the door, everything is finally put away and the kitchen looks pristine.

It’s now time to make dinner.  I pull everything out and start the assembly.

My menu for tonight is:

- Roast skinless, boneless chicken breasts stuffed with wild leeks, fresh basil and lemons.

- Boiled new potatoes with olive oil and fresh dill

- Organic kale with garlic and horseradish

- Chopped salad of romaine, yellow peppers, endive and radish

I was tempted to do a big soup as well, but all that chopping and cooking took another hour or so, and I had started on a dessert (yes, I’m trying to learn to bake) that is going to take a couple of days, because you have to let things cool in the fridge in various stages. So despite how tired I was from the whole process, I was very close to just cooking all night.

However, I remembered that there is still tomorrow and Monday is a holiday here, so I may take a couple of hours in the afternoon to do something slow-cooked.

It is so good to be home, cooking again.  I am like an actor who just found out she got the part.

Tonight’s audition: finish the 3-part dessert (it’s a surprise), homemade soup (I think something minestrone-esque) and something from the new Jamie’s America cookbook.

Longing

Although I haven’t eaten out every night for the past 2 weeks, it sure feels that way.

Between book club meetings at restaurants, my fella’s birthday dinner out, dinner at a new diner with my Mom, I’ve been out a lot.  A ton.  More than I’d like to, but that’s what happens sometimes – no matter how carefully I plan my schedule, there is always a week or two where everything smushes up against one another, leaving me craving to cook at the stove like many women leap outta their bodies for a piece of chocolate.  Then when I was home, I made simple food: soups, salads and pasta.  Quick things I could do in between writing, editing and the various events that have made the last couple of weeks a frenzy.

Last night at dinner with lovely colleagues of my fella, the restaurant “reflected the seasons and regional Pugliese cooking.”  Over neatly procured appetizers and handmade pasta, we talked about restaurants, cooking, barbecuing and of course, work.

What got me is that while our evening was filled with fun and laughter, I felt like the food didn’t live up to the hype.  This restaurant, after all, was supposed to be the “real deal” but actually it was just boring  fare that you could make at home.  You absolutely could.

When we got home, I poured over cooking magazines and some new  recipes I had collected and I so wanted to stay up, cooking my little heart out.

Instead, I went to bed like the responsible adult I am and will try and patiently wait until I can be at the stove again.  At this point, it’s looking like Saturday might be the first chance I get.

In the meantime, I am going to dream and swoon and think about all that I am going to make once I get the few precious hours I need.

I can’t wait.

Worth the wait

Last night’s food book club discussion was held at a sweet little French restaurant that was like being at a little cottage in Provence.

The long white table was lit by candles in towering silver holders.  The room was filled with smart folks and raucous laughter.  The menu was a long list of French classics, that made it hard to choose.  Selected dishes included Sea Bream, Choucroute Garnie, Calf’s Liver and Onions, but almost everyone couldn’t resist the Cassoulet.

I have written about Cassoulet again and again because it is such a comforting dish.  It is love in a bowl, I think.

Carmen took a picture of hers last night, though you can’t smell its richness or see the heft of the cast iron skillet.

Now I want to make it again, having seen how people were completely transformed by it last night.

And really, it is still cool enough here to have such a hearty winter dish.  Our heat is still clicking on at night and yesterday I went right back to wearing boots and a scarf.

Will you send me your cassoulet recipe or what you do to yours to make it your own?

I’ll post the recipe I end up using.

But it will have to wait as I’ve got a restaurant review  tonight and birthday gifts to buy for the love of my life.

It will be worth the wait.

Surprises abound

What I love about cooking is that you don’t always get it right.

But sometimes you absolutely do.

That beef curry was fanfreakintastic.  Best beef dish I’ve made in years.  YEARS.

I learned two vital things that night:

1.  My method of cooking stewing beef for only an hour and a half is why my stews are never memorable.

2.  Cooking Light Magazine has a piece a couple of months ago about The 25 Most Common Cooking Mistakes that offered a lot of advice I already knew but one that really stuck out – You don’t know your oven’s quirks and idiosyncrasies.

See, a couple of months ago, my sexy fella and I were making dinner together (something that doesn’t happen very often because we both cook very differently and because there’s not a heckuva lot of room to move around one another).  We were making Korean pancakes – MMM! – and I was pouring them into the pan while he flipped them (you’ve got to be quick with those l’il ones) and we noticed that they would slowly cook on 7 but once we upped the element to 8, they started to burn.

We had noticed inconsistencies separately before but not thought much of them – ’til now.

Which I confirmed when I made Beef Vindaloo Curry this past Friday night.

Wanting to brown the beef before adding the other ingredients (did you know that Jamie Oliver no longer believes/does this?  Gasp), I started it on 8 to get a nice seared side, but before I knew it they were blackening.  Oh no, I’ve got like 8 veggies and 5 other ingredients yet to add!  It can’t be ruined already!

I managed to save them by quickly turning the range down, and then up.  Down and then up again, until all the beef was done.

I thought that ordeal was over as I set everything to a low simmer.

Hmmm.  When I turned the dial down to 3 – nothing.  It wasn’t until I brought it back up to 6 that it started bubbling.  So back down to 3 it went.  I left it to stew, literally, while I went back to my desk to do work.

I heard this weird popping noise.  Now, sometimes Cosmo likes to clean between his toes and makes this awesome crunching sound, but he was sound asleep just a few feet away at the end of the bed.

I went out to the kitchen and the stew was bubbling away like it was on 6 or 7.  So I turned it down to 2.  15 minutes later, nothing.

It went on like this for the 2 1/2 hours that it was on the stove.

Our stove is not just quirky.  It’s possessed.

At first, I was miffed.  Great, here I am trying to learn to be a great chef and I’m working with an old jalopy!  But now I realize that if I can cook great meals on this puppy despite its massive weirdness, then I will be a great chef after all.

The roast chicken dinner I made tonight was okay.  The sides were what made it – summer crisp corn, wild and long grain rice and Swiss chard with petit haricots.

That chicken could have been better.

That’s why I’m going to work on figuring out the oven’s quirks next.

The follow up

The lamb the other night?  Amazing.

Broiled with olive oil, real lemon juice, fresh rosemary, chopped garlic, salt and pepper, it was soft and moist, with a crusty, charred top.  Oh my.

I served it with baked organic sweet potatoes (the brightest orange I’ve ever seen) and chopped collard greens with lemon and garlic.

So, it’s going to be hard to top tonight, I’m afraid.  I mean, how do you follow something like that?  With something that was so simple and yet so good?  It’s like a comedian who has to follow Jerry Seinfeld – good luck!

Well, I’m going to damn well try.

Tonight I’m making a beef curry.  Indian curry with pakoras to start, jasmine rice and assorted veg on the side, and parathas to sop up the sauce.

And if it’s not perfect, that’s okay.  There’s always next time.

It’s only noon, but already I’m swooning at just the mere thought of it.

Uh oh, I think I just drooled on my keyboard.

On the lamb

After many, many, many nights of eating out for book clubs, events and restaurant reviews, I am back at home cooking tonight.

And I’m making lamb.

I know I should be making something Mexican to celebrate Cinco de Mayo, but I’m going to delay our celebrations until the weekend when I can really savour the process of slow cooking things and make some more time-consuming dishes.

So tonight I’m making lamb and I’m excited!  I am heading out after finishing work to pick up some ingredients.

Tell me what your favourite way of preparing lamb is?  Do you often buy the same cut?

I’ll let you know how it turns out.  In the meantime, I’m just going to enjoy thinking about it…

Cinco de mayo

Oh my, it’s only 3 days to Cinco de Mayo and I haven’t put together any sort of plan.  Hmmm.

Well, at least it’s not too late.  I’ve still got time.

Will I go all out and make each course from scratch, finishing with homemade flan?  You’ll have to tune in to find out.

One things for certain – tequila is most definitely going to be involved.

I’m off to peruse my cookbooks.  What a lovely way to spend Sunday night…

Burning questions

I have all of these questions that have been milling about in my mind:

1.  Do you favour a particular burner on the stove?

2.  A food blog asked a great question this week – is there a food that you can’t keep in the house because it’s bad for you or you’ll eat the whole container, etc.?

3. What’s the last exciting dish you made?

4.  How far in advance do you plan your meals?

5.  What’s the last thing you ate?

I can’t wait to hear your thoughts.