Scrabble night – part 2

The following night, I put everything out on our kitchen table and awaited our hungry guests.

Paul came half an hour early (he’s always early) and was starving – could we start eating? Uh, I guess so (At least he was hungry).

We started in and waited for our other neighbour, John. He came about 45 minutes later, after polishing off a hearty Greek dinner, complete with stomach-bloating beers, with his out-of-town guest. Neither he nor his guest (an awesome singer songwriter, who had just performed with Jim Cuddy and Kathleen Edwards the night before) wanted anything to do with food. Damn you, Astoria! Why do you have to serve such hearty food in servings that topple you as you leave the restaurant?

We played girls against boys with Colleen going out first and John winning (he told us he would).

It was midnight by the time we finished and I had all that food to package up.

Would Scott and I have to have chicken for dinner for the 10 nights? Could we do it without dying from boredom or SCF – severe chicken fatigue?

Scrabble night – part 1

I’m sorry it’s been so long since I wrote, but if you live nearby, you’ll know that it’s been insanely hot here. Then there was the earthquake, followed by days of torrential rain. This does not make for good eating.

Last week, we had a Scrabble night, complete with an indoor picnic dinner. I spent the night before cooking in the damp heat for about 4 hours. If it was going to be over 30 degrees again, I didn’t want to heat up the place before the neighbours arrived.

I had decided on the idea of the indoor picnic due to our crazy, indeterminable weather. Plus it was too hot to eat anything too hearty.

We were having 2 fellas over who I was pretty sure could put away a lot of food, and there was Scott and I to consider. We can eat in one meal what I think some people eat in a day. That, and my irrational fear of not having enough food had me preparing quite the spread.

So I marinated 12 Dolly Parton-sized boneless, skinless chicken breasts: 6 in a vindaloo paste and 6 in a green coconut curry. I made my usual 85 sides, which this time around included broccoli slaw, mixed bean salad, herbed mini potato salad, and a melange of roasted peppers, artichokes, portobello mushrooms, red onion, black olives and fresh basil in an olive oil vinaigrette.

The apartment was like a steam bath after I was done. Scott, Cosmo (our cat) and I looked limp and heavy with water.

What had I done?

Down in the treme

I don’t know why I didn’t take something out for dinner in the morning.

Maybe my hearty dinner at Caplansky’s for our book club meeting the night before made me want to put off choosing some meat.  After all, I had the Cabbage Borscht to start, following by the biggest knish I’ve ever seen, complete with smoked meat sauce and then their big salad to finish.

I had brought home a Caplansky burger for my fella – 20 % smoked meat, 80% ground beef – but told myself that one person can only have so much smoked meat in a day, so I didn’t even have a bite.  Maybe secretly I want as many excuses to go back there as possible!

So I winged it up until the last minute last night. Not my usual style, but planning too much can be a bad thing, so I thought, “Okay Dickison, what are you going to come up with? Is it going to be your usual boring standards of roast chicken, meatloaf or pork tenderloin?”

I left it up to:

- what I found at the grocery store and

- what I could remember I had on hand at home.

Here’s what I turned out:

Baked Tilapia with Southern Crust (breadcrumbs seasoned with Cajun All-Purpose Seasoning, brought back from Louisiana by our good friends Jill & Rob)

Coconut Ginger Rice

Fresh Farmer’s Peas topped with Horseradish Butter

Chickpea Salad with Roasted Red Peppers, Black Olives and Fresh Basil Leaves in an Olive Oil Vinaigrette

Broccoli Coleslaw with Onion Dressing

Not one of those things are a part of my repertoire, so I think I did okay. Plus my fella made “mmm” sounds all throughout dinner.  Our amazing neighbour John came in the door fresh off his tour with the popular band Holy F***,  and ate a heaping plateful and gave it a 9 out of 10 (Because giving it a 10 would seem insincere, he said. I told you he is amazing).

Because I am so easily influenced (see my previous post I Totally Fell For It), I was trying to think of where I got my idea for all of it.

I’d like to think it is because I love the Treme (HBO) character Kim Dickens is playing – she’s this amazing chef just trying to make exquisite New Orleans food after Katrina and she’s having a helluva time staying afloat.

Of course it could simply be that the tilapia was cheap and cheerful and everything else was just what I bought and had in the pantry.

But there’s no romance in that version. I think I’ll stick withthis, my simple ode to the Bayou.

Magazines to the rescue

I knew I wanted to cook last night, but I didn’t know what.

I checked the freezer for meats and took a huge bag o’ chicken wings and a tray of stewing beef out to thaw.

Now what?

I headed out to the library and thought I might see some inspirational ingredients on the way.  Lucky for me, I got Food & Wine‘s February issue and Fine Cooking‘s Feb/Mar issue that filled in the blanks.

From Food & Wine, I made Classic Hot Wings (recipe below) which Grace Parisi recommends you flour first, bake on high (500 degrees) and then finish with melted butter and hot sauce.

My fella came home from the office starving, so I don’t know whether it was his crazy hunger or whether they were that good, but he kept saying how much he liked them.

While the wings were baking, I made Food & Wine‘s Celery-and-Celery-Root Salad (which would’ve been much easier if I’d used my mandoline instead of my Chinese cleaver – what was I thinking?).  What a beautiful looking salad and really, just the simplest of ingredients.

My guy does not like the look of celery root before it’s peeled, so while he’ll eat it, he’s not too crazy about it.  This of course, I didn’t know the extent of until he came home and said, “Yeah, not for me.” After spending about 20 minutes whacking the beast and all the other ingredients (my celery root came out not like matchsticks, but like wide watercolour brushes – hey, you do what you can with what you have), I was disheartened, especially because now I had to eat a honkin’ bowl of root veg on my own.

Luckily, one of my closest pals dropped by in between meetings  today and I made her an ad hoc lunch of sliced chicken breast and a side of the celery salad.  She loved it so much, I gave her the recipe!  Phew.  Now there’s only a tub the size of a beer cooler left …

The main course I made was thanks to Fine Cooking. 

Spicy Red Lentil Dal with Winter Vegetables & Lamb might sound heavy for June, but it’s been cold and rainy on and off, so it felt like a good night for something hearty.

I replaced the red lentils with green and substituted beef for the lamb.  Otherwise, I followed the recipe as written.

Spicy comfort food with a modern edge.  It was absolutely perfect and exactly what we needed on a chilly night.

I am so grateful to these magazines.  They made what started out to be a panicked cry of “What will we have for dinner?”, into  a wonderful, memorable, nourishing night.

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 500°. Line a large baking sheet with foil and spray with vegetable oil. In a bowl, mix the flour with the salt. Add the chicken and toss to coat. Spread the chicken on the baking sheet in a single layer and spray with vegetable oil. Roast the chicken for 45 minutes, turning once or twice, until browned and crispy. In a bowl, toss the chicken wings with the hot sauce and butter; serve.

Hell’s kitchen – part 3

By the time Saturday arrived, I was dying to cook something incredibly involved and time intensive.  The weather however, was so lovely and hot that all thoughts and plans of doing anything in the oven had to be postponed.

Instead, I broiled steaks, marinated in a rich blend of herbs and spices, grillled olive oil drizzled asparagus spears and thick slices of orange pepper, and served some fresh grape tomatoes, Bibb lettuce, tabouli bought at the farmer’s market in the morning and some leftover bean salad.

While this concoction drew raves from my fella, I was disappointed.  I wanted to get right in there and create something wonderful and complex.

The following night I couldn’t do anything too extravagant as I was prepping for an interview with an author, so I not only had to finish the book, but prep the questions for the early morning meeting.  I threw together a turkey stir-fry with cashews and jasmine rice.

I know this might sound elitist, but I’ve always thought of stir-fry’s as meals that you make because:

1.you don’t know how to cook or

2. you’re too tired to make anything else.

I just wanted something healthy to sustain us while my fella and I worked into the night.  I have to say that it was absolutely delicious, thanks to fresh veg from the farmer’s market, juicy turkey strips and a little drizzled sesame oil, fresh ground five spice and topped with cashews atop of perfectly cooked rice.

But I still felt like a lazy bastard for doing a stir-fry.

Hell’s kitchen – part 2

Or at least they should have, except that this week all of my events fell within the same time period, so instead of being at home, cooking my little heart out, I ate out every night from Monday to Friday.

Monday and Tuesday evening,  I had my food book clubs (4 of ‘em!),  where we meet in a restaurant that I’ve paired with the region of the book we’re reading each month.  This month we went to Zin, a high-end Chinese restaurant in Yorkville, where the owner Rockie created a special fixed price menu featuring Hong Kong delicacies, like we read about in our book of the month, The Piano Teacher.

Because I am hosting for 4 clubs over 2 nights (not including the other 2 I host earlier in the month), I get to eat twice.  The first night I had garlicky, incredibly tender Rack of Lamb with rice and broccoli.  The following evening, I tucked into Duck Breast served with a rich Thai curry sauce and snow peas.

I am grateful for the chance to have eaten there twice, as both meals were simply divine and for the first time in this book club, we had 100% satisfaction from our members.

Rockie also included a 1 lb. Lobster on the fixed price menu, which I’m going to go back for, as well as a bunch of interesting dishes on the regular menu.

Wednesday night I did a restaurant review – Northern Italian, which was okay.

Thursday, I got together with my Mom and she treated us to Chinese in the Beach – egg rolls, sweet and sour chicken balls, chicken chow main and Chinese fried rice, all for the insane price of $8.50 a person!

Friday, I was determined to make dinner at home, but my fella decided to take the afternoon off and we ended up downtown looking at furniture.  We wandered around until sudden hunger impaled us and we went for sushi nearby.

So just to reiterate:

Mon – Chinese

Tues – Chinese

Wed – Italian

Thurs – Chinese

Friday – Japanese

Hell’s kitchen – part 1

Well, it’s been awhile, hasn’t it?

That’s because it’s been so freakin’ hot out that in our little apartment, cooking anything on the stove means creating a sweat lodge in our very own home.

As you know, I tried there for awhile, drops of sweat plopping into my casseroles and roast dinners., but once it hit 36 degrees, I had to concede like and eat like sane folks – which meant little or no cooking.

Which hits me hard. It’s during these times of stove moratoriums that I want to cook and create more than anything else.

So I shopped instead, hoping that would sate me. I bought ingredients for salads and cold plates and as many interesting beverages as our fridge would allow.

But it turned out that what I thought would never happen, did.

We lost our appetites.  We ate maybe one small plate a day and spent the rest quenching our neverending thirst.  It’s the first time in probably close to a decade that I didn’t want to eat.

Eww.

Thankfully, after a solid week of intense heat, sleepless nights and lack of appetite, it cooled down and things resumed back to regular scheduled programming.