We spent Saturday morning keeping an eye on the weather and vacillating about going to the Yankees-Mets game at Shea. On the one hand, we both love the Yankees, but on the other hand 1) the game would probably be rained out, 2) if the game wasn’t rained out the Yankees were going to lose anyway, and 3) no sense getting wet, miserable, and possibly sick if those lousy rassafrassin’ so-and-so’s weren’t going to bring a little metaphorical sunshine into our lives.
Can you guess what we decided to do?
Skipping the game meant no kosher dogs in their natural setting, so I had to scramble for something to take their place. Comfort food seemed to be the way to go and that usually spells bread pudding or grilled cheese, but I wanted less bread and more … stuff. Hmmm, how about open-faced sandwiches?
What we ended up with was a little like a cheesy spinach dip, but I didn’t hear any complaints. I heated some leftover bacon fat and olive oil and added brown mustard seeds and cumin seeds, stirring them until they started to pop like fragrant tiny popcorn. It’s something I picked up from One Spice, Two Spice, and it really made a difference here. It gave the concoction a faintly citrusy bite, which cut through all of the cheese I added later. The hearty side of the dish was taken care of with onions, spinach, and mushrooms, while cheese and a little bechamel sauce added at the last second took care of the comforting creamy element.
I served it on oven-toasted challah brushed with butter and it didn’t last an inning. It was just what we needed on a gray, miserable day.
recipe after the jump
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We’ve been meaning to take the tree down anyway, but this was a close call — it missed the house by a foot or so. For details, see here and here. And the full set of pics is here.
I’ve had a lot of trouble sleeping through storms since I moved to Ringwood, but now that the threat of a tree falling through the bedroom is a real one, I’ll be reading in the basement whenever the wind picks up.
…sort of. Sorry for the disappearing act, but we’re putting out the biggest issue of the year at work. That’s not to say I haven’t been cooking, but when there’s too little time to collect my thoughts and nothing but disappointing pictures to post, there doesn’t seem to be much of a point.
Anyway, I took this picture on the way to work a couple of days ago. There isn’t a LOT to recommend 9th Avenue besides a lack of foot traffic, but sometimes the sights are worth it. No, it doesn’t compare with the Official MI Husband’s reflection shot, but he’s a master. I still have much to learn.
I’m on quite a roll this week. First the brussels debacle and now a plate of simpering squid. Where did I go wrong? Is it bad juju, a full moon, my subconscious sabotaging my alone-time? Sheesh, even the picture sucks:
I’ll call it a near miss because I think the calamari could be good if it spent a longer time marinating than I was willing to give it at 8pm. The grilling took less than five minutes, and it was very tender, but … meh.
The salad was mighty tasty, though. I marinated the calamari in garlic-infused olive oil, oregano, and salt & pepper, so I used the leftover oil as the base of a lemony vinaigrette. The garlic flavor was subtle, but it stood up to the juicy, briny kalamata olives and parmesan cheese shavings I used as toppings.
But I’m not giving up, no way! Once I figure out how to correct this recipe, I’ll be sure to pass it along.
Well, THAT didn’t turn out as expected! Trying to lighten the old brussels sprouts recipe from a few months ago, I substituted fat free condensed milk for the heavy cream, bumping up the flavor with an extra slice of bacon, some garlic, and double the mustard. Actually, it tasted fine, but the condensed milk resembled cottage cheese more than anything approaching a silky sauce.
Oh, well. Back to the drawing board. Maybe next time I’ll try a white sauce instead.
At least Fellowship on the big screen TV is redeeming my night.
I don’t deal well with cravings. Never have. They ping around my brain until the whole thing is lit up like a pinball machine. It’s dangerous to walk around in such a state, but I’ve learned the hard way that indulging is the only way to reset, even if you possess the willpower of a thousand Southern Baptist virgins, as I do. My most recent reset took place over the weekend as I gave in to a weeks-long craving for coconut cake. Now I’m happy and sane once again after devouring far too much of it.
At least it wasn’t heavy. Cooking Light is a great resource for all kinds of healthy dishes and not-too-bad-for-you desserts, so I turned to their website for super-light coconut cake and cream cheese frosting recipes. Since baking frightens the bejeezus outta me, I’ve been reading a lot about it online, where I learned that cakes benefit from sitting in the freezer for a few hours before you frost them. Like a little bakery penalty box, the freezer forces the cake to get its crumb together before it gets back in the game. Who knew? Pretty much everyone but me! So after dutifully freezing and thawing the cake before applying the crumb layer (a crumb layer — brilliant!), I got down to the serious business of frosting with my new offset spatula and produced a cake I wouldn’t be ashamed to serve to guests.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough cream cheesy goodness (or hours of daylight) left to test my new decorating tips, but maybe I’ll try them next time. I’m already planning my next baking adventure — a red velvet cake for a friend’s birthday in a few weeks. And she’s kind, so she won’t mind if her cake looks like something from a 1st grade science project.
The reason there was NO TIME for decoration was because we needed to get the Cinco de Mayo celebration rolling so as not to bring shame on white people everywhere with our lack of (relative) inebriation. I knew I didn’t want to make regular skirt steak fajitas, but wasn’t sure what to prepare instead. After I tooled around online for a little while, the paper of record came through with a recipe for fish tacos that really surprised me — not like, “Where am I and where are my pants?” surprise but more like, “Cool … I didn’t get sick from those 25-cent oysters!” surprise. I’ve only had fried versions of fish tacos, so I didn’t know how this broiled one would work, but it was really delicious, even with the substitutions I made. As banana leaves are few and far between in Ringwood (where Gil and I are probably the most ethnically exotic folks around), I used about a teaspoon of pureed chipotle pepper with adobo to give the sauce a smoky flavor, and I used scrod instead of halibut because I didn’t want my tacos to taste like ass. We had pureed black beans with chorizo on the side and would’ve had corn fritters with roasted garlic and cilantro sauce, too, but it was impossible to get everything finished at the same time.
So Saturday was a little rushed, I guess, but we enjoyed our Cinco de Mayo anyway. The traditional Mexican gin martini might’ve had a little something to do with that — the Official MI Husband is turning into quite the mixologist!
recipes after the jump
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The Official MI Husband will be getting lost attending a conference in Boston until Wednesday, possibly even sporting his sexysexy Contract Pharma sweater vest during the work day! (Or so I hope — I don’t think he believes me when I tell him a woman can’t be held responsible for the things she’ll do to a man in a sweater vest. Is it the barely concealed laughter or the rolling eyes that give me away?)
His absence leaves me roaming the halls of the palatial VM Estates by my lonesome, but instead of moping about, I plan to do stuff I don’t have the chance to when he’s around — not watch even one second of basketball or Sports Center and cook a lot of things he won’t eat. The toughest part of avoiding basketball is deciding which LOTR movie I should watch, but cooking involves a newly developed strategy for meal selection: I’ll make the most olfactorily offensive foods early in the week to give the house a chance to recover before his return. On successive days, the foods will (in theory) be less offensive to his nose, while remaining esthetically displeasing in other areas. Olives come to mind.
So last night I started my alone-time with a bagna cauda. Actually, I’m not sure how Gil feels about the taste of anchovies, but I’m pretty sure the fishy smell would leave him in a weakened state. Having a big bowl of bagna cauda around all evening would’ve been too tempting for me, so I decided to use it as a topping on grilled hearts of romaine and leave the rest as an offering to the wood gods behind the house. Instead of using raw garlic as most recipes call for, I used a head of leftover roasted garlic; I think it mellowed the sauce quite a bit, and played nicely with the mild lettuce.
Tonight there will be brussels sprouts and ROTK! Boy, don’t you wish you were here?
recipe after the jump
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Welcome to Shane Andrew, the latest addition to Doug and Shannon G’s family! I hear he’s already a Cards fan and has been shamelessly eyeing toasted ravioli around town.
