Minimally Invasive

With another issue of the catalog just about wrapped up, my main goal was to relax this weekend. To that end, I spent a good portion of today reading, wandering around like a zombie, and napping. Waking refreshed and hungry (for tasty human braaains), I cast about my Bloglines folders looking for inspiration from the host of food bloggers I follow. Inspiration struck, as it so often does, at the feed of Molly of Orangette fame. Months ago, she wrote about a tomato sauce recipe, the simplest one in the world that also just happened to be swoonworthy. Since it required only four ingredients — canned tomatoes, butter, onion, and salt — I thought that would make for a perfectly quick and delicious lunch.

And then I realized I had other bits and pieces in my kitchen that would make good additions to the sauce. The basil in my fridge wasn’t getting any younger, so I thought a few leaves would lend a subtle flavor to the dish. Then I remembered the fennel in the crisper drawer sharing space with the Italian flat-leaf parsley, and brought those out to the counter, too.

Just then I spied some anchovies and locatelli on the upper shelves and shrugged my shoulders. Well, why not? And of course, when you have fennel and anchovies, it’d be a crime not to add sardines and golden raisins to bring the whole thing to a fabulous pasta con le sarde conclusion.

So that’s just what I did. Of course I added a few other things here and there as well, but the focus was still on the tomato sauce; it might’ve been more involved than the one I set out to make, but it was terrifically satisfying (and kept me from throwing out the contents of my crisper drawer next week).

recipe after the jump

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I was very disappointed to read of Martha Stewart’s plan to fold Blueprint recently, despite my initial lukewarm feelings toward the magazine. Each issue managed to teach me a little something new and always inspired me with its eye candy and functional-yet-beautiful design. To say my sad goodbye, I had the bright idea to cook a recipe from the last issue and frame a post around it; since I’ve been on a bit of an Asian kick lately, the pho from the soup story sounded promising. I knew not to expect authenticity, but expected better than I got.

It all started so well, too. I made the beef stock a day early and it smelled heavenly — rich with chuck roast, bone marrow, star anise, and fish sauce. After looking forward to it all the next day, I got started as soon as I walked in the door.

While the noodles were boiling,

I assembled the vegetables we’d use as garnish.

When the noodles were ready, I drained and rinsed them in cold water, then added the thinly-sliced beef

before pouring the boiling broth over, which immediately began to cook the meat.

We sat down with our soup and veggies and a big bottle of sriracha and … I thought maybe I still had a cold. It tasted like absolutely nothing — hot water flavored with chili sauce. It was so lackluster, I only had a few bites before pushing it aside for some Triscuits and leftover peach sauce.

Feh.

Fuh.

to my favorite person!

MWAH!

Have I mentioned how much I hate driving in north Jersey? ‘Cause I do. I really, really do.

On my drive to the bus stop in the morning, I have to make a left turn onto a two-way street that often has a lot of traffic going both ways. Because I didn’t drive for five years while I lived in NY, I’ve become a very cautious driver — one my former self wouldn’t recognize in the least — so I always look both ways at least twice before I make the turn. Well, this morning I somehow didn’t see an SUV driver’s left turn signal before she started to turn onto my street and thought she was just going to continue straight ahead. (You see where this is going, don’t you?) I was looking left again to make sure nothing was coming and started to pull out; had I not stopped immediately, there most definitely would have been an accident that would have been All My Fault. But I did stop with a few feet between us — close enough to give us both a scare, but not so close that my adrenaline started pumping.

So the woman driving the SUV stopped, blocking traffic, and just stared at me with such hatred in her eyes, I was completely taken aback. I mouthed, “I’m sorry!” to her, and as she rolled down her window, I thought, “Oh boy, here we go!”

SUV Woman: Watch where you’re going!

Me: I’m sorry.

SUV Woman: Open your eyes!

Me: I’m sorry.

SUV Woman: F%*king bitch!

And as she sped away, I just looked back at her without anger or even upset, thinking, “Wow, that was excessive.”

I mean, am I wrong about this? She really seemed to escalate the situation there. Or maybe she’s just a keen observer of people who stared directly into the deepest recesses of my soul and found … a f%*ing bitch living there.

Sigh.

Anyway, if she lives in my neighborhood, you may find yourself reading about my slashed tires one morning or about that time I was kneecapped in the Stop & Shop parking lot. Ah, Ringwood…

It’s enough to drive a girl to car-phobia.

In honor of LSU’s appearance in the BCS title game tonight, I’m reposting this entry from a year ago — mostly as an excuse to share these awesome pictures of my brother-in-law, Tommy (with his son in the second picture). He scored tickets to the Sugar Bowl last year and gave us a preview of his game-day attire, but will be watching from home this evening with the rest of us.

Geaux Tigers!

When I started at LSU 20 years ago this fall (gulp), basketball games were an enjoyable enough way to spend an evening. Ricky Blanton was the big draw and rumors hadn’t started yet about the 7-foot crime fighter with the secret identity, so these events were really easy to get into. Football games were another story.

Game day seemed to double the population of Baton Rouge and most of the imports ended up in the stadium parking lot … early. It was a great time to be a starving college student because you could fill up on all kinds of grilled meats, jambalaya, red beans & rice, and even find a beer to wash it down just by wandering around the tailgating area and taking advantage of Tiger fans’ largesse (which leads to large ass). It was clear you didn’t need to attend the university to bleed purple and gold (and I’d argue that many of those who did, don’t).

The football team had a few good years in the mid-80’s, then headed downhill pretty quickly after the 1987 season. I’ll testify to the excitement of the 1988 Auburn game that registered on the seismograph across campus, but by the time he graduated, “Heisman Hodson” wasn’t much more than the butt of a joke. Still, those games were awfully fun. My roommate and I would head down to the stadium, the excitement curing our still-aching heads, and start milling around until the gates opened and we could rush to the student section to stake out our seats. I remember some miserable losses (44-3 against Miami, and anytime the team lost to Alabama…grrrr), but we always stuck it out to the very end to show our support.

I’m happy my Tigers have turned it around in recent years and wish I could be at the Dome tonight to see them play in the Sugar Bowl, but I’ll be cheering from our living room instead. And I’ll be on the lookout for this guy, hoping he doesn’t continue to embarrass Mason by wearing those white shoes:

Though I hesitate to call it a resolution, we are trying to eat a bit healthier now that the holidays are over. I’m not going to extremes, of course, but I am trying to incorporate more whole grains, fruits, and vegetables into my cooking, so our crisper drawer is full and I’m working my way through it faithfully.

But getting back into the old routine takes time, so I started the weekend completely unprepared for our dining needs. Flipping through the pages of Cooking Light for inspiration, I ran across a wild rice salad that looked completely scrumptious and sounded like it’d be perfect with a little pork. As luck would have it, our freezer is stocked with obscene amounts of pork (and beef. and chicken) thanks to Gil’s company’s annual holiday gift of Omaha Steaks. There was also a jar of peach sauce from our last Trader Joe’s run, so all I needed was a recipe to tie things together. Inspiration for the pork came from the Epicurious website, where I found a recipe for pork with brandied peaches that called to me. I did change the recipe a smidge — I used peach sauce instead of frozen peaches and preserves, cooked the butter in the recipe a little longer than suggested for that rich, delicious, brown butter note under the fruit and brandy, and added cumin … because I’m incapable of not adding cumin.

The salad satisfied my non-resolution requirement for healthy dining, while the pork chops were just rich enough to keep us from feeling deprived. But the sauce was the real highlight of the meal.

It was all I could do not to lick the plate.

recipes after the jump

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I don’t mind messing with tradition on New Year’s Eve by staying in and avoiding crowds, but you’ll never catch me shirking my duty on New Year’s Day — for if I don’t have black-eyed peas and some form of greens to ring in the new year, disaster will surely fall upon the Roth household. And so we filled ourselves to the gills with creamy black-eyed peas for luck and spicy collard greens to attract money into our lives. Maybe it doesn’t work, but boy, are they tasty. And since they seemed to be crying out for some kind of plain protein, I added a poached chicken breast topped with a mustard sauce I made by mixing together Dijon, maple syrup, whiskey, a few drops of Worcestershire sauce and cayenne pepper.

As always, I used the black-eyed peas recipe from The Prudhomme Family Cookbook, and this time followed it to the letter by making my own pork stock. I think it added a depth of flavor to the dish that plain chicken broth just can’t, but if you don’t want to go to the trouble of making it yourself, it isn’t necessary. How, pray tell, did I make this stock? Well, I preheated my oven to 350 degrees and roasted one quartered onion, three lightly crushed garlic cloves, some pork short ribs, and a few split pig’s feet until they were golden brown. The smell was heavenly, even if the sight was decidedly less so:

Once the meat and veggies were roasted to perfection, I put the feet and ribs into a stock pot, added four cups of chicken stock, and additional water to cover the meat by an inch or so. After they simmered for about an hour, I added the roasted onion and garlic along with one stalk of celery and continued to simmer it for another hour. I set the ribs aside for later use (still trying to decide what to do with them, in fact), strained the broth, and refrigerated it overnight to more easily dispose of the fat. Because these beans have puh-lenty enough fat in them as it is if you use the full half pound of bacon suggested in the recipe.

They start out so healthy and with such potential, though:

But then you add the bacon, and — oh, yeah! — ANOTHER form of pork. This would be tasso — an intensely spiced, smoked bit of pork used for seasoning:

Did you observe any New Year’s Day culinary traditions, dear reader? Here’s wishing you all the luck, good fortune, and prosperity your life can hold. Cheers to a great 2008!

recipes after the jump

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Happy 2008, everyone! Keeping with our tradition, Gil and I stayed in for a movie marathon last night rather than endure the crowds in the city and the loooong drive home. This year’s feature: The Lord of the Rings trilogy. (No, really, it was his idea. Something about the big screen HDTV, battle scenes, I dunno. I wasn’t going to argue.) We started late and only got up to about the 45-minute mark of The Two Towers, but it’s a rainy day, so I’m sure we’ll finish what we started before nightfall.

With hours of Middle Earth fun ahead of us, I wanted to make something festive for dinner that wouldn’t require too much time in the kitchen, and after my success with two recipes from Simple Chinese Cooking, I turned to its pages again for inspiration. The shrimp dumplings practically leaped off the page and demanded an audition, so I obliged, despite the potential for disaster — eviscerated dumplings churning in a pot of boiling water isn’t as appetizing as you might think. But Kylie Kwong’s step-by-step photo illustrations of dumpling assembly made the technique seem easy enough, and it really was.

Oops, looks like a bit of shrimp got away from me there. We’ll just ignore that.

Didn’t affect the outcome, at least:

Awww … they couldn’t be cuter if they were a pile of puppies frolicking on the cutting board. Hairier and much less sanitary, yes, but definitely not cuter.

Wonton regiment 24 reporting for duty!

And you may find this hard to believe (I certainly did), but not one dumpling burst in the boiling water! That’s a success rate I haven’t come near with homemade ravioli, so I think there’s something to Ms. Kwong’s techniques. Hmmm, maybe I’ll start making “tortellini” instead — sneaky, sneaky.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, Gil and I have to get back to our movie research; he has a theory that Ed Wood was resurrected to direct Orlando Bloom in this trilogy, and I’m having trouble disproving it.