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I used the Cookbook Challenge as an excuse to finally buy Moosewood Restaurant Simple Suppers: Fresh Ideas for the Weeknight Table, and this was a good choice. I've gotten a lot of use out of it, for only having had it a few weeks. The recipes are all things that are easy to throw together in 20 minutes, and it's designed in such a way as to be very accessible to the new cook. One of the reviews on Amazon complained that it contains quite a few "obvious" recipes, which I think is a little silly. That's the point. What's obvious to an experienced cook may not even occur to a n00b. For that matter, just seeing a familiar recipe in print can be enough to remind me that I have all of these things, and actually can cause there to be tasty food even though I am tired and not feeling very creative. This all leads up to having used another recipe from that book last night, and being once again delighted with the results. I used the recipe for cooking times, and egg-to-dairy ratio, but the original recipe didn't have much in the way of veggies, just a cup of scallions. I didn't want to futz with making a salad, or figuring out a sauté sauce; I just wanted a one-dish meal. I believe the dish was called "Bread and cheese bake," but I am not convinced that "bake" has any business being a noun, and there's already a sweet dish that is made in exactly the same way. So I'm calling it "savory bread pudding," given that this tells you pretty much all you need to know about it. This was a "whatever's in the vegetable drawer" meal, and I'm doing this from memory, so I'm not going to try to recreate the Moosewood recipe verbatim; I'll just tell you what we actually did. ( savory bread pudding )Tags: cookbook challenge, food, recipes
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![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) mcsassypants just posted the Week 4 assignment: It's time for the next Cookbook Challenge!
There's a recipe that's been on my mind to try lately and since no one else in the challenge has the cookbook its from (New Recipes from the Moosewood Restaurant - (Recipeasle)); here's how the challenge works for this week:
Find a main entree that's in a "world of the east" cooking style (i.e. anything from the eastern hemisphere. not just china or japan, although if that's what you wanna do, go for it. Just keep in mind that you're not limited to just that.) You can pick from any cookbook, even if it's not "authentic". Just push your boundaries a bit.
Edited to clairify: I'm using the definition that was used in "World of the East Vegetarian Cooking" by Madhur Jaffry: India, from Bali, Japan, China, from Far Eastern and Middle Eastern countries.
As always, you have until next Wednesday to post your results! Unless I discover that I have everything on hand to make something tonight, I may be a bit late with this one. I'm going to a wedding this weekend, which is going to cost me most of the days when I usually do my more involved cooking. Tags: cookbook challenge
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This week's challenge was a soup from Moosewood Restaurant: Simple Suppers. I spent the afternoon helping astridsdream pack, so something that could be thrown together quickly was quite welcome this evening. As it happened, I had almost exactly two cups of cooked chopped asparagus left over from Friday's asparagus-mushroom sauce (rather than mix the asparagus into the sauce, I put it in a bowl for people to add as they wished), so I only needed to heat it long enough for it to get hot, not to cook. ( Asparagus Avgolemono )Some of my egg mixture got cooked on contact with the soup, so it was probably a little too hot. Having little flecks of egg floating in the soup did not make the texture wonky, which was my concern. I think next time I make this, I will use a little less soup base. Otherwise, it was a very satisfying and filling dinner, served with a hearty wheat bread from Le Panier. This one will go into my regular rotation. Tags: cookbook challenge, food, recipes
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Yesterday evening, Nik & I had dinner at The Purple Café and Wine Bar with astridsdream & doctorconquest. Nik and I had been there twice before, but this was their first time. On Sundays, the Woodinville and Seattle locations offer ½ off bottles of wine under $50, which is awesome. (Kirkland, which is a bit closer, does it on Mondays, which are much less convenient for us.) I ordered the Pascal Jolivet Pouilly-Fumé 2005 (sauvignon blanc), our waiter somewhat apologetically carded all of us when he brought it out, because astridsdream looks really, really young. Except when he got to me, he barely glanced at my ID and said, "Well, you're obviously ok." A little amused, I didn't respond to that — really, what is there to say? And he got this brief look of utter horror on his face as he realized he had just implied that I looked old, and might well have grievously offended me. He stammered an apology, poured the wine, and fled. I am not that easy to offend, as people who know me well will know. I did try to tell him I wasn't offended, but he didn't look entirely sure whether I was sincere, or just being gracious. What I am almost certain he meant, and how I took it, was that since I had ordered a $50 bottle of French wine with both authority and proper pronunciation, the odds of me being underage were really, really slim. And the only people who think I look like I might be under 21 are at least 20 years my senior. The wine, by the way, was fantastic. I can't recall whether I've had that one before, or if I've just seen it at Whole Foods, but I definitely recognized the label. It was crisp and fruity, and it got drier and more tart as it warmed. It also played nice with dessert, which surprised me. ( Dinner was also fantastic. )Sadly, it did not occur to me to bring a camera to the restaurant, so the above is more food erotica than food porn. I hope no one is overly disappointed by the slightly misleading tag. Tags: food, food porn, restaurants
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I work not quite half a mile from Pike Place Market. I have discovered that if I am on a mission, and just need one or two things from the same vendor, I can be there and back inside half an hour. If I'm being leisurely about it, and meandering a bit, it's still easily under an hour. This, of course, assumes I go before about 10:30 or 11:00 AM. It's much harder to be a shark once the throngs of people start arriving. There's a French bakery called Le Panier, which has very good bread. I haven't had pastries there yet, but they look delectable. There are lots of flower vendors, which I usually just gaze at loningly, but today I couldn't resist the bouquets of lilacs and tulips. It is very difficult to carry flowers while walking with crutches without squishing them. The walk back to my office took rather longer than the walk there. For dinner tonight, I got two gorgeous bundles of fresh spinach, a bundle of asparagus, and mushrooms: a handful of morels, a handful of shiitakes, and something that look kind of like enoki, but not quite. I don't remember what they're called. It's a very simple pleasure. Tags: food
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Gaming at incandiferous's place last night was the usual puppy-filled fun. After a few false starts that involved some biting and yelping (on the puppy's part, not mine, though I did threaten to bite him), I concluded that if he really, really wanted to lick my armpits, it wasn't going to do me any harm. Max spent a few puppy-joy-filled minutes licking my armpits and shoulder blades, and after that, he didn't seem inclined to jump and bite at me anymore. I realized later that I was the only one wearing a camisole, and was thus the only one who had so much readily accessible skin, so in addition to fascinating new scents, this was new and exciting territory for him. In non-puppy-related news, assembling a lasagna two days ahead of time and baking it when ready to serve works quite well. I couldn't imagine why it wouldn't, but I had never had occasion to do such a thing before. The lasagna came out pretty well, but the flavor could have been pointier. Possibly more garlic and sharper cheeses, possibly less mozzarella. Tags: food, gaming
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The other thing doctorconquest and I made last night was the Lasagna al Pesto from Enchanted Broccoli Forest. We made this after dinner, rather than for dinner, because it is for gaming on Wednesday. We spent rather a long time cooking last night. Nik had made pesto on Friday, so we already had that on hand. ( Lasagna al Pesto )We're going to bake it over at incandiferous's place tomorrow, since that is where gaming is happening this week, and it is much easier to transport cold lasagne than hot. This is the first time I've assembled a lasagna two days prior to cooking it, so I will report back on how well that works out. It should be good. Also, mad_willy, this is cheese with some cheese in it, topped with cheese, so make sure you bring your lactose pills. Tags: cookbook challenge, food, recipes
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Over the weekend, I heard a lot of discussion about the gas tax and whether it would be a beneficial thing to have a summer gas tax "holiday." Obama supported such a measure several years ago, but says he has seen the error of his ways, and now sees it as a Washington gimmick. As it happens, this is what the economists think, too. It's one of those shinyshiny things that briefly makes people happy, but will not have lasting benefits to the economy as a whole. Senator Clinton, on the other hand, when confronted with this fact, said: “I’m not going to put my lot in with economists,” Clinton told George Stephanopolous on ABC’s ‘This Week’ after he asked her to name a single economist supporting her plan. “If we actually did it right, if we had a president who used all the tools of the presidency, we would design it in such a way that it would be implemented effectively.” So let me get this straight: you're not interested in what the experts have to say about your proposal. You're sure that you know better than people who have a lot more letters after their names than you do. That always ends well. (Thanks to QuizLaw for the link.) I would need t | | |
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