Oooo, it looks like good things are about to happen here! 
Showing posts with label home. Show all posts
Showing posts with label home. Show all posts
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Independence, from played-out holiday traditions
Oooo, it looks like good things are about to happen here!
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Found art
I am forever grateful to the artist who saw fit to photograph this delicate arrangement of fruit, nut, and flower, as well as to whomever left this piece on the street for the next foodart connoisseur to enjoy.
I do love when art mimics life.
I do love when art mimics life.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Counter Culture Cuisine
So, those of you acquainted with us in person know that Z and I are among the most subterranean sub-culture people out there. As a testament to this, we have started cooking all kinds of hot soups right when the weather is heating up. Take that you 'normal' cuisinies.
So yeah, Z cooked us another new soup tonight! For those of you thinking, 'gee whiz mwr, Z does an awful lot of cooking for you,' I will say this: thanks for paying attention to my posts.
Anyway, Z and I went through a bunch of soup recipes and picked out ones that sounded interesting, were quick to make, and that pleased the ever credulous internet message boards, and we came up with a list of things to try. This one made the list because it was a black bean soup with feta (though the feta ended up playing a smallish part in the overall soup experience).
As far as evaluation goes, this soup is ALL about the garnish. I started mine cautiously with minimal raw jalapeno and inadequate ciantro. It was okay. The blending gave it a texture thick enough to feel while you ate it without feeling like you're eating hot bean-dip. The carrots and onions, whenever they crept up, added as nice bit of variety to the taste without 'showing off.' I was happy with it.
However, when I added more raw fresh green things and it improved vastly! The jalapeno quickly spread throughout and gave a very mild kick that didn't mask any of the other flavors. The real treat, though, was the cilantro. Now, I am not one of these people born with the alleged cilantro tastes like fetid chum gene, but I do think that it's a bit of a prima donna in most dishes--either demanding to be the star of the dish or fading away into the untastable. I generally try to stay away from it. In this case, though, it remained subtle while still retaining its presence in the dish. This increase in garnish moved this from a sort of standard black bean soup that I wouldn't want to call a standby due to it's lack of corn to a noteworthy and above average treat.
This brings me to another thing worth mentioning: the soup had only one dry spice in it: cumin. Now, sure, some of you read this and think "okay mwr. I get what's going on and don't trust anything you have to say about this soup anymore." You're probably not entirely mistaken in your dismissivness as since the cumin is an obvious presence that I think adds a lot. Still, just one dry spice. That is impressive! I think I am going to try to reduce the number of spices I use while cooking and up the fresh herbs, garnishes, and other things. This should be extra fun since I just tried reducing the sauces I used for in order to focus on dry spices. That turned out to be a blast and helped me make better sauces.
One last note: it didn't make an awful low, so if you're going to make it for guests be sure to increase the quantity or have a hearty side.
So yeah, Z cooked us another new soup tonight! For those of you thinking, 'gee whiz mwr, Z does an awful lot of cooking for you,' I will say this: thanks for paying attention to my posts.
Anyway, Z and I went through a bunch of soup recipes and picked out ones that sounded interesting, were quick to make, and that pleased the ever credulous internet message boards, and we came up with a list of things to try. This one made the list because it was a black bean soup with feta (though the feta ended up playing a smallish part in the overall soup experience).
As far as evaluation goes, this soup is ALL about the garnish. I started mine cautiously with minimal raw jalapeno and inadequate ciantro. It was okay. The blending gave it a texture thick enough to feel while you ate it without feeling like you're eating hot bean-dip. The carrots and onions, whenever they crept up, added as nice bit of variety to the taste without 'showing off.' I was happy with it.
However, when I added more raw fresh green things and it improved vastly! The jalapeno quickly spread throughout and gave a very mild kick that didn't mask any of the other flavors. The real treat, though, was the cilantro. Now, I am not one of these people born with the alleged cilantro tastes like fetid chum gene, but I do think that it's a bit of a prima donna in most dishes--either demanding to be the star of the dish or fading away into the untastable. I generally try to stay away from it. In this case, though, it remained subtle while still retaining its presence in the dish. This increase in garnish moved this from a sort of standard black bean soup that I wouldn't want to call a standby due to it's lack of corn to a noteworthy and above average treat.
This brings me to another thing worth mentioning: the soup had only one dry spice in it: cumin. Now, sure, some of you read this and think "okay mwr. I get what's going on and don't trust anything you have to say about this soup anymore." You're probably not entirely mistaken in your dismissivness as since the cumin is an obvious presence that I think adds a lot. Still, just one dry spice. That is impressive! I think I am going to try to reduce the number of spices I use while cooking and up the fresh herbs, garnishes, and other things. This should be extra fun since I just tried reducing the sauces I used for in order to focus on dry spices. That turned out to be a blast and helped me make better sauces.
One last note: it didn't make an awful low, so if you're going to make it for guests be sure to increase the quantity or have a hearty side.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Sunday Night on Diamond Street
The endless possibilities of food continue to amaze me. Tonight, thanks to part genius and part pure proximity of ingredients, kendall created this wheatthin-with-spaghetti-and-easycheese-ontop. Obviously, it is a beautiful thing!
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Friday, April 24, 2009
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Quesadilladay
Ever find yourself wondering: what exactly is in this "quesadilla" I'm eating? Don't worry, SPF is here to clear that up.
beans, sometimes
beans, sometimes
chicken & onions, maybe
cilantro, sure
CHEESE
love, & polka dotsThursday, April 16, 2009
peep this, veggie that
Dinner: veggies are always a lot more boring than I anticipate.
veggies
veggiesDessert: peeps are gross.
peeps
peepsFriday, April 10, 2009
Ranch
Ranch and I had a very brief love affair a while ago, but we've since grown apart. It's heavy and strong, and I think I am moving towards light and delicate (which I'd like to say is different from weak, but I'm not sure if it is). However, I know that there are some ranch-heads in our ranks, so I thought I'd post this link to a homemade ranch recipe I recently stumbled across. It looks remarkably simple and might be interesting if you can get past the obvious grossness of one of it's major ingredients.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Return from the grave with a couple of life lessons.
Hi guys. It's been an overwhelming time, but I am back now. I think I'll be back for good too, I finished a lot of the work I had gotten behind on from the dreaded illnesses that I won't quit complaining about.
Here is a quick word of caution. Let's imagine that you are at home and really do not want to go out to purchase food. Now let's imagine you have all of the ingredients for thai food except the coconut milk, including the delicious canned thai spices. Just to make things even less general, let's also imagine that you've recently announced that you'd like to start 'getting into' dry spices rather than wet sauces and such for some reason that may or may not make sense to yourself. You might think that you should go ahead and make an awesome dry thai dinner right? Well,
DO NOT DO IT.
Last Sunday I made a panang curry as described above and it was so hot that I could hardly eat it.
Let's say you'd never find yourself in that position. I think I have learned another lesson that is even more general. If you are very hungry and you have food in front of you that is very hot, but it's the sort of hot that builds up over time should you: a) get something else to eat, b) go hungry, or c) decide that you can shovel enough into your mouth by the time that it gets unbearable (oh no, spell check isn't on. Apologies now for everything that's probably wrong with this post guys) that you'll no longer be hungry. If you answered c) you're VERY WRONG.
Here is a quick word of caution. Let's imagine that you are at home and really do not want to go out to purchase food. Now let's imagine you have all of the ingredients for thai food except the coconut milk, including the delicious canned thai spices. Just to make things even less general, let's also imagine that you've recently announced that you'd like to start 'getting into' dry spices rather than wet sauces and such for some reason that may or may not make sense to yourself. You might think that you should go ahead and make an awesome dry thai dinner right? Well,
DO NOT DO IT.
Last Sunday I made a panang curry as described above and it was so hot that I could hardly eat it.
Let's say you'd never find yourself in that position. I think I have learned another lesson that is even more general. If you are very hungry and you have food in front of you that is very hot, but it's the sort of hot that builds up over time should you: a) get something else to eat, b) go hungry, or c) decide that you can shovel enough into your mouth by the time that it gets unbearable (oh no, spell check isn't on. Apologies now for everything that's probably wrong with this post guys) that you'll no longer be hungry. If you answered c) you're VERY WRONG.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Casserollin
Oh casserole. Who doesn't like casserole. I loved my mom's squash casserole before I even liked squash. Now that I officially love squash, I figured it was time for another go. I started by trying to follow this recipe, but it quickly morphed into not really that at all (although it does look great!).
I sliced 4 yellow squash, 2 green squash, and 1 yellow onion and sauteed it all until it looked like that. Then chopped & boiled a head of cauliflower, for fiber's sake, and broke up about a sleeve and half of ritz crackers.
After mixing the squash medley and cauliflower in a casserole dish, I added a can of potato, broccoli, & cheese soup and stirred it all together while sprinkling on the crumbs (saving enough at the end for a copious crumb topping).
It went in the oven, at 350 degrees, for about 20 minutes; then out came a gooey glob of casserole delight.
Naturally, I still miss my mom's dish and wouldn't mind giving her recipe try. Or maybe I'll just go home and do crossword puzzles at the kitchen counter while she makes it for me.
I sliced 4 yellow squash, 2 green squash, and 1 yellow onion and sauteed it all until it looked like that. Then chopped & boiled a head of cauliflower, for fiber's sake, and broke up about a sleeve and half of ritz crackers.
After mixing the squash medley and cauliflower in a casserole dish, I added a can of potato, broccoli, & cheese soup and stirred it all together while sprinkling on the crumbs (saving enough at the end for a copious crumb topping).
It went in the oven, at 350 degrees, for about 20 minutes; then out came a gooey glob of casserole delight.
Naturally, I still miss my mom's dish and wouldn't mind giving her recipe try. Or maybe I'll just go home and do crossword puzzles at the kitchen counter while she makes it for me.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Spinach Ricotta Gnocchi
HOLY SHIT THAT (this: http://www.elise.com/recipes/archives/007404spinach_ricotta_gnocchi.php) WAS AMAZING!
Pictures to come (though they don't look as good as the ones on the website with the recipe). So we did it. We made some Italian food from scratch that wasn't terrible! It was gnocchi, but using ricotta cheese rather than potato, which is apparently less difficult to mess up. The texture, though, was exactly no worse than the best gnocchi I've ever had (which, actually was a beet gnocchi at some swanky Italian joint in Williamsburg). This may be because I've just had and liked the ricotta variety in the past, but it doesn't matter. These were like biting, oh I'm too excited to come up with some appropriate metaphor. They rolled around in my mouth like little bugs of joy as I devoured them or something like that. Seriously, guys, I can't explain how good these are.
It's a messy, time and dish consuming process, though. Make sure that you're either feeding a lot of people or really want this meal a few times before making it. Z took care of the sauce, which a bit of melted goat cheese made quite delicious. I did the entire making the gnocchi process myself. I am normally awful with non-cookie flour-involving recipes. Furthermore the recipe demands a 'light touch' that I imagined would be even harder to pull off than it would have been to add copious breadcrumbs to tempeh hot-wings. Still, the fates had decided that this was my burden alone to bare, and bore it I did! Self-congratulation aside, though, it got to be fun after a while. You have to do a lot of rolling things into logs that Z thought looked like how asparagus feels. I realized while I was doing that why play-dough has the post-hyphen content that it does (well, maybe there isn't a hyphen in the actual name, I don't know.). Also fun was cutting the middle-finger diamtered tubes into 1 inch pillows with a fork. Z then put the awesome fork indentations into them. She seemed to think it was extraneous work, but it made them look much more awesome afterward, and probably made them cook better too.
In summary, I have never been so excited about a meal that I posted about it this quickly after consuming it. We have about another tray full of uncooked little guys to freeze for later. I can only hope they'll be as good!
PS, you can actually tasted the spinach too. It's very faint and you have to sort of dig around with your sensations, but it's there and that is a big pulse as far as I am concerned.
Pictures to come (though they don't look as good as the ones on the website with the recipe). So we did it. We made some Italian food from scratch that wasn't terrible! It was gnocchi, but using ricotta cheese rather than potato, which is apparently less difficult to mess up. The texture, though, was exactly no worse than the best gnocchi I've ever had (which, actually was a beet gnocchi at some swanky Italian joint in Williamsburg). This may be because I've just had and liked the ricotta variety in the past, but it doesn't matter. These were like biting, oh I'm too excited to come up with some appropriate metaphor. They rolled around in my mouth like little bugs of joy as I devoured them or something like that. Seriously, guys, I can't explain how good these are.
It's a messy, time and dish consuming process, though. Make sure that you're either feeding a lot of people or really want this meal a few times before making it. Z took care of the sauce, which a bit of melted goat cheese made quite delicious. I did the entire making the gnocchi process myself. I am normally awful with non-cookie flour-involving recipes. Furthermore the recipe demands a 'light touch' that I imagined would be even harder to pull off than it would have been to add copious breadcrumbs to tempeh hot-wings. Still, the fates had decided that this was my burden alone to bare, and bore it I did! Self-congratulation aside, though, it got to be fun after a while. You have to do a lot of rolling things into logs that Z thought looked like how asparagus feels. I realized while I was doing that why play-dough has the post-hyphen content that it does (well, maybe there isn't a hyphen in the actual name, I don't know.). Also fun was cutting the middle-finger diamtered tubes into 1 inch pillows with a fork. Z then put the awesome fork indentations into them. She seemed to think it was extraneous work, but it made them look much more awesome afterward, and probably made them cook better too.
In summary, I have never been so excited about a meal that I posted about it this quickly after consuming it. We have about another tray full of uncooked little guys to freeze for later. I can only hope they'll be as good!
PS, you can actually tasted the spinach too. It's very faint and you have to sort of dig around with your sensations, but it's there and that is a big pulse as far as I am concerned.
Friday, February 13, 2009
"That's a lot of beef."
Carnivores, take heart.
That's nearly a pound of meat, loaded with onions and dripping with jalepneo pepper jack cheese. It actually tasted a bit like a taco, which I guess makes sense and is fine by me. Don't forget to say hi to our old friend asparagus.
That's nearly a pound of meat, loaded with onions and dripping with jalepneo pepper jack cheese. It actually tasted a bit like a taco, which I guess makes sense and is fine by me. Don't forget to say hi to our old friend asparagus.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
The Better Omelette
What a breakfast I had this morning, everybody. While omelettes have become a Sunday staple here at the stoop, today we really outdid ourselves.
This particular omelette involved potatoes, onions, green peppers, mushrooms, mozzarella cheese, and, naturally, eggs. The mozrraella was a new thing for us, and it worked out really well. We also have never used mushrooms before, because I don't like mushrooms, but I digress.
We also made sweet ass Italian sausage with maple syrup, which really satisfied a craving that I was unaware of having. Baby arugula, toast, and coffee rounded it out.
There are like, years of leftovers if anyone wants to comeover and eat and keep me entertained during all the football. All the damn football. Oh Sunday.
Friday, January 2, 2009
Lessons for 2009: texture is important
Well, our year began without a bang, without a fizzle, without even a drizzle! Z and I stayed in this year and when we woke up the following day the water no longer worked in our house. It was dreadful, but all is well now and to celebrate we decided to cook. We had purchased some badly needed supplies earlier (a real mixing bowl since our plastic ones seemed to disintegrate), a whisk, a spatula, and one of those awesome 4 sided graders so I decided that it would be nice to use all of them. I also got a parking ticket the other day, so I wanted to cook cheaply. It was difficult, but then I realized that I could make a weird frittata thing. Here is what I did:
1. Into the huge mixing bowl (check) I graded (check) a potato and a sweet potato. I think threw some pre-graded cheese in and some spices (salt, pepper, cayenne).
2. I cracked 4 eggs into the bowl and whisked (check) the stuff together.
3. I threw some oil into a large pan and then spatula'd (check) the entire mixture into the pan. Here I did what I could to flatten things.
Then I let the whole thing fry (covered) for a while.
4. After it seemed ready I flipped it and put it back in upside down. The flipping part is a lot of fun, though people who write about cooking online seem to think it is difficult. Maybe there are a lot of disabled people blogging about cooking. If they can't use their arms very well then it would make sense that they have a hard time with the flipping. Otherwise I just don't know. All you do is get a plate ready and take the whole pan and flip it over so that the weird eggy pancake thing lands on the plate. Then slide it back into the pan upside down.
5. After a very little bit so that the other side was cooked through I slide the whole thing on a pan.
6. Then I realized that I had forgotten to put peppers and onions in. I had planned to do this and felt really stupid for not doing it, but that sort of thing happens to me a lot when I just decide to make up some food idea without a recipe. It wasn't too disastrous because i threw a little extra cheese and some salsa on top and covered the plate for a few minutes so that it would get all melty.
7. I ate most of it. That is a lot of food to eat most of, so it must have been pretty good. I like eating plate-sized round things a lot.
I'm going to take a moment here to reaffirm the importance of texture in eating. If I were more into it I would try to describe what an eggy pancake feels like, but I don't think I am. It feels really good though. Better than quiche, even a fresh one.
Z made an even more delicious thing though. It was pastery-wrapped brie that had been baked. All kinds of delicious things had been drizzled all over the inside and the outside before cooking: syrup (from the Adirondacks), rasberry jam, and some other stuff. When it came out it had to cool for a few minutes and then it was a delicious cheesy-sweet blob. I ate part with just the pastry, part with apple, and part with cracker. I also loved brie for the first time ever. Turns out that is brie is warm and melty instead of cold and buttery I like it a lot. The taste is amazing. Once again, texture makes all the difference.
So, 2009 is off to a good start now. I have successfully gotten myself to like brie. One of my new years resolutions is to make homemade mayonaisse and not be grossed out by it. This condiment seems so disgusting to me, but it is used in so many things that are so delicious. I think that I limit my options too much by looking at thing, seeing the word 'mayo', and turning away in disgust.
1. Into the huge mixing bowl (check) I graded (check) a potato and a sweet potato. I think threw some pre-graded cheese in and some spices (salt, pepper, cayenne).
2. I cracked 4 eggs into the bowl and whisked (check) the stuff together.
3. I threw some oil into a large pan and then spatula'd (check) the entire mixture into the pan. Here I did what I could to flatten things.
Then I let the whole thing fry (covered) for a while.
4. After it seemed ready I flipped it and put it back in upside down. The flipping part is a lot of fun, though people who write about cooking online seem to think it is difficult. Maybe there are a lot of disabled people blogging about cooking. If they can't use their arms very well then it would make sense that they have a hard time with the flipping. Otherwise I just don't know. All you do is get a plate ready and take the whole pan and flip it over so that the weird eggy pancake thing lands on the plate. Then slide it back into the pan upside down.
5. After a very little bit so that the other side was cooked through I slide the whole thing on a pan.
6. Then I realized that I had forgotten to put peppers and onions in. I had planned to do this and felt really stupid for not doing it, but that sort of thing happens to me a lot when I just decide to make up some food idea without a recipe. It wasn't too disastrous because i threw a little extra cheese and some salsa on top and covered the plate for a few minutes so that it would get all melty.
7. I ate most of it. That is a lot of food to eat most of, so it must have been pretty good. I like eating plate-sized round things a lot.
I'm going to take a moment here to reaffirm the importance of texture in eating. If I were more into it I would try to describe what an eggy pancake feels like, but I don't think I am. It feels really good though. Better than quiche, even a fresh one.
Z made an even more delicious thing though. It was pastery-wrapped brie that had been baked. All kinds of delicious things had been drizzled all over the inside and the outside before cooking: syrup (from the Adirondacks), rasberry jam, and some other stuff. When it came out it had to cool for a few minutes and then it was a delicious cheesy-sweet blob. I ate part with just the pastry, part with apple, and part with cracker. I also loved brie for the first time ever. Turns out that is brie is warm and melty instead of cold and buttery I like it a lot. The taste is amazing. Once again, texture makes all the difference.
So, 2009 is off to a good start now. I have successfully gotten myself to like brie. One of my new years resolutions is to make homemade mayonaisse and not be grossed out by it. This condiment seems so disgusting to me, but it is used in so many things that are so delicious. I think that I limit my options too much by looking at thing, seeing the word 'mayo', and turning away in disgust.
Monday, December 22, 2008
Winter Fest 2008
Yesterday, k & p hosted a lovely little gathering at their place, in honor of the season that is descending upon us (with a healthy helping of snow and slipperiness). As we have come to expect from festivities at the shanty, Winter Fest abounded with good people, good (nineties) music, and good food.
I arrived about two or three hours before anyone else, because I'm really good at being a guest, and because rumor had it that there would be brunch for us earlies. YAY. The brunch menu consisted of home fries, scrambled eggs, onion bagels with cream cheese, and bloodies (or screwdrivers, for those with less refined tastes). This was all fantastic, and perfect preparation for what was in store.
As more guests trickled in, the food supply increased at an overwhelming rate. mwr brought orange chocolate chip cookies, which were just like chocolate cookies (awesome), with a bonus. QoC also served a cookie dish, but her butter logs jams were a totally different while equally delicious cookie beast.
After we were suitably filled up on dessert, k & mwr jumped into the sweet potato panang preparation. This was probably the most aromatically pleasant part of WF, not counting k & p's fabulous selection of Yankee Candles.
While the SPP was busy turning into something delicious, we snacked on my spinach-artichoke dip with pita chips, which turned out pretty good, right? I hadn't made it before but was intent on finding a recipe that did not involve mayonaise, so I'm happy with that.
The other appetizer of the dunch menu was k's tempeh hot wings. The SPF gang assembled in the kitchen to bring these to life together, coating them with copious breadcrumbs and very hot sauce. These were little too spicy for me, since I am a pussy, but otherwise a hit.
Finally, we ate the sweet potato panang (job well done, kids), played games, sang songs, and accepted the fact that winter has come to suck away whatever souls and sanity we have been able to cling to through the warmer months in the city.
I arrived about two or three hours before anyone else, because I'm really good at being a guest, and because rumor had it that there would be brunch for us earlies. YAY. The brunch menu consisted of home fries, scrambled eggs, onion bagels with cream cheese, and bloodies (or screwdrivers, for those with less refined tastes). This was all fantastic, and perfect preparation for what was in store.
As more guests trickled in, the food supply increased at an overwhelming rate. mwr brought orange chocolate chip cookies, which were just like chocolate cookies (awesome), with a bonus. QoC also served a cookie dish, but her butter logs jams were a totally different while equally delicious cookie beast.
After we were suitably filled up on dessert, k & mwr jumped into the sweet potato panang preparation. This was probably the most aromatically pleasant part of WF, not counting k & p's fabulous selection of Yankee Candles.
While the SPP was busy turning into something delicious, we snacked on my spinach-artichoke dip with pita chips, which turned out pretty good, right? I hadn't made it before but was intent on finding a recipe that did not involve mayonaise, so I'm happy with that.
The other appetizer of the dunch menu was k's tempeh hot wings. The SPF gang assembled in the kitchen to bring these to life together, coating them with copious breadcrumbs and very hot sauce. These were little too spicy for me, since I am a pussy, but otherwise a hit.
Finally, we ate the sweet potato panang (job well done, kids), played games, sang songs, and accepted the fact that winter has come to suck away whatever souls and sanity we have been able to cling to through the warmer months in the city.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Art of the 'choke
It has hung in the kitchen of every apartment I've lived in, a constant reminder of a) artichokes and b) my innate artistic ability. Once, it also served as a home to a large family roaches, which I learned as I took it down to pack while moving out and then proceeded to drop before screaming, fleeing the apartment, and refusing to go back in for a very long time. My artichoke picture has seen me through countless kitchen adventures, just as SPF is sure to do.
Friday, December 19, 2008
Goodbye to romance
Well, it's official. I am over massaman curry. Not over in the sense that I hate it or even that I'll never order it again. I only mean that it is not my favorite Thai dish any longer. It was my first favorite and I feel a little torn about seeing it go, but moving on with things is rarely bad. I'd been wondering if I was for a while. It's been over a year since I've had one that I really loved and everytime I try it I find it too sweet. I love potatoes (OMG THE TEXTURE OF THEM IN THIS CURRY IS SOOO GOOD, AND THEY ALWAYS ABSORB SO MUCH FLAVOR MMMMMMMMMM. bUT SERIOUSLY, THAT TEXTURE, THE WAY IN YOUR MOUTH IT BREAKS FROM A HUGE PIECE TO SEVERAL SMALL PIECES TO THIS ALMOST PASTEY THING); I love onions; I LOVE the idea of those being the main thing going into my curry, but in the end I always think "It wasn't as good as (x)". This isn't an incongrues transition for me. I am no longer the fan of highland scotches that I once was on account of their sweetness as well. I think sweet and I are on the outs a little.
Still, I think I ought to explain the death of the love. It certainly did not go gentle into that good night. I was making it at home with the canned stuff by the same people that make the panang paste that has been used in two sweet potato curries since the start of SPF (good lord!). We couldn't do chicken so I got some tofu. After several attempts now I have a tremendous ammount of respect for places and people that can do their tofu right. I am just miserable at it. No matter how long I fry it the result is the same: too soft and falling-aparty. In any case, I did the usual garlic, ginger, tofu, curry paste, fry fry fry, potatoe, milk, potato, milk, potato, milk, onion, peppers, fry, fry, fry, and then, I have no idea what came over me, i decided it would be good if it was a massaman paneer. This was a mistake, though not quite an abortion. (To be perfectly honest, I kind of liked it, but I can tell you for certain I was wrong to. Do not try this at home, or anywhere else, ever.) I quickly chopped up some mozzarella and threw the cubes in after it was done frying. I didn't stir them in hopes that they wouldn't melt. That failed. It became awfullly melty and made scooping the curry onto the plate difficult. There will be no pictures of this monstrosity. Still, it was enough like Massaman for me to know that it's time on center stage of my thai menu had passed.
Any candidates for new favorite thai dish?
Still, I think I ought to explain the death of the love. It certainly did not go gentle into that good night. I was making it at home with the canned stuff by the same people that make the panang paste that has been used in two sweet potato curries since the start of SPF (good lord!). We couldn't do chicken so I got some tofu. After several attempts now I have a tremendous ammount of respect for places and people that can do their tofu right. I am just miserable at it. No matter how long I fry it the result is the same: too soft and falling-aparty. In any case, I did the usual garlic, ginger, tofu, curry paste, fry fry fry, potatoe, milk, potato, milk, potato, milk, onion, peppers, fry, fry, fry, and then, I have no idea what came over me, i decided it would be good if it was a massaman paneer. This was a mistake, though not quite an abortion. (To be perfectly honest, I kind of liked it, but I can tell you for certain I was wrong to. Do not try this at home, or anywhere else, ever.) I quickly chopped up some mozzarella and threw the cubes in after it was done frying. I didn't stir them in hopes that they wouldn't melt. That failed. It became awfullly melty and made scooping the curry onto the plate difficult. There will be no pictures of this monstrosity. Still, it was enough like Massaman for me to know that it's time on center stage of my thai menu had passed.
Any candidates for new favorite thai dish?
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Two problems, one post: Sweet Potato Panang
I have posted about neither a dish I’ve made (shame) nor a sweet potato dish (scandal!), but that’s all about to change. Two nights ago I finally made sweet potato curry, a taste-texture-smell sensation that Kendall has been praising non-stop for years now. As a dish it does a lot of things, but it did not disappoint. Picture to come when I get the cord to Z’s camera.
Generally I don’t like eating things that have been shipped from halfway across the world to get to me, even if they are in cans. However, galangalanga isn’t easy to find so when I discovered that the Thai grocer across the street from Awesome Thai (a post on AT is sure to be forthcoming. In fact, I propose that we get all the SPF together for a trip there soon) sold cans of curry paste I decided I’d give ‘em a shot. The writing on these cans is all Thai so despite it’s elegance I wasn’t able to discern a recipe. That ended up not being a bad thing, as is most often the case when I just do what my nose and stomach tell me to.
Now, I like brown rice a lot, mainly for the texture. When I eat it I like to pretend that I’m eating a lot of tiny balloons that pop and release a delicious warm mush when I crush them with my teeth. Regular white rice is like just eating the balloon filling in some weird mush that has not been individually packaged just for my dining pleasure. I think this is a pretty good analogy because it would take a long time to individually stuff balloons with warm ricy-goodness and it takes a long time to cook the brown rice. Make sure you start cooking this shit at the beginning of your meal. It’ll stay warm as long as the pot has the top on it and if you don’t give your little balloon packers enough time then the balloons the give you to eat will be disgusting because they’re really pissed at their working conditions.
So, while the rice is cooking I diced a huge chunk of ginger—a lot more than I usually use. I added 3 (pretty good sized) diced cloves of garlic to this. Then I cut up 1 medium onion and 2 shallots julienne style and I sautéed all of these things in a pan with a small amount of olive oil (just enough to barely coat the pan, I didn’t want an olive-y curry).
As they were doing their thing and making my kitchen smell delicious I peeled and chopped 2 medium sized sweet potatoes. It’s pretty easy to know what size to chop these things into, just make it the size that upon entering your mouth mixed with sauce and rice will force your body to make a deep rumbling MMMMM sound that would be embarrassing were you not eating this in the company of only those people you allow into your home.
So I threw the potatoes in as I was chopping them, and when I got the first one in I had my lovely assistant add the can of panang curry paste and stir so that everything was coated. At this point you couldn’t even tell there had been any oil on the plate in the first place and it seemed like I was just frying delicious roots in a dry-ish curry paste. I think this is probably a good thing because I read in a few places when trying to learn how to cook Indian food that sautéing the spices dry first does a lot more to ‘release their inner flavor’. If it doesn’t do that it’ll release their inner smell and your nose will trick you enough that it doesn’t matter.
While all of this sizzling was going down I choped 2 big-ish peppers: one red and one yellow. I did a thicker slice than julienne would have wanted and then made rectangles out of the strips. I threw half of each in at this point and the other half at the very end after all of the milk had gone in (so that they'd be a little turgid as I was eating).
After all the potatoes were in I stirred everything for a while to try and ensure that there was an even coat of paste on everything and that each bit had spent its moment warming itself on the pan bottom. Then I opened a can (400ml) of coconut milk, threw out all of the weird caked crap at the top, poured in just a little, and stirred lovingly with a wooden ladel as if I were making a risotto. I ended up doing this for the rest of the coconut milk phase and I have no idea if it helped the dish, but it was fun.
I should say here that I find the trickiest part about Thai cooking to be the coconut milk. I like the flavor, I like it an awful lot, but ONLY when properly mixed with delicious Thai spices. If there is too much and I have a very sweet curry I get unbelievably sad because I know what the dish could have been. I’ve done this with Massaman curry too many times. Since the dish already has some yammy sweetness to it I did not want to over do it.
About halfway through the milk business I also poured in some fish oil. I have no idea how much I used, somewhere between half a teaspoon and 2 tablespoons. That probably isn’t very helpful but it probably shouldn’t be right? Everyone has a different tongue that wants a different amount of fish oil on it, so you shouldn’t just put as much fish oil as I did in yours.
Then I let the whole thing cook over a medium-low heat for a while, stirring very occasionally. I was hoping to eliminate as much sweet potato rigidity as I could. When I couldn’t bare waiting any longer I dished the whole thing up and ate. I used a plate rather than a bowl because it wasn’t super soupy, but when it is I really like to just dump the rice into the curry-bowl and eat it that way.
There aren’t words for how good it was. I can only say that I was extremely upset when I was full that I couldn’t be eating more, that I ate seconds twice throughout the evening, that I had it for breakfast and for lunch the next day, and that as I write this now, two days later, I still wish I were eating it. My stomach longs for it at night (it has enough spice to warm the tummy through these cold almost-winter new york nights). I could go on. I was particularly happy with how the peppers turned out. None of them were crisp, but they gave a nice textural variety to the ricy-potatoe goodness that was going on with them.
So, basically this was a triumph. As Z put it “you outdid yourself this time Mr. Roess”. I rate this an MMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! .
Generally I don’t like eating things that have been shipped from halfway across the world to get to me, even if they are in cans. However, galangalanga isn’t easy to find so when I discovered that the Thai grocer across the street from Awesome Thai (a post on AT is sure to be forthcoming. In fact, I propose that we get all the SPF together for a trip there soon) sold cans of curry paste I decided I’d give ‘em a shot. The writing on these cans is all Thai so despite it’s elegance I wasn’t able to discern a recipe. That ended up not being a bad thing, as is most often the case when I just do what my nose and stomach tell me to.
Now, I like brown rice a lot, mainly for the texture. When I eat it I like to pretend that I’m eating a lot of tiny balloons that pop and release a delicious warm mush when I crush them with my teeth. Regular white rice is like just eating the balloon filling in some weird mush that has not been individually packaged just for my dining pleasure. I think this is a pretty good analogy because it would take a long time to individually stuff balloons with warm ricy-goodness and it takes a long time to cook the brown rice. Make sure you start cooking this shit at the beginning of your meal. It’ll stay warm as long as the pot has the top on it and if you don’t give your little balloon packers enough time then the balloons the give you to eat will be disgusting because they’re really pissed at their working conditions.
So, while the rice is cooking I diced a huge chunk of ginger—a lot more than I usually use. I added 3 (pretty good sized) diced cloves of garlic to this. Then I cut up 1 medium onion and 2 shallots julienne style and I sautéed all of these things in a pan with a small amount of olive oil (just enough to barely coat the pan, I didn’t want an olive-y curry).
As they were doing their thing and making my kitchen smell delicious I peeled and chopped 2 medium sized sweet potatoes. It’s pretty easy to know what size to chop these things into, just make it the size that upon entering your mouth mixed with sauce and rice will force your body to make a deep rumbling MMMMM sound that would be embarrassing were you not eating this in the company of only those people you allow into your home.
So I threw the potatoes in as I was chopping them, and when I got the first one in I had my lovely assistant add the can of panang curry paste and stir so that everything was coated. At this point you couldn’t even tell there had been any oil on the plate in the first place and it seemed like I was just frying delicious roots in a dry-ish curry paste. I think this is probably a good thing because I read in a few places when trying to learn how to cook Indian food that sautéing the spices dry first does a lot more to ‘release their inner flavor’. If it doesn’t do that it’ll release their inner smell and your nose will trick you enough that it doesn’t matter.
While all of this sizzling was going down I choped 2 big-ish peppers: one red and one yellow. I did a thicker slice than julienne would have wanted and then made rectangles out of the strips. I threw half of each in at this point and the other half at the very end after all of the milk had gone in (so that they'd be a little turgid as I was eating).
After all the potatoes were in I stirred everything for a while to try and ensure that there was an even coat of paste on everything and that each bit had spent its moment warming itself on the pan bottom. Then I opened a can (400ml) of coconut milk, threw out all of the weird caked crap at the top, poured in just a little, and stirred lovingly with a wooden ladel as if I were making a risotto. I ended up doing this for the rest of the coconut milk phase and I have no idea if it helped the dish, but it was fun.
I should say here that I find the trickiest part about Thai cooking to be the coconut milk. I like the flavor, I like it an awful lot, but ONLY when properly mixed with delicious Thai spices. If there is too much and I have a very sweet curry I get unbelievably sad because I know what the dish could have been. I’ve done this with Massaman curry too many times. Since the dish already has some yammy sweetness to it I did not want to over do it.
About halfway through the milk business I also poured in some fish oil. I have no idea how much I used, somewhere between half a teaspoon and 2 tablespoons. That probably isn’t very helpful but it probably shouldn’t be right? Everyone has a different tongue that wants a different amount of fish oil on it, so you shouldn’t just put as much fish oil as I did in yours.
Then I let the whole thing cook over a medium-low heat for a while, stirring very occasionally. I was hoping to eliminate as much sweet potato rigidity as I could. When I couldn’t bare waiting any longer I dished the whole thing up and ate. I used a plate rather than a bowl because it wasn’t super soupy, but when it is I really like to just dump the rice into the curry-bowl and eat it that way.
There aren’t words for how good it was. I can only say that I was extremely upset when I was full that I couldn’t be eating more, that I ate seconds twice throughout the evening, that I had it for breakfast and for lunch the next day, and that as I write this now, two days later, I still wish I were eating it. My stomach longs for it at night (it has enough spice to warm the tummy through these cold almost-winter new york nights). I could go on. I was particularly happy with how the peppers turned out. None of them were crisp, but they gave a nice textural variety to the ricy-potatoe goodness that was going on with them.
So, basically this was a triumph. As Z put it “you outdid yourself this time Mr. Roess”. I rate this an MMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! .
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Baby take a ride in my soup
We all get sick. Or at least hungover enough to lay on the couch all day complaining about being sick in our best lazyvoice. Whatever. The important thing is to not let said situation inhibit our sweet potato friendships.
So let's make some chicken soup!
We thought we had some turkey bones left over from thanksgiving to use for the stock, but apparently roommates throw things like that away after a while. Therefore, we cooked a chicken.
Let's see; we chopped up some celery, carrots, onions, thyme, plus those shallots we found in fridge (thanks K!) and stuffed 'em in the chicken along with some smashed potatoes (sweet only with love), which we cooked in a big pot, natch.
After the chicken-cooking portion, the bones, carcass, and other assorted grosseties can go into the pot in which the chicken was braised, brought to a simmer and held for a long time so that the mmmarrow gets released into the broth. Add the rest of the mirepoix along with some potato chunks and seasoning. SALT.
We let it chill out on the stove for long time, watched some football because I was too exhausted to force the Gilmore Girls option, spooned out the bones, and ate some delicious chicken soup! I still have a bunch leftover in the fridge at work!
Props to jc, who is the other and primary part of this "we," seeing as I pretty much slept through most of the process.
So let's make some chicken soup!
We thought we had some turkey bones left over from thanksgiving to use for the stock, but apparently roommates throw things like that away after a while. Therefore, we cooked a chicken.
Let's see; we chopped up some celery, carrots, onions, thyme, plus those shallots we found in fridge (thanks K!) and stuffed 'em in the chicken along with some smashed potatoes (sweet only with love), which we cooked in a big pot, natch.
After the chicken-cooking portion, the bones, carcass, and other assorted grosseties can go into the pot in which the chicken was braised, brought to a simmer and held for a long time so that the mmmarrow gets released into the broth. Add the rest of the mirepoix along with some potato chunks and seasoning. SALT.
We let it chill out on the stove for long time, watched some football because I was too exhausted to force the Gilmore Girls option, spooned out the bones, and ate some delicious chicken soup! I still have a bunch leftover in the fridge at work!
Props to jc, who is the other and primary part of this "we," seeing as I pretty much slept through most of the process.
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