We had some friends over for dinner who live close by but for some reason we don’t manage to see often enough- even though the kids all get along so well and we always have a great time together. I had an idea recently, spurred by the bacon, so I wrapped scallops in bacon, glued with activa, and vacuum-sealed them into tiny muffin tins to help them keep their shape. After about 8 hours I…
Year: 2008
I went to a couple of stores, looking first for fish and second for other things to give me ideas; if I don’t have a clear idea in mind, the sight of good-looking ingredients gives me focus. So I found some excellent marlin, and decided I’d make hand rolls since we had some brown rice in the fridge. The hand rolls would need sriracha mayo (duh) so I got eggs and oil. I also broke…
Probably the single best thing about a garden in summer is that if there are even a couple of pantry staples in the house the question “what’s for dinner?” becomes a reason to smile rather than worry. In this case, with some leftover lentil soup and half a recipe of pie crust in the fridge, a sumptuous and exalted pot pie was brought into being on short notice. I took a little hunk of salt…
It’s been raining a lot, and while not exactly cold, the weather did afford the opportunity to make soup. I began by making broth with the BBQ chicken bones from last week, then crisped up a thick slice’s worth of lardons from the sadly diminishing slab of bacon (the dwindlement seems to be a side effect of using it in every damn thing.) And then, into the fragrant fat, carrots, turnips, baby red onions, and…
We had company this weekend, and went to John’s birthday on Friday; I’ll post about that out of order because I’m waiting for a photograph. Today was pretty Italian in spirit, if unconventionally so: arancini (supplì) for breakfast, and penne for dinner. I took the leftover risotto from the other night and formed it into balls around fat, crispy lardons of our homemade bacon (think that phrase is one I’ll tire of soon? Stick around…
It had been a while since Chris and Sirkka visited, between his incessant touring and my own recent travels, so we were all pretty happy to get together for a meal. The kids played really well together, affording us some quality adult chill time during both preparation and eating. To begin, my newly invented shiso mojitos: shiso, agave, lime juice (should really be yuzu, but good luck finding that fresh) rum, and sake. The agave…
The garden is getting to the point now where my job is simply to produce substrates, mediums, and vehicles which can allow the plants to shine. Our escarole is perfect, so I lopped off the inaugural head and sautéed it briefly with a couple of cloves of garlic then deglazed the pan with smoked duck broth. If you’re noticing a pattern here, it’s one of our favorite ways to eat greens- sometimes with lemon in…
Though it looks like an excess of consecutive red meat consumption around here, there was actually a day in between- my last day of solitude- wherein not much interesting was et. This meal honored the return of my family, who actually really missed me and were pretty excited to be home again. I defrosted a butterflied piece of lamb leg and gave it a quick rub with Moroccan-type flavors. While it rested, I made a…
Over the last few days I’ve been enjoying the merry situation that ensues when a laptop, DSL modem, and camera all decide to stop working within days of each other. It’s a freaking laugh riot, and I’m interpreting it as a sign from God that this blog is an abomination. Therefore, I’ll be changing the blog to johnmccainisTOTALLYastraighttalkingmaverick.com in the hopes of avoiding the brimstone, burning, and the lake of fire, and the eternal torment…
It was such a pleasure to be home for a few days in a row; I got to settle in to the rhythms of the garden and kitchen, where the plants tell me what to eat and I can generate leftovers that inform and give depth to subsequent meals. It also meant that I could finally make another big crock of kimchi, since our Asian cabbages are getting huge. This batch was cabbage, carrots, chioggia…