With so much work to do, it’s been pretty hard lately to rise much above maintenance mode in the kitchen. I don’t even feel the urge to get fancy or spend all day messing around with various components or techniques so that dinner can be a unique and creative improvisation like I did so much in the winter. Having said that, I still want things to taste good, and given the chance I will incorporate…
cookblog Posts
Christine has been in Florida with her Mom for just about a week now, so Milo and I have been enjoying our time together. Much Lego has been involved, as has some gardening- planting early things, mulching the ramps (they’re coming up) and putting a cherry tree next to the garage. It’s still pretty cold- tonight it will go down to a totally unreasonable 15˚- but the days are warming and I simply will not…
During the winter, I stumbled upon an amazing combination of flavors for a lasagna: veal and dashi. I wrote about it here. This time around it was different, but took advantage of another exotic broth to create a standard-looking dish that had a surprising depth and complexity of flavor. In this instance, I used the last quart of barbecued pork broth from the freezer plus a healthy dollop of our basil/sorrel/nasturtium pesto to make the…
With the thaw comes the discovery of various forgotten or hidden treasures in the garden that have made it through the winter unscathed. A week ago, on the first nice Saturday of the year, I was out there turning compost into beds and unearthing a remarkable variety of things- not all of which were expected. We leave parsnips until March so there’s something to enjoy before the first greens come up, and there were some…
I don’t really have it in me to blog about the steak- realizing that by even saying this I’m making it sound like it’s going to be exciting or something, which it likely will not be- so I’ll continue to jump around in time like some too-clever-by-half pomo filmmaker and give you the dessert from a couple of days ago, when friends came bearing some of the takeout Pakistani food from the rednecky mini-mart near…
This is out of order, but it does represent the end- though there’s a fair amount leftover, so it’s always possible I’ll turn that into something new- of all the brothy goodness. Phillippe and Lea had invited us for dinner the other day, but we couldn’t get a sitter so they came to us bearing cassoulet (the pics were either flashy or blurry.) It was delicious, and I made parsnips puréed with yogurt, olive oil,…
Now I’m sure you’ve all been breathlessly, sleeplessly awaiting news of what happened to the rest of the BBQ pork/mutant Thai broth, and I’m pleased to be able to oblige so that you may return to your normal, non-awesome-broth-having lives. The short answer is shepherd’s pie. The longer answer is that we had 2 frozen burger patties and I figured that in conjunction with all the veggie goodness that was also to be found in…
After chafing repeatedly at the inadequacies of my Thai food- specifically in terms of that restaurant-perfect authenticity that makes us (those of us who live in places that have it, that is) seek out cheap ethnic takeout much more often than we should- I finally broke down and ordered some stuff to help bring my cooking up to the level which my cravings require of me. Specifically, kaffir lime leaves and galangal, which I just…
This doesn’t look like much, admittedly, but the flavors were stellar. I made a simple broth from the BBQ pork bones we saved from Saturday’s dinner, simmering them for about three hours with onion, celery, carrot, ginger, fennel, anise, clove, garlic, and lemongrass. Then I strained it and ladled it into bowls of silky udon to which I added a spoon of soy-braised burdock and a big heap of kimchi from the jar. The result…
On Saturday Kee and Todd came for dinner. We’ve only been meaning to get together for a year, so the event was right on schedule. They’re both Southern, so I took it upon myself to violate one of their most sacred culinary traditions in that reckless and insensitive way that I have. It’s one of the reasons we have to keep inviting new people over. The white beans from the other night, whirled with garlic…