Thursday

I have the privlege of having a weekly dinner engagement with some very close friends of mine. It started out about a year ago with just a few people going over for dinner on Thursday evenings. Since then it has evolved, and Thursdays (the italics are necessary, because the Thursday evening dinner/party/gaming session/hang-out/you-get-the-idea has become an entity in and of itself, and must be distinguished from the day Thursday) now consist of anywhere from seven to twenty people, hanging out starting as early as three o’clock in the afternoon, and often going into the wee hours of the morning.

The “what” of dinner changes from week to week. It can be anything from leftover buffet (Everyone’s had one of these, one of the best types of meal. If you don’t recognize the inherent awesomeness of a slice of pizza sitting on a plate next to some mashed potatoes, then there might be something wrong with you) to an elaborately themed, multi-course meal, and any of the possibilities in between.

The most fun is when we all cook together. One Saturday morning (not a Thursday, but still a Thursday ) we all got together and made breakfast. Each of us was in charge of something, and we had a great time dodging around the kitchen to get our portion done, all the while trying to both help each other and stay out of each other’s way. It was wonderful bedlam. Another Thursday was pizza night. Each of us brought some sort of fun, different, creative pizza topping, and we made a bunch of pies. We ended up with several choices, ranging from simple pepperoni, to a whole wheat crust with yellow tomatoes, goat cheese, spinach, and olives.

This all got me thinking about food (not that I really need anything to get me thinking about food) and its social role in our lives. As I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, I love food. I love to cook it, I love to eat it, but I especially love to share it with other people. It’s wonderful to make a great meal for yourself, but it’s even more fun when you cook for a group. There are few things in this world more satisfying than sharing a meal with people you love.

Food doesn’t just feed us, it brings us together. It’s a medium through which we socialize. Think back to your last Thanksgiving dinner. I’m sure you remember the food and how delicious it was, but I’m also pretty sure that the highlight of the day was one of Uncle Frank’s wacky anecdotes and not the mashed potatoes.

With so many things to occupy our lives these days, it’s more important than ever to take time to enjoy. Enjoy life, enjoy family, enjoy friends. I’ve found no better way to enjoy than to share a meal with people I love. Enjoy. There will be plenty of time tomorrow to clean the house, or change the oil, or go grocery shopping or (you get the idea…)

So relax. Have another piece of bread. Enjoy the company of the ones you love. Before you know it Thursday becomes Friday, and it’s back to the grind. And let me tell you, a week takes a long time when you have something so wonderful waiting at the end of it.

Happy Update Day! (To all of us…)

From the Drawing Board, I’ve got a Morel Dilemma below.

There’s also another recipe in the works: Having become the Unofficial Cold Soup Guru at our Thursday night gatherings, I’m in the process of coming up with a completely original soup recipe. I’m thinking a fruit puree, maybe tropical. More to come…

Going back to the drawing board (he he), I’m in research to create the perfect recipe for a margarita.  (Not to be confused with the Perfect Margarita recipe.)

A Morel Dillema: Part One

While I’ve never had a morel myself (it’s a mushroom, for those who don’t know), I have a good friend who absolutely raves about them. These little guys go for upward of $30 per pound, because they’ve never been successfully farmed in any significant quantity.

When I heard this, I took it as a challenge. I refuse to believe that with all our advancements, we don’t have the technology to farm morel mushrooms. A friend of mine pointed out that smarter men than use have tried and failed, but I figure it’s worth a shot.

Stage one is research. According to Wikipedia, “The morel grows abundantly in the two and sometimes three years immediately following a forest fire. However, where fire suppression is practiced, they may grow regularly in small amounts in the same spot year after year.”

I think that’s as good a starting place as any. No forest fires nearby, so I’ll try to figure out things liked soil composition and pH following a forest fire. Ninth grade biology, don’t fail me now!

Updates to follow.

Soup’s On 2: The Avocado Chronicles

The other night I made a cold avocado soup at a friend’s house. It was different, and came out really well. Here’s the rough recipe:

2 avocados, mashed

1 Pint sour cream

1 Tbs Worcester sauce (although, in retrospect, I’d have used a teaspoon)

2 Tbs lime juice (but I ended up adding more)

1 Can cream of mushroom soup (If I make it again, I’ll be leaving this out)

Salt and Pepper to taste

The recipe didn’t call for it, but fresh cilantro to taste (Limes, avocados, cilantro, it seemed right.)

Milk to thin soup

Now for the complicated preparation instructions: Mix it all up.

If you use the canned soup, watch how much salt you add. Make sure to taste it. Before you add the milk, the mixture will be very thick, more like guacamole than soup. The recipe said “add just enough milk to achieve the proper texture.” That’s extremely vague. Make it as thin as you like your soup. Chill.

This one, as most cold recipes (be it a cold soup or a salsa) are, is better the second day. The flavors have some time to get all happy and acquainted and intermixed and balanced. I found the Worcester to be a little overpowering, but it had backed off and homogenized the second day.

Warning: It doesn’t keep very long.  Less than a week in the fridge.  I don’t know how well it freezes.

A very nice summer soup. Tasty, but I like the watermelon better.

As promised…

I set a goal, and I kept it. Last night I made two salsas for today’s Father’s Day Cookout Extravaganza. Ok, I’m the only one who calls it that.

For the first I made the mango, jicama, onion, cilantro that I mentioned in Salsa Dance. I think it came out well.

For the second, I just riffed. Here goes:

1 vidalia onion

1 large poblano

1 green bell pepper

1 red bell pepper

1 orange bell pepper

fresh cilantro, finely minced

the juice of a lime or two

2 or 3 cerrano chilis (I had never used these before. These little guys pack a punch.)

Several small tomatoes (not necessary, but I like tomatoey salsas)

3 or 4 cloves of garlic, smashed, minced

Salt to taste

Chop it up. Mix it up. Chill it up. I’ll know for sure tomorrow, but preliminary taste tests are promising. As for the choice of bell pepper, I had two things in mind: One; green, orange, and red make for a very pretty salsa. Two; I think that red peppers are sweeter. Following that logic, orange will be sweeter than yellow. I wanted a nice blend of sweet and spicy. Poblanos are great because they have the flavor of a green bell, but with just a little bit of heat. Very nice.

In the spirit of cookouts and appropriate things to put on a tortilla chip, I also made some guac:

2 avocados, mashed

the juice of two limes

5 cloves of garlic, smashed, minced

about a third of a vidalia onion, finely minced

1 tomato, finely chopped

fresh cilantro, finely minced

3 cerrano peppers, finely chopped

Salt and pepper to taste

Mix it up. Chill it up. Initially the lime seemed a little overpowering, but once I had added the garlic, salt, and cilantro, it made more sense in the grand flavor scheme. It’s still a very lime intensive guac, but it seems to make sense. I’m thinking about calling it Margarita Guacamole.

I tried a new beer today, as well. It’s called Land Shark. It’s labeled as an “Island Style Lager.” I don’t know what “Island Style” is, but I like it a lot. It’s got the lightness of Corona, but with a little more depth to the flavor. “More robust” might be a good way to describe it.

On a side note: I had some cilantro on my hand when I took a sip of the beer. There’s something very nice about that smell/flavor combination. It seems right.

Wouldn’t you like to eat a pepper too?

I was thinking the other day that I’d do restaurant reviews on here, but I don’t go to restaurants all that often. (At least not ones that I’d necessarily want to review. I go to Friday’s, or Applebee’s, or Panera, big chains. I only have a few unique restaurants where I eat.)

This review is not about one of those restaurants. It’s about a chain. Sorry. And it’s not so much a review as a paragraph or two of gratuitous praise.

I’m speaking, of course, of Chipotle.

Love.

Most of the people I know could eat Chipotle absolutely any time. I have to be in the mood for it if I’m going to suggest going there or go out of my way to go there. On the other hand, even if I end up there when it wasn’t my first choice, I always leave happy.

I’ve grown attached to their burrito bols (no, that’s not a misspelling.) I usually get the chicken fajita (I like beans, but not in extreme quantity) bol. Medium salsa, the corn, not the green chili. Sour cream, lettuce, cheese, and a little guac. *Yes, I know it costs extra. No, I don’t care.

I didn’t realize until today just how much I loved that corn salsa. First of all, corn makes an excellent additive to Mexican food. I think it’s one of Mexican cuisine’s undersung flavors. I was surprised to find out that a lot of people don’t associate the two. I had someone give me a funny look because I put corn in my chilli. Don’t knock it. Corn brings a lot to the dish in terms of flavor and texture.

The salsa on the whole has a sweet, spicy flavor, and a very nice crunchy texture. To be honest, I don’t know what else goes in to it, but I intend to find out.

*Anyone who’s eaten there and ordered guac knows what I’m talking about.

To stick with the pepper theme of this entry, I was at Baker’s Square the other night and I tried their green chilli. It was excellent. More of a soup than a chilli, really, but delicious all the same. One unexpected ingredient: potatoes. Caught me totally off guard, but really good in the soup.

I’ve never been big on soups. I like soup a lot, but I don’t love it. Maybe I should add some sort of soup to my summer experiment list.

Soup’s on

I tried kind of an interesting recipe the other day. (By “tried a recipe” I mean I looked at a bunch of recipes and then decided to wing it.) I was making dinner at a friend’s house, and he told me about a recipe for Watermelon Soup he’d run across on the internet. I thought it sounded interesting and gave it a shot.

Here’s my (sort of) recipe:

1 watermelon, as round as possible

1 pineapple, rind removed, cut into chunks

1 mango, peeled, cut into chunks

the juice of 2 lemons

the juice of 1 orange

fresh mint, finely minced

First thing’s first: Fruit soup = puree. I’ve never found an exception. Cut the top off of the watermelon, maybe a third of the way down. Hollow out the bottom part (bet you can guess why.) Here’s where I goofed: I pureed the entire watermelon, figuring it would lose some volume due to juice being lost. Don’t puree the entire thing. I don’t know exactly how much, but I’d guess two-thirds (not including the “lid”) should be pureed. Puree most of the pineapple and most of the mango. Mix the purees together, and add the remaining chunks of pineapple and mango, and a handful or two of the watermelon. (None of the recipes called for this, but I thought it would make things interesting.) Add the citrus juice and mint.

Now the fun part: Put the soup back into the watermelon, cover with plastic wrap, and chill for a few hours. Overnight would be better. If you’re concerned about the stability of the “bowl,” take the top you cut off and cut the top half off. You’ll be left with a ring that you can use to stabilize the bowl on the table.

Like I said, I was flying by the seat of my culinary pants (that sounded stranger than I expected), but it actually came out really well. If you’re not a mango or mint person, don’t fret. Neither am I, and I still loved it.

The drawing board…

As in “Back to the”.

I keep writing about adding things to my list of summer culinary experiments. I figured it would help to have an actual list. I’ll put up new posts as I try the things from the list. Hopefully I’ll meet with some success and won’t have to go back to the– well, you know.

Spaghetti and meatballs – My mom had this amazing spaghetti sauce recipe. I don’t know that I’ve found a family without some sort of quasi-proprietary spaghetti sauce recipe. Unfortunately, my mom never wrote her recipes down, so this one is lost to the ages. I did chilli for the first time a year or so ago, and I’ve been meaning to do spaghetti ever since then.

Salsa – I mentioned this in Salsa Dance (S s s s A a a a L l l l S s s s…nevermind.) I’ve helped make a bunch of salsas, but I’ve never done one myself. I’m going to play around with flavors and textures. Maybe develop some sort of system, with a chart. I don’t know.

Morel mushrooms – I’ll probably be spending a lot of time at the drawing board here. I love mushrooms, and while I’ve never had a morel myself, I’ve heard they’re amazing. Unfortunately, they’ve never been successfully farmed, so they go for upwards of $30/pound. I intend to discover the secret to cultivating them in captivity. (Don’t get too excited, botanists have tried it and failed.) Worth a shot, though.

Corn dogs – Not a culinary brainbuster, but easily one of my favorite foods. I’ve never attempted them.

Margarita recipe – My favorite drink. (It’s not a girl drink!) Anyway, I’ve never made one.

Meatloaf – Another of my mom’s amazing recipes, lost to time. Most kids grew up dreading meatloaf night. We grew up looking forward to it. First I intend to figure out and emulate Mom’s recipe, then I’ll get working on my own.

Since I know me, and I know how undisciplined I am, I’m going to set an actual goal:  Within one week from today, I will try at least one of the things on this list.  (Probably salsa.)

Updates to follow…

Getting Saucy

I’m running out of food puns. Uh-oh.

I had my first experience in making pesto not too long ago when I was at a friend’s house for dinner.

Pesto really couldn’t be easier to make. It’s fresh basil (a whole mess of fresh basil, 6 cups), olive oil (a whole mess of olive oil, 2 cups), parmesan cheese (1/2 cup), salt and pepper, and two cups of pine nuts. We didn’t have enough pine nuts, so we used a combination of pine nuts and walnuts. Put everything but the oil in a food processor, then turn it on, adding the oil slowly.

That’s it. Pesto change-o! (Aha! I haven’t run out just yet!) The walnuts gave the sauce a really nice sweet flavor. We served it cold over farfale (bow tie pasta), but it could just as appropriately been served hot over linguine or fettucini, or whatever.

Update on updates

I started this blog a week ago. At the time, I had decided to do weekly updates on Sunday, but now it looks like I’m going be able to write enough content to update more frequently.

The plan as it stands is to update twice a week, once on Sunday and once on Wednesday.

Also, I’m going to try really hard to include more photos in the entries. I actually have a stove now, so once it gets hooked up, I’ll (theoretically) be cooking more at home.

That’s all for now. Another update to follow on Wednesday.