What's Cooking (Take Four)

I have been a busy boy.

As I said in another thread, I started up two batches of vin de pamplemousse.

I still have a lot of lemon juice from my limoncello makings so I've taken about a third of it to make lemon custard. Pumpkin and I will bake-off some pastry cups, as needed, and spoon them up. (I predict the rest of the juice becomes popsicles but I need to do some math on how much simple syrup to make.)

I've had wine events on Thursday and Saturday. For the Saturday one, I made a tray of creamy-cheesey gnocchi. Big hit with the peeps.

Today, I made paella, which is a very yummy and a complete nuisance. I topped it with roast chicken, shrimp, squid, and black cod. And I burned my fingertip, dammit.

And all those little kitchen maintenance things, too... the gnocchi took six chicken thighs so there was a very gelatinous broth to strain and keep; peeled an entire head of garlic; the custard threw off four egg whites so I have to prompt His Majesty to make hisself an omelette; I bought some red cherries thanks to the discussion here; I've got five bottles of wine hogging the top shelf in my fridge; yada yada yada.

I love working with lemons, too. I have 13 bags of Lisbon Lemon Cubes in two freezers. I use them for many things. I have never made Lemoncello and probably never will, as a good martini is my go-to drink in late afternoon, and I don't think I need more than that.

[Jenise]

The cheese got crispy on top and around the edges of the dish. Zero fat in this dish...

You don't count cheese as fat? I don't object, it does sound good.

I went to the circus yesterday. There's a travelling circus here--kind of a small scale Cirque du Soleil, and a realtor in Bellingham put out a thing on her Bellingham Living Facebook page that she had an extra ticket--in an hour. I put up my hand and flew out of here. No, I'd never met or even talked to her before, but this town's like that. And the show was superb--separately, actors Hilary Swank and Richard Kind were both in the audience in the last couple weeks. We had front row seats, really fun to be around children and families. So lunch was a bag of popcorn, and dinner at home later was cherry tomatoes and raw carrots. I had bought a piece of halibut on the way home to prepare for myself but ran out of ambition by the time I got here. Life these days.

[Jenise]

I still have a lot of lemon juice from my limoncello makings....

And this is why the yellow socks?

I made andouille and tasso jambalaya last night. What with the heatwave I'll be eating leftovers for a few days.

-Paul W.

Yes, Jenise, I do count cheese as fat, but I used very little for the size of the dish, so I'm sure it is okay. After chilling overnight, there was no fat to remove, and I like that. Now, if I could just leave the container of my new love caramelized nut mix. OMG, that stuff is so good.

Jenise, even on a small scale, Cirque du Soleil is awesome. Gene and I went to Sacramento a few times to see them; excellent shows, stunts, and costumes. Worth checking out in some larger cities near you. The circus of the sun is definitely worth the money.

Circus sounds fun!
And Karen's casserole sounds good.
Best thing I made this week was zucchini flowers, saw at farmers market and couldn't resist. Baked instead of fried. Ricotta, basil, and orange zest as filled, egg wash and rolled in panko. Now need to figure out something fun to do with rest of the excellent farmers market ricotta. Extreme heat wave here, so trying to not cook unless outdoors. But dinner in city tonight.

I still have a lot of lemon juice from my limoncello makings....

And this is why the yellow socks?

Well, nobody wears yellow ties anymore.

.. Now need to figure out something fun to do with rest of the excellent farmers market ricotta. Extreme heat wave here, so trying to not cook unless outdoors...

Yes, fresh ricotta goes bad pretty quickly, especially in the summer. I'm sure you'll figure something out.

[Jenise]

Well, nobody wears yellow ties anymore.

Excellent point! Fun story: once upon a time a friend was watching TV with her husband. They saw a diaper commercial with a really cute naked baby in it. Lois cooed over it. Then came a commercial with a soft drink she liked, and she mentioned she'd like on. Then came a commercial with a man wearing a yellow tie she liked and commented on. Eventually she got up and went to the bathroom. When she came back, there sat her husband--naked but for a yellow tie holding a soft drink aloft. 30 years have passed and I still can't hear about a yellow tie without smiling about that.

[Jenise]

.. Now need to figure out something fun to do with rest of the excellent farmers market ricotta. Extreme heat wave here, so trying to not cook unless outdoors...

Yes, fresh ricotta goes bad pretty quickly, especially in the summer. I'm sure you'll figure something out.

Bruschetta???? Can top it with anything.

ricotta, hazelnuts, and a drizzle of honey -- that is one good bruschetta!

Well, nobody wears yellow ties anymore.

Excellent point! Fun story: once upon a time a friend was watching TV with her husband. They saw a diaper commercial with a really cute naked baby in it. Lois cooed over it. Then came a commercial with a soft drink she liked, and she mentioned she'd like one. Then came a commercial with a man wearing a yellow tie she liked and commented on. Eventually she got up and went to the bathroom. When she came back, there sat her husband--naked but for a yellow tie and holding a soft drink aloft. 30 years have passed and I still can't hear about a yellow tie without smiling about that.

I like his sense of humor!

Yellow ties -- aka, "power ties" -- were all the thing back in the 1980s. And maybe they would be again, if anybody wore ties anymore. I haven't been obliged to wear one at work in decades.

The only people still wearing ties at work are salemen and lawyers, and you know what kind of people they are.

This morning's breakfast is blueberry lemon sourdough bread with avocado slices, a bit of siracha mayo, and cantaloupe slices with a Tajin sprinkle.

[Jenise]

Karen, you're so fancy. Mine was an avocado, Malden salt and a spoon.

Karen, you're so fancy. Mine was an avocado, Malden salt, and a spoon.

Really? You are the creative one. I love to be in the kitchen, and I just see what is available and what I can use to make it fun and interesting. With my Gene no longer here to eat, I have to throw out too much. I keep a well-stocked kitchen pantry, and I have much room to do it. Now I cook less and can only use up so much. I wish someone would start a chain of stores for folks who want to have a good supply of product, but not so much of it. Smaller packages, cans, containers. I love using Coffee Mate organic vanilla bean creamer for my cereal and in some recipes calling for cream. It comes in a huge container and I end up tossing most of it. Just as an example. I can buy individual serving bags of potato chips in a certain brand, and I love that...now if other manufacturers would follow.

[Jenise]

Karen, the only impetus for smaller packaging is children's lunches or take-out hustles. The rest of us will just have to live with tossing out overflow. I'm okay with that.

I actually bought a fam-sized package of three Dolly Parton sized Foster Farms chicken breasts the other day. Each over a pound, an absurd quantity for this new widow with no plans. But with cold weather coming, I poached them in a broth heavily seasoned with fresh thyme and rosemary from my garden. I ate half of one for dinner and chunked the rest into the broth. It will feed me all week, and I'll be very grateful.

Simple today. Hot dogs and tomato soup. But I made the hot dog buns plus a couple of hamburger buns. Way better than store bought.

I recently discovered Almondina Almond Bites, with ginger, turmeric, and almonds. Really good. You gotta try them. Kinda like biscotti.

Karen, you're so fancy. Mine was an avocado, Malden salt, and a spoon.

Really? You are the creative one. I love to be in the kitchen, and I just see what is available and what I can use to make it fun and interesting. With my Gene no longer here to eat, I have to throw out too much. I keep a well-stocked kitchen pantry, and I have much room to do it. Now I cook less and can only use up so much. I wish someone would start a chain of stores for folks who want to have a good supply of product, but not so much of it. Smaller packages, cans, containers. I love using Coffee Mate organic vanilla bean creamer for my cereal and in some recipes calling for cream. It comes in a huge container and I end up tossing most of it. Just as an example. I can buy individual serving bags of potato chips in a certain brand, and I love that...now if other manufacturers would follow.

If you have some patience the inexorable downsizing of products will take care of you.

Tonight was one of those evenings when things didn't work out all that well. I tried my hand at making kartofelklosse, German potato dumplings. The recipe was from a book we picked up at a thrift store called "Menus For All Occasions", by Julie Dannenbaum. It's from 1974 and has a lot of interesting recipes in the context of complete menus. (Including occasions such as "Back Porch Supper" and "A Dinner for Eight Frogs' Legs Lovers"). Making the dumplings involves boiling russet potatoes, ricing them, and adding flour, eggs, grated onion, parsley, and nutmeg. You roll them into balls and then boil them in chicken stock. Everything seemed to go well until the boiling part. They were supposed to be at a low boil in a covered pot for fifteen minutes, but when I checked on them at the eight minute mark, they had pretty much all disintegrated into the broth. I thought that maybe the boiling was too vigorous, so I lowered the heat and put the second batch in. They didn't completely dissolve, but they still came out like barely coherent mashed potatoes rather than dumplings. After a bit of internet research, we think that maybe the ratio of flour to potato was off. The recipe called for six medium potatoes with a half cup of flour. I used five of the smallest russets I could find (which were still pretty large) and a half cup of potato starch. Other recipes call for much more starch per potato, so maybe that was the issue. Not all was lost, though. After we finished all of this, I took the stick blender to the stock-dissolved-dumpling mix and came out with a really tasty potato soup.