What's Cooking (Take Three!)

[Jenise]

Last night we had pasta. The sauce was a doctored version of the 'gravy' left over from last week's brachiole which was loaded with onions and served natural at the time. For last night, though, I whizzed it with an immersion blender, thinned it and recooked it with red chile flakes. When I served it on the pasta, topped it with parm and excellent (Spanish!) white truffle oil. So while it's origins weren't meatless, there was no meat on our plates and it qualified for Meatless Monday. Arugula salad and an '04 Tuscan red to go with it.

I made the Spice I Am minced chicken with holy basil last night. It came out very much as I remember it from the restaurant. It differs significantly from the Bangkok Imperial Hotel recipe that I posted to FLDG in that it uses garlic instead of shallots and has dark soy sauce and Golden Mountain sauce added. I've seen that in other recipes for pad prik gai bai grapow.

-Paul W.

Thick spaghetti topped with pesto sauce, asparagus, and shrimp. Accompanied by my latest bread, which had some crumbled fresh cheese and Parmesan and Goji berries inside. Very simpatico.

[Jenise]

Last night the Picky People made spaghetti for us. No garlic, no onions, no herbs. That was different!

Not sure tonight. Maybe I'll go vegan with a ratatouille.

Last night the Picky People made spaghetti for us. No garlic, no onions, no herbs. That was different!

Snark aside, did anything stand out about it? Good acidity? Umami? Or just the plainest of the plain?

I made the Spice I Am pad takrai gai (stir-fried chicken with lemongrass) last night. I think these recipes assume a more intense heat source than the butane canister single hob that I use indoors. I'll try this one again when it's warm enough outside to use my 100,000 BTU propane gas ring.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

Last night the Picky People made spaghetti for us. No garlic, no onions, no herbs. That was different!

Snark aside, did anything stand out about it? Good acidity? Umami? Or just the plainest of the plain?

It was sweet. Plain and sweet, as in hamburger-with-minimal tomato paste sweet. Best I could tell made in the pan--a la minute style--so flavors weren't 'developed'.

Last night the Picky People made spaghetti for us. No garlic, no onions, no herbs. That was different!

Snark aside, did anything stand out about it? Good acidity? Umami? Or just the plainest of the plain?

It was sweet. Plain and sweet, as in hamburger-with-minimal tomato paste sweet. Best I could tell made in the pan--a la minute style--so flavors weren't 'developed'.

Sounds like a candidate for a few drops of Gravy-Master.

[Jenise]

The parmesan really helped, they gave me a large serving and I ate all of it, no problem. It's just very different from anything I've had before. Bob said it reminded him of what he knew as spaghetti in his Texas panhandle childhood.

[Jenise]

Btw, no idea what's for dinner tonight. Probably something vegetarian. Last night was also vegetarian: a baked ratatoille served on a crisp spinach salad.

I picked up some crawdads today, so I have one dish picked out.

I made Paul Prudhomme's poorman's jambalaya again last night. That will be the last jambalaya for a while--I'm out of tasso.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

Sounds like a candidate for a few drops of Gravy-Master.

Had an epiphany this morning. Hamburgers are this couple's favorite food. And what do they put on them? Ketchup (no vegetables). The spaghetti just puts those flavors on a different carb.

[Jenise]

Brother and husband are coming to dinner tonight and I'm serving an All White Menu. All white wines and all white food. The inspiration was a few interesting whites acquired recently plus my desire to do a dish that will be chicken thighs braised with fennel and baby creamer potatoes in a dry white vermouth sauce.

For a finger appetizer I'll do little sourdough crostinis with lemon-peel ricotta and artichoke tapenade. I'm toying with my options, one course or two?, for in between. Maybe a breadcrumb coated disc of goat cheese on romaine chiffonade for a salad, and a seared scallop on grits.

Had an epiphany this morning. Hamburgers are this couple's favorite food. And what do they put on them? Ketchup (no vegetables). The spaghetti just puts those flavors on a different carb.

Remember when Reagan wanted classify ketchup as a vegetable for school meals?

And if I want to eat all white, all I have to do is visit my bro back east. White bread, white potatoes, white gravy, etc.; everything is white without any flavors.

The whitest meal I ever ate was a lunch special in the early '70s in a little diner across the street from my art store. Mashed potatoes and chicken fried steak smothered under white gravy, cauliflower, and a slice of white bread. And on a white plate. Great camouflage.

[Jenise]

Larry, that sounds ridiculous!

But my white meal won't be that white. Chicken=white meat, fennel's white, creamer potatoes are white, the dressing for the bold asparagus salad will be white, and I decided to do seared scallops on white grits with a spicy andouille sausage sauce which won't be white, but it's white enough. Oh, and I've got Barry White, among others, loaded on the CD player.

Jenise, you need white asparagus.

Oh, and I've got Barry White, among others, loaded on the CD player.

[Jenise]

Jenise, you need white asparagus.

You're so right about that. One more month....

So The White Dinner was a huge success. The standouts: the scallop on white grits with a sauce I made by grinding up chicken andouille sausages and sauteeing them with finely diced onions and lost of smoked spanish paprika. Absolutely "the bomb", all by itself and then matched with a quirky listan bianco from the Canary Islands. One of stratospheric pairings I'll never forget.

Almost in the same realm, the chicken and fennel dish with a California malvasia. The inspiration for this dish was an instapot recipe. No I don't have, nor do I want, an instapot. The words 'chicken' and 'fennel' were the attraction but I kind of guffawed to myself as I read the recipe, wherein b/s raw chicken thighs, sliced fennel bulb, fennel seed, half a cup of vermouth and a handful of baby potatoes are dumped in a pot. Two sets of cooking instructions addressed the Slow and Fast functions wherein both seemed to take about four hours. Sounds ugly, doesn't it?

Through the hilarity, however, I imagined how to make this dish traditionally and I loved the flavors. So I browned eight b/s thighs which had been seasoned and folded in half, then put them into another large sautee pan with some lightly sweated fennel and then poked a dozen small new potatoes in and around them. I added a tablespoon or so of fennel seeds and poured close to a cup of Noilly Prat on top. It sat on the stove like that until getting turned on for a planned 45 minute cook when we sat down to the salad course. When it was about time to serve, I finished the dish with a half cup of half and half, shaken with flour earlier and standing by to thicken and enrich the color/texture of the dish in just a few minutes, plus two handfuls of chopped arugula. PERFECT. A really great and attractive dinner party dish I'll make again, and ideal for a dinner party--freshly made food requiring almost no babysitting.

No dessert.

But there are so many white desserts! Like... blancmange, almost every panna cotta and flan on the planet, anything baked in meringue, and what isn't already white can be bathed in creme anglaise, zabaglione, or whipped cream.

And spearmint Life Savers!

[Jenise]

I know. I just don't care for dessert much, so skipped it.

Been a while, but yesterday I made sourdough multigrain waffles with some some chia seeds and Goji berries thrown in. Tasty.

[Jenise]

Not much happening here. Having another gout attack so the entire interesting food universe is off-limits until I get over it.

Not much happening here. Having another gout attack so the entire interesting food universe is off-limits until I get over it.

Good luck. Good thing you don't have the Katzenjammer kids around.

FWIW, from Mayo Clinic: Cherries. There is some evidence that eating cherries is associated with a reduced risk of gout attacks.