Made dinner for a friend's mother's birthday today:

HYR poster TiNK asked me if I would help cook for her mother's birthday so I said, "Yeah, sure."  I wanted to something really light and simple (with a short amount of prep and cook time).  So she picked me up and we went to the store.

The first thing I had in mind was a variation on the fruit salad I've been getting at La Michoacana for the last month or so (damn near every day).  Seasonal fruit with lime and chile powder.  The ones at the store have a random mix of fruit but for a $1.99 it's really two solid servings of fruit and I've gotten kind of hooked on the idea of working with jicama since tasting it fresh in some of their salads.  Last week, or so ago, I was flipping through Earl Peyroux's Gourmet Cooking and found a recipe for "Salade de Pasteques" - (a.k.a Watermelon Salad) and I thought, "Well, right on, I'd like to try his version sometime but I think I found a starting point for making my own."

I didn't do any jicama or mangoes but kept it simple.  Not to crow but I was really impressed by the result.

Abuelita J's Fruit Salad: (serves roughly ten people)

• 1/4 seedless watermelon -cubed bite size
• 1/2 cantaloupe -cubed bite size
• 1 pineapple - cubed bite size
• Juice of two proper limes
• generous amount of fine sea salt
• liberal amount of Smoked Spanish Paprika
• 4 capfuls of apple cider vinegar

Yeah, this requires some prep work because fuck a bunch of paying triple just because someone cut it up for you.  This is easy prep work if you have a sharp knife and good fruit.  TiNK had purchased a cantaloupe from our local Farmer's Market that was exquisite not only in a sensory way but to simply work with was dream (plus a freshly sharpened knife helped).  When your ingredients are like that, not only does the dish flourish but the "work" vanishes.  This dish is so fucking easy even I can do it.

Cube everything, put it in a big ass bowl, add everything else, cover bowl and shake like a Polaroid picture.  Add a few inches of salt, cover.   Put the whole thing into the fridge for an hour to chill.  Take out and toss again.  Serve.

The reason I used Smoked Spanish Paprika and not something smokier or stronger is because TiNK's mom ain't real into the heat.  When I make this for myself, I might use a touch of the ghost chile powder I have in reserve and add maybe some minced ginger and chopped jicama.

We also did a standard spinach/crushed pecan/dried cranberry salad.

Then for the meat she bought a solid filet of salmon (about four lbs).  I have to admit that I felt like kind of a dick at the fish counter of the grocery store, asking shit like, "When was this brought it?", "Can you bag it with ice?"  I mean I was joking and cordial about it but after my May the Fourth 2013 debacle I have to ask these kind of questions.

I was thinking of doing a baked salmon with a yogurt glaze, seemed like a good idea at the time, but when I was prepping the fish I decided not to since I've never really been comfortable cooking with yogurt (inexperience) and I didn't want to fuck anything up.  So it was a simple affair with ground rosemary (I had some fresh that I dried and then ground today), smoked black pepper, sea salt, smoked spanish paprika - more for color than taste, a liberal amount of #42, a solid drizzle of this California olive oil TiNK's mom brought back (the texture of which was more velvet than oil).  Sliced two lemons into 1/4" rounds, put the rounds on a broiler pan, then salmon on top of those.  350 oven for roughly a half-hour.  Eh, voila.

Learned a brilliant thing from TiNK today -  use a broiler pan as a baking sheet but put liquid into the pan to help steam the fish (or chicken).  I never broil anything because; a) I don't have a broiler pan, b) my oven is a piece of shit, and c) Fuck it, I'll just use my cast-iron skillet.  I'm intrigued by the possibilities.

All in all, a productive and relaxing day, and I might have stumbled across a secret weapon ingredient.  Seriously, it blew my man-panties off.  I'm not going to say anything more than that (otherwise my descriptions of the ingredient might get pornographic).

Recipe! Yes, I still cook!

It's been a while since I posted a recipe but last night made something tasty I thought I'd share.  It was easy and relatively healthy.  Pan seared salmon crusted in #42 with sauteed mushrooms, sweet yellow tomatoes, diced applewood bacon served over steamed kale & shredded carrots.  Sounds pretty fancy?  It tastes awesome but was absurdly simple to make and cost less than $15 for multiple servings.

Here's the run down:

• About half a lb of salmon cut into individual portions
• a half dozen regular white mushrooms
• small sweet tomatoes, yellow or red would be fine, whichever, hell, leave 'em out if you want
• a couple of slices of bacon, chopped
• I bought prepackaged kale salad, Harvest Sensations (which I am now addicted to).  It comes by the pound, is pre-washed, has shredded carrots in it, and has a nice sesame vinagrette with it
• Spice mix #42
• a cup of vegetable stock, hell, water will work fine too

That's it.

There's minimal prep work.  Chop up the bacon and slice the mushrooms.  Liberally apply #42 to the portions of salmon.

Heat pan, add diced bacon, cook bacon, remove bacon from pan, set aside. Sear salmon in bacon grease about four minutes a side.  Remove salmon from pan.  Saute sliced mushrooms and tomatoes, takes about two/three minutes.  Remove those from the pan.  Deglaze pan with stock (meaning pour the stock in while the pan is hot and scrape all the burnt-y goodness around).  Put kale in pan, as much as will fit in your pan.  Cover and cook at a medium-low heat for about ten minutes.  Turn off stove.  Assemble food.  Gaze in rapture or instapictweet your creation #Hooliganyouth. 

Joking aside, this is one of those nice simple dishes that doesn't require much skill or attention or time.  Plus it's super adaptable.  Probably be pretty tasty with shrimp.  Mmmm shrimps.

Hope you folks are in good spirits and eating well. 

Recipe and food schtuff: Holiday edition 1

Oh the holidays,  I'm so glad I don't work retail anymore.  People always ask me, "Why are you such a Scrooge?"  I usually reply, "You ever work in a place where Christmas is a corporate shill nightmare and Christmas music is on repeat for eight hours a day and you go home and dream of Christmas merchandise and 'White Christmas' now sounds like a funeral dirge?"  And then the nice man in the white coat with a net comes and gives a ride back to Happydale.

The real upside to the holidays is food (and being with people you don't want to sell into white slavery).  Now we all know that I've been known to make a turkey or ham at random but for the holidays I've been known to do something different.  Last year I spent it with friends; they made goose and I did a pot roast (that cooked at about 275 for over four hours).  This year they're doing another goose and since it's going to be a bigger affair than the three of us gorging ourselves like ticks we decided to kick it up a notch.  Hence an eleven pound goose and an eleven pound standing rib roast.  Ooo, fancy pantsy you say?  Yeah, kind of better than turkey and ham but we shop smart and got hella good deals.

I've never made a goose.  Personally that's all Amazonbutterfly's domain and seems to require a level of elbow grease I'm not normally willing to put forth.  I'm doing the standing rib roast.  Kids, let me tell you a secret.  Ready?  It's one of the easiest things you will ever make.  Seriously, it's easier than turkey.  Sure you can do all kinds of fancy stuff and hibbity jibbity but this is one of those dishes where simplicity reigns.  350 @ 15 minutes per pound.  Whilst preheating the oven liberally apply (a.k.a. coat that sucker) fresh black pepper and kosher salt (why do you even own "table" salt?).  Put roast in sufficiently large pan.  Put pan containing roast in oven.  Set timer (easy math?  one hour = four pounds).  Timer goes off, take stuff out of oven, let rest fifteen minutes.  Tada, you just made a big ass fancy roast.

It's one of the things I grew up eating on Christmas and my father would sometimes add herbs to the rub and I might have except I was out of everything except dill.  I might have used #42 but I'm cooking for a mixed crowd so I didn't want to throw anyone off.  This is one of those dishes where the meat itself is the main attraction and should not require bells or whistles.

The tricky part for me is going to be making gravy because I never make gravy.  I know it's relatively easy, I just never do it.

I am also going to make Yorkshire pudding because, well, that's what one does with a proper roast.  It's pretty simple and cooks while the roast is setting.  It's basically egg, milk, flour, salt, pepper, and roast drippings mixed and baked.  I frigging love the stuff.  Last night I prepped all the dry ingredients (and added a few dashes of herbs de provence for fun) so I wouldn't have to monkey with them today.  Lookit me bein teh smrts.

So yeah, that's the long and short.  Hopefully everything turns out okay.  There will probably be some pictures.

Hope that all of are well and safe and relatively not miserable.

Today's Lunch Special:

• A hearty portion of Manda Corned Beef (Baton Rouge, LA), thinly sliced Baby Swiss, sauerkraut, and a double-fried egg with Creole mustard served on a gently toasted bolillo. 

I love how something simple can sound fancy-pantsy with the right spin. This is one of those random sandwiches I sometimes throw together at random. It's basically a bastardization of a Reuben and absurdly easy. Bolillos are just Mexican rolls (which are kind of damned tasty) that you can pick up from your local Mexican bakery or just from your supermarket. Hell, any old kind of roll would work. Just so happens bolillos were on sale at Kroger's. It takes about five minutes to make one of these sandwiches and about two minutes to eat it.

Here's the gist:

• 1 large egg 
• a couple of slices of corned beef 
• a slice or two of swiss 
• a good solid forkful of sauerkraut 
• a roll of some kind 
• spicy mustard 

Heat frying pan or griddle at medium-high, lightly oil, fry egg for about two minutes, flip egg, press with spatula, put cheese on top of egg, put corned beef on top of cheese, put sauerkraut on top of corned beef, cover for about a minute or so. Toast roll and slap on mustard. Remove cover from pan, spatula the whole thing onto roll. Eat one, decide to make another one.

See, not exactly rocket surgery. Hell, you don't even need to wear pants to do this.

Hope that you all are well and happy and eating something good.

Purple Passion Potatoes from Tasteful Selections - product test

I was at the grocery store with my dear friend amazonbutterfly yesterday just kind of boppin around and hanging out and trying to figure out what to make for dinner.  I had remembered that I had seen some small bags of "fancy" potatoes the day before two-for-five.  We figured, "Why not?" it can't be worse than that one time we made the food that shall not be spoken of (not everything is a winner).  I bought one bag of "Purple Passion Potatoes" and one of a "Summer Medley".  We went back to the Haven and I took my spot in the kitchen and got to work.

The purple potatoes were small - roughly 1" diameter - but I decided to cut them half while I put a pot of water on the boil.  I have to say I was very pleasing and surprised by these potatoes.  The interior was a deep indigo color with a firm (but not mealy) texture.  We were kind of startled by the color, actually - in a good way.  When the water got to a boil I threw in all the potatoes and set the timer for ten minutes.  Then I drained them, then browned them up in about a quarter stick of good Vermont butter and a solid amount of garlic and sea salt.  I'm not sure how I would describe the flavor (the bag says "slightly sweet, yet nutty") but I know I liked it.  I eat a fair amount of potatoes - mainly reds - and these purples were just different enough to make me go, "Huh, that's tasty."  The two main draws for me were the quality and visual aspects/potential of them.  Normally I grump a little at pre-cleaned, neatly packaged potatoes but these were pretty uniformly sized and didn't require the schlep to Mordor that accompanies cleaning and poking with a paring knife most potatoes do.  Plus, including prep (cutting them in half), it only took about fifteen, twenty minutes.  I'd love to do these mashed - I think the color and texture would make for a serious wow factor.

The company that harvests and distributes them - Tasteful Selections - is an agribusiness I hadn't heard of before but after sampling their potatoes and their website, I kind of really dig them.  I hope my Kroger's keeps carrying them.

I plan to roast the "Summer Medley" and will post about the results when there are results to post.

A recipe that sounds fancier than it is:

Country Sausage with red onions, chiles, and sun-dried tomatoes on couscous with minced basil and lemon juice.

Ooo-la-la, Mr. Fancy Pantsy

Seriously folks, the hardest part of this is having the patience to brown up the sausage.  Also if you've never heard of or experimented with couscous before it's a grain primarily used in dishes from around the Mediterranean.  It's easier and faster to make than rice and in some ways I prefer it because I get bored with all the damn rice I eat.  Here's the directions for couscous -  1cup water.  boil.  add 1 cup couscous, stir, cover, remove from heat, check in five minutes.  Hell, I was lazy and just nuked a mug of water and added couscous and covered and it worked.

Saucisse avec des oignons, de piments, et tomates séchées au soleil:  (ain't everything fancier in French?)

1/2 lb Country Sausage - browned and drained
1/2 red onion - chopped

2 tablespoons minced sun-dried tomatoes

2 tablespoons dried chile flakes (or less if you are scared)

Salt & pepper to taste

1 small can chopped mushrooms (optional) - reserve juice for couscous

1cup couscous - plain

The juice from the canned mushrooms and add water to make a cup

1 lemon 

1 teaspoon of basil (I used dried)

1.  Cook sausage till it's done.  How do you know it's done?  If someone gave it to you, would you eat it?  No?  It ain't done.  Break it up as you stir, to normal human bite size-ish pieces.
2.  Put cooked sausage on some paper towels on a plate, get rid of excess fat and grease.

3.  Return pan to heat, saute the onion, chile flakes, mushrooms, and sun-dried tomatoes.

4.  After a few minutes, return the drained sausage (tee hee hee) to the pan.  Cook for a couple of minutes.

5.  Boil water for couscous.  Add couscous to boiling water.  Remove from heat and cover.  Wait five minutes.

6.  Fluff couscous with fork, add basil and juice from a lemon.

Cook and prep time is roughly 30 minutes.

Hope all of you are well and not sweating to death.