An Idea, Life & Tech Blog

Here’s a  lovely recipe that i adapted the other night…Lamb Ragu with Gnocchi. wouldn’t you know it, no lamb, only venison in our freezer. I also used a shiraz, which i think adds nicely to the flavor. The gnocchi was a lot of fun to make! The recipe says something about butter, but doesn’t tell you how much- 2 tablespoons melted seemed to do it for me.  I was just drooling over it as i waited for it to simmer, topped it with simple ricotta cheese, and thoroughly enjoyed eating this dish. Mark though seemed skeptical at first, but 4 days later said it was potentially the best thing i’d made yet. (Except perhaps my orange pork tacos, but that’s another story…) Bon Apetit!

Alright. I’m here now, and it’s about time a woman cleaned up the place. Just kidding.

Well, Mark and i were thinking we should really start food blogging, so here’s an attempt.  Dinner last night was sort of a hodgepodge, but really tasty anyway.  Number one: Emeril’s french bread. I’ve made this recipe 4 or 5 times now, and i decided to spice it up- with garlic salt, a bit of mint, oregano, and fresh basil. Mark made the suggestion to put cheese on top as it baked. Yup, that worked well too!

fresh out of the oven

I have to admit, after 5 tries, i’m still trying to figure out how to roll these puppies up correctly. One day it will look like a baguette.

mark is a great hand model

and now a closeup…

mmm good

As i said, the rolling is still not perfect, but the herbs really gave it a nice taste.

voila

and now it’s a sandwich. Turkey, spinach, tomato, green onion, and 1-year-old New Zealand cheddar cheese (on sale for $3 at Kroger).

Now while the bread was baking, I was onto something else that i’m really proud of, because i figured out how to do it myself . Beer battered fries, or more specifically tonight: Guinness Chips.

Pretty simple: 5-6tbsp all purpose flour, plus half a bottle of guinness, and 3 thick-cut medium russetts. Feel free to drink the other half of the bottle.

batter for the chips

it should be really nice and thick, like a gravy. Coat those potatoes! Now, put some vegetable oil on med-high, and once it’s hot, throw ‘em in, a few at a time. Use a big pan if you can, so that they don’t stick together. Also make sure your oil really is nice and hot so that it can fry the batter on quickly, otherwise it’ll come off and sink to the bottom of the pot. Not good.

batch 1 of 4

Ok, so when they float, give ‘em another minute or two. You want them nice and brown, especially if you made them super-thick. Scoop them out, and sprinkle with salt.

Enjoy. I did!

When Carmen & I were dinner-ware / wedding-registry shopping, I didn’t want to get all the fancy-schmancy accoutrements. I was decently strong on not throwing “Dinner Parties” of 1940/50’s fame, where we would invite one or two other couples over, and expend our energy with formalities over rare china instead of just-plain-fun interaction & engagement with *actual* friends.

Luckily, the latter has been the case, but oddly enough, the dinner-party hasn’t died. And that’s ok. In fact, we’ve been to 5 dinner parties in the past 8 weeks of this year!

-Nehama’s Bday – Sometime in January
-John’s 9-course meal @ Moshe’s – Sometime in January
-My Bday Last Week
-Carmen’s Bday Thursday night
-Nathan’s Dinner tonight

Carmen’s Bread recipe from FN/Emeril is always a winner & likewise the cakes of Ben & Jon.

Some of our friends (of various life-stages) admit to being cooking-inept. I understand: when I was in Chicago for my internship (read: first-time I was ever ‘out on my own’) I had to learn the basics (with a hispanic grocery store too!)

Looking back, some basic steps I took were:
* Mac-n-cheese from a box (still love it!)
* Cooking spaghetti noodles (just how many?! how do i know they are done?) and ragu sauce (how much sauce?! do I cook the sauce??)
* “Improved” mac-n-cheese: “Wait! I can add lunchmeat to this!  ..and boil broccoli in there too!”

At the “improved mac-n-cheese” stage I considered myself a “well-rounded healthy eater”   Doing the same thing with Lipton noodle packages was the next step.

And cooking chicken. The first time I was paranoid about the salmonella/e-coli thing. I had no method & touched everything too much & washed my hands a million times!

Overall, I didn’t think twice about cost; I grew up in a family which had always cooked every meal at night. Lunch was in the fridge. It was *always* cheaper to buy groceries than to go out for every meal. And I was always on (still am!) a tight budget, so I couldn’t just grab take-out for lunches or dinners. To this day, I/we eat under $5/day (per person). That’s pretty dang good. We splurge and go to Subway for a foot long, but that’s $2.50 for each of us. Breakfast is easy with yogurt & oatmeal or grits. That leaves $2 for dinners. Cheesy Potatoes & Ham anyone? Or Cilantro & spinach in the food processor as a pesto over pasta? That’s less than $1 right there! I’ll stop. Good, cheap food is totally possible. Y’all are just slackers

Carmen’s thought of the evening: quality cheese melts at a much lower temperature than cheap-cheese. This obviously yields a creamier sauce too.

We looked at the ingredients of the cheap-cheese, and there was no explicit additive.. just “milk, culture, enzymes, salt.”