Fried Rice

I'm sorry. I haven't been around. I've let this fallow. BUT. On this day, where I am the most tired, I am going to show you what I cook when I am the most tired and have to deal with fridge leftovers and have just enough energy to cut an onion and sausage and stuff into pieces.



It took me more time to import pictures, half heartedly tweak, upload, write, than it did to make this.



And it's all thanks to this stuff. Which was on sale in two giant packages for 8.88. This is hilarious. Trust me. It's this sweet concentrated dried Chinese sausage which is all garlicky and I don't know, it's crack man. The best part is that it lasts forfreakingever in your pantry and is perfect for omigodtired days like this. But feel free to use any protein you like. Tofu. Chicken bits. There is a fine tradition of making fried rice with cheap hot dogs.

So I had an eighth of a week old cabbage, half an onion, CRACKSAUSAGE, garlic, some sad carrots and half a thing of rice that was a couple of days old from the last time I made this (emergency food for our group of friends after a showing of "Handmade Nation")

Chop about as finely as you feel like. I didn't really feel like.



order was oil hot, sausage hot, onions carrots cabbage, shove around for five minutes, crumble rice into pan.



My sad little rice pot.

Oh eggs. Shove everything to a side. leave a bit of space. crack eggs into space. You can scramble them if you want ahead of time. I like the different colors. also I don't want to wash another bowl.



And then remembered there was some leftover cooked chard in the fridge.



Yay green things.

Really anything goes here. I mean. After this I splashed in some chinese wine, a couple of tablespoons of soy sauce, a splash of fish sauce and a little white pepper and sesame oil. And tossed it around on high heat for a while. the burny crunchies on the bottom are a bonus and not a failure.



Yay and there's enough for tomorrow for when I also don't feel like making dinner.

I got home at 7:00 pm. I let the dog out (who. who who. who who) and fed the cat. And then embarked on this quest. It is 8:00 and I am eating this food and posting this debacle of a blog post. See, I love you. I could have been depressingly watching Hoarders.

FRIED RICE

ingredients:
day old rice
onion
garlic
carrots
stuff from your fridge
asian product (soy sauce, rice wine, sesame oil, hoisin, white pepper, whatever you have handy)
eggs

heat up pot. Add protein of choice, lightly brown. Add onions and and garlic and carrots and whatever raw vegetable matter you have chopped up. stir around for five or so minutes. crumble rice into pot with hands. wash rice off your sticky hands. mix around for a few minutes until rice is warm. shove all this stuff to one corner. crack eggs if you want into the open pan area. stir until set. mix all together.

add Asian Product by the tablespoon for flavor. Not as much soy sauce as you would think. I like a couple of tablespoons of soy, a couple of tablespoons of rice wine, a tablespoon of sesame oil, and a touch of fish sauce and seasoning with white pepper instead of black. your rice, your call.

mix together, add anything that doesn't need cooking but just needs warming up.

let sit on medium to high heat for a couple of minutes if you want a crust to form which is actually delicious. eat.

Dulce de leche, buerre noisette, sea salt.

Putting this here to remind myself to do it again:



Was making cinnamon rolls and decided to do a caramel topping. I found some leftover homemade dulce de leche in the fridge so that was the base. (Aside: I make dulce de leche by simmering an unopened can of sweetened condensed milk in a pot of water for an hour, then putting it back in the pantry, forgetting about it for a year and then opening it by accident when I actually need sweetened condensed milk.)

I browned 3/4 stick of butter, stirred in 3/4 can of dulce de leche, and added 1/2 teaspoon of sea salt to make a saucelike goo. Dan says it is "alternate universe caramel with a goatee because it's evil" and he wants to know if I can replicate this in a solid caramel form.



If you've ever had salted caramel, it's like that, but in sauce form, and with more toasty flavor. And if you haven't had salted caramel, try some, because salt brings out the flavors in sweets.

Pumpkin ravioli in sage browned butter

Still feeling pretty good from last night's hand-cut pasta dish, tonight I decided to use up half a can of pumpkin puree by making ravioli. After a quick googling for ravioli-assembling instructions, I was ready to go.

No eggs this time, just flour, water, a pinch of salt, and a bit of olive oil:



Really unphotogenic filling:



Contains: pumpkin puree, minced garlic, mixed dried mushrooms (crushed fine and rehydrated), grated really old parmesan, shredded cheddar&jack cheese mix, plain yogurt, a bit of brown sugar, and salt/pepper/herbes de provence/paprika/coriander. It tasted pretty flat in the beginning which is why yogurt and sugar and prepack cheese mix got in there. But afterward it was tasty! Go team improvisation.

After some finagling with rolling out and dolloping and cutting and sealing and boiling and tossing in sage browned butter and some simultaneous making of honey-lemon-ginger glazed carrots, I picked the prettiest ravioli and sage leaflets and put them on a plate to show you.



Pine nuts were added for textural contrast.

Go team pantry cleaning!

Pasta carbonara

They say adding constraints to a creative process will keep the creative spark alive, and apparently this principle totally applies to my relationship with food.
Tonight's dinner exists because we have no milk, no onions, no bread, no greens, and we are tired of bean soup (I made a very mediocre soup). What we did have were: really good farmer's market bacon, frozen green peas, two eggs, and pasta.

Or I thought we had pasta.

Since we didn't, I had to make some. By hand. Because kneading dough is a great way to blow off steam, and because by then I was set on having pasta carbonara for dinner.



My previous attempts at homemade pasta have been pretty poor. Learning to handle dough (thanks to bread-baking) made the outcome a whole lot better this time around. The real secret to getting lovely smooth fresh pasta dough is giving it multiple rests throughout the mixing, kneading, and rolling out processes. Five minutes after mixing for gluten formation and starch hydration, then a good 5+ minutes of kneading (it's a stiff dough), then a few 1-2 minute rests while rolling out to counteract the dough's inherent elasticity.

I started out with the Italian grandmother method: cracking an egg into a little well made in a mound of flour. I wound up adding another egg's worth of water to the dough to extend it, since one egg doesn't make for very much dough.

Rolled out, floured well, rolled up, and sliced like (rustic) fettucine:



I had to unroll the noodles and dust them with more flour immediately after cutting to keep the cut edges from sticking.

BACON. Bacon which we got from a charming meat and pork sausage vendor who said his family was Jewish.



Would have used onions. Instead you get minced garlic.



GREEN THINGS. And salt & black pepper were added at some point.



I prepared the remaining egg to use as the carbonara "sauce" by beating it with a pinch of salt and some water (so I wouldn't wind up with an accidental omelette)



Shortly after this point, I gave the noodles a quick tumble in boiling water too cook (they just need a minute) and added them to the pan. More salt to taste, a few grinds of black pepper once plated, and a generous grating of Parmesan followed:



I'm eager to try making fresh pasta again and possibly freezing little pasta nests for future use, because fresh pasta is fucking amazing.

A new ...leaf?

A friend commented that we should post our more vegetarian friendly recipes - it's true. Our more grand food schemes tend to involve meat. And I tend to lean on cheeses a LOT.

Challenge for today was a vegany dish with not very much prep time and well. Not much in the fridge. BUT, I did have a CSA box that came with a bunch of nummies including a few organic lemons and a bunch of parsley. Also, it's Houston and it's flipping hot.

Took half an onion and a few carrots and cooked them on high until they were all nice and brown. While those did their dansen I boiled a couple of cups of israeli couscous.

Here's the trick. after draining the hot couscous, add one pressed/minced/beaten to death clove of garlic while still hot. dump the hot carrots and onions in there too. That'll take the edge off the garlic.

Added a couple of glugs of olive oil and the juice and zest of a lemon, a little salt and pepper and a generous chopped handful of parsley.



It's tasty and tangy and if you have good parsley, green. Really good cold too. I wish I had time to soak beans because chickpeas would go really well with this too in order to make it a more complete dish.

And you know what. After a few bites, I remembered I had some chevre from The Blue Heron Farm and added a chunk to the salad. I am a failure at the veganism, but man. Those happy pampered goats and their mom make some incredible cheese.

This slaw.

Yesterday I made a vaguely Southwestern slaw on a whim to go with KFC for Bad Decisions Night (tm). Except this was a good decision and I want to eat this delicious slaw forever. No pics because I was too busy om-nom-nom-ing.

Here's how:
- 1/2 head red cabbage, shredded
- 1/2 red onion, chopped fine and quick-pickled in apple cider vinegar + salt
- shredded carrot
- sweet corn kernels
- large diced avocado
- lime juice (2 limes) + buttermilk + salt + pepper

It's got all the elements of an addictive snack food: crunchy, savory, sweet (from the carrots and corn), creamy (from the avocado). But it's made of vegetables.

Today I filled a tupperware container with it and had it for lunch and it was still awesome.

Pasta and Pie

I'm aliiiiiive
And I have pasta



And berry pie



This is what happens when you can't ever find your camera while you're cooking, and you're too busy making it up as you go along to take photos anyway.

I did manage one "before" shot of the pie:



Made the pie by the seat of my pants. It was also my first attempt at a lattice-top. Kind of fun! No recipe for filling or pastry, just kind of went by feel. The crust probably suffered a bit from this (not super awesomely flaky), but at the end of the day it was still pie and we ate the shit out of it.

The pasta was a bit of a step outside my comfort zone when it comes to quick weeknight meals--it uses absorption cooking methods and the final sauce contains a novel ingredient: plain yogurt. Also pictured: pieces of Italian sausage, parsley from the container garden, thin-sliced lemon rounds, green peas, herbs de provence.

By the way--these photos? Like, a month old. Better late than never?

Making up dinner

Dinner tonight was kind of on the fly: there was a request for the use of shrimp and I do have a giant bag of rice that needs to be somewhat used up. This is the thought process once I get home:

Do dishes. Find cutting board. Ooh bacon grease in the fridge. Throw into pan. cut up and onion and some garlic and fry up. Meanwhile go wash rice and throw that into the pan too and let it fry a little. Um. Shit. is this going to be asiany or... not. UHHHH. LEMON PEPPER? paprika? dried chives? ... OH. I HAVE SHERRY VINEGAR. UHHHH. *toss* *saffron* *shrimp* lemon goes with... big pile of spinach!



Et voila, makeshift paella that I didn't know existed yet.