Best made-up meal ever. Well, yet.

At 4:30 last night we decided to cook dinner and by 9 we were done eating. Plus we made it all up!

Salmon with Lime Pepper Jelly
- About a pound of fresh wild salmon, skin on, from the fishmonger (I heart the fishmonger)
- Thingy of lime pepper jelly
- Some red wine
- 3ish small cloves of garlic
- Some shallot - probably about 1/4 to 1/3 of a cup
- a few green onions, sliced
- ~2 tbsp butter

Instructions for searing & broiling the salmon come from How To Cook Everything, which is a wonderful book.

Preheat oven to broil with rack in the middle. Preheat large oven-safe pan on medium-high.
Plop the fish, skin side down, into the hot pan. Make sure the fan is on and the door is open - there will be smoke. Stare at it until it's opaque about halfway up (make sure you check the thick end). While it is doing that, spoon some of the jelly on the top of the fish.
Add butter, shallots, garlic, green onions, a couple glugs of wine and pop it in the oven until it is just brown on top, or less. Five to eight minutes should do it. Take it out of the oven. Eat it. Be happy.

Next time will:
Use more of the jelly.
Take it out of the oven a tiny bit sooner.
Also, the whole thing turns out kind of sweet because of the jelly and the shallots; it wasn't too sweet, but with more jelly it might be - the driest white wine available, instead of red, might solve this.

We even made up the menu:

Spinach with Tomato and Garlic
Had fabulous mustard greens at Queen of Sheba the other day so was interested in cooked greens. Spinach seemed easiest. I poked around for recipes and found one mentioning fresh spinach with fresh tomatoes and garlic. At that point I remembered that I made this (of my own design) a couple of weeks ago with canned spinach and canned tomatoes and parmesan and put it on potatoes and it was good. It's way better with fresh:

- 1-2 tbsp butter
- 2 medium tomatoes, peeled and cut into thin wedges
- 2 cloves garlic
- some shallot, because there was some left over - probably about 1/4 cup
- 1 lb fresh spinach, washed etc. (I got 2 5oz packages - cleaning spinach is a pain.)
- s&p to taste.

Sauté garlic & tomato wedges in butter; add spinach, cover, cook on low for a while (15ish minutes), stirring occasionally.

Next time will:
Use canned diced tomatoes, drained very well. Maybe a tiny bit more garlic.

And of course my imitation Café Allegro fried potatoes - potatoes, butter, garlic, shallots, s&p and some cayenne. I used baking potatoes this time and it wasn't as good as the last few times, when I used small red and yellow potatoes. Those fry better and get smooth instead of mealy. But I love potatoes in 'most any form so that was fine.

New Cooking Books!

But not cookbooks.

Celebrated Buy Nothing Day by going to Powell's for Cooks and Gardeners and getting Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain. I started reading it a little this morning; it's really funny and kind of scary. He is trying to make me start eating meat again, I just know it.

I also enjoyed this post by Bakerina so much that I bought this book and this book too. Yay for presents for myself.

Thanksgiving went relatively well despite the hostility. Mom didn't let me make anything but the salad. She tried to make me like Tofurky by putting an apricot jam glaze on it, but it didn't work. The jam was good, but I just don't like tofurky. Also I discovered she puts mayonnaise in her mashed potatoes. It's really good.

Ice Cream Maker!!

Veteran's Day was also 50% off everything at Value Village day. I took advantage of this, and my luck, and obtained a functional, though small, electric ice cream maker for $6.
I have collected several recipes but so far only tried this one.

Lime Sorbet

1 cup sugar
1 cup key lime preserves (I couldn't find this, but I did find something called "lime curd," and it seemed to work just as well.)
4 cups lime flavored club soda or seltzer
1 lemon, zested and juiced
1 lime, zested and juiced

Combine sugar, preserves and 1 cup of the soda in a medium saucepan and stir over low heat until sugar and preserves are melted. Add citrus juice and zest. Stir in the remaining soda, move to a clean, lidded container and chill thoroughly, 2 to 3 hours. Turn mixture in ice cream maker and process according to makers instructions or until mixture reaches the consistency of a firm slush. Return mixture to lidded container and harden in freezer 1 hour before serving. If sorbet is to be held frozen for longer than 2 hours, move from freezer to refrigerator for about half an hour before serving. If you'd like a more assertive sorbet, double the amount of citrus zest.
(from Alton Brown on the Food Network)

My ice cream maker is too small for this batch - I shall halve the batch next time. I got impatient and took the first batch out too fast; then when I put the second batch in, the bowl had warmed up too much so the second batch didn't firm up right either, even though I stretched the cord across the counter and put the whole thing, motor running, into the freezer for at least half an hour. I put the two batches in the freezer in separate bowls.
Eventually I decided that I didn't want to wait for it to finish solidifying so I just put some lime slush in a glass and added some vodka and it was fabulous. Who needs sorbet when you have lime vodka squishee?
I'm taking the ice cream maker with me for Thanksgiving and I might try the lime sorbet again, or I might try some orange sorbet or similar to go with cranberry bread/cake thing that I am thinking about making.

OK, so Trader Joe's is good for at least one thing ...

And it is pizza dough.
It wasn't the best pizza dough ever, but it is so easy - it comes in a bag and it makes just enough for dinner (if you're hungry) or dinner + lunch the next day (if you're not).

Sauce

2 cloves garlic (make sure not to cut off the tip of your pinky at this stage)
1 14.5 (I think) oz can of diced tomatoes
1 smaller (dunno what size) can of tomato sauce.

Sauté garlic in some olive oil. Drain the diced tomatoes well. Put them and the sauce in the pan and stir it up and turn the heat down. Simmer it if you want to cook off some more liquid - this might actually be a good idea. That's all.

Mushrooms

Some olive oil, four large crimini mushrooms (sliced), a couple shakes of balsamic vinegar, some salt and pepper into a pan. Stir occasionally. Yum.

Dough

Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and poke at it until it is about 12 inches around. A rolling pin might help here but it's more fun to do it with your hands. Try to make sure it is a uniform thickness as there was some trouble with cooking all the way through.
Here, the package directions say to just put it on the pan, top it, and bake it. Blythe suggested it might be better to bake it for a few minutes first before topping it, so I tried that; next time I'll bake it longer because the addition of the sauce made it soggy again and it stayed doughy in places. I'd like to get it almost all the way cooked before topping it - the sauce is already warm, and if you have no raw toppings to cook, you just need to melt the cheese.
Mine had the yummy mushrooms and grated mozzarella and some sliced smoked fontina - super good. I felt very gourmet. The other one was just plain mozzarella.

Super easy and fast (as long as you don't cut your fingers) but I am on the lookout for dough that would be just as easy yet less chewy in the end.

Moules et frites!

A couple of weeks ago we made mussels and fries, just like Belgium! It was very exciting.

Les Moules

1.5 lb fresh mussels
1 handful parsley
5-1/10 fl. oz. cream
2 cups white wine
4 shallots
(I also included 1 or 2 stalks of celery.)

For the mussels:
Clean the mussels and discard any open ones. Sweat the finely diced shallots in a little butter, and add the white wine. Add the mussels and cover. (The celery goes in here too if you are using it.) After about 3 minutes remove the lid, add the mussels, cream and chopped parsley. Remove from the heat, serve in a deep dish with the fries and crusty bread. (Remembering to discard any closed mussels at this point).
(from foodgeeks.com)

My notes:
The half-and-half did the same thing it did with the tomato soup last time I tried to use a lower-fat version. I don't know what to do about that. John said it has to do with acidity so maybe next time I'll try a pinch of baking soda in the broth before putting the milk. Or just use cream, but I'd rather not.
Also, 5 and 1/10th ounces of cream? We concluded it must be a conversion from a metric recipe. I just put in ... some. Several glugs. I didn't measure.

However, since these both cook and cool quickly and are not as good when lukewarm (as I discovered), before you do the mussels, you should be sure to finish

Les Frites

The recipe called for one pound of maris piper potatoes. We had no idea what that meant or where to find them so we just got two baking potatoes. It worked fine.

Slice the potato into thin strips (2mm x 2mm) and rinse in salted water. Heat a deep fat fryer to 325°F/160°C (preferably using sunflower or groundnut oil). Place the fries in and cook for 4-5 minutes. Remove from the heat and leave to cool. Turn up the deep fryer to 375°F/190°C and salt the fries. Add the fries back to the oil for around 1 minute until golden and crispy.
(this part also from foodgeeks.com)

My notes:
Vegetable oil was what we had so that is what we used. Also we just did it in a deep frying pan because there was no other option. The first batch turned out pretty good but not brown; the second batch browned better - I think the oil was hotter when they went in for the second frying - but tasted a little burnt to me. I don't know if that's because there were potato bits left over in the oil from the first batch, or what. I liked the first batch better; he liked the second.

I need to find a good recipe for homemade mayo. Then it would be truly authentic. Still, yum. I was happy and nostalgic, and though kind of messy, it was pretty quick and cheap for something that feels all gourmet and fancy.

Amendments from Shan

Apparently I was making things up for the enchilada recipe. Addendum:

in the mole-esque (molesque!) sauce, it's two 14-oz cans of tomato *puree*, rather than paste and 1/2 square of unsweetened chocolate. also 1 clove garlic comes before the onions and there is about half a palmful of chili powder added with the chocolate.
The same garlic-then-onions goes for the bean filling. I added chili powder to that too.
- Shan

Happy: fresh green beans, garlic, portobello mushroom. Butter.

I got tired of the cooking blogs taking over my Kinja list so I made one just for cooking blogs.

Yay, simple things. With leftovers.

This weekend was low-maintenance cooking. Shan came over on Friday night and we made black bean enchiladas with what she says is pretend mole sauce. It came from a Rachael Ray cookbook so I don't have the exact recipe (and of course we didn't stick to it exactly;) but it was pretty simple.

Two small onions were grated in an extremely entertaining manner by Garth, who wore ski goggles to avoid crying. The grating is important, though. About 1/3 of that went into a small saucepan with a bit of oil until they started to sizzle. Then two (I think) of those little cans of tomato paste went in with it, and a square of baker's chocolate. That was the sauce.
The rest of the grated onion went in a skillet (or "frypan," as they are apparently also known) until it sizzled, and then three cans of black beans and a small can of tomato paste were added. Also I think some cayenne or something. Not much else, as far as I can remember.
Anyway black beans went inside tortillas, and they were rolled up and put into a baking dish (cookie sheet would also work) with sauce spooned over the top and cheese (Monterey jack, which I love because it makes me think of Cannery Row) on top of that. Super easy and yummy. I made fancyspicyrice (some soup seasoning thing, some cayenne, and some Rosarita red enchilada sauce from a can in the water in the rice cooker) and we had walnuts and parmesan and apples in the salad instead of the usual cashews and feta and cranberries.

The next night we had lefovers - quesadillas of cheddar & jack with leftover rice reheated in a pan and leftover beans + another can with some of the leftover sauce thrown in. I like having leftovers.

Then this morning there were yummy scrambled eggs with fresh basil from the market chopped up in them, and feta sprinkled on top. And happy fried potatoes - I always microwave them for a bit before I fry them; otherwise they take too long. So two small red potatoes and one smallish yellow (dunno its name) potato in the microwave for ~3 minutes while 1 tbsp butter melted in the pan. Some chopped shallot (about 1/4 cup, maybe?) and two small cloves of garlic, chopped, into the butter for a few minutes and then the potatoes went in with another tbsp of butter. Salt, pepper, a tiny bit of cayenne. I wanted ketchup but they were really good anyway.

Experimentation gone awry. Well, only a tiny bit.

I made biscuits again last night, which turned out lovely of course, and also another pot of tomato soup. I only had enough tomatoes for a batch and a half, so I did that, which was fine. I added less sugar, and that turned out to be a good decision. But instead of using all half and half, I only put 1/3 half and half and 2/3 2% milk, and when I added the milk to the tomato, it got tiny curdles instead of mixing all prettily. John said it is because the fat content of the milk wasn't high enough, so next time I'll try it 50% half and half and 50% 2%, and if that doesn't work, I'll try whole milk instead of 2%. I prefer to use what I have on hand rather than buying whole milk, but I guess we can just put it in our coffee ...