September Daring Cooks: Lookit me, I'm cooking vegan!

J and I are completely devoted and unabashed carnivores - we love our meat (haha) in a wide variety of types and preparations, and at least 4 our of our 7 meals every week include it in some form. But we also love our vegetables and eat what I believe is an unusually high percentage and variety of fresh produce. I like to think that we have a very well-balanced diet and get a lot more vital nutrients just through our food that the majority of Americans do, simply because we eat so many veggies.

Despite our love of all that greenery and the relatively common appearance of vegetarian meals in our repertoire, we've never made any real attempt to cook anything that's vegan. And since its really pretty easy to do so, and since vegan meals are naturally quite healthy, I think that's quite a shame. So imagine my delight when I learned that the September challenge for the Daring Cooks was a vegan dish, not to mention something that I've never tried before. Its a double-whammy of brand-new experiences here at the Table for Two, and I'm really quite happy about it.

So, the challenge. Debyi of The Healthy Vegan Kitchen chose this recipe from Fresh Restaurants, a vegan chain in Canada, for Indian Dosas with Curried Chickpea filling and Curry Coconut sauce for September, and the one major stipulation of the challenge was that it must be made with absolutely no animal products. So, that means no dairy, eggs, or animal fat in addition to the omission of any sort of meat. A challenge indeed for someone who regularly includes dairy and eggs in her diet even when there's no meat to be seen.



Dosas are sort of an Indian crepe, which are apparently traditionally made from a mix of rice and lentils. The recipe provided for this challenge, however, called for spelt flour in place of these two ingredients. Primarily due to the lack of a Whole Foods in my immediate vicinity, spelt flour is not something easily come by around here, and rather than spend an exorbitant amount of money mail-ordering some on the internet I opted to replace it with more readily-attainable buckwheat flour in my version. The recipe also called for almond milk, yet another difficult ingredient that I swapped for soy milk, and curry powder which I replaced with ground cumin and coriander. I love the flavor of curry powder, and J even makes his own blend which is extremely tasty, but I seem to have a mild allergy to tumeric which makes eating it a bit unpleasant so I try to replace it with other spice blends when I can. I knew I wanted to keep it in the curry sauce, so I thought leaving it out of the dosas themselves would be a safe bet.

Making the dosas couldn't be easier, especially if you have some experience making crepes (which I do). The batter (which calls for water and a bit of baking soda in addition to the ingredients above) came out thicker than a normal crepe batter, but with a perfectly smooth consistency that allowed for an easy portioning and even pan coverage during the cooking process.



To cook, you just give a shallow skillet a light coating of cooking spray, then ladle in enough batter to make a thin coating (somewhere around 1/8" seems to be ideal) and let it cook for a minute or two until you start to see bubbles on the exposed side, much like making pancakes. Then you carefully flip the dosa with a thin spatula and let it cook for another minute or two. Since I was making these one at a time I just turned them out onto a sheet of aluminum foil and stashed them in a warm oven until they were all done and I was ready to serve.





The day before I'd made my sauce and fillings. The sauce was made pretty much exactly to the recipe specifications, aside from making the same ingredient swap of buckwheat flour for spelt flour. Yielding a fragrant sauce with a savory and just slightly sweet flavor, this mixture of onions, garlic, tomatoes, vegetable stock and coconut milk seasoned with J's hand-blended curry powder cooked up thick and velvety and delicious. I'd only made 1/3 of the original recipe, not wanting to have ridiculous amounts leftover, but afterward I wished I'd made a full batch because I could see myself using this sauce in a lot of ways, as a topping for plain basmati rice or a dipping sauce for freshly made naan or a glaze for grilled chicken.



I really went off the map with the fillings, however. I'd initially intended to make the curried chickpea filling as written because, well, I adore chickpeas and thought the recommended recipe sounded essentially like a cooked and spiced hummus with vegetables. However, the more I thought about it, the more I thought I might want more of a variety of textures and flavors in this meal. I considered a lot of options, not the least of which being a batch of my favorite chana masala to keep the chickpeas dominant, but in the end I decided on a dry-spiced cauliflower stir fry with peas, tomatoes, and whole spices, and something that I'm calling palak chana, which was was a riff on the classic dish palak paneer (Indian farmer's cheese in a spiced spinach sauce) with chickpeas substituted for the paneer.

Both fillings started out with a tarka, which is essentially deeply caramelized onions mixed with toasted spices. I caramelized an entire thinly sliced white onion with a few cloves of minced garlic thrown in for good measure, then divided it into two portions to make each dish.



The tarka for the dry-spiced cauliflower went back into the sautee pan with whole cumin, fennel, and mustard seeds and about a tablespoon of garam masala. When the spices were toasty and fragrant I dumped in half a head of cauliflower cut into small florets and stirred it around to coat it in onions and spices, then clapped a lid on the pan and let it cook for a few minutes until the cauliflower was beginning to soften. Then I threw in an entire diced tomato (seeded) and a splash of lime juice and cooked for another minute or two until the cauliflower was just tender. I tasted it for seasoning and added some salt and freshly ground black pepper, then threw in a generous handful of frozen green peas. Filling one, finito.



For the palak chana, I added some ground coriander, cumin, ginger, and white pepper to the caramelized onions to make the tarka, then added an entire bunch of fresh baby spinach that I'd washed and coarsely chopped to the pan. Once the spinach had wilted down significantly, I dumped in a can of drained chickpeas and about half a cup of soy milk. Once again, I covered the pan and let it cook slowly over low heat until most of the liquid in the pan had boiled away and the spinach had pretty much abandoned its structural integrity to create a nearly smooth and thick sauce around the now softly tender chickpeas. Tasted for seasoning and added a bit of salt, and filling number two was ready to go.



On the day we ate this, once all the dosas were cooked and were being kept warm in the oven, I reheated the fillings and brightened them up with a squeeze of fresh lemon juice, and warmed the curry coconut sauce in the microwave. Each of us got a two dosas, one each with each filling, with a generous pour of the sauce and a sprinkling of fresh parsley over the top. I skipped the suggested cucumber garnish because I just don't like them much, but I did accompany my own with a helping of basmati rice cooked in chicken broth (I know, this was supposed to be a meat-free meal, but the rice wasn't really part of the challenge anyway and I ran out of veggie stock) with parsley and lemon.



Both J and I really enjoyed this meal. The dosas, being something neither of us has tried before, were definitely a hit, and since they're so easy to make I suspect they'll be showing up quite a bit in future Indian meals as a quick alternative to naan or parathas, our usual choice of flatbread. I don't know what they would have been like with the spelt flour, but the buckwheat imparted a subtle nuttiness and hearty texture that I appreciated, and the slightly crisp edges contrasted nicely with the soft and tender insides. I could see wrapping up all manner of curries in these things, and dipping them in all types of chutneys, sauces, and relishes.

The sauce, as I already mentioned, was delicious and definitely a winner.



And of the two fillings I made the hands down winner was definitely the palak chana. The texture and flavor were perfect, simultaneously smooth and creamy and hearty, retaining just enough of the spinach's natural earthiness underneath the warmly savory spices and in contrast to the tender, starchy, equally earthy chickpeas.

Though I'll readily admit that I think this meal would've been just a tiny bit more satisfying with some shredded chicken in one of the fillings, even without it was filling and delicious, deeply flavorful and complex. And aside from the extra cost of the soymilk and buckwheat flour, I noticed no significant loss or change from making it without any animal products. Makes me wonder what other vegetarian meals we could remake as vegan meals with no obvious loss. And I suppose that's the point of these challenges, right? To make us rethink and reevaluate our cooking habits and get us to try new things.

Between my newfound inspiration and the incredibly tasty results, I would call this challenge a resounding success.

Summer, foodified

So, its come to this. I'm making up words now. My college writing professor would either be ashamed or delighted, depending on her mood. But if anything is worth butchering the English language for, its this meal.

Jamie Oliver has wormed his adorably-mop-headed British way into my heart as a chef who really knows his way around good, simple, honest food. J bought me "Jamie at Home", the companion book to his show of the same name, for Christmas last year, and although we've only tried a few of the recipes they've all been winners. (The "Hot and Sour Rhubarb and Crispy Pork with Noodles" on page 58 is a particular hit, but that's a post for another day.) But so far, my absolute favorite recipe from the book is his "Incredible Smashed Peas and Fava Beans on Toast" from page 156, and it was the star of this supremely summer meal.

There's very few things quite as delicious as a bowl of homemade soup and some crusty bread, and our hot-weather take on this common pairing consisted of smooth and creamy vichyssoise and Jamie's fava and pea crostini. Cool, fresh, light, and beautifully green, this meal was both satisfying and refreshing on a muggy August evening.



I made the vichyssoise based on this recipe from Epicurious, and made it the day before we intended to eat it so that it could chill and the flavors blend thoroughly. I made some changes to make it a bit healthier, and to account for the fact that I'd only bought one leek (oops!). I sauteed the white and light green parts of the leek as per the recipe, but reserved the tough dark green tops to infuse the broth later and inject more leeky flavor into the soup. I also added an equal amount of white onion to ramp up the oniony sharpness and better balance the starchy weight of the potatoes. I used a good amount of white pepper instead of black for an earthier kick, and used non-fat Greek yogurt in place of the milk and cream which gave the soup a delicious, though probably non-traditional, tang. I also had to skip the chives because I didn't have any, but I don't think that the soup suffered much for it.



The finished soup was cool, creamy, smooth and savory, with just a bit of heat tingling on the tip of the tongue. It could have used more leek, obviously, but its hard to imagine a better soup on a hot day. Except, perhaps, a simple cold tomato soup, but we've been over that already.

But really, I'd be lying if I didn't say that the soup, as good as it was, paled in comparison to these simple, vibrant green toasts.



The base of the toasts were homemade English muffins (I'll need to make these again so I can blog about them too - they're shockingly easy and perfectly delicious!), split and toasted and brushed with extra virgin olive oil. Thick slices of fresh, lightly salted mozzarella topped the bread, followed by a tumble of fresh, peppery arugula dressed simply with EVOO, kosher salt and coarse cracked black pepper. Then the whole thing got topped off with a big spoonful of the fava and pea mash, made with the aforementioned beans (this really needs to be made with fresh peas and favas - their bright sweetness just sings here - but since I had neither and frankly didn't feel like buying and then shelling enough of them to make this meal, I made do with frozen. It was still excellent.) coarsely pureed with lemon juice, EVOO, salt, black pepper, fresh mint, and a bit of parmesan.

Biting into one of these babies is a little taste of heaven. Sweet, verdant, peppery, and lightly creamy; the smooth mozzarella, tender but lightly textured mash, crisp greens and crunchy bread... I could eat this every day. Its got a little bit of everything, the perfect blending of flavors and textures. And despite its lightness, its surprisingly satisfying. A few of these would make a wonderful lunch all on their own. But paired with a bowl of vichyssoise and a glass of chilled, dry white wine, it was an excellent summer dinner, one I hope to repeat in the very near future.

Goodness, gracious, great balls o' meat! (Part 2)

I have to admit to being mildly skeptical about this recipe, which is part of the reason that we didn't make it in the same week that we made all of our other meatball-centric meals. I'm a little wishy-washy when it comes to game meats; I like a little gaminess, but I've even had lamb that's been too strong for my tastes, and venison that has been hunted in the wild is much stronger than any farm-raised lamb. I was afraid that this dish, which used up the remainder of a windfall of free deer meat given to us by our old butcher last year, would be exceptionally gamey and unpleasant.

I am pleased to report that I could not have been more wrong.

This was, hands down, the best meal we'd made in weeks, and we are now mourning the fact that don't have access to more venison so that we could make this again.



I'm sorry to say that this was not our original recipe - J did some searching on the internet for meatball recipes using venison and came up with this one, which blended the venison with beef and had them served in a dried cherry and red wine sauce. I thought that sounded pretty good, though in addition to being concerned about the gaminess, I was worried that the sauce would be exceptionally sweet. I needn't have worried about that either - the sauce was a perfect balance of sweet and savory with just a hint of tang, the sort of flavor that just makes you salivate and crave another bite. And when paired with the ultimately mild but distinctive flavor of the venison, these were just about perfect.

J took charge of this recipe, and made a few small changes - his altered version is below. The recipe for my side dish, a warm farro salad with young kale and white beans that turned out to be the perfect earthy counterpoint to the sweet and savory meatballs, follows as well.



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Venison Meatballs in Dried Cherry Sauce
Adapted from this recipe on MyRecipes.com, originally from Christmas with Southern Living, 2000

The original recipe was supposed to make about 4 dozen 1" meatballs. J halved the recipe and made them slightly larger, and we probably got about a dozen or so (which was far too much for dinner but meant we had leftovers that tasted even better the next day). You can make them any size you like - simply adjust your cooking time accordingly.

Meatballs:
1/2 lb ground venison
1/2 lb ground pork
1 tsp salt
1 tsp freshly ground pepper
3/4 tsp ground allspice
1/8 cup minced onion
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp chopped fresh thyme
1 beaten egg
olive oil

Sauce:
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/4 cup chopped celery
2 cloves garlic, chopped
4-5 oz dried cherries (about 3/4 cup)
1 bay leaf
3 whole black peppercorns
1 sprig fresh thyme
1/2 cup Merlot
1 1/2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 1/2 cups beef stock

Place ground venison and pork in a large bowl with salt, pepper, allspice, onion, garlic, thyme, and egg. Mix with your hands, being careful not to overwork the meat to ensure a good texture once the meatballs are cooked. Shape mixture into 1.5-2" meatballs.

Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat until just shy of smoking, then add the meatballs and sear well on all sides by occasionally shaking the pan to roll them around. Use tongs or a slotted spoon (tongs work better with larger meatballs) to remove the meatballs when they are nice and browned and reasonably firm - you don't need to worry too much about cooking them all the way through here, as they'll finish cooking in the sauce later. Place on a plate or in a bowl and cover with foil to trap them in their own radiant heat, as this will also help them to finish cooking.

Add chopped onion, celery and garlic to the pan and sautee them in the remaining oil and pan drippings until softened and barely colored - keep the veg moving to avoid burning the garlic. Add chopped garlic; cook 30 seconds. Turn the heat down a bit and add the cherries, bay leaf, peppercorns, thyme, wine, and balsamic vinegar, using a wooden spoon to scrape up all the browned bits from the bottom of the pan. Bring mixture to a boil and reduce by half, then add the stock and reduce by half again. Remove from heat and discard bay leaf and thyme.

You want to blend this sauce to a smooth consistency, so use whatever method works best for you. We used our regular blender but if you have a stick blender you could also pour the sauce into a tall container and use that (next time, that's what we'll do - I hate using the regular blender for this stuff). Just a few tips if you use an electric blender: When you put the to on, make sure that one of the openings is fcing the pour spout so that there is a place for steam to escape, and place a towel over the top while you blend. Blending hot liquids can be an explosive ffair if you aren't careful, and once you've had searing hot half-pureed fod go flying around your kitchen once, you never want it to happen again.

Once the sauce is blended, you can push it through a wire mesh strainer if you like, but we didn't bother. Return the sauce to the pan and add the meatballs back in. Roll them around to coat in the sauce and let everything simmer together for a few minutes to ensure even heating and thorough cooking of the meatballs. If serving individual portions, these can be skewered on bamboo skewers or simply placed on a plate with n extra spoonful of sauce. If serving as a group appetizer or a party dish, pour all the meatballs and sauce into a chafing dish or large fondue pot to keep warm and provide toothpicks for self-service. They'll be the best sweet and-sour cocktail meatballs you've ever eaten.



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Warm Farro Salad with White Beans and Young Kale

Young kale is paler green and has smaller leaves than the full-grown kind, and has a milder, slightly less bitter flavor. Use only the curly leaves, discarding the stems. If you can't find young kale, regular will work just fine.

I actually think that this would be equally good at room temperature or even cold, especially if dressed with a simple lemon vinaigrette after chilling, but as I haven't tried that yet myself you'll have to let me know how it turns out.

1/2 cup farro, rinsed and soaked in cold water for 30 minutes
1 1/2 - 2 cups chicken stock (standard ratio for cooking farro is 1 part farro to 3 parts liquid, but I always find I need slightly more, so I start with a cup and a half and add more later if necessary)
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 tbsp good extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup minced white onion
2 minced garlic cloves
2/3 cup canned white beans such as navy or cannelini, drained and rinsed
1 cup roughly chopped young kale, well rinsed
salt & black pepper
freshly grated romano, parmesan, prima donna (our choice, as usual), or other hard, salty cheese, optional

Place 1 1/2 cups of the chicken stock in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat, then drain the farro and add to the pan. Reduce the heat to medium, cover the pan, and simmer until the farro has absorbed all the water and is tender but still slightly chewy, usually about 20 minutes. You may want to stir it around every so often to keep it from sticking. If you find that the farro absorbs all of the stock but is still a little hard, just add more stock a little bit at a time and continue to simmer uncovered until it is properly cooked. This may take some nitpicking, but you'll get it.

While the farro cooks, heat a bit of olive oil in a small sautee pan over medium heat and add the onions and garlic. Cook together, stirring frequently, until well softened and golden brown - we're going for some slight caramelization here. Add in the kale and white beans along with a tablespoon or so of water, reduce the heat to low, and sautee until the kale has wilted and softened and the beans are exceedingly tender. Set aside.

When the farro is cooked, drain any excess liquid that there may be in the pan (I never have any, but you never know) and gently stir in the kale and beans mixture along with the red wine vinegar, good EVOO, and salt and pepper to taste. Add some grated cheese if you like. We did like, and even added a few extra slices of prima donna to our plates to nibble between bites of meatball and farro - it worked. Really well. Cover the pan and remove from heat to keep warm, but not hot, until ready to serve.

Thumper is tasty!

...ok, if that title didn't send you running for the hills in disgust, you have my thanks. Really, I'm not a totally cold-hearted b*tch. Honestly, I'm not. But there are very few animals that I wouldn't ever consider eating, and rabbits are not one of them. (Cats and dogs, though, are another story.)

The story goes like this - over a year ago, I discovered that our butcher at the time carried rabbit. Frozen, unfortunately, but as this was a relative delicacy that I have yet to see anywhere else, I just couldn't resist the temptation to buy one. As it happened, I bought two. And they've been languishing in our freezer ever since, because we just never thought of a way to try cooking them that really appealed to us. Sure, I found plenty of recipes for rabbit stew and rabbit braised in wine and rabbit pies and other similar things in my online search for ideas and guidance, but we just never got to the point where any of those things seemed like something we felt like eating. A lot of this was because we felt that with a new ingredient, one that neither of us had ever had the opportunity to even try, we wanted to make something that would really feature its flavor, rather than hiding it in a soup or sapping it in a braise.

Also, for awhile we honestly just forgot that we had them.

But a couple of weeks ago we found ourselves dealing with some tight finances until payday, and we wanted to use up some various odds and ends that we'd been saving rather than buying a bunch of new, fresh meat. Thus, one of our little icy bunnies made it onto the menu.

The inspiration? Traditional creole and cajun cuisine; namely, rabbit and sausage gumbo.

I know what you're thinking. "That doesn't look like any gumbo I'VE ever seen." And you'd be right. Because we didn't really make gumbo. We deconstructed it.

Deconstructed dishes tend to be sort of a trendy, high-brow sort of thing, but I think the idea has a lot of merit when thinking about single dish foods like soups, stews, baked goods, or other things that use many disparate ingredients to create a single harmonious whole. While such things can be completely delicious as they are, there is a lot of land to be explored when you consider each individual ingredient as a meal component in and of itself.

When making a normal gumbo, all of the bits and pieces combine and meld to make a bowl of goodness that has a truly tasty overall flavor, but those individual ingredients lose their identity, sacrificing individuality for unity. Deconstructing this dish allows each component to shine.

The rabbits themselves were packaged whole with certain organs still attached, mostly notably the kidneys. Breaking down the rabbit naturally fell to me, as I seem to have developed a bit of a knack for breaking down whole birds like chickens or turkeys. The rabbit, though, was well and truly a whole different animal. I suppose the basic structure was the same, but there were bones in odd places, and the mid-section of the animal was so lean I wasn't even sure if the bits surrounding the rib cage were actually meat or just especially thick skin. In the end I decided upon the latter, and I ended up quartering the rabbit (front and hind quarters on both sides) and removing what I believe were the saddles (a long relatively thick muscle that nestled against the ribcage on each side), discarding the bulk of the body of the rabbit. It would be prudent to note that there is really very little meat on a rabbit, and that the bulk of it exists unsurprisingly in the hind legs. The saddles are a hidden treat, however, and are tender the way a filet of beef is tender, as it seems to be a muscle that is little-used during the rabbit's lifetime. The skin on the quarters was left on, mostly because I found it to be a devil to remove.

Each of these pieces was rubbed down with a mixture of olive oil, salt and pepper - as I said, we wanted to keep it simple so that we could really taste the meat itself. They were then roasted in the oven (I honestly can't remember the temp. or time, its been so long since we made this... my apologies!) until they were golden brown and cooked through so that any juices than ran out when the meat was pierced were clear. Being a fairly uncommon meat and lacking in any sort of guide book for game meat, we didn't bother monitoring internal temperature and just used our instincts to judge when it was done - they didn't fail us, though I'd recommend anyone else who decided to give this a shot do some more thorough research than I did, just to be safe.

Accompaniments for the rabbit were some sliced and sauteed andouille sausage (made by Aidells, the founder of which was one of the writers of one of the most useful cookbooks we own, The Complete Meat Cookbook), some briefly stewed and spiced red chili beans, a heaping spoonful of trinity sofrito (onions, celery, and green bell peppers sauteed together with just a bit of salt and sugar - we added some carrot as well to round out the flavor), and a bowl of cajun-spiced broth.

The rabbit itself was delicious - the texture was almost exactly that of chicken, and the flavor was similar as well, but more earthy. This was a farm-raised rabbit, so I imagine that wild-caught rabbit would have a touch of gaminess to it as well, though I doubt it would ever be terribly strong. I would remove the skin next time, as it ended up a bit rubbery - we didn't achieve the crispiness I associate with good roasted poultry, and was a trifle unpleasant to bite into - but the meat was delicious, especially closer to the bone.

The true appeal of this meal was that with each bite of a single component - a slice of rabbit, or a spoonful of beans or sofrito, or a mouthful of sausage - you could taste the underlying purity of the ingredients, then chase it with a slurp of the broth and the flavors would combine in your mouth to give the distinct impression that you were, in fact, eating a bowl of gumbo. The contrast was fascinating, and great fun to eat and experience.

The truth is, though, that the cajun broth was the star of this show. It was spicy, rich, highly flavorful, and yet somehow light at the same time. I could take a thermos of this broth to work with me every day for a week and it would be a satisfying lunch all on its own, though perhaps a bit of cooked brown rice and sausage on the side would round things out. The flavor was incredible though, and I immediately requested that J make some more a few days later, this time as an accompaniment to some broiled catfish. The second time it was not as good, which leads me to believe that the recipe still needs some tweaking, but the memory of the very first spoonful that flowed over my tongue will stay with me for a long time, I think.

I won't post a recipe yet, not until I think we have it perfected and written down so that it could be repeated accurately, but here are some guidelines:

- The andouille that we ate along side the other parts of this meal actually created the base for the broth - J sauteed them in a saucepan along with maybe 1/4 cup of the trinity sofrito before removing them to eat separately with dinner. The relatively brief cooking period rendered out some of the fat and a lot of flavor, which made a huge difference to the broth in the end.

- We've discovered that the key to really authentic-tasting cajun/creole food seems to be generous amounts of garlic, paprika, chili powder, and thyme - combined with the flavors in the holy trinity, this really seems to lay down the base for a good gumbo or jambalaya.

- When in doubt, over-season. The broth was initially rather too strong when J completed it, but that was easily remedied by adding a bit of water. Making the flavors too weak at the outset, however, can require a lot of tweaking of spices later on, and it gets awfully difficult to maintain the proper balance when you're on your third or fourth addition of the same spice. Don't be afraid of them! This style of cooking demands the kinds of flavors that smack you in the face and leave you speechless as you try to figure out what the hell just happened, and that's really ok. What matters is that the proper blend is achieved, and once you get that, its always easy to just thin out the final product until you reach the level of intensity that you prefer.

I promise to share this recipe once we've gotten it down, because its just way too good to keep to ourselves. We've had tons of other ideas to use it, from cooking rice in it to using it to poach chicken, to thickening it with a roux made from andouille fat and flour and spooning it over steak, and I'd love to know what other people might think of!

Lessons Learned

I've been a little absent from the blogosphere this week. I'm sorry. Its way too early in the game here at "Table for Two?" for me to disappear for 6 days straight, and I apologize. I'll try not to let it happen again but, well, you know how it is. Life gets in the way sometimes.

That being said, there are a couple of legitimate reasons for my neglect. The first is that the Olympics started last Friday, and I've been watching them just about every night. I've been looking forward to the games for months, and there's been some really great stuff going on this year (Michael Phelps, anyone?) and I just don't want to miss a minute of it if I can avoid it.

The second is that we naively planned a couple of positively epic meals this week, and when we spend 2-3 hours making dinner after a full day of work, its all I can do to sit in front of the boob tube for an hour or so of Olympics coverage afterwards before passing out for the night.

This week did, however, yield quite a few valuable learning experiences which I'd like to pass on.

Mmmm. Melty Mexican goodness.

Lesson #1
Enchilada sauce, or red chili sauce, is shockingly easy to make at home, and tastes SO much better than the canned, store-bought variety that I've always used. J actually made the sauce this first time around, and although he used Emeril's recipe as a jumping-off point, he changed enough as he went along to render the original probably nearly unrecognizable. The end result? Pretty much what I would consider the perfect enchilada sauce: rich, savory, and tangy, with just a bit of warmth from some dried chilis. Poured under and over whole grain tortillas wrapped around smoked pulled pork and black beans, it yielded what J called "the best enchiladas EVAR" but I'll leave the details for a separate post.

Lesson #2
Cleaning your own squid is an absolutely monstrous job, and not at all pleasant. More importantly, its a hell of an undertaking for a weeknight. I don't think we ate dinner until after 9pm that night, and when you're used to eating dinner closer to 7:30pm, that is a seriously late meal.

I volunteered to do the squid-cleaning first, and I have to admit that my knee-jerk revulsion to handling shellfish innards (and having my fingers anywhere near a dead creatures eyes) lessened significantly after the first 2 or 3. I managed to get through about 8 before deciding I'd had enough, and passing the torch to J to finish up. Of course that meant he ended up doing almost twice as many as I did (the package we bought had a shockingly large number of whole squid in it) but he was graciously silent about the clearly unfair division of labor. I think I owe him a 6-pack or something for that.

We cleaned out all the bodies (or tubes) so that we could stuff them with a mixture of veggies and breadcrumbs, then bake them in a basic tomato sauce. The tentacles ended up getting discarded because, frankly, they just didn't look that good after being frozen and thawed. But of course, what you really want to know is, was it worth it?

No. Not at all. Never mind the fact that the plate of food up there will never win any beauty awards. It just didn't taste that good. The sauce and the stuffing, taken individually, were delicious. And being that we based it on one of Mario Batali's recipes, I'm not surprised. But the squid itself? Meh. Not impressed. I do think it was cooked just about right, as the finished product had a texture somewhat like al dente pasta. However, I'm used to squid being relatively non-fishy, and this was definitely fishy. I'm not sure if that's because it had been frozen whole and then thawed, or if we just didn't do a thorough-enough job of cleaning it (I suspect the latter, because some pieces were significantly more fishy than others) but quite frankly, I couldn't finish it. It was dsappointing, to say the least, and not something we'll be repeating anytime soon.

Now we've got a bag of about a dozen squid tubes in the freezer that we'll need to use up, though. I'm thinking we'll probably just fry them up at some point. Not anytime soon - I've got some mental scarring from this first fresh-squid encounter that needs to heal before I even look at it again - but eventually.

Lesson 3
Those little mini-springform pans I bought on my birthday are every bit as awesome as I expected them to be. I used them this week to make these delicious single-serving broccoli quiches, and they were really the perfect size for dinner when paired with some sauteed snow peas. The quiches rose in the oven and then held their form perfectly when removed from the pans, and were just perfectly cooked. I can't wait to find more uses for them.

Lesson 4
Sometimes, just sometimes, you want something simple. Something comforting. Something that fills your belly and warms your soul without breaking the bank. Something like... franks and beans. Or as J calls them, beanie weenies (*gigglesnort*). However, just because you're making a dish that your father made for you for dinner in grade school, doesn't mean you can't make it spectacular. We had this deceptively simple meal one night this week and made it amazing by making the baked beans from scratch, using dry beans that were soaked overnight and then cooked for a looooong time (over 12 hours) in the crock pot while we were at work. As a pleasant counterpoint to the squid fiasco, this made for a quick and easy dinner once we got home - all we had to do was crisp up the hot dogs a bit and then toast a couple of hot dog rolls in the rendered fat to have a supremely satisfying and surprisingly delicious dinner.

You know you want some of this. C'mon, don't try to hide it.

Even more surprising is that this particular dish was really not that bad for you - if you skip the bread-toasted-in-hot-dog-fat part, the franks and beans themselves have no added fat (helped along by that pre-cooking step with the dogs). There's a fair amount of sugar though, so diabetics may want to keep away from this sort of dish. The rest of you? Go get some beans soaking. Because I can guarantee there'll be a day this week when you won't want to cook, and this bowl of hot, hearty goodness is sure to soothe you after even the most difficult day.

Lesson 5
I still can't make fried rice. I tried my hand at a thai-style vegetarian fried rice on Thursday, and although it was basically ok, it just wasn't quite right. I'm pretty sure I overcooked the rice the night before, so it was a little too sticky and mushy when I tried to stir fry it, and fried rice just shouldn't be mushy, ever. I also think I used too much fish sauce in the seasoning, because the flavor was just a bit too prominent for me to really enjoy the dish. The basic premise was good, and the bites that got a piece of fresh tomato or pineapple were really delicious, but I couldn't quite finish my serving. J loved it, which I'm glad of, but I just know I could make it better if I could just get the rice part of it right.

Lesson 6
Rabbit is delicious. Also, "deconstructed" dishes are a ton of fun. But, I'll leave those details for my next post.

Bonus Lesson:
My photography SUCKS. Its virtually impossible to take decent photos in this dim-as-hell basement apartment. Normally I enjoy the gentle lighting we've got going on down here, but its not at all conducive to taking attractive photos of our dinners. I've really gotta work on that lightbox...