Week 5 - Salad shooter and margarita mix.

Week 4 got away from me - I have no excuse except I had too much food left over from the dinner party? I had spicy sauce on everything for a week.

However, it was finally time to experiment with the salad shooter! Some of you may remember the salad shooter from early infomercials; if not, see here: http://cooks-corner.stores.yahoo.net/pressalshoot.html

I reviewed all sorts of salad recipes, but decided on a simple cucumber salad. The experiment went well, as the salad came together quickly. However, I learned that the salad shooter is not for the precise - you get a lot of irregular shapes based on the circular form of the barrel - see above. I think the grater attachment might produce a little more regularity, though I'm not sure how I feel about a shredded salad, except maybe as topping for something? I also tend to prefer nice even slices myself, though I think these look a little like tropical fish, which is fun. Here's the whole salad:


I had another experiment for the week as well. In preparation for a party I'm helping host this weekend, I thought I'd find a way to make the margarita mix into palatable margaritas. The recipe on the bottle calls for three parts mix to one part tequila and then some ice. I decided to experiment with fresh lime juice, triple sec, and other staples to see what I could come up with, so Jay can go out and buy enough of whatever it is for the party.

The first thing I discovered is that I don't own a shot glass. I'm not sure how this could be true, but it is. I was going to use my tablespoon measure, but it's still covered in thai curry paste from the cucumber salad, which won't help (it's an interesting thought, though - would it take the metallic edge off the mix?). Instead, I found a little tiny wine glass that I used as decoration for my friend Lesley's wedding which was just about the right size. In order to get scale, I've snapped it with a real (regular sized) lime. Or is it an unripe pomelo? You can judge.

I started with three parts mix and one part tequila, the recommended mixture, which tasted exactly like tequila with a sweet tart, a little bit of asprin, and some water. Horrible. I added one-half part fresh lime juice and one-half part triple sec, which was still chemical-ly but better. After a few false starts (lemon juice, sugar, water, sparkling water, pomegranate juice, miso paste), I hit upon something: three parts mix, one part lime juice, a splash triple sec, and a squeeze of fresh orange juice. Then about one and a half parts tequila, shaken, not stirred. Quite good.

I did some quick math and can't wait to tell Jay that he has to buy about 66 limes... Ole!

Week 3, part 2 - Caperberries, Rosemary Vinegar, Truffles. Brought to you by the letter "S".

I decided it was time to have a dinner party, both as a reason to have a few fun friends over and as an excuse to go to Ferry Plaza for the Farmer's Market (and of course, to use up my Shannon stuff).

Some people avoid the Farmer's Market like you'd avoid Safeway on a Sunday, but I wanted to see what vegetables are in season and that's a simple way. It turns out that it's fava bean season. I wasn't sure what to do with favas, especially as the helpful farmer selling them said I'd need seven pounds for six people, but I thought it might be a fun experiment.

Let me skip to the end of the story and tell you that favas require a lot of work, including shelling them, blanching them, peeling them again, and then throwing out about six pounds of stuff you peeled. They taste, in my opinion, exactly like edamame, which you can buy at Trader Joe's pre-shelled. Buy favas at restaurants, serve edamame at home.

However, by the time everyone came over at seven, the favas were done and there was some cheese from the Marin French Cheese Company (left over from last weekend's cheese tasting adventure) for a snack. It was so fun to have everyone around the table that all the shelling was worth it!

After dinner, we played Scattergories, which is one of my favorite games. It doesn't make sense then that I'm not very good at it, but I'm not - I can usually get two answers on my first pass and then spend the rest of my time on one of the remaining seven things. So, I decided to practice using some of the real categories... fortunately, I rolled an S:

Things that are cold: Salad. Roasted peppers, caperberries from Shannon, rosemary vinegar from Shannon, olives. Technically it was served at room temperature, but that's close enough.

Breakfast foods: Salmon. Once part of the entree - Salmon with Coconut Rice, it's not bad first thing in the morning.

Desserts: Signature Key Lime Pie a la Anne. Everyone needs a go-to dish, and I'm lucky that Anne chose one of my favorites!

Things that grow: Strawberries. I also got these at the Farmer's Market, though they are apparently not in season (read: sour). Still, served with Shannon's truffles (on Shannon's green cake stand), they were a healthy balance to the pie.

Items in a refrigerator: Spicy sauce (2 points!). The sauce for the salmon, a red curry sauce, was really spicy. It occured to me today that I had doubled everything in the sauce except the coconut milk, which explains a lot.

Hobbies: Scattergories. Duh.

Tools: Siphon (which Peter brought for the whipped cream and Suzie used as a flashback to college).

Four letter words: Sofa, where I retired after everyone left. Did they mean curse words for this category? There is one but I don't want to use it in relation to my dinner.

Things you plug in: Salad shooter! I am so excited about this Shannon acquisition; I see it in next week's plan.

I have such fun leftovers for the week, and four more points to my credit. I'm going to sleep.

Week 3 - Cooking Light, Hearts of Palm and Au Poivre marinade.

I looked in my refrigerator today and I had nothing to eat. I have lots of things to put on things to eat, and lots of things to cook food in, and a lot of things to drink with food, but no actual food.

A trip to the grocery store was the obvious solution, but on Sunday at about 5 pm, it was not that compelling. There are only two choices - Trader Joe's and Safeway. Trader Joe's has the unique and interesting, Safeway, the variety of uninteresting. Trader Joe's has the miniscule parking lot, Safeway the constant Christmas parking. Safeway is a social place, where I was almost guaranteed to see someone I know; I was wearing a horrible outfit. It's almost a one-person rochambeau, which I based, if you can believe, on the light at Laguna and Lombard. If it was red, I was going to go right to Trader Joe's. Green was Safeway; it was green, Safeway was the place.

Given my list, I decided to make some kind of beef with the Au Poivre marinade, and I found a recipe in the Cooking Light cookbook for a hearts of palm salad that sounded good. Both were yummy and good uses of all ingredients. Three points to me!

Fifty-six to go.

Week 2 - Cheeses, Quince, and Peach Balsamic Fruit Condiment.

It's been a long-standing tradition to watch the Sopranos on Sunday night with dinner before the West Coast version (at 9 pm) or after the East Coast one (6 pm). We've had some fun ones - it's easy to theme around the plot lines. This time, I turned to my Shannon food for inspiration, and decided to have Middle Eastern food a la Sopranos.

I realize that this is a stretch - it's based on the fact that they now have a couple of Middle Eastern guys in one of the subplots, though the meal was actually more Mediterranean. They are the guys that steal credit card numbers, which is close enough to my job to make the theme work for me. They are also obsessed with strip clubs, which has nothing to do with my work.

While putting many many things into bags for me, Shannon gave me instructions and suggestions for using the various condiments. I only remember one - to use the Peach Balsamic Fruit Condiment on pork. It is fortunate that my pork surplus happened simultaneously with the length of my short-term memory.

I also decided that this was the perfect time to start with Shannon's cheese and quince paste; I added crackers and apples. Erin volunteered to make a salad, and I found a really good recipe for couscous on Epicurious:
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/recipe_views/views/232567

I also made roasted green beans as recommended by my friend Laura (roasted with salt and pepper for about 10 minutes - addictive). Kemp provided dessert, and Jay and Charlie added color commentary.

Once again, the pork was really yummy and so not worthy of a photo - it looked exactly like the last one, so just imagine it (and insert your own Caddyshack image)...