Week +1: Turmeric, Zinfandel, Vanilla Bean

Incredible achievements to report. Shannon and Jim are back, Jim climbed Everest, and I am finally read to wrap up this blog. After starting with 67 items, and adding two along the way, I’m down to six which I consider close enough.

The last stretch was so very anticlimactic. I used the turmeric for Chicken Tikka Masala. This was a cop-out, as it only required ¼ t of turmeric, but it was something I’ve always wanted to try to make. It came out fine; I think it would have been much better if I had followed the instructions and used ¼ cup of almonds instead of ½ cup. I got carried away because I had to blanch my own almonds and I made a few extra just in case (have you ever blanched almonds? They are slippery and tend to end up under the fridge or similar) and then forgot to take the extra out. My taste tester deemed it very masculine – guys, apparently, prefer crunchy peanut butter to regular, so this was kind of the “crunchy peanut butter equivalent of chicken tikka masala”; he is very kind as it was borderline solid. The chicken was marinated in yogurt and was delicious on its own, though that part of the recipe didn’t require turmeric so it’s better I did the sauce too.

I took the Zinfandel to game night at the Weinbergs’. It was very good, especially with Melissa’s brownies - which is fortunate because I lost the game (Settlers of Catan) soundly.

And, as for the vanilla bean – I could not imagine what one does with a vanilla bean except bake, and my lack of skill at baking (which is directly proportional to my lack of interest in measuring) is well documented. Well, Shannon and I had dinner last Saturday, and when I called to ask what she needed she said, “Do you by chance have a vanilla bean?” Ludicrous question for someone who knows me, but – I did! It’s back in the hands of its rightful owner, and I’m delighted with the symmetry. I’m done.

Week T-4: Seafood stock, Williams Sonoma Vegetarian cookbook


I'm fairly sure we're at T-4 weeks now - though that's just a guess. I'm also sure that I am ready to throw everything in my cupboards out the window. It's time for spring cleaning - I have a really really strange set of things in my spice cabinet, my fridge, and my pantry. I think the overview of my attempt to clean all three out will be the next blog entry.

For now, I'm happy to report success in my latest experiment. I looked through the Vegetarian cookbook and found a cold soba noodle dish that would use up some soba in my pantry, and also reintroduce vegetables to my diet after a long hiatus. I did have to tweak the recipe a little. First, I was at Safeway and was unable to find kelp and some of the baby veggies required - though much to my surprise, they did have baby zucchini and some really fun sunrise squash. They also had sheets of nori, which I thought I'd have to forgo. I added leek instead of green onion - because I had some left over from cooking two weeks ago. See the photo above - I took it next to my computer mouse to get some scale.




The other change I made was a bit of a departure - I wanted to use the seafood stock, and some leftover smoked salmon, which made the dish technically not vegetarian. Not really even vegetarian at all, actually. That said, the salmon was very salty and perfect for the dish. It was also very pretty, and quite good.

Week T-6: Better Than Bullion

In a very weak attempt at finishing this task, I replaced beef broth with that made from Better Than Bullion, Mushroom Flavor while braising short ribs. It worked fine - the ribs were great and I'm not sure that mushroom would be better or different than beef.

The dinner, by the way was wonderful and unphotographed. With the short ribs (and a sauce of reduced braising liquid), we served a leek and potato gratin and an arugula salad. The leeks, sourced from the Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market, were about two pounds each - and seriously the size of my forearm (if my forearm had a very large fan-shaped palmlike end to it). The arugula was mixed with fresh strawberries - both from the Farmer's Market as well - and some pine nuts, goat cheese, and balsamic vinaigrette. It's unrealistic to think I could dump my life and go live on a farm, but when eating fresh food, it's tempting!

Week T-7: Poppy seeds, Fume Blanc, peanut sauce

Well, it's time for creativity. I think in NASCAR they call this "Go Time" - so in NASCAR fashion, I am gearing up for the end of this challenge. One complicating factor is that I once again found something that should have been on the list in the first place. I now have spicy peanut sauce which I conveniently left off my list; this must stop or I will have to just start eating things straight out of the container.

Laboring under my (completely artificial) deadlines, I struggled with my next challenge: an Asian cooking night with friends and no Asian ingredients. It's a newish girls' cooking group - a group that is wonderful, fun, and in search of a better name. We decided to have a Chinese New Year theme, but since we have passed that by, we did more of a pan-Asian dinner.

Skipping to the end, after reviews of cookbooks (e.g., the unhelpful Mexican one), I made spring rolls. I had originally planned to use the ones I'd made from the "Cocktail Food with Attitude" book, but they are pork and at the last food group thing, there was way too much rich food. Instead, I did traditional shrimp ones.

One of the recipes I found had black sesame seeds, so I decided that poppy seeds would suffice. I altered the spicy sauce by adding some additional peanut butter and soy, to cut the spice. and it came out fine. You couldn't taste the poppy seeds, so they are merely decorative.

We also had the Fume Blanc, which was very rich in taste and color - almost like a Chardonnay. This was likely because it was a nice bottle to begin with, and it was also 10 years old. It was very good, though I think I was pushing its expiration a bit.

This leads to another struggle and longstanding question - how long does this stuff last? It's all at minimum one year old, and likely older than that. Alarmist posts on the web show that opened things last at maximum a week, or mere days if they have any sort of natural ingredients. There's very little in my fridge that's less than a month old, so I went through it today to see if I could both discard the scary/old stuff and also see if I there is anything else that should have been on the list. Good news: nothing to add to the list. Bad news: most stuff tastes fine so the list is still at twelve things.

Week T-8: Sea salt, Sancerre

What, you may wonder, is gravlax? It's an appetizer consisting of thin sashimi-like slices of salmon cured in salt, sugar, and dill. (This according to Wikipedia - which, according to Michael Scott, is the best thing ever. Anyone in the world can write anything they want about any subject. So you know you are getting the best possible information.)

During the Middle Ages, gravlax was made by fishermen by salting the salmon and lightly fermenting it by burying it in the sand above the high-tide line. The word gravlax comes from the Scandinavian words grav, which means literally "grave" or "hole in the ground" (in Swedish, Norwegian and Danish), and lax (or laks), which means "salmon". Today fermentation is no longer used in the production process, nor is sand. Instead the salmon is "buried" in a dry marinade of sea salt, sugar, and dill, and cured for a few days. It's served on brown bread with a dill and mustard sauce, and is very beautiful to serve.

It's a super-easy recipe though time-consuming - you have to turn the salmon every 24 hours for three days. Actually, the hardest part of this process is remembering to turn the salmon - I sent myself blackberry reminders. I can't imagine how they remembered in the Middle Ages.

It was served at game night, with the Sancerre, which went rather well together. The gravlax and the wine, that is - one's ability to think of clever Taboo clues clearly declines with Sancerre consumption. Oy.

Week T-9, part 3: Sage meat seasoning and Meyer lemon rub and sea salt

In a burst of panic-induced energy, I'm on a tear. Tonight, in an hour I made pork two new ways plus set off a Scandinavian experiment.

First, I made a traditional pork tenderloin, seared and baked with sage meat seasoning. It cooked quickly and was fine; I used my cast iron skillet which was perfect for making pan juices.

However, the other pork was a triumph. I tried something new - butterflying the tenderloin. The recipe called for cutting it into effectively four slices (in half, then butterflying each half), but I thought it would be better butterflied once. So I tried it both ways. One side of each slice got coated with the Meyer lemon marinade, and both went into a pan with olive oil. Not surprisingly, the skinnier cut cooked faster (about three minutes a side); the other took five minutes a side. Both were great, though I preferred the fatter of the two. See below:

The best part was that it was the fastest dinner ever - one could have this on the table in about ten minutes. This will appear again in my repertoire.

I have also used the sea salt to (begin to) make gravalax. It takes three days to cure the salmon, so I set up the salmon with the salt/sugar mixture tonight and I'll turn it every day until Saturday. The recipe also called for an obscure ingredient - crushed white peppercorns. One-quarter teaspoon (!!) of crushed white peppercorns. These types of ingredients are a pet peeve (yes, this is ironic given the list of ingredients I started off this blog with); I hate buying a spice for one-quarter teaspoon of anything. You might ask why I used this recipe, then, and I will tell you. First, it won Cooking Light's best-of-the-issue award last month, or the last month that I read of Cooking Light, which might also be from January or last October. Hard to say. Also, and this is the best part - I actually have white peppercorns. Why, or where they came from, I don't know. I don't think they are from Shannon, though they by all rights should be, but there they are. It's a large jar, and will take approximately a million servings of gravalax to use up the jar. I hope it's good.

And in a related irony, I have white peppercorns but forgot to buy a lemon for the recipe. I did get dill, which I didn't need (I needed it the last time I made gravalax and guessed), so I made some modifications. It will be interesting to see how it turns out.

Week T-9, part 2: Mango salsa

Just an update on the salsa. As predicted, my friend had not one but three of those rubber opener things. Yet, none of them enabled us opening the salsa. I was not kidding about it being stuck. We ran the jar under hot water, tapped it on the counter, and tried it again. No luck.

Then Dawn arrived. Apparently, her superpower is opening any jar. She twisted, tapped, and then opened it right up. She has strangely strong fingers. Wow.

Week T-9: Pesto, Risotto cookbook, mango salsa


Trying to make some progress this week, I cleaned out my cupboards and actually added to the panic: I found a container of seafood stock in my cupboard which clearly came from Shannon as I have no idea where you would even buy such a thing. So add that to the list.


Hoping to gain some ground, I made two things tonight. First, a torta of layered cream cheese, pesto and sundried tomato, adapted from a recipe on Epicurious. It's for use/eating during my book club on Wednesday. It molds for two days - how very 1960s! - which is superconvenient for anyone who works during the day. I'm a little concerned about the pesto layer, as I didn't follow the directions and just used the tubed pesto, and it's a little runny. We'll see how that comes out - I suspect that any combo of pesto, sundried tomato and cream cheese will still be good.


Then I made a risotto from the Williams Sonoma Risotto cookbook. This one has broccoli and parmesan, and more interesting - no wine. I was interested to see if the result would be remarkably different, and it isn't - I think due to the strong taste of the parmesan. I also used my favorite vegetable stock, which is very rich and dark and would also have covered the taste. Here's a photo:





My last accomplishment tonight is going to be eating the mango salsa, which I'm taking over to a friend's tonight for eating while we knit. I'm not sure how conducive mango salsa is to knitting, but I'm also happy to sit and eat while they knit, so I will taste it. I am a little concerned that the salsa's been around for a year, and tried to open it earlier today, but it is stuck. Really stuck. That's either good for the salsa, or it will become a paperweight. My friend who's hosting tonight is likely to have one of those opener thingys, so we'll see how it tastes...