Back in the Kitchen with Michael: Capellini w/Salmon and Mushrooms (and a Salad!)

Has it really been 3 whole weeks since I've posted a cook-along recipe?  Boy, how time flies when one is attending Broadway openings with a renowned fashion model on one's arm, experimenting with French methods of home-scenting, and chasing towel-clad dancers around the locker room.  (Hi, George, if you're reading this — I'll be at the gym later this morning!)

[Note: do not read this caption unless you are George.]  Hi, George — remember me?  If this picture isn't ringing any bells, you could try imagining me in a towel.   (Oh dear, now I'm imagining you imagining me in a towel......)

Not to mention inaugurating a new teaching space, starting a program of working out under the guidance of a personal trainer, and walking the dogs for longer periods now that the weather is getting milder.  Whew!  It's actually a respite to enter the kitchen and spend some relaxing time cooking a meal.  The seed idea for today's project was the container of garlic scape pesto I'd discovered in the freezer yesterday.  What fun, to discover a few tablespoons of this heavenly stuff left over from almost a year ago — garlic scapes appear early on in the growing season, so we get them in one of our first CSA deliveries each year, in late May or early June, and I always make pesto out of them.

In which Michael tries to butch it up with a big pot of okra

I wonder if it's possible for a male couple to become too gay?

I mean, all stereotypes aside, our lives are mostly similar to that of any other family — well, maybe any other slightly kooky family of outside-the-box-thinking, artistic mavericks with demented Chihuahuas.  But our proximity to the nucleus of gay American culture — Chelsea 10011 — brings us into frequent and intense contact with all sorts of queer influences.  (I'm using that Q-word in its co-opted, political sense.  You aren't allowed to use it in this way unless you're queer too.  Oh, and please stop using "gay" to mean "stupid," as in "That's so gay."  There I am, on my soapbox again!)

Following on the (high) heels of last weekend's fabulousness — attending the opening and after-party of Priscilla, 50% of us in a dress — Peter and I were given tickets for this past Saturday night's "Big Gay Sing 3D" concert of the New York City Gay Men's Chorus.  (One of my voice students is in the chorus and had an extra pair of tix.)

This choral extravaganza — actually more of a variety show — made Priscilla look like an NFL football game by comparison.  The evening was chock-full of everything gay men (well, ones like me anyway) hold dear: hunky tenors, drag queens in beaded gowns, showtunes, emceeing by a huge out Broadway star, a diva songstress with pipes of gold, hunky men in pleather shorts, hunky baritones, hundreds of costumes and wigs, hunky men in Prince Charming outfits, campy humor, bawdy humor, hunky basses, Donna Summer songs, sequins, sequins, sequins, and hunky men in the audience.

(Oh, and hunky men wearing MPB apparel and the Debbie shirt, respectively.  I gayed up Debbie's gorgeous creation with my tightest skinny Levi's and a pair of motorcycle boots.  If only she'd made me a gingham codpiece to match.)

In which Michael seizes the day and the saffron

In yesterday's post I described an uncomfortably close brush with Death that inspired me to make a covenant with myself — and with Life.  My chosen metaphor for my resulting new attitude towards life is not saving the saffron.  I chose to interpret this quite literally on the inaugural day of my covenant, and created a saffron-rich chicken stew that I will show you how to make...

...that is, if you, too, are ready to use up your saffron.

Go ahead; DO IT.  What better way to acknowledge that today is special?

Don't I look like I'm saying, "Go ahead; DO IT!" in this picture?  In my boomingest voice?

Before we get to the stew recipe, though, I have to make a confession.  I fear I have been interpreting carpe diem as license to spend every crappy dime.  In my eagerness to display lust for life, I recklessly engaged on a brief binge of monetary spending:

Reconnected, and it feels so good

Welcome back, readers!  I am thrilled to report that Verizon has finally resolved our landline/internet issues, and we are back in connection with the virtual world.  The restoration of our service surprised us by occurring a full day before the date Verizon had predicted, and has thus caught me unprepared for blogging.   It's not just that I have not been taking pictures of my meal preparations; I haven't really been preparing all that many meals.

How sad is that, when it doesn't seem worth the effort to cook when I can't blog about the food?  We actually have been eating reasonably well, what with all the leftovers I had stored in the freezer.  Including a batch of the oniony kidney beans I promised never to write about again.  But, given the dearth of new foods to describe, wouldn't you be happy to hear about how I served the last portion of these beans in a casserole cooked in my convection oven?  I mean, as opposed to not hearing about anything at all?

Thai-ish Fish Dish

All right — back to the kitchen!  I've enjoyed my weekend of musings about random topics, but it's time once more to cook.  And those flounder filets I impulse-bought from WF (and mis-identified as snapper in yesterday's post) weren't going to stay fresh forever, so I assessed what I had on hand — pretty much everything, thanks to my obsessive-compulsive grocery shopping — and made a Thai-inspired fish stew out of them.

Speaking of food going bad — and what more pleasant way to start out our week together? — I'd always wondered if Kimchi, which is basically rotten cabbage, could ever get too old to eat.  Well, while scanning the bottom shelf of my fridge, looking for the half a lemon I'd stuck in there somewhere, I found not only the lemon, but the answer to my longstanding question.  Yes, Kimchi can rot beyond the point of edibility.  Far beyond.  I unearthed a tupperware containing the remnants of a commercial batch of Kimchi I'd bought at a Korean grocery about — um, this is kind of embarrassing — 4 years ago.

Anyway, the Kimchi was covered in white fuzzy mold — I first mis-diagnosed it as ice crystals — and smelled like Death's favorite cologne.  If Death were a demented old garlic-eating woman sitting next to you at the opera house in Hades, opening little cellophane-wrapped cabbage candies all throughout a performance of L'Elisir della Morte.

I'm not sure that, even after scalding and scouring with soapy water, that tupperware will ever be useable again.  Maybe babushka-woman can store her cologne in there.

Cook-Along with Me: Pasta w/radishes and their greens — and FENNEL!

Here's how I recently made a tasty vegetarian supper, a little out-of-the-ordinary on account of the cooking of a veggie normally served raw and the unexpected fusion of Eastern and Western flavors.

Well, perhaps my fusion project did not turn out THAT out-of-the-ordinary in comparison to Boy George.  I miss his gentle kookiness and his appealing fusion of genders and musical styles.  Back in the 80s, when I was still confused about my sexuality, Boy George opened my mind to a whole new way of presenting oneself unapologetically.  Even though by his standards, my own self-presentation was on the tame side, I took from him a valuable lesson about not having to mold myself into what was expected of me by others.

Weekend Bulletin: Local Man Thaws Leftover Beans

How's that for an attention-grabbing headline, folks?  I hadn't planned, actually, on mentioning the beans again, but on Friday, I used some of the ones I'd frozen to make something so delicious, and so EASY, that I felt compelled to share.

In British detective fiction I've read, certain characters — particularly when the authors are wishing to convey destitution or a slipping to a pathetic level of existence — often resort to quick meals of what the English call beans on toast.  In our country, there is not really a tradition of bean sandwiches at all, but I can imagine that noses would be upturned at the very mention of the idea.  (I believe my littlest sister was astonished when her elementary school classmates did not share her enthusiasm for the hot-dog-and-baked-bean sandwiches she begged my mom to pack her for lunch.  Perhaps she will chime in with the complete story in the comments.)

How did this noble combination of foods acquire such an ignominious reputation?  Well, probably because most people are thinking of this sort of abomination:

Note: Not endorsed by blog host!

Lambburger Helper

Here's how I combined some available ingredients to punch up a simple dinner of lamb burgers.  It turned into a delightfully bizarre (con-) fusion cuisine in which I used Indian ingredients to simulate a flavor created by the British to simulate authentic Indian cuisine and used in modern German cookery.  Got that straight?

Let's tease apart this tangle of cross-culturalism.  My inspiration was a quintessential German snack food known as Currywurst, which involves bite-sized nuggets of Bratwurst served in a sauce made of ketchup flavored with curry.  This delectable treat — it's really one of the most delicious, if not all that healthy, foods I've ever eaten — is most often eaten at outdoor venues off of a rectangular paper plate using a wooden "fork" that looks a little like a deformed popsicle stick.  As if the cholesterol count weren't already off the charts, Currywurst is often accompanied by a paper cone of french fries with mayo.  And a liter mug of beer.  (Oh, why did I ever leave Germany?)

Currywurst und Pommes mit Mayo

Kale and Mushroom Soup with Pasta Elbows

Dear Readers, I gave you a little pinto-bean-free reprieve for the weekend (and holiday, for those of you who acknowledge such occasions) — can you therefore bear to hear about just one more bean w/ham hock reincarnation?  This one is good, I promise, and the most unlike the original dish so far.  And the best part is that it used up all the remaining beans, so you won't be having to hear any more about that enduring dish after this.

Please don't resent me for trotting out bean recipe after bean recipe.  After all, Picasso had his blue period.  Isn't it only fair for me to be allowed to go through a bean period?  (I am not meaning to imply that I am the Picasso of leftovers, but if you'd like to indulge that association, I will not thwart you.)

Maybe these people would cheer up if they ate some beans with ham hock.

What follows is a step-by-step guide to how I converted this

Yuck!

into this

Yum!

Let there be light! And breakfast!

I went to the opera again last night to see Donizetti's Don Pasquale, and this time, sat in my regular subscription seat, which is the very first seat in the very first box in the Dress Circle.  As you can see in the video clip below, I am perched right over the orchestra, which suits me fine, as I love to watch the instrumentalists while they play.

Another advantage of this seat is that I get a great view of one of the spectacular Swarovski crystal chandeliers as it rises up past my seat on its way to the ceiling when it is time for the show to start.  That's what I captured in the little video clip; I hope it brings you joy to see one of the little things that bring me joy.

Cold-weather heater-upper: Brrrr - itos

¡Olé!  I managed to create a dish using my leftover pinto beans that transformed them into something completely new and unrecognizable.  ¡Cool!

Actually, warm.  For dinner last night, at 7:30 following my last voice student of the day, we had pinto bean & ham burritos that were quick, easy, and delicious — and warming.  During a break earlier in the day, I started dinner preparations by grinding homegrown whole wheat into flour, then forming it into tortillas, which I cooked on a heated cast-iron griddle, singing traditional Mexican canzones de tortilla all the while.   Or maybe I just opened a package from Whole Foods — I really can't remember the details after such a busy day.

Pinto Beans in the Slow Cooker

Whew!

Because of 3 consecutive days of professional commitments this weekend, I didn't have any time to cook.  I barely had time to eat, grabbing half a bagel with whitefish salad here, a package of "Sweetheart Sushi" shared with my sweetheart there, as time permitted.

The sushi came from Whole Foods, and was a cute little package with 2 of each tiny, fishy morsel, including 2 tuna/salmon roll pieces molded into a heart shape in the middle.  WF gets a little cloying at holiday times, but I have to admit it was tasty.  Heart-shaped chocolates make some sort of romantic sense, I suppose, and I have a soft spot for Santa-shaped sugar cookies, but when we start forming raw fish into festive shapes, perhaps we have gone too far.

The weekend's activities culminated in a master class in singing I gave on Sunday morning, for which I wore the muslin Peter created for his current men's shirt sew-along.  Imagine how amazing the shirt is going to turn out when the muslin looks this good:

No, my face isn't dirty — that's my beard.  I'll try to chart its (slow) growth with pictures on this blog.

The audience was very attentive during my class.  Now I'm wondering if it was my presentation mesmerizing them, or this adorable shirt, with its kicky semaphore-flag-ish pattern.  (The shirt actually had pockets too by the time of the class.  This photo was taken a day or two earlier.)  If you're nice to me, sometime I'll show you the contrasting red/white check gingham on some of the inner surfaces — these fun details set this shirt far apart from a ready-to-wear garment.  (Thanks, Sweetheart!  I mold my fish into amorous shapes for you!)

Oh, yes.  This is a cooking blog.  It's just that there was more happening on the sewing front than the cooking front this weekend.  But I did squeeze in one kitchen project on Sunday evening, to reward myself for all the preparation I'd done for the master class.

My afternoon conquest over fresh horseradish

I'll admit, my strength is not in keeping things simple.  I set out on Wednesday to see if I could come up with a supper for after my last student of the day that would take 15 minutes of prep time, tops.  I knew I had some quick-cooking kale in the fridge.  But on the way to the kale, I got distracted by a horseradish root....

Note the glove, recommended on every horseradish website I encountered.  Too bad they don't make latex gloves for noses.  Do NOT stick your face in the blender to smell your results, btw.

Because I'm now completely infatuated with the idea of incorporating horseradish into my dinner plans, the 15-minute challenge was out the window.  After reading preparation instructions on a half-dozen websites, I felt as though I could just go to my kitchen and wing it, so I did.  Here's the story of how I made prepared horseradish and built a not-so-quick-and-easy meal around it.  (Actually, if I'd already prepared the horseradish beforehand, or just bought a jar of horseradish like a normal person, the rest of the procedure would've gone quite fast.  But then what would I have blogged about?)

By the way, you should very definitely heed the warnings on the websites — this stuff is POTENT.  I wore the recommended gloves when handling my root — oh, grow up already — but the fumes nearly did me in.  As I rushed to open the kitchen window as wide as it would go, I wished for the gas mask I'd been issued on my first day of active duty in the Army, which I fortunately never needed in a life-threatening chemical warfare attack, but which did make peeling onions a lot more pleasant.  (Your tax dollars at work.)

Weekend Project — Pot Roast with Veggies in the Slow Cooker

The enticing aromas emanating from my slow cooker as I type these words are the result of a whole weekend of cooking.  That may sound a little daunting, but none of the steps was difficult or overly time-consuming (other than unattended cooking times), so I hope you will not be frightened away by the thought of dedicating a whole weekend to one dish.  It was the kind of cooking project I find totally satisfying — involving recipes within recipes, just like in the Joy of Cooking!

I'll never forget the time I challenged myself to make a Beef Wellington from this cooking bible, and was confronted with a recipe calling for many ingredients that cross-referenced to their own recipes which called for further preparations. . . .  These were exotic-sounding things I'd never made or in some cases, even heard of before, like roux, puff pastry, Duxelles, liver paté, beef stock reduction.  I dedicated a whole week to the Wellington project, and most of the steps were labor-intensive, requiring my full concentration.  Which was challenging back then, since in those days I polished off whole bottles of wine while cooking.  (They went into me, not only into my sauces.)  I have a vague recollection of being gently slapped back into consciousness by my then-boyfriend when it was time to incorporate yet another layer of butter into the puff paste.

But the project I'm describing here was a piece of cake in comparison to that marathon, which I'm not likely to repeat any time soon.  (Intrepid readers can refer to JofC, page 455, if they wish to try their own hands at Beef Wellington.  Good luck, and be sure to send me a report of your experience.  And a list of the wines you consumed during the preparation.)

The Joy of Coleslaw

Don't underrate coleslaw.  This unassuming side-dish, despite its mundane reputation, has a lot going for it:  

• Ease and speed of preparation
• Infinite variability
• Satisfying crunchiness
• Healthy benefits

I started making coleslaw about a year ago, when I needed a salad — something green and fresh! — to go with a meal that was a little heavy on the starch/protein components.  But I was out of lettuce.  And cucumber.  And tomatoes.  But I did find hidden in the veggie drawer of my fridge part of a head of cabbage leftover from who knows what.  So I sliced it into fine shreds, added some oil, some vinegar, and some seasonings, and, voilà!  My first homemade coleslaw.

Friday Night Quickie

Sorry to disappoint you readers expecting a more lurid topic, but "Friday Night Quickie" refers to the dish of eggplant with gnocchi that I whipped up last week between work and running off to the Met to see the world's sexiest baritone — I'm excluding myself out of modesty — in Simon Boccanegra.

The swoon-worthy Dmitri Hvorostovsky

Sadly, Mr. Hvorostovsky's voice was not in the best shape — it sounded a bit thinner than I've heard it in the past, and I think he is pushing a bit these days — but his pecs featured gloriously in the production, particularly in the scenes in which he was attired in a sort of 14th-century dressing gown open down to the bottom of his sternum, so my opera glasses got quite a workout and I left the theater fully satisfied.  Oh, and — sorry I got a bit distracted by my Siberian eye-and-ear candy — the eggplant dish was delicious and easy.  Like Dmitri's high notes when I heard them last season in Trovatore.

The Maiden Voyage of my Slow Cooker — Rajma (Indian Kidney Beans)

Well, I've completed my first slow cooking experiment, and am going to have to call this one a "learning experience."  Unfortunately, we now have in our fridge a couple gallons of learning experience to plow through in the coming week.

To put a positive spin on the situation, the cooking process 1) taught me something about what the slow cooker is good and not so good at, and 2) filled our home all day Saturday with enticing aromas.  Sadly, though, like that of an inferior wine, the taste of my resulting dish did not live up to the promise of those aromas.

Peter preparing to sample his first bite of food from our new slow cooker

My first batch of stock since 1991

In my Joy of Cooking phase — this was before I got interested in Indian and other Asian cuisines, and when I was young enough to not think twice before dousing at least one dish in every meal with a cup of heavy cream — I was in the habit of cooking up big batches of stock.  I was living in Germany then, a first lieutenant with quite a lot of disposable income and no family to spend it on, so I'm sure I was finishing off these batches of stock with wines that I couldn't even BEGIN to afford to drink now.  <sigh>  Oh, to be young and have more money than I know what to do with.

Actually, I was more or less miserable back then, having ROTC-ed myself into a 4-year stint in the Army — can you imagine any worse fit between person and career field?  The Army couldn't either.  In those pre-Don'-t-Ask-Don't-Tell days, I was asked.  Twice.  (Anticipating the coming policy, I chose NOT to tell.  I'm precocious that way.)  And was officially reprimanded once by my commander on the advice of HIS commander for. . .wait for it. . .wearing too much gel in my hair.  Bless their hearts; nothing in their military training had prepared them for dealing with an "alternative" soldier like me.

What I'm getting at is that I am at this current point in my life — middle 40's (OK, late middle) — happier than I've ever been.  Even if I have to shop from the wine remnants.  (Which is actually more fun, now that I think about it, with the added frisson of getting something luxurious for less than market price.)

One of the things making me happy today is this jar of homemade (wine-less) stock, made this morning mostly from items from my inaugural frozen stock-pile:

What will I become — soup? gravy? flavored rice?

Easy end-of-workday meal: Spaghetti "Cake"

What's a food blogger to do at the end of an exhausting workday when he is too pooped to cook, but he has spoiled his D.P. with so many good meals that the D.P. no longer sees any advantage to dining out?  This sad situation transpired in our house on Friday night, and I was forced — admittedly not exactly against my will, as I grabbed my camera and my ingredients and prepared to engage in the Joy of Cooking — I repeat, I was forced to come up with the following easy one-dish meal.

I may be bone-tired (and a bit blurry), but I can still feed my family!

"Easy" may be a little misleading.  If you don't already have the right ingredients on hand, you're in for a rather long slog.  Remember this, my friends, and freeze bits of this and that for when YOU are to pooped to cook.  So what are the ingredients I used to throw this meal together?

What's in Michael's Freezer? A revealing exclusive

After reading in the comments to last Friday's post about pikojiko's mom's coffee-can-in-the-freezer method of collecting leftover ingredients for stock, I am excited to begin my own collection.  But when I opened my freezer over the weekend, I was confronted with a disorganized collection of random items — some of them no longer identifiable — and no room for a coffee can.

Not even in the freezer door.

I have some work to do before my frozen stock-pile (get it?) will have a home.  First, I'm going to inventory everything in the freezer, to see if there is anything I can use or discard in order to create more room.  Then, I'll better organize what's left.  Won't that feel nice?