Cooking Debauchery

Summer Lentil Salad

I admit that I was a late adopter of lentils.

Even after I had adopted beans as healthy and good for you, I somehow missed lentils.  They just didn’t seem that excited relegated to a gray-green mass in soups and warming winter dishes.  They seemed doomed to spend their existence in nearly formless layers of sludge at the bottom of soup bowls, seen barely, if at all in the murky depths.

They always seemed to me support foods, something you add to increase the bulk of your dish.  Make it more filling.

I have never thought of lentils as the star of their own dish.  Until now.

Cherry Vareniki

There are things that one misses from childhood.

Remembered flavors; favorite dishes.  For most of us, those flavors are reproducible.  They are our mother’s and grandmother’s recipes lovingly passed from generation to generation.

But for me, capturing the fleeting flavors of my childhood is not as easy.  I was 7 and a half when I left the Ukraine with my family.  Leaving behind the gregarious circle of the women who shaped my impressions of food and cooking.

These were the kind of women, like most of their generation that cooked well but did so by feel and taste.  And because back then communication was limited, my mother came with only the recipes that she cooked often.

And so my absolute childhood favorite was lost.

OMG Garlic! Shrimp & Parsnip Puree

OH MY GOD!  Garlic!

That was the first though that raced into my head as I popped little pink curl into my mouth.

It is hard to imagine so much flavor from something that amounts to little more than a mouthful.

Salty, tangy, sweet and oh so garlicky.  The shrimp were an explosion of garlic flavor.

Garlic was the first flavor that hit and the flavor that lingered.

It was then that I realized, what I had invented was in fact; a garlic orgasm.

It did not start out that way.  It was not my intention!

But when it comes to garlic I have no self control.

A new year and an Old Christmas Tradition

**

Happy New Year!* 

May the blessings of the past year continue into this one and may the joys flood out the sorrows!

I know that it seems like I have been slacking.  And maybe I have been a little.  But rest assured I have been cooking!  Just not in my own kitchen!

Aside from being ill with the ninja death flu (Even after I got a flu shot!  The nerve!), traveled up to Spokane this winter to invade a close friends home and wreck his brand new kitchen which he has so graciously opened to me.

May years ago C and I started a tradition together.

Savory Mashed Sweet Potatoes

Submitted for Sweetnick's ARF/5-A-Day Tuesday Event.

I came late to the sweet potato party.

No matter how hard I tried to love the sweet potato, I could not get over the sickly-sweet preparations for it.  Cruelly candied and covered with horrible amounts of marshmallows sweet potatoes were relegated to the list of foods that looked good and were probably a good idea but which failed miserably at actually being edible.

It’s not that sweet potatoes are a vegetable either.  I am the person who has absolutely no compunction against covering pickles in chocolate sauce (this while never having been nor ever planning to be pregnant).  Nor do I have issues with eating avocado pudding.  Fruit in savory dishes?  AOK by me.  Vegetables in sweet breads?  Bring it on.

But sweet potatoes, which are already endowed by nature with quite a bit of sugar, do not need additional sweetness.  Over the years I had tried several different recipes.  I had tried adding orange juice, reducing the sugar, using maple syrup instead, and just plain folding in a little bit of marshmallow cream.  But any additional sugar added to the sweet potatoes evoked the worst qualities in those tubers.  So after years or experimenting I had plain given up on making sweet potatoes edible.

But it wasn’t until I tasted sweet potatoes prepared as a vegetable that I fell in love.

Butternut & Apple Risotto

Submitted for Sweetnick's ARF/5-A-Day tuesday event

Risotto!

I will say it again.  Risotto!

It is a word that strikes a note of both fear and longing in the home cook!

It looks so tempting there on the restaurant menu.  Creamy and flavorful, it is the kind of food that most people reserve for going out.  It feels decadent with its silky texture and extraordinary flavor.  The kind that whispers of a long slow cooking process.

It is a celebration food.  It feels special because it feels like it requires significant culinary prowess to master – or in the very least a diploma from a culinary school.

But that is not how it started.  Risotto is peasant food.  And it is no harder to make than any other stew.  Just requires a touch more effort.

But just a touch!

Autumn Harvest Rice

In recent years I have tried very hard to expand not only my own eating horizons but those of my family.

Slowly, with much patience I have been introducing world cuisine into our lives.  Be it in the form of spices, meats, or veggies, I am working things in when I can.  I am proud of the progress I have made.  Going from meat, potatoes, cucumbers and tomatoes to a veritable cornucopia of possibilities is not easy.

I persistently push the food envelope.  And yet, I seem to have missed a treat right under my very nose.  Something so familiar and so banal – or so I thought – that it missed my culinary curiosity entirely!

Chestnuts!

Garlic Roasted Cauliflower

For Sweetnicks’ ARF/5-a-day Tuesday event!

It is true that I find making complicated recipes relaxing.

I know it seems odd but it’s like anything that requires intense concentration, it leaves little room for anything else.

When I am following a complicated recipes all of my attention is on it, all my troubles and concerns just fall away.  I get delightfully caught up in the ingredients; in the process… making sure that everything is just right.

Its something I look forward to even though my day to day recipes are quick and easy.

Sometimes however; simplicity  really is best.

Karaj Wrapped Grilled Asparagus

For Asparagus Aspirations

I showed this site to a friend the other day and he asked me if I really served food the way that I presented it in the photos.

And when I answered yes, he asked my why I bothered.

He himself had given up on presentation a long time ago when his ungrateful family appeared to not appreciate the efforts.

But I don’t do the presentation for appreciation.  I do it because I like it.  I do it because I honestly like playing with food.

It probably surprises few that my favorite mass produced toy was an erector set.  I loved putting them together in odd and interesting ways.  I think this also feeds into my passion for origami!  There is just something utterly irresistible about creating something spectacular out of a few simple components!

I feel the same way about food presentation.

Roasted Potato Rounds

(click to enlarge)

In general, I am not a starch person. 

I don’t require bread.  I can live without it (unless it’s fresh baked and then I am compelled to steal it, still warm, open it and carefully eat out the middle then the crust…this is law).  I can live without rice, pasta and potatoes.  Give me veggies and meat and I will be a happy girl.

When I do eat starches it is usually because they are the conveyance for other flavors.  Garlic.  Pasta Sauce.  Garlic.  Wasabi.  Tomatoes.  Cream.  And even then, it is the flavoring component that is the star, not the starch itself.

I could never understands my best friend’s penchant for eating potato sandwiches.  She simply slice left over potatoes, sprinkle them with a little cheese and stick them between two slice of ordinary, mayo covered pieces of white bread.

To me, a sandwich is all about the filling.

The bread is just wrapping.  And as far as I am concerned, the thinner the better.  I am the person who eats out the middle of a sandwich and leaves the bread with a chance bite taken out of the corner (for research purposes only).

I would be happy with a tray full of crudités, some meat, and maybe a flavorful cheese.  Heck, given enough flavorful cheeses, I would happily skip the rest of the list, but I digress.

However, there are exceptions to every rule.  And once in a while I crave something starchy.

Something crisp on the edges and tender inside.  Salty, caramelized, puffed and perfect.

I crave oven roasted potato rounds.