Oh, Kale Yeah!

On a whim, I bought a bunch of kale at the grocery store. It had been a long time since I'd eaten kale and I had no idea what to do with it. The only thing I know about kale is that for a period of a few months as a kid, we ate kale with just about every meal. This was because a family friend of ours had it growing rampant in their garden. They couldn't keep up with their harvest so they decided to gift about half of it to us.

My mom, never wanting anything to go to waste (I come by it naturally), tried to figure out ways to incorporate it into, well,  everything.

So, I saw the kale in the store, thought to myself, "I think I'm ready to try this again," and threw it in the cart. I spent an hour or so doing some recipe research that afternoon and came across a lovely recipe for Lemony Kale Pasta. After skimming the ingredient list, I was relieved to find I had all the necessary ingredients, with the exception of the preferred variety of kale. We do not have variety of veggies. We have what we have and whatever kind of kale I had, called simply, "kale," was going to have to do the trick. Then I read the direction to remove the stems.

Now, I didn't know if this meant, cut below the part where the leaves start growing or cut the leaves completely away from the stem all the way up the stem. I decided to call the only person I could think of as a kale expert, mom.

She said she felt it meant to cut below the point at which the leaves grew. She then said, "think of kale like collards, they will cook for a while and soften up so the stem shouldn't be a problem higher up on the leaves."

I referenced my recipe. 

"You eat the kale raw in this recipe," I said. 
"Raw?" she said.

I could tell by the tone of her voice that raw was a form of kale she never tried.

"Hmm...well," she said, "why don't you just chew on a bit of the stem higher up on the leaf and see how firm it is?"
"Yeah, I guess I'll just see how it goes," I said. And we hung up.

Heeding her advice, I went to taste a bit of the raw kale. The stems looked too hard to eat raw so I opted just to taste the leaf. Wow, so bitter! I started to have doubts about my recipe and started expressing them aloud. Maybe the variety of kale did matter after all? After a few minutes of listening to my second guessing and rambling, I heard Eric say, "just give it a try, will you?" 

Smush garlic into pulp with fork.

And so I did. I am still not sure what "stems removed" meant, but after looking at the stems, I interpreted it as the full removal of the stem all the way up the leaf. It worked out well because the leaves retained a rather course texture, anyway. Almost how you'd imagine fallen leaves in autumn feeling in your mouth. 

Okay, maybe a little less crunchy...

But the acidity of the dressing really counteracted the bitterness of the kale and the end result was really quite tasty. I was very pleasantly surprised! I'm sure the meal was also packed full of nutrients and vitamins and all that good stuff that makes kale so fantastic. 

I made some fish to eat with the pasta. I topped cod fillets and with a little butter, lemon juice, some dressing from the pasta recipe, and capers then broiled them for a few minutes. We ended up eating the fish on the pasta much like you would eat grilled chicken on a Caesar salad. It was really yummy, but the best part was discovering that capers are a beautiful addition to the Lemony Kale Pasta.

When we had leftovers for lunch the next day, we dumped some capers into the pasta and mixed it up. If you are looking to chew on some tasty ruffage, I absolutely suggest giving this recipe a try.  

Add capers!

A "must try" for homemade pizza lovers

Eric and I made our version of Supreme Pizza for dinner. If you love homemade pizza as much as we do, which I am not sure is possible, you've got to try this.

Sauceless Supreme Pizza
your choice of pizza crust
1 tablespoon olive oil
3 Campari tomatoes, sliced (but any tomato would do, you just wouldn't need three)
1/4 cup roasted red peppers, torn or chopped into smaller pieces
a couple hand fulls of mozzarella cheese, shredded 
2 slices bacon (we used Applewood smoked), baked & crumbled 
1 slice Prosciutto, sliced
1 jalapeno, sliced
1/4 large red onion, sliced
6-8 whole mushrooms, sliced
2 slices Provolone cheese, torn into squares
a very small amount of Pecorino Romano, grated
fresh rosemary
fresh basil
fresh oregano

We decided to make pizza before assessing our ingredient situation. We pre-baked our semi-homemade crust, prepared all of our ingredients and got ready to build the pizza. We intended to use marinara sauce as our base, but realized that we did not have any. Eric came to the rescue with an (I think brilliant) idea. He suggested we, 

brush crust with one tablespoon olive oil
place sliced tomatoes on crust
place roasted red peppers on crust

We ended up going this route by accident, but I think it was the secret to making an incredibly delicious homemade Sauceless Supreme Pizza.

Cover the roasted red peppers and sliced tomatoes by sprinkling shredded mozzarella cheese on top. 

Evenly distribute crumbled bacon and sliced Prosciutto over cheese. 

 
Pile on sliced jalapenos and onions.

Load on the sliced mushrooms.

Cover with squares of Provolone cheese and grate Pecorino Romano on top.

Bake pie in oven at 350 degrees until toppings look cooked and cheese has melted. If you turn on the broiler to get the Provolone cheese brown and bubbly, the crust will look like this...oops!

 
That being said, if you don't love your crust extra crispy (like we do), proceed with caution. Remove pizza from oven and top with fresh rosemary, basil, and oregano.

Slice and enjoy, preferably with a cold beer.

Grilled Cajun Chicken Burgers

While scratching my head trying to come up with an idea for dinner one night, I thought of the leftover Sriracha Mayo Dip I used in this recipe that was still sitting in my refrigerator. It occurred to me that it would be excellent on a sandwich, a chicken sandwich. I didn't have any chicken breasts, but I did have ground chicken. I starting mulling over the idea of chicken patties or chicken burgers. I turned to my trusty friend, Pinterest, for some inspiration. I found this and this, which gave me some ideas. Then, I just made up my own recipe. Let us call them,

Grilled Cajun Chicken Burgers
 1 pound ground chicken (or grind your own) 
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/4 cup green onion, diced
1 teaspoon garlic, minced
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon Cajun seasoning
1/4 teaspoon of dried parsley (but fresh would be better) 
juice of 1/2 a lemon
a hand full of Panko breadcrumbs 

Heat olive oil in a small saucepan over medium heat. Add green onions and garlic to oil and saute for five minutes or until onions have softened.
 

Place ground chicken in a large mixing bowl. Season with salt, pepper, Cajun seasoning, parsley, and juice of 1/2 a lemon. Add Panko breadcrumbs to bowl. Add sauteed green onion, garlic, & olive oil mixture to chicken.
 

Mix by hand until all ingredients are incorporated into the chicken. Form chicken into four patties. Cook chicken burgers on hot grill (about 5-7 minutes per side) or until the center of the burger is firm to the touch.

Adding sauteed onions & garlic was a trick I learned from Cooking Light Magazine a few months ago. It was described  as a remedy for the dry turkey burger. I figured it would also do the trick for ground chicken and it did!

Serve the burgers on multi-grain Ciabatta rolls with Sriracha Maynoaise, pickle, and lettuce. We did not add cheese the first night, but ate them as leftovers a few days later with the addition of a slice of Swiss cheese. Very yummy!  

The grilled chicken patties from my inspiration recipes looked a bit more appetizing, but had been pan-fried. I thought I'd try grilling in an attempt to make them a little healthier. They tasted really good, but I am still tempted to try pan-frying to brown followed by baking to cook.





 

One of Mama's Specialities

I finally made one of my mom's dishes that actually tasted like one of my mom's dishes! Since moving into my own home, I have tried (on a handful of occasions) to replicate some of my parents' famous dishes. The result? A complete and utter kabob & rice failure, an "I think this almost tastes like it" experience with tachine, and a near-hit with ghormeh sabzi. The results have been mixed, but underwhelming. I know what I need is practice, but when it smells like home, you want and expect it to taste like home, too. And sometimes, that just isn't the case. 

Nevermind disappointment, I went back at it with a recipe for one of my old favorites that I received in the mail from my mom a few days back. Paprikas Csirke or, in English, Chicken Paprika. 

I have always been one of those eaters who is chomping at the bit to get to that first bite. Not something I'm necessarily proud to admit, but its the truth. I remember this meal being a real treat, not a once-a-week deal because, as you will see, it is rather...rich. I have distinct memories of excitedly scooping steaming spoonfuls of this fragrant and creamy dish onto a pile of egg noodles, just dying to have my first taste. The aroma that filled the kitchen was unreal and it just looked comforting, inviting, and satisfying. 

So I decided to try it. After all, it seemed perfect for a warm winter's night (it's been in the 70's here).

Chicken Paprika

2 large onions, minced (I sliced)

1 large clove garlic, minced

2 tablespoons lard (I used butter)

3 lb chicken (I used 2 chicken breasts)

1.5 tablespoons sweet Hungarian paprika (I used paprika, we only have one kind here)

1/2 cup chicken stock

1 large tomato, peeled, seeded & chopped (I did not peel or seed)

1 large green pepper, cut into strips

1/4 cup heavy cream

3 tablespoons sour cream

1 tablespoon flour
Source: Gourmet Magazine, 1980

In large saucepan, cook 2 large onions and one large garlic clove, all minced, in 2 tablespoons of lard over moderate heat. Stirring for 10 minutes, or until they are lightly golden. Add a 3- pound chicken, cut into serving pieces and sprinkled with salt, skin side down and cook the mixture, covered, over low heat for 15 minutes. Sprinkle the chicken with 1.5 tablespoons sweet Hungarian paprika, turning the pieces to coat them well, add 1/2 cup chicken stock or tinned chicken broth and 1 large tomato, peeled, seeded, and chopped, and cook the mixture over moderately low heat for 15 minutes. Add 1 large green pepper cut into 1/4 inch strips, and cook mixture for 15 minutes, or until the chicken and pepper are tender. Transfer the chicken and the pepper with a slotted spoon into a dish and keep them warm, covered. Add 1/4 cup heavy cream to the saucepan and simmer the sauce for 3 minutes, or until it is thickened. Whisk in 3 tablespoons sour cream combined with 1 tablespoon flour and cook the mixture until it is thickened. Add the chicken and the pepper, combine the mixture well, and transfer it to a heated serving dish. Serve the dish with Spatzle or noodles. Serves 4. 

An eager onion.

My peppers were frozen, that's why they look a little funny

I followed the recipe with the exception of the few substitutions mentioned in the ingredient list. The biggest difference was how I cooked my chicken since I wasn't using a whole chicken. After I cooked the onions & garlic, I placed two whole chicken breasts, salted and sprinkled with paprika on both sides, into the saucepan. I cooked for 7 minutes on each side. I removed the chicken from the saucepan and placed it on a cutting board where I let it rest for a few minutes before shredding it into bite-size pieces with a fork. I sprinkled the pieces again with salt & paprika and returned them to the pan after I added the green pepper. This kept the meat juicy and tender. 

 

I also served the dish with Quinoa noodles. We didn't have egg noodles (how my mom served it) and these had just been sitting in the pantry, waiting to be tried. They were good and tasted a whole lot like regular noodles. The only weird thing was that they were elbow noodles. For some reason that just didn't sit right with me...

Thickening the sauce.

Okay, maybe it smells more inviting than it looks.

Setting out to make this dish, I obviously had some high expectations. Even after I made the few changes to the recipe based on what I had in the kitchen, it smelled like my mom's dish, but as you know, I've been deceived by this before. But this time, with the exception of needing a little bit of salt to taste, it tasted like mom's dish too! Hooray! Now, back to trying to get the Persian food right!

The Almost Homemade Pizza Queen

I am the almost homemade pizza queen aspiring to be the homemade pizza queen. I'm queen because I want to be (and because pizza is a passion) and I'm almost homemade because, for now, I don't make my own crust and I don't made my own sauce. I'm getting there, but for now I use:

1 box of Jiffy pizza crust 
1 cup (or more) marinara sauce (I like marinara sauce better than pizza sauce because it usually has chunks in it- we like chunks.)

Sometimes instead of using red sauce for the base, I will infuse garlic into olive oil and use that for the base instead. I put 3-5 cloves of garlic (depending on the size) into olive oil. I slowly bring up the temperature of the oil until it sizzles and the garlic begins to look toasty. At that point, I turn off the heat and paint the olive oil onto the crust. Some people just discard the garlic cloves, but I like them, so I smush them onto the crust. 

As for crust, I prefer a store-bought mix that comes in a box to a pre-made crust. I prefer the mix because it gives me the opportunity to add spices. Before I add the water to the mix, I shake in some

oregano
basil
crushed red peppers

You can add any dried herbs or spices that make you think, "pizza," and it will give the crust a little extra spunk!

The pizza of the night was a grilled eggplant, turkey sausage, onion, and basil pie.  Here is what you need: 

1 large eggplant, peeled and sliced into coins
2 turkey, Italian sausage links 
half of one red onion, sliced
fresh basil
mozzarella cheese, grated & sliced

I prepared the eggplant following this recipe, which I have now used several times. It. Is. Delicious. The marinade makes the eggplant taste so good I could be satisfied with just a plate of this eggplant for dinner. In fact, Eric and I were lucky we had enough eggplant left to make the pizza. We each kept sneaking pieces off the plate. Eric was counting to  make sure I didn't sneak more bites than he did. 

When I use this recipe to prepare eggplant as a pizza topping, the only thing I do differently is peel the eggplant and cut it into coins rather than cutting it lengthwise. You can do this part ahead of time and set it aside. 

Next, prepare the sausage. Remove the casing and break up the meat in a hot skillet. Depending on how lean the meat is, you may need to add a drop of olive oil. To spice up the meat, you can add all your favorite spices, you know, those ones that make you think, "pizza." Completely cook the meat and set it aside.

Take your pre-baked pizza crust and dress it with the base of your choice (we used marinara sauce). Sprinkle a very small amount of grated mozzarella cheese onto the sauce. Place your grilled eggplant coins onto the pizza, add your red onion (which you can caramelize ahead of time if you like, but I like when it gets kinda crispy in the oven), add your sausage. Evenly place thin slices of mozzarella cheese on top of the pie. Bake for about 10 minutes or until cheese is sufficiently melty or bubbly. (Note: if you let your crust get too dark when you pre-bake it, you will not be able to leave the pizza in the oven for as long, be careful not to do that!)

Remove pie from oven and top with fresh basil chiffonade. I learned this term and technique from Eric. It is apparently a fancy word for basil strips, which are easily cut by rolling the basil leaves into a tight tube and slicing them. It makes these little basil ribbons and you don't have to chase the leaves around the cutting board or stand there tearing each individual leaf. 

And no, Eric and I did not devour this whole pizza in one sitting. Okay, maybe we did...

French Fry Fix

When Sunday night is Saturday night (thank you, President's Day) and you need a fry fix, but you don't want to be THAT bad, you can turn to your good old root tuber friend, the sweet potato. You can bake instead of fry. You can really enjoy yourself!

Earlier in the day, Eric and I had enjoyed a late lunch/early dinner, which Eric so eloquently refers to as, "dunch." Appetizing, I know. It was getting late, we were getting ready to watch a movie, and the munchies were setting in. We both love a good french fry so I decided to give one of the recipes I'd found a few weeks ago, which I had been saving for just such an occasion, a whirl. 

I followed a recipe for guaranteed crispy sweet potato fries.

A disclaimer accompanied the recipe warning that there is "a bit of a learning curve" and that it may take a few tries to achieve optimal crispiness. There was also a recommendation to soak the sliced sweet potatoes from an hour to half a day's time. Because I hadn't planned ahead, we did not have the patience to wait a full hour- we soaked for thirty minutes. 

As I carefully and precisely tried to achieve the perfect corn starch coating for the potatoes (note: you want them to look like they do in the pictures here, try not to get the coating too thick) Eric whipped up the Sriracha mayo dip. The dipping sauce was delicious, but the fries also tasted nice with ketchup and I'm certain they'd taste pretty darn good with the cinnamon butter sauce you sometimes get in restaurants, too. Healthier fries do not necessarily result in healthier dipping sauce...

The fries, as promised, were delicious and crispy (though not uniformly crispy). Turns out, the secret is in the soak. The day after we made the fries, my March issue of Cooking Light arrived in the mail. The Common Cooking Mistakes and How to Avoid Them section featured the Oven Fry Fizzle. According to the experts, the key to achieving crispy, uniformly cooked oven french fries is to presoak. Apparently, soaking the potatoes draws out the starch. Less starch = reduced water content. Reduced water content = less steam produced in the oven. Less steam = crispier fries. See? It's math. 

And another tip, overcrowding fries on the baking sheet creates more of a sauna environment in the oven (lots of steam) and we are looking for tanning bed. Happy snacking!

Roux Hoo!

Well folks, I can check another cooking basic off my list! I successfully made my first roux. The weird part was, it really wasn't that difficult. At all. In fact, I'm still scratching my head trying to figure out just how exactly I messed it up before...

The roux was the base of the sauce for the Asparagus-Goat Cheese Pasta I made for dinner last night. I had some asparagus from my Bountiful Basket and, in an attempt to hold onto any part of my Persian roots, I make it a rule to always have some goat cheese on hand. Am I the only one who gets excited when an additional trip to the store for specialty ingredients is not required?

I took only one creative liberty with this recipe and it was NOT to add jalapenos! Besides the asparagus, I also had some broccoli that was quickly approaching its "use by" date.

I blanched 1 head of broccoli (no stalks) with the asparagus.

If adding more green things to a dish is wrong, I don't think I want to be right!

I blanched the veggies and boiled the pasta a few hours before I even got started on the sauce. That being said, this is a great recipe to keep in your back pocket for nights when you know you won't have much cooking time. You can do the prep work when you have the time and throw it together a few minutes before you are ready to eat. 

I think I would have to say the trick to a good roux-based sauce is patience (is it just me or is that word making repeat appearances in my writing?). I'm guessing that in the past, I rushed and therefore failed to fully incorporate the flour or got the roux too hot, too fast. Going about it at a more leisurely pace resulted in a much better consistency than anything I'd created in the past. 

Starting the roux

The master of roux (okay, maybe I'm getting ahead of myself)

Looks pretty good, am I right?

Now, if there are two things Eric fears in this world they are spiders and stinky cheese. I could tell Eric was a little nervous about the final product. He kept coming into the kitchen to check out what was going on/mentally prepare for a potentially potent cheese flavor. In his defense, during the cooking process, it smelled pretty goat-cheesy in the kitchen. But fear not, fellow stinky cheese fearers! The taste was actually quite mild. It reminded both Eric and me of a lighter-tasting Alfredo sauce. 

As for how it tasted, overall it was pretty delicious. But Eric and I both felt something was missing after we had our first bites. The recipe called for the pasta to be topped with grated Parmesan cheese. I had the shaky stuff. If you want to make this recipe, I suggest trying it with freshly grated Parmesan cheese (or something comparable). I think it would have added just the right amount of saltyness to the dish.  If you don't have (or don't want to run to the store just for) fancy cheese, an extra pinch of salt did the trick for us last night. I just think better cheese would have been a lot more satisfying.

Corn Cakes & Couples Cooking

Earlier this week, we picked up our basket of produce from Bountiful Baskets. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this group, it is a food co-op that distributes produce baskets nationwide on a weekly or bi-weekly basis depending on the site. To participate, you purchase a basket and what comes in the basket is always a surprise. It has been a great way for us to experiment with new ingredients. Aside from the benefit of exposure to potentially new ingredients, we've found that we save a decent amount of money buying our produce this way as well. A basket only costs $16.50 and I guarantee I would spend a lot more than that for the same amount of fruit & veggies at any other grocery store. I highly recommend checking to see if your area has a pick-up site. And if not, you may want to consider getting trained to become a site coordinator yourself. You can find information about all of that and more here.

Anyway, included in our basket this week were beautiful, golden ears of corn. Only a day or so before we got the corn,  I had come across an intriguing recipe for Summer Corn Cakes with Chopped Tomato and Avocado Salsa that I was really looking forward to trying. You can imagine my excitement when I saw that we got corn this week!

I got to work preparing the batter for the the Corn Cakes by cutting the corn kernels off the cob. I had visions of sitting at the dinner table as a child and watching as my mom or dad gracefully sliced ribbons of corn onto my plate in one fell swoop. I lifted my knife, ran it down the side of the corn, and looked on in shock at the corn kernels flew off in all directions around the kitchen. "What am I doing wrong?" I asked myself. And Eric answered, "try a bigger knife." 

He was right, the weight of the bigger knife worked a little better, but it was still a more stressful process than I had imagined. After I had finished prepping the batter, I left it to sit while Eric and I hit the gym for an evening run. When we got home, Eric joined me in the kitchen to help prepare the rest of our meal (because otherwise we would have been eating at 10pm).

The couple that cooks together stays together. Unless that couple is Eric and me. Each time we pair up to prepare a meal together, I have high expectations for a laid-back, enjoyable evening in the kitchen. Cracking jokes. Sipping wine. Exchanging smooches. For some reason, that is never our reality despite the fact that we are (I would say) an otherwise very loving couple. 

To truly and fairly explain the dynamic, I think I'd have to admit a lot more about myself than I am willing to admit right now. Like the fact that I am too sensitive, or that I am too uptight, or that I am still trying to learn to enjoy the process of cooking as much as I enjoy the product. But let's not talk about that stuff today. Let's just say Eric and I are still trying to work out the dynamics of our kitchen relationship. 

Getting nice & crisp!

I can think of a million other things this salsa would be good with. Including substituting a bacon vinaigrette for the dressing in this recipe (ooooh, so bad.)

Thankfully, Eric put up with my shenanigans long enough to help me by preparing the salsa and keeping me calm when I thought I'd ruined my Corn Cakes. And, as usual, we followed the recipe with the exception of adding:

(you guessed it!) 1 jalapeno, diced to the Corn Cakes. 

My plating technique could certainly use some improvement.

The first thing we tasted when we sat down to eat were bites of the cakes. Delicious. Then we took bites of the salsa. Equally delicious. THEN we tried the two together (as I'm sure was intended by the deities of all things edible). The sweetness of the corn with the creaminess of the avocados with the spiciness of the jalapenos was truly heavenly. It was a satisfying, light, and delicious meal. A go-to delight for a meatless night. 

Not your mama's stuffed peppers

Actually, I only remember eating stuffed peppers a handful of times as a child. And my memories of those times neither strike me as amazing nor traumatic. I do remember the peppers that were stuffed were typically green. This recipe called for sweet red bell peppers, which makes them, in fact, not my mamma's stuffed peppers. 

Eric, his coworkers (aka our friends), and I started a tradition that we fondly refer to as, "family dinner night." One night each week, one of us takes on the responsibility of preparing a meal and hosting dinner in our homes. It is a fun way to try different kinds of (usually healthy) food and to spend time together without having to eat at one of the greasy spoons or cantinas in town.

It was my turn last week so I decided to try out a recipe for Turkey Stuffed Peppers that I'd found on skinnytaste.com (one of  my favorite recipe spots). It was a wonderfully simple recipe. The hardest part was hollowing out the peppers.  

I followed the recipe except that I accidentally forgot the rice. It probably would have been tasty had I remembered it, but honestly I didn't really miss it. In fact, I didn't even realize I had forgotten it until days later when I starting thinking about what to include in this entry. If you are trying to reduce the amount of carbohydrates you consume, omitting the rice did not seem to compromise the flavor of the dish. However, the one reason I would choose to include the rice in the future would be to soak up some of the juices. The peppers and meat mixture were just a tad on the juicy side and therefore a little messy to eat (with the pepper a slippin' and a slidin' around the plate and whatnot). The rice probably would have helped with that...

And of course, it wouldn't be a meal in my house if I hadn't tried to spice it up. I augmented the recipe by adding:

1 jalapeno, diced
1 Serrano pepper, diced 

I'm guessing the peppers I used were not too hot themselves. The addition of them to the dish gave the meat a little heat, but did not make it overwhelmingly spicy. Sometimes ya get a hot jalapeno, sometimes ya don't. Except when you are at Subway. The jalapenos at Subway are always hot. Without fail. 

I served the stuffed peppers with a huge garden salad. We also shredded some lovely & creamy cheddar cheese (brought to us straight from cheese country, Wisconsin, by Sarah) to put on top of the peppers right after they came out of the oven. Unfortunately, our friend the cow had to meet his end in order for us to have it.

This picture is not for the faint of heart. Viewer discretion is advised.

And now for a note on impatience...

I am the type of person who will try to carry all of my grocery bags in on the first trip, despite evidence that points to this being neither an efficient nor effective way to conduct business. Just last week, I busted my lip on something that fell off the top of the pile I was trying to balance as I simultaneously fumbled with the keys in an attempt to unlock the door. The week before, I dropped my fruit, which is known to bruise easily, and it bruised.

And because it seems I was unable to learn from those experiences, I also decided to attempt to carry all of the recyclables (that I collect throughout the week) from the kitchen to the garage in one trip.

This is what happens when you try to cut corners:

Thank goodness cutting out that extra trip from the kitchen to the garage saved me the time I needed to clean up that mess! 

Slow down, Ninoosh, slow down.

Cooking Isn't Baking

These were the words spoken to me by Eric during the middle of the meltdown I had at the stove while making dinner the other night. Words by which, of course, I was immediately infuriated. I felt entitled to my meltdown. I had a plan and it was not panning out. Hence, meltdown. 

It wasn't over anything big either. I was making lightened up creamy Cajun chicken pasta (you know you want to try it...). I was anxiously anticipating the first bite of this meal as the words "creamy" and "pasta" and "spicy" generally cause me to salivate like Pavlov's dog. I was sticking to the recipe with one, okay two exceptions. 

Garlic. The first thing I do with most recipes is look at how much garlic it calls for and then add a clove; granted, sometimes a small one, but a clove nonetheless. No one has complained about my cooking and I can neither confirm nor deny complaints about my breath. 

Spinach. I wanted to add a whole heap of fresh spinach. I pulled my bouquet of spinach out of the refrigerator, rinsed it, and thought twice. It sure looked like a lot of spinach...

Well, in came Eric, right at that moment, so I asked him, "Eric, do you think this seems like too much spinach?" 

"No, it will cook down, " he replied. 

And I knew he was right. I have been amazed by the serious reduction in volume of spinach that occurs when it is heated every time I've cooked with it. I stood aside as Eric plopped the spinach into the skillet. It completely overwhelmed the dish and my coping skills. (Note: I wish I had the wherewithal to take a picture of the spinach pouring out over our over-sized French skillet, but I was too distraught. I'm not saying it would have justified my behavior, but there was so much of it, Eric even looked a little concerned).

"Damn it! I knew it was too much spinach. There is more spinach that anything else now and it is never going to cook down enough! And do you see all that water it's adding to the sauce?" I shouted exclaimed.   

"Ninoosh, cooking isn't baking, if  you want things to be so precise, you should really consider being a baker," was his response.

Of course I got angry and responded with a few statements of my own. I paced and wrung my hands and tried to come to peace with the fact that my highly anticipated meal may be ruined AND that Eric might be right. Two realities which were just too much to bear.

A few minutes passed. I heard Eric say, "there." I looked over and the spinach had all but disappeared into the sauce. Small little leaves floating amongst the shallots and tomatoes."Wow, that looks great, but the sauce still looks watery," I said. And then I had a real, chef-like response to the predicament. "I know, I'll add a little more cream, tomatoes, and seasoning."

Harmless looking spinach.

Ding! It worked! Making more sauce is a great (albeit obvious) way to solve the problem of more volume than sauce. This is why cooking is not baking. And thank goodness it's not. 

We put in an additional:

1 tablespoon of cream
2 tablespoons of diced tomatoes
1 teaspoon of Cajun seasoning 

We let the sauce simmer for a bit longer so that the water could cook off and the flavors could mingle and meld. We served. It was scrumptulescent.

Bon Appétit