I have been cooking for the last six hours straight.
I've balanced a sweet-potato and carrot soup for a little dinner party tomorrow night, I roasted some romas for homemade sauce (which I then finished with some white vermouth), I seared salmon, made parsnip chips, blanched asparagus and cooked spinach and cheese ravioli with a cream sauce for dinner. Then, I wrapped it all up with the invention of a little morsel I'm going to name "The Curiosity". (Wanna know what's in it?)
My apartment smells amazing right now.
The drinks of the evening have been a third of a bottle of 09 Sibling Rivalry Pink, and a wee splash of 09 Sibling White (I needed it for the soup, I swear).
Let's warm you up with some pictures, shall we...? Forgive the low quality of the cell phone camera--my digital is in need of repair. (I recently had this crystallizing moment where I realized I was a total foodie--I was standing in the kitchen in my underwear, snapping pictures of chicken parts in a roasting pan on a Friday night.)
This is why I love salmon (but only occasionally). Because I've had it, I can feel the texture just by seeing that stripey, rosy flesh. By the way, we've entered the "Total Food Porn-Out" section of this blog for today.
Okay, okay, don't yell. I split the salmon so I'd have something tasty for lunch tomorrow, the veg and pasta ended up taking more of the spotlight (I got a budget, see?) It was all tasty! And remember the pepper story? (See entry #2) Tucked in behind there are some very yummy parsnip chips, which are stupid easy to make:
Peel two medium-sized parsnips (I'd say these were about an inch in diameter, 6-7 in long). Slice 'em on the bias. Get a heavy-bottomed, deep skillet onto some med-high heat and add a big hunk of butter. Add parsnips. Add sea salt and cracked pepper. Toss until they start to brown, when this happens, cover with a lid and just go back and turn them twice or three times, add some olive oil after the first turn. That's it, ya'll. They probably take less than ten minutes to cook, easy-peasy.
(My recipes are not timed or measured, I go by sight. It's more fun this way. Good luck following my terrible, terrible directions. Have a glass of wine to calm your nerves and go at it. Be careful with the hot things and the sharp things.)
Salmon's just as simple. Heat a pan (medium-ish), add fish. Turn after a few minutes, add salt and pepper. Add squeeze of fresh lemon juice.
Fresh ravioli--actually, most fresh pastas--cook in like a minute and asparagus in three (in my opinion, pretty much I just strain it as soon as I smell the pyrazines in the steam). Combine 'em, grate some asiago and add a splash of cream, done.
Anyone who says they don't have time to make themselves dinner should be slapped until they need to be fed through a tube. Just kidding, LOL. Seriously, though, get a pan on some heat and chop some things, you'll have something better than that fugly-ass Double Down thing in a matter of minutes. ...Any. Fucking. Day.
Here's some more photos--these are a little retro--from the saga of the butternut squash soup. The sweet potato soup follows almost exactly the same principles (aside from the chicken stock, tomorrow's dinner party is vegetarian and it will be amazing).
Plain old roasted butternut squash with my pals, S & P. Keep me away from this, or I will eat it all, and you will have no soup. Also: Butter for butternut. No substitutes, unless you've eschewed all animal-related foods.
Peppers and garlic go into the pan next (the pan looks a little scary, but I have just one pan and it needs to be re-used for recipe components, 'kay? Besides, the charring from the squash and sweet potatoes past added character.) I know that glass, non-stick and cast all cook differently, but I think that part of knowing my cookware is knowing the alterations to make in recipes that I find. If someone somewhere says 10-15 minutes in non-stick, I check it after 12 minutes in glass (peppers and garlic take a good 30 to really get their roast on). But really, I just use my eyes and nose to tell me when to do things. Mooooving on...
Dear food processor: I love you, and I love the butternut squash puree that I can make with your help. Reader: if you compare this photo with the one from above ("before" pureeing, as it were), you'll notice that the quantity is...less. This is not the food processor's fault.
Vibrant red-orange after pureeing and adding peppers and sweet potatoes! This is when the soup got exciting!
Finally, slowly adding home-made chicken stock and 18% cream to the pot of pureed vegetables. To this I added ground cinnamon, ground cumin, ground coriander, smoked salt, sea salt, cracked black pepper, ground white pepper, and two types of paprika (I have McCormicks and a hot Hungarian paprika), all to taste. I have absolutely no issue standing in front of a pot of soup for a full twenty minutes, just tweaking the spices and seeing how the flavours marry. Actually, I love doing that, it's why I spend so much time in the kitchen. In this case, it was just as much to make up for the pre-soup squash gluttony on my part.
Curious about the Curiosities? Wait and see, that'll be with the post that I'm going to do after the three-course dinner party I've got coming up tomorrow night.
Hint: there's booze in them.
...That's not a good hint. The booze is whiskey (note the spelling), and there are figs present.
Happy cooking, happy nibbling/tasting/tweaking, and happy dining!
Melissa
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