I just made some fantastic scrambled eggs.

Making a Mango pepper-vodka sorbet this weekend. With fake sugar. *sigh*

Did Uncle Dick's meatloaf this week, and somehow it was undercooked. There was a raw bit, but not in the center, where you'd expect it. Not sure how that happened.

Quick bites

Reviewing my food note book of dinners I cooked this past week.

Monday - Crab Burgers
From the family cookbook I put together a few years ago, this is my grandmother Bob's recipe. I prepare faithfully, including onions and celery, which I now feel are superfluous. A bit too crabcakey, the aromatics overpowering the cheese. In future just crap meat, shredded cheese and just enough mayonnaise to hold it together.

Set a bun on fire with the broiler.

Thinking of maybe a crab bruschetta.

Tuesday - Crock Pot Pepper Pork Chops
A new recipe for me, from Alton Brown. Fantastic. Definitly a keeper. The pepper flavor is strong without overpowering the pork.

Wednesday - Leftovers

Thursday - Smokey & Creamy Corn Soup
Another new recipe, from one of J&R's Weight Watchers cookbooks. The smokey component comes from Chipotle Powder, which my mother thought was too hot. It was right on the edge of my tolerance, but it worked.

Too late, I realized that corn bread was needed, but my mother whipped some up. Crumbled in the soup itself gives the soup a nice body and texture.

Fishy fish

I've never been huge on fish. I love tuna, like salmon, and the rest I could do without.

But I'm trying to expand myself, so I wanted to try cooking fish, rather than nibbling it when offered.

Thumbing through a Weight Watchers cookbook borrowed from J&R, I came across Honey Teriyaki Salmon. Honey, good. Teriyaki, good. Salmon, good. I immedietly decided it would be my first entree for Sunday Dinner.

It's a marinade dish, and one requiring stuff we already had in the kitchen; soy sauce, honey, garlic, ginger (left over from the Spice Cream) and citrus juice. I subbed Key Lime juice (which I also have on hand) for the called for fresh lemon.

But then there was the fish. J&R had graciously given me a slab of it last sunday, but it went off in our freezer during the week (one reason I buy most fresh ingredients as needed), so I had to go out and get some more. I grabbed a couple nice-looking pieces at "The Metro" (our local up-scale grocery), and got them home to discover not only bones but (~gasp!~) skin, which I hadn't realized in the store.

I see myself improving as I actively dedicate myself to cuisine, but my knife skills are wanting. I am certainly not up to anything involving blade and fish. Using our odd, off-set filey knife, I managed to skin the filets losing about a quarter of one filet and some clinging bits of shiny skin on the other.

J has known my parents and I since I was a child, longer than I can remember in fact. R has been around since my teen years. They are my extended family; my uncles.

And when they come to our house for dinner, they're lucky if I can get it up to put on shoes, or change out of my sweat pants. I have seen them passed out on my living room floor. They can suck down a few bits of skin, Weight Watchers be damned. At least I got all the bones out. I think.

For all the trouble with the fish, it turned out stupendous. The recipe, overtly healthy though it may be, will be dutifully transcribed into the computer, and enter my ever-growing slush fund of dishes.

Why, yes, I am a genius.

Finally got around to turning the Ginger Spice Cream. The turning didn't go so well; I think my ice cream maker is dying.

But the flavor is there. Two scoops in a martini glass with some Schweppes ginger ale poured over it. My father called it "sheer brilliance." It is reminiscent of a root beer float in it's creaminess, but the ginger is soooo crisp and light. An invigorating thing.

Meanwhile, I'm experimenting with a way of cooking my Flat Drunk Chicken on my pizza stone in the oven, rather than on a grill.

Soon, I will start the Tequila Risotto.

You heard me.

PS; "Ginger Spice". It just hit me.

I don't WANT to eat healthy, I want to eat GOOD!

My parents' best friends, who we'll call J&R, are in a bet with other friends in California, S&G about who can lose the most weight. Loser has to fly to visit the winner.

Obviously the 'rents and I are rooting for J&R, because then we get to see S&G, too.

To aid them, we've agreed to get together each Sunday for a healthy dinner.

Tonight marked the first Healthy Sunday Dinner at J&R's place. Dinner was chicken, pasta and oven-roasted veggies, after J helpfully inquired about what stuff I won't/can't eat (vegetables & raw tomatoes, for the record).

Next week, dinner is at our place and I'm cooking the mail course. J loaned me a couple Weight Watchers cookbooks and even a hunk of salmon, when I mentioned I'd been wanting to cook with salmon.

I've never been keen on "healthy" cooking. I feel that good food is healthy enough. I've been losing weight without counting calories or sodium or compromising ingredients (whole milk is for cooking, 2% for drinking, skim for watering plants).

But thumbing through the books, I found some things I really want to try.

How does Teriyaki Honey Salmon sound? Sounds yummy to me.

Pappardelle (not really) bolognese

This experiment is correction of a cardinal sin. Upon first reading Mario Batali's "Babbo Cookbook", I cooked up a variation of this recipe without making it as intended first.

I eliminated things I figured weren't important and I didn't like, specifically celery and carrots.

Turns out that shit is important. And, more amazing, I liked them.

Chopped onions, celery and carrots together make up the Italian aromatic mix called Gremolotta. Or is it Gradiska? Anyway, it's a big deal and I kick myself for blowing it off last time.

One thing is, I couldn't find Pappardelle pasta (wide strips of flat pasta). Batali being Batali, his recipe involves making ones own pasta, and I'm not above that sort of thing, but I have no pasta roller. So I bought lasagna noodles, partially cooked them and sliced them into little sheets, then finished them in the sauce itself.

It worked, but I cut the pasta too big.

Finished with some shaved parmisan, fresh oregano and a bit of olive oil (extra virgin, of course).

A successful venture.

New rule: No fucking with a new recipe until I've made it properly once.

A few years ago I started making Pumpkin Pie Spice Ice Cream, which is just a vanilla ice cream recipe with Pumpkin Pie Spice mix added. It's delicious, but the name was a mouthful, so I asked around about what to call it.

My friend Moriah suggested "Spice Cream" which is so fucking perfect I can't believe I didn't think of it.

But the name also opened up the possibility in my head of other Spice Creams, and the first that popped into my head was ginger. A proper Ginger Ice Cream; like as would put a proper hurtin' on ya. But I can get fresh ginger at the store, so I'll go that route instead of using the dried spice.

Steak & Potatoes; part 1

It’s not that hard to follow a recipe. Just about anyone can cook like that (and everyone, at a bare minimum should know that much).

But there’s so much more than that. It’s the “why” of cooking that fascinates me.

Why, for example, do we put salt in everything? Even things we don’t want to taste like salt? Have you ever thought about this as you toss a pinch into a cake batter, or a cup of coffee (yes, some people put salt in their coffee)? Why do some people (including me) put a pinch of sugar in red pasta sauce?

Why do cookbooks call for volumes of flour (cups and such) while professional bakers weigh it (metrically, no less)?

It’s knowing the answers to these questions that make a great cook.

For the purposes of illustration, I’m embarking on a series of essays about one of my favorite meals, an icon of the American table.

Steak and potatoes.

This is cowboy food, and cowboys didn’t have a lot of room to lug around all kinds of exotic ingredients.

My take on this dish is comprised of only six (6) ingredients. The steak, the potato, salt, pepper, oil and butter.

When really learning to cook beyond just following a recipe, I believe it’s best to start simple. Less components means less variables to account for, less new information to absorb. Once you have those basics, you can begin studying and incorporating more methods and flavors.

But simple isn’t always easy.

Within this simplicity, there are so many choices to make. After all, who among us has not eaten or even *cough* served shoe leather and library paste masquerading as the John Wayne Special.

I originally intended this to be one blog post, but I got one thousand words into it and hadn’t gotten to the potatoes yet, so I’ll be breaking it up into a series, each dealing with one element of the dish. This allows me to go more in depth (and indulge my penchant for overwriting).