Posts Tagged ‘Recipes’

  1. I’ve got no pictures, so you’ll have to imagine

    November 4, 2009 by ChiaLynn

    I don’t remember when Noirbettie posted that she’d just boiled spaghetti in wine and it was the Best Thing Ever, but she did, and then I did, and it was.

    I immediately combined this Drunken Spaghetti with another great pasta recipe, Pasta with Cauliflower, Walnuts and Feta. (Seriously, if you’ve never sauteed cauliflower, go get yourself some olive oil and some cauliflower and give it a shot. “Wow,” I said, the first time I tried it. “So this is what cauliflower is supposed to taste like.” I don’t think I’ve steamed one since.)

    Tonight, though, I asked NovySan if he’d rather have walnuts or sausage in his pasta. “Sausage,” he said. (I should have known it was a silly question.)

    I figured out awhile ago that if I drop the sausage, which we keep in the freezer, into the pasta water, it’s fully thawed by the time the water starts to boil. Except tonight I wasn’t boiling water – I was boiling water mixed with wine.

    Have you ever had sausage boiled in wine? Yes? Then you know what I’m talking about. No? Okay, put down the head of cauliflower – it’ll keep. You have to try this immediately. The skin goes purple, and the sausage picks up the most amazing flavor.

    Now, pick up the cauliflower again and throw it together with the sausage and whatever else you’ve got (I had zucchini and asparagus and onion and the oil left over from making tortilla Espanola Monday night), and enjoy your meal.

    Category Eat, Drink & Be Merry | Tags: ,,,, | No Comments

  2. Having a geek moment

    November 13, 2007 by ChiaLynn

    NovySan and I subscribe to an organic fruit-and-vegetable delivery service. Every Tuesday morning, a big box of organic produce shows up on our doorstep, delivered by a tall, attractive man with a near-black ponytail down past his waist. I’ve never had a conversation with him; by the time I get outside to retrieve the box, he’s closing up his truck and on his way to his next delivery. Sometimes I yell “Thank you.”

    Anyway, this has increased our consumption of fruits and vegetables, introduced us to varieties we might not have tried otherwise, and often forced us to get creative, since you can only eat steamed cauliflower so many times in a month before you begin to despise the very look of it. (This is where recipe sites are a lifesaver. My favorite is still the advanced recipe finder at Cooking Light — which also searches Sunset and a few other magazines. It’s not only searchable by ingredient, but also by cuisine and type of dish — so when I want a recipe that incorporates grapes and isn’t a dessert, I can find one.) But sometimes, the produce starts to pile up, and the next thing you know, there are three bunches of yellowing collard greens smothering a bundle of sad, soggy carrots in the crisper drawer, and you sigh deeply, toss the whole mess into the compost bin, and berate yourself for wasting food and money.

    Last week, I made a decision. From now on, I’ll check the produce in when it arrives, and make note of how much of what thing we received, and when we need to use it by. And to keep track of all this, I’ve made… A spreadsheet. Specifically, a Google spreadsheet, which I’ve shared with NovySan, so we’ll both know just how many acorn squashes we’ve got, and when we need to use them by. (Another site suggestion — The World’s Healthiest Foods has tips on how to store various foods, tells you how long you can keep them, and has great nutritional-data graphics. Of course, just Googling the particular food you’re interested in works, too. Except with things like onions and potatoes, whose use-by date is designated in my spreadsheet as “whenever,” since those seem to keep until… Well, until they go bad, really.)

    I feel so organized.

    Category Eat, Drink & Be Merry, Random Babbling | Tags: ,,,, | 3 Comments

  3. I wish I’d gotten pictures…

    November 12, 2007 by ChiaLynn

    …to add to my sadly neglected “Food I Have Loved” set at Flickr. (It’s not that I haven’t loved any food since NovySan made those kebabs; it’s just that I haven’t gotten any decent pictures of any other beloved foods.) Dinner was amazing, and very, very simple. I made the suggestion; NovySan made it happen. Polenta (made from an instant mix I found at Whole Foods, rather than the polenta in a tube we normally get — it has a much nicer texture than the stuff in a tube, and I’ll be getting more very soon), topped with green onions, bell pepper and chard sauteed in garlic and olive oil, and topped with freshly grated pecorino. Pretty, healthy, and seriously one of the best things I’ve ever eaten.

    Category Eat, Drink & Be Merry | Tags: ,,,,, | No Comments