It's good for a quick sauce...

Tonight I made a tried and true recipe for a very basic marinara sauce. I used cherry tomatoes, because Daniela (my host mom in Italy) told me cherry tomatoes make the best tomato sauce. I think it's because they're tart. I also fried some zucchini that was in the fridge. I sauteed them in olive oil over medium high heat with salt and pepper. While they were still hot I sprinkled them with parmesan cheese. Doing it while they're still hot is important because, as Jay put it, it's makes the cheese more "melty". I wish I had put a paper towel underneath them though, cause they're were quite "oily-ily" as well. I also wish I had used basil for the pasta instead of oregano. Oregano just reminds me of pizza sauce. Oh well, next time.

Basic Marinara Sauce

Olive oil, 3 Tbsp

Onion, 1/2 medium (or 1 small), finely chopped

Garlic, 5 cloves, minced

Cherry Tomatoes, halved, 2 of those Nature Made bags (I don't know how much that is, maybe 4 cups)

Oregano, dried, 1 Tbsp

Vegetable bouillon cube (found in the soup aisle)

1. Sautee onions in oil over medium heat until translucent. Add the garlic and continue to cook for 2 - 3 minutes.

2. Add the tomatoes (cut side down) and cover. Turn the heat up to medium high.

3. When the tomatoes are a bit mushy, add the oregano and the bouillon cube. Mix them in and recover. Turn the heat down to low and simmer. The sauce is done when it is of saucy consistency (15 - 20 minutes).

If you fuck this up, you're le Gran Retard.

Indian...Spinach and Potatoes

I really like Indian food. It meets several of my requirements for a favorite cuisine: it can usually be made in one pan, it doesn't usually require meat, and it's spicy.  We had a sad little plastic bag of potatoes in the fridge (where the Crazy Ants can't get to them) so I decided to make Indian Spinach and Potatoes.  

It would seem there are a lot of variations of this dish out there, with different spices and different techniques.  Not knowing anything about true Indian cuisine, I just picked the recipe that looked the easiest and makes use of the cardamom I bought today at the grocery store.  I never follow recipes exactly and I don't believe in measuring spoons or cups, except when it comes to baking and rice.  So any measurements I provide are not accurate. 

Names have been changed to protect the innocent. 

Indian Spinach and Potatoes - about 30 minutes, serves 4

Oil - 2-3 tbsp, canola/vegetable or the like

Onion - 1 small or medium, sliced thin

Garlic - 4 cloves, minced

Ginger - Small piece, sliced (2 - 3 inch piece or thereabouts)

Jalapeno - 1 - 3 (seeded if you are a wiener, not if you aren't)

Cumin seeds or ground powder - 1 tbsp

Turmeric - 1 - 2 tsp

Cinnamon - 1 tsp 

Cardamom, ground - 1 tsp

Potatoes - cut into half inch pieces (I used small brown ones [6 of them] but whatever you have on hand is good)

Tomatoes - 2 medium or one large, chopped

Spinach - Used two packages of fresh baby spinach, roughly chopped

1. Heat the oil over medium heat. When it's hot, add the onions, garlic, ginger, and jalapeno. Gently sautee until the onions are golden.
2. Add the dry spices and stir to coat the onions. Fry for another minute or two.
3. Add the potatoes and stir to coat. Cover the pan and let them sautee for 3 minutes, stirring occasionally to brown the sides.
4 Add the tomatoes.  This will give your dish a little bit of moisture. Put the lid back on and cook for a couple of minutes until the tomatoes start to break down.
5. Add the spinach. If the dish looks too dry at this point (like the spinach might burn) add a little water (maybe 1/3 cup).  It should be absorbed by the potatoes. Stir (duh).
6. Put the lid back on and let it cook for 5 - 10 minutes.  It's done when the spinach is soft and completely wilted but still vibrant green.
7. Salt to taste.

Tips: 

• You can change the proportions of potatoes and spinach. It's not rocket science, just base it on what you like. I love spinach so I used a lot of it.
• Save time: peel the potatoes first, so you can cut them while the onions are frying; chop the spinach while the potatoes are cooking.
• It doesn't matter what size you cut the potatoes, but make sure all the pieces are about the same time so that they have the same cooking time.

We ate the potato creation with brown rice and toasted pita bread. I was pleased with the result. The spinach had a nice green color. As always with Indian recipes I probably ended up doubling the amount of spices from the original recipe.

It was very easy to make and could easily be adapted to whatever one has on hand, like peas instead of spinach or chickpeas instead of potatoes.  Also, I don't always have all the spices needed for a recipe. I think the main necessity for this recipe is the cumin. Be careful with turmeric, it will turn things yellow, which seems to be a problem for me since I am constantly spilling things and flinging them accidentally out of the pan.  Go easy on the cardamom and the cinnamon; they are both kind of sweet.

Recipe I adapted from: http://spicyrasam.wordpress.com/2009/01/25/aloo-palak-potato-spinach-curry/

Photos from Eurotrip

In the beginning there was food...

Welcome to my blog. Let me preface this whole thing by saying that my feelings on blogs are mixed. I enjoy reading other peoples' blogs, but can't imagine other people wanting to read my meanderings. I worry that having a blog may lead to shameless self promotion. Or encourage the kind of mental masturbation that I tend to engage in only when I'm drunk. Yet against my better judgment, here I am.

The original idea for this blog came up one night in the kitchen. Paige is a blog connoisseur, and must be credited for her tireless efforts to expose our household (aka the Den of Iniquity) to the lives of those who bravely expose themselves on the internet through their blogs (e.g. Dennis, He who is Fucked). Several important pieces are necessary in order to understand the logic which lead to my decision:

1. I love cooking and do so regularly for my roommates Lisa and Paige.
2. My memory is shit. Like Alzheimer's shitty. I like to think of myself as an idiot savant. I know what aspect of my intellect makes me an idiot (my memory), but I still haven't figured out what makes me a savant. Paige thinks I need B12 shots.
3. I like making new recipes and rarely like to repeat.

Number two is probably the most compelling reason for blogging my cooking efforts. I often try a new recipe only to forget how much I like it. Or I forget it completely (someday I'll be wearing diapers and fingerpainting). So archiving my cooking attempts is a way to keep some sort of record of what I've done. It's also a good way for Lisa and Paige to let me know what they liked, what they loved, and what they hope I'll never make again.

So in order to avoid long introspective posts about my life and feelings (which according to my mother "are for the gays"), I will focus on cooking and other hobbies, present and future. The main ones right now are photography, reading and cooking, but I have a laundry list of things to add when I have money and space in which to do them. These include but are not limited to pottery, painting, cabinetry, car and home repair, and gardening. If my life becomes what I want it to, I will be an old hippie, living in the woods, raising chickens for eggs, and engaging in the aforementioned hobbies.

I hope this is interesting to those who read it. I hope it will motivate me to develop my hobbies, which I need in order to fill the void that TV has created in my life, which craptopping has not been able to replace. I used to watch hours of TV a day, and since I don't really like watching TV ad nauseam anymore I really need stuff to fill the time. I'll leave you with some words of wisdom from Southpark, which I'm currently watching:

"Never let poontang come between you and your friends."

Oh, and I'm sorry if my blog is offensive. If I don't use bad words my pancreas starts to hurt. It's genetic, I think. So I'm not really sorry, since it's actually sort of a handicap.