Double boiled eggs: a creamy, fluffy mass

Coq au vin

These little suckers are annoying to peel, which is why some people buy them prepackaged. I followed Julia Child's recipe fairly closely with the exception of a couple ingredients, such as cognac. The onions are sauteed in butter (approx. 2 tb) for close to 30 minutes, at which point you get:
It was hard to keep the onions from losing their form; many of them wanted to break apart.
Into the pot they go with browned mushrooms, bacon (duck bacon!), broth, more butter and oil, thyme, bay leaf, five cut-up chicken pieces (what you would use for fried chicken) and, of course, red wine. One thing I learned was that you don't have to use a nice ($10-$12) bottle of Cote du Rhone for the recipe. Instead, the man at the wine store advised me to use a "drinkable" red wine and even suggested a box wine called Bandit ($6-7). He told me that too many people think they have to cook with nicer wines for stews. Bandit was actually better than some red wines I've had and it has 30% more than a bottle!

Once everything cooks together for at least 30 minutes, the chicken is taken out and the sauce is thickened with flour and more butter. The chicken is placed back in until fully cooked. I prepared the onions and mushrooms the night before so that I'd have enough room on the stove top. Other than the preparation and overall cooking time, this dish is one of my favorites and oh-so rewarding.

A Vegetarian Mouthful

Kelly gave me one watermelon radish and a bag of wheat berries; two things I've never cooked. The hand-off was perfect timing because I've been meaning to post a vegetarian meal. The last few posts have been either meat-heavy and/or just heavy. Plus, I knew coq au vin was in the forecast this week (post to come), so I wanted to start the week off with something healthy and meat-free.
Wheat berries are usually added to things, like salads or breads, but I was willing to try them as a simple, flavorful, mound on my plate. After they cook for about an hour, wheat berries are chewy with a bit of a crunch.
At first I wasn't sure if I should roast the watermelon radishes, or boil, or saute. I settled on sauteing (with a diced shallot, green pepper, and butter) and they were cooked through within ten minutes.
I knew I would need something more than just a grain and sauteed vegetables. As my last post mentioned, I enjoy large amounts of Parmesan, so I looked up a quick topping (technically, it was under "dips"); Mark Bittman has you roast a small eggplant at 500 degrees until they look like the picture. Then, let them cool, remove the skins, chop them up really well until the eggplant chunks resemble mush. Add 1/2 cup of Parmesan cheese, a little oil, a squeeze of a lemon (or in my case, lime juice) and pepper. As a larger portion, prepared in a food processor as opposed to with a soup spoon, this dip would be quite tasty on warm pita bread.


So, here it is. The dip, admittedly, looks awkward but I assure you it was exactly what the wheat berries needed - a little oomph!

Tonight called for one thing and one thing only - my favorite combination, my comfort food of choice these days, and above all, something of ease. It wouldn't usually look anything like the picture. It'd be a mound of noodles slathered with cheese and topped with a heaping helping of steamed spinach (then add another mound of Parmesan to that.) It's actually somewhat embarrassing typing that out. Like a confession. There's only one person who knows how to properly prepare it for me and he'll go unnamed.

Certainly, there are worse things to have on a regular basis, which brings me to the twist I put on my Mondays-suck-so-I'll-drown-my-fatigue-and-dread-in-pasta-and-cheese dinner: Alfredo sauce, sauteed spinach with garlic, a non-dieter's amount of Parmesan cheese, and, as you can see, lasagna noodles (I didn't realize until I opened the box that the noodles were non-boil!)

I did learn to add a bit of flour to an Alfredo sauce, which helped, but everything else was done in a haze, as an afterthought to so many other thoughts swirling around in my Monday brain. I didn't even bother taking a picture of the post-oven lasagna. Let's just say it resembled something you'd want to stick your face in and eat...privately. Luckily, someone joined me.

Texas: health's vacation

Well, I didn't cook this. I'm deviating from my blog's flow (flow?) Sorry.

I'm happy to report that the sampler plate above was split between three people, though I did happen to notice a number of diners picking away at an entire plate on their own. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. The majority of my Texas vacation was spent eating food at otherwise non-eating hours on otherwise too large of plates. I ate and ate. Even fast food, but I won't go into that.

All kidding aside (actually, not kidding, I ate a lot), Texas has no doubt the best enchiladas and barbecue I think I've ever had (other than my Pop's barbecue in Memphis, of course). The featured plate of various meats (you can't seem them, but ribs are hiding under the sausage and brisket) was found at Ironworks in Austin. My aunt and uncle from Indiana (uncle is originally from Texas) said that it was some of the best barbecue they had yet to find in Austin and I would agree.

The first meal I cooked upon returning to New York was a healthy, vegetarian, vegetable-loaded soup. Within the week, I hope to post something new and exciting that may or may not have something to do with a restaurant idea I thought of today. Suspenseful, isn't it?


(PS: Karl wants me to mention that the aforementioned enchiladas were, specifically, from Pico's Mex-Mex in Houston.)