Miller Lite * (Bacon + leftover cabbage salad + angel hair + seasoning salt) = actually kinda good???
This is what I’m eating right now, while I’m furiously writing my final Sociology paper (on Pokemon and racial formation theory!). I am the worst blogger.
My project this summer has been to experiment with pasta sauces, and I haven’t had a really satisfactory result… until today! Tonight I made a sauce loosely based on vichyssoise, or chilled potato-and-leek soup. I actually prefer the hot version of the soup, which is sort of heretical, I guess. Does that disqualify it from being called “vichyssoise”? Does it matter? Culinary conventions tend to be somewhat strict, but you know what? FUCK YOU, BITCHES, THIS IS VICHYSSOISE PASTA!!!
I was really surprised by how well this turned out, for being a completely ad-libbed dish. I’m sure that the quality of the dish owed a lot to the ingredients, though: the leeks and pasta were organic and I grabbed the French fingerling potatoes from the Union Square farmers’ market just a few hours before. Or maybe I’m just that good? (Yeah okay.) I guess you don’t actually have to use fingerling potatoes for this recipe, but I really liked the way the slices looked in the sauce. Maybe I miss hotdog Spaghetti-Os, or this is some backward Freudian thing where slicing fingerling potatoes makes me feel empowered.
I had this with a glass of 2007 Paumanok Riesling, and subsequently broke the wineglass in the sink. (Sorry mom!!!)
Vichyssoise Pasta
1. Throw the olive oil and butter into a small sauce pot over medium heat. Once it gets going, throw the potatoes in and let them sit for a few minutes. Once they’re about halfway there, toss in the leeks and stir the whole thing around a little.
2. Start the water for the pasta now! (Don’t forget the salt!) Once the leeks and potatoes are tender, pour in some heavy cream and chicken stock. Season it with lots of salt and pepper and let it all reduce for a bit, until you get the thickness you want.
3. Cook the pasta, and toss it with the sauce. Throw the parsley and Parmesan on top, and eat that shit!
My roster of easily executable fall-back recipes is dominated by pasta dishes; they’re the easiest thing in the world to prepare apart from a bag of chips (1. Open 2. Eat). Should I even beleaguer this discussion with a recipe? I can assure you that I have tested the pitiful easiness of this dish by trying to make it solely with my left hand. Save for its sad lack of freshly ground black pepper, it turned out just fine. The ingredients are usually easy to buy in bulk, so it’s easy on the wallet. You just need to buy a bag of frozen asparagus (Trader Joe’s is the best!), shrimp, dried pasta and some garlic and you’re pretty much set for life.
It’s really easy to just make food without thinking about it, though I try to take some time out to make something really good once in a while. When I make pasta + sauce/vegetables I just feel kind of weird, in the way that loveless sex makes a person feel weird. Or not? Maybe you’re just a ho, ever think of that?
Linguini with Shrimp and Asparagus
Boil linguini. Cook everything else. Combine to form… Voltr- delicious food! HOORJ I AM SO HAPPY ^____^
Mushrooms are magic.
Did anyone ever really expect that truffles, which normally look like testicles, would be declared “the diamond of the kitchen” by Brillat-Savarin? That the fungus that happens to grow on cow shit (and taste like shit, conveniently) would become legendary among high school punks? Even the lowly portobello has become a lifesaver for asshole vegetarians who want to feel included at barbecues. After I saw the last episode of David the Gnome (the one where he kicks it and turns into a tree) as a kid, I began to believe that mushrooms were the dead souls of dryads. It definitely made eating them more interesting.
There’s something about mushrooms that makes them seem like they’d be the perfect pre-game meal for a homicidal maniac. Isn’t it easy to imagine Buffalo Bill hovering over a mushroom risotto, clad head-to-toe in his woman suit? Is it just me?
But onto today’s foodie shit!
Porcini Ravioli with Pan-Roasted Shiitake Mushrooms
Get a pot of salted water boiling over high heat!
In the meantime, heat the olive oil in a pan over medium-high heat until it looks good and sexy. Toss the mushrooms in and season with salt and pepper. Don’t move them around too much or I’ll kill you. Cook until brown(er).
Add the garlic, butter, thyme and shallots to the pan and cook the mess for a while. Once they look done, take the pan off the heat and drizzle a little truffle oil on top.
Hopefully the water is boiling by now. Toss the ravioli in and wait until they get puffy.
Serve the mushrooms on top of the ravioli with a bit of freshly grated cheese and a tall glass of soy milk!
Oh yeah, and there were also king crab legs with some lime juice, black pepper and salt.
I woke up this morning with The Hunger, so I rocked a pack of lobster ravioli and a bag of frozen crab legs in a fit of irrational, over-the-top seafoodism. The king crab legs went into the steamer; the ravioli, into a steel pot. But what about the sauce?
In my fridge were: a tube of tomato paste, a jar of sun-dried tomatoes, frozen garlic, frozen basil and innumerable onions and shallots. So, why not? The sun-dried tomatoes went into a saucepan with a tablespoon of the oil in which they were packed, along with a bit of chopped onion and garlic. Once it started to smell reasonable, I emptied out the whole tube of tomato paste and threw in a cube of the frozen basil. It sorta worked? Maybe? It ended up being a little too tart, so I splashed a little white wine into it and let it reduce for a while. The end result was a thickish sauce that overpowered the lobster ravioli just a little bit. All in all, not a bad attempt for being half-asleep and hung over.
