Soup Salad Sandwich Combo

Until recently, the weather's been pretty awful around here. It's been raining with a vengeance! Days like these, I wonder if someone upstairs is plotting the mass destruction of earthworms, by flooding, then by consumption by hungry seagulls as their vermiform dinner wiggle across the sidewalks in desperate escape.

To eat away our sorrows, S. and I decided to make some comfort food in the form of a Caesar salad (with a Swedish twist), and the classic grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup. Just like mom made (except not like mom made, since I'm Chinese and for comfort my mom served me dumplings and math).


Tomato Basil Bisque:
creamy, with a dash of cayenne

Grilled Cheese:
Butter-brushed Brioche, grilled with Gruyere, then baked

Swedish Caesar Salad:
Fennel seed crusted grilled chicken, bacon, soft boiled quail's eggs, dill and greens. Homemade Caesar dressing with anchovies, sour cream, and dill. Garlic olive oil croutons.

Prometheus and the Lamb

Let me tell you a story the Greeks left out. When Prometheus stole fire from the Gods and gave it to man, man rejoiced. It's red! It's hot! Let's stick a pan with some chicken in it and make ourselves a stir-fry! At first Prometheus celebrated with man; months of endless feasts rolled on and on as the party people cooked. As with all new discoveries, the initial excitement lead man and Prometheus to overindulge. In these days before gas stoves with heat adjustment dials and ovens with different leveled racks, meat was thrown straight onto the fire and man thought, "what the Hades? let's cook the shit out of this minotaur steak, just because we can." So they dined on the charred remains of all kinds of animals, and Prometheus sat at the head of the table, and it was good.

Sometime between this Olympic feasting (get it? Olympic??) and the day Zeus finally chained the guy to a rock for eternity, Prometheus was helping out in the kitchen cave and absentmindedly took a bite out of some raw lamb he was butchering. He was shocked. Everyone had been so excited to eat overcooked meat that they had forgotten how delicious meat was raw - it was tender, juicy, earthy, and most of all, tasty. It didn't have that cancerous black crust and it didn't have the consistency of asphalt. What had they been doing? And it was then that Prometheus learned to moderate the fire he had stolen. Touching the lamb with just enough heat to finish rare, instead of grilling it from here to Mount Olympus, yielded a succulent, mouth-watering product that would tempt the Gods.

I tell you this story because S. and I came to a similar realization this past weekend when we made an herb crusted rack of lamb. Fully intending to keep it in the oven long enough for medium rare, we bickered at where to stab the meat thermometer lest we get an inaccurate reading and overcook it. Finally, hunger won over patience. We slipped the rack out of the oven and tapped our feet impatiently as it rested. At the moment of truth, S. carved the thickest portion from the rest of the rack and we peered in. It looked rare. Torn between our hunger and the irrational modern day fear of eating raw meat, we decided to gamble our chances at eating the one unlucky lamb that may have had worms and no friends.

It was delicious.

Herb crusted rack of lamb with wilted spinach and mushrooms:

Unfortunately, days after his rediscovery of rare meat, Prometheus was chained to a rocky hillside somewhere. His punishment for stealing fire was to lay with his innards exposed to the sun and every day about the time when his liver was heated to the perfect temperature, an eagle would fly in and eat it rare.

A Strawberry Trilogy

When a financially challenged student cursed with a sweet tooth walks into a grocery store and sees strawberries on sale for six dollars a flat, she buys them. The problem is, a flat is a unit that is weirdly difficult to imagine outside of context of fruit. It's like asking someone to imagine the size of the universe, or more relevantly, a side of beef. I'm reminded of an I Love Lucy episode where Lucy, in the lingering excitement of buying a new walk-in freezer, buys a side of beef, not realizing exactly how much meat that really is (she ends up having to hide all that beef in a furnace and hilarity ensues...oh Lucy, you got some 'splainin to dooo).

Fortunately, I've seen that episode and have learned from our favorite redhead's folly! You see, I had a plan. A three part plan. A trilogy, if you may.

A flat of strawberries, which if you haven't figured out already, is a lot of strawberries for someone who's only really feeding herself and a part-time carb-free, full-time boyfriend. The easiest thing to do, is to pick out some of the best looking ones, and save them for eating fresh, in oatmeal, on panna cotta, etc.

The second part of this trilogy involves artfully disposing of a large proportion of the remaining, uglier strawberries. By some dirty produce arrangement trick, the ugly berries always end up on the bottom. If you're not buying organic (which these were most likely not), the ones one the bottom are the monster GMO strawberries with third limbs. The answer: jam! Mashing berries is strangely satisfying. Realizing how much sugar goes into strawberry jam, is not. End result? 4x1cup jars boiled and sealed, ready for consumption some other day.

Finally, putting some of that jam to good use, we make a Linzertorte. This is something I was only recently introduced to, but quickly fell in love with. Reminds me a little of those Pepperidge Farm Montieri Raspberry Tart cookies...only better because you can have a large slice and still call it one serving. Ground almonds form the basis of the crust and the fresh jam for the filling. I used Oma's (German Grandma) Linzertorte recipe, provided to me by not S.'s Oma (although I'm sure she had one too), but by another S.'s Oma.

And that will last 2 days if left in plain sight, 4 if you hide it in the back of the refrigerator where your "carb-free" boyfriend won't find it.

Improv Night

S. and I were busy this weekend. It was one of those unsettling, I-should-be-working couple of days when brushing your teeth seems like a waste of time. Getting out of the house to go grocery shopping, normally one of our favorite pastimes, turned into a disorganized battle against time. With no list or menu prepared, we walked in and grabbed some reliable staples - foods we know we'll like and will know what to do with. Lamb. Canned tomatoes. Brussel sprouts. Unfortunately with what came to me later in the day as a dinner idea forced us to improvise...Warning: these two dishes are probably not the best to have together, but as anyone who has ever been in a self-induced studying stupor will know, sometimes you just have to make food. Who cares if your side dish doesn't complement your entree? Many years ago some gastronomic revolutionary dared to boil down some cranberries and spoon them over turkey. I don't know the real story, but I imagine it involved an empty cupboard and a turkey overpopulation. Perhaps Native Americans were involved.

Lamb Tikka Masala (S. wanted lamb and I wanted something tomato-y)

Honey Pecan Brussel Sprouts. 

Quite an improvisation on my part, never made it like this before. We just had a bag of unfinished chopped pecans I wanted to get rid of. Like I said, didn't quite go with the Tikka Masala, but I imagine one day I'll make it again with some grilled pork chops.

When I'm not working, I chew.

After spending most of the workday at school and in the lab, I would like nothing more than to come home and eat everything I spent in my classes daydreaming about. Alas, herein lies the rub: who has the time and energy to cook after a long day? Not this weary blogger. Oh, the tragedy of the young student glutton...to be aware of what's out there and to be sadly unable to eat it.

For the greater part of this story I've resigned myself to eating the brightly colored science experiments trapped within supermarket freezers. It was my only comfort knowing that if unfrozen, these instant meals would actually rot, as opposed to certain bagged or boxed preservatives laced with food that would keep my dead corpse pristine for years after my expiration date.

Here's the real tragedy: I CAN cook. I'm not one of those people who have a difficult time boiling water (based on a real life friend who called me asking, "but how MUCH water? which pot? how will I know when it's boiling?"). I'm no Thomas Keller, but I've been known to throw together some food now and again. I just have a hard time tearing myself away from work, studying and the ever-masochistic act of watching the Food Network while hungry.

So to give this story a happy ending (beginning?) I promise to no longer voluntarily deprive myself of what I know is within my fork's reach!...when I have the time.