30 Rock + Finger Foods = Thursday Night

Like Mrs. Flax (Cher in Mermaids), I have a real affinity for finger foods. Something about entire meals built around appetizers strikes me as vaguely bohemian. Like, who wants a boring entree when you could be eating fig and walnut bruschetta, spiced lamb pitas, and mini latkes? There’s hardly any dish that doesn’t become more exciting when re-imagined as a first course. Pizza becomes mini-flatbreads, a roast becomes seared beef in filo, etc. Appetizers are are the food equivalent of resisting monogamy, domesticity, and probably patriarchy too. (If I were still in school, I’d think more about what I’m saying.) (Which isn’t to say that I don’t totally believe that appetizers are anti-establishment. Because I do.)

I’d originally planned something much more elaborate for dinner, but once I’d made about 8 spring rolls, muhammarah (Mediterranean red pepper and walnut spread), last night’s leftover curry sauce, and wasabi peas for 2 people, I sort of wondered if anything more would be excessive.  Appetizers aren’t anti-establishment if they replicate a pattern of North American excess, or whatever.  Also, this was my first attempt at spring rolls, and rolling them gave me exhausting performance anxiety.  So I just decided to take a deep breath and stop there.  

Lemon Asparagus

Last night’s dinner: curried salmon, lemon asparagus, wild rice.

Soupe au Pistou

On Monday, I had dinner out with my parents, who are visiting for just a few days, and ate a truly unfortunate mushroom risotto that… robbed me of my interiority.  It was miserable. 

Last night, I wanted something light but nourishing, so I immediately thought of Soupe au Pistou, a fragrant Provencal soup.  It’s essentially minestrone spooned over pesto.  The heat from the soup lightly cooks the raw garlic and basil in the pistou, releasing their flavour.  I made the pistou with basil, garlic, lemon zest and pine nuts, but you can vary it however you like.  For the purposes of this soup, it’s good to leave most of the oil out of your usual pesto recipe.  Unlike when used in sandwiches or on pasta, the pistou doesn’t need oil to spread or coat anything. 

Braised Chicken and Celery Root

Beets, Revisited

I made the beet salad again, this time with toasted walnuts instead of the pumpkin seeds.

Breakfast for Dinner: Pumpkin Pancakes with Raspberry-Honey Syrup

Breakfast for Dinner in 2009 continued with these pumpkin pancakes.  These pancakes have several virtues, but one essential drawback.  On the plus side, they’re very healthy.  Because they’re made with canned pumpkin there’s no need to add any additional fat beyond the cooking spray.  Also thanks to the pumpkin, they have a lot more depth of flavour than standard pancakes. 

But the main problem with them is that they’re still pancakes.  This is something I scarcely want to admit to myself: I don’t like pancakes.  Breakfast is my favourite meal, yet I hate eggs (including french toast), don’t like pancakes, and I’m not crazy about hashbrowns either.  I sometimes like waffles, but that’s because they tend to be lighter and crispier than pancakes. 

The major problem with pancakes is the consistency of the batter; it’s usually soggy and flavourless.  Adding syrup and butter helps with the flavour issue, but worsens the sogginess issue.  These pancakes are definitely a flavour improvement (thank you, pumpkins!), but they’re even denser than your usual pancake.  The syrup, however, is delicious!  I am going to brainstorm other things to use the syrup with.  Suggestions?

Beets

One of my New Year’s resolutions was that I would cook with 6 vegetables I’ve never cooked before.  I didn’t want to resolve to eat vegetables that I’ve never eaten before because (1) I’ve eaten most every vegetable that I can think of, and (2) although I can’t think of one, I imagine the vegetables I haven’t eaten yet are ones that would gross me out.  (I am absolutely not the kind of person who thinks that you should force yourself to “try new things” food-wise when the things in question seem repulsive or otherwise unappetizing.  That’s for Fear Factor.  In fact, the whole ethos that insists that the more your body recoils from something, the more important it is for you to try it, strikes me as completely mental, and probably tied up in some gross ideology that I don’t want to support.  End rant.)

To return to the topic at hand, the first of my New Year’s resolution vegetables was beets.  I decided to do a sort of Scandinavian style marinated beet and celery root salad.  I followed this recipe but with pumpkin seeds instead of walnuts.  You could easily make the salad with pickled beets instead of roasted ones, but my cleanse precludes pickled food.  I do think that the roasting makes for a better taste, but it also takes about an hour.  In fact, this salad is really labour-intensive all around what with all the matchsticks, and requires a bit of forethought because it really needs to marinate for a while.  For those reasons, and because it keeps well in the fridge, I’d suggest making a big, big batch of it.

The finished product is lovely.  The celery root takes on a vibrant pinkish color, a bit softer in color than the beets themselves, while the sweetness of the beets is balanced out by the lemon in the dressing.  There’s something about beets that just feels very healthful and nourishing.  So good!

Breakfast Continued

So, I was talking to my friend Samantha on the phone about my New Year’s resolution to eat breakfast for dinner more in 2009 yesterday, and she just e-mailed me with the link to a lj community devoted to breakfasting:Of Mornings. Look at these pears!

I’m starting a detox diet tomorrow. (No doubt I’ll be posting about it here at length.) But in the spirit of not setting oneself up for failure, I’ll have to avoid the food porn for the next 12 days.

Breakfast for Dinner

Right now, I’m obsessed with breakfast for dinner.  First off, it always feel casual, even if the food takes forever to prepare.  Breakfast food is innately comforting, especially when it’s cold outside.  Furthermore, it seems like a completely decadent treat, even though the ingredients are usually pretty cheap.  And, honestly, I would never make a complicated breakfast in the morning, even though I’m basically unemployed and have nothing to do all day.  Actually, it’s one of life’s many cruelties that breakfast food is meant to be eaten in the morning because that basically ensures that most of the time people won’t get to eat it.  I’ve talked to people who make eggs for breakfast on weekdays, but they seem like little anachronisms; I’m convinced they’re pulling my leg.  My daily breakfast is toast, or granola with yogurt if I’m feeling fancy. 

Yesterday, I had some friends over for Bacon- and Squash-Filled Crepes with Salsa Verde.  (I substituted sour cream for the creme fraiche, thyme for rosemary, and used lean back bacon instead of regular.)  J. and I spent the afternoon working on it, but although it was labour-intensive, it was really fun and, um, educational.  For example, we learned that I’m far too nervous to flip crepes properly.  I was more than happy to derogate that responsibility to J.  And although we already knew this, we learned again that it’s a total pain to peel an uncooked squash.  But it was totally worth it, even just for the smell of the bacon and squash cooking.   And it tasted good too.  Everyone seemed to like it; at least, there were no leftovers.