AliThinks

I Done Been Cookin'*

Earlier today I read Loulou's blog post about pasta with salmon and peas, and decided to make it. As I commented on her post, I probably wasn't going to follow her recipe, but she did inspire me.

On a weird whim, I decided to broadcast my cooking. It's been six months since I've used USTREAM, so I dusted off my login and started a broadcast. Allan helpfully posted a link to my broadcast on Twitter and elsewhere, and pretty soon I had a few viewers. Woo-hoo!

I stopped the broadcast while I was waiting for the pasta water to boil; the salmon and peas and cream were ready to go. Mari was watching, and she asked me to post a photo of the finished product. This is for you, Mari:

Because you can't go wrong with Loulou's recipe, I'll just tell you what I did differently:

• I only used olive oil. (Lexington locals, I buy my olive oil in bulk a refillable bottle at Lexington Seafood on E. High.)
• I used a medium-sized onion instead of shallot, because I had no shallots.
• I used half and half instead of whipping or heavy cream.
• I forgot the chèvre. (And we had some lovely goat "cheddar" from a Ozark Hill Farms, no linky.)
• I used eensy-weensy farfalle instead of little shells.

Something tells me that Loulou's recipe turned out better than mine did. But! I had fun cooking, and it was tasty. And! I made a salad of romaine hearts and homemade vinaigrette.

Here's the recipe for my vinaigrette, with full props to my ex-husband, who taught me how to make it:

1 part dijon mustard
1 part vinegar (red wine, white wine, rice)
2 parts olive oil (or canola oil)

Whisk the mustard and vinegar together in a bowl until homogeneous. Add sea salt to taste, and blend. Add olive oil drop by drop, then in a thin stream, whisking the entire time (pretend you're making mayonnaise) until the oil is incorporated into the mustard/vinegar. Taste, and add more oil or vinegar if needed. Add a few grinds of pepper to taste, and mix. Drizzle onto salads, steamed vegetables, avocados, or whatever strikes your fancy.

So. Mmmm, yeah. Bon ap! Next time I broadcast my cooking, I'll storyboard it (okay, maybe not) and record it so I can post a link here.

*It's not as if I never cook. I just don't blog about it.

My Mom's Corn Chowder

In my recent videopost, I mentioned my mother's corn chowder recipe. I had to call my sister (Hi, Elisa!) in order to get it, and was surprised at how few ingredients there are:

1 can cream of chicken soup
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 1/2 - 2 1/2 cups milk
2 cups frozen corn

Mix together, heat, and eat.

Now, living in France got me out of using recipes which required "cream of whatever" soup, because such an entity does not exist over there. However, I was hell-bent on making corn chowder with my Baconnaise, and yet, the four ingredients in my mom's soup (which I loved as a kid) didn't appeal.

So I lightened up my mom's soup, in a manner of speaking.

If you've been reading me for a long time, you'll know that this isn't a food blog because I never measure anything when I cook. However! I happen to remember some of the proportions I used in my chowder! Yay!

First, I started by sauteing a mirepoix in a little bit of oil. Once the onion was translucent, I added some chopped pancetta (leftover from our raclette from a couple of days before), because I figured you can't have too much bacon.

Once the pancetta was cooked through, I added the first of three cups of chicken broth and scraped the bottom of the dutch oven to get all the browned bits up. Now, normally I make my own stock* or broth, but we happened to have some store-bought broth in the cupboard, so I used it.

With the bottom of the pot scraped clean, I added two more cups of chicken broth. Then I added a cup and a half of 2% milk and a half cup of the Lite Baconnaise. I whisked it all together over low heat, then added 2 cups or so of frozen corn.

I let the chowder sit on the stove for a while on low heat. I didn't want it to boil, but I did want the flavors to meld. Also, I didn't add any salt because of the pancetta and the salt in the Baconnaise. And in the store-bought broth.

While I didn't make a lower-fat soup, I did lighten it up (if only in my own head). It was really tasty, and yeah, it was better than my mom's corn chowder.

*I made stock from our Thanksgiving bones (duck confit, if you're interested) and made soup tonight. Duck stock, mirepoix, leftover duck confit, and a rice and lentil combo, bought in bulk last year — two kinds of rice, two kinds of lentils — that was languishing in the cupboard. I love making stock and soup. The possibilities are endless!

Today's Secret Ingredient Is...

You have to listen to me rant before you can have the pie crust recipe.

We get a number of foodie-type catalogs: Dean & Deluca, Sur La Table, Williams-Sonoma, et al. The other day we got a new one called Cooking Enthusiast. I was flipping through it today when I saw the recipe wheel:

No longer do you have to scratch your head over simple fractions when you want to increase or decrease a recipe. Spin the wheel on this ingenious magnet and you can double, triple, half or third a recipe.

Just how hard is it to halve or double a recipe? I'll admit that thirding something might take a little more brain power, but who in their everloving mind thirds a recipe anyway?

And believe me, I'm no math whiz. I quit math after high school geometry and avoided the math requirement in college by taking science courses instead. (Don't ask me the logic of that, but I was damned if I was going to take remedial math in college, and that's what they wanted me to do.) But I can, um, figure out pretty easily that half of 1/2 cup is 1/4. I even know that a third of 1/2 cup is 1/6 cup.

This is a prime example of dumbing-down a process. But we're not stupid, we're lazy. On the other hand, if you don't use your muscles you lose them, and it's the same with brain cells. This is why I will never own a recipe wheel. This is why I still add, subtract, multiply, and divide on paper a lot of the time.

Okay. Rant over. The secret ingredient is VODKA, and the recipe is below the fold.

Why I Didn't Create A Food Blog

I haven't mentioned food much on AliThinks lately, but I really love to cook. And eat. And I'm kind of a food snob. So how come I never made this a food blog?

1. Laziness
2. Dim-wittedness (no, really)
3. Working Mom Fatigue
4. All of the above

Can I Just Say? I Rock.

Since I'm not feeling up to the challenge of Self-Portrait Tuesday today, I decided to channel my creative energy in the kitchen. 

I made a quiche. 

By now you're probably thinking I'm doing the Time Warp again.  Memo pads from the 70s, bitchin' 80s earrings...when will the madness stop?  I know: quiche is so 80s, so not for real men, so for yuppies who ate radicchio before radicchio got all ubiquitous on our asses. 

Well, I love quiche, because it's warm and comforting, and it's a great way to clear out the fridge.  Tonight's quiche ingredients were all fresh, however, and for the first time in months I didn't include vegetables.  Stop your gasping!  I'm going to accompany my meal with a nice salad made of frisée.   (And anyway, this is France – quite possibly the only country that considers pasta to be a vegetable – so I figure I'm ahead of the game). 

So what's in that thing I've got baking in the oven right now?  Rondelé Garlic and Herb cheese; this is like Boursin, only it's cheaper. And cubes de jambon.  And a little gruyère cheese to top it off.   Pictures will follow.  I wish my blog had added odorama, because it smells so good here right now.