Now that I’m not commuting on the metro for an hour on Fridays, I can actually make dinner!  I totally just made this up from ingredients I happened to already have in the fridge and pantry. It came out pretty tasty though so I’m sharing the recipe.

Ingredients:

• Ground meat (1-2 lbs)
• Pasta
• Garlic
• Onions diced
• Oregano & Basil (probably the last fresh batch from the garden
• Serrano chili pepper (The last one off the plant.  Can you tell I was trying to salvage a final harvest from my balcony garden?)
• Ground black pepper
• Salt
• Goat cheese (chevre) – 1 log
• Oil
• Sausage
• A jar or two of spaghetti sauce

Boil the pasta with salt and oil.  Cook it halfway through because you’re going to cook it again in the oven and you don’t want mushy pasta.

Chop up the herbs and slice the serrano chili.

Pre-cook the sausages then slice them up.

Cook the ground meat, breaking it up.  Then add the garlic and onions with a little bit of oil and add black pepper to taste.

Add the chili and chopped herbs.

Then pour in the spaghetti sauce.

Add the goat cheese and stir it into the sauce.

When it’s completely incorporated, it should look pretty thick and creamy.

Finally stir in the pasta.

Grease a baking dish then pour in the pasta mixture. Top it with the slices of sausage. Bake at 350 degrees F for about 30 to 40 minutes.

This is such a kitchen sink dish but it smells and tastes wonderful.

So we finally harvested the Serrano chili and I had no idea what to do with it.

I found this recipe on All-recipes called “Andy’s Spicy Green Chili Pork.”

• 1 white onion, chopped
• salt and pepper to taste
• 2 1/2 pounds pork shoulder roast
• 1 (16 ounce) jar green salsa (such as Frontera®)
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
• 2 serrano chile peppers, or to taste

1. Layer the chopped onion into the bottom of a slow cooker. Season the pork shoulder with salt and pepper; place atop the chopped onion. Pour the green salsa over the pork. Sprinkle the cilantro over the salsa and pork. Drop the Serrano chili peppers into the slow cooker.
2. Cook on Low until the meat falls apart easily, about 8 hours. Gently remove the pork to a cutting board. Strain and discard about half the remaining liquid from the slow cooker, reserving the rest. Discard the onions, peppers, and cilantro if desired.
3. Shred the pork shoulder with a pair of forks. Mix the pork with the reserved liquid from the slow cooker to serve.

I love slow-cooker recipes. They’re so easy and the meat just falls apart.

*UPDATE* I should explain how my recipe veered from the one from the website.

1. I used 3 onions
2. I used the whole bunch of cilantro (What else am I supposed to do with the rest?  And you know it goes bad too quickly to keep in the fridge.)
3. I used 2 jars of green salsa
4. Next time, I would use 3 chili peppers.  Maybe even a jalapeno.  The Serranos weren’t that spicy.

Because it’s Summer, of course! And even if it isn’t, whatever, they’re good. Here’s how I make em.

Pluck mint from garden.
Pluck basil from garden.
Bask in the glory of my green thumb!

Summer rolls are like egg rolls that you don’t need to fry or do any heat cooking whatsoever. I’ve only made vegetarian versions of it because when you take out the meat, cooking and the clean-up which follows, is just so much easier. Once you have it down, you can fill it with anything.

So to make these wraps, I buy rice paper from an Asian grocer. I prefer the larger size without sesame seeds. Just round plain rice paper.
I like a thick peanut sauce too though I’ve tried it with fish sauce as well. For the peanut sauce:

• 1/2 cup peanut butter
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 2 tablespoons hoisin sauce
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 1 small garlic clove mashed to a paste
• 1 teaspoon chili-garlic paste
• 1 tablespoon sesame oil
• Juice of 1 lime
• 1/4 cup water

For variations, I’ve added a dash of fish sauce before, a tablespoonful of vinegar, more hot chili-garlic paste than the recipe calls for, and held the mashed garlic clove, in different combinations.

To make the wraps:

1. Grease a large flat pan where you will lay the finished rolls.  They stick together so you have to have enough room to lay them flat and not touch each other.
2. Lay out your fillings in an assembly-line fashion. Or however you want it. (I’ve used grated carrots, cucumber, jicama, mint, basil, cilantro, purple cabbage)
3. Fill a flat pie dish with water.
4. Dip one sheet of rice paper in the water until it’s wet (5 seconds or so) then lay it atop a cutting board or other non-smooth or greased surface.  This stuff is sticky so you have to work quickly.
5. Put a row of the filling in the bottom center of the rice paper leaving room at the bottom and two sides.  I try to make it about the size of 2 rolls of quarters. By now the paper has softened.
6. Fold the bottom flap up to cover the filling, then the two sides towards the middle, then roll it right up!  You don’t need any binder or glue because the rice paper sticks to itself.  Don’t worry about tears or whatnot.

I started the balcony garden 4 months ago (has it been that long already?!). Since then, I’ve enjoyed fresh basil and mint on a regular basis because it’s so easy to use. The other herbs, I just let it grow and grow into a tangled mess. Then, I trimmed it back a bit. Like the lemongrass, I’ve had to mow that once already and it needs to be mowed again. (Really I just take scissors to the overgrown leaves. It grows like crabgrass and smells so divine!

This weekend, I finally put the herbs to use. Not the lemongrass, but the Greek oregano, sage, and rosemary. I chopped them up with garlic, salt, sugar, and pepper and made a rub. It sat in the fridge for two days and then I roasted it in the oven. Mmm…

And tadaa!

This doohickey that needed to be plugged in to the computer came out so that’s why I was Internet-less for almost 2 weeks. It was okay though, I played a lot of Sims2. I figured it out just now, it dawned on me randomly. So here I am, back to talk about more food.

Weeks ago, I raved about the best grilled cheese I ever had at Northside Social, and a couple of people told me to just go make my own! So I took the advice and got three different kinds of cheeses and slapped it all together. It tasted great but I committed a very common grilled-cheese mistake – burnt bread.

Here’s what I learned from the Internet:

• Butter your bread, not the pan so the butter is evenly distributed on the bread.
• Grate the cheese for optimal melting rate.  The faster the cheese melts, the less your bread burns.
• Flip the sandwich!
• Basil is a nice addition, as well as tomato, sauteed onions, or even a fried egg.  I haven’t tried the onions or egg but it sounds tasty.

Here are the cheeses I used:

The Port Salut is a soft spreading cheese. It goes on like peanut butter. Aside from the burnt bread, it was very delicious and fantastic with tomato soup! I won’t need to go out for this anymore!

Two weekends ago, I made chicken curry. For the rest of the week, our place had the wonderful aroma of delicious curry even after it was all eaten. We’d become the bad neighbors who cooked pungent foods for our selfish taste bud pleasure! Definitely a negative externality. So every night after work, we’d open the windows to air out the place. I even boiled a bar of soap in water. Then this past weekend, I went to Costco for an industrial-sized bag of baking soda. I’ve placed glasses of it all around the place. The curry scent should be gone now, though I’m not sure because I have a cold and my nose is stuffed.

I love curry anything. This chicken curry dish was wonderful and even better the next day and the day after that. But given that whole episode, I might take a break from it, at least until the neighbors have forgotten about that incident. So you’ve been warned. Make this on a nice day where you can keep the windows open. Incidentally, I did have the windows open as I made this, but curry is all powerful.

• Chicken pieces (whatever you like)
• 1 Tomato
• 1 onion
• black pepper
• 3 Tablespoons curry powder
• 5 cloves of garlic
• 1 lemongrass stalk
• 10 sprigs of cilantro
• 1 teaspoon mustard powder
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon cayenne powder
• 4 tablespoons cooking oil

In a food processor, blend the garlic, lemongrass, tomato, half an onion, mustard powder, salt, pepper, cilantro, 2 tablespoons curry powder into a fine sauce.  Pour it into a bowl and marinade the chicken pieces in there for at least 2 hours.

When you’re ready to cook the chicken, use the 1 or 2 tablespoons of reserved curry powder, mix it with a little bit of water. Heat oil in a pan and pour in the curry slurry. Stir it around until the curry flavors get all over your walls and you can’t get the smell out for a week!

Slice up the other half of the onion and add it to the pan. Then add the marinaded chicken, sauce and all. If you need, add some water and let the chicken cook.

In a separate pot, add whatever vegetables you want. I had leftover celery so I tossed that in. I also added bamboo and carrots. Start cooking it for a few minutes. Don’t add water yet, the vegetables will sweat.

Pour in the pan cooked chicken over the vegetables. Cover it and let it simmer. If there’s not enough water at this point, go ahead and add it, but keep in mind it’s not supposed to be too soupy.

And tadaa!! So delicious.

I’ve never cooked lamb shanks before but we had one for the Seder and I wasn’t about to throw a piece of perfectly good shank away even if I had no idea what to do with it. It was mostly 2 big bones and when I see bone, I think stew and when I think stew, I think beans. Granted, it’s not exactly stew weather, now that we’re getting 80 degrees in the afternoons but what else was I going to do with the bones eh? I started this stew on Friday. Dried beans require a day in advance to cook thoroughly, and I don’t think you can overcook beans. They just get good and tender. This time, I used a mix of red beans, black beans, and garbanzos. Black and red beans always make my stews brown and dark. Next time, I might use garbanzos and navy beans (which are white, I don’t know where they got the name navy). Can you tell I stockpile beans in the pantry? I love beans because they don’t go bad, they’re versatile, and they are good for you. And it helps with the eating less meat thing. So I did one of those deals where I went hunting on the Internet for a recipe based on items I have on hand and found something close to what was a shank slow cooker recipe and modified it to fit my ingredients.

• 2 Cups of dried beans cooked a day in advance
• 2 Bay leaves
• Rosemary, thyme, oregano (about a teaspoon or so of each)
• Garlic powder
• 1 Cup of wine
• 1 Cup of orange juice
• Salt/pepper
• Parsley (1 bunch chopped)
• Carrots (get the baby ones and you don’t have to chop them)
• 1 Yellow onion diced coarsely
• 3 Stalks of celery chopped
• Lamb shanks

Start by washing the dried beans and cooking them for a day in the slow cooker in plain water.  The next day, put in the lamb shanks with the dried herbs.  Add some water so it mostly covers the meat.  Let it stew for another day so the meat falls off the bone.  Take it off the slow-cooker and let it cool a bit before putting it in the fridge.  After it’s chilled in the fridge for a few hours, you can easily scoop out the fat on the top.  Put it back on the slow cooker and add all the chopped vegetables and parsley along with the salt, pepper, orange juice, and wine.   Don’t add any water until your vegetables have cooked down because they’ll release a lot of water as they cook.  You might want to add more wine or salt/pepper or water or juice depending on the consistency and flavor you prefer.  I added a little more than a cup of wine and OJ each.  It’s a very hearty soup.  And delicious, even for this weather!

I got this recipe from the Internet. I can’t remember the URL, but the original recipe came from a guy named Arthur Schwartz.  Again, I only followed the ingredients and didn’t use the same quantities as the recipe called.  It came out delicious.  The slow-cooker really breaks down the meat so it’s fork tender.

• 4 lb brisket (second cut).
• 1 carrot
• 2 stalks of celery
• 4 cloves of finely grated garlic
• 3 sage leaves
• 2 tablespoons of kosher salt
• pepper
• 1 yellow onion, chopped.

Rub both sides of the brisket with salt, pepper and garlic. Throw everything into the slow cooker.  Juices will come out of the meat and vegetables and create its own sauce.  I made it one night before the meal.  Refrigerated it until the fat hardened.  Then I scooped out the fat.  Before serving, cut the meat perpendicular to the grain and put it in a dish.  Pour some of the liquids over it and put it in the oven at 350 F for about 15-20 minutes or until its hot.  Like anything else you can make in the slow cooker, it was easy.

About the hardest part of making baba ganoush is finding tahini. That’s to say, this dish is very simple to make.

• 2 big globe eggplants
• 3 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 3 Tbsp tahini
• 3 or 4 cloves of finely grated garlic paste
• Juice of 1 lemon (I didn’t have any and used 2 limes instead)
• 1 teaspoon of (Kosher) salt
• cayenne pepper
• 1/2 cup cilantro
• 1 teaspoon of ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon

Prick the surface of the eggplants all around with a fork.  Under the broiler, char the eggplant for 20 minutes on each side.  You want it to be shriveled and mushy.

In a vessel big enough to mix the baba ganoush,  (I love saying that, baba ganoush), throw together all the dry ingredients: salt, cayenne (to taste), cumin, cinnamon.

Then scoop in the tahini, add the chopped cilantro, garlic paste, and olive oil.  I forgot the olive oil this time but it tasted delicious anyway.  To make up for it, I poured it over the top to keep it from drying out.

Mix it all together and there you go!

It’s great with pita bread, crackers, by itself.

I got this recipe from Pioneerwoman.com and Simplyrecipes.com and just changed it a bit combining both of their ideas.

So in making this dish, I learned something new.  Pyrex glass, though heat proof, isn’t broiler proof.  I laid two eggplants in a Pyrex dish and the broiler shattered it.  Luckily, the eggplants were unscathed.  It just made cleaning the broiler a big pain in the butt.  I think at least once a month, I’m cleaning up glass in the kitchen.  I’ve broken so many dishes, jars, whatever left and right I’m kinda’ getting good at cleaning up glass now.  That’s how I make more space in the cabinets and fridge.  I break shit.