Leftovers: Mac and Cheese

Ooooooooooookaaaaaaaaaaaay. I'll give you a bit more help on the Mac and Cheese front.

Assuming there actually was some mac and cheese leftover after you baked it, here is how I bring it back to life the next day, with the ease of the microwave.

Coming out of the fridge, that thing is so glued together you need a knife just to cut yourself a hunk of it. Sometimes I nuke the whole thing for about 20 seconds just so I can scoop my snacking portion into a bowl. (Note: this is a snack-sized portion, not a big honkin' bowl. Adjust accordingly. Maybe another 10-20 seconds per step.)
Once I have my little mound/brick of mac, I do the following:
Pour about 2 tablespoons of milk into the bowl I am reheating the mac in. Cover with cling film.
Microwave for about 20 seconds, or until you hear bubbling/sizzling.
Remove from microwave and stir. Then I add about a teaspoon of mascarpone* cheese to the mix, recover, and nuke another 12 seconds.
Remove, stir, and try not to burn your  mouth on the hot cheesy goodness.

Repeat photo. So? It looks GOOD!

I like my mac and cheese soft and warm and oozing with cheese, as you can tell from the way I reheat it. The breadcrumb crust on top is not my thing. I just do that for the hubs.  But if you REALLY want that as well with your leftovers - if you really really won't enjoy it without it, you can do the following:
Take a non-stick pan and melt a pat of butter in it. Then sprinkle in about a palmful of bread crumbs, and stir. Toast that combination on your stove top until it starts to become crispy, at which point you can spread it on top of your newly rejuvenated and extra creamy mac and cheese, and be a happy little camper.

I myself feel I must now fast on miso soup, steamed veg and quinoa for the next 3 days after eating quite so much of this for two days running.
Odds of that happening...? I predict complete dietary breakdown no later than 9PM.

*As with so many recipes, you can substitute with your reheating. Ricotta works in the place of mascarpone. If you have no soft fresh cheeses, try using cream instead of just milk. But even just a little milk will help bring your cheese sauce back together. The mascarpone is just for true decadence.
Which I have serious problems denying myself... :)
Enjoy!

Mac and Cheese Fake Out

 The "fake out" part being that I'm not actually going to tell you how I made the mac and cheese.

At least not specifics.

Last night I made what was possibly the least figure-friendly mac and cheese of my life. My arteries will never be the same. 

That is just the cheddar cheese. Helpfully grated by the hubs.

I wasn't even following a recipe. I just threw together a roux, added milk, cream, cheese (cheddar, gruyere, and a dollop of ricotta, just cuz) pancetta, bread crumbs and elbow macaroni, and hoped for the best.

And Oh My God was that stuff good.

But I'm not blogging about that, because I was doing it all very slapdash, and I'm trying to post more polished recipes. You know, where you measure stuff?

The one hint I will pass along is that, if your cheese sauce of cream, cheddar, and gruyere is tasting a bit too heavy, salty, or bitter, add the zest of half a lemon.

Once again, the real live lemon that does not come in a plastic container comes to the rescue.

On to the important stuff! The eagerly awaited Aerogarden update... photo taken on Day 5 and the sprouts are juuuuuust starting to be visible inside their pod. 

Right on schedule.

Probably another week before I need to remove the dome.

The excitement is KILLING you! 

And now you want mac 'n cheese/cheese.

Resist the Kraft.

Resist.

Onion Soup, Round 2

I have said it before, and now I will say it again:
NEVER QUESTION JULIA!!!

The Barefoot Contessa's recipe is torn up and in the trash. I shall not stray again.

This weekend I followed Julia's recipe for French Onion Soup, and it was so good... dare I say it? I didn't even need to put the crouton of melted cheese on it!!!
And I have stated before my love of melted cheese. So you know I'm serious.

This is how it all went down.

Sauté in 3 tablespoons of butter, and one of olive oil, about 3 medium sized yellow onions, sliced. Cook with the lid on for 15 minutes. (Try not to cut off your thumb while slicing the onions. I have never been so happy for my flimsy excuse for fingernails as when I realized that without them, I would have just removed a large section of flesh. Instead, I only had to file down a split nail. Phew!)

Once the onions have softened, sprinkle with 1 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp sugar (to assist in caramelizing) and cook for another 30-40 minutes, stirring frequently, until you have uniformly browned onions.

At the same time the onions are caramelizing, heat up your 4 quarts of stock. 

I used 2 quarts veal stock from glacé, and 2 quarts beef stock from bullion cubes.

Now, I said "Never Question Julia" and I meant it. But adjusting is not the same as questioning. Julia did not call for any herbs or spices beyond salt and pepper, and I just find that... dubious. Maybe that is The Traditional French Way, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. So when I was heating the stock before adding it to the (beautifully) caramelized onions, I threw in a bay leaf and a couple of sprigs of thyme, to be removed later. And I'm glad I did it, because as previously mentioned, the soup is DELICIOUS!
And I rationalized that when Julia is making her stock for any dish, she probably puts one of those little bouquets of herbs in it anyway, so really I was just trying to improve my crappy beef-broth-from-a-bullion-cube so that it would be acceptable to her. See? Conflict averted.

After 35 minutes, my onions looked like this.

Too far away? OK.

How's that?

GORGEOUS! 

I know.

Ok enough patting myself on the back for not screwing up the onions.

Julia directs to remove the soup from the heat, and then add in the boiling stock, followed by half a cup of white wine. When I got to this point, I was down to maybe 1/4 cup of white wine. No, not because I had been sampling while cooking, but rather because while I was caramelizing the onions, the bottom of my pan was getting an alarming amount of little brown bits stuck to it. Now, these are the flavorful bits that you want to keep, but when they appear and you still have 15 minutes of cooking time before your onions are where they aught to be, there is worry over burning those tasty little bits.

So, while I was caramelizing the onions, any time I felt too many brown bits were accumulating in the bottom of the pan, I would add a tablespoon or two of the white wine, scrape the bits up, and continue to stir and cook my onions. It worked beautifully, and probably added even more flavor to the onions.

Following scientifically tested recipes (a.k.a. anything Julia Child published) and instructions is good, but understanding enough about cooking to adjust to your own cooking conditions can save a meal. 

Not to mention hours scrubbing a burnt pot.

Moving on, the soup is supposed to simmer another half hour, "partially covered" on your stovetop, and then get 3 tablespoons of dry sherry added in. At the end of this I fished out my sprigs of thyme and bay leaf, and checked the soup in case I needed to adjust any seasonings.

I did not.

It was marvelous.

And I dug right in.

Eventually I will get around to serving this with the covering of browned and bubbling cheese. For now, I am just enjoying my French Onion Soup.

Thanks again, Julia!

A Change Will Do You Good... Or Not

Ok, I tried changing up my background to make things more interesting. However, I do not think it helps my photos "pop" at all... anyone hate it? Anyone prefer it?
Should I go back to the old?

I would very much like to change the color and font of my blog posts, but can't seem to figure that part out yet. Damn.

Let me know you're 2¢ on the change in background... as with painting my nails, I have serious issues deciding if I like a color I'll have to deal with on a daily basis. This is even harder.

My desktop picture changes every few hours. I wish I could do that with the background image of my blog!
You hear that Template Designers!!!

Patterns In The Universe

Found this photo on my camera from a while back. I had placed a pat of butter in some olive oil in a pan to melt for whatever I was about to sauté, and it melted in the following pattern:

      I thought it was so cool looking I grabbed my camera right away.

It's like a snowflake made of butter!

Not too far off.

A Spiral Butter Galaxy :)

Oh the amount of cardio you'd have to do...

How To: Rosemary Pork Tenderloin

Last weekend when I was in NJ, my mother passed along to me her original "real" digital camera, the Canon 10D. I used it for some of my zoo pics, but I am still trying to figure out the kinks, as it were. Mostly I am having issues with focus, as you will see from the photos below. (Yes, I will read the manual at some point.) But I'm having fun with it, because you can't help but feel like a "serious" photographer when you're hauling around a camera that big and heavy.

On to dinner.
I don't believe I have posted this recipe before (am I already repeating myself after only 3 months?) so here goes: Simple Pork Tenderloin.

Growing up I really did not like pork chops. Maybe it was a texture thing, because I still avoid them when on a menu. Pork tenderloin, however, is a whole other animal. (A "wonderful, maaaaagical animal" according to Homer Simpson, a.k.a. actually the same animal, a la the Lisa is a Vegitarian episode.)
Pork tenderloin is exactly what it sounds like: the tender loin cut of the pig. It is juicy and velvety in texture, provided you don't "cook it to death" in fear of trichinosis. (A little pink is good, people.)
This is different  from "pork loin" which is a bigger cut of meat.
Here is how not to cook it to death.

Preheat your oven to 400º and set your pan on medium heat.
As ever, start with a couple crushed cloves of garlic in olive oil, and crushed dried rosemary. Maybe a tablespoon's worth. (Some day I will buy a mortar and pestle and not have to prick my fingers crushing dried rosemary.) Also, if you have fresh rosemary, use minced fresh. I just don't use the herb often enough to ever buy fresh.
When the oil is rippling, remove the garlic from the pan and add your seasoned ROOM TEMPERATURE pork tenderloin. I cannot stress enough: NEVER COOK COLD/CHILLED MEAT!

Sear your meat for about 6-7 minutes on the first side. (Make sure there is enough oil/fat in the pan so the meat does not stick, which is what happened to me, because I was using my nonstick fry pan for the peas.) After the first side has browned, flip your tenderloin, and place the pan in the 400º oven for another seven minutes. It should come out perfectly cooked and still slightly pink in the middle.

If one end of your tenderloin is narrower than the other, tuck that under the end so it does not overcook while the rest is cooking. The tenderloin I had here was fairly even in thickness throughout.

When your pork tenderloin comes out of the oven, let it rest to one side for about 7 more minutes, to let the juices redistribute. At this time, if you want to make a pan gravy, throw some diced onion/shallot into the pan that cooked the pork, sauté, add a little flour, cook 2 minutes, and deglaze with your liquid of choice. Just remember, that pan handle will be HOT so use a mitt or something when stirring, etc..

When your tenderloin is done cooking in the oven and resting, dice up a slice or two of prosciutto in a tablespoon of oil or so, in a non-stick pan. 

Once it has crisped and rendered for about 3 minutes, add your frozen peas, and about 3 tablespoons of water, and stir. Your peas should be done in about 3-4 minutes. About the same time your tenderloin has finished resting.

Hey look! A close-up of leftover horseradish-cream potatoes from Easter! I may be posting this a week later, but I promise I only cooked this a few days later. The potatoes were still viable, if a little over-onion-y. Waste not! I added a spoonful or two of  ricotta cheese before reheating the potatoes, to give them some sort of moisture and freshness, and kind of half-mashed them. May not be pretty, but it was tasty.

There we go! A shot of the pork. See how it is still a little pink in the middle there? Just a faint blush? THAT is how your pork should be cooked. Otherwise you're just eating tasteless hockey puck.

I do not understand people who eat their meat "well done". They should just call it "over done" because that is what it really is. If you eat your meat that way, just go vegetarian. Please? Don't do that to perfectly good meat. Clearly you don't like meat if you insist on treating it that poorly.

I will rant about that again and again in the future, I promise you.

You may notice that there is no sauce on my pork. That is because my pan gravy did not come out. Oh it was perfectly smooth and thick... I just did not like what I chose to deglaze the pan with.  What did I use? I foolishly used some leftover dry sherry (of Onion Soup glory) when I should have used something a bit sweeter. At least I was in the mood for something sweeter, so was not pleased with the outcome of my gravy.

Live and learn.

And go cook!

Peas and Thank You

Dinner tonight? More leftover pork tenderloin.
And I can have that sucker on the table in 5 minutes.
So what do I do as a vegetable to round out the meal?
Well if I can have the meat reheated and plated in under five minutes, there is no way I'm going to chop up, season, and roast vegetables. So, frozen peas again.
But this time, I show a little extra love for the hubby.

I diced up a slice of prosciutto and put it in a non-stick pan with the tiniest amount of oil. Once that has sizzled for about a minute, I throw the frozen peas directly in the skillet. I then drop about 3 tablespoons of water into the pan as well, to help the peas along. In 3 minutes, the peas are heated through, and have absorbed some of the salt and flavor from the prosciutto.

Plate that up with the leftover pork, and dinner is done. But with a little extra love.

*Note: I wrote this blog post WEEKS ago. I just did not get around to posting it. So when you see an immediate repeat of this recipe, it is because last time I made pork tenderloin, I roasted vegetables. This time when I made the tenderloin, the hubs requested peas, so I decided to make the tasty tasty peas instead of just nuking them.
That is all.

You Too Can Grow Fresh Herbs And Flowers!

I haven't had much in the way of cooking to post about this week. And when we ate out, it wasn't really anyplace to blog about (tho last night did include bacon cheeseburgers with the winner of this season's Shear Genius. Ultimate of random, I know, but the hubs has been friends w/ her boyfriend for about a decade, and they were in town celebrating her success so, they squeezed us in for burgers in the Meatpacking District.)

Anyhoo, a couple Christmases ago my in-laws gave me an Aerogarden. Some of you may roll your eyes, but when you like to cook and you live in a NYC apartment with no sunlight, it is impossible to grow fresh herbs, and so this is actually very convenient.
I took a break over the winter, not growing anything, but with Summer approaching, I thought it was time to get the fresh basil going.
So today I installed new grow lights and set 'er up.

Perched precariously in my kitchen window.

Looks as though I should probably dust the top a bit better...

There are only two domes because I am only growing basil this time around. And once it gets going, it takes up A LOT of space. So, two domes, spread out.
I will update you when the adorable little shoots come popping up. And you can see my lack of gardening skill as it grows.

Try to keep calm in the interim. I know the excitement is going to be hard to bear.

Side note: There has been an enormous crane noisily hauling pallets of "material" onto my roof all day. Now, our roof is finished quite nicely (at least it was last Summer) with a view of the river, so I do not know what all is being hauled up there or why. I am slightly concerned as to what is being planned up there.
What this does tell me is that it will still be quite some time before the roof opens up again.
Damn.

On Beyond Zebra...

... you discover the Okapi.

Earlier this week, before Mike had to head back to the classroom, we took a trip to the Bronx Zoo. We wandered around for about 4hrs, trying to see as much as possible, but sometimes the animals just aren't in the mood to cooperate.
You know how it goes.
I wish I had brought my telephoto lens, but I didn't want to be "that person" with the giant camera. I needn't have worried tho, as there were dozens of people hauling huge cameras around. There was even a guy with one of those giant white telephoto lenses that you see on the sidelines at sporting events. Crazy.
The real problem I find is shooting through the necessary glass and netting. Glare, fingerprints, haze, and general obstruction in 90% of my shots. Not to mention all the crowding children blocking your shots, or having their clothing reflected on the face of your perfect gorilla close-up... grrrrrrrrrrr.

Anyhoo, I thought I'd post a few of the pictures that sorta did come out.

Snow leopard with sun-flare on the glass. This leopard absolutely refused to look at the people on the other side of the glass. Instead she was waiting to hear the sound of the gate that would signal her 5PM feeding...

A red panda, or as the direct translation goes, "Small bear cat." So freakin' cute. All I can say is, WANT!

I am a cute little monkey investigating this thing I found on this branch. Look at me being cute!

How beautiful is she?

This was the amazing part, because all the kids were at one part of the glass where two gorillas were playing, and I went over to an empty area in frustration over not having any kind of shot. Then, this female wandered over, picking up curly kale as she went, and just sat down right in front of me. I barely got my camera in focus before screaming children came over, but I was also torn between taking pictures and just staring into her eyes and having a real experience. I did my best to ignore the irritated looks on parents' faces because I was blocking their child's chance to see her for another 30 seconds.

Sharing her curly kale?

I so wanted to put my hand to the glass and go all Dian Fossey "Gorillas in the Mist" at this point, but felt a little silly trying to have a moment surrounded by the crowd of people.

The peacocks are in no way actually caged in. They can hop over their little fence with ease, and so sometimes you will encounter a peacock on a path or on a roof while you are wandering the zoo.  As Mike and I were leaving, there was a peacock strutting around, so of course I stalked it trying to get as many shots of his tail as possible.

Mike documented my efforts.

But see what I mean about the fence? Look how low it is in the background of the shot? And that's the main part of their enclosure. This one had just wandered over to the side.

I also tried to get a little artsy on the way home, taking pictures of the elevated subway platform tracks.

See?

So that's my trip to the Bronx Zoo. My mother has professed her desire to go there, so maybe I'll bring the big lens on my next trip and hope for some better shots. To see some of the rest of the pictures I took, including lemurs, birds, and more monkeys, you can go through my Flickr account. Hope that link worked without giving you access to my editing, etc... hmm.
I guess I'll just have to trust you.

Too Darned Hot

How does that old rhyme go? "April showers bring May flowers"?

Not today.
Today, April 7th, 2010, the temperature hit 90º in NYC. That is ABSURD!!! And also, in my book, unpleasantly hot. So while running my afternoon errands I decided to treat myself to a delicious lunch that required no cooking.
Unfortunately I was foiled in my attempt because apparently Salumeria Rosi changed their delivery schedules, and now they receive their fresh burrata on Thursdays instead of Wednesdays.
Damn.
Not to be too disappointed, I still purchased their fresh focaccia (truly, some of the best in the world. Definitely in NYC.) and some freshly carved prosciutto.

You know the focaccia is good just by seeing how the olive oil has already soaked into the paper it was wrapped in. It only took me 15 minutes to get home, and already the bottom of the paper was slick.

In case you have never had freshly sliced prosciutto, it is much more velvety and chewy than anything you buy pre-packaged from a store. Delicious.

Now, since I could not have my perfect meal, which would include the fresh burrata with a fruity olive oil and salt, I decided to try to make a substitute creamy cheese spread. I still had some mascarpone cheese in the fridge, as well as some fresh ricotta, so I decided to make a spin on my Creamy Orzo sauce.

Since I was sticking to my rule of not cooking for this meal, I had to try to create this sauce without heating any garlic or oil, or reducing anything. This does not create as fabulous a sauce. But it was still fresh and creamy and bright.

First I combined a spoonful of mascarpone (right) with about 2 spoonfuls of fresh ricotta. I added the zest of half a lemon, and some kosher salt. (I also dropped about a teaspoon of white wine in it just for fun.)

Stirring all of that together, I added some chopped fresh thyme, and called it done.
As I said, it was not as fabulous as the full-on sauce I made for the orzo and peas, but it was a nice accompaniment for the salty, chewy prosciutto and the airy, oil-rich focaccia.

If the roof to my building were open now, I would be eating this up there and drinking a glass of pineapple sparkling wine that I brought back from Maui a year ago.
Pineapple wine?
What?
It's real. Last year my in-laws invited us to Maui and we drove up the side of the volcano to a vineyard that made regular wine as well as blends with passion fruit, mango, and this pineapple sparkling wine that I just loved. And unfortunately, their website does not ship to NJ or NY, so I can only get it if I'm actually IN Hawaii.
(Unless someone who loves me in Oregon wants to ship a bottle or two along on their own...)
Pineapple wine is not something you can drink a lot of. Or at least not something that I can drink a lot of in one sitting. But it is incredibly refreshing on a 90 degree Summer day... even if it happens to be April.

Easter Parade... of Food.

Easter (thankfully) is not actually a holiday in my family. At least not the holiday that Christians intend it to be.
Instead it is an excuse to haul out to NJ for a giant holiday-type meal and time to be together as a family.
(Also, no matter what train you take back to the city, you WILL run into someone you went to high school with while waiting on the platform. So run a damned comb through your hair before grabbing that giant bag of leftovers...)
In recent years it has become much like the other big holidays, which is to say, more and more it consists of hours in the kitchen cooking with my mother, and seeing my brother and father (and husband) at the dinner table later.

This year the cooking took approximately 3 and 1/2 hrs. Not awful, but not easy. And nothing we made was anything we had made before, so there were a few lessons learned along the way.
The menu was as follows:
Herbed squash soup, garnished w/ sunflower seeds
Leg of lamb, later accompanied by Queen Anne cherries
Potatoes w/ horseradish cream and caramelized onions
Carrots with pecans and bacon

The soup my mother had made in the past, and this time made it ahead of time and froze it for convenience. And was very tasty as usual.
The rest I helped her with start to finish. Start being trimming the thicker sections of fat off the leg of lamb, as per the recipe instructions. The afternoon consisted of much butchering, peeling, slicing, more peeling, more slicing, lifting, and stirring. I even sharpened her knives while I was there to make all the butchering and slicing easier on me.
The lamb we learned we should cook the way my grandmother wrote down, because our directions made us overcook it just slightly. It was not dry, but it was no longer pink. When I say the Queen Anne cherries came later, that is because we may have forgotten to heat them through at the end of the 3 hrs and only did so once everyone was already at the table. The cherries were used instead of a gravy (I SO would have made my flambé cherry sauce for this had I been allowed... brief video of Fun with Fire here.)

The potatoes came out better than I had expected. This was a recipe that a cousin of mine made for my dad at her house years ago, so my mom had gotten the recipe to make at some future time. Apparently, this Easter was that time.
I do not like horseradish as a general rule, and I was afraid it would overpower the potatoes to the point that I would not be able to eat them, but instead they came out tender and creamy, and the onions on top made a nice crust once baked. However, compared to other potato dishes it is possible that this one was not entirely worth the effort they took to make in the end.
Note: trying to slice parboiled yukon gold potatoes creates some kind of rubber-cement-like substance on your knife and fingers. It is REALLY weird, and kind of annoying. However, I am assuming the parboiling comes into the procedure to avoid the chance of any still-crunchy a.k.a. raw potatoes in the dish.

The carrots were definitely the star of the meal. First you cook the bacon, then you sauté the pecans in the bacon drippings, and then you cook the diced carrots in the drippings and some chicken broth until they are tender and the liquids reduce. There is also some butter, brown sugar, and lemon juice to finish it off. Basically, it was making your vegetable into something delicious that totally negated the idea of eating a vegetable (which is something of a trend with our NJ holiday meals.) Still, incredibly tasty.

The dessert, however, was the truly decadent part of the meal. My mother and I stayed up until about 1AM the night before making what was actually a very simple dessert. We just stayed up that late because we were trying to do a bajillion things in one night, as per usual when we get together.
We both saw the same episode in which Jacques Pepin made this, which was incredibly useful since I did not see the instructions my mother had written down anywhere while we were doing it. But it turned out perfectly, and really, once you see how we did it, you'll see why it is almost impossible to screw up.
(I'm sorry I don't have pictures of any of the process of this, but I was busily cooking in a kitchen that was not mine, and left my camera in NYC. I do have pictures of the final product tho, taken w/ my mother's VASTLY superior point-and-shoot camera.)

Apparently one cluster from the left tray buggered off before I could take the picture... I wonder who could have eaten that...
Step one: gather whatever ingredients you would like to have drenched in chocolate. (Fresh berries, hazelnuts/almonds/peanuts, dried fruit, etc)

Step two: chop up your bars of excellent quality chocolate into similar sized pieces, for even melting. (We used semi-sweet Ghirardelli bars)

Step three: set up a double boiler on your stove top to melt the chocolate.  ---> One pot with about an inch or two of water in it boils while a heat-proof (glass or pyrex, etc) bowl sits above it containing the chocolate. Do not let the water touch the bottom of the bowl when it is boiling.

Step four: place wax paper on cookie sheets/jelly rolls and set up cupcake wrappers

Step five: melt your chocolate, stirring frequently to avoid burning

Step six: as soon as your chocolate has all melted, place one heaping spoonful into each cupcake wrapper. When they are all filled, top them with your chosen ingredients.

Glowing raspberries surrounded by Ghirardelli chocolate

Go nuts.

Alternate choice to cupcake forms:
Place corn flakes in a mixing bowl (yes, really, corn flakes. Works with Rice Krispies too) and when the chocolate is melted, add enough to just cover the flakes. Gently mix with two spoons until almost entirely coated. Then dole out spoonfuls on your wax paper and make sure the clumps are not too scattered.

Refrigerate either a few hours or overnight, so the chocolate can set.
This same method can be used to coat strawberries in chocolate, and if you do white chocolate (NOT actually chocolate...) and dark chocolate you can create those nifty "tuxedos" if you are crafty enough. We were not that crafty this time.
But the cereal was remarkably tasty in this form, because really, there isn't much that wouldn't be tasty smothered in melted chocolate.
Go forth and make dessert!

Orzo Perfection

I promised you delicious, and I have delivered.

I just made the best orzo dish E V E R!!!
I really like orzo in general. I think it is an under-utilized form of pasta. I have also never been a big fan of rice, and don't really understand the draw of risotto. Whenever a creamy risotto has been described with lots of tasty ingredients, I just wish they'd made the dish with pasta instead. Because pasta is ALWAYS better than rice. No. NO! It just is. Give it up.
Pasta rules.
So what could be better than pasta that LOOKS like rice, but is in fact, still pasta?
At least when it comes to a side-dish.

WARNING: It may be impossible to stop eating this, so bear that in mind for portion control.

So, this orzo dish I made up totally off the cuff, having seen a recipe for orzo w/ ricotta and lemon zest. That's it. Just 2 ingredients. I decided I could do better.
WAY better.
Sure, it could be a side dish, but I made it as a simple main dish for a night in which dinner never really happened. And as soon as I tasted it I tried to write down what I did because Mike and I both thought it was so damned tasty. I really hope I can recreate it again.

So here's the rundown:
Obviously, boil and salt water, drop orzo (I was working with about 1/2 a cup... what was left in the box.) Cook 11 min or whatever your box tells you.

I put about 2 tablespoons of evoo in a sauce pan, and grated one large clove of garlic into the oil, on very low heat, and let that cook up a bit. Maybe 2-3 minutes. Just as the color shifts from white to soft gold.

Next I put in a splash of white wine. Maybe 4 tablespoons worth. I let that simmer on medium heat for about a minute to reduce a bit.
Add half to a whole teaspoon of dried thyme into the simmering garlic/oil/wine mixture, crushing it between your fingers/palms as you drop it.

Next, I lowered the heat back down to medium-low, and I added about 3 tablespoons of half & half/ cream (whatever is on hand), and stir to combine. At this point there is only just enough liquid to fully cover the bottom of the pan. I was creating a flavor base and thinning base for the cheese that is added next.
To the aromatic liquids in the pan, I added about 1/4 cup of ricotta cheese. Stir until it become smooth and creamy. *This photo is actually of mascarpone... see below.

Add the zest of half of one lemon. Stir again. Season with salt to taste.
(If you want a bit more salt and cheese, you can stir in a little less than 1/4 cup Pecorino Romano, but I think it is better in its sweet and lemony form.)

Two minutes before the orzo was done cooking, I dropped a couple handfuls of frozen baby peas into the boiling water as well. Their sweetness helps to offset the richness of the sauce.
(Making this yet again the other night, I thought about using drained frozen spinach, but realized the fresh sweetness of the peas is just a better choice for this.)
When the timer goes off, drain well and add to the melted cheese mixture. Stir to combine, and then pour that creamy concoction into one big soup bowl, or divide between 2 people as a side-dish.

I did this completely off the cuff, so use your own judgement as you go as far as proportions and seasonings.
Important: do not try to make this more "figure friendly" by using part-skim ricotta. It will not melt properly for you. Just think of it as your calcium boost of the day.
In fact, to make it even more decadent, swap in some Italian mascarpone cheese instead of ricotta. It will be the creamiest, most indulgent sauce you have ever tasted.

And don't forget, it's got peas! So there is something good for you in it! Other than calcium and taste buds doing a dance of ultimate joy!!!


This was seriously so tasty that the hubs actually said, "Mmm, this is the best ice cream ever!" because while it is a savory dish, some aspect of it (probably the richness from the ricotta/mascarpone) makes you feel like you are also eating a dessert.

So there you go. Creamy ricotta orzo with peas. Also another super fast meal if you're looking for something comforting and you don't feel like making a whole protein+veg+starch meal.
Enjoy!!!

Good Friday?

I'll be the judge of that, thank you very much.

Yesterday was April Fools Day, a.k.a. April 1st, and apparently my chemicals decided to play a prank on me and go into meltdown mode. And while I have been off my medication (for the first time in many years) for about seven months, I still have some stashed away In Case of Emergency.
You know, one of those days wherein no matter how hard he tries, the Marquis just cannot make it better? Because there is no rational reason for you to suddenly feel that shitty about yourself and life in general.
So, emergency action (and a pill or two) has been taken, and I may be MIA for the next few days.

I promise to come back with something delicious to make it up to you.

For those of you that celebrate Easter, I hope your baskets runneth over.