phi

Got a bunch of tired-looking ingredients or leftovers lying around but none of them are enough for a meal? No problem! Make stuffed peppers, they'll be delicious.

Per person served:

- Two peppers. Poblano, bell, whatever's looking the most wrinkly and sad in the back of the fridge. As long as the seeds have not turned black you're fine. Or, you know, tomatoes or squash or really anything that can be hollowed out. I had some poblanos that were starting to get soft. Don't worry about heat, it'll mellow a lot when you cook it. Cut around the stem and pull or shake all the seeds out. If the peppers are small, push the sides out some. It's OK if they crack when you do this.

- a couple of tablespoons of pine nuts. This is the one ingredient that's not optional. Toast these in a frying pan, without oil, and set aside.

- 1/4 to 1/2 cup of some kind of diced onion, by which I include leeks and shallots and such. I had some red onion that I'd cut up for another recipe that only needed a little. Fry this up in some oil or butter.

- 1/4 to 1/2 pound of some kind of protein. Freezer-burned turkey burgers, leftover chicken, TVP, really anything will work. Impossible burger works well if you have it. I had an open package of frozen ground chicken kebabs from last March when we thought takeout might not be a thing. Cut or crumble this up and add it to the onions. If the protein is still frozen, it'll want to go in only a minute after the onions, while those are still cooking.

- Maybe half or two thirds of a cup of some kind of green veggies. Fresh, frozen, it doesn't matter. I had the end of a bunch of broccolini from two weeks ago that was pretty limp. Cut up to like 1/2" pieces and toss it in with the other stuff. Frozen veggies will want to go in right after the protein; otherwise you can let that cook a little first.

- A similar amount of cooked rice. I had some left over from takeout Indian food a few days ago. Throw it in when the veggies are starting to look cooked. Put the pine nuts in at this point too. Stir well and turn off the heat before adding the remaining ingredients.

- Spices to bring everything together. I've used cumin or fennel or paprika in the past. This time I had some Thai basil and some curry powder. Don't be shy. Whatever the spice is, think in teaspoons, not dashes. I added some raisins too, because I thought they'd go with the curry.

- One egg, and/or a similar amount of cheese. I did both, grating in a heel of Manchego, since my ingredients were pretty dry. A premade sauce, or oils, could also work here depending on what ingredients you use. The mix should still be warm enough to melt the cheese but not warm enough to cook the egg. When you're done it should be wet enough to stick together.

Stuff the mix into the peppers and bake at 350 for 30 minutes.

Delicious!

My inspiration for potato pancakes the other day was the Crepes Tea House in West Springfield. What I wound up with then was the furthest thing from what they do, so I thought I would iterate. Still not king, but I thought this was an interesting and tasty recipe. I might make it again with only a few changes, in addition to my ongoing pursuit of the perfect Russian style potato pancake. I still haven't come close to that but am at least heading in the right direction.

3/4c slivered parsnips (I started to grate these but they were coming out too fine)
3/4c slivered candy cane beets (likewise), patted dry with a paper towel to remove excess moisture
3/4c coarsely grated celery root (this grated up OK)
1 scallion, chopped (could have used more)
2 eggs, dumped in with the other ingredients rather than beaten first
1 tbsp flour
1 tsp salt (could have used more, surprisingly enough given that 1.5tsp was too much last time)

mix together and dollop onto a frying pan with plenty of nice hot canola oil, then flatten with the spoon to make 4-5 inch diameter cakes about 1/2" thick. Brown well -- better to slightly overcook than undercook. Pat dry as they come off the pan. Stir between each spoonful as the egg will settle to the bottom of the bowl.

I succeeded in bringing back the memories I was trying to evoke, despite the lack of any actual potatoes in the recipe. Next time perhaps I will play with adding mashed potatoes to the mix.

I've made Bananas Foster twice now, once with all the correct ingredients and once without. Without was better, so much so that I'm going to call it a new recipe.

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) salted butter
2/3 cup white sugar
1/4 cup good dark sipping rum (I used Barbancourt 8)
3 bananas, peeled and cut lengthwise and crosswise (that is, 12 banana pieces)

In a 12" skillet, melt the butter and then cook on medium heat until it has finished bubbling and begins to brown. Stir until it is a deep caramel color and then mix in the sugar, raise heat to high, and stir until the texture is smooth. Stir in the rum and bring just to a boil. Add the bananas and scoop sauce over them to coat. Cook for 1-1.5 minutes and serve.

I tried making this with brown sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, and so on (as other recipes call for) and it was grainy, which this version was not. I think what's going on is that other recipes are dissolving the sugar and this is melting it. Dissolving doesn't work as well when you've boiled all the water out of your butter. Anyway, the flavor notes that brown sugar and such are supposed to bring were more than covered by the good rum and the brown butter.

I like to cook, but I don't do it much. Most of my cooking winds up being with roozle, or at least in her kitchen. (This is not to say I do my share of the cooking there either.) When I do cook, it's generally improvisational; I find an ingredient or two, figure out what I want to make with it, and then find other ingredients and spices to go with that. I'm not the world's most efficient prep chef but once I get started cooking, cooking is what I'm doing and I tend to plow forward, creating at least the illusion of speed.

I mentioned this to miss_chance this morning and she suggested I make breakfast (usually she does this). I found some sausage and carrots in the fridge, decided that slices of sausage and shredded carrots would make a good omelette, and lined up some other things I thought would be tasty in that. But we were out of eggs and I didn't feel like going out for some. So I made this:

Zero-egg Omelette

on an oiled omelette pan:
two chicken sausages, quartered lengthwise and cubed (instead of sliced)
half a red pepper, diced
two or three carrots saved from the bottom of a chicken roasting pan, sliced thick (instead of shredded fresh carrots)

once the pan was up to temperature:
the tails of a quarter-pound of asparagus, chopped, added in stages according to how far from the heads they came from
a couple of shiitake mushrooms, chopped fine

at the last minute:
the heads of the asparagus, left intact
the last of a bottle of tarragon
2-3 oz of spinach

I forgot that we had anadama bread in the freezer, or I would have gotten the toast going before miss_chance came downstairs. But even though the toast was late, the strong chicken flavors and the hint of tarragon made it go on toast just as an omelette would have. And the softness of the mushrooms and the previously-cooked carrots made the texture just right.

I don't use much tarragon at home, but I use it a lot at roozle's. Maybe I should get some for here, and some of the other spices I've grown fond of.

I've been making bread in a bread-bot lately, and thought I'd go find a recipe for making gluten-free bread. The net was pretty unuseful for this, but I eventually interpolated a recipe, as follows:

0.5 c some kind of flour that has actual fiber in it, such as millet or flaxseed
1.75-2 c random other kinds of non-wheat flour, such as sorghum, potato, rice, tapioca, or corn
2 t xanthan gum
0.5 c dry milk powder
3 eggs
1.66 c water
3 T oil
1 t apple cider vinegar
2 T honey or agave
1.5 t yeast

... and then attempted to acquire any of the ingredients for this at the local supermarket. But the only gluten-free anything they had was a 1-lb box of pancake mix. So I bought that, and substituted it for the flours and xanthan gum. I probably should also have decreased the water and sweetener and/or increased the yeast, but on "rapid bake" it made a passable loaf of something that might have been bread and might have been cake, and went nicely with chili in any event.

Further experimentation is clearly necessary.