without as many mushrooms as that would imply

Last night I had dinner at Il Palio with Diane Kelly and a faculty position candidate, Jenna Hartel. Jenna’s dissertation was on information behavior in the hobby of gourmet cooking. At one point during dinner, she explained that there are two categories of food hobbyists: the gourmets and the down-home cooks. The latter are concerned with simplicity and low cost, while the former love the exotic and the complicated, which tends to translate (in my experience) to the more expensive.

Anyway, last night at Il Palio, I ate:

• Local Bibb Lettuces – Oven Dried Tomatoes, Radishes and Parmesan Dressing
• Bucatini all’Amatriciana – House Cured Guanciale, Onion and Spicy Tomato Sauce
• Bailey’s Crème Brulée – Bailey’s, Kahlua, Vanilla Bean Custard

The crème brulée was probably the best I ever remember eating, but the rest was just ok.

And I actually got ill when I got home. Blech.

Tonight is a much more down-home night.

Actually the truth is that I’ve had too much going on to feel like I can stop and figure out what to cook at home, so I don’t have a plan and I don’t have supplies. Sometimes it seems too overwhelming to think about what to eat for the next week and I just blank on it and ignore it. Then nights like tonight happen.

I had a bag of pre-soaked kidney beans in the freezer, so I put those in a pot, covered them with water, brought that to a boil, covered the pot and stuck it in the oven at 250°F for 45 minutes while I made a phone call to a friend and folded my laundry.

When the beans were cooked, I drained them. Diced an onion. Sauteed it in veg oil until it was soft. Threw in the beans. Threw in a couple of cups or so of mixed frozen vegetables, a frozen tablespoon lump of tomato paste,* and a jar of spaghetti sauce. Added some salt, a healthy amount of dried oregano, and a bit of red pepper flakes. Cooked until everything was hot and cooked through.

I cooked a couple of potatoes in the microwave.

Then a big pile of the mush from the stove was piled on top of a potato and that whole mess was covered with shredded “Italian style” cheese, and popped back into the microwave to melt the cheese.

I’m eating it now as I type. Actually it isn’t terrible. It isn’t good, but I’ve thrown together much worse.

And so it goes. After dinner I’ll make a menu for the next few days. And a grocery list.

I’m thinking some sort of curried winter squash. I have a surfeit of coconut milk and basmati rice. Yum.

* I freeze the leftover tomato paste when a recipe doesn’t use a whole can. I wrap individual lumps in plastic wrap and put all the lumps in a storage bag in the freezer.

Hot white basmati rice.
Add a large dollop of a mango pickle heavy on the methi (fenugreek) (extra points for mango pickle in which the mango is shredded).
Mix well.

Devour.

This makes a wonderful lunch. Never mind that it is pretty much nutritionally devoid and full of salt. It is delicious.

Today I’m attempting to make my first cheesecake. I’m using a recipe created by Ken.

I had been thinking of making cheesecake for a little while since two people I know randomly expressed Great Cheesecake Lust. And then, lo! Harris Teeter had the good cream cheese on sale.

The project had an inauspicious start as I realized I baked the crust at too high a temperature. I haven’t smelled any burning aromas, however, so I might be safe.

This really is a full day project, and I was not sure how to time it right. I just finished the final baking step and it is now cooling. At this point it might be chilled enough for a midnight snack. Barring that, cheesecake for breakfast sounds delicious and nutritious.

The 45 minutes of simmering requires a little planning ahead, but this is so easy to throw together.

• 1 tablespoon ghee (make
  it or buy it) or vegetable oil
• 1 generous pinch asafetida
• 1/4 teaspoon whole cumin seeds
• 2 potatoes, peeled and cut into large chunks
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 1/4 teaspoon ground turmeric
• 1 1/4 teaspoons salt
• 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper or other chilli powder (optional) (NOTE: this is not the Mexican spice blend called chili powder, but simply dried hot peppers ground to a powder)
• 4 cups water

• Have everything ready before beginning to cook.
• Heat the oil in a heavy pot over medium flame until it almost smokes. Put in the asafetida and the cumin. Stir once. Cumin seeds will begin to sizzle in a few seconds.
• When cumin seeds sizzle, add potatoes, tomato paste, turmeric, salt, and optional cayenne.
• Stir and continue to fry for 2 minutes.
• Add water and bring to a boil.
• Cover, lower heat, and simmer gently for 45 minutes.
• Remove from heat and coarsely mash potatoes into the rest of the soup with a potato masher or a slotted spoon.
• Serve in small bowls. Is also good over a little bit of rice.

This is a terrible photo that I continue to intend to replace. Alas.

I created this recipe after having the black bean and pepper cheese soup at Bridgetown Grill. Mine’s not as spicy, though you can add as many jalapenos as you like to up the spiciness. We generally eat this with a loaf of crusty bread from the farmer’s market, and a green salad.

• 2 medium onions, chopped
• 6 cloves garlic, peeled & coarsely chopped
• 1 jalapeno pepper, seeded & finely diced
• 2 15 oz cans black beans
• 2 15 oz cans great northern beans
• 1 15 oz can sweet golden corn
• 1 can vegetable broth
• 2 cups sharp cheddar cheese, grated
• green onion, chopped for garnish

• In a large heavy bottomed soup pot, sauté the onions, garlic, and jalapeño in a bit of vegetable oil until very soft.
• Purée the cooked mixture in a blender with some of the veggie broth added in to facilitate blending. Return puréed mixture to soup pot.
• Purée each can of beans and corn one at a time. Do not drain the beans and corn. Add veggie broth to the blender if extra liquid is needed. Add the puréed beans and corn to the soup pot.
• Heat the soup through. When the soup is hot stir in the cheese. Stir until the cheese is melted and blended in with the soup.
• Garnish individual bowls of soup with chopped green onions.
• To make this soup extra snazzy for entertaining, heat the black bean purée separately while preparing the rest of the soup as above. You’ll have a “black” mixture and a “white” mixture. Fill each serving bowl 2/3 full with the white mixture. Carefully spoon several spoonfuls of the black mixture into the center of each bowl. You’ll fill the bowl while creating a black spot in the center of the bowl. Garnish with green onions.

This is one of my ultimate comfort foods. This recipe is for one serving. Make as many servings as you want at once in the same pot.

• 1 package ramen noodles (discard the “flavor pouch”)
• 2 cups water
• 1 tablespoon tamari (could also use soy sauce)
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 2 tablespoons (rounded or heaping) brown miso (soy or rice miso is fine as long as it’s brown. I just don’t think the white kind tastes as good.)
• 2 tablespoons nutritional yeast

• Put the water in a pot. Add the tamari and minced garlic. Bring to a boil.
• Put the ramen noodles in the water. Boil for 3 minutes. Remove pot from heat.
• Put miso in the bottom of a small bowl. Ladle some of the hot liquid from the pot into the bowl. Mush the miso and water together until it makes a thinnish-sludge. Add this back to the pot.
• Add the nutritional yeast to the pot. Stir together well.
• Serve in a big homey bowl and enjoy. Pick the noodles out with a fork and slurp the broth from the side of the bowl. Yummm…

A favorite weekend breakfast. It is so quick and easy and open to many variations. A little sweet, but not too sweet. Also, there is textural and flavor variety! The edges are crisp and delicate, while the bottom is soft and rich and eggy. I’ve made a variation of this in a 9×13 glass baking pan and it works ok. I prefer the skillet result, though.

This recipe was adapted from Real Simple magazine, where they suggest spreading the pancake with 1/2 cup jam or preserves before dusting with sugar. That seems a bit much sugar for me, but a light slather of lemon or lime curd could be divine. What sounds best to me is a pile of fresh fruit in the center, and maybe some lightly sweetened whipped cream. A light drizzle of maple syrup in lieu of the sugar would also be quite tasty.

I’ve made a savory version of this for lunch/dinner before. Leave out the vanilla and add a clove of minced garlic and about 3 tablespoons minced onion to the batter. Also add a bit of pepper and maybe a touch of some spices that would complement whatever else you were serving. I usually made it to subsitute for an authentic flatbread to serve with Indian dishes.

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