While I haven't posted any new dishes in a while I've still been keeping my kitchen stove hot with new recipes I've found, with varying success. When I'm relaxing around the house I always have the TV turned to a cooking show and the Goat Cheese, Lentil and Brown Rice Rolls from Giada de Laurentis caught my eye. Since I didn't feel like actually looking up the recipe I went to the market and got what I thought would go well with what I already had in the house and a general idea of what I caught on the show. Basically all I did was open a can of lentils, cooked up some jasmine rice and mixed it well with some goat cheese, freshly grated Parmesan cheese and salt and pepper. Then I parboiled the leaves of green chard and rolled the lentil and rice mixture into the softened greens. I dumped half a jar of my favorite marinara sauce (which is hands down Rao's Arrabbiata sauce) in a baking dish, placed the rolls into the sauce, dumped in the remaining marinara sauce and topped it with freshly grated Parmesan cheese. After baking it in the oven until it was warmed through I served it up to some friends with slices of toasted french baguette and they devoured their plates in minutes! It was surprisingly delicious and something I look forward to making in the future.
I think it's interesting how my cooking style has changed through the years, I use to spend way too much time cooking elaborate meals and now anything that's quick and easy but delicous is really appealing to me. That's why I was kicking myself for not remembering my hatred of cutting up tough winter squashes. After being inspired to make Ina Garten's Roasted Butternut Squash Soup with Curry my lapse in memory came quickly to the surface after the tiresome act of peeling and dicing a butternut squash. The pain of cutting up that stupid squash has me shaking my head, never again! If I ever want butternut squash again I will spend a few extra dollars and get it pre-cut at the market by people who have sharper knives than I do. While I swore off butternut squash for the rest of winter, this recipe for Winter Squash Soup with Curry and Coconut Milk on Orangette really caught my eye and I think I have to try it. Coconut milk and fish sauce in a squash soup?? Yes, please! I'll let you know how I like it.
My latest failure in the kitchen is one that I take especially hard being half Vietnamese. I found a great wok at an estate sale just down the street and I have been eager to improve my fried-rice skills. Like a good home cook I had cold rice on hand and loads of veggies in the fridge and a cornstarch based sauce to pull it all together. But no luck. Despite taking all the advice I've ever heard about stir-fries, make sure the veggies are diced the same size so they cook at the same time, use cold day old rice, cook it quickly while stirring constantly making sure all your ingredients are prepped and easily on hand, it was still a no good mushy mess. Of course it tasted good but it was so far off from restaurant quality that I was really bummed. In the future I'm simply going to stir fry my veggies and place them on freshly cook warm rice rather than try to cook the rice and veggies together. Unless someone can tell me what I'm doing wrong I'll skip the mushy mess next time. No picture here, I'll spare you the grisly details.
Recently Joel and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary and celebrated by taking a road trip to Kentucky to find out how bourbon is made. Joel is partial to Wild Turkey while my favorite is Maker's Mark and we had a great time learning (and of course tasting) how our favorite bourbons are made.
I even got to dip my own bottle of Maker's 46 in red wax!
These fermenting vats of mash don't smell very good but the science behind it is awesome. They release so much carbon dioxide that when we got too close and breathed in the lack of oxygen almost knocked us on our feet!
American bourbon has to age for at least 5 years in charred oak barrels in order to be called bourbon. The shear amount of barrels stored in warehouse upon warehouse is quite impressive. I guess we Americans like our bourbon...
Unfortunately I have no culinary delights to share with you from our trip, in fact we had one of the worst meals of our lives at a small diner in Lebanon, Kentucky where you can still sit down and smoke while you eat your meal. But hey, if it's good enough for Turtleman it can't be all that bad, right??
Umm, wait. Yes it can. And it was. Turtleman is that guy from Animal Planet who goes around chasing wild animals out of peoples houses using his bare hands, I don't think he has very high culinary expectations and the geriatric party of 6 chain smoking certainly didn't help things.
Overall, it was a great trip and the fact that I spent it with my husband of 5 years made it all the better. I'll be back soon (I promise) with photos and a recipe of my latest food expeditions. Until then!
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