Yes

Why are grilled cheese sandwiches with tomato soup so dang good? Pacific Foods tomato soup is awesome, and I hate tomatoes. Also pickles!

Look out world!

I got a book on cooking with FIRE for Christmas!!!! The world is no longer safe!

Hunter with Prey, 2

Hunter with Prey, 2
Originally uploaded by laurelfactorial.

I FOUND A BOLETE!

Cucumber Salad

I shop at Trader Joe's perhaps too much -- ingredients that I got there are indicated by (TJ).

3 small "Persian style" cucumbers (TJ), sliced thinly
Dressing:
1.5-2 T Fage Greek yogurt, nonfat (TJ)
Juice and zest of one key lime
Tiniest drizzle (maybe .5 tsp?) olive oil (TJ)
Fresh mint, chopped as finely as you can (TJ)
Fresh dill, ditto
Sea salt and black pepper (freshly ground, of course!) to taste (TJ)
Optional: dash of red sumac, which can be found at Middle Eastern grocers

Mix all dressing ingredients. Add cucumbers. Refrigerate. Eat.

Substitutions and additions: lemon juice/zest instead of lime would work, keeping in mind that you only need a little bit (probably half a small lemon); parsley would be a nice addition; obviously you could use fatty yogurt, but 1. the Fage 0% is very thick and delicious and you won't notice the difference except for the fact that 2. light is good for a salad like this, it tastes better.

Delicious latke-ish things

(Not being Jewish, I don't feel entitled to call any food I produce "latkes" so these are latke-ish things.)

4 very small (baby) potatoes
1 oz cheddar cheese
1 egg
Just the green part of less than one green onion, snipped with scissors
freshly ground black pepper (to taste)

Lots of oil

Shred the potatoes and cheese together, add the egg and beat well. Add the green onion and pepper, beat. In a decent pan, heat about 3/4" of oil. Drop in SMALL amounts of the "batter" and fry, flipping once, until golden brown. Remove, drain on paper towels.

Top with: home made mustard (no I will not give you the recipe! this one is my secret, but it's easy to develop your own recipe, basically you just need mustard seed and vinegar, then everything else -- other spices, salt, honey, etc. -- is up to you), or sour cream, or plain yogurt, or just salt.

Root Beer

I loves me some root beer. I might go so far as to say I have an unhealthy obsession with root beer. I am pretty sure I have allowed my love of root beer to limit my life ("I'm not going there, they only have shitty root beer") and it has probably interfered with my relationships ("we are not friends if you drink that kind of root beer"). With some small measure of shame, I will admit that I even like one of the commercially available brands of root beer, and I actually became distressed in the aftermath of last summer's hurricane season that said brand might become less available due to the damage done to the city which it claims to be made in (I later realized that they must have manufacturing plants all over the country, right?), to the point that I had to be talked down from buying some cases of it at the store. I rank most root beers based on days of the week. Yes, I am a little bit crazy. I am not for root beer like some people are for beer, I am for root beer like some people are for sherry cask aged single malt scotch.

To that end, I present my list of...

GOOD ROOT BEERS (and not so good root beers)

Friday root beer (the best easily available brand): Journey Root Beer. Actually I love all Journey bottled beverages.

Saturday root beer (really quite good, if mellow): Virgil's. I had a keg of this for my last birthday. At one point I just opened the spout of the keg over my mouth. AUGAHGAUGAHGAUGAHGAUGAHGAUG

Thursday root beer (acceptable if somewhat uninteresting): Thomas Kemper. A little too mild for my tastes, I like my root beer to be a little bit aggressive and mysterious.

Sunday root beer (it will do in a pinch, but it's much too boring for me): Henry Weinhard's.

Tuesday root beer (I hate Tuesdays. If you serve me this, I will no longer be your friend.): IBC. I'm serious. This stuff is CRAP.

The single acceptable corporate brand: Barq's. I drink it when there is no other root beer, or if I am getting lunch at a fast food restaurant.

And finally, THE ROOT BEER THAT IS SO GOOD IT TRANSCENDS MY RANKING SYSTEM: the root beer I had at the McMenamin's Cornelius Pass Roadhouse, which as I understand it they brew themselves. Now, normally I hate McMenamin's, with their crappy service and their overpriced food and their soggy french fries, but THIS IS THE ROOT BEER THAT THE GODS DRINK WHEN THEY ARE NOT TOO BUSY DRINKING AMBROSIA. If they serve root beer in heaven, this is what it is like.

If they do not serve root beer in heaven, then I'm not going.

Macaroni and cheese, all grown up

Today for lunch, I made macaroni and cheese, using fusilli and cabot white cheddar. I added frozen petite peas, sliced smoked (precooked) bratwurst, and, on a whim, a large dollop of dijon mustard.

Quite good!

Burritos!

-Shredded beef. Basically I made a pot roast in the crock pot yesterday with chili powder, salt, garlic, onion, and lime juice, and reheated it.
-Black beans cooked with onions, cilantro, and chili powder
-Canned sweet corn (from Trader Joe's) cooked with caramelized onions and, drum roll please, chili powder
-Guacamole (avacado, lime juice, garlic, onion, cilantro, salt)
-Cilantro, green onions, cheese, sour cream

I set everything out buffet style, and I even steamed the tortillas first for that added touch of awesome.

Tasty Pasta Salad

1 kilo (uncooked) pasta -- any shape will do, I like fusilli

1 can artichoke hearts, drained and roughly chopped
1 can black olives, drained (actually I usually use Kalamata)
~4oz sundried tomatoes in olive oil, chopped
~8oz feta, crumbled
1/4 cup fesh basil, chopped (optional)
1/4 to 1/2 cup RAW pine nuts
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
Generous amount of capers ("to taste")
Salt, pepper, and freshly grated nutmeg, to taste
Freshly grated parmesian, romano, or other hard, salty cheese, to taste

Cook the pasta in salted water. Drain and rinse if desired. While the pasta is cooking, prep all the other ingredients. In a large bowl, combine everything, tossing well. Add the salt last -- you will need much less than you might expect (in fact, you might not even want to add salt at all).

I hate to sound like Rachel Ray here, but "the secret ingredient is nutmeg." I've been eating variants of this for years, and it wasn't until today that I added nutmeg. It made a huge difference! I like this salad because I can make it in the winter (most of the ingredients are canned) without sacrificing quality, and because I can make a big vat of it and eat it over the course of a couple of weeks.

Fruits

Fruits
Originally uploaded by laurelfactorial.

Cara Cara oranges
Blood oranges
Pomegranate seeds

How festive!

Solstice Dinner

Unfermented mead, aka must
Glazed sweet potatoes (with ginger, cinnamon, allspice, brown sugar, and orange juice and zest)
Hard boiled eggs
Crackers with apple butter and cream cheese
Possibly some oat biscuits
Maybe pizzelles for dessert

Oven Kebabs!

Marinade:

1.5 cups red wine
2T port
2 T balsamic vinegar
1 T salt
1 T honey
2 bay leaves
Juniper berries, grains of paradise, mustard seed, powdered ginger (to taste)

2 T olive oil

Put everything but the olive oil in a saucepan and simmer for about 5 minutes. Cool completely, add the oil, and pour over about a pound of meat (I used steak, I think lamb would be great too) that's been cut into strips or chunks. Add half of an onion, chopped into large pieces. Marinate overnight (I marinate in ziplock bags with all of the air pressed out).

The next day, soak bamboo skewers in water for 15 minutes, then load with meat and onions. Turn on your broiler, with an oven rack about 7-8 inches below it (depends on how tall your pan is). Arrange kebabs on a rack in a roasting pan (or if you lack that, I arranged my kebabs points down in a circular casserole dish, so that they weren't resting flat on the bottom). Cook for about five minutes on a side (take the whole pan out and flip them, I wish I had tongs for this part), or more or less depending on how thinly your meat is sliced, how hot your broiler is, and how done you want them.

Serve over couscous.

I reserved the marinade and leftover onions (actually I used carrots too, not realizing what a dismal failure they'd be), boiled for long enough to kill nasty bits, and am going to use it to punch up some pea soup.

Lamb Meatballs (made these a while ago, probably early October)

Meatballs that Will Make You Take the Lord's Name in Vain

~1/2 c SOFT bread crumbs (I used the remains of my spelt loaf)
1 cipollini onion
3 cloves of garlic
Big handful of fresh sage
Juniper berries (to taste)
Mustard seed (to taste)
1 egg
Olive oil
Port*
~1 lb ground lamb

Mince the onion, garlic, and sage, or throw them in a food processor, and grind the spices. Add to the bread crumbs. Toss in your lamb, your egg, a little olive oil, and enough port to moisten everything. Knead with your hands, then stir with a spoon until thoroughly mixed. Form into 1 - 1.5 inch balls. There are two ways to cook them: you can either fry them in a little oil on the stove, or cook them in the oven for about 25 minutes at 375°.

Serve with rice cooked with vegetables, and some fresh local grapes.

Okay, you know what? I need to have a dinner party.

*Diligent readers will notice that I put port in almost everything.

Candy

I'm making candied orange peel as gifts for my relatives. The recipe I used is as follows:

5 oranges
Lots and lots of water

3 cups sugar
3 cups water
(Note: I'm pretty sure this was too much of each -- next time I'll only use two cups of each)

More sugar (probably about a cup)
Ground spices: cinnamon, ginger, clove

Scrub the oranges thoroughly. Cut into quarters, remove the flesh (and eat it, duh). Cut each section of peel in half, and remove as much of the pith (the white part) as you can. You can then cut each piece in half again -- you want to end up with long, thin strips. Put them in a large pot (with a lid) with enough water to cover them completely. Bring to boil, turn down the heat, cover, and simmer for about 15 minutes (until they are tender). Let them sit until they have cooled, then put them in a large bowl (or just back in the pot), cover with cold water, and let stand overnight (uh, most people will tell you to refrigerate them, but that is totally for sissies). Next morning, drain the water and replace it with fresh. Drain/replace again at night. Drain/replace the next morning. You can repeat this for many days if you want (the Menagier says for 9 days!), but I usually give up at this point.

When you've drained the peels for the last time, put the sugar and water in the pot alone and bring to a boil. Add the peels, bring to a boil again, and then simmer. You will need to simmer them for a LONG time -- until basically all the water has evaporated. If you are some kind of "serious" cook you will use a candy thermometer, but if you are some kind of serious cook then why are you reading my blog? Anyway. Once the peels are ready, take them off the heat. While they have been cooking you should have gotten out a piece of wax paper (see? this is why you have to read all the way through before starting!) on which you spread out the sugar and spices. Now fish out the strips of orange peel a few at a time and drop them in the sugar/spice mix, coating them completely. Move them to a plate as you finish them, then do a few more. This will take a long time. When all of the pieces are coated, toss them all around together with the rest of the sugar/spice mix, just to make sure they're coated all the way. Transfer them to some kind of flat tray, or just spread them out on the wax paper, and let them dry overnight.

Box them up and give them to people.

If Amber weren't waiting for me to get off the internet I would post a long and rambling history of suckets/candied peels, but she is so I won't. They're old.

What I live off of

This is what I ate all last summer, and I've been eating it a lot lately, too.

1 cup rice (uncooked)
1/2 cup frozen peas
1 or 2 carrots, chopped
2 or 3 garlic cloves, minced
Some precooked chicken
2 cups chicken broth (I use home made)
Pinch of saffron (NOT OPTIONAL)

Put everything in a rice cooker and turn it on. If you don't have a rice cooker, put everything in a pot and bring it to a boil, then turn down the heat to low and cook for 20 minutes. Garnish with a boiled egg.

I'm a genius

Recall the rotisserie chicken from Costco. After buying it, I carved it up and stored the meat away safely, then used the carcass to make stock (with half an onion, half a leek, three garlic cloves, two small carrots, three bay leaves, some juniper berries, some mustard seeds, and 6 pints of water). And then, this is the genius part, I froze the stock in pre-measured 1 cup portions. I bought some of those disposable storage containers in "snack" size (9.5 ounces) to do this in. I don't know why it's taken me so long to do this, it makes so much sense. Now the stock will keep forever, and I don't even have to measure it when I want to use it.

As you can see, I'm pretty pleased with myself. I guess that this is the sort of thing that other people have figured out years ago, but, well, it's news to me.

Squee!

POWERPUFF GIRLS BENTO!!!!

OMG!!!

Molded Quince Paste

Molded Quince Paste
Originally uploaded by laurelfactorial.

I made a whole bunch of quince paste this autumn. This was molded in a copper mold. The picture doesn't do it justice, but you get the idea.

My Samhain Roast

Samhain Roast
Originally uploaded by laurelfactorial.

This is the roast I made for Samhain this year, before being cooked.

It's a pork tenderloin marinated in olive oil, port, and rosemary, wrapped in bacon, accented with carrots and apples, and garnished by a single Turkish bay leaf.

Photo of the Cookies

Cookies
Originally uploaded by laurelfactorial.

Here are the cookies I made using the recipe just posted. I think they turned out quite lovely.

And they taste great too!