Technical Difficulties

Sorry for the technical difficulties this week. For some reason (probably because I wrote them all late at night), my posts this week didn't make it up correctly. I'm trying to fix it this weekend (by mostly re-writing them), but I'm also spending some time with my former roommate in North Carolina who just discovered he's deploying two months earlier than expected in a week-and-a-half.

The project will continue its regularly scheduled activities on Monday.

Pray for those deployed and deploying.

Day 8: Week One Recap

Day 8: Week One Recap

The Coley/O’Connell Project is one week old, and again I remain trout-less. I did, however, go on yet another shopping trip (so much for one trip at the beginning of the week), to get some Riesling wine and a couple other things I’m going to need. I also had my best buy yet: I walked into a local thrift store and walked out five minutes later with an ice-cream maker for $5. Patrick has seven or eight ice-cream and sorbet recipes in the back of the book and I was a little worried about how I was going to make those happen (stores don’t even sell coffee cans anymore). I’m really excited about this find.

Tonight turned into a prep night for tomorrow, when BigKip and the Senator come over for what will hopefully be a good meal. I made the Peach Puree with Virginia Riesling and set that to chill in the fridge. I’ve never made a chilled soup before, but this seems like there’s enough good stuff in it to make it un-screwupable. I also made some of the fillings for the Portobello mushroom main course tomorrow. This is a complicated recipe, but there are several things in it I can prepare and use in other recipes. This means nothing to eat tonight, except some leftover pizza. It’s still good.

Day 7: Straight to Lunch

Day 7: Straight to Lunch

Last night, I stayed up late to make Silver Queen Corn Saute specifically for lunch today. I wanted to make it yesterday because I had picked some delicious sweet corn at my sponsors’ on Sunday and I wanted to use it while it was still fresh. This may be one of the simplest dishes in the cookbook—it’s just corn, peppers, cilantro and bacon (naturally with a healthy dose of butter)—but it was also one of the best so far. It kept well overnight and I brought it in for lunch for me and BigKip. He said the yellow peppers I used (even though Patrick said red…I didn’t do well with shopping, remember) really brought the dish together. However, I think the key is good, quality corn. Fortunately, my sponsor dad gave me some excellent fruits and vegetables to use in this week’s recipes. The tomatoes last night were from Homestead Gardens and today’s corn was also. I’m anticipating using the peaches later this week when I have BigKip and the Senator over for dinner.

It turned out to be a good thing that I made two recipes last night because once again, I had a poor shopping experience. The commissary had no seafood department, and the store next to me had no trout (I couldn’t remember how much rockfish Patrick wanted or how to cut it); so still I am without the Potato Crusted Rainbow Trout. One of these days I’m sure I’ll have it…I believe!

So tonight, I confess, I ordered a pizza, watched The Usual Suspects and only made a couple of batches of Basic Pie Dough for later in the week. The pizza was delicious, the movie was excellent, and the pie dough was very fun to make (I suppose that's where they came up with the idea for play-dough). I feel a little guilty...but not that bad.

Day 6: Tomatoes for Dinner

I'm going to go ahead and admit that I'm bad at shopping. It takes me a long time, and I'm usually not very well-prepared, and I inevitably end up calling my mother to help me choose a vegetable or find where something is in the store, choose a brand or just all-around tell me what to do.

Tonight, I did none of those things. Rather, I spent so much time making my list of foods that I want to buy for the week's meals that by the time I finally got to the store, there was nothing good there. I don't really know all the rules to picking the best vegetables--I usually just go with 'what looks and feels like something I actually want to eat'--but I know that the stuff in the produce section of Giant that day was not for me. So, I ended up coming back to my apartment mostly empty-handed, late, with just enough to prepare a Garden Tomato Salad for dinner and then to stay up late preparing the Silver Queen Corn Saute for tomorrow's lunch.

I think I didn't prepare the tomato salad's dressing exactly as Patrick had in mind. That is, I simmered, and it smelled and tasted really good, but I wasn't sure exactly how he wanted me to incorporate it into the salad, so I just poured it on top of everything. It kind of got a little soggy, but it definitely tasted good. And, of course, the Asiago cheese was delicious. I'm surprised we never tried that back in my middle school Latin cheese tasting days.

One salad and one side dish down tonight, hopefully I'll get on track for something good tomorrow. I really want to try the Potato Crusted Rainbow Trout this week. It seems easy.

Day 5: Fresh (sort of) Tuna Cakes

I made one more dish before leaving the Riddle household this weekend: Tuna Cakes.

Tuna cakes are actually pretty easy to make. They're like crab cakes, but with tuna and with a mustard mayonnaise laid underneath. Of course, once again, the key is in what vegties Patrick said to add to the mix (dill, capers, red onion, gherkins, olives). Simple, but effective. The hard part of this recipe was acquiring the tuna during what turned out to be the great Annapolis tuna shortage of 2010. No less than four stores in town had NO fresh tuna...so I sinned against Patrick and got some frozen tuna. I think he would be okay with it in this case and at least I tried.

The mustard mayonnaise, by the way, is very easy to make and I recommend it to add a little flavor to some other dishes. You don't have to use very much, so I think it's relatively healthy. All you have to do is add dry mustard to Dijon mustard to mayonnaise in a 1/2:1:4 ratio. Then add salt and pepper and jimmy with it until it tastes right.

"This is an excellent way to use up any leftover pieces or trimmings from tuna steaks."

Day 4: The First Three Course Meal

It's round two, and after leading the project into a false sense of security with a couple of days of rest, I decided to hit it hard today with a three-course meal for guests. More correctly, I was the guest in my sponsor family's home and we had the pleasure of working together to fix a salad, main course, and dessert from the book. Patrick doesn't have any kind of guide for which courses to pick with which other courses, but that's okay because I think he means that to be part of the adventure of a meal. I tried to choose something I thought wouldn't be too much trouble to get for my sponsors, but that would still be agreeable (and still unique) to taste, and that the dessert wrapped together at the end. I realized that I am not to be in the business of meal planning, but I think it turned out well. Anyway, this evening was:

Orange-Onion Salad

Boneless Rack of Lamb in a Pecan Crust with Barbecue Sauce and Shoestring Sweet Potatoes

Grapefruit Tart with Chocolate-Pecan Crust

I don't mean to give a play-by-play, but let me recommend first

and foremost the shoestring sweet potatoes. They were the surprising key to the lamb main dish. And, as is always to my liking, they were not hard to make at all. Laura had this clever little mandolin that easily julienned the potatoes and then it

was simple to toss them into hot oil for a brief time and fish them out. They crisped right up and really added something to the lamb. Laura was also surprised that the barbecue sauce was really more of a red-wine reduction with barbecue added. Red onion and orange actually work really well together (with some cinnamon added), and the tart made me realize again (like the lemon cream) the beauty of the citrus/sweet combination. That, I think, is Patrick's true genius in writing this book--the clever combinations of things I wouldn't normally think to put together.

Of course there were mistakes, as there will be with any dis

h I make (I still haven't managed to get the hang of cooking lamb perfectly), but I think everyone really enjoyed the "living theater" of the Riddle kitchen and spending some good time together over food as a family.

Also, this was the first dish I've made where I really focused on the presentation when serving (probably because I wasn't just serving myself). I've always been one to scoff at the idea of spending excessive amounts of time on the presentation of a dish, but I really do think Patrick has something in telling me how to serve it. It preserves some of the character of the dish and allows some connection to its creator, but also allows some of my own personality to come out. I think I've been sold on presentation.

"This custard tart is at once startling and refreshing."

BigKip's First Tasting

I brought my asparagus puree to work today in two, two-cup Tupperware (and, of course, one for the lemon cream). I think I must have looked a curious sight in the morning opening the refrigerator I never use and pulling some mysterious green goo out of my bag to put in there, but I didn't care. I was eager for the taste test.

Lunchtime rolled around, and BigKip had conveniently forgotten to make his lunch because of early appointments. As he came out of a long painting session, he smelled my soup heating up and bounded into the kitchen area saying that something smelled really good. We heated up the bowls, BigKip tasted the lemon cream (doubted at first, just as I did), dolloped it on and retired to the ops office.

My puree was really hot, so I let it cool off a bit, turned around, and saw that BigKip had already demolished half his bowl. Somewhere in the middle of it, he asked if there were potatoes in it and commented that the lemon cream really did make it--can you tell that I'm tremendously impressed with Patrick's seemingly odd choices so far?--and then continued to eat.

He decided it was good.

Success tastes sweet (though slightly lemony).

Bring it on, Patrick!

Cleanup

Another quick note about cleaning up:

My dishwasher was caught completely off guard tonight. I'm certain I'm using more dishes and utensils than I need to, but until I get on my feet and running, I think the dishwasher is going to have to be strong. My sink was full and there were still pans and spoons and things on the counter, but I somehow managed to fit everything in one load through some kind of physics-bending packing effort! I don't know if I'll be able to get everything out again in the morning. My mother would be proud.

The Asparagus Aftermath

At some point between pureeing the boiling hot mixture on my stove, pouring it into the strainer, deciding not to strain it because I like little vegetable chunks in my soup (plus, it was pretty liquidy already), and moving some of the kitchen implements into the already overflowing sink; I realized that the state of my stove area would probably make Linda Blair have some flashbacks. It wasn't horrible, but there was a lot of green.

However, the soup did turn out soupy, and asparagusy (even if I didn't have quite the right amount of asparagus in it). After the pureeing, when I had it on low heat and was attempting to season it with salt and pepper (I don't yet have the taste for how much and what seasoning to use), I was really worried that this project was going to stop right where it started. That is to say, it really didn't taste good at all. However, I think I reached some kind of tipping point with the salt and pepper where the soup became at least edible.

Then, I whipped up the lemon cream.

Since discovering how to whip cream a couple months ago for KK's birthday, I have been looking for an excuse to do it. I just think it's really cool.

This lemon cream is really cool. All you do is take some whipping cream, add some lemon juice (1 Tblsp) and some lemon zest, and a pinch of sugar; then whip away. It isn't sweet, but it isn't sour. On it's own, it tastes very interesting, and I had to control myself from sucking it down just to experience the lemon taste with the creamy texture. With the soup, it makes the dish.

Patrick said to serve the soup warm in an individual bowl (I suppose not everyone has the little sipping cups) with a dallop of lemon cream. The cream melted into the soup, though I could still see the separation. And it was one of those things where I couldn't taste either separate ingredient, but their hybrid was pretty good--not perfect, and not great, but pretty good for a first try and much better than what I was expecting earlier in the process.

We'll see what BigKip has to say about it. He's my co-worker who is unwittingly being voluntold to be my taster and critic to some of the things I bring in for lunch. Pray for him.

Day 1: Puree of Fresh Asparagus Soup with Lemon Cream

Okay, the stage is set.

Knives sharpened, counter tops cleaned, pantry full, and my "King of the Hill" apron in place. My kitchen looks peaceful, unaware that the chicken stock mess and banana bread explosions of last night (Day 0) were merely softening blows preparing it for tonight's culinary warfare.

I have a loaf of banana bread baking just in case this turns into disaster. I know the banana bread will turn out right, my mom taught me years ago...hopefully.

Tonight, we look at a creative solution to asparagus. It's served in a small sipping glass before meals at The Inn at Little Washington and I thought it would be an appropriate dish with which to start this experiment. Also, it tastes really good.

Here goes nothing...