Toast

The Pantry Tart

The Pantry Tart. "No better than she should be", and loitering in the kitchen? Funny vintage, huffy names, for scolding and libeling. No fun at the time for the girls, I'm sure.... Still, I'm particularly attached to "Saucy Baggage", which I think should be the name of a luggage company, if it isn't already.

But it's not about my own, presently less than saucy self, or anyone else. It's about my supper. Still mostly stuck indoors with The Improving Foot, I've been making use of what's already on the pantry shelves, and in the fridge. I am, however, also cheating, because this whole meal started with some asparagus recently delivered by a kindly friend.

I realized that the pantry, which I've been depleting, still contained the ingredients for Asparagus with Morels, and I was going to do that for supper. But, after several days of very limited kichen time, and not a few meals of cold cereal, I had a really nice dinner last night. There was a car ride to the house of friends, chili, excellent guacamole, cute little baby tacos, and actual warm-from-the-oven homemade apple pie with ice cream (!). I'm feeling like I sure do want those real meals again, enough to do something about it. So I thought I'd kind of expand on that tasty asparagus recipe, and make a supper tart of it, to have with the remains of the arugula.

Rather than just referring to that recipe and adding on, I'm going to put the whole thing down here, so as to be less confusing, should you actually want to make it. But is is , fundamentally, just an adaptation of the Paula Wolfert original, linked above.

You need:

pie crust for a tart (I used up some store puff pastry in the freezer- not excellent, sadly-and a regular crust would be better anyhow)
breadcrumbs, semi-fresh
bunch of asparagus, cooked until just tender, and cut in one inch pieces
1 oz. dried morels
1/2 cup broth
1/2 tsp dijon mustard
salt and pepper
1 1/3 cups cream or half and half
3 eggs
tbsp butter
a leek, white and pale green part only, chopped
bit of grated parmesan
freshly grated nutmeg.

Soak the morels in 3/4 cup warm water, mixed with 1/4 cup milk for about 30 minutes. Rinse the morels, but save the soaking liquid. Put the morels in a smallish pan, and strain the liquid through a paper coffee filter, or yogurt cheese filter, into the pan. Don't skip this step- you'll be amazed at the amount of dust!

Simmer in the pan until almost all the liquid is absorbed, then add the broth, butter and mustard, salt and pepper.Simmer 5 minutes, and add 1/3 cup of the cream. Take off the heat and set aside for about an hour. Much of the liquid will absorb.

In the broth, cook the leek until soft. Drain.

Preheat oven to 425F. Line a false bottomed tart pan 9-10" round or square with the pie dough, fill with
beans or pieweights and prebake on a cookie sheet for 10-15 minutes. Sprinkle the bottom of the tart shell with breadcrumbs, and arrange on the shell the asparagus, the drained leeks and the morels, which you have also drained, reserving any liquid.

Mix the morel liquid well with the rest of the cream and the eggs,and some nutmeg, and pour over all, just to almost the top of the shell.This should be about the right amount. Grate parm over all, and sprinkle with some more breadcrumbs. Put in oven, which you immediately turn down to 350F. This will take about 40 minutes, but check it sooner!

I find when cooking a filled tart with a puff pastry crust, it is nicer if after I extract it from the tart pan, I set it on a piece of foil, and give it another 10 minutes in a hot (425-450F) oven. Makes the bottom crisp, instead of gooey. If you are going to do this, of course, you should remove the tart from the first baking when it's a little underdone- custard just set.

You can eat the tart hot, but personally, I think it tastes best lukewarm. and leftovers make a swell lunch. If you are planning on consuming your tart piecemeal, you might want to do the bottom crust browning on each portion separately, shortly before serving. Or not.

Cure-All

Though I have made many a gingerbread cookie, and plenty of soft, cake gingerbreads, for some reason I haven't made gingersnaps or molasses cookies before. I have been mostly staying away from the stove while nursing some burns on my foot, but I was unable to resist the gingersnaps Tanna made while she was reviewing the Ships of the Great Lakes Cookbook. The recipe looked, and is, so simple, and you can find it following the link. Mine are not so pretty as hers, I think because I failed to chill them for the full time. But they are entirely delicious, and live up to their name: "Cure-All Gingersnaps."

I feel much better for having had some with my coffee, and agree with Tanna that the cloves add a subtle additional something which makes them special. Also the crunch of the sugar is nifty- demarara being very nice here. A simple, elegant cookie, just the sort of thing when you are feeling sorry for yourself. It is a boon to be able to act as one's own granny, with a little help from some friends. These would be dandy with some lemonade, no?

And I think my foot is mending. Today I changed the bandages without cringing. No Return of the Dubious Goo-Pod From the Planet Firecoffee today. Yay! It looks like an ordinary (albeit somewhat messed up) foot! Must be them cookies.

Composed

A salad, around here, is most often an ad hoc arrangement of that which is on hand. We all know combos which work so well that they have names: Salad Nicoise, Waldorf , Caesar, Cobb,and so on. Other salads- tuna salad, egg salad, potato salad, coleslaw, have endless variations either as written recipes, or improvised within general boundaries. French cooks, in particular, seem to have a lot of named, formalized composed salads in set format, which are repeated scrupulously, with reliable results.

I don't often make a specific pre-ordained composed salad, because I'm not shopping with such things in mind. So I usually don't have all the exact stuff for any particular recipe. Besides, I like to fool around. That is, unless. of course, I'm in the middle of, say, a spinach and pear salad obsession, or something, and eat the same salad nightly for days, even weeks. I was surprised to realize, while leafing through Elizabeth David's Summer Cooking,that I actually had all the ingredients for her very specific "Chicken Salad."

Also, it appealed to me, though I wasn't up for making my own mayonaisse this time. I'm pretty much housebound this week, and not into either shopping or elaborate preparations. I'm spending most of my time on the sofa, writing up stuff for work, while bandaging and elevating the foot I cleverly deluged with boiling coffee last Thursday. I'm hoping it heals up fast, so I can avoid a skin graft. Luckily, this was an easy supper to assemble from the pantry and in-house leftovers. Also, it didn't involve dealing with anything which could be considered, well, hot.

So, I followed the directions almost exactly, except for using Hellman's, and made this for "four people":

Meat from half a roast chicken, cut into generous "filets" (I interpreted this to mean pieces of a size to serve with knife and fork), 3 oz. sliced raw mushrooms, 1/2 pound boiled new potatoes, 2 romaine lettuce hearts, 8 largish shrimp, shelled and cooked, 1/2 cup mayonaisse, with some horseradish mixed in, and the yolk of a hardboiled egg.

Slice potatoes and put them in a bowl with the chicken, mushrooms, and half the mayo. Mix them, then spread the rest of the mayo over the top. On top of that, put the shrimps, and the romaine hearts (cut in quarters).Push the egg yolk through a sieve, directly on top of the salad, to fall "lightly and decoratively" on top.

This (I did eat more than 1/4 of it, must confess) and some crusty baguette made a fine supper. E.D. is the mistress of the simple, direct, and elegant recipe. My paraphrasing detracts, for which I apologize. If you haven't read her in the original, do. You are in for a treat. Next time I make this, I will do it in a flatter , wider dish, so the pretty little new potatoes, nice chunks of chicken, and sliced mushrooms will be visible under the shrimp/romaine/egg garnish.

A Chicken and a Bit About Two Cookbooks

There are many ways to roast a chicken, and a lot of them are very good. A properly roasted chicken is a genuine consensus supper, and feels festive, even if you serve it frequently. Nearly all non-vegetarians are delighted to be offered some when they come to dinner. I fiddle with stuffings, inside and under the skin; variant seasonings and garnishes/sidedishes. But today, hobbling around, and trying to keep the bandages on my burned foot clean and dry, I was looking for something simple. I had a nice, fresh free-range 5lb chicken that had to be cooked soon, or frozen.

I was not up for anything tricky, and I didn't want exotic flavors, because the carcass is going to wind up in the stock pot. So, I decided to make roast chicken from a childrens' book...one which, in addition to its story, has quite a few very nice recipes, suitable for cooking with children. This picture book was written by Alice Waters (and company), and illustrated with lavish doses of charm by one Ann Arnold. Not only can children work with you on cooking the recipes, but they will want to eat them too, probably. And, there is nothing to discourage an adult eater. It is entirely devoid of banana-nosed clown salads. (Possibly, dare I say it, a tiny bit too free of such stuff. But that's just me. I am suspicious of unsullied tastefulness, especially with childrens' things. Kids like some bling, IMO.)

Really, the roast chicken is hardly a recipe at all. You just tie up your bird, and rub its outsides with a paste of garlic, thyme, rosemary, and marjoram, salt, pepper and olive oil and roast it, turning from time to time, at 375F, until done. I like to put a little hot hungarian paprika in the paste too, as it colors the bird nicely and adds a bit of depth to the taste. (This tip came from Laurie Colwin, who followed the example of her mother.) Then you let it rest, covered, for 15 to 20 minutes, drain and defat the juices, and serve them with the chicken.

Seven-year-old Fanny, daughter to Alice W., and the designated narrator says ,"We often have a simple supper of roast chicken with lettuce vinagrette and garlic croutons. The chicken juices and the vinagrette are really good together." That's what I did, too, with some roasted veg in the vinagrette , and skipping the croutons. I put a bit of zatar on the vegs.

This cookbook is out of print in hardcover, but available in paperback. Should you want a hardcover edition, do not be discouraged by the fact that the sole copy available via Amazon costs(!) $300. There are plenty of reasonably priced copies to be had from the myriad booksellers available via Bookfinder- some are even signed.

But I did say two cookbooks. Though I have had my Fanny cookbook for a while, the other cookbook I'm talking about here is brand new. I ordered a copy as soon as I saw it, because an earlier cookbook (Cucina Sympatica) by the same authors contains several of my all-time favorite recipes. The new one is called On Top of Spaghetti, and is full of imaginative-looking, yet managable pasta recipes. Can't wait to give some a try.

These authors are also the folks behind Al Forno, of Providence R.I., probably the best restaurant I've ever eaten in, though I was there but once. If you read about the recipe I've linked to above, you will also find me going on about the delightful meal I had there, in celebration of the redfox graduation some years past.This new book arrived just yesterday in the mail, and is divided into sections of sauces for dried pasta, baked pastas (at which they totally excel), and some really interesting fresh pasta ideas. The last bunch may even be alluring enough to get me off my lazy butt, and working that neglected Kitchenaid pasta attachment I was so sure I couldn't live without.

And, for dessert, a little bonus, adapted from the Fanny book- another almost non-recipe for the amusement of children-or your inner child.:

Chocolate Kisses

Line a cookie sheet with parchment

3 1/4 oz really good semi-sweet choclate
1 Tbsp cold, unsalted butter

Melt the chocolate in the microwave in a pyrex cup, taking it out frequent to stir, until you can stir it smooth.Add the butter, and stir until it is completely incorporated. scoop the chocolate into a small plastic sandwich bag. Squeeze it into the corner of the bag, cut the corner,and squeeze out little kises- about 3/4". on to the parchment. Chill in fridge, then wrap in bits of foil or cellophane.

2 and 7, Part II: 1982-2007

Continuing with the meme that makes me feel a thousand years old, where we talk about what was going on, every 5 years. You may want to start here, at the beginning, and then go on below:

1982-I am the only person I know who actually liked law school. Probably, it had something to do with having worked at a low-paying job for 7 years after college. But I had liked being a picture framer, too,except for the starvation wages. I think maybe I'm just a big geeky weirdo. The jukebox in Peter's Pub by the law school played, "I Fought the Law and the Law Won." Often.

The "O" a/k/a the Original Hot Dog, was just across the street from the lawschool. Their incredible fries, and big, greasy cheap chicken parm sandwiches sustained many of us. I carried Tums at all times. Sometimes the redfox came to law school with me, and we hung out in the student lounge. To this day, I see classmates who ask after my"little girl". They are taken aback to hear that she is a grownup and in grad school herself. Married. Makes them feel old.

I got a job clerking for an appellate judge when I graduated, and I liked that too. Bad times ahead, though.
Six months later, my elderly judge up and died. Mouths to feed and all that, so I took the first job that came along, working for a big firm, doing commercial litigation. Hated the place, and began looking for something else at once; a couple of years later, I finally got a job with the federal Department of Labor-a much better fit. Then, Bill got very, very sick in 1985. I wound up working at home, ghost writing opinions for overburdened Federal Administrative Law Judges, so I could look after him.

1987-Bill died, right before Christmas. Knew it was coming; that didn't help. A week or so later, and I was still pretty exhausted- spent really. I got a call for a job interview, from a civil service test I forgot I had taken a year before. I wasn't going to go, but my mother and the 12 year old redfox talked me into it. They said, "This would be a great job for you." They were smart, and I was lucky and I've been a workers' compensation judge ever since. If a person has to work, this is as good as it gets, barring, you know, great playwright or something.

My friend E. more or less dragged me to the opera, to see Verdi's Don Carlo. By that time, Opera was just about the only kind of music I didn't enjoy. (I'm pretty much an ignoramus about jazz, but I often like it, without really getting it.) The semi-involuntarily opera just blew me away, and several gazillion dollars worth of cds later, it still does. Best ever music to cook to, except maybe the stax/Volt soul of the sixties. I think so anyhow.

1992-or thereabouts-I get foggier on exact dates as I get older-fewer landmark items; I tell myself that's why. The redfox went off to Brown. Providence was a nice place to visit her, and I slowly adjusted to living alone for the first time in my whole life. Then, two friends, temporarily apartment-less, came to stay in her attic room in our house (a biggish nice old house we bought before Bill got sick)- while they looked for a new apartment. They stayed five years.

I met D and E ( a/k/a "the boys") through the redfox, when D. was a student teacher in French at her high school. They were great roommates, and good company. When the redfox was at home, she didn't mind taking another, smaller bedroom. She did mind, however, that E was sitting in her seat at the dining room table. He was very attached to "his" place, too. They squabbled over it like siblings, although they did not pinch each other and stuff being, you know, adults. E once ate all the cookies the redfox bought, before she got any. She will probably not mind if I mention that she adores them both.

I got a computer.

1997ish- The redfox was living and working in Berkeley, and the boys bought a house. I sold my house,and moved to my present tree-house of an apartment . Living alone does have a few advantages. It has turned me into a spoiled brat, able to spend enormous amounts of time doing just what I'd like.

Packing my books for the move was an eye-opener. My Uncle Ted had died, and left me a little money, with which I bought The Uncle Ted Memorial Bookcases. They are the first, solid, real-furniture bookcases of my life, and they are wonderful. But they were already overflowing ten years ago. I do realize I have a book problem, and I haven't solved it, to date. I took an amazing trip to Italy which I could not afford, and went to a gazillion operas there. I ate wonderful food, and lost my heart to fried squash blossoms. It was so worth it.

2002-My father died, at 87. He had a long, draining last illness, during which we realized just how much he had been covering up for my mother's early Alzheimer's problems. I was lucky that my brother and his wife were also here in town, and I didn't have to figure out how to handle everything alone. They are so reliable and responsible, and a good thing too, because the personality changes in Mum have make her sometimes hostile, suspicious, resentful. We are also lucky that she has the funds to afford a really nice, sunny, spacious assisted living apartment, with all her own furniture and everything, right in my neighborhood, with an amazing staff of smart caring folks, who help us take care of her. We all visit often, and take her out when she's up for it. I wish she felt less angry about everything. The redfox will be getting married soon, at the Warhol museum with veggie food and good friends. She will marry S., who is, well, what can I say, girl has good taste.

It's 2007, and too early to call. The deal doubtless includes some players to be named later. The wedding was great fun, and the offspring and company live in Cleveland now- not so far.

I have just returned from the emergency room, having been treated for some nasty burns I gave myself, spilling hot hot coffee on my feet. Peeled off the socks, but didn't get the cool water on fast enough to prevent some large wobbly blisters. Unattractive, and oww! You will doubtless be relieved to hear that I did not take a photo.

image: from "What's Opera, Doc?" a not to be missed Bugs Bunny cartoon. Chuck Jones. The other one is a photo of a Clash album, as you probably deduced, from the Amazon site.

Tangentially Irish

I'm not a bit Irish myself. However, the late spouse was pretty much entirely Irish-American, and left the legacy of an Irish surname (I kept my own for the middle name I never had) and a 50% Irish child. Moreover, two of my best friends are seriously Irish. This last item has let me in on an annual St. Patrick's Day feast for quite a few years now. I love this stuff. E. makes wonderful corned beef and cabbage, with lots of yummy veg and potatoes-all briny, and some dandy soda bread to go with. There's mustard, and it's just so fine.

I said I'd bring a dessert, but when I went looking for a specifically Irish dessert, as opposed to a dessert from the British Isles in general, I came up a bit short. There are cakes made with Guinness, but I hadn't any on hand. A lot of the Irish cookbooks at the library, and websites with recipes, mention treacle tarts, which I always thought of as English, or, more recently, fictionally and specifically, as of Hogwarts. But the treacle tart choice did meet with some validation from prospective diners, so I went with it. Tangentially Irish, like yrs. truly.

If I make this again, I will use a loose-bottomed tart pan, rather than the pyrex pie pan, because the tart is a thin one- and a good thing too, as it is very sweet. Rather like a pecan pie, without the nuts-for fellow North Americans. I used the recipe from the BBC website, and sprinkled a little bit of sanding sugar over the top in orange to match the filling. Ack-orange!, on St. Patrick's Day. I don't think anyone noticed. Anyhow, the pie pan is green.

2 and 7, Part I: 1952-1982

Two of my favorite lovely and clever foodbloggers, Ximena of Lobstersquad and Melissa of The Travelers' Lunchbox, tagged me for this meme, which seems to have come from, maybe France? (Or maybe, like the Coneheads of yore, not so much.) Anyhow, the deal is-starting with the first year of your existence which ends with a "7" or "2", the tagee is to report on what s/he was up to, at 5 year intervals. I am going for brevity, as I suspect my advanced age has left me with more 5 year intervals than the average blogger.I am also using this excuse to divide the post into two, more manageable segments, maybe with some relief in between.

1952- Two years old, and an appalling chatterbox. We visited England, my parents borrowing money because my mother was homesick. We sailed there on the original Queen Elizabeth . I did not get seasick. I am told that I sat in a high chair in the family house in Chingford, held up my spoon, and asked, "What can I have that's delicious?"

My English family still had 2 chickens in their suburban garden, which they had acquired during the War. Every morning, I was allowed to go get my own brown breakfast egg. One morning I came in sobbing that there was something wrong- the chickens were sick! Their eggs were cold, they must be dying. My Aunt Louise had seen that there were no eggs. Afraid that I would be disappointed- she had planted 2 from the fridge!

My granddad sang musical hall ditties, including some I later recognized on "Upstairs, Downstairs."

1957- First grade. I discovered that my charming, funny father was perhaps not infallible. He was driving me somewhere in the car, and the radio came on. It was Elvis Presley's "Heartbreak Hotel." He thought it was funny. He was wrong , it was great! I saved my pennies, and got someone to walk me across the busy streets to the local National Record Mart, where I purchased a 45 rpm of "Chantilly Lace", by the Big Bopper. Rock and Roll.

My school was in the original large test group for Dr. Salk's polio vaccine.The photo you see above appeared in the NYTimes on the anniversary. I am not 100% certain, but I think that is actually me in the photo, making the scrunchy face.

I ate pizza for the first time, thanks to my avant garde Aunt Gerty. We took family car rides to the "Big Isaly's", an art deco ice cream factory/emporium for "Skyscraper cones", and "Klodikes"-original Isaly's inventions.

1962-Woo. High School. As ever, younger and more immature than my classmates, I was bewildered by the caste system, pointlessly mean kids, even finding my way to class. I aimed for invisibility, and almost attained it. By the next year I had met some wonderful friends, smart and funny, and started having a good time- when school did not impede us too much. High School was still gruesome. American Friends' Service Committee. Beatles, Rolling Stones, Dylan, blues, Otis Redding, Motown, Buffalo Springfield. In the cafeteria, they served "Turkey Treat".

In a year or two, My friend, Little A. and I will go to see the Rolling Stones at the Civic Arena. Our parents will let us go, because they have never heard of a "rock concert." We will be so cool. I will wear a mini-skirt with a wide hip belt, and he will wear the first pair of wire-rimmed glasses seen in Pittsburgh since the turn of the century. My dad will pick us up.

1967- University of Wisconsin, Madison. Painting and Design.The War in Vietnam. Dow demonstration, Kent state, Cambodia, Teaching Assistants Association. Strike. Tear gas, national guard. Everything's going to change, right? Well, no, as it turns out later.

The Green Lantern eating coop had apparently been around since the 30's. You paid a set contribution, and had a work assignment. There was a paid cook. I set tables. You rapped on your glass with a spoon when you wanted to make an announcement; then you might stand on your chair to speak. The food was heavy, with a Southern bent. The politics were lefty. You were never hungry when you finished the meal.

In later college years, I lived in a rented house, with friends, and learned to cook-for large crowds. The Band, more blues, John Wesley Harding, the White Album. A soundtrack for your life, like a movie?

1972- See above. Also, my roommates and I made a big Thanksgiving dinner for everyone we knew who couldn't go home for Thanksgiving. There were 22 people there, and someone brought a friend, a guy who was traveling with a band, and staying at their house in Madison. After dinner, there were about a million dirty dishes, and this guy went in the kitchen, and washed them all! "Who is he?" I was asking everyone.

Reader, I married him. He later admitted that he used the dishwashing technique on a regular basis, to meet girls. Still, he did all the dishes, all the time, more or less for the rest of his too short life. No cook could ask for more.

1977-The tiny redfox was 2 years old, and the chatterbox tradition was maintained. I was working as a picture framer. Bill was studying classical guitar, giving lessons, and working as an administrator at CMU. We were pretty poor, and thinking about that a bit. Still, we managed to buy a tiny house, and we redid the kitchen ourselves.

Neither of us had done anything like that before. Generally, one of us would be reading to the other from a "how-to" book, the other trying to do it. The kitchen was a success- a spiffy galley , with a tongue-in-groove wooden ceiling, like a little boat, and oak floors we discovered under layers of cool, but irrevocably deteriorated lino. I was proudest of the patterned tile backsplash I did. We spent $1000 on the whole thing, buying unfinished, unassembled birch cabinets from Penneys.

I was thinking I need to get some training for a job paying enough to eat better.

1982-I graduated from law school- to be continued.

BTW: I'm tagging the following people, with apologies and deference. You may, of course, disregard the whole thing without fear of violent reprisals:

anapestic
little bouffe
June of Bread, Water, Salt, Oil...
Rebecca of EAT
Julie of Kitchenography

If I haven't named you, but you'd like to participate, consider yourself tagged.

Salty Goodness

"Anchovies, anchovies,
You're so delicious.
I like you better than
All the other fishes."

In "Conversations with Dead People", a 7th season episode of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", Buffy's sister Dawn declared her anchovy love to her pizza, just prior to the appearance of the First (Evil) in the guise of her (dead) mother, and the subsequent near total destruction of her home by demonic forces.* In a dvd commentary, writer Jane Espenson revealed that she included Dawn's poem in protest, because a certain pizza chain had recently removed the anchovy topping choice from its delivery menu.

No question that anchovies are the subject of some Very Strong Feelings, all around. Even prior to becoming a vegetarian, my daughter despised them so thoroughly that she could not bear it if her father and I ordered anchovies on our portion of the family take out pizza. The very whiff of the nearby anchovies poisoned her portion and her entire evening, and she absolutely could tell , even when we thought we had concealed each and every tiny fish. I live way the other side of the Great Anchovy Divide, and enjoy anchovies presented frankly, on a pizza, or elsewhere-including that one-time rage, "Jansson's Temptation."

A Scandanavian dish, popular in the sixties, when Danish Modern was the hottest of design trends, Jansson's Tempatation was a bit of fad too. It was made with sliced potatoes, which were baked slowly, melding with plenty of anchovies and cream- actually delicious, and much more subtle than you would think, though the anchovy presence was not a secret. A friend of my parents made it for dinner parties, and I was always hoping the children would be invited.

Since that time, I have learned a technique for cooking vegetables with an anchovy or two, where the presence of the anchovies, as such, is pretty well undetectable. You have probably come across this business before. It works brillantly with lots of vegetables, and is particularly yummy with green beans and cherry tomatoes, cooked together. You heat a bit of olive oil and some garlic, and mash in a couple of anchovies. When the anchovies are melted, you gently cook the veggies (parboiled for the green beans, but not for the tomatoes) in the oil until they are done as you like. I have served this to professed anchovy-haters, and they mostly scarf it up. (Naturally, I cannot serve it to vegetarian anchovy haters, because, as I have been informed on any number of occasions by close relatives, "A fish is not a vegetable.") If you are anti-anchovy, but given to challenging yourself-give this a try.

Less subtle, but still not overwhelming, is the pasta recipe below. I love this stuff. It is a typically simple, yet punchy Jamie Oliver recipe, though I rather think it is a traditional dish, as opposed to an invention..To make it you need only have ordinary pantry staples on hand, or, at least, my kind of on-hand cupboard stuff. You need:

Panagretto (see below)
1 1/4 lbs dried spaghetti
10 anchovies
a small red chili (dried) pounded (or aleppo pepper flakes or the like are okay, too)
clove garlic, peeled and finely chopped
salt and pepper

panagretto
6 Tbsps olive oil
3 cloves garlic, peeled
small handful fresh thyme leaves-stems removed-or tsp of dried thyme
4 oz bread crumbs, fine
half a lemon

Put a big pasta pan of water on to boil. In a heavy pan, add most of the olive oil and the garlic, and heat,then add thyme and bread crumbs. As they begin to fry and toast, stir them. Keep on until they are crisply toasted, then scoop them out onto some wadded paper towels. Spread them out, remove the garlic, blot off the excess oil, and salt and pepper them.

When the pasta water is boiling, salt it, and add the spaghetti. Heat the oil and chopped garlic in the same pan you used for the breadcrumbs.Lay the anchovies over the garlic, and mash them with the back of a wooden spoon. When they are melty, add the red pepper and squeeze in the lemon juice. (Watch out, the lemon juice will sputter, jump back.) When the spaghetti is done, drain it and pour the pasta into the anchovy pan. Turn it over and over with some tongs , coating all the spaghetti thoroughly. Serve right away, in wide bowls, sprinkling each serving with plently of the toasty breadcrumbs. this much serves four for supper, with a salad.

Don't put grated parm on it- it would fight with the anchovies, and ruin your fun.

*In the same episode, Dawn tried an interesting culinary experiment, involving microwaving a marshmallow, which puffed up dramatically (see screen capture). Later, the microwave exploded-but it wasn't because of the marshmallow.The marshmallow thing does work, BTW. Don't ask. The geekiness is in honor of the recent 10th anniversary of Btvs, soon to be seen in a different sort of Season 8, coming to a comics shop near you.

We Have a Winner!

Comment #2000 in the Pointless Contest was just posted by anapestic. I'll be emailing you for the address to mail the cookbook, kiddo. Just another thing to do when tax time is past! Did you count?

Something Out of (Almost) Nothing: Breast of Lamb Ste. Menehould

So I bought a 2.5 pound breast of lamb in large part because I didn't know what to do with it, and I thought it would be fun to figure something out. Also, it was way cheap, which is always a matter of interest around here. It turns out you can make a generous main course for four from $5.00 worth of lamb breast.

Keep in mind, looking at the photo, that that is boneless meat there-not a couple of ribs on the bone hence, quite a lot of food. You start with it bone-in, and debone it after braising. Yes, I know, the photo is horrid. Now that I have learned to take somewhat better pictures of soup, I must move on to some kind of improved meat showcasing technique. Any clues, anyone? Truly, this is appetizing in person, and is neither black, nor shining with grease. It is crisp on the outside, succulent inside, and holds together well, much though it may appear to be flapping apart.

Making this is a somewhat fussy, time consuming business, but that is okay; in fact it is sometimes just the thing, when a person is in the mood for a bit of fuss. And if the end result is delicious and (still) cheap, it is all good. Certainly there have been times when, in an effort to turn some semi-throwaway item into dinner, I have wound up spending quite a bit on accessory ingredients. Not so here.

I thought I had remembered an interesting recipe for a stuffed lamb breast, and set out to dig it up. While googling and looking through my cookbooks, I found instead this appealing dish- in South Wind Through the Kitchen, a collection of various writers' favorite Elizabeth David articles. This one was a favorite of Simon Hopkinson, a British food writer I hadn't heard of. I adapted the Elizabeth David recipe just slightly, doing the first step in a slow cooker, so I wouldn't feel I had to stay home to mind the oven.

This is what I did:

I put the lamb breast in my slow cooker on the low setting, and added some vegetable broth, a little leftover red wine, a bay leaf, an onion, a carrot, two unpeeled garlic cloves, fennel stalks, salt and pepper, and some water. You wouldn't need much water really, I used a couple of cups, because I have some thoughts about a future Scotch Broth in the back of my mind, and intend to save the cooking liquid. Any aromatic mixture of vegetables and liquids would be fine. I kind of stuck with the canonical western bits and pieces, but I can imagine an Asian version would be nice, and work well with the rest of the recipe. I think I'd use Panko for that, rather than the fresh crumbs.

Once the meat was very, very tender, I drained and saved the broth, and slid the bones out. This should be easy-if it is difficult, you need to cook the meat some more. I then left the meat to cool in the fridge- weighted, as suggested, with a small cutting board, topped with the handy dandy ten ton base of my Thai mortar and pestle.

The next day, I sliced the meat into strips 2" wide, cut slightly on the bias. I spread each with a little dijon mustard and a beaten egg, coated them with freshly made breadcrumbs, and set them on a wire rack in a baking dish to dry a little, and set up, while preheating the oven to 350F.

They cook for 20 minutes, so they will be hot all through. A drizzle of butter or some olive oil spray on top, and then they go under thebroiler, close to the flame. They must be watched closely, and turned when they begin to sizzle and brown.

These went very well with a sharp coleslaw and some garlicky mashed potatoes. Belatedly, it occured to me that these would be great with tkemali, the sour plum sauce. They are rich, and something sharp sets them off well. Per S.H., "It is as sophisticated, if not much, much more so-than many little plates of neatly trimmed loins of lamb, cut into perfect pink slices and daubed with shiny brown reductions." It may also remind you of the deviled trotters I was on about. Very similar preparation, for another very gelatinously good bit of not-so- costly meat. Some who find pig's feet an off-putting idea, may take more kindly to this dish.

Scotch broth to follow- but definitely not right away. I love lamb, but there can be too much of a good thing. I'll give it a couple of days.