nom nom foody.

Last night's recipe required one single, teeny-tiny jalapeno pepper to be finely chopped. Now I'm mildly perturbed by the burning sensation in my fingertips. Typing... is... difficult. *hrmf*

For the first time, I wrote down some new year's resolutions for 2010. Some of them were pretty generic, others weren't. More importantly, my food-related resolutions included cooking more adventurously and more vegetables, less meat.

In the spirit of things, we made this recipe tonight, and it was delicious. Fennel is a vegetable that I've been experimenting with recently, and it's been one of my more surprising discoveries. It's subtle but flavourful, and tastes pretty darn good!

Spicy Spaghetti with Fennel and Herbs (serves 3-4)

Ingredients
1 1/2 ounces bacon, chopped
1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1 large red jalapeno, seeded and chopped
1 large fennel bulb, stalks and fronds removed, base thinly sliced
3/4 cup chicken broth
2 tablespoons Italian parsley, chopped
1 tablespoon lemon juice
3/4 teaspoon fennel seeds, crushed
1/2 pound spaghetti
3/4 cup grated Pecorino Romano
Salt and pepper

Procedure
1. Add the bacon to a large skillet set over medium heat. Cook until browned. Remove the bacon with slotted spoon and drain on a paper towel. Add 1/2 tablespoon of the olive oil to the bacon fat and toss in the garlic and chiles. Cook for 1 minute and then add the fennel. Cook for 5 minutes, stirring often.

2. Pour in broth, lemon juice, half the parsley, and fennel seeds. Turn heat to high and bring to a boil. Then reduce heat to low, cover the skillet, and cook for 20 minutes. Stir occasionally.

3. Meanwhile, bring a large pot of water to a boil. With about 5 minutes left in the timer for the fennel, cook the spaghetti according to the directions on the box. Reserve about 1/2 cup of the pasta water and then drain the pasta in a colander.

4. Remove the cover from the skillet with the fennel. Season with salt and pepper. Turn the heat to high and cook until most of the liquid has been evaporated, about 4 minutes. Add the pasta to the skillet along with 1 tablespoon of the olive oil, 1/4 cup of cheese, the cooked bacon, and 1/4 cup of the pasta cooking liquid. Toss well and cook for 1 minute. If mixture is too dry add the other 1/4 cup of pasta cooking liquid. Otherwise, plate the pasta.

5. Sprinkle with the remaining cheese and parsley. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

I've discovered that it is, however short-lived, completely possible to have buyer's remorse over beef tenderloin steak.

*noms*

An acquaintance of mine recently linked this article to me, and harrumphed a little at the uptight tone taken in the piece. After reading through the list of do's and don'ts, I have to disagree with him. While some of the points seem like common sense or more for high-end restaurants, the majority of them really enhance the restaurant experience. As a note, I consider #5 (Tables should be level without anyone asking. Fix it before guests are seated.) to be something that any restaurant -- okay, except fast food -- should consider.

To be fair, #23 (If someone likes a wine, steam the label off the bottle and give it to the guest with the bill. It has the year, the vintner, the importer, etc.) sounds a bit ridiculous. Maybe it's my non-vino talking, but I'd rather they focus on my food for the five minutes it took them to steam the label off... but that's just me.

Today was a pretty rainy, gloomy day -- the kind of day where I went to work in my rainjacket, because it was bad enough to make my Pacific Northwest rain radar beep. Besides, my knees were creaking, which is a pretty sure sign that the weather was just plain yucky.

Yet, despite the horrible weather and despite my massive irritability at the news that most of SEPTA (Philly's public transportation system, and currently my only source of travel) is potentially striking at the end of the week, I decided it was of the utmost importance that I needed to clean out my pantry today.

Besides, hot cocoa and chick movies be durned in this weather, it's all about a gigantic pot of chili.

Pork Sausage Chili, Pantry Style (serves 4-6)

Ingredients
3/4 pound of ground sausage, not in casing
1 can (28oz) tomatoes, crushed or peeled
1 can (15oz) kidney beans
1 can (15oz) black beans
6 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 small onion, chopped
2 medium serrano peppers, diced
2 bouillon cubes + water, or 2 cups stock

Assembly
1. Fry garlic and onions in a large dutch oven on medium heat until translucent. Add sausage into the pot, and brown.

2. Add beans, tomatoes, and serrano peppers to the pot, then cover with stock or water + bouillon mix. Simmer on medium heat for thirty minutes.

3. Eat!

After being kidnapped by pirates during an excursion to the coast, I was held as a slave rower for months. My escape in the heart of darkness was marred only by the size of the porthole and the chilly waters of the Atlantic. Thereby, I found myself in the midst of the Sahara Desert, where I lived under the shade of a cactus for forty days and nights until I was discovered by a lone elderly Bedouin traveller. He graciously escorted me to the nearest city, where I discovered the glorious cuisines of...

...if only my disappearance from here could make work that exciting, eh?

To explain what did happen in basic terms:
--I became employed in the city, landing me a job as well as a two-hour commute each day.
--B and I moved into a small suburban apartment above a doctor's practice, and adopted a cat.
--I elected to finish up the remnants of my bachelor's degree at one of the local universities in the city, and now take evening classes.

In a nutshell -- state employee, homeowner (renter?), student, and foody. Anyway, I'm back... with roasted butternut squash soup!

I pulled this recipe off Serious Eats, a website where I've been lingering during slow periods at work, school, etc... originally, I was really attracted to this recipe because of its simplicity. More often than not, there's so much happening that all I want is to throw something on the stove and let it do its independent thing while I do something else.

(Adaptations: we lack a good blender in our kitchen, so after I roasted the assorted vegetables, I tossed it in our Cuisinart food processor and gave them a whirl. The resulting puree was thrown in our Dutch oven and simmered with the stock for the said 20 minutes. You can opt to add a small slice of ginger for flavour, but the soup will be delicious even without.)

Roasted Butternut Squash Soup
(~7 servings)

1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
1 three-pound butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and cut into 2-inch chunks
1 softball-sized red or white onion, cut into chunks or rings
1 head garlic, cloves separated and peeled
3 1/2 cups stock, divided
Salt and pepper
1 or 2 tablespoons cream

Assembly

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Toss squash, onion and garlic cloves with 1 to 2 tablespoons olive oil; spread on glass baking dish and pour 1 cup stock over the top. Sprinkle with 1/2 teaspoon salt.

2. Bake at 350ºF for 1 1/2 hours or until fairly soft and a little caramelized-looking; check on the pan every 20 minutes or so and if necessary, add additional liquid to keep it from scorching to the bottom of the pan. Stir once during cooking.

3. Add squash, garlic, onion, and any liquid from baking dish into a large Dutch oven or stockpot. Add 2 1/2 cups stock and 1/2 teaspoon each salt and pepper to the pot, and cook over medium-low heat for at least 20 minutes.

4. Purée all ingredients in a blender. Add back to pot, stir in cream and adjust salt and pepper to taste.

Pesto is really easy to make if you have a food processor and a spare half-hour. We get our pine nuts in the nut aisle, or from the bulk section. The fresh basil we get is often in little pots meant to be cultivated for later, though now that the fall is approaching I'm not sure how long they'll last.

Ingredients:
1 + 1/2 cups fresh basil leaves
1/4 cup pine nuts
one large clove of garlic
sea salt
pepper
olive oil

Assembly:
Take a small frying pan and turn heat to low-medium. Toss the pine nuts in the pan and use a bit of olive oil to coat the nuts, just enough that the nuts are lubricated. Season with sea salt and pepper. Gently stir occasionally, until nuts turn golden-brown.

Rinse basil in a colander, then take some paper towels and pat down any excess water from the leaves. Toss basil, pine nuts, and garlic into food processor, and blend. Until the pesto reaches a creamy consistency, add small amounts of olive oil.

Use sparingly! (I'm talking about that phrase - a little goes a long way.) This should be good for at least four servings of linguine pasta - I suggest serving this with shrimp to round out your meal. If you're saving this for later, you can cover the pesto with olive oil to prevent oxidization.

note: for my relatively small audience, do you have any suggestions, questions or other topics for my next blog entry? Please feel free to drop a comment and let me know. :)