A Reversed Entry

So, I kind of cheated and did a recipe from the book before starting this blog. My bad! Anyway, this is the first recipe from the first section of this book: Antipasto Plate.

I was visiting my mother over Thanksgiving, and decided to take advantage of the fact that I would have a real kitchen with real cooking supplies to work with. Yay! This was my contribution to the Thanksgiving dinner. The original recipe asked for "Chioggia beets," the likes of which I have never heard of. My step dad and I don't like beets anyway, so my mother decided not to spend her money on something only she would eat (hey, I'm working on an external budget here). We got eggplant instead, which happens to be my favourite vegetable.

The first thing I did was roast the mushrooms. A completely painless process that made the kitchen smell wonderfully. Once they were out of the oven, I rolled them around in some tarragon and left them there until dinner.

I have to interject that with regard to the Zen aspect of this cook book, I have to admit I probably scored a C on that this time. Since I was at my mother's house, and since she had all my CDs that we shipped up here from Costa Rica, I was on an importing frenzy so that I could bring my music back with me to Dallas. As soon as I started the work on the mushrooms, a friend from Costa Rica called over Skype. I hadn't spoken to him in months, so I answered and kept talking while I cooked. So yes, even if I washed my hands for 15 seconds and using deep breathing techniques, as instructed, and even if I did not put on my music while I was cooking, I have to say I was not totally focused on the preparation of the meal. I'll get better at this, I swear! Also, I guess it doesn't help that my step dad had the tv going in the background. ET phone home, ET phone home...

I grilled the rest of the vegetables using a George Forman Grill, which my grandfather is apparently obsessed about. I have to say the only hard part of this recipe was working with the bell peppers. First of all- "cook over hot coals." Huh?? Who has those in a regular kitchen? I just used the grill again. Then I was supposed to steam them in a paper bag, but a ziplock was going to have to do. And it did. The bell peppers came out of that bag looking like they had been in a sauna, and there was a lot of excess water. Now came the tedious part. Peeling the very wet bell peppers. Sure, I could have just chopped them in half and discarded the part with the peel, but I like conserving as much food as possible. So I spent my sweet time carefully plucking the skin off the peppers (by this time the tv was playing Mamma Mia). I guess I felt like a sculptor must feel while chiseling. That, or a bikini waxer.

Super trouper lights are gonna find me!...

Once that was done, I made some Reduced Balsamic Vinegar to go with it. It was just like making caramel. The result was actually the same. Instead of being liquid, I ended up with the equivalent of a vinegar praline. It actually even tasted somewhat sweet! In hindsight, there's a lot of things I could have done with that. I remember making a cheesecake once where I had to make caramel and quickly pour the bubbly substance over some almonds, so as to make brittle. In the future, I might use this recipe to make some kind of garnish.

When all was said and done, the recipe ended up tasting good. There's not too much that can go wrong with the taste of roasted and grilled vegetables and feta cheese.

The Game Plan

Disclaimer: This is not my original idea. I was inspired by the courageous Julie Powell, who as many of you may know, has now been immortalized in the movie Julie & Julia. I admit, though I have read parts of her blog, I have never seen the movie. However, being the avid foodie that I am, the concept of the movie drew me in to no end. Cooking and baking has been an important part of my life for years. From gaining 20 pounds when I realized I was a good baker (and later taking the weight off!) to running a small home bakery service for my teachers and the cafeteria the last two years of high school, being in the kitchen has always been a joy. Add that to the fact that I love scheduling, love starting absurd projects and love doing things in a methodical, linear fashion, I seemed destined to take my own twist at the Julie/Julia project.

Now if I could only find the right book...

Desserts are of utter importance for me, so whatever the book ended up being, it had to have a good dessert section. However. I was not going to cook through a dessert cookbook. I did that once already, with the Hershey's Chocolate Lover's Cookbook. Remember those 20 pounds I talked about? Yeah. I wasn't going to do that again, as decadent as it was. I am also a vegetarian. Though I probably would have martyred myself and cooked some dead animals from time to time for the sake of the project, it'd be nice if I could actually eat everything I cooked. My third condition was that it had to include food from different regions. A year's worth of Indian food? Not my cup of tea.

That's when I stumbled upon Tassajara Dinners & Desserts by Dale and Melissa Kent. The book called to me from the shelves of the book store. It passed through all the hoops, and then some. This isn't just a regular cookbook. It speaks of cooking as a meditative, zen activity. I am a very high strung person, who is always multitasking in some way. It seems this book will be more than just a culinary challenge.

So here's the Game Plan. My challenge will be easier than the Julie/Julia project in a few ways. There are 121 recipes, plus a section on basics that has instructions on making different vinaigrettes, vegetable stocks and things like that. If I plan to cook through this book in a year, that means I can cook two, if not three times a week and stay on track. That's great for me, because at the moment I live in a dorm without an ideal cooking situation. I will also not cook through this book front to back. It would start out ok, but then I would get to where I was cooking two desserts a week for a few months, and... no. I will cook one recipe from each section consecutively, except for the basics section, since a lot of these dressings and such are included in other recipes and I will include them along the way.

So, on with the show!