What it takes to get me back......Guilt!

It's been a while....two and a half months to be precise, but who's counting? Apparently  you as I have gotten comments from all 5 of my faithful readers in regard to my lack of posts in the past couple months and for that I am sorry.

My only "excuse" is that I truly have not cooked much over the last month and before that very little....along with that have had little time to post anything due to crazy work schedule and social schedule.

A quick photo montage with bits and pieces to fill you in since you've last heard from me. Please know that I took these photos thinking that I was going to share with you way sooner than this. :)

First bite of summer.

My Addy chomping on her watermelon at Joey & Charlies Birthday Party.

 

Cooking lesson with Nate.

Teaching my cousins buddy how to bone and cook a chicken. Comedy.

My Moms 2nd Surprise 60th Birthday Party

Complete with a whole roasted pig in Baja. We dressed the pig up, not the caterers.

Camp meat baby!

Dorado courtesy of yours truly. Ceviche only an hour later.

Yes, that is guacamole served with chicharrones. At a restaurant know affectionately as the "Pork Palace"

Holy crap. My own personal heaven. Could have made a meal or twelve out of this but powered up and realized that a new wardrobe would be in order.

Wine tasting Vay Cay with the bestie in Paso Robles

Wine, Cheese, Meat and other goodies for lunch, our favorite!

A week and dinner with my ladies, we always eat sooooooo well together!

"Blue" Salad

Blueberries from Clovers Family (biggest & best!), Blue Cheese, Almonds, Greens, Balsamic & EVOO

Clams and Bacon (you knew it was coming)

A little onion, tomato and white wine....perfect dippin' sauce!

Pacific Oysters on the half shell

Cocktail Sauce & Meyer Lemons

It feels good to be back...more to come, I am going to go make something else for you now.

Much love and happy cooking!

At least my friends liked it.....

Unbeknown to me, there are more than one species of pine nut....who knew? From continent to continent they vary slightly in taste, texture and chemical makeup. And only very recently (since about 2001) has a syndrome known as "pine mouth" come to light.

I personally think it should be called "crap mouth" as damn near everything you eat tastes like crap. But that's just me.

It doesn't matter if it is sweet, salty, fatty or bland. Once in your mouth the food takes on a flavor that I can only describe as a handful of pine needles combined with the pith (white bitter part) of an orange. It's seriously enough to make you not want to eat anything.

Which for me, sucks.

Seriously.

I researched the web and found that it can last from just a few days after eating them, to up to 2 weeks. It eventually goes away, but there is little you can do about it. Some acidic foods can minimize the effects so I thought I would try some citrus juice at work. I grabbed some OJ out of the fridge and it was pretty good, although I am not much of a juice person.

When I got home I figured it couldn't hurt to add vodka to my OJ and see what happened (since wine tasted like ca ca, boo hoo!). And you know what?

It tasted pretty damn good!

I was cooking dinner for my friends that evening and had the whole menu planned out....my citrus and salt baby back ribs, German potato salad and orange bread pudding for dessert. (Friend was bringing salad....no worries, we got our veggies!) Naturally while making the potato salad I had to test the bacon to see if my taste buds were really THAT effed up (please God, no!). And fortunately I found the second thing that didn't taste like poop....bacon.

Go figure.

So I am thinking.....how can I survive on bacon and screwdrivers for up to 2 weeks????

As it turns out, probably pretty well if I didn't have to work or drive.

I made dinner half sloshed on vodka (as I rarely drink it and had no lunch to speak of) and my friends assured me that it was delicious. They even went back for seconds, so I know I did OK. I think it tasted OK, but am pretty sure my taste buds were worn out from the vodka, so I'll have to take their word for it!

The German Potato Salad recipe is from my Nana, labeled on a recipe card, "My" German Potato Salad. It is everything I remember of her...warm, a little sweet, a little tart and very sassy.

Nana's German Potato Salad

6 Cups Red Potatoes, Cooked and sliced in to 1/4" slices

3 Scallions, sliced thin

6 Slices of Bacon (or more if you are feeling the need)

3 Hard Boiled Eggs, 2 chopped, 1 sliced for garnish

1/3 cup Water

2/3 cup White Vinegar

1/4 cup Sugar

2 T Flour

Salt & Pepper

*Optional

1/4 tsp Dry Mustard

1/4 tsp Celery Seed

Fry the bacon until crisp and reserve 3 T of the fat, chop the rest of the bacon and set aside.

Mix sliced potatoes, scallions, chopped egg and bacon together in a bowl.

In a small pan, mix together the rest of the ingredients and cook slowly until the dressing is thickened, season to taste with salt & pepper. Pour over potatoes and mix thoroughly. Put in whatever serving bowl you plan on using and garnish with the sliced egg.

This should be served relatively warm, I left it in the stove while I was cooking everything else and it was the perfect temperature. You can also microwave it briefly if it isn't warm enough.

Messing things up and making them right again

You already know I am not a rookie or first timer in the kitchen....That I have the experience and know how to make fabulous meals for myself or for a crowd. I can make simple food or over the top crazy food and I can bake like a Mo-fo or put up 5 gallons of tomatoes in cans for the winter.

But even I make mistakes. Examples as follows.....

• 
  
  Burning Caramel Sauce because I was signing invoices. More than once.
• 
  
  Forgetting to add water to steamed vegetables because I was making homemade puff pastry for Beef Wellington. Oops.
• 
  
  Reversing the measurements for salt & sugar in scones because I was rushing to get all my assignments completed before break. Yum!
• 
  
  Burning 5 sheet pans of bacon because it was 5am and I was quite possibly still inebriated from the night before. Crap.

And there are many many more....my point is that any time any of us effs up in the kitchen there is always an excuse. I was distracted, tired, rushed, drunk, not paying attention or any number of other fun reasons.

The crummy part about tonight is that I was REALLY looking forward to my dinner and I effed it all up.

Thanks to some help from Zack. An ex-boyfriend and old friend from a gazillion years ago who I was happily catching up with while sauteing, stirring and pan frying my dinner.

Yep, sorry buddy, I am sharing the blame with you just a little because I was too busy chatting with you on FB to double check my sand dabs before pan frying them. So they got fried with their organs still in them. Note to self....don't believe the fish guy when he tells you they are "ready to cook".

Blech. Seriously Blech. In the trash and out the door...as fast as possible so I didn't barf.

But on a positive note I still got to enjoy my fabulous sweet corn risotto cake and sauteed spinach for dinner because I did watch out for those, thank you very much! And had about a three hour chat session with someone who I really needed to talk to.

I'll share the corn risotto cakes because they were the star of my dinner tonight. I made the risotto a couple of nights ago for my lovely girlz who came over for food and wine therapy. That night they were paired with seafood and truffle oil (fabulous!) and I made an overabundance of the risotto so I set some of it aside without the seafood and oil for future use. And damn if they werent twice as good with a crispy crust.

Sweet Corn Risotto

2 Shallots, Chopped

1 T Olive Oil

12 oz Arborio Rice

1/2 Cup White Wine

2 Ears White Corn

4 Cups Corn Stock*

1 T Fresh Thyme Leaves

Salt & Pepper to taste

2/3 C Parmesan Cheese

*To make corn stock, shave off kernels of corn in to a bowl and then scrape the cobs with the back of a knife to get all the juice and pulp left in the cob. Add the corn kernels and pulp and juice to 6 cups water and boil until it is about 4 cups in volume. Add salt to taste.

Saute the shallot in olive oil until soft and add rice. Stir for about 5 minutes or until opaque. Add wine and stir until all wine is absorbed. Add the corn stock about 1 cup at a time stirring constantly. When adding the last cup of stock, add the thyme leaves. Stir until rice is tender, if you need to add more liquid, use water or chicken stock. Add cheese at the last minute.

If you want to add a protein, this is the time to do it....sauteed shrimp, scallops & calamari is what we opted for with just a drizzle of truffle oil. You could do chicken as well or add mushrooms for an earthy flavor.

For the Risotto cakes, start with cooled risotto, best if refrigerated. Melt a little butter in a nonstick skillet. Shape risotto into a cake about 3/4" thick. Pan fry on both sides over medium heat until crispy. The might fall apart a little, just nudge it back together....it'll hold. :)

Just like I found out tonight that some things, no matter how far apart they have fallen, can come back together and hold.

Drunk Pickle

One night a few weeks ago....well maybe like a month ago....I was gifted with an overabundance of cucumbers from Papas ranch. Japanese cucumbers, lemon cucumbers, pickling type cucumbers and your garden variety grocery store cukes were littered on my counter and in my fridge. I gave them to my friends who live in my complex, traded my BFF for fresh blueberries from her great aunts farm and took them to work to gift to the folks that I spend most of my days with.

And I still had leftovers.

Greek salads, sour cream cucumber salad....dipped in hummus and salted. I ate them until I was sick of them. And yet I still had one monster left and had no desire to eat it.

It sat in my fridge for a couple days until one night.....

After an ass-full of wine....

I decided to make a pickle out of it.

Yes, that would be "A" pickle...like one freaking pickle. Not a batch, but one.

Because I was drunk and thought that making a pickle sounded like a fine old idea. And hey! I had a jar! That almost fit the pickle....kind of....I only had to trim the ends a little bit to make it fit.

Then I googled "pickle". And then I googled "how to make pickles". And maybe "Dill Pickles".

And I can't tell you half of what I found because most of it was too damn confusing and complicated for my grape soaked brain. So I think I took some info from one...from another and then I made the rest of it up.

I do know that I took some water and salt and vinegar and I boiled it with some garlic. I vaguely remember tasting it and thinking it was kind of OK...threw some dried dill in the pot and simmered for a minute (I think).

I don't remember sterilizing the jar, but I might have. I shoved the pickle inside the jar and poured the boiled water/salt/vinegar stuff over it and threw the lid on top tightly.

The I turned the jar upside down and stumbled up the stairs to bed.

Woke the next morning and turned it over to find the seal was nice and tight and popped my pickle in the fridge to think about itself. Yay me!

I've been checking it out for the past few weeks thinking I should really try my drunk pickle, but never really felt like a pickle (because you have to be in the mood, right?) until tonight.

I cracked the seal....

Pulled it out of the jar and stood it up because really, how many pickles do you know that can stand up on their own?????

Sliced it up.....

And you know what?

Drunk pickles kind of kick ass.

If only I could remember what I put in it now.