Spanish Omelet
6 Tbsp olive oil
1.5 lb (Yukon gold) potatoes
1 small onion, sliced thin
1 tsp salt
½ tsp pepper
11 eggs*
Peel and quarter the potatoes, and then slice into ¼” slices. Slice the onion thinly and add to the potatoes. Toss with 4 Tbsp olive oil and ½ tsp salt and ½ tsp pepper. Read the rest of this entry ?
I was idly flipping channels a couple of Sundays ago and ran across Sandra Lee’s new show on the Food Network. It’s called “Sandra’s Money Saving Meals”, and I paused to watch it. It’s indicative of the current financial environment that this kind of show has a place on the Food Network, and given her upbringing Sandra Lee brings a certain amount of authority to the show that I suspect other Food Network Chefs would lack, so I was curious about what it was like.
In the end I was torn between deeply amused and somewhat disturbed by the show. On the one hand, it’s entertaining because Sandra Lee has branded herself on the Food Network with the prescription of 70% store bought/30% homemade. But of course that costs money, so on the budget show she cooks everything from scratch. There isn’t a single instance of store bought sauces or mixes, because it is cheaper to use real ingredients (it also tastes better, but that’s a separate issue). On the other hand, I was concerned by the sheer lack of vegetables being presented. In the five shows, and 33 recipes that have aired so far only three recipes have involved vegetables (five if you decide to count spaghetti sauce as a vegetable, which granted I do all the time but acknowledge isn’t really a vegetable). Read the rest of this entry ?
I had something different that I was going to write this week, about Whole Foods and comment cards, and how they’re both similar and dissimilar to the napkin notes we used to leave for Dining Services in college. But, it stubbornly refuses to come to a graceful conclusion, so instead I give you a random collection of grievances and observations, and other food related things I read on a regular basis.
Things I fail to understand –
– The entire concept of Tofu Wellington with shitake “bacon” (air quotes not actually mine, but well deserved nonetheless).
– People who scratch themselves in public. I’m not talking about a discrete rub along your thigh, or leaning down to get at that mosquito bite on your ankle. I’m talking hand down the front of your sweatpants for a solid five minute scratch in the middle of the grocery store. I stood in the longer checkout line even though I was in a hurry just so that I wouldn’t have to touch anything that he might have touched after his luxurious personal grooming session in the baking goods aisle. Read the rest of this entry ?
I have a confession. I watch Top Chef. More than that, I enjoy Top Chef.
Let me explain. I really don’t get the appeal of reality TV. Half the time it’s so contrived it might as well be scripted, and the other half of the time people are competing for what seem like wildly pointless reasons. I’m also choosing the blame it for the fact that shows I love like Kings and Jericho fail dismally. This is not particularly fair, because while I suspect there is an argument that can be made for networks favoring reality TV over well written scripted TV because of the price difference in producing them, I don’t think you can actually blame American Idol for Kings’ dismal ratings. Read the rest of this entry ?
Going to Wilson Farms in the Spring is always a battle between the person I kind of secretly want to be, and my common sense. My common sense says that I (a) don’t have a garden, (b) did not inherit a green thumb from either one of my grandmothers, and that (c) to call my interest in learning how to garden cursory would be exceedingly generous. But, I go up to Wilson Farms to do my weekly grocery shopping and I walk past flats filled with velvety purple pansies, and racks of enticing seed packets, and shelves of aromatic basil plants and I want to be the kind of person who gardens. Personally, I blame my childhood reading habits. Read the rest of this entry ?
Some people fantasize about wine, women and song. Some people fantasize about fast cars and faster men. Some people fantasize about winning the lottery. I fantasize about the ideal kitchen. Well okay, I also fantasize about winning the lottery because really who doesn’t want to win the lottery, quit work and travel a lot? And with the money, I’d be able to design my fantasy kitchen. Read the rest of this entry ?
This week is the intersection of three major religious holidays in Boston. It’s Passover – the first Seder was last night. Easter is this Sunday. And, Tuesday was the opening game at Fenway. Normally I’d feel a little blasphemous comparing these three events, but I was at an annual company meeting on Tuesday that got cut short so that we could all watch the first pitch at Fenway. The company meeting wasn’t actually scheduled to be the same day as the first game of the season – nobody in Boston would be that foolish – but the game got washed out on Monday night, so they had no choice but to cut the company meeting short. I’m pretty sure the option of just not watching the game was never even considered. The Red Sox, incidentally, won that game 5-3, and then made up for it on Wednesday by losing 7-2. Read the rest of this entry ?
Because making stock was possibly the most useful thing I did all weekend.
Dinner this week is the result of a series of events, some of which were in fact unfortunate, but most of which were just ordinary. No fourth cousins three times removed, or even third cousins four times removed attempted to follow me in strange disguises and steal my fortune*, but I did discover something worrying in my freezer. Or rather, I discovered a worrying lack of something in my freezer. Read the rest of this entry ?
I’ve come to the realization that while I’m perfectly capable of planning a week’s worth of menus, I can only do it if I’m not planning something else first. Case in point, this weekend my roommate and I went down to Connecticut to a baby shower for which we’d been asked to make some food. I duly went up to Wilson Farms on Saturday to pick up chickpeas and tahini (hummus), cream cheese and mushrooms (mushroom dip) and assorted fresh veggies (including purple cauliflower, about which I was disproportionately excited). I remembered to pick up extra mushrooms for the Pasta with Pumpkin Sauce I’d decided we were going to have for Dinner, and to buy spinach for the baked eggs I was planning on serving for dinner on Monday. However, I forgot eggs, milk, apples, pears, sage and just about everything else I needed, and this would explain why I’ve been at a grocery store three times and counting this week. Read the rest of this entry ?
Monday Night Dinner 