Simply red

Trying to cook simply, so we makes a basic beet ravioli with brown butter sauce tonight. Though I probably hurled any notion of "simple" out the window when I made my own pasta sheets. The sage was flowering today, so I threw some of the flowers in there too.

There were a few bursticated beet ravioli, so I recycled them back into the pasta dough to make Hello Kitty pink parpedelle.

So my attempt to cook simply tonight gets completely fo'cocked when I remembered it's day 2 of Yule Log 2008. I'm veering off the recipe completely when it comes to assembly and decorating the yule log. The yule log recipe writers have obviously snorted way too much cocoa powder and have never seen a fallen log in real life. Their bark is all wrong, and the branches would never grow that way in nature. If you're going to be inspired by a fallen log, you need to either do an artistic impressionist interpretation, or go for realism. None of this half-assed melted elephant poo lump that Cooks Illustrated showed in the book. So me, being me, I'm going to make anatomically correct yule logs.

Davy 1. Cook's Illustrated 0. Take that Cook's Illustrated beeyotches!

What's za'at?

Purple cauliflower retained it's colors after roasting. With za'atar spices. I just like saying za'atar! Za'atar! The spice-lings were not all that amused when last I visited the Spice House. Za'atar!

Holy crap delicious. It was about time I made something Spanish after watching hours upon hours of Spanish cooking shows. Migas, a Spanish peasant dish composed of fried breadcrumbs and "whatever" ingredients you may have present. I made mine with apples and hen of the woods mushrooms. Holy crap delicious. I doubled the recipe that served 4. And then I ate the entire batch by myself in one sitting. 8 servings my ass! I would wager that Spanish peasants didn't eat like waifish coked up supermodels.

Dinosaur kale with almonds and cauliflower hearts. I didn't want to open a new bottle of white wine, so we'll use red. Now we're color coordinated with the roasted purple cauliflower.

Calamari fritto. Delicious! I bought the squid off the back of a truck at the farmer's market. They gave me extra tentacle bits because we agree'd those were the best parts. (And I was doing my best flirty flirty with everyone that day.)

Still hungry late at night, so for dinner #3, I fried up some of the frozen Thanksgiving celery root ravioli.

Nom nom

Hannah's in town for dumplings. She possesses better chopstick skills than her uncle.

And we like the pinkberry with the fruity pebbles. Uncle beats a hasty retreat home right before the sugar kicks in.

Butt but

Garlic roasted potatoes. With rosemary. I miss Ro.

Simple herbed roast chicken, enema style. I didn't have any beer cans, so I threw herbs and wine into a IKEA stainless steel pencil cup and shoved it up the chicken's ass. Twas definitely one of the more flavorful and moist roast chickens I've made. But the skin not as golden as I would like. Perhaps I need to play with the oven temperatures a bit and coke up the herb rub with sugar. But definitely tasty. The chicken should be like Donatella Versace. Crispy golden skin with herbs and booze flavor running throughout. 

Leaf me

This week's farmer's market bounty is very colorful. And all for less than $15. Cheep cheeps!

Nancy made a big mess, and then left me to clean up after her. Bad Nancy!

Leftovers be over

Leftover sweet potato puree transforms into the filling for tortellini. Individually quick frozen for future consumption. I learned IQF from watching Top Chef. In our recessionary times, I shall endeavor not to throw away food.

And celery root puree similarly makes its way into pierogi. Pizza red sauce get combined with meatballs for a home made version of Chef Boyardee. And I also learned from television that Chef Boyardee was an actual person. Ettore (Hector) Boiardi (Boyardee) dumbed down his Italian name so the dumb ass Americans can pronounce his name phonetically.

Hot layers of hell

The final chocolate layers are applied to the 7 layer cookies. The shape and form of the cookie slab reminds me of slab bacon. Mayhaps I will attempt a red, white, and pink version that is maple and smoke flavored. With white chocolate.

Sliced into pieces for holiday visitor parting gifts. These are tasty. Almond flavored layers with apricot filling, sandwiched between dark chocolate. These would be even better if the recipe made any sense to humans. Seriously, that recipe writer needs to die a painful death and rot in hell without bacon.

Leftover meat cake potato frosting get recycled into thrice baked potatoes. It's once more delicious-er than twice baked potatoes.

United colors of bacon

Tonight, I'm attempting to make insanely complicated 7 layer almond apricot cookie recipe. So far so good. Rather than the traditional red, white, and green Italian flag colors normally present in 7 layer cookies, I go for blue, white, and orange. Because those are the colors of Davy World. 

My conclusion is that the cookie itself isn't very hard to make. Some assembly is required, but it's all very straight forward. The main issue here is that the recipe is very poorly written, so you're always lost if you try to follow it exactly. It's not a crazy complicated cookie. It's a stupid recipe writer.

Mmmm... bacon. Bacon is the official food of Davy World. There would be no tax on bacon in Davy World. Because I am a kind and benevolent ruler. At least initially.

Mmm.... saving bacon grease. Bacon grease is delicious. 

Mini Me(eat)

I love meat cake so much that we will make a cute Mini Meat Cake tonight.

With turkey deli meat rose. The sprinkles are red Hawaiian sea salt. Isn't baby meat cake just darling?

Today's adorable meat cake is made with a triumvirate of P's. Pork, pistachios, and pimentón. (And a ton of leftover ingredients.) I've been watching a lot of Spanish cooking shows lately.

El perro loco

After the crippled dog incident and resulting doggie physical, the vet suggested putting Preston on a low impact poached chicken and rice diet. So now I'm cooking arroz con pollo for the dog. Aie-ya! The things you do for the ones you love. So much more work than kibble. Preston picks out the chicken and doesn't like rice. He probably learned that from me. As our eating habits are gradually swapping places, I will be eating cereal out of the dog bowls soon.

Cous cous with the figs and pistachios. I've been putting handfuls of pistachios into everything lately. I must be nuts.

And since I was still hungry, supper #2 is baked stuffed quince. Just like they do in the ancient olden days. Also with pistachios.

Tart tart

The last of the king trumpet mushrooms, smeared with a basil pesto. I'm feeling the effects of pizza fatigue.

And one more roasted vegetable pizza. This is getting predictable now. But I must say, the pizza doughs lately have been very well behaved and great to work with.

This cranberry polenta tart was filled with a custard of leftover Thanksgiving cranberry sauce. Nothing really wrong with this cranberry tart, I'm sure lots of people would love it. But for me, meh. So as of today, I officially declare my dislike of cranberries. Bah! Cranberries. But ridged cranberry tube from a can is still on the good list.

Happy tree friends

My Baby Trees of the National Parks are doing well enough to move into larger pots. We did lose the coast redwood sapling over the hot dry summer. We will have a moment of silence, mourn, and then send the dried out redwood carcass into the wood chipper.

Super deformed lemon. The limoncello tree is so silly sometimes. It's been super happy this year. So glad I didn't send it through the wood chipper years ago.

And once again, I call upon the services of pizza to help deal with meat cake party leftovers. The salame was once part of the antipasto plate and the cheeses from meat cake.

Leftover mushrooms from mushroom cake.

And leftover roasted vegetables from veggie cake and beef cake. Still, not much of a noticeable dent in the refrigerator. I might be eating leftovers for the rest of the month. Aie-ya!

Meat block(er)

Every once in a while, the refrigerator is so tightly packed with food and leftovers that it is impossible to see the items at the back. When that happens, we concoct strange combinations with whatever is easiest to grab from the front. We need to eat a path to access the things towards the rear. It's like playing a refrigerator version of Tetris. Today, sausage and chrysanthemum greens (tung ho) were most accessible in the refrigerator.

Candied bacon. Because I just can't stop.

Meat cake party leftovers get turned into garlic bread and bacon wrapped dates stuffed with gorgonzola. I would be a truly happy man if all my dates come wrapped in bacon...

High on sugar

I made an airplane flying above clouds at a gingerbread house making party. I'm easily distracted and I don't follow directions well.

Meat cake

It's meat cake day! No winter birthday celebration is complete without a layer cake in meat form. I formed the patties with a divot in the center, so when meat cake puffs up in the oven, we will end up a flatter top instead of the usual dome that would need to be trimmed off for cake duty.

Ta Da! Meat Cake. Frosted with mashed potatoes. With bacon roses. Thank you sous chef MK for wonderful chopping and shopping skills.

We would have encountered fewer structural issues had we used instant mashed potatoes and a more traditional dry meat loaf recipe. But we wanted a tasty moist meat cake instead of 15 pounds of novelty meat brick. A turkey and mushroom layer on top, a roasted veggie beef layer on bottom. And instead of the usual ketchup, there's a sun dried tomato and olive pesto in between the layers. Delicious meat cake.

And that's not all. Fish in cake form.

And veggie cake. Eggplant and squash with 3 kinds of puree filling. Sweet potato, celeriac, and garlic russet potato. Topped with a parmesan crisp.

And mushroom cake. (I know. stretching it. turn your head sideways.)

And butter in cake form. Thank you Stuart for assorted sodas that don't taste like sodas. Such flavors as cucumber and rose petals and espresso.

Somebody ate a mouthful of butter thinking it was cake! Ha!

Fudgie the Whale Carvel cake makes an appearance. Ice cream in cake form! The fluke and blow hole was especially delicious.

And to finish up Winter Birthday Celebration 2008, Megan brings red velvet cupcakes in entree form. Go Megan! The butter is a starburst candy.