That's a wrap

The very last of the Thanksgiving turkey holidays get used up. Rather than the usual turkey sammiches at this time of the year, we go Southeast Asian with rice paper. If the pilgrims had GM's corporate jets, they would have made these too.

Beet with pretty stick

A pilgrimage to the ceramics store mecca yields items such as sponge on a stick. $2.65. I spent many minutes at the shop inappropriately fondling the pottery wheel I've been lusting after. Alas, I can not afford the thousand dollars to buy it. Pottery wheel! How you tease me! My attempts at marrying wealthy have so far failed miserably. Marry me please? I'll feed you.

So like most of America, I drown my sorrows by eating an entire rack of baby back ribs. This time, hickory smoked with a cilantro bourbon molasses glaze.

And roasted beet, radish, and gorgonzola salad. My current kitchen gadget obsession is the mandolin slicer. So far, I've managed to keep my fingertips. But it's only a matter of time before I slice off something important.

And for healthy-like snacking- Jewel toned beet chips! These turned out very beautifully translucent. I might not have sliced off my finger tips going overboard with the mandolin slicer, but my hands still wound up bloody beet red.

And then I made an empanada for dinner #2. Because I felt peckish.

Pig latin

It's been ages since I've seen one of my favorite Sachi's. We will catch up and reminisce with the aid of pork dishes. Sachi brings gifts of beautiful irises. Are irises edible?

A bit of wine, some manchego, and a nibble or two of salame while I finish up the other courses.

We will be guinea pigs* to my new invention. Interactive caesar salad. Slightly grilled romaine lettuce for a bit of smokey flavor. And the components of a traditional caesar dressing broken out and treated as their own individual side dishes of fried eggs and warm bagna cauda. Just mix everything together however you wish when you eat it. This was a bit too interactive for my tastes. I'm essentially lazy, so I'd rather not play with my food on the plate and would prefer something pre-tossed. Sometimes, it can be too much work to eat something. But I have to admit it looks nice on a plate.

But the old standby of tomatillo braised pork loin never fails. It's doubly wonderful today because pork is cheap this week due to the Jewish holidays. I have 18 lbs of pork in the refrigerator.

I kleenz krumms auf u.

*there was no lipstick on the above mentioned guinea pigs

Butterflies in my stomach

I filtered out all the fat and solids from bacon infused vodka. When I get my courage up, there will be bacon bloody mary's. Scared. Very very scared.

Once again it's Pesto Festo time. Tonight we make three different kinds- pine nut basil, walnut arugula, and pumpkin seed cilantro. Always good to have pestos around the house as a sauce for pasta, or sandwich spread, or stirred into a soup, or a marinade for seafood, or floor wax and glass cleaner. I am not sure I labeled all the identical looking pestos correctly, so I may be putting together some ill-conceived flavor combinations in the future.

Height of tomato season is upon us. We will be eating a lot of caprese salads over the next month.

This batch of pizza dough is especially perky and eager. It didn't get the memo about me being a failure at yeast things. Sssshhh... nobody tell.

Spinach and sausage farfalle. They don't really look like butterflies to me. There must have been a lot of vino when they invented farfalle.

Laying it on thick

Sunchoke gratin. Late spring and summer produce are about to show up at the markets. Fall and winter items must be cleared out of the refrigerator to make room for the new seasons.

Carrot apple ginger soup. With a smidgen of cilantro. The idea is to take advantage of pectin locked away in unpeeled apples to help give the soup an unctuous texture without muddling up the plant flavors with dairy or gelatinous meat broths. The texture turned out great, but I'm not really sure I can credit the apples. I didn't make a batch without the apples to compare. And pectin's jelling effect probably doesn't do much at warm soup temperatures. Tastes good though, so no matter. These would be great with some toasted pumpkin seeds sprinkled on top, but I didn't want to wash another pan.

Roasted orange beets and garlic- possibly for a salad later in the week, or some sort of marinade or sauce. Orange beets don't stain fingers and cutting boards and clothes and walls and napkins and dog noses like the more common red beets. I think orange ones are also slightly milder and more subtle in flavor, but that may be psychological. I'm easily swayed by pretty colors.

Today's bounty from the Super H Mart includes items such as Ca Ca flavored glazed chip snacks. Assorted shaped and filled mochi. Traditional Chen Pee plum candies, and coffee drinks named "Let's Be Bitter." In addition to being swayed by pretty colors, I am easily tempted by entertainingly named things. I will also be conducting comparison tests on cans of coconut milk.

And I couldn't resist trying the little crabs at the giant kimchee bar. Cute little itty bitty crabs! I'm such a sucker for little kawaii things.

A sucker for things like mini-me bananas. These mini bananas sliced and served with melon baller scooped ice cream would make great banana split sundaes for toddlers and dieters. I would top it with a tiny swedish lingonberry instead of a full sized maraschino cherry.

Sambal grilled corn. And Davy sauced ribs. Sometimes, there's nothing better on a weekend than grilled corn and a frosty beer. I had forgotten how good grilled corn can be. We will aim to grill more corn this summer. The pork ribs were so tender that it fell apart like pulled pork. Messy and delicious. This batch of Kentucky Davy Bourbon sauce included dried mangos and oregano. Now that I've realized bbq sauces are incredibly easy to make, there's really no reason to buy sauces and marinades that include xanthum gum and lecithin.