I did less work than I would have liked in 2013. Various factors led to this, but mostly I spent the year either chasing client work that never came through, planning & putting work into personal projects that have yet to be realised (ahem, the webcomic, mostly), or actually enjoying myself with extended family. There […]
On the evening of December the thirty-first, two thousand & twelve, I was busy being a hermit and cooking dinner. Unlike the previous year, we’d decided to stay away from the hours-long metro lines & traffic jams that awaited all who ventured out that evening to catch the fireworks at the Burj Khalifa. I’ve never […]
Pizza party at my friend’s place went well, all things considered. I made far too much food and was banging them out on auto-pilot, for the most part, but some of the combinations worked well. My blanched spinach sauteed oyster mushrooms over spicy cream cheese sauce, and my friend Tesia’s grilled halloumi cheese over caramelised onions, especially.
I would gladly do one of these again.
V
Making some no-knead pizza again. At the rate this is rising (5 hours in, another 10-12 to go) I think it will end up consuming the entire apartment!
Mostly leftovers and odds and ends from the previous Pizza-making effort. Start to finish in less than 30 minutes, and delicious.
V
It’s taken me a few tries to get pizzas right at home, but I think I’ve finally cracked it. Even though the dough I made was too wet, it turned out beautifully. I don’t own a pizza peel and my oven struggles to get over 200C at the best of times, so instead of topping the raw dough and then precariously trying to slide the wobbly mess onto the baking stone, I pre-baked just the rolled out discs of dough for five minutes each, then topped and returned the much easier to handle pies to the oven for a further eight-to-ten minutes.
Wish I had the energy to take better pictures. I made four pies in all, a mushroom-pepper-olive one, one ‘white’ pie with a cream-cheese sauce, one with the cheese sauce mixed with some of the tomato (it looked like Pepto Bismol), and one very wet, saucy pie with all the ingredients that were left and also some sausage.
It was all pretty damn delicious, and one hell of a confidence booster after several failed attempts at making pizza.
V
My friends said they were coming over for lunch the next day almost exactly at the time the gas ran out, and I had to leave. I wouldn’t have time to shop that day, or be at home to get a new cylinder put in. So, plans changed, and instead of a carefully guided, slow-cooked ragda pattice for the next day’s lunch, I decided to try out a recipe I’d recently seen on Chow.com
The dish really is super-easy and turned out wonderfully, despite the fact that I only marinated it for an hour (I scored each chicken thigh deeply to let the flavour penetrate as much as it could). I made twice as much of the marinade, reserving half for stir-fry vegetables to accompany it, and served it all over coconut rice (prepare rice as usual, substituting half the water with coconut milk).
Try it. It’s easy. It’s delicious. What more do you want in a meal?
V
Bucatini with a lemon-butter sauce, mint, parsley, chilli flakes, garlic, onion and black pepper, fried breadcrumbs, pecorino romano. This is lunch.
V
A day later, toasted, and buttered (Amul, of course), my second attempt at no-knead bread is quite delicious.
(BTW, I used this recipe.)
V
I love pasta. I love baked things. So it stands to reason that I love baked pasta!
This dish was the easiest thing to do; I’m not sure which blog I saw it on (will link to it if I find it), because I just committed the recipe to memory weeks ago. Just sautee some onions, garlic, mushrooms and spinach (in that order), season, add in a can of tomatoes, turn the heat off and a 200g tub of Philadelphia cream cheese and mix until smooth. Meanwhile cook 300ish grams of dry pasta (macaroni or whatever), add it into the sauce.
Top with breadcrumbs (or cheese, if you like), then bake covered for 30 minutes at 180C, then uncovered for another 15 or until the breadcrumbs brown.
It’s delicious. I promise you.
I also made a second attempt at No-Knead Bread. It’s still cooling, but it sure looks right this time!
V
Sometimes all you need for great tasting food is to cook it low and slow until everything becomes more than the sum of its parts.
V