The smell of slow, buttery onions followed by small bits of garlic and ginger sprinkled with curry leaves. A setting that awaits your next move fills my small corridor kitchen of dreams and excitement.
This beef simmers in Sri Lankan wonder waiting for the cauliflower spice that doubles as rice.
Salad ( pronounced ” sah – lahd ” ) with cute, little tomatoes and some avocado from Maroc.
Chops. Shallow fried in lard.
Potato cakes. Yesternight’s mashed pots ( buttah, creme fraiche ) with added chives. Also added, a fresh- from-the-chook’s-bum egg and it all went a beautiful yellow. Shallow fried in lard and unicorn tears.
And chard. You know, cook the hard bits first. Then add the leafy bits with some stock. Cover and uncover to reduce.
Yeah, so some of my best friends are Lebanese. Yeah so he’s not all that great at ping-ping. And so he needs to use the hand break to move a car with a clutch stopped on a hill. But we love him. And we love his mum. When she comes to town, you learn how to cook for many, hungry people.
She cooks dish after dish of Lebanese yummidom that makes you sit back in your seat, loosening your buttons while giggling or singing. I’m not sure why I have a fear of leftovers, but tonight I tapped into my inner Lebanese mama and cooked a whole lotta meatballs. The kids munched and munched. We giggled. We sang. I think I’m going to arrive here again. Food, it ties a room together.
Perfecting pork crackling, some pork/beef combo waiting for some garlic-onion-ginger treatment, a little ground pork waiting for its moment to shine, cauliflower waiting for cheesy melty goob … these are the ingredients I work with. Full now, tomorrow brings a full day of what to do with the leftovers.
Stir-fry was a lovely yum-filled evening but for a veal nub waiting in the wings.
You can see amongst the Robert and the Antifragile, sometimes work mixes with pleasure.
The boys hit their limit quickly. Otto totally dug the soba deep fried in bacon fat. Go bacon fat! Brent ate his share and let the kids finish what was left.
But there are more beings interested in our calories.
… And these chicks
Veal nub devoured, stir-fry gone, we shower and sleep and wait for brighter days involving more at-our-reach ingredients. Please, people resist the temptation to Eat Out. That is all.
This is a ” quasi ” – mumble. The girls and I tucked into a portion of this veal steak yesterday with amazing velocity. It was incredibly tasty and now we cook the last nub for a little after dinner gouter.
I’m not frequent with the sugar consumption so when we were gifted a big box of dark chocolate , Lindt flavor discs, we took no pause before tucking in.
The flavors were
– chocolate
– caramel
– cherry piment ( that’s French for spicy )
– orange
Oh and they were good. Oh they were lovely.
My ranking:
Caramel ( my ab fav )
Cherry Piment ( Brent’s nemesis chocolate )
Orange
Chocolate
I had to bite two cherry piment to get this picture; the first one was blurry. I’m loving chocolate photography.
I don’t have a lot of experience with veal other than pounding the crap out of crappy veal to make scaloppine. But with our first veal, which is truly rose veal, as it was with it’s mum milking, eating hay and grass ready for slaughter around seven months. We couldn’t wait to fry one of these steaks up. So curious were we. The result? Beef! Flavor! Tender! A complete shock followed by excitement filled our dining room ( which we call “the mess” which also triples as our office and t.v. room okay and “the warm room”). Veal or Rose Veal or Baby Beef is good don’t let people tell you otherwise.
My first time with this dish, but my Mexican cookbook has yet to let me down.
Onions
Garlic
Chilies
Tomatoes
Zucchini
Corn ( we skipped this part )
Some mild, white cheese
I’m guessing the kids will approach this tentatively. Though each serving counts as a baby-step.
True fact: ” blood, sweat and tears ” was a phrase coined by a meh-hee-can lady in her kitchen.
Sweat: cooking for the gauchos will make you sweat. They work hard and they’re mighty hungry.
Tears: chopping onions brings tears to your eyes no matter what technique you use.
Blood: with teary eyes, sometimes one can get a wee bit too confident with the super sharp, onion chopping knife.
But when you are cooking leftover pork roast that came out quite juicy what with all the fat and slow cooking, a tear shed makes you feel like you’ve made a little impact on the world.
Pork, avocado, salsa and Mexican zucchini locked and loaded for this evening’s meal.
Girl On Grill Action 