A Simple Curry

One of my favorite things in the entire word is having friends over for dinner. I like sequestering myself in the kitchen for a few hours and tuning into Thelonious Monk, playing mad scientist with spices, and ignoring the rest of the world until friends knock on the door and it's time to set the table. Sometimes I plate and serve full courses, and sometimes I spread all the elements on the table, and let my guests put together their own plates. The following curry works best in the latter format, as people can choose how much rice, vegetables, sauce, and garnish they want. It's a good meal for a smallish (4-6) dinner party.

Cilantro, Coconut Curry Sauce, Cumin Scented Rice, Roaster Cauliflower and Carrots, Steamed Spinach and Choi Sum

Curry Powder:

Rice and Beans with Hedgehog Mushrooms

I love hedgehogs. They are just so cute with their little snouts, and prickly quills, and when they yawn it's irresistible. They also belong outside, romping around in the grass and getting into peoples gardens, or sometimes washing hankies and making cups of tea, but only on their own terms. There is another kind of hedgehog though, which I gladly welcome into my kitchen, is luscious orange-brown, has soft little "quills" on the underbelly, is light and peppery and goes excellent with rice and beans, making it a perfect light dinner addition. And that is the hedgehog mushroom, my newest favorite find and a staple of late in my kitchen.

Cook rice, seasoning with chipotle chili pepper, garlic, salt, and cracked black pepper. Cook cranberry beans, seasoning with salt and cracked pepper. In a medium pan, over medium heat, saute 1 cup hedgehog mushrooms in 2 tsp olive oil, salt to taste and 1 tsp fresh chopped parsley until mushrooms are sift and cooked combine 1/2 cup rice with 1/2 cup cooked beans in a bowl and top with mushrooms. a very simple yet satisfying meal.

Shared Plates

Quite a lot has happened in the last few weeks, and as I sit here not-so-patiently waiting for the last of this horrid cold that has consumed my life the last four days to pass, I can finally take a few minutes to reflect on the rapid fire of the last few weeks. Christmas came and went, compacted into 4 days of seeing mine and my wife's family. Managed to see a few friends before I got sick and resigned to hiding in bed, saw a few movies starring Jeff Bridges (True Grit = Cohen brothers brilliance; Tron = old school fun reinvented), broke down and got a 35mm Holga Camera (Yes, I went to Urban Outfitters. Yes, I swore the whole time I was in the store. I may have even managed to bark "I used to be able to get a Holga 120 for $15 before these assholes started carrying them!" at the display of the brilliant Japanese plastic creations), did some laundry, took a few baths, visited the Picasso exhibit at SAM and somehow didn't end up cooking anything new and exciting.

Seriously, somehow, the only thing I have cooked in the last 2 weeks was some stir-fry and some vanilla bean cupcakes with tart cherry filling (ok, those were pretty good...) I did, however, share a few meals with friends, discussed molecular gastronomy, the roles food plays in community and history, read more of the Alice B. Toklas Cookbook (which, in fact, predates Julia Child's french cookbook for Americans, and has more pre-war recipes), received and promptly started reading "As Always, Julia: the Letters of Julia Child and Avis DeVoto" which is a truly amazing record of the development of one of the most monumental cookbooks and characters in U.S. history. I dined at a few "acclaimed" northwest restaurants and have a few ideas for some upcoming dinner menus, and shared a wonderful meal of rice, lentils, beets and onions, and beet greens with a few good friends. K, who made the wonderful meal, and I get to talking food and bore everyone else to tears, so we devised a plan to have a food date in the city every two weeks. In a way, that's a new years resolution, and one that I won't mind sticking with.

Lemon scented rice. Beets and Onions. Beet Greens

Sautéed Veggies and Rice

Tonight my friend Brooke busted her ass down to our apartment, showed me the new hair-do she’s got planned for me (I’m going back to short, with bangs. Holla!) and we spent the evening reminiscing about days long gone. I may have had one too many glasses of wine, but by no means got crapulous (seriously–it’s a word–look it up) and we talked waaaaay too much about past transgressions involving rice crispy treats. At any rate, after a day of work, and before an evening of hanging out, I had time to make a quick dinner using the excessive amounts of veggies in my fridge.

Sautéed Veggies and Rice

Indian Inspired One Pot Lentils and Rice

Just because I like good food and I like to cook doesn’t mean it’s all I like doing. I also enjoy reading personal ads and taking long walk on the beach. Just kidding. I don't really read the personals unless they are the personals on the back of The Stranger. That’s some good shit. At any rate, somedays, I just want to make a dish that takes me 5 minutes to prepare, 20 minutes to cook, and I can have leftovers for lunch for a few days. And that’s exactly what this one pot meal is. Easy, delicious, filling, and contains a complex protein I made this yesterday afternoon for lunch, and had it for breakfast and dinner tonight. Then I decided to switch my dietary habits up a bit and had a chick-o-stick (ummm... Dear marketing people at Atkinson: you really should think about renaming your candy to something one would not find in Toys in Babeland…) and a glass of wine. 

Indian Inspired One Pot Lentils and Rice