Sausage with many ingredients!

A couple months ago or so, I went to my mom’s house where she made something rather fantastic for dinner. She told me that she’d been making such a thing for herself and my father a lot recently. She took sweet and hot Italian sausage and cooked them with garlic, sliced white onions, strips of roasted red pepper, pepperoncini, and some very tiny potatoes from Trader Joe’s. The dish was basically invented so she’d have something to do with these tiny potatoes. When it was all done, she’d cover it with some shredded cheese, and there you had a meal. Read the rest of this entry »

We had some hamburger cutlet curry last night, making use of the last of the curry I cooked earlier in the week. As often happens, we had a bunch of rice left over, so I whipped up some rice balls, aka onigiri, aka samgak kimbap, using one of Maangchi’s fantastic recipes. Maangchi has yet to steer me wrong. I made my own kimchi after Christmas and I really think it’s got to be some of the best kimchi I have ever tasted and I will owe this to her recipe and accompanying video that made it very achievable. It’s a long process, but I’d not say it’s hard. It’s something to do when you’ve got a day off or a half-day from your usual obligations. Anyhow, yeah, let’s get to the gettin’.

I had some canned salmon that I bought a while ago for these very purposes, so I decided to swap the tuna in her recipe for salmon. This recipe couldn’t be easier to follow. There’s a good reason why you’ll see these made for little kids in trendy hipster bento lunchboxes photographed/blogged about by hipster parents online. It’s something you could do with kids. It was just as tasty to do this with salmon as tuna, what a shock. My eyes wandered to some of the sardines I’ve got lying around… I’m going to have to try that next…

My six degrees of separation story about Todd English is that my dad helped him get building permits to open up Olives (and later, Figs) in Charlestown, MA in the 1980s. I’d never actually eaten at his restaurant until I went there for my BFF Prairie’s 24th birthday in 2000. I don’t remember everything I had, but I do remember having something involving a lobster ragout over squid ink pasta. I’d seen squid ink pasta on Iron Chef and very much wanted to try it, delightful gothy black pasta. Mmm! Say what you will about what Todd English has become, as MC Slim JB does very well, but back when he was into cooking, the man knew how to make some dang pizza and he knew how to make some effin’ crab cakes. I received The Olives Table several years ago as a birthday or Christmas present, either from Prairie or from my mom, I’m no longer sure. I liked the sound of his crab cake recipe as it didn’t involve red bell pepper or mayonnaise, bold moves indeed!  I made the crab cakes and I made an aïoli also from the cookbook and whoa. Oh, Todd English, you’re the real Iron Chef USA.

Adapted for the home, his cookbooks are easy to follow and replicate in your kitchen. If nothing else, these crab cakes are worth trying. Rather than welcome a C&D, the link there is for “mini” crab cakes, but it’s the same as the recipe in his cookbook; the recipe omits the fact that you will get four crab cakes from that recipe.