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 »

Ugh, what a crappy day.

I’ve had some ingredients lying around for a couple weeks to make rose truffles. I was going to make them for the Anime Boston staff dessert contest, but I ran out of time. I also got some other stuff that I wanted to mess with, including bamboo rice and Meyer lemons (I wanted to try making lemon curd)

As I’ve been doing virtually no cooking for a couple weeks for one reason or another, I’m itchy to cook something. I have been craving plantains and black beans like mad. I’ve been nagging my husband to go to a Cuban restaurant in Jamaica Plain, but he denies me this request because he feels parking in JP is a pain in the ass (which it is, but suck it up, mister). I decided I’d make some at home  instead. Armed with my newly-upgraded membership to the Cook’s Illustrated website so I can get at the “Editor’s Choice” recipes, I’ve got some recipes saved and some shopping lists created to make: twice-fried plantains (tostones); black beans with ham hocks, cilantro, and lime; roast pork loin with mojo and oranges; and baked long-grain rice. I think this could be pretty good, but first things first! We’ve got to clean the hell out of the fridge, do some dishes, tidy up the kitchen, and most importantly, we need ingredients. The husband’s taking a nap (he’s been up since pretty early this morning, so I’ll be good and patient). Maybe later, we can go get groceries. I’m excited to try making this stuff! There was also a recipe for Cuban-style oven-roasted pork shoulder, but I’d end up with enough pork for like 12 people, and there are two of us. Maybe I’ll save that one for another time; I don’t think I’m up to having buddies over this weekend as I’m getting over an MS flare-up and I still feel kinda crappy.

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…