Jenmenke

Road Warrior

beans

Meatless Monday Twenty!

So, I had bookclub on Monday this week. Didn’t prepare ahead and have Meatless Monday on Sunday. Didn’t cook meatless for my family before I left. Didn’t do much of anything, really. Except have a rotten, horrible day. I can’t remember everything that happened, but Monday was bad, bad, bad.

I was late to bookclub as usual, but what to my wondering eyes should appear?

But a Sheilabird cooking Meatless Monday for Jennie, so dear!

Yes, it’s true. My friend Sheila cooked a Meatless Monday meal in my honor! Well, I don’t know if it was really in my honor, but she said it was, and I am choosing to believe her. Of course, I didn’t have my camera. And of course everyone was freaking out about me taking pictures with my iphone. So they all stink. The pictures, I mean. Not the guests. But really! What’s so bad about a nasty picture on my blog? No one reads the stupid thing except you guys, and you don’t care, do you?

Anyway. It was lovely. Sheila’s bookclub dinners always are. She served something she made last fall called Indian Relish (Is that right, Sheila? I’m too lazy to call you) over cream cheese with those wafer-thin crackers that remind me of ice cream cones. The relish reminds me of pepper jelly, sort of sweet/onion/hot… So good

And she had an awesome zinfandel.

Which I promptly spilled on her brand-new-not-even-finished-quilted tablecloth.

So uncouth.

The main event was what she calls Green and White Pasta, even though we all know pasta isn’t really white. Maybe the white should be the green onion. Anyway, it’s a recipe that originally called for broccoli that she has morphed into a conflagration of green veggies. Any you have on hand, really. She used asparagus (AND DIDN’T CALL ME FOR ANY!), peas, thin green beans and green onions.

Yuk! I just found a wood tick stuck into my shoulder blade. I saw it in the mirror last night and thought it was a zit. Sorry. I guess I thought you’d want to know that…

This is how you make it:

Green & White Pasta, serves 8

  • 1 lb Pasta. Pick a fun shape. She used Campanelle, but also likes Gemelli.
  • 6-10 cloves garlic minced (to taste)
  • 4 T olive oil, divided
  • 1-2 t red pepper flakes (to taste)
  • 1 small bunch asparagus (figure about 12-16 spears)
  • 1 cup green peas
  • 1 bunch green onion
  • 1 small bunch chives (if you haven’t killed them all with Round-Up yet), chopped/minced.
  • 1 small bunch haricot vert (thin green beans)
  • juice from 2 large lemons
  • 1 cup shredded parmesan cheese, plus more for garnish
  • 1/2 cup pine nuts, toasted. (to toast, spread on cookie sheet and bake at 350 for about 8 minutes. WATCH CLOSELY! better to under-toast than to over-toast.)
  • salt and pepper to taste

Blanch the asparagus and beans till just tender crisp and chill in an ice bath. Drain and cut into approximately 2-3″ pieces. Cook the pasta in well seasoned water until just al dente, drain. In a large heavy bottomed pot, big enough to hold the entire dish, heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat and add garlic. Saute until fragrant, about a minute. Add green onions and pepper flakes, saute another minute. Add the beans, asparagus, peas and chives to the pot. Saute until warmed thru. Add the cooked and drained pasta to the mix, gently stirring to combine. Add another 2 tablespoons (or more to taste) of olive oil. Add the lemon juice and parmesan cheese. Stir until everything is hot and combined. Top with toasted pine nuts and serve with more parmesan on the side.

Enjoy!*

* I hate when waiters say “Enjoy!”

Meatless Monday Seven!

And Valentine’s Day wrapped up in one.

Dave gave me two cookbooks for Valentine’s Day. One was an Indian cookbook and the other was a vegetarian cookbook. Which proves that even though he is pissing and moaning about Meatless Mondays, he is – in fact – encouraging me to continue.

I was very excited. I made an Indian pork dish for our Valentine’s Day dinner. I know that sounds like an oxymoron, being that most Indians don’t eat pork, but apparently a few in the south do (The Christian ones, the recipe states). It was delicious. Even my daughter’s friend — a notoriously picky eater — liked it. And that’s saying something.

So, for Meatless Monday Seven, I decided to cook something out of the other one. The vegetarian one. Both cookbooks have lovely pictures — a must, for me. I know there are many, many, many fabulous cookbooks that don’t have pictures. They just don’t appeal to me anymore. Maybe I don’t have the time to really delve in. I don’t know. I judge cookbooks-by-their-covers and that’s all there is too it.

The point is, these both had lovely pictures.

However, after cooking out of both. The Indian is in the lead. The vegetarian one has two fails so far. And I’m wondering:

Can I return it and say I don’t like it after having used it? Like you supposedly can with make-up you have already opened? Even though I don’t actually return make-up I have already opened and hate? Because it just seems wrong? Then I’m mad and vow to stop buying make-up at the drugstore from now on. When I should just return it. Anyone else suffer this same madness? Madness as in — mental illness?

Anyway.

I wonder what Barnes and Nobel would say if I brought it back and said, “The cellophane noodles called for in the recipe for Thai Spicy noodles are clearly NOT cellophane noodles in the photo. I want my money back!”

Because that really bugs me.

Don’t take a picture of the finished dish and make it look better with different noodles than the recipe calls for. That’s FRAUD!

Being that I am generous and forgiving in nature, I did not give up on this cookbook for that obvious failing. I generously cooked not one, but two recipes from it: 1) Refritos Gateau and 2) Sage Buttered Parsnips.

Let’s start with 2), because it’s faster: Sage Buttered Parsnips are, well… sage. buttered. parsnips. That’s the “recipe.” Cook parsnips, drain and mix with sage and butter. I fricken’ kid you not. But still I made them. I even followed the recipe for once! Oooh. Aaah. They were AMAZING. Ohh. ah. This cookbook. Is. Amazing!!

Moving on to 1) Refritos Gateau. It sounded quite promising. In the end though, it was little more than refried beans with melted cheese and sour cream. All the other stuff in the photo at the top? That was my attempt to cover up the ghastly-looking patties so that my family wouldn’t barf when they sat down to dinner. I’m sure it wasn’t any coincidence that caused the editors to skip Refritos Gateau when selecting recipes to photograph for the cookbook.

It tasted just fine. It was even good. It simply did not deserve 1 hour of my time when I could have just as easily opened three cans of beans, popped them in the microwave with some cheese and served them with sour cream, avocados and other miscellaneous accouterments.

Because that was what it tasted like. Nevermind the sautéed onions, eggs (? Yes. eggs. which were a complete waste of delicious fresh eggs) and the other blather called for in the recipe. Dividing it, baking it, in two springform pans (!), assembling it, warming it in the oven, spreading it with sour cream, back into the oven, blah blah blah, waste my time no more!

I will not give up on this book yet. I will give it more chances and report back. But if it continues on this downward path, look out. Hell hath no fury like a cook scorned. And I will unleash that fury with ratings anywhere and everywhere I can. (Just ask the poor sods who sent me the wrong furnace filter and made me pay the return shipping.)

(Valentines Day is not just for people)