In recompense for my shameful non-posting...

Isn't it high time I put another recipe here? Does their rarity make them more valuable? Or is it merely their deliciousness that makes them valuable?

I'm rather fond of potato salad. Potatoes are a good neutral base for all sorts of flavors, and between types of potatoes, cut, cooking style, seasonings, temperature served, and so on, you can come up with any number of varieties of potato salad. This version is the second-best potato salad ever, and would be the very best if I added bacon, but people tell me that it's too much as it is. The ingredient proportions are approximate

Roast Garlic Potato Salad
3-4 lbs. red potatoes cut into one-inch cubes. Sometimes I peel these, sometimes I don't.
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/3 cup roasted garlic cloves, mashed into a paste (see note)
1/4 cup red onion, chopped
1/4 cup green onion, chopped
1/4 cup creole or other whole grain mustard
1 tbs cider vinegar
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp salt (probably more, actually. See instructions.)

Boil potatoes in salted water until fork tender. In the meantime, mix everything else together. Taste the mixture--if you can't taste garlic and onion and mustard, you probably need to add some salt. Unless the thing you taste instead of garlic and onion and mustard is salt. In that case you've screwed it up.

Drain the potatoes. Allow to cool to room temperature. Mix with garlic-onion mixture. Chill overnight, if you can resist.

It should probably serve 6-8 people, or 12-14 if it's a party and they're trying not to look like gluttons.

A note on garlic: If you don't know how to roast garlic, you might want to take a remedial class or something. Although I noticed that they're selling roast garlic on the olive bar at the Fresh Market around the corner, so you could use that in a pinch if you don't care what people think about you.

Blueberry Stuff

The blueberries are in at the orchard/fruit stand around the corner (the corner is a mile away, and the fruit stand is few miles beyond that, but it's technically around the corner), so I thought I'd post the recipe for what my Aint Flora Belle (and everyone else) calls Blueberry Stuff, a light no-bake cheesecake with a blueberry topping.

Blueberry Stuff
1 graham cracker crust (you can make your own, I guess, if you have nothing better to do and don't care for the handy little cover that comes with supermarket graham cracker crusts)
1 package cream cheese
1 tub of whipped topping
1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 cups blueberries
1/2 cup sugar (or more if the blueberries aren't very sweet)
2 tbsp cornstarch
1/2 cup water

For the filling:
Beat together cream cheese and powdered sugar until smooth, fold in whipped topping.

For the topping:
In a saucepan over medium low heat, mix blueberries, sugar, cornstarch, and water. (Start everything cold so you don't end up with lumps of cornstarch). Let everything dissolve, then come to a boil (you might increase the heat to medium once it gets warm if your stove won't bring stuff to a boil over lower heat, but you certainly don't want to scorch anything). Let cool a little bit--not too much as this stuff can set up to be pretty solid.

For the assembling:
Put filling in pie crust. Put topping on filling. Chill.

The effete food snobs in the audience (does anyone actually read this?) might turn up your nose at the prepared graham cracker crust and whipped topping in this recipe, and wonder why I don't just use canned blueberry pie filling. Well you can do that, too, if blueberries aren't in season and you didn't save any in the freezer.

Party Time!

We had the cast from Measure for Measure over Saturday night for a get-together after the show. Nearly everyone turned up, and everyone seemed to enjoy himself/herself. It was an opportunity to break out the deep fryer that I'd gotten as a Christmas present, but hadn't really used since I'm pathetically attempting to lose some weight. In any case, it provides an opportunity to bust out this recipe (reportedly "smack your mama good" from one party attendee, who brought his mama along for the occasion):

CNS Rolls

1 package (1 lb) egg roll wrappers
1 lb chicken breast meat, cut up into pieces (preferable) or ground
3-4 ribs celery, diced into 1/4 to 1/2 inch pieces
2-3 carrots, diced similarly
3-4 green onions, chopped
1-2 tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp dried thyme
good shot each of tabasco and worcestershire

oil for deep-frying

Heat the olive oil in a skillet, add vegetables, salt, pepper, thyme, tabasco and worcestershire and saute for 5-6 minutes until slightly tender. Add chicken and cook through--probably another five minutes, depending on the size of your skillet. Allow to cool COMPLETELY (if the filling is hot it will soften the wrappers and you'll end up with a mess).

Spoon two tbsp of cooked, cooled chicken mixture onto each egg roll wrapper and wrap, using water to seal the edges. At this point you can refrigerate or freeze the rolls until you're ready to fry. Deep fry at 350-360 degrees, serve warm with honey mustard.

This Post Will Change Your Life--

Just five minutes ago I read a post on Boing Boing that informed me that monkeys peel bananas from the end opposite the stem. I happened to have a banana in the kitchen and gave it a try, and I don't believe I'll ever open a banana the old-fashioned way again. Learn wisdom from our simian overlords!

Oh, the diet, the diet.

Once again the new year's resolution involves losing some weight--quite a bit of it, in fact. The last time I attempted this feat I was moderately successful, losing 50 lbs, then completely blowing it and gaining it back (and then some).

The plan, specifically, is that I eat 1800 calories a day (on average), and I excercise to burn off about 500 calories a day. and the pounds will just melt away.

Now if they'd only melt faster...

Had lunch at the Old Venice Pizza Company today, and ran into a waitress that Amy and I have known for some years. She and a friend of hers used to work at a local pizzeria chain on Fridays and we'd usually stop by either before or after going to the movies. We hadn't actually seen either one of them in some time; between one thing and another we'd stopped going to the pizzeria as often, and the few times we've been recently neither of them were there, so I assumed that they'd moved on to bigger and better things.

Sorta--she told me that both of them had been fired/quit in rapid succesion with new ownership taking over the pizzeria, and she'd ended up at Old Venice, where I have lunch every couple of weeks (diet--remember? Their salads are okay, but just okay). Anyhow, she seemed genuinely excited to see me again, which is nice.

Green Soup

Had folks over for a Christmas-y party last night: Strip loin roast (a little overcooked, but still very good), asparagus (way overcooked--I forgot about it in the oven--but still very good), mashed potatoes, and a soup that I think is really good for the holidays, as it's warm and creamy and GREEN. It doesn't have an official name, so you may call it what you like.

1 Bunch of Celery, sliced
1 bag or 2 bunches green onions, chopped
1 tbsp olive oil
1 can chicken broth
1 can artichoke hearts
1-1/2 quarts milk
1 cup shredded mozzerella cheese
1 tsp black pepper
pinch of salt

Heat the olive oil in a medium-to-large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the celery, green onions, and salt and saute for five minutes, until the celery starts to soften a little. Pour in the chicken broth, add black pepper, and cook uncovered over medium heat for ten-fifteen minutes, until chicken broth is reduced by about half and vegetables are tender. Transfer to a food processor or blender and process until smooth--use caution as hot liquid tends to shoot out the top of the blender and get over everything if you aren't careful.

You can stop at this point, put the soup base (the green mess you just made) into a storage container and refrigerate for a day or two, or probably freeze it for a good long while. When you're ready to go, just put it in a soup pot over low heat and bring it up to a simmer slowly.

Assuming you're cooking the whole thing now, transfer the soup base to a large soup pot over low heat and add the artichokes and milk. When the mixture gets good and hot, add the mozzerella a little at a time fo melt and slightly thicken the soup.

It almost qualifies as healthy, but if you want to make an artery clogging version you can probably substitute cream for the milk and leave the cheese out entirely.

Speaking of Shakespeare,

I thought I might take this opportunity to drop a note or two on theatre projects coming up in the next six months or so. I've been cast as Pompey in Measure for Measure at Theatre Memphis, which looks to be a fantastic show with a fantastic cast (I might include the Frosted Shakespeare Charms joke in my program bio just for kicks), and Avram the Bookseller in Fiddler on The Roof at Playhouse on The Square.

These two are likely to keep me nice-n-occupied for the forseeable future. Updates as I get them.

Why, I'm a Marketing Genius!

Okay--not really, but since I Googled the exact phrase and didn't come up with a match, I figure my concept for a breakfast cereal based on the bard is both profound and unique.

Ready? Frosted Shakespeare Charms--They're Tragically Delicious!

(Negative comments on bad puns always accepted)

The lecture

Last night, pastry chef Tanya and I took off to the Memphis Library for a lecture from noted pastry chef and lousy raconteur Nick Malgieri. I'm not sure if he was in town for the Food Network thing at The Peabody (it would make sense), but he did present a lovely slide show of things Sicilians make with almond paste. Which is to say, everything. He did sign a cookbook for Mom for Christmas (Mom doesn't yet know about the blog, so we're okay), and I felt really comfortable being the only guy there among the housewives.

The bulk of Malgieri's lecture consisted of discourse on the pastries you could buy, which seems a shame. While there's nothing wrong with purchased pastries, they tend towards things that are too complicated to make in small quantities, and are aimed squarely at convenience in volume for the chef. For those of us with wooden spoons for a toolkit, these things are far too time-consuming to work properly, so we stick to pie.

Anyway, much cooler people show up to Alton Brown booksignings. I'm sure I'll get around to that story eventually.

A simple start

Okay, first things first--a mission statement as it were. I like to cook; I think other folks might be interested in a recipe or two I've acquired and/or created over the years, and I figure this would be a good way to disseminate recipe information, hints, opinions, and vitriol. Over the duration of this experiment, I should have enough recipes gathered together to form, perhaps, a cookbook. With comments already in the margins, if readers are so inclined.

So, without further ado, let us begin.

Black Bean Dip

This dip is ridiculously easy, and yet enormously popular. The only variation that my wife consistently suggests is doubling the amount of cheese, if only to actually make the dip as unhealthy as it tastes.

1 16 oz can Black Beans
1 16 oz jar salsa
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
3-4 green onions, chopped (white and green parts)
black pepper to taste

Dump everything in a bowl, mix, and serve with tortilla chips.

Notes:
1. Take heed--this is the last time I will specify that you use the white and green parts of green onions.
2. It gets harder from here.