This week's cooking adventures

I can't believe that tomorrow is Friday and I still don't think I have all the ingredients to make the Beggar's Linguine. To be honest, that recipe sounds totally awful to me. I mean, I love pistachios, almonds, figs, golden raisins, and the rest of the ingredients. But together? I mean... ew. I will make this recipe, however, because I'm not going to judge these recipes before I try them. Tomorrow. In the meantime, here's what I did this week. I was on spring break and kind of frantically working on a paper so there wasn't much time to try stuff.



Catch-up recipe! I made Dorie's Spicy Vietnamese Chicken Noodle Soup! It was delicious! I was so excited to be cooking something that actually smelled like a restaurant dish. I used chicken and also bought a half pound of rock shrimp, just because, and for noodles I found some Chinese egg noodles at Whole Foods. Um, they were expensive. But anyway. I was really excited and proud of this dish. I also learned that I don't have deep bowls out of which to eat Asian soups.

I still have a bunch of almond meal leftover from when I made the Orange-Almond tart, so I decided to buy a piece of fish while I was at Whole Foods and crust it in the almond flour. I found a recipe at epicurious.com for Almond-Crusted Salmon with Leek and Lemon Cream and adjusted it for my needs. I used hake, a white fish I've never tried before that was fresh, instead of salmon. First I sauteed some sliced leek in a bit of butter and oil. When it was time to add the cream, I chose to add almond milk instead, to stick with the almond theme. (I had also purchased almond milk at WF that day and was
excited to try it.) The cream was then blended in my tiny chopper thingy and put aside while I cooked the fish. I didn't want to use an egg batter, so I just laid out the almond meal, grated some lemon zest into it, salt and pepper, and smushed it into the fish on both sides before sauteing it in the pan. It was done in a couple minutes. In the meantime, I made mashed potatoes. I decided again to use the almond milk, instead of regular milk, to keep in the almond theme. They were good, but I spilled a little too much in them so they were a bit liquidy. Simple salad on the side with balsamic vinaigrette finished it off.

Okay - can I just say how excited I am to try celery root? I saw it at WF and just had to have it! I will probably make a puree, but my Turkish friend has suggested various ways of eating it, including cooked but then cooled in a salad, with a tzatziki-style topping, lemon and evoo, etc. Yay!




And last but not least, I had some strawberries to eat, macerated with a little lemon and sugar, so I decided to make a faux Strawberry Shortcake. I used the Kitchen Aid recipe book to find a baking powder biscuit recipe, and then split the biscuit and covered it with strawberries, their juice, and a heaping dab of creme fraiche. I LOVE SS!!!