Introducing: Commentary

Green Curry with Asparagus and Chevre Mashed Potatoes:

This was a quick curry I made using leftover frozen curry paste and some leftovers from Easter dinner at Mom & Dad's.  As it turns out, green curry and chevre go very nicely together.  I'm envisioning working the curry into the mashed potatoes next time.

• Curry: coconut milk, fish sauce, cream, curry paste (cilantro, lemongrass, galangal, serranos......); leftover kebabs from Mom
• Grilled asaparagus, leftover garlic mashed potatoes with chevre

BLT:

Basic BLT but with plain yogurt in place of mayonnaise because making mayo seemed like too much work.  Yogurt makes an excellent substitute.

• White bread, bacon, lettuce, tomato and yogurt.

Cornish Wings:

Jeremy had a ton of these wings left over from breaking down hens at school.  The obvious next step: buffalo wings.

• Wings from Cornish game hens
• Truffle butter, Frank's hot sauce, honey and scallions

Hibiscus cooler:

One of my favorite summer beverages, a hibiscus cooler, gains some extra ailment opposition with the addition of vitamin C.  Plus it just tastes wonderfully sparkly and delicious.  

The hibiscus cooler is a floral sweet/sour beverage with an intense ruby hue and a huge depth of flavor.  It has a basic volume ratio of about 2:1:8 (dried hibiscus:sweetener:boiling water).  Add additional components as desired and steep until room temperature, then strain.  Serve hot or cold.  Note: hibiscus color is anthocyanatic, so stains can be removed with boiling water.

• Hibiscus flowers, sucanat, vanilla bean
• Emergen-C

Tuna Salad:

Inspired by a lack of protein in the house, we shared one egg and a can of tuna.  The tuna lost quite a bit of the moisture and acquired some nice caramelization by being sautéed.  The egg, soft-boiled then rolled in hot reduced soy sauce, is a delicious addition.

• Salad: Yogurt, canned tuna sautéed in ancho oil, capers, cilantro, celery
• Sides/Garnish: brocolli, lettuce, hash brown, soy sauce-caramelized medium-cooked egg

S'more:

Out of our late night snack wishes came this smore.  First we were eating frozen dinner roll thawed in the microwave.  Then we cooked thawed dinner roll dough in the microwave on low power to see what would happen: a slightly dense dinner roll.  Finally, when later that night we were wishing we had graham crackers to make s'mores, we thawed another two rolls in the microwave, rolled them out and covered them in the remains of some old brownies then pan-fried them to make a crispy sweet foil for the dark chocolate and stale marshmallows to be microwaved within.  This is a keeper.

• Ghirardelli 86% Dark chocolate and stale marshmallows
• Frozen dinner roll dough thawed, rolled, coated in pulverized brownie crumbs and pan-fried in butter

Ranch Gelatin:

We ordered a pizza and much to our chagrin realized we had no yogurt to mix with powdered ranch for dipping.  We considered going to the store but laziness kept us at home.  First we considered coconut milk, then tahini and a few other things in between, and finally we settled upon making a ranch milk-based gelatin for dipping.  The gel set beautifully and we used an immersion blender to adjust the consistency to a salad-dressing viscosity.  Unfortunately, the gelatin melted upon touching the hot pizza so the experiment was only partially successful--but it held nicely later on room temperature pizza.  Ranch gelatin has definite potential.

• Powdered ranch mix, milk, gelatin

Rich cheese rind soup:
Old cheese rinds are the base for this soup.

• Cheese rinds, chicken glace, celery, carrot, and dried gremolata (lemon zest, roasted garlic, basil)
• Garnish: Cilantro, scallions, yogurt

Two Snacks:
Just a couple of snacks using up leftovers.

• Sweet potato starch noodles with seaweed
• Garnish: chèvre, carrots, tomato-pepper sauce

• Basic crepe, chevre, tomato-pepper sauce