The Gateau Kitchen: Before and After

All hail Mr. Gateau! Without going too crazy with the budget, we wanted to perk up our existing kitchen to make it more pleasant until we fill the coffers enough to to a real reno. From craptastic 60s Formica to new butcher block with a nice white sink and brushed stainless faucet. It all looks nice, but my favorite part is that I finally have a garbage disposal of my very own.

By the book

Like many people who like food and cooking, I have way too many cookbooks, a large number of which I've never/barely cooked from. So my chow friends and I decided to take on a little project -- we're going to take a book a week off the shelf, in whatever order we keep them, and cook one thing from it (something we've never made), then post about the results. So far what this has taught me is (a) we have too many vegetarian cookbooks from Mr. Gateau's vegetarian years, and (b) some of these are not very good.

In Week 1 I cooked from The Vegetarian Epicure, which is a classic, in part due to its very 70s entertaining advice about how nice it is to cook an extra post-dessert course "if grass is smoked socially in your home." I made the Blonde Lentil Soup, which is a little unusual for lentil soup, in that it is flavored with lemon and basil. I think it would be nice in early spring, but it needs some tarting up to be more flavorful.

In Week 2, I was faced with a horror -- the Meatless Gourmet Low-Fat Vegetarian Cookbook. Even finding an appealing recipe was difficult, as much of it was recipes like "Easy Mexican Cheesy Bean Bake" and so forth. I finally tried a strawberry jam-oatmeal cereal bar recipe, which looked OK in concept (and looked nice in the pan) but which tasted like overly sweet clumps of newspaper. I plan to give this book the old heave-ho.

Because I was so dispirited about the whole thing, I decided to make another recipe from The Vegetarian Epicure. I picked a curried lentil salad that was strange but oddly appealing -- the lentils are tossed with a spice mixture (cumin seed, mustard seed, turmeric, cayenne, coriander, salt) cooked in butter, and then mixed with cubed pineapple and tomato, and the whole thing tossed in a mustard-garlic-white wine vinaigrette. You're supposed to serve it in a hollowed-out pineapple shell, but the hell with that. It's got a really nice and unusual tangy-spicy-sweet blend of flavors, and I think it would be nice over greens as an entree salad. I picture this as the kind of thing a French lady would make for a picnic.

Oh, and for dinner I also made that lemony red lentil soup I posted about before. I'm on the verge of a root canal, and soup is pretty much the only thing I'm comfortable eating right now. Pray for me.

Sunshiny goodness

Tonight I decided to let it all go to hell, so I made myself a big bowlful of lemon linguine a la Nigella Lawson. The recipe isn't on her official website, but it can be found all over the Internet, including on the site linked to above. The recipe was demonstrated on "Nigella Bites" and it's been a happy comfort food of mine ever since I first encountered.

Basically, it's a carbonara, only instead of pancetta you flavor it with lemon juice and lemon zest. That, with the egg yolk, makes it a pretty, cheerful yellow, and the flavor is sharp and creamy and just perfect.

And your cardiologist will love you and get to buy a lovely summer house, because in addition to the egg yolk and pasta it contains heavy cream, butter, and parmesan cheese!

Game on!

It's the Super Bowl, dammit, and that calls for the anti-gourmet, as far as I am concerned. I'm not much of a football person (or even much of a sports person) but I do enjoy championship games of whatever sport, and this one should be extra fun, what with the Patriots' winning streak and the fact that it's the home team playing them. And, you know, the commercials.

So here is the menu. It's just us, no party going on or anything:

• Sweet & Sour Meatballs in the Crock Pot (the kind that uses a whole bottle of chili sauce, a whole jar of grape jelly, and I've used frozen Aidell's meatballs that YMG refused to eat)
• Spinach dip with pita chips
• Guacamole with plain and lime tortilla chips
• Caesar salad, if anyone gets a craving for a vegetable
• Various puff-pastry eclairs and cream puffs left over from the frozen hors d'oeuvre tasting
• Beer

UPDATE: Our very, very fine next door neighbors, who have two excellent teenage daughters of the babysitting variety and YMG's best friend, are coming over with a pot of potato-dill soup and various other edibles and we're joining forces (and planning to make the big kids watch the younger ones). A good time, and adult imbibing, will be had by all.

Not just the candy of meat, but candy

Good morning!!!! I mean it! Really good morning!!!!!

My niece slept over last night, so to make things EXTRA SPECIAL for the kids, I did up an extravaganza of sugar for breakfast. Chocolate chip pancakes, mixed fruit, maple syrup, etc. But the real sugar fix came from the CARAMELIZED BACON from the hilarious Patricia Marx recipe published a couple weeks ago in the Times. I did not spice it up at all, as kids were eating it, but when I make it just for me me me I certainly will. Mr. Gateau is a sugar fiend, but not all that crazy about sugary bacon, so there was extra for me, and actually some left over in the freezer. It was particularly delicious when paired with fresh pineapple slices.

So I'm sugared up, caffeinated, and ready to face the day.

Pantry Cooking

You should know that I'm not from the great housekeepers. I don't keep my dry goods in individual, labeled canisters that all fit just so into the cabinet. My spices are not alphabetized. You could probably find pork chops from 2004 in the back of my freezer. There are odd cans and bottles and bags of pasta and beans all over the place.

So from time to time it becomes necessary to cook something incorporating all these dribs and drabs to make room for better, fresher stuff, but also I am dead lazy. In furtherance of this project, I like to make use of Trader Joe's simmer sauces (also thereby eliminating a jar from the pantry). Last night I pulled one of those out (masala, spiked with a little extra cayenne) and poured it over a can of chickpeas (drained), a bag of frozen peas (thawed) and some leftover roasted cauliflower. I didn't feel like taking the time to make a pot of rice, so I made couscous instead, cooked in the contents of an 8 oz. box of chicken stock. Served with a little Greek yogurt and some mango chutney we had in the fridge, this was actually a delicious dinner in the ethnic comfort food category.

Byoo-tee-ful soup

I made this red lentil soup from the New York Times tonight for dinner, and it's a keeper. It's very very quick and easy to prepare, and it packs maximum taste value. If you have a stick blender, and I am constantly delighted I bought mine a year or two ago, this is a one-pot preparation, so the only things to clean up are the pot, the blender business end, a cutting board, a knife, and a spoon to stir it. It's soup, so it's nice on a cold night like this, but with it's bright orange-red color, its lemony taste with a spike of fresh cilantro, and its spicy kick, it brings a taste of spring and wouldn't be out of place in warmer weather.