Endless Simmer - A Food Blog

So I get both Bon Appetite and Gourmet every month.  It’s way too many words for me to actually get through in thirty days.  They pile up and all of a sudden it’s October and I still haven’t opened up May’s issues.  It gets worse.  Whenever I’m home, DAD GANSIE gives me his stack of Cooking Lights and just this weekend, I sent in a check to get Cook’s Illustrated once again.  Too many magazines, an entire bookshelf dedicated to cook books, and I still never follow recipes.

But once in a while, when I get around to going through my mags (usually it’s before I see BS, as he is the recipient of my used publications) I find something I like and I actually cook it.  Most torn-out recipes end up in my never-organized binder of clippings.  That I never check.

With my new found taste for yogurt, and a few cucumbers from the farmers market, I had what I needed for Gourmet’s yogurt dipping sauce.  Shockingly, I actually followed the directions, except I made less of the sauce than the three cups of yogurt.   You can find the recipe here, and what Gourmet thinks it pairs with here, but it’s also good as a spread on tomatoes, topped with a cumber, wrapped in lox.

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I’ve made a few pasta salads in my day, but this one, well, it just doesn’t even make sense.

When I first started cooking, I threw in EVERY SINGLE SPICE I owned into a dip or a dry rub or a marinade.  Then I went through a stage of simplicity: salt, pepper, garlic and maybe one other weapon.  Now the pendulum has swung back and I’m sticking crazy shit together again.  I guess it’s an ES trend.

The ingredient list: whole wheat fusilli, olive oil, dijon mustard, garlic, onion, cucumber, serrano chili, parm cheese, queso fresco, cumin, pine nuts, salt and pepper.  With leftovers, I added in wilted swiss chard.

This is what happens when I buy way too many vegetables at the farmers market.  I end up throwing cucumbers — which is great to use as an alternative to chips for a dip, but suck in most other instances because they’re so watery and plain — in with freaking pasta.

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Thank you for your suggestions on what to do with my crazy blended vegetable concoction.   But like a true blogger, I really didn’t listen.

Chickpeas and Serrano Spiked Blended Vegetables

Toast a handful of pine nuts.  When starting to brown, set aside.  Warm up the sauce in that same pan.  In another pan, warm through chickpeas and precooked bulgur wheat.  When everything is warmed up, spoon sauce on plate.  Top with chickpeas, bulgur wheat and pine nuts.  Or if you don’t care about presentation, throw everything together and heat up.  Blogging means extra pans and plates, unfortunately.

If your coworker happened to give you a fabulous sack of homegrown tomatoes (thank you Edy!) then top the dish with raw chunks of tomato (sprinkled with kosher salt.)

If you hate tomato, skip that step.

Oh, and not that I even know what this does for my body, nor what it really tastes like, but you can sprinkle nutritional yeast over the chickpeas. I’m trying to find more uses for the yeast.  Although my two nut. yeast experts — Maidelitala and Elizabeth — claim you can’t mix it with yogurt.  We’ll see.

Tag clarification
So this is not Indian, I know. But with the slight heat and chickpeas and cumin and yogurt, 80 and I felt like it had an Indian flare and texture.

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Sometimes I’ll be at home and I’ve already cooked dinner, and I’ve already made lunch for tomorrow (and the next day) yet I still feel like cooking.  Well, this is when it gets dangerous.  Especially this time of year with all of the amazing vegetables available from the farmers market.  Actually, let me take that a half step back.

I’ve finally had my first fight with the market.  I could deal with the limiting hours (only 9-1 on Saturdays from May through November); I could deal with the price spikes (a bunch of parsley for 3 bucks instead of 50 cents at Bestway); but I was not prepared for invaders.

So I was taking lettuce out to be washed for a salad and all of a fucking sudden - there was a SPIDER in my bag-o-greens.  I didn’t scream.  I backed away.  I was pisted.  I was scared.  And then I gently tied the bag together - spider inside - and threw it in the trash.  My love affair hit its first bump.  And I might be off the salad for the rest of the summer.

Regardless, so there I am, in the kitchen, having already cooked what most people don’t even put together in a week, and I’m ready for more.

Recipe for something, post jump

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This past weekend was the first in a LONG time that I’ve been home.  And it feels good, especially to have time to cook.  And as breakfast food is my favorite, I have fun simply scrambling eggs or straight making shit up.  This weekend fell in the latter category.  Going by this general idea of a frittata, I threw in tons of half-empty, soon to be spoiled, contents of my fridge.

Continue reading for the next chapter in gansie vs. ricotta

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So I started off last week by lambasting the onset of Fall. But now that we had a gross little Indian Summer humid wave this weekend, I’ve decided I’m done with this whole summer thing after all. That and I remembered Fall has its own charms, especially as it relates to food. As we swing into ripe veggie season, ES reader MonkeyBoy sends these beautiful shots of heirloom tomatoes fresh from the garden. Check out those hot black/purple ones!

Did you harvest/cook/consume something picturesque? As always, let us know.

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Being a good co-blogger, I decided to try my hand at pine nuts even though I’m probably not eligible to win the Pine Nut Contest. (Quick - send your pine nut recipes to contests@endlesssimmer.com) But I figured this might finally motivate me to understand BS’ obsession. And, um, I kinda get it. Actually, I think I’m starting to become obsessed with them after the first usage.

Now this is a pretty simple salad, but somehow the combination of the nut and the creaminess of the avocado really contrasted perfectly. Oh, and a mention on avocados. So I’m a total whore -

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Over the weekend I performed some major procrastination (including this post.) It was my monthly I’m-grounded-I-have-4-articles-due-on-Monday weekend. So instead of writing, I spent a lot of time in the kitchen. I’ll be sure to post about my big baking adventure, but my afternoon snack’s success really made me proud.

In the morning I made my weekly trip to the farmers market and picked up peaches, blackberries and yogurt (among millions of other produce). The dairy stand is where it’s at! Oh, and let me make this clear - I hate yogurt. But, and I’m not kidding, tasting so much genuine frozen yogurt prepped me for the real stuff. And, the Keswick Creamery stand offers plenty of samples (!) so I decided to try their version:

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I know what you’re thinking:

Wow, Gansie put a fried egg on something. How fucking original. I love seeing the same thing over and over on ES.

Actually, this post is about something I baked. But 80 liked this picture best, so I had to put it on top. The picture directly below actually shows what the post is about, see top. Yes, I baked. Yes, I cheated.

I’ll explain.

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