Endless Simmer - A Food Blog

One of the amazing/frustrating thing about getting into food is realizing how many different things there are to be snobby about. Yes, of course you must have your favorite pinot noir, form an opinion on whether putting cheese on seafood is acceptable, and decide if you think using truffle oil is cheating.

But then you realize you also have to know which butter you prefer (a premium one for bread and a basic one for baking, please), which goat cheese is the best, and the difference betwee sea salt and kosher salt.

One thing that I never thought to be snobby about is pasta. It’s so cheap and simple that it just never occurred to me. Sure, I’m aware that eating a freshly-made bowl of linguine while relaxing on a balcony in Naples is preferably to the daily special at the Olive Garden, but when it comes to buying the dried stuff, the toughest thing I ever thought about was whether I felt like wagon wheels or elbows.

Until now.

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I’ve told you all plenty of times about chiles rellenos, the spicy stuffed peppers that are probably my fav Mexican dish. I’ve shown you my attempts at both pork and cheese chiles rellenos, and as I mentioned in our cake discussion earlier this week, I went for another round this weekend (but figured you guys didn’t need to see Version 3.0). However, it got me thinking about ways I could mix this dish up, and hence a brand new and improved version.

When Alex and I went shopping for poblanos (the peppers used in CRs) the ones they had were pretty small and miserable. We bought a couple of those, but just to be safe also grabbed two frying peppers - frying peppers is what ACME supermarket in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania calls them, I think they were Anaheim peppers, although I could be wrong.

Hey look what I just found while searching for info on types of peppers: Anaheim peppers are the chiles most often used to make chiles rellenos. Haha, who knew? Well they turned out well, which makes sense if they really are the kind you are supposed to use. Kinda random how that worked out.

But it got me thinking, why not make chiles rellenos with other types of peppers? Roasted red bell peppers happen to be among my very favorite foods, so I had the idea to make an Italian-ized version of CRs using red bells and savory Italian cheeses and spices instead of the spicy Mexican ones usually used. I know there are already plenty of ways to make Italian stuffed peppers, but I’ve never seen it done with roasted reds. Forgive me if I’m taking credit for something that I didn’t actually discover.

Full r after the j.

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One of my biggest challenges when cooking is being creative in the kitchen. When it comes to following a recipe I’ve got it down; I can pretty much replicate someone else’s dish to the smallest detail. However, when it comes to creating a dish with the random ingredients in my kitchen, I’m at a loss. Due to my lack of creative juices I try to put my own spin on the things I cook, I’ll copy a recipe but make a few changes. I figured this a great way of teaching myself how to be a better cook so hopefully one day I wont be following the leader.

A few weeks back I was in New York and decided to pay a visit to Top Chef alum, Dave Martin’s Crave on 42nd. It’s not a bad restaurant if you like your food sweet! Everything was coated in either sugar or cinnamon; the sugar high upon leaving was unbelievable. But Dave’s signature black truffle mac n’ cheese was amazing and I knew I had to recreate this.

On the bus ride back I was perusing Food & Wine magazine and came across this white chocolate coated grapes with an orange curd from Citronelle DC’s, Michel Richard. I knew I had a meal in the making.

Luckily, I had just been asked to cater my boss’ baby shower — a perfect opportunity to experiment with these two new recipes. Although I couldn’t stick my boss with the bill for the pricey black truffles, I did manage to find a worthy substitute.

The recipes and pictures after the jump.

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You’ve probably noticed that I’m lazy and never go to the grocery store so most of my dinners are pantry items, which is why our Edible Pantries page is so important in figuring out how to be a spontaneous cook. And if you do a quick search for “feta” you will notice the redic amount of recipes that contain this wonder cheese. And you know what, Tim, I’m not going to finish “redic.” I think it serves its purpose as an abbreviated word. (Background - one time Tim and I met for lunch and I said “redic” and then he said “ulous” and I laughed really hard and then got pisted.)

Regardless, through this pantry dinner night, I found a new way to work with feta - melted in a pasta sauce. Oh, and you’ll probably think that I’m a liar when I start naming all of these fresh veggies and herbs that I used in this recipe after I declared my non-store going ways, but actually, all of these fresh goodies were presented to me by Dad Gansie. He’s great. When 80 and I were driving back from NYC a few weeks back it only made sense to stop by Cherry Hill on the way to DC. And as Dad Gansies go, he used his Sunday to stop by the food store (Produce Junction, I think it’s called) and whatever he bought himself, he bought me one too.

So with all of this fresh food, plus the shit from the pantry, I present to you:

Feta and Parsley Sauce with Whole Wheat Angel Hair

Sautee mushrooms in butter and extra virgin over low heat, until done to your likeness. Set aside and keep warm (I do this by putting it in a covered tupperwear container.) With the same pan, add more extra virgin and on high heat add asparagus spears that have been cut into fourths. After the spears have been tossed around a bit, place a lid on and “steam” them for a few minutes until bright green. Set aside with mushrooms.

Okay, and if you can multi-task in the kitchen, which believe me, takes YEARS to figure out, do this while the veggies are cooking: In a blender, puree a handful of parsley, 2 garlic cloves, red pepper flakes, lemon zest, juice from half a lemon, 3 plastic containers of half and half, salt,pepper and stream in extra virgin. But, before the blending occurs, mash feta with just a touch of extra virgin so it’s a bit softer, then add to the blender. The texture of the sauce will be a bit thick, but wait – it’ll be okay. Trust me.

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Editors Note: This is going to be a long Editors Note, way too long for all italics.

Hi, it’s gansie. So I really do hate when a blogger starts getting, um, well new gigs and writes incessantly about the new gigs and stops writing about what you originally came to the blog for. Here’s an example. This is all to say, of course, that I am going to talk about myself and my new gig as a famous person.

Last weekend I was asked to be a JUDGE for a contest. Yes, me, a judge. ES’s good friend, Britannia, passed my name along to be the food judge for the third annual Progressive Dinner. (Full Dis - In order to make this contest fair, Brit decided to stop commenting and posting for the duration of the contest planning.)

But this night was way more than just a dinner. It’s 120 gay men, spending close to 10 thousand dollars, enjoying a night of: eating, drinking, dancing, lip syncing, decorating, and wearing itty bitty underwear-as-outwear. It was fucking amazing. Luckily my sister was in town to be my “assistant” as I ate my way through the night.

Continue to read about the actual food.

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Not that I’ve run out of ideas or anything, but this weekend I decided to revisit a recipe from the ghost of Endless Simmer past. Actually, it was the very first post in ES history, published EIGHT FULL MONTHS AGO! Can you believe it?

Here’s that first post, a brief write-up of my adventures with Eggplant Rollatini.

How embarrassing! I can’t believe I’m even linking to that post. Look at that awful photo choice! The misspellings! The run-on sentence recipe! It’s worse than looking at my 8th grade yearbook.

Well I made this dish again, with some new variations. But since I wasn’t cooking for my healthy, responsible parents this time, you can count on additions of carbs, cheese and plenty of oil.

After the jump, recipe for Eggplant Rollatini 2.0.

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It’s Sunday. The only things I’ve done all day are eat, bitch about being hungover, nap, and try to read the WaPo print edition’s Outlook page. I’ve found that it’s much easier to read other people’s opinions than to create my own. Oh, and boycott football. Effing Birds.

Regardless, it’s now Sunday night. The chocolate and vanilla pudding I scarfed down at 5pm is no longer containing my hunger. 80’s watching the Duke game and not really paying attention to my grumbling stomach. We end up deciding that it’s just too complicated to order in; he’ll have the rest of our chili (details to follow in a later post) and I’ll play scavenger.

Okay, so before 80 and I lived together, well, 80 lived alone. Many nights I came over and “we” both cooked dinner. Other nights he ate cereal, I’m sure. And other nights, he ate packaged dinners. Although I surely didn’t approve of this, I understood the desire to want an effortless meal. Well, I’m not sure how a remnant of his solo days made it to our place (well, just like our Duke shower curtain, I guess) but there it was - a pasta side in the pantry.

So yes, I followed in the footsteps of our microwave corespondent, Liza, and whipped up a pasta side. I also took her advice and ate the whole thing myself - no side about it. Since I don’t have a microwave (her suggested cooking medium) I had to do it the old fashion way - on the stove top. I basically followed the directions exactly for “Creamy Garlic Shells: Pasta shells in a garlic, parmeasan and romano cheese sauce,” but I added some freshly grated parm cheese, black pepper and red pepper flakes after it was finished cooking.

The shells weren’t terrible, but they weren’t amazing, either. But they did the trick. I didn’t have to slice, dice, or um, cut anything. Just a couple stirs in the eleven minute span of boiling water, milk, butter, pasta and chemicals.

I’m a freaking hypocrite. Shhhh.

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It’s cold out. That means a few things here in the nation’s capital: false predictions of snow, networking functions disguised as holiday parties, and the seasonal closing of farmers’ markets. While the first two remain hallmarks of D.C., there is hope for the District foodologist (the term “foodie” is sooo over)—historic Eastern Market (7th and C Sts., open Tues.-Sun.).

When a better part of the South Hall—the area designated for food vendors—burned earlier this year, shoppers were saddened by the loss of both the community dwelling and the delicious crab cakes from the Market Lunch. Luckily, with the help of many devoted advocates, including federal and local elected officials (they can create change!), Eastern Market’s food vendors continue to sell their goods in the newly created East Hall.

The interior of the market conveys a different feel now: The bright white walls, floor, and ceiling of the new structure is in stark contrast to the original dingy-yet-homey atmosphere. Fortunately, much of the food remains the same, with fresh produce and unusual cuts of meat. So while D.C. collectively holds its breath until spring for the rest of the region’s markets to reopen, check out what the Market’s top vendors have to offer in their new digs:

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So I have to admit, I’ve been less of a crazy chef since moving back home to New York. When not surrounded by 10 like-minded culinarians living on the same block, I’m a lot less likely to come up with insanity like hot dog sushi. If I’m just cooking for myself, I often end up preparing a non-blog-worthy sandwich, salad or stir-fry. Which kind of sucks, because, you know, I have a food blog.

But this week, I finally got around to watching the Top Chef Holiday Special on DVR. In addition to such scenes as Padma playing Dirty Santa (not nearly as exciting as it sounds), it got me right back into the mood to be running around my kitchen, hastily throwing random ingredients together in attempts to semi-invent something semi-fancy. Remembering I had some awesome leftovers like duck bacon in the freezer, I put together this quickfire dinner.

If I was Rachel Ray, I’d call it a gourmet 30-minute meal. But then I would have to tell you dumbass things like its OK to substitute baloney for prosciutto, so let’s just call it a tortellini explosion.

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