I don’t know why but I was craving banana. I haven’t eaten a banana in a while. Oh wait. Actually, I had banana this weekend in my friend Raj’s birthday pie for his 30-year-old girlfriend’s birthday party: a pie filled with Nutella and topped in quarter-sections with strawberries, pretzels and chocolate chunks, apples and then bananas.
I ate a sliver of banana-topped Nutella pie. And it must of still been in my head come yesterday lunch; I craved a peanut butter and banana sandwich. I wanted a gooey mess of a sandwich. I’m sorry. I just did.
Unfortunately we didn’t have any bananas in the house. I sincerely love bananas but I rarely buy them anymore fearing its massive carbon footprint. So I did what I always do: make do.
“Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.”
That is one of my favorite quotes about teamwork and the spirit of those words is part of why I love sports so much. We see time and time again that individual stars get paid the big bucks but often it is the team that works together best that has the most success. The same could be said for cooking. While quality ingredients are important, the simplest ingredients can really come together with just some time, effort, technique and a sense of fun.
With that in mind, it has been a rain-filled and cold week on the East Coast so I was in the mood for soup and a sandwich. Here’s the spin I put on a traditional combo for wifey and I to enjoy while cheering on PSU football Saturday night.
Open-faced French Onion Soup Sandwich
First you must recruit. So to assemble your team of ingredients, here is what I went with: 4tbsp clarified butter, 1 tbsp olive oil, 1 lb onions sliced lengthwise, 8 oz beef stock, cup of spiced apple wine (I had it on hand from a local winery but feel free to use any white wine you like), c grated apple wood smoked Gruyere,red onion ciabatta bread and parsley.
From Bakesale Betty in Oakland, CA — the sandwich that puts the McChicken to shame.
Buttermilk fried chicken topped with a slaw of jalapeno, cabbage, red onion and parsley.
PS — your humble ES editor is exploring San Francisco, Oakland and surrounds this month — mostly with my mouth, of course. Where to eat? Shout it out, ESers!
I think I’ve now seen 5 Facebook updates where someone has taken a picture of their car’s internal temperature and it has read over 100 degrees.
It’s fucking hot.
What should you do? Stay inside and play computer games. Be a hoagie hero. Or mix a fruity cocktail for cartoon duchebags on vacation. Just. Don’t. Go. Outside.
80P and I were walking home together from our respective offices and we were discussing the lack of dinner options and I declared that this has been my worst year of cooking on record. And on record, well, my record, that is, only counts since I’ve started cooking, so if you are to count all of my years on record, not just cooking years, than I’m not doing terribly, as I did fry cottage cheese. But in years that I have made it a priority in my life to find joy in the kitchen, this year, not so much is happening in that 10 foot by 5 foot space.
Anyway, don’t get all excited that this will be some glorious post about a new recipe. This actually proves my point. I now make sandwiches. Or simple pasta dishes. But with farmers market season starting, I have a feeling I can turn 2010 into to a year that will not tarnish my cooking record. Okay, enough records. Well, except for the record that my friend Vi always plays when I come over. Total crush on Band of Horses.
Back to the cottage cheese for a second. In January 80 and I were in Florida and I re/discovered two items that have found their place in my fridge many times this year. One was cottage cheese (which I’d never had and decided it would be a good idea to make a sandwich out of it. See, there it is, another sandwich. A freaking cottage cheese sandwich.)
2010’s other popular item is smoked whitefish. Although I try not to eat that many animals, I can’t get over this salty, creamy, pungent, addicting addition to my life. (Can you use the phrase addicting addition? It’s overkill, huh?)
I usually eat the mashed fish on a bagel or dark bread toast, either solo or with raw onion. And once, out of obvious limited options, I had spread smoked whitefish on matzoh. This week I tried to switch it up and added in more veggies. And can I tell you, I am really digging raw broccoli these days.
Ever wonder which recipes your ES co-readers are ogling most? Well here’s the rundown. From our humble beginnings throwing all our leftovers into a sushi roll to our more refined recipes for putting an egg on everything, here are the Top 10 all-time most-read recipes from the Endless Simmer archives. Click the pics to check ’em out.
Although I was only in Florida for a few days, I became enamored with two new foods, actually, three. I’ve already declared my love and ambition for smoked whitefish. The other two are Cuban toast and cottage cheese. Cuban toast comes pre-buttered, which is an obvious win. And then there’s cottage cheese.
I’ve never tried cottage cheese before. I remember seeing it— bright white and slimy—in my college cafeteria. I never touched it. I haven’t had any exposure to the cheese since. I’ve never seen it in any fridge I’ve lived with. I’ve never been served it at a friend’s house. I’ve never seen it ordered at a restaurant.
In the morning before our flight back to DC my uncle asked what I wanted for breakfast. I said I didn’t eat breakfast. He gave me the whole metabolism spiel and listed a few choices. One of them cottage cheese. I jumped on it. I’ve been wanting to try it and it would make my uncle happy, so he scooped a spoonful on a plate. I took a bit. Magic.
It was like a congealed, less tangy, less salty feta. It was awesome. And it’s supposed to be good for you, no?
A few days later I purchased both a half pound of smoked whitefish and a tub of cottage cheese. I bought Nancy’s brand cottage cheese. It looked healthier than the rest, with the addition of L. acidophilus, B. bifidum and four strains of lactic cultures, plus it was on a sale.
Nancy’s cottage cheese, though, delivers on its promise of unique old-fashioned tangy character. This cottage cheese tasted like yogurt, not feta light. It was okay, but kinda weird to eat by the spoonful. It needed to be toned down.
