Cheating - - Page 2

by forkitude

Summer + Basil + Lemons + Ice Cream = Heaven

Today is one of those summer days: your clothes stick to your skin and you feel disgusting. It’s 94 degrees outside. With the humidity hovering around 90%, it feels like 106. Ice cream anyone?

Homemade ice cream is the best, there is no debate. Plus, I have been looking for some interesting uses for a pot of overgrown basil; it keeps raining and the basil keeps growing. Don’t have an ice cream maker or the time? Cheat!

– Take your favorite vanilla ice cream (I love vanilla bean); empty the carton into a mixing bowl.

– Chiffonade a generous handful of fresh basil. To chiffonade the basil, stack a few leaves, fold in half, and then roll. Hold the basil down while you finely shred into string-like slices, taking great care to avoid chopping off your finger.

– Add basil to the ice cream, along with the zest and juice of two lemons. Mix the creamy, heavenly goodness. If you have any will power whatsoever, put the ice cream back in the carton and into the freezer for later.

Easy. Refreshing. Impressive.

by Tyler

My Classy Cheating Confession: Gastronomic Glaze

Part III in our controversial ES series…

When my fabulous former neighbor returned from Paris having successfully smuggled Vacherin Mont d’Or cheese into the States, we knew it was going to be a party.

And party we did. After leaving the contraband Vacherin out overnight, it was exceptionally soft and bore that hallmark of quality cheese, the stink of smelly feet. It was the rustic-looking wild cousin of brie—the one with the beard who gets wasted at your sister’s wedding and hits on the bridesmaids because he knows you’re not going to say shit about it.

But the real star of the party was the goat cheese garnished with crumbled walnuts and fig balsamic gastronomic glaze (glassa gastronomica if you’re pretentious, Italian, or both). It was the perfect tangy and sweet complement to the cheese. She simply took a log of chevre, split it in half lengthwise and glazed up the interior, putting it back together like a wonderful cheese sandwich with balsamic candy in the middle. Gastronomic glaze: garnish of the gods.

Well, after six or seven bottles of Bordeaux and my incessant harping on the brilliance of this balsamic glaze, Jan admitted that she had brought back a couple bottles of plain balsamic glaze from a French grocery. In her drunken state she offered me one, which I’m sure she now regrets.

Making Your Boyfriend Jealous

I know, we’re all sick of cheating for this week. Not only did we explain our cheating methods, but I had to get all Ombudsman and try to represent the feelings of the commenters on the subject.

Well, it just so happens I have a cheating vs. non-cheating story. But instead of parsing ingredients, this story actually ends in a delicious recipe.

And, how fun are the Warhol pasta pictures!

Classy Cheating Confessions

You know us ESers are wont to talk a lot of smack about cheating — cutting corners in the kitchen by using pre-made “ingredients” that could just as easily be made from scratch. But even though we love to hate, you know we all do it, too, in our own ways. Whether I’m cooking from scratch or warming up leftovers in the toaster oven, these three pre-made standbys have saved many a meal.

1. Anchovy Paste: I first discovered this sketchy-sounding ingredient in a Gourmet recipe for steak with anchovy garlic butter, which really is already cheating, because you’re basically buttering a g-damn steak. How could that not be delicious? But the anchovy paste — which comes in a little squeeze tube and doesn’t look anything like anchovies — is pretty amazing. It’s basically pureed ‘chovies mixed up with some olive oil, spices, and I’m not really sure what else. It doesn’t taste nearly as strong and fishy as eating one of those little guys whole, but it adds a super-rich, almost creamy element to any dish. When I make a pasta dish that needs to be set off a little bit, I squeeze in a little bit bit of this stuff and it takes it to another level. I know some of you may be grossed out, but trust me, you wouldn’t even know it was in there! It doesn’t have that intense anchovy taste (especially if you use just a touch in a whole dish), but somehow it instantly makes any dish rich and delicious.

2. Truffle Oil: Yeah, yeah, I know. Truffles are more overhyped than sliced bread. But we all know there’s a reason why. And while ES isn’t bringing in enough revenue yet for me to keep a pinch of fresh white truffles in the cabinet at all times, I have been known to fall back on the oily version. I got a tiny bottle of it as a gift a while back and honestly, it’s made me ten times less creative in the kitchen, because any time I get to the end of a dish and don’t think it’s quite there, I just throw in some TO and call it a day. And you know what? It always makes it amazing. Pasta? Potatoes? Breakfast cereal? It’s hard to find something that can’t use a little truffle oil. I think it’s as much the earthy, pungent smell as the taste that sets a dish off. When my little bottle ran off after about a year, I decided not to buy another one, just so that I would be forced to experiment more in the kitchen. But then my mom went and got me another bottle for Christmas. And I’m not mad at all. The most amazing thing is that while it seems ridiculously expensive, it’s really not–because you use literally a drop or two every time, that tiny little $20 bottle is gonna last you a year, and trust me, it will rescue so, so, many meals.