The March 2009 challenge is hosted by Mary of Beans and Caviar, Melinda of Melbourne Larder and Enza of Io Da Grande. They have chosen Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna from The Splendid Table by Lynne Rossetto Kasper as the challenge.
Honest to God, it’s hard to know where to start. I joined the Daring Bakers to expand my horizons and this? This was my first challenge – spinach pasta with ragu and béchamel.
BWA?!
OK, first, I’ve never made pasta, ever. It has many components that have always intimidated me, like kneading, rolling and cutting. Second, my little experiences with béchamel have been…woeful. Woeful is a good word. Third, the closest I’ve come to a ragu is a few tries at bolognese and while they are moderately similar, they are not at all the same. Also, I was expecting something more along the lines of, say, dessert.
But a challenge is a challenge is a challenge, thus began my journey into two days of hard, hard work.
Continue reading ‘Lasagne Verdi al Forno – March Daring Bakers Challenge’
Sole a la Grenobloise – Saveur
We could categorize the fact that I haven’t posted in 3 days as a failure as well, but I’m trying to be nicer to myself – if you had this kind of wicked awful heartburn, you wouldn’t want to sit here and type about food, either. But in addition to the lemon tart, I think the Sole a la Grenobloise needs to be discussed as well, because like the tart it was really only a partial failure.
Continue reading ‘A Series of Failures, Part Two.’
The more gentle-minded may be inclined to say that it’s not failure, it’s learning, but let’s be honest: when the end result is not good, it’s a failure no matter how much you picked up in the process. A string of bad luck has made me very glad that tonight was taco night and even though it was a new recipe, you just can’t screw up tacos. They’re like a fancier peanut butter and jelly sandwich, especially when you grill the meat (or in my case, have someone else grill the meat for you so your house, dog, child or person does not catch on fire in the process).
But before I get to that, let’s go ahead and address the failures since they are sitting in my Flickr, waiting to be discussed on the internet by people just like me who are still new to this whole cooking/baking thing and still have to google the appropriate way to slice an onion (honestly, the knife skills class I’m taking at the end of the month cannot get here soon enough).
Continue reading ‘A Series of Failures, Part One.’
Sometimes, it’s just best to acknowledge your strengths and weaknesses. I frequently look outside at that big, hulking machinery known as a gas grill and think, “You know, I should learn to use that.”
And then I remember how I set the fireplace mantle on fire (pro tip: taper candles next to fresh garland is a Very Bad Idea, especially when copious amounts of festively-themed liquor have been consumed) – and at our housewarming party no less, which has a definite tinge of hilarity – and how I set a potholder on fire (pro tip: make a note of which burner you turn on before you turn your back) and then there was that time back in high school when I fell asleep with candles burning and the candleholders caught on fire…
…and I think maybe, maybe I should just leave the grill to the less accident-prone.
And so instead of writing about my backlogged recipes, like the Sole a la Grenobloise from Monday, I’m not writing anything at all, because I let someone else do all the work for me tonight. Being married is awesome.
Recipe adapted from Mark Bittman
What the hell is matambre?
As it happens, I asked myself the same question when I first ran across a recipe for it. Saveur’s version calls it “Vegetable-Stuffed Rolled Flank Steak” which conveniently enough is exactly what matambre is: a giant slab of beef loaded with veggies and rolled up. According to the internet this is an Argentinian dish that has been around for a long time. I was all set to make Saveur’s recipe when I was menu planning two weeks ago, but I had picked up Mark Bittman’s “How To Cook Everything” and he had a recipe too, and one a bit less complicated than Saveur’s.
Continue reading ‘Matambre’
