omelet, mushroom and jalapeño

The box of onions read "Colorado sweet" and they're shaped like the Vidalia, Walla Walla and Maui, but they are not nearly so sweet as those. Colorado hasn't the terroir that those places have, it must be sufficiently sandy or volcanic and with heavy rains help sulfur in the root zone to wash through.

Hamburger, seared red bell pepper

Spaghetti, mushrooms

Featuring garlic bread that started out as hot dog buns. 

This spaghetti was gross. Too salty. It was so gross I could only eat 9/10 of it. Maybe it was more like 15/16 of it. Possibly 31/32 of it. OKAY FINE! I almost finished it, alright? The point is, it was too salty, and had I served this at l'école Cordon Bleu, I'd be kicked out.  Or maybe just ridiculed. 

Plus I had a beer. Newcastle. I opened the beer, poured it into a frosted glass, took one tiny sip and next thing I know I go for another sip and it was gone. I have no memory of drinking the beer between the first sip and the glass being empty.  That proves somebody snuck in when I wasn't looking and drank my beer. And that's pretty doggone sneaky!

Spaghetti, mushrooms, truffle oil

Spaghetti con funghi e olio di tartufo.


White button, cremini, mushrooms and this stuff ↓

*  2.5 oz spaghetti extruded through bronze dies for superior sauce-grabbing texture, important because this is a very loose sauce. Cooked to al dente then dumped dripping wet into the pan with the mushrooms. 


*  5 button mushrooms sautéed in ordinary olive oil. Yes, sautéed, they jumped. They jumped And they squeaked, and you would jump and squeak too if you were dropped in a pan of hot olive oil. 


* About 1/4 cup of the starchy pasta water.  


* A generous drizzle of truffle to finish.


* 1 oz grated Parmigiano Reggiano with a few tablespoons curly parsley.  

Bison steak with mushrooms and onion

Maybe this doesn't look like much to you, but it sho'nuf iz. Bison rib eye steak. First brought to room temperature then seared for a minute on each side in a rocket-hot cast-iron pan much larger than needed for one little steak. The pan smokes up the place before anything is even put in it because I never scrub it thoroughly.

This bison steak is so wonderful it makes me want to transport back through time and be an indian so I can have it every night.

The liquid on the plate is sake that I poured over the mushrooms and onions to finish, not liquid exuded from the steak.

Pasta with anchovy and mushrooms

I overcame my attitude about unhealthy fast-carb refined flour for one day because I saw the remainder anchovies sitting there and I wanted to play with dough.

Only the egg yolk this time because, what? Do you think I'm a giant PIG over here? A half egg shell worth of water. The second photograph looks the same as the first, BUT IT'S NOT! It's showing the water.

Semolina and A/P flour

Mushrooms. Garlic. Anchovy.

Tomato, obviously. Parmigiano. Mint.

Conclusion: Insufficiently salted. Use more anchovy next time.

Scrambled eggs with mushrooms

* Three eggs heated gently and attentively, with the set curd pushed toward the center of the pan as making an omelet and removing the pan from heat before the liquid is fully set. That's the secret, if there is a secret, to light and tender pan fried eggs.

* Made even more light and tender with the addition of ricotta cheese after the pan is removed from the heat, and gently and incompletely mixed with the loosely set egg curd.

Go easy on the ricotta. NutritionData pans it, and that makes me sad. Bastards. Always taking away my fun.

* In another pan, garlic warmed in olive oil. Sliced mushrooms added in abundance. Cooked to barely done. Stand there and watch it and as soon as they begin to show color, remove them to another bowl to cease their cooking.

*In the same pan the mushrooms evacuated, heat a scant trace of fresh olive oil, and an even smaller amount of AP flour, about one teaspoon or less. Possibly a tablespoon of olive oil and a teaspoon of flour. Brown the flour and season it. This contributes to the color and depth of the sauce. With a whisk, stir in enough chicken broth, beef broth, wine, vegetable broth, milk, beer, tomato juice, whatever liquid you have on hand that seems good to you in that moment, and add that liquid or combination of liquids while whisking. Don't worry yourself about cold liquid to hot roux or hot liquid to hot roux or hot liquid to cooled roux or cold liquid to cooled roux, or any of those conflicting precisian rules for martinets, just make sure to be continuously whisking and it always works. Keep adding liquid until you attain the desired thickness, mindful that flour roux thickens further as it cools.

* Tomatoes not cooked

* Fresh mint

* Fresh chive

Eggs, mushrooms, polenta, chicken pie filling

Eggs over chicken pie filling topped with white cheddar and with fried mushrooms and polenta taking the place of toast (it becomes similar to cornbread).

Arancini

Italian style filled rice croquettes in the shape of little oranges. Apparently Italian oranges are shaped like pears. They can be filled with pretty much anything. These are filled with a chicken and mushroom mixture.

Boy, I sure wish I had watched a few of those YouTube videos before doing this. The Italian video looked like they were using processed rice. It looked like masa. Come to think of it, masa would probably be pretty darn good too. The Epicurious video I watched in English used egg and and another liquid in the rice mixture. Theirs was stuffed with chunks of mozzarella. They called them aranchini telephono because when you take a bite and withdraw the piece a string of mozzarella stretches like a telephone chord (as if telephones had cords). The recipe I read on Al Dente deep-fried them one at a time then baked them all to bring up the internal temperature. Giada De Laurentis mixed some of the bread crumbs in with the rice mixture. There appears to be a broad range of variance for these things, but arancini elitists agree they're seldom as good outside of Italy.

My breadcrumbs were the processed crusts from sourdough loaves that were trimmed previously for hors d'oeuvres. They were frozen while fresh so not dry, and there was no egg or bread crumbs in my rice mixture which would have made forming the balls a lot easier. Mine made a HUGE MESS in my kitchen which probably wasn't necessary. I would not bother with these for a large party, and I'd be careful with a small party. I can see how a single arancini could satisfy an appetite, and then tragically there would be no room for dessert. I forgot to add cheese so I grated some at serving. I served with jarred sun-dried tomato and olive bruschetta sauce.

This filling was made from what I had on hand and wanted to clear out. Next time of course it will be different.

* onion
* button mushrooms (last chance to use remnants)
* dried mushrooms (some kind of Japanese things)
* fresh garlic
* zucchini (one grocery store another balcony, both on their last leg)
* diced chicken breast
* Italian seasoning (dry)
* canned chicken broth
* flour and corn meal (because it was there and I wanted to use it)

The rice was leftover brown rice in the fridge for a week, and freshly cooked white rice with saffron and honey.

These were deep fried longer than they should have been then baked to even out the temperature.

Spaghetti with chicken tenders in curried chicken broth

I'm culling the contents of the refrigerator and was delighted to discover a package of mushrooms that I previously opened and carefully re-packaged rolled in paper towel so that they'd be both aerated and protected from the, um, air.  Having forgotten them, I expected they'd be entirely turned to mush.  Not so, they were perfectly fresh.  Fresh as a daisy.  Fresh as a baby's bum.  Fresh as a ... as a ... as something that's totally fresh.  I also found half a small zucchini.  Well.  There you go.  My course of action was determined.

Leftover chicken tenders in curried chicken broth seasoned with a mix of two curries, which sounds like a lot but isn't because scant amounts of both were used. Plus pineapple because I'm also culling the freezer, and regular spaghetti this time instead of spinach spaghetti.  Over night in the refrigerator, the broth turned into sauce so I just left it like that.  Lifted the noodles out of their cooking water, rolled them in butter, then with Parmigiano Reggiano, then covered with reheated sauce.

This was so delicious, it's a shame it only comes around once in ever, if you know what I mean. It can never be duplicated exactly, although the careless idea can be recycled.

Mushrooms

Mushroom, chicken, miso soup

Ham, asparagus, mushrooms