two quick dinners and a book

[pantryslut]

The last two meals I have made were exceedingly easy, but also very delicious.

Sunday night: potatoes and salad. How I did it: I sliced the (yellow, waxy) potatoes very thin and fried them in a generous amount of olive oil until they were brown. Then I seasoned with salt and pepper. For the salad, I grated a carrot into a pile of mixed salad greens. I tossed in some currants and some toastedwalnuts, too. Then I dressed it with a simple balsamic vinaigrette.

Monday night: Rice with spinach, walnuts, and goat cheese. How I did it: I made a batch of rice in the rice cooker. I boiled the spinach, then squeezed out the excess liquid and chopped it. Then I tossed it on top of the warm rice along with some toasted walnuts (again), a log of goat cheese, and a lot of salt and pepper.

Meanwhile, I have been reading Pot on the Fire by John Thorne. I started it on my weekend getaway, and by the next day I was halfway through it. This is a guy who cooks every day, and you can tell. He's also very engaged with food writing -- quotes and bibliographic pointers abound -- and this is also fun for me, because it sets up a dialog, and I am already familiar with some of the participants in this dialog. I am enjoying it all immensely. I may need to acquire the rest of his books, too. I am also contemplating subscribing to his newsletter, if it's still around.

Comments

[abostick59.livejournal.com]

Someone (Lisa Hirsch?) gave me Thorne's Outlaw Cook as a birthday present some years back. I dipped into it, not reading it through. I was amused and entertained by his adventures in brick-oven bread baking, which he insists, perhaps accurately, is vastly superior to baking bread in modern ovens, and yet which he describes giving up because it was more trouble than it was worth.