pantryslut

Friday:

I made the aforementioned strong fish stock, recruiting for the purpose a big lot of frozen salmon heads, sardine and anchovy heads, and shrimp shells.

My whole apartment smells of fish stock for the rest of the weekend.

(Earlier in the week, I made both vegetable and chicken stock.)

Then, I went over to the Berkeley Bowl to rustle up dinner with

wild_irises and

alanbostick. We settled on chicken enchiladas. I made the red sauce and the chicken, and

wild_irises made the green sauce and the guacamole;

alanbostick chopped a lot of garlic.

The red sauce consisted of canned tomato sauce with cumin, ancho and chipotle chile powders, a touch of cayenne, and garlic added to taste.

Making the chicken (three chicken breasts, boiled with garlic and cumin) accidentally resulted in yet more yummy chicken stock to use up. I took it home.

Saturday:

I made yet more stock, in preparation this time for a shrimp and corn bisque. A really good shrimp and corn bisque. Except that every time I make bisque, I am appalled at how much food matter ends up in the garbage (after being pressed through a food mill or strainer). Well, it's a really quick and yummy way to use up a lot of corn, at least.

I leave a small bag of corn in

black_pearl_10's freezer. Oops.

Sunday:

I cut up a large watermelon, throw in some blackberries, and dowse the whole thing lightly with framboise. The Generic Melon Salad has returned for the summer. Yum.

Generic Melon Salad: one or two melons of any type, some berries, and some fruit liquor. Toss. Eat.

I also made spam musubi with

black_pearl_10. (Why is it called musubi? I think actually, we made spam maki, b/c I get the impression after doing a little research that musubi is usually bigger, like a giant nigiri using one slice of spam as the topping, secured with nori. This was not how it was served to us a couple of weeks ago, but that's OK.) Two cookbooks and one cooking show were consulted in the making of the rice. I am stunned at the differences in seasoning, to be frank. I consulted "the definitive book" (Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art) and "the other one" (whose name and author I can never remember) and ended up following the latter because it called for less sugar and I was skeered of putting five tablespoons of sugar into my rice. The non-definitive recipe (which also cooks the rice in a non-definitive manner, uncovered on medium until the water reaches the level of the rice, then covered and on low until the water is absorbed) turned out fine.

And it was tasty. And fun.

It felt good to get this much cooking in. I've missed it.

Next up:

Stew with fish stock, pozole with chicken stock, and pork stir fried with cucumbers. Also more melon salad. And enchiladas for

black_pearl_10, since he missed them and they are, in theory, a family specialty of mine.