Kiwi Creuset!

There she is! Isn't she gorgeous? Isn't she lovely? I couldn't resist this picture with all the complimentary greenery.

Didn't have time straight away for cassoulet or osso buco, but a couple pounds of mussels with fennel, leeks, thyme, oregano, feta and parsley will do just fine. She's just so BIG! 6.75 quarts makes two pounds of mussels look like a mini meal.

I tried homemade frites, too, but those damn things never come out right. I soaked for an hour then rinsed and patted very dry, to no avail. All soft 'n sticky. Help?

Like Fast Food, But Not

The other day, while searching for what to do with last weekend's leftover pork chops and avocado, I came across this delectable discovery and couldn't stop fantasizing over it.

We finally made them last night (with fresh pork, fear not!), and there was just enough of everything for one messy leftover spicy pork burger tonight, totally disheveled even as it was with sloppy grilled jalapeno and onion and tomatillo, cilantro, mushy creamy avocado and generous shmears of stinky munster on one side of the challah bun and homemade chipotle mayonnaise on the other.

Incidentally--or not so incidentally--the chipotle mayonnaise was naughty on the duck fat fries, too.

Then I took some leftover grilled corn and shaved it off into a salad with leftover onion, cilantro, a tiny bit of lemon juice I'd saved, some fresh black pepper and a kick of Sriracha.

For dessert, Oloroso-and-orange-zest-spiked homemade rice pudding! A virginal attempt, and a damn good one if I do say so myself.

Creamed Spinach Heart Attack

The other night I bought spinach for Josiah's morning smoothies, not realizing that he had also bought a boatload of the greens earlier in the day. What to do with an excess of about-to-wilt greens?

Make creamed spinach! Whew, was this a delicious heart attack about to happen. First I made a roux with butter and flour, then I sort of randomly threw in a bunch of chopped ramps and a few splashes of heavy cream that I had on hand to make ricotta... after it bubbled around for a few minutes, in went handful after handful of spinach.

To really get my cholesterol going, I supplemented my meal with french fries. And steak.

This meal was delicious. It really was. I just couldn't eat more than eight bites of it before feeling like my breath and heartbeats were restricted. So I had some Ramazzotti and digestivo'ed my way to the couch.