V*gan Friends

So, yet another hiatus. No excuses this time.
I'm going to give this a shot, once again, though my budget is tight.
However, life is a pain sometimes. Life delivered me the presence of ACTUAL v*gan human beings. As I'm sure is clear at this point, I love to cook. My cooking isn't always amazing, or fancy, but I definitely churn out food. I also love to play hostess and feed guests. Two friends who I have over regularly, who love to eat, but I can only cook for one of them (and I'm hoping to educate him about cooking). The other is v*gan.
I adore him to death, but I don't know what to cook for him. So, occasionally, he'll cook for himself in my kitchen. That's fine with me, but I've never seen him cook himself anything but a veggie stir fry and rice. So, here's the big question... what do v*gans eat? Is there really any variety to their diet?
I could PROBABLY serve up my spicy black bean soup (recipe coming soon), or a chili. Though I've recently found that v*gan chili and v*gan curry is boring.
Next time: The never ending debate over flavor. When do things cease to be "subtle" and become "boring?"

Excuses, Excuses, Excuses...

So, if I still have any readers, you may have noticed my absence. Or maybe not. I am prone to disappearing occasionally. So here are my excuses.
Excuse number one: I moved recently.
Excuse number two: I've been busy. (No, not really.)
Excuse number three: I haven't done anything new. (Flat out lie.)
The truth: I just keep forgetting. I forget to take pictures of my food because I forget about my blog. By the time I remember, I've either eaten the food or I've mangled it beyond the point where it's at all photogenic.
So, here's what you've missed that I don't have pictures of; stuffed peppers, cod with browned butter (it was amazing), pulled pork (AMAAAAZING! I promise I'll make it again and take pictures this time), lactose-intolerant/carnivore stuffed shells, etc.
Recipes may or may not show up when these things cycle back around. Or I could post them soon because I do write this stuff down. The stuffed peppers weren't my cup of meat (and rice), but I've been informed that they were very good.
So, tonight I finally remembered to take a photo. It's a crappy photo, but a photo nonetheless and I suppose it kind of gets the point across.


Care to guess what it is?

Pork Chops with Applesauce
Serves 2.

2 pork chops (or other cut of pork)
1 Macintosh apple
1 1/2 cups apple cider, divided
cinnamon
allspice
nutmeg
cloves
thyme

Directions:
1. Core and dice apple (whether you skin it or not is up to you, I left the skin on), place in a frying pan with 1/2 cup of apple cider.
2. Add alllll spices and herbs (and 1 tbsp butter if you're not lactose intolerant or cooking for someone lactose intolerant).
3. Cook down until apples are mushy and mash with a potato masher. Add remaining cider and wait until it bubbles decently.
4. Add pork! Cook thoroughly, while rotating sides periodically and covering with applesauce. (By the end there will be very little applesauce remaining.)
5. Serve hot.

I served this with a mix of noodles and vegetables (which is apparently not a great pairing). I was slightly disappointed in this dish, overall, because the applesauce was fantastic but pork doesn't exactly infuse nicely with flavor the way beef does. At least, not in my experience.
So, I don't think I'd make this again. I'll always make apple sauce, I just don't want to make pork. Unless it's bacon.
So, here's a pretty pretty distraction that was lurking around on my camera:


Mmmm, pretty sandwich. Mozzarella, basil leaves, and cherry tomato grilled sammy (on oat bread). I could go for one now, that would make me forgive the stupid pork.

Oven Fries with Herbs and Parmesan

Okay, so I cheated. As usual I did not follow the recipe.
Yes, this recipe is not my invention, as brilliant as it is, and has been modified to my liking. The original recipe can be found at KitchenDaily, here. Sadly (for me), theirs are so much pretty than mine. Though I have no doubt that mine are just as tasty (if less crunchy).
So, I chose to make this out of a wild craving for potatoes (it happens frequently), a fear that no one would come home to make dinner in a timely manner, and a brick of Parmesan that no one was using. Resolving to make JUST these delicious little fries (for JUST me), I journeyed to the kitchen to assault some potatoes. Unfortunately, as I started cutting into a potato, half the family showed up, which meant I had to make DINNER. Like, dinner dinner. Dinner dinner dinner.
So what, that isn't chicken, goes well with fries? Steak. I'd make a joke, but I didn't make steak fries. The steak, by the way, was a tremendous failure. Out of fiscal necessity my family freezes meat. That's not a big issue. The big issue is the big steak that was languishing in the freezer like a grizzly bear on Valium. This was a BIG steak. Not in length. The stupid thing was over an inch deep. So, upstairs to the trusty microwave, where I assume I will ruin what could generally be considered a beautiful steak.
Ten minutes of radiation-based thawing does NOTHING aside from make it slightly moist.
Oh, right, this post isn't about steak. Let's just say the steak took forever too cook and made the fries look like a lovely little blessing from wherever food-based blessings come from. They were so blessedly easy that I plan to make more tomorrow (they've been requested for lunch).
As I assume you've looked at the original recipe by now (if you haven't, please do so, just out of respect to the poster), here's my rendition:

Oven Fries with Herbs and Parmesan
Serves 4 greedy people

3 large red potatoes, cut into slim sticks
~1/3 cup grapeseed oil
3 cloves garlic, mashed and minced
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp basil
1/2 cup Parmesan, freshly grated
salt
pepper

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 425°F (I made an oopsie and set my oven to 475°F, which seems to have worked out fine). Toss potato sticks in a large bowl with oil until evenly coated. Spread potato sticks on a baking sheet in a single layer (I had overlap. Also, using wax paper may be a good idea, the fries WILL stick). Bake in the upper third of the oven (Again, I didn't listen. One of my racks is too high for my liking, the other is low, but just where I want it, so I used that), turning once or twice with a spatula (a note on technique: when your fries stick [and they will] flip the spatula over and use it like a plow), until they are golden and crispy. Should take about 30 minutes.
2. Sprinkle with minced garlic and herbs (and salt and pepper and cheese, if you're me and attempted to commit this recipe to memory and winged it when you realized you forgot). Roast for about 5 minutes longer (or until the kitchen begins to fill with the smoke of burning herbs and cheese on the bare spots of the pan), until herbs are fragrant and the garlic is lightly browned.
3. Deviate from the recipe complete and realize later that it's completely pointless to continue writing out the proper instructions when you clearly didn't listen. Eat happily and be grumpy and sad that people ate so much and didn't leave a huge pile for you.
4. Smile happily ate "make-again" requests and gloat about the virtues of real cheese.
5. Barter for more cheese that comes in brick form, rather than "pre-shredded." Remember to use the cheese grater as a point in your favor (i.e. "Why do we own it if we don't use it? It's there for a reason!")
6. Promptly be ignored.

Anyway, back to the fries.
I generally don't like Parmesan, but there are certain flavors that I find it works beautifully with. If you give me steamed broccoli and top it with parm, I probably won't eat it. If you give me a pizza with roma tomatoes, basil leaves, and olive oil on a delightfully tender crust, topped with Parmesan and some other cheese that I've forgotten the name of (this is a Margherita pizza at Lui Lui's), I will devour it with great enthusiasm.
Like all cheeses, Parmesan has it's proper applications and some people abuse it while others forget it entirely. Unfortunately, I'm guilty of forgetting it almost entirely until I find it in my mouth. And I'm sorry for that, as I often label parm as a cheese that I hate when really I just under-appreciate it's glory when I have it in a dish that I like.
What really makes this dish work is the combination of the still pungent, half-cooked garlic and the parm. The herbs really are stuck playing second fiddle, but are still noticeable and delicious. While my fries did not come out golden brown, or perfectly crisp, they were wonderfully tender and an absolute tactile joy.
So, while I can't say that I'll use parm a whole lot now, I can say that this particular side dish/snack/binge food holds a special place on my list of amazing potato-based based foods. I will definitely be making this again, and soon.

The Do-Over

This, my friends, is my late night dinner.

So, I'm pleased to report, I'm not ill. I appear to have dodged food poisoning.
With this happy news, I felt the need to try again at cooking for the day. No one felt like making dinner (it was 95°F) so I was hungry and decided to cook (because I'm insane).
So this is it. It's quick, it's simple, it's amazingly tasty.

Sauteed Salmon and Veggies
Serves 2. But I'm hungry.

1/2 medium onion, diced
1/4 yellow pepper, diced
1 small can of salmon (in water)
salt
pepper
parsley
grapeseed oil

Directions:
1. Warm up pan and grapeseed oil.
2. Add onion and yellow pepper, cooking until 2/3 done.
3. Drain salmon and add fish to pan, mashing with a wooden spoon to ensure even distribution.
4. Add a dash of salt and as much pepper as you like.
5. Cook only until salmon is warmed through (canned fish comes pre-cooked, I think).
6. Serve and top with parsley.