Jim's Night: Gnocchi, from a French point of view.

Our official menu tonight:

French Bread with garlic parsley olive oil ...and Taleggio?

Spinach Gnocchi

Baby Arugula Salad

Polenta and Roasted Squash

Vanilla Bean Cheesecake with Walnut Crust

Appetizer

It's Jim's night and as usual, he has graciously provided us with appetizers, something Deb and Brian often forget.  This might be our favorite appetizer, yet. Even though Brian and I are not big fans of Brie, we LOVED a cheese that Jim bought with which looked a lot like it, called Taleggio. Wait a second... no, scratch that...I just looked up Taleggio on Wikipedia and our cheese doesn't look anything like it. Ok, so the store lied to Jim. We have no idea what cheese this is. Do you?  We love a mystery cheese, apparently. Geez, maybe it IS Brie. Maybe this is what really good quality Brie tastes like. Hmm. Anyway, besides that, Alex made us a parsley infused garlic oil dipping sauce which was perfect for baguette dipping.

Spinach Gnocchi
The recipe said it was the perfect pasta to make for beginners. "30 minutes to prepare" it promised. Ha, we say. Getting the right consistency is a nerve wracking challenge. If you knead it too much or roll it too much, it can be tough. It can be too oily, too floury. "So did you get the right texture?" I asked. "We hope so." is all they can reply.

It should be noted that "to prepare" apparently doesn't include the hour of chilling time in the middle, just the actual chopping/grating/mixing bits.  Tricky, tricky recipe!

Brian here, taking over
the blog while Deb
takes Rommy out for a walk.
 Hellooooooo, loyal readership!

Making the gnocchi
This is our biggest countertop challenge, as to roll out each piece they want us to cover a flat surface with flour and roll our little proto-gnocchi-nuggets through it.

Interestingly (to me, at least), the gnocchi balls at this stage looked like little green dessert truffles.  The first batch tasted VERY healthy...so healthy that Steps Must Be Taken.   A sprinkling of grated cheese across the top and a tomato sauce are suggested, as is just coating them in breadcrumbs and turning them into arancini, as is just plain ol' sauteeing them in butter.  The decision was to toss them in butter/olive oil/paprika/rosemary mixture, saute them, THEN toss them in an improvised sundried tomato/cream of porcini & white truffle/butter sauce (YES. I KNOW), and sprinkle pecorino cheese on top.  If Paula Deen was a vegetarian, this would've been the solution she came up with.


...And I'm okay with that.

Here we are in our action poses:

The polenta is going to be basted with the olive oil-garlic mixture also used on our bread, then broiled, cooled, and turned into nummy medallions.

Roasted Squash
There's cubed squash going into the oven, roasted with olive oil and Herbs de Provence, AS I TYPE.  (The excitement is palpable.)  When they're all cooked we'll combine them and drizzle them with a balsamic reduction, bam!  (Or, wait, that should be the French variant.  Le Bahm!)

The balsamic drizzle is an old friend at this point; your old friend with a big truck who never seems to mind when you need to move an appliance, as long as you kick in for gas and maybe a burger.  Everyone needs a drizzle like this.

While there's a slow moment I'll take this time to grade our "mise en place" tonight, which....well, we're able to mostly contain the prepping to the kitchen.  Not exactly Michelin standards, but we've done far, far worse. (And probably will for my meal next week.) Plus, extra points for having a flashlight in the middle of the prep area, in case of a blackout.  B+!

The polenta and gnocci recipes are from 'Cooking School Provence', by the way.  Authors: Gui Gedda and Marie-Pierre Moine.  The squash is a Supper Club Original, and was kept in the oven just long enough to become crispy and caramelized.


Baby Arugula Salad

Arugula, like rising sea levels, happens.  (Is that negative, you ask?  Not if you're a whale, it's not.  An arugula-eating whale. Yes.)  If the salad is the star of your meal, Jim avers, you've either done something wrong or you're having a meal of nothing but salad.  We'll have a parsley-parmesan dressing with it.  We have some grated carrots for it, some cucumbers, and some CSA Mystery Mixed Greens. (They're green, local and organic...what, you want names, too?  

Vanilla Bean Cheesecake with Walnut Crust
There's been a little confusion with the sour cream topping for the cheesecake--the directions call for it to be poured/brushed across the top, then put in the oven for just 5 minutes.  As far as we can tell, the 5 minutes did noooothing....it was a delicious schmear of glop when we put it in, and it's a delicious schmear now.

('Delicious Schmear' is also the stage name of a Tel Aviv stripper, btw.)

This recipe was found on FoodandWine.com

To our surprise, as the cheesecake cools it sinks a little in the middle, souffle-style. It's not that attractive looking in this photo, but 3 out of 4 cooks loved it.

	Alex	Brian	Deb	Jim
Appetizer	B I thought it was great, but hard to good grades to things that you had no hand in cooking.	A Delicious and a cheese that would make you proud to be in a cave in Italy	B+ Good bread. Totally loved the mystery cheese and the garllic oil infusion was excellent. But the oil was all we made	A Good bread, excellent cheese...whatever it was
Polenta	B  I feel like I learned a lot about polenta. It's really easy to make and broiling it gave it crispness. Lots of potential with this recipe.	A-  Without the cheese it would have been not as good. Cheese=goodness	A- I thought it was awesome, but it needed a sauce...some mushroom.	B I thought it needed something. Maybe more balsamic drizzle.
Spinach Gnocchi	B-  I think I learned a lot about it. You have to make it delicious before you boil the balls. We should have added more salt.	A  We went through a lot of hoops for this. We went a few miles off course from what the recipe called for (out of necessity. to make it tasty)	B+ They were so damn healthy until we sauteed in butter and drenched in cheese. I feel like we could make these and put them in tomato sauce and they would be delicious.	C- As "gnocchi" they were a dismal leaden failure. As "Spinach meatballs" they might have had some potential. But this recipe needed a lot of help.
Roasted Butternut Squash	A-   On the whole, it was great, but we still have room for improvement. The flavors were good, but safe.	A   Surprising what a high point it was considering how easy it was.	A-  They were good, but we have had this dish before. Very healthy, though. Just squash and balsamic vinegar!	A   Delicious.
Cheesecake	A  Really good. Flavor, texture perfect, presentation just ok	A Really tasty. Only reason it's not an A+ is that it was missing caramel or chocolate on top.	B-  I don't get the love. To me, it tasted like a vegan cheesecake, but it wasn't! All the fat and cholesterol for a vegan flavor? Odd.	A+  Strawberry coulis would have made it better. The sour cream might not be necessary.

Farscape, Season 1, Episode 21: Bone to be Wild. 

Brian: There was actually a lot more plot advanced than I expected there to be. It started off with a Monster of the Week sort of feel.

Deb: I loved it, especially the bonding between Aeryn and the Leviathans.

Alex: I liked the "who's the bad guy feel".

Jim: I liked it. I hope we meet Imle again. 

Farscape: Season 1, Episode 22: Bad Timing.

Deb's Night: Stations of the Place

One of Deb's seven stations!

Any time you go to a cooking night, and Deb says "here are the seven phases of this meal" and she's written each one out by hand on a separate piece of paper, you expect it's going to be good.  It's like there are different stations...stations of the [mise en] place.  Yesssss punnnsszzz.

Uncooked bread with onions.

Rosemary Onion Focacia!

We're using the recipe from Artisan Bread in 20 minutes a Day or Less.  The trick is that you don't have to knead the dough, and that you have to fill the oven with steam as you bake the bread.  Deb read that we cook the bread for five minutes, which seemed incredibly surprising to me, but Deb baked us delicious focacia before.  Well, it was 25 minutes.  But it was pretty good!

The Baked Focaccia! 

Jim with unbaked cookies.

Polenta Almond Cherry Cookies! 
With maple syrup as the sweetener and coconut oil as the fat.  Gotta love the vegans.  Quick-cooking polenta, rice flour and almond meal.  Take that, gluten.  Jim made them, and was shocked by the dryness of the dough - the only liquid came from the coconut oil, which is solid at room temperature.  Yum, saturated fat.

Cookies, in their cooked glory.

Sauteeing was great for the fake meat.

Steak Sandwiches! 
A foreman grill plus fake meat and horseradish dressing.  Not to mention fresh watercress to go on top.  Nothing says manly steak sandwich like fresh baby watercress.  I feel bad for dissing the gluten, earlier, since we're relying on it for our protein...and...uh...the bread.  We're still trying to figure out how to make it not taste like a gummy mess, but I think that might just be gluten getting back at us for being so snarky in the above paragraph.  :-(  We grilled it on the foreman, but that didn't quite cut it, so we're trying to sautee it and see if we can induce a more delicious texture.

We also made a mayonnaise horseradish sauce, with a little agave and some salt and pepper.  Simple, but pretty effective...


Tapioca pudding! 
Tapioca, coconut milk and agave nectar for sweetness.  He's making it on the stovetop, and it's looking dangerously bubble-over-y.  As it turns out, Bri did the whole 'accidentally add twice as much tapioca to liquid' trick!  We attempted a rescue by adding more liquid to the pudding, and that liquid was pineapple juice.  A food chemist might know if there is some sort of acid in the pineapple that would prevent tapioca strands forming, but we're much more in favor of just throwing caution to the wind.  But that's what our backup dessert is for anyway, right?  Speaking of which, hey, we have leftover cherries.  Into the pudding they go!  We used pearled tapioca, which gives it a pretty groovy "thing from outer space" look once it's cooked.

Attack of the killer tapioca.  Watch yourself, Internet.

Don't forget the taters.

Corn Chowder! 
 Deb is making corn chowder, vegan style.  Her current cookbook guru says that you should head up the pan, then add salt, then add oil, which is pretty much the opposite of how we normally roll.  We added some mirepoix, and a chipotle pepper which came in a can of adobo sauce.  Meanwhile, we're broiling some corn in the toaster oven to give it that toasty browned goodness.  We made cashew cream, which was soaked cashews that were food processed.  It was a little grainy, so we strained out the gritty bits, but aside from the oil, that's the only fat in this one.

Deb's vegan meal, ruined by the "I can't believe it IS chicken" moment.

Salad 
This salad is mostly a delivery vehicle for a Caesar Dressing, which is a blend of capers, garlic, nutritional yeast, miso, fake mayonnaise, water, olive oil and agave.  Those vegans, they just put the agave in everything!

All together.  We spread the horseradish sauce on the focaccia first, then the
'meat' and the veggies.  Watercress, red onions and red peppers.

	Alex	Brian	Deb	Jim
Soup	C+  I’ve had way better corn chowder.  The corn could have been fresher, and the flavor was just OK.	C+  It was too hot for me and it stuck on and the corn we used could have been better.  Fresh corn would have made it go up.	“I’m really full now...”  A solid B.  You could serve it to your mama.	B  I really liked the spice from the chipotle.
Salad	B  Fun dressing, but nothing else distinguishing.	B  It’s an eh salad with a great dressing.	A-  I loved the dressing...but it wasn’t very healthy.	The dressing was awesome (A).  The salad was just a delivery vehicle.
Sandwich	B+  The bread could have risen a little more - it wasn’t perfect for a sandwich.  The sauce was great, but the innards didn’t blow me away.	A  It’s only the rookie mistakes with the seitan and focacia cooking time that keeps it from an A+.	Oh my God, A fucking plus.  I looooved that sandwich.	I give it a solid A.  Shocked at how good it was!  Awesome focaccia, sauce was amazing, and the stuff was just fine.  Red onions!  Zing!
Cookies	B+  I think the coconut oil was amazing.  It was rich and had an interesting texture, and the cherries were lovely.  Gluten would have been great, though...	C+  The coconut oil reminded me of a girl scout cookie (in a good way).  The grainy cornmeal texture reminded me of cream of wheat in a bad way.	I really wasn’t in the mood to eat them...they didn’t strike me as being perfect.  I got a weird aftertaste...?  I have to wait until I’m hungry again.	B+  I like the texture, I could live without the crunchiness that persists after you’ve eaten it, and I thought the taste was pretty darn good.  And no liquid at all!  (Bri:  It was the greatest cracker I’ve ever eaten...)
Pudding	D-  Pineapples and cherries alone would have been better.  Poor, unloved tapioca.	The pudding curse continues.  Rarely has there been such a dessert...in a bowl...in front of me.  D	Full Deb is full.	F.  The consistency was horrible.  I like pineapple and cherries, but otherwise.  The taste wasn’t very good for the pudding itself.