Alex's Night: Under the Milky Way Tonight

Hi, Jenny Jo!*  Deb here. Guess what? Our menu is in Flux. We're watching the creative process as it happens inside Alex's head right now. Things that don't exist yet are evolving in [virtual] spaaaaace....

Head Chef Alex is gazing off into the distance while Jim and Brian natter on about local politics and eye him expectantly. So far, we have been informed that the menu will somehow encompass Jim's homemade ricotta; we've even been given a taste, it is delicious. Even without any sugar added, it tastes like dessert to me..it's so thick and fresh tasting...it would be a perfect cannoli filling.  Not tonight, though. It turns out that Alex has his sights on incorporating it into a dumpling recipe. He's found one in  How to Cook Everything Vegetarian (his Bible) that looks pretty good. It's fun to see the creative process in action. We are throwing out ideas, but he's agonizing over how to find a "visually attractive" way to present dumplings. Finally, in a sudden gust of motion, he decides we'll just "hash out" something with zucchini later. We have to get started - the dessert needs to chill for 2 hours!

Here is Alex wrestling with garlic scapes, thinking hard.  The responsibilities of the Head Chef are weighty.

Bri: "Something about that pose reminds me of Prometheus."

In contrast, here is Brian illustrating what it is like to be a lowly Sous Chef...

We have to pause these proceedings to go buy sour cream (Strawberry Shortcake requires sour cream, say whaaat?) and to walk Rommy.  You remember Rommy, right? 

He's the shark under the table.

Sour cream quickly acquired, Bri adds it to the liquid ingredients and then adds those to the dry ingredients of the shortcake and all along he's dancing as he stirs batter to the beat of the retro sounds of The Church.  (This might have something to do with the Great Shortcake Disaster of 2012 which at this point we are unknowingly hurtling toward.)

Meanwhile, Alex and Jim are hard at work on the main course. They add sundried tomatoes, panko bread crumbs and some Romano cheese to the ricotta and then they dredge the cheese in egg and flour to fry it.  The ricotta is actually thick enough to allow this. It almost resembles tofu in texture. Hmm, well, not that you would agree with that idea from seeing this picture. I'm going to ask Alex to chime in in the comments with how exactly he managed to fry that soupy looking cheese...

"This Shea Pottery batter bowl is both beautiful and immensely helpful in the kitchen!" says Alex.

It turns out, Alex really is going to hash something together. Vegetable Hash is actually a real food, so say we all! Here's how you make it: Shred a bunch of vegetables. (We used zucchini, onion and carrots and we blended some garlic scapes in, too.) Then fry it up! Don't you love our recipes?

By the way, Jenny Jo, like you, we got very frustrated with Farscape.  I think we forgot to mention in the last two Cooking Club posts that we have put Farscape on the "way back burner" for now. We are all huge fans of Sherlock, and tonight we will be watching the last episode in the second season. We've been savoring these episodes so hard, only watching one per night- and they are deliciously complicated and so unpredictable that we have to frequently call time-outs to excitedly discuss what we think is going on. It's awesome.

Meanwhile, back in the kitchen, there's a debate going on about the best way to fry these dumplings. To coat in bread crumbs or not? In true scientific fashion, we experimented both ways, then we group-opinion-vacillated around the topic a few times like drunks at a dance hall until we finally landed on the decision that the bread crumbs would overpower the delicate cheese taste of the dumplings. Science! So we abandon our earlier plans to dredge them.  This means we're rebelling against a Bittman recipe. Blasphemy!

Speaking of chaos, we're all Deeply Concerned about the state of the shortcakes. For some reason, they are swimming in liquid in the oven. Could the butter be leaking out? Does the new silicone mat we are using for the first time have some sort of liquid leaching ability? It was made in France, how can it be evil?

See?

In the process of brainstorming that anomaly, we uncover a terrible crime:  oh, man, even whilst sitting 12 feet away and minding my own business, I managed to kill the dessert. See, while reading off the recipe for Brian, I apparently managed to skip the part about the 4 tsp of baking powder. I'm not sure what effect this will have ....wait a second, hold the phone, I just tested one...and oh, they are FINE. Why is everyone so upset? They taste very dessert-y. Maybe they're a little flatter than usual, sure, but they taste great. I'm sure they will be wonderful. Move along, now, there's nothing more to see here...

The asparagus is done first. Alex's One True Way to make asparagus is to roast it for 15 minutes with some olive oil and salt.  Honestly, that's it. We've tried asparagus in lots of other ways, but we all agree this way is our favorite.  We also stir fried some collard greens, kale and arugula in some garlic and olive oil.

Jim made a tasty salad, too, which we all dressed in our own way.

A salad that gets the job done.

So, our official menu tonight coalesced into:

Bittman's Pan Fried Ricotta Dumplings, made with Karlin's Homemade Ricotta and enhanced by
Alex's Invisible Lemon Butter Sauce
Vegetable Hash with Minced Garlic Scape Sauce
Roasted Asparagus made in the One True Way
A Trio of Greens
Jim's impromptu CSA salad
Dessert: Strawberry Shortcakes

Dinner is served!

(*Each week, we've decided to address our blog to one of our loyal readers. Don't worry, Stass, we'll get to you next. Everyone else, if you want a blog post written to you, leave us a comment.)

Now the best part, the scores:

	Jim	Brian	Alex	Deb
Salad	B. Serviceable salad	B. Serviceable salad	B. Serviceable salad	B. Serviceable salad
Ricotta Dumplings	A. Nummy! Highlighted the ricotta.	A. One can only wonder what it would have been like with store bought ricotta, but fortunately we didn’t have to face that.	B+ Good, but didn’t knock my socks off. Lemon saucy thing could have been better.	A. I thought they were surprisingly delicious.
Vegetable Hash	B+ Could have been crispier	A- Zucchini is not my favorite vegetable, but I would happily eaten a whole bowl of it	B+ There were some texture issues. I would have nice to have it paired with the dumplings in a way where they weren’t both kind of mushy.	A- Neat and unusual way to eat vegetables.
Stir Fried Greens	B. They were tough.	B+. Tasty	A. In the context of the whole menu, they really added a lot. The bitterness and pungency added a great contrast to the “safeness” of the dumplings.	A. I can never make them taste that good. Considering how bitter they should be, I’m always amazed they are edible.
Asparagus	A. I have trust issues with asparagus (Mom pulled a fast one on him once.) but I still love asparagus made in the One True Way.	A. Delicious, as always!	A. Even thought we had to eat them cold, I was still happy to eat it. Love the One True Way.	C. Way, way way, way WAY way way too salty.Of course, I forgot to eat it during the meal so the one I tried was cold and slimy, too. Also I was full.
Strawberry Shortcake	A-  Strawberries and cream, how can that go wrong?  Gets an A- in spite of the baking powder free biscuits.	B+  If the biscuit were better it would be perfect.  It needs chocolate.	B+  My comments mirror Jim’s.  If the biscuits were flaky and perfect, it would have been sublime.	B  It was really quite tasty, the biscuit was terrible.

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The End