Live at the Improv

I started this blog mainly because I was having so much fun exploring the food adventures of other bloggers, getting inspired by their experiments, or just searching the blogs, chowhound, epicurious, or whatever for something to do with an interesting new ingredient. But much of the time, it's just looking in the fridge, thinking about what's in the pantry, and creating something tasty. Most of the time it works well, occasionally I wonder what I was thinking. This time it worked well, and the need to improvise had become extreme.

I had almost reached the point of "read my lips, no new food". The fridge had aging veggies. The freezer was overflowing. It was time to purge. So...

Red cabbage (1/4 head)
Yellow onion
Small red potatoes, 3
Habanero pepper, half, seeded, minced
1 carrot, sliced thin with mandoline
Kielbasa, half, cut into bite sized pieces
Pea tendrils, handful
cilantro, 4 or 5 sprigs
1 cube frozen roasted tomato sauce, made in early fall.
salt, pepper

I pulled out the trusty wok that I've had for going on 30 years. I'd been avoiding the wok for awhile in favor of the cast iron skillet because I'd been polluted by an article I read in Cook's Illustrated where they compared the heat-inducing behavior of home woks (as opposed to restaurant woks) versus flat bottom skillets and concluded that the flat bottom skillets were far more effective at transmitting heat, and getting to hot hot wok searing stir fry temperatures.

But I'd been thinking that I really like the way you can toss stuff around in the wok with wild abandon. With the skillet, the food pops out easily and messes up the stove. And what I really wanted to try was sauteing food in the wok, rather than blasting it with high heat.

Which is what I did with the above. The trick to this kind of cooking is to cook the tougher things first, adding items as they became more tender. The onions typically go first, because they need some time to soften and develop a sweet flavor. This time, since I was sauteing, and I didn't want to over do it, I didn't wait very long before I added the cabbage and the kielbasa, and then the carrots. I didn't want to overcook the cabbage, and I was hoping to get some carmelization on the kielbasa. The habanero got tossed in at the same time, and I beeped the potatoes in the microwave till they were barely cooked....quartered them and tossed them in.

When things were pretty much where I wanted them, I tossed in the defrosted cube of tomato sauce, the pea tendrils and the cilantro, just warming them up a bit. Stir around a bit, add some salt (not much....the kielbasa is salty) and pepper. The kielbasa also carried along some garlic, so there wasn't the need for any more flavoring.

Served with some bulghur done in the rice cooker, and I had a meal. Several actually. I think I got a second dinner and a lunch out of this.

Will I ever make this again? No. Will I make something else, someday, with interesting things that I have in the house? Of course....many times!

Welcome back into the fold, wok. Sauteing works very well!

Weeknight cuisine in a flash - Part 2 - Warm Slaw

Once I got that red cabbage going last night, I was in the mood for more. I had seen a bunch of recipes using red cabbage in a slaw, with all sorts of interesting dressings, some Asian inspired. Sounded good -- I was set. But when I got home, it was COLD...and I wasn't going to munch on cold cabbage. So I thought, why not warm it up a bit. Just a light saute, heat it through, done.

So I took that pile of ingredients you see up there: red cabbage on a rough chop, cilantro, ginger, carrot, little bit of jalapeno, and dumped it all in at once to a heated skillet with a little olive oil, and sauteed just for a couple of minutes, till the veggies brightened and were warm...barely starting to wilt. A pinch of salt, some sesame oil and rice wine vinegar, and I had a tasty side dish to go with the leftover steak and couscous.

Weeknight cuisine in a flash - Part 1

Anatomy of a weeknight meal. Two steaks picked up at McKinnon's over the weekend, needing to be eaten or frozen. Checking the blogs and assorted online food resources at lunchtime at work for Steak au Poivre....representing one of the best meals I ever had when in Paris. Susan coming after some drinks with a friend. Getting the basic gist of it. Not hard, and I didn't expect it to be. But I did pick up a good hint about how to crack those peppercorns....back end of a cast iron skillet. And some thoughts about the sauce. Unbeknownst to me, the sauce is usually made with Cognac...which I just happened to have picked up a bottle of the other day....but the directions said that it would probably flame up, and I wasn't in the mood for dealing with that (I hadn't ever done flaming food). Other sites suggested red wine as a good substitute, which was great, because I had an open bottle under vacuum seal waiting to be used.

Susan and I were both starving, so we munched down some caponata from Trader Joes with a few crackers....instant satisfaction, and gave me a little time to play. Get some TJ's Israeli couscous mix in the rice cooker (cool stuff...10 minutes, and it's got nice colorful addins). Chopped some onions and red cabbage for a simple saute, and got to cracking those peppercorns...which took a little longer than I thought it would, but was effective. Salt and press the peppercorns into the meat (rump steaks), and I'm ready to hit the heat. Cast iron skillet...a little cooking spray, make it hot, and 3 minutes per side. Wave kitchen towels under the smoke detectors (the fan over my stove vents into the kitchen....not helpful). When cooked, remove to a plate, and add some wine and butter to the skillet and reduce to a sauce. (I was supposed to use shallots, but I didn't have any). Serve. Done.

Next time I'll cook the steaks a tad longer...but the flavor was great. The shallots will make a nice addition, but really, the were very tasty....with one leftover for the next day.

With the kitchen smoky and us starving, I didn't stop to take a picture. Sorry!