The Fine Line Between Dedicated and Crazy-5/8/09

Today was the first day while doing the “Gourmet” project that I’ve seriously worried that I might be tipping over the edge into obsessive. The day after tomorrow we leave for San Diego (finally!) and I have only 8 recipes left to make from May’s Gourmet. Two of those recipes are great for lunch but tomorrow we are meeting friends to take the kids to McDaniel Farm Day so lunch tomorrow is out. So I made two lunch dishes today for Eyrleigh and me. I know she’s not a fan of fish and sardines seems a real stretch so I made the Spaghetti with Sardines and Dill on page 80 for me and made the Egg and Tomato Stir-fry on page 107 for her. I think I made a good decision. Eyrleigh ate the Tomato and Egg Stir-fry with enthusiasm. I was a bit disappointed at first that an article about the best Chinese restaurants in L.A. would be accompanied by such a simple recipe. Was this really the best L.A. had to offer? But in its defense, this recipe, though not fancy, could be a real mainstay for anyone novice to homemade Chinese food but looking for real flavor with simple ingredients. I was pleasantly surprised by the simple elegance of this dish… and again, Eyrleigh was in heaven.
The Spaghetti with Sardines and Dill was not quite the revelation. I’m not a huge sardines fan, though my mom swears by them and gave them to us often as kids. I actually didn’t mind the sardines but I found the dish as a whole a bit dry and I didn’t even use all the breadcrumbs. The amount of spaghetti and bread crumbs seemed to smother the other ingredients.
Remember I mentioned I am concerned about being obsessive. Tonight’s dinner dish also proved how dedicated I am to finishing each recipe in the month’s Gourmet to the best of my ability. The article “Turkish Peppers” on page 62 was about the author’s dedication, dare we say, obsession, to the flavors of two peppers native to Turkey. He traveled to the very valley that these peppers are grown to absorb the environment and culture that the Urfa and Maras peppers grow in. It would have been unfair to both the author of this article and the subsequent recipe he supplied to not use the very peppers he spoke of. So last week, I hopped on the internet and ordered these peppers from Formaggio Kitchen as Gourmet recommended. Using my new cooking rule, always taste a new ingredient before liberally putting it in a dish, I tried a few of the pepper flakes before putting them in the Turkish Lamb Stew on page 64. They had some kick and I worried that Eyrleigh might have to have an alternative dinner option. Once cooked in the stew, though, the peppers lost some heat but still held their very distinct flavor. I used both peppers as called for in the dish but I had trouble distinguishing between the two flavors. The heat of the red Maras pepper seemed to come on slower but was more intense while the darker Urfa pepper had heat up front but was smokier in flavor. These peppers will be fun to put in other dishes to see how it changes the flavor over a dash of grocery store red pepper flakes.
I usually try to keep my dishes at meals from the same region of the world or at least the same continent but again, in an effort to complete the recipes of May by tomorrow, I jumped hemispheres for my accompanying dish for dinner. I made the Jamaican Beef Dumplings on page 134. I used mild curry spice, again for Eyrleigh, but these were still good little beef dumplings. My only frustration is that none of these dumpling recipes made very good leftovers as they got incredibly chewy when left out for long.
I also made another drink recipe to go along with dinner. I raided the wedding champagne to make the Aristocrat Punch. (We got married in 01 so that tells you how much champagne I drink.) This punch tasted much like sangria, probably due to the addition of red wine. I liked it but it reminded me how quickly punch goes flat. But hey, I've done a lot more for this project than drink flat punch.

Spaghetti with Sardines, Dill, and Fried Capers-C


Stir-fried Egg and Tomato-B


Lamb Stew with Turkish Flavors-A-


Jamaican Beef Dumplings-B

Aristocrat Sparkling Punch-B

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