Triathalon Food

My husband and brother competed in the nation's triathalon  last Sunday.  I promised both of them I would cook whatever they wanted for dinner the night before the race.  To all of you cooks out there, beware of what you promise.  I ended up making two different meals (meat for my brother, pasta for my husband) and a sweet potato pie for dessert. 

I decided to make a rack of lamb for my brother.  I love lamb.  Rack of lamb is delicious and actually is easy and quick to make.  I rubbed the lamb with olive oil, mint, garlic, thyme and rosemary and roasted it in the oven for 45 minutes until the lamb reached 140 degrees.  I made my favorite pasta with mushrooms (with homemade noodles of course).

Sweet Potato PieThe highlight of the meal was probably the sweet potato pie.  I was actually going to make a spiced pear crisp for dessert, but I bought local sweet potatoes at the farm market and the boys were carbo loading.  I use a Culinary Institute of America recipe, with a couple of modifications.  I added a Tbs of vodka to the pie crust.  The alcohol evaporates and makes the crust incredibly delicate and flakey.  The key to a good sweet potato pie is of course delicious sweet potatoes.  This may seem obvious, but it is important that you use real sweet potatoes and not yams. Sweet potatoes and yams look similar but they are not related.  Sweet potatoes are starchier, but not as sweet (and most importantly not as watery) as yams.  I also modified the recipe by using maple syrup instead of sugar and fresh ginger.

After all the calories I consumed, I need to run a couple of triathalons.

Making Leftovers New Again

With a few notable exceptions (turkey after Thanksgiving, cold roast chicken which sometimes tastes better than hot chicken, leftover macaroni and cheese) I really don't like leftovers!  However if you can figure out how to make one dish into a new dish, technically the resulting creation is no longer left over.

I had a lot of leftover roast goat (See "Mary Had a Little Goat" for that recipe).  It has been living in my freezer for over a month.  I was thinking about making "pulled goat sandwiches" by reheating the goat in bbq sauce and serving it on rolls with homemade coleslaw.  I still think that would have been good, but instead I decided to make goat curry.

Enjoying some Goat CurryThere is a curry plant, but what most of us think of curry is a mixture of spices, usually with coriander, cumin, and turmeric as a base.  I also added fresh ginger, Chinese five spice powder (cinnamon, cloves, star anise, ginger, and something else, but I forget what spice).  The curry blend I used was kind of mild, so I also added garam masala, another pungent blend of spices.  I always cook my spices before adding the liquid.  I find it reduces any bitterness in the spice and enhances the flavor.  I love coconut milk in curry--it adds some sweetness to this savory dish--so I used light coconut milk as a basis for the broth.  To offset the sweetness and the spice, I added the fresh grated peel of one lemon and about a cup of low fat plain yogurt.  The yogurt increased the viscosity of the sauce and the depth of flavor of the curry.  I served the curry over homemade pasta, but rice of course would have been delicious.

Now what to do with all of this leftover curry...

Kitchen Therapy

I find cooking very relaxing.  I love to come home, listen to NPR, and prepare dinner.  I honestly believe that there are few better stress reliefs than making dough (except maybe a glass of wine).  You can punch, pull, twist, and tweak; the rougher the better!

Curried Crab LinguiniI am making homemade pasta tonight. I have leftover crab which I will incorporate into the sauce.  It's damp and dreary here so I think I'm going to make a more comforting sauce with curry powder and coconut milk.  I was out of pre-mixed curry powder (whole foods has a great blend) so I tried to blend it from scratch (curry powder is a mix of spices with turmeric as a base which imparts its characteristic red color) but I was also out of coriander and the flavor just wasn't the same.  Luckily my husband works next to a grocery store!

Spring Time In the Farmer's Market

Morel MushroomsI always feel a mixture of happiness and annoyance during the The Distinctive Hollow Interior of Morelsfirst springtime farmer's market.  It's always lovely when color returns to the market--green asparagus, peas, and spring onions, purple irises, and red swisschard.  Of course with spring, the fair market attendees return (I am one of the few who go to the outdoor market year round to purchase bread, meat, potatoes and, if the hens are laying, eggs).  With higher attendence, even if you arrive Garlic Shootswith the opening bell, the market is very crowded.

This past Saturday I purchased some of my favorite ingredients--fresh morel mushrooms and delicate garlic shoots.  Morels grow wild in nearly every state.  They are distinctive in appearance and flavor, but the truest way to identify morels is by cutting them opening to reveal their hollow Pasta with Garlic Shoots and Morelsinterior.  Garlic shoots have a much more mild flavor then the older bulbs.  You can try them raw (I did) but I wouldn't recommend it.  However, when sauteed they become tender and sweet.  Together, the mushrooms and the shoots provided the perfect base for a light pasta sauce with the sweetness of the shoots playing off of the earthiness of the mushrooms.