cook: triple pork bahn mi

I so love a bahn mi. I had pork belly in my freezer and went to a French market to get the pâté to use with leftover roast pork my neighbor Helen gave me for triple the pig in a Vietnamese sandwich. Below is my mise en place in addition to all the aforementioned pork: bolilo rolls (French baguette is best, but that bread wasn't available at the supermarket), pickled daikon and carrot, Persian cucumbers, cilantro, Kewpie mayo, hoisin sauce, Sriracha sauce.

I heated my cast iron to brown and render fat from my pork belly and sliced all the vegetables. I forgot at first the pork pâté for my assemblage. But it's the first thing I spread on to a bread half. On the other half of the roll, I slathered mayo and then topped with cucumber and the pickled carrots and daikon.

Next the leftover pork roast, which I warmed in the melted fat of the belly, atop the pâté. Drizzles of hoisin and mayo. And then the pièce de résistance: the browned pork belly. And at the last moment I remembered to include slices of jalapeno along with the cilantro because I like a bit of heat.

Behold one of my most favorite sandwiches.

I really do need to expand my repertoire of sandwiches. I think a Cubano next. And a stop to repeating things I've cooked already.

cook: saturday supper

I was craving salmon. A few years ago, Tuscan salmon was in my rotation and then I stopped making it because we went vegan for a few months and so forgot about this dish in my seafood repertoire. But I also forget what I used to serve as a side dish with this salmon. Did I even used to serve a starch alongside Tuscan salmon? No matter. I decided use up the rest of a box of cavatappi pasta and pesto.  And got my mise en place together.                            

And I cooked the starch first by boiling the cavatappi for 6 minutes and then tossing it in the pesto along with a little bit of its starchy cooking water. It’s not an appetizing-looking side. I blame the Trader Joe’s pesto, which is a pond scum green rather than emerald like the Costco pesto, but it takes us months if not a year to eat a big warehouse jar of pesto.                       

Maybe in a few months, we’ll be in the mood for pesto again, and I'll blend fresh basil, pine nuts, parmesan and olive oil myself. Next I seared and crisped the salmon.  

I basically got my cast iron searing hot to cook the salmon. Lay the filets skin side down for two minutes to brown and then loosen from the pan and flip. And then let it cook another two minutes to brown on the other side.             

After browning, I set the salmon aside to finish cooking later in the sauce, which calls for dairy.                         

Damn that’s a lot of lactose. And so I melted butter and sautéed minced garlic.                                   

Just before the garlic can burn, add the sliced cherry tomatoes and de-glaze with additional white wine if you wish. And then let the moisture cook off to prevent a watery sauce.                 

Next add spinach. You could just add a couple handfuls or even all of an 8-ounce bag because the vegetable will wilt down. A lot.                    

Once the spinach has taken up less volume in the pan, add heavy whipping cream. I added a quarter cup and then simmered the sauce again to drive off more moisture. I also sprinkled Parmesan cheese into the sauce to further thicken it.                      

I tasted and salted, which then made the spinach release more water into the sauce. And so the Tuscan sauce needed to simmer off more moisture and meld all the flavors. After some 5 minutes of simmering the sauce looks done and ready for the salmon.                       

I then nestled the salmon into the vegetables and sauce and let it simmer for only 2 or 3 minutes so the fish would heat through but not get beyond medium rare.                           

I also sprinkled a couple more tablespoons of chopped basil and called out to the hubs that dinner was ready.                                 

Seared salmon in Tuscan sauce. It’s what was for Saturday supper. Next time I will nix the pesto pasta and just serve rice or buttered pasta or corn as a side.

cook: fajita friday

I’ve been eating prepared salads and meals from Thistle for a couple months now, and I’m already tired of their rotations. And so I’ve suspended lunches and dinners for a week and signed up for another meal delivery service from a company called Methodology. Still plant-forward and paleo and dairy and gluten-free, but maybe their sauces and flavor profiles will be different. In the meantime I’ll be chef for the next couple weeks. To Taco Tuesday, I’ve added Fajitas Friday to this week’s dinners. While at Costco last weekend, I bought carne asada or flank steak already marinated in chili and paprika and a little lime. I also picked up some bell peppers for the week’s Greek mezze. I’m starting to cook not just for dinner that night but for other meals later in the week.    

I so love grilling. I set the steak on the grill for 2 minutes to sear and then flipped.                

The flank steak doesn’t take long to cook. I cooked it on the other side after searing for another 2 minutes and then flipping it over and over again for another minute, ensuring not to overcook or go over medium rare--5 minutes for thin steaks. I then plated it and let it rest while I warmed the flour tortillas on the grill.                                 

I had also set out guacamole, salsa, sour cream, and chopped cilantro.

Hubby finished cooking the sliced peppers and onions in my cast iron.

And dinner was done.

And now there’s leftover carne asada for either more fajitas or Taco Tuesday.

clay: commissioned pots

I never understood how some potters would refuse to do commissions, but now I get it. It’s pressure, and you want your art practice to be joyful and feel spontaneous even if you have a vision for what you want the clay to turn into. My neighbor, Cecilia bought a few of my planters already filled with soil and succulents, and then asked me to make a pot for a money plant. I rolled a slab for my sixth plate and then managed to roll out two more slabs for this small pot.                             

I could not on that afternoon make this pot bigger. Time was the constraint as my plate had to come first. And so next week I’ll devote what’s left of this obsidian clay to a bigger planter. To utilize my time in the ceramics studio most efficiently, I have to go in with an explicit plan: what pot is going to be constructed today? And so I need to figure out next week’s planter to accommodate a 9” tall plant with foliage that has a breadth of 4-6” wide. And so yeah I need to make a bigger pot.

cook: new year resolutions

With the Omicron variant at large, I freaked and didn’t go to the gym for a couple weeks. However, I’m back to spinning and swimming, and as ever devoted to healthful eating. I assessed the risks and wear a KN95 mask when I go to the gym early in the morning when there are very few people on the exercise equipment and hop on the cycle and do an RPM workout on my phone. This month it’s Les Mills. Next month I’ll audition the Peloton app. I enjoyed a 3 day weekend and cooked. I made my favorite sandwich with avocado and sprouts and then ate leftovers in the fridge.

Hubs harvested a ginormous green cabbage from the garden, and I roasted it. Slice the head into quarters. Drizzle olive oil and sprinkle salt. Roast in a 500 degree oven for 10 minutes. Flip. Roast for another 10 minutes. Eat and marvel that you never knew roasted cabbage could be so deliciously sweet.

And hubs will be harvesting even more cabbage in the coming weeks. Savoy though, not green. And the 3-day weekend was ideal for frying lumpia that I didn't cook Christmas day because there was already too much food and to boil smoked turkey neck to use as a base for split pea soup.

 

I'll be digging into my new cook books, grist and ruffage. Kind of nervous and yet hopeful as to how my new menus will be received by the hubs, but then again he didn't bat an eye when I served a side of white and brown rice last night with the leftover cabbage and adobo. Oh and he didn't eat the pork and chicken adobo and instead ate the lumpia like a meat course.

cook and cloth: hummus and hoops

2022 is starting as a bit of a shit show with this Omicron variant infiltrating air spaces. I got a bit paranoid and have stopped going to the group exercise classes, but am okay still with cycling with the Les Mills RPM app on my phone in the gym early in the morning when hardly anyone is around and with swimming laps. Now is as good a time as any to also start hiking to the grocery store instead of driving. I'm also drying out this month and am on day 6 of not drinking. But gawd do I miss sipping wine. I cooked falafels a couple nights ago and whipped up a batch of hummus. I've already started subscribing to less meals from Thistle and need to channel their menus into my own cooking.                              

Clay has gone a bit on the wayside because of the studio being closed and my colleagues contracting COVID. Sigh. I'll figure it out for next week, whether it be clay plates or quilts. And I'm quite a few weeks late with my advent gifts for 2021, and so these embroideries will be given in 2022. I also want to make more because they were rather easy. 

I just have to adhere white felt to the backs of these and attach hanging loops on them.

creativity: journaling

The yoga studio I used to practice at shared the following prompts, and they're good ones. 

Journaling is one of my regular habits, in these blog posts on creativity and in pen on paper about my personal life. My BIG WIN with my art practice has to be forgiving my mistakes and regarding them as learning. I've played and played with all kinds of shapes and textures in my clay practice--and the pots I get most pleasure from are my plates and little vases and speckled mugs even if they are such SLOW making. And that was a lesson in itself, to take my time and focus on refining and making a pot as perfectly imperfect as can be--so is my big win really this lesson going slow to go fast, and my small win those acts of forgiveness? Either way, go SLOW and thoughtful for better results and know that it's OKAY to FAIL because that's how learning and growth happen.

One thing I'm learning about myself is that I am loveable despite breakups with people in my life. And yes I take responsibility for the people I've alienated--I've been selfish and mean and thoughtless. I can only own my failings and strive to do better and hope that I can retain the relationships I do have in the meantime. In this pandemic, I've also re-learned how to turn loneliness into solitude. There were people I had to draw boundaries and then lost in order to keep those who add value and support though I mourn too those friendships that evolved and disappeared--that was the biggest challenge this year and still am trying to learn from in the coming year. Materialism is another challenge. Slowly I'm shedding stuff, actual physical objects that don't serve me or add to clutter and anxiety. 

But on to creative inspiration. I’m loving the plates from this potter in France, whom I follow on Instagram.                  

And her color palette is very similar to the glazes we have at my community studio. Over this winter break I found inexpensive plate forms on clearance (metal and melamine holiday platters) for slump molds at craft stores. And I’ve been perusing glaze colors such as these below for the plates and mugs I plan to make this year. And I’ll be digging into my stash and buying Kona's espresso brown and pickle to make quilts such as the following.                

Luckily I've plenty of white fabric to integrate orphan blocks like the ones on the design wall below.                  

I'm also loving the embroidery hoops I've been seeing DMC featuring.  

Seriously though I've got to finish the hoop projects in my embroidery bag before embarking on seaside (because I'm so in love with blue green water) or poolside scenes like the ones below.

So many projects and seemingly so little time. The images above though have me thinking about surfing and pool swimming and capturing those loves with needle and thread.