Once More Into the Fridge

I urge everyone out there to invest in a pasta maker. Not only is making pasta relatively easy, it’s a wholly rewarding experience and a treat every time you make it. I received an old-school hand cranked one for Christmas this year and have given it a few spins. Trust me, you get yourself a pasta maker, and all the women will be like… “That’s some pasta maker you have there.” It’ll be a conversation piece and stuff.

Look at the colours, children....

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Wow, am I a failed blogger or what? Well, the important thing is that I’ve returned to show my reader my deepest affection and appreciation. I’ll pretend I took a break for Christmas.

Lamb has long been one of my favorite meats, if I was to have a favorite anything with food. It’s tender, flavourful, readily available, easy to cook, and there’s just something fancy about it. I’ve also discovered that Alberta lamb is widely available if you make friends with a few farmers. Remember kids, if it’s local it will taste better nearly every single time.

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I recently discovered that the beloved spaghetti and meat sauce, known by the much superior name spagbol in England, is an entirely American invention. Well, Italian-American. It’s generally a bad idea to consider Italy to be a single country, culturally. A common language may unite two people from Sicily and Tuscany, but I can guarantee it ends there. However, when a ton of those people emmigrate to New York and suddenly all find themselves in the same neighbourhood sharing a common language, you get a common culture and a kind of fusion cuisine. Spaghetti from the south, meat sauce from the north.

Mushrooms optional!

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“Dave, you dick!”

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As a side note, I lost the god damn pictures I took of this meal, which is one of the better I’ve ever made. The SD card on the camera died and had to be formatted.

Although my tendency to create bastardized versions of any ethnic cuisine when I go near is legendary (and very typical for white, middle class Canadians), I can at least claim to know something about Italian cooking. Most of this is owed to http://fxcuisine.com, my favorite food blog and a source of spectacular recipes. It was from this blog I learned how to make a real ragù alla bolognese and then apply it to a proper lasagne. The recipe I’m using here is derivative of what he wrote and I extend full credit to FX. Although I heartily recommend using his recipe instead of mine, my recipe is a little easier and especially good for those who don’t have pasta makers.

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Gordon Ramsay’s recipes aren’t exactly all over the place, mostly because his cooking shows don’t focus on his cooking, but rather at him ridiculing the attempts of others. However, I did once stumble across a recipe of his which involved beef tenderloin seared off and baked in a whipped cream mushroom sauce with parmesan. New job or no, beef tenderloin is fucking expensive. But pork tenderloin?

Tender is the Loin Indeed!

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Okay, like the asshats we are, we ate the food before taking a picture. Too bad, it looked nice. Oh well, here’s an instructional guide on how to make a shepherd’s pie out of pretty much anything!

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Tracy is, by nature, not much of a breakfast person until we hit the weekend. Once I’ve got all morning to cook, her interest in breakfast triples and I end up figuring out what to make. Favorites are eggs benedict, anything in a skillet, and french toast. I tend towards the former two as I’m not a huge fan of sweet breakfasts, but today I had me a craving. Also, I had absolutely no desire to cook. So I came up with this! Hardly an original idea, but it’s a first time for me, so screw you all. The prep time on this is miniscule, the amount of skill needed is nil, and the end result ain’t too bad. If you have kids, this is a great way to get a breakfast in all of them with minimal work on your part.

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I’m placing the steaks very high here with a post like this, doubly so because I didn’t think about taking a good shot of the finished product. But do not missteak me, this is an amazing way to send yourself to beefy paradise. So together, we shall drive a steak through the heart of all badly cooked steaks. I’m not going to bother with a full meal recipe here because, let’s be honest, when you’re having a steak dinner everything else is just filler. This is also taking a slightly more instructional tone than I usually write because, damnit, I know this stuff and many people do not.

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Well, to be fair I’m actually writing about tacos. However my authenticity alert goes off whenever I make ethnic food. Unless I’ve actually done some real research on what I cook, I hesitate to use the real name of the food. I’m pretty sure whatever I make is a good deal closer to real cuisine than Taco Bell (seriously, ick – why do people eat there?), but I feel this need to explain myself.

Where was I?

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