a spot of musing about the dinner table...
i'm currently staying with my partner in his mom's house, and though she employs a cook/all-around house-helper, he and i occasionally - okay, often - find ourselves having to make our own meals because what's already in the pot isn't really appealing.
[case in point: a fish soup flavored with vinegar, black pepper and finger chilies in which the fish was NOT something either of us liked. when we saw that we went to the all-hours bakery on the corner and picked up some buns and some balut*.]
it gets a little weird and worrying when this sort of not-so-appetizing scenario pops up and there's nothing my partner can eat before he goes to his night-shift managing job. i always have to hope he has time for a substantial meal during shift, because as those who know him know, he seems to straddle the line between 'slight' and 'gaunt'.
[this is why he and i tend to blow a lot of our money on restaurant fare. it's not just because we're foodies.]
anyway, this is relevant because he told me a couple of nights ago that i might have to be responsible for dinner over the hols this year; specifically, i may have to take charge of cooking the Christmas Eve dinner and the New Year's Eve feast. normally he's the one who does the holiday cooking, but since his job might require him to be in the office on those holiday nights, there's a reason i think i should get ready, being that those two successive binges are just a month or so away.
so lately i've had food on the brain. [when do i not, really.]
since his family usually has pasta at least once during the year-end festivities, i'm thinking of preparing either spaghetti alla carbonara or beef stroganoff over pasta for New Year's. and for Christmas i am seriously considering pork chops and a risotto dish.
beef stroganoff is not a problem - it's one of my two signature dishes; the other is my yummy-as-all-get-out Japanese-anime-style beef curry - but it's the Christmas stuff that i'm rather more concerned with really.
if we only had a proper oven here, i'd attempt a roast loin of pork or something, but since we don't have that, i might have to grill the meat in a dry pan. and then there's the matter of the risotto - have to make the stock ahead of time, and what the heck do i put in it? i may also have to consider making demi-glace for gravy, unless i decide to try that bread sauce i saw in one of my cookbooks.
...no, dessert is NOT a problem. if i decide not to make it i might be able to prevail on him to get something - like cream puffs and eclairs, or, yeah, a decent fruitcake if we can find one. otherwise i'll put together a nice icebox cake, no problem.
has anyone got any suggestions for risotto recipes? and, while i'm asking - what's a good marinade for some really splendid pork chops?
*balut - also known in Vietnam as hot vin lon, according to Anthony Bourdain. essentially a duck embryo of a certain age that is boiled in the shell, then served with salt and often as an accompaniment to alcohol here. lots of myths and stories surround this admittedly odd-looking food, which is usually eaten whole [beak, bones and all]; i find it a nice thing to eat in moderation. [eep, cholesterol.]
[case in point: a fish soup flavored with vinegar, black pepper and finger chilies in which the fish was NOT something either of us liked. when we saw that we went to the all-hours bakery on the corner and picked up some buns and some balut*.]
it gets a little weird and worrying when this sort of not-so-appetizing scenario pops up and there's nothing my partner can eat before he goes to his night-shift managing job. i always have to hope he has time for a substantial meal during shift, because as those who know him know, he seems to straddle the line between 'slight' and 'gaunt'.
[this is why he and i tend to blow a lot of our money on restaurant fare. it's not just because we're foodies.]
anyway, this is relevant because he told me a couple of nights ago that i might have to be responsible for dinner over the hols this year; specifically, i may have to take charge of cooking the Christmas Eve dinner and the New Year's Eve feast. normally he's the one who does the holiday cooking, but since his job might require him to be in the office on those holiday nights, there's a reason i think i should get ready, being that those two successive binges are just a month or so away.
so lately i've had food on the brain. [when do i not, really.]
since his family usually has pasta at least once during the year-end festivities, i'm thinking of preparing either spaghetti alla carbonara or beef stroganoff over pasta for New Year's. and for Christmas i am seriously considering pork chops and a risotto dish.
beef stroganoff is not a problem - it's one of my two signature dishes; the other is my yummy-as-all-get-out Japanese-anime-style beef curry - but it's the Christmas stuff that i'm rather more concerned with really.
if we only had a proper oven here, i'd attempt a roast loin of pork or something, but since we don't have that, i might have to grill the meat in a dry pan. and then there's the matter of the risotto - have to make the stock ahead of time, and what the heck do i put in it? i may also have to consider making demi-glace for gravy, unless i decide to try that bread sauce i saw in one of my cookbooks.
...no, dessert is NOT a problem. if i decide not to make it i might be able to prevail on him to get something - like cream puffs and eclairs, or, yeah, a decent fruitcake if we can find one. otherwise i'll put together a nice icebox cake, no problem.
has anyone got any suggestions for risotto recipes? and, while i'm asking - what's a good marinade for some really splendid pork chops?
*balut - also known in Vietnam as hot vin lon, according to Anthony Bourdain. essentially a duck embryo of a certain age that is boiled in the shell, then served with salt and often as an accompaniment to alcohol here. lots of myths and stories surround this admittedly odd-looking food, which is usually eaten whole [beak, bones and all]; i find it a nice thing to eat in moderation. [eep, cholesterol.]