Not That I Died

Heya, so here is the situation. I haven't updated in forever. I still cook, in fact I've been cooking a lot more lately. I actually made something really exciting lately that I would have loved to share with you, but unfortunately I didn't take any pictures (it was Tortilla-less Cabbage Leaf Enchiladas).

The previous name of this blog was "Cooked and Eaten in a Portland Basement". I still live in Portland but not in a basement. I've moved into a nice SE Portland house with a lovely gas stove (which works) and other wonders such as a dishwasher (nice). I have procured two cats which I share the care and feeding of with my lovely domestic partner. She is an amazing cook, and a sometime food blogger as well.

Last night I went to this:

Beast Vegetarian Wine Dinner

LOCAL WILD MUSHROOM SOUP
CRÈME FRAICHE & PIMENT D’ESPELETTE

STUFFED PETITE COURGETTES
KENS BREAD, SWEET CORN & FRESH SHELL BEANS
ROASTED SWEET PEPPER & HEIRLOOM TOMATO SAUCE

HAND CUT SPINACH PASTA FILLED
WITH DELICATA SQUASH & FRESH RICOTTA
SHAVED PARMESAN & FRIED HERBS

BELGIAN ENDIVE WITH MARS-VENUS GRAPES
BROWN BUTTER & AGED BALSAMIC VINAIGRETTE

~ SELECTION OF STEVE’S CHEESE~
CRACKED BLACK PEPPER AND FLEUR DE SEL SHORTBREAD
OREGON WILDFLOWER HONEY
POACHED APRICOTS & FRIED MARCONA ALMONDS

BRULÈED FIG AND HONEY MASCARPONE TARTLETTE
AGED FIG BALSAMIC

It was really amazing and really expensive. I didn't get any pictures of that either. Basically at this point, you are looking at a failed blog. I think there is a chance I will get back to it, but for the moment, the most I can tell you is: I'm still alive. I still cook. I still eat. And you should too.

Magical Pizza

My oven's computer crashed, leaving me oven-less for months. I've done some things with the toaster oven in the interim, but now it looks like a new (new as in Craigslist, not new as in new) oven is on the horizon. Not wanting to make my landlord waste his money buying me a new oven that may not work either (such are the perils of Craigslist), I decided to give the oven one last try last night.

The pizza was a bit of a cheat, but here is the recipe just the same:

Asparagus pizza and pasta
1 ball of fresh pizza dough
1 large organic tomato
1 small organic heirloom tomato (stripey)
3 cloves organic garlic
1 large organic yellow onion
Organic extra virgin olive oil
Kosher salt
Italian spices (rosemary, thyme, oregano, etc or premixed)
1 lb. fresh pasta (I used capellini)
Fresh mozzarella to taste
Hard flavorful cheese such as romano to taste
1 bunch asparagus

Place a pizza stone* on the bottom rack of your oven. Remove other racks if possible. Preheat the oven to its highest temperature (mine goes up to 550 F).
Roll pizza dough into a perfect smooth ball with your hands and leave it to sit on the counter for 10 minutes, preferably wrapped in plastic wrap.

*If you don't have a pizza stone, your pizza may end up a big soggy on the bottom. This is what happened to me. It was tasty despite this.

Peel and roughly chop onion. Peel and finely chop garlic cloves. Heat a few tablespoons of olive oil in the bottom of a heavy pan on medium high heat until flicked water sputters. Add garlic and push around the pan for one minute, then add the onion along with a large pinch of salt. Stir onions a few times until they are well oiled, then chop tomato and asparagus, keeping heirloom tomato separate.

Once onions are starting to get soft and tasty, add chopped asparagus to pan, stir, and reduce heat to medium. Put a pot of water on to boil, with a teaspoon of salt stirred in. As if that wasn't enough, flatten the pizza dough on a floured pizza pan (or y'know, cookie sheet) and flour the top of the dough. Stir asparagus until fork tender, add italian spices to taste, then reduce heat to keep warm.

Drizzle olive oil on the pizza, and layer with heirloom tomato, s reasonable amount of the cooked asparagus-onion mixture, and fresh mozzarella (if in small balls, it's fine to leave them intact), reserving mozzarella liquid if any. Slide pizza into super hot oven on top of pizza stone, and check after 10 minutes and then every 2 minutes for a nice, brown, tasty crust.

Meanwhile, add chopped tomato to the remaining asparagus mixture (should be most of what you started with), and stir to incorporate. Grate hard cheese over the top of the mixture, and add mozzarella liquid if so desired. If liquid added, raise heat and stir to reduce while pasta boils. Boil pasta to desired doneness or just below, then drain. If undercooked slightly, you can add it to the "sauce" of asparagus et al to finish.

When complete, combine pasta and sauce if not already combined, and remove pizza from oven to rest for five minutes. Add additional salt if needed.

The pasta turned out really well, the sauce combined well with the cilantro capellini I picked up. The pizza dough I used had sort of a sourdough taste, which added a delicious flavor to the other simple ingredients. I didn't use a pizza stone, but I think this falls under the cardinal rule of pizza, in that there is no such thing as a bad pizza, even if it's soggy. The crust around the edge was perfect, and that makes up for having to eat the rest with a fork.



The magic is that the oven worked at all, though it took a ridiculous amount of time to preheat and made a pretty egregious noise while doing so. I'm going to hold out for a new one.

Apple Galette

A simple recipe; so simple even I can follow it!

First, peel, core, and slice about 7 apples. It helps if you have a medieval torture device handy.


Next, roll out 17 ounces (one package) of puff pastry until about 1/4 inch thin, and cut it into ten 5-inch diameter circles, like I did above. Chill the pastry for half an hour and then neatly brush it with an egg wash made with one egg yolk and 2 teaspoons of water. Be careful not to let the egg wash spill all over the place. If this happens, start over.


Once you've started over and there is no spilled egg wash still clearly visible next to your (clearly) 5 inch circular pastry divots, take a small package of almond paste (not marzipan, the other stuff) and divide it into 10 bits (little balls), and flatten them between sheets of wax paper. Then apply the paste circles to your pastry circles like cheese on a hamburger.


Divide the apple wedges evenly between your ten (not two) pastries, approximately 25 wedges each. Then sprinkle the galettes with lemon juice. If you don't have lemon juice, and are really silly, use organic limeade apparently. I mean, I did, and it was fine.


With pesto pasta in the background (see previous blog entry for instructions on making parsley pesto), spice your galettes liberally. I used freshly ground nutmeg, freshly ground cloves, and pre-ground cinnamon that has been passed down in my family for generations of a brand not sold in stores since the 80s. Fresh cinnamon would also work. Dust your galettes with confectioners sugar. If you like, you could create a caramel sauce for the galettes, but it isn't required (especially if you forgot to buy cream).


Bake at 400 degrees until the pastry is fluffy and flaky in the middle and golden brown around the edges. If you achieved the correct thickness of pastry, this should be 16-18 minutes. If you used limeade instead of lemon juice and also used way too much, the middle might be a little mushy, but still quite tasty.


Serve with the caramel sauce if any and vanilla bean ice cream (yum). Garnish with mint, or, if you just want to take a picture, you can use flat leaf parsley. The color is the main thing for picture taking.

This is a delicious and easy recipe (except for the apple prep, but that's what the device is for), and I highly recommend it. Despite the fact that I am apparently totally inept at contorting puff pastry into 10 5-inch circles (that poor poor galette on the right...), my results were quite yummy and I imagine yours will be even better.