Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Sometimes I overdo it.
I must be feeling better. When I’m depressed, dinner more often than not is tamales and rice from Lola’s. Maybe I’ll make spaghetti with meat sauce (turkey, since my dumbass stomach thinks beef is aqua regia). Only a few times since we’ve come to Santa Rosa have I made Jake’s favorite, focaccia, which is really a shame since the recipe is so damned easy.
Tonight, I went a little nuts. I wanted to experiment with a few different things. First, I made those dates wrapped in bacon. This was astonishingly easy, but I have to warn you: (A) these little bastards are FILLING! and (B) this appetizer depends on the quality of your ingredients. Splurge on big, plump, moist Medjool dates, the kind you have to de-pit yourself. And buy a good quality bacon, too.
I slit each date, removed the pit, and stuffed each date with a sliver dry jack cheese. I think a meltier cheese would have worked better — gouda, perhaps? The internet recipes call for parmigiano reggiano. Next, I wrapped each date in a single thickness of bacon, stabbed the motherfuckers with two toothpicks each, and baked them at 450 (on a rack over a pie tin) for 20 to 30 minutes, however long it took for the bacon to crisp. OMFG amazing.
I made focaccia, adding 1/4 cup of wheat flour and sprinkling the top with the extra grated jack cheese. One thumb down from Master Jacob. He does NOT like me to fuck with his focaccia. I don’t think he minded the wheat flour; it was the cheese he objected to. For Jake, top-notch focaccia requires tons of rosemary, olive oil, bits of onion, rock salt, and pepper. If I omit even one item, he bitches me out.
I made involtini, more or less following this recipe. And if you search my blog for involtini, you’ll find this photo.
That’s Salma Hayek jumping up and down, applauding my involtini. What, you can’t imagine her jumping up and down? I sure as hell can!
For the main course, I peeled some big shrimp (21-count), chopped them up into bite-sized pieces, and marinated them in salt, pepper, shallots, and olive oil. I heated olive oil over a medium flame, blessed it with a couple of crushed garlic cloves, removed the cloves when they were golden, then added more shallots. Then I added the shrimp, and when they were good and pink I removed them and sprinkled a little flour on the oil to make a roux. Yeah, I was just winging it. I didn’t have any shrimp stock, didn’t even have any clam juice, so I made a sauce with chicken stock. No one noticed. Added the shrimp back in along with a little tomato sauce (the stuff I used on my involtini), heated it up, served it over rigatoni, sprinkled with Italian parsley and a grating of Romano cheese.
Did I mention I made flan, too? I used Lactaid milk since my stomach thinks lactose-plus milk is aqua regia, too. By adding a little cream (which I can tolerate in small amounts) and adding an extra yolk, I came up with a suitably rich-tasting flan. Too bad my son doesn’t like flan and Karen wanted roasted chestnuts, which I dutifully made for her.
I did the dishes twice today. What’s for dinner tomorrow? Hell if I know!
D.
Focaccia Chart:
Did you fuck with it?–>No–>Don’t fuck with it
|
|
\–>Yes–>Fix it so that it isn’t fucked
with anymore, you dumbass.
In all seriousness though, you could remove the pepper and it would still be fine. You could remove the rosemary and it would be worse for the wear but still good.
But the rest is a must-have.
P.S.: I hope the chart works out okay.
I’m with Jake, mostly. Don’t fuck with the focaccia! Jack cheese?
But pepper: focaccia needs pepper.
now i should have never rerad this, im in my statistics 1 class giving a final and now im hungry again
Jake: I hate it when you fucking swear.
Dean: I believe a focaccia — pizza spectrum exists. Thought I would take one leeeetle step in the pizza direction. Good thing I didn’t top it with the leftover tomato sauce!
rdb: sorry, man. I have a bad habit of doing that to people 🙂