Cheap Ass Mondays: Re-inventing a Clichè 16 Jun 08

Do you listen to Aimee Mann? You should, she’s really good. I have spoken.

For the second installment of Cheap Ass Mondays, I bring you variation #999,999,998 on rice and beans: Mexican-ish stuffed peppers. Can you really have a feature called “Cheap Ass Mondays” without featuring rice and beans at least 30% of the time? I’m still new here, but I’m guessing you can’t.

These peppers appeared regularly on my table back in my vegetarian days (August 6th and 7th, 2000). Yes, I was once a vegetarian, for about four years. It will come as no surprise that sausage, my Scylla, and bacon, my Charybdis, wrought the downfall of that halcyon time. Although I’m now an unabashed carnivore and committed to eating meat in a more ethical, organic, sustainable way - although I’m not always successful - I would like to bring some vegetarian favorites back into rotation for the health of both wallet and gut.

I don’t know why hot, humid weather makes me want Mexican food; maybe I figure that as long as I’m already drenching through my clothing, I can’t get any more gross and I may as well go for the full-on sweat-fest and eat spicy food. I just know that I want it, and these peppers fit the bill. Fast, versatile, cheap, filling and tasty.

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Thursday Night Smackdown: Now With 100% Less Pork! 29 May 08

Get ready for a whole lotta beige.

I’m having a very love hate relationship with pork right now. On one hand, pork is unbelieveably delicious, and bacon is one of my major food groups. On the other, exposure to 18+ hours of smoking pig has left every one of my pores, hairs, lungs, bath towels, dogs and pieces of upholstered furniture embedded with immense amounts of microscopic pork particulate. Which is not as much fun as it sounds, trust me.

The week has been pretty meat-free since Memorial Day to give my kidneys some time to recover from protein overload, so it was as good a week as any to bust out The New Moosewood Classics for some tofu mac and cheese and a simple green salad and vinaigrette. Because if I’m going to eschew pork, there should at least be cheese. Lots and lots of cheese.

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Let’s appropriate others’ cultural heritages: Happy Cinco de Mayo! 05 May 08

Speaking of appropriating: currently on my TV is a commercial for the Mohegan Sun casino with a jingle sung to the tune of “My Sharona.” Clever, or harbinger of the end of culture?

Cinco de Mayo: A day where office workers everywhere can gather at Mexican chain restaurants for happy hour and get smashed on frozen strawberry margaritas in honor of Mexican independence. Olé!

As the rest of us know, Cinco de Mayo is observed mainly in the state of Puebla and commemorates a victory of Mexican forces led by General Ignacio Zaragoza Seguín over the French in the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862, duh. I know General Seguín (or Iggy, as I like to call him) is probably a personal hero for many of you, as he is for me.

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tacogate ‘08: tasty pico and inauthentic refried beans 18 Mar 08

I know you’re all watching American Idol right now. Why does Jason Castro force us to love him, with his dreadlocks and blue eyes and charming goofiness?

Part Four in the series goes back to basics: pico de gallo and refried beans. Every time I have people over and bring out this pico there’s a minor riot, which never ceases to amaze me - and sadden me, have we become so inured to Tostitos salsa? Will future generations know nothing except Pace Picante Sauce?

Fresh pico only takes 5 ingredients and a little chopping. Do it for the flavor. Do it for the children. Dear god, won’t someone think of the children?

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Now Playing: Smackdown, Interrupted 28 Feb 08

Brian is out of town on business this Thursday evening.  As the Smackdown is purely a team event (at least at our house), and it was his week to pick the dish anyway, tonight’s match has been postponed.  Depending on whether or not I decide to wrest my attention away from the blogosphere and actually attend an actual social event with actual living people, there may or may not be a special edition Friday Night Smackdown.  Which I will call something else so the wrestling organization does not sue me.  I mean, look what they did to the World Wildlife Federation - if they’ll go after the pandas, they’ll damn sure come after me.  Heartless motherfuckers.  (Just kidding!  Don’t sue me for libel!)

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Super Bowl Snackdown I: Bagna Beans 04 Feb 08

If you can’t find anything nice to say about anyone, come sit here by me.

Super Bowl Sunday: Some people gather to watch the game and eat nachos and wings, others to watch the Puppy Bowl (good job, MVP Abigail the Parsons’ Terrier!) and Olympia Dukakis movies and eat Bagna Cauda Bean Spread. I leave it to you to guess into which camp I fall.

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The Lentil Stands Alone 13 Jan 08

Baby, I’m-a want you.

The soup winner: smoky lentil soup with andouille and spinach, a riff on Farmgirl Fare’s lentil soup with smoked sausage. While not as photogenic as hers, it tastes fantastic and will be a great lunch tomorrow, which looks to be a prime soup day (wintry, wet, cold). It comes together really quickly and makes the house smell great, assuming you like your house to smell like smoked paprika.

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Lentil Rundown 05 Jan 08

It’s been colder than a witches’ teat here in the northeast for the past few days, which always make me want hearty, comforting soups and stews. Today, I’m pondering lentil soup and looking for a new version of my standard lentils-onions and carrots-stock-bay leaf in a pot jobby. Our newly stocked pantry opens up a new world of flavor possibilities, so I’m searching for some new takes. These are all distinguished by virtue of not only sounding delicious and having some unique twists, but also by their beautiful photos which manage to look exactly like a comforting bowl of hearty lentil soup and not at all like something one of my dogs vomited up 5 minutes ago.

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