So, today was a big cooking and baking day for me. The Homosecular Gaytheist came over and played new and interesting music for me while I fiddled around in the kitchen. And we developed the format for recipes in this blog, which is HotdogLobster. In the future, I will list recipes, then try them out, and then rate them on a scale of hotdog to lobster. The arcane origins of this rating system shall remain clouded in mystery, known only to a select few.
The thing is, I have something of a reputation as a maverick, in the kitchen. If I don’t like what my recipe says, I go against it! I’ll side with those crazy radicals who prefer to measure in “pinches” and “dashes” and “oh, another handful or so”. Of course, this mad experimentation, which is in no way reflective of my life in general, can have some… special results. Like, short-bus special. Other times I am made of win.
Todays’ Lobster was a recipe I cribbed from some magazine at work, because that’s what they pay me the big bucks for. It’s called Bell Pepper Pasta Sauce, and it goes a bit like this:
3 tbsp olive oil
1 c thinly sliced red, yellow, and green peppers*
1 medium yellow onion, halved and sliced*
2 large cloves of garlic, minced
1 1/2 lbs. plum tomatoes, cored and diced
pinch black pepper
fresh basil to garnish*
Heat the oil* in a large (and I do mean LARGE) skillet over medium heat. Saute the peppers and onion for 5-6 minutes until tender, stirring frequently– do not brown. Add garlic and tomatoes and stir. Cook over medium-high heat 13-15 minutes until thickened (toss in a small amount– a very loose handful– of flour to help this out). Add pepper, serve over pasta with basil garnish.
*I mavericked these items. You were apparently (as I see now, recopying this recipe from my notes) supposed to use only one tablespoon of oil, and drizzle the rest at the end. Also, I don’t measure veggies, I just sliced half of each pepper. And used what was left over from a giant sweet onion I had. And the basil was supposed to be in the sauce, not on top. But I’m a maverick!
And as I said, this shit was Lobster. Whatever I did wrong, I did oh so right. Go make it now.
Join me for Hotdog, below the fold.
UPDATE: HOTDOG NOT ENTIRELY HOTDOG. Turns out that ancient Cajun wisdom holds true, and Tony Chachere’s makes everything delicious. Also, add water.
Of course, I can’t just pretend the Hotdog in the room isn’t there. In fact, it’s still sitting in a pot on my stove. The thing is, I wanted to make egg noodles. NOMNOMNOM, right? Well. It seemed innocuous enough.
2 c flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
4 eggs
Mix everything, press into a ball and cut into quarters. Roll each quarter out to desired thinness, then roll up into a log and slice. Unroll noodles and drape over hangers to dry.
The first thing that went wrong was probably the flour. Although I stand by my decision to mix white flour with 50/50 white/wheat, it may have been a bit too heavy. And the original recipe actually called for four egg yolks, but since the “dough” was crumbling, it clearly needed an egg-white bailout to keep it solvent. Fine, that worked.
The dough was sticky but fine, tasty (yes, I eat raw dough. Whatevs, yo, it’s delicious!). But it was not draping well. Therefore it did not dry well. Instead I threw it all into a bowl and had HG finish up the rolling-and-cutting, while I went to work on the pasta sauce.
I decided we’d have to use those noodles pretty immediately, though, so I threw together a quick, no-fail stew base: some beef broth, chopped carrots and potatoes, and some chunks o’ sausage. And then I went to toss the noodles in. Suffice it to say that they quickly became dumplings. Thick, chewy, tough dumplings. Hotdog dumplings.
And I wasted a link of andouille on that.
There was one more thing (at least thus far, I’ve yet to break out the Sausage and Pepper Pies today). But since the bread isn’t done baking yet, we’ll have to reserve our judgment. It came out of the gate looking like a hotdog, but it may be lobster yet.
