Weekday 6 star salmon

Sometimes life is busy.

Wait who am I kidding. Whoever invented the 24hr day must have been just insane. What do you mean I only have that amount of time to eat, sleep, and fit in ALL of my busy life?? Ridiculous.

Luckily I have just the recipe that manages to be simple, fast, and amazingly delicious.

What you need is a salmon filet. The one I have here is 1lb, and nothing went to waste between two healthy people. You do the math.

The pink stuff is salmon. I'm not lying.

Get out a bowl, and throw in a handful of salt.

NaCl.

Now add hot water enough for it to dissolve. Rinse the salmon fillet, put it in a container, add the dissolved salt water, and fill with cold water to cover.

Swim free, little fishy!

The salt water brine works miracles for plumping and tenderizing meat, I love doing this step for pork and chicken as well. However since fish tends to get... well, fishy, I like to counteract it with the acidity. I cut up thin slices of lemon and put them on top.

Pucker up!

Now I cover this and throw in the fridge for an hour while I make other side dishes.

Cedar.

Salmon grilled on a cedar plank is simply divine. It's also stupidly easy. Soak the planks in water for a bit until they're pliable. While it's soaking make up your herb mix.

Randomness.

I can't tell you the combination of herbs here. Not because it's top secret, but it's pretty random and full of whimsy. My exact methods are 1. pull out herbs/spices, 2. sprinkle a bit of each in the bowl, 3. repeat. This is the place to make your mastery of spices shine. If you're unsure whether a spice will be good or not, only do the tiniest dash. The depth of flavor created by many spices will surprise you. Mix in enough oil to make a spreadable mixture.

Walk the plank!

Take the plank out the water, take the salmon out of the brine, and place the salmon on the plank. Brush on the herb mixture. Throw the plank on the hot grill and use your judgment on cooking time and temperature (it should be firm and flaky when done). The plank will burn and smoke and it will set off your neighbor's smoke alarms. And when they come pounding on your door making sure you know there's copious amounts of smoke, be sure to inform them you're contacting your ancestors with news about your new refrigerator and stare at them wildly. This will ensure they will leave you and your beloved salmon alone.

There's never enough.

Serve hot. Well worth the ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ rating that was given by some really incredibly famous and amazing person you would definitely know.

Romantic Ravioli

To make ravioli by hand is quite simple but also time consuming. Good ravioli is truly a pain in the butt labor of love, so I make it on special occasions. Anticipate 2-3 hours in the kitchen.

Just add a pinch of salt and a heaping of arm muscle.

 The first step is to make the dough. You need 2 cups of flour, 2 eggs, veggie oil, water, and a dash of salt. I start by mixing the eggs in with the flour and you get a lumpy dry mess. Now add a splish of oil and a splash of water and start kneading it. I can't give exact measurements for oil and water since everything varies from humidity to flour to eggs so this is something you're going to have to decide by touch. But before you add anything do a lot of kneading first. You have to persuade the flour to play nice.

Dough baby!

Once you've pounded and squeezed and pushed and pulled the dough into a comprehensive shape, throw a towel over it and let it sit during the next steps.

Cheese?!

Grab a bowl and add 4oz of cream cheese, 8oz (1/2lb) of ricotta cheese, 1/2cup of mozzarella cheese, 1/2cup of provolone cheese, 1 egg, and 1/2tbs of died parsley. After fighting the flour (FIGHT THE FLOUR! whoooo) mixing these cheeses feels so easy.

Easy cheesy.

At this time, don't forget to make/put the marinara sauce on the stove.

Wishy washy.

Now also make an egg wash that will serve as your pasta glue. Take one egg and a splash of water and beat vigorously.

I will cut yo' pasta!

Take off the towel and notice how much more relaxed and happy your dough seems. If you have a pasta maker, take it out. If not, take out a rolling pin. Roll it out into a relatively thin surface. Find some sort of round cup thing (or cookie cutter) in your kitchen and use that to cut circles of dough out. Don't go too small, bigger is easier.

o.

Repeat until you run out of dough. Now take two circles. Slime one with the egg wash, and put a small dollop of cheese in the center. Cover it with the other circle and press the outer sides together.

Second! (the first went horribly, horribly wrong)

Realize there is some amount of mastery of doing this, and you will likely ruin a few baby raviolis. You know when you're almost done when you've finally figured out a way to do this efficiently. I advocate listening to music or a glass of wine to help distract from the tedious, persnickety messiness of this procedure. If you went with small circles (as I did) you are probably hating life right now.

Ugly uncooked raviolis.

Boil the water. Now toss in your raviolis. They will immediately sink to the bottom. When they float, give them a couple minutes at the top and take them out. Put them on a plate, smother them with sauce, and devour.

mmmmmm

It is as good as it looks.

Oh and don't forget to give your loved one some too. :]

Hangover French Toast

Ah, Sunday morning. The sun is out, the birds are chirping, and you are recovering from the Saturday night events. But you know what sounds amazing right now, brah? French toast. Oh my dear god. *cue drooling*

So after stumbling to the kitchen you come upon the only source of bread you currently have:

The best thing since... wait.

And any chef that's worth their salt will tell you French toast is made with French bread. But you don't have that. Well screw it, you're going to have to make do.

So here's what you gotta do to make this work.

This bread is toast.

Toast the bread. Traditionally you're supposed to leave out the nice thick French bread overnight to make it stale. You didn't have that sort of forethought. You were busy doing... Well you don't remember. That's okay. Toasting will dry out the bread nicely.

Baby food (think about it)

Crack open some eggs and add a sploosh of milk (or milk substitute, or water if you must) and a pinch of salt (not for taste, salt (and acidity like lemon juice, but that would curdle the milk) will actually help eggs cook at a lower temperature but keep it more tender) and whisk briskly. And due to the amazing amount of calories you consumed yesterday I expect you to put some arm muscle into this task. It's honestly the least you can do.

Fantastic!

Sprinkle cinnamon on top of your mixture (and again before you dip a new slice). Heat up oil on the pan. Now dip the toasted bread in the egg mix. Let it become pliable and place in the pan.

*sizzzzzleeeee*

Fry until it's a light brown on both sides and when you touch it lightly with your spatula it springs back. Like a pillow. A delicious pillow.

This needs no words.

You should be able to yield approximately 2:1 (French toast : egg). Keep that in mind when your "friends" wake up and detail you on why there is black marker on your face. Serve theirs cold.

A la carte

For lunch, I usually stick with the tried and true sandwich. But occasionally I'll branch out of my squarish comfort zone to accommodate something a little more interesting.

This time, collard greens.

some mofo' collard greens

When I tell people I love collard greens, they usually say, really? You? ... Did you grow up in the South? 

And I state firmly, nay! I did not grow up in the South, and I do love them. However I cook them slightly different than the traditional boiling, I have a dislike for soggy veggies.

Collard greens are really quite amazingly healthy. Look at these facts I stole borrowed from reliable sources:
-lowers cholesterol
-cancer prevention
-good source for vitamin A, C, K, manganese, folate, calcium, fiber, antioxidants, etc etc.

My trick to cooking them without releasing the overwhelming sulfurous smell that can occur is by sautéing instead. So I'll cut off the stems like this:

Cut along the red lines.

And then stack the cut leaves on top of each other, and roll up into a tight leaf burrito. Slice thinly.

Leaf confetti

Now heat up olive oil on the skillet and break out the fresh garlic.

Does anyone else see the face in the oil?

Mince garlic and cook it for a couple minutes, then toss in the greens.

This feels festive.

Sauté until it begs for mercy and wilts with defeat. I usually don't let it go for too long, it will start to get mushier and give off a distinct sulfur smell which I don't personally care for. But I hear dragons like that sort of thing, so if you're cooking for a vegetarian dragon cook for 10ish minutes.

mmmmmmm

Yum! It's done. Add some salt to taste and enjoy!

Whyyyy???

I am beginning a torturous reign of an Internet food-based blog. You all will suffer underneath my terrible photos and frankly overdone topic of food and all it's day to day gloriousness.

But why you might ask? What would cause such an innocent human like myself to suddenly rise up from mediocre dirt to even more mediocre digital dirt?


Because my doctor tells me it's unhealthy not to interact with people for extended amounts of time. Because my cats are starting to talk back in a rude and disrespectful manner. Because the sky is blue and the grass is green. There is no reason to this madness.

(maniacal laughter)