Titanic Kitchen

Does it make any sense that I’m so busy cooking that I don’t have time to make anything to eat? For Daniel, losing weight is a good thing. For me, not so much. Frankly, I was suprised to learn I have dropped almost 4 lbs. So tonight after whipping up (see the state of my kitchen if you want to see the aftermath) Stuffed Chiles with Mole Sauce (yum!), I ate that, a burrito (thank you Alane, it was delicious), the fruit salad, a bite or two of pizza and a few bites of a hot dog and a beer. There. That ought to do it.

The Stuffed Chile recipe looked insane, but once I got into it, it wasn’t so crazy. The stuffing was made of walnuts, cashews, almond butter, veggies and spices. The delicious mole (a la maurine) I had to alter. She (the great Roxanne) wanted to have all these chiles included:

1 ancho chile
1 chipotle chile
1 mirasol chile
2 guajillo chiles
1 pulla chile
2 pasilla chiles

what is she, a dragon? ? It reminds me of my friend Rosemary. We call her the Goddess.
Most times she has cooked for me, my mouth went ablaze with the firefull peppers she likes to season her dishes with. She is Italian and she is Hot. We call her the Goddess for a reason. She’s one of these remarkable people who never stops if she wants something. A college professor, world traveler, book author, speaker, consultant in the business world, and one of those rare people who are so incredibly beautiful on the outside, it’s surprising to find they are flawlessly beautiful on the inside. Maybe if I ate spicier food I could be like her, but this is what I put in:
a few small pieces of 1 Anaheim chile
and that was enough, it had just enough heat.

I mean, really. If I would have put all those chiles in there it would have set off the fire alarm in my kitchen! But all the other ingredients made a beautifully delicious mole! Especially the chocolate sauce, made with almond butter…yum!

I brought the stuffed chiles to Music in the Park night tonight. Everybody liked them, but they went wild for the mole.

NEW: I will have an attachment with all the good recipes and my notes on them linked to this site…COMING SOON!

The Savory Fruit Salad was an interesting balance between the sweet melon and nectarine and the shaved fennel and red onion, then with a fennel vinaigrette with shallot and fennel.

So, the dishes are piled up. The kitchen is a ship wreck. Where is Daniel? I hear the great guru say “go to the TV and you will find your husband.”

At least I’m not going to bed hungry.

Crepes A La Mo + Watermelon Soup – The Easy Bake Oven Way

Look how soft and spongy the crepe from her book looks—pictured here. Mine turned out like corn tortillas. But I’m not complaining, I’m thrilled they turned out at all. A couple of them got stuck on my dehydrator screen. I couldn’t figure out whether to use parchment paper or not so I tried it both ways. I guess parchment would be the safer bet if there ever is a next time. The crepes are made from golden flax, green apple, some spices and water. I took a departure on her version of sour cream. I just don’t like the graininess of coconut, so instead used sunflower seeds with the cashews, a splash of rejuvelac and a little honey. It was pretty good.

I forced the Curried Crepes with Yogurt Sauce on my poor unsuspecting music tutor who is always hungry, why? Because he never eats. He just works and works. The mother instinct in me wants to feed the poor man. He was so hungry he ate standing up. I’m glad he enjoyed it. I keep having these close calls with nobody eating my dinner, thanks for coming through, Curt.

Making food like this reminds me of being a kid. You don’t have to worry about burning yourself. I have this “play” oven (dehydrator) with these cute plastic trays and screens, it’s like putting together a puzzle. To make soup I just toss in ingredients and press a button on the cuisinart and presto: soup. Of course there’s the danger of cutting yourself, and I am far too careless with the mandolin, making elegant juliennes. But cooking like this is like having a play kitchen for me. Everything is fresh and colorful; there’s no secret, really other than letting all the flavors meld together and taking a chance on the sauce. I mean it’s not like learning the finer technique of flipping a crepe or the science of baking the perfect cake.

Watermelon Salad was dessert, really. Longans again. This is the second recipe calling for these obscure “longans.” My Food Lovers Companion describes them as a small soft fleshy fruit with a tough outer shell and large seed. But no one’s ever heard of them around here. How about a lychee? If you look lychee up, it’s basically the same description. Those I can find, living here in the multi-cultural San Francisco Bay Area, so lychee instead of longan it is.

And so it is. When I had my solo tea parties as a kid, I didn’t have tea so I found some vinegar and used that for my tea. God it was sour, but I lived in pretend land so developed a tolerance for it. And so it is.