Once upon a time I wrote a lovely, sincerely self-deprecating post about my frustration with my photography lately and my ambivalence about (but commitment to!) my unfailingly arbitrary November Challenge. And then Blogger went and deleted it. Profanity after the jump.

Last night's dinner was mostly an exercise in focused distraction, so I don't think we'll be winning any food photography awards here. Also, I'm suddenly concerned that my oven rests on a steep decline—what's with all the tomato migration?

So, I know they're called "Yukon golds," but is that not the yellowest potato you've ever seen? 

That hasn't the slightest to do with any pats of butter in there, nuh uh no sir.

This, my friends, is a truly "kitchen sink" sort of breakfast. Clearly I am of the opinion that when one sleeps in past the point of appropriateness even for your average college student, one deserves a portion size equal to breakfast and lunch jammed together.

I'm trying to get on a schedule of posting at night, so I know this comes dangerously close to spammy blogging. Ergo, I shall keep this one short. Or as short as a chronically verbose person can be.

So I got one of those wild hairs I sometimes get, one of those notions that I need to inject my life with some capital-C challenge, something that will make me more mindful, more healthy, more energized, more wise. In a word, less sleepy.

Hey, remember when I used to cook? Ah, those were the days ...

You're looking at two of my new favorite loves, there: panko and hiding vegetables in interesting ways. (Namely, under cheese.)

I'm not even trying to pretend this one is fancy, gourmet, complex, or anything other than what it is, which is delicious.

Me: I can't believe it took me until I was *ahem* years old before I started to understand what it means to crave something.
Little Sister: It sure does make eating more satisfying.

It's becoming something of a reigning philosophy 'round the Woodside that when in doubt, meat and potatoes.

One of these days I'm going to stop beginning every blog post with an apology for my absence. Like just before the next scheduled Rapture, or after this debt ceiling thing gets sorted out.

You might have to suspend disbelief on this one, though you're probably already in that habit given that I am the woman who extolled the virtues of cole slaw pizza.

People, this is not health food. Though at this rate, that probably should be the new name of this blog: thisisnothealthfood.com.

I have a particular talent for unsalading a salad, the sweet gift of turning something that is supposed to be healthfully holier-than-thou into a lovely mess of delicious calories. The Cobb salad is an ideal starting point for this sort of bastardization, in part because it doesn't do a very good job of masquerading as a salad in the first place. It's basically a deconstructed fatty sandwich. (I don't think I need to reiterate my love for the fatty sandwich.)

I have a soft spot for Cobb salad, too, standing out there yelling, "I'm a salad, I swear!" when it's really something you might make when you're in tears. Anyone who has ever thought that chicken and hard-boiled eggs are not enough without avocado and cheese and bacon on top is a) someone who has had some emotional wreckage and b) my kind of people.



Alas, my local market (once again) failed me, neglecting to stock half of the ingredients for a decent Cobb salad, and I was left trying to steer things in my favorite direction: south ... west ... ish?

I decided that if this salad was not—tragedy!—going to have the benefit of avocado, I'd replace it with a black bean/corn salsa. Having determined that beans + chicken + eggs + cheese was probably enough protein for my lithe form, I forwent the bacon.

(Or possibly, because I can't tolerate anything other than the apparently FANCY center-cut style, I'm just way too cheap to spend six bucks on bacon. True story. BaconIloveyou.)

After that, it was just a matter of gathering all my favorite South of the border flavors, or what I imagine them to be—red onion, cilantro, jalapeño—and after that ... well, things got a little crazy.

Because I was intoxicated by hunger while I was at the grocery store, I was too under the influence of my weaker brain cells to pass by the Snyder's buttermilk ranch pretzel pieces. But no matter; I'm confidently reassured that calories don't stick when you're suffering the effects of rabid starvation.

But as I was staring at the little nuggets of yum in the bowl I'd poured half the bag into (portion control, people), I got a wild hair to crush some of them up with a mortar and pestle and crust the chicken in the crumbs.

I am nothing if not resourceful, and also determined to cover everything in my life with ranch. (Those of you who look REALLY REALLY closely will note that I had less than zero patience and/or attention span for the crushing, and mostly just slapped some gigantic pieces of pretzel all over the chicken.)

To be honest, I wasn't as thrilled with the results as I'd hoped. Yes, the pretzels gave the chicken a pleasantly crispety crunchy crust, but most of the salty buttermilky ranchy potential got lost in the cooking. I see absolutely no reason why you shouldn't have pretzel-crusted chicken on your path of salad destruction, but it's probably not ultimately worth the effort.

My advice? Just pour some ranch on top before eating. NO ONE HAS TO KNOW.



Composed Southwestern Cobb Salad with Pretzel-crusted Chicken
½ cup low-fat sour cream
1 jalapeño, seeded and diced
Salt, to taste
Pinch of granulated sugar
Hot sauce, to taste
½ cup coarsely chopped fresh cilantro leaves, divided
1 lime, divided
¼ (15-ounce) can low-sodium black beans, drained and rinsed
¼ cup frozen corn kernels, thawed
¼ cup diced red onion
Pinch of ground cumin
1 teaspoon garlic powder
½ chicken breast, pounded to an even thickness
½ cup Snyder's buttermilk ranch pretzel pieces, crushed
2 tablespoons olive oil
¼ head iceberg lettuce, chopped
¼ pint grape tomatoes, halved
1 ounce Monterey Jack cheese, grated
1 hard-boiled egg, sliced
Garnish: lime wedges

1. Combine first 5 ingredients, ¼ cup cilantro, and juice of ½ lime in a small bowl. Set aside.

2. Combine black beans, corn, onion, cumin, garlic powder, and juice of remaining ½ lime in a medium bowl. Set aside.

3. Dredge chicken breast in pretzel pieces. Heat oil in skillet over medium heat; cook chicken about 4 minutes on each side or until browned and cooked through.

4. Combine lettuce and remaining ¼ cup cilantro on a plate; top with reserved sour cream mixture. Arrange black bean mixture, tomatoes, cheese, egg, and chicken alongside lettuce. Garnish, if desired. Makes 1 serving.

There are only a handful of Vietnamese restaurants in my municipality, but I credit one of them with introducing me to the concept of pho, which I believe is Vietnamese for "noodle soup."

This isn't pho (I admit I don't know much about the various incarnations of this across the Asian continent—I'm sure there are many, and I beg forgiveness for the many ways I've destroyed their authenticity in my own kitchen), but the overriding factor in my adoration is depth. There just seems to be this bottomless layering of flavors that seems beautifully endless: starchy noodles, spicy broth, hearty chicken, crisp onion, bright lime, soft egg, and, in this case, chicken broth, curry paste, fish sauce, soy, coconut milk, sriracha ... Every bite is the definition of satisfaction.

It's without doubt the best cure for a cold—all that warm comfort and gentle heat are soothing, while the protein and carbohydrates (hello, lover) restore your energy. I'm not ill, thankfully, but last night proved surprisingly cold in the Deep South, and it felt like the perfect excuse to make one last bowl of soup for the season.

I've made this a few times now, adapted each time more and more from a recipe I found at When East Meets West. I'm a bit flummoxed by it—the components seem to be there, but there's still some missing chromosome that's keeping it from being all it can be. The first time I made it, I attempted to correct its flatness by stirring in a king's ransom of sriracha, and while it was delicious, it was still missing something. This time I added curry paste, a step in the right direction, but it's still not all the way there.

As a personal preference, I don't adore poached chicken. I think next time the chicken might get sautéed. Maybe less broth? More lime? It's a testament to how good this is that I keep making it, but I'm going to continue to tinker with it.

If you want to be a little bit bad, I suggest eating the good stuff and then throwing a bit of hot cooked rice in to soak up the broth. Or maybe you could just put the rice and noodles on a pizza crust between two slices of bread. Carbs are your friend.

I'd love for someone to make this and tell me what it needs to reach its full potential. No chicken noodle soup left behind!



Chicken Coconut Noodle Soup
1 large sweet onion, halved and cut into thin crescents
3 tablespoons fish sauce
3 tablespoons soy sauce
3 tablespoons red curry paste
3 garlic cloves, chopped
1 (2-inch) piece fresh ginger, peeled and minced
2 teaspoons ground turmeric
2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1-inch cubes
¼ cup vegetable oil
1 large yellow onion, chopped
2 teaspoons ground paprika
3 (13.5-ounce) cans lite coconut milk
7 cups chicken stock
½ cup cornstarch
16 ounces dried Chinese egg noodles
6 hard-boiled eggs, peeled and sliced
Sriracha, to taste
2 green onions, white and green parts, chopped
1 cup chopped fresh cilantro
3 limes, quartered

1. Place sweet onions slices in a small bowl, and cover with cold water. Set aside.

2. Combine fish sauce and next 5 ingredient; add chicken, and stir well. Set aside.

3. Heat oil in a Dutch oven over medium heat until it becomes runny and starts to shimmer. Stir in yellow onion, and cook 3 to 4 minutes or until soft and translucent. Add paprika, and mix until onions are well coated.

4. Add chicken and marinade; raise the heat to medium-high, and cook, stirring, 5 minutes. Add coconut milk and stock, and bring to a gentle boil, stirring occasionally. Reduce the heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer 20 minutes.

5. Whisk together cornstarch and ½ cup warm water; stir into soup, and return to a boil. Simmer over medium-low heat 10 minutes or until the soup thickens slightly. Reduce heat to low, and keep warm until ready to serve.

6. Cook noodles according to package directions. Divide among individual soup bowls, and ladle over each about 1½ cups soup. Top with reserved sweet onion slices, eggs, sriracha, green onions, and cilantro. Serve with limes. Makes 6 servings.

This one is an oldie but a goodie—it dates from Christmas 2010, back when the kitchen was my oyster, work wasn't requiring every second of my days, and my checking account still had no idea how hard it was about to be hit by overzealous trips to the grocery store.

As a rule I'm not much of a sweets person, and particularly not a dessert-for-breakfast sort of girl. (I will spare you my diatribe on the evils of "doughnuts," which is apparently Latin for "stale bread covered in snot." That counts as sort of sparing you, right?)

But as on most occasions, that sensibility was set to rights by Ina Garten, once upon a time many years ago when I first made her Sour Cream Coffee Cake. (Please click on that link and tell me that Sandra Lee's cracked-out Cocktail Time ad is popping up in the right-hand sidebar. It's completely worth the visit to foodnetwork.com, one of the worst Web sites on the Internets. I heart you, Food Network, but your carrier pigeon-style search engine and resulting desperate error messages do you no favors.)

Where was I? Ah, yes. Sour cream coffee cake, with a sweet, nutty streusel (yes, it's still nutty if you omit the nuts) and a decadent glaze. It was my first foray into the world of the bundt pan, too, which was nonstick and worked beautifully, contrary to my every expectation. JBSH and TFin subsequently gifted it to me (their bundt cake-making days being few and far between), and it is now one of my most treasured kitchen implements. Despite all its nooks and crannies it's infinitely forgiving—no matter my lazy buttering/flouring attempts, each cake I've made in it slides out placatingly every time.

But Ina, as we all know, is a girl who loves her ingredients, and even without the walnuts I'm counting 16 different pieces to her puzzle. There were already a lot of dishes planned for that Christmas morning, with LSis's breakfast casseroles and my Easy Cheese Danish (also courtesy la Contessa), so I was craving something simpler.

As you may have guessed from my ongoing obsession with sriracha, I am a lady who loves her spice, so I was instantly sold on Sing for Your Supper's Cinnamon Pound Cake. Only seven ingredients and a procedure that is 80% "stir it together and pour into pan"—even a notorious baking disaster such as myself can manage to pull that off.

I've made this now a few times, and that sweet-hot cinnamon-sugar crust is perfection, like a snickerdoodle pound cake. (HA! Remember these? Good times.) I have tweaked the recipe a bit—my current favorite approach is to stir in semisweet chocolate chips (they MUST be semisweet or darker; milk chocolate would be too cloying here) and to add, sinfully I admit, the glaze from Ina's coffee cake. It does skew things even sweeter, but I just can't resist the combination of maple syrup and cinnamon.

Remember, because we're making this cake in place of coffee cake, that makes it breakfast, and therefore above dietary reproach. So have three slices.



Cinnamon-Chocolate Pound Cake with Maple Glaze
4 tablespoons granulated sugar, divided
2 tablespoons cinnamon, divided
1 box butter cake mix (I used Duncan Hines's Butter Golden mix.)
1 (4-serving size) package instant vanilla pudding
½ cup canola oil
8 ounces sour cream
4 eggs
8 ounces semisweet chocolate chips, optional
½ cup confectioners' sugar
2 tablespoons pure maple syrup

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a bundt pan.

2. Stir together 2 tablespoons sugar and 1 tablespoon cinnamon; sprinkle mixture into buttered bundt pan, tilting pan to coat bottom and sides evenly. Combine remaining 2 tablespoons sugar, remaining 1 tablespoon cinnamon, cake mix, pudding, canola oil, sour cream, eggs, and chocolate chips, if desired. Pour into prepared bundt pan, and bake 45 to 50 minutes or until cake is springy. Let cool in pan 20 minutes.

3. Remove from pan to wire rack, and let cool completely. Meanwhile, whisk together confectioners' sugar and maple syrup, adding a few drops of water, if necessary, to reach the desired consistency. Drizzle over cooled cake. Makes 8 to 10 servings.

SHH! I was never here.

But I really, really, really hope to be back soon.



Cheddar Grits with Black Beans, Lentils, Sausage, and a Poached Egg
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
1 large jalapeño chile, diced
Kosher salt, to taste
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
¼ teaspoon dried crushed red pepper
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 packet taco seasoning mix
3 cups low-sodium beef broth
1 (14.5-ounce) can crushed tomatoes
2 (15-ounce) cans black beans, drained and rinsed
1 cup dried brown lentils, rinsed
10 ounces hot smoked sausage, cut into bite-size pieces
Instant grits
6 to 8 ounces freshly grated Cheddar cheese
White wine vinegar
4 large eggs
Garnish: Chopped green onion

1. Heat olive oil over medium-high heat in a stockpot; add onion, jalapeño, and red pepper. Season with salt and pepper, and sauté 5 minutes or until onions become translucent. Stir in garlic and taco seasoning mix, and cook 2 more minutes.

2. Add beef broth, tomatoes, beans, and lentils; bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 1 hour or until lentils are tender.

3. Sauté sausage in a dry pan until browned. Stir into cooked lentils. Cover pot, and keep warm over low heat.

4. Prepare 4 servings instant grits according to package directions. Stir in cheese. Cover pot, and keep warm over low heat.

5. In a small saucepan, bring water to a gentle boil. Add a splash of vinegar. Crack 1 egg into a small bowl. Stir boiling water vigorously with a spoon to create a small well in the center, and carefully add egg to center of pan. Cook 1 to 2 minutes or until whites are set but yolks are still very runny. Remove from pot with a slotted spoon. Repeat with remaining 3 eggs.

6. Divide grits among 4 serving bowls; top with lentil-sausage mixture and poached eggs. (There will be lots of lentils left over.) Garnish, if desired. Makes 4 servings.

This recipe is not for the faint of heart—really, it might kill you. There is an inordinate amount of butter in there. I'm not usually one to go for gravy with mashed potatoes; as a personal preference I fall firmly in the "cheesy" camp when it comes to my spuds.

This, though, seemed awfully rather dreamy and ingenious—by broiling the potatoes in the gravy, you get a crispy, brown top and a rich, bubbling sauce that keeps the mash super moist and tasty. I thought the potatoes could have been a touch creamier, but that might be my fat-loving American palate getting in the way. I suspect it all depends on the starchiness of your particular taters.

The secret to this-here gravy, what elevates it above the usual gloppy beigeness, is in the full two teaspoons of black pepper. I prefer the already ground stuff in this incarnation; it keeps things smooth and eliminates the chance of chomping into a big piece of peppercorn (which I think tastes like taking a bite out of a charred cast-iron pan). The original concept calls for something listed as "beef gravy or drippings, or beef cubed," which I wasn't sure about, so I omitted it. Instead, I subbed beef broth for the chicken broth because that's what I had on hand, and hoped it would do the work of both ingredients. I don't think the end product suffered, though it's hard to remember because it disappeared so fast.

All credit for this recipe goes to the amazing Seasaltwithfood, a blog I'm guilty of stalking mercilessly.

Alongside I served simply sautéed salt-and-pepper chicken cutlets. On a whim, I just added olive oil to the gravy pan after I'd poured out the gravy, but without cleaning the pan first. That way the chicken browned while picking up leftover gravy bitlets.

Yes, it's a word.

The other revelation? Ina Garten's Brussels sprouts. I first discovered them about a year ago, and they are transformative.

(I also love Savour Fare's bacon-braised Brussels sprouts with cream, but with the gravy bubbling away on the stove, I made a game-time decision not to send myself into full cardiac arrest.)

How good are these Brussels sprouts? A 40-year-old man and a 16-month-old child almost came to blows over them, that's how good. How easy are these Brussels sprouts? Almost shamefully easy. The only tricks are to remember to salt them liberally, and to not take them out of the oven when you think they're burning. They're not; they're just taking on insane amounts of roasted, blistering flavor. When you cut the bottoms off the sprouts, you'll probably end up with a board full of leftover leaves—sprinkle those around the pan, as well. (They become unbelievable crispy sprout chips.)

There's not a lot to this plate—everything sort of takes care of cooking itself, and aside from the potato peeling there isn't a lot of agonizing prep work—but it is about as homey and satisfying as they come.



Mashed Potatoes Baked in Gravy with Salt-and-Pepper Chicken
2 pounds Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and chopped
6 tablespoons cream or milk
Salt, to taste
Pepper, to taste
11 tablespoons butter, divided
2 garlic cloves, minced (optional)
6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
¼ teaspoon onion powder
3 cups reduced-fat, low-sodium beef broth
2 teaspoons ground black pepper
4 chicken cutlets
2 tablespoons olive oil

1. Boil potatoes until fork-tender; drain. Mash potatoes with cream, salt, and 4 tablespoons butter. Set aside.

2. In a large, deep skillet, melt 6 tablespoons butter over medium heat. Add garlic, if desired, and sprinkle with flour; cook, whisking constantly, 1 to 2 minutes or until flour is golden. Whisk in beef broth and pepper, and cook until gravy thickens. Pour gravy into baking dish, and return pan to stovetop. (Do not clean pan.)

3. Sprinkle chicken cutlets with salt and pepper. Heat olive oil in pan, and sauté chicken 5 to 6 minutes on each side or until golden brown and cooked through. Remove pan from heat, and cover with foil to keep warm.

4. Top gravy in baking dish with reserved mashed potatoes; top with dots of remaining 1 tablespoon butter. Broil 6 to 8 minutes or until potatoes are golden brown and gravy is bubbling. Serve with chicken cutlets. Makes 4 servings.

Ina Garten's Roasted Brussels Sprouts
1 pound Brussels sprouts, washed and trimmed
2 tablespoons olive oil
Kosher salt, to taste
Pepper, to taste

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Toss Brussels sprouts on a baking sheet with olive oil, salt, and pepper; roast 35 to 40 minutes or until sprouts are crisp on the outside and tender inside. (They will be very deeply brown.) Sprinkle with more kosher salt, and serve immediately. Makes 4 servings.

This week I learned a very valuable lesson, namely that one should not let too much moss grow under a recipe whipped up on the fly, particularly if one has the attention span of a fly. (It's easy to forget how in the heck you made a dish come together if you don't write it down, it turns out.)

Last week, I got the rather distressing news that the county would like to take my house—or, if they can't have it, they'd like to tax me out of it. I am not in the habit of going down without a fight (and by "fight," I mean "temper tantrum"), so I railed against the man until he said thank you very much, I appreciate your position, hand over your paycheck, por favor. To which I was all, "Oh. Umkay."

Power to the people!

All of which is to say that in the intervening period between March's paychecks No. 1 and No. 2 (whom I love dearly and do not want to see go, amen), I was on something of a budget. And when I say "budget," I mean "less than $19.80 a day." Not a terrible per diem, to be sure, unless you're someone who likes to cook something new every night. Then it's just limiting and cranky-making.

Or is it?! I decided that this arbitrary $19.80 could make for a fun and motivating (albeit still unwelcome) project. I wanted fresh spinach in this dish, but for some unfathomable reason, my grocer was fresh out. So I had to opt for frozen—while I would have preferred the fresh, I'll admit the frozen chopped version was all but free, and I think the flavor difference was inconsequential. Taste the sauce along the way and adjust the amount of mustard to your liking—I wanted this to be really deeply tangy and mustardy, but it's all a matter of taste. (A good-quality mustard is key, though. I used Grey Poupon, which I already had in the larder.) The same is true of the chicken broth; you can add more or less depending upon how thick you prefer your cream sauces. Some of these ingredients I had on hand on the Woodside, but when all was said and done I managed to cobble this together for less than $12.80.*

*Sometimes, when a girl has been roundly slapped by the local tax commissioner, a girl needs a $7 bottle of wine.



Creamy Chicken, Spinach, and Tomato Penne
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 to 1½ pounds chicken cutlets, cut into strips
Salt, to taste
Pepper, to taste
4 garlic cloves, minced
4 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons flour
2 cups half & half or heavy cream
¼ cup spicy brown mustard
8 ounces Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, freshly grated
Hot sauce (optional)
16 ounces penne pasta
1 cup fat-free, low-sodium chicken broth
1 pint grape tomatoes, halved
1 (10-ounce) box frozen chopped spinach, thawed and wrung out well in a clean dish towel

1. Heat oil in a saucepan over medium heat; add chicken, and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Sauté until golden brown and cooked through. Remove chicken to a plate, and set aside.
2. Add garlic to pan, and sauté about 1 minute or until fragrant. Add butter; when melted, sprinkle over flour, and cook, stirring, about 2 minutes.

2. Add cream to pan, whisking constantly until sauce bubbles and thickens. Reduce heat to low, and stir in mustard, Parmigiano cheese, and hot sauce, if desired.

3. Meanwhile, prepare pasta according to package directions. While pasta cooks, stir sauce occasionally, adding chicken broth, ½ cup at a time, until sauce reaches desired consistency.

4. Stir tomatoes, spinach, and reserved chicken into sauce until heated through; toss with cooked pasta. Top with additional grated Parmigiano, if desired. Makes 4 to 6 servings.

Cheesy Garlic Bread
1 medium baguette, sliced in half lengthwise
Reduced-fat mayonnaise
Garlic powder
Sliced provolone cheese
Freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese

Top baguette halves with mayonnaise, garlic powder, and cheeses. Broil until cheese is melted and browned. Makes 4 to 6 servings.

I've only recently discovered the joy of Soup As A Meal, largely because I have very high expectations for it—there needs to be, above all, plenty of texture; I have a deep-seated and possibly irrationally enthusiastic distaste for anything that smacks of "drinking my dinner."

(Exceptions may be made for large bottles of Cabernet, if they are accompanied by snacks made of cheese.)

The classic grilled-cheese-sandwich-and-tomato-soup combination has always failed to excite me, mostly because I find tomato soup so dimensionless. It can be spicy, yes, or herby or rich or velvety, but there's no ... well, chew.

Don't even get me started on smoothies. If I don't need my teeth, it's not food.

This soup, on the other hand, hit all the right notes—chunky and hearty and satisfying, and certainly NOT possible to be consumed with a straw. The recipe, adapted from Food & Whine (genius), has all of the spicy warmth that I love from the coconut soup at my favorite local Thai restaurant, with a few surprising additions—lemongrass, tomato paste, Worcestershire sauce—that keep you with your head buried in the bowl.

I picked up a packet of cilantro in the fresh herbs section of the grocery store before coming home to find out that I would have to surrender my gold star for reading comprehension for the day. It was actually something called "culantro," marketed as having a similar flavor to cilantro but the shelf life of a much more robust herb. I ... sorta hated it. The flavor was lovely, to be sure, but the cactus-like spininess was off-putting.

Remind me to start that herb garden I keep not following through on.



Thai Chicken-and-Rice Soup
3 tablespoons butter
2 cups basmati rice
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons sunflower oil, divided
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 small red bell pepper, diced
1 cup sliced mushrooms
4 cups fat-free, low-sodium chicken broth
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, diced
2 tablespoons lemongrass paste
1 teaspoon fish sauce
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 cup half & half
½ cup lite coconut milk
2 teaspoons red curry paste
1½ teaspoons chili paste or sriracha
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 tablespoon cornstarch
Garnishes: chopped cilantro leaves, sriracha

1. Bring butter and 4 cups water to a boil. Stir in rice and salt; cover, reduce heat to low, and cook 20 minutes. Remove rice to a large bowl.
2. Return pan to burner over medium heat, and add 1 tablespoon oil. Sauté mushrooms until just softened. Remove mushrooms from pan, and set aside.
3. Add remaining 1 tablespoon oil to pan, and sauté onion and bell pepper just until softened. Stir in reserved mushrooms, chicken broth, and chicken, stirring until heated through.
4. Stir in lemongrass, fish sauce, and Worcestershire sauce, and simmer 5 minutes. Stir in half & half and coconut milk; cover, reduce heat to low, and simmer 2 more minutes.
5. Combine curry paste, chili paste, tomato paste, cornstarch, and 2 tablespoons water in a small bowl; add to soup, stirring until it thickens slightly. Stir in 2 cups cooked rice, cover, and simmer 5 minutes.
6. Serve soup with remaining cooked rice; garnish, if desired. Makes 6 to 8 servings.

As a personality, I tend to get attached very quickly, fervently, and loyally to things—people, places, pets, situational comedies about three post-menopausal women living together in Miami with a wise-cracking octogenarian—and when I first tasted this pizza, I knew I was a goner.

The recipe is the brainchild of one Foodimentary Guy, née JBSH, who has a habit of throwing ingredients against a wall and seeing what sticks that I often admire. (Less so when he does whackadoodle things like putting mayonnaise in the mashed potatoes. Gack! Sorry, Foodimentary Guy ... )

Picture it: a late-summer afternoon. A day spent treading water in a fruitless effort to mitigate the 12,000 calories of Lake-A-Ritas (TM) consumed since lunch. Happily tired muscles and lightly pink skin. Time screams by, as it does on Sundays, racing toward return to the mainland, and the work week, and the grind. The dogs can barely muster the energy to wag their tails or lift their heads as you pass by, and the shadow cast by the boat's awning says it's almost time to hit the road. Half-hearted packing, some hurried but ultimately disappointing calculations (is there any way to stay another day?), and it's time to face the truth: The weekend at the lake is over.

That's when this came out of the kitchen. We huddled around it like delighted starving people—eating fast at first, because we didn't realize how hungry we were, and then faster still long after we'd become full, because we didn't want to lose a single bite to any of the other grabby hands in the room.

Since then I've wanted to attempt to re-create it, knowing that it really lives only in the Foodimentary Guy's brain and even then maybe only vaguely—it's the sort of meal that just happened organically, putting a little of this delicious with a little of that amazing until you end up with a pizza that haunts your dreams.

OK, enough hyperbole.



The "recipe," such as it is, relies pretty heavily on a local chain—Zoë's Kitchen—and its signature feta cole slaw. Unfortunately, my neighborhood Zoë's was fresh out of slaw, so I relied pretty heavily on some Internet research and some hope for the best, and tried to whip up my own. It was a passable substitute, but improved overnight, as the cabbage had time to soften a bit more under the weight of the vinaigrette.

Did the original Lake Martin version have bacon on it? I don't remember, but I assumed that with JBSH as its creator, that was a pretty safe bet. I ate the finished product by my lonesome, but shared the leftovers. I don't know how faithful anyone thought it was to that warm, peaceful, lakeside day, but I hope it was a reasonable enough facsimile.

I know it made me want a Lake-A-Rita (TM).



Chicken-Bacon-Cole Slaw Pizza
¼ cup red wine vinegar
¼ to ½ cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon granulated sugar
Salt, to taste
Pepper, to taste
1 small head green cabbage, thinly sliced
8 ounces crumbled feta
8 green onions, chopped
1 (11-ounce) can Pillsbury thin-crust pizza dough
2 chicken breasts from a prepared rotisserie chicken, chopped
Ranch dressing, to taste
Provolone cheese slices
8 bacon strips, cooked and crumbled

1. Whisk together first 5 ingredients. Combine cabbage, feta, and green onions, and toss with vinaigrette. Chill cole slaw at least 1 hour.
2. Preheat oven to 400. Unroll pizza dough onto a lightly greased or foil-covered baking sheet; bake 5 minutes.
3. Toss chicken with 1 tablespoon ranch dressing. Remove dough from oven, and top with chicken mixture and provolone cheese slices; bake 5 to 7 more minutes or until edges of crust are golden brown and cheese is melted and bubbling.
4. Toss cole slaw with a little more ranch dressing, to taste, and top pizza with slaw and crumbled bacon. Makes 6 to 8 servings.

Read the rest here. It's like someone read my innermost thoughts and made them funny and matched them with entertaining doodles.

(Thanks to SuFin for the heads-up!)

This is a weird one, folks. Because I made hot dogs. Problem? I hate hot dogs.

I have no idea why—it's not a snobbery issue; I have well-documented proof that I adore all manner of trashy foodstuffs. It's not even a squeamishness issue. I know wherefrom hot dogs come, and it's not any scarier to me than a lot of the other pork products that I happen to adore.

There's something about the way a hot dog pops when you bite into it ... and that intense saltiness ... I shrug. Put them next to donuts and watermelon on the list of things I inexplicably can't stand. (This is a particularly frustrating reality for someone who is obsessed with the almighty sandwich. How can anything between two slices of bread be unwelcome on the Woodside?!)

I adapted these from In the Wabe, because it seemed like the least troublesome (I have never made hot dogs before)/most delicious (all things being relative)—baked, not steamed, and smothered in chili and cheese. I omitted the pickle relish because it's not everyone's taste, and substituted dill pickle potato chips because they are indescribably good.

To each her own!



Baked Chili-Cheese Dogs
8 hot dog buns
Light mayonnaise
Spicy brown mustard
8 all-beef franks in natural casings (I used Nathan's.)
1 (15-ounce) can chili with beans
½ small onion, diced
Colby Jack cheese

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spread hot dog buns with mayonnaise and mustard to taste. Top with hot dogs, and fit snugly into a 9- by 13-inch pan.

2. Divide chili among hot dogs; sprinkle with onion, and top with cheese. Cover pan with aluminum foil, and bake 45 minutes or until cheese is melted and buns are lightly crispy. Makes 8 servings.

It's Monday, everyone, which means a whole host of things—not the least of which is that I left my camera's USB cord at home, making photo transfer impossible. So to keep you company, I bring you a bit of much-needed fabulousness courtesy of Swanson Vineyards, which has a super kicky, fun Web site design.



And some perfectly lovely, cheeky varietals.



Now if only they could ship to the Woodside ... Silly Bible.

Scanwiches is a collection of "scans of sandwiches for education and delight."



What an incredibly good idea.