Same Procedure as Every Year

It's the Oscars again, and in what has become a time-honoured tradition, Rosettli is coming over for our annual allnighter with Hollywood, booze, and copious amounts of food. For this year's desert, I chose the easy-and-fucking-delicious way: miniature peanut butter cheesecakes. You will need:

2 regular cupcake trays
24 paper cups for cupcakes

24 Oreos
400g Philadelphia or similar cream cheese
200g sour cream
200g sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
150g to 200g of smooth peanut butter
2 eggs

Basically, you whisk everything together into a smooth mass. I found it easiest to first beat the cream cheese into submission, and then adding everything in the above order. The peanut butter was pretty resistant, but I added it in smaller blobs, and didn't add the next one until the previous one was perfectly blended in. Personally, I err on the side of more peanut butter, but just add until you are satisfied with the taste.

Put an Oreo in every paper cup. Fill the cup with the batter until about two thirds full. Bake at about 150°C for 20 to 25 minutes. Let cool.

Delicious.

Bolognese

Do you wonder how the people of a given region view the foods named after said region? After living in Spain, and seeing what they call a "Swiss" (molten chocolate in a cup, basically), I have often felt curious whether we are doing other people wrong in the same way. Indeed, Wikipedia informs me that, "Outside Italy, the phrase "Bolognese sauce" often refers to a tomato-based sauce to which mince (beef or pork) has been added; such sauces typically bear little resemblance to ragù alla bolognese."

Since my sister - whose Bolognese is far superior to mine - was slow to respond today, I pieced together what I remember from eating it a lot, and got some inspiration from our beloved Betty. This is the result.

Ragù alla Bolognese

1 tbsp of oil of choice
1 onion
2 cloves of garlic
2 carrots
1 zucchini
300g minced beef
3 tbsp tomato paste
1 dl red wine
400g canned tomatoes
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
pepper to taste
basil, thyme, rosemary according to personal preference

The tedious part first: chop up all the vegetables into itty bitty pieces, brunoise-style.

Itty. Bitty. Fucking. Pieces. 

Put the oil and the vegetables into a frying pan and sautee everything until the onions are soft. Add the beef, the tomato paste, and the wine. Allow the wine to cook, then add the canned tomatoes. Season, and let simmer for a few minutes. Serve with the pasta of your choice. My favourites are the spirally ones.

My sister is still in shock that I needed assistance with something "as basic as Bolognese". Ah, well. My relationship with Italy is ambivalent at best.

Things in Jars

Snacking is the enemy of the healthy diet. Fact. Eating good things for lunch or dinner is easy if you're someone who cooks. Snacking is evil, because all the things that are highly convenient - bite-sized pieces in a neat little pack - are usually awesome, but not recommended in large doses.

So I became the enemy of my enemy. I put convenient, bite-sized things in jars.

You will need vinegar, sugar, and spices. For every cup of vinegar, you add 3/4 cup of sugar. The choice of vinegar is important, since it's the flavour you're going to taste, along with the spices. My personal favourite is apple/pear vinegar, or white wine vinegar. Please note that red vine vinegar will also colour your veggies a little bit. If you don't mind that, go ahead.

Bring the vinegar and the sugar to a boil, cook until all the sugar has dissolved, then let cool. Cut your veggies into nice, medium-sized pieces, and put them in jars. Fill 2/3 of the jar with the vinegar. Add dried spices.

Preferred veggies: cucumber (duh!), peppers, onions, carrots, zucchini, cauliflower, broccoli. Be creative, use your favourites! In a jar in the fridge, your pickled salad will keep for about two weeks.

Preferred spices and herbs: everything dried; parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme (sing it!).... basil, you get the idea. I also like to use pepper, cardamom, cumin. I don't like anise, personally, and it's a very strong ingredient, but if you're into it, give it a shot.

A note on tomatoes: tomatoes are not vegetables, they are fruits. Fruits, in general, contain too much water to conserve well. You can add tomatoes, but you have to eat the result soon.

A note on garlic and ginger: use very, very little, if at all. Time is a close friend of those two, and after a while, that's all you're gonna taste in that jar.

A note on beets: the content of your jar will be pink. That's what beets do best. They are a well-known dye. I personally like to combine cauliflower and beets.

New Year's Eve Menu

For NYE, in a radical departure from past habits, I decided to spend a quiet evening in with a few friends. I wasn't in a mood for partying. The best thing about having guests, of course, is serving them awesome food, so I came up with a stress-free menu for the occasion. One complication was that it had to include a vegetarian dish. A complication, because I'm a meat-eater, and the centerpiece of a main meal, to me, is the meat. On the other hand, I didn't want to take the easy way out and serve my vegetarian friend just the side dishes or some such indignity. Where I did go the easy road was with the side dishes: potato puree and peas practically make themselves. Also, it's important to have a dessert that can be made hours in advance.

The menu

Carrot-Mango Cappuccino

Glazed Pork Roast or Vegetarian Königsberger Klopse

with Potato-Chestnut Puree and Green Peas

Tiramisù

As always, when you have an entire menu to cook, preparation and planning are everything. One thing to make life easier, is to do a dessert that can be prepared well in advance, which is why I went with the Tiramisù. Once assembled, it has to rest in a cool place for a few hours. Let's start with that. 

Tiramisù

200g princess fingers biscuits

2 egg yolks

50g sugar

250g mascarpone

grated zest of half a lemon and half an orange

2 egg whites

1 tbsp of sugar

a pinch of salt

2,5 dl espresso

2 tbsp sugar

5 tbsp Amaretto 

cocoa powder

If you have no Amaretto around, there are a few more commonplace types of alcohol that work just as well. Personally, I used Bacardi Spiced Rum. Whisky might work, or Cognac. 

For the cream filling, beat the two egg yolks with the sugar until the mass is fluffy and light yellow. Add the mascarpone and the fruit zests. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites with the salt until stiff. Add the tbsp of sugar and continue beating until shiny. Carefully add to the mascarpone cream. 

Cover the bottom of a flat bowl with half the princess fingers. Soak in half of the espresso-sugar-amaretto mix. Spread half of the mascarpone cream over the fingers. Dip the second half of the fingers into the espresso mix, layer on top of the cream. Spread the second half of the cream over them. Store in a cool place for about two hours. Before serving, dust extensively with the cocoa powder. 

Glazed Pork Roast

1kg pork, from the neck

1 dl maple syrup

1 tbsp mustard

1 clove of garlic

Again, the roast was a good choice because it requires minimal attention, once everything is put together. The amount here was enough for three people. Since the roast needs a lot of time in the oven, this should be your next step. 

Crush the clove of garlic and mix with the maple syrup and the mustard. 

In a frying pan, fry the pork until golden brown on all sides. Put in an oven-proof vessel, glaze with half of the maple syrup mix and roast in the middle of the oven at around 180°C for an hour. Pour the rest of the glaze over it, leave in the oven for another half hour. 

Vegetarian Königsberger Klopse

200g tofu

fresh horseradish, grated

zest of half a lemon, grated

parsley

salt, pepper

1 tsp mustard

1 tbsp breadcrumbs

1 small egg

5 dl bouillon for boiling

2 tbsp butter

2 tbsp flour

2 tsp lemon juice

100g capers from the jar

salt, pepper

Tear the tofu up into a fine, crumbly mass. Mix with everything up to and including the egg. You should be able to mold the mass into small balls, like meatballs. Should the mixture be too dry, add a tiny bit of mustard or water (taste it first to check if you need more or less flavour), if it's too wet, add more breadcrumbs. Set aside. 

Carrot-Mango Cappuccino

400g carrots

1 small onion

1 clove of garlic

small piece of ginger, about 2cm

5 dl bouillon

1 mango

1 lime

tabasco, sugar, salt

200ml coconut milk

100ml cream

Peel and chop the carrots and the onion into even pieces. Remember, the smaller the pieces, the faster they will be soft. Peel and chop the garlic and the ginger. With a little oil, sautee the carrots, onion, garlic and ginger, until the onions are soft. Add the bouillon and cook until the carrots are soft. 

In a separate pot, bring the coconut milk and the cream to a boil. Cut off two fine strips of lime zest and simmer in the coconut cream for five minutes. 

When the carrots are ready, puree the soup and add lime juice, tabasco, sugar, and salt to taste. Remove the zest from the coconut cream. 

Fill the carrot soup into the heat-resistant glasses. Beat the coconut cream slightly foamy and carefully layer on top. Serve. 

Yes, I could have smoothed out the edges of the carrot soup somewhat. Next time. 

Königsberger Klopse, continued

Boil the prepared balls in bouillon, for about five minutes. Remove from bouillon, reserve the liquid. In a separate pan, melt the butter and stir in the flour. Gradually add the bouillon to make a creamy sauce. Stir in the cream. Add the lemon juice and the capers, salt and pepper to taste. 

The vegetarian in question liked it. 

Potato-Chestnut Puree and Green Peas

600g potatoes suitable for mash

300g chestnuts, peeled and probably frozen

butter, milk, salt

500g frozen green peas

bouillon

For the puree, peel the potatoes and cut them into even pieces. Boil in salted water, with the chestnuts, until soft. Remove from water, puree. Add butter (I used about 50g), stir in well. Add milk to taste, additional salt if needed. 

Cook the frozen peas in bouillon until ready. 

Remove the roast from the oven, pour a tiny amount of maple syrup over the cut slices. Arrange everything neatly on pretty plates (I used an ice cream scoop for the puree), et voilà! 

It's the Oscars!

Yesterday night was Oscar Night. Yes, that is one of the most important events of the year, only exceeded by my birthday, and possibly by the FYYFF Award. I was graced by the presence of my film-savvy friend Rosettli, and obviously, we had to eat. And for such a night - a night, such as this! - the food needed to be as stellar as the show. Enter... The Ribs.

Honey-glazed Spareribs with Baked Potatoes

1,5 kg spareribs

For the glaze:
4 tbsp honey
2 tbsp vegetable oil
3 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp garlic powder
1/2 finely minced onion

Now, my undertaking seemed doomed from the beginning, when I couldn't find a roaster with a rack. In the US, those seem common enough, but I couldn't find one here in Switzerland. Not until my mom came to my rescue. Of course; that's what moms are for <3
I bought a huge roasting pan with a rack at Ikea, for 30 CHF. It's perfect. You want the rack, so the ribs don't lie on the flat surface. Of course, you can work around that by putting the ribs directly on the rack of your oven, but then you need something underneath to catch the inevitable drip. This roaster takes care of both problems.

Place the ribs, bone side down, in the roaster. Cover the pan with aluminium foil.  Yes, dear Americans, that's "aluminium" the world over. There is no such thing as "aluminum". Set the oven to 180° C, and let the ribs roast for about one hour.

For the glaze, simply combine all the ingredients in a bowl. Uncover the ribs, and generously apply glaze. Repeat every quarter hour or so, while the ribs roast uncovered for another hour.

Yes, that's what delicious pork looks like.

Baked Potatoes

3 huge potatoes
salt, pepper, vegetable oil

Topping:
Sourcream
Chives

Wash the potatoes in their skins. The skins stay on. Then - did you know potatoes can explode? I didn't. Then, you poke holes in the potatoes with a fork. Several deep holes all over the potatoes. So they don't explode all over you oven. Awesome. Exploding tubers.
Cover a baking sheet with aluminium foil. Place the potatoes on it, sprinkle them with salt, pepper, and a bit of oil. Put in the oven with the ribs when you uncover those. The potatoes take about one hour in the oven. The bigger they are, the longer it will take. As usual, you can tell by poking into one with a knife.
For the topping, simply cut the chives and stir them into the sourcream.

Also pictured: Samûm's sacred family recipe noodle salad. I could tell you, but I'd probably have to kill you.

Et voilà! For the perfect evening, simply add booze, Ben&Jerry's ice cream, and Academy Awards! Good lord, Angelina is SO beautiful!

The Roast

Remember that pork roast I mentioned a while ago? It's in the oven *right now*, and I will make sure I take appropriate pictures this time. I should tell you, though, it's not easy to show such restraint, when the odours from the oven have inundated your home for close to two hours.
The roast almost didn't make it, as it were. I saw the recipe on Jamie Oliver's show. I was reminded why I prefer him in book form, as that removes all the superfluous gesturing and pseudo-hip attire. (Jamie, you're almost forty. Deal.) I wrote everything down, but when I had readied all the relevant ingredients in the kitchen, I saw that my otherwise trusty recipe app had deleted all of its recipes. This version is, therefore, the one from memory.

Pork Roast

1 kg pork roast. Jamie uses the shoulder piece, I prefer one from the neck.
2 bell peppers, I like the red ones the most.
1 large red onion
1 jar (350g) roasted peppers in oil
2 tbsp paprika (sweet)
1 can (400g) tomatoes, skinned and cut up
5 dl meat broth
2 tbsp vinegar

Place meat in a roasting pan, fry on the stove until browned on both sides. Remove from pan. Cut peppers into strips, put in pan. Frantically search for the red onion you've totally forgotten about, cut into strips, add to pan. Add the roasted peppers, also cut up, the paprika, and finally the tomatoes. Place meat back in the pan on top of veggies, and cover with sauce. Add the broth - Jamie uses plain water, but I find the broth contributes to the overall flavour - and the vinegar.
Place in the oven, at 200° C. Roast for about 2 hours, depending on the dimensions of the meat. You can check at about one hour, and see how it comes along. According to Jamie, it's ready when it practically falls to pieces when poked with a spoon. I tend to take it out a wee bit earlier.

And this is what it looks like uneaten. A brief state of existence.

Roots Bloody Roots

Winter is a time for soup. It is also the season of all the things that have grown under the soil, and that keep so well. Therefore, today:

Sweet Potato Soup

1 kg sweet potatoes
1 large red onion
1 small piece of fresh ginger, peeled
1 liter of vegetable broth
50 g butter
some cream cheese or similar


Heat some butter or oil in a pot. Peel the onion, cut into pieces (it doesn't have to be Julienne; we will eventually just run this through the blender), add to the hot butter. Peel the sweet potatoes and cut them into smallish bits. The smaller the pieces, the shorter the cooking time. Add to the pot, along with the ginger, and let fry in the butter for a little while. Stir from time to time, so that nothing burns. I sometimes sprinkle everything with a bit of sugar, which slightly caramelises in the process. Not that the end product needs to be any sweeter, mind you. Add the broth, and cook everything for about 20 minutes.
Turn off the heat, and puree the contents. Stir in the butter. Serve with a little island of cream cheese in the middle.

There is no picture of the soup. Soup always looks the same. If it helps, this one should be orange ;)

You know, instead, enjoy watching this.

Raw, Part II

There was meant to be a Conversation with the Stoic Man here, as he pointed out this dish to me. Alas, my transitioning from one computer to the other has destroyed all record of said conversation. Maybe it didn't happen at all! Hm...

Wherever I got this idea from, it's a great one. Raw meat is the best. When getting the meat, ask the butcher (or the meat person in your supermarket) for the kind that you would use for steak tartare. By the way: I have never had the original Korean dish. I can't tell if this is close to how it's supposed to be. I only know it's tasty.

Yukhoe

200g beef. I had it cut right in the store, but the pieces need to be slightly more delicate than in the picture above. Think half a centimeter.
1 nashi (Asian pear), cut into matchstick-like pieces
pine nuts
1 quail egg. Not pictured, as I couldn't find any at my local Migros. I love raw eggs, so I'm sure it's delicious.

For the marinade:
3 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp of sesame oil
1 clove of garlic, finely minced
1 green onion, finely diced
1/2 tsp of toasted sesame seeds

Combine the ingredients of the marinade. Put the meat in the marinade. If you have to cut the meat yourself, it helps if you put it in the freezer beforehand, to give it stability. Cut up the nashi and arrange on a plate. Place the meat on top of the nashi structure, decorate with the pine nuts. If you want to add the egg on top of your meat, make an indentation for it on top with a spoon. 

Hmmmm, raw. Rawrrrr!

Advanced Level Cooking: Lamb

I omitted the obvious pun about silences and such. So, another experiment. I noticed that most of the meat I prepare is a) raw, b) in the form of a steak or similar, or c) cut into tiny pieces. Recently, I used one of Jamie Oliver's recipes to make a pork roast. It was surprisingly good. I'd have posted about it, if I hadn't forgotten to take pictures. I know, document before you eat! Which is why I'm starting the documentation of this lamb rack extremely early.

Part One: Marinating the Meat

1 rack of lamb, about 300g
4 sprigs of rosemary
6 leaves of peppermint
5 cloves of garlic
5 tbsp of oil. most people use olive oil, my personal preference is for sunflower.

Herbs in a bag.

I use a plastic bag for the marinating process. It's a very convenient receptacle, and it will take up a minimum of space in the fridge.

Chop up the rosemary and the mint, and place in the bag. Press the garlic, add oil. Then, add the rack of lamb. Allow to marinate for at least two to three hours. Which is what I'm going to do right now, as it's 4am.

Further updates as events warrant...




Update 1, 13:24h. I decided that the side should be

Mashed potatoes with garlic.

500g potatoes
20g butter
1 dl milk
2 cloves of garlic, pressed
salt

Peel potatoes and cut in half. This, because it makes the cooking a bit quicker. Cook in salted water for about 20 minutes. Remove from water, mash, add butter, milk, and garlic. Add salt to taste.
Now, I'm kinda lying to you. I don't use milk in mine, I use about twice the butter instead. But I figured that most people might prefer a slightly lighter consistency, as the absence of milk makes it a very compact thing.


Part Two: Cooking the Meat

2 tbsp oil
1 tbsp butter
1dl of red port
1 tsp honey
some aceto balsamico

2 sprigs of rosemary for decoration

Preheat the oven to 200° C. Heat the oil and the butter in a frying pan. Remove the lamb from the marinade and dry with a paper towel. Put in the frying pan, and fry until crisp on both sides, but don't overdo it. Remember, we never go past "medium" on meat. Keep pouring the butter/oil mixture on it as you fry it.
Remove from pan and put in the oven for about 10 minutes.
Add the port and the honey to the pan, add a tiny bit of water if necessary. Season with salt, pepper, and balsamico.

So tasty. So pretty.

There. I imagined it to be harder. But, hell, this is one of the best things I've ever cooked. I'm totally awed by myself ;)

There Is No Meat In This.

Are you worried yet? Sometimes I eat a salad. In fact, I usually take a salad every day when I go to work. I *like* salad. I just don't like green salad, because it bores me to tears and has no nutritional effect I can tell. It needs something substantial to augment it.

Lettuce and Beetroot with Goat Cheese
1 mini lettuce
1 beetroot, cooked and pickled
1/2 red onion
100g goat cheese

balsamico dressing

Let me just admit that I'm lazy about the dressing. Anna's Best balsamico dressing is just fine for me. Of course, you can do your own. Be sure to send me a recipe.

Raw, Part I

Technically speaking, the fish in a Ceviche is not raw. But since it hasn't been cooked with heat, and I was looking for a title to tie in with other stuff, we'll go with it. Back to the interesting bit. The chemical reaction akin to cooking is achieved using the acid in lemons and limes. Leave a slice of lemon lying on raw fish for a while; you can see the effect pretty quickly.

Ceviche

200g of fish. I used pangasius, even if Samûm says they're the trashcans of the sea. Ask the fish vendor of your choice for good alternatives. Also, this is bound to be delicious with salmon; buy the sushi-quality kind.

1dl lime juice
1dl lemon juice
1/2 red onion, diced
a handful of cherry tomatoes, cut into quarters
salt, pepper, dried chili

later: cilantro and avocado

Please note that lime juice is slightly bitter, more so than lemon juice. You may vary the quantities of either based on that information. Cut the fish into pieces of roughly one centimeter. Together with the other ingredients, put it into a receptacle that can deal with the acid. Ceramic was suggested, but my plastic storage units do just fine. Make sure that the fish is entirely covered with liquid. Let it sit for one hour in a cool place. Drain the liquid from the rest of ingredients. Add the avocado, cut into cubes, and the cilantro for decoration. Serve with toast, or rice, or, indeed, almost any carbon hydrate of your choice.

My Second Bento

In yet another frightful display of non-traditional food choices, I bring to you: my second bento! Let's not kid ourselves, it's all about filling the pretty little boxes. With pretty little food.

Tier 1: Meatballs

Step one: prepare meatballs according to my recipe here. Put in the box, fill up empty spaces with cherry tomatoes.

Tier 2: Fried potatoes with scallions

3 small potatoes
oil for frying
pepper, salt, chili
2 scallions, chopped

Peel the potatoes and cut them into relatively thin slices. Fry them in an open frying pan until they're soft and partially brown. Season with salt, chili, and pepper. Add the scallions.

I made myself a dip of one part sweet chili sauce and two parts hot ketchup to with both the potatoes and the meatballs. Remove the "chili" or "hot" part wherever that seems necessary.

Merry Christmas!

I want snow! Snow to go with the presents, and the music, and the lights. And the cookies! Behold, Christmas cookie extravaganza, Swiss style. Too late, you say? It is never too late for cookies. I can assure you, they will be well-received at your place of employment long into January. I try to keep the holiday spirit up until Candlemas, most of the time. Alternatively, just consider yourself well-prepared for this year's Christmas.

The ingredients of the recipes are listed in the order of their appearance.

Spitzbuebe

The most essential Christmas cookie. Both pretty and delicious. If you're not gonna make these, why bother?

250g butter
125g sugar
2 tsp vanilla sugar
1 pinch of salt
1 egg white (white only)
350g flour (normal flour. None of that self-raising kind.)

For the filling: redcurrant gelée

The way you prepare the batter is always the same, for all the cookies. With a mixer, soften the butter, then mix with the sugar, the vanilla sugar, and the salt. Add the egg, mix everything until smooth. Add the flour bit by bit, always making sure that all of it is absorbed into the mass. The dough should be firm but malleable. If it still sticks to your fingers, carefully add more flour.
Put the dough in the fridge for half an hour. Prepare your working surface with flour (so the dough doesn't stick), then flatten the dough with a roller to about 3mm of thickness. Or thin-ness, rather. Use a round cookie cutter for the bottom and a round one with an added hole of some sort to make tops.

Bake at 200° C for about five minutes. They should become golden at best, but certainly not brown. See the brown one in the center of the picture? Too long.

Once they've cooled, fill them with no more than half a tea spoon of redcurrant jelly. Blackcurrant is also good. You can warm the jelly to a liquid state to smoothen it, but it has to cool again before it can be used to fill the cookies.


Mailänderli

The typical Christmas cookie. In my family, most often eaten before baking occurs. They're the ones at the top, angel-shaped.

250g butter
250g sugar
1 pinch of salt
3 eggs
grated skin of one lemon
500g flour

1 additional egg yolk, beaten, for glazing.

Again, add the ingredients to the bowl in this order. The lemon should be organic, if ever possible. After its stunt in the fridge, flatten the dough to a thickness of about 5mm. Use cookie cutters of choice. Glaze the cookies with the beaten egg yolk before baking them for 10 minutes at 200°C. Those are allowed to brown a little. Just a little.


Sablés with Chili

One of my favourites, both for easy preparation and unexpected taste.

175g butter
75g sugar
1 tsp vanilla sugar
1 pinch of salt
1 red chili, seeds removed, chopped into tiny bits
250g flour

Mix the ingredients as above. Note that, since it's all held together by the butter in the absence of an egg, it might feel a little less "solid" than the others. Once everything is assembled, roll the dough into a roll (the poetry of it!) of approximately 5cm in diameter. Place in the fridge for an hour.
Cut the dough into rounds of 1cm thickness, bake at 200°C for roughly 8 minutes.


It all looks so easy, doesn't it? It is. It's also ridiculously time consuming. I think I made about 400 units that day.

My First Bento

Basically, I was just sitting there, cleaning my gas lamp, when all of a sudden I was overcome with a new obsession: Bento. Bento boxes are Japanese. Let's look at a common dictionary's definition of Japanese:

1. Of, relating to, or derived from Japan, its language, or culture. 
2. A person living in or coming from Japan, or of Japanese ancestry. 
3. The main language spoken in Japan.
4. Superior.

Indeed. When I asked the Stoic Man what the time difference was between Switzerland and Japan, he said, "Seven hours. And ten years." It's the future.

Bento boxes are small boxes in which food is arranged beautifully for later consumption, mostly at one's place of employ. Bento boxes are also very, very shiny. I got a three tiered thingy in pink. With a matching set of chopsticks. Did you know there are Hello Kitty themed sets? ...

So, today, I set about filling my shiny, shiny box with food for the graveyard shift. The content is not Japanese. I know, I should be ashamed of myself.

Tier 1: Salady things

pickled beetroot
pickled carrots
cherry tomatoes

The beets were cooked, sliced, and pickled in nothing more than red wine vinegar. They keep forever that way and are a staple in my kitchen.
The carrots were cooked - carefully, so that they are still somewhat crisp - sliced, and pickled in a bit of vinegar, a bit of oil, and garlic. They will end up tasting very garlicky. Keep that in mind. At work. I said I was on graveyard shift, right?
I found this hilarious assortment of six types of cherry tomatoes at Coop. I bought red, heart-shaped ones, yellow ones, and orange ones. Taste is same/same, but they are so pretty!


Tier 2 (the proteins): Tonkatsu and Edamame

a piece of pork
panko
one egg, beaten
starch or flour

salt, pepper
Edamame

As always, when breading meat: salt, pepper, put in some flour or starch, put in the egg, then the panko. Deep fry.
Edamame: steam.
Not as visually pleasing as it could be, but very tasty. Come on. Deep-fried pork. Just saying.


Tier 3 (the carbs): Mashed potato/sweet potato

2 potatoes
2 sweet potatoes
salt, pepper, chili for decoration
butter

Cook the roots until soft, remove from water, mash. Destroy them. Obliberate, even. Add butter until sufficiently buttery. Add salt and pepper, when draped upon the plate or into the bento, sprinkle dried chili on top.

Meatballs. Meeeeeatbaaaaalls!

One of life's great pleasures: Meatballs. I have recently perfected them, and they look much better than in the picture. Not to mention the taste. The key? Easy. After all, why would you fry something, if you can also deep fry it? The best thing about these, though, is the sauce. Courtesy of my friend Paolo, a genuine Sicilian and chef extraordinaire!

Meatballs

500g mixed minced meat
salt, pepper, a little dried chili if you like
one carrot, grated
a bit of ginger, grated
a clove of garlic, one medium onion, a bunch of parsley, all finely chopped
a cup or so of bread crumbs
one egg

Knead everything into a mass. Form balls. Heat enough oil in a pan to deep fry. When pleasantly brown, remove from oil onto kitchen crepe, to remove excess oil.


Nameless and awesomely tasty sauce

one large onion
2 dl aceto balsamico
100g sugar

Okay, I'm guessing on the sugar. Think chutney; enough to make the liquid slightly thick, and create a sweet-sour taste. Anyway. Cut the onion into pleasing strips, sautee in butter. Add the aceto, then the sugar. Allow to boil for a moment. Let cool down, taste, add salt, pepper, and, if needed, more sugar. (If more sugar, bring to boil again.)

I used red onions. This is what it looks like when boiling.

Pilgrim's Bounty

This is the time of the year where Food and Glory coincide. Yes, it is Pilgrim's Bounty again, the WoW world event that mirrors Thanksgiving. While the reason for it is completely negligible, it is one fantastic event to get your cooking skill up. You can buy a series of recipes at the festival, along with the ingredients for them (except the turkeys, which you'll have to "hunt"). These recipes will get your cooking skill from 0 to roughly 340 in an efficient and ridiculously cheap manner.
One important thing to remember is that some of the ingredients can only be found with specific festival vendors.
For the potatoes, go to Darnassus or Thunder Bluff.
The cranberries can be bought in Ironforge and Orgrimmar.
The pumpkins are sold in Stormwind and Undercity. You will also find the turkeys in Tirisfal and Elwynn.
You should buy 60 or 70 of each before you move on, since there are 60 skill-points between the recipes, and they turn yellow for the last ten points. Nothing is more annoying than having to go back to Darnassus because you're missing two potatoes. Also, since you need around 70 turkeys anyway, you might want to give The Turkinator a shot. After killing each turkey, you have a 30 second window to kill another one. Kill 40 turkeys in a row, and become a turkinator. I would tell you to go places where there are few other people trying to accomplish the same thing, but the fowl only appears in Elwynn and Tirisfal, so your best bet is to try it at three in the morning.

So, I just leveled my rogue's cooking to 350. 'Tis the season.

Combine all your foodstuffs into this stylish Cornucopia.

My Fancy Dinner

Sometimes, all it takes is a new perspective. Instead of cooking the vegetables in this dish to death in water, I sprinkled them with oil, salt, and pepper, added some thyme, and put them in the oven to roast. Awesomeness ensued.

Potatoes, carrots, and bell pepper. The latter is best placed on top, so as to avoid it touching the hot dish.

Yes, I let it burn a bit. I like that. But that's up to you :) By the way, having a steak "well done" is just needlessly adding insult to injury for the poor cow. Don't do it.

Aaaaaah....