Another Ambitious Menu: Cooking Lamb for 40+

Greetings, "Learning through Food" readers! I feel an apology is in order (if not for you, at least for me), regarding my recent pause on keeping up with this blog. The semester is quickly winding down here on campus, meaning my available free time to write is becoming much more limited by the day. This said, it's events such as the one I'm about to share with you that help me get centered, to take a break from the academics and take on an intellectual experience of a different sort. The challenge--had I chosen to accept it--was not to recreate as close as possible the first initiatory banquet menu (1906) of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. (1,2). Rather, it was to do so with a low-cost budget for an unspecified number of guests (though we were aiming for somewhere in the 40-person range), bearing in mind lack of on-site kitchen facilities and the main protein being lamb. Thankfully, I received the call about two weeks in advance and the dinner itself would take place during spring break. And so, challenge accepted. On the menu of which I was responsible: 1st course: selected cheese and crackers; 2nd course: creamy tomato soup, with salted wafers; 3rd course: shrimp salad on endive lettuce and broiled lamb chops, with wild apple jelly, green peas, mashed potatoes and dinner rolls; 4th course: chocolate cake with dark chocolate ganache; and 5th course: Neapolitan ice cream with lady fingers.

Celebrating National Potato Day 2011 with a Potato Gratin

I don't know what is so different about this week, but it certainly hasn't been difficult finding dishes to make in celebration of national food holidays. Today of all days is the celebration of one of the easiest and most versatile starches to work with: National Potato Day. From the potato soup to potato puffs, poutine to potato salad, many easy dishes can be pulled together and under a very acceptable budget. To celebrate this year's day of the root crop I'm most familiar with, I made a potato gratin (also recognised as scalloped potatoes) with a Swiss cheese Mornay sauce (i.e., béchamel with shredded Swiss cheese). And I don't know about you, but it's tough to cook with potatoes and not have some sort of pork around; to that end, I also discovered my own way of making bacon bits... by twice frying them.

An (Un)intended Food Migration: Texas, Germany, Northern India, and Back to Ohio... All in One Night

Yesterday, I noted my excitement for tonight's Northern Indian dinner in one of our campus dining halls, under the direction of visiting Sodexo and Executive Chef Sathish Kumar. Well, as we press on with on-going post-pre-orientation programming and gatherings, and continuing to build on this year's "Migrations" theme with a truly inspirational and powerful play which concluded this evening, the stage seemed to have been deemed from the very beginning as set to translate the message of food identity, culture, and migrations this evening. In fact, I felt particularly moved when I heard many times over in the food line today, "Can I have a little bit of everything?" What courage, what bravery, what culinary gastronauts! And what a great day and series of events to celebrate my one-year anniversary with Denison!

Catching up on the Cooking: Good Friday's Good Food

When thinking of Good Friday, the typical theme is fasting. And indeed, among other reasons, I certainly fasted last Friday and thus felt justified in preparing a not-so-typical meal for dinner when I visited home last weekend. Still keeping with the no meat rule, I cooked a cheese encrusted pan-seared salmon, and spaghetti with asparagus and mushroom. Of note, this time of the year beckons such simple ingredients as those needed for these particular dishes, while also providing much leeway in terms of adjusting for the ingredients you already have in your kitchen.

Cold Weather Cooking and Comfort Food

After finishing up my last blog post, imagine my surprise when I got a message a few hours later from the college saying campus was closed. Well, that meant two things for me: more time to catch up on sleep and an early afternoon of cooking ahead. After making the gnocchi a few days ago, I had to think of something I could make to use up more of my stored mini redskin potatoes. Being able to finish up the remaining chicken stock sitting in my fridge since the pupusa night would also be a plus. Thankfully, two recipes took up much of the potatoes and got the stock out of the fridge. Let's take a trip to Québec for some poutine and return back to the Midwest for some bacon cheddar potato soup.

A Little Trip to Italy and Spain: Homemade Gnocchi with Romesco-esque Sauce, Fresh Dill, and Grated Parmesan

When I first bought my bag of mini red skin potatoes a few weeks ago, I had intended on cooking them up with some dill and calling it a day. Yesterday, I had purchased some hazelnuts I intended to use in my Nutella chip cookies but never got around to doing so, and alongside some leftover jarred pasta sauce and mini Italian bread, it was about time I used up some of these ingredients. To get this accomplished, and as alluded to in the title for this post, I revisited one of my favourite (but nevertheless challenging) recipes: gnocchi. Thankfully, I can report it was one of the best rounds of gnocchi I've made to date, and my Romesco-esque sauce brought in a ton of flavour that's much needed for essentially boiled potatoes.