A fit of preparation...

Fresh off the heels of that nasty dinner Saturday night, I felt like doing a lot of preparation for the week's meals Sunday night.

I started off putting together the items for some of Nigella's aromatic lamb meatballs If you recall, we have made these with success in the past, and J wanted to bring them for lunch in pitas. As the meat rested, I set to making her badenjan dip minus the yogurt to make it more like the Persian version I've had at Rumi's Kitchen which is basically sauteed onions and roasted eggplant. I'm actually eating some right now while I type this. While I was doing that, J made a nice tzatziki that we grabbed from Cat Cora's Cooking From The Hip, a new cookbook we grabbed from the library which we rather like a lot.

Speaking of the library, someone from our branch emailed me today to say that they have ordered The Cheese Plate by Max Mccalman and The Essential Cuisines of Mexico by Diana Kennedy. They truly truly rock.

With those lunch munchies all set, J set about making the beer batter mixture for our fish n chips and I started a pot of gumbo. It wasn't until after I was adding the browned duck and shrimp to the pot of onions, green peppers, gumbo file, and massive pile of okra that I realized that I forgot the andouille sausage. Well, another trip to the market for me today. I already know this will be the thickest and probably tastiest gumbo I have ever made. After browning the duck, I used an incredible amount of flour to create the roux and even though I added probably two quarts of crab stock and one incredibly concentrated pint of chicken stock, the gumbo is already as thick as if it was cooking for two days.

I attempted making a fritto misto as a primo. I used halved sea scallops and squid. Based on Mario Batali's recipe, I battered the seafood in only cornstarch, batting off the excess, and topped it all with s+p after it was all fried. I think it was a limited success. I'm convinced that it's simple, but not easy to do.

To go along with the fish n chips, I decided to make steak fries. This was my first try at steak fries so I used two hearty russets and cut them into wedges. The first fry went in at about 325 for four minutes each without turning. The second fry was just for a minute or two at 375 until they looked done. Top with kosher salt and serve! These were very good -- and filling. J kept eating them despite the fact that he was already full. Now we know that just one russet will be fine for the two of us.

I'm still eating my eggplant and onion mush, by the way, and something is really missing. I'm not sure if it's that these whole wheat pitas are just bland or my mush is bland, but it's not very satisfying. And these eggplant seeds are beginning to annoy me. Perhaps I should just pass and move on to my greek yogurt with honey "dessert."

Among this week's planned meals, I'm going to attempt to make dolomathes (grape leaves) from Cooking From The Hip. I am typically fond of meat-filled grape leaves, but Cat's recipes (don't you love how I talk about her like I actually know her?) look good and are probably incredibly balanced, so I think I will make them just as she has them in her book. What a good little foodie I am, actually following instructions! We'll round that meal out with a rack of lamb and a pretty pile of fingerlings. Do you think I should risk putting tzatziki on the lamb or just stay safe and traditional?

We also spent an exhorbitant amount of money at the markets this weekend, stocking up on a lot of things. Among our purchases:
- frozen prime soft shell crabs -- seriously, 14 prime size crabs for $24 is way better than paying $4.50 each one at a time. As we have learned, soft shell crabs rule when they are tempura battered and fried. Oh no, don't tell my mother I'm deep frying something else...
- tempura sauce -- what else do you dip your tempura'd stuff in?
- barilla bucatini -- the first time I've seen it in the store
- double concentrated tomato paste in a handy tube -- awesome! I hate opening a can and having to throw it away when a recipe only needs 1 tsp.
- mojo criollo -- I don't know what to do with it, but I know you put stuff in it and then cook it and it rules. Will ask JQ what to do with this stuff.
- chipotle sauce -- it was the last can of this stuff. In a store highly trafficked by Hispanics, I took this as a good sign and bought it. No preservatives and made in Mexico.
- chipotles in adobo -- surprisingly good to have on hand. I've turned down more than a couple recipes because we don't have this on hand and couldn't find it in the supermarket.
- smoked salmon -- slap this on your cream cheese-laden toasted bagel and that's one tasty breakfast!
- greek yogurt -- I love it with honey. I wonder how bad it is for me?
- green papaya -- because J lusts after papaya salad and I happened to see a "green papaya" at the market and not just an unripe papaya as usual.