Randomness is the mother of Deliciousness

My vegan, zucchini-hating fella was out having dinner with his filmmaking partner, so it was all about the zook and cheese at our house tonight. And there were some bits and bobs of leftovers that needed to be used, so it all went into the pan.

Hey, this is my first recipe for this new blog, yes? So I think I should admit that I'm a pretty chaotic cook sometimes. I add, substitute, alter ingredients. I make stuff up. I'm trying to keep better records of my own invented recipes, though, cause I'm going to be writing them up here.

Also, not only do I come from a pretty intense family tradition of French and Ashkenazi home cooks, I'm also a former line cook and a (half) trained pastry chef. So the randomness isn't coming from nowhere; I do actually know what I'm doing. I'm just a bit of a kitchen riffer.



East Meets West Rice Casserole

1 clove of garlic, diced
half an onion, diced
a couple of tbsps of olive oil
about half a package of paneer cheese, diced
1 small zucchini, diced
1 can of white kidney beans
2 cups of cooked rice
oregano, basil
about a quarter cup of parmesan, or maybe more

In a nice, hot, deep cast-iron skillet, saute the onion and garlic together til they're transparent. Add the paneer, mix it all around the pan. When the paneer cubes are a little browned on most of their sides, add some salt and pepper, then the zuchini. Deglaze the pan with a little white wine or soy sauce. Stir in the beans and rice. When these are warmed through, stir in as much oregano and basil as you like, as well as about half of the parmesan. Top the casserole with the rest of the parm, and slip it under a high broil for a few minutes, just til the cheese on top is a little toasty.


My in-house reviewer was all "Chee! Bean! Um-Um-Um! Moremore!" It was pretty swell, yo.

Saturday afternoon is for the toddler gallery crawl.

And I do mean crawl. It took wee Chas and I over two hours to do a walk that, solo, would take about twenty minutes. Over to Ossington and down to Queen to return last week's DVD to Black Dog Video ("Woof-Woof! Black! Tail!" at the sight of the sign, every time.) Through the slightly Gehennan corridor behind the Queen and Ossington bus stop, then on down Queen.

He's pretty good about not picking up random trash on the street. In fact, my little Virgo dude is fastidious; he points out each pile of trash and says "Yucky!" or even "Swash!", which is his word meaning, "Mother, I simply must, must wash my hands immediately." He runs up and down slopped entrences, though, sits on each and every chair, bench and stoops, plays air piano on windowsills. He knows damned well that the two choices for transportation are to walk, or to be carried, and, when dawdling and presented with the choice, always has to think very hard before giving me a decided answer.

One of the Katherine Mulherin galleries has an exibit featuring sloppily painted black copyright signs on newsprint; Chas ran in and out of that display about a dozen times, yelling "C!C!C!"

And I scored vintage dresses at the Marylou Flamingo sale this morning, while my dad took the kid to Babygym.

It's the penniless socialite lyfestyle. I spent a day shopping and looking at art. It didn't cost me much, but it was not what I would call a productive day. Then I remembered that I was going to start some kind of blog, or something, and hadn't I better get to it?