You must be the change you wish to see in the world

Snowpacalypse!
Referencing Accuweather – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpxiCxO5k0g

The irony – the guy says something to the extent of, “Never mind crab cakes! I wish I were having Jambalaya right now!”
Oh weather man, how I could fulfill your dreams.

Quite an experience at the supermarket. And by experience, I mean waiting in line at the speed of stagnant water acting as a fertile breeding ground for malaria-carrying Anopheles gambiae. Highlight of the supermaket experience – finding clam juice. What the heck is clam juice?

Juice from a clam.
Duh.

So after foolishly following directions telling me to food-process the vegetables, a process that processed the greens and reds and whites into anything but the finely chopped wonders I was promised, and uhh… a long series of steps involving chicken, sausage, shrimp, and clam juice… this what what the Jambalaya ended up looking like.

And this is what it looked like in a plate…

And this is what it looked like with Besho drinking a beer and pointing at it.

I say it was pretty successful. Although next time I’m tempted to dump a whole bottle of sriracha into it. Mmm… rooster sauce – the sugar and chili delight.

Lessons learned:
1. Needs more hot sauce
2.  Probably should’ve put Steffi’s turkey back in the fridge after she left for the entire weekend leaving it out to defrost.
mmm… Salmonella

OH WAIT I”M NOT DONE
It ummm snowed, so I dug myself onto the roof and took pictures. Heres one.

And heres a picture from the ski trip of Tom hugging a “warning you must be advanced to go down this halfpipe sign.”

mmmm halfpipe warning sign.

Done.

Olive the other extra virgin oil is great for cooking
Olive the other reindeer, however, is a dog.

Again cooking from New Best Recipe:

Start with these ingredients

Toast 1/4 cup almonds, toast 3 cloves garlic
Combine lots of basil, some parsley, and bruise or mortar to release aroma
Add to  7/16 cup olive oil, almonds, 1/2 tsp salt, and garlic in food processor
Mix in a bunch of Parmesan cheese (1/4 cup)

Combine with a pound of pasta and get

Simple, fast, delicious
Looking forward to using this sauce for pizza somehow!

Taste: 4/5
Difficulty: Really easy

Intersession provides me with time to pursue a few interests, and one of my interests is food. Exploring new foods to eat, and cooking food.
Recently, I bought a cook book – The New Best Recipe, a product of Cook’s Illustrated. So far, it is an amazing book, for it gives not just recipes, but the science and the trial-and-error behind each recipe as well. Hopefully my recommendation for the book counteracts the words of wisdom I’m stealing from it and feeding to you. Anyways, my first project from this book – Pasta with Garlic and Oil (or Aglio e Olio).

Pasta with Garlic and Oil

Here are the ingredients (well the butter shouldn’t be in here). This recipe is really quite simple, but I’ve learned a lot from following the book instructions (apparently I’ve been cooking pasta all wrong over the years).
Some lessons learned:
1. Salt is actually for taste, not raising the boiling point (you’d have to pour a ton of salt in there to raise the bp by just a few degrees).
2. Rinsing the pasta after dumping it in the colander? Bad idea. This removes starch from the pasta which sticks to the sauce.
3. Always stir the sauce into the pasta, rather than just putting it on top. This helps the pasta not stick to itself.

Nice and simple. The ton of garlic put into it isn’t overpowering at all! In fact, it is absolutely delicious. Helps to have a pasta cooked perfectly al dente.

Add a little Parmesan cheese, and it is perfected.

My ratings
Taste: 4/5.  Nothing special, but still tasty.
Difficulty: Relatively easy. Would be much easier if I had a garlic press.