UnRecipe: Pantry/Freezer Raid Dinner

I said pantry, not panty, you perv-o's. Get your mind out of the gutter and back into the kitchen -- there's a meal to be made! It was another one of those weeks where I was feeling less than inspired, other than the basic need of hunger. But I don't want it to be boring or cause a major restocking of the fridge. So I looked at what we had on-hand and put together a tasty and somewhat unplanned meal from frozen items, pantry goods, and the weekly impulse buys at Costco. What came out of it was a Wild Mushroom and Spinach Stuffed Pork Tenderloin with Gorgonzola Haricot Vert.

A deliciously unplanned meal for our weekly enjoyment - Photo by Wasabi Prime

I tend to squirrel away items, including food. Hello, producers of Hoarders TV shows? I think I'm your next candidate. When I'm at Costco, the power of bulk buying takes over, I inevitably make the rookie mistake every time, despite my frequent visits, and I wind up with something weird like a huge block of gorgonzola cheese or three pounds of baby green beans. Hey, it happens. I can be like Liz Lemon from 30 Rock, and just sit on the couch and eat cheese all day, but everything else needs a purpose, lest it rot in our crisper drawer. I defrosted a pork tenderloin because again, I squirrel food, which includes buying meat on sale and wrapping/freezing it for later use. Digging through the pantry, I found a random bag of dried wild mushrooms. I can't remember why I bought it, but there they were. These seemingly unrelated items came together like a puzzle in my brain and I got cookin'.

The mushrooms were rehydrated in hot water and chopped up. The mushroomy liquid was reserved for a pan sauce. I took a leftover shallot and finely diced it, saving half for the sauce and the other for the pork stuffing. I wilted some fresh spinach that was already getting wilty in the fridge and added the mushrooms and shallot with some salt and pepper. The mixture became the stuffing for the pork tenderloin, laid down the middle and then tied it all up with string to keep it together. I salted and peppered the outside of the stuffed tenderloin, seared it in a hot pan to give it a bit of crust, and then let it finish off on a baking sheet in the oven. I deglazed the pan with the mushroom liquid, along with some marsala sitting in the pantry, added the last of the shallots, a bit o' seasoning, and let the sauce reduce.

The green beans were lightly blanched in boiling water, drained off, and then tossed with a little salt, pepper, some olive oil, and crumbles of the gorgonzola cheese. This made for a pretty side dish next to the slices of stuffed pork tenderloin. I think the point of these unplanned meals is to show that cooking doesn't have to be a labored, heavily-planned event. It can be inspired by whatever's available, and the flavors can be pushed and pulled to work together, even if on their own, the ingredients don't look like they'd play nicely in the sandbox.

Mixed Plate: Everything Happens for a Reason, Even Pizza

I shared my mental meanderings over the six-year history of TV series Lost coming to a close earlier this week on my other blog, the Jaunty Magpie, but suffice it to say, I couldn't say for sure just what the eff happened. That being said, I made a pizza, or more to the point, a "Hawaiian" pizza to commemorate several seasons of addictive television and an excuse to carb-out on a Sunday. "Everything happens for a reason," says John Locke. Hell yes. Extra cheese, please.

Hey, baby, what's your number? 4 8 15 16 23 42 - Photo by Wasabi Prime

So I put "Hawaiian" in parenthesis because if this were really a Hawaiian pizza, it'd be covered in slow-roasted pork, slices of Spam, Portuguese sausage, and a number of other mysterious delicious piggy parts with a sprinkling of green onions. I've ranted before and I'll rant again -- just putting pineapple on it doesn't make it Hawaiian. If anything, it just makes something cloyingly sweet with a chance for indigestion later. But this was a special occasion, the ending of one of our favorite TV shows, plus Mr. Wasabi loves pizza with ham and pineapple on it -- a flavor I have come to appreciate in our longterm coupledom. Instead of getting takeout, I went with a homemade pizza dough, deli ham and fresh slices of pineapple. Compromise can be delicious, and as Jack says: "We live together or die alone!" I'm sure this referenced hunger pains for cheesy pizza.

I won't get into the details of the finale. It's way too convoluted and I don't want to make the series seem daunting to those who waited until its end before Netflixing it. Overall, I thought it was fine, and it was a nice finishing touch to several years of very watchable television. Sure, there were plot holes, story imperfections, and there's still a lot of unanswered questions, but I think for the most part, it was a finale that was for the fans, to make people feel like the characters would be ok, in one alternative universe or another. And in a lot of ways, the best part of a beloved show is the subculture that forms in a series' orbit. One of the best things about the Lost finale were the special ads that were interspersed throughout the show, which I think was kinda fun. Too bad Target doesn't sell Apollo Bars.



As a bonus, I finally found the old KFC ad that was made in Hawaii to promote their own local franchise specials, done as a Lost parody. This was made during the first year of the show, and it was funny then and Cluckety-Cluck-Cluck awesome now.

Mixed Plate: Miss Wasabi, How Does Your Garden Grow?

I totally meant to write this earlier, as the Wasabi Garden has been puttering along as early as February when I was starting seeds in our laundry room and it was looking completely garden un-glamorous and probably more like an illicit weed stash. But efforts and a mild winter prevailed, and while I have no impressive harvest bounty to show off yet, I do have some radishes along with baby greens and perennial herbs that have picked up springtime steam.

The radness of radishes - Photo by Wasabi Prime

I think gardening appeals to the hopeful optimist in all of us. We take these seemingly inert little seeds, shove them into the ground and hope that not only will something green come out, it'll produce an edible delight that will amount to a meal. Or at least a pretty garnish sprinkling. Our backyard vegetable garden consists of three good-sized raised beds and a smattering of plastic containers that have now become designated lettuce/microgreen growers, as the caterpillar invasion from last year taught me well to keep that bounty out of easy reach. I lost a whole batch of spinach to gross little caterpillar eggs that were laid on every damn leaf, and yes, I'm still mad about that. Grr.

The first year I decided to dive into this whole veggie gardening thing, I went buck-wild with tomatoes, starting a ridiculous amount of seeds, babying them to successful healthy plants, and harvesting literally pounds of tomatoes a day. That was fantastic, but I realized I should diversify a little, plus it really wore the soil out as tomatoes can be a drain on nutrients. Fast forward a couple of years and mixed results with different vegetables, and I've come to find a few hearty staples that I like to stick with. In general my rules for veggie choices, aside from the obvious "will it grow successfully here?" question, are does it have a short growing cycle, is it something that can be frozen or prepared for storage in case of overage and of course the obvious -- will we eat the thing? If I an answer yes to all these questions, than it becomes a candidate for the highly exclusive Wasabi Garden Club.

For springtime goods, I've become a big fan of radishes and sugar peas. Radishes are just easy root veggies that grow fast and you can eat all the parts, using the sprouts when thinning down rows, to the whole root and green tops when they're ready to pluck from the ground. As for peas, I got a good tip from garden blogger and pal, South Sound Garden, for soaking the seeds overnight, then placing between wet paper towels for early sprouting and a test for viability. This worked out well, I could throw out the duds, and put the pea sprouts directly in the garden beds to let nature take its course. The photos in this post are actually a little old; the sprouts are now full-on plants and probably over two feet, in dire need of me to attach them to a webbing or some posts. When I start to see the first signs of their white blooms, I know I'll be in sugar pea heaven soon!

From sprouts to starts to om-nom-nomming - Photos by Wasabi Prime

I have some herbs that have perked up after winter's chill, like chives, thyme, mint, sage, lemon balm, and I started from seed more flat-leaf parsley and cilantro. It's a slower road going from seed, but I'm seeing larger leaves from the cilantro and parsley and eagerly await my chance to clip from them. I've also got some red leaf lettuce going in some pots, but hesitate clipping them quite yet, in fear of over-snipping. I also have some shallots and some plain old garlic cloves shoved in the ground to harvest their green tops or ramps, if you're a foodie-nerd who's into the latest trends. Putting garlic cloves that are starting to sprout straight into the ground is a great way to let nothing go to waste, as it will definitly sprout a hearty green top that you can snip and use like scallions, but with a light garlic flavor.

I actually did start several rows of scallions, but they're a bit slow to get going and look more like rows of little chives right now. I also put in carrots, beets, swiss chard, green beans, and am giving leeks another try, but for the most part, those are not in a photogenic state right now. I'm hopeful for their Mr. DeMille-worthy closeup at some point this year. Yet again, the hopeful optmist of the gardener pops up. Maybe that's a good life lesson in the labor of gardening -- aside from enjoying something you grew from seed, it's a great lesson in having faith in things that grow, whatever it may be. If you have a moment, send a wish of good luck to the little sprouts everywhere, in the hopes they grow big, strong and om-nommable soon.

Sprouts that hope to be carrots and beets someday soon! - Photos by Wasabi Prime

UnRecipe: Rolling With the Meaty Punches

A few years ago, I remember seeing a preview for a John Woo movie called Paycheck, where Ben AFLAC-Affleck is this super-geeeenius who can reverse engineer technology from other companies and he sells this information to the highest-bidding competitor for gobs of moolah. How many zeroes in gobs? A lot. There was also a lot of stuff blowing up, high-tech looking computer animation to visually represent the interworkings of  The Affleck's mind under the suspension of belief that he can do this all in his noggin' without pausing to count using his fingers, and a whole bunch of fast cuts to try and hide the fact that the movie probably wasn't very good, its adaptation from a Phillip K. Dick short story notwithstanding. Honestly, has Hollywood done anything right with Philly-D's work? But I digress. The movie was silly, yet the even sillier reverse engineering aspect came into play when Mr. Wasabi described a meal he had and I decided to try and recreate it from description alone. The result? Proscuitto-Wrapped Cheesy Steak Rolls.

Reverse engineer this, Ben! - Photo by Wasabi Prime

Fine, so it's nowhere near as exciting as high-tech futuristic espionage directed with a Hong Kong-style action flair. Was it more satisfying than watching a half-baked sci-fi adaptation with The Affleck? Yes. Don't get me wrong, I love me some Good Will Hunting, Chasing Amy, or even a silly romp with a giant meteor hurtling towards the planet with Michael Bay-melodrama, but Ben-jammin trying to get all reverse engineer on me? Hell-to-the-no. But I put memories of bad movie previews to good work when Brock described a meal he had with friends that was, as he described it, "steak pinwheels," involving spinach, cheese and bacon-wrapping. I don't care if the bacon trend is "so yesterday," bring on a log of hog any day.

From his meal description, I used some thinly-sliced steak, laid a thin layer of cooked spinach over the top, rolled them up, wrapped with proscuitto, and baked before pulling them out when they were still rare. Letting them cool slightly, I cut the beef logs into thinner slabs, laid them flat with a sprinkling of cheese and placed them under the broiler to finish off. Placed artfully over some roasted asparagus, anything can look all artsy-like. But steak pinwheels, I have conquered thee. And found you to be delicious without the help of Ben Affleck's reverse engineering movie brain.

UnRecipe: Napoleon Complex, with Strawberries

Sometimes you just have to have dessert first. So says the person who's trying to get back into a better fitness regiment with morning jogs and at-home yoga sessions -- boo. But in happier days when I was indulging my sweet tooth a bit more, I threw together a quickie dessert that was easy to make and traveled well, as I brought this to a friend's house for an after-dinner treat, and it was super-easy to put together and serve. Let there be no Waterloo to sink this Mini Napoleon with Balsamic Strawberries and Whipped Cream. Vive la Dessert!

Strawberry Napoleon, a dessert with a shorty complex - Photo by Wasabi Prime

Springtime strawberries are perfect for this, but you can really use any fruit filling of your choice. I took a few cupfuls of chopped fresh strawberries and macerated them with a sprinkling of sugar and a balsamic vinegar that had been flavored with dried figs and vanilla, but even if you have no fancy-schmancy balsamic, just throw in a dash of vanilla extract for a lil' hint of somethin'-somethin' extra. The fruit, sugar and vinegar mix can hang out for a day before serving, and the balsamic gets nice and sweet, so it acts as a nice glaze to drizzle over the constructed dessert.

The part of this recipe I was pleased at was the use of premade wonton skins. I know I've said before I won't buy them premade, as making the dough from scratch yields a much better texture and ability to overstuff one's dumplings (no naughtiness implied, but feel free to giggle), but I had a package sitting in the freezer looking for its Special Purpose in life. Defrosting the little rounds, I laid them out on a baking sheet, brushed with some butter and sprinkled with a mix of cinnamon and sugar, and into a three hundred and fifty degree oven they went. It only took a few minutes for them to get to a crispy chip goodness, and once cooled, they were placed in an airtight container for storage. I have to say, probably only half of these little cinnamon sugar wafers made it into the dessert, as I was munching on them like crazy, so be forewarned over their addictive snackitude.

Wonton skin redux! - Photos by Wasabi Prime

OMG a Recipe: Ad Hoc Stroganoff is Seriously Good S#%!

I was getting caught up on episodes of Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations, and saw his "Obsessed" special, where he profiled people seriously strung-out on food. I saw the bit on food bloggers and it mostly made me cringe because I thought, gads, are we all just a bunch of gout-stricken, angry, misanthropic mouthbreathers? I looked at my sweatpants and t-shirt that I'd been wearing for the second day in a row and thought, yeah, probably, but I perked up when I saw Thomas Keller do his roast chicken bit. I appreciate his cooking style of  DO EVERYTHING YOURSELF, but I can't always put in the time needed to make some of his more involved dishes, so I don't often cook from his recipes. I did however find a new drug in Sir Thomas' take on Beef Stroganoff, from his Ad Hoc at Home cookbook.

Ad Hoc/Two Day Stroganoff - totally worth the effort! - Photo by Wasabi Prime

One of my good friends joked that "Ad Hoc" means Takes Two Days to Make. I guess that could be said for a lot of Thomas Keller's cookbooks. They're no Rachael Ray, done-in-30-minutes-flat kinds of recipes, but that's just because Keller really wants people to have a comprehensive experience of cooking a meal, creating fully-developed flavors. That tends to mean you'd better have a a day or two to fuss about. I'd heard so many good things about his beef stroganoff recipe in Ad Hoc from other food bloggers, plus I wanted a real tah-daaaah dinner for my Auntie S.'s last night before she had to head home, so I took up the Ad Hoc gauntlet and got cookin'.

So, why two days? You could probably prep the beef stroganoff with just one day of prep, as the cooking of the dish itself doesn't take much time beyond the preparation of a basic weekday meal. I made the pasta dough for the wide, flat tagliatelle noodles from scratch on one day, and then made the braising liquid for the boneless beef shortribs on another day, along with the braising itself and the rolling/cutting of the noodles -- this could have happened in a single day, I was just busy with getting the house ready for my aunt. The braising liquid is basically red wine reduced with aromatic spices and vegetables -- I did a cheat, using items from a bag of vegetable scraps I keep in the freezer, collected for making stock once a month. I have this thing about buying fresh vegetables only to cut them up and boil them down just for flavoring a liquid -- it feels so wasteful! Does it make my corner-cutting act evil and cheater-y? Maybe so, but the braising liquid was rich enough with the wine to flavor the beef shortribs nicely, infusing the meat with richness and the low cooking heat rendered it to a fork-tender softness. Keller recommends letting the cooked meat sit in the braising liquid overnight, as the chill firms the meat up for easier cutting before it gets thrown into the creamy stroganoff sauce. He also suggests saving the braising liquid for cooking other meats, but I ended up using it a week later for a rich beef and vegetable soup -- I wasn't going to let anything go to waste on this one.

As to the subject of handmade noodles, many will rightly think, Jeeze, Wasabi, you can just buy pasta, you know. I had it in my head to buy some fresh-made pasta from Pike Place Market, but I had seen some other bloggers talking about homemade pasta recently, and my own frustrations over failed pasta making in the past made me stubborn to accept the fate of being a Quitter McFailure. Once more unto the breach, I told myself. Crying God for Harry, England and St. George, and the satisfaction of not letting a mixture of egg and flour get the better of me, I made a batch of pasta dough and let fly the dogs of war with a rolling pin. For this, I didn't use Keller's pasta recipe because it's so egg-rich and I didn't want to risk losing so many eggs on a failed dough, so I just went with a basic pasta dough recipe. I don't think this resulted in any punishable food sins because it turned out fine. Per the advice of fellow bloggers like Salty Seattle, who regularly makes her own pasta, the dough was rolled out in small, handful-sized portions, and made extra thin, since the cooking process will fatten the noodles. I don't have a pasta machine, so it was just a rolling pin and my own personal Gun Show to get things going, but it did the job, even at the expense of the noodles looking a bit on the "rustic" side. Once covered with a meaty cream sauce, who cares?

The pasta ribbons ready for boiling, braised meat chilled and sliced, the stroganoff was assembled on my aunt's final night at our house. The sauce was a rich mix of cream, mushrooms and onions, handblender-buzzed into velvety smoothness. It warms up the meat and is tossed with the cooked pasta ribbons. I didn't think handmade pasta would make a difference, but the thicker noodles and chewier texture of scratch-made pasta made for a great toothiness. I'll make complicated recipes and then create my own shortcuts if I want to make it again to save time, but for this one, I would gladly make it again the exact same way, handmade pasta and all, for no other reason than to eat such an earthy, rich and flavorful dish.

Making this meal, I really felt like I was fully involved in all the steps of the process, watching each stage of how flavor and texture gets developed, resulting in that much more of a satisfying experience. It really made the food taste better for me, even if everyone else was like, whoa, how much cream is in this? I can honestly say, I look forward to making this dish again, and threatening arterial blockage to others.

Eating well and making pasta with The Gun Show - Photos by Wasabi Prime

Mixed Plate: The Story of Grandma's Noodle Dish

Almost two years ago, my family had to do the sad but necessary task of cleaning out my grandparents' home when my grandfather passed away. My grandmother had passed away several years ago and he had been taking care of the house on his own. Our family had a lot of memories invested in this house; it's the home where my father and his sister grew up, and I spent a lot of childhood summers there. Time and life's adventures combined to create a situation where stuff accumulated. Lots of stuff. To put it lightly, Grandpa had collected a lot of things, and were the powers of cable TV trending to have happened a few years earlier, I think we could have had a prime candidate for one of those "Hoarders" shows. It was no small task to sort through this life of collected objects. But amid all the junk, there were still treasures worth keeping, like a large, elaborately decorated serving dish my grandmother would use for dinners and potlucks. My parents paid the price of a blackmarket orphan to have this plate shipped safely to my home, and it's sat as a centerpiece on our dining room table since the family home had its final cleaning. It wasn't yet used as a proper plate, that is, until the recent visit of my Aunty S.

Pad Thai with a heaping side of family memories - Photo by Wasabi Prime

Right now our house is a mishmash of family objects. That same hoarding mentality my grandpa had has clearly taken root in my own personal habits, but I hope to not let it get so out of hand that my stuff starts to own me. When Aunty S. visited, I showed her old photos of her and my dad's childhood organized in an album, pieced together by a narrative from her brother's weirdly good memory. I took possession of her childhood jewelry box, a beautifully painted wooden box with little drawers and a rolling two-door shutter, along with their collection of kokeshi, painted Japanese wooden peg-like dolls of varying size, plus the porcelain Japanese dolls rescued from the old glass case in my grandparents' home. Our house has become like a family museum, and I hope to keep the items in as good condition as I can, for no other reason than a sentimental crazy fear of losing memories to time's passing. And yeah, I'm probably a hoarder at heart, so consider my application to TLC and The Discovery Channel pending.

My homemade Thai carb-fest dinner - Photo by Wasabi Prime

Family keepsakes aside, I wanted to make at least one big dinner for my aunt's visit, so I made a three-course Thai meal. We're not Thai, this wasn't anything either of us grew up with, but I like the flavors and I was comfortable shooting from the hip with these dishes, so that's how the meal came to be. I made a spicy/sour coconut and chicken soup, Swimming Rama creamy peanut sauce with chicken and peppers, and a giant amount of Pad Thai. The family serving dish came into the picture, as Aunty S. mentioned she remembered her mother serving up many noodle dishes on this plate, so I thought it would be fitting that the Pad Thai be served up on this platter. Plus I didn't have anything big enough to hold all those noodles, and gosh darn it if it didn't look pretty.

Unfortunately, I didn't have anything as picture-pretty as the noodle dish for the soup and chicken with peanut sauce, but that's fine -- most family potluck dinners are a rogue's gallery of servingware, so consider this just "keepin' it real." It was a lot of food for just three people -- Auntie S., Mr. Wasabi, and myself -- but it was a rich, hearty meal to enjoy with loved ones, plus the added benefit of leftovers for several days and my not having to cook.

Washing the large dish that night, I noticed on the bottom, it still had a bit of old tape with the family name written across it, along with my grandpa's initials painted in what I can only assume to be my grandmother's nail polish -- it was a bright coral hue. No doubt these were put there to help assign ownership when plates were left at someone's house after a big potluck dinner. I often get overly precious about using fancy platters, not wanting to use them in fear of wearing them out or risking breakage, but seeing how much better they look when piled with food made me feel less fussy about letting this platter rediscover its humble, but useful place in the food universe. I saw my grandmother's handwriting and it truly felt like this plate was home.

A family feast with lots of leftovers! - Photos by Wasabi Prime

UnRecipe: Slip Sliding Away Into a Food Trend

What is up with sliders, people? Every freaking restaurant has them. As if having one hamburger isn't enough, now you can get two to three mini ones, albeit adorable, but often with less meat, more bun and a higher price. Blame my Depression Era parental voice talking, but in my best Hank Hill (from Mike Judge's King of the Hill) voice, I gotta say, "that ain't right."  Not to say the concept of sliders is a bad one, but these days I'm eating more things at home, and the recent family visit with Auntie S., it prompted some experiments in Wasabi Kitchen Stadium to put together BBQ pork shoulder with a kimchee slaw, between split ju bao.

The slider phenomena hits our home kitchen with much tasty results - Photo by Wasabi Prime

I thought of this recipe months ago, while visiting my parents in Hawaii. It's the land of kimchee and all things pickled, often served with some savory meats. It doesn't take culinary rocket science to mash those things together into a moment of "duh," and have a kimchee/pulled pork lightbulb blink on over one's head. I had been cooking out of Andrea Nguyen's Asian Dumplings book lately, and her ju bao (baked bun) recipe has been a favorite. A sticky, milky yeast dough, it makes for some attractive buns -- no naughtiness intended, unless you like a giggle or two -- and instead of filling them with pulled pork, I decided to make a batch totally plain and just split them to use for the kimchee pork sliders.

They make for great little buns, but they are oily little buggers. You wouldn't think it to look at the innocent little flaky gems, but I guess that flakiness has to come from somewhere -- pure, delicious oil! Once cooled, I stored them in brown lunch sacks, and the oil from the dough really made quick work of the bags. It made me think of that episode of The Simpsons where Homer is trying to become medically obese to permanently work from home, so the wily talents of Dr. Nick (Hey, everybody!) encourages a diet where any food that renders a piece of paper as clear as glass from the oil is A-OK for Homer's new meal plan. The brown paper sacks filled with these flaky buns that soon became transparent made me long for washing oneself with a rag on a stick. If you've seen the episode, you're probably laughing, but if not, you're most likely recoiling in horror at the thought of such a thing. But don't be scared. These little baked buns couldn't have been more heavenly.

Delicious, rich ju bao - innocent until you place them in a brown paper sack - Photo by Wasabi Prime

Health concerns aside, I moved forward, using the slow cooker on a three pound cut of pork shoulder, letting it cook down until it was shreddable-soft. and mixed it with some fermented bean paste and soy sauce. I took a whole bottle of kimchee, chopped it into smaller pieces and mixed it with a store-bought mix of cole slaw of shredded broccoli, carrots and cauliflower, as they're more hearty, colorful, and our food processor motor decided to crap out on us. It's prepared bags of veggie shreds for the time being, until I get a new kitchen shredder. Each little bun was split and stuffed with the slow cooked and seasoned pork, and a heaping bit of the kimchee slaw.

Once, twice, three times a pork slider dinner. It was nice to take on a restaurant trend in the comfort of one's own home, mostly because it meant there were several platefuls of these things to pick on for a few days. The nice thing about an UnRecipe like this is, you can do whatever you want with them, filling it with whatever your craving, be it mini burgers, Sloppy Joes, or yes, kimchee and slow-roasted pork.

OMG a Recipe - Get Hitched With the Newlywed Kitchen

There will be punch and pie. Wiser words never spoken, and thank you, South Park. Although for Mr. Wasabi's recent birthday, it was a half-truth, as there was pie, but no punch. Seeing as how it was his super-duper favorite pie -- strawberry rhubarb -- the serving of punch with pie seemed a non-issue. In other super-duper news, I was lucky to receive a copy of The Newlywed Kitchen: Delicious Meals for Couples Cooking Together, a new cookbook written by the fabulous talents of Lorna Yee and Ali Basye, beautifully photographed through the skilled lens of Kathryn Barnard. The strawberry rhubarb pie in the "Happily Ever After" dessert section of the book was too perfect not to make for my special sweetheart on his special day.

The Newlywed Kitchen by Lorna Yee and photographed by Ali Basye - Photo by Wasabi Prime

Martha Stewart is gnashing her teeth in envy for not making something as freakin' sweet and personable as The Newlywed Kitchen. But I'm sure she swims in a Scrooge McDuck-like chamber full of money to assuage whatever feelings of "dang, yo, why didn't my minions get on top of this first?!" Maybe she doesn't say that, but I can only imagine what happens in her grosgrain-beribboned Fortress of Solitude. Interestingly enough, I don't own any Martha Stewart cookbooks because for the most part, her recipes are just that, a list of things to make, and with the in-tar-webs, you can get a basic recipe for a roast chicken anywhere. Most cookbooks in general will have easy-to-follow recipes and have beautiful production values in the presentation of the food, but for the most part, there's really no connection of the food with the people who are eating it. I like The Newlywed Kitchen because you see the people who helped compile this collection of recipes, you read their stories, and you have a sense of why Lorna Yee and Ali Basye wrote this book -- it's a sweet love letter for those who have been fortunate to find that special someone, and it's also for anyone who just understands the magical quality of food to encourage togetherness, and how making a meal builds memories.

There's a nice, friendly sense of humor about The Newlywed Kitchen -- it's like that friend you have that just encourages you through something you're not sure about, letting you make mistakes and just reminding you along the way that, "hey, it's just food, it doesn't have to be perfect, and I'm sure it'll be tasty, so it's all good." I have to remind myself how lucky we all are to be living in an area that is so in-tune with preparing meals at home, and how there are many more who are terrified of the kitchen, so having this book be that little bit of encouragement to get cooking is a very good thing. The book includes recipes for all meals (breakfast, lunch/brunch, dinner), a variety of occasions (cooking for in-laws, yikes!), and of course desserts.

Springtime birthday with strawberries and rhubarb - Photos by Wasabi Prime

Even though Mr. Wasabi and I aren't technically marriage-ified, and ten years together does not a newlywed make, I still zoned-in on the strawberry rhubarb pie recipe on page 208 for Brock's birthday. It's his favorite, plus strawberries and rhubarb are in season. Double whammy! I followed the recipe, save for the swap-out of leaf lard with shortening for the crust. I know leaf lard is the bomb-diggity, it makes pie crusts venture into another dimension of flaky texture that defies the known universe, but I just didn't have a chance to track it down prior to making the dough. That being said, the crust still came out beautifully, so have no shame over swap-outs because life happens and that house isn't going to clean itself. I liked the inclusion of sour cream, as it kept the dough moist, and I'm sure some other Alton Brown food science went on, but by golly, it was just flaky, crispy goodness.

I'm not great with pie-making, but trying to improve upon this skill for no other reason than a Mt. Everest-scaling-like reason of, because it's there. I'm keen on finding crust recipes -- my mother uses vinegar for hers, much like some use neutral spirits like vodka to keep the dough moist, and ensuring flaky crust nirvana. That crispness is the tricky thing, especially with fruit pies, as the fruit will of course release quite a bit of moisture and often results in a soggy, baked mess -- that's usually my end game with pies and why I've thrown out many a ruined, doughy mess in tearful frustration. I goofed on making the rhubarb/strawberry filling by overcooking it a bit, making it more moist than chunky, but the crust saved my bacon as it were, by staying flaky and keeping the filling nicely contained. For my pie-n00b-ness, I find that crusts are my saving grace, as they often hide most sins and keep everything looking ship-shape. The Newlywed Kitchen's recipe was great, as it gave a lot of leeway for dessert klutzes like myself, and it resulted in a delicious birthday dessert. Sadly, I don't have a photo of a slice of the pie with vanilla ice cream, because while we still have a few slices left, they never survive long enough on the plate for me to snap a quick photo. Even with crust ingredient swap-outs and overcooking the filling, it's plenty delicious, and like a paparazzi-stalked starlet, unable to be photographed, as it's just that awesome.

Wedding season is upon us, so if you're looking for an appropriate gift for a soon-to-wed couple, or just want a lovely cookbook for yourself and your sweetheart, grab up a copy of The Newlywed Cookbook. You don't have to be like Beyonce and put a ring on it, just to enjoy a home cooked meal with loved ones.

Love is a strawberry and rhubarb pie - Photos by Wasabi Prime

Much Wasabi Thanks to Lorna Yee and the team at Sasquatch Books for a copy of the cookbook; looking forward to cooking my way through it and most likely making another pie that will probably be just as underphotographed due to its om-nom-nom-ness.