UnRecipe: A-Team Montage Meal

In 1972, a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn't commit. These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire... The A-Team. (courtesy Wikipedia)

*Cue awesome opening theme music, totally rad all-black van with red stripe along the side, and lots of 1980s controlled pyrotechnic explosions*

I had a refrigerator full of random leftover ingredients from various meals. Something needed to happen, lest mass spoilage take over. And I had not the awesome manpower of Hannibal, Face, B.A. Barracus, nor their uncanny ability to break out "Howling Mad" Murdoch from the psych ward for yet another weekly hour-long episode. I took matters into my own hands. By the Power of MacGyver cooking, inspired by several seasons' worth of A-Team montages where the team inexplicably built a fully loaded armored vehicle out of some bailing wire and an old beater Volvo, I set to work, creating new meals of scraps and spare parts.

I pity the fool who doesn't like this blue cheese and tomato tart - Photo by Wasabi Prime

There was a bit of pie dough remaining from the goat cheese and roasted plum tart. I also still had a handful of fresh Sweet 100 cherry tomatoes from blog buddy, Picket Fence, as well as chunks of leftover blue cheese. It wasn't an armored tank miraculously pieced together to raise hell on some vigilante baddies, but a rustic blue cheese and tomato tart was certainly disarming on an edible level. I flattened the spare bit of dough into a rough circle, put a thin layer of fig jam (yes, I realize I'm addicted) on the bottom, crumbled the cheese over that, and dotted the whole tomatoes over the surface. I folded the edges in, so it created a low wall, and drizzled a bit of olive oil and lemon thyme over the top before popping it into the oven to bake itself to roasted cheesy goodness. Delicious results that would convince even the ill-tempered B.A. to agree to get on a plane.

The broiler hides all manner of odd-shaped vegetable scrap sins - Photo by Wasabi Prime

Waste not, want not, even if that includes melon-baller shaped scraps of vegetable innards that were saved from hollowing out several yellow table squash for the Meatless in Seattle post. I know, it's weird that I kept them, but there was enough to take up a big plastic yogurt container and it felt like a terrible waste to simply toss them. I was hell-bent with the conviction of Col. John "Hannibal" Smith, to use up those odd-shaped scraps. Sauteeing the squash with more refugees from the vegetarian meal like homemade pesto, and tossing with cooked penne pasta, I put the creamy mix into a baking dish, covered with leftover fresh mozzarella and parmesan cheese, and placed it under the blazing coils of the broiler to get browned and crispy. Sure, it wasn't fancy, but this impromptu baked pasta had delicious flavor of summer pesto with the rich creamy texture of melted cheese, and no remainders of the Meatless in Seattle meal went to waste.

Chorizo is just another way of convincing us that pork truly is a magical animal - Photos by Wasabi Prime

A-Team, meet the Protein Team. A cryogenically-preserved bit of chorizo from the Way-Back Machine of stuffed pattypan squash yielded two egg-themed dishes. The leftover savory custard from the goat cheese and plum tart filled a spare ramekin, which was partially filled with the chorizo, and a mighty meaty quiche was created. The remainder of the chorizo was mixed with some defrosted mashed sweet potato. I had a little container of roasted, mashed sweet potato also in the freezer, no lie. I made pan-fried croquettes from this mixture, browning the outsides and then serving them up with a fried egg over the top. Not quite sure what kind of dish that would be, other than simply saying it was tasty and filled with comfort food delight.

At the end of several weeks' worth of meal leftovers and wayward ingredients, everything found a way to be incorporated into a new meal. As Hannibal would say during each A-Team episode, I love it when a plan comes together. Amen, to that. *Freeze frame, then let credits roll *

UnRecipe: Meatless in Seattle

I often wax poetic over the versatility of pork, The Magical Animal, or marvel at The Power of Beef, usually with the haunting voiceover of Matthew McConaughey in my head. But I have several vegetarian friends, and I always feel bad that when "vegetarian options" are made available at gatherings or restaurants, it's often some limp pasta salad or an expressionless pile of steamed vegetables. It's like when Francis "Baby" Houseman gets put in a corner, and while I would never compare myself to the almighty power of The Swazye (peace-out, Patrick!), I felt the need to take those lackluster dishes from the corner and at least attempt a triumphant movie-finale lift. My attempt at an UnRecipe/MacGyver-style cooking vegetarian meal worthy of a Swazye roundhouse kick, consisted of a Roasted Corn Soup, Stuffed Table Squash, and a Caprese-inspired Pesto Portobello Mushroom Cap, with a Mango Sorbet topped with Spiced Pecans and Toasted Coconut.

Nobody puts vegetarians in a corner - Photo by Wasbi Prime

Squash is a nice, no-fuss ingredient to use since it's quite hearty and its structure remains relatively sound for most cooking methods. The little yellow table squash were looking colorful and cute at the market, so I picked up a few of those. They were easily hollowed-out using a mellon baller. Hit with a drizzle of olive oil and some salt/pepper, and away they went into the oven to get a head start on roasting. For the stuffing, I pulled some small carrots and green onions from the garden (so freakin' cool to be able to do that!), chopped up a few cremini mushrooms, a small yellow onion, and sauteed this mix down to reduce the liquid. I mixed a bit of Parmesan cheese into the cooked filling and stuffed the partially roasted squash halves, letting the oven do the rest of the work. The result was a simple, mild-flavored side dish that could be paired with anything or just eaten on its own, and the filling materials could be adjusted in any way, since the squash flavor is so light and ingredient-friendly. It's the perfect neutral party for a MacGyver meal that requires minimal preparation.

The roasted corn soup was more of a rolling experiment. This was how the Swiss-precision, steel trap mostly likely run with rubber bands, known as The Wasabi Brain, went through the food thought process: 1) Flip through the September Martha Stewart Living magazine. 2) Ooh! John Derian's having a dinner party, and he's serving beautiful corn soup! 3) I need to make corn soup. 4) Ignore all recipes and directions, purchasing random ingredients from grocery store. 5) Throw random ingredients together, in a Voltron-like manner, to form-of a pot of corn soup. Ta-daaaah.

In between all that quality thinking, I roasted several cups of corn until they got slightly browned and super-sweet, and added it to a pot that already had some onions, garlic, and a little bit of carrots, sweatin' to the oldies. I added probably a quart's worth of vegetable broth and used the fabulous hand blender to combine everything from rustic chunk to rustic charm. A cup of cream made the whole thing creamy-dreamy and that's what the end-result of the corn soup experiment was. I added the fresh tomato flourish that John Derian had, and that made for an easier photo, since soups always look boring as hell in pictures.

Tomato, tomahto, let's just call it dinner - Photos by Wasabi Prime

Portabello mushrooms are another versatile ingredient to work with. I know it's touted as a meat substitute, and while it's got the moxy to stand up to being grilled, if I get a portabello burger, I'm not having it because I want faux beef, I'm eating it because I dig fungus and I appreciate its own nuanced flavor.

Pesto from Jardin de Wasabi - Photos by Wasabi Prime

Jardin de Wasabi was thankfully able to yield a good amount of basil this season, so with a few snips, the plants were shorn of their precious leaves and a batch of pesto was made, using almonds instead of pine nuts because we're crazy like that. This was the genesis of the Caprese-inspired mushroom caps. I love tomatoes and cheese, but what makes them even more wonderful is when the mozzarella gets gooey and toasted from the oven. The fresh basil wouldn't have stood up to the scorch of the broiler and I really wanted the herb flavor baked into the ingredients, so I put a healthy smear of pesto over each mushroom before they got pre-roasted in the oven. Once cooked down, each cap was piled with thinly sliced tomatoes and a wedge of fresh mozzarella, and under the hot coil they went on the road to Melty Delicious-ville, final destination: My Belly. It was a good trip.

I don't always include desserts in meals, but I had been inspired by blogger Carli, of Velveeta Ain't Food fame, who had a great avocado ice cream recipe. I loved the idea of a creamy recipe that used a unique ingredient combined with savory elements like spiced nuts and sweet roasted coconut as toppers. However, our ice cream machine has a broken paddle, causing a serious harshing of my ice cream mellow, so I couldn't make avocado dessert magic. I still wanted to combine the spiced, savory nuts and sweet coconut with some kind of dessert, so I opted for a store-bought mango sorbet.

Sweet, spicy, salty -- keep dessert interesting! - Photo by Wasabi Prime

The dessert result was still delicious. I think even a vanilla ice cream would have worked fine with the spiced pecans and coconut. While I was roasting the corn for the soup, I double-booked the oven, using a second rack for the cookie sheet with the seasoned pecans and some shredded coconut. I still have a fair bit of leftover coco-pecan-nut sprinklage, so I may get a little pint of creamy vanilla and make my Friday just that much more enjoyable.

UnRecipe: Labor-Free Labor Day Dinner

The Labor Day weekend marks off the waning days of summer. It's also the weekend I'll be at Penny Arcade Expo, in support of Brock and his workplace, so taking the "Labor" out of Labor Day, I'm posting something that happened a couple of weeks ago when the weather was nicer than what it is now.

I'm starting to see hints of gold and red appear on trees, the backyard garden is showing off what will be its final blooms, and it's getting to where we'll have to cut down the last of the our basil before the weather gets too cold for its tender leaves. We'll make at least one batch of pesto, but there's something really nice about enjoying fresh-picked herbs in food. Enjoying all that is best about summer, we had a dinner outside with all our favorite things, including Insalata Caprese with an antipasto platter of cheese, meat and our regular meal companion, fig jam!

Summer in the raw with a Caprese salad - Photo by Wasabi Prime

We didn't grow tomatoes this year, so it was a treat to pick up some heirlooms for dinner. I love their lumpy-bumpy, wabi-sabi shape. A lot of the ones being sold now are showing signs of being late in the harvest -- a lot of splitting --but we were fortunate to find two whose surfaces were intact and firm. A handful of freshly cut basil leaves were shredded up and sprinkled between the slices of tomato and mozzarella cheese. Drizzled with a little balsamic vinegar and olive oil, and the main course was ready to eat.

Bright colors are tasty - Photo by Wasabi Prime

I know I've featured fig jam and cheese quite a bit over summer. It's my new love affair, both at home and in the office. I just can't quit you, Fig Jam. Paired with a couple of different cheeses (spicy jalapeno havarti and a pungent, creamy blue), its deeply-flavored, sticky sweetness made them almost like a dessert that still tasted good with large chunks of fatty dry-aged meat, which is a pretty nice thing. We poured ourselves a glass of wine and threw some wood into our little outdoor fire pit to further set the mood. Sure, we could have gone out to dinner, but sitting in the backyard, enjoying a quiet summer evening felt like a pretty good argument for spending the night at home.

Private dining at Chez Wasabi - Photos by Wasabi Prime

Indulging in what will most likely be the last few weeks of our precious summer, I wanted to linger on this post a little while longer, to share more photos featuring the colors of the season. When the winter chill returns and the yard becomes less hospitable for lazy weekend dinners, these pictures will make me happy, looking forward for sweet harvests and blossoms to come.

Le jardin du Wasabi and meals good to the last bite - Photos by Wasabi Prime

*Post Script - Grazie mille to FoodGawker and Serious Eats' Photograzing for picking the luscious sliced heirloom toh-mah-toh photo from this post.