UnRecipe: I Can Haz Cheeseburger Meatloaf and Squash Gratin?

Oh, LOLCats, your childish humor and bad spellingz will never cease to entertain me. The only thing more appealing to people than cute animal pictures is violent gore, so this post has already gotten off to a stellar start. In the process of making a very humble but delicious dinner of Cheddar Meatloaf and a Creamy Prosciutto Squash Gratin, the Prime had an epiphany: blades on mandoline slicers are sharp. Damn sharp. And this meal reheats marvelously after waiting a few hours for an open wound to clot. Lesson learned.

Meat, Cheese/Cheese, Meat! - Photo by Wasabi Prime

We'll go with the good news first: meatlof is a simple way to incorporate a lot of leftover goods sitting around the fridge. Because we're getting ready for a vacation, I tend to clean out the refrigerator and cook up whatever perishables are sitting around. A chunk of cheddar from the Au Revoir, Gourmet gougères post was shredded down and incorporated into a basic mix of ground beef and turkey. The cheese adds plenty of fat, along with a raw egg, so I opted for the other-other white meat instead of the usual addition of ground pork. A few splashes of worchestire sauce, salt and pepper kept the seasonings simple, and the loaf of meatiness was formed on some parchment paper on a cookie sheet and put into the oven for baking.

So far so good. A béchamel sauce was whipped up for the squash gratin -- butter, flour, milk, some salt and pepper. No problem. Enter the scary serial killer music that lurks at the base of a movie score's orchestration, slowly starting build as I pull out the new mandoline slicer from the drawer. I envisioned it as the perfect tool to render bright golden table squash from the local farmer's market into wafer-thin slices. The plan was to spread the discs of squash evenly, sprinkle chopped prosciutto in between each layer, topping each level with the white sauce before a final layer of sprinkled cheese.

The house of cards came tumbling down when a slip of the plastic guard with the odd-shaped squash caused my thumb to run across the blade and a flip-top lid was born. Crap. Thumb was pressure bandaged, and the awkward ballet of trying to make food with one's unfavored hand began. Unfortunately, the ballet was interrupted by several intermissions of "There's blood on the floor. Crap, it's my blood," and multiple wound dressings. A lumpy, but gore-free left-handed squash gratin baked in the oven and finished along with the meatloaf. Despite The Incident, the meal was delicious, so that should be a tribute to the comforting power of meatloaf and cheese. The meatloaf had the satisfying familiar flavor of a cheeseburger, sans bun, and the gratin was creamy, savory, and the squash roasted down nicely in the oven. Was it worth the mutilation of an integral member of the Right Hand Family? Don't be ridiculous, of course it is. I've got eight more perfectly good fingers and one more thumb to go through before calling it quits.

Left-handed squash gratin and accomplices in The Incident - Photos by Wasabi Prime

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.

MixedPlate: Garden Party of One

The Puget Sound was blessed with a comfortably warm weekend, which only serves to apply pressure for me to get out into the garden and take care of some periodic upkeep. But it didn't preclude me from taking a break and falling into the arms of a lazy Sunday beer, care of the fine folks at New Belgium Brewing of Fort Collins, Colorado.

The only Skinny Dip you won't regret, and one you can enjoy in front of others. - Photo by Wasabi Prime

We're in that in-between phase of gardening, where some things are starting to peter-out, while others are going for their final fall harvest push. Most of the things we planted were spring/summer morsels like spinach, green onions, and a small empire of sugar and snow peas. The greens have started to go to seed or just die back altogether, so I just went ahead and ripped those out now, much to the chagrin of several spiders living amongst the nexus of foliage. They made sure their grievances were heard loud and clear, from the number of red welts on my arms. That's where the beer comes into play. Medicinal purposes only, kids.

Some of the last hurrah of our vegetable garden are carrots and most notably, several yellow table squash plants. I had thought the seeds were too old, so I planted them all, but they all managed to sprout and I did not thin them back. They're overcrowded, so despite the number of plants, I think our harvest will be pitifully small. As of right now, there's just a few of the bulbous, somewhat naughty-shaped squash growing successfully. An inner-monologue with myself brought up that scene from the movie, Forrest Gump, where Tom Hanks' title character hauls in his first catch while attempting his hand at being a shrimp fisherman. Among the garbage and flotsam, he manages to catch maybe four or five little mudbugs. Another fisherman observes, "A couple more and you can have yourself a cocktail." Judging from the bounty of squash we have growing, I think I might be able to make a salad. For two, if we're lucky.

One is the loneliest number that you'll ever eat - Photo by Wasabi Prime

But all is not lost in Le Jardin du Wasabi. Herbs have always been a hearty, successful thing to grow. The rosemary plant we received as an Easter gift is turning into more of a bush, so we've been able to snip sprigs without fear of over-pruning. The strawberry pot that's been the home of a lemon thyme plant and several tufts of chives continues to thrive after several years of rough winters. The flat-leaf parsley has already gone to seed, but I was able to get plenty of fresh sprigs from spring through summer, and it will die back, but not out, so I anticipate a return next season. The Italian basil has already gone the way of pesto, so it's been clipped down, but lives on in a tasty sauce.

LL Cool Sage. Don't call it a comeback! I been here for years! - Photo by Wasabi Prime

We still have a sage plant that's getting its second wind after the summer's heat -- perfect for fall dishes. There's also a mint plant that's always been a strong contender, plus its pernicious cousin, a lemon balm bush that continues its ongoing threat to engulf the house, since I was stupid not to start it in a planter. I'm particularly pulling for a couple of chili pepper plants in the back corner. I've never had great luck with peppers in general, but I thought, maybe if I get something small, it will grow faster and I'll be able to get something out of it before the growing season is done. We'll see how that logic pans out, as the wee bitty peppers on the plants are looking, well... rather wee. So keep an eye out in future posts to see if any of these home-grown ingredients make it to the dinner table.

The edible garden of delights. Photos by Wasabi Prime