Mixed Plate: Oktoberfeast at Wasabi's and Taking a Vacation

Due to work and a busy schedule, we missed a lot of the big public events celebrating Oktoberfest, including something called the Sausagefest over at Redhook Brewery, which would have been funny to have come up with multiple ways of sounding as juvenile as possible, had we gone. Instead, we celebrated the harvest season in our humble abode, with a Beer and Mushroom Sauce Chicken, served with Maple Bourbon Butternut Squash and Zucchini Fritters. Beer and liquor on the dinner table, together at last.

Oktoberfestivus for the Beer-Drinking Rest of us - Photo by Wasabi Prime

It was also a chance to use recipes from two local cookbooks -- the zucchini fritters from Lorna Yee and Ali Basye's Newlywed Cookbook  and the carrot cake recipe from The Grand Central Baking Book, a favorite Seattle bakery sharing its secrets in a really amazing book. The zucchini fritters were a great way to use the last major harvest from our garden, as our zucchini is on its final push. As a side dish, they were a nice savory cake to enjoy with the main course before we were promptly stuffed silly with slices of rich, cream cheese frosting-topped carrot cake.

The main course was simple enough -- chicken breasts pounded flat and a simple mushroom sauce made with a beer reduction, similar to a marsala wine sauce, just substituting a rich flavored beer like a porter or dark ale. Butternut squash was roasted down with a drizzle of maple syrup and bourbon, and then buzzed with cream into a smooth puree for a pretty presentation.

Meet your maker, Mr. Zucchini - Photo by Wasabi Prime

We weren't alone in our Oktoberfeasting -- Mr. Wasabi had just harvested his home-grown hops, so we had our homebrew friends Mr and Mrs. K  + J over to both talk about and drink beer. We sampled some older beers Brock had made, as well as enjoyed a cocktail or two, mixing our alcohol much like the meal. But it was on a full stomach, so don't worry, liquor + food + beer = never fear.

Pan-fried garden goodness - Photo by Wasabi Prime

As to the second part of the post title -- yes, the Prime is taking some time. Off, that is, so Peace-OUT till the end of the month. It's that great time of year when it's before the holidays so airfare hasn't gotten to the point where I need to sell an organ just to visit my family in Hawaii, so I'm taking off these next couple of weeks to spend time with Wasabi Mom and Dad in Hilo-town. But never fear, I will remain active via Twitter (@WasabiPrime) and plan to intake massive amounts of Island Grindz and whatever Wasabi Mom is feeling like cooking -- it never matters because everything tastes so ono when you're with family. I will also be around for at least one University of Hawaii football game, which my parents always host a gathering for, so send some wishes of good luck for UH on their game at Utah State on Saturday the 23rd. While I didn't go there for school, I still want to show some ohana for the 'Bows. Go Warriors!

Carrot cake - the best way to eat your veggies - Photos by Wasabi Prime

UnRecipe: Doing Minimal Harm With Chicken Parm

Minimal harm to one's waistline, anyways. I had been feeling my tummy's yearning for Italian food and threw something simple together for a quick meal that resulted in some minor respiratory difficulty and tasty Chicken Parmesan and Roasted Zucchini.

Stop coughing, you big baby, it's just red pepper flakes turned into an airborn weapon - Photo by Wasabi Prime

So the "minimal harm" part is a half-truth. I made a pantry marinara sauce with the last can of chopped tomatoes and a couple of cans of tomato paste, along with some dried herbs. Nothing fancy, I just needed red sauce and it seems silly to buy the premade stuff in bottles (more than likely sweetened with corn syrup) when there's canned tomato goods available. Before the tomatoes came into the picture, I added chopped garlic into olive oil warming in a pan, as well as red pepper flakes. Unfortunately, the oil was warmer than it should have been and I was very liberal with the red pepper flakes, creating an airborne pepper spray effect that permeated the kitchen and living room. It sent Mr. Wasabi into a coughing fit and while I was holding back my own desire to hack up a lung as I fanned the fumes into the stove vent, I insisted it was nothing and he just needed to cowboy up. Once again, a strong, healthy longterm relationship built upon the foundation of denial and insults. Dr. Phil, eat your heart out.

Aside from that kitchen incident, the meal was pretty straightforward. I had defrosted some chicken breasts and split them lengthwise to make them thinner. Lightly breading them and browning them in a pan, they chilled out until the anthrax marinara sauce was ready, and then nestled the little chickadees into the saucy pan. I layered the chicken with slices of Provolone cheese and shreds of Parmesan, and placed the whole pan under the broiler until melted and bubbly. I'm pretty sure this isn't the official way to make this dish, but I'm somewhat certain that if you went to Italy and asked for chicken Parmesan, they'd look at you like a crazy person and tell you to go back to America for your bowl of Spaghetti-O's, so I don't feel too bad about not being particularly authentic about this UnRecipe.

Cheesy, melty, roasty deliciousness - Photos by Wasabi Prime

As for the roasted zucchini, this was the voice in my head saying, "These roast beautifully and they'll be a healthy pasta substitute." I'm pretty sure this imaginary voice in my brain is a liar-liar-pants-on-fire. There is nothing as good as pasta. But I also enjoy having a meal and not having my stomach feel distended and in pain, as I seem to be suffering from both discomforts when I have bready things lately, so the zucchini won out. I'm starting to discover the particulars with the way we eat, with the extreme cutback of breads and pasta, seem to lead towards my stomach becoming Ground Zero for much umbrage when I do indulge in something carbo-licious. Does it stop me from having baked goods and other tasty treats? Hell to the no. Just beg my pardon in advance for switching into drawstring sweatpants immediately after a meal and stretching out on the couch as I fall into a deep food coma.

UnRecipe: Secondhand Sandwiches

One word: Leftovers. One more word: Awesome. Some people reserve a tall glass of hatorade for having a twice-eaten meal, or in our case, several times-eaten meal. My father never liked any scrap of food to go to waste, so we got used to making do before making new in the Wasabi household of my youth. From a recent barbecue at a friend's house, we wound up with an excess of sausage and vegetable kebabs, along with miscellaneous things like hamburger buns and slices of cheese. What some would call leftovers, I would call a Roasted Sausage and Vegetable Secondhand Sandwich.

We love our buns n' weiners - Photo by Wasabi Prime

I think if you add "roasted" in front of anything, it just sounds better, but in reality, the kebabs could have been eaten without touching a grill. I had bought pre-cooked herbed chicken and andouille sausage and cut them up to thread between chunks of vegetables for the barbecue. I don't usually like mixing veggies with meat on sticks, since they all have different cooking times, but since the sausages were already cooked, they would just brown up while the veggies got a quick char without getting overdone. I chopped everything down to a smaller bite sizes and piled the goods on a soft roll with a slice of Swiss on top. I hollowed-out the top dome of the roll to jettison the extra bread and leave more room for the precious meaty-cheesy payload. A few minutes under the broiler to get the cheese melted and toast up the bread, and by the Power of Greyskull, this sandwich was complete!

It was a MacGyver Meal of delicious proportions. Simple, maybe boring to some, but delicious. I don't have sandwiches often, so it was an extra treat to have the lovely, crusty bread. I also had a bit of extra chile mayonnaise which tasted quite nice on the sandwich. I had pulsed a couple of adobo chiles with mayonnaise to make a spicy spread for hamburgers and inevitably wound up with more mayo than burger. Just another flavor piece to add to the secondhand sandwich. As a side note, grilled zucchini is marvelous. We had several monster-sized ones from the Redmond Farmer's Market, and they grilled up just beautifully on the kebabs and held up just dandy as leftovers for the sandwiches.

From Farmer's Market to Fabulous - Photos by Wasabi Prime

* Post-Script: Thanks to Serious Eats' Photograzing for posting its photo and making this secondhand sandwich feel like top honors!