Cooking With Stu: Spanish Rice.

I never did get around to posting the rest of the recipes I photographed a few weeks ago. Let me get on that.

Last recipe, I plated up my black bean and pineapple enchiladas with some Spanish rice, but I never did explain how to make that. Some store-bought mix would be okay, but you can do so much better than that.

WHAT YOU NEED

From back to front, top to bottom, left to right: rice (any kind will do, brown rice is healthier for you but I used white because I live dangerously), chimichurri, some kind of butter or butter substitute, pico de gallo, and salsa.

I made the chimichurri and the pico myself, and I've posted the pico recipe already. I'll post the chimichurri recipe when I make some more, but at this very moment I'm full up. You should definitely make the pico yourself; buying it pre-made is a ripoff and you can make your own super-cheap. The chimichurri is also cheaper to make yourself; you get three times as much for the same price, and it tastes better. But if you don't know how, by all means just buy a jar of it.

Cooking With Stu: Black Bean and Pineapple Enchiladas

Today we're going to learn how to make my very favorite enchilada recipe ever.

You may look at the lack of meat and think I've somehow turned into some kind of feckless vegetarian hippie, but I assure you that's hardly the case. This is better than enchiladas with some kind of meat. Cook it yourself and you'll see.

WHAT YOU NEED

Top to bottom, left to right, back to front: sour cream, pico de gallo, crushed pineapple, black beans, butter or some kinda butter substitute, cocoa powder, tomato sauce, oregano, chili powder, garlic powder, around 12 tortillas, and fresh cilantro. Not pictured: some kind of shredded white cheese. Monterey Jack's the easiest appropriate cheese to get, but a Mexican blend is okay too. If you can get straight Monterey Jack, do that.

Cooking With Stu: Pico de Gallo

I'm gonna drop a bunch of Mexican recipes on you guys here over the next week or so. But we'll have to start with the basics before we can do the fancy stuff. Pico de gallo is an all-purpose dressing for Mexican food; it's glorious if done right, and it goes on pretty much all the stuff I'll be making.

It's also the easiest goddamn thing ever, so I'm gonna be dropping some more generalized cooking knowledge on you all in the process, to fill space. So here we go.

WHAT YOU NEED

From back to front, left to right: onions (white onions are preferred, but any will do), lemon juice, lime juice, salt, fresh cilantro (dried cilantro is gross and bad and if you have it, you should feel bad), tomatoes (any kind will work), and jalapeño peppers (not pickled, but fresh and intact).

Cooking With Stu: Capellini Marinara

This is better known to most Americans as simply "spaghetti," even though I prefer capellini (angel hair) to spaghetti noodles for this dish.

Anyway.

WHAT YOU NEED

From back to front, left to right: capellini/angel hair, red wine, olive oil, the cheapest tomato sauce (NOT ketchup, for any Aussies in the audience) you can find, minced garlic, oregano, Italian seasoning, chili garlic Cholula, basil, red pepper flakes, mint and tarragon.

Cholula's usually used in Mexican stuff, but the garlic version adds flavor as well as heat. Mint and tarragon are oddball choices for marinara, too; they're usually used in Greek cooking but they add this sorta fresh flavor to whatever they're put in, and it balances well with the rest of the spices.

Cooking With Stu: Walnut Cheese Pasta

I've decided to start another post series, this one about various recipes I cook. Before I went back to school, I used to be a professional chef. I've been told from several people that I'm rather good at it, and that I should post up some recipes. I've done this for several years on various forums I've gone to as the occasion arose, but now I'm gonna just post them all here... together with pictures I take as I cook them.

So, walnut cheese pasta. It's one of the better pastas I make. I found the recipe in an old Italian cookbook from the 60s or 70s, and tried it out when I was living in Portland. It was pretty awesome, so I'd make it regularly for myself and my roomies. And then one day, when I was working at a college cafeteria, we didn't have the ingredients for the pasta on the menu, so they asked me to whip up something. We had the stuff for this (minus the fontina cheese) so I made it, and then had to make something else after it was cleared out within an hour. And now I'm giving the recipe to you.

WHAT YOU NEED

From left to right, top to bottom: Farfalle pasta (the bowtie-looking things), walnuts (chopped, but not too fine... if you buy them whole, then chop them yourself), black pepper (ground is fine, but whole peppercorns are better if you can crack/grind them yourself), milk, grated Parmesan cheese (or similar cheeses; grated Asiago and/or Romano are fine too), fontina cheese, and an 8 oz. block of cream cheese. They're not pictured, but you'll also want some lemon juice and olive oil. (Get extra-virgin olive oil that's first cold pressed, otherwise you're throwing your money away.) If you can't find fontina cheese in your area, havarti is a good substitute, so is gouda or, worse comes to worse, mozzarella. But do try to find the fontina first: it's got subtle flavor notes that you'll want in this dish.

The morality of gingerbread men.

Am I the only person that feels bad about eating gingerbread men? I can't be.

I mean, yes, they're unfeeling masses of flour, sugar, butter and spices. I get that. But they've been made to look like people. It's the whole logic of the uncanny valley in reverse: to a point, non-human things that resemble humans become more and more adorable the more they resemble humans. It's why puppies and kittens are cute; they act like us, sort of. We can understand their basic impulses because they're our basic impulses. And it's also why gingerbread men are cute: they're supposed to look like tiny little versions of us.

>

However, at a point, this logic flips on its head. When something is kinda like a human but kinda not, we get squicked out. Evolutionary biologists say this is a defense mechanism to prevent us from mating with humans that might have debilitating diseases, or wasting resources on humans that are likely unable to help the survival of the group. This is why zombies are so creepy, and why nobody gives half a thought to mowing them down with a lawnmower; indeed it's even kinda funny to watch.

However, this is also why burn victims face so much stigma; why disabled people are routinely discriminated against, why the mentally disabled are especially so discriminated against.

Foo Fighters' "Everlong"

I never saw the music video to this song before. I think Draya might get a kick out of it if she sees it. Maybe it's because I'm rocking beyond reality at the moment, but I think it fucking rocks. And I KNEW that "chick" looked like a dude.

Also, you'll notice there's ads now. It took me all day to set them up, but they're here and soon to have me rolling in the pennies. The worst one to set up was the one below the comments... I had to go into Blogger and take its sass, tellin' me "You can't be PUTTIN' that ad code here! This is MY house!" So I had to let Blogger know what was up.

Anyway, pumpkin pie's about to be all up in this bidness. I gots to run to the store, peeps.

What I'm listening to tonight.

Arcade Fire's album "The Suburbs," especially this track:



The beginning lyrics are in my bio to the right, and the song regularly gets stuck in my head these days. The whole album is fantastic though.

And what am I doing as I listen? Making food. Chicken breasts purchased on sale are roasting in the oven so I can rip them off the bones and turn them into fajita stock. I've made some leftover mayo into quesadilla dressing (just add lemon juice, black pepper, oregano, chili powder, chipotle Tabasco, garlic powder, and cumin's optional) and I've got meals made for work tomorrow and Tuesday.

And once that's done, I'm gonna do an assignment due tonight at 11:00 PM.