Okay, I'll admit, I've had plans work out better. It's been a crazy few weeks... but hopefully I'll be able to get back to my planned posting schedule.
Victoria was gone over Memorial Day weekend, leaving me in the position of having to take care of to take care of an utterly sweet and adorable baby with no backup. I have no idea how single parents do it. If, as I suspect, Victoria's actual plan was to prove to me that I need her far more than I suspect - and my suspicion is that I need her a lot - then her plan succeeded. I had no idea just how much I relied on having an hour or two in the morning and the evening, and on not having to wake up at the same time he does.
So, it was a fairly stressful weekend. I did my best to tire him out as much as possible - which meant we spent a lot of time at the playground. My local playground is pretty awesome; it's a great middle ground between the jagged cast-iron deathtraps of our youth and the padded tire-piles of the nineties. (One of my earliest memories... or, I guess, lack of memories... is climbing up onto the big slide at my grandmother's apartment, getting ready to slide down... and then waking up in a hospital.)
You know what else I learned, in addition to "wives are really useful when taking care of children"? Playing is hard. I mean it! I remember playing as being effortless fun. It's still fun... but effortless? I don't think so.
Benjamin can't walk yet - though he's standing - and he's still in a phase where every stick and rock goes straight into his mouth. So despite how much I'd like to let him crawl around the playground and go nuts, I really can't. What actually happens is that I carry him everywhere, and do most of the playing with him on my shoulders, which he loves.
What will often happen is that one of the other little boys will come over and want to play with him. They're always really interested in him - I think they recognize that he's not really a baby any more, but at the same time, he can't do the things that they do, which they don't quite understand. So what often happens is that I will wind up carrying Benji around as we ride the bus, or go on a bear hunt, or simply go on the slide thirty or forty times in a row.
My point is... that crap is tiring. These kids have way, way, way more energy than I do... not to mention that they think nothing of charging full-steam through parts of the playground that are more than big enough for them, but which I have to squeeze into while holding a baby.
One thing that Benji loves is this clear plastic tunnel that connects two sections of the main play-area. Here's the problem - the tunnel is slightly less than a foot above the main surface, which is low enough for him to clamber into... but not nearly low enough for him to crawl out of. He can usually get a good ten or fifteen minutes of fun just doing laps in this thing - babies do not get bored particularly easily - but eventually, he'll wind up at one end, clearly ready to do something which will wind up with him face-planting his way out of the tunnel. At this point, I have two choices - crawl in there to retrieve him, which is non-trivial, because the tunnel was not designed for shoulders as wide as mine. Alternately, I can run all the way around the structure, come up the other side, and meet him there. This means that I'm running the risk of him deciding to go for it before I get there.
This particular weekend, I came up with a third option - one which seemed quite a bit easier. I decided I would simply hop on top of the pipe, run across it, and hop down on the other end. Now, it's been a while since I did anything like that, but my memory - both muscle and regular - told me that it should be trivial to do. So, I planted my hands on the edge, sprang up, and...
And the emergency system which prevents me from doing things which will wind up in me injuring my old, flabby self cut in and told me that there was a ninety-six percent chance that if I followed through with my plan, I would wind up hobbling home with a baby in my arms. At best. At worst, Benjamin would get to ride to the hospital with me. (I guess that would be my inner C-3P0.)
Now, I didn't get where I am in life (unemployed with six figures of educational debt) by not doing things merely because they were really, really stupid. So I tried the jump again. And again, my body flat-out refused to do it.
Well, I have to live in this piece of rotting hamburger, but I'm sure as heck not going to take orders from it. So I overrode all the safeties and leaped up. It was not a graceful leap. It was not an athletic leap. But it was a leap. It moved me, vertically, from the level I was at to a higher level... I counted it as a win, all things considered. I looked down into the pipe, where Benji was looking at me in what I'm going to assume was pride and awe. I made funny faces at him for a minute or two, because I thought he'd enjoy the novelty of me being directly above him, and not at all because I needed any time to recover.
After that, though, it was easy to clamber across the pipe. And jumping down? Easy-peasy. When it comes to moving horizontally, or in a downward direction, I've still got it.
My point being? Playing is hard.
You know what isn't hard, though? Making this delicious dill butter, which I used in several different applications.
EASIER THAN PLAYING DILL BUTTER
1 stick of butter
1 tablespoon prepared horseradish (the kind you get in the supermarket)
1/2 teaspoon mustard powder
2 teaspoons dill weed (or fresh dill)
Salt and pepper, as always, to taste - a small pinch of each will do.
Let the butter warm, and beat it lightly with a fork to loosen it up. Mix everything else in, and put it back into the fridge to re-solidify.
Like the wasabi butter I made last week, (and by "week" I mean "month") the butter seems to do a good job of shielding the heat-sensitive flavors of the dill from heat. It's not perfect, but the dill definitely stands up to heat better in this form than it does normally. Which is great when putting it on corn.
My favorite way to cook corn, bar none, is on the grill. Once corn season starts, I really try to make sure I grill up a few ears every time I have people over. And when it comes to preparation, there's only one choice. Shuck the corn, butter it heavily, dump a little garlic salt on it, follow that up with either lemon or cayenne pepper, and wrap the whole thing tightly in foil. Give it a half hour or so, on direct heat if you like a little charring or indirect heat if you don't. Basically, what you're doing here is broiling the corn in the butter - the butter seeps into every nook and cranny and absolutely infuses the entire ear. Delicious.
Well, I say "only one way", but it's the method I'm wedded to, not the particular combination of spices. So, the dill-horseradish butter seemed absolutely perfect; it had salt, it was both a tiny bit spicy (which goes great with corn) and the rich flavor of the dill really seemed like it would pair well. Which, of course, it did.
Both the dill and horseradish definitely suffered on the grill - they were noticeable, but they had definitely both retreated into the background. Which was fine, as far as I was concerned; corn covered in butter doesn't need a whole lot of jazzing up, and my goal is not to overwhelm the natural flavor, but to compliment it, which this does quite nicely.
I used the butter in a salmon dish, as well. Salmon in pan; onions, some more fresh dill, and lemon juice (or lemon slices, or both) on salmon. Pan in oven, 350 degrees until done. Let the butter soften while the salmon is cooking, and when the salmon comes out immediately spread the butter on top of it. The butter melts and mingles with the flavors of the stuff that's already there. A simple and tremendously tasty dish. (If I weren't married, I would totally make this to impress a girl. Not because it's so tasty - although it is - but because doing something to food after it comes out of the oven to get it ready for plating is impressive. Even if it's something as simple as "butter it", it makes you look like you know what you're doing.)
With the salmon, the dill flavor stands out much more. In part because there's more dill on the salmon, but more to the point, the butter here gets less heat, so less chance for the dill and horseradish flavors to degrade. I think this kind of dish - where the butter can be put on after cooking - is ideal for the dill butter. (Come to think of it, I could grill corn in the husk, and just butter it afterwords. I think I'm going to try that tomorrow night, see how it works out.)
I think working with the more fragile spices I've done recently has given me more of an appreciation for applications like this, or like the yogurt sauce I made a while back. I'm half-thinking that when the year - or two years, or however long it actually takes me to finish fifty-two spices - is over, I'll try "The Year of Living Saucily," and not just because I like the name.
As for the butter, I haven't tried it on popcorn yet, because, frankly, Victoria and I ran out of popcorn. But I'm going to the supermarket tomorrow... and the great wheel of science will continue.
Join me tomorrow (hopefully) when I talk about Sir John Dill, and a really, really odd dream I had.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Monday, June 7, 2010
Scallops with Dill Cream Sauce
So I started writing my post on the dill-crusted tilapia, and then I kind of half-remembered that I had done something very similar a while back. So I went to check through my older posts, to see if I was right, and while I was doing that something shiny appeared and I was all like, huh, a shiny thing, and I wondered what it was and why it was there, and it was pretty and shiny and I tried to get it but it got away.
Shiny.
What was I talking about? Oh right. A shiny thing. In any case, I never figured out whether I duplicated an earlier recipe, just using dill instead of something else. I really need to make up an excel spreadsheet or something. In the meantime, I made something for dinner tonight which obviated the need for me to do background research on my own blog, so I'ma write about that.
Victoria and I had a date to watch Iron Man this evening - I had meant to go see Iron Man 2 with my brother, last week when I was up in New Jersey. My parents threw a first birthday party for Benjamin, and...
How to put this.
My dad's friend Kolya showed up early. This is a man who is two hours late for everything, and he showed up early. Why is this a problem? Well, it's a problem because by the time the majority of the guests showed up, a half hour later, I was already six shots in. And every time anyone wanted to drink a toast to my son, well, guess who had to drink with them?
So by about five - if I'm being generous to myself - I was what one could probably refer to as "passed right the hell out." No Iron Man. But I really liked the first movie, really want to see the second one... but going to see a blockbuster alone (or with a 1-year-old) is really not much fun. (Now, that's not to say that I don't look forward, more than any other part of the parenting experience, to a time when I can sit down with Benjamin and we can watch Batman cartoons together.)
Much to my delight, my wife stepped up to the plate here and said she'd like to go with me. Definitely good times; Victoria and I each have our own nerdy interests, but it's always nice when there's a little bit of crossover there. Sometimes I go to see her Morris dancing; sometimes she plays games or watches comic-book-derived entertainment with me. Obviously, if she's going to see Iron Man 2 with me, we need to see the first movie beforehand, so this is kind of a two-in-one for me.
Now, I don't know very much at all about women. In fact, I can probably sum up everything I know in two bullet points:
1. Women really like having their back scratched right under their bra clasp.
2. If they're doing something that is outside of their comfort zone, and you want them to do it again, make sure the experience is as enjoyable as possible and that they are aware of how much you enjoyed having them do it.
So, for our stay-at-home date to watch Iron Man, I decided I wanted to make scallops, which I know that she really enjoys. I looked up a few recipes, didn't find anything that really blew me away, so I winged it. I'm really starting to feel a lot of confidence with the process - coming up with an idea in my head, reading a few recipes that are close or have elements that I'm trying to reproduce, then putting the pieces together to make my dish.
In this case, I knew that I wanted to have scallops and dill in the dish. I also was laboring under the fairly serious restriction that supermarket day is tomorrow, so the house is fairly empty of veggies. I settled on something fairly simple - I pictured the scallops on top of some pasta, with some sort of butter or cream sauce. This is what I wound up with. It was delicious, and surprisingly quick to make.
Scallops with Dill Cream Sauce
1 Lb. Scallops
1/4 stick butter
1/4 onion, chopped
1/2 cup sherry
Heavy cream
Sea Salt
Pepper
Dill
Throw a nice big pat of butter in a pan and get it nice and warm - not sizzling, but enough to cook the scallops. Throw the little guys in there, and sprinkle them with some sea salt, some pepper, and some dill. (The dill is probably not going to carry significant flavor here, but I liked the way it looked. I used sea salt instead of kosher because it seemed like a good place to add the more complex flavor of the sea salt.) Give them a minute or two, depending on how big they are, then flip them over. They should be browning when you flip them, but don't let them stay on too long - I'm told scallops are really easy to overcook. Repeat, and when they're done, remove them to a plate and cover to keep warm.
Throw in the rest of the butter and saute the onions. When they're starting to turn golden, in goes the sherry. It should sizzle a bit; keep it moving, and while you're at it use it to deglaze anything left of the pan. When about half the sherry has cooked off - shouldn't be more than 5-10 minutes - add in the heavy cream. Unfortunately, I didn't really measure the amount of cream I used; I would guess that I added no more than a quarter cup, probably less. Enough to thicken the sauce and make it a nice light brown color; I see no reason you couldn't add more to make it even creamier, though.
Toss in a bit more pepper and a bit more salt; stir in the cream, warming it but not letting it go above a simmer. (My gut tells me that would get messy quickly.) At the very end, throw in the dill; I probably added about two tablespoons, all told. Give it a few more stirs - enough to mix the dill, no more, you don't want to lose the dill's flavor - and take it off the heat.
I served the scallops on a bed of linguine, and poured the sauce on top of it. Victoria licked the plate clean, and loved the movie as well. Mission accomplished. Really, what more can one ask for in a wife?
Mission accomplished. Loved the dinner, loved Iron Man.
Confidential to guys with beards - man, when you clean out your laptop's keyboard, there sure is a lot of beard in there, isn't there?
Shiny.
What was I talking about? Oh right. A shiny thing. In any case, I never figured out whether I duplicated an earlier recipe, just using dill instead of something else. I really need to make up an excel spreadsheet or something. In the meantime, I made something for dinner tonight which obviated the need for me to do background research on my own blog, so I'ma write about that.
Victoria and I had a date to watch Iron Man this evening - I had meant to go see Iron Man 2 with my brother, last week when I was up in New Jersey. My parents threw a first birthday party for Benjamin, and...
How to put this.
My dad's friend Kolya showed up early. This is a man who is two hours late for everything, and he showed up early. Why is this a problem? Well, it's a problem because by the time the majority of the guests showed up, a half hour later, I was already six shots in. And every time anyone wanted to drink a toast to my son, well, guess who had to drink with them?
So by about five - if I'm being generous to myself - I was what one could probably refer to as "passed right the hell out." No Iron Man. But I really liked the first movie, really want to see the second one... but going to see a blockbuster alone (or with a 1-year-old) is really not much fun. (Now, that's not to say that I don't look forward, more than any other part of the parenting experience, to a time when I can sit down with Benjamin and we can watch Batman cartoons together.)
Much to my delight, my wife stepped up to the plate here and said she'd like to go with me. Definitely good times; Victoria and I each have our own nerdy interests, but it's always nice when there's a little bit of crossover there. Sometimes I go to see her Morris dancing; sometimes she plays games or watches comic-book-derived entertainment with me. Obviously, if she's going to see Iron Man 2 with me, we need to see the first movie beforehand, so this is kind of a two-in-one for me.
Now, I don't know very much at all about women. In fact, I can probably sum up everything I know in two bullet points:
1. Women really like having their back scratched right under their bra clasp.
2. If they're doing something that is outside of their comfort zone, and you want them to do it again, make sure the experience is as enjoyable as possible and that they are aware of how much you enjoyed having them do it.
So, for our stay-at-home date to watch Iron Man, I decided I wanted to make scallops, which I know that she really enjoys. I looked up a few recipes, didn't find anything that really blew me away, so I winged it. I'm really starting to feel a lot of confidence with the process - coming up with an idea in my head, reading a few recipes that are close or have elements that I'm trying to reproduce, then putting the pieces together to make my dish.
In this case, I knew that I wanted to have scallops and dill in the dish. I also was laboring under the fairly serious restriction that supermarket day is tomorrow, so the house is fairly empty of veggies. I settled on something fairly simple - I pictured the scallops on top of some pasta, with some sort of butter or cream sauce. This is what I wound up with. It was delicious, and surprisingly quick to make.
Scallops with Dill Cream Sauce
1 Lb. Scallops
1/4 stick butter
1/4 onion, chopped
1/2 cup sherry
Heavy cream
Sea Salt
Pepper
Dill
Throw a nice big pat of butter in a pan and get it nice and warm - not sizzling, but enough to cook the scallops. Throw the little guys in there, and sprinkle them with some sea salt, some pepper, and some dill. (The dill is probably not going to carry significant flavor here, but I liked the way it looked. I used sea salt instead of kosher because it seemed like a good place to add the more complex flavor of the sea salt.) Give them a minute or two, depending on how big they are, then flip them over. They should be browning when you flip them, but don't let them stay on too long - I'm told scallops are really easy to overcook. Repeat, and when they're done, remove them to a plate and cover to keep warm.
Throw in the rest of the butter and saute the onions. When they're starting to turn golden, in goes the sherry. It should sizzle a bit; keep it moving, and while you're at it use it to deglaze anything left of the pan. When about half the sherry has cooked off - shouldn't be more than 5-10 minutes - add in the heavy cream. Unfortunately, I didn't really measure the amount of cream I used; I would guess that I added no more than a quarter cup, probably less. Enough to thicken the sauce and make it a nice light brown color; I see no reason you couldn't add more to make it even creamier, though.
Toss in a bit more pepper and a bit more salt; stir in the cream, warming it but not letting it go above a simmer. (My gut tells me that would get messy quickly.) At the very end, throw in the dill; I probably added about two tablespoons, all told. Give it a few more stirs - enough to mix the dill, no more, you don't want to lose the dill's flavor - and take it off the heat.
I served the scallops on a bed of linguine, and poured the sauce on top of it. Victoria licked the plate clean, and loved the movie as well. Mission accomplished. Really, what more can one ask for in a wife?
Mission accomplished. Loved the dinner, loved Iron Man.
Confidential to guys with beards - man, when you clean out your laptop's keyboard, there sure is a lot of beard in there, isn't there?
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