Cooking: December 2006 Archives

I was completely correct. With enough butter, cream, and cheese, anything can be made edible (I'm still sticking with hot poo, in that assumption). Case in point, last night the side I served along Nigella's one-pan of sage-onion chicken and sausages (which will serve 27 large, fat lumberjacks, just FYI) was cauliflower which I've never made before and don't ever eat. But Ina's Cauliflower Gratin sounded good so I bought a head and doused it with enough cream, butter, cheese, and pepper to actually make it palatable.

Tonight's fare for one: Pork Chops done in the slow-cooker with onions and dressing. Of course this recipe serves 6 also but as I was informed several weeks ago at someone's dinner party, "well, you can't ever serve pork at a dinner party, it's just not polite.", I'll be eating alone since I don't want to appear impolite and offend anyone with pork.

OK. J.Go and Max both dissuaded me off fennel last year. But the power of Food TV and specifically, Ina Garten, have over the last year persuaded me that I should give it a whirl. I trust the boys implicitly, but I can't argue with an amazing white dish filled with creamy something or other and what the hell, if it was inedible, they they were right as rain and all is ok.

So I got the fennel this weekend, found some Gruyere and whipped out a dish of potato-fennel gratin tonight.

OMG. I know what was in the dish because I shredded the cheese and sliced up the potatoes, onions, and fennel, but seriously, it was like CRACK. I skipped everything else for dinner and just ate the gratin. And when I tell you I was eating it out of the dish, standing over the stove, that is not a lie. It was just that good.

So of course I realize that with enough cream, butter, and cheese, one could make a steaming turd into dinner party fare, but this gratin just flipped me into something else all together.

All my cooking endeavors, certainly those in the past year, have been noble attempts but yet I felt I was missing something essential. I'd watch the shows on TV and then make them dutifully using the recipes as supplied but still, I was left with a, "this could be better?" feeling.

Enter the Rachael Ray 5-quart Oval Saute pan. I know that everyone who cooks needs their own correct pans and skillets for whatever they do and I'm enough of a worrier that I'm particularly high strung if I'm using a pan that might not be the right one. I also know that most people who cook have too much cookware they never use, me included. But I've watched RR enough to know that she can just about do anything in this oval pan and now that I found one, I'm gettin' it.

It isn't right to be this excited about a pan. Not at all.