The Cooking Critic

This meal is a little foggy to me because I made and took the picture over a month ago. But I do recall it made me inordinately happy. If I remember the rest correctly (and I often don’t), this meal took place after a particularly long drive from work, and I walked into my place thinking, Oh my God I hate traffic, I need a beer, and what in the world am I going to make for dinner? I made Toasted Ciabatta Pizzas with olives and basil, the after-work salve, as it turns out.

This little makeshift pizza made me feel like I was at some upscale sports bar during happy hour having a beer and a snack, but instead I was at home alone, and that’s cool too, because I made this dinner myself (always very satisfying), and it was easy and tasted good. Ain’t a thing wrong with that.

Have you ever heard of using bread to grate your garlic? This one was new to me, but I loved it. Toast the bread, then rub the garlic against it for a surprisingly effective mincing. And I’m sorry that useful information is so boring to read sometimes.

This is an abrupt ending, but it will have to do since I have apartments to look for (kicked out of mine due to “owner occupancy.” Boo!)

The writers of Easy Summer Food said that Pappa al Pomodoro, a Tuscan soup, “once tasted, [is] never forgotten.” I have to disagree. I’ve forgotten about it over and over again. It was sitting in my fridge for well over a week, and when lunch or dinner rolled around, and I started contemplating my next meal, I forgot I had a completed option waiting for me.

A little info on Pappa al Pomodoro: it’s a thick soup, served hot or cold, composed primarily of tomatoes and mashed-up bread. This may sound strange, but think of the bread as a pasta substitute. Oregano and basil add flavor . . . but not nearly enough. Still, it looks pretty, doesn’t it?

Assessment: Despite my lukewarm reception of this dish, I halfway considered posting the recipe because it’s easy and pleasant-tasting if not outstanding, and perhaps my use of canned tomatoes instead of the “ripe red tomatoes, preferably on the vine” didn’t do it justice. But eating it cold, I was reminded of Panzanella (me and the crazy words today), which is a Tuscan salad of tomatoes and bread. The list of ingredients for Pappa al Pomodoro and Panzanella are very similar, but Panzanella made a much stronger impression on me, so I’ll just save my typing for that recipe. Be on the lookout. And if you want to make a tomato soup, make this tomato-dill one.

The pizza craving is a difficult urge to resist, as I have documented before. On one particular day, visions of pizza danced in my head and then visions of me eating a few slices at Hard Times Pizza soon followed. This didn’t seem like such an unreasonable thought but was a little excessive when my refrigerator was chock-full of goods from a recent grocery store run. So I figured I’d sensibly use what I had on hand while simultaneously fulfilling my pizza craving as best I could. The result? Turkish Pizza Turnover.

Turkish Pizza Turnover is very cleverly named since it really resembles a quesadilla more than a pizza. As much as I like quesadillas, pizza has some sort of primal pull on me—sometimes nothing in the world will do except a big cheesy slice of pizza. Turkish Pizza Turnovers aren’t that cheesy and don’t have an ounce of red sauce. Some might even describe them as healthy. Actually, I don’t know if some would, but I would—my standards for healthy are pretty loose. Still, when the primary ingredient for a dish is a vegetable—in this case spinach—I think I have something resembling a solid argument.

Adjustments: I’m sure the homemade dough described in this recipe is delicious, and it doesn’t look hard. But I was on a quest to use up my lavash, and since the resulting homemade bread in the picture next to the Turkish Pizza Turnover recipe looked identical to the lavash in my refrigerator, there’s was really no question about what to do. So lavash was used and mascarpone cheese omitted since I didn’t have any. In retrospect, I wish I would have thrown in a little mozzarella or Monterey Jack since cheesy pizza was what I was craving, but oh well.

Assessment: This was a nice change from my typical lunch fare. It reminded me of a flat spanakopita. But unlike the other spanakopita taste-alike I made recently–Greek Chicken Strudel, which was so time-consuming that in the end it just wasn’t worth the effort–this dish was an easy thrown-together meal, and so, gets my endorsement. But it’s something more for yourself than a crowd. Stick to the puffy store-bought spanakopita for the latter.

So I decided to try out one of my avocados to make sure their texture will be perfect come Guac Bowl. (They will.) For those of you unfamiliar with this event, some call it the Super Bowl of guacamoles. It’s a whole lot of mashed avocados in one room.

I’ve gotten to know the avocado pretty well since I moved to California and find they’re pretty finicky creatures. They either like to be in tact surrounded by their knobby skin, or they want to be in your stomach. They’ll hang out in guacamole for a while, but even there they’ll turn beige from boredom if left to their own devices for too long. A squeeze of lemon can do only so much. So you can’t leave an avocado hanging. You have to eat the whole thing.

One Half of the Avocado for Lunch
What I like about this Quesadilla recipe is it makes me feel like I’m really making an effort because it’s in a cookbook, but all I’m doing is making a Mexican grilled cheese sandwich with some extra bits stuffed in there. God bless Williams-Sonoma for including this recipe in their fancy entertaining cookbook.

I didn’t bother taking a picture because all quesadillas look the same from the outside. It’s the inside that matters (avocado, cilantro, green onions and cheese).

Adjustments: Cheddar for the Monterey Jack, and I threw chicken into this normally vegetarian dish since I have a roast chicken hanging out in my fridge. And who has time to roast, peel and derib poblano peppers at lunctime? Not I. So no peppers for me.

Assessment: As easy as a meal can get. Tastes good too. Add Mexican rice, refried beans and/or a salad to make more substantial.

The Other Half for Dinner
I had this beef and broccoli meal all planned for tonight, but it just wasn’t feeling like a beef and broccoli kind of night. I needed to use the rest of that avocado, and I wasn’t that hungry after running anyways, and then I remembered the Avocado Salad recipe I discovered over the summer. It was exactly what I wanted and made me happy beyond reason.

Adjustments: I never bother to cut up bacon or prosciutto before cooking, which this and many other recipes suggest—it’s too much of a pain to turn over all the little bits when frying them up. I cook it in slabs, then chop it up afterwards. Also, I think the vinaigrette could use a squeeze of lemon, so it got one.

Assessment: I especially like this dish in summer (from the appropriately named book Easy Summer Cooking); it’s light and refreshing. It tasted good tonight in the midst of the frigid Los Angeles winters we have too. And it’s easy. But I’m sad the battery in my camera died—my creation looked just like the picture in the book.