Cooking and baking (note to self)

* Nigella's chocolate Guinness cake, raved about by coworker and online as promised. It will serve to use up some of the Greek yoghurt, assuming one can substitute the sour cream (I don't see why not). OTOH the heavy cream is probably inescapable, particularly since I also need to make the--

* --lingonberry parfait from that Ikea recipe flyer. Only it will be a mix of lingonberry, redcurrant and cranberry, because all these things desperately need using up. Especially the cranberries, which I will just freezer jam and figure out later. It's actually fresh redcurrant season but -- cupcakes again, maybe? That would get rid of the store chocolate frosting, too.

* Tiramisu, because I have ladyfingers and good cocoa powder, and the eggs need using up as well. Need mascarpone, have rum (but no marsala), would have to pick up espresso from a coffee shop (instant won't do).

* The reason I'm argh about the heavy cream is because I have 15% cream nearing expiry but it won't work. >_> I meant it for Swedish meatball sauce but that won't happen unless I need to feed other ppl. I will almost certainly end up using it for Alfredo sauce which I love and is worse for my health than crack.

* ...Unless I make squash soup with it! I have tons of squash that I froze in a panic before leaving for NYC. XD; Will it stand up to roasting? Should I defrost it first? Ahaha orz. Will probably do this first so if you guys have tips now is the moment. NOTA BENE NO WORKING BLENDER IN HOUSE THAT I KNOW OF.

* SUSHI. Think an avocado will serve to clean out the remnants, unless the green onions have really gone off.

Need to actually eat the last of that steamed fish dish, too (sororial unit polished off the chocolate cream. Yes, I can quite easily have chocolate hanging around forever until I foist it desperately off on someone else - I like the idea of it better than the reality). The trick is really to get rid of stuff without acquiring more groceries in the interim.

Ratatouille

jantalaimon asked for my recipe at one point, but ratatouille is one of those dishes that forgive lack of systematicness and so I do not have a recipe so much as guidelines, and it turns out different each time. XD;; I make it cos of spending childhood holidays with French-from-France people and thus the taste is nostalgic. This is what it was the last time it worked.

* ~20 Italian tomatoes
* 2 large (or 3 medium-sized eggplants)
* 4-5 zucchini
* 3 bell peppers (I actually used about 8 pointy mild peppers I got at the market. Don't buy these, they're a pain to open up and clean out the seeds in comparison to the amount of edible pepper you get)
* 2 onions
* a really massive amount of garlic
* fresh oregano, thyme, basil, lavender (however much you want, hand shredded)
* mix of dried thyme, basil, marjoram, rock salt (ground up w/ mortar and pestle)
* olive oil (like chocolate: no point to the cheap stuff)
* canola oil
* the biggest pot you have

Wash and dice the vegetables into 1" chunks. The only one I bother to cook separately is the eggplant, because it takes forever and would throw off the timing otherwise, so I do it first in as much canola oil as necessary and the herbes de Provence salt mix crushed and sprinkled over. Drain and set aside once cooked through but not mushy. Heat ~3 tbsp of olive oil this time. Chop onions coarsely, mince garlic, cook in olive oil on medium-high until translucent. Add the zucchini and 3/4 of the tomatoes. Add oregano/thyme/lavender. Cover and cook on medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, until the tomatoes turn mysteriously into tomato sauce, at which point add the peppers, the reserved eggplant, the rest of the tomatoes, and the basil. Stir and continue to cook until it attains the consistency you want. XD;

This is the normal vegan(!) version. For the Chinese-ppl-add-protein-to-everything version, add 300g of ground pork and/or 2-3 chopped Italian sausages at the same time as the onions/garlic and cook well.

Tom kha gai soup, modded

Talking to Kara about making epic tom kha gai from this recipe, with the following modifications (both intentional and unintentional):

* Both garlic and onion in lieu of red shallot.
* No fresh chili XD;; would rather not when the flavour profile is so complex otherwise. Just a dash of chili garlic sauce.
* Didn't de-bone/de-skin the chicken thighs - why bother?
* Whole fresh oyster mushrooms in lieu of chopped.
* Thought I bought frozen galangal but it definitely wasn't. XD;;; I actually have no idea what I did buy, bawling - some kind of ginseng, I think. It had a very delicate flavour and turned the soup an attractive golden orange. Yes, I added the root of an unidentified plant to my soup. And some ginger chunks to compensate.
* Dried kaffir lime leaves in lieu of fresh.
* While getting ingredients at the local Filipino-Vietnamese grocer I saw that they were selling fried crab - fried crab! Drained and plastic-wrapped with a bit of ginger and shallot. So I bought a packet of three and ate them for lunch. Then I boiled all the shells and legs and bits with the bones of a chicken I'd bought for making stock. For like six hours. It was really, really epic stock. Don't do this if you can't live with your house smelling like boiled crab for a while. But any soup based on this stuff would have gone to a different level.

The recipe is very good, beautifully balanced - you're better off adding just the juice and not any of the zest, though, certainly don't drop the lime half in, or it'll get bitter.