So, we had the grocery store shopping spree, and the ten blackberries of shame. Our latest trip to the grocery store was the fusion shopping spree. Since I've fallen for the fusion food, the next natural step is "Hell, I could make that."
I ran about my kitchen and considered what flavors I could fuse. Baileys and Watermelon tenderloin with a cream cheese fondant! Steamed pork jowl with shaved mizithra and a deep-fried green onion finial. Chicken Voila in pastry and sun-dried tomatoes. Generally, everything in my freezer and pantry, except the Box O' Turkey.
Then I pulled myself together and started looking up recipes on the Internet, many of which were everything in some other woman's pantry and freezer. I found four recipes:
- Squash, Corn and Beans with Mizithra Cheese
- Proscuitto Potato Salad with Toasted Cashews
- Pan-Roasted Beef Tenderloin With Sweet Ginger-shiitake Brown Butter
- Split Pea Soup with Pork Jowl and Amaranth
I knew I still had the Pork Jowl in the freezer ("Rotted!" Gary screamed. "ROTTED PORK JOWL!") and essentially all the other ingredients were easy enough. Off to the store. Hell, I had the jowl in the freezer, how hard is it to find peas and amaranth seeds?
Hard. Really hard. After a few hours I found the peas. I don't know why they were so hard to track down; I found the sake for the beef tenderloin after half an hour, in the German section of the wine department. That recipe also called for Mirin, or cooking sake, which we found in the Chinese grocery area.
That's why I had such confidence we could find the Amaranth seeds. By the sesame seeds? No. By the quinona and barley? No. In the health food aisle? No, and not in the pharmacy either. We looked in the pharmacy because Gary had pulled out his Blackberry (ten for ten dollars) and read they have lots of essential acids. Amaranth seed! Wikipedia says it's the crop of the future.
Eventually (midnight) we gave up. The cashier asked if we found everything we needed.
"AMARANTH SEEDS!" I was ready with my answer. I might have lunged at her a little.
"What are those?"
"It's a small tan seed the size of a poppy seed," Gary chirped. "Aztecs used it in their virgin sacrifice ceremonies!"
The cashier called the manager over and the very nice manager wrote down "Amaranth seeds" and our phone number, and then she called the police. No, I'm sure she'll be calling in a few days to tell us she ordered some amaranth seeds for us.
At any rate, yesterday I cooked the chicken and roasted the bones and made the stock then chopped the red bell pepper and onion and garlic and sauteed them in the olive oil and then simmered the pre-soaked split peas with the pork jowl for two hours then pushed the soup through a sieve. And I said "screw the amaranth seeds," not for the first time that night, and since it was three a.m., I kept the soup in the fridge and ate it today.
And it was a pretty good pea soup. Still, I think it would have been great with the amaranth.
I think next it'll have to try the Pan Roasted Beef Tenderloin. I got every single ingredient for that at the Schnuck's. Hope it's worth the effort.
This is why I'm such good friends with the people at my local Panera.
Posted by: Becs | July 21, 2009 at 06:45 AM
I think that's why fast food was invented.
Posted by: #0.75 | July 21, 2009 at 06:56 AM
That sounds like a major pain in the ass to end up with pea soup.
Posted by: gaoo | July 21, 2009 at 08:04 AM
i do believe you're turning into a food blogger.
Or maybe you need to be a pastry chef, with concoctions like Baileys and watermelon tenderloin with a cream cheese fondant.
Posted by: magpie | July 21, 2009 at 09:02 AM
You need to check out Julia and Julia.
Posted by: Caroline | July 21, 2009 at 10:18 AM
They sell quinoa at Costco now.
It's good stuff. I can't tell a huge difference from couscous.
Fusion sounds like a pain in the ass. I think I'll stick with southern.
Fusion sounds like something that would use sprouted pumpking seeds. ;)
Posted by: SurprisingWoman | July 21, 2009 at 10:25 AM
Amaranth - sounds New Agey, trippy, Lord of the Ringsish. Probably a good thing you couldn't find it. Or did William Morris put it on his wallpaper?
Posted by: Big Dot | July 21, 2009 at 11:49 PM
Becs - Very wise. I think it's cheaper.
.75 - Or the Raw Food movement.
gaoo - As it turned out, I didn't actually end up with the pea soup. It's no longer here. See today's entry.
Magpie - Right now I have a pre-made pie crust in my freezer. I have all the ingedients!
Caroline - Yes I do. I miss Julia C.
SurprisingWoman - Catherine from sothathappened.typepad.com eats quinona all the time. So, like couscous, it's a butter and salt delivery system?
Big Dot - Might have. I keep thinking I should just go to a seed company and get the flower seeds.
Posted by: TheQueen | July 22, 2009 at 12:24 AM