cooking | Craig Cooks Crap

Onion Poo Stew and Green Bits

Posted on July 1, 2016 by Craig Stewart

“Fast” is a relative term. We’re all on a planet rotating at 1,040 miles per hour, which is rotating the sun at 67,000 miles per hour, which is rotating the center of the galaxy at 483,000 miles per hour. In that context, it’s fair to say an old man wearing a hat driving a Buick is “fast.” Or say the men’s bathroom line at an REO Speedwagon concert is “fast.” Or even to call a soup-and-salad combo that takes nearly three hours to complete “fast.”

Einstein’s Theory of Relativity proved that, as you get faster, time slows down. He must have made The Food Lab’s “Fast” French Onion Soup (Page 226), because time comes to a screeching halt while you’re waiting for the damn onions to brown. Even when you fill the time trying to make Green Bean Salad with Red Onion and Hazelnut Vinaigrette (Page 792), you still find yourself staring at the little hand on the clock as life passes you by.

I recently took some Buzzfeed quizzes. They told me I was a Carrie, a Ross, a Davos Seaworth, a Blue Power Ranger and a someone named Christina Yang. The “What type of lunch food are you?” quiz told me I was a sandwich, and definitely not a soup-and-salad combo.

Soup and salad seems too simple and light to count as a complete meal. What is there to it? You take hot water, add some leafy green bits and slap on an $11.95 price tag. You’re done, and now getting rich off of people who are lying about watching their figure.

After this experience, I can tell you it takes a lot to make soup and salad—emotionally, financially and ingredient-wise. The investment starts at the grocery store. Step one: take out a small loan. Since you won’t be buying meat, which is bountiful and full of natural flavor, you’ll be purchasing roughly 75 different necessary ingredients—they add up. Next, loudly sing Steve Perry’s “Oh Sherrie” while you aimlessly wander the aisles looking for cooking sherry. People will help you. Finally, look to the sky and declare to the grocery store gods, “Why are hazelnuts so damn expensive?” and buy almonds instead. Then cry in your car.

I prepared all of the individual ingredients, starting with the salad dressing. I’m not really sure why I started with the salad dressing. In hindsight that seems like a bad plan, considering the French onion soup took well over an hour.

I sliced the red onions, which made me weep Lebron-James-esque tears. After I stopped crying, I was in an emotionally raw place, and chopping nuts just seemed too labor-intensive. So I came up with my own plan. It didn’t work well, and my kitchen was soon covered in almond shrapnel.

Smashing the almonds with the side of the knife blade was a rousing success, but much less satisfying and certainly not Snapchat-worthy. I combined the nuts and all the liquid ingredients with shallots (my favorite onion) and tarragon (my favorite Pokémon). I added some oils whilst whisking and bam, salad dressing. Cooking is magic, and I am the Goblin King.

On to the star of the show, (Not-So) Fast French Onion Soup. I started by slicing onions. To make a good French Onion Soup you need enough onions to ruin a roommate’s Tinder date. I continued slicing onions until the sun exploded, turned into a black hole and sucked me and all of earth into the singularity.

I need a sharper knife or faster hands. I have blisters at the bases of my fingers, and think I feel a case of carpal tunnel coming on. Either way, at the end of Chop-A-Thon 2016 I was left with this mountain of pungent yellow goodness and a pool of tears large enough for baby dolphin to call home.

I melted some sugar and then my little onion babies got an all-expenses-paid vacation to the bottom of the pot. I stirred and waited. Next, I stirred and waited. Then, I stirred and waited. I added some baking powder and salt. Following that, I stirred and waited. Then, I waited and stirred. Finally, I stirred and waited. “Fast” my ass.

Brown gunk (AKA onion poo) built up at the bottom of the pot. To keep the deep and rich onion-poo flavor, I needed to continually stir the discharge back into the onion mix and add water—until the entire thing turned into a brown, stringy, onion-poo stew.

Then chicken stock (which was down last week during the global market crisis but is making a nice rebound) and sherry (which tastes like wine brewed in a bathtub in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean) get added to the pot.

Then you wait. Then you boil the green beans for your salad. Then you die. Then you’re reincarnated as a lobster. Then you cool the green beans. Then you get caught by a longshoreman. Then you dry the green beans. Then you get cooked and eaten by a couple who ordered the Surf n’ Turf combo at a Longhorn Steakhouse. Then you add the red onions and dressing to your green beans. Then you’re reincarnated again. Then the soup and salad are almost ready.

The most important ingredient in French Onion Soup is not the soup. It’s the volcanic eruption of molten lava cheese on top. I have selected a fine gruyère (a pretentious and haughty Swiss cheese) to top my date-ruining onion-poo stew. I didn’t know how much cheese to add so I did the right thing. I poured it all on. A trip to the broiler adds the finishing touch—brown cheese bubbles.

Working my way through The Food Lab is about learning, and this week I learned that soup and salad isn’t easy. In fact, it’s way too hard. The soup is wonderful, and with enough onion-y goodness to keep any coworkers from talking to me tomorrow. The salad is pungent and biting, with even more onions—so I shouldn’t have to deal with people over the weekend either.

Over 2 hours of full-on, in-the-kitchen work is just not worth it. I’m proud, and I’ve developed a newfound respect for soup and salad but when put to the question, my heart hasn’t changed—I’m still an entrée man.

Unfortunately, me and my apartment smell like an onion tornado. So no one’s around for me to tell about it.

Recipe: 4/6
Did I do the Dishes? Yeah…I had some time.

Enjoy? Follow Craig Cooks Crap on Twitter or Facebook to stay up to date on what Craig’s cooking.

Craig Cooks Pork Chops 2: Electric (Stove) Boogaloo

Posted on June 23, 2016 by Craig Stewart

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Unless you’ve failed to appear in court. Then flee the country.

Failure is a powerful force. My personal hero, Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi once said, “The Force is what gives a Jedi his power. It’s an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us; it holds the galaxy together.” I think the force he was talking about is failure.

Another personal hero, Soulja Boy, once declared, “Superman dat ho.” I don’t know what the shit he was talking about.

Failure is everywhere, and looks and feels different to all of us. Some use it as motivation. Some let it destroy them. Others embrace it as a cornerstone of their identity. We call these people Juggalos.

For me, failure looks like pork chops. My first attempt to make Pan-Seared Pork Chops with Maple-Bourbon Glaze was abruptly halted by the shrill laugh of the evil Dr. Smoke Detector, Destroyer of Meat Products and Awakener of Neighborhood Hounds. This week I vowed revenge; served hot and full of pork. Don’t Google that at work.

The Food Lab’s Pan-Seared Pork Chops with Apple Cider Pan Sauce were my chance at redemption. The last time I attempted pork chops several unfortunate incidents occurred:

I set off every smoke detector in my apartment.
I overcooked the chops until they could have bounced off the floor.
I ate a frozen pea. I don’t know why. I was in hysterics.
I cried—but only a little.

In order to prevent a second Death Star-type repeat failure, I did what the Imperials never seemed to—developed a decent strategy. Seriously, building an entire space station as a plan to lure one person into a trap? What a massive waste of resources. Tax dollars went towards that space station and they left a giant undefended hole in the side of it? That’s gross incompetence. It’s indicative of party leadership that doesn’t understand fiscal responsibility on behalf of the taxpayers. No wonder they were facing a rebellion.

My foolproof plan:

Never leave the stovetop when the cast iron is on it. It will smoke. It will catch fire. You will cry. You will die.
The stovetop burner never gets set on “High”—which on my stove should read “Scorch with the fires of Satan.”
As Guns N’ Roses once put, “All we need is just a little patience.” As Axl has a habit of going on stage several hours late for concerts, I assume this lyric is directed at his fans.
All attention is on the pork chop. There is only the pork chop.

The first two are simple hard-and-fast rules, easy enough for me to follow. The third and fourth require that I completely change my core identity.

One of the main ingredients in the sauce is apple cider. It’s July. Cider, pumpkins and corn mazes are a little tough to dig up right now. So, I just got the thickest-looking organic apple juice I could find and discovered that in the juice industry, “organic” is actually shorthand for “somewhat unappealing.”

I chopped up a granny smith apple (the Katherine Heigl of apples), and combined the “somewhat unappealing” apple juice with the apple cider vinegar, brown sugar, cinnamon and cloves. I don’t know what cloves are, but they sound contagious.

Now it’s time for the star of our show.

The pan was prepped and the stove turned on. I opened the window hoping it wouldn’t be necessary, but preparing for a Batman vs. Superman-level disaster in my kitchen. I turned away to check The Food Lab one last time. I smelled smoke.

Son-of-a-bitch. I turned on the wrong burner. Strong start. I then turned on the correct burner, front-right.

The pork chop goes into the pan. This baby is much bigger than last time, hopefully giving me more leeway to make mistakes. All my focus was on the cast iron pan. There was no apartment. There was no kitchen. There was only me, the pan and my pork chop, that I named Wilbur because Charlotte’s Web is full of lies. There are no happy endings and spiders are not friendly, they are scary.

Looking good through flip one, but this is one thick slab o’ pig. I could not lose focus. Every flip is an attempt to prove my smoke detector wrong. I discovered something zen, almost meditative, through cooking focus. Flip. Wait. Flip. Wait. Flip. Wait. Temperature check. Repeat as necessary. Remain patient. Don’t turn up the heat to get done quicker. Flip. Wait. Flip Wait. Remove when it hits 125^ofor medium-rare and looks kinda like this. You have achieved enlightenment.

My confidence was soaring. It looked incredible, but this was no time to make mistakes. Apples and butter go in the pan for a few minutes while Wilbur takes a well deserved rest. The cider mixture went into the pan shortly after and was cooked down to a syrup. Then Wilbur goes on the plate and into my mouth—how Charlotte’s Web should have ended.

This might be the most beautiful thing I’ve ever made–and I drew a colored-pencil portrait of Oakland Raiders Quarterback Rich Gannon when I was 11, so the bar is pretty high.

Flavor-wise the crispness of the apple plays very well with the heartiness of the pork, creating a sweet and salty meat-splosion on the plate. The pork is a deep brown on the outside, but not dried out. I’m way into it.

By sticking to the strategy I was able to defeat dastardly Dr. Smoke Detector. There’s a lot that went right here, and I’ll try to take these learnings forward. The four rules are here to stay. But most importantly, I learned something about failure.

It tastes goddamn great.

Recipe: 56/63
Did I do the Dishes? Yes. Like I said, enlightenment achieved.

Enjoy? Follow on Twitter or Facebook to stay up to date on what Craig’s cooking.

Cooking Salmon in a Cooler.

Posted on June 16, 2016 by Craig Stewart

Coolers. They’re not just for Busch Light anymore.

We’ve seen a lot of this country together, me and my cooler, The Blue Angel. We’ve been to the beach, barbecues, football games, golf courses, amusement parks, shady house parties in questionable parts of town and of course the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

13350367_10206679604417333_2921215854743306274_o

I’m the good-looking one, and The Blue Angel is way down there in the bottom right corner by my side.

Me and The Blue Angel have experienced so many wonderful moments, mostly powered by Busch Light, that I almost feel bad for the person I stole it from back in my foolish college days. Did I steal those memories from them? I’ve considered titling my memoir Stealing Hearts. Stealing Coolers. The Craig Stewart Situation. Maybe I’ll learn to scrapbook, just to make sure I never lose these magnificent memories of me and ol’ Blue.

csTitanic-Jack-Rose-jack-and-rose-22327976-1706-960

This cooler has been hit with a 7-iron (the most effective golf club to use as a weapon), thrown down a mountain and vomited in and around. It has never complained. It can’t talk. It’s a goddamn cooler.

Just when I thought I’d put this baby through every test short of the MCAT, this week’s The Food Lab recipe presented a new and unique challenge—using it to cook. Not just as an apparatus to carry beer and meat to the grill, but as the cooking device in and of itself.

It sounds insane, but according to Kenji Lopez-Alt you can cook fish (and steak, burgers and just about anything else) in a trusty old beer cooler. You just need a little water. Kinda like California.

Allow me to explain. Cooking in a beer cooler is possible because of a method called sous-vide. Despite sounding like a 19^th century disease, sous-vide means “under vacuum” because in cooking everything needs a fancy-ass French name. Essentially, you heat water to the temperature you want the food cooked, place a vacuum-sealed bag with the food in the water and leave it there for a while. It cooks the food evenly and eliminates the possibility to overcook. Most importantly for me, it’s virtually impossible to set on fire.

In commercial kitchens they cook sous-vide with expensive machines to regulate temperature. In Craig and Kenji’s kitchen, we do it down and dirty, with a machine usually used for regulating the temperature of 12-ounce brew donkeys. It’s all about heating the water to the appropriate level and temperature transfer. It’s a miniature hot tub inside the cooler—with none of the standard weird hot tub sex stuff.

It takes a lot to leave me speechless. Ask any of my coworkers/neighbors/people seated next to me at baseball games. But putting raw salmon in a cooler with warm water and pulling out fully cooked Olive Oil Poached Salmon (Page 399) with Grapefruit Vinaigrette (Page 400) was goddamn magic—and not some Criss Angel bullshit. I’m talking like the time David Copperfield made the Statue of Liberty disappear. I’m talking when Tiger Woods made that chip on 16. I’m talking parachute-day-in-elementary-school levels of magic.

All great magic tricks (I can’t believe I actually wrote that. Am I saying magic is cool? I mean, it’s cool in a “You do you.” kind of way I guess. It’s definitely not traditional cool. It’s sorta Bon Jovi in the early 2000’s cool: it seemed cool but was kind of awkward and sad when you really dug in. Now he does Direct TV commercials. It’s hard to be cool when you’re the face of AT&T, one of the most hated companies in America. But I’m talking about magic. And not the aural kind you get from Slippery When Wet-era Bon Jovi, the strange and dark kind you get from men wearing cummerbunds at children’s birthday parties) have an explanation.

In this case the explanation, and most important ingredient, didn’t make it in for picture day. We’re talking good old-fashioned H₂0. To cook the salmon properly, I needed 120^owater. My faucet spits it out at about 118^o so a few seconds on the stovetop and I was all set. Water? Meet the organ-transplant device I once left by a gas station in Paducah, Kentucky.

Salt, pepper, olive oil and salmon all went into the second most important ingredient–the freezer zip bag. I’m proud that as a society we’ve found a better use for freezer zipper bags than carrying marijuana. Everything went into the cooler, and using the pressure from the water to push all the air out of the bag, I sealed it up tight as Vanna White.

Then I closed the lid, threw a towel on top and worked on preparing the Grapefruit Vinaigrette. I sliced the grapefruit, combined the mustard, oil, basil and honey and… boom. Cavemen created fire, Newton created Calculus, my parents created this shining example of humanity and I have created vinaigrette. Bow before me.

15 minutes went by. I paced like Oprah waiting for her daily delivery of human flesh.

Another 15 minutes passed. I approached the cooler the same way I check social media—hoping for the best, expecting the worst.

I opened it and made a noise. A weird one.

Holy shit. I can’t believe this worked.

I feel like MacGyver and Bobby Flay had a threesome with Larry the Cable Guy, then gave birth to this cooking method next to an above ground pool in early September.

Seriously. I cooked salmon inside of a goddamn dirty old cooler and it turned out looking like this.

And it tasted delicious. None of the hints of Busch Light and Coppertone you’d expect from cooler-cooked salmon.

Delicious isn’t a strong enough word. This is the best salmon I’ve ever eaten, anywhere. It practically melted off my fork. It was fresh, flavorful and the vinaigrette played along without overpowering the fish. I made two servings hoping to have leftovers. I ate them both. I considered driving back to the grocery store for more salmon. I considered driving to the grocery store to buy more coolers. I did neither, preferring to stay true to my bluest friend.

Looks like I have another page to add to my scrapbook.

Recipe: 12/12
Did I Do The Dishes? THERE AREN’T ANY! IT’S A DAMN COOLER!

Always brush your chicken before bed.

Posted on April 29, 2016 by Craig Stewart

Selecting what recipe to make each week is a sacred ritual for me. There are certain traditions that must be upheld. The place? The front seat of my car outside the grocery store. The time? The last night of the week I don’t have plans. The process? It begins with a moment of reflection. I look at myself in the rearview mirror and say, “Next week I’ll prepare better. Next week I’ll do all of my shopping ahead of time. Next week I’ll have the guts to wear a cowboy hat to work.” It never happens.

Then I travel inward and seek answers to the great unknown questions. “Am I out of butter? Whatever I’ll just but more anyway because I’m a consumer whore. Are vegetable and canola oil different? I think I have one of those at home right now, it’ll probably work. Where the hell do you even buy fresh basil? I’m more likely to find Bigfoot than fresh basil. What the shit is tarragon?”

Then comes the final step—intensive research. I scour The Food Lab looking for a recipe that I can complete in one night, without pulling my hair out, impressive enough that it doesn’t look like I’m phoning it in.

This week’s lucky front-seat recipe was Barbecue-Glazed Roast Chicken (Page 600). It fit all the important checkboxes of a Craig Cooks Crap special—low upfront cost, already owning most of the ingredients and possible to pull off in under an hour. I’m a growing boy, I can’t be expected to wait around for my food forever. This isn’t a Bob Evans.

First thing’s first—ingredient photo. I’ve got a brand new cutting board, and it is time to show it off. So I whipped out the chicken and it…whipped out its own chicken.

WHAT IS THAT?

My chicken has a penis. Which is odd because chickens are girls. But it definitely has a penis where the neck hole should be. This pink monstrosity can’t be a neck unless my chicken’s father was a giraffe. I’m from the Midwest. I refuse to believe that anything this horrifying isn’t some kind of a sexual organ. But to her credit, the gal’s got some length. Girth leaves a bit to be desired, but really whose doesn’t? I decided that this chicken’s endowment wasn’t something to hide away, but instead it should be honored as the centerpiece of this week’s ingredient photo.

It’s time to make this poor bird a eunuch. I approach the procedure with all due care and respect, and of course make a Snapchat video out of removing the poor bird’s bits.

I’m definitely never ordering chicken sausage again.

Now it’s time for even more surgery, because I spatchcocked this little bastard. What is spatchcocking? It’s not a sex move. It’s splitting open the bird and flattening it to cook evenly. Why is it called spatchcocking? This is because the chicken should be flat. Like a spatula…duh. Anyway in order to effectively divide this bird in half, just like our country over the next six months, I needed to remove its spine Sub-Zero style.

When that didn’t work I used scissors. Less excitement, but also less blood. Kind of like when they remade RoboCop.

After that I blended all of my spices for the rub in a coffee grinder (I don’t currently own a kitchen table, why the hell would I own a spice grinder?) and rubbed the chicken down like Tyson (the boxer not the chicken), before the opening bell. Then the well-massaged chicken was off for his date with the hell-fires of my electric oven.

Thirty minutes in, I needed to brush the beautiful little bird with barbecue sauce. I chose Sugarfire Smoke House Honey Sriracha BBQ Sauce, from a St. Louis barbecue joint that’s putting Kansas City elitists, Memphis traditionalists, and Texas good ol’ boys to shame. Now, I’ve made some bold statements before, but I’m pretty sure this is the only one that will actively put my life in danger. Barbecue is more divisive than politics, religion and olives combined. If they find me dead in my apartment drowned in a vat of Gate’s Barbecue sauce, we’ll all know why.

The alarm went off and I grabbed the bottle, intending to lightly brush the bird with sweet and spicy goodness. Then I realized I don’t own a kitchen brush. I considered my options and identified an undeniably brilliant solution.

If they made barbecue sauce flavored toothpaste, I’d brush my teeth nine times a day. I got to work on the bird with my Oral-B. I think it worked better than a traditional kitchen brush. I could get in to small crevices. I could even get to the hard-to-reach corners of the chicken. Plus, when I was done my Barbecue-Glazed Roast Chicken had 99% less plaque than the leading competitor’s Barbecue-Glazed Roast Chicken.

I put it back in the oven, and went through this process a few times before delivering my beautiful baby from it’s 450^owomb. I’m not a father, but I assume the feeling of overwhelming pride and joy seeing your first child is pretty similar. Probably just as sticky, too.

I understand the naysayers who will say this isn’t a barbecued chicken, and they have a point; it was cooked in an oven. But for a weeknight barbecue fix, you really could not do any better. It’s surprisingly simple and yields a tender, moist and flavorful chicken with crispy skin and sticky sauce.

And 4/5 dentists recommend it.

Recipe: 314/314
Did I do the Dishes? No.

New Kitchen. Same Bitchin’.

Posted on April 22, 2016 by Craig Stewart

You might be wondering what happened to me. Did he cut off his fingers rendering him unable to type? Did he get overwhelmed by success and go on a soul-seeking journey to find the meaning of the universe? Did he simply give up, like he has on everything else in his life?

Still have all my digits (look ‘em up ladies), I already know the “why” of the universe (salami…duh) and despite all evidence to the contrary I have not given up on learning to cook or writing about it. Craig Cooks Crap went on hiatus because I moved into a new apartment, with an exciting new kitchen to destroy each and every week.

You might not think the new kitchen is very relevant to cooking Pan-Seared Pork Chops with Maple-Bourbon Glaze and Hot Buttered Snap Peas with Leeks and Basil, but I have a confession to make. I own almost none of the kitchen equipment, including the stove, I’ve been showing off with. With the exception of my cast-iron pan, which I’ve grown to love more than Donald Trump loves himself, almost everything belonged to my former roommate. He has a Food Science degree, manages a restaurant and owns pretty much every kitchen tool known to man except a damn garlic press. So we’re all going to be taking a step back here. For the first time since this experiment started I’m operating without proper equipment. Considering how poorly I did with proper equipment, this does not bode well.

One minute in to cooking the first dish in my new apartment things started to go downhill. I like to take nice pictures of the ingredients on my cutting board before getting started. It’s my pre-game ritual. Wade Boggs used to eat fried chicken before every baseball game. That’s 162 fried chicken meals a year not counting the playoffs. He also once drank 64 Miller Lites on a cross-country flight. That man deserves his place in the Hall of Fame.

My taking-pictures warm-up routine is significantly less badass, but probably healthier. The problem is my kitchen’s not the only thing less than half the size it used to be.

Yeah. So no nice pictures for the moment.

The first step is to salt and refrigerate the chops for at least 45 minutes as part of a process called brining. Brining is supposed to keep the pork chop juicy, but with what I put these poor little pigs through they turned out drier than Cloris Leachman’s lady bits.

I decided to use the brining time to prep everything else, starting with the leek. I’ve never seen a leek before, much less bought one. They’re huge. When I was carrying it around the grocery store I was worried someone from the EPA was going to fine me for deforestation. Apparently, only the white part of the leek is edible, leaving roughly 95% of it absolutely worthless, similar to cable news. I wonder if leeks taste good, because as you’ll soon see why, I’ve never eaten one.

Making the maple-bourbon glaze involved three of my favorite things; women, whiskey and mustard. Usually you can only get that kind of action at Oktoberfest, but anything can happen in Craig’s new kitchen. I’d like you all to meet a very special woman.

We’re dating. She’ll probably be embarrassed that I’m writing about it, but I think I’m in love. She’s super sweet, a little on the quiet side and sometimes smothering but come on, she parties with Jack Daniels and Bulleit Whiskey. What’s not to love?

The prep work was done and it was time to start cooking with my new lady love, on my brand-new super-old electric-top stove. I’ve heard electric heat is harder to manage, and you need to pay close attention or things burn quickly but I was feeling confident. Like Jordan Spieth on the 12^th hole at The Masters, that confidence was about to be shaken to its very core.

Small problems started to pile up. I don’t own tongs so I used a spoon to flip my pork chops. Not ideal, but not a big deal. The chops weren’t browning, so I pumped up the juice a little bit. Again, no big deal. The water wasn’t boiling quite fast enough for the peas and chops to be done at the same time, and the butter wasn’t melting to cook the leeks in, but there’s an easy solve. Just turn up the heat.

BEEEEEEP. BEEEEEEP. BEEEEEEP.

DO NOT TURN UP THE HEAT. I REPEAT–DO NOT TURN UP THE DAMN HEAT. IF YOU DO TURN UP THE DAMN HEAT THE FOLLOWING THINGS WILL HAPPEN:

You will set off every smoke detector in your apartment, which is a great way to say hello to your new neighbors you haven’t met yet
You will attempt to remove the batteries from the smoke detector, which is 10 feet off the ground without a chair or ladder because you do not own a chair or a ladder
You will run back and forth between the kitchen, living room and bedroom fanning the alarms with a sweatshirt, moving from detector to detector like a game of whack-a-mole from hell
You will forget that the leeks and chops are still on the stove, continuing to create smoke and turning exciting new colors
You will turn off everything on the stove, including the peas which were making steam, not smoke, and not doing anything wrong
You will fall over and injure your pride as you attempt to plug in a fan and open every window in the apartment
You will have the heightened senses of a dachshund on Independence Day.
You will cry a little.
You will attempt to eat a semi-frozen pea and burnt-rubber pork chop
You will go to the bar down the street and order chicken wings

So there it is—my first true failure. There will be no final photo. There will be no uplifting story of unexpected success. Life is not a Disney movie, everything doesn’t always end up the way you want it to. That’s why I thought Toy Story 3 should have ended with them all going down together in the incinerator.

The only thing I’ve ever failed at is pretty much everything, so it’s not an entirely unfamiliar sensation. I like to look at failures as lessons and I have learned a few very important things from this traumatic experience.

Don’t trust Mrs. Butterworth’s. She’ll run when it gets too hot.
Own a chair. They are useful for more than just sitting on.
Don’t take time off from your blog. Karma’s a bitch.

Recipe: Chicken wings were pretty good.
Did I do the Dishes? Yes. I might be developing a sense of pride in my own place.

The cooking gods hate me.

Posted on March 19, 2016 by Craig Stewart

Every now and then I can be a bit lazy. I once went two weeks using paper towels as toilet paper. I’ve worn the same socks four days in a row because I didn’t want to do laundry. I watched a marathon of Chrisley Knows Best because I couldn’t be bothered to change the channel.

This week, the laziness gorilla struck again and forced me to make two poor choices. First, I delayed cooking adventures until Friday night, the night traditionally reserved for Redbull Vodkas, but during March reserved for watching unhealthy amounts of college basketball. Second, since I’d rather be watching basketball than cooking I decided to make a really simple soup, write a really short post about it and get back to the shooty-hoops.

The cooking and basketball gods knew my lazy intentions and they were not pleased.

No one cares about other people’s March Madness brackets. Brackets fall under the same category as children and bowel movements. Everyone’s happy you have them; they just don’t want to hear about it. So I won’t write about any bracket busting or money lost because of those spiteful bouncy orange ball gods. Plus, I’m a University of Missouri basketball fan (19-44 in the past two seasons and zero Final Fours ever) so there’s really no more pain they can put me through anyway.

The cooking gods know how to pack a punch when you don’t pay your proper respects. They were not happy with my lazy attempt to make 30-Minute Pasta e Fagioli (Page 196), a traditional Italian soup where you pretty much throw everything in a pot and let it simmer for a while. Under their angry boot, soup and blood would both be boiling.

It all began with a stark realization. I’ve spent a lot of money on various herbs and spices lately. I’ve had to purchase thyme, bay leaves, parsley, basil and countless other indistinguishable green and yellow dirt flakes. My long-term savings goals have grown to include vacation, buying a house and purchasing spices. As I resigned myself to needing to purchase oregano, I noticed something unexpected.

Do you know what that is? Over there on the left? That’s a spice rack. Sitting next to my goddamn stove. Where I stand and cook every single one of these goddamn recipes. Over the past 3 months I’ve spent more money on spices than David Beckham and almost everything I’ve ever needed has been less than four feet from my face this entire time. I could feel my blood temperature beginning to rise.

Prep work time. Where everything is always perfect and nothing could ever go wrong.

Half of the onion got stuck on my knife. So I applied a little pressure to try to free the blade. Still stuck. More pressure. Still jammed. I pushed a little harder and the knife released. The onion went with it off the cutting board into the air and directly into the trash can across the room like a buzzer beater in one shining March Madness moment.

Appropriate, yet infuriating. Onion basketball was my first curse from the gods. I took out my anger on the poor half of an onion that was left. I don’t think I did it right.

The feelings were stirring inside of me like taco Tuesday on Wednesday morning

Opening cans should not incite rage. I know how to build a number of excellent IKEA furniture solutions; I should be able to open a damn can of tomatoes. I didn’t actually open the tomatoes as much as I used the can opener to transform the can into a mangled lump of razor metal classifiable as a deadly weapon, but not effective at dispensing tomatoes.

The little things on this recipe were adding up fast. After almost losing a hand to my murder can, the ball of anger moved from my chest to my face.

Next, I needed to squeeze the tomatoes to separate them into smaller pieces. The Food Lab warned they might squirt. I didn’t listen. The cooking gods didn’t like that. After the first tomato my favorite shirt looked like a wardrobe piece from a Tarantino film.

So far the cooking gods had demanded in sacrifice half an onion, my favorite shirt and nearly a hand. That’s a high price to pay for soup, which is really just hot water with bits in it. Everything goes in the pot, gets stirred around for a while and then all the liquid goes on top. As it and I both begin to boil over I started to think about what I’d done to anger the cooking gods. I was a faithful servant. Why would they punish me?

The pasta went in and I looked at the final step. Then I knew what I’d done. More importantly, I knew what had to be done to appease their vengeful wrath.

“Stir in the parsley.”

It was time to make amends. I’ve spent a lot of words and time trashing parsley as useless, flavorless and the worst thing to happen since they remade Psycho with Vince Vaughn. If parsley and I could come to an agreement and end this destructive war, I felt we would both be better for it. I stripped the parsley of its stems and I chopped. I chopped like I’d never chopped before. Sparks flew from my knife. Blisters formed on my fingers but I never stopped. I became one with the knife as I just kept chopping. Up and down. Up and down. Then there was nothing. I was alone in time and space. Just me and the parsley in a perfect calm moment.

And so the great Parsley Treaty of 2016 was enacted over a bowl of soup.

The soup tastes good, flavorful and with more substance than your typical water with bits in it. But I don’t think the soup is quite as good as the lesson I’ve learned here. Pay your respects to the gods of your craft and they will reward you. Disregard them, and be prepared to pay the price.

Except the basketball gods—those bastards have screwed me enough.

Recipe: 57/68

Did I do the Dishes: Yes. I am shame.

Man Tops Meal in Overtime.

Posted on March 12, 2016 by Craig Stewart

Author’s note: Post contains picture of a bloody finger but hockey is a brutal sport. What you gonna do?

Guys don’t cook for other guys. The only reason most men even know how to cook anything at all is to impress women. The only reason most men do anything at all is to try to impress women. If I didn’t want to impress women I wouldn’t shower, work out or try to dress well. Hell, I barely even do those things now.

Barbecues don’t count. Those are mostly about drinking Keystone Light and playing games with disturbing names like Cornhole and Hillbilly Golf, and not about the quality of the food. After all, if you’re drinking Keystone Light, you really don’t care if something tastes good or not.

What I’m saying is that 26-year old guys don’t invite their bros over to watch the hockey game, have a few beers and enjoy a nice home cooked meal prepared with love. Until now.

The game? St. Louis Blues versus Chicago Blackhawks. Good versus evil. Jedi versus Sith. Craig versus Parsley.

The meal? Easy Skillet-Braised Chicken with Mushrooms and Bacon (Page 252) and Seared Brussels Sprouts with Bacon (Page 433).

Tonight on Craig Cooks Crap, it’s Man versus Meal in the Wednesday Night Rivalry matchup of the season.

Let’s check out tonight’s starting line up.

Now, down to center ice to drop the puck.

First Period.
The game has gotten off to a painfully slow start behind a man at the grocery store who is committed to making six separate purchases, and paying for each of them via different method. I don’t know much about personal finance, but I know that this guy is an ass. I’m sure there’s a reason for his mad-scientist money approach of using checks, debit cards, vouchers and cash to pick up some apple sauce, but all it did was get me ready to drop the gloves early in the first.

Luckily, the line judge (cashier) can sense my rage and keeps the game under control with a simple apology, saving me from having to spend five minutes in the penalty box for fighting and probably facing an assault charge.

THE GROCERY STORE SCORES FIRST TO TAKE THE EARLY LEAD!

I have to go back to the damn grocery store because I forgot that in order to make Easy Skillet-Braised Chicken with Mushrooms and Bacon and Seared Brussel Sprouts with Bacon you really need to make sure you have…oh I don’t know, maybe goddamn bacon! Combine that with a ten-minute wait to make a left turn off my street and the fact that the real hockey game got underway before I’d even sliced a shallot and I think it’s fair to say that Meal has taken an early lead over Man.

It may be 1-0, but Man is making a mighty comeback in the end of the first. For the first time in two weeks I have completed my entire prep work without sustaining any injuries. The team is going to need to stay healthy for us to have any shot at making the playoffs (cooking Easter Dinner). We’re counting that as a goal for Man, and going into end of the first all tied up at one.

First Period Intermission.
Meal – 1
Goals: Grocery Store Rage (1)
Man – 1
Goals: Not Cutting My Finger Off (1)

The first intermission is highlighted by the arrival of my two alternate captain (bros, bruh) and an Urban Chestnut STLIPA. If I were a betting man, I’d bet real hockey players have a drink during the intermission too. How else could you deal with the fact that you probably look like this?

Second Period.
The pace has picked up.

Pan too small. Two chickens in. One left out in the cold. Three minutes of hockey watching. Flipped first two chickens. Four minutes of hockey watching. Why is there so much smoke? I act like the cloud is a smoke machine during player introductions and I’m taking the ice. Why is sizzling chicken so loud? I mentally reframe the sound of hot popping grease as a screaming crowd. Two chickens out. Third chicken in. Three minutes of hockey watching. The Blackhawks scored and the refs blew a call. Chicken rage-flipped. Four minutes of hockey watching. The Blues took a bad penalty. Chicken out. Bacon in. Bacon burnt.

Put a goal on the board for Meal.

The bacon touched the pan and caught fire like the Internet after Kanye West drops another substandard album, or his wife drops another substandard nude. Maybe it’s time to turn down the offensive heat, and play a little more defense.

I focus on the fundamentals for the second bacon attempt. Fundamentals like don’t burn the damn bacon. Mushrooms, shallots and everything else go in the pan. Like all great hockey players, I keep my stick (spoon) on the ice (pan) and my skates moving (stirring), managing to not catch anything else on fire.

Chicken stock and wine complete the braising concoction. The chickens get a soak like a defenseman in the ice bath after the whistle blows. The whole thing hits the oven for the second intermission.

Second Period Intermission.
Meal – 2
Goals: Grocery Store (1) Bacon Burnt Like Ryan Reaves by Officiating (1)
Man – 1
Goals: Prep Skills (1)

Politics are discussed in the locker room over drinks. Surprising everyone, we don’t solve global warming, the shrinking middle class, the second amendment or police brutality with our heated discussion.

Third Period.
Like the Blues who currently trail 1-0, we need a late-game rally if we we’re going to take this game home. Unlikely heroes show up on great teams when you least expect them. Alternate Captain, and now honorary sous chef, Bryan came off the bench and offered to handle the Brussels sprouts prep while I drank beer and watched the game. He did admirably for a man so incompetent he once tried to order a Shamrock Shake at a Lee’s Famous Fried Chicken. Man scores to tie the game at two goals apiece!

More bacon is cooked and the Brussels sprouts are invited to the bacon party, even though hockey night is totally a sausage fest.

The weird green balls don’t seem like they’re cooking properly in just the bacon grease, so I drown them in vegetable oil and hope for the best. Sometimes when the game is tied this late, you have to get creative.

Somehow, the alien-testicle vegetables turn out really well. I’m counting that as a goal for the good guys. Man takes a 3-2 lead early in the third. The Blues have scored twice to take the lead, and the chicken comes out of the oven. I’m feeling confident—too confident.

As a Blues fan I should know better, about my own cooking abilities and a hockey team with more failures than an Insane Clown Posse concert. Just when you think everything is in good shape, that’s when it all goes to shit and people get hurt. Really, really hurt.

I remove the chicken from a pan that’s been in the oven for 45 minutes and take the Brussels sprouts off the burner. I mix in the heavy cream with the chicken/wine/mushroom juices and disaster strikes for the home team. In order to move the molten-pan to the burner, I grab it and leave the fingerprints from my left hand stuck to the handle as my skin begins to melt like nacho cheese.

Meal scores. In a big, bad and burny way. I scream, curse and go to the bench to ice down my upper body injury.

The game is tied and my skin is turning the color of those ugly Chicago Blackhawks jerseys.

Hockey-player mentality shows up. You play through the pain. Stirring the heavy cream into the sauce, I call over my alternate captain to assess the damage as I start to plate the food.

My hand is so burnt I’m bleeding. I didn’t even know that could happen. Wait a minute. My left hand isn’t bleeding. Where is all the blood coming from? Son of a bitch. The back of my right hand is covered in blood and I have absolutely no idea how or why. Good thing I’m not European Royalty in the 19^th century, because my general clumsiness and vulnerability to injury would have killed me from blood loss a long time ago.

That’s definitely another goal for Meal. 4-3 and the bad guys have the lead late. I’ve blown this game, and the Blues have done the exact same thing with 1:17 left. Everything has gone wrong.

I only have one chance to score and take it to overtime. Grin, bear it and plate this up pretty enough to make Maneet Chauhan weep.

This bitch is tied. We’re going to overtime.

Meal – 4
Goals: Grocery Store (1) Burnt Bacon (1) Hand-fire (1) Red Wedding (1)
Man – 4
Goals: Prep Skills (1) Alternate Captain (1) Alien Testicles (1) Plating Like A Playa (1)

Overtime
I’m sidelined in overtime. Both of my hands are falling off and I can’t focus on anything, even eating. I defer to my alternate captains for a final review.

“I can’t believe I ate the whole thing. The part of the meal I enjoyed most was how injured Craig got while preparing it, that’s what it’s really about.” – Alternate Captain Bryan

“Wait, there’s how much blood in this? If I had to describe the meal in three words they would be: Damn. Good. Chicken.” – Alternate Captain Bill

PUT IT ON THE BOARD! GOOD GUYS WIN. BAD GUYS LOSE. SUCK IT THE FOOD LAB. YOU DON’T COME INTO MY HOUSE AND TRY TO TAKE DOWN A TEAM ON A HOT STREAK.

The average hockey game lasts around two hours and 14 minutes. Making Easy Skillet-Braised Chicken with Mushrooms and Bacon and Seared Brussels Sprouts with Bacon takes even longer when Craig’s team captain.

The Blues even pulled it out in a shootout, so the burning sensation in my left hand and the second gash in two weeks to my right middle finger seem worth it. I feel wonderful. I didn’t expect the praise of my friends to feel this good. I’m in excruciating pain, yet sit here a glorious victor.

This must be what it feels like to win Lord Stanley’s Cup. Unfortunately, I’m a Blues fan, so I’ll probably never know.

Recipe: Can’t Actively Rate Due to Pain

Did I Do the Dishes? No. It’s getting disgusting in here.

Caprese Salad is a whole bloody affair.

Posted on March 8, 2016 by Craig Stewart

Once I got lost in a grocery store. I remember circling the produce section three times, then wandering the aisles searching high and low as my anxiety began to build, my senses to sharpen. A memory hides within me of a guileless return to the produce section, my soul still hopelessly misplaced under the glow of fluorescent tube lighting. I paced back and forth between the two cheese displays, perplexed and exhausted. A third lap to the produce section was accompanied by only the dream that some loving soul would reach out and save me from my inevitable fate.

Unfortunately, no one wants to help a 26-year-old who’s lost in a grocery store.

The grocery store is an impossible maze, that, when combined with my lack of proper grocery list planning, creates a shopping process more complicated and frustrating than the bipartisan presidential nomination process.

I don’t think I’m an incompetent human being. In fact, when it comes to directions I’m pretty damn competent. Blindfold me and take me anywhere within 30 miles of this exact location without a map and I can find my way home. I can tell you which direction is north at any given moment. I can even explain to you the numbering system that dictates the Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways (evens run east-west, odds run north-south, radials have three digits with an even first number, and spurs have three digits with an odd first number—study up and never get lost again.) What I can’t tell you is whether ramen noodles are in the Asian section or soup section.

What was particularly frustrating about that trip to the market was the recipe’s demands for fresh ingredients. The Food Lab insists that in order to make Tomato and Mozzarella Salad (Page 791) with Sharp Balsamic-Soy Vinaigrette (Page 790) that really pops, fresh ingredients are the absolute key. This is a problem when shopping for tomatoes in early March.

I found the tomatoes right away. They’re pretty easy to spot because they look like clown noses; not like eggplants which look like clown penises. I was unable to determine tomato freshness, and since they’re out of season it seemed like a moot point anyway, so I just went with the ones that looked the most like Donald Trump’s face—red and ready to pop.

Next I circled the produce section four times because I couldn’t decide if basil was produce or not. I picked apart the green parsley, romaine, arugula and spinach section looking for basil, because basil is green. When I run the world, grocery stores will be sorted by color, because the current system just isn’t working for me.

I never found any fresh basil, because they don’t carry fresh basil. I’m 0-for-2 on fresh ingredients, the most important factor in this recipe. I ended up finding some shredded basil in a little plastic tub. With how much pre-packaged basil costs per ounce, it reminds me strongly of another shredded green herb that comes wrapped in plastic.

Then it was time for the mozzarella di bufala, which is made from water buffalo milk. I gave up on finding something made from water buffalo milk almost immediately. I opted for mozzarella in a bag. Make it 0-for-3 on freshness.

The grocery store had defeated me. I’d been there 30 minutes and had absolutely nothing that I actually needed to complete the recipe according to the book. So I just decided to escape the labyrinthine nightmare with hopes that I had the rest of the ingredients at home already. I bought a meat stick in the checkout lane to make myself feel better about giving up. It worked. I wish my dad would have given me a meat stick snack when I quit basketball in seventh grade. All I got was a long conversation about commitment.

The tomatoes need to salt and the onions need to soak for awhile, so I start there. The chopping goes surprisingly well with both the onions and tomatoes. The onions get a nice cold bath to think about what they’ve done, and the tomatoes get covered in enough salt to destroy Carthage for a thousand years.

Since I’ve got time now, I dive in on the vinaigrette. I feel pretty confident. All I have to do is mix everything together. There’s no chopping or cooking. What could possibly go wrong?

I’m not mad at you, like my gesture would reflect, but I’m mad at myself. Apparently using a parmesan grater to grate shallots was a bad idea. After I’ve bled enough to star in a civil war film, I get properly bandaged up. With a little luck I managed to keep the blood out of the vinaigrette, which is good because I don’t feel like making Balsamic-Soy-Zika Vinaigrette.

I also added a tablespoon of salt instead of a teaspoon. That shouldn’t be a problem right?

It is time to start the salad, which is simple. Chop up the mozzarella, add olive oil to the vinaigrette and mix everything together. Place on plate and take pretty picture.

I feel like I’ve earned this salad. A hellish journey through the underworld of the grocery store, and a bloody affair with a cheese grater that puts a Quentin Tarantino film to shame have led me to this place. A place with a damn salad on my plate. Woo. I don’t even like salad that much.

But damn, do I like this. It’s a little salty. Ok, it’s salty enough to turn me into a piece of human beef jerky. Yet the combination of all of these flavors somehow works, even with March tomatoes, non-water-buffalo cheese and plastic-wrapped basil. It’s a salty, vinegary salad of not-fresh goodness, and it’s actually very simple to make and worth the effort.

Maybe not worth getting lost and chopping your finger off, but definitely worth the effort.

Recipe: 806/1000

Did I Do the Dishes? No

Beer. Part of this complete breakfast.

Posted on March 2, 2016 by Craig Stewart

Author’s Note: Due to no post last week there will be two posts this week. Unless I chop off my fingers. Then there will not be a second post this week.

It’s time I addressed a major issue. One that is standing in the way of me cooking my way through The Food Lab. No, there are no food allergies or intolerances keeping me from making every single recipe in this book. I once ate a ham sandwich with mayonnaise that had been expired for over two years. I’m pretty sure my iron stomach can survive pretty much anything. This issue is a matter of taste and a matter of much controversy.

I don’t like breakfast.

When I tell people I don’t like breakfast they act like I hit their dog with my car. On purpose. Breakfast is a religion. Actually it’s more than a religion. Most people are more passionate about their breakfast beliefs than they are about their spiritual ones. I’ve never been punched by someone when I’ve told them I’m not Catholic. I was hit when I asked a friend, “Why do people like scrambled eggs?”

Sesame Street taught me that breakfast is, “The Most Important Meal of the Day.” It sounds good. But did you know that Sesame Street’s principal sponsor at the time (at least in my home town) was Ralston Purina, a subsidiary of RalCorp who currently own 42 different breakfast cereal brands? Their brand family includes a cereal called Frosted Flakes with a white polar bear mascot. I think his catch phrase is, “Theyyyyyy’re similar.”

RalCorp is also owned by ConAgra foods, who in turn owns the Egg Beaters brand of processed egg product. Do I need to spell it out? We’ve all been brainwashed into believing that breakfast is important by Big Breakfast and their corporate interests. We’re all just cogs in a capitalist machine powered by whole grains, man.

I will occasionally have breakfast pizza. Which is what I call normal pizza when I eat it for breakfast after it’s been sitting on the counter for 12 hours.

Mostly though, I’m just not hungry in the morning. Plus, I think a club sandwich is a better way to kill a hangover than a pan-fried chicken fetus.

This is the problem. There are 88 pages dedicated to breakfast food in The Food Lab I will eventually have to tackle. Yet, I’m staunchly opposed to most things breakfast food. So I’ve decided to tackle this problem the way any responsible adult would.

Grab a beer and make the best of it.

I’m making Potato Hash with Peppers and Onions (Page 140), which is apparently just everything in the refrigerator thrown in a pan, fried and covered in eggs.

I’ll be using two cast irons for this dish, my trusty old cast-iron pan, Mama Cast, and a 4 Hands Brewing Company Cast Iron Oatmeal Brown. Actually, a few Cast Iron Oatmeal Browns.

Since I was drinking, I took time-stamped notes as I proceeded, in order to avoid missing anything. Here’s how the whole thing progressed for this “15-minute” recipe.

7:05 – I have begun peeling potatoes.

7:15 – I am still peeling potatoes.

7:16 – I create a new game. Drink every time I drop my potato peeler in the trash can.

7:25 – I am done peeling potatoes. I have already exceeded the 15 minutes of allotted time. I have a drink to drown my sorrows.

7:27 – I begin to chop potatoes.

7:33 – Captain’s Log: The Potatoes have been chopped, and are currently being par cooked. This appears to be a fancy word for microwaved. I propose a toast to my newfound knowledge.

7:34 – I begin to chop peppers.

7:35 – I go blind in my right eye from squirting pepper juice. I have a drink because it hurts.

7:37 – The potatoes go in the pan. I have a drink because they look very lonely in there.

7:38 – I begin to chop onions. I start to cry. I have a drink because I’m sad.

7:41 – Everything else goes in the pan. I have a drink because I’m happy that all the vegetables are friends now.

7:43 – I go blind in my right eye again from popping grease. I don’t have a drink because I’m too busy cursing Big Breakfast for my problems.

7:46 – Captain’s Log: The eggs have been added. I have had a drink because I decided “You can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs” is a stupid saying. Why the hell would anyone want an omelet? All they do is make you fart.

7:46 ½ – Everything goes in the oven. I have a drink in celebration because my eyes are now protected by a sheet of glass.

7:4? – I check the eggs. They don’t look done. I drink to pass the time.

7:51 – I check the eggs again. There appears to be some kind of film on top of them. I don’t have a drink because I’m slightly disgusted.

7:53 – I check the eggs. They still don’t look like they’re done. I have a drink because I’m frustrated.

7:55 – I pull the entire thing out of the oven. I have a drink because I overcooked the damn eggs.

7:56 – I take this lovely picture. I drink because it’s so damn beautiful.

8:00 – Almost a full hour after starting I get to eat my hash. I have a drink because a drink with dinner is good for you.

I don’t know if it’s the Cast Irons talking but this is fantastic even with my eggs as overcooked as I am. I propose a toast to the end of toast. With excellent breakfast options like this, why in God’s name would I ever eat toast?

I want to fill a pool with this stuff and throw a Hash Bash. I want to eat so much of it I develop Hash Rash. I want to hide a bunch of it for later in my Hash Stash.

This was way too many Cast Irons.

I drink to my greatness, for I have discovered a way for me to enjoy breakfast food. If I ever want to enjoy it at breakfast time I’ll have to start drinking at 7 a.m., but that seems like a small price to pay for something this damn good.

Recipe: 4.2/5.1

Did I do the Dishes? No

Did You Know? Clams and Shrimp are Totally Different.

Posted on February 19, 2016 by Craig Stewart

Clams are difficult to find in a land-locked state. I’m not sure I’d want to eat clams out of the Mississippi River. I’m not sure I’d want to eat a pig that drank out of the Mississippi River. I’m not sure I’d want to be near the Mississippi River, which is a problem considering it’s about a mile from my front door.

I decided to make Linguine with Fresh Clams this week. I was going to write about how it’s my dad’s favorite Italian dish, which is true, and that I was honoring him by making it, which would not be true.

In reality I chose to make Linguine with Fresh Clams the same reason I do almost everything, last minute panic. I blindly pointed to a recipe in the pasta section of The Food Lab while sitting in my car at the grocery store.

I landed on Linguine with Fresh Clams. I did not make Linguine with Fresh Clams. Apparently, the grocery store doesn’t carry a lot of clams this time of year. Or any time of year. This is not a clam-rich part of the country. We have highway construction, racial tension and the wrong type of crabs, but unfortunately just no clams.

We do have shrimp. Which is odd considering the no clams thing. As far as I know these two shellfish grew up in the same neighborhood. I guess only the shrimp had the guts to get out of the ocean and try to make something out of himself in the big bad Midwest. You go shrimp. You go.

So I made Pasta with Extra-Garlicky Shrimp Scampi (Page 690). It has almost the exact same ingredients as Linguine with Clams, but with a main ingredient that’s actually available. I look at this as a lesson in love. Don’t discriminate. If you can’t find the mollusk you’re looking for, you might be looking for a crustacean and just not know it.

Scampi means “shrimp” in Italian. So when you order shrimp scampi, you’re ordering shrimp shrimp. Don’t you feel like an idiot now. I did after I read that fun fact on the internet.

After the seafood counter saleswoman and I decided that shrimp and clams are pretty much the same thing anyway I had to pick up some other ingredients, including a dry white wine.

The only wine I know anything about comes out of a box. So I wandered up and down the wine aisle reading labels like a soccer mom searching for gluten-free crackers. Sterling. Guenoc. Clos de Bois. These sound like World War II battlefields. I need something relatable. Something that I know won’t let me down. Something friendly and approachable.

My wine’s name is Josh, which really stands out next to a fancy-ass name like Estancia. Josh is a bro. He’s cool, maybe a little standoffish at first, but Josh is definitely a good dude. I’m feeling strongly about Josh. No one named Josh has ever let me down. Except maybe Josh Duggar, he let us all down.

Josh and I went home together (wine will do that to you) and started thawing out shrimp. Weird, yet sensual first date. Next, following traditional first date protocol, I introduced him to my oldest enemy and one true fear, parsley.

Something has changed in me and the parsley. The chopping process has become easier. The Devil’s Herb isn’t making me want to find the nearest parsley farm and start a labor dispute. I finished chopping the parsley and thought to myself, “maybe we’ve both grown up a little.”

Then I dropped the parsley on the floor.

I hate this stupid plant. I hate it more than I hate Charles Schulz’s Peanuts and James Cameron’s Titanic. I hate it more than I hate chocolate and peanut butter. I hate it more than I hate Family Circus and Luke Bryan.

I may need to lighten up. I seem to hate a lot of things that normal people enjoy. Except parsley. Parsley can go straight to hell. Luckily I have extra to chop up. Oh boy.

I do love garlic. Which is good because there is enough garlic in this recipe to ruin next week’s vampire convention. The full recipe calls for 12 cloves of garlic prepared in various ways. The smashing gives me a chance to take out my remaining parsley rage like a UFC fighter would, violently. The slicing gives me a chance to practice not chopping my fingers off. The mincing presents a problem, as I do not own a garlic press.

A garlic press and a lemon squeezer look the same. They are not. After loading up the lemon press full of garlic and squeezing it several times, I’m left with garlic boogers. The smell of eating these garlic boogers would make me as much of a social outcast as eating real ones.

Oil, garlic and salt are added to the shelled grey decapods while the shells themselves are cooked in oil. The Food Lab says this is the secret to achieving full shrimp flavor. Full shrimp flavor sounds like an excellent ska band. Like a ska band this whole ordeal just seems unnecessary.

The oil is strained and everything goes into the pan. Shrimp cooks faster than a man running to the bathroom after a Chipotle burrito. I must be getting better at this because I’m not as stressed about how fast things are happening. Maybe it’s because of my second conversation with Josh.

Pasta is ready. Everything is thrown in the big pot and cooked down. I’ve made close to two pounds of pasta and shrimp. Probably three pounds if you count all the garlic. I’m going to be a very fat, very sleepy, very smelly person this week. Kind of like last week. And the week before that.

Pasta is difficult to plate without he fancy pasta dishes they have on Food Network. I went with a more traditional Italian plating style. I call it, heaping on as much pasta as possible.

For having 12 cloves of garlic prepared in various ways, the pasta itself is a little bland. It’s scampi so I know it’s supposed to be lighter, but I feel like there should be more flavor to the noodles. Especially since there’s still clumps of garlic booger hanging around in there.

The shrimp themselves are spectacular. I feel like a real Italian. My German mother would be proud. There’s only one real complaint that I have about the shrimp.

They’re not clams.

Recipe: 8/11

Did I do the Dishes? No

Did I pick the parsley off the floor? No

	Julius on New Kitchen. Same Bitchin…
	Craig Stewart on New Kitchen. Same Bitchin…
	Craig Stewart on New Kitchen. Same Bitchin…
	Rice N Dine on New Kitchen. Same Bitchin…
	The Real Life on New Kitchen. Same Bitchin…

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: