Onion Jam

Tonight I made Onion Jam. Onion Jam is a great product, but hard to describe. It can be a condiment. It can be a replacement for onions. It can be a flavor enhancer. I plan to use it on top of pork and bread. I plan to use it in soups and tacos. I have lots of plans for it.

To make it, I used Nigella Lawson's recipe for Onion Jam as a basis.

To start, you need time. Lots of time. Additionally, you will need a heavy, shallow pan--it is essential. A v-slicer, like below, is very helpful.
The first order of business is to slice, very thinly, two pounds of onions. I used three large onions and the v-slicer to do it very quickly.

In your shallow, heavy pan, melt on very low heat a Tablespoon of butter mixed with 3 Tablespoons olive oil. Next, pile in your onions and pat them down into the pan.

Keeping the heat on low, add in half a cup of dry Marsala.

Again, pat down the mixture.
Sprinkle the mixture liberally with salt.


The next step is Nigella's. Take a couple pieces of tin foil and create a tight cover immediately on top of the onions.

Then, put the real lid on top of that.

I cooked the mixture for 4 hours. I probably could have only done 2, but I had the time, and what would it hurt? I did check it once an hour and gave it a good stir.

After 4 hours, it looked like this:

Bring up the heat to high and bring to a full boil. Boil off all the liquid and ta-da, you are done.

Of course, it is now 10:00 at night so I wasn't too hungry, but it was tasty. I had a little bit, with a little bit of salt, on a piece of bread.

I froze three small bags of the stuff. Apparently 1/3 cup equals the taste of 1 cup of onion. The rest I threw in the fridge. Tomorrow I'm going to top pork chops with it. Monday I may use it in a soup. I'm pretty excited.

Tomatoey Pasta with White Beans and Tuna

I got this from Lynne Rossetto Kasper's new book, How To Eat Dinner. Basically, it is pasta, Cannellini beans, tomato paste, onions, tuna, garlic, and Parmigiano-Reggiano. Tasty.

Cruise Food = Not Very Good

I spent the last five days on a Royal Caribbean cruise. While the cruise was fun, the service was great and the ship's workings amazing, the food was medicore at best.

Basically there are two places you can eat on the ship: the main dinning room and a buffet service cafe.

So, let's start with the buffet. Think Old Country Buffet. I ate every breakfast I made it to there and three lunches. While the food there was bad, I did have a couple things there. The eggs and bacon were good and I had a decent lamb curry at lunch. Otherwise the food was pretty bad.

So, the main dinning room. This is where we had all the dinners and two lunches. Blah. Meat was overdone. One night duck was on the menu. I asked if it is medium rare. I got a strange look and was told it was well done. Yeah, of course it is. The waiter still talked me into getting it. It was overcooked and dry. Boo to that.

I did have a very nice escargot appetizer. It was made with a garlic herb butter sauce and were done perfectly. I also had a tasty onion soup with gruyere toast. The desserts were also passable, though not amazing like they should have been.

The best meal we had was off the boat, after the cruise. We had a lot of time to kill in Fort Lauderdale. We stopped by some tourist trap fish place. I got the best fish and chips of my life. Well, the chips weren't that great, but the fish was awesome. Of course, I lost a tooth filling during the meal, but I guess it was worth it to have the first good meal in six days.

Presidents' Day Weekend

It was a long weekend of treats and dinners. Did I take lots of pictures? Of course not. Friends were in town, guests had to be fed, and I was absent-minded.

Friday started out with some homemade Mexican. I made a nice meal of tacos, beans and rice. The filling for the tacos was chicken in a green pumpkin seed sauce. It was outstanding, in my opinion, and you can get the recipe here. I tweaked the recipe a bit, but it is close.

Have I mentioned my love of homemade beans? Beans are the easiest things in the world to make from scratch and one of the most satisfying. Bean juice is the greatest tasting substance in the world some days. Everyone should spend time next weekend making beans at home. Pinto beans are a very easy place to start and give you the most bang for your buck.

Saturday dinner was a bit complicated. It had to be a vegan gluten free dinner. Yikes. I ended up with a mushroom ragu (that was way too watery) on polenta. Tisha brought a spinach salad, that was perfect. Dessert was a bizarre concoction of prunes, oranges, and cardamom syrup on ice cream (and soy cream). It was an okay dinner, but not my favorite by any means.

Sunday, my feet hurt from two days of cooking, so dinner was takeout.

Today, was sort-of-meatless Monday. See, CJ gave me these great crocks for my birthday and Valentine's Day.
I also had a lot of chicken stock left over from making chicken Friday night and no room in the freezer for it.

What could I do? I made super nummy, super tasty, super awesome French Onion Soup.

I used the recipe from Cook's Illustrated. It took over four hours to make; 2 1/2 half were inactive. It was very good and well worth it. While very few ingredients are used in the recipe, it would be too much work to paraphrase, so I suggest you get to the library and get the recipe yourself for your collection.

You do have a collection, don't you?