Boots in the Oven

IMBB XXV: Panade - the Phoenix of Stale Bread

The beauty of this dish is that it’s so simple. It revels in its proletarian roots and it’s this very lack of pretension that makes it so delicious and appealing. Unlike my prose.

This is truly a left over dish. When all you have is old bread and salt water, a couple of onions and a hunk of rapidly hardening cheese, the provincial panade is the savory butterfly that emerges from the austerest of cocoons.

Rumored to be the precursor of the classic French onion soup, the panade is like a caramelized onion bread pudding. Soft and satisfying, this dish is excellent comfort food for kicking around the house and recharging the mettle.

It’s so easy to put together, in fact, that I think I’ll take a paint-by-numbers approach and relate the recipe through a jaunty pictorial with minimal interjections.

Ok. Get some onions (reference top photo if you’re confused).

Slice them.

Caramelize them (a bay leaf and a little garlic couldn’t hurt).

Get some cheese; this is Gruyere, but you can freestyle it.

Grate it.

Layer old sliced bread with onions and cheese. Repeat until you reach the top.

Pour in salt water that tastes like a well seasoned soup; it should come about ¾ of the way up.

Bake at 375˚F for about an hour. It helps to keep it covered in foil for the first half.

Eat.

We had ours with roasted baby carrots in a dill-butter sauce and a nice green salad with spinach, red peppers, avocado, and walnuts.

You should have yours, well, soon.

And of course we’d like to extend a very special thanks to Derrick of obsessionwithfood.com for hosting this 25th stellar IMBB. Your hard work is most appreciated sir.

Cook it up peoples.

-L. Pants

Tagged with: IMBB # 25 + Bread

Shanghai

It's been kind of a sad couple of days for me... my childhood dog died last week.  Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of her on the computer that I can upload, since I haven't seen her since the age of the blog began around here, so you'll just have to imagine a cream-colored sharpei/lab mix with a big tail that curled up and around and the purple tongue of the sharpei.  And a smile that could melt your heart.

We got her at the Humane Society, where she had been a staff favorite.  My mom took my brother to pick her out - he had his heart set on a little terrier, but when he saw Shanghai (called Lady at the time) he immediately knew she was the one.

Almost every time I walked her, people stopped me to compliment Shang.  She was a beautiful dog, with a lovely temperament - though she was a bit of a scaredy-cat, afraid of loud noises and people with deep voices.  Whenever the vicissitudes of teenager-hood left me upset, she'd always lay down next to me and smile, as if to say - "it's all going to be just fine."

She lived almost 14 years, most of them healthy.  A good run, especially for a large dog.  Still, saying goodbye is never easy.

girlie

My father sent a picture to me, from a few days before Shang passed.

A Little Older, A Little Finer...

A very Happy Birthday to the indomitable Mme. Pants!  With the grace of a hundred swans and the sublimity of a fine Bordeaux, this sly vixen once again surpasses her peers as she rides through life like a jockey at the top of her game.

"With what will she be rewarded for displaying such majesty," you ask?

"What baubles and finery will I ply her with to hold her fleeting attentions?"

Alas dear friends, for this persona nonpareil, this flower of the flock, mere worldly goods hold little charm. 

In a moment of serendipity, I was however, able to convince her to accompany me later this year on an outing to Heston Blumenthal's little place, the Fat Duck.  I eagerly await the day.

So here's to many more years of your good fortune Mme. and to many more of my good luck.

With Love - L. Pants

Hellenofoodtography

In recent days, the weather around these parts has turned hot. Unexpectedly, unseasonably, thighs-sticking-to-vinyl hot. On the upside, I always did hate the seasons, preferring instead to reside year ‘round in a sweltering porridge. So thank you Texas for letting me live that dream. Screw you, temperate, breezy, Spring.

There are a couple of things, however, that have been raising my humor. One is Mediterranean food. Specifically, Greek eats. It’s perfect for hot weather.

I love to cook it. It’s different, it’s simple, and most importantly it has lots of highly dippable components. There’s just something that appeals to me about assembling multiple, spreadable, scoopable, tasty bits in an endless array of choose-your-own-adventure culinary experiments.

Also, I’m a hands on kind of eater. The less utensils the better. A piece of pita or a hunk of bread and I’m good to go for hours. Sometimes literally.

The other thing that has been distracting me from the less than ideal meteorological conditions is my sweet, sweet new camera; the Canon 30D.

Yes, sadly my last faithful Canon crapped out on me a few weeks ago. Since some sort of photographic device is essential for my current job as a location scout, a new toy- er, tool was in order.

“Mr. Pants, couldn’t you have gotten something less expensive? Couldn’t you have saved a few hundred bucks and settled on a perfectly serviceable replacement that isn’t so incredibly badass and awesome?”

“Why did you have to purchase such an amazing piece of pictural technology, what with its 8.2 megapixel CMOS sensor and DIGIC II Image Processor and enhanced operational features like a new 2.5 inch LCD monitor, true spot metering, and a redesigned shutter mechanism, all in a sturdy, magnesium-clad body? Why Mr. Pants, why?”

Well I’ll tell you. I thought it was pretty. And shiny. So there.

Now back to the food. The first lipsmackable treat was some fava that we brought back from our travels to Santorini. Not to be confused with fava beans, these are actually tiny yellow lentils indigenous to the Cycladic Isles (insert pull-down map with accompanying pointer smack, here).

You basically boil them to a mush with some red onion and garlic and then finish it with some red wine vinegar, olive oil and oregano. Liberties can be taken of course, but the end product is similar to a light hummus.

Next in the line-up is melitzanosalata, Pants style. Melitzanosalata is like a Greek baba ghanoush. I’m sure there’s some sort of accepted recipe to make the stuff, but I didn’t have the time or the patience, so I just whipped up some all freestyle like. Or as I prefer to call it, deliciously.

First I roasted off a couple of eggplants. I let them cool a little and then scooped out the flesh into the old food processor. I tossed in some tomato, mint, dill, garlic paste (don’t buy it –smash it yourself with salt), lemon juice, peanut butter, and a dash of Worcestershire sauce for that certain umami edge. Then I gave the whole mess a quick, rough puree. That’s good eatin’.

As a mandatory condiment, I whipped up a little (possibly a lot. Ok, a huge amount of) tzatziki, the classic cucumber yogurt sauce. The key to tzatziki, besides spelling it, is making sure that it’s not runny. There’s a lot of moisture in the ingredients, so if you’re not careful you’ll end up with a soup instead of a dip.

This is the thing you should probably start first, as moisture purging and draining can take a while. I highly recommend using Fage Greek style yogurt for the base, as it rules and totally dominates all other yogurts readily available in the US. If you can’t get Fage, which is particularly viscous, you should drain your yogurt for a few hours in a cheesecloth or paper towel lined sieve.

So, yogurt choice aside, get a cucumber and grate it. Sprinkle it with a little salt and let it sit for awhile. Squeeze it in a cheesecloth or paper towel. Make sure it’s very dry. Good.

Now throw it in with the yogurt. Add about a teaspoon of that homestyle garlic paste, a teaspoon or so of lemon juice, a bit of finely chopped dill and mint (easy on the mint), and a wee drizzle of olive oil with a pinch of salt and pepper. Stir. Taste. Add more of whatever’s lacking, then stick it in the fridge to chill out and marinate for an even more delicious result.

Now, on to the oft maligned Greek Salad. In Greece, I’m convinced that they serve it forcibly to every tourist just so they don’t have to listen to an endless stream of foreigners, ignorant of any actual culinary traditions of the region, loudly demanding the one thing that they know is supposed to be Greek. Regardless, it’s good.

My take is a simple mix of kalamata olives, sliced cucumber, cherry tomatoes, pepperoncini, red onion and feta tossed with some really good olive oil and maybe a little thyme or oregano. Simple, crisp, vegetably goodness.

Finally, I supplemented the homemade stuff (because we really needed some more food) with a fantastic product named The Peppetizer. Regardless of the bizarrely ridiculous name, this roasted red pepper and eggplant relish is really quite scrumptious. It brings a nice tangy smack to the mix.

The final piece to this graze fest is the beverage. My personal vote is for retsina. This traditional Greek wine is flavored with pine resin. After many initial reservations/visions of licking bow strings/bowling flashbacks, it has proven to be quite addictive.

It may or may not have been responsible for a particularly vexing case of the hangovers. Which may or may not have been directly tied to me poaching multiple times from Mme. Pants' glass. Ahem.

I think that about wraps it up. Let’ see – bitching about the weather… rocking new camera… luscious dining experience…

Yep.

-L. Pants

You're Lying, You're a Liar, That's a Pickle.

I had no reason to suspect that the  Cocktail Avocado or avocadito even existed.  Why would anyone need a tiny, pitless, finger-shaped avocado?  I still have no idea, but I do know that these little dudes are freaking delicious. 

They're like little tubes of super concentrated avocado flavor.  They're amazingly buttery and nutty and creamerific.  The shape is really cool too, lending itself to making tiny avocado circles. 

They're kind of a pain in the ass to peel, but I understand that if you slice off one end you can just squeeze the whole thing out like a savory mini  push-pop.

I'm not sure where they came from.  I thought they might be some new designer produce following the recent micro-everything craze, but apparently they've been around for awhile.  The Produce Hunter says that they're a product of sudden climate change coupled with a naturally occurring genetic aberration.  Whatever that means.

Regardless, they're pretty awesome.  So thanks again Central Market for finding the weird stuff and making me buy it.  Hopefully I'll get really hooked on them and then never be able to find them again.

-L.Pants

Louisiana Typified: The Crawfish Boil

You know, were I to write a dissertation on Louisiana for some reason, I think that would be my title.  I'd get to eat crawfish across the state, which would be a pretty sweet benefit, as well.

We were lucky enough to make it to Natchitoches, Louisiana (home of large chunks of the Husbear's family) for Easter this year.  As part of the Easter festivities, Husbear's aunt and uncle, Jod-I and Keiff, organized and threw a raucous crawfish boil. 

Realizing that this would probably be our last crawfish boil for a couple of years, we had to bring our little camera and do some documenting!

There's a fair amount of preparation that goes into creating a good crawfish boil.  The crawfish have to be bought alive, for one thing - in giant mesh sacks holding 35-40 pounds each, usually. They have to be kept alive until it's time to cook them, or they're nasty - hence, the saying "don't eat the dead ones" as you pick through your pile of cooked crawfish trying to decide which ones to munch on.  (It's easy to tell which ones were dead before they were cooked - they're the ones with the straight tails.)

The crawfish have to be purged in a succession of salty and fresh water - skip this step, and you're eating lots of mud and crawfish innards. I know that sounds delicious but it's not as good as you'd think.

Then, fill your enormous boiling pot with water (of course!), margarine or butter, throw in a heap of Zatarain's crawfish boil seasoning along with various proprietary herbs and spices and get to it!  Zatarain's even publishes their tips on creating a great crawfish boil on their website. (No they're not paying us.  Yet.  Although any Zatarain's rep can easily and conveniently reach us through our on-site email.  Get in early while we still work cheap.)

Now, Husbear, being a vegetarian, likes to gussy things up a little.

Potatoes, corn, onions, and lemon are normally included to represent the vegetable spectrum; each time Husbear and I get to a boil, he likes to add a few different vegetables - partly for experimentation, partly for sustenance.  This time, he broke out a lively medley of asparagus, mushrooms, carrots, and artichokes to add to the pot.

Speaking of pots, Keiff just got a new one, which is ginormous! Brandog helped him out by filling it up.

He used it to supplement Old Reliable Crawfish Pot (in the hood the ORCP).

So - veggies cut, crawfish purged, time to cook!

The ORCP showed the new pot the ropes.

People circulated into and out of the house, checking on crawfish and grabbing beers from the ice chest.  (Husbear took this time to whip up dippin' sauces - a basil aioli and lemon butter.  A nice addition to the requisite and delicious horseradishy cocktail sauce.)

Soon enough, the crawfish and veg were done.  They all went into an ice chest to keep them warm.  Some people take the opportunity at this juncture to sprinkle some more of the spicy crawfish boil mix over the cooked critters, just to up the heat level.

Get everyone gathered around tables/plywood on sawhorses covered in newspaper, make sure everyone has a cold drink, and dump!

Make sure you get some veggies in there, too, while you're at it.

Now, eat.  There's a bit of a trick to getting the tail meat out, but once you go through a few pounds or five practicing and eating, it's pretty easy.  And be sure to suck the heads, like you're a real cajun!  That's where all the fat and flavor are!  (I say this like I participate in that part of the ritual.  I usually don't, but I remember at my first boil at Jod-I and Keiff's during college, Tiffany totally took to it like an old pro.)

If you're having trouble, just ask GQ - he'll walk you through it! 

Soon, you'll end up with a pile of little crawfish carcasses in front of you, like a tiny trophy hunter.

After an hour, or two, stagger backwards from the table - and you're done.  Of course, there's still cleaning to do - but the best way to take care of that is with a large garbage bag.  This is why crawfish boils are really an outside only sort of affair.  (Unless you're a sissy -L. Pants)

The carnage can be quite extensive, depending on who you're eating with.  This little guy tried to make a break for it, but forgot that it's difficult to dash away once you've been boiled.

Since this was not only an Easter crawfish boil, but also a birthday crawfish boil (happy birthday to... lots of people!) there was also Jod-I's wonderful apple cake for dessert.  Oh, was this GOOD.

And there you are - you can totally say you've been to a crawfish boil now - you're a seasoned old hand at this.

Thank you of course to Jod-I and Keiff for their hospitality - and for the great birthday bag they got Husbear for our upcoming travels - and for the spiffy arm band and case for my new iPod!

Oh - did I not mention my new iPod?  (Like how I worked that in?) I have joined the ranks of the cool and suave, thanks to Husbear's folks!  I am now the proud mama of a black iPod nano - which is something I thought I would never be slick enough to own.  Unfortunately, now I have to get a whole new wardrobe to live up to the coolness of my new toy.  Oh, is it sweet!

That's all you'll hear about the iPod - for now!

-girlie

Hecticosityness

So, we're not dead.

Yet.

We had a great Easter weekend, in which we ate a lot  (no, a LOT) of crawfish, played with a bebe who was unfortunately sickened by the very sight of us (how we gave him a 102 degree fever, I sure don't know), and did a lot of driving and killing of large bugs with our windshield of doom - now crack-free, thanks to Grindhouse!

Then, we came back, and Husbear worked all day yesterday while I did copious laundry and went to Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic to get some training on the recording machines.  Everyone has to work as a "director" (really just a glorified name for the guy who pushes "record" and makes sure a notation is made when each page is started) for a while before they can approach the glory that is reading textbooks into the microphone.

The book we were recording yesterday was an american history textbook - and we were doing the table of contents.  Talk about tiring work!  Two hours of reading page numbers and sentence fragments, basically.

At least I learned that it isn't all glamour, the world of textbook recording.

Then, we went out with some friends to Asti - and this time, unlike when we went a few weeks ago for Husbear's birthday dinner, we actually brought the camera and took many pictures.

What I'm trying to say here is that we have a bit of a backlog of lovely portraits of crawfish and family and friends and bottles of wine, which will begin appearing here over the next couple of days, if we're lucky.

So, for now - check out my Italian as I say unto you, "Buon pomeriggio!" -or, good afternoon!

-girlie

Entertaining Pants Family Style

Recently, I’ve been trying to do that thing where when people come over I don’t spend 90% of my time either in the kitchen or running back and forth between the kitchen and somewhere else. Personally I don’t mind, but Mme. Pants has been encouraging this. She says that people who come over like to “see me” and “talk to me”. I’ve done both and can assure you that they are absolutely overrated.

Regardless, it seems my hosting abilities are gradually but steadily being nudged toward the Martha end of the spectrum. I hope not too far though, as I’m not comely as a blonde and the rectally inserted rolling pin sounds like it may chafe.

Click on the picture for the recipe

So, what great secrets am I employing to wow my guests with my poise and preparedness? Simple, I’ve implemented the age old practice of making big vats or pans of vittles before hand and then just scoop and slop when company comes around.  I know.  I’m a freaking genius.

Seriously though, it has been a little more difficult for me than I seems like it ought to be. For some reason getting the timing down proves a tad more troublesome than it should with many dishes. Cold soups work well. You can make them days in advance and then just pour into a bowl. We started this particular meal with the above pictured, crazy tasty watercress soup with green onion crème fraiche. Tre magnifique! It's a little spicy and very refreshing.

I’ve also discovered a whole class of foods that lend themselves particularly nicely to low maintenance, low worry serving. I call them “Stuff on Polenta,” or SoP for short.

The SoP requirements are short. Just take something, preferably easy to handle and not too temperature sensitive and put it on polenta. Done. My most recent SoP were some delightful Eggplant Involtini filled with homemade ricotta and herbs and baked in a light tomato sauce.

Involtini just means rolled. I probably should have cut the eggplant lengthwise to get a nice long wrap. But I didn’t and people ate them anyway.

One little trick to cooking with eggplant is to make sure you purge them of excess water. After you slice them, salt both sides heavily and then set them to dry on a wire rack with some paper towels underneath. After an hour or so, rinse them off real well and give each one a gentle squeeze. I think this really helps both the texture and the flavor.

The tomato sauce is a riff on Mario’s basic recipe just using whatever herbs and whatnot that I had in the fridge. The filling can be whatever you want really, but currently I’m obsessed with making ricotta so that’s what I did. Sure you can buy it, but it’s soooo much better homemade. I’m going to do a post about the process soon so I won’t go into a lot of detail about it here. Sorry turophiles, you just have to wait.

Polenta is always easy of course, but you have to use good stuff – none of that instant or quick cook crap. If you can get it, I can’t recommend Anson Mills enough. It’s so much better than other polenta that I’ve had that it’s almost like a whole different animal.

You can cook your polenta with practically any liquid you want – stock, cream, water, whatever, but if you have one handy, I highly encourage you to throw in a bay leaf. Laurel makes things better.

All in all, it seemed to work. All I had to do was pull one thing out of the oven and throw some stuff on plates. I saw the people who had come to eat. They saw me. Words were exchanged. In short, success.

-L. Pants

Our Accidental Walking Tour of Santorini

First of all, before I start the story of the leisurely two-hour stroll that turned into the walk from, if not hell, than at least the entrance of hell - be sure to stop a moment and admire my awesome new haircut!

The woman who cuts my hair, Joey, is a magicworker and I love her.

Anyway.

After our awesome donkeywalk the morning of June 14, 2004 (yes - almost 2 years ago! :-( ) we thought we would take a walk from Fira to Ia, a town on the nothwest end of the island of Santorini known for its beauty, especially the beauty of the sunset as viewed from their lovely pathways.

Frommer's told us to allow at least 2 hours for the walk; we started out about 5 hours before sunset, thinking we would take it easy and stop in some of the little towns we were sure would be along the way.  We even brought a bottle of wine and some olives to share when we felt like taking a break, sometime a little further down the road towards Ia.

For your reference during this post, here's a map.

Ia/Oia is on the north end of the island, where the island curls around and ends - it's on the side towards the center of the island.  Fira (or Thira) is on the inside of the island as well - if you follow the line along the inside south from Ia, it's a little past that boat icon just south of Skaros.  (If you click on the map, it will take you to the Flickr page where I have the two towns marked with little boxes.)

About 6 miles, according to Frommer's - that is, if you don't get lost...

The walk started out really promisingly.  We left Fira and headed towards the towns just to the north - there's barely any room between them, it's really just a stretch of houses and shops and hotels and guesthouses.  All lovely.

We met a cat, who was avoiding the heat of the sun.

Who's a pretty guy?  Awww.

Firostephani and Imerovigli, the next two towns, were somehow much quieter than Fira.  I think it would be a good idea to stay there if you're wanting to be a little further away from the bustling hordes of Fira - somehow, less than a half-mile made a really big difference.

Plus, they were just stunning towns.

I feel like this picture looks like we stole it from some tourist brochure - but I swear we didn't.  Just another shockingly stunningly beautiful home.

It didn't take long for us to gather a posse for our trip.

This dog kept us company for a little while.  He'd bound around us, then take off for a few mintues, then show back up again.  Tragically (in his mind, I'm sure), we didn't have any food suitable for doggies on us - so he finally gave up and trotted back towards town just as the buildings started to get fewer and farther between.

Husbear insisted on photographing this stairway to nowhere - I think it turned out pretty cool.

I've heard that the blue and white of the Greek flag were chosen at least to partly symbolize the colors of the sky and sea of Greece. 

The path was pretty well marked, at least at the outset.  It was paved with flagstones, and had a low wall along the side with the steep drop.  Very nice.

We took a picture of the path we were following.

You can see the path snaking along the clifftop - but you can't see Ia yet.  It's still off to the left.

Somehow, even seeing this view, we didn't realize that we still must have been hours away.

Actually, really stupidly, we decided that there's no time like the present to find a shady spot, sit, and have our wine and olives!

We found a lovely little church, and nearby there was a hill with a view of the road and the other side of the island.  We had a lovely break; sitting, having a little wine, watching the occasional car go by, chatting about how crazy it was that we were sitting on an actual real Greek island, seeing the changing light as the sun started to set...

Oh crap!  The sun!

We started off again - and this is where I started to realize that we might have a small problem.

Yes, that's the sun starting to go out of view behind the cliffs.  But you can see Ia - that kind of white blotch near the end of the island.

We were high bove the road, but even if we had been close to it, we didn't know where the buses stopped to take us along to Ia - so we just started walking faster.

Trust me, had I known the walk would be this rugged, I wouldn't have worn a skirt and brought my tiny purse.  This picture, though, cracks me up now - I look like I'm thinking "My lawd, what-EVah shall I do?  I sure could use a mo-jito!"

As we climbed further up into the hills, I started to wonder if we were going the right direction.  We hadn't seen any signs pointing to Ia recently...

Husbear found these little rock piles, and pointed to them as evidence that others had been here before us.  I felt it was much more likely that they were rescue beacons placed by stranded hikers, or perhaps markers to remember unfortunate souls who hadn't made it to Ia for the sunset..

I think Husbear might have been getting... let's say tired of my negativity at this point.  Heh.  There may or may not have been words exchanged.

We kept pushing on, though.  At one point, it became clear that we were walking right up the path leading up to some guy's house; we had to climb a fence to get off his property and back onto the trail.

It might be time for new signs on this portion of the path, yes?

Finally, we reached the last hill between us and Ia.  We crested the top of the hill, and I can't tell you just how relieved I was to see the lights of the town before us.

The only problem remaining was how we were supposed to clamber down the hill with limited light on an unpaved rocky path.

Somehow, we managed not to break/twist/sprain anything, which was exciting.

We had made it to Ia!  Hours too late to see the sunset, and also too late to actually enjoy the picturesque charms of the town... but we made it, and that's the important thing.

Wow, was I happy to be in Ia.

That grin on my face is less jesting at the expense of that wonderful fish, and more just being thrilled to be back in a town.  That fish is pretty neat, isn't it?

I feel like I look fairly well put together, considering the hike we had just taken... until you check out my feet, which were so filthy and dusty I kept trying to hide them under my skirt.  This doesn't work when your skirt ends at mid-calf.

We stopped at a restaurant which was supposed to have a good view of the caldera, but it was too dark to really be able to enjoy it.  We ordered a bunch of food and fell to.  Cats twined around our table, hoping for scraps. 

I felt such a sense of accomplishment after that walk, though.  Everyone we mentioned the trek to later on said "Wow - that's a really long way to go on foot!"  and I just nodded, like it had been a breeze, and said "I know - and it was wonderful."

The thing is - it really was.  Husbear and I had a wonderful time, for the most part, and he still makes me laugh when he reminds me of that time on Santorini where I told him off on the side of a mountain.

girlie

Straight Birfday Feastin'

As a few of you savvy readers may know, I’ve been dabbling a bit in the art of seafood preparation in anticipation for the upcoming move and immersion in all things Italian. And Italians, at least a healthy chunk of them, love seafood.

What to make? Where to start, you may wonder? So many choices, so many options, so much deliciousness. Where does a defrocked vegetarian begin?

Indecision is for the weak. According to an elaborate and semi-nonsensical set of personal rules, I have limited all initial forays into the fleshy end of the spectrum to shellfish and crustaceans. Recently, I have cooked several shellfish dishes, so I turned to their chitinous cousins, the aquatic arthropod.

I wanted prawns, but on short notice all I could wrangle were some good looking U21-25 Gulf Shrimp that were unfortunately headless.

And what platform should I present these wee guys on? Well, it was my birthday and I had been nursing a craving for my favorite little potato pasta, gnocchi. (You can see some of my previous renditions of the stuff here and here.)

I figured that shrimp and gnocchi with a little arugula pesto would go together swimmingly (sorry) and real Italians be damned. See, Italians have a very strict interpretation of exactly what ingredients go with what pasta and I’m pretty sure my pairing would be deemed highly unacceptable.

So I made the gnocchi (try out Michael Chiarello’s recipe if you’d like, but ignore all of the anal salt baking and fork shaping business – rustic is good). Then I made the pesto which is just pine nuts, garlic, and lemon juice blended to a paste. Then you add a few handfuls of raw or blanched arugula, a little salt and then drizzle in olive oil until you get the consistency that you want.

I de-veined the shrimp, but I left the shells on for more flavor (and a bit of a messy/fun time later). I cooked them off in olive oil, added a few cherry tomatoes and then a few scoops of pesto. Then I spooned in my freshly boiled gnocchi and tossed it all together for a real good time.  It rocked.  I licked the bowl. I’m pretty sure Mme. Pants had to stop me from going back to lick the pan.

I know, I know. You’re all sitting there thinking, “Well that sounds lovely, but didn’t you say it was your birthday? What about dessert?”

Oh yes. There was dessert. And its name was Rhubarb Soufflé. It was delicious. Light and tart and fluffy. When I was baking it, I knew it would rise, I just didn’t realize that the thing was going to go all black snake on me and climb a foot and a half to the top of the oven. Since it was actually resting against the heating elements, it got a tad dark on top.

Note: The picture on the right is after the thing had already fallen. I'm telling you it was huge.

Regardless, it was delicious. We served it with a homemade vanilla custard sauce that would be good on anything that didn’t run away from you. These were both Silver Spoon recipes, so props to those guys yet again.

                                            *Special Bonus Leftover Addendum*

So if you have any leftover gnocchi (and if you’re gonna make it you should make lots and lots) I have a great way to put it to use.

Pan fry those puppies up in some butter and put ‘em on a salad. This one has mixed greens and endive with blue cheese, walnuts, and a smoky paprika, shallot vinaigrette. And gnocchi of course.

Cook it up people.

-L. Pants