Dinnertime . . . and why I don't blog about it

Dr. M has been popping up all over this blog lately. I like to write about Dr. M because he manages to be amusing, cute, and highly irritating all at the same time. And do not kid yourself, he knows exactly what he's doing, and he loves every minute of it. Dr. M is, among other things, an excellent dad. He's also something of a rascal, and he loves to needle people. I tend to escape his teasing, but he does love pester me about this blog. You see, Dr. M has a love-hate relationship with technology in general, and the internet in particular. He likes to say his middle initials are "www," but, on the other hand, he thinks that perhaps this communicating with strangers via high speed cables is similar in nature to building a shed in the woods and fiddling with explosives on the weekends.

 Dr. M -- the skeptic

You might imagine, Dr. M is pretty funny when it comes to the blogging thing. Of course I tend to be pretty quiet about blogging (not to worry, Dudley likes to tell everyone about this blog, even when I kick him under the table), so Dr. M figures, not incorrectly, that this is a good thing to tease me about. It reminds me of when my siblings and I were younger and one of us had a crush on someone. Dr. M says blog like he used to say boy/girlfriend:  in bold and italics. 

For example, when I take pictures of food, Dr. M likes to ask, "oooh, is that for your blog?" Response, yes. Dr. M asks, "oooh, are you going to write about this on your blog?" Response, yes. Dr. M asks, "so who reads your blog?" Response, silence. Dr. M asks, "so why do people feel the need to blog? Why do people have blogs?" Response, silence. The conversation can go on in that vein while I sort of explain the idea to my dad, but usually he gets bored and moves on. We both tend to have pretty short attention spans, and usually my dad is angling to get a bite of whatever it is that's being photographed. I don't blog about dinner these days because Dr. M would enjoy the needling far too much. And I'm lazy and I hate taking pictures when I'm hungry. 

Coconut Poached Chicken

Crisp Rice-Noodle Cakes

Watercress with Garlic Chile Oil

However, I'm blogging about this dinner. Don't you love the picture? It looks circa 1973, but trust me friends, this picture was taken about a week ago. I snapped these pictures in a big hurry before I rang the dinner bell. I recently received a copy of Martha Stewart's Dinner at Home and I'm smitten. Smitten. The first menu I made was:  Sausages with Red-Onion Gravy, Rosemary Yorkshire Pudding, Shredded Tuscan Kale Salad. I never make the desserts because there are too many other desserts I'd rather make. What I love about this book is that it's made up of four chapters of seasonal menus. Like the Everyday Food cookbook, it's grouped by seasons. Maybe it's cliché, but I love recipes that are geared with the season in mind. That said, this is a spring recipe, and I think it could work nearly any time of year. We're having very springlike weather in Houston right now, so spring menus work for me. The other aspect of this book that I love is that each chapter, or season, has a really diverse selection of menus, and I think the individual dishes in the menus work really well together. Last but not least, the menus are impressive enough to feel like "special dinners" but they don't require a ton of effort, just a bit of planning in terms of grocery shopping. I'm certainly not being paid to write this, and I wasn't given a copy of the book, but I like it enough that I want to share. Dr. M always says "it's nice to share," especially when you have something he wants. 

I'll admit, I wavered a bit on whether or not to make this menu. As you can see, poached chicken isn't particularly attractive. At all. Actually, it's an insipid white color, and it looks like club food circa 1956. Well, I don't know about the year, but I imagine it to be sort of faux-upscale food from bygone times. But I love coconut milk, and the noodle cakes intrigued me (not to mention I had some rice noodles waiting to be used) so I thought it wouldn't hurt to try this menu. The chicken is poached in coconut milk with ginger and garlic. When the chicken is done poaching, you remove it from the liquid and then reduce the poaching liquid by half. Then you add a bit of lime juice and fish sauce. The noodle cakes are simply rice noodles, scallions, soybean sprouts, and fresh ginger with beaten eggs as a binder. The watercress dressed with a mixture of serrano pepper, garlic, lime juice, and safflower oil. 

Quite honestly, this dinner wasn't Martha's best menu. It was well received by everyone (except me!) at my table though, and given that I actually documented the dinner, I couldn't help but post it on this blog. The issue is the blandness, blandity, blandosity, bland nature of the chicken and the noodle cakes. The watercress was spicy and tangy, and I found that if you arranged a bite of chicken, a bite of noodle cake, and a bite of watercress on your fork this was actually very good. I might make it again if only to figure out how to add a bit of flavor to the chicken and the noodle cakes. I'll wait until I make it for Dudley, though. He puts so much [insert spicy condiment here] on his food that he would never notice if the initial dish were bland.

(I looked for these recipes on the internet but, alas, there were none to be had. I don't have permission to publish these recipes, but I think this book is worth a trip to the library! Check it out, you might like it. You can also get it used on Amazon for about $4. I guess this means not everyone feels the way I do about this cookbook?)