The Carb Fest Continues, Chinese Style
Howdy. I’ve just peeked out from my cave to update you on the progress of our Carb Fest. These days I’m living buried beneath my comforter in the deepest recesses of my cave with occasional checks to see if the snow and ice have melted yet. Sadly, there’s no sign of that happening soon. And so the continued pursuit and ingestion of carbs goes on.
Friday evening I wanted to prepare shrimp for dinner. All of us like shrimp a lot around here, except for Louisa. Since I had no specific recipe in mind, I handed her my Bruce Weinstein “Ultimate Shrimp” cookbook and told her to choose whatever she wanted as long as we had a close approximation of the ingredients. I was so happy to see that she selected Shrimp Lo Mein. Yes! I would be able to meet my carb quota for the day. Although I didn’t have the exact Chinese vegetables required, the canned Chinese vegetables I did have came close enough. The recipe turned out pretty well, except for one substitution I was forced to make. I didn’t have dry sherry, and so I substituted sherry vinegar instead. It gave the recipe the sherry flavor, and since there was already some vinegar in the dish, I thought it would match the flavor profile pretty well. I had no problem with the piquancy of the dish, but the girls found it too tart. Joe didn’t say much, but when he goes back for seconds, I knew it can’t be all bad.
Now, back under the covers for me.
Why You Shouldn’t Mess with a Memory
As I walk down memory lane in my Carb Fest induced coma this month, I developed a desperate craving for a favorite pasta dish my mom would sometimes make for us. It was a “lighter” version of Fettucine Alfredo – or so I believed while growing up. Immediately I contacted my mom for the recipe and she kindly obliged by emailing it to me. I discovered that this Noodles Romano recipe came from “Better Homes and Gardens” in 1965. Talk about a classic!
Mom and I discussed the decadence of this recipe in light of today’s healthier standards, and it just seemed like all the cheese and butter was a bit much and could easily be cut back. I figured it would be easy to cut back on a few, if not half, of the 8 tablespoons of butter, and what harm would there be in substituting Neufchatel for the full fat cream cheese, right? Wrong!
Although I haven’t had that dish in more years than I’ve been married, I could tell right away that the cream cheese shouldn’t have been changed. The texture of the sauce was too runny, and the flavor of the Neufchatel shone through – in a bad way. Everyone ate the dish, since it satisfied our carb needs, but nobody loved it like we did growing up.
Maybe the next time I’ll substitute mascarpone for the cream cheese instead.
Winter Feeding
I know this winter will never end. And how do I know this? Because I trust in natural instincts and clearly my natural instincts are telling me to feed myself for the never ending season. Carbs, fats, sweets, the winter feeding goes on at a robust pace.
Take yesterday’s dinner, for example. I made a pot roast, a meal that clearly would never be made in the summertime. The thick, fat marbled slices of beef served with their own butter thickened pan juices is a recipe designed for winter padding. The root vegetables weren’t steamed or baked but braised in the same pan juices as the meat. When Louisa saw the four pound roast in the dutch oven, she couldn’t believe her eyes. You don’t usually find such a robust piece of meat in my kitchen. But I’m listening to my natural instincts. We all gladly tore into our dinner as the nor’easter raged outside the kitchen door.
And don’t tell me it was a coincidence that Joe brought home these rich, buttery cookies from Sweet Andy’s last night. They were the left over giveaways from a trade show he had to work earlier in the day and he brought home enough variety to keep me nibbling well into today. Chocolate chip, sugar cookies, peanut butter chips, lemon flavored, the temptation kept inviting me back to the kitchen even as the snow melted outside. These seductive cookies were just another sign from the cosmos that I needed to continue my winter feeding because another storm is just around the corner.