I’d never cooked with parchment paper before- that stuff is hard to deal with. Does anyone have tips for the folding and crimping process to get it to stay the first time around? I felt like I was dealing with some serious food oragami that I didn’t quite understand.

I served this with a side of soft scrambled eggs with chives and ricotta– unintuitive, but the eggs and chives went very well with the asparagus. My one caveat was that the meal was so light it left us both still hungry, so we had to “top off” with french onion soup and cookies!

Just before serving, stir in 6 T brandy. I create rounds of bread by using the top of a glass:

I then toast the rounds and lay them on the soup when it has been ladled into the tureens:

I lay 4-5 slices of baby swiss cheese on each tureen and slide them under the broiler on high heat until browned and bubbling. Serve hot!

(from It must have been something I ate)

Combine 2 cups all purpose flour, 1 tsp salt, and 1 tsp baking soda in a bowl. In a mixer, cream 2 sticks (1 cup) butter, 3/4 cup light brown sugar, 1/4 cup dark brown sugar, and 3/4 cup granulated white sugar. Add 1 tsp vanilla, 2 T water, 1 egg. Add flour mixture. Add 1 1/2 cup semi sweet morsels. Drop onto baking sheet (teaspoons! tablespoons I think were part of the problem) and bake at 375 for 10 minutes. Longer if you like firmer cookies. Cool on a rack at your own risk.

part 1: cornbread fit for the gods

This isn’t cornbread for the faint of heart. First, slowly cook 2 pounds of bacon, rendering all the fat. You should end up with a cup of bacon fat. Then whisk together 2 cups of all purpose flour, 2 T baking soda, 1 t salt, and mix in 2 cups of yellow cornmeal, and 1/2 cup sugar until combined. In a separate bowl, beat 2 cups of milk and 2 large eggs. Add the fat to the flour mixture and beat with an electric mixer. It should be like coarse meal. If necessary, add a little more cornmeal. Beat in egg mixture until just combined (the batter will be runny). Bake in 2 greased (I used shortening MMMM heart attack) 9 x 5 x 3 loaf pans at 400 degrees for 50 minutes (until a toothpick comes out clean). Cool for 10 minutes in the pan on a wire rack, then turn out on rack to cool completely. Wrap in plastic wrap.

part 2: andouille sausage (meaty meaty) stuffing

Cook 1 pound andouille sausage and 1 1/2 pounds chorizo in a pan, breaking into pieces, until browned. Add 3 cups onion, 2 cups celery, 2 cups red bell pepper. Cover and cook until vegetables are tender (10-15 min). At this point you may want to drain the fat and juice from the meat. Stir in 1 cup green onions, 2 tsp thyme, 1 tsp hot pepper sauce, and 1 tsp sage. Off heat, stir in 12 oz of cornbread (about one to one and a half of the loaves above). If necessary, moisten with reserved juices or chicken broth.

Bake at 350 degrees in a well greased baking dish. Tent with foil for 30 minutes, then bake for another 20 minutes without foil until well browned on top.

Adding cured and salted slices of pig to food automatially makes it better. For this meal, I took the best of two recipes and combined them into one super-dinner!

whole baked garlic
(from the chez panisse menu cookbook)

Preheat the oven to 275 degrees. Remove the skin from the top half of each head of 6 heads of garlic, exposing the individual cloves. Arrange in a baking dish and dot with 1/3 cup of butter. Pour 1/3 cup of olive oil over and salt and pepper well. Put thyme sprigs here and there. Bake, covered, for 30 minutes, then take off the cover and baste every 15 minutes for an additional 1 to 1 1/2 hours depending on the size of the heads. The garlic should be very tender and sweet. I don’t know if they should be as brown as in the picture, but I quite enjoyed them that carmelized.

When the garlic is done, serve with the olive oil from the dish spooned over them. I went the extra mile and squeezed each clove out of the head onto a dish, spooned the oil out, and added the crisped thyme.

Served with peasant bread and soft white cheese, such as goat cheese or queso fresco.

linguine with clams

In a pan (I started with a saute pan, but as I had a pound of clams, ended up transferring to a heavy bottomed stockpot), melt butter and add some small pinches of garlic and chili. I used a serrano for the color but I suppose you could use dried chiles, poblanos, jalepenos or whatever strikes your fancy. Even chile powder, maybe.

Add medium pinches of onion and panchetta. I love onion and panchetta so I interpreted this as about 3/4 of an onion and 5 slices of panchetta (chopped).

(note: the original recipe says to saute the above in olive oil, then pour off the oil and add butter. This seemed a waste of flavor and oil so I elected to simply use butter in the beginning and not pour anything off. If you wish, you could just use olive oil instead).

On high flame, add white wine. I used a chenin blanc. I don’t know how much, basically just splashed it in. For beginner chefs, I recommend using a cup to do this, not doing it directly from the bottle. Use the sound of the sizzle to tell you when to stop. When it stops sizzling, and you have maybe 1/4 inch liquid on the bottom of the pan, you’re good. Add clams. I added a pound. Make sure they were scrubbed and cleaned well before!

Put on the linguine. The clams will open in 3-4 minutes. Discard any that do not open. Swirl the pan to mix the juices.

At 6 minutes, add the linguine. Add enough pasta water to make a nice sauce. Swirl and heat for 30 seconds or so.

Serve, topped with olive oil and parsley.