Cooking with Dorie
It’s been three days since Rei last cooked.
Not since we’ve eaten, but since we last cooked French food.
On Monday, I picked out the menu, created the grocery list, and sent Zeke to the store before I headed to the tennis court for the first time in 3 months.
Rei got started on dessert of long cooked or slow cooked apples. Despite me telling them not to use the mandolin to slice the apples, they did. But I was assured that they used the ‘special’ glove to protect their fingers. Mandolins terrify me. (Yeah, but you weren’t there to worry over my perfectly safe usage of the mandolin with the glove that is SPECIFICALLY made for using knives and blades safely. It’s literally impossible to cut myself with that glove~Rei) (Don’t tempt fate Rei!~Terri)
Rei was on a roll and just kept on cooking. (We will ignore the fact that I was caught up with post-book launch stuff but I did keep them company in the kitchen) (Will we, though? I did everything — with Dad’s help washing dishes and chopping herbs — but I was fine with that. It was nice to cook mostly solo for once~Rei) (You seemed to be doing just fine.~Terri)
Cheese and herb bread and tomatoes Provencal. Remarkably easy (at least from my vantage point). (Yeah, those were pretty easy :) ~Rei)
And then it was on to the salmon. Rei put Zeke to work with some pliers to de-bone the fillets. And yes, those are the kitchen pliers. (One of my biggest food pet peeves is bones in my fish, so I had Dad take them out~Rei)
Rei and I decided we were not fans of super olivey tapenade only after they spent an extraordinary amount of effort trying to inject the yucky stuff into the salmon fillets. (It wasn’t that bad, it was just annoying, as the bag was probably the least ideal squirting method I could have used. Don’t try this at home, kids. Not worth it unless you absolutely love olives and can’t live without them. Just don’t do it~Rei)
Fortunately the cheesy herb bread was pretty amazing. Rei gave it their sniff of approval (yes, the photo was slightly staged!). (Slightly? I smelled it and you saw, and decided you needed me to ‘smell’ it again except when you had your camera ready. Extremely staged, if you ask me~Rei)
How pretty is that? (It was very pretty but I found the taste slightly lacking. Next time, probably at least double the herbs and much more cheese in larger chunks so we get that gooey, moist, cheesy goodness that is essential to a good herb and cheese bread. Also garlic. ~Rei)
I got salad duty. Zeke chopped up some plums and I mixed up a dressing concoction that was really good and now I can’t remember what was in it (champagne vinegar, olive oil, salt, pepper, and some Dijon mustard maybe?)(I’m pretty sure we used that tarragon white wine vinegar~Rei). It was French-y and really good, especially with the plums and goat cheese.
The tomatoes though…oh my goodness. Next time we need to remember to use the garlic from our garden that has been drying out in the garage for the last two months. (Honestly I hadn’t even known we had garlic in our garden, but you learn a new thing every day, right? ~Rei)
And then it was time to eat. Dinner was yummy and once again really healthy. We counted up at least 20 plant based ingredients and only one processed item in dinner…the flour in the bread.
And then there was dessert. And yes, we’ve changed up the tablecloth for tomorrow night’s pictures. Zeke is working so Rei and I are on our own…again. I guess I should get moving on the menu and and grocery list so Zeke can stock up our supplies!
And with that, it’s time to toss it over to Rei to wrap it up.
Alright! I don’t really have much to say, except that (and yes, Mom, I’m spilling all our secrets here) this was actually a few days ago, and I don’t really remember my thoughts from when I was cooking.
Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh yeeeaaaahhhhhhhhhh soooooooooo yeah. My brain has gone completely blank now that this document is in front of me. So how’s your day been? I got my nose pierced today! So did Mom! Now I have even more holes in my head (in addition to my ear piercings, wisdom teeth holes, and that one hole behind my ear that my brain occasionally falls out of~Rei)!
Okay! Have a cattacular day!
Rei and Terri
