The Good-Eats Stimulus

We've enjoyed some exceptionally good new recipes and improvisations here in the last few weeks. We're pretty omnivorous, only on rare occasions going truly vegetarian (never mind something even more refined), typically in accommodating some truly cherished guest with other qualities that make up for the extra dietary complications they present.

But I couldn't resist trying out a recipe last week entitled "Cauliflower with Ginger-Cashew Onion Sauce." Could you? I think the title should have said "saute" rather than "sauce," given that there were far more solids (onions and chickpeas, primarily) than liquids in that stuff I assembled the night before, but no matter.

I found this Indian-inspired recipe quite enjoyable, both in the making and the imbibing, though the spicing proved to be overly timid, both in the herbaceous and the tangy sense. Eric broke the vegetarian spell when he whipped up an impromptu chicken/pepper/onion stir-fry to accompany the cauliflower, in deference to his Scoville-challenged Mum. (Not that the cauliflower as it turned out had any scoville of note, partly due to my perhaps too dutiful manicuring of the jalapeno pepper.)

Our recent indulgences have included a good deal of beef (and,yes, I did see that health-care warning, thank you very much). We got ourselves properly set up for our routine 3/17 corned beef mania but then somehow found ourselves in possession of a full brisket of beef (i.e., CB progenitor) the weekend before!

Well you gotta do what you gotta do. Said brisket spent numerous hours in the oven and came out truly scrumptious, garlanded with carrots, shrooms, and tomatoes. The timing might have been better, given the corned variation that was imminent, but given the terrific result, we will not be shy the next time briskets go on sale.

Our standard followup on corned beef is Reuben sandwiches, exploiting rye bread, Thousand Island dressing, sauerkraut, and Swiss cheese to create an orgasmic dinner sammie. Is your mouth watering yet?

We also took a flier on a chicken-bok choy-couscous combo courtesy of the famous Rachel Ray (h/t mara). RR must have had some sort of steaming mania on (new bamboo?) when she jotted this down. We (well, okay, Eric) found our own way to do it. He BBQ'd the chicken, steamed the bok choy, and conscripted Marg to cook couscous per usual. I hid behind the camera - and aren't you glad I did?