Cooking for Friends

You don’t make chili for one person. If I’m going to caramelize onions, I’m going to do it with at least four. In cooking many things, making a “full” recipe is just as easy, often easier than making a miniscule serving size. Thankfully, I love my leftovers, so having extra food is never a problem. However, it’s always nice to know that what you made was so good that’s its gone, and the best way to do that is cooking for others.

With my new job, and lack of travel, I find that I have many more nights locally to spend with friends. Last week, after a long day at work, I stopped by a friend’s house for a personal chef, pantry raid dinner. I was given a list of ingredients available that any “Chopped” competitor would have celebrated: 12 frozen shrimp, breakfast sausage, frozen chopped spinach, blueberries, cooked chicken breasts, peas, cooked quinoa, raw cauliflower, carrots, celery, kale, cilantro, purple sweet potatoes and homemade sauerkraut.

My culinary creativity cranked into high gear as I pondered over the variety of combinations. I started by chopping onions, carrots (some of which were purple), and tossed with olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic powder, and a little red pepper flake. Kale was also chopped and sat atop the other vegetation to cook first, roasting at 450, creating kale chips, something to munch on while the rest meal was cooked. The spinach was sautéed with parmesan cheese and cracked pepper, then stuffed into a split chicken breast. These were placed in a pan and braised with cashew milk for a creamy finish. Last, cauliflower and garlic  were also roasted (I was in a high-heat mood, it was cold outside), then put into a food processor with a little butter and milk and pureed to create a mashed potato substitute that had toasted notes and a creamy texture.

Saturday night was another cooking adventure. We hit the grocery store and followed our fancy, having no pre-conceived notions of what we were in the mood to nosh upon. We walked out with parsnips, crab meat, spinach, and old bay (didn’t have any in stock). Returning to the kitchen, we cut the parsnips into coins and crushed garlic, tossed in olive oil and roasted. We blended them much like the cauliflower mentioned above, but the starchier tuber had a nutty note and hearty richness that the vegetable couldn’t muster. The spinach was lightly sautéed in a pan that had already toasted chopped almonds. Some crumbled cranberry goat cheese melted into the pan and a splash of white wine finished the side. Finally, the crab meat was tossed into a mixing bowl with Old Bay, lemon, dried parsley, red pepper flake (not sriracha because of the garlic and not tobacco because of the vinegary liquid) and vegetable chips (carrots, squash, and sweet potato) that had been ground in a food processor. The cakes were fried to golden brown perfection in a shallow pan with canola oil. Paired with a crisp pinot grigio, it was a great way to spend a Saturday night.