I like this recipe because it starts with lettuce and tomatoes. It’s a salad. Therefore, healthy!

The lettuce is easier to eat if you chop it. Likewise the tomatoes. Serve yourself a generous helping; you’ll forget that these things are in there, anyway.

Part 2: BEEF

Actually, you could make this just as well with ground turkey or ground veggie burger, but I am a beef fan, personally. Brown the beef (or turkey or veggie burger), get rid of the extraneous fat if necessary, and add one packet of taco seasoning. I usually use Old El Paso.

Part 3: The Good Parts

Guacamole. Cheese. ‘Nuff said. Well, I guess I could also say that I usually use either shredded cheddar or a shredded Mexican mix for the cheese. You could also add olives or onions or whatever else you like on your tacos and have handy.

Part 4: The Purpose of This Whole Endeavor

Like my taco dip, the main reason you make this is because it gives you an excuse to eat corn chips. As with taco dip, I favor the Hint of Lime Tostitos variety. Spread them over the salad and crunch them up with your fork.

The best thing about this recipe, aside from the excuse to eat corn chips and pretending to be healthy, is the variety: cold tomatoes and hot ground beef. Soft guacamole and crunchy chips. It’s also colorful, and every successful ’50s housewife knows that a colorful meal is a nutritious meal.

So here’s my problem.  When I make up recipes, I think things will be GREAT.  They are not always great.  I feel like I’ve got imagination, but terrible form.  The form will come with either practice or reincarnation after I light myself on hot, hot fire.   Or maybe, I just have to get Sfofie to teach me how to do things without dying.  Again. 

The challenge:

I was so disappointed with Guatemala that I wanted to make a nice, tropical-themed meal that wasn’t too hard to make. 

The plan:

Tropical food to me means blending flavors.  The safe blandness of chicken, with the tangy surprise of jerk rub.  Cayenne pepper with mango.  I wanted to make the Jabba’s Palace of food: A party in your mouth, bounty hunters okay.

- Coconut rice with capers.

- Ham and pineapple rounds, with toasted paprika.

- Grilled romaine  hearts, with pineapple flavor.

The fail: 

Cast iron grill pan has failed me.  Also, I have failed myself.  I also suspect that my current kitchen’s fan is not powerful enough;  I smoke up my apartment like a latchkey kid.  But I’m just trying to grill some damn lettuce. 

The most successful bit by far was the ham and pineapple rounds.  I found a pastry round just the size of pineapple slices, and cut a thick slice of ham into perfect little circles.  I cooked the ham, just a couple minutes over medium heat in a skillet, and threw the pineapple on the grill pan on medium. There was some olive oil involved, and the pineapple came out smoky and delicious.  I toasted the paprika in a dry pan on medium-low for about two minutes or so, and it came out tasting smoky and just right… and then I forgot to put it on the pineapple.

Bonus round: I marinated my pineapple for around an hour in spiced rum. Not sure if it made a difference in flavor, but my rum tasted DAMN fine. 

The part that should’ve worked in theory was the rice.  I just Japanese extra fancy rice, toasted it a bit in oil, and then dropped in a can of coconut milk and a can of water.  I forgot to cover it (fault 1), and I didn’t let it cook long enough because it was looking like the rice was ready to melt into some kind of sad mush (fault 2).  The taste was great–the coconut is light and happy, and the capers give it a sharp kick in the nads.  One caper per bite was usually enough to totally end my world with happiness.  For next time: cook rice like not a retard.  (PS: this rice really is good. I’m not a huge fan of coconut, but I gorged on this stuff when my mom made it in Belize. Try it! You won’t be 

The grilled romaine was a fail so epic, Xerxes would’ve shook his head in shame.  I’d be like, “Fuck you, Xerxes, you couldn’t take out 300 dudes at Thermopylae!” and he’d be like, “It’s lettuce, Jo.  You messed up grilling already-prepared food.  What the hell is wrong with you?”  Fault 1: So you brush a little oil on things you grill. “Cool,” I thought, “I’ll make something neat and emulsified, and have a nice flavored grill thing. And look, all this leftover pineapple juice…” Let me tell you something, kids. Don’t make an emulsion out of pineapple juice, mustard, and olive oil. It doesn’t fucking work. It doesn’t make the tangy, sweet, savory thing you want, and the texture is disastrous. Also, don’t cut your romaine hearts in half when you grill them. Tiny pieces of lettuce will fall into the cracks, stick, and ultimately smoke up your entire house. 

If I had another shot at this one, I would just lightly oil up the romaine, then make a separate vinaigrette, I’m thinking raspberries and white wine vinegar. The flavor of my weird stuff didn’t even come out. I ended up gorging on leftover pineapple slices and drowning my sorrows in liquor.

Business as usual.

The caponata from here (a friend recently got Giada de Laurentiis’s cookbook and it was a worthwhile investment in terms of deliciousness) – ingredients I didn’t have on hand (capers, celery) + a bed of arugula with a little olive oil and some crumbled feta = lunch.

The next day I made the leftover caponata into toasted sandwiches with cheese and it was even better. So it’s a pretty good investment of the time it takes to saute all that stuff, especially if you are like me and derive a somewhat unhealthy pleasure from reducing an entire eggplant into little squishy cubes.

If anyone has successfully made any of the following, I’d dearly love to see a recipe post about it:
- Cold sesame noodles (like the dumpling place in Cville)
- Asian oily rice
- Scallion pancakes
- Winter melon soup
- There’s a daikon soup out there that my dad makes, but when I tried to imitate it, the daikon just ended up thick, like a cooked carrot. Anyone know how to make the fantastically soft daikon soup in Chinese cooking?

And just so I don’t look like a mooch:

Sunomono!

This is not the sunomono with the horrors of the sea. This is just plain ol’ sunomono, cold and perfect as an appetizer.

- 1 cucumber which is neither freakishly huge or small
- 1 tbs rice vinegar
- 1 tsp sugar
- salt
- soy sauce

Cut your cucumber into unforgivingly thin slices. Lay them out on the cutting board in as thin a layer as possible, then salt them lightly. You’re just trying to draw out the moisture in the cucumber, not flavor it.

While that’s going, dissolve the sugar into the rice vinegar. By the time you’re done with this, you can declare your cucumbers good enough. Bonus step: If you want, squeeze the cucumber juice out over the sink. Not really necessary.

Add a splash of soy sauce to your vinegar, then pour it over the cucumbers and gently toss.

They are delicious and nutritious, plus the quickest appetizer in the world to make. When I made these on Lonely Asian Girl Christmas, they got devoured.

This recipe makes 1 serving for a hungry lunchtime George, or 2-3 side servings.

• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1/2 an onion, thinly sliced
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• HAM. I used about 2 slices of the unnaturally square-shaped pre-cooked pre-packaged ham you buy at the grocery store, but you can adjust (a) The amount of ham, depending on your daily ham needs, and (b) The quality of the ham you use. Pancetta (basically Italian bacon) would be ideal, but you would have to cook it all the way through (unless you live on the edge).
• salt and black pepper to taste
• 2 tsp brown sugar
• 1 pear, peeled, cored, quartered, and then thinly sliced (I used bosc, but I’m sure any pear will do.)
• white truffle oil, to taste (I used about 2 tsp I think. It’s optional, but tasty.)
• spinach (uh… about 3ish cups loosely packed I guess?)
• 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• crumbled gorgonzola (as much as you like! Any sharp cheese will do; I know some people don’t like blue cheese. Rolleyes.)

Heat the olive oil in a saucepan over medium heat, and when it starts to shimmer, add the sliced onion. Toss the onion in the hot oil until it is thoroughly coated, and then add some salt and pepper. Add the garlic and stir for about 2 minutes or so until it smells awesome. Then throw in the ham and brown sugar, and stir that until everything is well-mixed. Depending on how lean your ham is, you may have to add some water to keep stuff from being burny and overly sticky. Turn the heat down to medium-low, and let the flavors mingle. Throw in the pear bits and stir it again until everything is well-mixed, add salt and pepper to taste, and (perhaps) half of the truffle oil. Turn off the heat completely. It should look something like this?

In a large salad bowl, toss together the spinach, balsamic vinegar, remaining truffle oil (here you should substitute olive oil if you don’t got truffle), and gorgonzola. Combine the lurid ham-pear orgy with the spinach, mixing it well, and let the now-completed salad cool before serving (this will allow the gorgonzola to get a bit melty and creamy on the pearz). Then serve! Preferably with a toasty piece of naan, courtesy Henry.