The best thing I ate last week: Gnocchi with Brussels sprouts and salt pork

Brussels sprouts and bacon. Brussels sprouts and pancetta. Brussels sprouts and salt pork!

I had a small piece of salt pork left over (from this amazing cassoulet recipe) that was begging to be used up. I don’t have a lot of experience cooking with salt pork, but it seems that the thing to do is cube it and fry it, then fry some other stuff in the rendered fat. So that’s what I did, frying up a handful of Brussels sprouts that were left over from another amazing recipe.

That didn’t seem like a well-balanced meal, so I cooked up some gnocchi and threw it all together. (Remember, potatoes are vegetables.)

Ingredients

• 4 oz salt pork, skin removed and cut into 1/2-inch cubes (but that was at least twice as much as I should have used)
• 6-10 Brussels sprouts, halved
• 1/2 package gnocchi
• 1 small shallot, finely chopped
• 4 fresh sage leaves, cut into ribbons
• pepper
• olive oil

1. Fry up that pork, until it is soooo brown and crispy.
2. Put the pork on the side and fry the Brussels sprouts, tossing occasionally, until golden brown on both sides. (You might want to pour off most of the fat if you have, you know, any concern for your well-being or respect for your body.)
3. In the meantime, cook the gnocchi.
4. Add pork back to the pan with the sprouts. Also add the shallot and sage leaves, and let everything meld for a minute or two.
5. When the gnocchi is drained, toss it with the other ingredients, season with pepper (you shouldn’t need any extra salt), and add a little olive oil because OBVIOUSLY this dish needs more fat in it.
6. Remind yourself that it’s only natural to want to fatten up for winter (also, DUH there are vegetables in it), send a photo of the dish to your boyfriend to make him jealous, and dig in.

Easy and Fancy Roast Chicken with Vegetables

I made this chicken last night from a Serious Eats recipe.

http://www.seriouseats.com/2014/10/the-food-lab-crisp-skinned-chicken-roast-vegetable-cast-iron.html

I highly recommend it. That is all.

Okay that’s not all; I never thought I would make potatoes that looked that beautiful. It was a life-changing event.

Bacon Ice Cream

I made this back at the end of the school year for a potluck. I loved it, and for the most part it was a hit. Some people just can’t get on board with the idea of putting bacon in ice cream. Too bad for them. And one guy told me it wasn’t bacon-y enough. (I suspect he’s a serious bacon addict.)

For all its great flavor and novelty, this ice cream is surprisingly easy to make. It’s just crumbled candied bacon in brown sugar ice cream. The only trick is candying the bacon without burning it or making too much of a mess. Well, that and stopping yourself from eating all the candied bacon before it makes it into the ice cream.

This recipe makes a little more than a quart.

Ingredients

• 6 strips bacon
• about 1/4 to 1/3 cup brown sugar for candying the bacon
• 2 cups heavy cream
• 1 cup milk
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1. Candy the bacon (adapted from Alex Guarnaschelli’s recipe): Preheat oven to 325°F. Line a rimmed baking sheet with foil, then parchment paper or a Silpat. Lay the bacon out, and spread brown sugar evenly over each strip.

Bake for around 15 minutes, checking nearly constantly to make sure nothing’s burning. The bacon’s done when it’s an ooey-gooey, rich mahogany colored mess. (Note that you don’t need to flip the bacon strips, though if you have an uneven oven like mine, you may want to rotate the pan at some point.)

Let the bacon cool on another sheet of parchment paper.

Crumble by hand; it should be very brittle.

2. Make the ice cream: Stir together cream, milk, sugar, and vanilla. Pour it into an ice cream churner and let it whirl.

3. Bring the two together: When the ice cream is nearly done churning (i.e. when it’s definitely not liquid anymore), pour in the crumbled bacon.

The churning should mix the crumbled bits in thoroughly.

When done, pack up all that’ll fit in a container and freeze for at least a couple hours. Eat the rest immediately.

Matchbooks (vol. 1)

From my aunt and uncle’s big basket full of matchbooks they’ve collected while traveling:

(More later.)

Sorting pebbles

From Bean Hollow State Beach near Pescadero, on July 19.

  

Ben Goldacre on drug ads

From Bad Science

Direct-to-consumer drug ads are properly bizarre, especially the TV ones. Your life is in disarray; your restless legs/migraine/cholesterol have taken over; all is panic; there is no sense anywhere. Then, when you take the right pill, suddenly the screen brightens up into a warm yellow, granny’s laughing, the kids are laughing, the dog’s tail is wagging, some nauseating child is playing with the hose on the lawn, spraying a rainbow of water into the sunshine while absolutely laughing his head off as all your relationships suddenly become successful again. All you have to do is “ask your doctor” and life will be good. It’s worth noting that drug adverts aimed directly at the public are legally allowed only in the United States and New Zealand, as pretty much everywhere else in the developed world has banned them, for the simple reason that they work.

Nice sweater, GI Joe

I’ll share the pattern soon.

Knitting roundup

It’s summertime, so that means it’s knitting time! It may be hot, but I’ve got way too much free time. And I always get grandiose ideas about knitting all my Christmas presents around this time of year. (It never pans out.)

Here’s what I’m working on at the moment.

Here is journal of Vicmorn Griffonbiter, goblin prince of great magic and smarts.

I wrote this for my Dungeons & Dragons group last week. (Yes, I am finally a Dungeon Master.) I cackled with delight as I wrote it, and could hardly contain myself when the wizard in the group, the only one who can read Goblin, read it out loud. There’s a possibility that it won’t be as funny for people who aren’t, you know, me.

Some context: the players had been sent, by the head librarian of Sivad College, to track down Vicmorn Griffonbiter and bring back the books he had stolen. They found this journal in his study.

---

Here is journal of Vicmorn Griffonbiter, goblin prince of great magic and smarts. No reading for you who finds this, or Vicmorn hurt you much much with hexes from magic book. Give you warts on face for much ugly and ouch-hurtings. No is reading!

Back to blogging

I’ve just gone through all my blog archives, and man, I used to write a lot. I feel like I hardly ever write anymore. And look at all the recipes I used to type up! When’s the last time I did that?

Now I’m hoping to remedy that. The blog lives again.

---

Image credit:
   by  Wiertz Sebastien