illdothedisheslater

“The greatest enemy to productivity must surely be the electric blanket.” ~ Jane Austen

I woke up at 5:00 a.m. this morning for no reason whatsoever.  There are many, many things to accomplish today, but for whatever reason (laziness) I simply cranked the electric mattress pad up to 7, rocked into a comfy burrito, and just lay there for over an hour, thinking pleasant thoughts of cooking and holidays.  We were hit with a small winter storm last night, which the TV weather people direly and gleefully predicted as an Armageddon of sorts, prompting early school closings, the mandatory bread/milk rush of crazytimes at the grocery, and panic and paranoia about power loss and the accompanying boredom/chilliness.  The result?  A dusting of snow, icy trees, and fair to middlin’ roads.  Being me, instead of battening down the hatches and curling up in front of the (capped and non-working) fireplace, 6:45 found me cautiously driving to the grocery to buy cheese and sausage.

There is no exciting cooking going on today – still in unambitious mode.  But with the holidays upon us, I’ve got places to be and people to feed.  This weekend is my fabulous girl group’s Christmas dinner, and I have a baby shower for a dear cousin tomorrow night.  Cooking for crowds is not always the right time to experiment.  But I’m going to tweak my Chicken Saltimbocca Bites recipe, which was the first recipe I ever planned, tested, and wrote all by myself, or at least the first that didn’t just involve throwing shit into a pot until it tasted good.

But since this is a cooking blog, and not a “blah blah blah talking about myself and my feelings” blog, and since I am actually cooking today, I’ll start with mashed potatoes.

No one really needs instructions, do they?  There are no secrets.  Cook potatoes.  Mash with butter, milk, salt, and pepper.  Eat potatoes.

Mashed potatoes are almost literally the easiest thing you can cook – right up there with buttered noodles, scrambled eggs, and toast.  I have never read or followed a recipe for mashed potatoes in my life, yet I’d wager mine are pretty great.  You could fancy ‘em up with roasted garlic, various cheeses, or even bacon, but we’re having a traditional roast beef dinner, so these will be traditional mashed potatoes.  Sorry this is not the most exciting blog post.  But there – I cooked.

Back in October when I was really revving up this blog and my cooking, I started browsing the contest cooking websites to see what sort of fame and glory I could gain by doing what I do every weekend anyway.  I stumbled upon the Legends From Europe PDO product contest, which sounded right up my alley:  You request either a meat or a cheese, and they randomly assign you one of their five PDO products with which to create an original recipe.  I requested meat (duh) and was assigned Prosciutto di Parma.  I learned a LOT about prosciutto over the next few weeks, and Prosciutto di Parma is the top shelf, best you can buy (in my town anyway).  I won’t get into how it’s processed, cured, and graded because that’s boring.  But in those weeks I sampled three different kinds of prosciutto and let me tell you – there’s no comparison to the real thing.  Store brand prosciutto tastes sour and gamey.  Too salty.  Too tough.  Real Prosciutto di Parma is buttery – that’s the only way to describe it.  I even held a mini taste-test with one of my bosses who immediately chose the good stuff.

Anyhoo, I made salads.  I made sandwiches.  I baked little prosciutto cups in mini-muffin tins and filled them with goodness.  (I did all this at $19.99 per pound, by the way.)  My coworkers and loyal spouse were my testers, and I eventually settled on my previously blogged about Chicken Saltimbocca Bites with Prosciutto di Parma.

(Not pictured:  lemon, because I forgot to put the lemon in the picture.)

(You may have noticed the tone of that post was a little more traditional, less personal, and less sprinkled with foul language than my normal prose.  I didn’t want to risk turning the judges off with tales of my asshole cat, vague directions, or my general bitching-about-everything.)  The recipe was based on veal saltimbocca and my already fantastic chicken salad, then wrapped in sheets of filo and baked until golden brown.

And I lost.

There has been no official word as of yet, but apparently the winners were to be notified of their winnings five days ago, so I can only assume that I am not one of them.  But that’s okay!  I truly didn’t expect to win – I just wanted to play.  And I challenged myself to create something – to write an original recipe – and I’m proud of what I came up with.

But where did I go wrong?  I have many theories.  I think I should have made the prosciutto the star of the recipe – not a supporting player.  I think the filo dough was fussy and unnecessary and didn’t really add to the dish.  I think I maybe didn’t wax on about Prosciutto di Parma enough – which I easily could have done, because that shit’s the bomb.  And I probably should have edited – kept it simpler and cleaner.  Regardless, I can now add “Recipe Contest Participant” to my growing resume.   No hard feelings at all – maybe I’ll try again next year.

So I’m turning those fussy little bites into a fairly standard chicken salad (same recipe, just add a little more mayo, lemon, and sugar).  I can serve it piped adorably into pre-made filo cups, or just scoop it onto crackers – something buttery and decadent like a Ritz.

It’s really good.  I wrote a really good recipe, which is what I’ll take away from this experience.

(Not pictured:  Ritz crackers because I don’t have any.  I put the lemon in though.)