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“He grills the steaks upstairs in the fireplace, and they’re bloody inside and charred on the outside, and the juices run down your face, and you’re drunk, and your face is greasy, and everything is right with the world.”

Link

No recipes because it’s all stupid-simple:

• Pan-seared lamb chops
• Steamed cauliflower topped with a lump of gorgonzola cheese
• Wild rice

I love food.

The first time I cooked salmon at home (not on a grill) I pan-seared it and lived to regret the clinging stench of fish in the condo for the next 2 days. That put me off for months, but today I turned to my pal shaver who imparted some wisdom that essentially boiled down to “wrap it in something and bake it”. So that’s what I did, cribbing a recipe from notes from the internet, and it turned out perfectly.

Ingredients

• 2 salmon steaks, 1″ thick or so
• 1 can artichoke hearts (you only need 2 or 3, so be prepared to deal with the leftovers)
• 1 fresh vine-ripened tomato, roughly chopped
• 3 sprigs fresh thyme
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• Salt + pepper to taste
• Lemon wedges to serve

Method

1. Preheat oven to 400F.
2. Chop 3 artichoke hearts into quarters. Mix artichoke, tomato, thyme leaves (discard stems), 2 tbsp olive oil, salt + pepper in a small bowl.
3. Lay out two sheets of aluminum foil, large enough to completely, but loosely, wrap the salmon.
4. Use remaining oil to rub down the salmon steaks, and place those on the foil.
5. Top each salmon steak with half of the artichoke/tomato mixture. Fold foil loosely around steaks and seal, so each steak is in its own little foil packet-pod.
6. Place foil pods on a baking sheet, and put in the oven. Bake for 25-30 mins.
7. Unwrap, remove from foil, and plate, serving with lemon wedges.

That’s pretty much it. I served these with steamed snap peas and baked sweet potato.

I’m actually not a huge fan of regular hummus unless it’s so jacked up with lemon juice and garlic that most other people won’t eat it, but I made a hummus today that we both like a lot.

Ingredients

• 1 19oz chickpeas, drained and well rinsed
• 5oz baby spinach, wilted (I just tossed it in a non-stick saute pan with a tsp of water until it was more cooked than raw — 5 mins on med-high or so)
• Zest from a whole lemon, minced
• 4 tbsp lemon juice
• 1/4c extra virgin olive oil
• Salt + pepper to taste — the canned chickpeas probably have a lot of sodium in them already, so be cautious with the salt at first
• 1 md clove of garlic
• 1/2 md shallot

Method

1. Toss it all in a food processor and puree until more-or-less smooth. Should be a nice rich green colour. Add warm water a little at a time if it needs thinning.
2. Taste and adjust seasonings — add more salt, pepper, or lemon juice as you see fit.
3. Transfer to a bowl and, ideally, let sit in the refrigerator for a while. The flavours will blend and develop over time, although it’s perfectly good straight out of the processor.

Serve with whole grain pitas or whatever.

It’s possible that this might be a touch lemony for some people, so if you’re not a huge fan of a big citrus punch, only use zest from half a lemon.