do my own 101 cookbooks project

Last week was the end of the semester, which meant last weekend was a giant party weekend. I live in a very heavily undergrad-populated area, so I was pleased as punch to get out of there and go to the suburbs for a party with my friends, the theme being “ethnic potluck.”

Again, just like you’re not supposed to do, I brought something I’d never made before, frijoles molidos, which came from a recipe in Latin American Cooking Across the U.S.A.. This is a Costa Rican black bean dip. But, I figured, it looked awfully easy, and it consisted largely of black beans, sour cream, and bacon, so who WOULDN’T like it?

I was right. It went over well (and the bacon is a garnish, not mixed in, so my vegetarian friend could enjoy it, too, as long as she picked around it.) If it hadn’t been a huge party with A TON of food, all of it fantastic-cabbage rolls, spring rolls, empanadas, all homemade, plus more!-I doubt I would’ve had as much left over.

The next day, frijoles molidos and tortilla chips for breakfast. Yum.

I am still totally in love with soup. I haven’t been eating it as much lately, but now that it’s cold, I want to eat it constantly. Soup and pasta (and beer) are all I’ve been living off lately, I think.

Most of the recipes in Vegetable Soups from Deborah Madison’s Kitchen are kind of fancy-especially for a poor, single student, but her peanut soup, Senegalese style was quick and easy, and used a lot of staples.

I made it, ate two bowls (my friend was over, and had brought herself a chicken sandwich from McDonald’s, and I felt bad that she was eating THAT while I was eating THIS) and, while I went out with my friends, thought about how much more of that soup I’d like to eat.

And so I did when I went home. This soup did not last long at my house.

Yet occasionally I get food cravings out of nowhere. They’re usually not terribly bizarre, but still, out of nowhere! And usually I do nothing about them.

But this time, when a hankering for Italian food hit-Olive Garden style Italian food (but better), not real Italian food-I listened. I got Lidia’s Italian-American Kitchen from the library, and I made some pasta alla carbonara, which is what I was totally dying for. It wasn’t as creamy as the carbonara I’ve usually had. When I first ate it, I thought, “Hmmm…good, not great.”

Then I woke up the next morning, and it was the first thing on my mind. And I ate the rest of it for breakfast, thinking, “Nope, it’s great after all.” This is #37, and another of Lidia’s cookbooks might be next on the list.

Is that what you call someone who is enamored of India? Anglophile, Francophile…Indophile? This being said, I’ve never been to India, and I can’t speak any Indian language (although I do know how to say “What?” in Hindi.)

Maybe I’m just an Indian food-o-phile. That doesn’t roll off the tongue very nicely, though. But still, it explains why I blissfully spent my Sunday listening to public radio and cooking palak ka raita and a dish with a long name which I have forgotten (it had peas, paneer, and mushrooms) from Cuisines of India. This cookbook (the 36th) is really interesting. Truth be told, I don’t know a whole lot about Indian history, but there’s a lot of history in this book. I learned from this book that an Indian emperor once said, “I have two lips: One for drinking wine, and the other apologizing for drunkenness.” It was fated to be that one day, hundreds of years later, a pasty Midwestern girl would fall in love with this culture.

Okay, I’m not really sure who Soupy Sales is. I know he was a comedian, but that’s about it. But I also know that he had a great name, and that he died the other day, and I thought his name would be a good title for a post about soup, and my 35th cookbook.

Most people are under the impression that Minnesota is always cold, which it is not. Except right now, it is. That, friends, means it’s soup weather. Maybe this is why it took a Minneapolis-based author to write A Beautiful Bowl of Soup.

I’ve been obsessed with lentil soups lately. I’ve been craving them, but I haven’t had any. Finally, the other night, after a loooong day (one of many I’ve had lately), I came home and made Red Lentil Soup. It’s based on an Egyptian soup, the name of which I’ve forgotten. It has red lentils, obviously, and is topped with fried onions. When I mentioned this soup to an Egyptian friend of mine, she said they eat lentils all the time, and fried onions at almost every meal, so it’s apparently pretty authentic. Authenticity aside, it was totally delish, and really fast, too. I’m making some broccoli-cheese soup from this cookbook later this weekend.

For various reasons, I’ve been trying to eat healthier lately. For other various reasons, I totally fell off the wagon last weekend. Frozen pizza and Doritos for dinner Thursday? Guilty.

But one thing I did do right last weekend was go on a giant trek through Northeast. Probably five miles, all told. I was not planning on trekking, and I was wearing strappy sandals (flat ones, at least), and my calves hurt for days afterwards. On this trek, I happened upon an amazing Indian grocery store. There was an entire freezer case full of various kinds of frozen samosas. There were also shelves upon shelves of flours. Apparently you can make a flour out of anything. There were flours I’d never heard of. Subsequently, I wanted to do nothing but eat Indian food.

The next day I went to the library and checked out 1,000 Indian Recipes. And that, friends, is a lot of Indian food. The cheat with this cookbook is that I think a quarter of them are recipes for raitas and various breads, but oh well.

My naughtiness comes from the fact that I made gosht pullao, which is lamb rice pilaf. Lamb is such a red meat (and such a cute one, when it’s not chopped up), and it’s so expensive (almost $6 for a half-pound, YIKES) so luckily I’m getting a few meals out of it. I WAY skimped on the lamb amount (by a full pound, because, again, I am broke, and I also think raw meat is gross,) but I overcompensated on the rice, so I guess it evened out. The rice turned out a little gummy, but that’s my fault.

Naughtiness aside, this was DELICIOUS. The irony is that I didn’t even need to buy anything from that grocery store to make it, so I guess I’ll just have to go back.

Also, there’s a quote from Michael Jackson on the back of this book. I have to imagine it’s THE Michael Jackson, since he’s described as an “award-winning entertainer,” but there was something very strange to me about the idea of Michael Jackson loving tandoori chicken as much as he apparently did. Weird.

One dish, two goals! Aren’t I clever. But I’m going to write about the other one later, because I like to stretch out my entries.

I always mean to read “Cook’s Illustrated,” because it sounds so in-depth, but a few weeks ago I got The Best International Recipe from the library. This depth, as it turns out, is what kind of drove me batty about the cookbook. I mean, I do not need a page telling me how many tries it took to make the “perfect” salsa.

And then, because it took so much work to create these recipes, I felt bad deviating from the recipes. But I did anyway, because I believe in Fighting The Power.

I made minestra di ceci, which is chickpeas and escarole. It didn’t look like much, but when I tasted it I said, “Oh my God!” (Really.) It was good stuff, very earthy. Also, Italians call this kind of thing “cucina povera,” which means “cuisine of the poor,” fitting because, friends, I am broke as a joke.

Number thirty-three! Number thirty-three! I am one-third through.

Oh, not the recipe, apparently. I made a coconut cream pie from Pie. Truth be told, I didn’t try any of it, but I got phone calls telling me how amazing it was. And the batter was pretty good when I licked the spoon.

The titular “yuck” refers to the fact that I made it for a boy, so he would like me. Ewwww. Someone take away my feminist card.

I think it helped, though.

I am getting so behind on this goal! This is #32. Yikes. Luckily, I still have a few weeks before classes start up again, and a brand new library card, and man alive, the Minneapolis Public Library is stocked with the cookbooks. Also, I am on a giant baking binge lately, so things should pick up.

I love the New York Times so much that it’s the homepage on my computer, prompting people to always ask, “The New York Times? Really?” like they’re surprised I’m a big nerd or something. So I was pretty psyched to notice that, among her shelves and shelves of cookbooks, my maw owns The New York Times Cookbook (although it’s not that edition, it’s an older one from the ‘80s).

Yesterday I made Chicken Tamale Pie. Oh man, am I ever a sucker for tamale pie.

Alas. It a) reaffirmed that I will never again buy a whole chicken. I had to make my mom cut it apart because it was making yucky sounds and I thought it was going to make me sick and b) wasn’t that great, even though it was pretty labor intensive. I have a vegetarian recipe for something similar that is way less work and tastes way better. But it’s #31. I say this every time I post an entry about this goal, but oh mylanta, this is taking forever.

I don’t like mornings, and I don’t like people who are overly perky in mornings. This rules out my watching television morning shows. I also dislike gimmicky celebrity cookbooks.

But Today’s Kitchen was $5 in the bargain book bin at the grocery store the other day. Okay, I’ll shell out $5 for a cookbook, even if it does have Al Roker’s cheesy grinning mug on the cover. And, even though I admit it only grudgingly, it does have some pretty good recipes in it, from lots of famous chefs. Also, it is cookbook #30, and that means I’m almost one third through this goal, which has been taking longer than I imagined it would when I posted it.

So I made shrimp teriyaki noodles, and they were super easy, and they-I admit this even more grudgingly-were actually really good.

Sigh.