Thursday, February 10, 2011

Linden's Overcompensatory Desserts

So I am spending a few days off my diet (because of an academic lunch I had on Wednesday that was fairly unavoidable) and in this time I have to cram in as much deliciousness as possible. Still, this was sort of an unexcusable dessert - a slice of cheesecake Tina and I made over the weekend, brownies I had made earlier that day, and some attractively sliced strawberries and blueberries to add a veneer of healthiness.


And in the proper tradition of playing with food, I give you Cynthia the Fox, Who Is Sadly No More. (Who was not created by me, just in case you were having delusions of my food-artistic abilities.)

The brownies, by the way, were super delicious. I think I have hit on a very good, easy brownie recipe. (I think this weekend I'm going to make some more with a different recipe, substituting raspberry cocoa for dutch cocoa. I will let you know how they turn out.) But the ones I made a few days ago, which are now in my belly, used proper baking chocolate, and came from here. (Scroll down past all the cheesecake bits to the brownie recipe at the end.)

Monday, February 7, 2011

Linden's Parmesan and Basil encrusted haddock

So due to circumstances somewhat out of my control (an academic lunch I sort of have to go to), my food investigation is coming to an abrupt end for now. So yesterday I introduced cheese (and let me tell you, it was exciting).

Now the last few weeks, I have been hunting the internets for ways to prepare food within my limitations, and in the process found a lot of ways to prepare food without my limitations, which means I accumulated a long list of things to try once I dropped my diet. One of them was something like this recipe, although still edited since I am not currently at this moment consuming oil.

This is haddock, which is a very cheap fish - four times this amount costs something like $4-5 here. I chopped together fresh basil and grated parmesan, and then put it on top of the fish, on a tray with asparagus. Popped it in the oven at ~350 for half an hour, then broiled it at the end to get the top extra-crunchy. In the meantime, boiled some cauliflower and broccoli and melted some cheddar mixed with rosemary and parsley on top. Served it all on a bed of baby spinach, and you have a very green and white meal. Delicious!

Today I am going to start eating wheat again, and possibly potatoes. How exciting!

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Linden: The Good Old Days

I have these pictures from a few weeks ago, when I was still allowed to eat what normal people would call "a healthy varied diet". (Right now, the most exciting bit of variation in my diet is the decision between broccoli and cauliflower.) I made a ricotta and courgette gallete, sprinkled with fresh basil, and it was delicious. I have figured out both my oven and pie crust (I have taken to using the fingers method), and I cleverly brushed some egg yolk on top to make the crust deliciously golden brown.


Now this was also was during the golden weekend when I was not eating anything artificial, and thus baking my own bread. So dinner included my underbaked, soggy version of Xan's no-effort-a-caveman-could-do-it-but-Linden-can't bread.

And, because I didn't want to feed people on pie and bread alone, I threw together a delicious pasta dish with caramelized onions, diced chicken cut small enough that it tends to hide within the shells, any peas or green beans to hand (also cut small), pasta shells, the extra ricotta and basil, and lemon and pepper.

Delicious! On a sidenote, the pasta could probably be done without the ricotta, and it would turn into a lemon-pepper-basil pasta, and it would still be delicious. And, the cheese can be the last thing thrown in, so conceivably you could cook a batch, take out half of it, and then add cheese to the rest. I also suggest throwing some parmesan on top for added deliciousness.