suzy's new digs

not that i don't love blogger. but a friend turned me on to wordpress, and ... well, the improvements have to be seen to be believed.

curious about how my thanksgiving turned out? all details at suzycantcook.wordpress.com!

suzy starts to get nervous

it's true. i have already begun to feel nervous about this afternoon. the sun has barely risen, H has been dropped at work, i probably don't need to start cooking for a while, but i am nervous.

it's the first time i've cooked for thanksgiving! AAAHHHH!!!!

suzy and the dish worth eating

i digressed yesterday, i know. i was supposed to tell you about the fabled dish worth eating, that came from Nava Atlas' Vegetarian 5 Ingredient Gourmet.

i should tell you right from the start that there was a glitch. only one!, but still... and despite that, it still turned out yummy! yummy even as leftovers!

and here, with no more ado, it is:

Warm Potato Salad with Goat Cheese
(isn't it pretty?)

2 to 2 1/2 lbs tiny new potatoes or 6 medium red-skinned potatoes, scrubbed
1/2 c vinaigrette, preferably balsamic (this is where the glitch happened)
4 to 6 oz mixed baby greens
4 oz crumbled goat cheese, such as Montrachet

-bake or microwave potatoes until done but still firm (i boiled them for about 12 min)
-cut potatoes into large dice
-combine the potatoes with the vinaigrette in a mixing bowl and stir gently (we're getting closer to the glitch). let stand for about 10 minutes.
-divide the greens among 4 salad plates or shallow bowls. drain off any excess vinaigrette from the potatoes in a small container and drizzle it over the greens.
-divide the potatoes among the salad plates, placing them atop the greens.
-top each serving with goat cheese and serve.

now, as usual, this is not exactly what happened. i got up to the second part, happily poured my half cup of red wine vinegar over the potatoes, and started talking to H about what i was doing. it was only a few minutes later that i realized that, yes, i had poured VINEGAR over the potatoes, NOT vinaigrette.

... damn. so i did not let them stand 10 minutes, it was probably more like 5, and then i drained off the vinegar to use on the salad. my heart in my throat, i ate a potato.

it was definitely vinegary, but actually, we like vinegar! and because i didn't let it sit too long, it wasn't overwhelming. intense yes, but not overwhelming.

the next bit wasn't so much a glitch as a revision. i was only serving 2. so i did what it said, then combined the goat cheese with the potatoes in a container and put that in the fridge, keeping the rest of the greens separate. my reasoning was that the greens would get soggy if everything was together, and then be impossible to separate, and there's nothing i hate more than soggy greens.

this turned out to be great in the end, because the next morning H didn't feel like making breakfast, and while i was surveying the fridge for potential i thought, hmmm, those potatoes with the goat cheese from last night almost look like home-fries...

and voila! some olive oil in a pan and some intense scraping later (some of the goat cheese stuck to the pan, but the scrapings turned out to be DELICIOUS eaten from the end of the spatula) we had vinegar and goat cheese home-fries that were a fabulous, albeit intense, breakfast.

so! that is the story of how my faith was restored in this cookbook. next time, though, i will get/make myself some vinaigrette...