15. Feta and Olives with balsamic garlic sauce / 16. Caramelized onions with curry

I carmelized some onions, at the end adding a pinch of curry and cayenne, some cumin, both whole and ground.

I ate this meal with kalamata and Spanish olives and feta marinated with olive oil, garlic, and balsamic vinegar.

I had sauteed the finely chopped garlic briefly in the olive oil, to make the garlic milder and to make the oil absorb the flavor more.

The same dressing went on some sauteed spinach. I also made a simple omelet with eggs and cheese, and fried some slices of baked potato left over from the night before last. Accompanied by coffee, as you can see. I was cooking for 45 minutes, mostly because the onions took that long to carmelize properly. That allowed me to think about what else I was making. The omelet was fine, but the real star of the meal was the feta and balsamic.

14. Balsamic dipping sauce

Yesterday, in Luigi's in Ottawa, Kansas, as an accompaniment to an otherwise middling meal, we had a marvelous dipping sauce for bread made with balsamic vinegar, olive oil, garlic, basil, scallions, and maybe a few other ingredients. I will try to reproduce that at home.

Noun piles

I like the names of dishes, because you can make large and unwieldy NPs (noun phrases). The name of a dish can be like a little poem.

13. Curried carrots and potatoes in the oven

I cut washed and peeled some carrots, then halved some new potatoes, covering them with a curry butter with chopped ginger: cumin seeds, ground cumin, curry powder, chopped ginger, and cayenne, mixed with melted butter, about a T. Then I baked it in the oven for 35 minutes. The theory was that the spices would be absorbed into the vegetables.

The carrots were delicious. The potatoes needed extra butter on the table.

12. Salmon with lime and paprika

Rub some paprika (with salt and pepper and maybe a tiny bit of cumin) on some salmon filets. Take a lemon or lime and squeeze some of the juice onto the top. Cut round slices of said fruit and lay over filets. Bake them until they are done.

I made this and it melted in my mouth. [pictured here before cooking]

***

A good dinner should have three balancing parts. The salmon here goes with the tomato asparagus feta salad and the curried carrots and potatoes.

11. Grilled asparagus tomato feta salad

Grill some asparagus spears. Lay them in a spoke-like pattern over slices of tomato on a place. Top with crumbled feta cheese. Dress with a vinaigrette of olive oil, red-wine vinegar, basil, a little salt and pepper.

Prepare this a few ahead of time to allow for marination.

[Update: it was good, except that the tomatoes themselves were not in season and were kind of lifeless. For once my food looked better than it tasted.]

Cupboard Meals

Johnson has the concept of "Cupboard Meals." Basically, you cook from what you already have on hand. Eggs, canned food, leftovers. I'll be trying out some of my own ideas as well as his suggestions.