Cooking Frenzy

When I graduated from college the job market was tough, much like today. I worked in a video store for a few months, then lucked into a job as a cook at a busy, hip restaurant.  I worked as  a cook for the next ten years,  before moving on to horticulture.   That was a long time and two careers ago, but I still love to cook fast and furiously, making several dishes at the same time, just because I can!   And cooking food I've grown gives me a sense  (probably false, but comforting) of some control over my life. 

Here's what I made today. 

                                Baked Butternut squash casserole with my own squash and onions.

Yet more pickled peppers. No, I don't have a peck, but there are a lot.

Orchiette pasta with fresh lima beans, butter and parmesan and romano cheese.

Here's how I did it:

 First I put a pot of salted water on to heat.  I put bowls of  pasta and raw limas out nearby.

While the water boiled I cleaned the peppers, slit the sides a couple of times, and jammed them into Ball jars.
By then the pot was boiling, so I put the pasta in and set the timer to two minutes.

Next I filled the pepper jars with  cold water,  then poured it out into two measuring cups. There was  about three cups.

My timer went, and I added the limas to the pot of boiling water and put the timer on eight minutes.

I  replaced half the water from the peppers with white vinegar, and put the mixture in a pot on the stove. then I added  three coarsely chopped cloves of my own garlic, a teaspoon of whole cumin, three roughly broken bay leaves, three tablespoons each of sugar and kosher salt, and two tablespoons of  whole black peppercorns.  I turned the heat on medium.

When the pasta alarm rang I drained the lima bean and pasta mix, put it into a reusable plastic container and added a half tablespoon (ok, maybe a bit more...) of unsalted butter, two tablespoons of parm/romano mix, salt and pepper.  Lunch for tomorrow at work!

While my pasta cooled, I turned to the pickling mix. When it had simmered for about five minutes I turned off the burner, let it sit a couple more minutes, then ladled it over the peppers.  I put the lids on and moved the jars to the fridge to cool.

Then I turned the oven on to  400 degrees,  peeled and sliced my own butternut and onion, layered them in a casserole with salt, pepper, a pinch of nutmeg and some knobs of butter.  Once the oven dinged, I put the casserole on a middle rack to cook until tender (depending on the squash this can be anywhere from  30 to 60 minutes; some squash is drier and takes longer to cook).

While the squash baked I watched a DVD from the library-- a cosy British  detective series called 'Rosemary and Thyme' about a pair of gardening detectives.  I wish I got to take long lunches in the pub with a pint when I worked on other peoples gardens!

After a half hour the squash was tender, so I sprinkled some parm/romano mix on it, turned off the oven, and let it sit in the oven another ten minutes. It smelled so good I forgot to take the picture before I ate some!

Mark Bittman wrote a column recently about how easy it is to cook cheap good food at home.  I agree, but a few years of restaurant cooking sure help with the efficiency.  And I got some cool burn scars too.