Local & Lazy

Maybe it's laziness. I prefer to think it is a throwback to simpler times, an homage to the Alice Waterses and Mark Bittmans of the world. My favorite meal to cook is a simple one, with as few ingredients and seasonings as possible. The farm share really opened my eyes to the deliciousness of beautifully grown produce whose flavor does not need to be drowned out with much added fat or seasoning. The added bonus to this is being able to pare down my spice rack and keep my fridge a little lighter on inventory.

I'm also a big fan of trying to cook everything in one pan. One pan cooking may be my favorite method of cooking, trying to time everything so it completes its cooking process at the same time.

Another thing which contributed to my recent culinary evolution was the trip to France last summer and experiencing a truly French style meal where every protein needn't be accompanied by both a starch and multiple vegetables. A duck breast may only be served with roasted potatoes; a tenderloin of beef may only come with mashed potatoes; fillet of fish may only be accompanied by some sauteed spinach.

Okay, a lot of it has to do with the fact that all of these methods and facts combine to promote my own inherent laziness, but it really is a true beauty to experience food in this simplistic sense when you're working with great ingredients.

I like to call this method: lazy cuisine.



For a lazy salad I used some mixed greens, crushed pecans, goat cheese, and avocado with some olive oil and lemon juice.



I carmelized the leftover spring onions (I purchased way more than I thought I originally needed) with a little garlic, butter, and olive oil then added some oyster, shiitake, and crimini mushrooms. After they were done I made some room for two salmon fillets in my pan, seared them with olive oil, lemon, garlic, salt, and pepper then scooted them to another corner of the pan and threw in some of the first nice asparagus of the season into the pan.



I carefully selected the wine pairing for this meal by grabbing the first white wine I could find (because white wine is supposed to go with fish, you see) which was this Liebfraumilch. It was perhaps a little too sweet for this meal which suggests that maybe my wine pairing technique needs to be refined. Clearly that cannot be the case. There must have been something wrong with the wine or something.



For dessert: matzoh crunch. The best part of the lead up to Passover is this delicious dessert made with chocolate, matzoh, brown sugar, and caramel. I have Friday off of work and I think I might spend 80% of that time just eating matzoh crunch until I go into shock from the rising blood sugar level.

That is my plan anyway. I'm probably too lazy to actually do it.