Wasabi Rice Cakes

Rice, even the picture above, may not excite you until I tell you a little more information.  The rice is sushi rice meaning its mixed with sugar and rice vinegar, it's coated with sesame seeds and furikake, fried lightly in sesame oil, and yes that white sauce on the side is wasabi-mascarpone.  We served this as an appetizer, and it makes a tasty snack.  Like the california roll salad, it is reminiscent of the sushi flavors, but with a much richer, not quite dessert taste that is new but familiar.  The recipe can be found here.

Sopa Tarasca

This is a bean and tomato soup recipe from Michoacan, Mexico and brought to us by NPR's column.  As Emily pointed out, I think I have an affinity for pureed beans in soups.  They give a creamy fullness to soups that is heartier than cream and probably better for you.  And they pair especially well with a gentle round heat from chiles, whereas cream tends to counteract heat.  I think that is the reason this recipe is so good - the single ancho chile that it uses.  The other thing I changed about the recipe was the tomatoes.  Fresh tomatoes from the store, especially in wintertime, are pathetic and flavorless.  I used about half the tomatoes from a 28oz can of whole peeled tomatoes, and all the juice from the can to cook them in.  As for the toppings, I had some red pepper, and also sliced and pan fried some corn tortillas, and used the sour cream I had on hand.  Technically this soup is not vegetarian because I threw in some chicken boullion cubes instead of just water at the end.  I would contend that those cubes have so little actual chicken in them that if the FDA set a legal limit to call something "vegetarian" it would probably be under the limit.  But hey, you could always try a vegetable stock or just water.

Octo Feast

Inspired by some excellent marinated octopus we had in Portland Oregon several years ago, the recent NPR article that contained this recipe, my trip to the Eden Center, I had to try an octopus recipe.  The recent discovery of grills-in-the-park in Arlington and 70 degree weather last Saturday made this possible.  I have spared you pictures of the cute baby octopi that defrosted so nicely.  Needless to say I had to clean them myself.

Nine octopi were marinated in a balsamic vinaigrette and made three kebabs.  They cooked for three minutes a side just until the tips were charred.

Yummy.   I didn't get the melt-in-your-mouth tenderness I hoped for, but they were pretty tasty and not rubbery.  If these guys weren't overfished I would do this more often.  But seeing as these guys came from Thailand, I'm probably not going to do this again for a long time.

Kung Pao Chicken

Chinese is another type of food that has a few tricks you need to learn, but once you have you can cook most dishes better than the Chinese restaurants. Getting them to be very authentic is another matter and takes some time and a few strange ingredients. This recipe, originally by Fuschia Dunlop on her travels to China, is a good one, and my version is slightly Americanized due to several ingredient substitutions. But it's delicious, and I did have the Sichuan peppercorn in the pantry which gives it a distinctive flavor.