Secondly, since I'm essentially trapped in my house due to the broken foot, I look for any excuse for my resident chauffeur to take me somewhere. The other day I got a coupon via email from Indigo … buy one book, get the second 50% off. Road trip excuse found. I pulled up my Indigo wish list full of cookbooks, created in hopes of winning the "win your wish list" contest and I was on a mission. And sadly the contest is over and I did not win the wish list contest.
The first choice was easy. How to Eataly is a book I've heard about, read about, seen various places and the library doesn't have it. One look and I was smitten. A lot of that has to do with the layout but it also has good articles on Italian ingredients and tasty-sounding recipes.
The second book took a little more looking. Other than 3 for Christmas, I haven't acquired a cookbook all year so this was a real treat. I looked at a bunch of nice books and rejected them all for one reason or another, mostly due to close enough similarity to books already in my library. Then I spied The Slanted Door by Charles Phan. This is a book that really appealed to me when I borrowed it from the library. It is also completely different from others I own and in line with my International project. In the cart it went.
Of course, I was then itching to make something from one of these great new books. Since the amount my foot tolerates being stood on is finite, I am not able to embark on anything too ambitions. So this has been my main recipe search criteria. Several recipes in The Slanted Door fit the bill. I've thrown out the bread and cookies goal for now and concentrated on a salad and a main.
The salad was Jicama and Grapefruit Salad and was delicious. I have never had Jicama before and I am absolutely going to be eating it again. Along with cabbage, candied pecans and grapefruit, there is a reason this is one of the Slanted Doors most popular appetizers (as it says in the recipe intro).
For the main course, we had Shaking Beef, the signature dish of the restaurant. I must confess that if the picture hadn't looked so pretty (much prettier than mine, hence the need to figure out food photography) and if it hadn't been the signature dish, I think it might have completely escaped my notice. But I felt like beef, it didn't require a barbecue (too cold outside to be interested in barbecuing) and off I went. It is simple to make, the ingredients are all on my shelves, add some beef, onions and watercress and … wow! So very, very, very tasty.
In terms of the broken foot, I'm now two weeks in, four weeks to go. I'm really hoping the soft callus is forming nicely and I'll be back to curling before the end of the season.
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