Food! #1

I've been meaning to publish a post on the steady stream of friends and family we've been seeing lately. There's more to say on Mom's visit, Joe & Judy & Will came down to drop some stuff off, and Shayna & Paulo got to meet the littlest Simpson. Hopefully I'll get to that soon.

For now, though, I just gotta tell you that I miss cooking-- having the time to cook, that is. I mean go all out. Christmas dinner, modest as it was, took me five hours to make. So it was that last night, for some still-unknown reason, I decided to throw down.

Mom and I went to the new Trader Joe's last week and I picked up some cod.  We've had some fruit sitting around looking like they were just aching to stink the place up. And I have bacon (Bacon makes everything better, you know). I decided to let these things come together on a plate over one of my favorite starches, risotto.

I knew I'd be battling forces beyond my control: Sarah's work schedule and Lil' H's sleep schedule being the two foremost. Fancy dinner is simply impractical at this point, I thought. Hang it! I'm doing it anyway. So last night's special was:

Pan-seared bacon-wrapped cod topped with spiced citrus conserves, served with risotto, micro greens, and Granny Smith Slaw. That's $17 at any restaurant worth its salt!
Here's how it shook out.

Off to a good start, right? Slaw of Granny Smiths, red onions, and radish. Spiced conserves of orange and lemon with toasted allspice and cardamom with vanilla bean (jury's still out on this one).

Action fast and slow. Pan-searing moves quickly while risotto requires patience.

Mmm, Bacon!

The finished product- Not bad, the judges said.

In other cooking news, I've been baking like there's no tomorrow. Possible reasons:
1. It's cold outside
2. Baked stuff is yummy
3. I'm through with college and I'm too task oriented to stand idly by

So here we have Rob's world famous apple pie (half-consumed) and Lemon Shaker Pie, courtesy of Deb at Smitten Kitchen, both built on Rob's hand made pie dough. These guys didn't last 2 days! Both were good a la mode but the apple pie was unstoppable when topped with Mama Donna's cranberry relish.

Yup. Yum.

Man, I just made myself hungry. I gotta go bake some brownies now.

More soon. Holla.