I served this with the dinner mentioned below.  Great Caesar Salad, with anchovies in a quantity that is just subtle enough so that you can sneak them in without offending anyone but still giving the salad a bit of je ne sais quoi. 

Croutons

3 cups slightly stale sourdough bread, cut into 3/4 inch cubes
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 pinches salt

Salad

1 head romaine lettuce
4 tablespoons good extra virgin olive oil
2-4 cloves garlic, minced
Juice of 1/2 large lemon
2 anchovy filets, minced
salt and pepper
1 cup grated parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 325 °F.  Place all crouton ingredients in baking pan and toss well. Bake for about 15 minutes to desired crispiness. 

Wash, tear, and dry lettuce in a salad spinner.  Mix garlic into oil and pour over lettuce, toss to coat.  Squeeze lemon juice over lettuce, toss to coat, taste, and add more lemon juice if you'd like.  Sprinkle minced anchovy, salt, and pepper, and cheese.  Mix well. 

Serve on chilled plates topped with croutons.

Serves 4.

We had a lovely relaxing dinner last night for which I made one of my all-time favorites, Garam Masala Scallops over Acorn Squash.  "Mmmm. Garam Masala!", you say?  Or perhaps "What the heck is Garam Masala?"  For those of you in the second camp, or those of you pretending to be in the first camp, the ingredient list on the back of our packet of garam masala is: Coriander, chilies, salt, cumin, pepper, nutmeg, dried ginger, amchur, sompu, ajwain mace, cloves, marati moggu, block salt, biriyanileaf, fried bengalgram, ananas flower, oma, cinnamon, cardamum (big), cardamum, and asafoetida.  As much as I'd love to be in the kitchen toasting and grinding exotic spices all day long (really!) I have this dreadful inconvenience of a "job" and buy mine at the India House market.  There are also many simpler combinations of garam masala that could be freshly concocted. 

However you choose to get there the result of this dish is a creamy, complex, spicy, sweet, and exotic yellow sauce that goes remarkably well with the roasted squash and seared scallops.  It must be experienced.  Here's the recipe, adapted from the Epicurious/Gourmet version. Serves 4.

That was Laura's response to, "What do you call that dish you made last night?".  An apt description.  It's actually an adaptation from the recipe for "Thai Green Curry Chicken" in the cookbook, A Taste of Indochina. This is a great one dish meal with very versatile flavors that will cozy up to whatever meats and vegetables you have at hand.

2 flounder filets
2 tablespoons veg. oil
2 cloves minced garlic
1 teaspoon shrimp paste
1 tablespoon green curry paste
1 tablespoon chopped lemon grass
1 teaspoon lime zest (or 2 kaffir lime leaves if you can find them)
1 lime
1 tablespoon fish sauce
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup coconut cream
1/2 lb snap peas
1 coarsely chopped red bell pepper
1 coarsely chopped yellow bell pepper
handful of chopped fresh coriander leaves
handful of chopped fresh basil
steamed white rice

Cut fish into 1 inch cubes.  Heat oil over med-high in a large sauté pan.  Sauté fish briefly on both sides until nearly cooked and then transfer to paper towels.  Flounder will fall apart a bit, but the fish bits that will end up in each bite will be quite lovely.

Add some lime juice to the pan to deglaze and scrape up the fish bits.  Add garlic, shrimp paste, and green curry and cook over med-low heat briefly.  Stir in lemon grass, lime zest, fish sauce, water and coconut cream.  Bring to boil. 

Lower to a simmer, add vegetables, simmer until vegetables are crisp-tender.  Add fish and herbs, simmer for a couple minutes, and serve immediately over steamed rice.

YumYum.

We just had an annual meeting at work, for which we were provided a sum of money for a nice lunch.  As always, we took it upon ourselves to make this lunch a bit memorable rather than having some lame caterer, or ordering pizza or sandwiches.  This one was really excellent, and I decided to document it from an, er, interesting perspective.  Click on Smokey to the right to enjoy.  I'll post any recipes mentioned in the photo essay soon.  (Yes, I think it should be Smoky instead of Smokey, but that's his name and who am I to judge?)

Religious celebrations seem to inspire a lot of great foods and feasts. From the yummy latkes you see below in Jewish celebrations around this time of year, to the great foods associated with Christmas and Easter, to the Hindu Feast of Holi (ok, I looked that one up). I found myself thinking, as I savored my potato pancakes Friday night, that I could possibly really miss out, being an atheist. Why don't we have any good atheist feasts? Of course there are plenty of secular holidays that inspire feasts, but I longed for something unique, something exclusionary, something where I could tell others they don't appreciate the true meaning. Perhaps something like:

• All Heathens Day
• The Feast of Logic
• The Festival of "The Tree of Knowledge Was a Good Thing, Right?"
• Mardi Gras

I envisioned starting great new feast traditions, with ridiculously arbitrary rules on how the food should be prepared and blessed. Maybe eventually coming out with an "Atheist's Cookbook!" Alas, it looks like I'm too late. You really can find anything on the internet.

The Atheist Cookbook