I eat, I read, I watch — dining solo #13 -
Garlic Shrimp with rapini on egg noodles in porcini cream
Today’s post is the 13th of “I eat, I read, I watch,” my column highlighting one of my solo dinners and my reading or Netflix accompaniments. Please treat yourself well at mealtime too. Don’t just eat alone - dine solo! You’re worth it. And it’s not hard to do.
Missed the earlier instalments? See the list at the bottom of the post:
I eat: Garlic Shrimp with rapini on egg noodles in porcini cream
Driving home from work, I listen to Here and Now, CBC Toronto’s drive-time talk show. On Thursdays, their chef guest answers callers’ food-related questions. This week, a listener asked how to prepare rapini. I was inspired. It’s been awhile since I’ve had any. I picked some up at the grocery store today, with a plan.
I always have shrimps in my freezer as a fast protein that I can extract in small quantities. I got half a dozen out and got them thawing under cold water. Then I got a pot of water boiling to blanch the rapini for one minute, as the chef had advised. While the veg turned a brighter green in the rapid boil, I sliced six cloves of garlic and heated oil and butter in a pan. In went the garlic followed closely by the shrimps. I drained the rapini and ran cold tap water over it to stop the cooking process.
My favourite noodles are egg noodles and I wanted a few as a base for this meal. The pot vacated by the rapini got another round of water and salt and I brought it back to a boil. In went a handful of noodles for seven minutes per the package.
My shrimps were pink on the bottom so I turned them all, running them a few times through the garlicky fat. When they looked nearly done on both sides, I removed them from the pan and threw in the rapini, stirring them into the fat too. After a couple of minutes and nearly at the end of the noodle cooking time, I put the shrimps back in to get it all melding together with a squeeze of lemon for the essential acid component.
At seven minutes, I drained the noodles and put them back in the pot. I got a tiny jar of ‘crema di funghi porcini e tartufo blanco’ from the fridge. This was a Christmas gift from someone who knows me very well. I debated using it all and gluttony won the debate. I spooned it all into the noodles and gave it a good stir to coat, and to transfer some of the temperature from the noodles to the sauce.
Plating was easy - a pile of the crema covered noodles topped with a few pieces of rapini and four shrimps. I’ll leave the rest of the rapini and two shrimps for another day.
Garnish? A little chopped scallion.
Voila!
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cost: $7 not counting the crema, which I know was the most costly bit (and the best…)
Tell me about a recent meal you loved.. In the Comments below please!
I read: Books on living small
Let it Go: Downsizing your way to a richer, happier life is the first book I grabbed from the stack I borrowed from the Toronto Public Library. It’s background reading for my own book, Lane Change, about the period of time from conceiving the idea of building a laneway suite to now when I’m reaping the rewards of a smaller life. I’ll admit this is the first time I’ve had a library card in two decades! I’ve seen the irony, though, in trying too live small whilst filling the place with books, so enough is enough on the buying.
Let it Go is a how-to book about tackling the detritus of life including of people who’ve died. Author, Peter Walsh, tells the reader “you will emerge lighter and liberated. You will be surrounded only by items that bring you joy and pleasure.” Key to that is selecting the right things for your new life. He’s spot-on. If you’re looking for a strategy to cull your collection so you’re left with the things that matter, check this book out.
Next, I opened A Tiny Home to Call Your Own, by Patricia Foreman. I gather she’s a bit of a pioneer in the US tiny home movement, including guest-appearing on national radio and TV shows. She had me at page 4 when she said “tiny homes offer so much more than cute. They can be magical.” That’s how I feel about Chandlerville, partly because I made good decisions about what to bring with me to my new space. She has a whole chapter devoted to stuffology which, as you imagine, is the study of stuff. As the Can/US trade crisis forces us into a period of austerity, perhaps we will each study our own stuff, and determine we have enough?
The third book I selected from the pile was Tiny House Cooking: Satisfying Meals with Minimal Equipment! Truth is, I’ve never had a big kitchen. Both my last two tenants have commented on how they’ve had to get accustomed to cooking in my ‘big house, with its relatively limited counter. That’s made me grin, as I look at Chandlerville’s 10 foot counter with a 26 inch sink-and-a-half and a 22 inch induction stovetop. That doesn’t leave much room for gadgets and tools, or even the luxury of having two cutting boards on the go. Despite that, I’ve pulled off some pretty nice meals for me and also for guests. It takes forethought and organization and those are skills I have. Where I struggle is the cleaning as you go. By the end of meal prep, both sinks are full of dishes and the DW full. But it works. I was a little disappointed with the book though - it’s a cookbook, not a source of tips for small cooking.
Got a self-help reading recommendation? Add it to the Comments below.
I watch: YouTube videos on small house cooking
The small house cookbook got me thinking there must be YouTubers out there helping people adjust to smaller digs. And I was right. One UK chef, Johnny Collins, extols the virtue of his small home kitchen, largely because of its proximity to the garden for both produce and a place to serve guests. Couldn’t agree more - Chandlerville’s size increases from 550 sq ft in the cool months to 650 in the summer with its 10x10 covered gazebo right off the kitchen. Beyond that gazebo is a small herb garden. I plan to increase its bounty this year.
YouTuber under the name “My Minimalist Kitchen” shares my wish to avoid ‘unitasker’ equipment. If a gadget doesn’t serve more than one purpose, I really don’t want it. Of course, there are exceptions - I’m not giving up my corn kernel remover! (But it’s small…) This woman bakes cakes in a toaster oven. I’m really very happy not to have given up a proper oven!
Finally, the Healthy Urban Kitchen gives a 10 minute tour of her small NYC apartment kitchen. She swears by her pot and spice racks and magnetic strips to hang knives and other metal items. Of the first two, I couldn’t agree more. Having things at hand makes cooking much simpler. I have to think about where I might introduce a magnet, something I was very fond of in my old kitchen.
Have you found anything on YouTube worth sharing? In the Comments below please!
Missed the earlier instalments of this column? Click:
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