Soup of Leftovers and Throwing Stuff in the Oven

Let’s talk about how meals happen. Because we are sitting down to a nice chat, and you’re the most indulgent listener ever, just dying to hear whatever half-baked spiel that crawls out of my mouth. You see, dear reader, for the most part making food happens out of desperation for me. I am horrible at planning ahead, and when I’m busy as I have been recently, I do the cognitive equivalent of grabbing whatever is within reach. Or I literally grab the nearest things in the kitchen. At such times, some basic forms of cookery are necessary frames to keep it all from getting too unmanageable both mentally and logistically. The past two days indicate that apparently I have at least two such shortcuts on hand: make soup of leftovers, or throw things in the oven. Probably I don’t have them on hand or in head at all, but somehow, thankfully, they happened.

Soup is probably the most well-trod way of using up leftovers. A lot of various things suddenly become commensurate when thrown in a pot of water or stock. I made soup of leftovers because I saw refried beans, fried kale, cooked ground beef, half an onion, a tortilla, and some mushrooms in the fridge, and I thought “soup!” And of course because it’s me, before any water came into the picture I browned onions, mushrooms, and garlic in some oil. And there was quite a bit of chili powder. And some possibly ill-advised cumin. (I couldn’t help but think of the overpowering odor of Rufus’s chili.) I know, these details outside of a recipe have you rapt, don’t they? Little did you know I’m trying to snuff you out in a blizzard of Irrelevant Facts.

A tangent: I actually have no clue what I’m doing when it comes to seasonings. (Or, well, anything really, but seasonings especially.) I am either falling into strange habits, experimenting blindly, or being minimalist (salt, pepper). The thing is, I only understand how flavors go with other flavors in the negative. If I’m putting things together I’m thinking sure, I guess this might taste good together, maybe. But suggest to me a combination and often you’ll get a response of “ew,” or an extremely ill-masked dubious look. I apologize for this particular knee-jerk of mine.

Anyway, throwing stuff in the oven seems initially like a wonderfully lazy option. But I always end up babying the stuff. Tonight the stuff was pork chops, onion, red pepper, and mushrooms. Pork chops cook quickly, apparently, because they were done in about half an hour, at which point I thought nooo they must be browned! and turned the oven to broil for five minutes. Then I put them on a plate, and continued to bake the soupy vegetables. Of course, I may as well have put them in a pan on the stove for all the stirring I did. Must’ve opened the oven five or six times. The problem was that the vegetables released a lot of water, thus stewing the pork chops rather than roasting them, and thus no sear. Maybe pork chops roasted with vegetables is just not to be. The only viable method I can think of is to suspend the poor things on a wire rack above the roasting vegetables, and basting them in the vegetable juice a few times. But that just sounds wayyy to involved. Although it can’t really be more involved than what I did this time.

Sorry, no recipe. Come on, you don’t really want a recipe for Soupy, Overcooked Pork Chops With Roasted Vegetable Topping, do you? There was once a time when this blog was about perfecting techniques and recipes. It has since devolved into me babbling about whatever the hell I feel like, sometimes connecting it to what I happened to have cooked recently. The defining change is that intentionality has left. I no longer cook things to post them on my blog. I cook what I cook, and sometimes take photos to keep the possibility of blogging about it open. In this case I forgot to take a photo of the roasted things, and instead you just get these photos of the uncooked ingredients arranged in the pan to go in the oven.

Roasted Kale & Parsnips

1 bunch kale (entire kale plant)
3 medium parsnips
1 lime
1 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon coriander
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 425 F. Wash kale and cut into pieces that are 1 inch long at stem end and are progressively larger toward leafy end. Peel parsnips. First cut them into three sections which are each as close to uniform in diameter their entire lengths. Cut the largest in half. Cut all the sections into 1/4 inch wide chunks, perpendicular to the radial axis. Coat small roasting pan with olive oil. Lay kale in pan. Lay parsnips on top of kale. (Pile may be higher than pan--this is okay because kale will cook down). Bake for about 5 minutes. Dump pan contents into large mixing bowl, add coriander, black pepper, and salt, and toss with spoon. Replace kale and parsnips back into pan, squeeze half lime’s juice over pan and bake. After five minutes use spatula to mix vegetables around. After another five minutes cover pan with tin foil. Bake for another ten minutes. It’s done. Serve with remaining lime half.

Kale The Bittersweet

Kale fried with dill seed is actually kind of good. If it exceeded my expectations, you might wonder why then did I cook it? There is a bag full of dill seed, at least I think that’s what it is, in the kitchen cupboard, I have no idea why. I don’t know what could I have been cooking for which I specifically needed dill seed. It smelled appealing when I was looking for a way to cook some wilting kale. Not knowing what it was, and knowing that nobody else was going to eat it, I fried it and some black pepper in sesame oil before throwing in the kale, which in parts soon became almost blackened with slightly bitter anise-like flavor. I felt that this was becoming a disaster: burnt, nasty flavor. When I finally tasted it, I liked it, but doubted the verity of my impression. Is this simply novelty? Would anyone else like this? Would I like this at any other time? Could I have carried out any experiment and been happy with the results? In other words, does this taste exist only in the fleeting moments when I devoured the fried kale? This of course is also a delusion--the “taste” was built as I remembered it, thought of how I would describe it, and began writing this blog entry. And what will probably drive me to make it again is a desire to have again the inflated memory that never quite was.

Such food passions vary in their capacities to disgust, satisfy, and beg to be tried again. Take the sugar binges that made up a good deal of my friendship with someone: every so often (perhaps weeks, perhaps months or years) we would make an absurd amount of some sugary dessert. Our enthusiasm diminished dramatically the more of it we ate, and after not too long we became disgusted with it. I would usually continue to nibble, helplessly in its thrall, exemplifying and sometimes uttering the phrase “take it away from me.” Overdoing it like this cured us for quite a while of our desire for whatever we had just made. But eventually one of us would want to try this all over again--not necessarily the exact same dessert, but to again go through the process from desire to disgust.

Emma Recchi's brief moment.

Favorite dishes are quieter and less dramatic. In fact, good cooking might be defined by its ability to not quite satisfy. To keep one on the point of wanting, to not overdo it. It is in this way that less can be more--one eats more to taste again what began but did not meet one’s fantasy. The impossible way to maintain a compelling fantasy is never-ending dynamism. The fantasy must never be revealed as already reached or completely out of reach. One must be kept always somewhat disappointed and somewhat hopeful. Among all the illimitable distractions of being, one sometimes strives to be entrapped briefly in such simplicity. Perhaps what I liked about the kale was its mixture of pain and pleasure, bitter and sweet. And maybe by singing such praises you will be convinced of what I am not.

1 bunch Italian kale
2 tablespoons toasted sesame oil
1 teaspoon whole dill seeds
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt

Chop the bunch of kale every one inch, keeping the stemmy pieces separate from the leafy pieces. On medium heat, fry the dill seeds and black pepper in the sesame oil for about thirty seconds. Add stemmy kale pieces. Increase heat to medium-high. Fry for about four minutes, stirring every minute. Add the remaining kale and cover. Uncover and stir every two minutes, repeating this process four times. Remove from heat, serve immediately.