Thursday, May 04, 2006
Wrong Priorities
The sun was shining all day and I spent quite a bit of time watching the fallen petals from the cherry trees around our office dancing in the wind. I was in a great mood most of the afternoon and was going to top it all with a trip to Marks & Spencer to get a special treat for tonight's dinner. But as per usual, when I finally got out of the office, I was too tired to face the masses of after work shoppers on Grafton Street. I have to stop taking my job so damn seriously. I waste all my energy on office work I don't much enjoy and end up having no resources left for the stuff I like to do. Like cooking. The result of this wrongly chosen emphasis was that rather than having all I needed for a yummy dinner, I was faced with our typical week end fridge emptiness and I had to get seriously creative to come up with something edible let alone a treat.There was some risotto left from two days ago,
which I was going to shape into patties and fry in a pan until golden brown. Accompanied by some smoked salmon and a drop of dill sauce this was supposed to make a decent dinner. Unfortunately, the lack of cheese in the risotto caused the patties to fall to bits and we ended up with stir-fried risotto. So, rather than making a dill sauce I added a few more vegetables, some basil and lime juice and continued to fry the rice in some butter until it was starting to go slightly crispy. And strange as it may sound, this actually wasn't bad. I mean, I would not attempt to recreate it, but the combination of buttery, cheesy rice with slightly browned edges topped with thin slices of hot-smoked salmon and lime somehow worked.But I was not satisfied with a dinner that just 'worked', I h
ad my mind set on something special. I've created way too many mediocre dishes in the past weeks to settle for this now. There was some rhubarb in the house, so I decided to make desert. At first I was going to try to recreate Richard Corrigan's rhubarb compote with mango ice cream from Great British Menus. But then I got scared of producing another mess-up and chickened out. Instead, I made another rhubarb crumble. The recipe may not be fancy, but it's the result of many years of experimenting, so I know every mistake you can make and every possible way of saving it should it go wrong. It was one of the few sure ways to prevent another disappointment tonight.Christine at 9:17 pm
