gotta gig

Yesterdays cucumber soup and todays puff pastries are all going to assemble themselves at a little event that I have the pleasure of providing appetizers for.



I love when I get to cook for other people and as often as it does happen I wish it happened for every meal (I say that now, what will I do if it ever happens?) The enjoyment I get out of watching the happy and excited faces struggling to decide what to get and then simply deciding that some of each will have to do. This is a relatively small event with about 25 in attendence.



There will be other things like homemade blue chips and salsa and various other crudites and hand foods but those will be made a little closer to delivery time and in addition to these ham and cheese, there will also be a spinach version for the non-meat eaters.

shooters

Well these are more like highballs, asparagus, cucumber highballs that is. Last night, right before falling asleep and wondering what to do with asparagus and cucumbers, I came up with the idea of putting the soup in a cucumber 'glass'. You see, I have been noticing so many delicious cold soups lately both around the city and around the web that I wanted to make some too. Asparagus are all over the place right now so asparagus have to be part of the mix. I scooped out the cucumber and left a shell for the 'glass' the scooped cucumber went into the blender with some asparagus stems -saving the tips for garnish. Making up recipes based on flavor pairings can be easy (strawberries and cream) and most often it can be difficult (curried raisins), in this case it is a little complicated. Should I make it a spicy sweet soup or a mild and savory soup that refreshes?





Cool curry cucumber soup.

six pounds later

Having too much corned beef has its advantages, there is the never ending sandwich as well as the coveted hash but there does get to be a point where enough is enough and we are at that point. I can confidently say that we are now finished with the corned beef.



We have a little phrase around here and it goes like this: "how do you want it?" and the answer is "just right" because that's how I like things and that's how I like to deliver them. I like the yolks to be perfect, the colors to be bright and of course the food to be hot, or "just right" as the case may be.



This corned beef hash was so 'just right' it was hard to eat slow, the perfect breakfast.

pair of aces

Shoes and socks, beer and pretzels, bread and butter and cookies and milk. Some combinations are simply perfect and cookies and milk is one of those matches that match.



The kind of guy that I am I make cookies for my kid about once a week and I like them to have some food value so these are oatmeal, raisin, chocolate chip, with a little lecithin and soy protein thrown in for fun.

roobie-doobie-do

Ask most people what to do with corned beef and rye and they will tell you to make a Reuben. The history of the Reuben is just as varied as those that like to eat it. I have never made a Reuben sandwich before today, why should I, I live in New York City I can get an excellent Reuben quicker than you can say shenanigans.



Today I made a Reuben sandwich especially for my blog buddy Beth and you start out with the star of the show -Corned Beef.



But wait, there's a twist, I didnt have any swiss so I used some Irish Cheddar from KerryGold. (they sent me a coupon for free samples - always pluggin' away what can I say)



The Russian dressing was deconstructed and mixed piece by piece into the the slaw, the flavor came out the same its just I took a different road to get there and it didnt have to look all orangey/ketchupy like Russian dressing looks. (read between the lines, I didnt make Russian dressing)




The sandwich was toasty, ooey gooey and good, mark my word.