Think hard about pizza when you look at this pasta salad. Visualize pizza. Grok pizza. Be one with pizza.

Just don’t order pizza.

Working — with agonizing slowness — on the novel has hacked the tenderloins off my concentration for cooking or for any other sort of writing. In the interest of retrieving my tardy self-discipline, I’m going to o’er-leap the metaphorical stack of indie albums that I ought to write about and tackle #2 in my Legacy of the American Idol Judges series: worldwide legend Mariah Carey (official site).

Since Carey says her favorite food is pizza, but she doesn’t get to eat it because she’s always dieting, the accompanying nosh is a pizza-themed pasta salad. Salad’s dietetic, right? As with Minaj, let’s start with the most recent hit… well, most recent song… Read the rest of this entry »

Wisconsin is supposed to make a girl feel bratty. Bratwursty, that is.

Problem is, I’ve made bratwurst before. And thanks to my ham, I have… well, I have a lot of ham in the house. Adding to the supply of pork and pork products seemed imprudent.

My solution was to meld the idea of bratwurst with apples and onions and the concept of Jefferson’s Virginia ham pasta. So we have ham, pasta, apples, onions, cranberries (a Wisconsin product!), and a sort of au jus.

I think I found piano-driven alternative rockers The Picture Perfect (Bandcamp) via Reverbnation’s local-chart feature. This is indie summer jam material, right on target for 2012′s young feel even though the latest album is a year old. It would seem that Reverbnation shares Paste’s ability to empty my wallet. Shall we find out why?
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Every now and then, I am gripped by the conviction that I need to live in Missouri. So far, the job market has laughed derisively, but there was a time when I got as far as scoping out St. Louis, and on that trip, I had my first encounter with that fine local speciality, toasted ravioli.

Feeding that conviction is Paste’s “10 Missouri Bands You Should Listen to Now” (article), as it was painful to narrow the list to three and tempting to do track-by-tracks on several.

Since it would be imprudent to feed that conviction with excess fat, I’m going to make oven-baked “fried” ravioli (instructions from How Sweet Eats) with a fresh tomato-basil salsa. In the spirit of appreciating good band names, this calls for Sleepy Kitty (official site). Next time somebody complains that a band isn’t doing enough for its fans, I’m going to insist that person memorize “Gimme a Chantz!” Read the rest of this entry »

No, I have not started making ravioli from scratch. These are the Buitoni Wild Mushroom Agnoletti of which I am absurdly fond. About six weeks ago, when autumn was imminent for people who live in normal climates, somebody mentioned a butternut squash-apple pasta sauce, probably with browned butter. The exact reference is now forgotten.

And those are yams in the finished product. They’re always yams.

Into this miasma, we throw a friend’s mention of a Massive Attack song that I should have recognized from when I used to watch House, a long-ago mythical time that seems to cover such random episodes up through season 4 that I wonder if some cable channel was showing reruns. The song got me thinking about one of its central metaphors, and no, I don’t mean the heartbeat effect. Shall we play it? Read the rest of this entry »

Suddenly, I was craving a green vegetable.

This happens once in a blue moon, so although I’d promised to make tomato sauce, I diverged into pea pesto from Smitten Kitchen, on the theory that it’s always the right time to make a pesto of myself.

While writing this, I’m listening to Leah and Stephanie (web site here) perform live in the brutal heat of Tempe Marketplace, which may not be ideal concert-goer behavior; but since I’m sitting in the soft chairs behind the performers, and I’m one of the few people applauding, I think I’m forgiven. Plus, I’m going to tell you all about it while we make mushroom ravioli with pea pesto. Read the rest of this entry »

There exists a fusion genre of country rap, sometimes called “hopry.” The potential of this music to thoroughly cheese off dedicated rock fans delights me.

So does my turkey-mushroom pesto, which is one of those “well, let’s throw ingredients around and see what works” recipes that… works.

Thanks to Wikipedia’s willingness to nuzzle up and nibble my ear, I’m equipped with a selection of hopry acts. So if one doesn’t please, the rest may be worth trying. Shall we marinate a mighty mushroom as we ponder how Bubba Sparxxx is a country boy but a playa too? Read the rest of this entry »

So thoroughly did I hate spinach in childhood that, when as an adult I became quite fond of it, I never stopped to think that Chicken Florentine is essentially my favorite spinach pesto suspended in a cream sauce and wrapped in poultry.

Being essentially lazy, I decided to try the same effect as a pasta dish. Spoiler: I want to eat this for dinner every night.

What better musical accompaniment than the Great Lake Swimmers, who’ve managed to release more-or-less the same record four times in three years? (I’m not kidding, and I don’t mean an iTunes edition and an Amazon edition with one track different. I mean: normal album, live iTunes Sessions EP, deluxe album, different live sessions EP at different venue.) But let’s just give ‘em a listen. Read the rest of this entry »

If I felt ghetto, I could call this Crack Pasta.

At Easter dinner, the guests partook of Dr. Bob’s baked ham, dipped into various cartons of store-bought salads, regarded my rum-soaked strawberries with the skepticism of a clipper ship captain who fears that if there’s rum now, there’ll be pirates soon… and inhaled this pasta. This pasta was more popular than dessert.

I have no idea why. Since we’re going with the inexplicable, the obvious match is Tyrese (listen — or not, there will be vids), who may be finally about to drop an album after a six-year hiatus. I was going to start with his current single, except that it seems to be off a prior album? Or there’s some confusion of prepositions, as surely “get it in” and “get it on,” while roughly synonymous from a male perspective, should not be considered identical as lyrics? Screw it. (Tyrese writes a lot of songs about that.) Let’s just go with it. Read the rest of this entry »

These are shy forest meatballs. In solidarity with the nation’s weather, they are peeking from beneath a snowlike drift of parmesan.

The peas may or may not be in on the plot.

Although I tried a new pasta-cooking technique, the meatballs are the real excitement, as they’re the latest phase in my efforts to render ground turkey recognizable as food. Since the meal represents unexpected twists on the traditional, it’s as good a day as any to check out the AOL listening party for The Civil Wars’ debut album Barton Hollow (MySpace is here for when the full CD stream goes away). Read the rest of this entry »

My favorite bun-in-a-bowl is some of the provocation to review my favorite recipes since starting the blog. A few caloric goodies are going to be featured in the early weeks of the New Year just to wrap up the holiday baking, but I’m thinking lasciviously about salad these days. So shed a tear for some of the more caloric goodies but take a listen to their accompanying soundtracks.

Best Breakfast for One
Philadelphia Sticky Buns
It requires getting up early in the morning for the last rise, but these buns in a bowl are worth the effort. Cocoa in the filling is the necessary touch of sophistication. Read the rest of this entry »

Chilly autumn days in the high 80s brought a yen for the rich, earthy flavors of mushroom pasta.

A concept as 1980s as fancy mushrooms calls for a 1980s band, so let’s revive Living Colour (listen — or don’t, as there will be vids), not least because if one chooses the wrong mushrooms, things can get colorful. To my astonishment, Living Colour is touring — as part of a Jimi Hendrix tribute.

Equally important, whenever I cook something with nuts, I end up invoking metal, and Living Colour is classified as funk metal. Or metal funk. But not fetal munk. Really. The band is also ranked #70 on VH1′s Greatest Artists of Hard Rock. Let’s start with the song that I heard played most, though apparently my local radio station was weird. Read the rest of this entry »

There’s something fishy going on here. Tonight’s theme was “I have to make something for dinner” combined with “there must be a way to consume leafy greens without making a salad.”

Since dinner was tossed together in a state of distraction, I need something distracting. A mesmerizing candidate is A Fine Frenzy (listen), which I discovered in Amazon’s $5 album sale. Read the rest of this entry »

My discovery in embarking on Normal American Cooking is that we possess a hefty culinary heritage. And I mean that literally. I’d promised Curious_JG that macaroni-and-cheese was a must-do… before I looked at the recipes.

In keeping with the theme of classic American bands, today’s entry is Queensrÿche. Note the umlaut. I’ve wondered if it would be appropriate to use “my little umlaut” as an endearment. Read the rest of this entry »

Day 1 of a week of Normal American Cooking starts with meatloaf, suggested by kccadtr and gatr_girl. I have made meatloaf before, but always by the “what have we in the fridge?” method. Tonight, I’m going to follow a recipe for meatloaf muffins, which allow a live-alone gal to freeze the overflow.

The only possible accompaniment to meatloaf is Meat Loaf, and thanks to The Covers Project, I’m going with Meat Loaf covers. Read the rest of this entry »

After my adventures in the World Cup Food Challenge, it was impossible not to get a speculative gleam in my eye when The Kitchn declared July to be devoted to “escapes” to foreign cuisines. And the project started with Italy, which means pasta, which is one of the Perfect Foods when cooking for one.

How spaghetti with mascarpone, Meyer lemon, spinach, and hazelnuts turned into soba noodles with beef, nectarines, feta, and pistachios is… a mystery I will disclose after the jump. But first, we need music to soothe the savage fry pan. After 30 minutes of delving into the weird wonders of Italian indie goth rock, I developed a bad case of punning ethnocentrism (distinguishable by its characteristic rash, in the sense of “rash cooking decisions”) and settled on When in Rome (listen), a revival of the 1980s one-and-a-half-hit wonder electronica group. Read the rest of this entry »

Yes, that’s a yam you see yonder.

My original plan was to commemorate the Uruguay-South Korea match by turning pasta, for which Uruguayans feel amore, with the trusty Korean stir-fry sauce in an homage to fried rice. U.S.-Ghana was to be represented by yam-peanut pancakes, which I may have to tackle some other time.

It will be explained below how things got out of hand. The out-of-handness of things makes it possible to turn to Ghana’s hiplife movement for a compilation album, Black Stars (listen) (details about album). The album name is in turn appropriate to the occasion, as Black Stars is also the name of Ghana’s football (soccer for us Americans) team. It is these confluences of influences that allow me to get through the day, also to consume so many yams. Read the rest of this entry »

The culmination of Day 1 of the World Cup Food Challenge involves dinner in Uruguay, though not with a dictator in a white suit. There are also no slowly moving ceiling fans… no, wait. I live in Arizona. There are slowly moving ceiling fans. And palm trees.

Tomorrow, I’m upping the stakes by doing fusion dishes of each pair of nations facing off, hoping that the flavors have less of a tussle. Tonight, however, is all about Caruso Sauce, which turns preconceptions about South American cuisine on their heads. Since turning things on their heads implies break dancing and break dancing implies hip hop, it’s time to pump the cream sauce over to latejapride* (listen) for a highly political beat, largely from the group’s current album, Nomads. Read the rest of this entry »

If I make a “lettuce entertain you” joke, I deserve to have someone roll up a sausage and hit me with it, so let’s just reflect on the fact that these prefab salad greens have been in the refrigerator for five days without rotting, giving me the suspicion that they’re secretly cellulose (an excellent source of fiber!). These are about to become something other than a salad. And the opening band on a four-band bill is funky cats Lettuce. Let’s roll on over to MySpace Music and check it out. Read the rest of this entry »

Gastronomy as we know it ends on Monday, April 12, 2010, with KFC’s introduction of the Double Down. Oceans boil. Stars go dark. Blood pressure rises. Plagues of locusts consume all the wheat, making it impossible to put meat in a bun. Dr. Atkins rises from his grave in garments of streaky bacon to beckon the way to ketosis apotheosis.
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Tonight’s menu revolves around catfish. Doesn’t it have a sweet face? (This is not the actual catfish consumed, as far as I know. Who could bear to filet it?)

While I was still mistakenly thinking that Cat Stevens‘ name was Catfish Stevens, which is the kind of error that utterly screws up efforts to Google information, Minstrel got in fast with the suggestion of BeauSoleil. Read the rest of this entry »