Venturing into uncharted territory…

March 16, 2008

“When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade…”

Our office catered lunch from Rudy’s on Friday and on the way out of the office, I noticed a whole tub of unused lemons (originally intended for the tea) sitting on the counter. So I decided to take it home and try to cook with it.

On the way home (my 5 minute commute from the office to home), I was thinking about what I could do with all these lemons (and I knew I wasn’t about to make fresh lemonade). So I decided to stop by HEB and see if I could challenge myself out of my kitchen comfort zone this weekend.

So on Friday night, I made this awesome capellini with pancetta, shrimp & asparagus tossed in olive oil. It was glorious. So glorious that it wasn’t until AFTER I had downed the whole thing that I realized I forgot to take a picture of it. But I’m sure the people who got ate this with me can tell you that it was indeed good eats. I had made that dish once for a potluck along with Pat (minus a few additions/improvements this time around), so this didn’t really count as stepping outside my comfort zone.

So after dinner, we started talking about food (you know you’re with people who love good eats when you continue to talk about food immediately after you finish a meal). And Mian started talking about making geoduck. Caught in a moment of either extreme stupidity or extreme ambition, I agreed to try to make geoduck sashimi tonight. I was actually starting to have second thoughts thinking about it throughout the day, and fortunately we found that there were no live geoducks waiting in the tanks for us at the market when we went (after wasted way too much time playing video games).

So I decided to try to make classic (miso based) ramen with tonkotsu instead (If you don’t know already - I <3 Noodles!!!). We also added some tempura shrimp and vegetables to challenge ourselves. After our little experiment today, I can tell you that I’ll be very reluctant to pay what restaurants charge for tempura again.

Check out our creation:

I think if I really want to venture into uncharted territory, I’ll be trying to make a lemon cheesecake tomorrow. Let’s see how I feel. =)

Posted in Creations