For those of you who don’t know, Mark Bittman is a food writer and columnist who writes the weekly column The Minimalist in the New York Times. For years he has always advocated a “just do it” approach to cooking, taking recipes that some people may be overwhelmed by and turning them into simple, easy to follow instructions.
He also creates these massive lists from time to time that include over 100 different “things” you can do; picnic ideas, simple meals ready in 10 minutes or less, appetizers. Needless to say, sometime on Thursday evening, July 3, I saw Stefani with his 101 20-minute Dishes for Inspired Picnics and a highlighter, so I knew that we were going to be in store for some major picnic-ing over the weekend.
I will leave it to her to go more in detail as to what was made, what was served and what accidentally hit the floor because the fridge was too full, but I will share with you this peaceful photo of the secluded beach we snuck away to with some friends for an afternoon of fun. Oh yeah, the pork/sundried tomato/garlicscape pesto rollups were bomb, as was the cold udon noodle salad, carmelized onion/ricotta/prosciutto pizza and the first peach thing to hit the floor.
Hope you had a great 4th of July!
Alicia said,
July 10, 2008 @ 8:08 pm
Jonathan, you may get other answers on this, but re: your question on Smitten about what to do with oil. I have made fried tortilla strips for soup and fried zucchini strings, and with the leftover oil, I pour it into a bowl or dish or jar to let it cool. I have often then poured the cooled oil into a ziploc bag and sealed and tossed it. If you think you might fry the same thing again within a week or two, refrigerate the oil and you could use it one more time. You may want to strain any food remnants out first. On occasion, I’ve had the leftover empty plastic bottle of oil if I used enough of it to empty it for the initial frying. I’ll hold onto it to pour it back in with a funnel once it’s cooled. I actually have a nearly-full, used bottle of oil in my fridge that is too old and needs tossing…lol. I never ended up using it again. Unfortunately, it seems a lot of oil is often wasted with frying since it’s usually a one-off or random event, like you said.
Hope that helps.