You Win Some, You Lose Some (feat. Charred Broccoli Farro Soup)
Well I spent the weekend worshipping the devil and trying to fucking raise the goddamn dead in the studio with my band and didn’t do any cooking at all, leaving the taking care of the kids to my lovely wife. On Sunday night I opened the freezer and thought I had gotten so goddamn high I had time warped back to 2001 living in Boston and not caring about cooking and having a freezer full of Trader Joe’s food. (Although I will say that the fact we couldn’t get 2 Buck Chuck in Mass due to their dumb ass liquor laws was likely a blessing and not a curse.) (Also I found a bag of penne pasta with sauce, frozen. It takes seven fucking minutes to heat up in the microwave, and requires refrigeration! You could buy a box of pasta and a jar of sauce and it’ll take maybe 11-12 minutes to cook and be shelf stable! But I will admit the microwave is easier. Only I had to show them how to set the power level on it…)
(And yes, get the fuck off my fucking lawn.)
(Apparently I’m in a real parenthetical mood today as well.)
After I got home I realized that I needed to probably make a menu for the week so I could go to the supermarket as well, and given the crap I had consumed over the weekend (nachos, pizza, burritos) I should probably make something that reeks of health and good choices to balance myself out. And nothing says “healthy” like feta motherfucking cheese right?
The best part about the feta is that my kids see this and go “oh dad it’s a fancy dinner tonight” and try to talk with high-class British accents and dab at the corners of their mouths with napkins and say “ooh lovely.” Minus the picky eating I feel like we’re doing something right here.
But in all honesty I originally decided to make Ali Slagle’s Broccoli and Farro with Capers and Parsley because, well, it was green, and, well, green things mean healthy things. (See: kale, peas, ecto-cooler, boogers). It was only when I realized that it was missing something a little bit, well, not-so-fucking-healthy that I decided to make the cheese thing. The best part about this is that it looks fancy but like I did almost nothing: thinly slice more garlic than you’d think you want to consume in one sitting (like most of a bulb), and put it in some olive oil along with some whole spices (cumin, fennel, coriander, mustard, black pepper), some citrus peel (I used these lemons I got at a party the other day) and then like leave it alone until it smells up to high heaven and the garlic is toasted. This took, what, like 20 minutes? Then pour it, while hot, over the feta and then sprinkle with fancy salt. Then, get out the carpet steamer because your beard is gonna capture probably 1/3 of it and if you don’t get the seeds out birds are gonna be pecking at your face all day long. THERE’S NO FUCKING WORMS IN THERE YOU AVIAN FUCKING ASSHOLES.
After I finished making the feta, I made the recipe (pretty much solidly following the instructions, only I had semi-pearled farro so I let it cook until it was toothsome before I added the broccoli) and then made a box of mini pizzas for the kids from the aforementioned Trader Joe’s stash. This should surprise no one. What should surprise you is the “oh I’m not really that hungry” answer I got from Julie after noticing her bowl still mostly full, but like having consumed a bunch of bread and cheese.
"You cheeky bastards"