Can you name the national dish of Britain?
Fish and chips? Hmm, no.
Shepherd’s pie, or some other sort of meat pie? No. (And can I just say, Ew. Sorry, meat pie lovers, it’s just not SoupAddict’s thang.)
Plum pudding? No (and turn off Christmas Carol already and join SoupAddict in the 21st Century).
No, no, my pretties, the national dish of Britain is Chicken Tikka Masala. Delicious, beautiful and fragrant, this curry is loaded with Indian spices and cooked to perfection. While SoupAddict’s national dish is, of course, Soup, this curry comes in a close second.
You might not guess from the general contents of this blog, but I do a fair amount of Indian cooking. I’m about as Anglo-Saxon-Germanic as you can get (blonde hair [check] ; blue eyes [cheeyeck] ; pasty-white skin that were it not for the rosacea I would look perpetually sick [hmph, check] ), so I grew up with potatoes and pot roast and apple streusel, not the richly perfumed bouquets of coriander and cloves and cinnamon and cumin. My education in the spicy wiles of Indian curries has been a recent but decadent adventure. There’s a reason Chicken Tikka Masala is the National Food of Britain: it’s glorious. I don’t know any other way to say it.
One of my favorite full-tilt-guilt meals is an all-carb carbtastic carbopalooza carb-o-rama-tic feast: super-cheesy mac ‘n cheese, savory dressing (as in, stuffing, not, like “Ranch”) and mashed potatoes. All homemade, of course. With a big glass of wine. Or a frosty margarita.
The origins of my carb-fever are for another post (or, another blog altogether), but I’m here today to spread the news about mashed potatoes. I’ve made ‘em every way you can make ‘em. Smashed, whipped, blended, forked, twice-baked. With cheese. With onions, leeks, chives, scallions. Herbs. Spices. Sour cream. Cream cheese. Bacon. Chicken broth. Vegetable broth. Mushroom broth. And an unfortunate encounter with grated ginger. (But we won’t go there.)
If I were a little more on the ball, I’d be freaking out right about now. It’s mid-November. Mid-November, peeps. Thanksgiving is less than two weeks away. I know I said I’d write more about the cooking competition, but I need to get this pumpkin recipe out there, before the holidays completely disappear. And they will. Before you know it.
I’m a sucker for appetizers. How can you not like appetizers? They’re an entire entree packed into a bite-size morsel. So, you can have, like, a dozen meals at a single party. And no one will think you’re crazy. Mini crab cakes. Bacon-wrapped scallops. Blue cheese stuffed olives. The world is your oyster, one bite at a time.
I do loves me some mac ‘n cheese. In my book, there’s just no better comfort food. But, I’m preaching to the choir, right? Because why else would you be reading this, except for seeing mac ‘n cheese in the title.
Much to my surprise and chagrin, Fall is fast approaching. I love Fall — everyone loves Fall: if you were to take a poll, each pollee’s face would scrunch with happiness, and they would hold their arms tight like they were wrapped in a fuzzy blanket, while using words like “football” and “pumpkins” and “jeans-and-hoodies” — but, see, I’m not finished with summer yet. Where did August go? Where did June go? My gardens are still busting out, and I’m sooo not done with tomato salads. Doesn’t seem to matter what I think.
Fall is fast approaching anyway, rudely shoving beloved Summer out of the way. And bringing with it winter vegetables. And soup. Hm. Well, now, that’s news I can bear. Soup. Mmmm. (Had you heard, I’m addicted to soup?)
One of my favorite ingredients is the lovely leek. A member of the onion family, leeks lend a sweet, delicious pungency to many types of soups, including the ubiquitous potato and leek.
Oh, those wacky curcurbits. How is it that you look your cucumber vines over at 8pm one evening, finding only little sprites of spikey cukes peeking out beneath the pretty yellow flowers, but the very next morning, as you’re hurrying to the car for work, you notice that the little sprites are now fully formed veggies. And by the time you get home, they’re almost beyond their perfect eating/pickling size? What’s up with that?
