Wasting time with multiple courses

While I try to cook every, as there are few better ways to spend an hour or two not doing work, once a week I will usually try to put together an actual meal rather than just a dish for dinner. If I am feeling fancy I will not only plan out multiple courses and sides, but I will think about presentation and how to plate the meal. Thinking about these issues does a couple of things. First, it is a good way to work on timing. It can be hard to make sure that all the components of a plated dish are ready at the same time and really the only way to improve timing in the kitchen is to keep trying. Sometimes I have had to deal with cold or over cooked vegetables; I say it is always better to mess up these rather than the protein. I can deal with slightly gray or chilled green beans or broccoli, but killing my meat brings tears to my eyes. Doing it when cooking for myself is bad enough, but doing it when trying to impress others is mortifying. I messed up few times and have thoroughly learned my lessons: 1) no one remembers the veggies, and 2) practice, practice, practice (aka, spent time not working in the name of perfection). Second, it is a way to work on flavor combinations as well as appearance combinations. Some of the dishes I have made come out almost monochromatic; this is not a good thing (as you will see in a later post). Visual appearance is an important part of the meal, and a good thing to tinker with.
The middle of the week is usually a great time for just such an adventure. There is still so much work to be done, books to be read and articles to summarize, yet so much of that has already taken place that the thought of reading another article about radical right wing parties in Europe or the influences on institutional design on party manifestos might be just too much to bare. Plus there are usually fewer people to impress with your food mid week. Thus, it is good practice for the weekend get-togethers.

Welcome mid-week reward! Welcome glorious time killer! Welcome guiltless satisfaction. Welcome the multi-dish dinner.

A trip to the farmer’s market (cooking related procrastination without the heat of the kitchen –title of previous post linked if possible) can and as a foodie I would argue should influence the final components of your dinner.

My trip resulted in the follow menu:
Fried Squash Blossoms – stuffed with a Basque Shepherds cheese:
intermediate time killer
Garlic Balsamic Green Beans: great for when you really don’t have any
time to waste but don’t want to sacrifice taste.
Bone in New York Steak
Peach-Blueberry Crisp: comes out looking pretty fancy, but is really
easy to make.

Individually each one of these dishes are suitable for beginners to intermediates of the wonderful world of procrastination through cooking, but put them together and in a flash a whole evening of not doing any work is before you and the result is more than enough to impress yourself or anyone you might be cooking for.