Recently, I wrote about Foodie Fast Food - what you cook when you don't necessarily feel like cooking.  Today, I'm good to raise the bar a bit from packaged Macaroni & Cheese, pizza, and grilled sausages to something more substantial - Fast Gourmet Food.  Each month, Gourmet Magazine has recipes listed under the section "Ten-Minute Mains" which begs the question is it really possible to make gourmet food quickly? And if so how fast? Ten minutes is really fast, I'd be happy with under twenty minutes if the result was something gourmet.  I have to admit I was a bit of a skeptic.  Certainly not every recipe in the Gourmet "Ten-Minute Mains" can be that fast, or be that gourmet tasting.   But, the "Ten-Minute Main" we made this week, Four-cheese Ravioli with Mushrooms , was fast and it did taste gourmet; leading me to say that yes it is possible to make fast gourmet food.  

No matter how fast the food is to prepare, however, gourmet food requires choosing the appropriate high quality ingredients or the resulting creation will suffer. In the case of Four-cheese Ravioli with Mushrooms, the essential ingredients are fresh raviolis, shiitake mushrooms, cremini mushrooms, and a nice dry wine.  We were fortunate that we had recently gotten our first, eagerly anticipated , Esterlina Wine Club shipment with a bottle of Dry Riesling which perfectly suited this recipe.  The other ingredients were readily available at the local market -- even the fresh ravioli.  Preparation was quick but it did take more than the 10 minutes the recipe claims because I cut my own mushrooms.  I'm not sure where Gourmet expected me to find pre-cut shiitake mushrooms but my market doesn't sell them, does yours?  Perhaps they intended that I would cut them at an earlier time but I would still count that towards the overall prep time.  At any rate, cooking only took moments and voila the meal was done in about twenty minutes total time.

We served the dish with the remainder of the Dry Riesling. The mushrooms were amazing with the ravioli.  The combination of the two types of mushrooms, shallots, and wine made a very complex mixture that varied with every bite.  Although, next time, I will probably double the amount of mushrooms to make more sauce. Overall, this was a quick, easy and excellent dish we will definitely have again - it is Gourmet Fast Food at its best.  In fact, this dish didn't take any longer than our Foodie Fast Food pizza and may have even been faster!  I'm now converted and will strive to find more Gourmet Fast Food recipes so that I can abolish those boxes of mac-and-cheese from my pantry...

I love cooking, but I just can't always do it.  Sometimes I'm busy and don't have time.  And, I admit, sometimes I just don't feel like it.  Yet we still have to eat!  What to do?  Well, once in a while not feeling like cooking means we go out - or is it that we don't want to cook because we want to go out? At any rate, sometimes going out is still too much work or takes to much time. On these nights we have what I call "Foodie fast food".  Foodie fast food is a meal that is easy and fast to prepare.  Sometimes is also something we would never serve to anyone else!  That is, its just plain normal food that we don't have to think about to make, that we can make on short notice, and that tastes ok but is not anywhere near spectacular.  In some cases, sadly, our Foodie fast food even comes from a box!

I know other Foodies have such meals but I also know a lot of them don't like to talk about them.  I'm going to be brave and let the elephant out of the pantry.  We eat pizza, sausages, and macaroni and cheese as our Foodie fast food.  I'll get to the pizza and sausages in a bit but let me address the macaroni and cheese first.  Sadly, yes, I'm talking Kraft, although we also make a couple of exceptional homemade macaroni and cheese dishes these are not in the Foodie fast food category.  Perhaps I shouldn't admit that we eat this but I happen to know others eat it as well.  In fact, a few weeks ago I saw a whole forum topic about variations to Kraft macaroni and cheese.  Unfortunately, as I now look for it I can't find it but I think it was on either Chocolate & Zucchini or 101cookbooks .  Whereever it was, many people admitted to eating boxed macaroni and cheese and among these were many Foodies.  You could tell they were Foodies because they didn't just make the macaroni and cheese following the box instructions.  No they accessorized, adding things like tomatoes, tuna, and many more unusual ingredients.  Now you may be asking why would you ever eat that?  Well macaroni and cheese is our last resort meal when we really have very little choice.  It's for the nights that we get home at 9pm or later to find the other didn't make dinner, or to find that we failed to get what we needed for dinner, or find we just don't have the energy to do anything other than eat.  Recently these nights are much much less common but in our early years of marriage, when I was graduate student, they were more frequent than I care to admit. 

A level up from the macaroni and cheese Foodie fast food, at least for us, is pizza.  It’s a level up because this time I'm not talking about frozen pizza - although we did eat that during our house remodel that is another story in itself.  Instead what I am referring to is sort of a fast version of homemade pizza.  It consists of a pre-made crust, most often Boboli, sauce in a jar, cheese we shred, and sautéed vegetables.  While it does involve prepping, stove top cooking, and the oven, we consider it very easy and no recipe is involved.  I actually like the pizza we make and it’s not really very bad for us unless we really over load it with cheese.  Other advantages are that it lets us use up cheese and veggies we have sitting around.  And it lasts two nights.  I'd say we make pizza once or twice a month.  But would I ever serve it to someone else?  Maybe, as a last resort, if I needed a quick easy meal but I'd rather our guests get something a bit more interesting.

During the summer months we have one other Foodie fast food dish we make.  Grilled sausages or grilled chicken served with fries.  These are really really easy for me because Husband does the grilling!  We typically buy a chicken based sausage from our local neighborhood grocer and serve them on some hefty Dutch crunch rolls.  I like the sausage well charred so it’s nice and crunchy.  Lately, we've been making our own fries to go with them.  We just cut up a couple of potatoes, mix them with a bit of olive oil, and bake for 20 minutes.  It’s easy and I believe both better tasting and better for you than store bought fries.  At the end of the summer, if we've had a good crop of tomatoes, we'll even serve them with our own ketchup.  As with the pizza, some cooking is involved but it’s generally fun and quick.  I'd serve these to guests but again only if we had other things planned and just wanted a quick meal.

That's it - now I've revealed my Foodie fast food.  The macaroni and cheese is clearly the worst but as I said, we really don't eat it that much anymore - really!  But what about you  Foodies?  What do you eat when you don't want to cook and don't go out?  I shared - now it’s your turn.  Add a comment to this post and tell us - what is your Foodie fast food???

On Monday the 2007 Michelin Guide was released for the San Francisco, Bay Area and Wine Country.  This is the first Michelin Guide for the Bay Area and as a Bay Area resident I found the results very exciting.  The item that made the top mention in the New York Times (and many other outlets) was that Thomas Keller now has two restaurants that have earned Michelin three stars: The French Laundry and Per Se.  This is an amazing accomplishment and I extend Thomas Keller a hearty round of congratulations.

The French Laundry was the only Bay Area restaurant to receive a 3 star rating.  Four others, however, received 2 star ratings.  These are Restaurant Michael Mina, Aqua, Manresa, and Cyrus.  Of these, Manresa and Cyrus were also listed this month as one of America's top 50 restaurants by Gourmet Magazine.

While I haven't been to any of these restaurants I want to. One in particular, Manresa, located in Los Gatos, CA, is no more than 20 minutes from my home.  Sadly, Husband and I have wanted to go to Manresa for quite a while but just haven't gotten around to it.  I remember a couple of years ago hearing about the joys of the Manresa experience from friends who had gone there.  They are full fledged foodies and techno geeks who entered each and every course into their palm as they ate and added comments about the dishes.  While the comments towards the end of the meal were less plentiful - I'm sure the wine pairings had nothing to do with that Smile - the descriptions they logged were extremely detailed and interesting. We saw them a few weeks after the experience, and got the entire meal recounted back play-by-play.  It sounded amazing! 

Cyrus is also on my list of restaurants to go to.  In fact, I almost went last month when I was in Healdsburg.  Cyrus was within walking distance of the bed and breakfast we stayed at.  But we opted for a lighter meal that night because because it was the last night of a four night wine country trip and we just weren't sure we could handle, or appreciate, that much food.  Next time we'll schedule Cyrus for the first night of the trip so that we can fully enjoy the experience.

The Bay Area Michelin report also gave one star ratings to several Bay Area restaurants.  I've been to a few of these including Bouchon, Gary Danko, Masa's and my current favorite from San Francisco - the Fifth Floor.  I find I really enjoy experiencing this class of restaurant and remain amazed at how many outstanding restaurants are located near to where I live.  Bay area residents are truly fortunate to live in such an area and have restaurants of this caliber available.  Not only do I congratulate all of the restaurants in the Michelin guide but I also congratulate Bay Area residents for having access to as many outstanding restaurants as we do...

I'm organized, probably overly organized, so when I cook I prep out all of the ingredients before cooking/assembling.  As I make dishes and messes I take care of them either by washing (rarely) or more likely by putting them in the dishwasher.  So by the time I get something in the oven or simmering on the stove I do not have a whole lot left to do other than enjoy a glass of wine. 

Husband has adapted many of these traits but one which I just don't see a solution to is the mess factor.  I think he just gravitates to messy dishes or I subconsciously don't choose those types of dishes.  It seems that whenever he cooks the kitchen needs to be hosed down.  Take the recent adventures in (attempting) to cook home made Tortillas - detailed here and here.  Clearly, flour is a primary ingredient in Tortillas.  So even before we started I could almost picture flour pasted all over the counter and the floor.  But, of course, I wasn't fully prepared for what was to happen.  Remember that newly renovated kitchen? Well, as with many kitchens now days, our kitchen has display shelves for "showcasing items".  So after Husband was done with the Tortillas and I went to clean-up I found flour not only on every counter and pasted to the floor but it was also on the faces of several cabinets,  deep back on our display shelves and even on the upper shelves (the later resulting from filling the flour canister and "poofing the bag"!).  And the Tortillas didn't even come out well! Sigh - it’s a good thing he is really a doll and the vast majority of his meals are awesome!  So at least now I have my expectations adjusted for the next Spouse cooking adventure...