I went home on Saturday to see if I could help my dad with the booth he'd set up at the Sebastian Clambake, but it turned out to be a dud as far as marketing goes. On the plus side, I had good local seafood for lunch both Saturday and Sunday. Saturday it was peel-and-eat shrimp that were very fresh, and clam strips that I could tell had just been made there. Sunday, unfortunately, turned out for the worse. My guess is that they ran out of the good stuff so they started subbing in frozen or canned food. The linguine with clam sauce I got was pasta topped with canned clams and jar garlic and some cooked parsley. There was no "sauce," just a topping on a styrofoam bowl of pasta. Disappointing. I could also tell that the clam strips weren't the same as Saturday's. They weren't as fat as the ones I'd gotten the day before, and the batter on Saturday had paprika or some other red grain spice in it. Sunday's were tough, skinny clam strips that looked like they had been taken out of a bag. Thankfully, the peel-and-eat shrimp was just as good as it was the day before, so I still could enjoy that.
While I was home I decided to take advantage of the larger kitchen and I made pierogies from scratch again. This time I only did one kind of filling - potato and cheese - so I only had to make two batches of dough. The first one produced the monster pierogies I usually make, and I used a smaller cup to make the dough circles for the second, so they're more modestly shaped.
I bought three things today when I went home: a stew cookbook today for $3 and smoked paprika and sweet Spanish paprika. I've been looking for different varieties of paprika since I read up on it and couldn't even find any variations at Whole Foods, so I was glad to find these. The Spanish paprika came in a large class bottle and contains about 4 oz or so. I hope it lasts for a while, since I go through that stuff like a motherfucker.
On Friday I mixed up a Cajun dry rub and put it on a London broil to sit in the fridge for a few days. I'm planning on making the same thing for Thanksgiving and I wanted to do a trial run to make sure I could do it right and that the dry rub tasted good with the meat. I came back tonight and drizzled a bit of olive oil on either side and stuck it in the oven for a few minutes. It came out beautifully. The outside was hot and spicy and the inside was pink and tender. I love my mother's London broil but she tends to cook things longer than I do, probably from undercooking paranoia. I prefer my meat on the rarer side, maybe even a bit rarer than this one turned out. I broiled it, turning every two minutes, for about seven minutes or so and then turned the oven to about 200 F and let it sit for two minutes. Next time I'll only let it sit in there for one. The dry rub came out spicier than I expected. I made it for a steak once before, but in smaller quantities so it came out differently. This time I used the correct amount of black pepper and so it came out much sharper and definitely peppery. It was excellent, especially with a pierogi. (Everything tastes good with a pierogi.)
I managed to wrangle hosting duties for the Thanksgiving potluck among my friends this year. I'm excited. It's too bad we probably won't be able to have it after the actual Thanksgiving date, because then Thanksgiving centerpieces would be discounted. I guess I'll have to splurge on a few decorations. I'll probably check Target's $1 section tomorrow after class. At some point I'm going to bring up my dad's two folding tables, and I'll probably have to grab at least a cheap tablecloth to cover up the velcro on the side.
Not a bad weekend. I think I'm going to go lay on my bed and slowly digest my dinner, like a fat snake or something.
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