Deconstructed Reconstructed

I started writing this post months ago, February, to be precise. It is a good thing I have many backlogged posts since at the moment my right arm is out of commission. I was going to post a summer-y recipe, but I saw what I had titled the post for this recipe and could not resist using it now.

Much like the egg in this recipe, I am being reconstructed after deconstruction.

Take em’ apart, build em’ back up.

My spirit animal is a yolk.

Lemme tell you, there is nothing so thrilling as waking up from what was supposed to be a 20 minute easy-peasy surgery and seeing a wrapped up and splinted arm, being in some of the worst pain of one’s life, and being told you were under the knife for about an hour and a half because there were complications.

Whoops-a-daisy!

Apparently the hardware in my arm needed a lot more finagling than they thought.

I have good painkillers, it’s gonna be okay.

When my mom (who has valiantly cared for me throughout this, despite my terrifically bad humor about it all) got me home, in my still-coming-out-of-general-anesthesia haze, I found myself craving nothing so much as the raw vegan tacos from Sage.

LA, you have defeated me.

Celebrate your working arms and hard-boil an egg. Deconstruct and mash. Egg violence! Then reconstruct and savor.

Do it for me. Do it for your arms.

Do it for Fannie:

Remodeled Egg (adapted from Fannie Farmer and this here recipe)
1 raw egg, separated
1 hard-boiled egg (whites chopped, yolk sieved)
1/2 tsp. melted butter
Pinch salt
Pinch cayenne pepper
Flour
Mix hard-boiled egg, butter, salt and cayenne. Add raw yolk, just a drop or two at a time until you can form it into balls. Roll in flour and sauté in butter.
Lotsa butta.
Heat oven to 350. Beat raw white to stuff peaks and nest in a small pan. Bake until done, about ten minutes.

Balls. Into nest. Done.

I also tried a version where I poured the egg white around the balls as they sautéed but it was not as becoming:

Artiste-ic

What is Napoli? From Naples? Did Fannie Farmer ever go to Naples? Or is this her 1896 vision of what she would consume there? Then again this edition of The Fannie Farmer Cookbook was published in the sixties so it may not have even been in the original.

That Frances Farmer, what an enigma.

The week in which I blithely posted pre-written waffle posts, and prepped to play an artiste, I also made this soufflee.

Firstly, you must know rarely is this blog written in real time. I backlog posts when I have more free time for busy times like these.

Second. You’ll must agree that artistes make soufflés. Because we have lofty ideals. Thus lofty foods. Yup. Our lives are one massive metaphor. This blog is a bit of my brain matter laid out for you to consume.

That metaphor sucked.

Artistes also make film. Artistes make pie. Artistes make love.
Often to their reflection in the mirror.
With pie.
I guess I’m an artist of sorts, and I decided to make Napoli.

Random note of interest: My reviewing job’s latest here. Another here.

First, the soufflee cross-section:

Now the recipe.
Tomato Soufflee Napoli adapted from Fannie Farmer
3 Tbsp. butter
2 Tbsp. whole wheat flour
5 T. Tomato paste
1/3 c. Marinara of choice
1/2 c. Plain almond milk
3 slices cheddar, chopped
1/2 c. Pasta
3 eggs
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Melt two tablespoons of the butter. Stir in the flour(it’ll be like a paste), then the milk, tomato paste, and marinara. Bring to a boil then simmer a couple of minutes. Stir in cheese, salt and pepper.
Meanwhile, cook the pasta. When that is done add 1 tablespoon of butter. Resist urge to eat more than a couple of buttery pasta pieces. Contemplate eating buttery pasta with the tomato mixture as sauce. Decide that the beauty of a soufflee and ability to say, “well, last night I whipped up a soufflee,” make doing this not quite worth it. Realize you write really bad run-on sentences sometimes, seriously, Cliffy.
Stir the pasta into the tomato mix.
Beat egg whites until stiff, then beat yolks in a different bowl. It must happen in this order because the whites must have zero contact with the yolks, but a bit of white getting into the yolk will not affect them. Stir the yolks into the tomato mix, then fold into the whites. Turn into a baking dish sprayed with olive oil if you are me. Because I don’t have a soufflee dish and I don’t trust the mixture not to stick. If you are awesome-er than I, bake this in an ungreases soufflee dish. At 300. Forty-five-ish minutes.

Shape up or ship out or order in

Or practice.

Sometimes I love it because I put a ring on it.
Wait. No.
Because I put it in a ring.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:

Food that can be shaped is better than amorphous mounds. I know some would disagree. That’s your opinion and you are entitled to it, but know that in Ellenwood, shaped food really is superior.

If you want to stay you’ll need to go with the Ellenwood flow. If not you can leave now and go get a bowl of rice somewhere. But if you stay in Ellenwood, or as it used to be called, Ellenwoodland, then food is sometimes shaped. And rice will be black and sticky. Like my soul. And it’s always betta with buttah. Also like my soul.

Please stay with me in this land. Just a little bit longer.

Cause I’m going to be baking more ring mold items. I need the practice in unmolding:

Baked Noodle Ring with Cheese(The Fannie Farmer Cookbook-1965 edition)
4 oz. penne
1 Tbsp. Smart Balance
1/2 c. Almond milk
1/2 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
Tiny tinier tiniest pinch nutmeg
2 eggs, separated(yolks lightly beaten, whites beaten into stiff peak submission)
1/2 c. Grated mozzarella, reduced fat
Cook and drain zee noodles. Add all but egg whites and mix, then fold in whites. Grease an 8-inch ring pan and add noodle mix. Put ring pan in a larger pan filled with hot H2O and bake at 325 til done-30 minutes give or take.

Unmold with caution. If it is dumpy like mine, at least you tried, you’re a trouper.

Ring molds, like or no?