While I hate tax time, I do love running reports off Quicken and reaping the benefits of having downloaded my financial data off the Internet. I am fascinated to see my life's habits and daily movements tracked by credit and debit purchases.
It is one thing to see how much is categorized under "Food: Dining Out", but another to see trends and patterns at any one particular establishment. The frequency and amount I spent at the local Vietnamese restaurant, Thai Son, is truly disturbing. Also, did I really buy that much chocolate at NY Cake and Baking Supply?
The only good thing to come out of this exercise was that I found some paper scraps scribbled with recipe notes. I had jotted the notes down on my trip to Australia several months back and had filed them away with receipts from the same trip.
This is exactly why I have a food blog. I needed a place to capture and organize such peices of information that would otherwise be lost amongst receipts, movie ticket stubs, newspaper clippings and old magazines that lay around my house.
The recipe I found was my friend Paul's all purpose marinade. He's a great cook, making wonderful meals mainly by taking a basic recipe (or something he has seen dining out) and improvising with whatever is in the fridge or pantry. His dishes usually have an Asian twist to them that is uniquely Australian.
While I have seen Paul use this marinade for anything intended to hit his outdoor grill, including quail, chicken and shrimp, it should also work for pork and dark meats.
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon Hot English mustard
2 cloves crushed garlic
1 1/2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon cracked black pepper
1/4 cup of olive oil
1/4 cup of roughly chopped parsley
1. Combine all ingredients together and pour over meat to marinade.
2. Let meat marinade for at least 1 hour before using.
Posted by dvenuto at February 09, 2003 07:04 PM