Other People's Kitchens Revisited

It looks like a lot of the cooking I'll be doing in the next few months will be in someone else's kitchen.  So, here's more of that. 

After Saturday's full day of seeing the sites and crowds of the big city, Crystal and I went back to her place to see what she had in her kitchen that we could make into a great dinner.  Using a couple of Joy of Cooking recipes as starting points, we made a yummy spaghetti alla carbonara and cute little salmon croquettes with a caper-dill sauce.  

Spaghetti alla Carbonara

1/2 lb. bacon
1 lb. spaghetti
1/3 c. grated cheese (goat or parm are good choices)
4 eggs, beaten
1/3 c. pasta water
half a bag frozen peas

Boil and drain pasta. Fry bacon, remove bacon when done.  Keep 3 T bacon grease in skillet, add pasta and toss.  Add peas.  Mix eggs, cheese, and pasta water together, then add to pasta.  Stir around over medium until eggs are cooked through.  Stir in crumbled bacon.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Serve with additional grated cheese.

                                                           

It's a bit more difficult to write out how we did the croquettes, because we didn't measure much of what we used.  It pretty much went like this:

We took a large can of salmon and picked out the bones, then added a small can of tuna to make up for the several ounces we lost due to bone tossage.  We added a diced half onion and celery stalk that had been sauteed with a few garlic cloves.  Oh, at the end of the sauteing, I stirred in about 1/2 t. garam masala. Crystal diced a tomato and threw that in, we mixed in a couple of eggs, then added bread crumbs until the mixture was the right consistency to make little patties.  Poured a bit of olive oil in a skillet and browned the patties on each side.  Crystal made the dipping sauce, but I think she took plain yogurt and added capers and dried dill until it tasted great.  This croquette picture is from a google search, but this is pretty much what ours looked like.  But, you know, photographed much more prettily.  

                                                                     

Also, I'm still sick.

:(