Visions of sugar-beets dance through my head...

This week has been very odd. Though we were supposed to do something grand last weekend to compensate for our general lack of any non-sexual activities on off-days of late, Orpheus and I, well… Pretty much, we did nothing. We tried Saturday night services at the UU church downtown (which suck compared to Sunday morning, if you’re wondering), and I made Dal for lunchtime consumption all week on Sunday. We only had sex twice, which makes me sad. The only positives to come out of this weekend were 1) planning stuff to do this week with others, 2) the Dal, and 3) the Sweet Potato pancakes I made on Sunday morning, which fed me both on Monday and Tuesday nights.

O. ended up getting a promotion at work last week, which is pretty cool… It stabilizes his hours at work somewhat, and gives a nice office-work-ey boost to his Resume. Also, to his great excitement, it means that he now holds one of the gayest job titles extant (no, I won’t tell you what he does per his request). Though all of the changes are positive, he’s had odd hours this week due to training, and left me all by my lonesome for the last two nights in a row… At least, until about 11 PM, when he’s gotten off work. This has left me to my own devices, free to use up leftover batter, and dream the dream of the culinarilly disaffected…

See, Orpheus and this poor little monkey are a little short on cash ‘till the end of the week, and this week is Madison’s restaurant week… For $25.00, you can get a set menu selection of some of the most popular food at all the greatest places in town. Two of my gaming friends (who are dating, and who I recently cooked for,) have skads of disposable income, and went out every night this week together. O. and I may be going out with them on Friday, but part of me thinks it might be better to cook for them, as they’ve spent enough cash this week, and I don’t want to dress up. Also, the sweet potato pancakes have given me a lovely idea for a vegetarian dinner... Considering that this particular pair are pescatarians at their most meaty, it may be best.

Monday, I had spinach in the fridge, and wanted rid of it. Since I was being good, had had only a salad for lunch, and wanted to continue the trend, I figured I’d go vegetarian. However, since bacon is the best thing to wilt spinach with, I was in a quandary… Until I thought about the lonely jar of delicious high-quality beets I’d been saving, and the blue cheese crumbles I had to get rid of in the fridge. I sautéed the spinach with red onion and garlic in good extra-virgin olive oil, tossed in drained sliced pickled beets to sear, then tossed with a little sherry vinegar and tossed in some blue cheese, serving the potato pancakes up on the side. I added a hot garam masala spice mix to the pancakes. It tasted like dying and ending up in heaven.

Last night, I found that I’d run out of the green beans I thought were still hanging out in the freezer, and so did the same thing with about five times as many beet slices, a huge mess of coarsely chopped parsley, and a prayer. And that’s when it hit me… Root vegetable theme dinner. I can start with a low-fat (don’t knock it, it can be done,) cream of beet soup based on a veggie stock. I use fat-free sour cream for this type of soup… It works very well in my famed cream of asparagus soup, in fact! Then, serve the beet greens and chard along with the stems, julienned, as a sauté a-la Monday’s dinner alongside curried sweet potato pancakes. If I felt like getting really fancy, I could even do little turnip croquettes composed with sautéed shallots in the mix and a horseradish cream as an amuse bouche… However, I don’t feel like I should be quite THAT pretentious. Hell, if I were being really fruity, I could even serve the soup in bowls of roasted or steamed celeriac, throwing the innards of said veggie into the beet green saute! I hate making desserts, otherwise that would be part of the menu, as well… But I feel that, as a dinner, the idea is quite cohesive, and I’ve tasted the outcome. I can guarantee it’s better than what they’re serving at half the restaurants participating in restaurant week, anyway, so that’s a start.

The question becomes, what wine do I serve? Root veggies have a little more oomph to them than most, so a stiff white or a good, dry rose may not be enough this time. Pinot Noir? A medium red should do… Probably be a good kick in the pants of convention, even. Nothing sweet, though. With so much on the line in terms of beets and sweet potatoes, a sweet wine would just end up cloying, no matter how alcoholic it also happened to be.

And, after all that, I just got an invite to one of two places on Friday night from the gaming buddies, both of which have menus that, while not as cohesive or cool as mine, do make a good deal of sexy-sounding sense, regardless. Once again, I lose.