I'm making potato gnocchi with Gorgonzola cream sauce tomorrow night for dinner, for my cousins that we're staying with. DH and I can just have that, usually with sliced tomatoes and a bit of balsamic syrup.

Cousins have never had gnocchi before. I'm hoping they love 'em - I do a pretty good job - but you never know. (They do like Gorgonzola cheese, which helps.)

In case they hate them, or don't love them, or find a plate of just them overwhelming/palate fatiguing, I was going to fix a few sides, so they could trade off.

Other than sliced tomatoes, I can't think of a thing that would go well with them. Suggestions?

Thanks!

We're wintering at a cousin's who had a bumper crop of sweet peppers this year, small and colorful and plentiful.

In late November we had to do SOMETHING with the tons left (Washington state, so that's very late), so we roasted them in the oven; mixed half with some oven-roasted garlic; added salt, pepper, olive oil, a dash of balsamic in all), hit it briefly with a hand blender and froze it. It's not pretty because it is a mix of green/red/yellow/orange roasted peppers, but it's damn tasty.

It's been sitting in the freezer ever since.

Any ideas on what to do with this stuff? It was really delicious, especially the version with roasted garlic. I just feel like I should use some of this before we return in six weeks to snowy off-grid Idaho.

I make tons of homemade pasta, with a Marcato, with an extruder, and hand-formed, so if something requires that, it's not an issue. (Pasta isn't a requirement, just something I'm good at. *shrug*)

Thanks!

I'm in one of those experimental moods, so tomorrow I'm making three kinds of ravioli, mixed together - feta/spinach-or-chard, sun dried tomato/ricotta, and kalamata/caramelized onion...sort of vaguely a Greek theme.

I can't for the life of me figure out an appropriate sauce, though. At this point, I'm thinking of simply tossing them lemon/garlic/thyme butter, and serving with a dollop of tzatziki, but I'm really not sure how that'd work out.

I thought about making a tzatziki-based sauce, but that sounded like it might be kinda weird, warm.

Any thoughts?

This made me laugh, so I had to post.

I do most of the cooking at our house. I've been adjusting the salt and saturated fat in our diet that past couple of weeks. However, this is my busiest month of the year. (I'm the web geek for a national travel company.) In August, I barely have time to breathe, let alone cook.

I asked my husband to throw together some tuna salad/saltines for dinner. (Hey, I can eat at the computer and still type with one hand...it's that busy.)

But he added stuff, and I added stuff, each ignoring the other, and we ended up slightly oversalted. This doesn't normally bother my husband, MrHappySaltyFace, but I've been reducing salt the last week or two, so he really noticed it.

We cogitated on what to add to correct it. I mentioned lemon juice, but thought it might make it worse. (If something is WAY over salted, it seems to make it worse to me. :P)

My husband, not an SE reader, grabbed a bottle of lemon juice and added a squirt, and said, "Lemon juice CUTS the salt. Didn't Kenji tell you that?"

I inhaled sharply with a saltine in my mouth, laughing, and choked. I obviously talk about SeriousEats wayyyyy too much.

By the way, tuna salad was perfect.

My sister gave me a bag of black rice. (She's a caterer...every time I visit, she sends me home with all sorts of weird things.)

I finally cooked some up today, as a dinner side, with a bit of mushroom, sweet pepper, onion, celery, garlic and thyme, and some chicken broth.

As my sister warned me, everything was black. I thought she meant the vegetables would be tinted, but they aren't. They're black, and you really can't tell the difference between the rice and the veggies, when it's on the plate.

This is EXCELLENT stuff. It's sort of short-to-medium-grain. It kind of pops when you bite down on it, even when completely cooked. Tastes great, great texture. I'm just not sure what to DO with the rest of it. While it's wonderful, I really like some color differentiation in my food unless I'm trying to make a point. lol.

It was wonderful stirred in with my tomato/cucumber salad, and with my steamed broccoli, but I'm not sure what to do, otherwise.

Suggestions?

I cook mostly by instinct, rather than recipes, but even when I'm cooking by recipe I run across this problem:

I finish a dish, and it should be ready to serve, but it's just...lacking something. But, technically it's ready to serve and time to eat, and there's no time to fix it.

Prime example: Chili, which we had tonight. I've learned over time that if the meat too lean that the flavors fall flat. Adding a bit of bacon fat or even some butter, the entire flavor profile changes, and it becomes delicious. That's what I did tonight. It's an instant fix.

If I'm making [[your protein here]] and vegetables and gravy/sauce, and it turns out bland, I can add some roasted-granulated-garlic (one of my fave corrective seasonings), magi or Worcestershire (carefully, as they can overpower), a touch of balsamic...or sometimes it's the fat thing again. If it's REALLY bland, and has no an ethnic slant (not Italian or Chinese, etc.) a little curry powder or appropriate spices in butter or oil, deglaze the pan, and add to the mix might help.

None of these things require an extra 15-30 minutes cooking, which would kill the texture of the vegetables and/or the meat.

In some cases, changing the substrate (e.g. from jasmine rice to spaetzle) helps, but that requires a bit more foreknowledge.

A little wine or vermouth can help. Cheese can help. It depends.

If it's an omelet that didn't work...I eat what I can and give the rest to the dogs. If it's an oriental stirfry, I eat what I can and hope for inspirational stir-fry-helper the next day. I have a list of "not quite there" dishes, that I couldn't figure out an instant fix for.

So gimme some ideas! What techniques do you do to save a "lost" dish, just before eating?

I need more ammuntion. :

Today, I found out that we're taking a 400 mile drive next Friday, for a birthday party for my soon-to-be 80 year old mom, on Saturday at 4. Annnnnd...it's potluck.

I need stuff that I can make (or mostly make, could be "finished" onsite) on Thursday, refrigerate, throw in a cooler on Friday morning, drive 400 miles, and throw in a refrigerator Friday afternoon...that will still be edible at 4pm on Saturday.

The only thing I've come up with so far is this caramelized onion/olive/cream cheese mixture that I use as a pasta filling, which doubles well as a cheese log.

Any other ideas?