I saw the creator of the Julie/Julia Project of which A Food Year was oft compared to back in January/February as a judge on Iron Chef America tonight. How much fun would that be? I now have a new purpose in life.

I conned Shannon into helping me make pasta tonight. By conned I mean I asked her and she said OK. I'm so sneaky. Since making fresh pasta is such a laborious activity without the aide of a pasta maker or, in this case, even a rolling pin, this took quite a while. I still find it extremely satisfying and quite worth the effort and my wine bottle rolling pin skills have got a little bit better. If you keep the seal below the cork on the bottle, it sort of "rolls" with your hand imitating the handle of a rolling pin.

If you're going to go through the trouble of making fresh pasta this way, I figure you should either pair it with an incredible sauce or something very simple to compliment it. I really wanted to do a veal ragu (osso bucco style) but I've already done too many tomato/meat sauce dishes and opted for the simple compliment instead, making Tagliatelle con Limone. This is just a pretentious way of saying "wide pasta with lemon sauce". This was way too filling for either of us to finish, maybe polishing off half of our portions. We both thought this was rather amusing since we could've shaved off half the time of making all that pasta. If you're into simply dressed pastas, this is not a dish to be missed. The pasta is incredibly light, which is the perfect texture for such simple flavors as olive oil, lemon and Parmesan.

I think, along with all these fancy French bistro techniques I'm just being introduced to through books and such, that I'm really becoming interested in old classic Italian cooking as well. I'm really excited about cooking my first rabbit soon. I'm just continually amazed at just how much depth there is to cooking and how I could go on learning about food until I die and still have only scratched the surface of what there is to know. It's one of those things where the more I know, the more I realize I don't know nothin' and can never know it all. It fascinates me and I grow continually obsessed with it. If only I could afford to sedate my desires.

In my quest to determine the differences between all the different curry names so I can tell what I might actually want to order in an Indian restaurant, I think saag is one of the easiest to pin down. A lot of the other dishes I've been trying to determine rely on the "Indian spices" that have been added to the dish to determine the name, flavor and heat level. Saag, as far as I can tell, is just a direct translation to "spinach" in English, which means any dose of saag will get you a whole lot of goodness. Saag paneer is the most common type of saag, I have learned, which is likely what I was trying to duplicate by making the Curried Yogurt Spinach. It's easy to get yogurt and a cheese you've never even see before mixed up.

I made Chicken Saag, which would then be "curried spinach chicken". Normally you'd think this would be a dish I'd fall in love with, and you're right. The problem is that my preparation was not the greatest as I used frozen spinach – way, way too much frozen spinach – to compensate for the relative scarcity of fresh spinach right now. The moisture from the spinach totally drowned out any of the spices and the flavor of the spinach totally drowned out everything else. It was edible, but hardly delicious. I'm going to have to get my hands on some paneer and try making saag again.

Since I was screwed out a dinner with the water problems (and therefore also my next day's work lunch); and since this recipe actually requires 3 pans and an oven; and since I had planned on making these for dessert after the last 2 dinners and was too tired and lazy after stuffing my face, I will count this as a dinner in itself. It's certainly satisfying enough. This dinner was Apple Cheddar Crepes, with a nice little caramel sauce.

Previously on A Food Year I had created Savory Crepes with Hollandaise (and they were completely unfilled, what was I thinking?). It seems only logical to create a sweet counterpoint. Actually, this crepe sort of transcends borders between a savory and a sweet crepe. Perhaps that means I'll have to create a true dessert crepe in the future (such as crepes Suzette, perhaps? Sounds good to me.)

My oven and elements do not heat very evenly, so cooking a consistent crepe was a bit difficult, but I think in the long run things turned out for the best. The apple and cheese combination is a good one, like the Jam and Cheese Sandwich, which would make a nice themed "entree" for this meal. I will change my mind in the spring and summer, but autumnal fruits have always been my favorite. Pears would be nice in this as a substitute or in a combination with the apples. Cranberries, too.

This was my first attempt at ever making a caramel. I got so giddy when I saw the clear, boiling liquid turn into a thick, brown syrup that I completely forgot that it would continue to cook and then harden. So, my result was a basically inedible hardened sugar glass. However, I am now positive that those fancy sugar plates I've seen in restaurants (OK, in pictures and on television) are quite within my grasp now! It tasted good for the few seconds before it broke my teeth, but was surprisingly easy to clean off our plates.

I've made a couple of other gratins in the past (Broccoli and Cauliflower) and basically took them to mean "baked in cheese sauce". I didn't, basically until moving here, know that "gratin" was pronounced "grah-tan" and not "grah-tin" so people probably make jokes at my expense. This "gratin" (and this time I use quotes because I'm really not sure anymore) is more of a custard with cheese. Does that still qualify? Either way, the pseudo-Zucchini Gratin slash custard slash quichey zucchini dish was good. Shannon said she did not like it very much, in which I replied she was crazy because I thought it was delicious. Both zucchini and eggs are great at tasting like basically nothing at all, so this can easily be dressed up with sharp cheeses and fragrant herbs of your choosing.

I forgot to take a picture of the brussel sprouts individually. They were simply boiled and tossed with garlic butter and season with salt and pepper. These ones were surprisingly palatable, but brussel sprouts seem to be hit or miss because I never know when I'll grab an especially potent batch.

Learning how to make a roux, in all its simplicity, is one of the most important things I've learned in my culinary adventure so far this year. A roux is simply equal parts melted butter and flour to form a paste that can be used to thicken a sauce. Unfortunately, I have not quite seemed to grasp the concept of how much roux is necessary to thicken how much sauce, and basically everything evolves into a thick gravy (like my Merchand de Vin). I made the same mistake again making Coq au Vin. Fortunately, Shannon has a forgiving palette and swore it was delicious and satisfied her every desire. Please note that I did not have her indulge in any of the vin before consuming said dish! The "crispy bits" (bacon) were her favorite part. Had the sauce been saucier instead of a gravy, I would've liked this very much as well.

There's really no theme tonight, I just happen to have some ingredients and needed to fire off a dinner for the website. Usually I'm into it, but tonight's Friday and I don't really feel like cooking and I just wanted to fire off something as quickly as possible. I had planned to make a nice little meal around this Thai Beef, which I've already done a few similar dishes of. I suppose that's still what I did. I actually liked how tender the meat was and the sort of "is it fishy or is it notness" from using so much fish sauce, which is more salty than anything. I'm sort of a sucker for anything with lemongrass, so this won me over for simplicity. Plus, it's really cheap, quick and easy and can be thrown into basically anything, like a stir-fry or in a spring roll like I was originally going to do.

Instead, I made some Red Rice to throw it on. This was basically spicy Coconut Rice with a mixture of tomato paste, cayenne, red chili flakes and paprika to give it the red color. I think the paprika was a bad idea because it gave it a bit of a Southwest Chili flavor. On its own or with another dish it would've been fine, but it didn't really go with the Thai beef that well to me.

I already kind of did a Curried Cauliflower dish, but this one is different! This one contains a sauce! and saffron! and more exclamation marks! I also totally overcooked the cauliflower, leaving it very mushy. So that definitely sets it apart from the last time I made it, because I'm not sure the last time I totally overcooked cauliflower. That ruined it for me, so I can't really say for sure if it would've been good otherwise. I'd just stick to the original recipe or make a cauliflower soup, I reckon.