It's always a party with Wayne's Codeine

The other week I saw a recipe for a potato-wrapped halibut and thought, "hmm...that looks really cool, I'll try that someday."  Actually, to be honest, I really thought, "hmm...that looks really cool, but I'll probably never try that."  Well, I've kind of been feeling that I could do a bit more with presentation and thought that this would be a good venture for that.  Plus, I've been wanting to goof around with my balsamic-pomegranate reduction/caramel recipe.  The potato trick proved to be a little technical, but i think that the big trick is getting the potatoes thin enough. Once I dialed in my mandoline to the perfect setting, it was a breeze.  You lay the potatoes out next to each other, overlapping across and also down.  place your fish in the middle, then just fold over and press the seam side to adhere to the fish.  There was a really good photo of how to do this in this month's bon appetit.  Anyway, I served on top of some wilted spinach and then drizzled the reduced balsamic mixture on top.  I can't say enough about that stuff.  If you like balsamic vinegar, you'll love this.  It's really easy and can be used on all sorts of things from meat(s) to salads, or just for dipping.  recipe to follow.   ps.  notice the stray spinach leaf???  lamesters.

I also made a tomato soup the other night and we had some lovely grilled cheese sandwiches (on whole wheat sourdough).  I actually used the leftover soup to make another soup.  I took the rest of my sausages and added some potatoes, a jalapeno, and some chicken broth.  pretty tasty, but a little on the spicy side.  

DISH recommends:

OXO kitchen mandoline.  I was feeling bad for not using this thing. I got it for christmas and have just recently started to explore with it (sorry, fingertips), but so far so good.  around 70 clams.

Caution:  following recipe ridiculously easy and will make you look way cooler than you probably are... at least I hope I'm not the only one...

balsamic reducto:

2 parts balsamic  (ex. 1/2 c)

1 part pomegranate juice (ex. 1/4 c)

sugar (ex. 1 tbs.)

put in saucepot and turn heat on high, let reduce until you dip a spoon in it and the liquid thinly coats the spoon (Be careful here, you don't want to go too far).  Take off of heat and let stand about 5 min. it will thicken up and you should be able to make some sweet designs with it.  it should fall from the spoon in drizzly ribbons ( also my nickname in high school, too bad you never thought of that one, eh?).  pieces.

pps--if you botched it, and thickened too far, add a little more juice and heat up again, just not as much as the first time.