Simple ways to make dinner more interesting and/or fancy-seeming

I.e., easy ways to dress up everyday dishes.

a sauce made from melted chocolate and a wheel of ripe camembert usually works.

Don't forget the cognac.

Lightly toasted almonds mixed into steamed green beans/broccoli/etc

i try to keep some portobello mushrooms and/or avocados around to fancy-up sandwiches, soups, & salads. you know, in case a girl is over or something.

The example that made me want more of these ideas, by the way:

- roasted and pureed a big poblano pepper
- microwaved a potato
- mashed and combined with butter, sour cream, and a bunch of chipotle powder
- served scallops on top of this spicy green puree

Took like 10 mostly unattended minutes but made the whole thing seem like an hour's worth of better, so now I plan to do this for just about any regular old sauteed seafood.

(I'm becoming a big fan of the number of potato items that are a billion times easier and not particularly worse if you just start the potato off in the microwave.)

Don't let any lemon out of your kitchen without harvesting its zest as well as the juice -- chances are there's something you'll make (steamed veg, potato salad) in the next few days that could be brightened/zinged up with some lemon zest.

pureed a big poblano pepper

with a food processor? that makes me want a food processor.

Lightly toasted almonds mixed into steamed green beans/broccoli/etc

― she started dancing to that (Finefinemusic), Monday, March 23, 2009 1:48 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Yeah, Jordan, just one of those tiny one-setting pulse-button ones. (Not being a particularly knowledgeable cook, I spend a lot of time using this to puree herbs or peppers to put on or in something else, which is pretty handy -- making herbed lemon mayo, or pureeing dill or parsley to pour over fish, or whatever.)

did you like that one Surm?

serve this for dessert:

http://www.globalhermit.com/ilx/tuomas-sundae.jpg

xp, yes ma'am! i love toasted almonds/pine nuts on just about anything

a standby for me is just picking up a pack of fresh ravioli from the store and sauteeing them in a pan w/ melted butter and sage... dunno if i have unsophisticated friends or what but its exactly as easy as making pasta w/ garlic and oil but seems way fancier and is hard to fuck up

speaking of toasted almonds--sliced almonds + fresh breadcrumbs w/ a little bit of oil & butter in a pan to toast, then toss in some pasta and roll it all around

i guess one thing that tends to work w/ this is upgrading yr ingredients a little bit--if nothing else getting FRESH breadcrumbs, pasta, etc

I have said this elsewhere before and is kind of the definition of NOT fancy but if you, like me, never finish a bunch of chives before they wilt, cut them up into little rings and store them in a water bottle in the freezer. perfect for the odd baked potato!