The summer has been hectic. I am teaching a course at twice the speed I taught in the spring, I’m taking a class as a student, also double-time, plus I’ve been traveling, so there has been little time for cooking and even less time for writing about it, but I need to remember to make time to eat at least.

I have been cleaning my apartment like a madman tonight, the imminent return of my lovely roommate at my heels, and around ten thirty I realized that I hadn’t eaten yet…today. Well, a fistful of edamame around noon, but that was it. In five minutes, plus the time it takes to boil linguine, I MacGyvered a surprisingly delicious sauce out of the random things I had discovered while tidying the kitchen.

It went like this: I sautéed the mushrooms left over from New World Tempura (Oops, I still need to write about that) in a quarter stick of butter that I found behind my food processor and a teaspoon or two of (what I assume was) dalmatian sage from an unmarked bottle of what looked like green-gray lint. I killed the heat and mixed in a 6-ounce tub of creme fraiche with an expiration date that must have been a typo, because it looked fine to me, and a little sea salt. It was really satisfying and surprisingly delectable. I will gladly make it by choice next time, rather than out of necessity.

I’m feeling less than inspired today, but I was thinking back on the quick dinner I made of Trader Joe’s perogies a couple nights ago. They were not good. Mediocre at best, but I figured that any sort of boiled, cheese filled dough could be given the same invigorating treatment: pan fry in butter with a parmesan crust.

I think I stole the concept from the restaurant I worked at in college, although I don’t honestly remember how they made their fried ravioli. Essentially, spice up store bought ravioli by boiling as per the instructions, dredging them while still damp in a mixture of salt, pepper and grated parmesan (or another hard cheese) and then frying them in butter until golden brown and crusty. I usually only coat and fry them on one side, but make sure you serve them fried side up. A puddle of sauce is a nice touch, but not necessary, as they are pretty zesty on their own.

On another note, I recently got my digital camera back from the shop and I am taking a photography course this summer (which I may start blogging about soon), so hopefully I will start shooting some fine-looking food photos to post on the blog. TSB has been hounding me to put up a picture of the Burberry Pancake, so I really should get on it. Much to her mix of chagrin and delight, I used the last of the raspberry sauce last night to make a cocktail with lemonade and some homemade kumquat liqueur. It was some succulent swill if I dare to boast, and if nothing else, TSB can be guaranteed more crepes for the photo shoot in the near future.

TSB was over for breakfast this morning, and while she lounged reading a magazine, I sneaked into the kitchen and got to work on a meal to appeal to her sense of humor, flavor favorites and sartorial sensibilities.

While the pan was heating up, I stopped back into the room to ask, “How about B[mumble]berry pancakes?” knowing that she would never suspect what a pain I was being just by asking. She got excited, and fully aware of her love for blueberries, I worried that she would end up disappointed.

The Burberry Pancake, as I soon revealed to her, was actually a crepe painted plaid with thin lines of brown Nutella ganache, white vanilla yogurt and red raspberry sauce, using the beige of the crepe as the base color to create the classic Burberry Check.

The end result was good, so I’ll add the recipes soon, but I used a sweet crepe that was a little too cakey in flavor for my taste with all the sweet toppings, so I need to dig out my own crepe recipe from the archives before I post.

If you are wondering, TSB liked the crepes. Actually, she more than liked them. She finished breakfast, put down her fork and spoke those three little word to me for the very first time.

I got impatient. Before I split the unsweetened dough in half, I decided that it would be too dry, even though I had yet to add the molasses or maple syrup. I hastily incorporated an extra quarter cup of fat and not until the two halves were whole did I realize the error of my ways. The dough was a little slimy.

I am not yet sold on the duck. I will try it again with 3/4 of the fat and maybe substitute butter for some of that. The free radicals were too numerous in this debacle to be sure that the altered fats were the cause, but the spices in these cookies were so muted when compared to my last batch of bacon cookies, despite comparable amounts of all other ingredients.

The texture of the flat duck cookies was very similar to that of the bacon cookies, regardless of sugars, but they seemed to puff up more cake-like in the muffin tins than their porcine counterparts.

The maple syrup flavor was a superb touch, which also seemed to slow the cooking, while the molasses got more of a burned sugar flavor that went from sweet to bitter.

TSB liked the molasses better than the maple and said she could taste the duck, which worries me, since she is the one with the incisive palate. I made her test the cookies before we uncorked the smuggled absinthe, in which she noted a citrusy finish, but I could barely get my tongue past the anise.