KITCHEN ADVENTURES: I EAT THE AIR, BACON-CRAMM’D. OK, lots of stuff here. I’ll try to keep it brief. An appetizer/hors d’oeuvre, entrees, and a salad.

1. Bacon-Wrapped Enoki. Enoki are these odd little mushrooms, thin white stalks that stick together at the bases and have flimsy caps at the ends. You chop a few inches off the bottoms and use the rest. What I used: Bacon, enoki, scallions, aluminum foil, toothpicks. What I did: Heated oven to 425. Cut the bacon strips in half to make two shorter strips (not two long thin strips). Cut the scallions into thin sticks. Separated the enoki into bundles. Covered an oven tray in tinfoil and set the bacon strips out on the foil. Put a bunch of the scallion sticks and an enoki bundle on the middle of each bacon strip, then rolled up the strips and secured them with toothpicks. Stuck the tray in the oven for about ten minutes.

How it turned out: Eh. Both the scallions and the enoki turned out to be basically tasteless once they’d been cooked, so this was pretty much like eating bacon-wrapped air. Which… mmmmm, bacon-wrapped air, you know? But still, definitely not worth the time and expense. At least I have lots of leftover bacon to have fun with.

2. A lot of chicken randomness. Just a lot of different things to do with half a boneless, skinless chicken breast. All of these were really good. How come in a restaurant, chicken dishes (other than the genius that is fried chicken) always taste so bland and dry? These dishes were moist and yummy, and while they were definitely more bland than beef or lamb, they were also a lot cheaper.

What I used and what I did: Half a chicken breast, olive oil (or in one case canola, which didn’t seem to affect the flavor at all and was much cheaper), black pepper, fresh thyme. Put this stuff in a pan and saute until the chicken was cooked through. Just, you know, cooked it and stirred it and turned the chicken now and again. To this basic picture I added various combinations of chopped red onion (snappy and sweet–better in this dish, I think, than either yellow onions or Vidalias), chopped canned artichoke hearts (Haddon House brand is an excellent value–very artichoke-y in flavor, not watery like Progresso or gritty and slightly chemical like the Whole Foods house brand), chopped button mushrooms, some leftover enoki and scallions (still super bland), and chopped garlic. For one dish, instead of sauteing vegetables with the thyme and chicken, I heated the oven to 375, cut two plum tomatoes in half, put ’em on a foil-covered oven tray with two big button mushrooms, seasoned the veg’s with cayenne, dried basil, and dried oregano, and roasted in the oven for about twelve or fifteen minutes. Then that stuff went on top of the chicken.

How it turned out: All of this was good and very easy. The thyme (which you discard when the cooking is done) works beautifully and makes what could be a boring dish a bit more interesting.

3. A Crazy Salad. I did this in order to get rid of leftovers. What I used: Ex-vir olive oil, more fresh thyme, a button mushroom, the leftover enoki, two chopped scallions, chopped red onion, two artichoke hearts, and some schmancy grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. What I did: Mixed up everything except the oil, thyme, and cheese in a bowl. Heated the oil with the thyme for as long as I could before the oil started to smoke. Let the oil cool a little (but not entirely), discarded the thyme sprigs, and then poured it over the salad. So the veg’s do cook a bit in the heated oil, but not much. Topped with cheese.

How it turned out: This is actually great! I was skeptical. And I think someone who doesn’t like a real snappy, near-raw onion taste should leave out the red onion or cook it a little in the thyme-y olive oil first. But the tastes are interesting, the scallions and enoki finally have some kind of purpose in the world, and this slightly weird combination of foods added up to a bright, pleasant, and filling salad. The elegance of the oil and cheese sort of smoothed the oddness of the other ingredients. Not sure this is for everyone, but I really enjoyed it.