We've entered much wiser into our second year participating in a local farmshare with JMD Farm. Less going to waste, more overall cooking, still more new recipes to try out.
Tonight was a simple affair, but a great use of the otherwise question-causing collard greens. Katie found an easy recipe for collard green pesto linguine, which was just like regular pesto, but a tad more nutty and olive-y.
We get tons of greens early in the season, so finding this new use for collards was great.
But last night was the real feast, clocking in at about 2 hours of prep.
We had:
>> Roasted beets with goat cheese
>> Swiss chard boules stuffed with lemon barley 'risotto,' with a
>> roasted red pepper and pinenut coulis (sauce)
The beets recipe came out of one of our go-to cookbooks, Cooking from the Farmers' Market. The second was an amazing find because we got to try out our swiss chard and use our remaining barley.
The roasted peppers and the blanched Swiss chard.
The sauce ingredients.
The meal.
Also deserving a quick mention is the awesome cake (with banners) that Katie made for Chase's going away party a few weeks back.
Labels: cooking, food, kitchen
Pulled mostly from Real Simple magazine, our Thanksgiving menu:
Turkey
Sweet potatoes with pecans and parmesan
Brie and chive biscuits
Green beans with bacon vinaigrette
Homemade cranberry sauce
Black forest pie
Lauren is in town from NYC. We're up late, snacking on bananas and sipping coffee. Chase will soon be down here at 444 Wayne. And we might be submitting our pix-as-we-cook to the New York Times.
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Addendum by Chase: We made it at least once.
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Labels: cooking
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| Rub we made |
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| Rub |
We're still taking photos of food (an idea that still wows Katie's dad, who now does the same), and at long last we've wrapped up some sewing gifts and such. Probably the main thing missing from these photos is a reference to the smoothie kick we went on, oddly enough, just as the weather turned cold. In short, smoothies are easy and healthy. Please leave any recipe or project questions in the comments.
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| kabobs |
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| Napkins (lotta) |
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| Placemats w/ chopstix pockets |
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| Crab cakes, etc. |
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| Taco Feast by Chase |
Labels: cooking, design, food, project, sewing, Virginia
One of the best online chats I've ever had:
Tony:
FYI: Katie ate about 3 dozen cookies and bread and nuts and is ... sic.
Chase:
what the fuck
Tony:
yeah, she tore into the stuff we had upstairs, all ready to go. luckily she only marred 1 gift and mostly just the extra foods we were going to bring, unwrapped, for everyone to try
Chase:
what are you talking about? why would she eat gifts? Are you making this up?
Tony:
ok we had all these baked goods upstairs, mostly wrapped or in tuppers. she went up there and ate so much that she's fat and bloated right now
Chase:
is it right that I feel shocked by this?
Tony:
well it did freak me out. but the vet said her size will save her from her gluttony
Chase:
OOOOO!
Rivy.*
you said Katie.
jesus man
You had me all worked up
Plus I was surprised to hear you say Katie "tore" into cookies upstairs
Tony:
hahahahaha
Chase:
how epic
Tony:
OMG
hahaha
Chase:
I'm laughing out loud..."she's fat and bloated right now" hahaha
Tony:
save this chat forever
* Rivy is a bull mastiff.
Labels: cooking, gifts, Riviera
Still exploring around in the kitchen. It's daunting to approach dinner with a cookbook because you need to have a lot of key ingredients to begin with. Having virtually no spices (aside from salt, pepper, and basil) -- I've started to approach meals completely from scratch, and it isn't half-bad.
Last night I had bow-tie pasta with chicken and a basil lemon-cream sauce, fruit salad, and french bread with olive oil. Orange juice on the side.
Anyone else making anything?
Labels: cooking
I know that Katie and I make two, but we're not sold on the idea that cooking for one is too difficult or too expensive. Disagreement is welcome.
In the meantime, here are a few dishes that have become staples (and please share your suggestions), mixed in with our tips about stretching ingredients:
1. Veggie stretchYour veggies don't need to go bad. In a given week, we'll come home with three bell peppers, an onion, and a X-factor veggie (tomato, scallion, cucumber). We'll use those in a salad (which stretches over multiple lunches/dinners), then in quesadillas, and to bolster a simple pasta. No waste.
2. Salad boostA salad is so much better with a dash of fruit, nuts, or croutons in addition to the core lettuce and veggies.
3. Bulk sectionEverything in the bulk section is cheap. Good for snacks: banana chips, craisins, dates, and non-pareils chocolates. Also good for nuts for salad and oatmeal.
4. Menu planningEven with our staple dishes, we still let veggies turn to garbage (compost) if we don't plan out a weeklong menu before heading to work Monday morning. With all the bonus wedding paper around, we write out fancy little menus and try to stick to them. Mixed among ambitious meals are super simple pastas, frozen pizzas, baked potatoes, or other non-recipe items.
5. Katie's suggestion"Bake lots of cakes because they taste good."
Labels: cooking, food
I made dinner for myself the other night. Just a pretty simple pasta dish with a white cream sauce + peppers, onion, basil, and oregano. Garlic bread and Newcastle brown ale on the side to compliment.
Labels: cooking
Our cooking has slowed down a bit in the two months since our
previous cooking post, but because it's been that long, we've got some stuff to share.
We're learning a lot about ingredient portions and putting together a nice set of staple items. My birthday grill arrived today too, so look for some grilling action before too long. In addition to everything that follows, there are more cooking photos at
the Din Din album.
Couch potatoSalmon rub w/ garlic broccoliPralinesWe learned a lot about pralines from
Linda's praline site. Unfortunately, that was after we'd basically made a batch of crunchy sugar mounds.
Sweet potato carrot "Superbowl" soupNever did get around to photographing the final blended soup...
Thai spaghettiBrownie cupcakes in a coneSpinach and bell pep quesadillaCookies 'n Cream cakePotato chip and dill encrusted salmonLabels: cooking, food, kitchen
With renter's insurance in mind, we have started taking photos of everything we own. We'll soon log our pizza cutter, waffle iron, crock pot, and more; cheese grater, bowls, griddle, and flipper; colander, juicer, and red microwave.
In the meantime, we're putting these new kitchen items to work. We made some puppy chow, for example:
And for Christmas dinner we did pork tenderloin, potatoes (my way) and green beans cooked in onions and soy sauce:
Also recently: Thai steak salad
Pan-roasted steak w/ oven-roasted bell peps and saffron rice
Labels: baking, cooking, food, kitchen, puppy chow, Virginia
"It's juicy, is that good?" he asked.
"I think that means it's tasty," she answered.
We cooked our first turkey today.
"And it was swell," Katie says.
We picked up our nearly 12-pound bird for free at Martin's grocery after saving up the necessary bonus points. It cooked in less than four hours and was shared and beloved by the holiday crew at the news office.
Katie headed up the homemade cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, and dressing successes. I'm taking most of the turkey credit. And our secret gravy ingredient is now out of the bag: sage. We only argued twice during the day: once about onion content and once about the flimsy wood spatula and little fork that I tried to use to lift the mighty beast from its pan. I also stepped on a turkey blood ice cube (actually a chunk, but cube is funnier). And Katie basted our wall.
Tony decorated the pie.
For all the bird basting we did, we still made out with an herb surplus.
In the past month we've also taken on some other cooking endeavors.
Pan-roasted mahi mahi + baked apples (from a local farmer)Apricot-glazed chicken with dried plums and sage + Tony style baked 'tatoes + lemon and soy asparagusFusili with tomatoes and basilTuna with cilantro/lime/jalapeno mojo sauce + Snow peas with lemon, garlic and pine nuts + Tony-style baked 'tatoesIf you've gotten this far, you may want to check out the seemingly defunct Sadbearkitchen
blog.
Labels: chicken, cooking, fusili, mahi mahi, mojo, Thanksgiving, tuna, turkey, veggies
