Dinner

[magid]

Last night I ended up making dinner for a couple of friends. Amazingly, there were no food constraints, but I did have to think about portability, since I was taking it elsewhere. Based on what I had from the farm share (this week and last), I started a vegetable stew: onions, then collards, already-baked sunshine and buttercup squashes, chickpeas, black pepper, and lots of cumin. Plus some water, to make sure it didn't stick.

I had some brown rice left over from yom tov, and that became rice pudding, using local eggs, the end of the raisins, cinnamon, and some local honey, since I seem to be out of brown sugar completely (oops).

And the tomatillos inspired me to make a salsa. I broiled the tomatillos, light green peppers, a jalapeno, three cloves of garlic in their skins, and a halved red onion, turning them so they'd get a bit charred on all sides. Towards the end, I added some corn I'd cut off the cob and frozen earlier in the season. Unfortunately, it was too late for them to char, though they did heat. Once they were done, I peeled the peppers, garlic, and tomatillos, and chopped them up with the rest of the veggies, then added salt and some lime juice. I bought some scoop corn chips to eat this with.

I had more of the stew than I could bring over, so that formed the basis for Shabbat dinner, with the addition of some TJs vegan sausage. While I was there, I picked up some rolls, and I have tons of grape juice, so the basics were covered. I got home, and realized I had some becoming-very-sad green beans, so I dry-fried them, salting them after with pink salt. I chopped up onions and potatoes, and they're roasting, to finish soonsoonsoon, given how close it is to candlelighting. I picked up some grape tomatoes, and will either use them in a green salad, or some kind of hummus-tomato sandwich (I've been thinking about food to bring to HONKfest, just in case I need something). I have a ton of pickles I could open, and there's a lot of boozy slightly-dehydrated apples left over from making liqueur* if I want an off-beat snack. Plus cheeses, of course. In other words, I have reasonable food around for Shabbat, modulo not hosting (again). I'm hoping I'll be able to host again very soon now.

Shabbat shalom to those who observe, and happy Columbus Day weekend to USians who get the holiday off.

* This week in preserving food: 33 pints of beet pickles (most of them chioggia, unfortunately; I prefer red for pickling), a quart of husk cherry liqueur, about 1.5 liters of apple-cinnamon-vanilla liqueur, and about 3 liters of apple-honey liqueur.

PS. Found at TJ's: peanut flour. No clue what I'm going to do with it yet, though something like peanut flour dumplings in some kind of West African peanut-sweet potato stew might be a first project. Thoughts?

Comments

[queue.livejournal.com]

I could maybe see fish dredged in peanut flour.

[infinitehotel.livejournal.com]

I bought a bag the moment I saw it, but then realized I was equally clueless about how to use it. Lately I've been thinking some kind of crust for chicken. And I'll bet it would make a great (somewhat non-traditional) horchata.

[(Anonymous)]

becoming-very-sad green beans

Aw.

Pink salt!

to finish soonsoonsoon

Cutecutecute.

Glad you got to have some tomatoes!

I have never heard of and never even imagined peanut flour!

Unrelatedly, would you recommend the auto body shop you recently used? Were you happy with the work and the way you were treated?

[cellio]

I'd never heard of peanut flour before. It would probably make a nice coating for fish or chicken, and the dumplings in West African stew sound yummy. I wonder whether it would add anything to cookies, as an alternative to using peanut butter?

[magid.livejournal.com]

Mebbe. I don't know that I'd choose peanut over regular grain flour, though.

[magid.livejournal.com]

I'm not a huge fan of peanuts, actually, so unless it were flavored with other things as well, it doesn't appeal on chicken solo.

I've never made or had horchata, so I'm not sure I'd riff it for my first attempt.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Girly Himalayan pink salt :-)

I thought the auto body shop I used recently was the best part of the whole experience; they were on the ball, and got more information out of the insurance company than I managed to get, and were quick and seem to have done good work. It was DeLeo's, in Cambridgeport.

[magid.livejournal.com]

I'm not a huge peanut fan, which is why I surprised myself by buying it. But it was so intriguingly lumpy...

I bet it would be fabulous in cookies/cake, to make a chocolate-peanut-butter confection of some sort.

[(Anonymous)]

Girly Himalayan pink salt!

I'm so glad that your experience with the auto body shop was good, easing the annoyance of the the larger experience, and I thank you very much for the information.

[cellio]

I like peanut-butter cookies but the "batter" is really stiff and sometimes I'm just not up for that. So in those cases I make PB-chip cookies (just using a chocolate-chip recipe) and get some peanuty goodness that way. I'm thinking the peanut flour could add nicely to this.

Peanut goo formed into balls and dipped in chocolate also seems to have potential.

Mmm, cookies!

[magid.livejournal.com]

I tend not to buy other-than-chocolate chips, for some reason, not sure why, but that's a good workaround to stiff dough.

Peanut butter mixed with sugar and butter and then dipped in chocolate is the usual recipe for buckeyes; I don't know how the flour would work.

(And I almost never make cookies; they require lots more precision than I'm usually willing to bring to the kitchen...)

[(Anonymous)]

Intriguingly lumpy! I wonder whether you could use the peanut flour like breadcrumbs, then, in some sort of pasta dish. I assume it's okay it eat raw, unlike wheat flour. Maybe in something sort of like a pad thai? In your spicy nut-butter noodles?

I bet you could use a bit of it in place of some of the flour and fat in your chocolate cake recipe. I have a vague recollection of adding peanut butter to my brownies; this flour could come in handy now that I only use the modified recipe, which uses only one bowl and doesn't involve any melting (and happens to be parve).

[magid.livejournal.com]

I haven't opened the package yet, but I assume it would be able to be turned into breadcrumb'-like things with a very little bit of added oil to make it clump. And I assume it's ok to eat raw, since it's just peanuts, after all. I could put it in the spicy nut-butter noodles, but most of the time, I prefer non-peanut butter for that, given my preference for pretty much any nut other than peanuts (which is strange, given how much I like other legumes).

I bet it would be fabulous replacing some flour and fat in the chocolate cake, you're right: peanut butter cup cake!

[(Anonymous)]

I'm so pleased you like my suggestion regarding your chocolate cake!