Two days in food
Mar. 9th, 2011 01:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
magidI've been having issues recently with cooking: I've been hungry, and even had ideas of things to cook, but lacked any motivation to get that cooking done for just me. It's lead to a lot of stupid eating, where stupid is "bits of marzipan" or "slices of cheese" or "some dried figs" or similar no-prep foods. I'm not sure where the disconnect is, and it's been a bit concerning, because that's not how I usually work.
However. A friend pinged me to do some canning yesterday (Monday, that is; stupid staying up too late...), and that got me moving in the kitchen. Before he came over, I went to the Butcherie and picked up a bunch of animal-based proteins; I'd realized I hadn't had any form of meat in weeks, and it was featuring prominently in the things I wasn't making (but kept thinking about).
First up were the carrot pickles. My friend brought his mandoline, so the farm share carrots were crinkle cut to be turned into five pints-worth of pickles. We put black peppercorns, pink peppercorns, mustard seeds, and slices of ginger in each jar, and the brine was a mixture of white vinegar, rice vinegar, some water, salt, sugar, and some of the seasonings in the jar, since we'd prepped six pints but only needed five. Those went into their boiling water bath, and I put the rest of the brine away for later (it was just about a pint, so enough for two pints of pickles at a future date).
While the carrot pickles were sealing themselves, I cubed and boiled a bunch of potatoes and a rutabaga, draining them once they were done.
My friend wanted dinner, so I started sauteeing things in the wok (my only meat frying pan, basically): red onions, little bits of carrot left over from the crinkle-cutting process, some of the cubed potatoes and rutabagas, some sauerkraut (Anyone need some sauerkraut? I have a ton that I won't get through myself before Passover...), spicy sausages, and a bit of malt vinegar, plus salt and pepper. It felt right for a winter night, though later I realized that I could have added the one apple I still have in the crisper.
Once I had more space on the stove again, I drained and started cooking the Jacob's cattle beans from Baer's Best (i.e. north shore grown) that I'd picked up at Russo's and soaked through the afternoon. Originally I'd assumed I'd be cooking them on Tuesday, but they swelled up much faster than I'd expected.
And late Monday night, I decided that since the earlier meal was technically lunch for me, I was going to cook the pepper steak bits I'd picked up, sauteeing them with red onion, cabbage, some of the cubed potato and rutabaga, and eating that with chipotle mustard (it being the one that's currently open, but also my current favorite mustard). I felt rather Anglo-Saxon, though not to the extent of wishing for beer. (Did I mention I'd been jonesing for meat?)
Today, I ended up getting home around 4 P.M. and definitely needing breakfast. I'd walked a bunch of miles, and been thinking about how to use the cooked beans, coming up with a dairy and a meat dish for them. Luckily, I'd cooked the whole pound of beans, so I made both, starting them pretty much at the same time.
The dairy: finely diced yellow onion sauteed with half a jar of roasted red peppers I canned back in October (with olive oil and lemon juice), the rest of the potato and rutabaga cubes, and some ladlesful of beans, plus black pepper, lots of cumin, and some hot sauce. Once those were all friendly, I mashed them and added mozzarella (realizing only later I should have added some cheddar or parmesan too, for flavor rather than just the stringiness of the mozz). It's not quite the right balance of seasonings, but I was hungry enough that I didn't take the time to figure out how to rebalance it.
The meat: diced red onions sauteed with the end of a head of cabbage, a bunch of collards, one sad carrot that had been too limp to pickle, a small bag of tomatoes I'd roasted this summer, two dried hot peppers, the rest of the beans and their broth, plus some cut-up boneless beef short ribs. I put that on very low, with the slightest wisps of steam coming off it. Partway through the evening I decided that it needed more tomato presence, and I had some (Passover) ketchup that needed using, so a bunch of that went in (with the sweetness balancing the hot peppers). I had a midnight bowl of this, and it made me very happy: the broth is rather spicy, there are lots of vegetables (mostly from the farm share, except the red onions), and the meat is flavorful and slightly fatty in a particular way that I hadn't realized I really wanted. It's a huge pot, and I'm not sure that I'll want to share it :-).
Possibly in queue for tomorrow: a salad with orange, dried black olives, kohlrabi, greens, and a balsamic dressing, possibly with feta. Since the oranges are organic, I think I'm going to want to candy the peel.
The particularly satisfying part of this cooking was that except for the proteins, everything was stuff I had on hand, from the farm share or in the pantry. It's the time of year to cook down the fridge (er, the contents thereof, not the appliance as a whole :-) before Passover, and it felt like I was using things appropriately. The down side: I'm totally out of onions now.
However. A friend pinged me to do some canning yesterday (Monday, that is; stupid staying up too late...), and that got me moving in the kitchen. Before he came over, I went to the Butcherie and picked up a bunch of animal-based proteins; I'd realized I hadn't had any form of meat in weeks, and it was featuring prominently in the things I wasn't making (but kept thinking about).
First up were the carrot pickles. My friend brought his mandoline, so the farm share carrots were crinkle cut to be turned into five pints-worth of pickles. We put black peppercorns, pink peppercorns, mustard seeds, and slices of ginger in each jar, and the brine was a mixture of white vinegar, rice vinegar, some water, salt, sugar, and some of the seasonings in the jar, since we'd prepped six pints but only needed five. Those went into their boiling water bath, and I put the rest of the brine away for later (it was just about a pint, so enough for two pints of pickles at a future date).
While the carrot pickles were sealing themselves, I cubed and boiled a bunch of potatoes and a rutabaga, draining them once they were done.
My friend wanted dinner, so I started sauteeing things in the wok (my only meat frying pan, basically): red onions, little bits of carrot left over from the crinkle-cutting process, some of the cubed potatoes and rutabagas, some sauerkraut (Anyone need some sauerkraut? I have a ton that I won't get through myself before Passover...), spicy sausages, and a bit of malt vinegar, plus salt and pepper. It felt right for a winter night, though later I realized that I could have added the one apple I still have in the crisper.
Once I had more space on the stove again, I drained and started cooking the Jacob's cattle beans from Baer's Best (i.e. north shore grown) that I'd picked up at Russo's and soaked through the afternoon. Originally I'd assumed I'd be cooking them on Tuesday, but they swelled up much faster than I'd expected.
And late Monday night, I decided that since the earlier meal was technically lunch for me, I was going to cook the pepper steak bits I'd picked up, sauteeing them with red onion, cabbage, some of the cubed potato and rutabaga, and eating that with chipotle mustard (it being the one that's currently open, but also my current favorite mustard). I felt rather Anglo-Saxon, though not to the extent of wishing for beer. (Did I mention I'd been jonesing for meat?)
Today, I ended up getting home around 4 P.M. and definitely needing breakfast. I'd walked a bunch of miles, and been thinking about how to use the cooked beans, coming up with a dairy and a meat dish for them. Luckily, I'd cooked the whole pound of beans, so I made both, starting them pretty much at the same time.
The dairy: finely diced yellow onion sauteed with half a jar of roasted red peppers I canned back in October (with olive oil and lemon juice), the rest of the potato and rutabaga cubes, and some ladlesful of beans, plus black pepper, lots of cumin, and some hot sauce. Once those were all friendly, I mashed them and added mozzarella (realizing only later I should have added some cheddar or parmesan too, for flavor rather than just the stringiness of the mozz). It's not quite the right balance of seasonings, but I was hungry enough that I didn't take the time to figure out how to rebalance it.
The meat: diced red onions sauteed with the end of a head of cabbage, a bunch of collards, one sad carrot that had been too limp to pickle, a small bag of tomatoes I'd roasted this summer, two dried hot peppers, the rest of the beans and their broth, plus some cut-up boneless beef short ribs. I put that on very low, with the slightest wisps of steam coming off it. Partway through the evening I decided that it needed more tomato presence, and I had some (Passover) ketchup that needed using, so a bunch of that went in (with the sweetness balancing the hot peppers). I had a midnight bowl of this, and it made me very happy: the broth is rather spicy, there are lots of vegetables (mostly from the farm share, except the red onions), and the meat is flavorful and slightly fatty in a particular way that I hadn't realized I really wanted. It's a huge pot, and I'm not sure that I'll want to share it :-).
Possibly in queue for tomorrow: a salad with orange, dried black olives, kohlrabi, greens, and a balsamic dressing, possibly with feta. Since the oranges are organic, I think I'm going to want to candy the peel.
The particularly satisfying part of this cooking was that except for the proteins, everything was stuff I had on hand, from the farm share or in the pantry. It's the time of year to cook down the fridge (er, the contents thereof, not the appliance as a whole :-) before Passover, and it felt like I was using things appropriately. The down side: I'm totally out of onions now.