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magidI had the twin spurs of ingredients and inspiration this weekend, so I've been playing with food a lot.
I stopped by Super 88 Thursday evening, and got some of the fresh thin noodles (one of the brands is kosher, and less than half the price of the Butcherie), thinking of the peanut noodles I'd had last month. I'm not a huge peanut fan, though, so I've been thinking of using almond butter instead. I mixed it with some Szechuan spicy sauce, and thinned it with water before mixing it into the cooked noodles. I mixed in the white part of some scallions, then once it had cooled some, added the scallion greens, sliced pea pods, shredded carrot, slivered almonds, and sliced sprouts (the crunchy kind). I'd wanted to put in fresh water chestnut, not only for the crunch, but the slight sweetness to balance the spice of the sauce. I couldn't find good ones, though. Next time. Also a possibility for next time: shredded cucumber. Oh, sesame seeds, too. And I should make more of the sauce. Which is to say, it worked, and I like it, and will make it again.
Friday I'd had room in the oven to bake the orange spaghetti squash from the farm, but hadn't planned anything to do with it for dinner. Yesterday I debated whether I should make it savory or sweet, and ended up deciding savory. I chunked the squash a bit smaller (it wasn't stringing the way I'd expected), then mixed in scallion, black pepper, and some nutmeg before pouring some egg over it, and topping it with slivers of the hard, semi-pungent "slicing cheese". It baked for an hour, and came out... ok. Pleasant, nothing amazing. I think it would be better with a different kind of squash, one with a more mushy texture and a bit more flavor.
The other ingredient I'd gotten at Super 88 was about a pound of ginger. Today I peeled it all, sliced what could be sliced without many fibers, and grated the rest into a plain sugar syrup. That cooked until I had to leave, so I let it sit until I could get back to it. I tasted the syrup, and it had zing. A lot of zing. In fact, at that point I started realizing that not only were my lips tingling, so were my hands, as if I'd been carelessly dealing with chiles. Luckily it was mostly on the backs of my fingers (I guess because of how I held the ginger grater), and it faded after an hour or two. Note to self: use gloves. Also, having air or water moving over the tingling bits helped distract from the not-quite-pain.
Anyway. I got home again, and boiled the ginger again with more water and sugar. It's still extremely untamed ginger flavor, so I probably should've boiled it at least one more time, but I wanted to use the pareve pot, so I now have a pint of ginger slices in ginger syrup that are pretty spicy. Now to figure out what to do with it.
What I wanted to do with the pot was cook figs. I'd been enticed into buying fresh figs at Russo's, both Kadota and black Mission figs, but I'd forgotten that I don't like them plain fresh nearly as much as dried (more a reflection of what I grew up eating, I think, than anything else). And lots of fresh fig recipes pair it with proscuitto, which is a no go. I remembered boiling figs in honey once before, and decided that would work again. I thinned the honey with water and started the pot heating while I quartered the figs. Once they were boiling, I picked some lavender from the porch and added it, just because it sounded right. And now I have four half-pints of lavender honeyed figs, that I'm also not sure what to do with.
I had some honey leftover after filling the jars, and realized I had a bunch of hand fruit sitting around getting old. I diced up a small nectarine, two pluots, and four apples, shook some nutmeg over them, poured the remains of the fig-and-lavender-infused honey over them, and put it in a low oven, figuring that since I have no biscuit or other starchy topping to protect the fruit, a long, slow bake would be the way to avoid burning. It's still in the oven, so I don't know whether it'll turn into yummy fruit mush, or what.
And dinner tonight was in honor of mushrooms. I found both shiitakes and oyster mushrooms at Russo's, and put them both into a vegetable saute for dinner, along with onion, garlic, scallions, yu toi, and onion-and-garlic-flavored tofu (there wasn't any plain, firm tofu at the supermarket, oddly enough). No ginger; I'd used it all up. The mushrooms come through more in texture, the flavor more dominated by the alliums, but I'm in the mood to eat it, so it suits.
Thus end the Labor Day weekend culinary experiments.
I stopped by Super 88 Thursday evening, and got some of the fresh thin noodles (one of the brands is kosher, and less than half the price of the Butcherie), thinking of the peanut noodles I'd had last month. I'm not a huge peanut fan, though, so I've been thinking of using almond butter instead. I mixed it with some Szechuan spicy sauce, and thinned it with water before mixing it into the cooked noodles. I mixed in the white part of some scallions, then once it had cooled some, added the scallion greens, sliced pea pods, shredded carrot, slivered almonds, and sliced sprouts (the crunchy kind). I'd wanted to put in fresh water chestnut, not only for the crunch, but the slight sweetness to balance the spice of the sauce. I couldn't find good ones, though. Next time. Also a possibility for next time: shredded cucumber. Oh, sesame seeds, too. And I should make more of the sauce. Which is to say, it worked, and I like it, and will make it again.
Friday I'd had room in the oven to bake the orange spaghetti squash from the farm, but hadn't planned anything to do with it for dinner. Yesterday I debated whether I should make it savory or sweet, and ended up deciding savory. I chunked the squash a bit smaller (it wasn't stringing the way I'd expected), then mixed in scallion, black pepper, and some nutmeg before pouring some egg over it, and topping it with slivers of the hard, semi-pungent "slicing cheese". It baked for an hour, and came out... ok. Pleasant, nothing amazing. I think it would be better with a different kind of squash, one with a more mushy texture and a bit more flavor.
The other ingredient I'd gotten at Super 88 was about a pound of ginger. Today I peeled it all, sliced what could be sliced without many fibers, and grated the rest into a plain sugar syrup. That cooked until I had to leave, so I let it sit until I could get back to it. I tasted the syrup, and it had zing. A lot of zing. In fact, at that point I started realizing that not only were my lips tingling, so were my hands, as if I'd been carelessly dealing with chiles. Luckily it was mostly on the backs of my fingers (I guess because of how I held the ginger grater), and it faded after an hour or two. Note to self: use gloves. Also, having air or water moving over the tingling bits helped distract from the not-quite-pain.
Anyway. I got home again, and boiled the ginger again with more water and sugar. It's still extremely untamed ginger flavor, so I probably should've boiled it at least one more time, but I wanted to use the pareve pot, so I now have a pint of ginger slices in ginger syrup that are pretty spicy. Now to figure out what to do with it.
What I wanted to do with the pot was cook figs. I'd been enticed into buying fresh figs at Russo's, both Kadota and black Mission figs, but I'd forgotten that I don't like them plain fresh nearly as much as dried (more a reflection of what I grew up eating, I think, than anything else). And lots of fresh fig recipes pair it with proscuitto, which is a no go. I remembered boiling figs in honey once before, and decided that would work again. I thinned the honey with water and started the pot heating while I quartered the figs. Once they were boiling, I picked some lavender from the porch and added it, just because it sounded right. And now I have four half-pints of lavender honeyed figs, that I'm also not sure what to do with.
I had some honey leftover after filling the jars, and realized I had a bunch of hand fruit sitting around getting old. I diced up a small nectarine, two pluots, and four apples, shook some nutmeg over them, poured the remains of the fig-and-lavender-infused honey over them, and put it in a low oven, figuring that since I have no biscuit or other starchy topping to protect the fruit, a long, slow bake would be the way to avoid burning. It's still in the oven, so I don't know whether it'll turn into yummy fruit mush, or what.
And dinner tonight was in honor of mushrooms. I found both shiitakes and oyster mushrooms at Russo's, and put them both into a vegetable saute for dinner, along with onion, garlic, scallions, yu toi, and onion-and-garlic-flavored tofu (there wasn't any plain, firm tofu at the supermarket, oddly enough). No ginger; I'd used it all up. The mushrooms come through more in texture, the flavor more dominated by the alliums, but I'm in the mood to eat it, so it suits.
Thus end the Labor Day weekend culinary experiments.