thoughtful consumption

Chili oil

Thursday James mentioned putting chili oil on pasta, and I remembered drying hot peppers last summer and putting them away. So I dug them out and made two kinds of chili oil: Asian (with canola and dark sesame) and Italian (with olive oil).

With gloves on, I seeded and chopped the dried peppers – about 3 tablespoons. I divided that in half and put each in a jar.

I heated 1/3 cup olive oil till it was hot then let it cool for 3 minutes and poured it over the chili flakes. Then I did the same with the canola. I didn’t add the dark sesame oil till the end, though. Then I capped the jars and left them for a day.

The next day I strained the oil through a layer of cheesecloth, and here’s what I got.

We haven’t tried it yet – I hope it works! The recipe said you could use chili flakes more than once. So I saved them in case we love it and want to make more.

Egg Drop Ramen

I love egg drop soup, and James loves ramen noodles. Since he’s off to college next month, his ramen consumption will hit an all-time high. So we decided to experiment with adding eggs to ramen noodles to improve their nutritional value and deliciousness.

We cooked 3 packages of ramen for about 5 minutes on the stove. Then we beat 3 eggs and poured them slowly into the ramen for the last minute of cooking, stirring constantly. The results were delicious. The ramen was thick and eggy.

Tale of two suppers

For supper Thursday, we had flat-iron steak with the Back Porch spice rub and caramelized onions, bread, lettuce, stir-fried squash, and field peas.

The spice rub was good, but for this kind of steak I prefer marinating it in soy and Worchestershire sauce. I’ll definitely use the rub on pork, chicken, and some vegetables, too. The brown sugar and cumin make it sweet and tangy.

Last night’s supper was shrimp and grits, sweet potatoes, and sorrel. The shrimp was leftover from lemon-basil pasta earlier in the week. I also cooked some half an onion to go with it.

The sweet potato was delicious! The couple I’d gotten earlier in the season were dry and not very good. But these are so wonderful you can eat them down to the skin. The grits were from Farmers’ Fresh, too, and for the first time I cooked them without any sticking to the bottom. The secret is to catch the pot just after the water boils and stir until the heat reduces to a simmer.

Poached pears

For dessert last night, I poached the pears in wine sauce. We ended up with three pear halves because one pear was all mushy on one side. For poaching liquid, we used red wine, water, sliced lemon, and a cinnamon stick.

After the pears were poached (about 15 minutes, flipping every 5), I reduced the sauce to half a cup and poured it over the pears. It was intense and definitely a good use of pears.

Next time, I’ll try to be patient and reduce the sauce even more to make something closer to syrup.

Leftovers

Tonight we’ll finish off the egg drop ramen, sweet potatoes, and sorrel. Tomorrow we’re going out of town for a couple of days, and I think we’re okay food-wise. The basil, lettuce, and sorrel, squash, apples, and pears are finished. We still have some field peas and okra to cook, but they’ll be fine when we get back mid-week.

See you then!

Here’s what I got this week.

• apples
• sweet potatoes
• pair of pears
• pancake mix
• basil
• lettuce
• sorrel
• field peas
• okra
• squash
• eggs
• spice rub

I also ordered onions and garlic from the online store.

However, for lunch today, we ate leftovers: sliced tomatoes, field peas and black rice, and green bean casserole that looks oddly like macaroni and cheese.

Supper was another story. We had shrimp in lemon garlic basil cream sauce over fettuccine and lettuce.

It’s my kind of dish, and I loved it. For the shrimp, I followed the “The Simplest and Best Shrimp Dish” recipe from How To Cook Everything. It does not lie. Then I deglazed the pan to make the sauce.

Tomorrow’s plans

Tomorrow night, I’ll use the spice rub on a flat iron steak. With the steak, we’ll have some more lettuce, the last tiny tomato, either stir-fried squash or fried okra, and possibly some caramelized onions. And maybe some field peas, too. My husband loves field peas – I think he’d prefer them to the steak. These field peas have a reddish tint to them. Can’t wait to see if they taste different.

I think I’m the only one that likes raw sorrel. And I love it, so I have no qualms about eating it all up myself. There are some perquisites to being Chief Food Officer.

Run down for the week

Apples will get eaten as snacks. No need to do anything else with thes’uns.

Sweet potatoes will be baked in the oven or the microwave. The last few sweet potatoes didn’t turn out so well. But these two look like they’ll be delicious.

Pears will get poached with red wine sauce. (Darn! I should’ve ordered some goat cheese!)

Basil’s already done. I used some of it in the shrimp fettuccine and turned the rest into pesto.

Lettuce and sorrel will be washed, spun, and eaten fresh with minimal dressing.

Field peas will get cooked with onions sautéed in a little leftover sausage drippings. Heat the drippings, sauté the onions, add the peas, cover with water, bring to a boil, and simmer for 20 minutes to 8 hours. So easy and good!

My okra always gets fried in cornmeal. I’ve never learned to like okra any other way. (Well, it’s okay in soup, but that’s more indifference than liking.) I may try frying it in a little olive oil instead of deep frying in canola. When I’ve been frying eggplant recently, I noticed that olive oil doesn’t smoke as easily as canola. Just keep it on medium and keep the batches coming. Wonder if I could cut the okra long ways so that the pieces would be bigger and easier to fry in less oil. More like Asian eggplant slices.

Squash will be stir-fried. Possibly some of it will be used for squash muffins.

Eggs will make us happy in many ways: cookies, pancakes, scrambled eggs…

Green bean casserole

Green bean casserole turned out pretty yummy. I’m glad I added the wine although I used too much. I recall casseroles like this tasting kind of  insipid (if you’ll forget the horribly judgemental word). This wasn’t bad, and I’m sure we’ll do it again with some of the beans I froze earlier this summer.

Again with the Asian pear crostini

We finished up the Asian pear with another round of crostini.

I sautéed the diced pear in olive oil and then put it on top of some toasted bread smeared with a mixture of cream cheese, lemon zest, and goat cheese from Kroger.

Goat cheese from Kroger is a mean joke.

I didn’t think store-bought cheese would be as good as the fresh stuff, but, wow, what a difference. When I eat fresh goat cheese from Farmers’ Fresh, my first thought is CREAM. Then some lovely subtle flavors follow. With Kroger goat cheese, the flavor comes first. And it’s not subtle. Or lovely. Guess that’s the pasteurization. It was okay mixed with the cream cheese on the bread.

Tomato pasta

Tonight we had tomatoes, garlic, basil, and olive oil over fettuccine.

It was good except for the soap.… I don’t think the pasta pot was rinsed so well the last time it was washed. We wouldn’t have noticed it except I decided to be all chef-y and add some of the pasta water to stretch the sauce. We ate it all anyway. What are the signs of dishwashing soap poisoning?

Five Guys for lunch tomorrow

I’ll make us a plate of green bean casserole and field peas before we go so we can enjoy our burgers sans guilt. I’ll also slice up our two remaining tiny tomatoes. Aren’t they the cutest?

Or maybe they're really big...

First the bad news…

I forgot the eggplant in the oven again. “I’ll just turn the oven off and leave them in there for a little longer,” I said. Ha! That’s the recipe for Abandoned Eggplant.

So, no baba ghanoush for me this week.

The good news…

Last night we had a nice fall supper in two courses starring mushrooms and acorn squash. (It’s in two courses because the acorn squash needed more time in the oven. From now on, I’m counting on at least an hour even for the little ones.)

For the first course we had mushroom fettuccine with honey lemon cream sauce based on this recipe. It tasted fresh and delicious, but the lemon juice was a little strong – maybe because I only had 2 cups of mushrooms instead of 4. No real complaints, though, and we wiped our plates clean with some bread. I meant to add some fresh basil from the garden but forgot.

First course: Fettuccine in mushroom lemon cream sauce

I considered trying Noodles with Mushrooms and Lemon Ginger Dressing. It sounds really good, but I didn’t think the Asian style would match the acorn squash.

Second course: Baked acorn squash with butter and maple syrup

It tastes like fall! This method of making winter squash is so easy and good. The only problem is I usually forget to add the water at the bottom of the pan. That makes the outer part of the flesh is a little dry.

Green bean casserole

I made a green bean casserole last night with the wax beans. Since it’s for tonight’s supper, I wasn’t planning to bake it last night, but when I cranked up the oven for the acorn squash, I figured it was better to get it done.

I followed Paula Deen’s recipe pretty much. I put in extra onions instead of chopped mushrooms. And I rinsed out the soup can with some of the white wine I used for the mushroom pasta. The recipe calls for boiling the beans in chicken broth and then draining them. But that makes it sound like you pour the broth down the sink! That seems kind of lame. So I kept the broth and tried to cook the mixture down before baking.

The results still look a little soupy, but I’m hoping it won’t be a problem.

If I was more familiar with green bean casserole, I might have considered using the oyster mushrooms and the farmhouse cheddar on top – Gourmet Green Bean Casserole! But it seemed like a waste. I figure when a recipe calls for a can of cream of mushroom soup, it’s not going to be about subtle flavors and fresh tastes.

Speaking of the farmhouse cheddar, it’s really yummy. We had slices on Triscuits with apple wedges for lunch yesterday. For lunch today, I’m going to heat up some tomato soup and grate some of the cheddar on top. By tomato soup, I mean a can of V-8. I can’t stand it cold, but heated up with cheese is good! And I’ll have one of the last peach muffins, too.

More plans

The green bean casserole will go well with the field peas for a couple of meals. I still have tomatoes, too. I may slice up the round ones and make another cucumber-tomato salad. The rest of them will get cooked with garlic and served on pasta or bread along with what’s left of the pesto.

I bought some chevre from Kroger to make crostini again and use up the pesto and the Asian pear. I’ll be interested to taste the difference.

Feelin’ like fall

Is this a wonderful fall-like day or what? And it’s only September 2^nd!

This week’s produce has one foot in summer (tomatoes, basil, green beans, and eggplant) and another in fall (mushrooms, acorn squash, and apples). These kind of week’s are fun because you get a chance to appreciate the summer stuff as it peters out for the year. And you get new fall stuff to try, too.

• basil
• oyster mushrooms
• acorn squash
• green beans
• eggplant
• eggs
• cheddar cheese
• apples
• tomatoes

Pasta!

UPS delivered 20 pounds of fettuccine to my house today. Amazon had it on sale for around a dollar a pound shipped. I don’t remember what the six-pound bag of spaghetti costs at Sam, but I don’t think it was less than that. Plus, I was getting awfully tired of spaghetti.

The basil’s already pesto. We’ll have it on fettuccine some night soon or spread on some toasted bread. We can always freeze it, but I don’t think it’ll come to that.

Tonight we’re having pasta and pine nuts with green beans and tomatoes on the side. (And I’ll still be eating cabbage even if everyone else has given up.)

The rest of the tomatoes will get cooked with onions, garlic, and wine another night and then tossed with pasta. If I need some fresh basil, I’ve still got a little growing outside.

Baba ghanoush and brownies

The globe eggplants will be baba ghanoush since I’ve still got lemons, garlic, and tahini lying around. I’ll roast them in the oven tonight because eggplant’s like basil – the sooner the better. Might have to put something else in the oven with the eggplant … like brownies.

It’s been an awfully long time since we had brownies. One of the best part of Farmers’ Fresh eggs is being cool with licking the brownie bowl. Salmonella contamination is directly related to the size of the flock and the chicken’s general health. I’ve met the chickens at Red Hott Tomatoes, and they are happy, well-adjusted birds living in flocks of about 10 (compared to as many as 30,000 in an industrial chicken farm). Plus, if one of the chickens were sick, Nancy and Jacque would know (and care). Same goes with the other farmers.

I’m not suggesting downing raw eggs in mass quantities, but getting to enjoy a little brownie batter is pretty darn awesome. I appreciate the farmers’ skill, hard work, and care that allow me to pass around the joy that only brownie batter-covered bowls, beaters, and spatulas bring.

Easy fall items

I’m excited to play with the mushrooms, cheddar, and apples. I’m not quite sure what I’ll do yet, but I want everything to be simple to get at these tastes. Maybe some kind of mushroom and rice dish and then cheddar and apple snacks. I’ve also got a little Asian pear left to add to that mix.

I love acorn squash! It’s easy to make, too. Half the squash, scoop out the seedy bits, put a little butter and maple syrup in the cavities, and bake at 350 for about half an hour. Stick a fork in it to see if it’s done. When in doubt, leave it in for a little longer; it’ll only get better. It’s so good for a late supper on a chilly night.

Leftovers

Here’s what we have left to eat up from last week.

• red cabbage (just a couple of servings more!)
• peach muffins
• field peas (some cooked, some uncooked)
• Asian pear (We have about a third of a really big fruit left. Maybe I’ll revisit the stir-fry idea without all the sauce.)
• a handful of green beans (I’m cooking these tonight.)

So we’re in pretty good shape. We’ll have field peas with all the fall items and finish them up in a few days.

Knife skills

Last night, I sat down to read the first couple of chapters from How to Cook Everything about basic techniques – including knife skills. Bittman points out that his grandmother had poor knife technique and was an excellent cook. And that proper knife technique probably only saves you 10 seconds an onion. Nevertheless, I’ve always wanted to chop better – especially now that I do lot of choppin’.

After absorbing Bittman’s comments, I found this 50-second video.

My first problem was holding the knife wrong. The right way is to hold the blade between the  thumb and forefinger instead of shaking hands with the hilt. At first it felt spooky having my fingers on the blade. However, after a handful of grape tomatoes, a small onion, and two cloves a garlic, I was sold.

I thought a new grip would take time to get used to, but it’s so much easier to control the blade! I cut myself a couple of times last week – not badly, just little slices on my fingers. I don’t think it could have happened if I’d been using this grip. (That’s not to say that I won’t find new and exciting ways to cut myself.)

I’m going back to watch the longer video on dicing technique next.

Asian pear stir-fry

Last night we had beef and Asian pear stir-fry and the final round of cabbage. The stir-fry was good, but I added soy and oyster sauce that overwhelmed the Asian pear flavor.

The cabbage was my favorite so far. I sauteed some garlic, onion, and ginger in canola and sesame oil and then added the cabbage. After ten minutes or so, I added a bunch of rice vinegar, a little sugar, and salt and pepper.

Everyone else is tired of cabbage. Too bad! We have a little left to finish with egg drop soup later this afternoon.

Pizza-Like Objects

My first plan for lunch today was top-your-own pita crisps. But I couldn’t get the pita quarters to separate. So I put them on a baking sheet, topped them with the last of the ricotta, some Italian cooked tomato goodness (tomatoes, onion, garlic, wine, olive oil, salt and pepper), and parmesan cheese, and put them in the oven. They came out great!

We added pesto, parmesan, and red pepper flakes as needed.

Tomorrow is Wednesday!

Sometimes meals are so yummy that I forget to take pictures. And sometimes I remember halfway through.

This is James’ plate, and he always saves his favorite thing for last. He is most of the way through his red cabbage, sliced tomatoes, and mashed potatoes,  but he hasn’t touched his sausage.

We also made peach muffins with frozen peaches from last summer.

They made perfectly good muffins.

I planted some lettuce, carrots, and garlic chives Monday. No pressure, really, but I’d love to have extra lettuce this fall.

Yesterday we had a big vegetable plate for supper… because we had plans to go to Five Guys for burgers and fries later.

(I have to confess that this is a picture of Chris’ plate – not mine. I’ve made a lot of progress in the vegetable department, but there are still things I don’t like including fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, and green beans. Some green beans are all right but not this kind. Hopefully, next year I’ll come to terms with at least one of these. Fresh tomatoes would be nice.)

The tomatoes and cucumber were good (according to Chris) but would have been even better with a little goat cheese. Unfortunately, ours was all gone by Friday lunch.

The cabbage is from this recipe rather than the sweeter red cabbage recipe I made earlier in the week. No apples, apple juice, or bacon. Sometimes I crave the taste of cabbage and black pepper without all the apple-y sweetness.

We’ll have the rest of this cabbage tonight with sausage, mashed potatoes, and green beans.

This past week, I’ve made two cooked cabbage dishes out of our red cabbage from a couple of deliveries ago. (Cabbage is a patient vegetable and doesn’t seem to mind hanging out in the crisper for a while.) Monday, I plan to finish it off in a stir-fry along with Asian pear, garlic, and onions from Farmers’ Fresh and beef and ginger from my freezer.

For another light meal, we’ll have broiled pita bites with leftover ricotta cheese and topped with spicy tomato salsa. To make the tomato mixture, I’ll chop and saute the tomatoes in olive oil with red pepper flakes and lots of onion and garlic. I’ll also use up the rest of the pesto as an alternative topping.

We haven’t made much progress on the field peas. I guess it’s because I’m leery of serving field peas and cabbage at the same meal, and we’ve had a lot of cabbage recently. But we’ll work those peas in soon!

Crostini night

Tonight we had Asian pear-goat cheese crostini for an appetizer. I diced and sautéed the pear in olive oil with salt and pepper. It tasted great. The sauteed pear was crunchy, not too sweet, and a little tangy. The chevre was delicious, too. Even in small amounts, it adds a lot of flavor and texture.

You could slice the pear, sauté the slices, and make the crostini much prettier than this.

Chris had tomato and pesto crostini for supper.

I had pesto for lunch so my entree was more pear crostini and red cabbage. Mmmm…

Other Asian pear ideas

Here are three more possibilities:

• Asian slaw with cabbage, ginger, sesame oil, and rice vinegar; something like this but with shredded cabbage instead of celery.
• Grilled cheese pear sandwiches (Gouda, Edam, or goat cheese!)
• beef stir fry with pear, onion, ginger, and garlic

The nice thing about a stir-fry is we won’t need a lot of meat. Hopefully, I can find a little something in the freezer.

Later this week…

Whatever cabbage I don’t use in a slaw, I’ll cook up with some onions and serve it with the potatoes and sausage for a meal this weekend or early next week. We also have more field peas and green beans to cook.

And the happiest news is we’ve got two leftover blueberry ricotta pancakes saved up for Saturday morning. Whee!