Just Another Tuesday

Oh yeah, tacos.

I Have Officially Started Taking Pictures Of My Food

It's real, you guys. It's real now. Photos, photos everywhere.

Okay, so maybe not that many but ARGH stupid formatting.

It won't let me just drag them around. Oh, well, I suppose I'll survive. Lots of walking last Saturday and tromping around the Square. A co-worker of mine had dropped off a giant bag of hand-picked asparagus so we set to work making a menu around that: Asparagus Soup!

I...don't like it. Emmy does, at least, I think she does. So, that's good.

 Stupid FORMATTING.
why...why am I center now instead of right?

let me

 

see

 

about...

 

THERE WE GO.

 

ahem.

 

 

As I was saying...

 

Seriously, those onions are enormous. I like to take photos of food before I cook it. Presentation is easier that way. I line up all my ingredients, in this case onions, asparagus, and butter, and snap away. Oh well. We may be getting the gift of (HURRAY, sort of?) more asparagus this coming weekend, and river trout...soon. Apparently you strip them, gut & bone them, stuff them with a rice mixture and bake them. Mmmmm.

 

We also bought little seedlings. I couldn't resist! Lemon Thyme and Chocolate Mint. It'll be great to have them with us in the car on the drive east. I love the smell the lemon thyme leaves on my hands, sharp, almost acidic, like dish soap but with a deepness to it that I just love. The stuffing of the peppers from last week was really awesome, even if I discovered I'm not much of a fan of raw peppers. I'll reproduce the recipe below, and stuff a bird with it next chance I get!

 

 

Brown Rice Stuffing:

 

~Oil for cooking (we used local sunflower oil)

~2 cloves garlic, minced

~2 onions, chopped

~3 cups raw brown rice

~6 cups water, chicken or veggie stock, or tomato juice (we used chicken stock)

~1/2 tsp allspice

~1/2 cup almonds, chopped (I put them in a plastic baggie and beat it with a meat tenderizer)

~1 cup chopped tomatoes

~3/4 lb cheddar chez, grated (just get the stuff that comes already grated, 1 lb is 16oz, 1 C is 8oz)

~salt & pepper, to taste

 

Heat oil in a large skillet/saucepan; add & saute garlic & onions. Add rice & brown about 5 minutes. Add desired liquid and allspice. Cover and cook until rice is done, about 40 minutes. (It says toast the almonds here, but I didn't bother.) Stir in tomatoes, cheese, almonds, & salt & pepper to taste. You can stuff into peppers (9) & bake at 350 for 30 minutes or you can eat it plain, stuff a bird with it, what ever you want! It was great!

 

We're living out of boxes now in anticipation of the Great Migration, but it's not that bad. I'm super excited, are you?

 

Don't know what we'll eat this next week, we'll see, won't we? :) With the Farmer's Market, every week is a surprise!

 

xoxoxo,

Kim & Emmy

 



Outdoor Farmer's Market Anyone?

Wow. It's been a while. So Emmy and I are officially moving out East, to the resounding joy of both of us. Our eating local experiment has, I'm sad to say, trickled down to "we'll do what we can". We plan to leave at the end of June, to be home by the 4th of July. Sooner, if work comes along before then. Half the apartment is in boxes and the other half is lingering in a state of in-between-ness.

But I digress.

Food! Glorious food!

With the first outdoor farmer's market of the year a new weekend pattern has emerged. Usually I would lay out a recipe the night before and then we'd shop at the market, then head to the co-op, and thensly on to the grocery store for toilet paper, toothpaste, etc (the things we're not hippie enough to buy organic. Yet.). The first week of the market I said, "Let's wing it!" and we did. Unfortunately this:

Turned into mush. I mean it. Really really gross mush. You wouldn't think it possible, but aparently I don't have the chef-instinct I thought I did.

Oh well.

We persevere! To combat the Mush Travesty of 2013 I, well, okay I confess! I bought a new cookbook: From Asparagus to Zucchini, A Guide to Cooking Farm-Fresh Seasonal Produce. Now, I thought, now we will succeed! Mwahahaha.

ahem.

The plan has shifted, now. We get downtown, stroll the market, take stock of what vegetables or fruit there is to be had and then take refuge at Starbucks while I make the grocery list from there. We'll use whatever we can find as the centerpiece of that week's dish, and go on to the co-op from there. This way we'll try new foods and new combinations, but not end up frying the cauliflower and turning out the mushiest soup to ever mush the Mush Train. It was baaaaaad. Like, emergency mid-week run to the co-op for more pasta and mac & cheeze kind of bad.

Last week we had Portuguese Stone Soup starring: CABBAGE and Sweet Corn Cheddar Pancakes starring: CORN.

I... I just need to stay away from cilantro. I mean really. We're not friends. At all. Emmy ate the pancakes, I stuck with the soup. No recipes good enough to share from last week, at least in my opinion. And this might be sad but I really like Johnsonville brats. Yes, bad for the enviornment. Yes, endorsed by the Koch Brothers or whatever else people hate them for. But I am at a loss for a comparison in taste & spices at the co-op. I guess I'll just have keep looking...

This week, however, isn't quite finished with the cooking.

We were a bit late to the market so we had to cruise by without a stop to Starbucks or Fromagination. Sadness. But on the bright side we found a stand selling greenhouse-grown tomatoes and bell peppers. Finally, some color! It was gloomy and rainy, like it's been for the past quarter or so, but all the flower-sellers and bakeries did a good job of lighting up the Square. We tipped out a $20 for 9 bell peppers and 3 tomatoes to make Stuffed Peppers (will finish cooking today!) and won an aparent bet the stand kids had going on. Who-ever spent $20 got a free cucumber.

It's as long as my arm.

So we decided that would be our second dish of the week: Cucumber Moons Sauteed w/ Fresh Dill. Mmmmm. Little crunchy-shalloty snacks.

2 large or 3 medium cukes
3 Tb butter
3 med-large shallots, chopped/minced
2-3 pinches fresh/dried dill
salt & pepper to taste
 
Peel cukes, scoop out seeds w/ a spoon, chop like celery into "C" shapes. Chop shallots. Heat butter on med or med-high until completely melted. Sautee veggies until beginning to get crisp. Add seasonings to taste & cook (stirring constantly) several minutes longer until desired crisp-ness. Enjoy immediately.

 So that's all for now. I'll post again once the peppers are done!
Love and veggies,
Kim & Emmy
xoxoxo

Sorry for the Hiatus!

:(

It's been a while, hasn't it? I came off night shift in late February and things have been, well, a bit exhausting since then. Emmy and I are officially moving back to New England, where we hope to stay for ever and ever.

Although I like rain just as much as the next farmer, the over-extended winter was really getting us down. Cap that off with being sick for most of April and...yeah, we were pretty bushed.

BUT NOW.

There's Portugese Stone Soup simmering on the stove and Corn Cheddar Pancakes on the horizon for Monday. I have three days off this coming week to rest and recoup.

See you soon!

xoxoxo
Kim & Emmy

Chicken Soup & The Great Fruit Kerfufle

Last week.

Last week was hell. Emmy had cramps and tummy-gurglings all week and then, about halfway through, so did I. It got bad for a while. Apparently your body will tell you when it's had enough pizza. Emmy even had to be sick a couple times. Poor dear.

So this week we said, "NO MORE PIZZA!" (cried the peoples of the revolution)

Enter "Ultimate Chicken Soup", stage right.

This is a recipe I acquired sometime in 2010. I was rather new to this whole concept of "cooking" at the time and Dad took pity on me and told me how to put together a good chicken soup. I tried it. It was awesome. The recipe follows below:

--Ultimate Chicken Soup--
~3 carrots Not seasonal (Carol's larder ran out so no more until next year), replaced w/ 2 lbs frozen sweet corn.
~3 celery Also not seasonal, replaced w/ 2 small celeriac, chopped.
~2 small onions
~1 clove garlic, chopped
~enough potatoes to fill a small sauce pan, peeled & chopped
~enough water w/ bullion OR enough stock to cover final amount of veggies&chicken
~salt & pepper to taste
~meat off 1 chicken
~oil/butter for frying veggies
~white cooking wine
~rosemary & other Italian seasonings, added to taste

We got a whole, 3-4lb pasture-raised chicken & roasted it slowly at 375degreesF for 1/2hour per pound of chicken. Cleaned it, patted it dry, & rubbed it all over w/ a rub that contained:
salt
pepper
garlic powder
sumac powder
& some thyme.
Every half hour we took the chicken out of the oven, turned it, & basted across the skin w/ a stick of butter. Then the chicken was de-boned & the meat set aside for the soup.
Boil chopped potatoes until easily pierced w/ a knife, reserve WITHOUT draining. Sautee the rest of the veggies in a large soup pot until cooked down/sweated to personal taste. Just as onions are starting to brown, add a splash of white wine. This brings up anything that has cooked onto the bottom of the pan. Scrape w/ a wooden spoon to bring up the cooked-on bits. Add potatoes & chopped chicken meat. Add enough water w/ bullion OR stock to cover. Season to taste. Remove when done.

~~~

Fruit.

I looked at Emmy sometime very early this week, before the chicken was ready, and spoke thusly, "If I don't have some fruit I'm going to fucking kill someone." She nodded seriously. "Yeah. Let's go to the Co-op."

Being extremely cramped-up and throwing up due to too much wheat in our diet was not fun. We sped down to Willy Street and picked up a bag of Pink Lady apples from Washington, raspberry-strawberry smoothies, and two serving-sized fruit salads. At sometime this summer I will probably be sick of fruit. I will probably have the runs so bad that I'll get in trouble from getting up from my desk so much at work.
I. Don't. Care.
Our mantra this week has been "If only we had some preserves. IF ONLY WE HAD SOME PRESERVES." "I KNOW."
It reached a two-day interval over the weekend where I could barely eat because even thinking about wheat made me want to park myself in front of the toilet and be sick until strawberry season. We know greens are coming, we know it sugaring season is only a few weeks away, but we couldn't go any longer without fruit.
As I took that last of the leftover pasta in hand to work on Monday with a look of terror and dread (it was all we had) Emmy said to me, "This is why canning was invented." I groaned, and somehow made it through the rest of the day on a few ziti, a smoothie, and the Hope Of Fruit.
We are sorry we broke our local promise, but at least we didn't break our organic one. One more month to go in the First Quarter, and then we buckle down for real.

Canning... yes, canning will have to happen.

Happy eating!
xoxoxo
Kim & Emmy

Let Them Eat Pizza

So last week I must admit I had an attack of the Lazy. We did cook but unfortunately I didn't think the results were very stellar.

(Not-So) Vegetarian Chili from "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" by Barbara Kingsolver:
http://animalvegetablemiracle.com/recipes-winter-vegetarian-chili.htm

We substituted the beans (since they are not in season and nobody has any at the market) for two pounds of local ground beef. I'm sad to say that I wasn't impressed. I need to do more hunting for a better chili recipe because I'm certain I'll be making chili again before the winter is out.

But this week we had pizza!

Now I always wait to post until I've cooked, because otherwise how will I know whether I liked something or not? But WHOA. This sauce recipe (and thank goodness someone has canned tomatoes or I'd be going stir-crazy right about now) is out of this world! I can't, literally, rave about it enough. You might remember my October post when we did Jamie Oliver's "Deep-Pan Pizza"? No? That's okay, I'll re-post the sauce recipe.

~A swig of white wine vinegar
~1 clove garlic, peels & end removed (I chopped mine into large chunks to make it easier on our dinky little food processor)
~A handful fresh basil leaves (make sure you wash them!)
~1 x 14oz can diced tomatoes
~salt & pepper to taste

To point, this time around we used organic raspberry balsamic vinegar from the Willy St Co-op and dried basil bits from my spice cupboard. Local tomatoes, organic vinegar, local garlic, BAM! As soon as tomatoes actually do come around, I'm canning up a bunch of this sauce in bulk and hoarding it all next winter. I may even give some away as gifts.

So that was our sauce, and our pizza dough came from Mom's suggestion:

http://www.finecooking.com/recipes/easy_pizza_dough.aspx

So... local WI flour, too? And local mozzarella from Organic Valley? Whoa. Just. Whoa. Plus, it makes 4 little pizzas all told, so Pizzas 3 & 4 are in the freezer, Pizza 1 is almost gone, and Pizza 2 (with Blue Mont Dairy garlic-cheddar filled crust) is about to come out of the oven.

I'm in pizza heaven.

xoxoxo,
Kim & Emmy

Love is in the Air

I have no idea what Emmy got me for V-Day, but I got her three chocolate truffles made by a local chocolatier, Gail Ambrosius, who has a shop in Madison's East Side, nearby where I used to live a couple years ago.

You can find her at: http://gailambrosius.com/

I picked out the chocolates specially at Fromagination, of course. I was aided, as always, by the lovely Priscilla, who always helps me out in a pinch. I got Emmy a raspberry one, a chocolate ganache one, and one with cayenne in it.

That, along with a couple antique children's books (she loves those), made for a wonderful early Valentine's Day.

:)
Love,
Kim & Emmy