Farmers’ Market dinner

Yum. Pure veggie goodness.

Everything on this plate came from the Farmers’ Market.

I love spring.

I took a notion I wanted to roast the carrots and beets I’d picked up almost two weeks ago at the market, and when I grabbed them from the fridge to prep, there were the radishes.

H’mmm. I never cooked a radish before. Why not?

All pretty and ready for the oven.

So I promptly prepared this pan of veggies for the oven. The beets and carrots got tossed in olive oil first; the radishes, in truffle oil. The beets got a sprinkle of coriander and cardamon because, well, I just thought coriander and cardamon would go well on them. The carrots got a sprinkle of cumin, because I KNOW carrots go well with cumin. The radishes went nekkid into the oven but for the truffle oil, on the basis I thought the peppery taste of the truffle oil would go nicely with the peppery taste of the radishes.

Sometimes, you just feel Asian….

Similar to above illustration. Fried rice looks like fried rice.

I don’t have photos of last night’s dinner. It was one of those that had a lot of prep work but the dishes mostly came together at the last minute, and then it was time to eat, not take pictures. Sorry. It was good, and it was relatively attractive, too.

I’d invited a couple of friends, one of whom is engaged in a huge renovation/construction/business opening project at the same time as the other is preparing to stage a 10-day music festival (Oh! to be young again and have that kind of energy!) over for dinner. I’d thought about German food, as they’re both beer connoisseurs, but it had gotten warm, and, well, I hadn’t had any good Asian food in a while. So I hit three countries with a dinner that featured okonomiyaki, fried rice and bahn mi lettuce wraps, and added a side of steamed snow peas in sesame sauce, for good measure, before finishing up by a return to the South with strawberry shortcake.

A green day in my kitchen

Worked my way through some of the bounty of green things from the farmer’s market and the co-op on Sunday. After all, processed green things take up less space than fresh green things, right?

If you don’t like green, this would be a good time to click on past.

First, there was garlic chive aioli. An aioli, if you don’t know, is a mayonnaise you made yourself, and put stuff in. In this instance, garlic chives, which look like nothing so much as young Johnson grass (if any of you are Southern country folk, you know from Johnson grass). But they have a lovely slightly garlicky, slightly chive-y flavor.

You take an egg and crack it in a blender. You add about a tablespoon of lemon juice, a turn or two or three of your pepper mill, a bit of salt, and about an ounce of chopped up garlic chives. And you pulse that smooth. Then you take the little center thingy out of the blender lid, and slowly, with the blender running, pour in a half-cup of olive oil. It’ll emulsify up into a rather thin sauce that’ll set up a bit when you chill it in the fridge, though it won’t be as firm as regular mayo.

It will go wonderfully on some of the Mennonite tomatoes, with some bacon and avocado, on a lettuce leaf or two. Damn the bread, anyway.

With the added advantage of repelling vampires.

Bliss

Strawberries and creme fraiche.

Breakfast.

Caprese, with Amish tomatoes.

Lunch.

A blissful day so far at my house. You ‘n y’mama ‘n ‘em will have to wait and see what dinner holds, because I haven’t decided, either.

Salad trio

I’ve been shamed into an attempt at healthier eating, after spending 10 days with Child B and Son-In-Law 1. SIL 1 gets plumb serious about his plant-based diet (he’ll cheat occasionally, and has given seafood and Greek yogurt a permanent pass, but he’s mostly raw veggies and fruits, all the time). Child B is a little less so; she’ll eat a burger from time to time, and does not turn up her nose at red beans and rice, with their trifecta of Andouille sausage, ham and chicken. And she won’t turn down my homemade pimiento cheese, which I have made for either her or Child A, the other pimiento cheese aficionado, in a while.

OK, there’s bacon. And mayo. But it’s mostly healthy.

So tonight, I put together a trio of salads for dinner, two of which will provide me three or four more meals apiece. Two were old standbys, and the third was a sheer wing-it exercise that turned out right well.

Sloth. I recommend it.

Hello, spring. I do love me a flamingo.

Well. I’m still home (a Good Thing). And I could be cooking, but I haven’t been, much.

I woke up today and it was Wednesday, meaning it’s May Day, and I let April 31st slip by without going to Kroger, buying another five bucks worth of stuff to get my Kroger points, and then buying gas at 20 cents a gallon discount. Oh, well. Kiss that three bucks’ worth of savings goodbye.

H’mm. This is back home, right?

I don’t remember the last time I was gone from home for two full weeks. But I got back Thursday from an adventure of that very length, comprising three states, three job interviews, all three grandchildren, and several quite acceptable meals.

I won’t try to detail them all. I cooked a few things, including a rather respectable curried salmon over rice with snow peas, of which I have no record, neither verbal/written nor photographic. In any event, it involved pan-browning the salmon and then dumping a jar of Thai red curry sauce over it in the skillet. It wasn’t half bad, and it was about as creative as I thought I could get.

Differs from the above in that it had shrimp, not sausage; and sugar snaps, not green beans.

Saturday night, I did somewhat better — paella, similar to above illustration except it had shrimps ‘sted of sausages. And a touch on the bland side, as I forgot half the paprika and all the garlic. Oh, well. It was still good. And I did Bananas Martinique for dessert, which always wows guests having it for the first time. Both those recipes are in my index, if you care to trouble yourself to retrieve them.

More cuisine, sans photos

Sorry, kids. I just haven’t had the oomph to get the camera out and take pictures, though I’ve turned out some decent meals. And I’ve shopped, and gotten my hair cut, and my nails done, and had a couple of interviews, and generally enjoyed my week here.

Made a really, really good salad the other night, loosely patterning after one of the plethora of recipes folks have been posting on Facebook lately. This one I had to track via Pinterest to eventually get to, and I don’t remember whose blog it was, but I altered it enough I don’t guess I have to credit them, anyway. But whoever-mystery-blogger-you-were, thanks for the inspiration. Pinspiration. Whatever.

Edamame and Quinoa Salad with Sorta-Kinda Thai Dressing

• 3 cups chopped red cabbage. I grated it, initially, decided that was going to be too fine, and chopped it.
• 1 bag frozen shelled edamame, cooked according to package directions
• 1 cup quinoa, cooked according to package directions
• 1 1/2 cup roughly chopped raw snow peas
• 1 1/2 cup diced carrots

Dressing

• 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
• 3 tbsp rice vinegar
• 2 tbsp sesame oil
• 3 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp grated ginger
• sriracha to taste (I used about 1/2 teaspoon, I’d guess)
• dash of fish sauce
• chopped cashew nuts

The one-egg quiche

NOTE: I found this post when I was writing the one from last night. Since I have not blogged the salad, nor the recycled corn and potato soup from the shrimps, and since I found the photo for his one, you’re getting it.  It dates from a week or two or three ago, I don’t remember. But it was good.

It even came out of the ramekin nicely.

I’m being a good girl.

I wanted to use leftovers before I left town in the morning. I wanted something light for dinner. And I thought to myself, “Self? You could use that asparagus and make you a little baby quiche.”

And that is exactly what self did.

I took one egg; maybe 1/4 or 1/3 cup of heavy cream; 1/3 cup or so of grated parmigiano, and beat all that together. Added freeze-dried basil, because, well, basil. Chopped up the remaining half-ish of the pound of asparagus I’d grilled Sunday. Added a handful of dried tomatoes. No salt or pepper, counting on the taste of the cheese  and the veggie seasoning to carry it. Sprayed a 4-inch ramekin with cooking spray, filled it up, baked it at 350 for maybe 30 minutes.

Cooking for the kids

I’m  back in Nashvegas, having responded to an SOS from Child B upon learning that her husband was afflicted with strep. And since I have a couple of appointments up this way next week, and since I have some favorite Civil War sites I haven’t visited in a few years, Lucy and I are hanging here until then.

I’ve been cooking, but — no photos. Because, well, I haven’t taken any. Not sure why. It just hasn’t been on my priority list. But we’ve had some fine meals.

I got here Friday, after a six-hour drive and a stop off in Marion to see Child A. Also had previously made a stop at one of the culinary treasures of Eastern Arkansas, the Big Bayou Market in Bald Knob. (Yes, that’s the name of the town. Shut up.)