pantryslut

So I bought about a dozen of those small round green summer squash at the farmer's market yesterday after the nice fellow shopper lady exclaimed "Oh those! They're the best. They taste nutty."

Now I have to figure out what to do with them.

I might for once even consider stuffing them.

Thoughts?

Food Notes

OK, I will be getting a dozen pullet eggs on Wednesday. And I will keep you posted about the boar.

Fried cauliflower is tasty. Probably a "sometimes food," but a yummy one.

My household (OK, mostly G. and Simone) went through five pints of strawberries last week without blinking. I just bought five more, in part because Simone almost had a tantrum when I told her there were no strawberries for breakfast. I had to hastily reassure her that she wasn't bad, we were just out. So instead she just glared at me all through the meal. I think I will buy a bag of frozen strawberries later this week, just for backup.

Also yummy: I had mini-donuts hot from the "Donut Robot" at Jack London Square this morning. Tossed with a little cinnamon sugar, with a side of chocolate milk (chocolate milk and donuts being The Meal Of My Childhood, you see).

Also at the farmer's market, I bought shrimp and pork wontons, a bunch of peas, and cheese. Steven says Capricious is his favorite American cheese, btw.


Kid Notes

You may have noticed that lately I am full of devastatingly cute kid anecdotes. I am a little self-conscious about it, actually, but this is really what a big chunk of my life is about these days, and yes, if you like kids at all they really are this cute. I promise that there's also dirty diapers, constipation, vomiting, tantrums galore, food flinging, guerrilla diaper removal and consequent peeing on the bed, a constant battle to keep certain things on the shelves and certain other things out of mouths, attempts to wander away from parents without warning, and fights over the possession of toys and other coveted objects like bottles and cups and things. And an outgrowing of clothes. Babies need a new pair of shoes...


Job Notes

Suddenly, I have a lot of nibbles. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

Writing Notes

Unfortunately, however, writing-for-pay has consumed my writing-for-art (for lack of a better way of putting it). I'm trying to regain balance in this regard, but I'm suffering a little from what I hear they call "writer's block." And also that nagging feeling like I haven't followed through on my potential, that I am scattered and unfocused and blah blah blah. I think this is inadvertently enhanced by the job stuff, actually, and when I have to assemble clips and such. Although this is balanced by the lookin'-pretty-good resume. (At least it looks good to me.)

OK. That's all I've got for now. More later, maybe. Probably in the "cute kid anecdote" department.

Bought myself a big chunk of wild boar at the farmer's market this past weekend. Now I am trying to figure out what to do with it. Roast it, OK, low and slow b/c it's so lean, but what then? I've done a bit of poking around and all I can say is, hunters aren't always the best cooks :P

In every discussion of chili, at least one person will be compelled to state some variation of "real chili doesn't have beans. Real chili is just meat and chilies. Like they do in Texas. If it's not made like they do in Texas, it's not real chili."

It should go without saying that this is merely the culinary equivalent of "mine's bigger."

Even if I did have homemade chicken liver pate (sort of) and braised artichokes for dinner tonight.

The "pate" was more like French chopped liver, but it was sure tasty. Could use a bit more butter and cream next time, I think. And maybe a splash more acid. Just a touch. Still, not bad for a first try.

I really liked dinner last night. It was really simple, but so tasty.

The menu: quesadillas, homemade refried beans, and curtido a.k.a. Salvadorean cabbage salad.

The quesadillas were just white cheese and corn tortillas, browned in the iron skillet. I was particularly proud of the refried beans -- this is just the second time I've made them at home, and they were really delicious. I liked the curtido, too. I deviated from tradition by making it with red cabbage because that's what I had. It turned out so pretty! And just as tender and tasty.

I promised wild_irises that if it turned out, I would post the recipe, so here goes:

1/2 head cabbage, shredded. (Note: I used a whole small head of red cabbage.)
1 carrot, peeled and grated.
4 cups boiling water.
3 scallions, minced.
(I also threw in 1 stem of green garlic, minced.)
1/2 cup white vinegar. (I actually used half white and half cider.)
1 jalapeno or serrano pepper, minced. (I omitted this for Steven's sake.) (Or subtitute 1/2-1 tsp. red pepper flakes.)
1/2 teaspoon salt.
(add a pinch of sugar if you like.)

Place the cabbage and carrots in a large heatproof bowl. Pour the boiling water into the bowl to submerge the cabbage and carrot, and let sit for about 5 minutes. Drain in a colander and squeeze out as much liquid as possible.

Return the cabbage mix to the bowl and toss with the remaining ingredients. Let sit at room temperature for a few hours, then chill.

If you use red cabbage you will get a bright magenta relish. Very handsome.

It's best eaten in small bites as a bright, piquant contrast to other dishes.

I am increasingly surprised at the low standards of people who purport to be gourmet cooks.

Which, btw, I do not. That's one of the reasons I am (still!) surprised at my skills and standards being higher than folks I keep running into, who do.

In other food news, apparently the local chanterelles this season are extra-delicious. They are certainly huge and plentiful, and we'll find out the rest tonight.

So I haven't been posting about food much lately, I realized. Never fear, it's just a natural cycle. I've been cooking as usual, but nothing fancy or new, and no new ingredients to brainstorm out loud about. Tonight, I made chili. Yesterday, carrot soup of the extremely simple kind. What else recently? Bok choy and noodles, a squash and bacon saute over grits (a last-minute substitute for polenta), tiny lamb chops rubbed with spices and served with mixed greens (chard, cabbage, and a chicory) on the side, pasta with chard and wild mushroom sausage. That sort of thing.

I made a sweet potato-chestnut soup on New Year's Day that was just incredible. I used a batch of leftover roast chestnuts from earlier in the week; the rest was just sweet potatoes, onion, thyme, and stock. Which I guess makes it one of those mythical "five ingredient recipes" I sometimes hear about. Oops! Forgot the cream, make that six. Still, yum.

The chestnuts tasted better in the soup than they did eaten out of hand. Their transformation was pretty darn neat.

Then last night, I made a pasta dish with chicken, mushrooms, spinach, and a parmesan cheese sauce. I thought it was just going to be a nice way to use up some spinach, but it turned out amazing. I think it might have been the creme fraiche in the sauce.

This is chili in the generic Midwestern (Illinois/Michigan) tradition.

Summer Chili (which is actually more like Autumn Chili) would have vegetables in it: corn, zucchini, bell peppers. Winter Chili *could* -- frozen corn, maybe, or winter squash, or even sweet potato, or any combination thereof. But this batch didn't, and didn't miss them.

You could add bacon, too, but we're out :(

Quantities are flexible. This is what I did last night, and wanted to preserve for posterity, because man, is this stuff good.

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 pound ground beef
3 tablespoons chili powder
1 teaspoon Mexican oregano (eta: dried)
dashes of cumin, cinnamon, powdered chilies
1 cup beer
1 28-oz can whole tomatoes and their juice
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
2 cups cooked beans (I used fancy heirloom tepary beans b/c I had them, but just about anything in the pinto/red bean/black bean spectrum is fine here, including canned, as long as it holds its shape)
salt


Saute the onion and garlic until soft. Add the beef and cook until its no longer pink. Add the chili powder and other spices and cook for 30 seconds longer. Add the beer, tomatoes and tomato paste, and Worcestershire sauce. Break the tomatoes up with the back of a spoon and simmer until thickened, about 30 minutes to an hour. Stir in the beans, salt to taste, cook another ten minutes or so.

Serve topped with a lot of grated cheese, minced onion if you like it (I don't), and cornbread and/or saltine crackers or oyster crackers. Plus sour cream if the spicy heat is too much.