Starvacious

My second attempt from Lorna Sass’s Whole Grains was millet with gingered beets and orange. I think I would have been way more psyched about this if I hadn’t somehow purchased never-cook beets. We cook beets pretty regularly at my house, and so I am pretty accustomed to how long it takes to cook them, but every now and then we seem to encounter beets that take 6 times as long as regular beets to cook. For no discernible reason. I call these beets “never-cook beets.”

So, yeah, the never-book beets meant the recipe took 90 minutes to cook instead of like, 30. But it was yummy once we got to eat it, with a nice sweetness from the combo of the beets/ginger/orange. (more…)

Most people have heard about the magical “No-Knead Bread.” After the NYT published Mark Bittman’s article last year, the recipe topped the site’s “Most E-mailed” list for at least a week.

Although I make a couple loves of bread a week, I hadn’t tried making no-knead bread until last week. I like the process of making bread: kneading, shaping, proofing, etc. And other than its extreme moisture content, the NYT’s recipe didn’t seem that interesting. Dough develops gluten and flavor over time? NO WAY! To people that geek out over artisanal bread, this was ancient news.

But by last week I was a little burned out on my current recipe and wanted to try something new. So I finally gave the no-knead bread a try.

It turned out pretty well, if not as flavorful as I’d hoped. The one thing that no-knead bread had that no other bread I’d made had achieved was a thick, crunchy crust.

However, I didn’t think that the crust was due to the no-knead recipe, rather it came from the cooking vessel: a Le Creuset dutch oven. This tightly enclosed space trapped the moisture escaping from the dough, and did an excellent job focusing the heat of the oven onto the crust.

My friend Rebecca made all the desserts at our recent wedding. The desserts were fabulously awesomely delicious. And Rebecca was nice enough to provide the recipes, which I have added to the internet.

• Cranberry Tarts
• Brownies
• Squash Cheesecakes

And, the very finest item, last but not least:

• Cake

I get many, many of the cookbooks I use from the library. Because otherwise, I’d have to take on a second job to afford my cookbook habit (let alone my reading habit). On a recent whirlwind trip to the library (whirlwind because the library stop was while I was taking Tango for a walk. And while dogs tied to things are cute - proof - Tango is afraid of everything except going for walks, butters - sweet, salted, cashew, peanut butter, etc, kicking Max’s butt, and barking at crap inside the safety of our house/yard. This means that she looks extra sad when she is tied to things, which gives me to guilt, and so I only allow myself enough time to drop off my returns, pick up a hold, and grab anything that looked appealing on a shelf within my line of sight. Also, I can’t engage in my normal library habits of CHECK OUT EVERYTHING WITHIN REACH when I have to haul it all a mile back to my house)…

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Despite the lack of writing about it this summer, I really do enjoy the way the semi-unpredictable abundance that results from belonging to a CSA compels me to be creative. It makes me plan, and it makes me use veggies that I wouldn’t necessarily choose first. Like kohlrabi.

But by the same token, I also enjoy the weeks before the farm share starts up (going to town at the farmer’s market) and the weeks after the farm share season ends, but before the local veggie season is truly over. We moved this summer, to a place nearer the Seward Co-op and further from the Wedge. So, we joined Seward while keeping our Wedge membership. And it’s been pretty interesting to compare and contrast the two Co-ops. I should probably write a detailed post on that later, but not now, because that isn’t my point.

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The sad thing is that I wanted to start this blog to keep track of all the wonderful things we were doing with our produce from the farm share this summer.

Man, that has not worked out at all.

But we did get a digital camera, so at least if I ever post again, I’ll be able to add pictures.

Drinking: Gin and Sage (Hendrick’s gin, sage, and mineral water. On the rocks). Hendrick’s. Yum.

Eating: LOTS of veggies.

• Infamous Kohlrabi salad (kohlrabi, celery, other veggies as required, and a vinaigrette. This is the only way I’ve found to stop myself from wasting kohlrabi).
• Sushi at home (Ian had a sushi party on Saturday. I’ll let him cover that if he likes. But I went to town and have realized that I could totally eat veggie sushi every week without having to worry about fresh fish logistics. As long as there are ripe avocados).
• Eggplant kind-of-lasagna (using up eggplant and zucchini became necessary. I made a tomato sauce with ingredients on hand, layered it with the salted/rinsed/patted dry veggies and some fresh mozzarella, and it was pretty f-ing delicious).
• Ice cream (we bought an ice cream maker because I had read nothing but rave reviews of David Lebovitz’s “The Perfect Scoop.” This resulted in many batches of ice cream and frozen yogurt. My favorite? Sour cherry frozen yogurt. The one that went over the least well? Green Tea ice cream - this is largely attributable to the fact that it’s chock full of caffeine and weekday ice cream hours don’t allow me to eat it. Now the book is going back to the library).
• Excessively veggie omelette (wherein I threw an assortment of leftover veggies - squash, potatoes, mushrooms, red pepper, spinach, avocado - in with egg whites leftover from ice cream adventures. It was excellent fuel for reading Harry Potter 7).

Next week, we get our first delivery from our farm share, so we won’t be going quite as nuts at the Farmer’s market. But it’s been really, really fun going hog wild. I’ve been able to satisfy my urge to consume without totally breaking the bank, since we have to eat.

We were successful in going through just about all of last week’s haul before anything went bad, so hurray for us.

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Saturday morning, we went to the St. Paul Farmer’s Market. My goal was to control myself enough to NOT purchase any seedlings, because we move in two weeks. I succeeded there, but I did not demonstrate a large quantity of additional self-control.

Good thing we should start getting produce from our farmshare in the next two weeks. It was pretty amazing to see the difference between the market last weekend and this weekend, both in terms of what was for sale (last weekend: rhubarb, a teensy bit of asparagus, lots of meats and cheeses and approximately one majillion different seedlings - annuals, herbs, tomato plants, 300 kinds of hostas; this weekend: all that stuff, plus strawberries, radishes, lettuces and a few other early spring crops) and the number of vendors (way more this weekend).

This week’s haul (and its destiny).

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Saturday’s dinner was a triumph of yumminess that only required 11 ingredients to pull together. That is sometimes the joy of cooking.

1. butter
2. olive oil
3. salt
4. pepper
5. garlic
6. thyme
7. rosemary (both from our mini-garden in pots. I weeded when I went out to cut some herbs for dinner. That consisted of pulling three small weeds out of the pots. I love container gardening). (more…)

Last year, a friend of mine visited New Zealand. Since that visit she keeps talking about the hamburger toppings that seemed to be all the rage — beets and fried eggs.

Called the Kiwiburger at McDonalds (and maybe other places, I’m not sure), the fried egg & beet burger was too interesting for me to pass up. How would the earthiness of beets mix with beef? What about that egg? Wouldn’t it all be too impossibly goopy?

Attempt #1: Using high-quality local beef, I topped the cooked patty with two thin slices of roasted beet and rested the beef/beet tower on a fried egg (over hard, since I hate runny yolks). After adding a bit of ketchup, and balancing the increasingly precarious burger inside a toasted, home-made bun, I tried my first bite of kiwiburger.

Beets shot out one side, egg the other, and the whole thing pretty much collapsed.

After a lot of juggling & finagling, I finished the burger. The verdict? It was sweet. Oddly sweet. Instead of showcasing their normal earthy, slightly sweet flavor, the beets were simply sweet. Like someone had sprinkled a bunch of sugar on the burger. The egg added some unctuousness, but that’s about it.

Not great, but not as weird as you’d expect a Kiwiburger to bee.

Attempt 2: I replaced the egg with some melted raw-milk cheddar then added some horseradish and dijon mustard to the ketchup. The beets were the same.

This at least was less sweet. But the mustard didn’t work at all. Maybe just horseradish next time. If there is a next time.