Farmshare, Week Seven
Aug. 2nd, 2013 12:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
leahbobetIt seems the posts I'm doing are the food posts lately. Writing is happening, just not in ways tidy enough to put into metrics posts. And food is happening: although this week, it was mostly P.'s doing.
Last week's inventory was:
Red potatoes
New Zealand spinach
Slicing cucumber
Snow peas
Zucchini
Baby leeks
Garlic
Mushrooms
1/2 dozen duck eggs
Cocoa Royale cookies
It had been a while since there was P.'s cooking around the house. We both cook together most nights, but some dishes are me dishes and some are P.'s; for example, I am Minister of Salads and he's Minister of Stirfry. And what we hadn't been having lately was stirfry.
The plates were made by P.'s parents who are, among other things, potters.
This was last Thursday's dinner, which was all him: shrimp stirfry with green onions, snow peas, garlic, mushrooms, eggplant, green beans, and a tamarind/curry/oyster sauce thing to cook it in. That was really good, so we did it again. This one is from Sunday:
That one shrimp is like Oh god freedom--
Similar deal, but we threw in yet more things: baby leeks and a different spice mix that the Minister of Stirfry refuses to divulge the makings of. I also made Fancy Water:
Oh and then we can meet Mitzi at the spa and get a mani-pedi--
I had cucumber, and I had basil, and I had some limes that were going, and I got the pitcher for two bucks at Ikea for precisely this kind of purpose. The Fancy Water was good. I'm gonna try the basil-lime thing with some brewed iced tea. It'd probably do some lovely things to iced genmaicha.
What we are agreeing was probably the crowning achievement of This Week In Cooking was Tuesday's dinner:
Just looking at this again frankly makes me want to lick the screen.
This was kind of a backwards-planned meal: We wanted to do some roasted potatoes, and I wanted to try a roasted leek recipe I'd found just googling about, and so we thought fish might be the thing to go with those and make a proper meal.
We dropped the potatoes due to time, but...whoa.
The baby leek recipe worked really, really nicely: sweet and tender and the splash of red wine vinegar gives it a bit of guts, and I have an appreciation for Jamie Oliver in general for the no-bullshit, seasonal, caviar-free recipes he puts out. We'll be doing that again, for sure. The fish was amazing: somehow P. got the time in the pan exactly, precisely right. The sauce was mostly just green onion, garlic, sesame seeds, soy sauce, oyster sauce, and a bit of ginger.
The rice was rice. Hey, simple is good.
Wednesday night was mine, and we had a lot of peas to use, and as such: FAKE LOBSTER MACARONI.
BEHOLD MY FAKE LOBSTERY MACARONI BUT THE MACARONI IS REAL.
I have a weird, torrid passion for fake lobster. Yes, specifically fake lobster, although I like the real kind too. I don't know why. It's just one of my favourite things. And there was some on sale at the corner grocery store this week, so: macaroni.
The recipe we used was pretty basic but kind of burner-intensive: at one point I had three pots going. It's a milk-based roux sauce, rather than cream or anything, so it was marginally healthier than it could have been. We doctored it up pretty nicely with some herb gorgonzola spread that we got from the cheese store a few weeks back, and some caramelized spring onions (thus killing the green onions once and for all) and a truly monumental amount of shelled peas, and...
It was really, really good.
The surprise in that meal, though, was the salad. I've stopped photographing salads at this point, because salads, but...this one was made with the New Zealand spinach we got last week (and cucumber, and green beans, and snow peas, and yes), which is clearly a varietal of spinach, rather than spinach that's been on a long trip. And it's kind of amazing. It has a flavour: sort of tart and full and basically excellent. We got more this week, and I am surprisingly really happy about that development.
I still feel like inventory's a little ahead of us:
Strawberries
Garlic scapes
Pesto mix - basil, scapes, parsley
Beets
Carrots
Red potatoes
New Zealand spinach
Slicing cucumber
Snow peas
Zucchini
Garlic
Green beans
Mushrooms
1/2 dozen duck eggs
Cocoa Royale cookies
--and this week's additions are:
New Zealand spinach
Red potatoes
Cucumber
Red potatoes
Yellow beans
Pickling cucumbers
Swiss chard
Dill
Lobster mushrooms
1/2 dozen duck eggs
Whole grain oat cakes
I'm all mehhh, Swiss chard but I'm sure I will find a decent thing to do with it (suggestions appreciated). And I'm all yayyy, lobster mushrooms! because those are great.
Already, plans include probably another potato salad -- gotta kill those potatoes somehow -- and something involving lots of small chopped cucumbers and oil and vinegar, and New Zealand spinach going in my face.
Last week's inventory was:
Red potatoes
New Zealand spinach
Slicing cucumber
Snow peas
Zucchini
Baby leeks
Garlic
Mushrooms
1/2 dozen duck eggs
Cocoa Royale cookies
It had been a while since there was P.'s cooking around the house. We both cook together most nights, but some dishes are me dishes and some are P.'s; for example, I am Minister of Salads and he's Minister of Stirfry. And what we hadn't been having lately was stirfry.
The plates were made by P.'s parents who are, among other things, potters.
This was last Thursday's dinner, which was all him: shrimp stirfry with green onions, snow peas, garlic, mushrooms, eggplant, green beans, and a tamarind/curry/oyster sauce thing to cook it in. That was really good, so we did it again. This one is from Sunday:
That one shrimp is like Oh god freedom--
Similar deal, but we threw in yet more things: baby leeks and a different spice mix that the Minister of Stirfry refuses to divulge the makings of. I also made Fancy Water:
Oh and then we can meet Mitzi at the spa and get a mani-pedi--
I had cucumber, and I had basil, and I had some limes that were going, and I got the pitcher for two bucks at Ikea for precisely this kind of purpose. The Fancy Water was good. I'm gonna try the basil-lime thing with some brewed iced tea. It'd probably do some lovely things to iced genmaicha.
What we are agreeing was probably the crowning achievement of This Week In Cooking was Tuesday's dinner:
Just looking at this again frankly makes me want to lick the screen.
This was kind of a backwards-planned meal: We wanted to do some roasted potatoes, and I wanted to try a roasted leek recipe I'd found just googling about, and so we thought fish might be the thing to go with those and make a proper meal.
We dropped the potatoes due to time, but...whoa.
The baby leek recipe worked really, really nicely: sweet and tender and the splash of red wine vinegar gives it a bit of guts, and I have an appreciation for Jamie Oliver in general for the no-bullshit, seasonal, caviar-free recipes he puts out. We'll be doing that again, for sure. The fish was amazing: somehow P. got the time in the pan exactly, precisely right. The sauce was mostly just green onion, garlic, sesame seeds, soy sauce, oyster sauce, and a bit of ginger.
The rice was rice. Hey, simple is good.
Wednesday night was mine, and we had a lot of peas to use, and as such: FAKE LOBSTER MACARONI.
BEHOLD MY FAKE LOBSTERY MACARONI BUT THE MACARONI IS REAL.
I have a weird, torrid passion for fake lobster. Yes, specifically fake lobster, although I like the real kind too. I don't know why. It's just one of my favourite things. And there was some on sale at the corner grocery store this week, so: macaroni.
The recipe we used was pretty basic but kind of burner-intensive: at one point I had three pots going. It's a milk-based roux sauce, rather than cream or anything, so it was marginally healthier than it could have been. We doctored it up pretty nicely with some herb gorgonzola spread that we got from the cheese store a few weeks back, and some caramelized spring onions (thus killing the green onions once and for all) and a truly monumental amount of shelled peas, and...
It was really, really good.
The surprise in that meal, though, was the salad. I've stopped photographing salads at this point, because salads, but...this one was made with the New Zealand spinach we got last week (and cucumber, and green beans, and snow peas, and yes), which is clearly a varietal of spinach, rather than spinach that's been on a long trip. And it's kind of amazing. It has a flavour: sort of tart and full and basically excellent. We got more this week, and I am surprisingly really happy about that development.
I still feel like inventory's a little ahead of us:
Strawberries
Garlic scapes
Pesto mix - basil, scapes, parsley
Beets
Carrots
Red potatoes
New Zealand spinach
Slicing cucumber
Snow peas
Zucchini
Garlic
Green beans
Mushrooms
1/2 dozen duck eggs
Cocoa Royale cookies
--and this week's additions are:
New Zealand spinach
Red potatoes
Cucumber
Red potatoes
Yellow beans
Pickling cucumbers
Swiss chard
Dill
Lobster mushrooms
1/2 dozen duck eggs
Whole grain oat cakes
I'm all mehhh, Swiss chard but I'm sure I will find a decent thing to do with it (suggestions appreciated). And I'm all yayyy, lobster mushrooms! because those are great.
Already, plans include probably another potato salad -- gotta kill those potatoes somehow -- and something involving lots of small chopped cucumbers and oil and vinegar, and New Zealand spinach going in my face.
