leahbobet | Farmshare, Week Nine (late)

--and I'm sorry this is late. Thursday night's get-vegetables-and-write-post routine was disrupted by dinner with Dr. My Former Roommate and tickets to an indie rock opera about predator drones falling in love that one of her friends wrote, and then we all got home very late indeed.

But yes. Vegetables!

Last week's inventory was:

Slicing cucumber
Sweet pepper
Beets
Swiss chard
Garlic
New potatoes
Cauliflower
Sweet corn

Lobster mushrooms
1/2 dozen duck eggs
Cheddar paprika crackers

Green onions

...and while we didn't cook as regularly as the week before -- in truth, we couldn't; we caught up so hard on our fridge that there weren't that many meals left in it -- this was one of the quality weeks.

Cucumber salad

My stove is a den of filth and iniquity.

This was Thursday's dinner, before we realized we were probably going to run out of vegetables (!) for the first time ever since we started this and were still going at everything full-tilt. A good amount of mushrooms, garlic, sweet pepper, green onion, and chard went into P.'s shrimp curry to fill it out (plus: cashews!) and the salad used up the last of the New Zealand spinach (sob) as well as some cucumber and yellow beans, which are our new Endless Vegetable.

The dressing was a bit inspired, actually: We're getting a little bleh on endless balsamic vinaigrette -- it's a thing we do because it's mostly good and easy -- and so made a yogourt dill honey mustard etc. thing after a little comparison Googling (using up, conveniently, our dill!). I thought there would be leftovers of this for later, but there surpisingly wasn't.

Which meant the next night was all-out again:

Chicken night

Canada Food Guide, mofos.

So a while back we were at the butcher shop and I got some chicken legs, with the specific intention of making the Moroccan (?) tomato honey chicken thing I make when I have those. And then I put them in the freezer and forgot about that. And then Friday, in terrible want of protein, I remembered.

The chicken is basically stewed in tomatoes, garlic, ginger, and a bit of butter and olive oil. You put honey in at the end, and almonds and sesame seeds, and then it goes into your mouth. We made this a little healthier by adding on some rosemary-garlic roasted red potatoes (courtesy P.) and that green thing there, which is sauteed mushrooms and beet greens. Beet greens are basically a bonus free vegetable, and do just fine when you chuck a bit of oyster sauce and sesame oil at them.

This is the meal that made us actually, no-foolin', seriously run out of garlic. Which is when we realized we might be in trouble.

So we went somewhat light on things for a few days (and took advantage of having a whole lot of social plans this week to have some dinners out). After a bit of flailing at trying to match things into meal formations, I just gave up and went to Kensington Market for provisions, marking the first time I have bought a vegetable from a non-CSA source this whole summer.

But that did equip us to pull off the unqualified win of the week:

Cauliflower nom

I wish I had five of this.

Cauliflower macaroni and cheese.

We had the cauliflower, and we don't like cauliflower, really, and so we figured we'd do what we do with vegetables which aren't our favourites: Cover them in delicious cheese. Which somehow turned into steamed cauliflower half-and-halfing it with elbow macaroni, and a milk roux/pepper asiago/mustard sauce, and Why not stick the rest of the mushrooms and some sundried tomatoes and that parsley we have on it while we're up, and...damn.

The most satisfying thing about this is that it was pure Science (tm). We made this recipe, such as it is, up as we went. And it was basically just the best ever and we ate leftovers for lunch for two days.

And then we didn't cook for a bit and had street-stand hot dogs for dinner here instead:

Movies

They were showing Sense & Sensibility. Hugh Laurie was so angry at everyone all the time.

So even though we were out with people for dinner a lot this week, the leftovers are kind of tiny:

Pesto Mix - garlic scapes (the basil and parsley have gone to better places)
Yellow beans
11 duck eggs
Whole grain oat cakes
Slicing cucumber
Beets
Swiss chard
New potatoes
Cauliflower (like thismuch)
Sweet corn
Cheddar crackers
Green onions

And this week's additions are:

Sweet pepper
Red potatoes
Green and yellow beans
Mixed greens
Sweet corn
Rosemary
Spanish onions

Mushrooms
1/2 dozen duck eggs
Spelt crackers

Corn again. Sigh. Note how deftly I avoided it last week.

The other interesting wrinkle in next week's plans (this week's plans?) is that P. is going to be away: He's on a work trip for most of this week and some of next. So we're going to be back to Me Cooking For Me for a bit starting Tuesday, and I'm curious how that'll affect normal operations. We're both infamous for eating things out of cans when it's just us, and then putting up banquets when someone -- anyone -- else is at the table. But I have a few months of good habits in place now. I wonder if they'll hold.