Slowly...

...we're making progress on the kitchen:
I proudly present my stretch of ceiling. I've said it before and will say it again, I'm not a perfectionist, but this stretch of mudding and taping would satisfy a pickier person than I am.

Then the ceiling was primed and painted, the walls got 3 coats of red, and you can see the wood trim has all been stripped. As I'm typing this, Brian is finishing up staining it. We still have crown moulding, oak trim around the counter tops, and the subway tile backsplashes to install, but those three are far less messy and won't require crazy tarping, just moving stuff around as the work is done. The stove may be out of commission for a day or so when I'm tiling right behind it, but hopefully we won't have to eat as much take-out as we did this week. I'm itching to get back to cooking with the great produce that is available right now.

Tantre farm share, week 6

No one expects me to do much with this week's beautiful produce:

Vaguely left to right: onions, 2 quarts of peas, beets, fava beans, broccoli, Italian kale, dill and chives, kohlrabi, arugula, cabbage, turnips, summer squash

Because presently my kitchen looks like this:
And this:
Brian has the week off and we are doing all sorts of pain-in-the-ass messy jobs in the kitchen. We've replaced the one piece of damaged drywall in the ceiling and I am on my third coat of mudding and smoothing the joints. Brian is about half-way done with stripping the woodwork which someone did a half-assed job at (there are still little flecks of gray and white paint). Thankfully we discovered a fantastic product that makes this particular task much less onerous: Removall. I saw someone raving about it on a This Old House show a long time ago and thankfully remembered the name. I had to mail order it but it was worth it--you can apply this stuff with your bare hands which isn't something I'd dare do with traditional paint remover! The smell isn't horrific, doesn't cause headaches (at least in my wee head) and best of all, the stuff really works. I can't understand why no home stores carry the stuff.

We'll also be putting up crown moulding, repainting the walls and ceiling (not sure what color yet....decisions to be made...opinions welcome...) and dealing with some wall and ceiling gaps that have been in existence since we replaced a built-in cabinet years ago. I'll be tiling the back splashes (white subway tile) though that might take place after the tarps are gone and the kitchen is semi-functional again since tiling isn't nearly as messy as drywall. There's probably more picky little stuff I'm forgetting.

So the produce isn't going to be fussed over this week: I plan to uncover the stove briefly this evening and make a "share box" pasta in which I chuck in just about every vegetable I lay my hands on. Then I'll prep some salads using the kohlrabi, cabbage, arugula (not together) that can be pulled out and eaten between coats of paint.

Menu plan

There was an insane rain storm yesterday which has done a great deal to alleviate my mental fog that accompanied the humidity. Now I am capable of coming up with something other than salad to consume our Farm Share:

• The turnip greens, mystery greens, waido, and some of the scallions will go into another adaptation of spanikopita. This time I'm going to tinker with the filling and include some drained yogurt to give it a little extra tang. And I have about 10 garlic scapes (not from the farm share) that will also find their way into the mix.
• The kohlrabi will be eaten raw--I haven't decided exactly how. If I get to a store and find some decent fennel, this salad looks good.
• The beets and asparagus will get baked/roasted alongside the spanikopita and then sliced and doused with a simple mustard vinaigrette.
• The braised turnip recipe I made last week was so good, I'm making it again. Brian and I were having fork wars over who got the last turnip.
• The parsley is already gone having been chopped up and added to the salads (so far, we have used up 2 of the huge heads of lettuce).
• I'll make kale chips and hope I might be able to trick the kids into eating them.
• and the peas (oy vey, the peas!), some will get a quick blanching and then get tossed with a sesame/rice wine vinegar dressing (sort of like goma ae for peas!), some will be mixed with grated carrots, mint, olive oil and feta, some will be chucked into the salads, hopefully the kids will put away a whole bunch since this is the only green vegetable they willingly eat.

Pea insanity!

I just picked 1.5 lbs of sugar snap peas in my garden! And I ate about 5 oz of shelling peas right there on the spot! And I still have some left from the farm share!

Must head into the kitchen now to do them justice.

Our new friend

Last weekend, Brian decided to transform our crappy grill into something much more interesting:
It looks a little ridiculous with the big honking smoker attachment but I tell you people, it WORKS. (The alarming looking angle of the smoker is due to the way it is bolted to an angled side of the grill--not because the whole thing is leaning that way). I had my doubts when he was rigging the thing up on Saturday but I should know better than to doubt the man's mechanical abilities, especially when motivated by the possibility of churning out large quantities of smoked meat. And yes, it still works as a gas grill too. (If anyone is interested in how he did it, let me know and I'll pry it out of him. It did involve some noisy drilling at which point in time I ran inside and slammed the door.)

Allow me to display some of the beauteous offerings that he smoked on Father's Day (yes, he chose to spend his Father's Day enveloped in clouds of hickory smoke. We provided him with plenty of beer to keep him happy out there.)
The smoked salmon was revelatory. I made a tzatziki sauce to go with it.
A smoked chicken. Also mighty fine.
And his favorite, smoked pork ribs. I'm not the biggest rib fan (I prefer pulled pork) but I had one and they were good. We went with a simple dry rub that consisted of paprika, brown sugar, kosher salt and black pepper for all three smoked protein products. They were brushed occasionally with a little apple juice while on the smoker. That was it!

I made some sides, but neglected to photograph them: Alice Waters' Cole Slaw, a redskin potato salad with snap peas and avocado doused with the creamy salad dressing, and plenty of sweet corn on the cob.

I did remember to take a photo of dessert though:
Homemade chocolate chip cookies with (purchased) vanilla bean ice cream. Isn't this what Summer is supposed to look like?

What to put on all those salads...

The creamy dressing on a salad of lettuce, peas and radishes with sausage/broccoli rabe/ricotta pizza.

In our house we have a small culinary fissure. It's too small to call a rift, but the crack is there. I am a vinaigrette woman. Brian is a creamy dressing man. He'll tolerate vinaigrette, but prefers something a little less sharp with a bit more heft and mouth feel, while I am all about the acid/salt/olive oil combo. I can't stand commercial creamy dressings because to me they taste like white melted plastic (Oh, OK, I admit it. Every once in a while I have a trashy craving for crap blue cheese dressing on top of iceberg lettuce, but I think of that like a craving for potato chips--junk food.)

Since this is salad season and I'm eating salad for lunch, snack and dinner, I figured I could be a little generous with the guy and make a creamy dressing that he'd like and that I'd find acceptable and by some miracle of confluence, my first attempt came out well! I rummaged in the fridge and chucked a bunch of stuff in the blender and it made Brian so happy that the next day I attempted to reproduce it and actually measure the quantities and it still turned out well.

So now we have an alternative to my bottles of pungent vinaigrette and I confess that this dressing actually is better paired with the soft, delicate lettuces (our beloved Tantre green frillies) that are available now. I'll save the vinaigrette for the romaine and sturdier varieties.

Creamy Salad Dressing
This is a flexible recipe--it should accommodate a variety of substitutions and variations. Don't have buttermilk? Try plain yogurt. No garlic scapes? A whole clove or a shallot should do fine. The key is to tasting it and adjusting it along the way.

juice of one lemon (or use about 2-3 T red or white wine vinegar)
1 garlic scape, cut in 1/2 inch pieces (or one shallot, or one garlic clove)
the greens of one big or two normal sized scallions
3/4 C buttermilk
1/2 t salt
1/2 C silk tofu
1/4 C mayo
1 T chopped fresh dill (or use about 1 t dried or substitute another herb--I bet tarragon would be great)
1/4 C canola oil
1/2 t anchovy paste
1 t Dijon mustard
lots of fresh ground black pepper

Whir it all up in your blender until it is smooth. Taste and adjust so it suits your palate. Like it a bit heavier? Add more mayo or silk tofu. Sharper? Add more vinegar or lemon juice. More pungent? Add more garlic, scallion tops and/or anchovy paste. You get the idea.

Tantre farm share, week 5

Vaguely Left to right front-ish: Green frilly lettuce, English Shelling Peas, Parsley, Snap Peas, Summer Onions, Beets, Waido (Asian Greens), Asparagus, Mystery Green (no idea what it is--didn't see it identified in the newsletter)
Vaguely Left to right back-ish: another green frilly lettuce, Romaine Lettuce, Red Oak Leaf lettuce, Turnips, Kohlrabi, Red Russian Kale
(slightly easier to identify in the flickr pic with notes)

What to do with the bounty this week?

Maybe it is the 90+ degree heat + cloud of humidity but the only food I am capable of contemplating at the moment is salad. The idea of even turning on a burner to blanch some asparagus makes me feel overwhelmed. Luckily there are 4 heads of lettuce including two that Brian and I have dubbed "the green frillies" which are our favorite.

I'll have to wait and post my cooking ideas for the week tomorrow--there's supposed to be rain which hopefully will cool it down a little here and make my brain a little more functional. I'm going to go and try to sell the idea of being bunnies for dinner to the critters which, since they are pretty much scared of most vegetables, is sure to go down really well.

Slobs, then snobs

Last week we ate a meal that made Brian and I first feel like slobs and then like snobs. I'm not overly concerned with creating unified menus for our mid-week meals and we often have strange juxtapositions--Middle Eastern red lentil soup served with quesadillas and a side of sauteed cabbage with caraway seeds? Why not?--but usually my meals aren't quite as schizophrenic as this one was.

We started with my strategy to use up some of the vast quantity of lovely lettuce from the farm share by treating the lettuce as a containment device, a sort of substitute for tortillas, or egg roll wrappers or pita in the enclosing of fillings. I had planned on a chicken filling with Chinese flavors but then went out on my deck, saw my herbs threatening to overrun their pots and thought a little thinning was in order. With handfuls of mint, basil and cilantro, a goodly splash of fish sauce, some chopped up peanuts and a lime-garlic dipping sauce the flavor profile veered towards something more South East Asian in origin.
I also made some steamed short grain rice to round out the filling. The wraps were very messy and very fun to eat.
Then Brian and I convinced the critters to at least pretend to go to bed (they go in their rooms, we leave the lights on and pretend that we don't hear the bumps and thumps. Denial! It works!)

We cleaned up the kitchen, cleaned up our messy selves (in my case, a change of T-shirt was necessary since I was still wearing my dinner, kind of like a toddler.) Then we settled down on the couch, popped in the latest Netflix offering and treated ourselves to a dessert that was a complete juxtaposition to our dinner: honey drizzled strawberries with honey lavender panna cotta. Other than drizzling honey over the berries about an hour ahead of time to mix with the berry juices and make a syrup, I followed this recipe to a T.
Oh my this was a lovely dessert. It was cool and fragrant and made me feel just a bit elegant eating it. And elegant is usually the last thing I feel after a messy dinner, critter wrangling and the evening house clean up.

Chicken Lettuce Wraps with SE Asian Flavors

1 T canola or peanut oil
1 onion, chopped fine
1 T chopped ginger
1 T chopped garlic
1 lb ground chicken or finely chopped chicken thighs
2 T fish sauce
2 T soy sauce
1 t sugar
4 scallions, whites and greens sliced
1 oz can water chestnuts, chopped
1 carrot, grated coarsely
1/3 C roasted peanuts (unsalted or low salt preferable), chopped
handful of basil (Thai if you have it, regular if you don't), picked off the stems
handful of mint, picked off the stems
handful of cilantro, picked off the stems
two heads of broad leafed lettuce--Boston or butter lettuce is great, but leaf lettuce is good too--washed and dried; try to keep the leaves as intact as possible

cooked short grain sticky rice (about 1/2 C or so per person)

dipping sauce:
1/4 c sugar
juice of one lime
2 T fish sauce
2 T water
1 T soy sauce
1 clove garlic, minced or pressed
2 T rice wine vinegar
a source of heat: either a small chopped chili, a 1/2 t of dried chili flakes, or a good squirt of sriracha hot sauce

Heat oil in a skillet and saute the onion until soft. Add the garlic and ginger and cook briefly, until fragrant. Add the ground chicken to the pan and break up into smallish pieces. Brown the chicken then add the fish sauce, soy sauce, sugar, scallions, water chestnuts and carrot. Stir fry briefly until carrot is softened. Before serving stir in the peanuts and the fresh herbs. Or you can serve the herbs alongside the lettuce on a plate and let people add the herbs to their rice/chicken/lettuce bundles as they like. Serve with the dipping sauce (just mix together all ingredients for the sauce and divide into smaller bowls so everyone has one to dip from) and plenty of napkins.

a forced pause

I had been having so much fun knitting this:
Until I did this:
I know--it looks pretty contained now. I dare not show under the bandage for fear of causing nausea of extreme proportions. There is a chunk of my finger tip missing thanks to poor attention to my chefs knife while chopping scallions last night. I dabbed/poured some liquid bandage over it in an effort to help my overwhelmed platelets and stop the constant drip of blood. (That stuff stings like hell, let me tell you; I was able to track exactly where the nerve that starts in my finger tip is located all the way up my arm and where it connects to my spinal column because as I put the stuff on the entire thing felt like it was on fire.) Blood bubbled up under the liquid bandage and then the stuff hardened and I went around with a big lump of blackening, drying blood hanging off my finger that Brian got squeamish just looking at. But at least it meant no trip to the ER for stitches. Right now I feel my pulse throb-throb-throbbing in the missing wedge and my typing? Ha--I'm back to pecking at the keyboard with my right index and left middle finger. And screwing up royally.

So I'm a little pissed at myself since the injury is messing with my writing and cooking and also means having to take a forced pause in the above knitting project which has got to be the best stash buster ever. You can see the pattern and read about the inspiration here and if you are a Ravelry member you can see the gorgeous completed versions in the project gallery. It a great way to use up ends of skeins and those stray balls of yarn that you aren't quite sure where they came from but also that you don't have the heart to get rid of. Stuff that looks dull as dishwater when by itself suddenly becomes interesting when combined with other scraps.

Tantre farm share, week 4

Whooooo boy! I had trouble fitting all this produce into one photo.

Front row: arugula, dill, peppermint, garlic scapes, 1 pt. shelling peas, 1 qt. strawberries

Back row: 5 (!!) heads of lettuce, radishes, broccoli rabe, turnips with abundant greens, scallions, 4 bunches of spinach

(It might be easier to see this load of green goodness in flickr where I've put notes to identify all the items.)

What I'm planning to do with this week's bounty:

• Tonight I'm making braised turnips with poppy seeds and bread crumbs to go with some honey balsamic pork medallions and lettuce, radish and scallion salad.
• I'll use the arugula and some spinach make another batch of Warda's bulgar with spicy greens and I'll resist the urge to scarf it out of the pot--it makes a great lunch.
• Half of the broccoli rabe will be used to make pizza or calzones with one of my favorite combinations: broccoli rabe, turkey Italian sausage, caramelized onions and ricotta (then I'll blanch and freeze the other half to make this again later).
• The turnip greens, radish greens, rest of the radishes, some dill, some peas and scallions will go into an improvised spring vegetable soup.
• The mint will make some Friday mojitos which will precede souvlaki pork, with tzatziki sauce and spinach and feta rice (that also uses scallions and dill).
• Chicken with garlic scapes and capers will be served with (I'm sure) more salad.
• The strawberries will be sliced and drizzled with honey to go with honey lavender panna cotta (more details about this recipe in my next post).