punkerdoo

Not to much to report on yesterday.  I was pretty excited when the UPS man brought my “I’m Tired off Animal Cruelty” bracelet.  This is my second bracelet, my first wore out and snapped.  Five dollars of the purchase price goes to Best Friends, a great animal rescue organization. I later learned that it should not get soapy, so I being ore careful with this one.  I have also just found out that they are making “I’m Tired of Puppy Mills” bracelet, with the money from those going to Last Chance for Animals.  Definitely getting that one next pay period.

I am still waging the war to get to my fresh locally grown produce before the bacteria do. I had one enormous sweet potato left and found a recipe for a stew on Epicurious.  The recipe was Black Bean and Sweet Potato Stew with Chilies and Polenta Triangles from Bon Apetit magazine.  I had never tasted and Sweet Potato stew and the chilies part of the title made me a little nervous, but I followed the recipe (mostly) and it came out great.  The only liquid in the recipe was orange juice and I thought it would be too sweet or syrupy, but it wasn’t.  Maybe thinned by the liquid from the veggies?

Getting really limited on choices from my fridge, a fact of which I am extremely proud.  I thought I might use some of my Rancho Gordo beans for tonight’s dinner.  I am so pleased that I heard about Ranch Gordo, they sell and promote the use of heirloom beans.  They carry so many wonderful kinds of beans that are new to me. I have a blast seeing what I can find out about how to prepare them. Last night I started soaking my Yellow Indian Woman beans with no idea of what I was going to do with them.  Guess that we have to wait from tomorrow’s post.

I guess I am a post short, even with the day off. I told myself when I started this blog that I would not feel guilty about not posting. I always am giving myself a guilt trip and knew if I started doing that with this blog, I would eventually abandon it. In fact, I have given up posting for a few short periods, but always came back (so far) It’s called perfectionism and it’s a disease. The idea that if I am not doing something perfectly (i.e. posting every single day) than it is a disappointment and should be avoided. Anyway, I am fighting it and here’s is my imperfect post a day late.

So on Sunday I made Denver omelets and roasted potatoes. I used the new technique on the potatoes and they were wonderful. Nothing special about the omelete except for the locally grown veggies and the Vermont Cheddar. If you currently buy big brand cheddar, stop it, you are cheating yourself. Go out and find some cheddar that was made on purpose. For drinks Darren made My Psychosis, a drink of his own authoring including but not limited to Rhum, Sparkling wine, Orange juice, and Amaretto.

After the Steelers, plundered and pillaged the Vikings. Darren fired up the grill and cooked the other rib-eye that he purchased on Friday. This time the steak had been salted and resting in the fridge for two days. A concept I learned from my new Zuni cookbook. It made all the difference, not only did we get the added flavor from the grill, but IMHO the steak was more tender. I had bought a pound of unshelled butter beans and two ears of corn from Athens Locally Grown. During the football game we shelled the beans, taking the advice of a grower at Athens Farmer’s Market and shelling while watching sports. I made succotash, a scrumptious dish that did not reveal itself to me, save through Yosemite Sam, until I moved to the south. I also baked an enormous sweet potato which Darren and I split. Isn’t that steak perfectly cooked? Darren rawks da grill.

Tonight I wanted to use the kale that we got from ALG. In the past I have made a sausage, kale & bean pasta. Since we had lunch at Inoko Sushi Express, we were right next door to Kroger and decided to shop there. I think today I crossed a threshold. I could not bring myself to purchase any type of pork at Kroger. I even tried to rationalize Boar’s Head, but even they don’t make any promises about the way they raise the pork and I have learned if the aren’t bragging about it, they aren’t doing it. So I got some veggie Italian sausages and they were not bad. I will happily substitute them for any weeknight meal or when in a bind.

The reason for my not posting yesterday was that I didn’t do anything.  I mean literally, I did nothing.

The best burgers in Athens

There was an Avatar marathon on

Take-out pizza from Depalma's

Fairly uneventful Friday around here I am afraid.  The Picture Man did receive  it’s order of 4,000 PolyBags, but within the mundane box of office supplies lie a gift so special, so wonderful it required special bright orange labels declaring “Hardware Enclosed”.  This gift was given to us, the humble servants of ThePicture Man by none other than our shipping supply vendor, ULine.  The gift? Why it’s Hall & Oates Home for Christmas CD.  Although I did notice they very purposefully did not refer to themselves as Hall & Oates on the cover, but rather Daryl Hall and John Oates. That would be completely different, wouldn’t it?

Lunch today was Grown-up Grilled Cheese Sandwiches and Oven Frites.  The sandwiches were ham & brie, topped with roasted red peppers & dijon mustard pressed between two halves of a mini-ciabatta. We can count on Earth Fare always having these mini-ciabatta loaves.  They make great pressed-grilled sandwiches.  I loved the concept of the grown-up grilled cheese.  (To be honest, it doesn’t have to be the grown up version. I simply love grilled cheese sandwiches.)  My pan was too hot and I made them darker than I would have liked.  Also, for the next go, I want to try a stronger cheese.  The brie got lost.  The original recipe suggestion was Teleme first and then brie.  I have never had Teleme, so that could have made all the difference.

During lunch, we watched an ancient episode of Good Eats.  Alton’s mixing of food preparation and ultimate geek-a-tude, never ceases to entertain and inspire.  In this episode Alton explored steaks. First visiting a cattleman, who is raising grass-fed cows in Colorado and then an accomplished butcher who explained beef primals.  Alton then tutored us in the proper way to cook a rib-eye in a cast iron skillet.  Anyway, all of this made us agree that we should try his method tonight.  Darren is already accomplished at preparing steaks on the grill, but whenever we find ourselves without charcoal, wood or nice weather it would be nice to be able to prepare a proper steak indoors.  Darren purchased a cowboy-cut rib-eye from Earth Fare and we gave his method a try.  The steak turned out great, although our cooking times were a bit shorter than in the show. Electric Stove, bone-in cowboy-cut, smaller steak, etc.

I also made “Really Crisp Roasted Potatoes” from the most recent issue of Cook’s Illustrated (the subscription, a gift from my mother-in-law) This recipe is so good that I will probably will make this my go-to roasted potato recipe. The idea is to parboil the potatoes then rough them up by tossing them with oil & salt.  This scratches the surface, thus increasing the surface area that can become crispy.  Now that I am typing this Cook’s Illustrated has its own version of geek-a-tude happening.  Guess that’s the type of cooking I enjoy most.

P.S. My dog worries

For lunch we had Baby Bok Choy and Shiitake Mu Shu wraps.  It was to be a mu shu-style filling served in a wrap.  I really enjoyed the flavors of this recipe, but next time I think I will make an extra effort to seek out mu shu wraps, instead of using your run-of-the-mill whole wheat wraps.  I also concocted an asian flavor potato salad as a side.  Darren made an Asian vinaigrette with ginger and soy sauce and I drizzled it over warm potatoes.  The taste was great, but it was brown in color and not visually appealing.

After work we went to pick up our veggies at Athens Locally Grown.  Some of the fun things we bought were a pound of edamame for freezing, butter beans, walking onions, broccoli, butter head lettuce, and aji dulce peppers. I have not posted about the impounding and destruction of 110 gallons of raw milk, that was initiated at last week’s pick-up. While I do feel very strongly about the rights that are being infringed upon, I am not informed enough about the subject to feel that I could give it the representation that it deserves. A situation that I will be rectifying. It was nice to get a chance to speak to Eric about his recent trials.  He appears to be feeling some relief that the initial confrontation has passed, but did talk of battles still to be waged. This is his accounting of what went down and the video of the milk being destroyed.

The last time we ate at Taste of India, I vowed to start cooking more Indian foods.  Tonight for dinner I made Chana Masala, a chick pea and mushroom dish loaded with all the typical Indian peppers and spices.  I am still a recovering bland-food-o-holic and thought it was a bit spicy, even though I did not put in the whole serrano.  Also I think that  cooked out too much of the moisture, it should have been a bit saucier.  Darren seemed exceeding pleased and praised the dish to a fault (I think I need to start upping my spice quotient ) Well, it is a learning experience I will keep trying.

Today I celebrated completing 15,000 trips around the Earth’s axis.  That’s correct I am 15,000 days old.  Don’t bother doing the math, that sums to a good many years. Using this groovy tool, you too can find interesting dates that relate to your birthday.  I will admit I didn’t bother to find out the exact time of my birth, but to my mind getting it within 24 hours was precise enough.  There are other interesting date calculating tools there as well.

How did I celebrate this momentous occasion you ask?  Mostly by eating out,  Darren did fetch muffins from Starbucks this morning.  Mine was a Pumpkin Cream-cheese and it was exceptionally tasty. I should have taken a pic.  For lunch we ate at Clocked, a retro burger joint.  It was nice enough to eat outside, which is a nice change of pace considering the amount of rainy stormy flooding weather we have been having.  I ordered the Friendship Burger because I thought the title sounded nice.  Upon retrospect I think it is named that because you are supposed to share it with a friend. Oh and they have Tater-Tots as a side.

This evening we went to Trappeze Pub.  The plan was to have a couple of beers and the cheese plate.  They were out of the cheeses that we most wanted to try, but we stuck with the plan and ordered the Wasabi Chevre, Stilton, and Percorino Tuscano.  The plate was nicely appointed with crostinis, nuts and fruits.  Nice, but not worth $11.00.  Once we started eating we found that we probably should have gone ahead and ordered dinner.  Darren got the Chimay Carbonade and I had the Cheddar soup, both were excellent. My favortie beer of the evening was Brouwerij de Koningshoeven La Trappe Isid’or, a wonderful trappist ale.  While checking my spelling of the beer’s name I learned that this ale was produced to celebrate the brewery’s 125th anniversary, making it apropos to drink on my Day Birthday.

Since I spent the majority of Sunday planning this week’s menu (well, playing with a new program and planning meals), we needed to go grocery shopping and pick up all the items on my spiffy auto-generated list.   It was a surprisingly successful adventure.  Usually there are at least a few items that we cannot procure, but this time we did find everything on our list.  The trip was not without it’s trials.  In order to complete our mission we had to confront and defend ourselves against the Dill Troll, guardian of all that is fresh and natural.  We were shown to be worthy.

Originally, the plan was to complete our shopping and return home to cook dinner.  The well-thought out menu called for Eggplant and Smoked-gouda Open-faced Grilled Sandwiches with a side of Creamy Okra Casserole.  This dinner would use both the aging eggplant and okra in the fridge.  By the time, we had finished our shopping, the Royal Peasant sign nextdoor to Earth Fare was shining so brightly that it could not be ignored.  Giving in to our destiny, we stopped in for a few pints, Bangers & Mash, and Bubble & Squeak.  Curse you, who doth install a public house amongst  the places of errands.

Tuesdays, have the self-imposed added pressure of trying out a restaurant that we have never before visited. I know that sounds stringent, but we try to maintain. At some point last week we decided to try Ike & Jane, a bakery & cafe. I had a Ham and Gruyere on sourdough and Darren had the combo of Roast Beef on Black Pepper Baguette with a cup of chili. Our assement? Very good and the atmosphere of normaltown is always pleasant. I would very much like to go back for breakfast/brunch and to try their pastries & breads.

So, of course when I went to make the Okra Casserole this evening, the okra was too far gone and had to be discarded wasted.  Really a bummer, considering I still want to try the recipe and will have to buy more, risking a repeated occurrence.  Tonight’s dinner was Creamy Spinach-mushroom Skillet Enchiladas, Jerusalem Artichoke and Lima Bean Saute‘ and leftover Pot Beans.  The enchiladas were simple, quick and easy to make, so I will take that into considerations as I give them a rating of “just ok”.  They also had the added benefits of using up the rest of the salsa verde I made on Sunday. I have never cooked with jerusalem artichokes before so I was not quite sure what to expect. The dish was itself pretty good, but did not pair with the enchiladas at all. I suspected as much, but was trying to save all the veggies I could. I will definitely purchase them again soon and try some other recipes.

Just wanted to post how brunch/breakfast (we ate at 10:30 am, you decide) turned out.  Ended up putting a little salsa verde over the eggs, which I placed on top of the pot beans.  As you can see, I also included a couple of strips of bacon (had to, it was Sunday bacon)  The combo tasted pretty good.  I did over-cook the eggs a bit.  I would have preferred lots of runny yolk on the beans.

We also have a birthday in the house.  Everyone wish Chris a Happy Birthday with me.

Happy Birthday Chris!