Category: Grain

June 13, 2011

Mother & Child Reunion

We were away for the weekend, blowing what was shaping up to be a pretty good posting streak, but the 25th high school reunion would not be denied. It’s always fun to go back to Massachusetts, and in this case seeing a wider variety of old friends than usual was an added bonus. Bringing the family made for an even better time; everyone got to see what a fuckup I didn’t turn out to be (probably a surprise) and my lovely wife made some new friends. Having said that, though, a few days of adequate but not homemade food meant that by the time we got home, I was seriously ready for some homegrown fare.

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June 9, 2011

Open-Source Cuisine

This meal was sort of random, in that what we had hoped to eat wasn’t available, but happily it continued with the Korean-Spanish theme of the soup in the last post. I feel strongly that Korean food will be the next big culinary craze in this country, since it’s meat-centric, spicy, often grilled, and highly adaptable: perfectly suited for American eaters. It’s as accessible as Mexican and as varied as Japanese or Indian. Those trucks in LA are the leading edge of some major taste-changing.

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March 30, 2011

Nature’s First Green Is Gold

The blackcurrant vinegar took six months to fully ferment. Today I bottled it; with some evaporation, what started as a half gallon ended up just filling two 20-ounce former soy sauce bottles (I left a little in the jar to give a head start to the next half gallon, which I poured right in). After tasting it, admiring the bottles, and reminding myself to make labels for them–it’s a pity that there’s no F in either word, because I had a hankering for some ye olde maple fyrup type font–it came time to figure out what to do with it.

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December 15, 2010

Outside In

The rest of the carrot risotto–and the remaining quart of the silky carrot-phở soup that flavored it–became in turn the jumping-off point for another meal that celebrated the bounty of high-quality leftovers: Sicily’s arancini or, when in Rome, supplì. And the tongue pastrami (see previous post) just sealed the deal.

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November 2, 2010

History In The Making

So when I wrote the last post I thought it was a pretty nifty illustration of the way in which I try to let the previous meal inform the current one, thus making efficient use of the various leftovers and remnants in the fridge and making me feel like I’m living up to the expectations of my frugal, persecuted ancestors. Joking aside, I think that an excellent counterweight to our rampant, compulsive materialism-as-grasping-antidote-to-spiritual-bankruptcy culture is the conscious production of good food at home. And, like Sarah Palin’s Facebook page, those leftovers kept on givin’. You betcha!

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November 1, 2010

Plate O’ Shrimp

A recent outing to a place that carries decent if inconsistent seafood yielded a dozen littleneck clams and a bag of wild Pacific shrimp. Our seafood options are limited up here, so I was thinking of ways to mix up what we can get that is both tasty and defensible. So on the ride home I did some thinking, and then some more once safely back in the kitchen. The results were quite good, and paved the way for a very compelling meal the following night. The difference between good and great food often lies in saving bits and pieces from previous meals.

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October 5, 2010

Grow Your Own

Instead of pickling them, I’ve been leaving green beans on the plant once they get beyond the filet stage, which is the only stage where I really enjoy them. Once fat and fibrous, they make a decent 3-bean salad, especially when run through my Grandmother’s antique bean slicer up in Vermont, but the thrill is pretty much gone. So, along with our dragon’s tongue beans, I’ve been shelling and drying them instead with an eye towards soups and stews and, of course, cassoulet–that apotheosis of beans–and something this chilly, rainy spell is steering my mind towards with increasing force.

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January 20, 2010

F Is For Effort

Sometimes the available leftovers are aligned like so many lucky stars, forming a constellation that points the way to a lazy-ass dinner of surpassing tastiness. This is what was in the fridge/freezer: brown rice some chicken stock (made from pressure-cooked wings) kale pesto frozen peas 1/2 can coconut milk 1/2 onion scallions I love making risotto from leftover brown rice; the second cooking, best done with good stock, gets it to an appealingly gooey place…

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November 21, 2009

Less Is More, More Or Less

Local 10-grain mix pressure-cooked with beets. Lentils simmered with onions, herbs, homemade bacon and smoked chicken broth. Green mash made with curly endive, pan di zucchero, ume plum, pumpkin seeds, and olive oil. All kinds of awesome.

November 15, 2009

It’s Like A Meal, But Made In Just 30 Minutes

There is no greater resource than a well-stocked freezer. (Except maybe a well-stocked freezer working in harmony with an equally well-stocked pantry.) There are still a couple of quarts of frozen fish stock that I made a while back from a halibut skeleton, and the presence of a big bag of snow crab legs just above the stock containers got the wheels turning. There was also a bag of a rice blend- long, short, and…

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