Chick peas soaked and simmered with coconut milk and spices. Roasted potatoes with thyme and garlic. Fresh-picked kale wilted with shallots and lemon juice. Cucumber salad with baby shiso. Humble, cleansing food that encourages reflection. I enjoy these meals as much as I do the decadent ones; it’s important to pare down sometimes and appreciate the basics. As fun as it is to get complicated and fancy, I need to be reminded sometimes that this…
Category: Vegetables
Today it was sunny again. Today I felt normal again. And today, Christine’s Mom joined us for the week. So to celebrate a new chapter, and to move away from the heavy party food of the last few days, a super-clean meal tonight. We got some more of the incredible local 10-grain mix (millet, rye, winter wheat, oats, triticale, barley, spelt, corn, flax and vetch) so I made a broth from the smoked chicken carcasses…
I had to go back to the city again, and in my absence the garden really started to flourish; what were tiny sprouts have become small plants in just a few days, thanks to our incredibly warm and sunny April. Last night was the first rain in nearly three weeks, and in response everything has exploded. I actually find myself nostalgic for a couple of weeks ago, when there was a rich subtlety of growth;…
There are still some parsnips and burdock left in the garden, and I’m trying to dig them up before they expend all their stored deliciousness sending up too many new leaves. Having protected and watched all these plants all winter, it’s amazing to see them switch from survival mode to explosive spring growth and flowering so quickly. Kind of like a hyper-accelerated parenthood, but where you eat the kids when they reach puberty. Next year…
I’ve been working at a local ceramic studio since the beginning of the year, and the owner/teacher fired the kiln this weekend. Today I went by to get the first of what should be several more series of plates, bowls, and cups to inspire more detailed cooking and presentation as well as smaller portions. Though I have no training in the field, I’ve always been influenced by Kaiseki cooking; now that the garden is a…
The temperature dropped pretty precipitously overnight, and today (though it did eventually warm to balmy-adjacent, as a realtor might put it) was one of those raw English days where you just can’t seem to get warm. That, combined with the fairly empty fridge, suggested a simple, hearty dinner with an appropriate balance between clean vernal goodness and rich carnal pleasure. So I soaked beans. Most of life’s problems can be either solved or comfortably postponed…
Shopping with a kid can be a fun random-vegetable generator for the home menu. It can also involve many pleading lunges for the infinite variety of ghastly sugared crap all conveniently arrayed about three feet off the floor for maximum grabability. For the most part, though, it’s enjoyable, and we end up bringing home things I wouldn’t normally get, like eggplant in April. They were too big and shiny to resist, and it’s hard to…
This morning I did some much-needed shopping, and also picked up some things for the garden; the experiments at overwintering some of the veggies have been so successful that I started a bunch of things in the ground a month early, figuring that the plastic will protect them from the colder nights. Time will tell, but they’re all hardy things and should be fine (until we tear them from the ground and devour them, that…
There were some particularly beautiful organic artichokes at our local store yesterday, so I picked a couple out and today they came in super-handy. Milo wanted kidney beans, and we had white ones, so I put them in water to soak and then went to work, jumping back in around 3 to simmer them with sautéed onion, garlic, and rosemary so they’d be ready at 5 when I normally knock off for the day. (Pre-child,…
So today I was told, pursuant to Christine’s trip to the market, that a nice vegetable coconut curry would be a good idea for dinner; that seemed a doable, if predictable course, given the quantity of animals we’ve dispatched this week (last night, a lovely lamb stew at our neighbors’ house.) But then, upon throwing wide the fridge door, I did see shiitakes, and broth made from lamb and chicken bones, and our own kale…