I’ve been obsessed with this wine-braised fennel lately; I first “invented” it in Chicago a dozen years ago (although then I usually used muscat, because I liked the sweetness) and it’s so luxurious and wintry that it goes with everything this time of year, and I’m craving it. Fennel has this way of storing summer’s bright sweetness deep into winter, and now that spring is creeping up on us, I find myself craving it a…
Category: Vegetables
The warm day and peek at the garden inspired a meal that would almost be more appropriate in Summer, but that nonetheless hit the spot in a nice comfort-food way. In the center of the plate is a salad of our own microgreens, surrounded by roasted beet salad with onions and feta, lentils with carrot, onion, and a bit of guanciale, the rest of the root purée from the day before, and steamed kale with…
Wanting something vegetable-based, and given what was in the fridge, I turned as so often before to Indian ideas. Vegetarian food is so often much more interesting with South or East Asian techniques (although dear Italy still offers pretty stiff competition.) Thus was born another tofu curry, with a little milk and half a baked sweet potato to thicken it, as well as carrot, leek, onion, and our own frozen peas. I turned some lavash…
As a departure from our rich and splendid weekend, I went for something hearty yet clean, trying to make it both healthy and satisfying. So for protein, red lentils made into dal- Milo loves them and they don’t need to be presoaked. Then the roasted kabocha that ended up as the tortelloni filling went in a pot with some canned tomatoes, carrots, onion, seeds and spices, and some water, and simmered to combine all the…
The garden gave us more bounty today, in the form of celery root, collards, and cabbage. I shredded the greens and cooked them low with a bit of salt pork, and cooked the celery root with a broccoli stalk and the last of the parsnip-burdock mixture in the fridge. Once soft, I puréed it all together with a pat of butter and a drop each of white truffle oil and Mexican vanilla extract. I had…
Chris & Sirkka gave us some fennel since ours is done, and it completely dominated this meal. Sautéed and then braised a bit to soften- with only oil, lemon, salt, and pepper- it was meltingly smooth, sweet, and sublime. The pan-roasted salmon (well-done by request) and mashed sweet potato/Japanese yam combination were fine, even delicious, but the fennel was on another plane entirely.
No, not the movie (which we still haven’t seen.) But a combination of old and new- some of the party leftovers (Nina’s ratatouille, all the grilled veggies that didn’t fit in my pie, etc.) added to a heavenly mirepoix of our own onion, fennel, celery, carrot and blessed guanciale after deglazing with a few dregs also remaining in a couple of bottles. A word on this mirepoix: I can honestly say that of the many…
I pickled beets and turnips a couple of days ago, and had one of each left over, so I steamed them until soft, then puréed them and added egg yolk and rye flour to make gnocchi dough. Today we used it, along with tilapia and garden goodies. Fennel, celery, onion, and carrot sweated while I rolled, cut, and boiled the gnocchi. Then veggies out and gnocchi into the same pan but with duck fat to…
Christine returned from the city, bearing a beautiful enameled cast-iron gratin dish that she got for 13 bucks at the dollar store around the corner from our place. It’s indistinguishable from Le Creuset, and got me inspired, given that I had made a merguez mixture a couple of days ago, figuring to grill it on sticks like before. Milo and I had already picked a beet, carrots, and potatoes earier in the day, as well…
As I mentioned yesterday, our 1976 Clos des Mouches was cooked, so today I marinated pork chops in it with garlic, herbs, salt, 5-spice, and a pinch of brown sugar. They went on the grill after a sliced zucchini got a nice char (I don’t grill veggies with oil any more; the flare-ups are carcinogenic) and then got tossed in oil, salt, and thyme. I also steamed a sweet potato and made an endive mash.…