With a quiet flourish the aspen and chokecherry are alive with leaves shiny and new. Such a joy in these still strange times.
We are making our way, and even venturing out once for fast food, waiting and waiting in the parking lot. Then so rattled and paranoid when we arrived home that it was hardly worth it. Our food tepid and milk shake melted by the time we were actually able to eat. Oh well, we tried.
But, oh! Lilacs and wildflowers are blossoming and scenting the neighborhood with hope.
Our home cooking and baking continues to satisfy to the utmost, making little sausages heady with garlic and paprika, more fabulous hummus, and way too many sweets. Peanut butter cookies, strawberry lemonade cake, chocolate sandwich cookies all this week. Eeek! Oh, and a batch of strawberry rhubarb jam. Tis the season.
Hope you are hanging in there, healthy and happy and safe.
Sunday’s homemade ice cream, walnut and chocolate. I made the walnut with the green walnut liqueur, like the delicious variety I made ages and ages ago, but since there are no green walnuts to glean in my neighborhood, I resorted to purchasing a bottle. I suppose it ought to go without saying, but the ice creams were both fantastic!
locavore
Juniper does her sweet beggar best to convince the hubster to share his smoked BBQ chicken, corn, and ranch dressing topped salad.
Another stellar batch of green chile and a new recipe for homemade tortillas from Ford Fry. So. VERY. good.
Farmer Greg tends the carrot and onion patch. No sprouts, yet, but we do have two teeny tiny lettuces leaves going. Baby steps!
Though we are healthy and lucky in so many ways, yesterday was a hard one. I felt as though I was hearing all the bad news of the past months in a single violent wallop, sending every last marble skittering every which way and rendering me helpless to capture them. I am not normally someone who needs a drink, but boy howdy, a prickly pear margarita has never tasted so good nor made such quick work of smoothing all the jagged edges. Gratitude is the word.
Greg and I continue to make our mostly solitary way, going out for provisions every ten days or so and avoiding people, restaurants, and coffee shops. So when we got a craving for burgers, I tried my hand at brioche buns and perhaps ruined us for eating a burger anywhere else. They were simply amazing.
I’ve also come to realize how much my eating reflects this place that is home: the Southwest. Like grits in the South, salmon and berries in the Pacific Northwest, my diet is so utterely centered around green chile, eating it nearly every day, including on the burger.
Greg looking positively adorable AND excited for peach pie and cinnamon-sugar twists with pie dough remnants. Darn tasty!
Green chile again! We topped an open faced breakfast sandwich with brioche (the same batch as the buns), bacon, and cheddar. The breakfast of champions.
Stumbled upon this “lady” on one of our walkabouts. Speechless.
Everyone in our neighborhood taking COVID-19 seriously….
Hello gentle reader. As I write, a bluster of wind sails snow beyond the window, the outlook for our afternoon dog walk very grim. My belly is brimful with curried cauliflower soup, a rainbow sprinkle sugar cookie, and Irish breakfast tea. Satisfied.
I enjoyed a long stretch of time when I thought not one bit about COVID-19. Thirty minutes of bliss.
We’ve spent much of the last weeks sunny weather clipping away last year’s growth, with monster piles of beyond parched plants in tidy compostable heaps, ripe seeds sprinkled delicately, eager for birds and dewy soil. The best moments, however, coming afterward, in the bath, when my skin, heady with dust and sweat, disperses sweetly into the air. What is the word for it? Not quite petrichor but just as intoxicating.
We made fine use of mushrooms with protein noodles and an omelette. I also tried my hand at no-knead donuts which were baked not fried because I don’t care for the hassle. I am known to cut sugar from just about every recipe I make, but these I followed exactly and found them seriously wanting. Darn cute, though! The hummus and pita continue to be a hit, but nothing in comparison to the Dutch baby. I used half blue corn flour for the usual all purpose and was positively delighted. The hubster, too.
Basically chugging along, with every hope for better days. How about you?
Oh, the food I’ve made, as of late. Thank goodness we have a dog to walk and a daily workout routine, or we’d be in serious trouble. We’re currently jamming on Jericho’s Morning Meltdown 100. I’m feeling stronger and stronger.
Back to the eats! I am a massive fan of the library, and especially the cookbook section, checking out some little lovely nearly every visit. I don’t always cook from them, often just wanting to ogle food photos and take an armchair vacation to some beautiful locale.
The Hummus Bling Bling is from Eat. Cook. L.A., seriously the best hummus I’ve ever had. For a loooong time, I couldn’t eat hummus, or any dried bean concoction for that matter, suffering massive intestinal distress. But then I read The Plant Paradox and learned that pressure cooking (for at least 7.5 minutes) destroys the lectins that made me wanna die. So I can eat hummus again, and the Anasazi beans I bought in New Mexico (pictured below). Celebrate good times….
My first time making mole. Boy howdy, what was I waiting for?! It is the stuff of magic. We slathered it on chicken and whisked giant dollops into hot chocolate. Oh, yeah!!
Homemade chile con queso, queso, queso. How do I love thee. With chicharones and Siete (ocho, nueve, diez…) cassava chips, for when I’m not feeling corny.
Spoon bread with a mushroom, sour cream, and parmesan concoction. Also from Eat. Cook. L.A. Mighty-mighty.
I’ve dabbled in bread baking for a long time, mostly turning out the no-knead or some boule variety. They were consistently delicious, but I frequently tired of the massive air bubble directly where I wanted to make a sandwich. So I tried the Italian from America’s Test Kitchen Bread Illistrated. Wow! It’s everything I want in something sandwich and toast-able. Yes, ma’am.
The Italian bread calls for 8 oz of beer. Since I am not much of a beer drinker, and especially not at eight in the a.m., I decided to use the remaining 4 oz to make beer bread as an accompaniment to the Brazilian Coconut Shrimp Soup I was planning for lunch. Delicious!
Here’s the recipe for the soup. So easy! Double or triple, if you like.
1 14 oz can coconut milk
1/2 pound cleaned shrimp
1 tablespoon lime juice
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 jalapeno, diced
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
salt, to taste
Put everything in a saucepan and cook until the shrimp is cooked through, basically to your liking. Take a little taste, add salt until it’s right. Seriously, that’s it. Add a cilantro garnish, if you have it, but it’s lovely without it.
