Last week I got my special order of plum tomatoes — all 5 kg (10 lbs) of it. I was a bit disappointed at the quality because 1/4 of it had black moldy parts. It was as if they waited too long to pick them or something. I tried to salvage the good ones by cutting off the bad stuff. But a good bunch ended up in the compost bucket. (I’m soooo glad I have a backyard to put composters in). I left feeback for the farm today.
After halving the rest of them I decided to roast them in the oven to make pasta sauce. (I totally recommend using parchment paper rather than foil to line your baking sheets for this). I also roasted button mushrooms and red onions, so my kitchen got super warm and toasty — perfect for the cool Autumn weather. After everything was browned, I ran it all through the food processor in batches. It made for a chunky sauce, so if I had a blender I would have used that instead.
And apart from the bulk plum tomatoes last week? I got broccoli, mesclun, mizuna, red onions and yellow carrots.
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Today, I got basket 15, which pretty much means we’re nearing the tail-end of the growing season. I got acorn squash, celeriac, carrots, onions and mesclun. Only 5 more weeks to go. I hope we get some pumpkins since I’ve got a nice collection of edible gourds on my counter.
When I was awash in patty pan squash from the organic basket, I looked for something fun to make with them. Enter Spawn of Seitan’s recipe for Chocolate Patty Pan Squash Bread. Not liking nuts in baked things, I omitted the pecans. Also, my sweet tooth seems to be subsiding at this stage in life, so I cut down the chocolate chips to about 1/3 cup, given how much sugar is called for in the recipe. Nicely browned in a large loaf pan, the last one I made turned out moist and divine.
Spawn of Seitan also wrote a post called “Fuck conformity“, which I totally agree with. So here’s a picto-ode to these two posts; Chocolate Patty Pan Squash loaf with an Ubuntu Linux mug of English Breakfast tea.
Yup, we flew over a field and through trees.
Not sure if this video will work, but here’s angrynorwegian doing the last stretch of La Rafale over at Arbraska:
It’s funny, I don’t really wear earrings, but I have a bunch and keep picking up pairs here and there. I recently stretched my lobes to a measly 10 gauge but now they’re nearly closed. Boo. But I’ve always wanted to make a nice holder for my little collection and finally got around to it — and cheaply. Yay, vacation!
I got a TOLSBY 2-sided picture frame at IKEA for 99 cents for this project and, along with some scrap screening and a stiff cardboard flyer, I made this very nice earring organizer.
The frame comes with two plastic panels to sandwhich your photos between. You won’t need these except to measure the rectangle of flyer needed to house your screen. I doubled up the flyer rectangle because it was a bit too flexible for my taste. You can use a single layer of thin cardboard if you have it on hand. Pop the rectangle into the frame and mark the interior of the frame. With an exact-o I sliced out the window and glued in the screen. Trim off the excess screen, pop it back into the frame and volià!
A recent article on the kitchn got me thinking about “mise en place”. I’m a proponent of prepping all ingredients beforehand, not only because it makes things easier, but because having everything at hand makes cooking a true joy. This means all the cutting, slicing and dicing is done, cans are opened, and all the spices are measured and set aside. This way I’m not stressed, dividing my attention between stove and chopping board — which, in the past, has led to burned pots and blackened food. But I’m reasonable with the number of dishes used in the process. I either group ingredients by their cooking time or by the order in which they need to be added to the pan.
I think prep is a good habit for any novice cook to pick up and it makes meal-making feel managable, rather than a daunting task. Whether it saves time depends on how good you are with your knife. Mise en place is really just prep, as the translation goes, don’t think in terms of time.
Last week I got my special order of plum tomatoes — all 5 kg (10 lbs) of it. I was a bit disappointed at the quality because 1/4 of it had black moldy parts. It was as if they waited too long to pick them or something. I tried to salvage the good ones by cutting off the bad stuff. But a good bunch ended up in the compost bucket. (I’m soooo glad I have a backyard to put composters in). I left feeback for the farm today.
