Oct 25, 2020

Menu: Week of 10/25/20

My menu is all over the map this week with hybrid this and that, and cultural appropriation galore. I am still on my spice cabinet/pantry clear-out kick from last week, so bear with me as I continue to divest half packages of this and that, as well as freezer items. That being said, this doesn’t mean that dinners won’t be delicious and packed with flavor – last week’s meals were pretty darn good.

We did have one mishap and part of me – probably very unfairly as he is truly a lovely young man – suspects that L. may have subconsciously sabotaged a dinner about which he was not excited. I had what I thought would be a delicious ten bean stew with artisanal, quite pricey, andouille sausage burbling away on the stove and, since I was in the middle of a project in my room as he headed to the kitchen, asked L. to add more liquid to the beans if they looked dry. I guess a cook and an eater’s definitions of dry are different. He reported back that they were fine but five minutes later found me rushing to the kitchen because my nose was telling me that, not only were they dry, they were burnt beyond repair. All ended well since L. offered to clean the burnt bean encrusted pot, and we had a salad, bread, and enough cheese to clog our arteries for good for dinner instead.

This got me to thinking about memorable kitchen mishaps and how the best laid plans can quickly go wrong. I think my most annoying culinary mishap occurred as a bride in France, when I was still trying to show my cooking skills off to my husband. I decided to make him that French home cook’s classic of Tomates Farçies (tomatoes stuffed with sausage meat on a bed of baked rice). This is not a difficult dish, but it is time consuming especially if, like me, you decide to make your own stock in which to bake the rice, make your own sausage meat mixture, and add a variety of brunoise vegetables (three-millimetre sized diced vegetables) to the filling.

I remember toiling away in the kitchen that wasn’t quite mine yet, hollowing out the tomatoes, salting the insides, cutting up the tomato flesh to add to the meat stuffing, filling the tomatoes, putting their tops back on like jaunty little caps, placing them side by side in the baking dish on a bed of raw rice, gingerly pouring on just enough stock to cook the rice but not enough to make a soupy mess, and dotting the dish with butter. I also remember the satisfaction of making a dish that my mother-in-law made for my husband as a child (so, no pressure there) and knowing that it was going to be good.

40 minutes later the oven timer pinged, and I pulled the dish from the oven. It smelled divine – the perfect amount of garlic and herbs. The tomatoes looked gorgeous – plump and inviting, overstuffed with good things. The rice was properly cooked, not a soggy mess. It was a proud moment. And then I dropped the dish. You do not know what a true mess is until you have dropped a 9“ x 13” Pyrex dish containing juicy cooked tomatoes, rice and sausage meat on a floor that you cleaned that very morning and it explodes.

I will draw a curtain on my vocabulary at that moment. It took me at least an hour to locate and clean every shard of glass and splash of tomato from the kitchen floor and walls. It was a good two years before I made stuffed tomatoes again.

This Week's CSA box contained:

Herbs: a tiny bunch each of sage, lavender and Mexican mint, a large bunch of flat leaf parsley, and two sticks of lemongrass

Greens: a baggie of pea shoots, a gorgeous bunch of spinach, a small bunch each of purple kale and curly kale

Alliums: a huge bunch of over-sized scallions, a head of garlic, three small yellow onions, a handful of shallots

Vegetables: two bunches of gorgeous golf ball-sized Hakurei turnips with vibrant green leaves still attached, three tiny red peppers, yet another punnet of Habaneros, a Delicata squash, a rutabaga, a substantial green cabbage, a large baggie of Brussels sprouts, 3 Yukon gold potatoes, 2 small heads of broccoli, 4 Heirloom tomatoes, 2 carrots

Fruit: three tiny golden apples

Remainders: a nubbin of daikon root, half of last week’s cabbage, a beet, and various potato varieties from weeks past

So, with the addition of the above remainders and both a head of lettuce and a punnet of raspberries for my attempt at a Halloween sweet treat, the contents of this week's box (minus the various items that will get eaten at lunch and the Habaneros which went straight into the freezer again because supply is massively outweighing demand) will be transformed into:

Sunday “Pantry Roulette”; fridge, freezer, and pantry item dinner]

Warm Salad of Roasted Brussels Sprouts, Shallots, Blue Cheese, and Cranberries

Roast Chicken with Sage

Patatas Bravas

Stir Fried Turnip Greens

Monday [Wildcard; a more complex or fiddly dish than usual to test my culinary skills]

Root Vegetable Salad with Grated Daikon Dressing

Miso Crusted Pasture Raised Heritage Bone-in Pork Chops 🔁

Creamed Greens with Habanero and Scallions, Garlic Croutons

Steamed Broccoli

Tuesday [Pasta]

Green Salad Via Carota 🔁