Little of This, Little of That #5

Like my garden, this blogging thing so quickly gets out of control! I've got some tasty morsels for this installment though.

-I went to the Italian Festival a few weeks ago and was reminded why I haven't been there in about 15 years. It's terrible, really. And I can't even say I though much of the food. I had an arancino that was fairly bland and a lobster roll that was downright disgusting but I did share some fried dough with Suki and this is what it looked like. I think we're both looking a bit overwhelmed. Also, I'm looking pregnant? Just a bad picture, no worries!



-I made these little bites for music in the parkway last week and they were fantastic. I mixed a log of goat cheese with the zest of one lemon, some fresh mint and chopped pecans and then stuffed the mixture into dates. I tasted the filling on its own, which was very nice but paired with the dates, it became incredible. They morphed into little jewel-like treats that were almost reminiscent of candy, albeit a more upscale and refined candy. Alas, I also made that Mint-Ginger spritzer recipe to mix with rum and they proportions were all off. I even tried to make it a second time and it was off again. It's a fairly straightforward thing to make an infused simple syrup so I'll keep on trying.

-I had dinner with my daddy-o at Betty's last week. It can be hit or miss there for me, although the patio and decor is always inviting and charming. This week was a hit, luckily, I had a pasta salad with crab and Pops had a green salad with mango salsa and grilled salmon. I liked the little pepitas sprinkled over the top too.



-I enjoyed my crab salad so much that when I saw the recipe in Gourmet for sweet and sour crab salad I had to make it. It was ai-ight but I won't be making that again. Maybe after the millenium I spent cracking the crab legs and the innumerable puncture wounds I endured, I expected too much.

-Two noteworthy dinners, one at my mother's and one at Greg's. My mother had a fried chicken extravaganza, although how I ended up in the kitchen frying on a hot July night, I'll never know. To start, we had black-eyed pea fritters with this incredible hot pepper relish and tasty crab deviled eggs. The main course included a great salad, cornbread, corn and tomato salad and the deliciously brined chicken, accompanied by fresh watermelon cocktails. Cricket made a marvelous blueberry crisp for dessert, mmmm! Not to be outdone, Greg fired up the grill for an ENTIRE coho salmon stuffed with crab the next night. It was decadent and wonderful.

-I had a go at processing and preserving last night. I have cucumbers coming out of my ears and green and yellow beans galore. I was only working with two Mason jars yesterday though (I know Mamma, I'll get over to the house and pick up the rest today!) so I just did some pickled beans. When I worked in New Orleans, we'd garnish bloody marys with pickled green beans and pickled okra and I'd spend a better part of the evening munching away on pickled beans, I loved them so. Also, those olives stuffed with jalapenos, mmm, or blue cheese, even better! In fact, most of the college years, I subsisted on whatever I could graze at work, making my own salad bar out of the array of drink garnishments. LOTS of orange slices, pickled accoutrements and sugar-doused lemon wedges. And praline bread pudding when the boss man wasn't looking. That was a healthy time indeed. Anyway, sorry, sheesh, here's my beans, aren't they pretty?


By the way, you're all getting garden bounty for Christmas presents as I save up for El Grande adventure. I will leave you with this picture of last Saturday's rainbow. Not a great picture but I don't know the last time I saw a rainbow that was a full arc so it was noteworthy. Enjoy!

Little of This, Little of That #4

I'm working on a loooooooong post, promise, that's my excuse for my absence. No, I just started working on the long post last night as I experienced insomnia yet again, so it's really no excuse but it's summer, work is busy blase blase blah.

Anyway, let me give you a few nuggets to chew on while I craft a real meal.

-I made this slamming guacamole yesterday, the cilantro from the garden was so fresh and tender it almost had a sweet taste to it, amazing. I've made guac many times over the years-some recipes say only onions, others only garlic, some add sour cream. My tried and true ingredients though are avocado (clearly), red onion, garlic, lime, cilantro, ground chipotle, cumin and a little tomato if they're particularly lovely. I ate it with these tamari and seaweed rice crackers and perhaps that sounds odd but I assure you, it was perfection.

-Tempeh is disgusting. So, so bad. I know a lot of people don't like tofu (I am not one of those people) but there really isn't a ton of flavor, it just tastes like whatever it's cooked/marinated in. Tempeh though, ugh. From the beginning, it is removed from its package looking as highly processed as a kielbasa. Really, I don't want to eat anything that is the same shape as the package it came in. Plus, it has an awful, bitter, sharp chemical taste to it. I tried to choke it down on the first sitting but when I got to the leftovers on day two, I could pretend no longer.

-The Lexington Co-op has these lovely little inari stuffed with avocado and doused with sesame oil. The fried tofu exterior and rice interior soak up the sesame flavor and melt so lusciously with the ripe avocado. Damn, they are good. Sadly, I rarely get to the Co-op during the day and that seems to be the only time they're available.

-Suki/Buckley's 4th of July BBQ was awesome, especially that jerk chicken, ooh, my mouth is watering just thinking about it! Dan and Danielle's BBQ was also great; Danielle made a pasta dish with tons of basil, tomato and brie and I think I just gained a few pounds thinking about it.

Enough for now, I could go on like that all day but I've got work to attend to!