Sardines! Pesto! Guinness!

This time of year, it's so nice to go out to the garden and pick a bunch of fresh veg and either eat it simply or make it into something more Cooks Digest-y.

Tonight we had a huge salad with carrots and cukes from the garden (the lettuce is purchase--we're between lettuces in our garden right now). Then I made some butterflied pork chops in the following manner:

In a big cast iron pan, I put a good drizzle of EVOO, some minced garlic and a splash of homemade wine. In went the chops, sliced long ways down the middle. Sizzle, turn, grind some pepper. A big splash of water and keep turning til they're almost cooked. Then add in some ready-made tomato sauce and 1/4 cup of capers. Simmer simmer simmer. When tender, eat them with some freshly steamed asparagus and the afore-mentioned huge salad.

A crusty loaf of bread would also have been most welcome, but, alas! Ive been too busy lately to make any.

Maybe next week.

Next up tomorrow is a big batch of pesto. I've already picked the basil.

And my huge salad? It also had sardines in it. Sardines in mustard, which were very very good.

Fixing Beans

This is the new kitchen garden. It's planted now and has the cucuzzi and other squash.

Honeybees pollinating the cukes.

It is one of those ancient rituals of a mountain summer--preparing green beans, fresh from the garden. Even little children can do that and Southern children learn early about breaking both ends off a tiny bit and them snapping the long bean into small pieces. By the time you're my age, you will have done a lot of beans.

I grew a beautiful heirloom bean this year called Black Valentine. It is a prolific producer, strong and healthy plant with long beans. I've picked about half a bushel so far in the first row I planted, and the ones along the fence in the new kitchen garden are just starting to produce beans.

I detested green beans when I was younger, mostly because of the way they're cooked here. Boiled until there is no flavor left, with a big lump of fat back on the top. Nasty. When I got old enough to cook my own food, I found that they could be cooked with a lighter and gentler hand, seasoned with a little EVOO and salt and they were delicious.

This first harvest has been coked and eaten and the majority of it blanched, cooled and frozen. They were be wonderful in the winter, either alone or in soup or stew. Green beans are versatile and nutritious and freeze very easily.

My plan is also to do more canning and less freezing this year but the beans were always destined for freezing. They preserve better that way, I think.

Squash will start coming in soon. I'm also growing an edible Sicilian gourd called cucuzzi. It's beginning to flower now, so I'll report back on that a little later. It seems to be zucchini-ish.

Fleur de Sel Marocaine...also, Junior's Cheesecake

I am in the Big Apple for a few days and am enjoying the foodie possibilities in such a diverse place. I hunted through all sorts of salts a couple of days ago and settled on Fleru de Sel Marocaine. I have a brownie recipe that calls for it and can't wait to get home to try it out.

Today, we had a theatre date and the City was humid and damp. So we not only had lunch but we waddled our way back towards the theatre and went by Junior's before curtain time. We had coffee and Junior's Classic cheesecake.

I'll post pictures after I've uploaded them but you'll have to take my word for it that it was just the thing, pre-Jerusalem.

Lunch was at a sweet little place called Bella Napoli. I had an excellent caesar salad with edible croutons. The bread basket was especially good.

Summer = Tabouli and Gazpacho, also a paean to kamut

It is too hot to cook here in the southern highlands of Appalachian. 90s. Horrible. So we must subsist on a diet of uncooked or semi-cooked things and one thing we love is tabouli. I make it with kamut--more on that later. Here's how it goes--

grab a handful of parsley (and/or mint) from the back garden--chop it up

chop up a medium sized tomato

chop up 4 spring onions

throw in a heaping Tablespoon of minced garlic

add 1/4 cup or thereabouts of good olive oil

grind salt and pepper into the mix

Stir it all up with a spoon. Add the grain of your choice.

Kamut is a beautiful, fat, chewy grain--technically it is khorasan wheat and Kamut is the company that markets it. It is said to be very ancient and it looks like it--lumpy, ungainly.

I cook it in a 2-to-1 ratio, water to grain. I bring it to a boil, then turn off the stove and leave it for 45 minutes or so. It will be tough and chewy, which is how we like it.

I've also used it for Italian Grain Pie. I've used it as a base for all sorts of things-- sauteed veg, meat, oil/salt/pepper, or tomato sauce.

And, now., if you'll excuse me, I'm going to get out the gazpacho recipe. Cold soup--what's not to love?

Can't Write About Food--Too Busy Growing It

But here's a quicky.

And it's about broccoli side shoots.

We've had peculiar weather this spring--too hot, too cold, wet, dry. And we've been clearing out the main garden from a huge pile of not-quite-composted leaf mold. This is all by way of saying that the broccoli didn't do well. The main heads were straggly and bolted fast. And I was ready to pull the tattered plants out and replant the beds.

Then they started sending out side shoots and they are plentiful, tender and delicious. Tonight, I steamed some with a handful of the new peas. Served them both with a tuna steak and the last of yesterday's potato salad.

Very tasty indeed. That's a wee pic of them above.

What are you cooking? Eating? Dreaming of eating?

Soy Yoghurt is...Yoghurting

little green apples

The soy yoghurt is heated and mixed and in the wee Salton Yoghurt Maker, doing it's slow thing. At 8 in the morning, if all goes well, I'll put it in some cheesecloth to drain. Then I'll give it the old taste test and let you know.

And speaking of the taste test, I was marveling at the tiny green apples on the old Cortland tree yesterday. I rambled over to the MacIntosh tree by way of comparison and all those tiny green apples reminded me that it will be time for the annual making of the hard cider before we know it. Relieved to think we've finally bottled last year's grape wine.

The dregs of which I used on some little pork sirloins the other day. A long, slow, tenderizing simmer produced a lovely little dinner. Chard and kale from the garden were sauteed in with mushrooms to bring up some deep flavors.

And for the third time--which I certainly hope is a charm--I have planted artichoke plants in the Italian garden. These are Globe Imperials and I am hopeful of their eventual flowering, as well as their general survival.

Lettuces, Part the Second

April was a tricky and busy month and the garden shows it. But I spent some cool Beltane afternoon hours weeding, pruning, picking and chasing a groundhog out of the garden. I harvested even more lettuce and looked longingly at the ripening strawberries.

We had some fresh broccoli, onions and lettuces for dinner.

Are you catching the theme here? Lettuces, lettuces...they and the radishes are the monarchs of the spring garden. Here they are now--

I wish I could tell you that I've been doing some delicious cooking but I simply haven't. We've been eating lettuces and the occasional loaf of soda bread and...

Greek yoghurt. I got out the old Salton yoghurt maker and started making Greek yoghurt about a month ago. In fact, I'll probably make another batch some time tomorrow. I've tried all the different fat levels in the milk and 2% seems best. Tomorrow's will be soy milk.

I am hopeful of acquiring local goat milk--doesn't that sound perfect? Greek goat's milk yoghurt.