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Posts tagged ‘cooking’

Aug 5

Vietnamese lamb and green bean stir-fry

Lamb_stirfry3

The markets around here are pretty astonishing, these days. I’m amazed at what new bounty there is each week, and how quickly things come in and out of season, and how frantic I sometimes feel about taking full advantage of everything while it’s around. When we lived in Southern California it always felt like I had plenty of time to get my fill of various items – but here, seasonality is accelerated. February doesn’t seem that far away in either direction, and it’s astonishing how different the produce landscape is now compared to the other side of the year. So each time, I leave the market barely able to carry my load, and we spend a few days puzzle-piecing together menus to use it all up. Read more

May 29

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Summer licuados

Not sure what happened to spring, exactly. I suppose a late arrival doesn’t necessarily push back what comes next, but I had hoped we’d have a few more weeks between down jackets and tank tops.

That said, there’s plenty to look forward to here. We’ve grilled every night since we brought home our new grill, our home life seems to have shifted entirely to the porch, and yesterday at the market I bought a big, red, ripe tomato. A tomato! Three months ago, sick with Tundra Vision, I never thought I’d see this day again.

Memorial Day was a hot and heavy one, and I mean that in the least fun way possible, and in the hour or two before we really awake and had breakfast on the table, I blended a honeydew licuado to stave off hunger and defend against the heat. A licuado (also known as a “batido”) is a Latin American version of a smoothie, generally simpler than its northern counterpart with one or maybe two fruits, some milk (usually), and a small bit of ice and other flavorings. I’m not a big smoothie drinker, usually finding them a bit too acidic and on the wrong side of both beverage and meal (too heavy to be the former, too light to be the latter), but a licuado is a light, more refreshing alternative that is perfect for summer. They’re meant to be consumed immediately after blending, since they separate a bit as they sit, but they’re also meant to be an icy cold respite in very warm places, so it’s not difficult to get them down quickly.

Honeydew_licuado Read more

May 16

Why I do what I do, plus Gram’s oatmeal raisin cookies

Sorry for a bit of silence over the last week. You may have noticed there weren’t Weekend Links on Monday. I apologize for doing that without warning or explanation! Bare with me for a moment, and you’ll get both an explanation and a cookie.

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Next week I’m speaking at Ignite Madison, a story-telling event where participants give a talk based on a theme (in this case, “All About Food”). I’m speaking about eating joyfully and overcoming fears about food and cooking, and in the process of putting together the talk I’ve been thinking a lot about why I do all of this – why I love teaching, and why I have this site, and why I’m so eager to let it all eat up my evenings and weekends and keep my kitchen a perpetual disaster zone. All of the food work I’ve been doing over the past four years has been pretty consuming, in both good and bad ways. I spend a lot of time happily planning classes and daydreaming about the little kitchen I eventually want to open, but I also spend a decent amount of time feeling a little tired, a little self-conscious, a little confused about the whole thing, and sometimes even a little defeated.  It’s hard trying to figure out what you want to do when you grow up, and sometimes it’s even more difficult figuring out how to make a stable living out of it. 

So why do I keep doing it? Read more

May 6

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Grilled mozzarella, prosciutto, and ramp pesto sandwiches

Update: I’ve received a few comments/emails/phone calls asking me what the heck ramps are. I should have known better, having recently migrated from the West Coast where ramps are basically nonexistent. For most of the rest of the country, though, the painfully-short three-week ramp season is a thing to anxiously await – because of both how incredibly delicious this rare, wild ingredient is and how it acts as a harbinger of warmer conditions. I haven’t experienced a day in the last two weeks where I haven’t heard someone talking or read someone writing about ramps, and restaurants around here are featuring them in everything possible. It’s somewhat surprising, then, how difficult of a time I had finding a good overview on the web. Here’s the best I could come up with, plus a history of their popularity here. 

I’m fairly new to this whole ramp thing – they didn’t really exist in Southern California – but I’m scrambling to do as much as I can with them during the short period of time they’re here. Last week I chopped some finely, sauteed them in butter, and folded them into some spätzle with a bit of pumpkin seed oil, which was very Austrian and very delicious. On Sunday, I sauteed them in olive oil, whirred them together with lemon and Parmesan, and spread it on sandwiches with some fresh mozzarella and a few slices of prosciutto, which were pressed and grilled in a skillet. A wonderful spring dinner, and one I want to remind myself about for when the time comes again next year.

Ramp_sandwich Read more

Apr 28

Baked eggs + weekend links

It’s been a bit rough around here lately – at one point I was nursing two injuries and two forms of illness, all at the same time – and along with work and school and everything else, we haven’t been cooking as much as we normally do. I did make a really fantastic pizza last week – pesto, mozzarella, kale, chicken, and artichoke hearts on a whole wheat crust – and hopefully soon I’ll be posting here about that. But really, considering the doozy of a month we have ahead of us, don’t be surprised if there’s a bit of radio silence in these parts.

To get you by, some baked eggs:

Plated-egg Read more

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