Grilled chicken and pork for dinner with Ethiopian berbere sauce.
Toasted a combo of 14 spices until aromatic and browning. Then added red wine and cooked until a paste. After it cooled, added a dash of grapefruit juice and oil. Then smeared that over the meat.
After a couple hours of marinating I then grilled the drumsticks and ribs. A side of sautéed spinach and dinner is served.
A definitely spicy dish that stays on the lips and tongue, no doubt due to the cayenne, black pepper, red pepper flakes, and 1/2 cup of paprika.
First salad of the year featuring many items I’ve grown. A French breakfast radish, mesclun, Italian flat leaf parsley, and chives.
I sliced the radish thinly, painted it with a bit of butter and sea salt, and placed it atop a shave of pecorino Romano.
The mesclun I tossed with salt and pepper, some Chardonnay vinegar, and olive oil.
The parsley got a hit of olive oil, Chardonnay vinegar, salt, and a smattering of chopped almonds.
I also shaved some store-bought fennel, tossed it with hazelnut oil and salt and pepper, and topped it with roasted garlic, chopped almonds (I love almonds on salads), and a chive blossom.
A slice of homemade bread and butter and the meal is on the plate. A delicious, fresh meal in the heart of Spring.
Hardening off the tomatoes. First of a few evenings for this before a few days in the sunlight. Hope to plant them in the garden next weekend.
Improvised pasta dishes are one of my favorite things to cook. Tonight I started with spinach, dry cured olives, garlic, onions, bell peppers, pine nuts, tripoline lunghe pasta (any shape will do), and a tomato.
First I cooked the pasta and prepped the vegetables, cutting most in julienne strips. I sautéed the spinach until soft and set it aside. I don’t like the chalkiness its oxalic acid gives a sauce.
Next I sautéed the onions and peppers in olive oil until they started to soften. Then I added the garlic and pine nuts. Once they started to brown I added a scoop of pasta water, a key secret to a great pasta sauce.
When the pasta was done, I moved it to a serving bowl and tossed it with a touch of olive oil and a healthy dose of pecorino Romano cheese.
Back to the sauté pan, I added the olives and tomatoes and a bit more pasta water. When the tomatoes started to soften I added about a half tablespoon of butter to add smoothness and richness to the sauce. Another minute on heat and the sauce was done.
Into the serving bowl went the vegetables and sauce. Another toss with some olive oil and then to the plate with another hit of cheese and a nest of spinach.
Delicious and healthy, and since I made it up, I won’t ever eat exactly this meal again, which makes me appreciate it all the more.
Baking bread is always a therapeutic act for me, and one that also makes the house smell amazingly warm and comfortable. Perfect on a cool day.
At left above, the loaf on its second rise. On the right, the finished product.
(It’s already half gone as I write this about four hours later…)
Big pear pancake for breakfast with the lovely @copperleafst
Started with sautéing two sliced Bosc pears in olive oil. Once softened, tossed in two TBSP of brown sugar.
Meanwhile I mixed three eggs, 1/2 cup each of flour and almond milk, a tsp of turbinado sugar and pinch of salt. I poured that mixture over the pears off heat.
The whole pan the goes into a 450 degree oven for 10 mins. The pancake puffs up. Then I sprinkled a mix brown sugar and cinnamon on top, with a few dots of butter.
Ten more minutes in the oven and it’s ready. Caramelly breakfast-in-bed goodness on a chilly Sunday.
Pulled pork shoulder: started on the grill for two hours over indirect heat. Then to the oven for another 90 minutes and made the sauce (ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, brown sugar, salt and pepper, hot sauce).
Another hour of cooking would have been ideal, but I was hungry. After cooling a bit, two forks used to pull the pork apart. Addition of sauce and then piled onto slices of homemade bread.
Why I made butternut squash, I’m not sure. But the BBQ was great.
Garden update: lettuce and peas are doing well. The peas needed something to climb on, so string it is. And I found the first pea blossom of the year!
Onions are slowly greening and growing.
The seedling tomatoes are forming a gigantic jungle, and the peppers are starting to make progress. A couple weeks and out they will go.
Prepping @Bruntyfarms pork shoulder for pulled pork tonight.
Spice rub of coriander, cumin, black pepper, coarse salt, paprika, chile powder, dry mustard, and brown sugar.
Rub and dub dub the rub into the pork.
Now letting it rest for a couple hours.
The first of the two dozen Yukon Gold potatoes I planted is just starting to sprout.
There’s always a worry that when burying a lowly little potato chunk with a bit of a greening eye that it’ll never wake up. But a couple weeks in the darkness of rich dirt and this hint of growing green gives me hope that the whole team I buried will rise and be fruitful! Or vegetable-full…something like that.
It’s a time of belief and dreams of fries to come!
Coop update
