For the love of Produce...

I'm really not sure this belongs here even though there's plenty of vegetables. And again, no images because my phone looks like someone hit it with a four-pound hammer. Well, lightly. It's in one piece, but both sides of the glass look like weird spider webs. My apologies if it's not "produce heavy" enough for this discussion. Please let me know.

I was thinking about just heating up a box of soup for supper. The "best if used by" date has just passed. It will be totally fine for months, but I've been saving it because it's tasty, and is a good thing to have if I'm sick. I'm not even sure if they make it anymore.

But then I remembered I had a half an onion in the fridge left over from the fried-rice style leftover quinoa I made the other day. Yeah, those leftovers drive the bus I guess.

I usually keep a bag of mixed seafood in the freezer from Trader Joe's. It's shrimp, squid, and scallops. It's pretty good, and easy to use. It needs to be defrosted before use. I usually open the bag, weigh half out, reseal the bag in the vacuum sealer, and leave out a container to defrost. Next time I need it, I just pull out the half bag. I pulled out a half bag yesterday. It was not quite fully defrosted, but good enough to drain the liquid and use. So earlier today I put it in a container and added powdered ginger, powdered garlic, chipotle powder, some toasted sesame oil, and some soy sauce. I stuck it back in the refrigerator for a few hours.

Was I going to make this with rice, pasta, or quinoa? I decided brown basmati rice. I put it on the stove with some vegetable broth. I made two servings (a half cup dry, and yes I measured with a cup instead of my scale).

While it cooked, I sliced the half onion, three celery ribs a few mushrooms, and a bunch of garlic. I sat down for ten minutes to rest since I'm still healing, and the rice was going to cook for a while. At some point, I lightly smashed a few roasted hazelnuts, and took out some Italian parsley.

Onions cooked five minutes until soft and just starting to brown over medium heat, then celery went in for a few. Mushrooms followed. Rice was just a few minutes from done. Perfect. When all the veggies were just about cooked, I tossed in the garlic briefly until I could smell it, then put in all the seafood. That cooked several minutes until it was fully cooked. Doesn't take long. A splash of Amontillado sherry went in and I let that simmer a bit to cook down. As it was cooking down, I sprinkled just a wee bit of whole wheat flour on top and stirred it in. Right before it was done, I added the hazelnuts. It still needed just a touch of Maldon salt, so that went in.

I put about half the rice in a bowl, put half the veggies and seafood on top, and garnished liberally with lots of coarsely chopped parsley.

There was no recipe for this dish. The nuts were an idea that came along while I was cooking. The parsley was only added because I still had some left from another dish. In reality, this would have easily fed two people. I had room in my daily calorie allotment, and since my body is healing it needs more calories. I have been under on my calories the last few days, so I decided not to leave myself some leftovers. I had the second serving, but saved just a little rice to eat plain because I sure love rice. Oh. Yeah. I ate that too.

I still have room in my diary for an ounce of blue cheese when it's time to take my next pill, so it worked out perfect.

Onions, celery, mushrooms, garlic, and parsley. Those are all produce. One might argue the Oregon-grown hazelnuts are too. Rice? Probably not, but I could see it wearing an honorary produce badge since it came from a plant. So, is that appropriate to post here? I hope so, because I just did.

As a bonus, it wasn't just beige! And sorry for no pictures. Your imagination will serve you well for that.

Happy New Year!

The rest of the tradition:



I think I ate seven pieces of cornbread. That's lucky too, right?

Each corn stick pan has seven sticks. The triangle pan has seven triangles. Is this coincidence? I was able to fit all the leftover cornbread into one half-gallon Nancy's yogurt container except one lone triangle. That is moot now. I found a place to put it. You can guess where....

I had just a little bit left of the black-eyed peas, so I hit the pan with my immersion blender so tomorrow I'll have one serving of black-eyed pea soup. With cornbread of course.

Happiest new year.

I week or three ago, I saw a recipe on a TV show for Croatian Mashed Potatoes. They looked so good I decided I'd make some. I kept planning to and putting it off until today. I had all the ingredients all along, I just kept making other things. Even other kinds of potatoes. They were quite tasty, and I got to share with a friend.

I had bought some GIANT Yukon Gold potatoes a couple weeks ago. One was a pound and a half (646 grams). Huge. The recipe called for two pounds, but I had what I had.

Start by finely chopping an onion, then cooking in a little oil and a little salt in a Dutch Oven low and slow about 20 minutes until they caramelize. I used a lot less oil than the recipe called for because... well, you know. The recipe didn't have garlic, but that's just NUTS, so I chopped five cloves and put them in the last two or four minutes that the onions cooked, just to take the heat off of them.

Meanwhile, I sliced the Yukon Gold Giant into quarter-inch slices and rinsed them in cold water and let them drain.

When the onions were done, I took them out of the Dutch and set them aside and added the potatoes. I added just a little water - about 3/4 cup - then brought to a boil, reduced heat, covered, and let steam about 20 minutes until soft. There was still liquid, so I took the lid off and cooked most of that off. I added butter, but not as much as the recipe called for. I could have used even less, but they were tasty. I stirred in the butter to melt and start breaking up the potatoes. Then I added back the onions and garlic to which I'd added a bunch of paprika and black pepper and some salt. I mixed that in, and that's all there was to it.

I've never had mashed potatoes quite like this. I will make them again. They were really easy and just a few ingredients, but it does take some time for the two cooking processes. Worth it? Yup. My friend agreed.

Then my friend left me a big bag of fresh beets, some rutabaga, a bunch of collard greens, some arugula, salad mix, and spinach. She is in a CSA and can't eat all the produce. She gives me some, and she still gets to eat some of what I cook. She also left some halloumi from a local cheesemaker. She said it will last a few weeks, so no rush to use it. I have some other cheese I need to get to first, and now I have SO MUCH produce that I refuse to let go bad. I wonder what I'll cook first. Beets or rutabaga I think. Maybe salad for lunch tomorrow, although I also need to finish my garbanzo salad (last serving is in the fridge). I also started soaking more beans, so... please come help me eat.