4-P: Pork, Pumpkin, Peppers, Pomodori — combine to make a tasty sauce for pasta or polenta. Or you can serve it by itself kind of like a chili. (Pomodori is Italian for tomatoes.) I totally made this up on the fly last night. Most measurements are approximate. I know you can figure it out. Looks […]
Current Reading and Rosemary-Buttermilk ...
I make extensive use of my library system. Mostly, this is because if I bought every book I wanted to read, my house would be overflowing with books and I’d be broke!
This week’s library food-related selections are:
* Farm To Fork, Emeril Lagasse
* Why Italians Love to Talk About Food, Elena Kostioukovitch
* The Art of Eating In, Cathy Erway, of Not Eating Out in New York
This wasn’t initially supposed to be a book review post, but what the heck. Quickie reviews.
…. Now, on the subject of those scones. I had buttermilk in the fridge and an intense desire to bake last night, so …
Dai Smoked Chicken
Remember how I said that Mike Mills’ book talked about techniques, and how you can apply them? Well, I did just that, using a recipe from one of Auntie Pasto’s favorite books, Beyond the Great Wall (by Alford and Duguid). Specifically, the recipe on page 252: “Dai Grilled Chicken”. Apparently, the Dai grill their chicken, […]
When life hands you tomatoes …
… make tomato jam! I have a plethora of tomatoes still from my yard. Not sure how many more I’ll get after the scorching heat over the past two days and then thunderstorms and rain today, but that’s OK. I’ve already made tomato puree and salsa and wing sauce, so, acting on my Mom’s suggestion […]
Dante’s Woods: A Birthday Menu
This past week, I had the privilege of constructing a birthday menu for my fabulous friend Jen, over at A Modern Hypatia. She’s turning 35 (happy birthday, Jen!), and wanted a party menu inspired by the Divine Comedy. Specifically, she was looking at the beginning of the Divine Comedy, in which we are introduced to […]
Food Safety 101: Handwashing
I’m in the middle of taking a ServSafe class, since my food manager’s certification has lapsed. (Test is tomorrow — wish me luck!) To that end, I thought it’d be a good idea to relay to you folks the basics that you can easily do to ensure better food safety at home. There’s a lot […]
Getting to the Root of the Problem
Uncle Pasto and I are in the process of trying to get the garden rearranged for fall and winter. This is kind of … well, it’s complicated, because neither of us are experienced with turning over the garden for a new season. So it’s all kind of an experiment. Right now, we’re still getting plenty […]
Our last CSA box
This is our last CSA box … at least until we decide we’re not getting enough veggies out of the yard. Somehow I suspect that’s going to be a while. I promptly snitched the leeks and added them to a cheese-and-vegetable pie which was our dinner last night. I got the idea from Sundays at […]
Vegetable Tart and Marinated Lettuce Sal...
Two things: One, I’m a dork and forgot to take pictures of dinner while I was making it. Sorry. Two: dinner was so good I totally forgot to take pictures of it before it was gone. Hee. Which is a long way of saying: no pictures today, sorry. But you want to try this, pictures […]
And this is why I cancelled my CSA.
From left to right: a mountain of basil, a bowl of onions, a mountain of lemon cucumbers, three zucchini and a patty pan squash, a couple of “Hottie” peppers, a fairytale eggplant, a handful of green beans, a pile of 4th of July tomatoes, a few Rainbow Blend tomatoes (one’s green and will go on […]