Lamb bacon
Monday, 8 October 2018
Lamb bacon. I didn’t know it existed. Now I know it’s tasty. Especially with sweet potato, in an appetizer/small plate at the Five & Ten (sometimes Five and Ten). Lovely, celebratory evening. Thanks, everyone.
Musings
Watching the timeline
Thursday, 27 September 2018
I remember (have I already remembered this on these pages???) my dad slicing thick slabs of ready-to-saute puffball steaks. The puffballs were at about this stage.
I looked. I thought about the culinary challenge.
I punted.
We had leftovers, and the puffball stayed in the wild.
Tomorrow? 😀 😍 😩 🤩 😜 🤭
A very good day
Wednesday, 26 September 2018
One big to-do from our 2018 list has been: get garage roof re-done. We were despairing as we talked to the roofer (second job), starting in, was it February?, and, just weren’t connecting. We talked to him yesterday, and he said, geeze, kinda late in the year for me to have a window given the weather, blah-blah, so, geeze. Then, his boss said, no work tomorrow (meaning today), so presto, we were on the possible list and very excited! Then, the morning was solid overcast and rainy and not workable roofing weather. The guys came, then went to breakfast, returning later. By the time the day was over, howEVER, we have a complete new roof, all done! Ready for winter. Yay!
Now waiting for the call-back from the siding painting guy…. [There’s always something.]
On another front, we hosted the relatives tonight. Here, I’m building chicken stacks that include sage leaves and hard salami…came out great!
And, as we enjoyed our celebratory meal: a rainbow!
Autumn harvest
Wednesday, 19 September 2018
Today was a Foley food mill day. And in autumn, that means…
…applesauce! You keep processing and squeeze the last juices out of the peels—and that yields a nice pink color not yet visible in the sauce. Tasty!—and with a minimum of added sugar.
Picking the broccoli for dinner tonight, I saw the sun had come out to highlight the blossoms. The plants are getting ready for winter!
Diary using photos
Saturday, 15 September 2018
Our cozy living room….
An artsy shot of one side of the log playhouse…sized for kids.
Veggies fresh from the neighbors’ garden, and headed for our dinner table: kale, tomatoes, maize. Yum.
Beurre blanc w/trout
Friday, 3 August 2018
Family lunch out. MMMMMmmmm. I had skinny fish. That’s not the menu description, just the way it was served. Tasty.
Oh, sweet lettuce*
Thursday, 12 July 2018
Tonight we had probably the best-quality lettuce I’ll have until next garden-season (in 2019). This is the salad I made from this lovely gift from the Hunter-Gatherer-Forager-Everything Guy Across The Way. With a lemon-garlic vinaigrette. Yum.
Already storing harvest memories from this year…. I know it’s a little early, but some seasons are like that. [Not saying “climate change,” notice!]
* Lettuce is lechuga in Spanish. Somehow, I think lechuga has a classier sound…but not by much. Yeah, I’m lame; it’s about me, folks. 😎
Basil story, NorthCountry 2018
Tuesday, 10 July 2018
With a generous daily measure of water-added, the basil in the ringfort has been productive.
Today we harvested, and the volume was good for a giant dollop of a pesto-like sauce for a big pot of dried tortellini (not to be confused with tortelli or tortelloni…for example).
However, it is so dry weather-wise that unless there’s rain after we leave, these tender plants will NOT make it, and there’ll be no later-season harvest.
Tasty menu
Saturday, 30 June 2018
Darned muggy today, and too hot to cook, really. But I had a chunk of pork shoulder that needed to be prepared—didn’t want to do the freeze/thaw dance with it, and besides we did need something for our Saturday night meal. I managed to turn it into simple-recipe stovetop BBQ without overly heating the house. Trick: I started early, and by 9am the pot was turned down to simmer, and by noon, the pot was in the fridge so I could remove (some of) the partly congealed fat before reheating it for dinner. Yum.
Food diary
Monday, 25 June 2018
Of course, first we had coffee, not shown, most of which we enjoyed sitting outdoors in this area. Then, our guest got out some fantastic black pepper bacon and cooked batch after batch on this camp stove/their camp table, meaning neither closed-in, traditional kitchen (our house, their camper) acquired a lingering bacon aroma. (Yay.) On the regular burner, she did a big skillet of scrambled eggs. And a fantastic brunch was enjoyed by all.
We independently nibbled (and sipped) through the rest of the day until we sat down to a FEAST. We brought out salads that didn’t get consumed yesterday and added new salads and miscellaneous veggie dishes. Meat courses were ribs (not shown; bought thoroughly cooked, and reheated), and my version of Irish stew (lamb, Two Hearted brewskis, potatoes, rainbow carrots, oddments—in the iron dutch oven). Pretty sure the white carrots tasted funky, kinda like slightly acrid parsnips, but no one else was bothered by them.
In short, a good-eating day, with plenty of visiting and page-turning, and the like. Near perfection—low-stress and fabulous fun all day.