New Ingredient; New Appliance

Tomatillo Salsa - pg. 232

Randy and I have just given up on our Cuisinart combination blender and food processor. It's a lousy appliance and is going to the thrift shop, instruction booklet and all. We decided that what we really need is a pretty basic blender, one that actually works well and isn't too much of a pain to clean. Internet research revealed that an awful lot of buyers are loving their Kitchen Aide hand-held blenders, so last night we found one at the local Target and brought it home. (I don't want or need a food processor; I enjoy whacking stuff up with a big, sharp knife.)

A new appliance needs a new ingredient, don't you think? How about tomatillos? I've had tomatillo salsa at Mexican restaurants, but haven't ever cooked with them myself. Alice describes a basic tomatillo salsa: tomatillos, jalapenos, cilantro, garlic and a little salt. Alice recommends a variation that adds a mashed avocado, so I threw one of those in, too. All blended with the new appliance. What a great job it did! Wow! I didn't have to turn the setting up any higher than "1" (it goes from 1 to 9) to blend perfectly in just a few seconds. And I actually had good control over what was going on.

It splashed a little bit, but the minor resulting mess was much, much less than the mess I usually make cleaning the damned blender. The new appliance was extremely easy and fast to clean. The thing I've always hated about traditional blenders is cleaning them. Taking all the pieces apart, washing them, drying them, putting them all back together again. Aargh. Takes twenty times longer than the actual blending. Well, those days are OVER. I'm in love with the hand-held.

So we had tomatillo salsa over Trader Joe's enchiladas (which were disappointing), and on flour tortillas (which were good). Looking forward to tomatillo salsa over chicken, fish, oven-roasted veggies, on corn chips. Maybe it's even time for more quesadillas and nachos. All easy-to-fix stuff that's my idea of good early summer food.

Otherwise? Sewing like a maniac to finish Scott's quilt for his sister. And I've just survived 2.5 days of having a builder here working on the eternal list of "little things" that need adjusting and fixing and touching-up. These guys are wonderful, but I find their presence in my house, when it goes on for days at a time, to be seriously disruptive. Pisses me off. On the other hand, our viga ceilings are looking really spiff now after their year of shrinking since installation. And you wonder why I need chocolate....

72 down; 233 to go

Salad for Dinner

Rocket Salad with Parmesan - pg. 237

Alice loves rocket. In these parts we call it arugula, so I'm not sure how she comes to call it rocket, living as she does only 4 hours drive from here. At farmers market Randy and I nearly always buy the "spicy mix" of lettuce for salads since we love stuff like arugula and spicy mustard greens.

Last week Randy had a bug to make arugula "pesto" which was really good. So, we bought a lot of just plain arugula, enough for his "pesto" and for me to make this salad. Just arugula with a basic vinaigrette, topped with shaved curls of parmesan and toasted walnuts. Okay, I just basically heated the walnuts in my omelette pan on the cook top. What I didn't know before this was the thing about using a vegetable peeler to cut curls of parmesan. Boy, was that slick! Way easier than grating hard cheese.

Saw two movies this weekend: Ironman 2 and Toy Story 3. The first didn't have the sass of the original, but the Toy Story franchise has just gotten better with every installment. As a dedicated Barbie lover and collector, I especially enjoyed the Barbie and Ken subplot in Toy Story 3. Yes, I saw it in 3D. Love 3D. And, I finished John Pipkin's "Woodsburner," part of my library adult summer reading program. "Woodsburner" is historical fiction, based on a fire accidentally set by Thoreau the summer before he went to Walden Pond. The fire nearly destroyed the town of Concord.

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Getting Sauced

Bagna Cauda - pg. 230

This is pretty cool stuff, although served warm. Butter, olive oil, thinly sliced garlic, lemon zest, a pinch of salt, and (wait for it...) 10 anchovy fillets carefully stripped from 5 salt-packed anchovies. Alice must really like playing with her food. Although, pain as it is to fillet those salt-packed anchovies, I read somewhere today that they are bigger and something elser (I can't remember what) than the canned ones. (Is bigger really better?)

Bagna cauda is Piedmontese for warm bath. The warm bath is the olive oil/butter that all the other stuff is in. You use it as a dip, in the traditional manner, but we used it as a sauce over wild Alaskan sockeye salmon fillets and oven roasted veggies (potatoes, carrots, red onions, and green beans all cut into pieces about the same size and tossed with a bit of olive oil and salt).

This fish and veggies thing is my current favorite dinner. Put everything on parchment lined baking sheets and stick the whole thing in the oven. The veggies for 15 minutes, then add the fish for another 10-15 minutes, all at 400 degrees. Season and sauce as you wish. Clean up is a breeze. Well, it would be anyway since Randy cleans up when I cook....

Otherwise, I'm enjoying our new kitten, Stuart, who was a gift to my husband for his 60th birthday last week. I want Stuart to be a traveling cat, so we did some errands today and voted in our special election. Currently reading "Woodsburner" by John Pipkin as part of my summer adult library reading program. And spending too much time of Facebook.

70 down; 235 to go

Peach Salsa

Peach Salsa - pg. 231

I know, I know. You can buy the stuff at Trader Joe's. But, I made some. There will be variations in the future. We ate a whole bowl of the stuff tonight on quesadillas. It will be better when I can get better peaches. I still have lots of red onion, jalapenos and cilantro to make tons more. And there is something to be said for fresh, fresh, fresh salsa.

69 down; 236 to go

Getting Back Into the Groove

I'm finally getting back into the groove after bugs and travel. The library now is totally organized, which is a good thing. It's such a pleasant room -- I really enjoy hanging out there. The books are optimally arranged. All the art that needs to be placed and hung is in the little closet so I can take things out and place them, one by one. Our cross and sun collection is hung in the dining area on the big arched wall so that there is plenty of room for the collection to grow. I've order museum putty for pots and baskets and such. I must be a nester, maybe a bird, in some part of me. I feel SO much happier and more productive when my environment is in order.

I really enjoyed our time in Concord last week. I got a whole new view of US history. E.g., what part of "well-ordered militia" don't the gun nuts understand? And, if early Concordians are typical examples, citizens have never trusted their governments and have always hated taxes no matter who was running the show! Of course, they've always wanted what taxes pay for, they've just not wanted to pay for it. They resented having to actually pay for the Revolutionary War almost as much as they resented that tax on tea.... And, I have a renewed interesting in the literature that grew out of Concord, especially since I realized that one of my favorite "shot heard 'round the world" figures, Rev. William Emerson, was the grandfather of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Connections. It's all about connections.

This morning I'm just catching up with assorted paper pushing and bill paying. Not my favorite thing to do, but part of straightening up my nest nonetheless.

Oh yes. Last night for dinner I made a pasta dish with leftover Simple Tomato Sauce and Trader Joe's spinach-chive linguine. A few bacon pieces scattered on top with chopped parsley and parmesan. Oven-roasted cauliflower, which I absolutely love. A Romaine salad dressed with the leftover honey-mustard sauce from last night's dinner. Nothing new, but nearly all stuff I've learned from TAOSF.

What I've Just Read

Montana 1948 by Larry Watson. A short novel about a family caught in a moral dilemma. Which is more important, family loyalty or doing the right thing? The first would be easy. The second is hard and life-changing for everyone involved. Well written. Spare. Reminded me of Annie Proulx whose work I love. A good book. Not a great book, but a good book. I read this for my new book club.

The Minutemen and Their World by Robert A. Gross. Winner of the Bancroft Prize in 1977 (google it). Read at Mount Holyoke right before a visit to Concord. Using the research methods of social history, Gross writes an engaging and illuminating story of the lives of ordinary Concordians before, during and immediately after the "shot heard 'round the world" at the North Bridge (the first Patriot shots in the Revolutionary War). Gave me a whole new perspective on a lot of contemporary social and political issues. My favorite Concordian was Rev. William Emerson who is the grandfather of Ralph Waldo Emerson, which leads us into the great literary history of Concord: Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne and the Alcotts. I loved this book. No soap opera is as good as real life.

Woman of Valor: Margaret Sanger and the Birth Control Movement in America by Ellen Chesler. An exhaustive and exhausting bio read on the 50th anniversary of The Pill. Not always an easy read unless you really want tons of detail, but certainly illuminates the life and personality of Sanger. I now very much admire Margaret for her tireless and politically savey fight for the most basic of human rights, the right to control one's own reproductive life. We all owe her a lot.

My Mother Was Wrong About Cauliflower

Roasted Sliced Cauliflower - pg. 299

Oh hell, let's be honest. My mother was wrong about a lot of things; cauliflower was just one of them. She wasn't much of a cook. Then again, she wasn't much of a mother, either. But, I digress. Last night I oven-roasted sliced cauliflower, served with a sprinkling of bread crumbs and chopped parsley. Oh my! Delicious! As long as the oven was on, I roasted the last few asparagus spears still lurking in the frig. And some sweet Italian chicken sausages from Trader Joe's which were mighty tasty with a little mustard smeared on them. Randy made a Romaine salad.

Otherwise, as long as nothing is totally screwed up in my life right now (how unusual is THAT!?), I'm just moving forward with my ever-so-long list of stuff that needs to be done. I like working on that list. Makes me actually believe that I'm accomplishing something. Still, having been around the sun a few times, I'm always waiting for the other shoe to drop. When life is good, I never forget that "this, too, shall pass." Cheery thought, no?

68 recipes completed; 237 to go