Weekend Evaluation: I heard if you don't use it, you'll lose it

I was out all day on Saturday at a cooking demonstration and a party.  On Sunday we were at the Mets game; so I didn't get make a ton of stuff.  Also we're moving soon, so I've been trying to clear out the freezer.

- Strawberry Rhubarb Tart - 
(50/50 lard/butter crust)

CSA share came with tons of rhubarb and strawberries.  I usually try to avoid this cliched combination, but I really wanted to work on making pastry crust so I decided to make this.

Positive - The crust was really flaky, and tasted good.  The filling (strawberries/rhubarb/aperol/w. wine vinegar) tasted really good.  Used up a fair amount of the rendered lard in the freezer.

Negative - Again, my problem is not making the dough it's rolling it out and blind baking.  Probably rolled the crust out too thin and there probably wasn't enough filling.

Top of the tart crust didn't look perfect, but I was just glad it didn't slip down too much and held it's shape.

- Honey Vanilla Ice Cream- 

Positive - Despite curdling my first batch of milk with the honey (which is too acidic to go into hot milk) - I salvaged some of the honey by straining off the whey and mixing the curd back into more milk.  I did lose some of the vanilla bean that was scraped in there.

Also - finished the last half-vanilla bean that was in the cupboard.

Negative - I really have to get more creative with my ice cream flavors.  Last year I made sour cream, butternut squash, buttermilk, olive oil/basil, mexican chocolate....but now its all vanilla and strawberry.

- Strawberry Whole Wheat Pancakes w/ Rhubarb maple syrup - 

Positive - Working on clearing out a lot of flours that have been hanging around.  I haven't been making bread at nearly the clip I was in the winter, and I have half a bag of white whole wheat and whole wheat that have been hanging out for a while.  This also used more of the rhubarb.

Negative - The pancakes were a little on the dry side.  The Rhubarb Maple Syrup could have been more maple flavored, but I knew that it wouldn't be, I was trying to use up some grade A syrup.

- Spinach and Mozzarella Omelet w/ leek and spring garlic confit -  

- Sauteed Spinach, green lentils w/elephant garlic and spring onion vinegrette -

Positive - Again, I'm trying to clear some things out.  Cooked the lentils in the last of  the white beef stock from the freezer and that tasted f'ng great. Used this to make onion gravy for the bangers and mash we had on Thursday; that tasted good too.

Negative - When we both are having an omelet I usually try to make one big omelet and cut it in half...I suck at this and I'm not sure why I keep trying to do it.  It just gets dry and weird.

- Blue Corn Molasses Muffins -
(some w/ Green Onion)

Positive - Continuing the theme.  Want to finish this blue corn meal.  I hate it and want it gone now; making these helped.

Negative - I have a normal ratio of ingredients I use for muffins - basically tweaked from Bittman's 'How to Cook Everything'.  Ironically I went with the ratio from 'Ratio' (Ruhlman); it's a much wetter batter.  I had all sorts of problems getting them out of the pan and tore a few; others sat in the pan for too long and got dry.  

These should have been sweeter; but adding some rhubarb jam helped both the sweetness and moisture issue.

- Beet Green, Parsley, Spring Onion Pesto -

Positive - Used the beet greens, and this tasted better than I thought it would.  I'm not sure why I buy beets after spending all winter eating them when there are so many other options.

Negative - Tasted kind of boring, I need to add salt to this.

- Lamb Sausage w/ Rhubarb parsley jam and Pesto -
- Farro Pilaf, Butter poached Peas and Breakfast Radish - 

Positive - Instead of poaching and browning the sausage (to prevent blow outs), I just gently sauteed these and there were no blow outs.  Everything actually tasted pretty good.  I was surprised when Gretchen liked the very lightly sweetened rhubarb jam more than me.

Shelling peas from the Sunnyside market (opened this week), were just Ok.

I used the confit jelly (duck) I had in the freezer in the farro and it was good; and again cleared more space in the freezer.

Negative - This dish was supposed to use mint instead of parlsey.  I think the dish makes a lot more sense with mint - but I couldn't find fresh mint.  What?  Sunnyside FM on Saturday - nothing; Jackson Heights FM on Sunday - nope; Food Dynasty - no....

I was hoping to move to a combination of Sunnyside and Jackson Heights for weekly shopping; but I think I'm going to have to return to Greenpoint to make sure I have my bases covered.  S&SO generally have a wide enough selection to guarantee that you'll get something if there's something specific you want.

- Buckwheat Sourdough Bread -

Positive - The flavor was good; nice and tart without being harsh.

Negative - Everything else.  

I messed up the timing; it was hot so the initial rise went fast. I didn't put the shaped loaf in the fridge early enough (we went to the Mets game on Sunday) and it rose then fell and didn't rise/had no oven spring. Awful.

At the demo I went to on Saturday Peter Nilsson made a carrot dish that used smoked breadcrumbs and they tasted awesome.  This is going to go in the smoker on Saturday.

DRY CURES FOR SMOKING NEXT WEEKEND

- Fennel/Coriander Bacon -

This seems like it's going to be fine.

- Blackstrap Molasses Ham -

I'm a little worried about this.  I went back and forth about whether or not this was going to be a dry or wet cure, finally decided on a dry cure but might have been day after I should have ; then I realized I may have put too much pink salt in the cure. 

I did some reading on-line, and I think it's going to be fine. Tomorrow I'm going to check it and if it seems like it's not going to be cured in time I might move it to a brine.  Grigson drops this in a few recipes (dry cure followed by brine) so I know it's do-able and will speed the curing process.

CSA Week 1

This was the first week of the CSA.  Here's what was in the share; as always it starts with a lot of greens.

- Breakfast Radish
- Japanese Salad Turnips
- Rhubarb
- Red Boston Lettuce
- Green Boston Lettuce
- Spinach
- Arugula 
- Strawberries (1 qt & 1pt)