'Western Omelet'
w/ Mustard Dill Cream
I wanted to clear out the last of the non-smoky ham this weekend; so I took it out of the freezer on Thursday. I need to make some room in there for the goat shoulder I'm getting next week. I really need to buckle down on the meat thing. I've had some big cuts in there waiting to become ham and sausage since the beginning of the summer.
Positive - Finished the ham.
Negative - Eh - there was kind of a lot going on here; but didn't really taste like much, kind of a mess.
I cubed up some ham; cooked onion, peppers, and added the ham at the end just to brown it; but it didn't really brown fast enough, so it just got chewy.
Tomato Share
The CSA offered a last minute tomato share for those who didn't sign up for the regular tomato share (which I didn't), I wish I had bought the 20 pound instead of the 10 - it wasn't too hard to deal with after all.
Tomatoes have been the bright spot of the CSA, I guess they lost a fair amount of crops to drought and other issues. They lost all of the eggplant, and normally we got a ton in august; overall the size of the shares have been small, but we are getting tons of tomatoes.
Tomato Paste
Again another just dehydration project - just briefly cooked the tomatoes so they were soft enough to go through the food mill. Then spread the puree on a sheet pan and put that in a low oven until it was a paste consistency. Three and a half pounds of potatoes made about three quarters of a cup of tomato paste.
Frozen Diced Tomatoes
Basically the remaining 7 pounds of potatoes got peeled, seeded and cut into eighths. Those were put into plastic bags - which I tried to suck most of the air out of. Put them in the freezer.
Positive - Before the confit tomatoes from a few weeks back I hadn't concaseed a tomato in years. The seeds and skin have a lot of the flavor I'm not interested in losing; but here you need to get rid of water for preservation
Tomato Salt
Just a matter of dehyrating peels until you can grind them up in a coffee grinder with salt. It's really simple, I think the first time I had a dehydrated vegetable salt was at Blue Hill, where it came with the bread service. There was a parsnip or carrot salt - it seemed really impressive at the time, but then I read about it and like a lot of things was much simpler than I thought.
Positive - This time it worked - tasted okay, started losing tomato flavor right away.
Negative - I can't figure out enough to do with this - just been using it as a finishing salt; which I really don't use on much. I don't own any fleur de sel, so I don't think about using 'finishing salt'. I normally don't buy expensive ingredients like that; my technique isn't good enough to warrant it.
If I want something to taste better I should just cook it better; bullshit like finishing salt is for rising up a well executed plate - my cooking is not 'well executed'.
Corn and Squash Enchiladas -
Grilled Tomatillo Salsa, Grilled Corn w/ Tomato Salt, Oat Groats
Positive - Grilled Tomatillos, onion, garlic, and a cherry pepper for the salsa. Pureed them together. The salsa tasted pretty good,
Negative - For the filling I sauteed some onion in a pan, added paty pan squash, then some corn puree and corn stock. I baked the whole thing so it was kids of stewed; but the squash ended up a little over cooked, which is my thing this summer.
A month ago I was nailing taco making. Now I can't get a shell to stay together. They all cracked while I was assembling the casserole. Whatever.
This was a decent idea, really poorly executed. The choice of oat groats with this was weird too, I should have just gone with black beans.
Somehow I ended up with gluten free beer in my fridge - at least having a 'mexican' dinner let me make a michelada.
Grilled ham and cheese
w/ arugula, pesto, and tomato on sourdough rye
Was OK - Gotten pretty decent at making grilled cheese/panini sandwiches - continued to finish the ham.
Chocolate Pudding
Positive - Just a basic cornstarch thickened pudding; texture was fine. I wasn't crazy about the chocolate we had in the house. It was hershey's special dark, just kind of rich not a lot of roast/bitterness.
Negative - We have some really old almond extract in the house; so I decided to add some of that and some cinnamon; try to work in some mexican chocolate-type flavors. Just tasted like cheap booze.
CSA
Red and Yellow Peppers
Cherry Tomatoes
Red Tomatoes
Acorn squash
Arugula
Dill
Spaghetti Squash
No comments:
Post a Comment