Last night Jen made some whole wheat pasta with some of the sauteed bok choy from the farm along with some scallops and lemon zest. I was not fortunate enough to sample this particular dish but I am told that it came out famously.
Today I rushed home from work, my parking efforts dashed by some impromptu "No Parking" signs that were not there yesterday, with the intention of making fresh goat cheese. I had purchased lowfat goat milk in an attempt to recreate what costs $10.99 from Coach Farms. My experiment was a failure. More on that later.
For a salad, a split clementine with mixed greens, shallots, pistachios, olive oil, cayenne, olive oil, salt, and pepper.
After bringing some lowfat goat milk to a simmer, stirring in lemon juice, running out of lemon juice, stirring in apple cider vinegar, stirring in more apple cider vinegar, the curds were not separating from the milk. So eventually I decided that this was just not going to work and abandoned the project. I figured it was $3.69 down the drain.
Simultaneously I was making a corn and crab bisque with some of the frozen corn from the farm share this summer. I used a little of the turkey stock, some cayenne pepper, salt, Old Bay, onion, and turkey bacon. Then, instead of using the milk in the fridge I opted to use the failed goat cheese experiment. The result was actually pretty good. The lemon and apple cider vinegar made for an interesting flavor and I would strongly consider using goat milk again in a cream soup in the future.
For the main course I marinated some thin-cut boneless pork chops in German mustard, horseradish, spices, salt, pepper, cider vinegar, olive oil, salt, and pepper. Then I seared them in a pan that I was already using to make my pan-roasted brussel sprouts with turkey bacon, and shallots.
It's a little humorous to use turkey bacon to accompany a dish with pork in it but turkey bacon was all we had in the freezer so I was eager to use it up.
There is no better wine I can think of than my favorite label: Smoking Loon. While I prefer the Syrah to the Merlot, it still features a newly packaged version of a loon puffing away on a cigar. For that I am truly grateful.
For dessert we had some of the chestnut ice cream with some melted chocolate, chopped walnuts (which generally I hate, but thought would go nicely with this ice cream), and whipped cream.
Overall it was a pretty good dinner (Jen declared it a triumph). Jen is working late tonight so my original plan to stretch all of these ingredients into two dinners was scrapped and I crammed everything into this evening.
Only a little lingering turnip (and a whole lot more corn in the freezer) remain from the farm. We'll see how I polish these off later in the week. I think it's going to require a great deal of supplemental ingredients from the grocery store. Perhaps the only farm items I may use will end up being the garlic that we still have in the crisper.
As having this farm share has rekindled my joy of cooking and creating new recipes I have also discovered another culinary fact about myself: I hate making my lunch for work. After all of this I feel completely relaxed and not like I expended any sort of energy at all. However, the thought of slapping two slices of turkey between some bread then putting them in a plastic bag makes me want to cry out of frustration.
Sadly those slices of turkey aren't going to jump into a sandwich all by themselves.
But wouldn't it be great if they did!
3 comments:
You don't just eat Whole Foods salad bar for lunch? Do they not let you or do you just get sick of the Whole Foods salad bar?
I offered to make Nate's sandwiches for him, but he declined. It's like it causes him pain just to know the sandwiches have to be made, no matter who makes them.
I would also eat at the salad bar, but Nate loves a sandwich. A lot.
The thing about the salad bar is it would cost me $6-7 for lunch. A sandwich is probably about $1.50 or less.
It's a financial decision. Also, I would get sick of the salad bar but strangely never get sick of a plain turkey sandwich.
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