Tonight, we’re having sweet corn. Good local sweet corn has been in short supply this year because of the dry weather, but a friend picked up a supply at the farmers market and passed it on to me. We’ll cook all of it, and shuck what we don’t eat tonight for a salad or wrap another day.
Category: Cook
Sausage Saturday Shopping
On my bike ride, picked up the missing ingredients for Sausage Saturday: Ukrainian sausage from Kramarczuk’s, crusty bread from Surdyk’s, and over-packaged baby kale from Lunds and Byerlys.
A Taste of Summer
This is the best time of year for local green beans. Got these beauties at the farmers market. Tonight I’ll serve some of them with classic comfort food: baked mac and cheese.
Migrating Our Digital Recipe Box
Converted our digital recipe box from Evernote to a folder of .docx recipe files in Google Drive. Evernote is changing ownership, with substantial layoffs, which makes me want to secure our recipes in a standard, open, Web-accessible format that is not dependent on a single company.
First Barbecue of 2023.
Today was our first barbecue of 2023: salmon on a cedar plank. The underside of the board burns, imparting a light, smokey flavor. Cleanup is easy.
Peanut Butter Ice Cream
Made peanut butter ice cream. For the last 5 minutes of churning I’ve just added chopped-up miniature peanut butter cups. I’m reminded by this exercise that ice cream is to be enjoyed in moderation. 2 cups of heavy cream, 1 cup of milk, 1 cup of peanut butter, way too much sugar, vanilla extract.
Bulk Cooking
Cooked for multiple meals. In the foreground: slow-baked beans, carnitas, and pan gravy. In the background: sides for this evening (polenta and steamed broccoli).
Rehabilitating Spam
Lined up the ingredients for Spam musubi, a Hawaiian take on Japanese onigiri. I’ll pretend it’s healthy: the Spam has 25% less sodium, and the brown sugar is organic. The nonstick musubi mold is convenient, but a Spam can lined with plastic wrap also does the job.
Chinese Eggplant
Cycled to an Asian supermarket. The produce section has a large selection of vegetables familiar and exotic to me. Chinese eggplant was an easy choice for dinner tonight.
Everything in its Place
My walk today took me to three food stores: Kramarczuk’s for Ukrainian sausage for Sausage Saturday, Surdyk’s deli for bread, and Lunds & Byerly’s for supermarket stuff. In Palm Springs we prepared most of our meals, but cooking in our own kitchen is always the best.