I made a garbage dinner last night because I didn't feel like shopping, and it turned out good enough that I think I will make it again.
So to conserve my hard drive space, so I'm going to write down what's in it here so I can look it up.
Stew beef
Lots of garlic paste, like 5 cloves
A big jalapeno, diced small
About four Roma tomatoes, also diced small
Red wine, worchestershire sauce, smoked paprika, basil, thyme, salt, and pepper
Cooked it for a pretty long time, and added a little Wondra to thicken the sauce, then served it with rice and salad with blue cheese dressing.
We went to the farmer's market today, so I am going to tell you my recipe for farmer's market dinner now.
So you get all your roasting vegetables, like this time, we have beets and endive and "fairy" eggplants, you drizzle them in olive oil, then put some salt and pepper on, and cook them all together, except you might want to put the longer cooking ones like the beets in first so everything's ready at the same time, and you roast them until they are done.
Then, you saute some greens if you have any. I have collards and beet greens from the beets. Or if you have salad greens, you have salad.
Then, you put a pile of that on a plate and fry an egg and put it on top of your roasted vegetables, and you serve it with bread and some brie or other soft cheese if you have and want some.
And then, for at least two or three days, you just eat different variations on that plus tomato sandwiches and stuff.
Farmer's market dinners are one of my favorites, and we haven't gone for a long time, so I am p. excited.
Yesterday, Mabel and I went halves on a half bushel of eggplants, but she only took like two or three pretty small ones, so I have a lot of eggplants.
So I made a big batch of my eggplant pizza sauce and made eggplant and feta pizzas for dinner.
Plus I made extra and put a bunch more of the eggplant sauce to freeze, and I roasted a bunch more eggplants for baba ganoush later (also a bunch of beets, also for later).
Guess what I'm making tomorrow, though! It is imam bayildi, stuffed eggplant.
USED SHAKSHOUKA, because we had shakshouka yesterday, and I'm going to put another can of tomatoes and some more spices into the leftovers, then add eggs.
DIRTBAG CHEATING BREAD, which is that no knead refrigerator bread I tweaked for a specific piece of tupperware.*
THE DEVIL'S COBBLER, which is apple cobbler made with apples that we stole from a neighbor's trees.
*I know I've posted this recipe here before, but I'm going to do it again because it is like the best thing.
Put four cups of warm water in a mixing bowl, add two tablespoons each of active dry yeast and salt, let it proof for ten minutes or so, until it gets a little frothy on top, then add eight and a half cups of bread flour to it and mix it just to combine. Transfer it to an 18 cup storage container, one of those big rectangular ones people decant bagged cereals into--these are just the right size and shape to fit on the top shelf of a normal American refrigerator without taking up too much real estate--then leave it to sit at room temperature for an hour or two or however long it takes for the dough to double in size. Then, close it up and put it in the refrigerator.
The next day or whenever you want a loaf of bread, heat the oven to 400 or whatever, coat your clean hands in cooking oil and pull out the amount of dough you feel like, shape it into the shape you want on a baking pan lined with parchment, cut a slit down the middle if you remember to, and bake for 40 minutes or however long it takes to be done.
Seriously, it is so nice being able to have a loaf of fresh baked bread anytime, in less than an hour. I've been keeping refrigerator bread dough pretty much all the time when it's cool enough to bake.
DISCLAIMER: We are over a mile above sea level, so you might need to make minor cooking time adjustments for lower altitudes, like I always have to with every other recipe. The differences aren't normally huge, though.
The freezer half of our fridge/freezer stopped working sometime yesterday and we only noticed today at lunch time. Everything is pretty much thawed out and we're in salvage mode right now.
Sou is making various soups from the veggies and stock bag. She's also making some fruit syrups from the berries( so many berries) we had in there.
We had a shitload of chilli peppers from a bumper crop so I'm cutting those up and getting them ready for the dehydrator.
We also have a shitload of frozen eggs from when the chickens were producing more, so we have to do something with them. We'll probably make some frittatas and then just scramble the rest and let the dogs have some. We're having trouble getting Alice to eat right now anyway and she loves some eggs.
Anyhoo, what's for dinner tonight is roast potatoes and red peppers with a lot of chicken breasts I think Alice might get some chicken tomorrow too
Our garage freezer is super old, so I've thought through this scenario before, and every solution I come up with ends with me having to get other people to come over for dinner and then take stuff home with them.
Last night was friends dinner night, and it was in the 30s(F) all day, so I made a huge HUGE batch of cabbage and meatball soup and yet another apple cobbler, but then Wildcard guy didn't show up. Wildcard guy is 20 years old and big and does manual labor, and he might eat about the same volume as three or four normal people, which is why he's the wildcard.
I did send a full tub of soup home with his mom, but we still have tons of soup and cobbler left, so tonight, we are having cabbage and meatball soup with refrigerator bread and apple cobbler. Also, maybe tomorrow, we might have cabbage and meatball soup with refrigerator bread and apple cobbler.
This is the kind of thing that set Lizzie Borden off, so pray for our immortal souls, please.
We finished it*. We ate some of it the last couple days for lunch and tea, cooked some chicken breasts and scrambled eggs for the dogs, gave some cabbage to the chickens and made:
16 portions of raspberry ice cream
22 portions of soup (carrot and coriander, broccoli and stilton, green bean)
1 jar of dehydrated blueberries
1 large jar of crushed chilli flakes (super spicy )
8 individual frittatas
5 portions of mashed swede
2 jars of blackberry syrup
2 jars of blackberry jelly
Most of that is now located in our new fridge/freezer that was delivered yesterday. Shortly after the freezer stopped chilling the fridge side went too so we decided to get a new one. Sou hated the freezer side of the old one anyway and was keen to replace it. She wanted all drawers and no shelves on the freezer side. So at least we have a shiny new one now. It's a little smaller, but fits the space pretty well still.
*Sou informs me we still have 3 packs of veggie mince, some puff pastry and some coconut milk to do something with. She has plans...
It was all good. I made a double batch of the Butter Chicken but I should have left out the second jalapeno. It was better the next day when the sauce got thicker. Reminds me a lot of a spicy turkey ala king.
This was my first attempt at Aloo Gobi. It was good but I know it wasn't right.
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The best way to make America great is to lower the standards!
I took that salsa verde I made (with the roasted chiles, some left over chicken stock from something we made and my own measly home grown tomatillos that volunteered this year) cooked some chicken in it and made chicken verde tacos. Then I made pear tarte tartin out of these odd pears I grew on an espiliared pear tree. It has 4 different types of pears grafted on it, but I usually only get one or two types per year
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Ishmaeline of Domesticity drinker of smurf tears