The Record

In 1988, my family rented a house on Capitol Island in Maine, just outside of Boothbay Harbor. It was a lovely setting in a house that reeked of three floors of mildew. My mother kept a pot of orange peels, cinnamon sticks, and cloves simmering for two weeks.

Last night, we hosted a Dungeons & Dragons game. Food delivery wasn't available because it was New Year's Day, so I made a chili, cornbread, and rice. Tortilla chips were offered on the side. Crockpot with the chili was on the stove, next to a small saucepan with a Maine-style concoction.

My dear, beloved man, the Dungeon Master, served himself a bowl of chili with a healthy helping of potpourri on top of it.

I took a side glance at his bowl and thought "gosh, those tortilla chips sure puffed up." I took a second glance. And a third. Then my body curled in on itself in revulsion when I realized what he'd done. I'd even brushed a tiny bit of mold off of this particular orange, before I peeled it.

He'd gamely eaten one cinnamon-laden orange peel and accepted that parts of the meal must simply taste awful.

Alrighty, made up the next batch: a blueberry-cherry combination. They are popping now. Nine half-pints made today.

Top shelf: blueberry-cherry and one pint jar of strawberry preserves

I'm not happy with the flavor of the blueberry-cherry. I mean: it's fine. But it needs more complexity. I did not want to mess with the recipe the first time around, but I realized quickly that it needed a more balanced flavor profile. I could add some vanilla to the recipe, but then it might taste very nearly the same as the cherry vanilla preserves and I'm looking for something different. So my thought is to add some balsamic vinegar to it, to add a slightly spicy/sweet flavoring. It is not a ratio problem. I just expect more from my flavors. Hmm. I'll have to think about it and comb through blueberry recipes. I suspect this is the problem I have with -all- blueberry preserves that aren't made out of the tiny Maine wild blueberries.

Second shelf: sweet cherry vanilla preserves (left-side jars have cherries that are finely chopped; right-side jars have cherries that were only partially crushed)


I made the strawberry with ashacat on Thursday; everything else I made today.

Alrighty! I'm still in cooking mode (thankfully), so I decided to make another soup/stew today. This turned out to be a very thick stew, on the way to stew-that-holds-its-shape. It's all good - it was fantastic. Funds are still super-tight (but that's okay - it's for a very good reason: the new caregiver is outstanding).

I'm really not a "rice and beans" person - but lentils? Oh yeah!! So I've turned some cheapo vegetables into another dish that rocks.

Last night I was wide awake about 1am again. So I turned on some cooking videos via the "Harvest Eating" channel on my Roku. I watched the guy, Chef Keith Snow, take his basic mirepoix and pulse it to tiny bits in the food processor before he made the stew. I liked this. I'm all for chunky rustic stews, but sometimes I want something different and not all of those bites o' carrot, you know?

I had some frozen kale, some carrots, some celery. I forgot to get an onion at the store. I washed up two carrots & three stalks of celery. Did not peel the carrots. Cut them into chunks and added them to my tiny food processor. I added a cup of kale. Pulsed. Pulsed. Pulsed. Pulsed to bits.

I had a sauté pan going with the last few drops of olive oil and a pat of butter to make up the difference. I put a heaping spoonful of minced garlic in there to warm up. Then I put the vegetable bits into the pan and pushed that around a while. The burner is dying so I had it on high which is somewhat a medium-high for the pan.

Then I added a can of vegetable broth. (14.5oz). I added a second can. Let them come up to a simmer. I added what was probably two tablespoons of dried oregano, plus some salt and pepper.



I then added a cup of red lentils. Red lentils cook UBERfast and turn yellow-orange when they are done - more pale than the carrots. Go figure.



Maybe 15-20 minutes later, if that, it was done. I then diced up a smoked sausage and added that. I was able to get two smoked sausage packages for $5 at the store, so I will use one for another stew.

And I just had a bowl and it's fantastic. And mildly healthy, too. And because I minced up the veggies, it's totally different in texture from the daal that I made earlier this week. (Not to mention the flavor's completely different.) And, inexpensive.

So. I offered to make something for the Religious Education brunch at UUS:E tomorrow. Glad to be able to contribute in a way that I like: cooking! The brunch has foods cooked from the garden for which the kids were chiefly responsible. I took home tomatoes and basil and garlic.

I decided to roast the tomatoes first. There are yellow and red tomatoes and cherry tomatoes. All I know about them is that they're organic.

So, here they are, cut up and tossed in olive oil and about 1 tbsp of balsamic syrup and some basil, oregano and thyme.

My friends Robyn and Gina are coming over at 5pm.

Tonight's dinner menu:

Homemade chicken parmigiana using a tomato sauce seasoned with fresh local basil. Mashed potatoes seasoned with a hint of garlic. Local zucchini cut into sticks and baked with parmesan.

Dessert is a fresh spice cake topped with local Gala apples baked in a mixture of maple syrup and crumbled molasses cookies, served with a side of fresh local apple cider.

I do not have small glasses and I refused to buy them at the grocery store. I would prefer a small eclectic collection of drinking glasses, but I am still good with going to Target and picking up a pack of four. Yeah, I might do that.

Need to figure out how to turn off the flash on my camera.

In any case, I haven't made this in ages and I was craving it. So, instead of chili, today I'm making Scalloped Potatoes au Gratin. Yesterday I retrieved my Le Creuset buffet pan from the basement in South Glastonbury and forgot it there. I picked it this morning.

Pictures!

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It's currently baking in the oven.

Well, matociquala posted pictures about making chili yesterday, so I decided to go ahead and make some today. This is my first attempt at making chili, other than from a packet of Cincinnati chili spices!

I'm also going to attempt to image source links from PicasaWeb. We'll see if that works...

( cut for lotsa pictures )



And voila!

Oh my FSM that's good. Wow. Spicy but not so spicy that I can't eat it. Lots of flavor.

I think I'm going to treat this like Cinci chili and make some pasta for it. Then, layer the chili over the pasta, and a ton of shredded cheddar over that. I think my baby ulcer is going to object.