dreamshark

My favorite Costco item, which tragically disappeared from their shelves 2 or 3 years ago. Hallelujah!

It was a perfect early fall morning, 68 degrees, blue sky with puffy white clouds. I biked down to the Farmers Market at King Park (1/4 mile away), picked up 3 ears of corn, heaping baskets of little heirloom tomatoes and multi-colored peppers, half a basket of baby cucumbers, and one giant zucchini. Flirted a little with my favorite busker, who not only plays astonishingly good slide guitar but has the wit to learn to recognize his regular fans and greet them with a smile. What a cutie. That's how you get the tips.
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When I got home the new blade for my blender had arrived so I could make gazpacho with all those fresh vegetables. There was also a new smoothie cup for the blender that I couldn't resist ordering when I ordered the replacement blades, so I made a strawberry banana smoothie while I was at it.
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Had a quick video chat with Amber and the kids. Lena (as expected) had a great first week in 2nd grade, the boys were not too cantankerous, and I was relieved to hear that Amber's post-COVID brain fog episodes have finally ceased. But she is still having more frequent migraines and is a little overwhelmed with her school job starting up. So she was looking forward to the weekly visit from Laura (mother's helper/auxiliary grandma) so she could have a little time to herself. Laura showed up and we all chatted, then rang off so Amber could get her alone time.
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My new comic-geek friend came over to look through Richard's collection for treasures. We sorted out a full box of comics that he wanted to buy, graded and priced them. Gratifyingly, he wanted quite a few of the duplicates I had laboriously sorted out over the past week or so (which is nice, because Richard doesn't mind parting with duplicates) as well as a bunch more that Richard is slowly considering letting go of. Those are simmering to give Richard time to reread them and me time to look through them for key issues. We all took a gazpacho break (it came out great!) and chatted for a while. Then comic-geek and I finalized the first stage of the negotiations and he left with the first dozen or so comics, for which he paid me $1500! Holy cow! I guess it's not entirely surprising that the first appearance of Bat-Girl is worth some money, but I didn't think it would be THAT valuable. And I never would have guessed that Hawkman #4 was worth that much. First appearance of "Zatanna" (whoever that is). Seriously?
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Then Richard cooked the corn and whipped up a chicken salad for a nice little supper. I sat down to unwind with a little Candy Crush and was pleased to see that the Events pane was back after a hiatus of 2 or 3 days.
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And I had an inspiration for how to spend that comics windfall. Amber pays Laura to watch the kids, although Laura loves them and would probably do it for free if she wasn't living on a fixed income. Amber would have her over more often but can't really afford it. And the kids love Laura. So I called up Amber and offered up the comic money to pay for additional Laura time for the next 6 months. Win win win! Help out my daughter, my grandkids, and a nice old lady all at once. Much more satisfying than just dropping the money into the checking account and paying bills with it.

There are so many substantive things I could post about. The Jan 6 hearings, neighborhood news, AFib update, nature pictures, what I'm reading, etc etc. So I thought I'd post a picture of my dinner.

We went to Costco and found everything except the one long-shot item that we were looking for (apparently they are no longer carrying those great fireworks sampler packs we bought last year). So for consolation I bought a box of delicious tomato-arugula-mozarella ravioli and served it with leftover stir-fry. Damn, was that good! So if you're at Costco and you'd like a quick gourmet treatment for last night's leftovers, check out the ravioli aisle, back near the meat. chef's kiss

Back in the 70's and 80's, when I lived near Seward Coop, we ate a lot of brown rice. But sometimes you don't feel like waiting for 45 minutes for the brown rice to cook, and that's where millet comes in. It cooks in less than half the time, and does pretty much anything brown rice can do but with less gravitas. Millet is so sunny and fluffy and happy that it hardly even feels like a Healthy Whole Grain. Anyway, when we moved to the west side of town we moved a couple of jars of it with us, and then kind of forgot about it. Anyway, I can't remember the last time I cooked millet, but there it was on the shelf with the rice and beans, just taking up space. There is even a jar of what appears to be RED millet, although I have no idea why I bought that. Probably because it just looked so pretty in the tall clear containers at the coop.

It had been there so long, I was in favor of throwing it out or feeding it to the birds, but Richard protested at the idea of wasting food, even decades old food. I sniffed it and it smelled fine - none of that musty smell you get with rancid oils. So I threw a cup of it into the Instant Pot with 1-3/4 cup water, cooked it for 10 minutes, and voila!

Not having a stir fry to serve it with, I tarted it up with butter and ground nuts and a little bit of syrup and had Breakfast for Lunch. OMG, I had forgotten how great millet is! Maybe I'll try the red millet next.

I admit it, I am an unapologetic fan of all things pumpkin spice. The pumpkin spice pumpkin seeds are especially delicious. So is the hummus, in a "licking the spoon while making pumpkin pie" kind of way. Unlike a lot of pumpkin spice products, those two contain actual pumpkin materials.

Crossposts: https://dreamshark.livejournal.com/576570.html

For the first time maybe EVER I actually heard about an Internet bandwagon in time to jump on it before it rattled past and disappeared into obscurity. This is the fantastically easy and elegant Finnish Baked Feta Pasta dish just out of the oven and sprinkled with basil. It's just as good as it looks. Super easy to make, but you do have to shop for it unless you just happen to have a block of feta cheese, 2 pints of cherry tomatoes, and a packet of fresh basil lying around.

Crossposts: https://dreamshark.livejournal.com/554403.html

I finally remembered to take a picture of a jar of alfalfa sprouts before decanting for a couple of folks who expressed a desire to know more. This is one Tablespoon of alfalfa seeds after 4 days. The first time I used 2 Tbsp and could barely get them out of the jar. One is plenty.

Crossposts: https://dreamshark.livejournal.com/536039.html

Being too lazy, too impatient, and too dirt-averse for gardening, I decided to tackle a simpler form of growing my own food. Besides, I was at the coop for the first time in a long time and there were the alfalfa seeds. We used to grow sprouts back in the days when we were so poor we were gathering windfall apples and making our own tofu, but it's been such a long time that I had to look up how to do it online. I'd forgotten how easy this is! The hardest part was finding a canning lid and a piece of screen for the jar top. Once you get past that hurdle, you just soak the seeds overnight, drain them, and then rinse them 2 or 3 times a day until they turn into this. Voila! Instant vegetables!

But whoever wrote the instructions suggesting 2 tablespoons of alfalfa seeds must REALLY love sprouts. Cause 2 tablespoons expands into about 2 quarts of sprouts once you dig them out of the jar and give them room to breathe. And I don't think these are even full grown yet, but I was afraid the jar would explode if I didn't get them out of there.

Crossposts: https://dreamshark.livejournal.com/533765.html

Cub Foods (at least the one on south Nicollet) has split chickens on sale. It turns out that this is the perfect cut of chicken for cooking in an Instant Pot with baby potatoes and carrots. The secret to Instant Pot cookery is balancing the ingredients so that they all get cooked thoroughly but none of them turn into mush. The other secret is to have enough fat in the pot so that everything is bursting with flavor instead of tasting like washed out steam table fare. This is that perfect combo.

It looks very much like my usual chicken stew made with boneless chicken thighs, but it's SO MUCH BETTER with a whole chicken. The meat is moist and tender and falling off the bones. The potatoes are soft without being mushy and totally infused with rich chicken broth.

Oh, right, the recipe. It's pretty much what it looks like: two half-chickens, 2 cups of water, a couple of onions, and a mess of baby potatoes and baby carrots. I used little potatoes from the Farmers Market, but you can buy them at the grocery store. You want the smallest ones. The only secret ingredient was Coffee and Garlic Grill Rub from Trader Joe's. I would think that any grill rub would work, or just make your own with salt and pepper and paprika and garlic powder. If I had been a little more organized I would have rubbed the chicken a couple of hours in advance and let it sit in the fridge, but I did it at the last minute and it was fine. I browned the spiced chicken pieces first. Then took the chicken out, poured in the water and the vegetables, and layered the chicken on top. It was a very full pot. Cook on high pressure for 30 minutes, Natural Release.

It makes 6-8 servings, depending on how hungry you are. And as a bonus you end up with enough incredibly rich chicken broth for a pot of your favorite soup the next day To gild the lily, I scooped out the vegetables with a slotted spoon and threw the bones back in the broth with some vegetable trimmings to simmer into even better broth.

Crossposts: https://dreamshark.livejournal.com/529528.html

Since everybody is showing off their CSA offerings, I'm countering with my weekly purchases at the tiny Kingfield Farmers' Market. I also bought some more basil, but forgot to include it in the picture. I think this is $10 worth of food. Maybe $12 with the basil. The corn was spectacular. It's from that guy down in Shakopee who has the sweetest sweet corn. The most self-indulgent purchase is the tiny garlics ($5/bunch). I've started throwing the entire bud into my Instant Pot stews. I call it "Garlic Surprise."

Crossposts: https://dreamshark.livejournal.com/525520.html

Went to Kingfield Farmers Market this morning, bought a few things, and then managed to include all of them in tonight's supper:

Half a dozen little summer squash
Green onions
Garlic scapes (which I bought just because they were so pretty)
Fresh basil

There were also mushrooms, and spinach and cherry tomatoes (dumped in at the last minute). But the secret ingredient that made it delicious was 2 or 3 slices of bacon. I served it with cottage cheese and handfuls of those little round soy crackers. A really fine summer supper.

Then, because that was just way too healthful for a day like today, I followed it up with a neapolitan ice cream sandwich. Yum.

You know how when someone in your family eats up all but the last half spoonful of something and then closes up the container and puts it back in the fridge? So you say to yourself, "Oh I guess I don't need to buy yogurt because there are 3 containers of yogurt in there already." Or, "Hey, I think I'll make lemon basil chicken tonight with that big bunch of basil I bought at the Farmers Market last Sunday?" And the next thing you know you are making lime chive chicken because there's only 3 leaves of basil and 1/4 teaspoon of lemon juice in the fridge?

Yeah, that. I hate that.

At the Kingfield market on Sunday volunteers were handing out a green flyer humbly begging for support for the organization that runs these little neighborhood farmers markets: Neighborhood Roots. It's a volunteer run group that operates the Kingfield, Fulton and Nokomis Markets.

To make a long story interminable (as this flyer does, I'm afraid) they would really like it if you would go to their website and toss a little money their way. Because they are a harried volunteer organization they managed to spell the name of their own website wrong in the flyer, but I have given you the correct one. They take Paypal and don't insist on a phone number. Even if you don't shop at one of these, if you're feeling charitable towards neighborhood groups and small farmers, you might be moved to donate.

Again, the actual URL for donation is:
http://neighborhoodrootsmn.org/

Thanks to

pameladean for the suggestion of mint chutney for using Farmers Market bounty. I found several recipes for mint/coriander chutney and made that. Was that what you meant, Pamela, or do you have a recipe using just mint? I had bought both coriander and mint in great quantity, so this seemed like a natural. But I'm not really a great coriander fan, and it's a little pungent for my tastes. Richard and Thorin are both more enthusiastic about coriander than I am, so I have encouraged them to eat it up. It was a tasty accompaniment to some rather bland roasted vegetables, but by the time I had finished the plate I had had quite enough coriander for a while.

minnehaha , I keep meaning to mention that I finally took up your recommendation for Green Bags to keep produce longer in the fridge, and am now ready to endorse! Specifically, they work miraculously for salad greens and spinach and similar foods, extending their lives from 3 days to as long as a couple of weeks. They also seem to have some effect on crucifers like broccoli, but not as dramatic. They do not help one single bit with strawberries. I think that's what I tried them on when you gave me a bag to try long ago, which is why I wasn't impressed. I tried berries again with the new bags, and *meh*. But they work miracles on the salad. So thanks for the tip. And everybody else who is trying to extend their time between shopping trips, pay attention to

minnehaha on this!

Instant Pot continues to make amazingly easy and delicious pea soup. It's my favorite way to use up large batches of good chicken or vegetable broth, plus anything else in your vegetable drawer that needs to be cooked up. It is the world's most forgiving soup (provided you put in enough liquid so that it doesn't burn).

Anyway, the Kingfield one is. Inspired by

lydamorehouse 's CSA post, I started thinking about Farmers Markets and looked up my local one (which couldn't be more convenient - walking distance from my house). Sure enough, open with "some restrictions." I biked over there yesterday and discovered that it was practically empty of customers, and yes, the summer crops are starting to come in. They have removed all the extra clutter - food trucks and the big covered table area where people were supposed to sit to consume their food truck purchases while listening to local musicians playing for tips. This left a huge open space in the middle. It felt a little barren, but utterly un-claustrophobic. There were also fewer farmer booths than usual, but enough to do the job. I got $20 worth of shiny fresh produce, starring a jewel-like tub of small, bright yellow summer squash and a huge handful of tiny scallions. I also grabbed a bunch of coriander (which Richard loves) and another of mint (thinking of Lyda and how much fun she had with her mint).

Somehow the bunches of herbs you buy in Farmers Markets always turn out to be dismayingly large once you get them home. What WAS I going to do with all that mint? I guess I'd better go back and reread Lyda's post again.

I used some of this bounty along with a new Trader Joe's find: vegetable based pizza crusts. The broccolli/kale one is just okay: more of an edible plate than anything else. But I really like the cauiflower/corn meal one. Riced cauliflower everything is all the rage right now, but doesn't really have much flavor. It's the hint of corn meal graininess that makes this one. At the very least, it makes an inoffensive and low-carb base for all the goodness you want to pile on top if it. The winning combination turned out to be a ton of vegetables plus about half a pound of ground turkey sauteed with onion and Worcester sauce. (You didn't think I was going to go all vegetarian did you? I like vegetarian food so much better with a little meat added).

Crossposts: https://dreamshark.livejournal.com/523608.html

Totally unexpectedly, it is soft-boiled eggs! Not that it's that hard to make soft-boiled eggs on the stovetop, but this is easier (not faster, but not noticeably slower either). And boiled eggs are probably the one and only dish that actually comes out BETTER when pressure cooked. I know, I didn't believe it either, even after Hershey told me how much she loves her IP hard-boiled eggs. Honestly, I just decided to try it because I am trying to find a use for every button, and there is literally nothing else to do with the Low Pressure setting on this thing but boil eggs. We don't use a lot of hard-boiled eggs, but I frequently make soft-boiled for breakfast, so I tried it this morning.

END TO END TIME about 10 minutes

HERE'S HOW I DID IT
Put two Large Eggs on the trivet, add a cup of cold water.
Put on the lid and set controls to: Pressure Cook (Low) for 5 minutes.
Quick Release steam the moment the timer runs down.
Lift out the eggs with the trivet and slide them into a bowl of cold water until they are cool enough to touch.
Crack the eggs and scoop out into a small bowl.

WHY IT'S BETTER THAN JUST COOKING ON THE STOVE

BIG WIN - absolutely no sticking to the shell! I didn't realize this was a problem with soft-boiled eggs until I opened a pressure-cooked egg. The eggs practically fall out of the shell!
You don't have to watch the pot like a hawk until it starts boiling (which is when you set the 3-minute timer)
Lifting the eggs out on the trivet is easier than scooping them out of a pan of boiling hot water, or draining the pan
Afterward, you can set the pot to Saute for 5 minutes to boil away the water and humidify the bone-dry winter air without worrying about forgetting it and melting the bottom of the pot.

Crossposts: https://dreamshark.livejournal.com/478774.html

I think I may have found the easiest IP recipe for Steel Ground Oats.

Put the trivet into the pot and add 1 cup cold water
Put 1/2 cup oats and 1 cup water in the small glass souffle dish. Add a dash of salt.
Put the souffle dish into the pot and seal the lid.
Select Porridge (Less) and set for 5 minutes.
Come back in 30 minutes and it's done. Pressure should be released by then.

Note that this is not a bit faster than cooking the oats on the stove, but ...

It requires no stirring or monitoring and will not burn no matter how absent-minded I am
I can eat the oatmeal out of the glass dish, leaving nothing to wash but the dish.
The IP preset buttons remember the time setting you used last time. So now it's my Steel Cut Oats shortcut button.
If I wanted to make it even less time-consuming, I could set it up the night before so all I'd have to do is push one button. Or if I was REALLY obsessive I could figure out how to use the Delay Start setting and I wouldn't even have to push one button in the morning.

The only problem is, of course, that I end up eating oatmeal for breakfast. I'm not crazy about oatmeal, but keep trying to like it because it's supposed to be good for me. Steel Cut Oats have a much nicer texture than the other forms of oatmeal, but are a PITA to cook. This method, while it consumes 30 minutes clock time, takes no more of MY time than opening a packet of instant oatmeal. So it's a win.

Crossposts: https://dreamshark.livejournal.com/478599.html

So... I got Richard an Instant Pot for Christmas, not just because I wanted to try it but because I actually thought he would love it. I figured he could use it like one of his beloved stable of slow cookers OR use the saute/pressure cook settings to replicate the same stews but faster. Silly me.

Richard took one look at the daunting array of buttons and overlapping settings on the front and refused to touch the thing. He says he'll try it once I have figured out exactly how to make specific recipes if I agree to walk him through the steps, but that's as far as he'll go. And he was right. "Easy to Use," my ass! There is a STEEP learning curve on this thing.

So I've been reading the manuals and cookbooks and online blogs and trying things. I've had a few successes but very few clear wins. I've made some pretty good meals in the thing, but not very many that are objectively superior (in process or outcome) to making the same meal without the Instant Pot. So far, the only thing that has been an unequivocal win is the Stewed Pork. I'm on the fence about the Pot Roast, which was very tender but did not seem as flavorful as the crockpot version (and wasn't any faster than cooking it in the oven).

And probably Steel Cut Oats. It isn't one bit faster to make the world's most tedious oatmeal in the Instant Pot, but it doesn't require standing over a hot stove, which makes it hugely more appealing. If all you have to do is measure the oats and water, plunk it in the pot, and turn it on, I'm fine with it taking 30 minutes. It can cook while I make coffee, fetch the paper, etc. But for such a simple concept, it is ASTOUNDING how many different recipes and procedures I found. It may take a while to sort through them and find the one that works best for me. Which is the Instant Pot problem in a nutshell. There is nothing simple about this appliance. There are multiple conflicting and overlapping sets of directions for making the simplest dish.

So, just in case there are any Instant Pot afficionados still reading my DW/LJ blog - help me out here. What are your favorite Instant Pot recipes and why do you like them?

Crossposts: https://dreamshark.livejournal.com/478332.html

It all started when the fridge broke. It wasn't really worth fixing, what with the torn door gaskets and all, and we were sick and tired of fixing the recurring Frozen Fan problem, so off to the appliance store we went. We
ended up with a rather pricey European model with gleaming glass shelves and a super-organized bottom freezer. Yay! This required rethinking where we put things in the fridge, because nothing is ever the same. The rest of
my household seemed to regard this as a dreary chore, but I was excited to make a fresh start with nothing on the shelves that I didn't remember putting there. I'm surprised the food is even staying cold, what with me opening the doors every few hours just to look at what's inside. It's a thing of beauty. But I'm pretty sure I felt that way about the last new fridge, and it degenerated to such squalor. Not this time!

So I resolved to Start Planning Meals. No more wasted food! I cleaned out the cupboards and identified some particularly robust and attractive food storage containers, giving preference to the glass ones to match the
gleaming new shelves. And I finally decided to tackle the stack of old Prevention Magazines that I can't bring myself to throw out because they have such great recipes.

The very latest Prevention actually had a recipe I wanted to try, since I had just bought a pound of ground turkey with no particular plans on what to do with it. I made up some rules for my new game. This time I wouldn't
just madly cut out any recipe that sounded good, pile them somewhere, and never use any of them. I would pick out just a handful for the upcoming week, actually shop for the ingredients, and MAKE THE RECIPE. If we like
it, it gets to stay in the book. Otherwise it's out.

I dug out an unused photo album left over from an earlier project that didn't work out and figured out a way to paste up the recipes on index cards so I could slide them into the album. Recipe #1 is "Turkey Burgers with Tomato Jam." I made it tonight, and it was delicious. The key ingredient is not really the turkey or the tomatoes, it's the roasted
garlic cloves. Yum! So this recipe gets to stay in the book.

Crossposts: https://dreamshark.livejournal.com/477085.html

Have you ever cooked oatmeal in the microwave? What happened? It explodes, right? But it says right there on the box that you can cook it that way, so I tried it 3 times with different techniques (INCLUDING a covered microwave container with a steam release valve in the lid!) and had to clean out the inside of the microwave 3 times. And it wasn't even fully cooked.

I've concluded that claims that steel-cut oats are microwavable are flat out lies. Like pretty much everything else I've ever read about oatmeal. No, it does NOT satisfy your appetite. No, it does NOT make you fuller longer than other cereal. And no, steel-cut Irish oats actually don't taste any less like wallpaper paste than instant oatmeal.

The one thing I can't tell through personal experience is whether oatmeal's purported health benefits are real or not. But considering oatmeal's strikeout rate so far, I'm inclined to doubt it. So that's it - I'm going back to Cream of Wheat, which at least has a pleasant texture. And I'm adding the Oatmeal Conspiracy to my short list of Conspiracy Theories that are Actually True.

Crossposts: https://dreamshark.livejournal.com/469864.html

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Entries tagged with food

It’s back!!

What a lovely day!

Post-Costco Dinner

Magical millet, back from the dead!

So...I went to Trader Joe's today

Part of the zeitgeist at last

Sprouts on the hoof

My kind of gardening!

Instant Pot recipe of the day

Farmers Market bounty

Since everybody's writing about cooking...

You know what I hate?

Speaking of Farmers Markets...

Food Notes and Tips of the Hat

The Farmers Markets are open!

Biggest Instant Pot Win So Far

Today's Instant Pot Recipe - Breakfast

Instant Pot - was this a good idea?

New Enthusiasm

I keep trying to like oatmeal, but...

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