Cold Pasta

I love cold pasta.

It's about as simple a meal as you can get, second only perhaps to pizza because that you likely didn't make yourself the day before.

I made pasta yesterday for dinner. Whole wheat shells topped with sautéed onions, garlic, summer squash, tomatoes, olives, artichoke hearts, fresh basil and oregano, and feta. Yesterday we ate it hot at the dining table, breaking a sweat while doing so.

A few hours later, after dishes, after working on a writing project, I opened the fridge and its glow leaked suspiciously into the dark kitchen. What, after all, could I possibly want at this time of night? There was the pasta, reposing in a plastic container, innocently abiding its time on the shelf next to the peanut butter. It had cooled down by now, and the container was heavy as I pulled it from the fridge.

The Tupperware released some garlicky air when opened. The kitchen drawer groaned when I opened it for a fork.

Cold pasta is best eaten standing at the counter, the container in one hand, fork in the other. By this point the noodles have absorbed all the flavor of the accompanying players in the dish, but mostly the garlic. Perhaps this is why I love it so. The thing is, cold pasta does not look good. No one else really wants to help you finish it, which is fine by me.

It was 9 in the evening. I had just finished a small bowl of raspberry sorbet but I knew something better was waiting. I busily shoved a few forkfuls in my mouth, not wanting to spoil all the fun for today.

You can guess what I'm having for dinner.

Vegan for Dinner

It was the eggplant that started it all. Our CSA announced this week that only half the members would be receiving an eggplant in their share because they could not harvest enough for everyone. I thought to myself, it's okay if I don't get one. I'm not that fond of them because every time I try to cook one it just ends up soggy or oily.

Lo and behold, a purple specimen shows up in our bag on Saturday. It sat in the fridge until today, when I knew I had to use it or toss it because we are leaving tomorrow for a long weekend in Lake Placid.

What to do with an eggplant... Somewhere I remembered reading about roasting eggplant. It sounded like a nice way to make it flavorful without it soaking up too much olive oil. I also had a green cabbage from our CSA. Not knowing if it too could be roasted, I googled "roasted cabbage" and enough recipes turned up for me to confident in putting the two together in the oven.

I chopped the eggplant into 1-inch sections and the cabbage to approximately the same size. Both went on a rimmed baking sheet and both got olive oil and salt and pepper. I sprinkled ground cumin, coriander, and turmeric on the eggplant, and paprika on the cabbage. Into a 375 degree oven went the veggies.

To round out the meal, I sautéed an onion, a small bell pepper, a serrano pepper (from the plant on our back deck), and some garlic. When all was soft and golden, I added the water to cook the couscous and let that come to a boil. Then in went the couscous and off went the heat. It sat covered for 5 minutes or so until the liquid was absorbed.

After about 35 minutes the eggplant and cabbage was aromatic and browned on the edges (I had tossed it a few times during roasting). I put all of it in with the couscous and tossed it with some more olive oil, salt, and a drained/rinsed can of garbanzo beans.

It got finished with the juice from half a lemon and chopped herbs (parsley, mint, oregano and basil) from my herb box.

There was little to put away as leftovers after dinner. I even liked the eggplant.

Zucchini and Cherry Tomato Pasta

We were going to go out to Amy's Place for dinner last night, but Turner wasn't in the mood, having worked hard all day. He asked if there was something at home we could eat. Of course, there was. I can make dinner out of just about anything. And with a fridge full of vegetables from this week's CSA bag, dinner would be easy.

I sautéed a yellow summer squash with a Vidalia onion (chopped) and some fresh garlic in extra virgin olive oil. Added a pint of cherry tomatoes (halved) and chopped olives when the squash was done. Added cooked whole wheat Delallo organic shells (the starch on this pasta is divine). Tossed that with more EVOO and fresh parsley, basil, and oregano from my herb box. Fini!

Peaches 'n Cream

Sometimes cupcakes and I do not get along. It's not that I don't love eating them, but sometimes the baking poses a problem. I have pulled my fair share of sunken, not-done-in-the-middle cupcakes out of the oven after leaving them in for well over the recommended baking time. I believe this has something to do with the amount of moisture in the batter.

Then if I add fruit into the equation, the results tend to be even worse. Ever made banana bread with too much banana? It doesn't cook in the middle. It never will. You could leave it in the oven forever and it still would not be done.

With these failures in mind, I set about making peach filled cupcakes yesterday. The recipe, which I followed to a T (whatever does this cliché mean?), is from the August Martha Stewart Living, on the back page (not yet available on the website). I take it back. I did not follow the recipe exactly because I swapped peaches for nectarines, but Martha said it was okay. My batter only made 10 cupcakes instead of 12 also. Maybe my tablespoons are bigger than Martha's.

You assemble the cupcakes before baking by putting one tablespoon batter in the muffin tin and then one tablespoon of the chopped peaches. Remember what I said above about adding fruit to baked goods? I was certain of an uncooked disaster. After the peaches, you add two more tablespoons of batter, then bake.

I left them in the oven for two minutes longer than suggested, just to be safe.

None sunk!

They all came out perfectly. And they were delicious.

The frosting is whipped heavy cream, sour cream, and sugar, and perfectly compliments the peaches.

Remembrance of Chickens Past

Despite the happiness I feel at being back at home, I miss some things from Minnesota (things other than my lovely family of course).

1. My mom's mad grilling skills. Move over Bobby Flay!

A close-up of that fabulous chicken (sorry vegetarians!)

2. The unparalleled joy Bella gets when playing with her cousin Zach.

3. Fitger's beer.

4. Swimming in the clean waters of northern Minnesota. Water is an agate's throw away from just about anywhere.

A Blueberry Kinda Summer

I made a pie today. From wild blueberries. I will remember this as the blueberry summer. Blue teeth, blue tongues. If summer had a shade, this one would be blue. Not the sad kind of blue, but the burst-in-your-mouth, fresh-off-the-bush, tastes-like-heaven kind.

This blog is called "Pheed" for a reason you know.

That's one hungry pagan

We went to the Thirsty Pagan Brewpub in Superior, Wisconsin this evening for pizza and beer. This local treasure has some of the best pizza this side of the Great Lakes. The crust has depth and a great texture; the sauce was loaded with garlic (two thumbs way up!). Their Burntwood Black Ale rivals some of the best oatmeal stouts around.

The Milky Whey

Love. The. Name.

Cleaning Out the Fridge

Today was get-everything-done day. We are leaving tomorrow morning for our road trip west to Minnesota, via Stratford, Ontario and northern Michigan. I had some vegetables left over from our weekly CSA haul: beets, summer squash, and lettuce. The fridge also needed cleaning out before we left.

We also took it upon ourselves to spend time sweating profusely in the berry bushes near our house in order to make more jam. Eleven cups of berries and 5 1/2 cups of sugar later and I have four pints of blackberry lime jam.

The cleaning-the-fridge dinner consisted of a salad of local ingrediants, including the boiled beets from above, and Israeli couscous with garlic, onion, summer squash, and feta.

To drink, Rogue Shakespeare Stout, a fitting send-off for our trip to the Stratford Shakespeare Festival tomorrow. We are seeing The Tempest with Christopher Plummer and As You Like It. A trip to Canada also means no cell coverage and chancy wireless, so the blog posts may be postponed until the road tripping is complete.

Stay cool!

Cheers for Beer

Fourth floor patio of the Pearl Street Brewery

On this fourth of July, we attended the wedding reception for Jennifer Parks and Michael Dray, acquaintances from college, at the Pearl Street Brewery. They had an open bar for four hours and various hors d'oeuvres, and CUPCAKES! The beer at this renowned Buffalo brewpub is fantastic, with names like Willy Wonka (a dark chocolate truffley stout), Raspberry Fields (chocolate and raspberry stout), Lake Effect (American Pale Ale), and Blue-Eyed Blueberry Blonde (blueberry ale).

Photo from www.pearlstreetgrill.com

Kebabs on the Third

My husband's family raises Cheviot sheep in Lake Placid, New York. We were given a leg of lamb last fall after the slaughter and it has been waiting in the freezer until the right moment. With our college friends in town this weekend, we decided to celebrate the great American holiday with a decisively Mediterranean feast. Granted, I used a Martha Stewart recipe for the marinade and feta sauce, and we did have local sweet corn and zucchini, so America made a grand ole appearance.

The marinade has lemon juice and zest, plus olive oil, minced garlic, and fresh oregano. The feta sauce was simply Greek yogurt and feta cheese, with some lemon juice and olive oil. The lamb was kebabed with local spring onions and a wedge of lemon and then grilled on over charcoal. Stuffed in a pita with the sauce and ... yum. It was delicious.

For dessert, vanilla ice cream with homemade wild blackberry sauce.

Happy Third of July!

A Cuppa

My morning goes something like this. Wake up around 7am; roll over remembering that I only have two months wherein I can roll over and not have to get up. Get out of bed around 8am. Go downstairs and let the dog out to do her thing. Let dog in and feed dog. Put dishes away while Turner gets up and starts making coffee. Let me rephrase that. He makes soy lattes every morning. A big steaming cup with frothy foam and a delicious, encompassing tastiness. (Note: We buy our espresso beans from Spot coffee, locally roasted and the best around despite the fact that every week they get stingier and stingier with the "pound" of beans.)

Every morning Turner tries to make "foam art." Usually, it's a squiggle or some dots, but today I got a three-eyed smiley face. Now that's a good morning.

On a side note, our dog is the local lookie-loo of the neighborhood. She does not bark, thankfully, but loves to just watch. If she weren't so cute and she weren't a female, she would be a peeping tom. Well, now that our internet router is in the window, she uses it as a head rest. I'll have to ask Turner if it improves our 3G.

How far to your lunch?

Today for lunch I made salads. Not just any salad though. Everything but the avocado and salad dressing (Annie's Naturals of course) came from within 50 miles of our house.

Spinach and green lettuce courtesy of Porter Farms CSA program, Elba, NY ... 40 miles

Cage-free organic eggs from Wegmans ... somewhere around here

Cherry, grape, and glacier tomatoes, Fortistar, N. Tonawanda, NY ... 10 miles

Arugula, random lettuce, basil, oregano, Gutmann house, Buffalo, NY ... 0 miles

Natural Colors

While walking Bella down the old train bed beyond our dead end street I noticed a profusion of purple berries on the side of the path. I found the vines strung in and among brambles, grape vines, sumac, and any other plant that thrives out of neglect and overgrowth. The berries looked like raspberries but were the color of blackberries. Let me call them black raspberries. Lacking the requisite berry-picking paraphernalia, I saved the task of removing the vines from their delicate burdens until later in the afternoon, when I could also procure an assistant.

The weather today favored berry-picking; cool and intermittantly cloudy. Turner and I returned to the bushes with two Nalgenes and proceeded to fill them almost to the top while Bella ran freely through the verdure. Not wanting the delicate berries to waste one ounce of their fresh-pickedness, I rinsed the two pounds of berries and added them with one pound of suger to my faithful Dutch oven Le Crueset. I added the juice of one lime (lacking the lemon the gives the jam natural pectin for setting) and am waiting now for the mixture to cool before determining whether I made syrup or jam.

I did however help relieve the invasive sweet peas of some of their blossoms. They are now resting sweetly in tight bouquets around the house. Luckily, there will be no shortage of replacements as sweet peas have taken over the hillside opposite the berry bushes.

A Pizz-a Heaven

I made a sausage and onion pizza on Monday. It resembled the real deal, which is not always the case with my pizzas. I used the dough recipe from Mark Bittman's NYTimes blog Bitten, but instead of making 2-3 medium pizzas, I made one large pizza. I also cooked the pizza on a pizza pan sitting on a pizza stone in a 410 degree oven for about 26 minutes. It seems like 350 degrees would not be hot enough to cook a pizza of that size.

The dough was a little tough to form on the pan because I did not knead it quite enough before letting it rise. That said, the crust was just the way I like it. For those thin-crusters out there, this is not the recipe for you. It was thick, and chewy, and puffy in places. The toppings were simply sauce, mozzarella, onion, and italian sausage.

I wish I had a camera to have recorded my triumph. Next time.

Poaching 101

Poaching is one of those techniques I had never tried before, until last night. I came across a recipe for Poached Salmon with Corn and White Wine Butter Sauce in Food and Wine the other day and it looked light and refreshing, good for the depressingly humid weather that has descended on Buffalo.

The fish was tender and tasty. (My apologies for the lack of photos; I am without camera for the time being.) And the corn and zucchini complimented the fish well with their sweetness. Both are in season now so it's a great recipe to use up those zucchinis from the garden that evade your eyes until they are gargantuan since they will be shredded before cooking.

My one complaint is that the recipe calls for too much white wine leaving little left in the bottle for stoveside tippling.