Photos!

All that belly-aching got me a call from the Apple Store...the Powerbook is back and better than ever! So without further adieu...some photos.Last week's taboulehLast week's delivery...the beets (along with all the others that were hanging out in my fridge) found a good home with a friendScones with golden raisins. Here with some orange marmalade. I went with Mark Bittman's recipe from How to Cook Everything versus the Barefoot Contessa, even though she has rarely led me astray. These turned out pretty darn good, if I say so myself, and if the friend who received a dozen for her golden birthday wasn't lying when she said they were delicious. My first attempt at scones: I give myself a B+. Definitely made more delicious by the fact that I was making them with gifting intentions.Variation on one of my favorites (tomato, corn, basil and feta salad). This one has green beans and no corn. Also, I think I put green onion in, but I'd leave that out next time. Delicious, despite the store-bought tomatoes.

I also made a dish with mango chicken sausage, green and purple peppers, onion, two different squashes, and some mango chili sauce. Sausage isn't very photogenic.

I miss my powerbook!

A little part of me disappeared to Apple Tech Service headquarters when I shipped my powerbook off for repairs on Saturday. I'm aching for my beloved laptop and haven't been able to blog about some recent cooking endeavors. I have tons of pictures to upload, but alas, that will have to wait.

I finally ate the tomatoes I got in last week's box. I ate them in their purest form...sliced with some salt and bright green basil leaves. It was the highlight of my usual "will-you-open-my-string-cheese?"-"sit-down!"-"can-we-line-up?" camp lunch for the last two days. To be honest, I think I'd be elated to get a crate full of tomatoes rather than a little bit of everything this week. I'm particularly excited about what this week's CSA crate has in store for me as I know for sure I'll be cooking for some friends in the next few days.

What'll it be this week...

It's been a busy week with family in town and lots of other stuff going on after work so I haven't done much cooking, but I did make that tabouleh I was dreaming about for a lunch picnic with the fam. The cucumber was seedless--which I suppose is a selling point for some, but I don't mind the seediness of cucumbers. More interestingly it tasted like a pickle. Crisper and less watery than the typical cucumber with a vinegar-y kind of taste. I grew up eating "organic" cucumbers from our family garden, but they never tasted like this so I'm guessing it was some kind of interesting heirloom variety. I'm hoping to see more of these in tonight's box.

All this talk about the vegetable gardens of my childhood reminds me of my cat, Bruiser, who--along with other interesting habits that have nothing to do with food--used to lick cucumbers. He never really sunk his teeth in like this cucumber vampire cat...

Variety is the spice of life

Yahoo!

After a busy Thursday evening, I thought I might have missed out on my CSA box delivery, but it has arrived! So excited to see a lot of new things this week.

Parsley: Can't wait to make some tabouleh!
To my petite tomatoes: In the tabouleh you go!
Lettuce: I've missed your superior-to-the-grocery-store-bag taste!
Potatoes: A welcome staple.
Scallions: I have already forgotten what life was like with big white onions.
Cucumbers: Tabouleh!
Yellow squash & Zucchini: Here comes the flood...zucchini chocolate chip cookies in a few weeks?!
Green beans: Fat and happy...might be seeing the last of you.
Peppers: Hope this week marked my last grocery store pepper for awhile.
White eggplant: Maybe I'll try some fried eggplant strips and a fresh dipping sauce.

and...what is this?

New Zealand Spinach: Going to have to do some research on this one.

Also got some raspberry sorbet made from wild raspberries, sweetened with hickory bark syrup, grass-fed ground beef from Gryffon's Aerie Heritage Beef, and delicious Piedmont cheese from Everona Dairy. I decided to splurge on these extra a la carte items this week since my lovely foodie sister and niece are coming to town.

Eh bien, tant pis!

But I'd like the pie heated and I don't want the ice cream on top, I want it on the side, and I'd like strawberry instead of vanilla if you have it, if not then no ice cream just whipped cream but only if it's real; if it's out of the can then nothing. No, I want the pie, but then not heated. --my favorite movie ever

I never knew that Nora Ephron (director of When Harry Met Sally and other less awesome romantic comedies) was a foodie, but then again I didn't really know anything about her until I read this New Yorker article about her new Julia Child film. The article had me wishing Ephron would be my older, mom-like friend, so I could go over to her Midtown apartment and eat shrimp scampi and Provençal tomatoes and get a pep-talk from this master of overcoming self-pity.

Then there's Julia. I can't wait to see the film, for one, because Meryl Streep (another favorite!) is playing her, and two, I don't know that much about Child but she sounds equally inspiring. I loved this excerpt from Child's memoir: "Maybe the cat has fallen into the stew, or the lettuce has frozen, or the cake has collapsed--eh bien, tant pis!" Sounds like my kinda broad! And exactly the kind of thing I need to hear (presently and probably somewhat regularly).

Oh, and I think I'm going to start reading food-themed memoirs. So, watch out book club; I got some ideas up my sleeve.

Moosewood salads

I made two salads from my new Moosewood cookbook tonight. I could have just made one, but as much as I enjoy cooking, I prefer to cook a few dishes in an evening (especially in the summer when I'm eating a lot of cold stuff) and then have a few nights off.

I made the Potato Bean Salad with a Curried Mango Yogurt Dressing and I added some fresh corn that I had cooked a few nights ago.
In a creative endeavor to use the cabbage that I seem to be receiving every week in my CSA, I made the very descriptively-titled Cabbage Salad (shredded cabbage, red bell pepper, red onion and a cumin yogurt dressing). They're both pretty tasty, though not terribly attractive given the yogurt-y dressings.
Last night I concocted my own variation on Diary of a Foodie's Pasta with Beat Greens. For someone who professes as much love for public television as I do, I've never watched this program. Might have something to do with my not having an actual tv. Why do I always make too much pasta for the sauce/veggies?

So Now I'm Blogging...

I bought three cookbooks today at Capitol Hill Books; none are the ones for which I am really pining, but these three are still welcome additions to my growing collection. The new purchases are--in order of discovery in the dingy (that describes the whole store) cookbook corner--Jacques Pépin Celebrates, Chez Panisse Cooking, and Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favorites.

I'm not pretending to know a lot about Pépin or Alice Waters/Chez Panisse, but I do know that I should know more about both of these important food people, so I'm considering this my first step. I love how unpretentious Pépin's book feels despite: 1) I can't pronounce the names of some of the dishes, and I studied French!, and 2) There are photographic directions for making a swan out of a melon. Which, by the way, is the first recipe I'm going to tackle...right after " 'Angry' Trout in Hot Pecan Sauce."

I was disappointed to only find the Low-Fat Moosewood book, but upon further inspection, it looks delicious. And as the proprietor of Cap Hill Books reminded me, Moosewood volumes are quite popular, so I'll consider myself lucky for unearthing this one. I've already started skipping over the modifer "non-fat" when reading the recipes; I think I'm set.