Makeup Mega Post

Bet you thought you'd gotten rid of us for good, but alas




we creep right back in again.

This summer's brought a lot of changes in our lives. I have no job! What did I do all day? Go crazy, discover Facebook, become a Facebook addict, read a lot of great fiction, sun my legs a little in a cheap lawn chair, oh, and buy a new house!


My new workshop:

My favorite room in the house. Life with a dishwasher is just spectacular, y'all. As adventurous cooks, I estimate we did about 2 hours of dishes a week (at least!) at the old place. A dinner party took nearly a week to recover from, but not anymore. We've been having potlucks every two weeks for the last 2 months and it literally takes two loads in the dishwasher and that's all! We don't have to prerinse really either. We got a good machine on our side now. We let people eat off of real plates, drink out of real glasses! But they're forced to use plastic cutlery. Somehow we run out of silverware before dinner actually gets served, got to work on that. I plan to buy some sets with the birthday/housewarming money my generous mother-in-law has been sending me. I told Mark we should pop out some kids and we'd really be in the money! Oh Deej, you're the best.

So anyway, I'm going to highlight some of the tastiest of our exploits with brief discussion and links to recipes:

This is the pulled pork we made in April frozen and reheated in May with fresh corn and southern style green beans boiled to death with new potatoes. The pork froze really well. It tasted as good as it did the day we made it.

Neely's Grilled Corn Salad


This was really good. We grilled the corn on our grill pan indoors as we didn't want to light up the grill for just corn. The salad actually kept pretty well for a couple of days, but that's coming from me. I tend to like wilty salads because I'm gross like that.

We had the salad with some lovely burgers. Mark had his covered in our favorite cheddar.

You know, to this day, I've never had a cheeseburger and I don't really want to either.

We got the beef from our coop. It's a little pricey, but it really tastes a lot better...perhaps because I don't feel as guilty eating it knowing it was raised by honest local farmers in humane conditions. The coop now sells all kinds of meat, from filet mignon to chicken bologna, they got it. As soon as I'm gainfully employed again we're going to get some really nice steaks. Oh, that list (Things to Purchase When Gainfully Employed Again) is getting longer by the day. I mourn for our Saturdays at Whole Foods. I can't even let myself go in there anymore. However, there's something to be said for living frugally. We should have been living like this all along.

We joined a CSA this year, which has been nice if not a little bit overwhelming at times. Every Monday I take my basket to pick up our veggies. I soon realized this little basket wasn't going to cut it all by its lonesome, but it works hard for us and has many uses as you can see:


I've been trying to think of creative ways to use up all this beautiful produce and clean out my freezer. This little dish attempted to do both.
Giada's Roasted Cod with Lima Beans



I used frozen Limas and cod (not such a good idea as it turns out). The fish was a very unnerving texture and the extras I added to the Lima beans overpowered everything, namely the mint. I have no idea why I put that leaf of lettuce in there. I mean, I like it wilty sometimes, but this didn't work.

We ate it with a glorious salad alongside.

The recipe came from my friend Amanda's mom Patsy. It was just an assortment of veggies cut really small: zucchini, peppers, cukes, tomatoes, etc. The dressing was a simple vinaigrette. I topped mine with a copious amount of avocado (love of my life these days).

Whew this post is long! Almost finished though.

Being in the CSA has introduced me to some new and interesting ingredients, namely garlic scapes. I'd heard of garlic scape pesto and considered using my share to make that, but then I found this little number.
White Bean and Garlic Scape Spread

It was a little intense, so I topped it with some of the chopped veggies leftover from Patsy's salad. It was very yummy. In fact, I wish I had more of those garlic scapes. They have a lovely grassiness about them.

It was on this very night that my camera broke. I've been in mourning ever since and as a result, I've abandoned this blog. That night I served a beautiful roasted chicken which was so good I've made it a couple of times since. I've mastered the big bird, guys. Well, now that I have one of those probe thermometers that you stick in and it beeps whenever the chicken is done.

My camera didn't break entirely. The display screen is messed up which means we can still take pictures, but we just don't know what of. Hence

what was a perfectly acceptable kitten love fest looks more like photos of an illicit affair: caught red handed.

I'm hoping to get a new camera soon (when we get our gov't check--thanks Mr. Obama).
Until then, I'm determined to post crappy pictures because the food we've been making lately has just been too good not to document.

Vulgar Bulgar Soy Joes

As mentioned in my previous post, this week has been fairly virtuous in my kitchen efforts.

It's been "no recipes" week. I read and study recipes so much that I should be able to carry something out freehand at this point. Monday we made some excellent meatless sloppy joes using TN made Soysage. We loved the Snobby Joes from Veganomicon, so we figured we’d try these guys out.

Vulgar Bulgur Soy Joes
This recipe is dedicated to Darlene Connor. Darlene, I sure wish you could have grown up eating my loose meat sandwiches instead of Rosanne’s.

1 15 oz can of organic tomato sauce
1 4 oz can of organic tomato paste
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 poblano pepper, chopped
1 jalapeño pepper (we have more of these than we know what to do with)
1 Vidalia onion, chopped
garlic, amount up to you
½ package of soysage
1 c. bulgur
Oregano
Hungarian smoked paprika
Homemade chili powder

Sautée the peppers, onions, and garlic in a cast iron skillet. Add soysage, breaking it up as much as possible. Once everything is slightly softened, add various spices and cook for a few minutes. Add tomato paste, mix well, and then add sauce. After it simmered for a while, I adjusted the seasoning…you guess it, I added hot sauce. This kind this time. The mixture looked pretty thin, so I decided to thicken it by stirring in some bulgur.

A note about bulgur: its one my new favorite grains. It’s incredibly easy and quick to prepare and the texture is wonderful. To prepare it, I poured about a cup into a mid-sized bowl (in this case, I didn’t season the bulgur itself, because it was going into an already seasoned dish. If you want or need to, add whatever seasoning you like at this point), filled the teakettle and set it on high heat. Once it’s whistling, add enough water to cover the bulgur, cover the bowl with a dishtowel and let it sit for about ten minutes. Test for texture, I like mine real chewy. Most of the water should be absorbed, if it’s slushy still, just drain it.

After I added the bulgur, I turned the heat to low and let it sit and marry together a little while we cleaned up and got the bread and toppings together. I toasted some mini Sweet Hawaiian rolls and chopped up some red onion (to the consistence of those little darlings that adorn Krystal burgers). We had some baby Romas that needed to be eaten, so we sliced those as well.
Finished product (we used up the rest of the mustard slaw—the longer that stuff sits, the more I looooove it):

After dinner, I was still hopped up on coffee and not ready to resign myself to the couch for the night (very out of the ordinary for me), so I packed some leftovers for our lunches the next day, marinated the chicken for the next night, and made a red pepper dressing for these veggie wraps I get at The Food Company. I’ve eaten the Veggie # 2 for lunch at least once a week since I’ve started working at Lipscomb. There’s a ton of spinach expertly wrapped in there with lots of other goodies. The texture can’t be beat. And the sidecar of red pepper lime dressing is good enough to drink on its own…and vegan, as all dressings should be.

I tried my hand at creating my own version at home using a new wedding gift. Yes, due to the unconventional nature of our nuptials, we’re still receiving the odd gift here and there. I’m not sold on these little prep machines, but this one I think we’ll keep. It’s perfect for small projects and really works unlike the others I’ve tried.

The dressing was surprisingly identical to the Food Company version. I was pretty excited. I got out the juicer (it’s really not hard to clean it, so I should use it more often) and juiced some lemons and limes. I added the lemon juice to the chicken marinade and added the lime juice to the food processor bowl, which already contained a small jar of roasted red peppers. I added a touch of olive oil, black pepper, two teaspoons of honey, and a few dashes of chipotle hot sauce. I blended that up and it was very near perfect in my eyes. I haven’t made one of the veggie wraps yet, but I’m sure it’ll be great.

As for the chicken marinade, I added the lemon juice, as I mentioned earlier, and some Gingerly vinaigrette, garlic, parsley, and black pepper.

I was in super overachiever mode at this point, so I went ahead and made the dressing for tomorrow night’s salad as well mixing the freshly squeezed lemon juice with olive oil, chopped parsley, garlic, and salt and pepper. It was a little too lemony, so I added some veggie broth we had in the fridge. It was quite lovely. I’ve never been able to master dressings and sauces. I must say that I’ve had more success this week than ever in my culinary adventures.

Tuesday night, Mark grilled the chicken on our tiny little grill while I composed a simple salad in attempt to replicate the salads we get at Kalamatas. I tore up some romaine, sliced some kalamata olives, one of our Celebrity tomatoes, some feta, and a few banana peppers from our garden. We added the dressing and a little bit at a time (it was very liquidy, but it was light and lovely to my tastes). I had some pickled pepperocinis with mine. It was very satisfying. I was proud of us for eating salad for dinner: that never happens in our house. We’re a couple of children. If it doesn’t have melted cheese, generally, we’re not filling our bellies with it.


Sadly, I’ve come to realize that I hate vinegar. I know that’s a crazy pervasive statement, but it’s true. The last couple of vinegars I’ve purchased, I tasted at Whole Foods before I bought them. I thought I’d picked a lovely fruity balsamic…but I can’t stand adding but a tiny touch to anything. Maybe I’ll grow out of it.

Until then, I’ve resigned myself to creating dressings with citrus.

Fast forward: It's Monday and I've continued with my good habits of last week. We had the most lovely little weekend...Jenny Lewis and an impromptu dinner party at our place on Saturday. Details to follow.