KELLY * July 28 * DINNER
Okay, I'm going to try to blow through this. I'm stuffed and pooped and it's a mere 9:52pm (a time that usually signals us starting dinner). Tonight's dinner accomplished 2 tasks. One, it knocked off a LOT of our current produce before Liz heads out of town for the weekend (and I am left to fend for myself). Two, it provided a bounty for some friends who came to dinner.
Well, I'm generally not that much of a fan of okra (which is almost a sin in my family), but tonight's dinner was fab and fresh and frisky. So the question was, what do we do with all of this food. The first answer was, "Let's make gumbo." Upon realizing that we did not actually have the ingredients or the time to make gumbo, we decided on something gumbo-ish but not really gumbo. I thought it would be tasty but it has a serious lovely kick. You know Flauto starts with recipes often. Then she just throws this and that into the skillet. Well, this and that were the right things. It was juicy, spicy, and fresh. I think, also (and quite sadly), that this is one of the first times in our lives that we did not cook too much. We are both bummed about the lack of leftovers. CURSES!!!
After that (as was evidenced by my facebook posts) we had a somewhat failed lemon cake with a chocolate ganache glaze. It was not 100% successful on an aesthetic level (as the bundt cake did not seem to like me). I think my error was listening to the comment of the person who suggested not flouring the pan and sugaring it instead. I tried to use cooking spray and powdered sugar (as I hate pulling the bundts out a layer of cooked goopy flour. Well, it was a bust. I lost the whole top of the bundt and had to ultimately glaze it upside down and pretend that the side did not look like hell. (The grand irony was that we were reading The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake. The agreement was that the cake tasted like baking stress or happiness.) Anyway, the lemon cake recipe came from here (although I used 3/4c lemon juice and 1/4c milk instead of the 1c milk. I also used 2T zest and no lemon extract and only baked it for 50 minutes (which was either just right or too long). The ganache (a nice option when you are largely butterless) came from here.
Anyway, in short. WE NEED TO EAT THAT AGAIN!
ELIZABETH * July 28 * Dinner
OK, we started here with Epicurious and improvised. We didn't have any cilantro and decided we'd prefer our corn on the cob, but did have some andouille sausage from Holland Farmer's Market in the freezer, and some truly awesome tomatoes...
2 links andouille sausage, sliced (20th Century Meat Market Holland, MI)
1 chopped yellow organic onion (CA via Trader Joe's)
3 cloves elephant garlic, chopped fine (Angelic CSA)
2 hot banana peppers sliced into rings (Fournie Farms, Collinsville, IL)
Saute above in olive oil. Toss in:
1 yellow squash, chopped (Angelic CSA)
2 large tomatoes, chopped (we used one yellow, one red, Fournie Farms)
Steam/stew above with:
2 tsp paprika
Salt and pepper to taste
Before serving stir in a handful of fresh basil, rough chopped.
We served this over a brown rice and barley mixture from Trader Joe's, with okra tossed in heavy cream and then coated with medium ground cornmeal, salt, pepper, cayenne, and pan-fried.
I also thought this would taste ok. I don't do alot of cajun and I never made okra before, but it in fact was very delicious - I would most certainly make that again, and the fact that it was gone indicates it was enough of a hit for company!
The cake was also very good, although less beautiful than some of Kelly's work. Nonetheless we ate it and did not feel sad. Rather we feel full and happy of good food!
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