Vegetable Soup, Veggie Meat Balls

Every once in a while a wrench gets thrown in the cogs and dishes that were planned never come to fruition. This can become a problem when the dishes have perishable ingredients that are wasting away in the kitchen. This sort of event calls for ingenuity, or more often just throwing them all together in a pot. An excellent vegetable soup was constructed using Broccoli, Asparagus, Red Potatoes, Mushrooms, Carrots, Barley, and Onions. I think there were actually a few more ingredients, and I've just forgotten them.

As for tonight's dish, we had a simple Tomato-Basil pasta using fresh basil from the garden and some fancy olive oil and balsamic vinegar that are printed all in Italian, so the only thing I can tell you about them is that they're delicious. Along with the other ingredients were Kalamata Olives, meatballs made out of some 'Gimmie Lean' meat impostor that Dustin picked up on a whim. They turned out very well, but still with room for improvement. There's always room more improvement. Always. Go improve.

Don't lose your momentum

It is difficult to conquer a hill on a bicycle when starting from the bottom, as opposed to the top of another hill. Much the same is it difficult to blog about dishes I cooked a week ago. Here we feature two dishes in one entry, both made a number of days ago. My first attempt at making gumbo can be seen here. I feel satisfied with it, but would prefer to use better sausage the next time around. I'm curious about trying a gumbo z'herbes, which I feel I might make in the coming days when fortifying dishes are demanded to help us fend off the ills of winter.



In days beyond, I decided I'd finally use some lentils that have been sitting tidy in my pantry for many cycles. I thought that partnering them with barley would make an interesting dish, and a little inspiration from recipes pointed me in the direction of pressing them over caramelized shallots and then baking them in the same dish used to make the former. This came out with an interesting texture, but felt a little dry and could certainly benefit from more salt. The toasted walnuts would add a nice texture contrast if the beans were to be a little more mushy, which I'll shoot for next time. Dustin pointed out that toasted walnuts taste like popcorn. He was right. I'd never noticed.

Roasting Roots, Vegetable Soups, Shivering in yur boots.

The most wonderful thing about the weather changing is the way out cuisine moves along with it. Once the leaves touch ground and a chill touches the skin, we're ready for such a thing that will warm us slowly, starting by delivering complex sensation the mouth, then, from our very core, washing us over with radient warmth and providing us with strenth and power. These are the days that meals must be crafted with care to combat that what we are up against - an enemy that constantly shifts form, reshaping itself to take advantage in the holes in your defenses...but it shall not succeed in these days, for we know where a good defense begins.

Within the earth we find life begins lower than we might expect. Buried beneith layers of soil, and perhaps a few misplaced pebbles, we find the gift of the soils: tubers, edible root sytems, suppliments, sometimes, to their surface side counterparts. Here, a collection of beets, potatos, parsnips, carrots, cellery root, and a rew other items that I fail to recollect were roasted to delicate crispness on the exterior, with a smooth soft interior. Vidal Scott was to thank for this wonderful addition to our health. But we have no even gotten to the heart of this evening's meal.

In days prior, Zac and I made a collection of intensely powerful and fresh vegetable juices, ranging from Kale and Salad Greens on one side to Carrots and Sweet Potatoes on another. His masticating juicer delivers back all the dry pulp that it has extracted all the juice from, and we set to making vegetable stock with these items, with thr helpful addition of a little Thyme, Bay, and an Onion. The stock was frozen away for the week while business held us apart from what we so eagerly craved. But the day finally came that our base could once again bath us with nutrients. It would not, however, go unassisted. Joining our contender in the chamber above the fiery pit were none others than:

• Carrots


• Green, Yellow, and Red Peppers


• Yellow and Red Onions


• Leeks


• Garlic


• Purple Potatos


• Sweet Potatos


• Cellery Root


• Parsley


• Bay


• Thyme


• Cayanne Pepper


• Crushed Red Pepper


• Quinoa


• Lemon Zest

And hence came together a dish of such power, such magnitude, that we shall surely be fit to stride from the halls of our fathers into the fields of Valhalla and lay waste to all our would-be agressors, until at last the entire universe has become aware that we will not be stamped out: for we know how to eat.

Salmon Corn Quinoa

I've got a friend who goes crazy for Quinoa, and we were both in the 'empty the storage' mode, so he brought over this salmon that was marinated in a bunch of stuff that I don't even remember. After taking the picture I decided to drizzle some balsamic vinegar over the setup, which brought a wonderful element to the dish.

Chorizo Thyme!

It's been a while, no? Mostly, I haven't been posting anything new because I've just been making old dishes lately. But, I've had a few days of improve here while I'm trying to clean up the rest of my pantry before restocking, so here's what I came up with:



There is a sausage making / pork curing place on the outskirts of the county know to passers-by as 'Stan's Country Store'. I finally decided to stop there when last I passed it, and picked up some Boudin and Chorizo, both of which are wonderfully delicious. I mated it with some items laying around in the fridge and pantry for this delightful dish. I had a good bit of fresh thyme that needed to be used, then some carrots and celery. All of those things got steamed in order, and then mixed with saffron basmati rice and parsley for a simple and filling dish.