Ah, we have been eating well at Foodieporn HQ. I’ve been planning out the weekly menus, recipes from clippings or cookbooks I’ve wanted to try with some old favorites thrown in. On Saturday, after the Earth Day festivities, we had J & J over for some Mexican soup from the newish Ina Garten. It was pretty good. I skipped the fried corn tortillas in favor of fried flour ones and swapped out the crushed tomatoes for some fire-roasted Muir Glen chopped tomatoes. They are probably one of my favorite things to have in the kitchen. They make soups taste amazingly good and are a great base for a smoky salsa when tomatoes are out of season and only the scariest of pink plastic tomatoes are available.
My classes at W-S have been heavily spring veg oriented and I have gleaned some recipes for my own repetoire. Last night we made a really good “rustic” pasta dish with broken wide lasagna noodles, grilled zucchini ribbons, baby arugula and some good olive oil and light tomato sauce. It looks beautiful on the platter and tastes incredible. I have now been dreaming up all kinds of things to do with grilled zucchini and eggplant and whatever else I can think to grill. We are really hoping to get the charcoal grill soon. Mostly so I can play grill cook outside. Grilled peaches, grilled pineapple, grilled corn on the cob… I tried grilled tofu once but unless you have absolutely pristine charcoal with no quick light fluid of any sort, it winds up tasting of gasoline fumes as it absorbs everything that comes in contact with it. Tofu is better left to indoor cookery.
I am trying to get all my ducks in a row for when the classes in Murfreesboro start. I want to have my first three lectures, at least, written by this weekend. As I am wont to do, I think I have gone a little overboard in what can logistically be absorbed in one sitting by a non-food geekery obsessed person, so I will inevitably need to scale back. Yes there are myriad types of herbs that have fallen by the wayside, but, unless it is an especially fascinating tidbit of trivia, do most people really care about things like sweet woodruff and chervil? I am guessing no, but it you signed up for an herb cookery class wouldn’t that by definition mean you are interested in them? See, this is my dilemma.
I am also putting the final touches on the housewarming party menu. Authentic(ish) Mexican, tamales and what not. But I do tend to assign myself the labor intensive and will have to start cooking over the weekend as well.
