Super-delicious pasta

This turned out to be way more than the sum of its parts.

Summery wintertime hydropasta:
about 1/4 cup plain goat cheese
about 8 brine-cured kalamata olives, diced
2 tsp. olive oil (fancy and pungent if you have it)
1 hydroponic tomato (you could use a handful of grape tomatoes maybe)
fresh spinach egg linguine for two people (I used Knoll Crest Farms)

Put salted water on to boil. While it's heating, mix first three ingredients in a small bowl with a fork until cheese is smooth and olives are distributed. Dice tomato, removing seeds if you care. Cook pasta according to package instructions (2-3 minutes), drain, and immediately return pasta to pan. Toss pasta with goat cheese mixture, divide onto two plates, and top each plate with half the diced tomato. Add a few grinds of black pepper to each plate, and pow! Your awesome dinner is done in under ten minutes.

The olive oil flavor is really key here - the more "olive-y" the better. I used some of the Pasolivo I bought as a birthday present to myself. It's really good - if you've ever been skeptical about whether olive oil can have a real flavor impact, Pasolivo will convince you. It's quite strong, with lots of fruity, grassy notes. Plus Pasolivo is made in my homeland, the li'l old central coast of California. And look how lovely it is!

Ah, sweet relief

Though Monday's Greenmarket pickings were verrrrry slim, I was so glad to be back that I barely noticed. I picked up some apples, spinach, baby bok choy, sweet potatoes, carrots, and butternut squash - nothing spectacular - but I'm very much looking forward to the spinach-and-veggie-sausage omelet with oven-roasted on sweet potatoes I'm planning to make tonight. And of course the apples are already simmering away for applesauce. California was great, but being home in my own kitchen is just lovely. And my Vita-Mix arrives Wednesday!!!

Is this my kitchen or Cute Overload??

These nested ceramic duckie measuring cups from Amanda are too cute to be real - but they are! They are probably too cute to use for measuring on a regular basis due to my own clumsiness, but I have visions of serving some sort of small, adorable dessert in them. (The cowboy in the photo to the right is my nephew.)

In other news, I'm going to California on Saturday for the holidays, so I will be out of commission for awhile.

Also, it is cold, my lips are chapped, and my nose is running all the time. Stupid winter.

Soup, part 1

Today's soup is a potato and celeriac chowder/stew/thing from Crescent Dragonwagon. I used leeks instead of onion, but otherwise followed the recipe faithfully. The only issue I take with what is a relatively tasty dish is that I think the addition of 1/4 tsp. celery seed is overkill for an already quite "celery-y" soup (it calls for a whole celery root); the celery taste verges on metallic a tiny bit, and I think omitting the celery seed (or perhaps using just a pinch) would alleviate that. Though my celery-adoring photo assistant may love it as is, which is lucky, because the recipe made lots and I'm freezing most of it to feed him when he gets back from California. I might try pureeing the rest of the soup, as the celeriac didn't get quite as soft as the potato so there's a weird bit of textural dissonance going on. This photo is pretty pointless (thick whitish liquid with some unidentifiable chunks!) except for the opportunity to show off one of my prized Pea Soup Andersen's soup mugs. Tomorrow, borscht. And I'm not using a recipe for that one.

At long last...

...I am home! And it's not CMJ! And things can settle down...somehow. Thank goodness butternut squash keeps so well at room temperature. I haven't had any cube-shaped roasted vegetables in far too long. And I couldn't satisfy my dark green leafies cravings in SF, either, though I did manage some chard here, some spinach there.

Culinary highlight - other than the amazing Golden Era, and the equally stunning House Of Nanking (their string beans, and pretty much everything else, are to die for) - I made an omelette for three Saturday morning, with perfect California avocadoes, chard that I had sauteed with shallots and garlic, kalamata olives, and feta cheese. On the side were a sweet Yukon Gold and a nice waxy red potato.

Good things are appearing on the horizon. Not only will I be able to get back to my dear greenmarket on Saturday, but once I start my new job, I'll have two days off per week instead of just one, which means...more time for vegetable shopping and trying new recipes. I am very excited.

How can I miss you if you don't go away?

Back to the dear, dear USG today after weeks of questionable eating. But while in Cali, I had some really delicious strawberries and pluots (sexy hybrids like that never make it eastward, it seems), as well as all the ripe, buttery avocadoes I wanted, which was lots.


I came home with:
4 "Early Golden" apples
2 Macintosh apples
2 zucchini
1/2 lb. yellow snap beans
1 1/2 lb. green beans
3 peaches
1 lb. "Yellow Egg" plums
2 ears yellow corn
3 tomatoes
2 Poblano peppers
1 Anaheim chile
1 lb. fingerling potatoes
Total spent: about $30

The peppers will go in a pot of black beans, the tomato, corn, and zucchini will comprise another (late-)summer saute, and I'll roast the potatoes in the oven with olive oil and salt (as the sign over the bin recommended). I usually try to avoid the simple starches, but the potato vendor had so many beautiful varieties that I couldn't resist, and it was easy to choose fingerlings of the same size for even roasting.

I'll boil the green beans quickly with salt, and keep them cold for lunches, as a substitute for edamame (we eat quite enough soy in this family) - and, of course, the apples will be slices for lunch. The Early Goldens are absolutely my favorite - so crisp and sweet-tart! - so I hope they stay around for awhile...but I'm going to try a different variety also each week.

The plums were a total gamble - I have no idea what they'll be like, but their color was similar to my beloved Green Gage plums, so I went for it. You'd think my spotty plum history would advise caution in this type of decision, but I was still dizzy with joy at my return to the greenmarket when I hit the Red Jacket Orchards stand. The yellow snap beans were $6/lb., but I couldn't resist getting a few - and, once again, the boy who sold 'em to me was a bright-eyed cutie of about 22. What is it with snap beans and good-looking boys?

vegetable vacation

No Greenmarket this week. I'll be in sunny California, eating peaches and avocadoes by the dozen!