A Warm-up

I am getting my writing part of the brain in gear because I have to write an Independent Proposal, which is graduate school speak for "stupid fucking piece of shit waste of time." However, in my infinite wisdom, I will actually make it work for me by sending it to people who give a damn and might be able to get me a job after I graduate. So HAH. NYEAH. I WIN.

Anyway, about the food...

Inspired by the amount of random vegetable salads in Israel, I decided to construct a random veggie shred. I had in my fridge the following: half a head of cabbage, 1 zucchini, and 1 apple. So I shredded everything w/ my food processor into a bowl. It was crunchy, green, and slightly sweet (thank you, apple bits). Then Danny added zested rind of an entire lemon. He used the juice of the lemon to make a vinagrette (I think he added oil, salt, and pepper until it tasted good... maybe mustard too... I don't know...), and we topped it all off with poppy seeds. I guess it was kind of a slaw? It tasted good, whatever it was. We made this for a party of 10 people, and it went over very well.

Then, we also tried an apple fennel salad, as per a Mark Bittman recipe. Recipe is as follows: very thinly slice a bulb of fennel, cut up a few apples (I did matchstick-like pieces, toss together with a few chopped fennel fronds for greenery, and dress with a basic mustard vinagrette (oil, vinegar, mustard, salt if needed, pepper). We added some tarragon, which was pretty good. As for the apples to fennel ratio, just go with whatever tastes good. It should be a balance between the anise-y flavor of the fennel and the sweetness of the fruit. Do whatever works for you. It's a very autumnal salad. As apples come into season, it'll only get better.

CSA, again.

So, our CSA is in full swing, which is nice.  We're getting a nice amount of veggies and fruit, and while I've been too busy to really think about how much we're buying vs how much we buy when we don't have a CSA, it's been interesting.  I can say with complete certainty we eat a buttload more fresh fruit than it actually provides for us, but I'm not sure if that's just us and our insane appetites or how it usually ends up for most people.  I don't know how people with families would do it.

A lot of times, it turns into a "Oh, dammit, those stupid peas/summer squash we forgot about is/are going to rot if I don't do something with them RIGHT NOW!  What should I do???"  There've been some stirfries, rice dishes, and random salads that have been quite lovely.  We tried a corn souffle thingy from the NY Times that used a zucchini along with 4 small ears of corn and some roasted and peeled poblano chiles (any pepper would work; I think they actually call for a fresh red pepper) we had in the freezer from last year.  You mix ~ half the corn kernels with 3 eggs, and some milk, I think, in the blender.  Slice and sautee the zuke with an onion (and the pepper if you're using fresh) until transluscent, wait till it cools, dump with whole kernels, roasted pepper shred, and egg-corn-milk mixture into a greased pyrex with some cumin, and bake till set.  Then there was the time Danny didn't realize he had to shell the peas, and that stirfry had an interactive edamame-like dimension to it.  But again, it was tasty.

Overall, the whole CSA thing is nice, and if nothing else, we're certainly eating more organic food for whatever that's worth.  But to tell the truth, I've been feeling very put-upon and in a rut, with no desire to be creative or anything.  It's an odd way to feel in the summer.  I'm not used to it.  I miss my half-day Fridays from when I worked at Pepsi, and Sal's amazing BBQ every other Thursday.  I don't like working twice as hard for less than half the salary, and feeling guilty when I don't.  

I sincerely hope academia overhauls itself or else it's going to die, because I can't say its collapse wouldn't be deserved.

The Night of Glop

Tonight, we shall be feasting upon glop! Yes, after the fried chicken and booze festival, everything is back to normal. There's a thing of hummus with the appropriate hot stuff to put on top, eggplant mush, and guacamole. And some sauteed beet greens in garlic. The beet greens were FREE. So that means they taste even better than normal because I'm a graduate student, and I take the garbage from the farmers because it's FREE. FREE BEET GREENS FOR ALL. Oh yes. They're normally quite tasty, but nothing goes better with garlic and olive oil than FREE.

But for all the glop (hummus, eggplant, guacamole), I need some pita (because pita, tortillas; corn, wheat; what's the difference, really?). I also need to make some lima and dill rice (it's a Persian thing) because we got fresh giant lima beans at the farmers' market the other day. And I have some zucchinis, which will be turned into zucchini, onion, and tomato glop.

And I think I'm going to roast the cauliflower that's been languishing in the veggie drawer of the fridge. No idea what to put on it. Maybe I'll blenderize a sauce out of mustard, capers, and vinegar to drizzle over the finished product... hm. I like that. But first I'm going to the gym.

You know, I've always been afraid I'd be that moron who trips and shoots off the back of a treadmill... so far it hasn't happened. I'll surely write about it if it does.

Gad-Zukes!

I had 2 hefty zucchinis sitting in the fridge, and nothing is more revolting than rotted zucchinis. Even when they're fresh, they have a hint of sliminess. Kind of like, "Heh heh heh, if you leave us long enough, we will ooze ALL OVER YOUR FRIDGE..."

So, I decided to take action before the fridge microbes reduced them to a puddle of glop. (As if we need further convincing that wasting food is bad.)

But anyway, here're two ways to take care of zukes.

One way involves a grill. Slice the zucchinis lengthwise into strips (roughly 1/4" thick; perfection is not key). Have some soy sauce in a dish with a bit of oil and a brush (or spoon) on hand. Put the slices on a hot grill, and either brush or dribble the oil/soy sauce over them, turning them when they get a little cooked and have grill marks. Apply oil/soy sauce to the other side, cook a little more, and then eat. We call them snakes.

You could put teriyaki on them or even a curry-based marinade, and they'd taste great. This is the most stripped down quick way to do it. You could probably even cut them into cubes and skewer them, alternating with tomatoes. (Grilled tomatoes are very underrated. As are grilled onions. You know who has the grilled veggie thing down? The Persians. They know what's what in the grilled veggie department.)

Actually, this just came to me... if anyone is vegan or has friends who are and you're throwing a 4th of July party, take the vinaigrette from this recipe. I tried it with tofu which I sauteed, and it's fresh-tasting and I kind of want to drink it. It would probably rock with tempeh, which has more chewiness and flavor than tofu. I'd marinate the tempeh, and alternate tempeh chunks on skewers with zucchini, tomato, and onion. (Or just grill the tempeh in burger-sized pieces; incidentally, Trader Joe's sells tempeh as do most crunchy hippie health food stores.) Judging by how the tofu came out, you'll have to beat the meat-eaters off the tempeh. I don't have a BBQ at my disposal - hooray apartment living - but if anyone tries this, I want to know how it comes out!

So... the other way to cook zucchini requires an onion, several cloves of garlic, a can of tomato sauce (so I just realized I have no idea how big said can was, but it's the size of cans that beans typically come in), and dried oregano, basil, and chili flakes, or whatever herbs you like. Cut your zucchinis (I think I probably had somewhere in the neighborhood of 2 pounds) in half lengthwise, and then slice into 1/4-1/2" slices. Chop your onion and garlic. Heat some olive oil in a pan, sautee the onion. When it starts to turn brownish-translucent, throw in the garlic and the zukes. Sautee until the zukes start to turn bright green, get limp, and start to turn brown. Throw in the tomato sauce and your herbs (I have no idea how much; ~2-3 dashes), cover the pot, turn the heat down, and let it simmer until the flavors have time to mix. Done.

You can skew the ratio of veggie chunks:sauce in favor of the veggies and you have a side-dish, or if you like 'em saucy, it can top pasta. I had mine over some ravioli, even though it was more zucchini than sauce, but I like zucchini. And this typically tastes even better the next day.

(As a side-note... zucchinis will probably be tastier and more plentiful a little later in the season for those of us in the northern hemisphere. So enjoy!)