I made two Gabrielle Hamilton recipes today, and defrosted my upright deep freezer. Usually I do that Memorial Day weekend, but this year it was too cold, so I waited until this weekend, when it’s actually a little too hot. About 90° out there now.
One of the Gabrielle Hamilton recipes was Hamilton via Smitten Kitchen – strawberry milk. I tried some right after I mixed it up, before chilling overnight, and it was good – I bet it’ll be even better really cold for brunch tomorrow. I left the strawberries macerating while we went to the Farmer’s Market, and the kitchen smelled of berries when we got back.
The other Gabrielle Hamilton recipe was this ranchero sauce that was in the NYT last weekend. I made a half batch, minus some of the ingredients called for, since I didn’t have them: two 28oz. cans of crushed tomatoes, a small bunch of cilantro, one whole head of garlic cloves, the last chipotle chile from a can with all of its adobe sauce, about 1 1/2 tablespoons achiote paste – I hope I didn’t over-do there, about a tablespoon of ground ancho chile, and 2 good pinches of salt. I followed Gabrielle’s directions to throw everything in a pot and simmer for an hour, then puree. I added a tablespoon of brown sugar at the end, too, and now I have two quarts of sauce, that hmm maybe I should repack into pint jars when it cools. It tasted great on corn chips dunked in, so I am looking forward to huevos rancheros.
I also made homemade ricotta, since we are having this greens pie for dinner tonight, since we are in the season of CSA boxes that are full of greens. I’m putting spinach and escarole into tonight’s pie. Last night I made the below greens & sausage pasta with kohlrabi greens filling in for the broccoli rabe or kale that I usually make it with, and we ate it with a big chopped salad that barely put a dent in the giant lettuce, that’s bigger than the cat.
Speaking of the Farmers Market (see this week’s flowers as the featured image), I impulse bought an extra bunch of asparagus, so I think tomorrow we’ll be having asparagus quiche instead of huevos rancheros for brunch.
I also got four pounds of rhubarb so domesticity will need to extend to doing something with all of that. I’ll probably simply wash and chop most of it for future pies. I’m trying to re-stock on this year’s rhubarb; I’ve used up everything from the freezer. I made a batch of puree last week for eating swirled into yogurt, and there’s some of that and half a dozen upside down rhubarb muffins in the freezer. Well, not exactly in the freezer – crammed into one of the freezers in one of our three fridges (I think the puree’s in the basement, and the muffins are in the freezer in the fridge in my kitchen), waiting for the freshly defrosted upright deep freezer to be cold enough to be re-loaded. And speaking of re-loading the freezer, I better go do that, right about now.
