Deb's Lunch … and dinner and breakfast too

What a F’ing day … Started off & the cats were just being pesty, hissing at each other, knocking stuff down, getting into everything. Like when I went into my bathroom and Hammie was standing on the toilet seat splashing water everywhere. Easy to remember because she’s in my lap now, squeaking and butting my hands to try to get me to pet her, and kneading my leg with her claws. She’s warm and shedding and making my face itch.

I sorted out the leftover flowers from the birthday dinner, that we hardly enjoyed because they spent most of their life on top of the fridge where the cats couldn’t get them. I put a jar of statice with no water on the pass thru. I went out to get the papers, and was thinking, “Hmm, maybe I can get some glads at the Market”, and Hammie knocked the jar over.

We biked to the Farmers Market – that was nice – talked to friends, got coffee. We were conservative in our purchases because Mark’s going to Door County for his use it or lose it vacation while I stay here and get my online courses ready. I got a bag of peaches and a basket of plums and dragon tongue beans to cook with tomatoes & onion like the ones in my birthday dinner salad last week. And poblanos to roast. And corn. But people were clumpy and slow and annoying.

We came home and had separate breakfasts. I had a hard-boiled egg and cheese sandwich and some of the plums. Not sure what Mark had – something from Stella’s. He went off to the library, and to run errands for his trip, and I went to E. Wash to get stuff out of the basement.

Belinda and Stephen met me there, and we got things cleared up pretty fast. The painter stopped by too, and we made arrangements for when he’ll finish and when the cleaners will come. And it’s looking really good.

There was an old broken table with a glass top in the basement, and I was going to take it with a load of other stuff to the trash and recycle drop off, but we decided to leave it on the curb, along with a clothing rack. Mistake. I decided I wanted to get a new dish drainer and shower curtain, so I came home for coupons, to go to Bed, Bath & Beyond. When I got back the glass top was smashed, in the gutter and the street, and the sidewalk. Probably someone taking the clothes rack broke it and left it for me to clean up.

I was pretty tired by the time I got back home. A lot of the stuff in the basement was heavy. Like the 80 pounds of water softener salt I brought home, or the old trash can of dirt and sticks that I dumped in the yard waste pile, and then tossed into the rigid plastic dumpster at the trash and recycle drop off. So probably not so surprising that after I mixed up the bread dough with the sponge I’d had rising, I discovered the little bag of seeds that was supposed to go in, still sitting on the shelf. That might’ve actually been a good thing, since I kneaded the seeds in, instead of mixing them in with the mixer.

I decided that instead of working on setting up my online courses, I could relax a little bit – it was after 4:00 already. So I took a shower, and then was going to sit and read on the back deck. But even that took work – the resin Adirondack chairs needed to be scrubbed before they could be sat on.

I made an Aperol sprizter, but ended up only drinking part of it. (I mixed another one to drink with this blog post). I fooled around trying to take a picture of myself that looks like my dad.

I made a good pasta – penne with corn and onions cooked in a generous amount of butter, with goat cheese, a little drizzle of half & half, the pesto that was trying to turn black in the fridge, and a roasted pepper – in the course of making dinner, I got the poblanos roasted, too. I cooked a whole pound of pasta, but only used half – the corn lightened it up. There’s still stuff to wash in the sink, but only one pot and one half sheet pan. And I think the seedy bread will make good toast for breakfast tomorrow.

I brought home the little bunch of fake grapes I used to put in the bathroom at E. Wash – but I might have to take them back – the paint’s messed up in the little alcove where I always put them, from some deodorizer thing that Belinda tried when they used to have to keep the cat box in there – so maybe it needs fake grape camouflage. I’m sure it’ll make all the difference in the selling the house.

 

Julia Child’s birthday is August 15th, which was a Saturday this year, so that seemed like as good a reason as any to have my birthday dinner that night, even though my real birthday was the Tuesday before. Julia turned 103 – I’m a lot younger, I just feel like 103 sometimes.

We had a pretty impressive array of appetizers:

• Hummus with a curried onion and cauliflower topping, kind of like this Food & Wine recipe – I didn’t have the pink peppercorns, and I probably used less olive oil for the frying, served with some breads that Costco was called Naan but worked fine as pita;
• Little toasts to spread with whipped goat cheese (that had a little honey mixed in) and zucchini butter, and roasted cherry tomatoes, and a few Potters Crackers cranberry hazelnut crisps from the Farmers Market;
• Dill dip, and carrots and cucumbers and red and green peppers;
• Bowls of curried cashews and wasabi peas from the co-op.

Then we ate chilled corn soup, topped with fresh popped popcorn, and I had bread bowls with mini corn muffins with fresh corn kernels in them, and focaccia, on the tables.

Followed by Salade Niçoise – that was the homage to Julia. Nice mixed greens, mesclun, (from what we call the “beautiful booth” Jones Valley Farm, where L’Etoile restaurant buys, too), steamed multi-color fingerlings, tossed with their own vinaigrette, and extra parsley, hard boiled eggs, Niçoise olives, chunks of tomato, and green beans. Tipi gave us Romano beans in our CSA boxes on Thursday, and I was going to roast them, but thought they might be too tough, so I decided to cook them the way I normally would – braised with onions, and tomatoes, and dill.

Partly the lightness of the dinner was so we could finish off with pie – I made a cherry pie and a peach galette, and a crisp from the leftover peach and cherry pie filling, mixed.

We decided to have everyone go upstairs for the appetizers, then come down for dinner, and then go back up for dessert, buffet style. We also decided, even though I served up the soup in individual bowls, to serve the salad on the buffet too, on the big platters that would be too hard to pass. Everything worked just about perfectly, and I had a ton of help, although the guests all showed up a bit early. Kind of why I thought I could do regular dinners here. We have the space, and I sure have the equipment. Rach is here, she organized her work week to be here for the party, and my brother came from Seattle, and both kids and one of their girlfriends (the other had to work) from Chicago. It was really fun having a house full of family, and a bunch of good friends.

I got a few key items for the dinner in my CSA box Thursday – the Romano beans and lots of tomatoes and cucumbers and peppers to cut up to go with the hummus and dill dip.  I did a Costco / Willy St. run on Friday morning to buy party stuff, then came home to do party prep. I made the hummus, and I had something like 19 ears of corn, from the market and my CSA box, and I got it all cut off the cobs, and measured out for the soup and the muffins and corn salad. Saturday morning my brother, Mark, and I biked to the Farmers Market Saturday for the rest of the supplies – lettuce and cauliflower and cherry tomatoes and potatoes and more corn just because I wanted it.

Friday night we had a pick up dinner of stuff I got out of the freezer – beef & bean burritos and a chicken enchilada casserole – plus the corn salad with an avocado cut up on top & chips. We opted NOT to go to Sugar Maple Fest, and I baked all the pies, and made the little toasts. The cherry came out best – the peach and the crumble got soggy by Sunday, when I ate the top of the crumble for a mid-afternoon snack. On Saturday I made the corn soup – I was so glad that I knew to cook the vegetables until they were really soft, based on my test batch experience. I also made the focaccia and mini corn muffins, boiled eggs, braised the green beans, cut up the veggies for the dip – Al says he came into the kitchen for a carrot and I told him to get out – I don’t remember that – made the hummus topping, steamed the potatoes, and tossed them in some scallion vinaigrette I had in the fridge, made a big batch of fresh vinaigrette and dressed the tuna. Rinsed the greens.

It all sounds like a lot of prep on Saturday, but there was time for Rach and my brother and I to eat egg salad made from the eggs that wouldn’t peel and the too vinegar-y pickles I had in the basement, made from an earlier CSA box’s cucumber and fresh dill, on buttered dense whole wheat bread. And there was still time for moving furniture – Al was our muscle – and making placecards, and showers, and I got Rach to French braid my hair, and make up my eyes.

There was pretty much the right amount of everything – still kind of a lot of corn soup in a big jar in the basement fridge (maybe I can make it into pasta sauce or enchiladas…)  – but we had bagels with goat cheese and roasted tomatoes and zucchini butter for Sunday breakfast and my brother kept slicing hunks off the focaccia, so now there’s just about the right amount of it it to freeze with the corn muffins (that got pretty crumbly) for breadcrumbs and a Thanksgiving stuffing that couldn’t be beat. I picked the wilted lettuce leaves out of the bowl of salad leftovers, and now there’s a mixture of tuna, olives, green beans, and potato that I bet Rach and I can eat up this week, maybe on top of fresh greens.

It was fun being surrounded by family and friends, interesting and embarrassing, too. Al obviously remembers some things a little differently than John and I do. Well, maybe not exactly differently, instead, as a member of the “never let the truth stand in the way if a good story” contingent in our family – that would be him, my mom, and my brother – he has used his skills as a raconteur to create a suitably embellished version of events that’s just a bit more tellable. Interesting, and embarrassing, too, for those of us who play a part in the tale.

I’m having a bit of trouble getting portfolio slideshow to display my picture captions – but I bet I can get it worked out, eventually.

I made leek & ham tart for breakfast and roasted fingerling potatoes. With bacon on the side, so a heavy on the smoked pork meal, but so tasty. Hammie decided to pose with the fruit – there was Tipi watermelon and cherries and apricots and little plums from Door County, by way of the Dane County Farmers Market.  

Later, I tried out a recipe for chilled corn soup that I’m considering for my birthday dinner – this one has white wine and red bell pepper in it, and you’re supposed to garnish with popcorn. I think I might use this Angostura bitters popcorn instead of the “Honey Thyme Kettlecorn” in the recipe, because I’m afraid it’d be too sticky, with the honey.

I also made upside down apple cake, and it’s another in my saga of wrong size pans; semi-disaster cakes. The recipe said 4 TBLS butter for the topping, and another 6 in the cake, and use an at least 2-inch deep, 9-inch, non-stick cake pan. I have a 2-inch deep, 9-inch, cake pan, but it’s not non-stick. The recipe allowed as how you could use an 8-inch square pan, but I decided to use a 9, to avoid boil over. Anyways, the topping was floating in the butter, and I forgot to put the butter into the cake batter. Which seemed almost tough to me, when the cake was topped with ice cream, and it got cold. It’s also really thin. I’m going to try it again, in a smaller pan, with I think about 4 TBLS butter in the cake.

 

 

Today I put the yellow eye beans in a casserole with corn salsa and chicken and corn tortillas and cheese. Tomorrow I am going to cook them with kale and olive oil and garlic. I think that’s sleek (kale with black-eyed peas and bulghur), that we used to eat at Mideastern restaurants in Pittsburgh.

On Saturday morning, Rach and I were looking at houses on Zillow for too long, and I dry-boiled my stove top espresso pot. I ordered a new one from Amazon, because it still smelled burnt, and it was waiting for me on the front stoop when I went for the paper on Monday morning.