Basil, rosemary and mint all failed in my infertile apartment. But I’ve finally discovered something that will grow! I bought some salad sprout seeds from the bulk bin at the Takoma Park Co-op and it actually worked. In less than two weeks I found (well, worked for) a jar full of sprouts.
This is my second go-round because it’s just so darn easy and I love having one extra thing to add to my salads and sandwiches.
Directions next.
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I confess: I don’t like recipes. That, and my tendency to leave out key ingredients even when they are listed right in front of me, makes me a worse-than-average baker.
It’s not that I can’t follow directions; from K*nex to origami, I have personally experienced the power of step-by-step instructions in my life. When I’m in the kitchen, though, I’d rather be swept up in the moment, adding a little of this, a little of that. Generally, the results are, if not supremely delicious, at least edible. Next time I make tomatillo salsa though, I will do so with recipe in hand.
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My indoor basil plant looks like this:
I know, pathetic. Believe me, when I was pregnant, it was the inspiration for many “so you think you’re ready for parenthood” cracks. My response was, there is a reason that babies scream when they are hungry.
Elijah is eight months old now, and so far so good, so this summer, my dear spouse and I decided to take on another complicated project for which we were only minimally qualified: a raised bed garden. I hear that these are trendy at present, but let me tell you, that trend hasn’t reached my neighborhood. Our block seems to favor vegetation more like this:
New age sculpture or misguided but admirable attempt to grow a beer tree? You decide.
We decided on the back porch as the locale for our foray into botany. Large and concrete, it has thus far served little purpose aside from storing some semi-decaying deck chairs. The whole back “yard” is paved over, so it seemed like concrete was our fate. We called up our friend Pat, who jumped at the chance to bust out some power tool action. He and Kurt (my husband) headed to Home Depot for supplies. They were gone for about three hours, reasons for which are still unclear, and returned with some very long pieces of wood. The folks at HD were kind enough to cut the 12-ft. boards into two sections, 10 ft. and 2 ft. Pat was a little sad about not having a chance to use his circular saw.
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Yes, I realize this is a gorgeous plate of pasta. Whole wheat noodles, swirling high, bombarded with thick rods of asparagus and topped with green garlic and grated parm. But what are those darn clumps of white? Fucking ricotta.
I bought a tub of ricotta from the far mar (although you can apparently make ricotta yourself) for my strawberry ricotta sticks, and wanted to use the rest of it up quick. I thought a creamy ricotta based sauce would be fantastic for my spring pasta medley. Well, ricotta doesn’t really melt. Or smooth out. Or blend in. It just kinda forms into these lumps of cheese. I tried to let it absorb in the pasta cooking water. I added more butter than I care to admit. And still nothing. Blobs of ricotta.
The meal in its entirety still tasted good, but not what I had envisioned. Is it even possible to turn ricotta into a sauce? Please help me not fuck up again!
Back in the early days of ES, I once ranted about the trend of making every thing on earth into a pesto, thinking that the old-fashioned basil kind could not be beat. However, one of our first ever commenters, John James Anderson, set me right:
After living in Italy for over a year there are about half a dozen pestos out there for sale on the shelves of Roman grocers; all are defined by region. Pesto basically means something that is ground. So, anything can be made into a pesto. The walnut variety of which you wrote typically should be mixed with sun dried tomatoes, garlic and Parmesan cheese (piu olio, sale e nero, claro!). Others are made with olives, onions, spinach and ricotta. But, Pesto Genovese (above) will always be king.
OK, fine. I don’t really know anything. I just pretend to be a food snob. And now that we’ve had everything from arugula pesto to nettle pesto on the blog, I’m officially a convert — anything green is better ground up and mixed with cheese, nuts and extra virgin. So when I saw sunflower shoots at the far mar this weekend and bought them on impulse, I knew immediately what I was going to do.
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Sometimes, you can pinpoint the exact moment when a dish goes wrong. Other times, you get to the end, give the food a taste, and think, “What the hell happened?!” And then, there are the times when things are bad, bad, bad, from start to finish. And even though you see it coming, you are powerless to stop it. Yep, that was me in my attempt at a chile rellenos of sorts.
It began with a trip to LA Mart in Silver Spring, my favorite spot for out-of-season produce from exotic locales. I usually stop in sometime during the dead of winter when I just can’t eat one more carrot. This time, I picked up some pointy, green, poblanno-esque peppers, figuring I could stuff them, cover them in cheese and call it a dinner.
I got home and the trouble began. I roasted the peppers on the stove, where they got all blistery and black looking. Not sure if that was good or not, but I soldiered on. The recipe I used directed me to scrape off the black bits and core the peppers, leaving a nice, smoky shell. What I ended up with were several limp, slimy green sheets. But I continued. The filling would redeem them, I figured. Plus, they would be covered in cheese.
The filling was about what you’d expect—black beans, tomatoes, spices—with one addition: grapefruit. A bit odd, I thought, but I was willing to give it a try. It could be one of those surprisingly delicious combinations, like pickles and cream cheese wrapped in corned beef.
Nope. It was just bad. It was hard to nail down what exactly was bad about it, which means it was also impossible to correct. But I now had about four cups of the stuff, so I stumbled blindly on. I “stuffed” the slimy pepper sheets with the grapefruit-black bean blend.
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