persimmonfrost | Entries tagged with eureka

NEW YORK, NY - SEPTEMBER 30: 'Next Iron Chef'...

If Alton says it's okay it is!

So the pie… it’s good, but it’s not as good as I’d hoped for. The fruit, particularly the plums, wasn’t as sweet and flavorful as I’d have wished. As I tend to err on the side of caution when it comes to sugar, I never add more than is called for in the recipe and sometimes I add less. While I added the full amount — one cup, which I thought was overdoing it a bit — the result was a little tart. *rimshot* We’re keeping an eye on an elderly neighbor while her niece is out of town, and I meant to take her a slice, but Glinda suggested that it might be a bit puckery for her. Fortunately I tend to like things that are sour, so I rather enjoyed it. And the pastry was quite good. It was a Pillsbury, refrigerated crust. Hey, Alton Brown said store-bought pie crusts are fine, so I don’t feel a bit guilty using them. I can make a homemade crust; I have, and it was quite good. I just prefer not to be bothered.

Tabbouleh (Photo credit: dronir)

Today I’m concentrating on salads, I guess. I’ve got bulgur soaking for tabbouleh and quinoa cooking with curry powder. Tabbouleh is pretty straightforward for me these days. Bulgur, tomato (Can’t wait until I’m using our own tomatoes in this.), parsley, a little cilantro, olive oil and lemon juice. I’ll probably add some chopped garlic scapes as long as I have them. For the quinoa salad, I’ll be adding walnuts, snap peas, onion and diced apricots. I’ll probably dress it with an apricot-curry vinaigrette.

Early girl tomatoes are (still too) early

French Breakfast Radishes

Fresh Picks should be here soon. I managed to cadge some French breakfast radishes out of them again this week, and I’ve got a baguette coming, and a cheese-garlic spread from River Valley Ranch, so dinner is going to be really excellent tonight. I’ll make some herbed butter for the radish sandwiches with either with Lake Shore Drive Seasoning or Sunny Paris Seasoning from The Spice House. I’ll make up my mind at the last minute, I’m sure. All in all, there’ll be some serious locavore action going on around here tonight.

I’m also planning to make a small batch of hummus today, but that’s by no means a sure thing. I don’t have pita, but I do have a lot of different crackers and I’ll have a baguette later, which is really very good with hummus. And the kicker is that none of this is really the type of thing I could take to our elderly neighbor and say ”Bon appetit!” They’re really not her sort of things at all. Maybe I’ll pull something together next week.

Coreopsis and rose (Photo credit: Tracy Rowan)

Glinda and I stayed inside last night and ordered a pizza. She’d been home sick all day (I didn’t even realize until I heard someone walking around upstairs, freaked out, and phoned her. She felt well enough to come down and watch Eureka (I say again, curse you SyFy, or whatever you’re calling yourself this week, for cancelling the best show you’ve got.) and eat pizza. So when I was getting ready to close my back windows, I turned on the lights and the fountain briefly — I run the fountain for a few minutes each day to discourage mosquitoes from laying eggs in the water — and something that had been squeaking below the window, fled into the coreopsis. So there I was at eleven-thirty yelling out my window “Dude, we’re going to have words about this!” Not even rats take me seriously.