But you tease, and you flirt/And you shine all the buttons on your green shirt/You can please yourself but somebody's gonna get it - Tikil gomen

We're not big corned beef and cabbage fans here at Pick headquarters. In fact, the Boy does not like it one bit. And while I did not wear a whit of green today to celebrate the famous snake hater, I thought it might be a good day for this recipe, which I came across earlier in the week.

I have had some delicious Ethiopian food (though I hate injera, that awful sour spongey bread), including the best collard greens ever, but I haven't had any in a long while. Tikil gomen is basically cabbage, carrots, onion and potatoes with cumin, turmeric and lots of black pepper and a good deal of olive oil. The sweetness of the carrots and cabbage mixed with the savory spices makes and the olive oil makes for a very unctuous and delicious bite. Even the Boy declared it a work of genius, despite the fact that he was dismayed when he heard he was having cabbage for dinner.

This is the recipe I used, except that I doubled the spices (and about 1.5 times the salt).

I feel good in a special way/I'm in love and it's a sunny day - Teriyaki chicken

I spent the vast majority of my day today outside; first at work, then at home doing some seed planting, and finally raking up the layer of dead leaves (why didn't they decompose this year???) and the embarrassingly large amount of dog poop in the yard (to my neighbors, I apologize). Around 4p, when I realized it was 4p rather than 1:30p (where did the day go?), I grabbed some chicken legs out of the freezer with absolutely no idea what I was going to do with them.

Around 6:30 the yard work was done and we were sitting outside in the waning sun, drinks in hand, feeling the chill of the evening creeping in. It seemed crazy not to fire up the grill so I threw some teriyaki marinade on the chicken and popped them on the grill. I remembered we had leftover asparagas salad and I steamed some buttery red potatoes. I chopped them up and drizzled them with olive oil (which is a really nice, really fragrant and flowery one) and sprinkled with this silly pink salt from Australia. Nice.

 

Seeds! Seedlings! Plants!

I tend to be very enthusiastic about gardening in the early parts of the spring and then, when it gets hot and I'm working outside for eight hours every day anyway, I become a trifle less enthusiastic. But since it's very early spring and today's excellently warm weather inspired me (not to mention the cache of seeds I got at the Drop.Swap.Grow event a couple weeks ago), I bought myself a little greenhouse seed thingie and also made up a bunch of newspaper pots (very easy - go here to learn how) and nestled them in a pot tray I got from work.

As of today I have seeds planted for basil, dill, thyme, sweet banana peppers, Tabasco peppers, bush green beans, lavender, cucumbers, hyacinth beans and sugar snap peas. Who knows what happens next?

It's Time to Make the Donuts

I went to Allrecipes.com this afternoon to look for a recipe for...something. I saw a photo of a donut on the front page and things spiraled from there and I have no idea if I managed to look up what I originally went for. For a brief moment I considered making yeast/raised donuts until I remembered I didn't have any appropriate yeast, so I kept exploring until I found a cake donut recipe that sounded right and easy enough. I love cake donuts; some more than others. There used to be a place on Manchester, near Kingshighway, that had the best cinnamon cake donuts; the cake was full of nutmeg and the outside was almost crispy with just the right amount of  cinnamon sugar coating it. I added extra nutmeg to this recipe (probably about a 1/4 teaspoon, freshly grated) and these came really close. Easy peasy recipe too, taking probably only 30 minutes start to finish.

3.14 Pi Day - Meatless Monday!

Today is 3.14.11, nowadays known as Pi Day in honor of that mathematical sum or theorem or something. Wait, let me check the intarnets and see what it says. OK here we are: Pi is a mathematical constant whose value is the ratio of any Euclidean plane circle's circumference to its diameter; this is the same value as the ratio of a circle's area to the square of its radius. So...whatever. I hate math. But I like pie, and that brings us to this.

Here is today's almond rocky road pie in its infancy. I made a cheater crust with pie crust mix, then pushed it into a greased pan rather than rolling the dough out. I then pre-baked the shell since this was going to be a chilled pie. After it was browned, but while still hot, I threw in a handful of vanilla marshmallows, crushed almonds and some semi-sweet chocolate chips. In the meantime, I had also made a batch of chocolate pudding (so easy to make from scratch, but I had a box mix). While it was still hot, I stirred in a few milk chocolate chips, just to up the choco content.

Working somewhat quickly, I poured the hot chocolate pudding on top of the marshmallows, nuts and chocolate. Surely the stuff melted from the heat of the hot pie shell and the hot pudding. Once it all cooled, I spread some whipped cream on top and then sprinkled with nuts and grated chocolate.

For the Meatless Monday dinner portion of Pi Day, it seemed imperative to have a pizza. I didn't have to go out today, and since this stupid snow did not make it attractive to be out in it, I needed to forage for ingredients. I only had a dab of leftover pizza sauce; I knew I had to make more. Luckily I had about half of a big can of tomato juice in the refrigerator. I added oregano, garlic, fresh basil, salt, pepper, a little raw sugar, and cayenne and simmered for a couple hours until it was reduced by more than half. I tasted it in comparison to the jarred stuff I had leftover - mine is better. Damn, now it looks like I need to make my own sauce from now on. Mushrooms, onions, kalamata olives and little blobs of pesto are the toppings.

While rummaging in the refrigerator, I came across the asparagus I bought the other day. I needed a salad idea, so I blanched the aspargus and cooled it off. Then I sauteed sliced onion in olive oil with balsamic vinegar. Once the onions were soft, I turned off the heat, dumped the asparagus back in, and added some walnuts. Oh, and a little pile of grated parmesan. Then stuck it in the fridge to chill. I love asparagus season

Did they sing a million blessings as they watched us slowly part?/Do they keep those final kisses in their tiny racing hearts? - Vegetable soup

Today was bone chilling cold. Moreso because today was also my first day back and work and a certain portion of it was spent outside. It may have been nearly 40F, but it was really windy and there wasn't a lick of sunshine. I could feel the cold in my legs for about three hours after I got home. So, the only solution for that kind of cold is soup.

I poked around for what I had on hand and came up with hamburger for making vegetable beef soup. Add onions, carrots, celery, corn, green beans, and potatoes, plus some beef soup stock and tomato juice - you have soup. It did the trick.

Cuban Sandwiches!

Roast pork leftovers means Cuban sandwiches! Roast pork, ham, Swiss cheese, mustard and pickles. Except that we don't like pickles on sandwiches so I put a little smear of tartar sauce on one side of the bread to give that pickle-y feeling. It worked! The bread I had was a softer, not too crusty, Italian sesame loaf, and I needed to find a way to make it crunchy in the end product. So, I brushed each outside with olive oil and put the sandwiches on a griddle pan, weighted by a cast iron skillet. It worked perfectly! In fact, the roof of my mouth is a little sore from the crispy, crunchy bread.

Lippy kids on the corner begin settling like crows - Roast pork

The last time I bought a big package of pork steaks, the tail end of the pork butt was left unsliced. I thought it would make a good roast and today was the day to try it out. I kept it simple, just seasoning the roast on all sides with salt, pepper, and garlic powder. It roasted in a 375F oven for about an hour and came out juicy on the inside and just the right amount of crispy outside. I served it alongside some potatoes sauteed with green pepper and scallions and a steamed vegetable mix.

My dad loved roast pork so the smell and the flavor always remind me of him.