Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Crabtown Races

Firstly I would like to honor this great Fish Jokes website for supplying today's title. Who knew that a Google search for "Crab Puns" would yield such an amazing site? I am grateful that such an amazing resource exists.



Last night Jen made some whole wheat pasta with some of the sauteed bok choy from the farm along with some scallops and lemon zest. I was not fortunate enough to sample this particular dish but I am told that it came out famously.

Today I rushed home from work, my parking efforts dashed by some impromptu "No Parking" signs that were not there yesterday, with the intention of making fresh goat cheese. I had purchased lowfat goat milk in an attempt to recreate what costs $10.99 from Coach Farms. My experiment was a failure. More on that later.



For a salad, a split clementine with mixed greens, shallots, pistachios, olive oil, cayenne, olive oil, salt, and pepper.

After bringing some lowfat goat milk to a simmer, stirring in lemon juice, running out of lemon juice, stirring in apple cider vinegar, stirring in more apple cider vinegar, the curds were not separating from the milk. So eventually I decided that this was just not going to work and abandoned the project. I figured it was $3.69 down the drain.



Simultaneously I was making a corn and crab bisque with some of the frozen corn from the farm share this summer. I used a little of the turkey stock, some cayenne pepper, salt, Old Bay, onion, and turkey bacon. Then, instead of using the milk in the fridge I opted to use the failed goat cheese experiment. The result was actually pretty good. The lemon and apple cider vinegar made for an interesting flavor and I would strongly consider using goat milk again in a cream soup in the future.



For the main course I marinated some thin-cut boneless pork chops in German mustard, horseradish, spices, salt, pepper, cider vinegar, olive oil, salt, and pepper. Then I seared them in a pan that I was already using to make my pan-roasted brussel sprouts with turkey bacon, and shallots.

It's a little humorous to use turkey bacon to accompany a dish with pork in it but turkey bacon was all we had in the freezer so I was eager to use it up.



There is no better wine I can think of than my favorite label: Smoking Loon. While I prefer the Syrah to the Merlot, it still features a newly packaged version of a loon puffing away on a cigar. For that I am truly grateful.



For dessert we had some of the chestnut ice cream with some melted chocolate, chopped walnuts (which generally I hate, but thought would go nicely with this ice cream), and whipped cream.

Overall it was a pretty good dinner (Jen declared it a triumph). Jen is working late tonight so my original plan to stretch all of these ingredients into two dinners was scrapped and I crammed everything into this evening.

Only a little lingering turnip (and a whole lot more corn in the freezer) remain from the farm. We'll see how I polish these off later in the week. I think it's going to require a great deal of supplemental ingredients from the grocery store. Perhaps the only farm items I may use will end up being the garlic that we still have in the crisper.

As having this farm share has rekindled my joy of cooking and creating new recipes I have also discovered another culinary fact about myself: I hate making my lunch for work. After all of this I feel completely relaxed and not like I expended any sort of energy at all. However, the thought of slapping two slices of turkey between some bread then putting them in a plastic bag makes me want to cry out of frustration.

Sadly those slices of turkey aren't going to jump into a sandwich all by themselves.

But wouldn't it be great if they did!

3 comments:

caolan said...

You don't just eat Whole Foods salad bar for lunch? Do they not let you or do you just get sick of the Whole Foods salad bar?

Jen said...

I offered to make Nate's sandwiches for him, but he declined. It's like it causes him pain just to know the sandwiches have to be made, no matter who makes them.

I would also eat at the salad bar, but Nate loves a sandwich. A lot.

Unknown said...

The thing about the salad bar is it would cost me $6-7 for lunch. A sandwich is probably about $1.50 or less.

It's a financial decision. Also, I would get sick of the salad bar but strangely never get sick of a plain turkey sandwich.