Monday, June 20, 2011

Ol' Dirty Lettuce

The Monday rush was on as I raced down 95 to get home and pick up the farm share. I've missed the mad rush home to pick up the farm share. I just pray that I don't eventually end up missing a pick up like that one sad, sad day in 2009.

Farm Share 2011 (Week 2)


If I do miss it (and I hope I don't) this was not going to be the week. I made it with time to spare. This week's haul consisted of: Butter Head Lettuce, Green Towers Romaine Lettuce, Red Sail Lettuce, escarole, garlic scapes, radishes, summer squash, summer spinach, and a bunch of oregano

There have been heavy rains which have kicked up a huge amount of mud onto the lettuce resulting in the dirtiest lettuce I've ever encountered. Last week was the same which turned the small crack in my salad spinner into a gaping canyon of leaky water. Thus was the end of its life and I had to pick up a new one today.

Old Salad Spinner


Old and busted.

New Salad Spinner


New hotness.

Still I had to wash my lettuce more than ten times. On the tenth or eleventh wash (I lost count) there was still dirt in the water. Eventually I figured I just gave up when my fingers had wrinkled as if I'd spent all afternoon in a pool. Eventually one has to accept some level of grits and just get on with dinner.

Red Sail and Radish Salad with Cilantro, Lime, Zima Tomato, and Feta


The Red Sail looked beautiful so I made a salad with that, the radishes, some lime, cilantro, olive oil, salt, pepper, the remaining Zima tomatoes, and feta cheese.

Garlic Scape Pesto


The farm recommended a recipe for garlic scape pesto which sounded pretty good. I pretty much followed the recipe by cutting up the scapes, adding some toasted walnuts, grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, salt, pepper, and olive oil. The only thing I really did differently was adding a lot of extra olive oil and omitting the yogurt.

Homemade Gnocchi with Garlic Scape Pesto


I served the pesto with some of my homemade gnocchi along with some ricotta. Sadly my gnocchi just don't freeze all that well. Last time I made them I put them into the water still frozen and by the time they were cooked they had bloated to be the size of golf balls. This time I thawed them out and they were soft and messy before they hit the water.

At any rate, the gnocchi was pretty good despite its messy appearance and texture.

Flying Dog In-Heat Wheat


For beer I opened this In-Heat Wheat from Flying Dog Brewery. This is a beer both Jen and I could easily enjoy. It has something for everyone. For me it was a nice light summery beer to pair with this late (extremely late) spring dish. For Jen it was a hefeweizen which is the main thing she looks at in a beer: is it or is it not a hefeweizen? It passed this test with flying colors.

Blueberry Custard Pie


For dessert I served up some slices of my rebranded blueberry custard pie (previously known as Blueberry "Napolean") from the other night.

I thought tonight we may carry our Abrahams and Zucker streak into this week with some of the Naked Gun movies. Instead I chose not to recommend this. Jen has been more than accommodating with this week's movies so I didn't want to spoil a good thing.

Besides, it's been nearly ten days since we've watch an episode of Top Gear. Who can live like that?

2 comments:

Chef Aunt said...

I should be glad that my old reliable Oxo is still going strong, but oh, how I lust after your new, sleek, modern, spinner!

Unknown said...

It's pretty nice. Much easier to clean too.