Category Archives: Food

Is it pesto?

Wow, it’s 3:35 pm as I sit down to type this up. That was fast! And, wonderfully, it helped me get the attitude adjustment I needed. So, yay!

Now all I have to do is figure out what to serve it on. Bill’s mother, Rosa, once made us salmon with pesto on top, and some amazing onion side. I haven’t figured out her pesto, or that onion side, but it might be a nice way to do it again. Possibly tonight, as I have some salmon in the house.

The side, though? It will probably be cream of broccoli soup, following “this recipe.”:http://www.metacookbook.com/archives/202-103-Cream-of-Leek-Soup.html Only I don’t have heavy cream on hand, so I’ll use half & half.

So, what was today’s pesto?

h2. Ingredients

Note: All these measurements, except the cheese, are utterly wild guesses.… Continue reading →

[115 – 118] Let’s talk jam again, shall we?

Wow. It took long enough to find out the last challenge recipe I posted that I am embarrassed. I’ve been cooking (though not as much as this time last year), and not putting the challenges up.

Well, it may change HOW I do it, but that’s changing right now. It’s changing with the last few recipes I’ve made. I will, at the least, document them.

With that out of the way, let’s get to jam.

Today I am making black currant jam. I may also make some sort of blueberry jam. I didn’t buy a lime, so I can’t make blueberry-lime again, I don’t think. I don’t know how much jarred juice (shoosh) to add to make up the amount of juice in one lime, and there’s no replacement for zest.… Continue reading →

Steak Sandwich with Brandy-Glazed Mushrooms & Onions

I bet you guys thought this blog was going to turn out to be all pork, all the time for awhile, didn’t you?

Well, the truth is, I’m expecting the meat in the freezer (I’ve got more than pork in there) to last until we get back from the wedding & honeymoon, with minimal supplementation (mostly from my meat guy at Pilsen Community Market, some from the fish counter at Whole Foods). Some of that will be because we’ll eat out and I hope a lot is because we manage to eat several vegetarian meals.

This sandwich is the result of wanting to try the beef my PCM meat guy sells. He doesn’t sell much else, and as I want to be sure to do much of my shopping from the market, I imagine he’ll see some money from me from time to time.… Continue reading →

Warm Sunshine Sausage Pasta Salad

As promised, we’ll update you as we eat our 1/7th of a hog. There’s two recipes + photos coming, once I can get my camera & computer to stop acting up. However, I figured I’d post Sunday night’s dinner, as I’m pretty sure I didn’t take any photos of it. After all, I was just throwing it together to feed three people (Bill, a last-minute guest and I).

So, here’s the deal. Saturday Bill and I were trying to vacuum seal all our pork up. Vacuum sealing really helps keep foods a great deal longer in the freezer, in my experience, and so I really wanted to get on it. Unfortunately, my vacuum sealer is acting like a jerk, so we only managed to vacuum seal a few things.… Continue reading →

Smoothies, anyone?

No photos today, just a quick recipe & question.

It’s insanely hot here in Chicago. I just passed a paper that said we’re having record high temperatures for the month, and it’s making June feel more like August. They’re really not wrong.

In good & bad news, this is really suppressing my appetite, and Bill’s as well. Bad news, because it means less cooking & tasty food. Good news because it means less eating out & spending money.

However, we have taken on making smoothies again. This is partially to clear out the freezer of berries we froze almost a year ago. It’s already getting to berry season, and we still have old berries! Yikes! That, and our freezer is about to be very full of pork, but more on that later.… Continue reading →