in it.

this semester has already begun to eat me alive, to make me feel like what i am doing is both important and useless, to allow me to forget about writing here because there is just no time for anything. but i am still eating like a champ, obviously.

seen above: steamed broccoli, buttery + garlicky potatoes, black beans and onions with serrano pepper, topped with a fried egg.

we have also given up the CSA for the fall and have committed to weekly farmers' market shopping. we wanted more variety and not feel so tied to large bags of squash and watermelons. so far, so good. yesterday's $15 yielded tomatoes, japanese eggplant, arugula, cucumber, red potatoes, spicy peppers that look like bell peppers, and a cantaloupe. i am also now the proud owner of a purple pepper plant that i was promised would have spicy peppers AND would be hard to kill. we shall see.

and then we talked about how much we cried in the movie.

a HUGE bag of green tomatoes this week in the CSA meant i had to fry them. i just had to do it.

alex is staying with me temporarily so we cooked up a meal centered around these fried goodies, which we batter-fried using cornmeal, flour, eggs, milk, cayenne, pepper, salt, and garlic. with a little lemon-yogurt dipping sauce. and some salad and roasted squash, because not every part of the meal can be fried.

oh yeah.

i made refrigerator pickles last week. it's so easy and we had pounds + pounds of cucumbers from the CSA. ready for a july 4th BBQ or something.

carolina.

lemon balm in the CSA this week. what to do with it?

put it in a cocktail, of course.
that's gin and soda and lemon and lemon balm.
the taste of summer.

close to bibimbap.

 

saturday was dedicated to terrariums. yes, i have been fairly obsessed with making one for months and finally convinced my friends that it would be cheaper and more fun if we made them as a group. agreement all around.

 

but dinner. oh, dinner. shira and i received chinese cabbage in the CSA last week and hadn't yet even begun to eat it and now there were more greens and well, it gets kind of crazy in the fridge. 

she doesn't eat soy so sometimes stir-frys are less than excellent, but we made do. while cooking the jasmine rice, i sauteed the cabbage with sesame oil and fresh ginger, with a little sugar and salt and sriracha. and she sauteed the green part of the spring onions with red peppers, turnips, and vidalia onion.

but we knew that it was lacking a fried egg. after the onion-turnip-pepper mixture was cooked, we put it in with the cabbage and fried in the eggs in the oily pan. perfect. seriously, shira made the most absolutely perfect fried eggs. she claims it was the sesame oil in the pan, but really, she's just miraculous. 

 the proudest.

friday night is alright.

casey is really working on his mint julep. he's got piles of mint in his front yard and seems to think it's fun to use the mortar and pestle. and i've got a bottle of woodford reserve.

this past friday, he got it right. absolutely. i think it's the simple syrup.

we also ate sauteed cauliflower + dinosaur kale + vidalia onion, roasted turnips + beets + yukon gold potatoes, quinoa, sliced tomatoes, and topped with a fried egg. oh, yes, this CSA is a good one.

but, ma.

i just wanna eat tacos all the time. they are delicious.

thankfully, i've got bon appetit and the CSA keeping me out of a food rut. today, we picked up 2 kinds of lettuce, rapini (which is some kind of broccoli rabe), spring onions, beets, kohlrabi, and peas. a short bike ride to the farmers' market yielded radishes, cucumbers, and tomatoes. the refrigerator is packed with goodness.

and tonight, a variation on this recipe.

come back.

i want warm weather and the csa. we've already paid for spring and summer and i am ready.

roommate practice.

in which i drove THE CAR to the carrboro beverage company, tasted some beers with too much hops, and then drove shira and myself back home for dinner. while i chopped vegetables and made jasmine rice, shira researched our spring CSA (so. very. exciting.) and uploaded the new superchunk into my itunes.

we consumed: a brother david's triple abbey style ale and a thai curry of sorts. i sauteed collard greens, carrots, onions, green beens, and garlic in a little olive oil and curry powder, and then covered it in cocount milk, letting it simmer for a bit. we dry-roasted (is that the right word?) the chickpeas in a pan with the teensiest amount of sesame oil. then we put it all in a bowl and gobbled it up.

this is all going to work out. 2011 is going to be a good one.

newest dinner partner.

it's hard to eat everything in the csa fast enough. and i want to make fancy things but they really are for sharing. y'know? i got SO much spicy arugula last week.

and, inspired by this month's bon appetit, i really wanted to make risotto. i decided to make one of their recipes: lemon risotto with roasted tomatoes. obviously, i had shira over to eat it with me. it was super easy, she wanted to stir for a while, and overall, it was delicious. we topped it with roasted squash and shitake mushrooms.

csa, i love you forever. i know shira loves you, too.

before the drive.

i really thought i was going to eat like a crazy carnivore before i left new york: hot dogs and sushi and sausage pizza and god knows what else. but i didn't. my friends did surprise me with a dinner at walter foods and i got so emotionally tangled and confused that i ordered (and ate!) fried chicken and mashed potatoes with gravy. but that was an anomaly. an oddly delicious anomaly. i also thought i would eat doughnuts at the doughnut plant and that ludo would force me to try the bbq at fette sau, but those events never happened.

mostly, i tried to eat everything from the csa. and then some. mostly sandwiches.

courtney and i did do a trip to sri pra phai, where we ate pretty much everything vegetarian on the menu. it was a true feast that i did not photograph because we were so excited and ate it all. but it did begin with the orangiest and tastiest thai iced tea ever.and, just for sentimentality, the last meal i made in the apartment. a sandwich made with the end of the baguette, toasted with cheddar cheese, and probably tomatoes. a sliced kirby cucumber (my fave). leftover brown rice sauteed with onions and green beans. and an iced coffee, from somewhere in da hood.
not pictured: food and cocktails at lucali's, the brooklyn farmacy (which might get its own post), flatbush farm, henry public, cafe pedlar, egg. i really did eat my way out of town.

brooklyn is really going to be hard to top: all that local, organic goodness. sigh.

in a jiffy.

in which i convinced yelena to come to my neighborhood for dinner with me and keith. we cannot eat all the vegetables fast enough.

• roasted kohlrabi with parmesan
• green beans with italian bread crumbs
• sauteed baby kale with mushrooms, scapes, and baby squash
• salad of boston and red lettuces, blueberries, radish, cucumber, and roasted beets
• grilled cheese: scarmozza on ciabatta

i am in love with this cheese, by the way. it's lightly smoky and, apparently, only slightly aged. it is really incredible. i could eat blocks of it.

omg.

the best csa share so far: boston lettuce, red lettuce, kohlrabi, baby kale, radishes, baby squash, the BIGGEST BEETS EVER, spring onions, wax beans. and! the fruit share: 1/2 peck of peaches so awesome i had to eat mine over the sink, blueberries, raspberries.

i thinking i am forgetting some things, too. this summer rocks.