In the days that followed returning too food, at least my cravings for junk food disappeared in the face of being able to eat! So that was something, I didn’t just run out and eat a double-double. I made the first vegetable soup monday, and it was in fact pretty good! Maybe a little bland, but there’s nothing in there but vegetables after all. This was easily solved with pistou which was fun because I got to use my mortal and pestle which mostly collects dust in the cabinet, to mash up some cloves garlic with fresh basil, sea salt and parmesan. You add a little dab of this to the soup when serving and mix it all up. mmmm. Most of the time when I recipe calls for garlic I just add an extra clove or 3 for love, which I did in this case … without really thinking that through. raw garlic is not a thing to be trifled with! So it was definitley strong and burny on it’s own, but good in the soup. Later in the week I picked up some black olives and incorporated them at a high ratio to make a really good tapenade for some crusty bread.
In the vein of home cooking, some recipes to try from this slate article. I’d like to make yogurt and bagels.
Later in the week I made the roasted vegetable soup. I think I didn’t roast them quite long enough, and even though I halved the amount of carrots, they still dominated the flavors. I didn’t strain the soup because that seems wasteful, but in a fancy restaurant I’m sure they would have because my blender can’t quite puree carrot all the way, so it was .. texturey. That’s fine! Anyway, it was good but not memorable. I’ve been trying to rememeber for weeks now a certain soup I made years ago that was simple and delicious, but I just remebered it was tomato / coconut milk based, and so probably thai, and I think had some white fish. Armed with that, I do see recipes out there, so I think that must be it!
In the days post-lemonade I was so excited about plotting about meals and planning around ingrediants that I decided to look into local CSAs (community supported agriculture) again. And I found one that actually will deliver boxes to los alamos! It’s Los Poblanos Organics and I signed up for an every-other-week plan. They have a cute little newsletter that goes out each week with the vegetables, which for my first week included salad greens, baby spinich, arugula, carrots avacados and kiwis, grapefruit and apples. And you can schedule extras like, maybe you want more greens, or some other local stuff like goat cheese or honey or jam all using a fancy little webform. It’s all extremely convienant and fun!
So today I find myself with some arugula to use, and thought I’d do some fish up with it. Perhaps tomorrow I’ll make some more soup. What can I say, I’ve been in that kind of mood. The fish didn’t come out super, I braised a whole tilapia in some wine and other delicious things and threw in the arugula to wilt, but I still found the flavor of the greens to be too strong, and the fish rather bland, although the reduced sauce was tangy and good over it all. Oh well. Have some catfish to try and make my thai tomato soup if I get a chance tonight, I think I have to go to ABQ for derby practice.
Oh, and the farmer’s market starts up next week I think, on Thursdays, just in case I somehow don’t get enough veggies from the CSA! And also very cool, the lab is serving meals on Thursdays with goods from the farmers market 
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