up to the end of 2008!

We had a huge pile of mushrooms from Costco. So on Monday night, I made mushroom stroganoff with most of them, then used the rest in salads the next couple of nights. For the stroganoff, I basically sautee onions, add mushrooms and cover. Then I take some of the mushroom juice out and mix it with a little flour (and perhaps some cayenne and other spices), and return the mix to the pan. Stir in sour cream (I used "light") and voila. We served it over whole wheat spaghetti.

For sides, I steamed asparagus (not from around heah, bad locavore), then tossed it with toasted sesame oil, apple cider vinegar, and soy sauce. We also had a fairly elaborate salad.

Last night, we used the non-peppered half of the roasted smoked salmon. I heated it up and served it over whole wheat fusilli. I topped it with cilantro paste mixed with sour cream ("light"). The paste was a frozen leftover from this summer; I use just a little at a time. And frankly, over the salmon, it was hard to taste, but it was great mixed in with the pasta.

For sides, I steamed broccoli and tossed it with chopped ginger, umeboshi plum paste, tahini, and soy sauce. And there was an elaborate salad.

Tonight, New Year's Eve, we were supposed to go to a fancy dinner at a friend's house. With scary reports of a terrible snow storm, the dinner was postponed and we'll be unable to attend. But because it was snowing, I didn't want to stop too many times or for too long to pick something up for dinner. So I made an emergency stop for champ-er- sparkling wine and came right home.

For our NYE dinner, I fried some potato and cheese pierogis that widowed grandmothers made with their own hands for the local Russian Orthodox church fair. (Well, I don't know if they're actually widowed, but that's what I imagine, and they probably wear black, too. No one else could make such perfect little pierogis.) For appetizers, we ate steamed vegetable dumplings with a secret sauce made of soy, vinegar, scallions, ginger, and perhaps something else (Mr. P was in charge of the secret sauce). Then we served an elaborate salad on the side, but that's the last time we'll have salad until we go shopping again.

Oh, and for dessert, I found some fairly good birthday cake from 11 months ago, way in the back of the freezer. Yum. There's more back there too, and we'd better eat it up before the next birthday smacks us in the head.

I keep stumbling on frozen hot chili peppers from the farm. I'm thinking of trying to bake them and process them somehow. They're taking up a lot of space and they're not very usable in their current state. Perhaps that will be one of my projects this weekend.

Otherwise, the kitchen is likely to be closed for a couple of days. We are attending a NY party tomorrow and it's unlikely we'll be hungry afterwards. It's probably time, however, to do something with rice (like make some up and eat it) -- for some reason, we haven't had rice for a while now. We have some good (homemade) frozen food at this point -- stuffed shells, spanekopita, soup base, possibly a few other things. We also have some paneer but we need some veggies to go along with it. I'll do some archaeology soon and figure out what else we can take out of the freezer.

cold food, warm night

The temps were up in the low 60s today, the last bit of Indian Summer (or perhaps Indian fall) before our plunge into January and February. On a trip to Costco, we picked up a rare treat -- a pound of smoked roasted salmon, half plain, half peppered.

Tonight we used the latter half in a salad, which included lettuce, raw turnip, radish, boiled portato, carrot, capers, half an avocado, non-marinated artichoke hearts, feta cheese, and scallions.

And it was good. We need to use the other half soon and NYE will interrupt our usual pattern of cooking at home. So we may attempt a warmed salmon dish on Tuesday night. For tomorrow, Monday, we will probably use most of the humongous bin'o'mushrooms also procured today, perhaps by making a mushroom stroganoff. It all sounds very yummy.

Last week and a blow-out Christmas dinner

We've had some elaborate dinners and some easy-peasy dinners of late, crowned with a pretty fancy spread last night.

Recently, I've made enchiladas stuffed with cheese, roasted squash, onions, and cabbage and topped with a New Mexican chili sauce. Another night we had pizza with onions, capers, tomato sauce, and cheese. Last weekend, I made up a whole batch of baked stuffed shells, most of which I froze. We topped the ones we ate with a homemade tomato sauce. We've also had stuffed cabbage that I'd frozen a while back. One morning last weekend, we had a miniature dim sum with steamed vegetable dumplings and sticky rice with bean paste.

Last night, we had two friends over for Christmas. One friend brought frozen hors d'oeuvres, which we heated up here -- tasty. Robert and I made spanekopita, one of my favorite dishes, and fortunately something everyone else likes too. I use the Moosewood recipe and the Moosewood Low-fat technique (use a mixture of oil and butter and spread it on every three leaves, not the traditional every single leaf).

We also served a huge salad, mashed sweet potatoes, and a cauliflower dish with peas and onions, with toasted cumin and mustard seeds. Then for dessert, we had homemade pumpkin pie (which was ok, not my best, but not too bad) and a wild Trader Joe's flan parfait cake that one friend brought.

Tonight, we're taking a salad and some leftover dessert to a friend's house and tomorrow we'll probably eat out before a contra dance. And then it's Sunday, so I'll need to think of something tasty to make, along with ideas for the coming week.

last week and the beginning of this

Last week, I was in a class and got progressively more exhausted as the week progressed. Somewhere, in the beginning of the week, there were fresh rolls one night, served on the side to accompany -- I can't even remember what -- and a fairly elaborate side of sauteed vegetables another (zucchini and corn from the farm, onion, edamame, and tree ears). By the end of the week, Mr. P had taken over and made nachos, which weren't bad -- blue chips with brown rice, black beans, salsa, a little feta, and some grated cheddar cheese.

Last night, Mr. P made hot and sour soup, which was yummy. We don't often get it when we go out because it's usually made with chicken stock. Mr. P's version is entirely vegetarian and has a lot of textures and tastes.

Tonight's dinner was fairly simple -- brocolli, ginger, garlic, mushrooms, and scallions steamed and tossed with tahini and umeboshi plum paste, then served over whole wheat spaghetti with a side salad (lettuce, red pepper, cucumber, carrots, radish, scallion, raw mushrooms).

I have some ideas for this week's dinners, though tomorrow I'm being treated to dinner, so the kitchen will be closed, at least as far as I'm concerned.

not that exciting but still good.

Whole wheat fusillie with leftover (but still very tasty) marinara sauce (with tofu, herbs, onions, bamboo shoots, and some other tasty unidentifiable veggies).

crankin' em out

Last night: stuffed shells with marinara sauce. Actually, the shells were the last of a batch that I made and froze a while back. I steamed them back to life. The marinara was made with my favorite organic canned tomatoes (Muir Glen), some chopped frozen bamboo shoots, onions, and grated zucchini that I froze from last summer (ssh, don't tell Mr. P). And it was all good.

Tonight: Inspired by the bamboo shoots, I meant to make yu-siang eggplant. The store I stopped at on the way home had many tasty produce selections but no eggplant. And I wasn't going to stop at *two* stores. Instead, we had a stir fry of onion, bamboo shoot, three kinds of mushrooms (crimini, portabella, shitake, all fresh), and broccoli. I tossed it with a weird sauce -- umeboshi plum paste mixed with some frozen cilantro paste. It kind of worked. Actually, I liked it a lot, not that I could ever reproduce it. We served the whole thing over rice.

Tomorrow and the next night will be dinners out (musical performance in town tmrw; dance in western ma saturday). Kitchen will likely reopen on Sunday.

two decent dinners in a row

On Sunday, we roasted an acorn squash. Monday night, we stuffed it with -- what else? -- leftover stuffing layered with cheese, baked it, and topped it with toasted pinenuts and pumpkin seeds.

Yesterday, it was time to use up the last of the chard from our final harvest pickup at the farm. It's been cheerfully waiting for us, but I wanted to eat it before it went bad. I surfed for some chard recipes and adapted something that sounded intriguing. It worked.
I prepped in three parts, then mixed it all together in the end:
. Chickpeas tossed with chopped garlic, olive oil, salt, pepper, chili, then roasted for about 40 minutes
. Sauteed onions, steamed with chopped chard
. Chopped herby feta cheese

The prep was a little involved but not hard; the results were yummy, and I suspect that we could have lots of variations on the theme. It would make a great side dish with more green vegetables and perhaps less (or no) chili. It is enhanced by, but doesn't need the feta. It could stand to have a little balsamic vinegar drizzled on top.

With that, we've finished nearly every last bit from the farm, save a couple of lonesome turnips and a little bit of garlic. We've been doing more shopping at the grocery store in recent weeks, but now we're officially dependent on stores for our food. I may do a "drive-by" shopping trip tonight for a few salad items. Then again, I may be extremely lazy and start in on some of our freezer goodies. I think I hear some frozen stuffed shells (stuffed by moi) calling me.