This Week: Greens and Soybeans (5/9/19)

Tidbits from the past week (or so)…

Farmers market dinner. I made a dinner almost entirely out of ingredients bought at the farmers market: Italian sausages, roasted asparagus, mashed potatoes, potato-peel chips, and pears for dessert. The only non-local ingredients were salt, pepper, and butter. It was darn delicious too!

Homemade tofu. It turns out that making tofu is relatively easy! Zach and I took a couple cups of soybeans and two teaspoons of nigari (magnesium chloride) brine and managed to turn them into a pound of delicious tofu. It was awesome! We used this method, and took zero pictures. It was a fun process and pretty cheap, too. We ate the tofu with a sesame-sugar glaze on top of Vietnamese noodle bowls. Next soy-based protein food to make: tempeh!

Arugula! This is still basically the only crop we're getting from our garden (although the radishes and cilantro are coming in), but at least it's delicious. Peppery arugula grows quickly and is delicious on pizza, in stir-fries, or simply eaten in a fruit-heavy salad.

Lemon balm

Lemon balm. Lemon balm is a literal weed around here, so we foraged a huge bag and dehydrated it for tea. Yummy.

Cards. I've been feeling compelled to make art lately, which I do in the form of cards. If you would like me to draw and send you a card, let me know!

Reading: Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table by Ruth Reichl and Coming to My Senses: The Making of a Counterculture Cook by Alice Waters. These books are similar in that they're memoirs centered around food, involving shaking off the fifties, drinking a lot in the sixties, and trying to live the revolution in the seventies. I enjoyed both, but for the general reader, Tender at the Bone is better-written and more accessible.

What have you been up to?

~~~