salmon with blackcurrant-ginger sauce

Still using the blackcurrants we picked the other day, but sadly, we're running low after a week and I'm hankering to go pick more. I doubt we'll drive an hour away again to do that, but it's a nice thought, anyway. We had such a lovely day and it's a sweet memory for me.

I got some Alaskan wild-caught salmon from our local butcher the other day and as my mind is always working overtime in the food department, I threw together a sweet-spicy blackcurrant puree to bless the fish (and our tummies).

You'll need:

• about 1 cup fresh blackcurrants
• a splash of real maple syrup
• about 1.5 tablespoons freshly grated ginger
• pinch of cayenne pepper
• dash each of salt and pepper
• water
• drizzle of balsamic vinegar

Do this:

To a blender, add the fruit, syrup, ginger, spices, and enough water to make a puree. Blend on the "sauce" setting, if you have one, till smooth.

Add the puree to a small saucepan and warm on low, adding in a drizzle of balsamic vinegar at the end.

On a scale of 1 to 10? 9.824!

chicken bolognese resting on portabella beds

We've cut out wheat and way back on other carbs, so the wee cogs in my noggin are always turning, conjuring up ways to serve sauces and such.

Sunday I put some chicken bolognese in the slow cooker, and after our boat ride on Lake Union, we came back and all I had to do was roast some portabello mushrooms for a few minutes, et voila!

So here's the sauce (very loosely based on a recipe from Extending the Table: A World Community Cookbook):

• chicken thighs
• onions, garlic, zucchini
• basil puree
• Italian seasoning (rosemary, savory, basil, and marjoram)
• tomato paste
• salt
• sugar (just a wee bit to take away the acidity)
• pepper
• bay leaf
• water

Just saute the onions, garlic, and zucchini in olive oil in a frying pan on the stove, add the chicken, just to brown it a little, then throw all that plus the rest of the ingredients into the slow cooker for the day.

Then when you're ready, roast your mushies in a casserole dish with olive oil and more Italian seasoning on 400 F for 15 minutes or so.

Serve the sauce on the thick, juicy mushrooms with just a tiny sprinkling of parmesan (this is pretty much the extent of our dairy consumption these days, but it's just enough to add a bit of je ne sais quoi).

blackcurrant-kale green smoothie

Blackcurrants and blueberries from our picking haul last weekend...

• blackcurrants
• blueberries
• carrots
• kale
• key lime juice
• fresh mint
• 2 bananas
• 2 navel oranges

It all adds up to yum.

mamatouille's restaurant

The kids call our kitchen "Mamatouille's Restaurant" and have the above sign posted outside the door into the kitchen.

And we have our aprons close by, just in case we need to grab them in a jiffy...

gifting my taste buds

If you want to see a few nutters dressed up for a tofu factory tour, click here. I won't claim to have ties to these folks.

Island Spring tofu, made organically on Vashon Island (just a short ferry ride from Seattle), is the best tofu we've ever had, and after living for over eight years in East Asia, that's saying a lot.

I contacted them a year or so ago to tell them how much we love their products, and asked if they give factory tours. They do, but we waited until now to visit because I wanted to make sure the beans would be big enough to appreciate it.

We loved all their samples, including a stupendous jar of their homemade kim chi they gave to me. As you can see from the photo below of the almost-empty jar, I'm enjoying it of a morning with my eggs and Korean-style dried seaweed.

Burp, one of my favorite foodie blogs (they hail from Milwaukee), recently had some giveaways and I happened to win some lover-ly bottles of pickles and ketchup from The Scrumptious Pantry. It's the kind of food I'd drool over online but never purchase because of budget constraints--what a nice gift!

The package came with cranberry catsup, earthy-spiced heirloom tomato catsup, pickled heirloom red beets, and a Wisconsin specialty, pickled heirloom Beaver Dam peppers. (On a side note, I also won an insulated lunch bag with a cow on it from the Wisconsin Dairy Board, via Burp. Ironic, because we really don't do dairy anymore, but it's a useful bag anyway.)

Trying out the cranberry catsup on my eggs (the boys claim it's too spicy). I think hubby and I decided it would be better on meat than eggs (maybe pulled pork?).

A salad with roasted potatoes and walnuts, with a dressing of finely minced Beaver Dam pickles, olive oil, white wine vinegar, basil paste, and roasted garlic paste. Yum.

My light supper tonight: mixed greens, grape tomatoes, those gorgeous pickled heirloom beets, ham, green onions, and walnuts. Dressing: olive oil, red wine vinegar, parsley, finely minced Beaver Dam pickles, basil paste, and roasted garlic paste. I plowed through this in a jif and loved every pickle-y bite.

lettuce wraps with pulled pork and purple-cabbage pickles

I could eat these all day every day...don't tempt me.

Our local butcher, Better Meat, always has pork shoulders in stock and I tend to make pulled pork in the slow cooker--so much easier than in the oven.

The dry rub is so, so yummy and I got it here, though I cut down the sugar and salt and don't add white pepper. It's peppery enough with the black stuff.

Make sure you marinate the pork overnight in the fridge with the spice rub.

We eat it so many ways--with polenta, or in quesadillas, and my new favorite is in romaine wraps with my purple-cabbage sriracha pickles. Oh, boy. 

You get the fresh verdant cool crunch from the lettuce, the warm, sweet and fragrant pork, plus the sweet and spicy kick from those amazing pickles. Can't beat it with a stick.

rhubarb-cabbage smoothie

This was one luscious puppy!

You'll need:

• about 1 c. chopped rhubarb (I used rhubarb from my friend's garden that I had frozen)
• a handful of frozen mixed berries
• a few squirts of key lime juice
• a dusting of flaxseed meal
• 2 bananas
• 2 navel oranges
• about 1 c. chopped purple cabbage (why do they call it red?)
• enough water to make it smooth

Do this:

Blend and drink.

I don't have to tell you to enjoy! You just will. Trust me.

glut(tons) of rhubarb

Lucky me! A friend has a huge, gorgeous rhubarb plant and she was willing to share...we cut about eight pounds or so (my guesstimate)...

I chopped and chopped...and chopped and chopped...and ended up freezing 27 cups of raw, chopped rhubarb...

I also made two rhubarb crumbles plus a really nice gingery compote (based on this recipe, but I also added 2 tablespoons raw grated ginger--gave it a good kick)...

It's great in green smoothies, too!

hot-dog hilarity

The beans think this is so, so funny: Put your ketchup, mustard, and pickle relish in the order shown above and you've got yourself a traffic light.

(And don't forget to buy all-natural, chemical-free hot dogs! Your bod will thank you.)

cauliflower and cornmeal pizza crust

Believe it or not, this entire (gorgeously yummy) pizza is completely gluten and dairy free.

Yep, you read that right, folks!

I loosely based it on Eat Drink Smile's cauliflower crust, but made it my own and we will be putting this in our tummies quite often from here on out.

I started with raw cauliflower (and used the stems, too)...then food processed it till grainy (don't process too much or it will turn to mush)...

Then microwave it in a big bowl till soft. You mix it with cornmeal, egg, some Daiya "mozzarella", and spices, flatten it out onto a cookie sheet, and bake.

Pull it out of the oven, top as you like, and broil till bubbly and browny and happy.

We have to section ours because some folks don't like anything except sauce and "cheese", others only like pepperoni, and then the Big Beans (that's hubby and me) like everything. Yes, please.

 Twenty minutes later...

For the crust, you'll need (for a 10 inch X 15 inch rectangular cookie sheet):

• 2 1/2 c. cooked cauliflower (after processing and microwaving)
• 4 eggs, beaten
• 1 c. cornmeal
• 1 c. Daiya mozzarella
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1 t. Italian seasoning (rosemary, savory, basil, marjoram, and oregano)
• 1/2 t. salt
• olive oil for brushing on just before baking

Do this:

Wash and chop your precious cauliflower (one of my favorite veggies!), then process till grainy and not mushy. Put into a microwave-safe bowl, cover, and microwave 7.5 minutes. Preheat your oven to 450 F, spray a cookie sheet with oil, and add your eggs, cornmeal, mozzarella, garlic, spices, and salt to the cooked cauliflower. Press into the pan and brush with olive oil.

Bake about 15 minutes. Then add sauce...

For the sauce, you'll need (I base it on this recipe):

• 1 small can tomato paste (4.5 oz.)
• enough water to make a smooth sauce
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• 1 t. Italian seasonings
• sugar to taste (I use about 1/2 t.)
• dash of pepper 

Feeling saucy!

Add the toppings of your choice and some more Daiya mozzarella on top, a sprinkling of Italian seasoning, and it's going to grab you and never let you go.

I had some cooked cauliflower left over (I had a big head) and I froze it. Will let you know when I make my next lovely pizzer (as my grandma calls it)!

sriracha pickles

 Red cabbage pickles and rainbow chard stem pickles.

After I made my rainbow chard smoothie the other day, I had the stems left over and I COULD NOT compost them. They were too pretty and I knew they had a kind of crunchy salty flavor. I thought PICKLES! And sure enough, when I searched for chard stem pickles, I found a recipe. And there I was thinking that I was the only one on earth who had imagined that combo.

The recipe I found is from Bon Appetit and it's called Sriracha Fridge Pickles. I keep sriracha hot sauce on hand, so with vinegar, sugar, and onions, I was good to go. (Didn't have celery seed so used celery salt.)

My lovelies. So bright they're almost iridescent.

I tripled the pickling brine and used some red cabbage I had on hand for a second batch.

You'll need:

• 1 1/2 c. chopped chard stems (I prefer rainbow for the brightness and happy factor)
• 1 c. distilled white vinegar
• 2 c. sugar (I used 1 c. instead and it was a good amount of sweetness for us)
• 1/2 onion, halved and then thinly sliced
• 3 T. sriracha (I used 2 T. and that was plenty of heat for our taste buds)
• 1/2 t. celery seeds (I used 1/2 t. celery salt)

Do this:

Stir the vinegar and sugar together in a bowl, then throw in the celery salt (or seeds), onion, and sriracha. Pour it over your rainbowy stems and let it hibernate in the fridge for a few days (two was fine).

Oooooh, man. This is good stuff. We ate them a few nights ago with tahini-lemon burgers (recipe to come!) and this made me so, so happy. Looking forward to having them again.

I've always been a pickles girl and just can't get enough--my mom said I used to ask her to buy pickles and olives for me when I was a kid and went to the grocery store with her. So there you have it: I've always been a bit odd. Odd, but with good taste buds.

rainbow chard smoothie

1/2 pineapple, 1 Granny Smith apple, 1 banana, key lime juice, water, rainbow chard, sweet baby lettuces. With some apple seeds in the background for the beans to plant later.

greenberry smoothie

3 leaves chard, 2 big leaves kale, 2 bananas, 3 navel oranges, 2 apples, 1 avocado, key lime juice, frozen blueberries. Blend. Yum.

breakfast of champions

Energy on a plate! Scrambled eggs with roasted red peppers, diced turkey breast, spinach, and tomatoes, with avocado on top. Super yum with a cuppa tea for breakie.

PW

One of my bloggin' heroes: The Pioneer Woman. I got to see her at Third Place Books recently with some friends, and even though we had to stand way in the back and my camera zoom doesn't do her justice, we had a great time laughing. The woman is a hoot and a holler!