July 27, 2008
stuff we've been eating
garden peas with shiitake and sweet onion
Shelled a bunch of peas from the parental garden, and sauteed in a tsp of butter with some soaked dried shiitake and diced vidalia (also from the parental garden). Deeply satisfying, particularly mixed with the brown rice shown in the photo.
quasi-russian-salad plus toasted sauerkraut rye and canned salmon salad
Still trying to use up all the pickled things, so I chopped them up (pickled onion and green bean and cuke), blanched turnip and carrot, and diced the fantastic pickled beets that K made for us, to come up with a salad vaguely reminiscent of the classic russian chopped salad, except with no mayo or canned peas. It turned out delicious, and fairly begged for rye toast and salmon salad. The toast is the sauerkraut rye from the local Panorama bakery, which i have been trying to get hold of for months (wouldn't you? seriously, bread with sauerkraut in it? yes, please!). It's not as sauerkrauty as I'd imagined, but very good, moist and with a solid rye/caraway flavor.
shrimp salad in half an avocado
It was so hot and humid for so long that we pretty much didn't turn on a stove for days on end, and ate whatever cold dishes I could come up with. This was one of the best, inspired by perfectly ripe avocados at Whole Foods and a memory of the incredibly good shrimp salad we had at Duarte's Tavern in Pescadero, CA. That salad was tiny pink shrimp mixed with diced vegetables and mayo, and mounded into an avocado half, and surrounded by salad composed of incongruous stuff like beets, which should not have worked but totally did. So i found a can of tiny shrimps, blanched some turnip and carrot, diced some cucumber, and chopped some dill and celery leaves -- mixed it all together and put it on half an avocado, on top of farmer's market oak leaf lettuce with some more of K's pickled beets. We were rather pleased with it.
Posted by foodnerd at July 27, 2008 12:30 PM