Beans!

For the last few weeks we have been awash in a sea of kale, thanks to the start of the CSA season. Which happened to coincide, conveniently enough, with my first-ever delivery of beans from Rancho Gordo.

First, the beans. Word on the internet is that Rancho Gordo beans are the cat's pajamas, and the beans have garnered rave after rave after rave after rave from the food blogging set. When I could stand the curiousity no longer, I ordered up a few different varieties to try for myself.

The first kind we tried were the Ojo de Cabra, or "Goat's Eye" beans, which I cooked until they were soft, about two hours. Unlike supermarket beans, these beans soften but don't fall apart, keeping a nice toothiness even when they're cooked through.

I sauteed up the meat from a few links of chorizo that had been haunting the back of the freezer and added a bunch of kale until it was nice and wilty, then the beans and a bit of their liquor. Seasoned with salt and crushed red pepper, it made a simple, tasty, healthy little weeknight dinner.


Up next for our Rancho Gordos? A cannellini bean taste test so I can prove to J-P that you really CAN tell the difference.

The Last Supper

The morning after eating this meal, my husband landed in the hospital. But really, don't let that scare you off. Dinner was delicious, and had nothing whatsoever to do with his subsequent health crisis. I swear to god.

Having just acquired some sourdough starter from a friend, I had been seeking out uses for the stuff (other than the obvious, of course -- although I have indeed been baking bread, I am a complete novice and have only attained moderate success so far). I heard that starter makes a nice base for pancakes or waffles, so my next thought was pancakes' fancified, dinner-and-a-bottle-of-wine-worthy cousin, crepes.

I mixed up some crepe batter, modifying Bittman's basic recipe by adding in about 1/2 c. of starter and decreasing the flour and milk by about 1/3 c. each, and adding in some fresh ground black pepper to increase the savory quotient.


Then we resorted to our no-fail crepe technique. Pay attention now, because this is complicated.

Step 1: Cut a hole in that box. (Oh no wait. Those are the instructions for something else entirely.)

Let's try that again.

Step 1: USE A NON-STICK SKILLET.

Step 2: USE A NON-STICK SKILLET.

Step 3: USE A NON-STICK SKILLET.

Got it? Good. The non-stick will make the crepe-making a breeze. But non-non-stick? Will make you swear off the French once and for all. Please don't put yourself through that.

To fill those crepes, we had picked up some lovely nubbly little bay scallops. (Here my memory fails me a little, as I made no notes and lost a fair amount of brain cells sucking in over-ventilated hospital air for the next two days, so please bear with my hazy recollection.) Melted butter, a quick saute of shallots and garlic, a handful of chopped mushrooms, then the scallops. As soon as they were just cooked through, we fished the scallops out with a slotted spoon. Then a glug of wine (white? vermouth? perhaps even rose, as the picture suggests?!? your recollection is as good as mine) and a goodly bit of heavy cream. Cream thickened, scallops reincorporated, parsley chopped and added, and then all fed into the mouths of the awaiting crepes, and served with sauteed grean beans alongside.


The scallop aspect of the dish was very good and repeat-worthy, as was the general crepe-scallop concept. Not so much using the starter for crepes though. They were tasty, but the rise they got from the yeast in the starter prevented them from having that lovely paper-thin (dare I say crepe-like?) texture.

So, there will be some changes the next time we try this. But hopefully no more trips to the emergency room.

Almost everything, but not quite

A food blog is supposed to be all about good food right? So what better way to start this off than with a post about things I don't like?

MY THOUGHTS EXACTLY.

So.

Like most people, there are certain foods and flavors that I've just never taken a shine to. I'm not talking haggis or fried beetles here, either. I'm talking about foods you'd find in your average, run-of-the-mill American diet. Foods that I nevertheless dislike enough that I would hesitate to order a dish in a restaurant if one of these were a main ingredient.

But, perhaps unlike most people, I also have a theory about foods I don't like. If lots of people eat these foods by choice every single day, then they must have some redeeming qualities that I could grow to appreciate. And so, in the interest of expanding my culinary horizons, I make it a point to try to develop an appreciation for foods I don't like. Since I began implementing my theory in my teens, I've become a lover of tomatoes, pickles, olives, cheddar cheese, and tuna salad, just to name a few, all things I once avoided like the plague. My sister thinks I'm crazy, but it works. Maybe it's more a matter of maturing tastes than of cultivating a more sophisticated palate, but whatever. There are a few things, though, that I've never come around on. And I've tried, oh how I've tried.

Baked cheese in any form. Baked into bread crust, baked on a cracker, baked by itself into little disks, you name it. It all started with a hatred of cheesy Goldfish crackers as a kid, and never went away.

Cucumbers. Eh. Just eh. I like cukes in tzatziki or as part of a Greek salad, but otherwise a slice of cucumber does nothing for me.

Radishes. What to say? They leave me cold. Almost as cold as cucumbers.

Canteloupe. Watermelon? Check. Honeydew? Check. Canteloupe? Forget about it. And please in the name of all that is holy, do not put it in a fruit salad because it just infects everything else.

Grapefruit. Seriously? Why do people eat this? I don't get it.

Liver. Oh, how I've tried. I've gotten as far as foie gras and some pates that are heavy on the butter to smoothe over the metallic taste of the liver. But mostly, yuck.

Hazelnuts. But I like most other kinds of nuts. I know, weird. I have no explanation for this one. And hazelnut-flavored anything? What a way to ruin a perfectly good chocolate bar or cup of coffee.

Halibut and monkfish. The only two times I've had food poisoning it came from these two fellas. They still turn my stomach a little bit.

Mint. No candy canes, Thin Mints, or after-dinner mints. But exceptions include mint-chip ice cream, peppermint schnapps, and Mojitos. Clearly, I'm a Gemini.

Swiss cheese. Unless it's melted over a bowl of french onion soup, of course.

And of course, most processed foods gross me out, but the list is long enough already and, really, I don't think there's anything redeeming about Chee-tos, frozen fish sticks, or grape soda.

So consider yourself warned. If you came here looking for a recipe for hazelnut crusted liver with a canteloupe puree, you best just move along.

The kind you find in a second-hand store

Food, baby, food! If you're tired of me rambling on and on over at my other place, perhaps you'll be happier here.

I suppose the question on everyone's mind is (beside "why does the world need another food blog?" to which the answer is, it probably doesn't, but I'm a-gonna start one anyway) is "where the hell did the name come from and what does it mean?" The answers to those questions are, uh, nowhere and nothing. I made it up.

The "strawberry" part was a no-brainer because my short answer to the question "what's your favorite food?" has always been strawberries. (Trust me, you don't want the long answer.) And the beret part is just a reference to one of the greatest pop tunes of all time. Come to think of it, I wonder if I couldn't get that song to play every time you come here? Then again, that could get annoying real fast.

So I will settle for humming to myself. Don't mind me.