After a fantastic Memorial Day weekend at a lovely house by Squam Lake in New Hampshire, during which I didn't cook a single thing (although I did eat some excellent meals cooked by others -- V did not sign us up to cook anything in his moving-and-bar-induced haze during which he thought the trip was next weekend up until a few days prior), time to get crackin' on my list!
On the drive back to Maine, we alternated obsessing about raising my mom's Prius' gas mileage by another .1mpg and brainstorming my first crack at task eight: invent the best beet salad. Apparently, the four hour trip provided a bit too much fodder for brainstorming, as we produced WAY too much food (see my mom's ingenious use of leftovers in future post; side note: we succeeded in lowering the gas mileage -- this was countered when I accidentally failed to turn the car OFF today after driving to the post office and left it on in the driveway for about three hours, argh silent car).
I really wanted to do multi-colored beets, but they only had red beets at the store (today I found golden beets in the Belfast co-op, but too little to late, golden beets! I went on without you!) Afraid one bunch of three large beets wouldn't be enough for four people, I bought six. I ended up using two. But, not to worry, beets are a slight production to cook. Although the process is super easy (cut off leaves, put beets in boiling water, wait til fork goes through, put in cold water, peel off outer skin with fingers, cut), the production comes into play because of beets' tendency to make you, the cook, look as if you've just murdered someone in your kitchen when you are peeling them, handling them, or standing within five feet of them. So making a large quantity at a time is a great, if accidental, idea. And they make fabulous leftovers for future beet salads (see below).
I also had the idea of adding shaved asparagus from something I saw on Iron Chef. What can I say, most of my cooking ideas come from Iron Chef. This didn't work out. I blanched the asparagus but then the peeling was taking too long and I got bored. So I just cut the asparagus at an angle and that worked great.
I cooked an ear of corn briefly in some olive oil with salt, pepper, and lemon -- this was to be the basis of the vinaigrette. Added some of Lily's balsamic vinaigrette. I'm telling you, it's not just the name, this salad dressing is awesome. It is basically just oil and vinegar with a bit of garlic and salt. But it doesn't get all icky and separated. I am a fan. But don't worry, I'm not forgetting task sixteen!
Mixed it all together with a little itty bit of mixed greens, then a bit more pepper on top, and huuuuge chunks of some local Maine goat cheese (is it too smug to mention when ingredients are local)? I then artistically arranged the beets around the plate and forced everyone to eat the salad before they could fit the main course onto their plates, as you can see:
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| Witness plates held captive by salad; entree items anxiously awaiting spotlight in center of table |
Oh, and I was obsessed with crushing pistachios and sprinkling them over the salad, even though V was skeptical. It didn't hurt the salad, but was likely a waste of pistachio. And it was kind of weird. Looked nice though.
The salad was really good (at least no one failed to clean his/her plate to get to the entree portion). The sliced asparagus and corn are a nice touch, and you can't really beat beets and goat cheese. But this salad is still missing something, and I think that is: some herb situation (hello task five!); and homemade croutons or little toast thingies.
I also cooked up the beet greens very simply (cooked a little onion with the chopped stems first in some olive oil, then added the leafy greens part -- that's basically it, they have a nice flavor that doesn't need much).
V made some mushroom polenta (cornmeal! V helping me with task seven: learn about those grains!) from his new Ming Tsai cookbook (actually, I bought the cookbook for myself, but when he saw it was Ming and one-pot meals, he was excited to try some of the recipes and I didn't want to discourage that). It was really yummy (mmm "basil salad" garnish) but produced a lot of leftovers, some of which we ate today for lunch, but I am going to try making little fried polenta cakes tomorrow.
We also grilled some shrimp and chicken (are you starting to see why the car ride was obviously too long for our brainstorm approach?), but we accidentally used way too much of a new spice rub, and it was toooo strong. It all got eaten, but I wasn't a fan. Boo packaged spice rubs! Unless you are delicious, in which case yay!
Okay, that was the dinner. Everything was good but could use some tweaking. We think maybe some dried mushroom as well in the polenta next time to give it even more mushroom flavor (those who knew me in childhood are now thinking: is this the correct blog? I hated mushrooms up until about a year ago, but after a hard-fought battle, finally won myself over and am now a huge fan).
Today for lunch we went for try two of beet salad (beet salad, leftovers style). It was: baby spinach, two asparagus stalks, chopped at angle, handful of leftover cooked corn, some blue cheese, handful of grape tomatoes, and a lil' bit of bacon crumbles leftover from something, and a breast of leftover grilled chicken (heated). I heated the Lily's vinaigrette as well and then tossed everything together. Served three, but we only had two. Argh leftovers of leftovers!!!! This one was yummy, and blue cheese is my fave, but I must say I think it and the bacon overpower the delicate deliciousness of a beet. The piece of toast on the side did help, though.
And the beet quest continues...
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