Kidding!

Ok, so the last post was a joke. Hey Gina, why don't you tell everyone what we ate for tonight's dinner?

Marinated steaks from Jenny Street Market
Organic ESB from Lakefront Brewery in Milwaukee
Fennel and chickpea salad, containing fennel from our CSA and parsley from our garden
Tsatziki containing cucumbers from our CSA and onions and dill from our garden

And now I am going to pick more dill so I can finish the refrigerator dills that I started earlier today. It's the recipe from Quick Pickles by Chris Schlesinger and I'm using my own dill, onions, and garlic. The cucumbers are from the Dane County Farmers Market. I sliced them up this morning and they have been sitting in a brine all day. The garlic is a Cajun variety called Big Toe. This was a slightly damaged head, so I'm using it now instead of hanging it to cure in the garage for a few weeks.

I love Saturdays

Saturdays are the day we get up early/late (early for the weekend but
later than during the week), go to the farmer's market and then the Co-
op. When we get home, there are a few food related projects and I
listen to MPR, like a good MN liberal. Today was no different. We
got up and cut up the strawberries I got at the market on Thursday.
Matt whipped some cream and we topped the strawberries with that.
This afternoon, I blanched some spinach to freeze, made some balsamic
syrup, and have some bread dough rising. I'm really looking forward
to dinner. Matt is making a meatloaf and I made a slaw with bok choi
and radishes. For dessert, we'll have a rhubarb crisp. I am drinking
a Spotted Cow as the meatloaf cooks. It is a pretty perfect night.

Sent from my iPhone

homemade challah

Homemae challah might be the best thing ever. With the eggs from Cedar Summit, the loaf was golden yellow. It was tender and slightly sweet and rich. Absolutely wonderful.

Walleye

So we have been trying to figure out how to make more local or
unprocessed versions of things we like. Last weekend we went on a
short drive to visit Cedar Summit farm, where we buy our milk. It was
hilarious: we drove up and parked next to the fence and saw all sorts
and colors of cows, from brown jersey to Holsteins. The cows took
little notice of us, though one stood up and yawned at me. We went
into the small store there and got a lot of milk in glass bottles,
some honey produced by one of their neighbors, some apricot preserves,
pastureland butter, eggs, and pastureland raw milk cheddar. Matt and
I tried the cheddar tonight and agreed it was the best cheddar we had
tried.

We picked up an ice cream maker and yogurt maker. Yummy dairy.

We had a lot of CSA veggies to eat up so we have been roasting a lot
of parsnips. Tonight I made a soup of beef broth, pureed bok choi and
nettles, and curly parsley. We had that with pan fried walleye and
sauteed greens from our box. Matt is currently trying out the ice
cream maker and I'm sure I'll appreciate and enjoy his efforts.
Tomorrow we are going to Surly's brewery to pick up some beer for
Casey and Gina. Bonnie could have some too, I suppose.

Sent from my iPhone

Yogurt maker ordered!

Finally ordered a yogurt maker and eight extra cups for it. We searched the cities, and despite being in the middle of dairy country, no one makes yogurt here.
Next step is to make some homemade muesli with local oats, rye flakes, sunflower seeds, honey and whatever fruits I can find.

ice cream maker

We bought an ice cream maker. Combine this and Castle Rock organic cream, and my waistline shudders in fear.

Ramping up

Tommorow is our next CSA box and we'll be getting sorrel, rhubarb,
sunchokes, parsnips, ramps, spinach, chives, herb plants for the yard,
asparagus, nettles, and burdock.

I'm not sure what all we will make with this. I may try a creamy ramp
and nettles soup, walleye with a sorrel sauce, and eat the ramps with
everything. Maybe a ramp fritata, or ramps on pasta or ramps with
cereal, or ramps on ice cream with caramel sauce.

Sorry, carried away by my ramp love. All I know is that tommorow is
the official end of my 2l year and I believe we will celebrate with
some grilled beefs.

And perhaps some ramps.

Sent from my iPhone

coffee and charcoal and cakes

I've been stymied in my attempts to purchase a simple melitta one-cup drip coffee cone and filter and a bag of natural lump charcoal. We were also greatly dismayed to discover that the flour section of cub foods is completely dwarfed by the size of the cake-box-mixes. And they didn't even have a basic type of flour, pastry flour, which is used in many, if not most cake recipes.

prehaps the best hamburger I've ever had

The ground beef we got with our beef purchase is perhaps the best I've ever had. I made four very delicious burgers, with nothing more that a little salt on them, and the heat of a hardwood charcoal fire.