I'm Mad and I Eat

Best Food Picture

2009-11-08T17:07:00.000-08:00

Best food picture I ever took, in a long time.
Cranky made the food, a modern Huevos Rancheros. There's the yellow egg blood in the upper right.
Lots of the food was homegrown, but we don't brag. Ain't growing black beans yet. Red onions and tomatoes, we're proud of.

Snoopy Soupy

2009-11-06T18:28:00.000-08:00

Circumstances have intervened. We are not much of a gardening family at the moment.
We are a dog poop family.
But certain robust departments of the garden don't know that, and continue to pour out comestibles.
We have a huge bowl of green tomatoes in the kitchen, ready for roasting and freezing. (The plants themselves came out of the ground today.)
Oddly enough, there is a new eggplant developing on the vine outside. A few jalapeños lurch into adulthood. And we even have three or four pattypan squashes doing their best to mature; if they make it past adolescence I'll be amazed, but I'll still eat 'em.
The most reliable harvest has been a couple of plots we've been saving. Leeks and potatoes. The leeks never reached any kind of admirable girth, but... there they are. The potatoes — well, they've been underground so we had no idea if the crop would come a cropper. (It didn't!)
Anyway, you can guess what kind of soup we had for lunch.
I will brag (yet again) that blended vegetable soups are wonderful with some silken tofu in there. Didn't need any dairy fixin's.
Chopped chives on top, though. Oh, yeah.
Puppy didn't get any.

Fair Weather Friend

2009-11-03T15:20:00.000-08:00

We've spent a lot, a LOT, of time on the patio with the new puppy. It seems the safest way to house train her: you pee outdoors, dammit, only! (And the behaviorist at the humane society agreed: prevention is the best policy.)
Luckily, the weather has been fabulous. Fabulous. So we sit out there with our newspapers and books and meals, and the puppy figures out life. Today she figured out we have a huge, loud hound living next door. She hasn't been the same ever since (and I think it's wonderful that she's attracted to dogs, instead of shy).
We've learned to tire her out with chasing and fetching. She's absolutely smitten by her personal, solo explorations of the yard. She loves to come running when we call, because there's usually a half of a dog cookie as a reward. It's working out well.
Oh. And she doesn't beg for human food. I don't know why. She's interested in meat if we're eating it, but that's seldom.
Today she completely ignored the artichokes with a dip of hummus liberally dribbled with good olive oil.
Fine! More for us.

Dog in Focus

2009-11-01T15:26:00.000-08:00

I have several shots of Bartlett devouring her rawhide stick (and for you purists, it's a digestible, PC stick). But most of them are out of focus.
This dog is Da Wiggle!
I'm unexpectedly happy about what a chore this pup is. She's a project. And, yet, not. She's what a dog is. A puppy. So normal, so troublesome. So pleasurable.
Today we had some sassy bark time. Wow, what a bitch. Then it devolved into cuddle and romp time. Wow, what a girl!
I'm liking the development.

It's Maddening... and I Eat

2009-10-30T16:36:00.000-07:00

Cranky has taken over the kitchen.
He's always been very useful, resourceful, creative in there. Now he's God. (Don't tell Eric Clapton.)
I've been "off" food, and if it weren't for Cranky, I'd be living on gummy bears.
So what if the last three meals were eggy? Eggs are good, and take it from me, not always easy to cook well.
Somebody in the house cooks eggs well, and I think it isn't yours truly, madly. I do OK, but have you ever heard of the Two-Sentence Poached Egg?
First of all, the photo is today's lunch of a frittata filled with chopped spinach, shallots and smoked ham. Artfully arranged atop a spill of tomato sauce. I didn't take pictures of yesterday's fried rice with egg and veggies, or yesterday's poached egg atop polenta. Because the damn cook did such a good job, I was punishing him by no piccies. (OK, I am not that merciless a wife. No piccies because too lazy.)
Here's the story of the Two-Sentence Poached Egg.
Cranky thinks he can barely remember if he's ever poached eggs in his previous life as a pretty decent cook. So he asked me how to do it, while I cuddled the puppy in bed.
I could go into detail of what I told him, but you all have your own methods, so who cares? I told him how I do it, really, really briefly.
In a couple of minutes, he came back and asked how long they should stay in the simmering water. I told him my opinion, which made him run back to the kitchen and save the (dammit!) yolks-still-runny, whites-perfectly-jelled eggs. In time. Pulled them out, blotted them and blopped them on the steaming, creamy polenta.
It's not supposed to happen this way.
But if you don't think I'm glad, you're mad!
I'm so glad.

Dog Food

2009-10-24T17:10:00.000-07:00

This is a food post, not a puppy post. I'm being a little private about my new doggie.
I'm still getting to know her.
The hard thing is knowing how to eat as I adapt to this new animal, a baby.
Yesterday we devoured our home-canned chili. So easy. So tasty! Didn't nearly need to cater to the whims of the infant while we ate our easy food. Didn't need to cook.
Today she's rambunctious. Growing up. A real horror, frankly, but that's what having a puppy means. Time-out box. Pee wipings. (But: Really house trained, already.)
Food post? Pimientos de Padron. Tossed with hot oil. And, by association, small tomatoes tossed with hot oil. Some slices of ham from Marin Sun Farms. And a lagniappe of dipping sauce: Spanish sherry vinegar.
The dog went nuts.

Dog in the Hizzle!

2009-10-20T16:50:00.001-07:00

At one point this morning, my mouth was so dry from anxiety, I had to buy a bottle of water at Target. I don't buy bottled water, so this was some emergency.
We had been knocked back and forth by the Humane Society on whether this litter would be put up for adoption. Starting on Friday (and I know, that's not a very long time), we were strung out for days. As late as noon today, we still didn't know what our chances were.
Then, all of a sudden! Come! Visit the babies. Which one do you like? They're not publicly available yet. (It pays to make friends with the higher ups. And to promise them your house when you die. Which we did.)
We picked one in a hurry, and she was the one I'd been wanting, just from her description, ever since last week.
I will tell you more how fabulous she is, later. As of Day One, she is so beyond fabulous, I feel immodest even saying so. She's eight weeks, weighs three pounds, and will get bigger, but not much. She's half Jack Russell. My first girl dog, ever.
We've named her Bartlett.

Asian 2.0

2009-10-18T16:26:00.001-07:00

It was simply a matter of needing to eat the eggplant and summer squash that had grown in our summer garden. We wanted to eat it. We just didn't know how to get around to it. We were a little tired of homegrown summer vegetables.
But it was food! Don't waste food.
I came up with this idea of a Chinese-style wokked eggplant. It was Cranky's idea to add the pattypans.
But. How? You cannot make up Chinese cooking if you don't know what you're doing.
I consulted several reliable books, most of which veered far from what I wanted: slightly sweet, savory, gooey.
Wow. All of a sudden, Barbara Tropp to the rescue. This imaginitive, intuitive cook who totally understood Chinese food (but was an American through and through — and spoke Chinese), could create genuine recipes, although they often had a modern, California twist.
Reading her eggplant recipe both freed me to experiment, and taught me to adhere to tradition.
Ohmagah.
We came up with a melange of vegetables (shiitakes in there, too), tossed with a mix of aromatics (garlic, ginger and chopped rehydrated dried shrimp) and a sauce (soy, water, balsamic vinegar, some sweetener... agave? eep... and a sloodge of the solids from the bottom of the jar of chile oil).
This is all wokked in order. I know I broke the rules, but the sauce came last. The vegetables were fresh, crisp, gardenny. The chopped shrimp added a delicious, meaty chewiness. The other flavors — well, you know. Yums. Sprinkle with chopped scallions. Serve with rice.
I am emboldened now to try "Chinese" without a cookbook. Could be a total disaster.
But if you knew how many times Cranky has nuzzled me today because of this meal... Eee!

Wow, The Wild Things, Wow

2009-10-16T17:49:00.000-07:00

I don't think I've ever seen a movie on its first day of release.
Actually, it was Cranky who wanted to go. We had been to our local independent bookstore recently, to reread Where The Wild Things Are, a 1963 children's book by author and illustrator Maurice Sendak. We knew the movie was coming, and we wanted a little homework under our belts. Neither of us had especially been fans of the book, but we knew it was "nice."
Upon rereading it, we were captivated: Poetry, psychology, humor, wryness, happy ending.
So, the movie. How do you make a 94-minute movie out of 10 sentences?
Well, you write a little plot expansion into it. But you DO NOT mess with the real plot, which is about Max, the rambunctious kid, who comes to terms with his own behavior (rage, sadness, megalomania) after a little time out.
Gad, this account of mine sounds lame.
Here: I was weeping at the movie. The "rumpus" and everything that follows on the fantasy island is RICH with genuine childhood drama. The characters take on characters, much like the figures in your dreams never seem to be who they are, but they are. There's the "rage" Max, the "wimpy" Max, the "father" Max, all played by different monsters. And the mother... weep.
You've heard the term "acting out." Ho, boy. You'll see a bit.
I have yet to read a review that GETS this movie like I did.
I hope you see it. I hope you get it.

It Needed Washing Anyway

2009-10-13T16:02:00.000-07:00

The storm blustered in last night and blew this doormat up and away.
Everything else that might get wet had been moved into the garage, but we thought the rug was safe under the awning.
We got inches and inches of rain. I don't have a measurement yet*, but it was 100% humidity in full force for about 12 hours. Pounding.
Still trickling now, and probably more tomorrow.
Which is fine, because I plan to flip the mat over and get the other side clean.

*UPDATE: More than five inches where I live.

I Know What I'm Having for Supper on Halloween

2009-10-11T15:45:00.001-07:00

And this isn't it.
We were sucked into the idea of creating Halloween-colored food from some magazine we got stuck with in the veterinarian's waiting room while our dog struggled toward his end. (Talk about scary! No, I can't talk about it. I will only tell you he went through convulsion-contortions worthy of a Nathaniel Hawthorne character. If the character were a really strong witch. Yes, I'm feeling a little better. They have witches on Halloween, and I can actually joke about it.)
The magazine showed a plate of black squid-ink pasta topped with cubes of orange winter squash. I'm off most conventional pasta these days, so I thought black beans would be a great alternative.
Yes, they were. Also, this whole meal is perched over our new homemade version of "black rice," too good to even describe.
Well, we liked it a lot. It got us to thinking. We also tinkered with some polenta dish topped with... blah, blah, blah. We loved all our experiments.
But we decided to surprise ourselves on Halloween. I am going to attempt my first gluten-free pizza, made with a store-bought mix from Bob's Red Mill. I've been missing pizza, and it makes me sad to be sad, so I'm getting over it.
If you think I'm decorating the pizza with pepperoni slices in the shape of a jack-o'-lantern face, you'd be...
right.
By the way, I also know what I'm having for supper on Thanksgiving. Boo!

And Then She Grew Up. No, She Didn't.

2009-10-06T15:50:00.000-07:00

This dish comes from my childhood. We ate it about once a month when I was little: pork chops atop rice, all cooked together in a skillet with decorations of onion, lemon and chilli sauce.
When I scooted off to college, my mom compiled a batch of beloved family recipes to take with me so I wouldn't starve on a dining hall diet, and I'm sure this one was among them. But you wouldn't really need a recipe at all if you'd eaten it so many times as a girl.
I doubt this is even interesting to you, but if you want to be seduced, read this: The rice (which is added to the skillet raw, along with the requisite water) sucks up all the browny pork fat, lemon drippings and tomato goo. It is EVIL, and I mean that in a good way. Sticky, evil rice. Just shoot me now.
So, if you want sticky evil rice, brown your chops in a skillet with oil until they're — brown. Pull them out, and dump in rice (a cup is too much for two people) and the appropriate amount of water. Put a lid on the skillet and let the rice cook about halfway. Then lay the chops on top, cover with one slice each of lemon and onion, and drizzle with chilli sauce. I don't know what chilli sauce is. I used homemade tomato sauce infused with bay leaf, garlic (powder! c'mon, it's retro), salt and chile flakes. Lid back on; cook until meat and rice are done.
Your pork will probably be overcooked; mine always is. But it's juicy and fragrant and... Well, if you were me, it would remind you of being a kid.
Come on over. I'll cook you supper.

Big Mistake

2009-10-05T12:56:00.000-07:00

I have never been a huge fan of Gourmet magazine, though I've appreciated its verve under the editorship of Ruth Reichl.
But this I know. Gourmet is classic. Historical. Essential. It is the original food magazine of America.
And its publisher announced today that it will be closing Gourmet. (The publisher, Condé Nast, also owns Bon Appétit, which sucks rocks and is not being shut down. Explain, please?)
I'm not easily shocked, but I gasped aloud when I heard this news. Sure, the economic environment is hostile, but... Wow. I was shocked.
I'm thinking the publishers might be "hearing" from readers, know what I'm saying? Even I might drop a line.

Sniff, sniff Not Hungry

2009-10-02T14:55:00.000-07:00

But I still love the smells.
Today I squirted a little bit of pear and cucumber on my bosom after my shower.
The immediate scent in my chestal region was a blurred, sweet aroma; neither fish nor fowl.
After a few hours, though, the brilliant individual notes reasserted themselves, and I found my poitrine to smell of both cuke and pear, mellowed and matured. Fruit and veg. A veritable compote on my private hoo-hoos.
I have an exquisite orange cologne I can add to this if I'm feeling like ambrosia salad, but this is fine for now.

I Still Miss Him

2009-09-29T14:55:00.000-07:00

I know it's not weird to miss my recently departed dog.
I'm even getting a little better.
I wonder when I'll stop missing him.
I hope I never do.

Cherry Baby

2009-09-27T17:40:00.000-07:00

We spent a little time roasting down tomatoes yesterday for the freezer. One pan of tomatoes consisted largely of shriveled cherry Tiny Tims (useless plant; never again unless I need a six-inch specimen for a bitty pot — cute gift). After roasting, they were, of course, even more shriveled. It did not look good for running them through the food mill to extract sauce from this pan of hot tomaisins.
But, ooh, they smelled good. Not the sort of thing you'd just chuck onto the compost pile. And I said, "Why would I even want to scrape off the lovely skins and seeds? This is food."
Sometimes when the house smells insanely delicious and the roasted baby tomatoes look adorable and edible, you can't be bothered to think in an orderly, recipe-like fashion.
We slapped this stuff into a pile of pasta shells with nothing more than a couple of gratings of various cheeses. We forgot all about herbs. Salt wasn't necessary. It was just... food.
Times like that, I really like food.

I Am a Pot Head

2009-09-24T15:17:00.000-07:00

No sooner had I bought the petite Staub cast-iron pots than I was already ordering my next Staub pot, the 3/4-quart size.
I am such a whore! I feel like I don't even love the 1/4-quart pots anymore. But Cranky reminded me that I do love them, and that I have a dandy idea for food to roast in them, soon. Sort of a deconstructed stuffed cabbage, but Shh. We'll talk about that later.
This new pot, the 3/4-quart? OMG, it is gorgeous. The diameter is only five and a quarter inches, to give you an idea how tidy and natty it is. It is the perfect size for two SANE appetites. A little, teensy bit more than you might need to eat, but two loving bowlfuls nonetheless that will not activate a review by the obesity panel.
Look here: Cranky made an impromptu cassoulet. We have gotten very brave, insouciant almost, in faking cassoulets. This was Cranky's first fake, and he was a little nervous, but he nailed it — if not nailing it is nailing it, because cassoulet without a slavish recipe is the goal, and he scored.
White marrow beans, cooked with bay leaves, other herbs, bacon fat and salt. Half a Merguez sausage, which is African and not traditional, but there are lots of Africans in France now, and the sausage is so tasty and made from lamb, which is very cassoulet. A thigh of duck confit. A few halves of ripe tomatoes. A good glug of chicken stock. Some bread crumbs. More herbs.
See, not a recipe. An approximation, and next time it will probably be different (because there is a Toulouse sausage in the freezer).
The thrill, for us both, was cooking our bean stew in the new metal pot. Lid on part of the time, then off.
Well, no, I think the cassoulet was the thrill.
Or maybe the pot.

What I've Been Doing

2009-09-22T13:10:00.001-07:00

Not much. I haven't been doing much.
I am, I will feebly confess, still in a state over the unexpected loss of my pet. It just pops up on you. You move your legs in the bed and think, "Don't knock the doggie off!" You shut down the computer and expect the pooch to jump up and run out of the room with you (because he could always tell when it was shutting down, application by application until the final FOOM. He could tell). I miss him.
Trying to move on, however. I did a lot, a LOT of nothing recently that added up to a huge fall harvest of preserved fruit.
I know. I do this every year, and it's not interesting anymore, except it is to me.
I dried a whole tree of plums. First, I used the previous years' technique of leaving the fruit in perforated laundry bags, outside in the sun. Then, oh my, I discovered a new trick.
You know how hot your car gets in the sun? And the minute you open it up, you can't wait for the heat to dissipate? NO.
Save the sun. Dry your fruit in the car.
I've already had friends laugh at me for this, but jeez, how very ECO. Park the car in the driveway or on the street, load your fruit into trays or laundry bags atop towels or newspapers to catch drips, and just wait. Just you wait.
We're calling our Subaru the Prunaru now.

Cute, not Garbage

2009-09-17T15:58:00.000-07:00

If it's fried, it's food! Plus, all those vegetables (two, not counting the omelet, but it's hard to tell because of the frying).
A while ago I took Cranky to a really nice steakhouse, run by an ambitious and well-known chef (though he's seldom there), and pleasant enough to dress casually for and still feel like a million. Well, half a million.
See, he needed the meat. There's never beef in this house, except for that hulking roast we get for Christmas. I figured a steak was a good treat for my pookie, since he's been doing all the heavy lifting in the garden this summer, AND bringing me a cup of tea in bed every morning.
I had a very nice steak, too, and between us both, there was enough meat to bring home for some snazzy Asian salad or something (though we ended up eating the steak as god intended: like steak).
Ah, but into the leftovers box I also poinked our "used" baked potato skins. I had an IDEA.
OK, the idea: Brush the empty tater skins with oil. Salt, if you like, and place on a baking sheet. Cook at 350-ish until everything looks brown and crisp.
Meanwhile, or simultaneously, cut up a pattypan squash into cute, thin chips (or planks, or Scrabble tiles...) "Cute," remember. Salt them, place them on a baking sheet, not touching, and give them a good swizzle of nice olive oil. You know what? You can flavor them with a sprinkling of cumin powder and probably some cayenne, as long as everything is cute. Bake the little planks until they look brown and crisp. (I can just see my first cookbook now: "Cook until everything looks brown and crisp. And cute.")
Then assemble your Easter baskets: Fill the crisp tater skins with the crisp pattypan planks. Serve and eat, cutely.
We served ours with a healthy omelet (if eggs and cheese are transformed to health by the addition of spinach; plus, the garlic might help).
I was gonna call this dish Five-Second-Rule Potatoes, but I realized they'd never actually fallen on the floor. Their only sin was being almost garbage.
So I call them George Costanza Almost Eclair Taters.

Farewell, Baby

2009-09-12T11:07:00.000-07:00

I have no appetite. My doggie got terribly sick and the vet saw no good prognosis for him. He was in such a terrible state, we are actually relieved to let him go.
I don't know what to do. I don't know how to feel.
There are small toys all over the house; I guess I'll load them into a basket.

Is This Summer Food?

2009-09-10T16:13:00.000-07:00

We have just under a couple of weeks until summer ends in the Northern Hemisphere, and I'm trying to use up as many tomatoes as possible.
In years past, that usually meant raw tomatoes in salads with feta cheese, cucumbers and onions. Or gazpacho.
For some reason, my mentality has recently allowed cooked tomatoes as a summer meal.
Look: a tomato torte. I can't even remember where I cruised across this recipe. As usual, I memorized the roughish idea, but not the proportions. It was based on bread crumbs stirred with a little olive oil. I thought it would be nice to incorporate some greenish herbs. Next layer was ricotta cheese mixed with a couple of eggs (and garlic and more herbs... and red chile pepper flakes... and salt, and black pepper). Top layer was slices of garden tomatoes.
Bake for about 45 minutes. I used a spring-form pan that doesn't see much kitchen duty; I was so tickled to be giving it a workout.
You might think this would be a meaningless pot of unrelated layers, but it all cohered. The tomatoes gave off a little juice that apparently migrated down to the breadcrumbs, and created a nice crust. The eggs and cheese transformed into a cheesecake-like layer of puffy scrumptiousness. Hell, I don't use the word "scrumptiousness." Call it "scrum." And the tomato slices firmed up into just what you wanted to eat, believe me.

Un-Rusty Staub

2009-09-08T13:30:00.000-07:00

I love this little dish!
Am I talking about A) the food; B) the antique green bowl; or C) the cast-iron Staub mini pot?
All three, of course.
But today I'm especially kookoo about the Staub pot. I've been meaning to buy a pair of them ever since my first visit to Ubuntu in Napa, where I reveled in the cauliflower concoction and vowed to make it myself at home.
No, I still haven't attempted the cauliflower (but you could argue I'm a lot closer now that I have the pots).
This dish (that word!) was a casual layering of un-cased, sauteed Merguez sausage, some tomatoey/garlicky "cowboy caviar" made from homegrown eggplant, gently parboiled potato slices, and a topping of yogurt with a dash of allspice. I don't know what effect I was going for here; vaguely "Bazaar" (as in the marketplace, not the ladies' magazine).
It was a hit. These little pots (they come with lids) are the perfect size for one serving, and I am not lying when I say that I intend to eat lots and lots of un-rusty pots full of comfort food this fall and winter.
Imagine, already looking forward to winter.

A-Mezze-Ing

2009-09-06T16:17:00.000-07:00

There has been a cathartic liberation in not having to go to work.
I can think about food all the time, and I can actually concoct the fruits of my fevered dreams if I wish, since there are no tedious meetings to attend, no rude toll-booth attendants to grimace at, no strict limitations on my randomness.
I do have incursions on my freedom, though. There is that plum tree. It's burping produce, and not at an agreeable rate. You either deal with it all at once, or you... deal with it.
We are pruning the plums (not trimming — drying!), though we're happy to eat fresh ones too.
OK, that's too much prelude. What I really want to talk about is rice pudding.
Segue!
But seriously, I had bought a new cookbook (OMG, me following recipes?) and I was smitten by a Turkish rice pudding fragrant with flavors of lemon rind (I used orange), cinnamon and rose water. I had a quart of goat milk I really wanted to use, and... yep.
Oh, this was beautiful. Ugly, only in that it looks like wet rice sludge. But stunning in aroma, texture and taste.
I had time to make this dish. You stand over the stove stirring the ingredients for a long time. Then you decide what you want to do with it. We ate some of it warm, but the rest went into the fridge to firm up.
Next day, we composed a platter with dried plums (are ya with me, California Dried Plum Board? — prunes is now a dirty, laxative word, I guess; my mom won't even eat 'em anymore for fear she'll be bathroom bound).
We accompanied the feast with grapes, almonds and fresh plums. Oh, and the rice pudding, of course.
It sounds sweet, but I cut the sugar in the rice pudding by half, and I have absolutely no objections to the sugar that Mother Nature chooses to grow in my backyard.
And we ate in a most leisurely fashion. Because I have time.

Electric Prunes

2009-09-04T11:29:00.000-07:00

Are green gage plums suddenly fashionable? Weren't they just a fusty old antique?
All of a sudden I keep hearing tweets from my foodinista friends, from all over the world, about these little sugar bombs.
I have a scrawny tree in the backyard. This is the third year I've been acquainted with the tree, and this is the first time it has been burdened with a complete, heavy harvest of fruit.
As if on cue last month, the tree dropped most of the plums over a two-day period. We saved many in the refrigerator, but others were already turning brown and wrinkled, so we left them outside in the sun to complete mummification. I mean prunification.
We like the prunes better than the fresh fruit, so this is very convenient. The prunes are creamy, fudgy, sweet and chewy. You can stop the dehydration just when they get to the perfect stage. Dip them (in a strainer) into a pot of boiling water for a minute to remove germs, dry them thoroughly, and then just store in plastic bags in the refrigerator for year-round snacking.
Yesterday we had a sweet mezze for lunch. It included prunes. It's for a later post, so shhh.
It was really good. I had too much to dream last night.

This Will FILL You Up

2009-09-02T09:57:00.000-07:00

Tomato Soup and Toast, basically. But homemade (and free of wheat products).
This is our first gazpacho of the year. Last week I came across a recipe that advised grating halved raw tomatoes on the large holes of a box grater, until all you have left is the thin tomato skin in your hand. It really works! You get the skin off, and you get nice, smooth little pieces of tomato.
I have an antique grater made of aluminum (the only icky part) which consists of a grating surface — a lid, essentially — and a dish that it sits over. You grate anything, and it falls into the dish. Perfect for tomatoes. I got into a sort of trance, grating tomatoes outside on the patio table, and pretty much filled up that grater dish.
Next, I grated a couple of raw jalapeños. Not much heat in those babies, if any. It was mostly for flavor and color.
Speaking of flavor and color, then I grated some cucumber. And some onion (well, not much color there).
This mush all went into a bowl with a glug of olive oil, a spurt of Spanish sherry vinegar, and a shake of salt. A little sitting time for flavors to develop...
And here comes the secret ingredient: Cranky ground up some raw almonds into a fine dust. He didn't even bother blanching them. They had a nice, toasty color and a slight granular texture that subbed perfectly for the slice of bread we usually blend into gazpacho. Also, almonds are part of the historic, original white gazpacho from Spain. They say. So this was a clever, anachronistic, if unconventional addition.
THAT IS IT. I couldn't even tinker with flavors, because I had already splurted the oil and vinegar into the bowl, leaving the bottles inside the house, and I wasn't going back for them. I wanted to eat.
Cranky dashed out with a batch of socca, fresh from the griddle. He cooked them a lot more like pancakes this time, not relying on the oven so much. As you might remember, soccas are made from chickpea flour, and are stunningly nutritious. You will be stuffed with bean protein.
And with the garden-flavored soup with its wallop of nut protein,
we
didn't
even
want
supper.