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Lunch - The Mid-Day, Polyphonic Food Blog


Anna Blume

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After a large breakfast on a steamy day, it will be late, but my first batch of what's-her-face's bbq sauce has reached the half-way point in simmering. Since I use Ancho chilies for other things and didn't see them in powdered form at Bestworld, I just toasted a trio until they puffed up and ultimately, seeded and tore up two to steep in heated apple cider, whirling the lot in the Vitamix before getting the rest into a pot. Half the amount of ground pepper since who knows where my white peppercorns are, not me, so subbed sharper, unripe black.

When ready, it will moisten Eco-Friendly's pulled pork on a potato roll with a kobu turnip, carrot and spring onion slaw. Strawberry smoothie on side, maybe with mango and fresh orange juice if I can rid the blender's plastic of chili-tingle.

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After a large breakfast on a steamy day, it will be late, but my first batch of what's-her-face's bbq sauce has reached the half-way point in simmering. Since I use Ancho chilies for other things and didn't see them in powdered form at Bestworld, I just toasted a trio until they puffed up and ultimately, seeded and tore up two to steep in heated apple cider, whirling the lot in the Vitamix before getting the rest into a pot. Half the amount of ground pepper since who knows where my white peppercorns are, not me, so subbed sharper, unripe black.

When ready, it will moisten Eco-Friendly's pulled pork on a potato roll with a kobu turnip, carrot and spring onion slaw. Strawberry smoothie on side, maybe with mango and fresh orange juice if I can rid the blender's plastic of chili-tingle.

Whatsherface just bought a humongous jar of ancho chile powder so I won't have to hassle with using whole dried anchos when I can'tfind any powder. I love Surfas in Culver City for things like that. Too bad they no longer carry Tasmanian leatherwood honey. That stuff was amazing. I'm'a gonna make a big batch of my mustard sauce when I get back to DC.
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I see a lot of lovage in my near future. Interesting stuff. Anyone have good ideas for it?

My Aunt grew lovage which we all loathed. I loathed it because she planted it by her pool and man does it attract wasps like nobody's business. But she would put it in salads- mind you none of us liked it, but we could just be poor ungrateful souls.

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It sure has an intense aroma: three hours and multiple hand-washings later I could still smell it on my skin. But I found that butter really tempered it. I can see the sandwich idea working, actually. Like little tea sandwiches. I also have way too much sorrel, so I think a cream of lovage and sorrel soup might be in order, too.

If anyone wants some drop me a pm; it's a big plant and will just keep getting bigger.

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But I found that butter really tempered it.

Anything that butter makes better can't be bad...hahahaha :D

My lunch today was a baked potato with unsalted South Mountain Creamery butter and black pepper, plus some Crystal hot sauce.

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What to eat in a marsh after paddling against the current, behind an abandoned duck hunter's perch:

  • Hard-boiled guinea eggs
  • Norwegian rye crisps w your own butter made from raw Jersey milk
  • Grated carrot salad
  • Wine and blackberries gathered by little hands

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"Pesto" pasta

Greek yogurt with local blueberries macerated in local honey (my new favorite snack)

I'm still obsessed with my Vitamix, and needing to move on from slushies, I decided to make a pesto. But my basil plant is pretty puny, though, and I haven't had the courage to buy pine nuts since the pine-nut mouth debacle of 2011, so in addition to the (Vitamix-grated!) parm, olive oil, garlic, and a few basil leaves, I added sun-dried tomatoes and peanuts. Pretty good, actually, though I used WAY too much oil. I'll need to strain some off the leftover sauce before I use it.

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"Pesto" pasta

Greek yogurt with local blueberries macerated in local honey (my new favorite snack)

I'm still obsessed with my Vitamix, and needing to move on from slushies, I decided to make a pesto. But my basil plant is pretty puny, though, and I haven't had the courage to buy pine nuts since the pine-nut mouth debacle of 2011, so in addition to the (Vitamix-grated!) parm, olive oil, garlic, and a few basil leaves, I added sun-dried tomatoes and peanuts. Pretty good, actually, though I used WAY too much oil. I'll need to strain some off the leftover sauce before I use it.

Pistachios are good in pesto (as are some other nuts, but pistachios also have the advantage of being green).

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PB&J...and breakfast was PB&J, and dinner last night was PB&J (are you sensing a theme here?) With the power outage, few places open and not very appetizing choices at that, I decided to save my money for restocking the fridge instead. However, whatever else happens today, my next meal is NOT going to be PB&J

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Sesame-peanut noodles w cucumber, scallions and cilantro for past few days. In oven now: a gratin inspired by Food 52 which now serves as my home page: cucuzza w salsa verde. Smells and looks gorgeous.

Leftover salsa verde may be destined for last Sunday's tomatoes, popped in the oven since spots growing.

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Assuming I eat everything that I have cooked in the last 24 hours this week for lunch I'll have:

Cream of Basil soup (without cream)

Stewed tomatoes and okra

Buratta with cherry roma tomatoes, basil and black truffle oil

Left over squash blossoms stuffed with herbed goat cheese simmered in homemade tomato sauce

Salsa inspired gaspacho

Squash blossom and gouda goat cheese pasta

Eight ball squash stuffed with tomato and piava

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left over shrimp bisque made yesterday from a sackful of fresh, head-on North Carolina shrimp I got from Bev Egg at the Dupont market.

All the heads and shells made an intensely rich stock and my secret bisque thickener is arborio rice cooked in the broth with more aromatic veg until the rice is very soft and then after a few raw shrimp are poached in the broth the whole pot gets run in the Vitamix on high with a little bit of cream added. Tasty.

edited to add: Bev gave me the shrimp. He was offering them gratis to some of his long-time customers because he "overbought" on a foray to Hatteras last week, and they would have spoiled otherwise.

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Oyster stew with oyster crackers and some sliced scallion greens on top

I'd bought the oysters a couple days ago, planning to make this last night. I ran short of time so made it for lunch today. My mother loved oyster stew, and yesterday would have been her 85th birthday. I was pouring out some cream to add to the milk I was going to use and little came out even though the container still clearly had something in it. When I pulled the whole carton all the way open (the kind like you get for school milk), the inside walls were coated with butter. So that became the butter I used for the stew. (It was Organic Valley heavy whipping cream, which had been open in the fridge for a while.) This was very good but very simple oyster stew.

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Inspired by the recipes in today's Post food section, quinoa, roasted broccoli, and parsley in a lemon dressing. Even though this morning's announcement that we had our warmest year on record was not the best news, it was nice to still be able to cut parsley from the garden.

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Quinoa cooked in homemade vegetable broth with kidney and navy beans, fresh spinach, onions, oregano, garlic, bay leaf and a large dose of Chipotle Tabasco to counteract blandness -- pretty satisfying; and on the side 4 oz of wild caught Alaskan salmon

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I made a big pot of chili with ground turkey, chorizo (loose from Whole Foods) 4 kinds of dried chilis and 3 types of breans. I lightly toasted the chilis in a dry pan and buzzed them in the Cuisinart with water. Added that to browned meat, onions and garlic, plus with some organic chicken stock and cumin. Dumped in a can of imported cherry tomatoes. Simmered a long time. Perfect on a very cold day.

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I lightly toasted the chilis in a dry pan and buzzed them in the Cuisinart with water.

The recommended method is to dry toast the chiles after removing the seeds and stems and then submerging them in boiling water for 15 or 20 minutes and then pureeing them in some of the soaking water. The rest of the soaking water can be used to add to the chili.

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The recommended method is to dry toast the chiles after removing the seeds and stems and then submerging them in boiling water for 15 or 20 minutes and then pureeing them in some of the soaking water. The rest of the soaking water can be used to add to the chili.

I actually did that. I didn't describe the whole process because typing on my iPad is challenging. The chili was great, and it will be hard to go back to any commercial chili powder ever again. Today I bought dried anchos and guajillos. Will use the same process, but will end up with enchilada sauce. It's bitterly cold here so the MLK day off is a good day to experiment in the kitchen!

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Food52's version of Shakshuka. They say it's adapted from the recipe in Ottolenghi's latest book, Jerusalem. It's a very dumbed-down version of that recipe. Which was fine for my purposes today -- needed something quick, easy and nutritious -- it's all of those things and really not bad at all.

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Yesterday when picking up wings at Stachowski's for brining and grilling for Sunday, it was around midday so I ordered one of their monster-sized pastrami sandwiches. Those things, while so delicious, are simply too huge for one person to even finish half. Must be more than a pound of pastrami on the sammie.

So, today for lunch, browned some yellow onion; then put the remainder of a container of freshly made sauerkraut we'd gotten at the Bethesda Farmers' Market a couple of weeks ago in with the onion. Once hot and even a bit crispy on the edges, laid the leftover thick Stachowski pastrami slices (from just half a sandwich!) on top of the bubbling kraut and covered. Fast and easy (and delicious!) steaming corned beef and cabbage like dish (er, pastrami and kraut). Was enough for two of us.

That sandwich, which cost $12.99, was basically enough for 3 lunches!

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So, today for lunch, browned some yellow onion; then put the remainder of a container of freshly made sauerkraut we'd gotten at the Bethesda Farmers' Market a couple of weeks ago in with the onion.

^

Assuming this sauerkraut was from The Sweet Farm? We've been buying their krauts for many weeks now. We're especially fond of the Curtido and the Curry, in addition to the traditional sauerkraut. And the owners are a really lovely, young couple. They've been a great addition to BCFM this year.

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Assuming this sauerkraut was from The Sweet Farm? We've been buying their krauts for many weeks now. We're especially fond of the Curtido and the Curry, in addition to the traditional sauerkraut. And the owners are a really lovely, young couple. They've been a great addition to BCFM this year.

Yes, yes and yes :)

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homemade matzo ball soup

I made a giant pot of double strength chicken stock yesterday, left it outside to chill overnight. This morning I spooned off close to 3 cups of solid fat from the top of the pot. The abundance of schmaltz and the aromatic broth put J. in mind of the matzo ball soup we had at DGS deli last week, and he wanted some. I'm from the fluffy, floater camp of matzo ballistics, so we added some baking powder to the matzo meal, and used melted schmaltz instead of oil. the baking powder obviates the need to separate the eggs and beat the whites separately, or add club soda--two methods that are supposed to yield light-weight matzo balls, but don't work nearly as well as baking powder. Anyway, they turned out great, and we added some sliced cooked carrot for authenticity.

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homemade matzo ball soup

I made a giant pot of double strength chicken stock yesterday, left it outside to chill overnight. This morning I spooned off close to 3 cups of solid fat from the top of the pot. The abundance of schmaltz and the aromatic broth put J. in mind of the matzo ball soup we had at DGS deli last week, and he wanted some. I'm from the fluffy, floater camp of matzo ballistics, so we added some baking powder to the matzo meal, and used melted schmaltz instead of oil. the baking powder obviates the need to separate the eggs and beat the whites separately, or add club soda--two methods that are supposed to yield light-weight matzo balls, but don't work nearly as well as baking powder. Anyway, they turned out great, and we added some sliced cooked carrot for authenticity.

Yeah, I definitely "liked" the above but, if any post every got me thinking that this whole ridiculous 3D printer to make food stuff had any merit, a device that could "print" the above and magically produce something even 80% the level of the original would be worth a lot of money. :D

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Lentil soup begun w a homemade vegetable broth which incorporated stringy mess of seeds scooped out of two butternut squash. Leeks, shallot, garlic, fresh ginger, orange peel, coriander, whole clove & peppercorns...semi-puréed and poured over baby spinach and garnished with whole-milk yogurt in the corner of the most convenient museum where we were allowed to bring in food and picnic.*

Butternut squash hummus w za'atar & pumpkin seeds. Crackers and sliced radishes to scoop.

Hard-boiled eggs

Delicious satsumis from WFM

World Peace cookies

*Hirshhorn doesn't even have lockers for the general public, let alone a cloakroom!!!

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Tuesday we took a large, wide metal bowl out to the third high tunnel where I received instructions on which leaves of lacinato kale were big enough to pluck and how. Little girls who hate broccoli and spinach for some reason really go for the dark green bumpy leaves, so the bowl was piled high by the time we were through.

No need to wash the organic kale. Just cut off the stems to reserve for eggs or rice. Sliver and chop the leaves and toss into a bowl. Olive oil from Lucca. A little salt. Pepper. Ume plum vinegar and a thick paste of blitzed cashews, dried heirloom tomatoes, a few pine nuts, some water and the very last clove of cured garlic from last year's crop, weeks before tender shoots of green garlic begin to coil out of the earth.

Meanwhile, two huge, sautéed leeks went into a pot of boiling water with handfuls of lentils. So much paprika that the broth turned red.

Loaves of bread baked with flour ground right next to the stove from rye berries and Alice wheat. You could see the fields where the grains grew just outside the window.

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Track food is usually awful, and there's no place within half an hour of VIR that serves anything edible, so this past weekend I loaded up a cooler and made good use of the mini-fridge and microwave in my room. Lunch Friday was a sandwich of green olive and caper cream cheese with marinated artichokes and romaine on 10 grain bread, with a side of roasted asparagus. Saturday was roasted beet and goat cheese on bread with a side of braised fennel. But Sunday I caved and bought a delicious grease-bomb biscuit with country ham and egg from the track canteen.

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Given how blustery and chilly today is, I felt like something a bit more hearty than I'd normally make at the end of May.

Penne with chickpeas, kale, tomatoes, tomato paste, oregano, basil, garlic, onions, mirin, parmigiano reggianno.

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