Robb + Jessie Married & in the Badger State
A Rainbow of Pickles
Our garden has produced a bounty of carrots. In all shapes, sizes and colours. That’s right. Not all carrots are orange. On Friday I harvested half of what was in our plot which resulted in eight pounds of carrots trimmed and cleaned sitting in our fridge.
Now, I am a faithful follower of Molly Wizenberg (author of the blog Orangette and the book, A Homemade Life) and I recalled a photograph of pickling carrots from her wedding preparations. Cathy gave me a signed copy of Molly’s book for my birthday, which just so happened to have the recipe for the hot (spice-wise) pickled carrots. Now of course, I had to try out the recipe which I had to double so I could use three pounds of my carrots.
The chapter on pickling foods made me grin. As Molly described her husband, he began to remind me of Robb. They share an uncanny taste for vinegar. And, like Molly, I don’t think I appreciated vinegar as much as I do now after being married to Robb. (Not to mention, Molly’s husband also has a mop of curls.)
While Robb was still in Seattle, I decided to break in our new kitchen by trying something I had never done before: pickling. The recipe is quite simple (I’m sorry, but I won’t share it here because it is not mine to share) and includes some wonderful ingredients bound to excite the taste buds and enhance the carrots. My favourite ingredient, besides the rainbow of carrots, was the garlic. I am always so thrilled to be able to use one of our many heads of garlic. Never have I seen such beautiful garlic. I’m just sayin’…
Now that they are bathing in their tasty brine, we must wait. I’ll let you know how they taste. I’ll even give you a jar if you stop by. But knowing our habit of eating pickles, they wont last long!
Bob the tomato
No, it’s not really Bob. Maybe it’s his lumpy overgrown cousin?
Since buying our T.V. from Sony (a plug on behalf of my cousin), I have discovered that VeggieTales is on at 9 a.m. on Saturdays. (I don’t know which station since I still refer to the local ABC channel as KOMO-4 and the NBC channel as KING-5). Anyway, you can now find me undoubtedly in front of the television with a bowl of cereal and a mug of tea wrapped in a blanket laughing along with VeggieTales. That show never gets old. And the real bonus is that when we have kids, I will be able to watch all the episodes with them and not feel silly.
Oh, but you might be wondering what that tomato is. It is, I think, a Black Russian tomato from the plant gifted to us by our friends Eric and Ruthie. Let me tell you, that is one delicious treat. Robb and I stood amongst boxes and dishes, as we tried to pack our kitchen, each eating half of this guy still warm from the afternoon sun with a bit of tomato juice dribbling down our chins. Yum.
Eight Ball Goodness
While on our way to get free Babcock ice cream we heard our friend Eric call our names. He had just come from his garden where he procured some beautiful baby yellow squash, a bell pepper and the glorious eight-ball zucchini:
You might recognize his brother (or sister) from Ruthie’s Eric’s (sorry, Ruthie usually does the posting) post a few weeks ago: Stuffed Eight-Ball Zucchini. And let me assure you, this is exactly what we will do with our little green beauty. It must wait until Thursday, though, because we are going to a P.E.O. B.I.L. cocktail hour tonight and to Harvest with the Vincill’s tomorrow.
Abundance
We harvested our garlic. And I am reminded of a favourite quote:
If everyone ate more garlic, the world would be a happier place.
-Ruth Reichl
On the menu
Robb and I are revamping our eating life right now. We’ve had one too many brats and now that our garden is starting to flourish, we are looking to use some of our fresh, organic vegetables.
When I walk home I generally ponder what I will make for dinner. Or at least, what will be the main source of protein. For instance, yesterday I wondered I considered eggs, tofu, chicken, beef, pork… The latter three are in our freezer, and I didn’t want to go through the defrosting cycle, so I settled on tofu. I have only recently begun experimenting with tofu. I have learned there are many different ways to prepare it, but I have mostly stuck with pan frying.
I checked out my trusty recipe website, Allrecipes.com and searched for tofu. To my surprise, the second recipe listed struck my fancy. Chinese Shrimp and Tofu Soup. I just happened to have a half of bag of shrimp left over from when I made shrimp and pesto pasta last month. (Frozen, cooked shrimp from Trader Joe’s).
The only ingredient I was missing was fresh ginger. Instead, I used my Chinese five-spice powder and mixed it with the chopped garlic. I sautéed the shrimp (mostly defrosting them) and then added the tofu to increase the flavor as other reviewers had mentioned it being bland. I also increased the amount of peas and simmered the soup for about 15 minutes (or until the rice was finished cooking). Then, the secret ingredient, cilantro fresh from our garden. Robb and I were very satisfied.
Then, we enjoyed watermelon for dessert while the cake Robb made was baking (that is another story).