Daily meals

Some nights it's all I can do to put food on the table -- sometimes going so far as to order takeout or pick up burritos from the very nice people up the street. But I do write a menu every week and try to stick to it. I also like to try new things -- tonight is one example.

I like gnocchi. At restaurants. At home, it's hit or miss. Out of nowhere, I figured I'd give it a try, and was inspired by some pop-up recipe with spinach. So I looked until I found a recipe I really liked. Also I'm trying to clean out the freezers, and we had two half-bags of spinach waiting. Coincidentally, they were exactly the weight specified. Yay!

After I baked the two kilos of Yukon gold potatoes, then riced them, mixed in the cooked and drained spinach and two cups of flour, it looked like this.

Then the dough got rolled out into ropes. It's pretty wet, so we'll see how it goes.

I tried cutting pieces with a knife

But decided that kitchen shears were easier and squished the ropes less.

 After cutting, a quick push with a fork makes groovy places. Apparently, it helps sauce cling.

 

A test run in the afternoon.

They're. . . okay. I think they'll be better with butter, Parmesan, cream, and nutmeg tonight. How could they be worse?

Edited to add -- gnocchi were only okay. Sauce was terrific. Oh well . . .

The other first is this plum torte. Very very easy to make. I can hardly wait to cut into it. I may end up taking it to spinning to share.

Crazy for Kale

It would be so great to always be ready for pictures, to always have my hair just so and maybe the dark circles that lurk under my eyes softened a bit. . . but then I couldn't complain that there were no pictures of me, and anyhow, when your most avid photographer is six, you get what you get.

Kale makes me pretty happy.


I pulled about a pound of Lacinato kale out of the garden today -- it's all threatening to bolt, and I'm trying to gobble it up before that happens. So I'm going to share a "recipe" with you. It's more of a suggested approach, because I'm not actually measuring things. When out at a local restaurant, I had their Kale-Seaweed Salad, and it was so tasty I've been trying to match it ever since. There's still something off about my dressing, but I'm close.


If you want to try it, and you have access to kale and either Arame or Hijiki (Arame is less expensive here, and Hijiki tastes better, in my opinion), you can make it right up.

I lightly steamed about 1/2 pound of stemmed kale leaves, then chiffonaded them. Meanwhile, the seaweed was soaking in some hot water. I drained the seaweed and mixed it with the kale. Into that went some finely minced fresh peeled ginger (you might want to try some ginger preserved in sherry, or some shaved fresh ginger instead). The dressing was rice vinegar, sesame oil, and soy sauce. Sesame seeds on top.

And that's it. I find it really yummy and am always amazed at how much kale cooks down to how little. It tastes best cold, but I have yet to make it far enough ahead to chill it. If anyone has suggestions about punching up the dressing, let me know.

Being careful what I wish for

Remember the blogger who was a little afraid she might not have enough enchilada sauce to last her all year long?


Husking tomatillos is a sticky, somewhat tedious business. Fortunately a dear friend came by and she and I talked chickens and children while she cheerily helped me peel every single usable tomatillo in the buckets -- and that harvest trug was also full yesterday, from the fallen fruit in the bed. Having her there helped immensely, not only for the work, but because when I'd grimace and flick my sandal off of my foot, she'd calmly say, "Earwig?" "Uh huh," I'd reply, "Toewig," and we'd go on.

Once they were peeled, I shifted them from soapy water to draining rack. I wasn't really trying to get all of the sticky off, just the earwigs, their leavings, and any stray garden dirt or plant matter. Just a dunk and a rinse, really.


Added to them were the outsides of as many peppers as I could get at the market. It was, unfortunately, not a banner day for peppers. If hot hot hot salsa was a good idea, I could have made this with any amount of peppers, but I wanted a mix between the mildness of Anaheims and a tiny bit of Jalapeno. Instead, I got mostly Pasillas. You can also tell that I didn't start the salsa until after dinner. Peeling those babies took up a bigger part of the afternoon than I'd bargained for; and the kids were too hungry to wait for me to finish a batch!


I used the food processor to chop things, because it's faster and also because I don't want a chunky salsa, the way I would if it were going on chips or something like that. I did miss enough that there's going to be chunks, especially of onions. I have bags of frozen chopped onions from the harvest with the soft places, so it's fairly easy to measure.

I prefer lime to lemon juice. After this batch, though, I think I like a mix of vinegar to lime juice the best. As long as the juice is bottled, I believe the acidity is safe for canning. Vinegar would sort of be insurance too.

The trusty food processor turned these


Into this pretty quickly. Sometimes I poured off a little bit of juice -- it tends toward wateriness anyhow.

Spices like cumin and oregano add just the right flavor


And I use kosher salt because I haven't found canning salt in my area yet. It may not be perfect, but it works okay.


Simmer all the sauce for 20 minutes, then put in jars and process. Last night, I doubled the batch (according to the hot pepper amount) and only got nine pints.


That's really pretty terrific - a batch of enchiladas takes about two. It would be more terrific if there weren't the equivalent of another five gallon bucket of peeled tomatillos waiting. I can freeze them, cook them and freeze them, can them whole, or go and get more peppers today and make another double batch. A new recipe for enchilada sauce crossed my radar while I was writing this, with larger amounts than mine. Maybe I'll try that one tomorrow night.

When I went to bed, the cat was nosing after one of the earwigs walking across the floor. Guess I didn't get them all when I swept. Eeew.

The recipe I used can be found here, and it's fairly straightforward.

Tomatillo Green Salsa

• 5 cups chopped tomatillos
• 1-½ cups seeded, chopped long green chiles
• ½ cup seeded, finely chopped jalape&ntildeo peppers
• 4 cups chopped onions
• 1 cup bottled lemon or lime juice
• 6 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1 tablespoon ground cumin (optional)
• 3 tablespoons dried oregano leaves (optional)
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 1 teaspoon black pepper

Serve by making an enchilada "lasagne" using corn tortillas for the "noodle" layer. I use queso fresco for an authentic cheese, and either chicken or black beans and corn for the filling. Layer, then top with more tortillas and some jack cheese, then bake covered at 350 degrees F for 30-45 minutes, or until everything is bubbly and the cheese is melty. Take the top off until the cheese browns a bit.