. . . to go by bike! And by weekend, I mean four days — in addition to my usual three-day weekend, I took an extra day to eat up some comp time.
On Thursday afternoon, after a morning making tomatillo salsa and granola, I biked to the library and then on to City Greens Farmers’ Market. On my way to the market, I was wishing for a juicy, refreshing snack — fortunately, they had grapes again — big time yum! In addition to the grapes, I filled my bike crate with eggplant (soon to be baba ganoush), sweet potatoes, and green peppers.
I started Friday with a bike trip to the dentist. I survived the little girl puking in the waiting room, only for the dental hygienist to say she thought I had a little cavity.Continue reading “Twas a great weekend . . .”
Matthew associates parsley with caterpillars, and I finally understand the connection. While I don’t think that parsley tastes like caterpillar, caterpillars certainly find parsley tasty.
Chubby here is working to decimate our last parsley plant. We’re allowing this because we’re nice people, and we think he’s a monarch. However, we already stood by while three or four of Chubby’s siblings chomped through our other parsley plant.
Chomped 😦
Quite frankly, I’m ready for Chubby to be done. On several occasions, I’ve said to Chubby, “Come on, freaking turn into a thing already!” He’s certainly big enough, and I like to eat parsley, too.
I threw this together as a fast, easy weeknight dinner last week. We have a semi-functional charcoal grill, but firing that up just to grill a few veggies hardly seems worth the effort (not to mention the air pollution).
When we first received a hand-me-down George Foreman [countertop] grill from my MIL, I was skeptical. Would this be just another appliance taking up space on our counter? The answer, for us, is no. We use the grill pretty regularly — not quite that “real grill” flavor, but pretty good with a lot less fuss and effort.
For this meal, I tossed eggplant slices, whole okra (sliced lengthwise from tip, stopping just before the stem so it stays together), and onion slices in some olive oil and salt, then set them on the grill. The only drawback with our rather small grill is that this does require multiple batches, but everything cooks pretty quickly, so it doesn’t take too long.
To round things out, I tossed brown rice (cooked for an earlier meal) with some frozen peas, garlic-infused olive oil, and roasted sunflower seeds. We enjoyed the grilled okra dipped in our homemade catsup, spiced up with a little chili sauce.
Beyond the countertop grill:
Gas grills generally come out ahead environmentally in the “gas vs. charcoal” debate, but both types use resources and create air pollution. If you already have a charcoal grill and aren’t ready to plunk down the cash for a gas version (like us) here are some tips:
Avoid lighter fluid, which has a whole slew of nasty chemicals in it.
Instead, invest in a charcoal ladder, which enables you to start a nice, hot fire, with nothing more than charcoal.
Making English muffins has been on my list of “things to try” for several reasons: 1) English muffins are delicious and versatile, 2) store-bought are kind-of expensive and often have weird ingredients, and 3) they seem like they shouldn’t be that hard to make.
My first attempt came out edible, but disappointing due to the decided lack of rising. I was too bummed to take photos of version 1.0, but they were flatter than my chest, and that’s saying something.
Matthew made version 2.0, with a few small tweaks to the original recipe I used from the back of a bag of Arrowhead Mills flour:
The blacked out portions come courtesy of Matthew, who takes issue with any kind of branding. Obsessive compulsive, much?
We tweaked it by adding a little extra yeast and honey (amounts noted in the photo), as well as adding wheat gluten (this helps the rising in bread recipes with a lot of whole wheat flour).
We also changed the directions a bit. Combine the yeast and warm water (100-110 degrees F) as indicated, but then add 1 cup of the flour before adding anything else. This protects the yeast from activating too quickly when the honey is added. After you mix in the cup of flour, go back to the printed directions.
The directions say to “stir until smooth,” but you’ll actually need to get your hands in there and knead it for a bit. After we made a nice dough, we covered it and let it rise for a bit in the bowl (maybe 30 minutes — it didn’t really rise much), then proceeded to roll it out. Roll it to about 1/2 – 3/4 inch thickness.
This is how the muffins should look post-rise. We let these rise for about an hour-and-a-half. Then we fired up our electric griddle (set to “medium”). A cast iron pan on the stove top would also work for these.
The result? Beautiful, delicious English muffins on the second attempt! Matthew has the baker’s touch. Luckily, we doubled the recipe, so we have twenty muffins.
In addition to more traditional preparation methods (butter and a bit of jam or as a base for a fried egg breakfast sandwich), English muffins make great burger buns or bases for sandwiches. Choose open-faced for the perfect ratio of toppings to breadiness.
Under the broiler with fresh figs and goat cheese
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Note on the recipe: I looked on the Arrowhead Mills (big black marker here if you’re Matthew) website, because I really just wanted to post a link to the recipe, but the recipe wasn’t there. I’m using a photo of the recipe instead of typing it out because, well, I’m lazy. If you click the photo, it should be plenty clear and large enough to read without too much trouble, but if that’s not the case, let me know.
Her Green Life 