This one used up the last of the cantaloupe and the avocados.
For 2 generous servings:
Toss it all together with an orange vinaigrette. If I’d been feeling more ambitious, I might have added some toasted almonds and some mandarin orange or tangerine sections.
But I wasn’t.
By way of not cleaning the living room…
The T-Shirt
and
prefectionist
I’d love to wear the blue one to work, but it’s just not that kind of dress code.
Asparagus & Cantaloupe Salad
For 2 generous servings:
Steam the asparagus just long enough for it to turn bright green, but not long enough to lose the crispness. Drop the asparagus into cold water to stop the cooking and bring it down to room temperature. Toss all your ingredients together & dress with balsamic or raspberry vinaigrette.
Avocado, Asparagus, & Faux Lobster Salad
For 2 generous servings:
Steam the asparagus just long enough for it to turn bright green, but not long enough to lose the crispness. Drop the asparagus into cold water to stop the cooking and bring it down to room temperature. Put all of your vegetables into the salad bowl together.
Pour a little bit of olive oil into a skillet and cook the pancetta and shallots together. While everything is cooking, cut up the lobster surimi into small chunks. Add it to the pan with the pancetta and shallots, and stir everything around so that the surimi gets warm. Deglaze the pan with the vermouth/white wine. When the alcohol has cooked off, add the parsley. Remove the solid from the pan, and add them to the salad. Let the liquid in the pan reduce down, then add lemon juice. Stir to combine, and pour over salad. Toss & serve.
The good news is that I have a new faucet in the kitchen sink. A faucet that only sprays water when and where I want it.
Which makes it entirely unlike my old kitchen fountain faucet.
The Good
I knew things were going too well when Spouse was able to install the faucet in very little time and with no difficulties.
Under the sink, however, was a completely different matter.
The Bad
The floor of the under-sink cabinet has spent the past eight years or so undergoing a transformation from the mild warping it had when I bought the house to the non-Euclidian surface you can see above.
Spouse thought it would be a fairly simple matter to remove the floor of the cabinet and replace it.
But of course, my house was built by brain-damaged and probably non-union marmosets.
The Yucky
Because I’d like to think that a union brain-damaged marmoset would know that you’re supposed to run a line of ductwork from the vent to the grate. Especially when, you know, there might be water in the immediate area.
Fortunately, Spouse was in Builder Mode already (still trying to construct a new bookcase for the cookbooks before the old one collapses and an avalanche of world culinary literature gives me a concussion—a task from which I keep distracting him to do things like replace the kitchen faucet) and was able to rip out all the warped-and-soaked pressboard, manufacture a custom duct, re-frame the base of the cabinet, and drop a new floor in, and clean up from the repair, all in about 6 hours worth of work (over 2 days).
Because I thought that taking out the entire cabinet the weekend before we expect out-of-town guests was a bad idea.
Me: …my husband is an attorney.
Him: I’ll bet—no, never mind?
Me: What?
Him: I was going to say “I’ll bet you lose a lot of arguments,” but actually, I don’t.
INDIANAPOLIS, IN—Last night, tragedy struck dozens of innocent strawberries in a quiet suburban neighborhood. Over a hundred strawberries were brutally decapitated and pulverized in a blender. Authorities found the combined remains in three separate plastic bags in a garage freezer on the city’s northeast side.
Traumatized Survivors Huddle Together
Four young strawberries survived the juiceshedding, and were questioned and released by authorities. One was treated for minor bruising, and none were suspects in the case.
Tragically, the four survivors were attacked and decapitated less than an hour later. The bodies are missing, but messily severed heads were found not far from the scene of the first incident. No further details have been released at this time.
Gruesome Remains Found Mere Inches From Original Scene
I managed to use up some of last week’s lettuce yesterday, along with some of my leftover green beans and a pepper that was getting on a bit in a Celtic Nicoise salad (replace the tuna in Nicoise with smoked salmon).
And not a moment to soon. In today’s CSA share…
I have now got three weeks of eggs (1.5 dozen, for those keeping score, plus one from the previous carton of eggs) in my fridge, and egg salad is not only imminent, but necessary. I’ve a mind to put the beets, turnips, and kohlrabi together with some potatoes and carrots from the fridge and do a bunch of roasted roots. I’ll probably stir-fry the greens, along with last week’s kale and any other leafy green hangers-on, with some duck. The broccoli will be easy; I use that in about half of the things I make on a regular rotation. Chives can be dried in the oven if I don’t manage to use them while they’re fresh (they are currently sitting in a glass of water on the counter, to give me some breathing room. I also still have last week’s cucumber, which will have to go into a salad in the next day or so.
And I’m going to have to do something with the overflowing gallon bucket of strawberries in the fridge. I suspect some of them are going to get processed for freezing tonight, if I can summon the wherewithal.
For tonight, to go with the fish that will shortly come out of the oven, I have a fruit, asparagus, and prosciutto salad.
Tear up some lettuce; wash and dry well (I love my salad spinner). Cut up, blanch, and shock some asparagus. Slice up 1/4 of a good-sized cantaloupe into bite-sized chunks. Likewise, about 6-8 ounces of strawberries (original recipe calls for raspberries). Toss together, and mix in some torn-up prosciutto if you like that sort of thing. Balsamic vinaigrette is in order for this salad.
I only wish I’d had some fresh figs to throw in it as well. But if I did, I’d probably ditch the asparagus.
This morning, I woke up from a dream that was just too bizarre and complicated to explain.
Normally, I am not one to look for meaning in dreams, and for good reason.
The message in this dream, however, was abundantly clear.
If the squirrels ever make chocolate pudding for you, for $DEITY’s sake, don’t eat it.
When I didn’t know what to do with the radishes and kohlrabi, I figured “Why not use them together?”
So I did.
Warm up some sesame-seed or canola oil in your skillet on medium heat. Add the mushrooms first, and let them start to cook down. Next, add the chicken. When the chicken is about halfway done, add the carrots, radishes, and kohlrabi(es). Add the greens and watch them shrink down to practically nothing as they cook.
Deglaze the pan with sake, and let the alcohol cook off.
Add the sweet chili sauce and green onions. Stir to combine. Serve over rice.
Note: I was going to add some snow peas to the stir-fry as well, but I ran out of room in my pan.
Yes, seriously. I was skeptical myself, but it’s actually quite tasty.
Also, I still have lettuce from last week’s CSA delivery, leftover green beans, AND our weekend houseguest very kindly brought us a gallon bucket of strawberries from the farm near her house.
Quantities are for a single serving. Scale up to suit your appetite/numbers.
Blanch or microwave your green beans long enough that they’re tender, but not so long that they’re limp.
Hull and slice strawberries.
Toss all ingredients together. Add cooked chicken if you like (I do). Balsamic, raspberry, and strawberry vinaigrettes are excellent dressing choices.