Cooking when possible

I'll tell y'all a secret: When I'm not blogging about my cooking and eating habits, there's a good chance it's because they haven't been stellar. At least, that's been the case for a lot of this summer. (If it's during the school year and I'm not blogging, I'm probably just insanely busy.)

But! I'm finally into a relatively unscheduled week, and decided to celebrate by following these two simple steps:

1. Go to the Pawtuxet Village Farmers' Market on Saturday morning. [Insert your local market or grocery, as applicable.] Buy a small quantity of a few different vegetables that look tasty.
2. Consult Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian to decide what to do with the haul.

I ended up with this delicious thing:

Pan-Grilled Corn with Chile (p. 289), plus grape tomatoes, because yum

I'll admit it: I love fresh, summer (or fall) corn, but eating it off the cob doesn't always appeal. This is a little bit because of the messiness, and a little more because it feels wasteful to boil a large pot of water, just to cook an ear or two for myself. So, I'm always on the lookout for a good off-the-cob recipe, and this one was fantastic: the corn got cooked just enough to bring out the natural sweetness, while staying crisp and fresh. The tomatoes were my own addition (along with a little olive oil), and because I only had two ears of corn v. the proscribed six, I probably ended up going a little heavy on the chile and garlic. I didn't mind.

And by the way? A thousand blessings on whoever thought of combining cilantro and lime juice. Probably someone in Mexico, centuries ago. Blessings, nonetheless.

I only wish I'd bought more corn!

Fresh corn and zucchini salad alla Al Forno

A few weeks ago, my parents were darling enough to take me out to dinner with them at Al Forno, one of the truly finest restaurants in Providence. One of the dishes I enjoyed there was a salad made from fresh, local corn and zucchini. Having come home from the farmers' market this week with the same two vegetables, I decided to try my hand at duplicating it:



To make this salad:
1. The secret to the pretty curls of zucchini? A vegetable peeler. I started with a smallish zucchini, maybe 8" or 10" long, and used the peeler to skin off the very outside and one more layer, going over the same "stripe" of the zucchini. I discarded those first two passes, then kept going, making more and more pieces. I had about enough by the time I hit the seeds. Then I curled and arranged the slices of zucchini in my salad bowl.
2. Shuck 1/2 cob of fresh corn (I pulled the leaves down only halfway, and broke the cob in half with my hands, then wrapped the remaining part back up). Using a sharp knife, slice the kernels off, then sprinkle them over the zucchini curls. I ended up pulling a few of the zucchini pieces back up so they showed through the corn, for a more balanced appearance.
3. Drizzle with good olive oil.
4. Using that vegetable peeler again, make curls of parmesan or pecorino cheese (anything sufficiently hard and salty will do). I barely had any left, so I didn't get as pretty, big shavings as the original had had.

Done! Yum!

To serve leftover pizza

Catching up on some meals I'd meant to post:

When my sister visiting a couple of weeks ago, we were both too tired to think about cooking at home, so we went to one of my favorite restaurants: Twist on Angell, in the Wayland Square area of Providence's East Side. I love Twist for its funky atmosphere, extremely friendly and helpful waitstaff, and most especially for its gluten-free menu that includes pizza and beer. Hooray!

A small pizza would be no challenge for my pre-possible-eating appetite, but as I'm trying to get by on less food, I forced myself to stop at half-done and take the rest home. (I did have the crème brulée. It was delicious, and I'm not sorry.)

With a salad for a centerpiece, the four remaining squares of pizza made lovely accompaniments for two further meals. For this one, I mixed some torn-up fresh spinach and romaine lettuce and topped them with a handful of blueberries (all of the above being from the local farmers' market), almonds and I think a drizzle of apple cider vinegar.



Now, place the reheated pizza (which had sundried tomatoes, a mixture of smoked and shredded mozzarella, slivers of fresh basil and a drizzle of balsamic reduction) alongside, and serve with a glass of red wine, because hey, yum.



Even Charcoal was looking for a taste!

Spinach salad with balsamic strawberries

I haven't posted in a few days, as those of you who are following this will have noticed. The main reason is that I've been eating mostly the same thing: yogurt with (berries,) almonds and honey for breakfast, focaccia sandwich for lunch, stuffed tofu, roasted potatoes and a salad for supper.

Last night, my parents took me out to dinner at one of Providence's top restaurants (which is seriously saying something - yes, we're the smallest state, but we've got some of the best chefs, thanks to Johnson and Wales), Al Forno. I was worried: could I find something to eat? Could I find something healthy to eat? Could I avoid over-eating? The answers: Yes, yes and mostly. I probably would have been fine with the spectacular local zucchini and corn salad for my entrée, but the plate of roasted and grilled vegetables on the side really didn't hurt. There were no appealing desserts that were completely gluten-free (the flourless chocolate cake has its pan dusted with flour, and I wasn't in the mood for granita), so I was going to settle for a capuccino, but then my mom's special dessert came with its dulce de leche gelato piled into two little demitasse cups. I snagged one. It was very yummy, and really a nice size.

Tonight, I'm celebrating the spoils of my weekly farmers' market excursion, which was yesterday morning.



I managed to spend a great deal less this week, probably due to my skipping the nime chow. I couldn't skip the strawberries, though; they were far too pretty!

To make this salad, I sliced three strawberries into the bottom of a bowl and covered them with balsamic vinegar, about an hour before supper. Later, once the corn was in its boiling water, I spun the spinach dry, lifted the strawberries out of the vinegar with a fork, sprinkled on some almonds and used a vegetable peeler to make little shavings of that pecorino toscano I still had in the fridge. I drizzled on a little of the balsamic, but didn't add salt because I remembered how strong the cheese is.

I have always loved my corn on the cob bathed in butter. Tonight, I tried it unadorned, and it was delicious. Much less messy, too.

I think I'll try the other cob-worth off the cob. I have a 2-kg bag of masa harina in my fridge (where I keep all my flours, to protect them from bugs), a bit of quesadilla melting cheese, and a green bell pepper from the farmers' market. I think quesadillas con elote y pimiento verde might be in order, some night this week. But first, I need to make a risotto to use up that third portion of eggplant, the one I sautéed in cubes.

Wouldn't it be pretty to serve risotto in a steamed bell-pepper shell? I'll have to try that, in the future.

Salads ... and salads.

A few weeks ago, my parents and I drove from Massachusetts/Rhode Island to the Florida panhandle for our annual family reunion. For me, the trip means two main things: (1) a valuable opportunity to keep in touch with my cousins, most of whom live more than a thousand miles from me, and (2) very few good food options. It starts, of course, on the road, where lunch tended to consist of a Wendy's side salad and a plain baked potato. Don't get me wrong: Wendy's salads tend to be decently fresh and crisp, but they also tend to consist mostly of that tasteless, nutrient-lean, pale-green stuff known as iceberg lettuce.

When I make a salad for myself, the story is quite different:



I like to buy a mix of different lettuces/greens, then adorn them simply, in this case with a few shaves of that 75%-reduced-fat cheddar I've been enjoying so much, a smattering of walnuts, a drizzle of balsamic vinegar, and a sprinkling of sea salt and freshly ground pepper.



It looked so good, even my cat wanted to check it out!

Hey, Charcoal: what do you think about becoming a vegetarian?



... yeah, that's what I thought you'd say.

Well, to quote my dad, "More for me!"