My first day of winter break started with various cooking adventures to keep using up my produce from my CSA Thanksgiving box. Specifically, wilting coleslaw and roasting beets.
Tipi Produce carrots, cabbage, and shallots made into slaw
Mark was going for his regular long loop walk, and I said I’d go too, and peel off at Whole Foods, because we needed lettuce and sour cream. I had just shopped at the co-op & Metcalfe’s the day before, so we should have everything. Annoyingly, the bunch of red leaf lettuce that I’d known was too small as soon as I picked it up, but trying to be Covid-polite, took anyway, instead of tossing it back for another, really only made one salad that we already consumed, with only a small handful leftover. And it just burned me NOT to have enough greens for a nice big salad for Christmas dinner. When the menu is smoked salmon pasta, salad, sourdough baguette, and trifle.
So while the beets were roasting we walked. And somehow I was having trouble keeping up with Mark. It hurt to go as fast as he was. Maybe my boots, maybe I was dressed too warmly – our white Christmas is currently going down the drain – it rained last night and it’s almost 50°, even though the wind is kicking up and it’s supposed to drop to about 15° by Christmas Eve morning. Maybe because I’d only had very weak coffee. I’ve been making coffee in this old Pyrex drip pot I found (I think I had it over at the supper club house) and it’s 4 cups, two big mugs. Three scoops of coffee is just about right for the first pot, then I usually add 1 more scoop and get one more big mug. But I keep thinking I should get more, so today I tried 1 scoop and an almost a full pot of water. It was pretty weak. I ended up reheating the coffee in the microwave and running it through the grounds again, which improved it, but still pretty weak.
Pyrex coffee pot
In the background you can see my co-op impulse buy of yesterday – big bag of pears. Our trifle will have hunks of caramelized pear in it, and I think there will be pear-applesauce and maybe pear cake coming soon.
When we got back from the walk – of course, Mark caught up to me; while I was at Whole Foods, he had gone to get coffee and a bag of bagels, and was marching along holding everything, going just as fast as before, not trying to sip coffee or anything – I felt desperate for food or some type of sustenance. My mom used to get like that, late in life. We’d be out doing something and she would just reach her limit and need to be fed or at least have a coffee, which could turn out to be complex because most average run in and grab something places did not have much in the way of things she liked to eat. She’d start saying, “I need my leafs”, meaning salad. I wonder if I am getting the same, now.
So, I had a biggish breakfast: I broke into the Christmas Country cake that I am aging in the basement (I topped it with marzipan yesterday) and cut myself a generous slice, and the half of of my ham & Swiss biscuit that I saved from dinner last night, an apple, that I only finished half of; something about the half’s these days … and to make up for the weak coffee, strong tea, with two teabags, the way my sister-in-law drinks it, although she usually puts honey in hers and I had milk & sugar.
The evening’s cooking adventures will focus on using up cookie leftovers and sourdough discard. Seems like I have a lot of cookie recipes that call for lemon zest so I end up with a lot of bald lemons, and lemon curd is the answer. We always have pizza on Christmas Eve, so I will use up sourdough discard in the crust, that rise overnight in the fridge.
Oh, the fruitcake is delicious. Even though I felt like I had to sneak it so Mark, fruitcake hater that he is, would not catch me eating fruitcake for breakfast. Come to think of it maybe that made it more delicious! I feel pretty well fortified. I think I’ll manage our second walk at the county park while the cleaners are here.