Since 4th of July

It’s one week + one day since the 4th of July. Since then I’ve had a lot of cooking adventures that didn’t come out quite right. And the ever-increasing horror of the big ugly bill, somewhat ameliorated with small encouragements when people fight back. And all the bad news from Texas and other climate change crazy weather disasters, as our President dismantles FEMA and the National Weather Service.

When I got back from Pittsburgh, I got double CSA boxes to end the spring season. I’ve been slowly processing, and we’ve been eating, all that bounty.

I made all this basil into four jars of pesto. Unfortunately, when I was putting it into the freezer, I dropped one of the jars, one of the little ones with the white tops, and smashed it. So one down, and not a very fun cleanup, either. Then the next morning when I was putting the vase away on a high shelf in the basement, I noticed a crack in its lip. When I grabbed it to bring it down to look at more closely, a piece snapped off in my hand. So into the trash with it. I think it was given to me for School Woods by one of my gay librarian friends. It is much more dramatic than any other vases I own.

I told you that when I was in Pittsburgh I was gifted an orange glass rolling pin, from my old high school boyfriend. On 4th of July, I used it to roll out the crust for a blueberry pie. Which turned out a little funny. I rolled out the bottom crust with the glass one and then switched to one of my wooden rolling pins to roll out the top crust and rolled it too thin. Maybe because the wooden rolling pin required less pressure than the glass one, or because I normally make a lattice crust with a berry pie, or just who knows …. Anyways, the too-thin top crust puffed way up in the oven and the filling leaked. My pattern of small circles punched out with a pastry bag tip turned into, I dunno, a cypress tree? It tasted good when we ate it with ice cream on 4th of July night, though.

For dinner on 4th of July we had hot dogs, with Hailee Catalano’s cheese slaw. Could be categorized as another using up the double CSA boxes dish, because I got two heads of cabbage and the slaw used up 2/3 of one. The slaw was really good the first day, but less so when I ate it on another dog for dinner after we came back from the Madison Mallards baseball game rainout. Like the Pirates Grateful Dead night, it was another special night, with jerseys, the Mallards playing as the Neverminds, in honor of Nirvana demoing what became their Nevermind album at Smart Studios 35 years ago. The Mallards scored 10 runs in the first inning, and the rains came shortly thereafter, when I was at the store buying our jerseys. I waited at the store undercover and Susan and Mark came to meet me, and we went home, although the game did resume after about an hour rain delay, and the Mallards won 17 to 2.

 

Sunday and Monday I continued with using up CSA produce.

I blanched kale and froze it for future greens gratins or kaleakopita (make spanakopita and don’t tell anyone it’s kale rather than spinach and mixed in with all the feta cheese and herbs and onions, they can’t tell).  

I also started to use up my double zucchini in some muffins that are a Justine Doiron recipe, with a chocolate swirl. I made them once before with olive oil as she directs, and didn’t really like the taste of the olive oil, although it mellowed and I think helps make the muffins keep longer. And I ran out of chocolate. So this time, I used safflower oil (I am sticking with dread seed oils, MAHA be damned, a 1/2 cup of safflower oil in a dozen muffins will not kill me, and I bet is healthier in some respects than butter). Anyways this time a few of the muffins seemed to have too much chocolate, and I wanted them to be a bit taller and rounder on top. But overall, they were OK.

I still have more zucchini plans: pasta, a gratin, and maybe pickles. I think I will skip zucchini butter this year.

We ended up with a few too many bananas, and they get ripe so fast when it’s hot. I think I might’ve broken my everything not quite right streak with banana whole wheat blueberry muffins.

I had Jasper two days last week, Tuesday and Wednesday to make up for the Wednesday I missed because we were driving back from Pittsburgh. And Wednesday was also Emma’s dad Steve’s birthday. He’s a ’55 baby too, so he and Linda were on Washington Island for a little vacation. Jasper has a nature class out at the Aldo Leopold Center, and something about the drive and the timing,  he just doesn’t want to nap after class. This week we did class, came home and had lunch because we were so hot and hungry and tired, and then went to the park for an hour, and he still didn’t nap. But the pic below is from Tuesday, a better day. We had music class that we could stroller to, then we strollered to Colectivo for a coffee for Oma and a cookie for Jasper, and played at the park for a long time. He slept great that day. Next week after nature class I’m going to go straight to the pool and we’ll play there and then try a later nap time and see if that works. 

Today we biked to the Westside farmers market because the market that’s normally on the Capitol Square is moved to Breeze Stephens field to make room for the art fair. Everything’s being disrupted by weather this weekend though. The art fair started late because no one could set up Friday night because it was storming.

Today (Saturday) the weather’s OK, and after the market we walked to get some coffee at Colectivo and took flower pictures on the way home.

Oh, and another thing that came out better – I had tried this Sally’s Baking Addiction soft whole wheat sandwich bread, and I tried to rise it in the fridge and that killed it. It was underdone on the bottom too. I ate some of it, and I made some of it into toast for Jasper, cutting the bottoms off, and about 1/3 of the loaf went in the compost. But I tried again yesterday and it’s perfect. Kind of a bloomer loaf – big bloom of dough over the top of the pan – and nice and soft. So for Saturday after the market brekkie I had my first Diane’s Dad’s Summer Sandwich of the season, with cukes still from CSA, and tomatoes and white cheddar from the market, and peanut butter and onions from my pantry.

I still kinda miss Pittsburgh – see Pittsburgh pride overleaf – but the feeling is less strong now I’ve been home in Wisconsin over a week.

And random cat picture to close – Saturday morning George, seeing me off to the market.