Prolific in the Kitchen

I think I just won a battle against the refrigerator. For days now, I've been assaulted by an army of vegetables staring me in the face every time I opened the refrigerator door. You want milk for your cereal? You must first acknowledge the collection of peppers getting wrinklier by the day. You're going to heat up ANOTHER bowl of leftover pasta for lunch? Not without imagining a faint, dejected sigh from the fairy tale eggplants in the "crisper" (more on that misnomer later), just longing to be sauteed.

But TODAY, well, SOMETHING had to be done.

For lunch I cooked rice and beans. I've had a bag of Spanish rice in the cupboard since last Christmas, when it showed up in my stocking. (Strange, I know. I wish there were a story but there's not. It was just a filler.) Anyhow, after looking at it for months, I decided today was the day. Spanish rice and a can of black beans was a pretty obvious combination. But in addition to the onion suggested by the label on the can of beans, I added some summer squash and an eggplant. And bam...just like that there was a tad more room in the "crisper".

Alright, before I drive you all to distraction with my obvious obsession with the so-called crisper, let's address that issue. Apparently the "crisper" does not appreciate being crammed full of every possible type of vegetation grown at WFCF over the course of the past three weeks. The other day I reached in for a cucumber and came out with a handful of mush. "Crisp" is not exactly the word I would have chosen to describe that experience. So the crisper and I exchanged glances and I hauled it out, emptied it, and washed it. Which, I must admit, helped a bit. I would love to alleviate the cramping, but we get new vegetables EVERY TUESDAY, and I'm not sad about it. So I'd appreciate a little sympathy from those two (undersized) drawers.

Now, back to the cooking. Lunch was a delicious success but two pieces out of more-than-I-can-count was just not going to do it. Especially distressing to me were the peppers. Beautiful, purple peppers! Round, green, bell peppers! Hot yellow peppers! Mild black peppers! Dark green jalapeno peppers! What to do with so many peppers? I give you a "guideline" (a recipe would defeat the purpose) for:

Use-What-You-Have Salsa

tomatillos

husk cherries

peppers...all kinds!

handful of raspberries

one can chunked pineapple

cilantro

garlic

shallots

* chop primary ingredients into bite-sized pieces

* mince herbs and hot peppers

* mix, taste & adjust

* eat (or save for weekend's festivities)

The salsa is delicious. I think I'm going to buy some pitas and toast them to go along with. It seems wrong to serve it with boring ol' Tostitos. (I'm taking it with us to the Catskills where we're staying with 15 (not a typo) friends for a wedding this weekend.) And I used all but TWO green peppers. Phew! Totally worth all the chopping.

All well and good to productively use all those space-taking peppers but the downside is that it was suddenly 8 o'clock (I didn't say the chopping was fast) and I had yet to answer the question of what I was going to eat for dinner. Fortunately, the next two must-be-used ingredients were now perfectly exposed: leeks & potatoes. The solution was obvious and I have just finished eating a bowl of potato-leek (Vichyssoise, if you're French) soup. This is a recipe that really is infinitely better with farm-fresh veggies than it is with store-bought potatoes that have been sitting in storage for god-knows how long.

Furthermore, while the soup was simmering gently, I sorted through all the greens. They definitely present a challenge all their own, but I have plans for them. Oh yes! There will be braising...lots of braising...taking place in this kitchen next week. That is, if we survive the weekend. It's been preemptively dubbed REAL WORLD: CATSKILLS.