Our weekends have mellowed into something familiar and enjoyable. Sometimes we don’t know what to do with our free time; it seems so rare and precious that we become paralyzed and end up watching dull reruns for hours while we search for the perfect thing to do.
Saturday is mostly about food. In the morning, the farmer’s market(s), which this week yielded the following:
Winter squash, hot peppers, and jersusalem artichokes (sunchokes)…
…and wildflowers! And sprouts – mixed bean sprouts and some broccoli sprouts. And two eggplant that were much happier in the fridge than in this photo.
And…er…how did those get here? Pumpkin, salt caramel, vanilla bean, and strawberry. I mean…I know nothing about these macarons.
We skipped our usual brunch this weekend in favor of some hot and convenient breakfast tacos. Often, however, the next step after the farmer’s market is to prepare a gigantic brunch. Many of these have been recorded here already, but some haven’t made it in. For starters:
Post-race brunch from a few weeks back. You can’t go wrong with an Elvis-print tablecloth…
or some angry, stabby fruit…
but the omelette, that can do you in. The sauce was…well, looking at the photo now, I can say the sauces tasted just like it looks in the photo. White, greasy, creamy, and…it meant well. There is a ton of avocado hiding inside that omelette. It was waaaay too heavy for post-race food, and I paid for it for a few days.
So, Saturday afternoons I either kick WB out to have friends over (trust me, he heads for the hills willingly to avoid the hours of girl talk) or we do something cozy. An adorable social gathering went unannounced a few weeks ago, which I will now recap here for your viewing pleasure:
From left to right: romaine salad with truffle dressing, topped with broiled figs and mozzarella; peach jalapeno corn muffins; pumpkin spice muffins; apple cheddar muffins; chocolate almond biscotti; homemade plum and hot pepper jam. All of the baked goods are gluten free and made by moi, of course. 
But this week we went to the library and, 25 books later (20 of which were mine, but 6 of those are for work), we stopped for a picnic. I packed an apple and some almond butter for me, and a tomato, butter, and soft cheese sandwich for WB:
To be honest, it was hotter and humid-er than I thought and the picnic was cut short by rain. But, nothing like a rainy Saturday afternoon to justify some chocolates:
milk and dark Michel Cluizel salted caramels, and Leonidas raspberry marzipan (buche framboise) and rum praliné (Europe Dark). It was a small consolation after finding out that our favorite local chocolatier had gone out of business…but who am I kidding, it was still delicious
Saturday night is usually a simple dinner, often a reprise of the morning’s brunch. With no brunch to fall back on, I invented a sauce to go on some sautéed eggplant, along with a sunchoke salad, some simple tofu, and the leftovers of my raw salads from Whole Foods.
The sauce had a tangy, caponata-like flavor. I wanted a tomato base, but the closest we had was the vegetable juice I’ve been using for my “soups”…so I whizzed some in the blender with a diced hot pepper, some green olives, and a tablespoon of capers, et voila, sauce! (If you are going to try this, you may wish to reduce the sauce by about 1/3 after it comes out of the blender.)
The sunchokes got a bit more consideration. I credit this site http://www.vegparadise.com/highestperch26.html with most of what I now know about this tuber, and this site http://whfoods.org/genpage.php?tname=dailytip&dbid=209&utm_source=rss_reader&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss_feed with what I know about the inulins it contains. Raw, it has a radish-like tang and a earthy, root-y taste, with a texture similar to jicama or water chestnuts…not fibrous, just white and smooth and crunchy. We dressed it accordingly and mixed it with broccoli sprouts.
All of our basic vinaigrettes start with olive oil, apple cider vinegar (or lemon juice, or maybe white wine), and dry mustard. For the uninitiated, dry mustard is an emulsifier http://www.ochef.com/1411.htm, which means it can convince the oil and water to blend smoothly together. Consider mustard the diplomat of the dressing world.
So, for a basic dressing like this one, we mixed:
- one part vinegar
- 4 parts olive oil
- 1/2 part dry mustard (ground)
I like to add something zesty, something bright, and something crisp or salty to flavor every dressing. Our zestiness came from Pommery mustard, the brightness from some dried oregano, and the saltiness from truffle salt (which also added another earthy element to complement the sunchokes). We equally could have added some plum chutney (spicy and sweet), marjoram and basil, and…probably still the truffle salt. You only live once, right?
Sunday used to be the cranky, difficult day of the weekend. We’ve largely taken care of that by planning fun activities and taking care of as many errands and chores as possible during the week or, as a last resort, on Saturday. There’s no brunch – I work early in the morning – but when I get back there’s often a fluffy plate of eggs and veggies in the works.
These days, the afternoon goes to more work – catching up on blogging, perhaps, or taking care of travel arrangements and holiday plans. It’s also when I cook for the week, but that requires more description than this post can hold. We put the apartment to bed around 8, just after dinner, so that we can relax and read in the clean and quiet space. Soon we’re drifting off to sleep, another week of projects, meals to cook, miles to run, and so much more waiting to find us in the morning.
Yeah, kind of like that.
