1. Back to Smelterville this morning -- Christy continued her physical therapy work and I hit the aerobic machines for 45 minutes. I changed up my programs a bit with mixed results, mostly good. I made myself very happy while exercising by listening to one of my favorite all-time albums. It's the Oysterband's Ride (1989). It's an invigorating folk rock album I've listening to for over thirty years. It took me back to 1991 when I went to my first Richard Thompson concert in Portland and also subscribed to a publication that began as a Richard Thompson/Fairport Convention fanzine called Dirty Linen, but expanded into covering a wide range of folk musicians and folk rock bands. I went a little nuts buying Richard Thompson and Richard and Linda Thompson recordings and began listening to Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span, The Battlefield Band (what a concert they gave!), The House Band (saw them live in Eugene and Portland -- OMG!), as well as Ian Matthews, Dave Swarbrick, Martin Carthy, June Tabor, Sandy Denny and many others.
I enjoyed the Oysterband and reliving the Dirty Linen days so much that I barely noticed that I was giving my legs and lungs a pretty good workout.
2. I've been thumbing through the America's Test Kitchen cookbook entitled, The Small Plates Cookbook that Adrienne and her family gave Debbie and me for Christmas. I've been imagining all kinds of dinner possibilities. For now, I focused on two recipes. First, I decided to follow the Test Kitchen's recipe for making easy to peel hard boiled eggs, using a vegetable steamer to cook the eggs and, after they've been steamed for about thirteen minutes, putting the eggs in an ice bath for fifteen minutes.
I also decided to make the cookbook's Moroccan-Style Carrot Salad. I grated about a pound of carrots and added two the halved segments of two oranges and a bunch of minced cilantro. I tossed them together in a bowl. In a separate bowl, I combined fresh squeezed orange juice, olive oil, cumin, cinnamon, lemon juice, honey, and red pepper flakes in another bowl and poured it over the salad. After it sat a few minutes, I strained the salad to drain of excess liquid and put it in the fridge, ready to eat.
It worked!
3. We've had a package of dry beef barley soup in the cupboard for a while and I decided to make it, hoping it would pair well with the salad.
I sautéed a bunch of sliced mushrooms, added about three quarters of a pound of beef stew meat, let that cook for a few minutes, and then added the contents of the soup package along with beef broth and water. I brought it to a boil and then let it simmer for nearly an hour.
Debbie and I enjoyed the soup and it worked really well with the Mediterranean flavors of the carrot salad.
The success of the salad encouraged me to try more recipes from this new cookbook of ours as soon as possible.
No comments:
Post a Comment