Technically corn is a grain. It is a grain in the same way rice and barley are grains, so I’ve avoided using it when cooking since Bob started the no grain eating thing. But my veggie basket this week contained some beautiful bi-colored corn and I just had to use it.

So a corn salsa, corn salad, corn relish … whatever you want to call it. I got the kernels off the cob ( a first for me), cooked them and added them to the red onion from this week’s basket, the last of the cucumber from last week’s basket and the tomato I picked up last week. I mixed everything with some rice vinegar, peanut oil, soy sauce, garlic and chili peppers and let it sit for about a half hour before serving. It got paired with a pork loin I had marinating and I have to say, it was a lovely little meal. Not as good as dinner at Indigenous the night before, but very little would compare to that.

I wish my phone was working Friday night because the food at Indigenous is not only incredibly good, it is very photo worthy. This has become one of our favorite places in Sarasota because the food is excellent (far better than I can make at home and I’m not a bad cook), the service is wonderful and the wine selection is delightful. We didn’t make a reservation, but they found us a nice table and didn’t act as though not having a reservation was a big deal. Some places will find you a table, but act like it is a huge inconvenience for them. Not at Indigenous. One of the reasons I don’t mind paying for the meal is at the service and atmosphere are as good as the food. When that happens, it is a place I will go back to again and again and tell others about.

Since I didn’t have my camera to take pictures, here is the restaurant website gallery page … http://www.indigenoussarasota.com/gallery
Hopefully you can see some of the very pretty, very tasty dishes that I would gush over again and again if I had the pictures to accompany said gushing commentary.

On the up side, my phone appears to have dried out and is once again working. I won’t have to figure out how long I can go without it now, which is good, I suppose. I’ll have to come up with a great meal to test the camera on it again.

Have a great week!

I work in a school and when the question of academic honesty – aka cheating – comes up I almost always say something to the effect of, “if you have to ask if it is cheating, it probably is.”. So when I was grocery shopping this week, and found myself asking if the puree of herbs is cheating (as I picked up the parsley since the last three plants I picked up have died on me) I have to conclude that it most likely is indeed cheating.

But in this one case, let me make the argument for cheating. I use very little ginger and almost always find it, when looking for it whole, in a large root. I almost never find it in smaller sizes just due to the nature of the item. Cilantro may last for a week, but I never use the entire bunch, and the parsley, well, it seems to be my doomed herb. Val can’t grow mint, I can’t grow parsley. The last time it didn’t die of natural causes, Leia ate the entire plant. The chili pepper is really more of a convenience than anything else; I can control the spice amount much better than I can with fresh and when cooking for a range of spice tolerances, that is important. I can store the purée for about six months and in that time, I almost always use the entire bottle. When I buy truly fresh parsley, ginger and cilantro, I almost always throw half of it away. Cilantro and parsley I will still buy in the raw form when I make something that requires a lot of it (the disaster of the falafel comes to mind) but otherwise, I cheat, and use the purée – especially if I am going to blend it into something like a dressing or marinade anyway. So while, yes, it is cheating, I am going the way of the has grill on this one. The original is definitely better (charcoal grill kicks gas grill butt for flavor) but the convenience and lack of waste (both time, item and money) makes the short cut (gas grill and the puréed herb) the better bet for everyday use.

Feel free to disagree with me, but here are a few things I made this week using said cheating herbs.

My version of Italian Wedding Soup. Purée of chili went into this one to give it a little kick without overwhelming the dish. Bob liked it so much he texted me at lunch Tuesday to tell me how much he liked it. Made my day too.

Carrot salad; purée of ginger went into the seasoning for this. Gave it a very nice crisp taste that I could not get without a little ginger. But I didn’t need enough to but a whole root.

Grilled summer vegetables. A little of each went into the marinade for the veggies, and for the pork that accompanied the dish.

Besides, when I use the already cut up and puréed version, I have more time to herd cats and rescue lizards.

After the disaster of the falafel (and I still can’t figure out what went wrong) I went back to a basic, if very odd dish – watermelon salad. Val introduced me to this odd concept dish a year or two ago and initially I was reluctant to taste the combination of watermelon and feta. I got over it and am very glad I did as it is a great, if odd, dish.

After pondering which version to go with (there are a lot of variations out there) I went with a classic Greek variation. Watermelon, feta, red onion and aged balsamic vinegar. That’s it, the whole entire dish. Four ingredients. The watermelon was sweet and made a nice contrast to the salty feta while the red onion provided a tang and crunch that was more substantial than the watermelon crunch. I liked the balsamic addition; I can’t tell you exactly what it added, but it did add something that I did not have with the other versions I’ve tried.

It was nice to have a successful dish after the falafel incident. I paired this with a simple sautéed chicken breast for a grain free meal. I will say, I am looking forward to Bob’s geek weekend so I can have the gain filled vegetarian meals I miss. I may even make waffles. That is, of course, assuming I can get over this cold and have the energy and taste buds to cook and appreciate what I cook.

If I don’t post before Friday, I hope everyone has a great long Labor Day weekend.

I was all excited today. I was trying to figure out an interesting meat free, grain free meal and remembered falafel. Bob and I both really like falafel so, as I had the day off due to the “storm” I headed to the grocery and got what I needed – chick peas, parsley, etc. Picked up a few things for the week too then headed home to start the falafel.

They came out beautifully. The looked perfect; they did not fall apart in the frying pan and in place of pita bread I used lettuce. Oh, they looked great.

But what the picture does not tell you is that we just could not eat them. Bob and I dug in, very excited, and discovered something was wrong. They had an odd texture, but also a chemically, soapy taste. About two bites in and we determined, for the first time ever, that dinner was just totally not edible. That’s right, for some reason, this time the falafel, as pretty as they are, just could not be eaten.

The strange thing is, I have made these before. I’ve tried several versions, including this one, with great success. Although I will admit to getting them to stay in a patty shape has been difficult. But today, for some reason, they did not work. I’m not sure if it was the chick peas, the parsley, the onion, the baking soda, or something else entirely.

It had to happen sometime. My first totally and completely inedible meal. The sad part is, it wasn’t even an experiment. I’m sure dinner will be better tomorrow. … If not I may never cook again. 🙂

I got my first Friday working from home yesterday and while I was a bit apprehensive on Thursday as I saw the mounting piles of work, by 11 am on Friday I was so happy. It is amazing what one can get done when no one is around to ask questions, or break the flow of work. I could say interrupt and that would be accurate, but I like most of the interruptions at work since they come from the kids. But working from home I not only managed to get a ton of work done, I also managed about eight loads of laundry and made ribs.

Ribs are not something I grew up eating. Mom never made them and I’m pretty sure we didn’t own a grill. My first memory of ribs was in Alabama, but it was not a meal I ever attempted until about a year ago. Usually I marinate the ribs overnight in apple juice, soy sauce and a little brown sugar, but this time, as I was going for a mango BBQ sauce, I stuck with just apple juice. Around noon, into the oven (set low at 250) they went – apple juice and all. Two hours in, turn them over and keep cooking. Two more hours and they are ready to come out. The tricky part here is getting the meat out of the braising liquid as intact as possible. They REALLY fall apart at this point. But I brushed on some home made mango BBQ sauce and onto the grill for a nice crispy finish they went. The results …

I should have taken a picture of the plate of ribs alone, but I forgot. Mom and dad came over for dinner, and the ribs went over well. I did make a vegetable timbal again – this one with eggplant and turnip as that is what I had on hand. It was ok, but I liked the squash one so much better. The salad came from my veggie basket this week. Lettuce, tomatoes, carrots (those were last week but it still counts) cucumber, and some orange pepper. It was a pretty little plate overall.

Mom brought dessert – a spice chiffon cake with an orange glaze. It was so very good, even Bob had two slices. The texture was just like grandmom’s chiffon cake and made me want to bake one of hers. Coffee flavor in cake cannot be wrong. Now if I can only dig out the recipe I may do that when Bob heads off for his geek weekend in a few weeks.

We forgot to take a picture of the cake prior to cutting it. But I still think it looks pretty good; it tasted better. The old, orange cover Betty Crocker cookbook wins again!