comments, complaints, quandries, curses
Yay for the return of grilling weather! Pictured: grilled “steak strips” (don’t ask me what this cut really is; they didn’t have skirt steak at Fred Meyers so I improvised) with blender chimichurri, rice, grilled spring onions, and grilled asparagus. Everyone in our family had seconds, and there were zero leftovers. (I mean, the kids didn’t have the chimichurri, and I made them grilled broccoli instead of asparagus, but still.) Chimichurri is basically the best thing that ever happened to meat.
Enjoying her breakfast of scrambled eggs with ham this morning, Amelia suggested we have breakfast burritos for dinner tonight. I told her I had planned to make salmon for dinner.
Her eyes lit up (she loves salmon), and she asked, “Can we roast it?” I said, “Yes, I think we can roast it in the oven.” She replied, “Do we have soy sauce and sesame seeds?” I told her we did, and she explained, “I was looking through a book with recipes, and I saw a picture of that recipe, and I thought it looked so yummy.”
I love this child. Sometimes it freaks me out that she is getting so big and responsible and independent, but it’s fun when we like the same things. 🙂 And tonight, we’re having teriyaki salmon.
We went to the Milwaukie Farmer’s Market yesterday — it was the first market of the year, and they were packed! Only 2-3 actual farm stands were there, but I got some spring onions, rainbow chard, asparagus, radishes, strawberries, and small “Russian gold” potatoes. Not sure who’s going to eat all these radishes — I’m the only one who really likes them, so I guess me! — and I have NO idea what I’m going to do with these spring onions, but it’s nice to have the fresh produce back! Next weekend we’ll try to bike down.
I’ve been super-lazy about cooking lately, but last night I finally made a nicer meal for me and the kids: apple Dutch baby, smashed potatoes, and wilted arugula salad with pancetta.
Happy May Day! Last Sunday morning, we got a delivery of what was supposed to be 2 yards of dirt for the planter boxes. I now think it was more like 3 yards. On Sunday afternoon (before flying to Texas for my brother-in-law’s funeral), I filled all our planter boxes and planted our new starts! It was a lot of work, but I’m really happy to have edible plants in our garden now.
Before:
Midway point:
The kids helped:
Finally, they were full of dirt:
So then we planted:
And here’s a close-up of each box:
I can’t wait to harvest some salad! 🙂 We’ll plant one or two bush bean plants when the weather warms up a bit, sunlight permitting. I’ve never really been able to grow lettuce before, so if that fails I’ll definitely put the beans in that box. If the shady spot I put the arugula in is too sunny after all, or if we discover we don’t need that much arugula after all (they sold the starts in sets of 6 — the tyranny of plenty!), I might pull out half that box and use that for carrots instead of the lettuce box.
This is all an experiment anyway. If you are great at gardening and wish to advise me, please feel free. 😉
I mean, we ate it. But the apples were mush, the crust (store-bought) was bleh, and I used too coarse a grind of corn meal in the streusel. Ah well, they can’t all be winners.
The Thing With The Stuff 