I was going to write about the Jalapeno Cheddar I made last weekend, but I started babbling on about other things, so I'll save that for later today. I know, it's becoming "The Barefoot Cheese Witch" around here. Can't help it.
Actually, it was a pretty busy weekend, and it flew by incredibly fast, and I don't think very much of it had to do with food of any kind. Well...I helped out in the snack bar during my son's baseball game, but that doesn't really count. Didn't even get to run the grill, either, this time. I was on the register. Sigh.
Oh, speaking of flying by, the Goldfinches were back again. I only got pictures of Mr this time - Mrs only dropped in for a moment and then she was gone. Mr was a bit hard to see - he's in the shade, perched atop an iris bud.
After the game, my son went to a friend's house and I must have done something around here, but I can't for the life of me remember exactly WHAT.
Oh, in the morning, Bill picked all the broccoli rabe that remained in the gardens.
I know - I am way behind in gardening posts, too. I'm sorry.
Anyway, we'd planted broccoli rabe in just about every bed that wasn't already in use. The beds that get the best (most) sun were designated for tomatoes and peppers and eggplant and squash, but those don't get planted til later spring (i.e. now, at least in my house) so we planted broccoli rabe, which likes the cooler temperatures, figuring that we'd get that all harvested before it was time to plant the warmer-weather-loving veggies.
So that's what we did. And we got a LOT of broccoli rabe.
Here's the last of it. Keep in mind, this isn't all of it, it's just want was left on Saturday.
That's our kitchen sink. It's roughly 8" deep and 21" x 14" wide and long. In the picture above it's PACKED with broccoli rabe, and I'd just run in enough cold water to barely cover it. The leaves kept rising up above the water level. It's a lot, only it's also not, since broccoli, like all the other leafy greens, shrinks considerably when you cook it.
Now, we'd already cooked up a HUGE pot of it a few nights earlier. Here's some of what was picked - broccoli rabe in the two biggest bowls, baby spinach and arugula in the smaller bowl, and that plastic container in the sink is stuff for the compost.
I rinsed and trimmed the ends off the broccoli rabe and then cooked that as part of dinner. All I did to cook it was put some trimmed bits of fat and a couple bones I'd saved from two ham steaks a while back into the bottom of my largest pot. I added chopped garlic and then started adding bunches of broccoli rabe as I cleaned it. I had enough rabe (and some spinach and arugula too) to fill the pot, and then it cooked down to what you see in the picture below.
The smell was fabulous, too, by the way.
Not sure what that white blob is in the picture above...it might be a dish towel wrapped around damp lettuce leaves, but honestly, I can't remember.
Anyway, that's what we'd done with some of the broccoli rabe the other night.
With this batch, we cleaned it, Bill ran it through the salad spinner thing, and then packed it into ziploc bags, sucked all the air out of the bags, and put them in the freezer. So we've got three stuffed bags of greens and I cooked up the last of it yesterday. Not bad for an early season crop!
Another way I like to cook it is to saute some garlic in some olive oil, add the greens, cover, lower the heat, and when they're cooked down stir them around with the garlic and oil, let them cook, uncovered, til the water evaporates, and serve. Sometimes I like to stir in a beaten egg and some grated parmesan right before serving, too.
Anyway, Saturday we also had a great salad, made up of some of the lettuces, baby bok choi, arugula, cilantro, and the tiny baby carrots Bill thinned out of the garden to give the other carrots room to grow. Oh, and some chives and asparagus.
And we also planted the tomatoes, hot peppers, eggplants, and a ton of basil - all in the areas where we'd had the broccoli rabe. So we're moving on to the next phase, it looks like.
What else...
Yesterday I took pictures at a 5K my sister was running in - it was a perfect day for that - cool and sunny. Then a brief stop at my parents' house to say hi, and then back home to put lunch together for us and a friend of ours and his daughter, who is a year younger than Julia. The girls played great together all afternoon, and, even better, they had no interest in torturing Alex, so it was a good day for him, too.
And that's about it for the weekend.
This week? Busy. I'm hoping to make a couple of starters for my precious cheeses - hopefully I can get that done today - and I've got Julia's birthday on the near horizon as well. Plus all the normal stuff that goes on.
How was your weekend?
Mine was good! Wish I'd planted early greens, but we went from Winter straight to almost Summer, it's 88 today! I need to put some tomatoes and peppers in the ground. BTW Jolea changed boats and is now in Boston on the Liberty Clipper.
Posted by: judith | May 17, 2010 at 04:18 PM