Pork & Sprouts

Above and below are pictures of a recent meal Ken made for a good college friend of mine. The entire meal was just fantastic. The top image is of a squash blossom salad with baby greens and roasted eggplant, zucchini, and pine nuts. It was a refreshing and flavorful start to our meal. I certainly wasn't the only one to consider how improper licking the plate might be.

Above is an image of the walnut encrusted pork with a brussel sprout and corn compote. The pork was moist, nutty, rich, and yet somehow still light. The gravy was mouthwatering. As always Ken's brussel sprouts were fantastic. This was the first time he had included the corn and made more of a medley. It was a great variation of the dish and very tasty.

For dessert, we went to a local custard shop in Champaign called Jarling's a Custard Cup. The custard is rich, creamy, and made fresh on site. We only live a few blocks from the place and are often tempted on summer nights to take late night jaunts over to enjoy some custard with the flocks of ever-present customers. Jarling's frequently wins awards and excellent reviews from all kinds of folks-- I highly recommend stopping by if you're ever in Champaign, IL.

Garden Treats: Basil Pasta, Zuchinni, and Mashed Turnips

Back to some food pictures.
Here's a picture of a recent meal that Ken whipped up one evening with produce from our garden and the local farmer's market.

He made homemade basil pasta with some of the massive amounts of basil we've harvested from the garden and a sweet tomato sauce to top it. The zuchini dish was just amazing - I've never had anything quite like it - and can't wait for Ken to make it again before zuchini season is over. The mashed turnips had a really unique flavor but the texture was not as creamy as regular mashed potatoes. I think next time we'll try half potato/half turnip and see what we get.

Hope everyone's summer is going well and that you've all been able to enjoy some of the abundance of amazing summer produce.

All I ever post are garden pictures...

The garden is growing beautifully and we've harvested quite a number of lovely vegetables. Crunchy peppers, flavorful eggplant, cherry tomatoes, yum.

More Garden Photos

These photos of the garden are about a week old. I'll put up newer photos when I take them. Its really amazing how much the garden can change in one week. Right now, most things are flowering. We've harvested a lot of greens and a few peapods. We can see the very first tomatoes and peppers starting to take shape. Its all very exciting.

Main Garden


Tomatoes and Peppers

Growing Gardens

As Ken's cooking expertise has grown, he has become increasingly interested in organic and local produce. One of his dreams is to grow and raise all of the food for his future restaurant himself. So we figured it was probably a good idea to begin greening up our thumbs by planting a small garden. Ken and I both grew up in families that did a lot of gardening but we haven't really ever had our own gardens as adults. (I did participate in a community garden with a group of friends while living in Chicago. We had a lot of fun and I highly recommend community gardens-- but I wouldn't have called that garden my own.) So this is a new experience for both of us. Ken purchased a book, The Vegetable Gardener's Bible, that he loves and recommends. The author encourages use of deeper beds, wide raised rows, and organic methods. He also has specific recommendations for growing different vegetables, composting, and many tips to make your garden beautiful and healthy.

Below are 2 pictures of the garden when it was first planted. You'll notice in the picture that there is a large pile of dirt/gravel that Ken had to take off the top of the garden. We're not really sure what that's about--- we're renting and we suspect that the garden area was used as a garbage/lawn waste area at some point.








Here is the garden after a couple weeks...



And pictures from a couple days ago...
The top image is of the big garden where we've planted lots of different greens, herbs, beans, peas and pea pods, beets, squash, etc. The bottom image is of the tomato/pepper/eggplant bed which is separate from the rest of the garden.



I'll post more pictures of the garden soon and I think we'll probably be having our first salad of garden greens sometime in the next week. I can hardly wait!

Until then-- Here's a picture of an activity that I've found to often go hand in hand with gardening. The grill was a gift from Ken's parents for his birthday. Thanks again Andy and Diane!

Elk Steaks

I only have a second, but wanted to put up some pictures of a dinner we had with a few friends a month or two ago. The main course featured elk steaks from a local Illinois farm. This elk meat was extremely tender and had a subtle nutty flavor. We've been making an effort to buy local produce and meat so this elk is an excellent option. Elk also requires substantially fewer resources to raise than something like beef-- so that's good too!

Mixed greens with homemade caesar dressing & croutons (infinitely better than store bought)













Elk Steaks with leeks, roasted vegetables, and a savory puff














Chocolate covered cream puffs and after dinner games











As always, please feel to email or comment with recipe requests etc.

One Fish, Two Fish

Now that its summer and I have time to start posting pictures again, I am faced with a dilemma. While I would like to be putting up pictures of our garden and latest feasts, I have this massive backlog of beautiful pictures of Ken's food. At this point, I've stopped taking new pictures because there are so many old ones. Even more unfortunate, I don't remember much about the old photos-- how the food tasted, how it was made, specifics of the event.

In order to resolve this problem, I'm just going to post some of the older pictures with minimal details as I run across them. I'll also start taking and posting new pictures as I am inspired

Below are two images of fish dinners that we had at some point over the winter. Ken and I have been trying to eat more fish as it is a healthy alternate source of protien.

Wild Salmon, Asparagras, and Leeks



Fried Catfish with Ginger Spinach and Roasted Squash

Waffles for Spring

I'm in the middle of preparing things for the end of term, so I don't have long to write. On the bright side, I have a number of food pictures ready to go and on a computer that I can post from... so I should be able to put up some more posts over the next several days.

To the left, you'll see a picture of our very first Spring flower. Last Fall, Ken's mom purchased a variety of bulbs for us which I planted around the garden. We've been having so much fun discovering all the growing green things in our backyard and we're planning to plant a vegetable garden this weekend. I just love Spring.

Also, wanted to share my waffle recipe with you all. We've been making waffles regularly because they're easy to reheat in the toaster for a quick breakfast. In an effort to make this a healthy as well as easy breakfast option, I've come up with a waffle recipe that I really like. The flavor is excellent and they're much more filling than regular flour waffles.

Combine in a large bowl:
1 C whole oats
1 C bran
1 C bran flour or whole wheat flour (or 1/2 and 1/2)
1/4-1/2 C sugar (or honey or brown sugar)
Enough low-fat buttermilk for a soupy consistency

Let sit for about a half hour to soften the oats.
(This isn't necessary but will ensure that you don't get any whole oats that are hard and uncooked)

Stir in:
2 eggs
1 T baking powder
1 T baking soda
1/4 C oil
enough milk to make waffles pourable (the buttermilk will probably have soaked into the
any seasoning you prefer (vanilla, cinnamon etc.)

Oh and one quick note about the oil-- you have to include some fat in the recipe or the waffles won't hold together. You can use butter or oil, whatever you prefer. I usually start with just a dash of whatever fat, cook the first waffle, and then add more if necessary.

Recipes for things like waffles, pancakes, muffins, quick breads, etc are really fun because you can muck around with them a lot and usually still get a tasty final dish. Unlike yeast doughs or fragile butter pastries, they're pretty hardy and can handle some mistreatment. If you want to experiment with baking, I highly suggest playing around with some of these kinds of recipes.

Anyway, back to work.
Toodles.

2008? February? Really?

I realize that I've become really really bad at posting with any regularity. I feel mildly guilty about this. Once I would have felt really guilty about this. Now, though, the dizzying swirl of constant obligation and the perpetual feelings of inadequacy, the life that is graduate school, has dulled any such torment of conscience into a mild nagging feeling. And besides, I've found that the last thing I want to do after a long day of working is to spend any more time on the computer.

The absence of photos/recipes of wonderful food on this page does not mean that Ken has stopped cooking... quite the opposite. He is happily working for a small start-up bistro that specializes in high-end catering and he is able to spend most evenings at home. He frequently makes us beautiful and scrumptious meals and has stoically accepted his role as guardian of my sanity- for which I am eternally grateful.

I've attached images of a recent meal/s--
The first is an image of cream of asparagus soup. This soup was delicate, fresh, and made me long for spring.

The second is tuna (half seed-encrusted, half-jerked), mushrooms, and spinach with ginger. Every part of this meal was just amazing. The mushrooms were rich and musky. (Ken has taken to finishing most of his vegetables with chicken stock-- I highly recommend this.) The spinach and ginger was bright and just perfectly wilted... and the tuna was... well, yum

Sorry the photos aren't better. I've gotten a little lazy about taking them since they so rarely go anywhere anymore.

I'll try to post again soon but no promises.