black-eyed peas

Fresh black-eyed pea tacos: shelled the peas, boiled them for twenty minutes, then cooked them with bacon, coriander, chiles de árbol, and cumin. So delicious.

grits with fresh corn and bacon

This is grits with the addition of fresh corn (two ears for one cup of dry grits); make the grits (I used ½/½ water/milk, so a cup each, with ½ tsp. salt), sauté a couple of strips of chopped bacon and then add the corn, removed from the cobs, and try to get some color. Fold the bacon and corn into the grits with some cheddar (I used a two-year-old cheddar), and top with shrimp and parsley if that strikes your fancy. The shrimp is nice, but decadent; the parsely actually makes a huge difference and brightens the whole dish.

leftovers

 

Leftover roasted beets and potatoes with eggs, bacon and a pickled jalapeno.

eggs florentine

Go in to work late today so I made myself a nice breakfast — a version of eggs florentine.


...with a side of Vermont Smoke and Cure bacon (I bought an uncut piece and sliced ¼-inch slices.)


Between sautéed spinach from a local farm (I can't remember their name at the moment) and the hollandaise sauce (with cute, small eggs from the same folks, and using Julia Child's formula in Mastering the Art...), I probably consumed a half-stick of butter.


But it was well worth it. Skipping english muffins and having toasted ciabbatine rolls was most definitely a great idea.

« housewarming »

This weekend my roommate and I had a seven-month belated "housewarming" and quite a spread of food. Highlights included a vegan cucumber dip with a base of cashews ground with cucumber water from the shredded cucumber that were added at the end, a walnut-cremini pâté (also vegan), rillettes, gougères (Tartine's recipe), baked leeks wrapped in bacon (those disappeared in minutes) and a three-mushroom puff-pastry tart (the puff pastry came out wonderfully, much better than last time I made it. Rolling it thicker and baking hot helped).

haricots verts & almonds / leeks & bacon