Dateline end of June, early July 2012:
Somewhere outside Cheney, WA
After the busiest two weeks of the year at my job were finally over, I
thought I would be free to create some awesome dinners. Instead, I thought most were pretty
dud-y. So, as part of my
self-flagellation, I thought I’d review the last five dinners with commentaries
about what went wrong (or right in a few cases). I can see that part of my problem is that I
have two freezers filled with pork products, and I’m not digging far enough to
unearth the other yummy things in there.
Time to re-organize the freezers!
FRIDAY: collards with bacon, chicken and dumplings.
Props: incredibly delicious, no
fuss meal was easy to make, home grown collards, made lots of leftovers.
Probs: store bought bacon and
chicken not as good as home grown, made lots of leftovers.
Reasons: ran out of home-cured
bacon, lack of planning to defrost whole home grown chicken in advance.
SATURDAY: tossed salad with kohlrabi and other veggie
goodies, parmesan toast, BBQ pork ribs, cherry/rhubarb cobbler.
Props: balanced, home raised
pork, tried something new from the garden (kohlrabi), awesome cobbler used my
farmer supplied cherries and homegrown rhubarb.
Probs: off-taste to pork, ribs
not juicy, forgot to serve the cobbler (but ate it for breakfast the next day).
Reasons: should have completely
brined the ribs the day before; I just used an apple cider brine for about an
hour, which was not enough; poor planning—started dinner tooooo late and I got
impatient waiting for the ribs to cook, so I cranked up the oven; spent most of
the day making furikaki chex mix and cherry jam, both of which were yummy.
SUNDAY: chorizo and red bean chili, big salad with
toms, onions, and avocado.
Props: balanced, home raised
pork, lots of greens, red beans (from dried) were perfectly cooked, made good
lunch leftovers.
Probs: off-taste to chorizo (I
was the only one who thought this), tomatoes in the chili did not break down.
Reasons: underspiced, canned
tomatoes should have been pureed in food processor prior.
MONDAY: ham and cheese sandwiches (tomatoes, onions
and lettuce) on Kaiser rolls with kohlrabi oven fries and chili/yogurt dipping
sauce.
Props: very easy, tried
something new, yogurt dressing was tasty.
Probs: boooring, kohlrabi fries
were soggy even if tasty.
Reasons: too many carbs, used
too much oil in the pan with kohlrabi, oven not hot enough.
TUESDAY: pork steaks in teriyaki marinade with red
peppers, white rice, steamed artichokes with homemade lemon mayonnaise.
Props: home raised pork, used up leftover peppers, meat cooked to
medium-rare/medium just right and tender, rice nice and fluffy, mayo was
excellent and plenty for leftovers.
Probs: bland rice, bland chokes,
not enough sauce on the meat, served too late in the evening.
Reasons: lack of planning; spent most of the evening walking around
outside and enjoying the weather; had a piece of fresh picnic ham that would
have taken too long to roast, so I cut it into steaks; chokes were just not
quality—note to self to stop buying stuff that has been picked 2 weeks ago and
grown 2 states away; rice would have
been fine with more sauce. OMG, are we
having pork again!?
