Mint-pea pesto?

I was a bit skeptical when I saw a recipe for mint-pea pesto in Dinner: A Love Story (my newest obsession -- and it's also a blog!), but tonight called for a simple dinner, so I gave it a shot. I think it was a smashing success.

Having uploaded the picture, I'm afraid it doesn't look nearly as appetizing as it ought. The picture on the blog with the recipe looks better, because she mixed the pasta in the with sauce before serving. That's all well and good if you have the right proportions of pesto to pasta prepared, but I never do.

The gist of the recipe is that you combine in a food processor peas, olive oil, mint leaves, freshly grated Parmesan, salt, and some lemon juice and pulse until you get "the consistency somewhere in between smooth and chunky guacamole." She suggests about 1 1/2 cups of peas to 1 cup loosely packed mint leaves, but you can play by taste, if you will. Meanwhile, you've got water boiling for pasta, and while the pasta's cooking you scoop out some of the pasta water. After you've drained the pasta, you put the mint-pea paste into the pot and whisk it together with the reserved pasta water. (I prolly could've used more). Then, if you're confident, you can mix your pasta in with the pesto. I topped mine with some extras peas and parm. Left over pesto (not with pasta water) would be great on bread.

I'd happily add this meal to the rotation, but the trouble is, a cup of mint leaves is an awful lot of mint. I probably only had three quarters of a cup, but there's nearly none left in my little planter. Plus Tim actually isn't as big a fan of mint as I am, so this might be a once a season deal.

In Indy, IN

If I post in August about our July trip, maybe I'll write about September about our August trip. I'd prefer to think of myself not as a delinquent blogger, but as a fashionably late one. 

One weekend in July, Tim and I took a half day on Friday and drove down to Indianapolis for a weekend with some good friends. Donna Grace was one of my roommates in college, and she's dating a great guy who was in Tim's small group. And I approve. I believe we promised each other once that we'd have to approve the other's potential significant other if the time came. When I told DG that I'd gone on a date with Tim, she told me I should marry him. He passed that test with flying colors.

The weekend together was one of those wonderful ones with friends revolving around long conversations, long walks, and good food, of course.

And introducing a Great Horned Owl into the mix makes everything even better. Did you know that birds pant when they're hot and/or stressed? There's a special word for it, which I've forgotten at the moment.

Indianapolis has one of the largest city parks in the country. We ate our picnic lunch and listened to bull frogs (I think that's what they were? Or very strange birds), learned about the owl, walked and talked, and then sat and talked.

And in between we looked at a flock of birds on the water. I think they were cormorants.

Home for dinner, dessert, a short sleep, worship together, lunch, a sad farewell. How do the good times go by so fast?

To make Tuesday special

I think that a lot of the posts on this blog might turn out to be ones about food. It's been a pre-occupying thought these days as I am learning to cook, trying to plan meals and grocery shop responsibly. Being a grown-up isn't easy. 

Some months ago while perusing Smitten Kitchen's recipes I stumbled upon a recipe for Skirt Steak Salad with Blue Cheese . Quickly bookmarked. I'd never heard of skirt steak before, but it sure did sound good. 

But cooking beef that isn't ground up (let alone as expensive as skirt steak) is scary. The first time I cooked non-ground-up beef was this winter when I tried to follow Elizabeth's recipe for Hungarian goulash and ended up with chunks of meat so tough that I had to grind them up in the food processor and make paprika flavored burgers instead. I think we might have eaten a frozen pizza that night.

So it was with some trepidation that I tried again at beef. 

This was good, because my man likes beef.

(and thankfully salads too)

In short, the meal was a great success. I tried to follow the instructions on the Smitten Kitchen recipe exactly, but I think I let my cast iron pan get to hot because the steak certainly wasn't still medium rare after 5 minutes on one side and three on the other. I forgot to pat it dry before I put it in the hot pan; I dunno how much difference that would make. Oh, and I forgot finely chopped scallions, but they were not sorely missed. And my favorite grocery store ever, Village Marketplace, didn't have just arugula, so I bought a spring salad mix on sale.

We also had left-over cold pieces of boiled potatoes, but they aren't as pretty so they got added to the plate only after the picture.

(Also, I took care to read up on how to slice steak across the grain. Doing otherwise would have been a sorry mistake, indeed.)

How does your garden grow?

I have tried very hard to be diligent in watering my tomato plant (actually "plants" because I have a cherry tomato plant now too!), and I think yesterday my tomato plant surpassed me in height. It's probably about 5'2'' now.

I'm particularly excited about these guys that have formed from the plant's pretty little yellow flowers. The cherry tomato also has several tiny rows of green globes. It's very cheery. 

In May, I spent a Saturday mid-day planting cilantro and squash at Wheaton's first community garden that cousin Joel organized. The one Wheaton student in town over the summer has got an enormous job taking care of this thing. There's a good deal of weeds, but there's also some healthy looking plants. I think I'll need to head over there next week and harvest some of the basil for pesto. I dunno who else is gonna eat it.

I brought my swiss army knife so I could steal a flower to decorate my table.

Bird gangs

This evening, while Tim and I were walking in the neighborhood in the cool of the evening, I spotted a large bird hanging out on the lawn across the street. We crossed the street for a closer look, and the bird spread its wings and flew up to a clearly visible branch on a close tree. Then we noticed the angry twitter of birds in the trees around and watched them mob the large bird, taking turns to swoop around and generally pester him into leaving again. Tim has told me about watching smaller bird gang up against a hawk that flies outside his office window at work, but I'd never seen this behavior before.

When we got home, with the aid of a field guide and the Internet, I identified the bird as the American Kestrel, also known as a "Sparrow Hawk" because it eats House Sparrows. Unlike other falcons, it captures its prey on the ground, which perhaps explains why it was hanging out on the grass. But we didn't notice the birds swooping at it until it went into a tree, so perhaps it was just down there for a little peace.

Simply in Season

My favorite cookbook so far in this new life of regular food prep has been Simply in Season, a cookbook from the Mennonite community. The book is organized into five color-coded sections; each section contains recipes using fruits and veggies that are harvested during that season. (The fifth section is with foods available in all seasons.)  Each of the five sections has recipes for breads & breakfasts, soups, salads, sides, main dishes, desserts and some extras. One of my favorite parts of the book is the separate indexes for vegetables, fruits, herbs, proteins and grains, and also recipe titles.

When Elizabeth saw that I'd been given this book as a wedding present, she wrote down some of the Polak family favorites so I've already been off to a good start. A good number of those recipes are becoming Avery family favorites too.

Today after work Tim and I took this frisbee to Hoffman Park to run around since it's a gorgeous day here with the temps in the low 70s (is this really July?). Unfortunately when I suggested running around I'd forgotten that he had to leave a bit after 6:30 for a missions meeting.

The good news for us was that "Lemon Asparagus Pasta" from Simply in Season doesn't take too long to prepare. The bad news was that I didn't have any green onions. But since last time I tried this recipe, the lemons didn't have any flavor, I figured we could go ahead with it.  (Have you ever heard of lemons without flavor? I bought them from the cheap, on-the-edge-of-going-bad produce section of my favorite grocery store, but I don't think I'll do that with lemons again – it was pretty pointless.)

So here is "Lemon Asparagus Pasta" lifted straight from Simply in Season.
(another great thing about this book is how the ingredients and instructions are integrated)

8 oz / 250 g angel hair pasta
2 1/2 cups / 625 ml asparagus (cut into 1-inch / 2.5 cm pieces – I cut them on the bias)
Cook pasta in boiling water 4 minutes. Add asparagus and cook 2 minutes longer or until tender. Drain.

1 Tb. butter
1/2 cup / 125 ml green onions (chopped)
1 1/2 tsp. lemon peel (grated)
3 Tbs. lemon juice 
While pasta cooks, melt butter in large frypan over medium heat. Add green onions and lemon peel and saute 1 minute. Add lemon juice and cook until liquid is almost evaporated.

3/4 cup / 175 ml milk
2 eggs
Beat together. Add with pasta and asparagus to pan with green onions. Cook over low heat until milk mixture is slightly thick, about 4 minutes. Do not boil.

1 Tb. fresh dill (chopped; or 1 tsp. dried)
1/4 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. nutmeg
Stir in. Serve immediately.

Visits with the fam

For sure one of our favorite parts about having our first home of our own is inviting people into it. Our little table expands to fit guests, and my repertoire of dishes I'm willing to serve to company is slowly growing too. We've also got now got a couple folding chairs and a piano bench so Tim and I don't have to sit on a plastic tub covered with kurpas either.

Uncle Scott and Aunt Jenny came through town for the missions festivals, and we got gathered together with Joel and Sue over Pakistani Kima and my first attempt at artisan bread. Not pictured was our birthday party for Uncle Bert a few nights later. 

Over Easter my parents came to visit us and attend the Soli Deo Gloria's production of Bach's B minor Mass. The visit nicely coincided with Joel's family being in town too, so we picnicked and walked together at Herrick Lake on Saturday.

We're looking forward to another reunion this summer when we head to the northwest for Jonathan and Kim's wedding.

In April, we had company from the Avery side of the family. Mom Avery came up to Chicago for Milo's birthday and Matt's art exhibit, and they all came out to Wheaton on April 20th, so we had a full apartment.

I was glad for some of the old toys that my parents had brought from New Jersey for when we have young guests. Jacks and bouncy balls were a hit with Margot and Milo until the neighbors downstairs started banging on their ceiling. I'd hadn't thought about how annoying that would sound from below.

So who wants to come visit next?

Not so seasonal

It was hard, but today I threw out our poinsettia from Christmastime.

I don't think this picture does justice to how depressing its appearance had become. It went strong for several months, and then the leaves started to fall. The green growth had me excited for a while, but as leaf after leaf dropped to the ground, the plant began to look more and more pitiable. It's in the dumpster now, and I'm trying not to be too bothered by the thought of the little bits of new growth now destined to die.

New URL coming soon

Gentle Readers, on June 1 (if I can remember) I will be changing the url of this blog to www.ourscatteredwits.blogspot.com. If you click on that link you'll see that I've already claimed that URL to make sure it wasn't taken before next Saturday, but I'm pretty sure I can quickly delete that blog, rename this one, and then reclaim www.cjminer.blogspot.com to redirect future viewers. That's the plan at least.

Bread

For Christmas my mother-in-law gave me the book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, (thanks for the recommendation, Jim and Jul!) and ever since I worked up the nerve and found it really was that quick and easy, I've been baking bread fairly regularly. The picture above is the loaf that came out of the oven last night. (So far my experience has been a lot better than trying to bake bread from scratch last year (I think some of my problems had to do with our toaster oven...) and also my bread maker senior year. Remember this day?)

The chefs, Jeff and Zoe, have developed a technique of bread making that requires no proofing of the yeast and no kneading.  Every couple weeks or so I mix together 3 cups of warm water, a tablespoon and a half of yeast, and a table spoon and a half of kosher salt, and then I add six and a half cups of flour. (I bought a square, 6 qt plastic storage container for this purpose.)  I do this during my lunch break, and then I let it rise on the counter until I get back from work. Then I just pop it in the corner of the fridge and the dough ready for whenever I want to bake.

On baking day I just sprinkle the top of the dough with flour, pull out a sizeable portion, and cut it off with a serrated knife. I shape it into a small round mass, using flour so it doesn't stick to my hand, and then set it down to rest on a tray for about 40 minutes. When it's time to bake, I dust the dough with flour and slash it four times with my serrated knife.

For baking, the oven (and the pizza stone) should be heated to 450 degrees. The bread bakes for about 30 minutes on the stone on the middle rack.  A pan with a cup of water should be set below the stone.  This provides steam in the oven that results in the nice crackling crust. Sometimes if I've done everything just right I can hear the bread crackle and sing when it comes out of the hot oven.

The cookbook has a lot of other recipes and variations on the same starter recipe, but I haven't ventured into those realms yet. Perhaps there will be future posts on the subject.

Celebrating spring

In New Jersey, around this time of May we'd always go to the Presby Memorial Iris Gardens in Upper Montclair to see the hundreds of iris varieties there. It's been a cold spring and Wheaton seems to be a couple weeks behind West Orange as I haven't seen an irises yet.

Last week the lilacs were at peak so Tim and I had a quick dinner (I'm not above Trader Joe's frozen pizzas in these instances) and drove to Lombard to visit Lilacia Park. Everywhere we walked the air was sweet with the scent of lilacs. Even as sun was setting it was just warm enough to sit on a bench together and read a little bit.

I've been dreaming about ripe tomatoes for several months, I think, and reading up about how it is possible to grow tomatoes in pots if you have enough sun and water. Every day I am thankful for our apartment's southern exposure, so I am hopeful that the walkway right outside our door will do for us. This past Saturday, while Tim prepped the Sunday School lesson he taught the next morning, I went to a garden center and wandered, very overwhelmed, among the rows of annuals and vegetables and herbs and pots and supplies. I think I was there for hours. I'm really not sure what would have happened if my friend Amy hadn't come to join me and help me make some decisions. I came home for a late tea (by four a clock I found myself much more able to make quick decisions!) and got my plants into pots before supper. 

I took this picture right after I'd finished, and I think it's lovely, but the flowers look even better now since they've perked up considerably. The herb pot has basil, oregano, mint (I've been warned it spreads), and coriander seeds a quarter inch under the soil. And since the picture was taken I've added a small pot of lettuce that Amy gave me and an impatiens from Tim's boss. We may also be getting a cherry tomato plant.  

In other seasonal news, my poinsettia plant is looking a bit thin, but sprouting a bunch of spring green leaves, so I can't bear to throw it out. 

Scattered Wits, meet Tim.

I've been thinking about how I want to revive Scattered Wits. Blogging took a hit when I was in another country for a year, and since then it feels like there's too much to catch up on. I know I don't need to feel this way, but it's hard to squelch the compulsion to get my blog up to speed. After all, Scattered Wits doesn't even know about Tim.

So, Scattered Wits, it started with a lunch date at Mai Thai, July 2, 2010 (preceded by a massive crush)
And then there were a few short weeks of fun times together like this:

And then there were more than 11 months of skype dates which I didn't tell you anything about. I took a screen shot on our last skype date, which was some time in early July 2012, but I haven't been able to find it on my computer.

And then we got to live in the same country which was great. Being together sure beats long distance.
Eating plain noodles out of the same bowl was much more fun than the miserable hours, a day or so before, when we'd been violently together ill during a long, long train ride:

And then we got back to America, and things could get even better:

That's the briefest introduction, Scattered Wits, to my kind, thoughtful, goofy, hard-working, Christ exalting, gentle, funny, steady, handsome favorite person.  

Pentecost Sunday

For your gift of God the Spirit,
pow'r to make our lives anew,
pledge of life and hope of glory,
Savior, we would worship you.
Crowning gift of resurrection
sent from your ascended throne,
fullness of the very Godhead,
come to make your life our own.

He who in creation's dawning
brooded on the lifeless deep,
still across our nature's darkness
moves to wake our souls from sleep,
moves to stir, to draw, to quicken,
thrusts us through with sense of sin;
brings to birth and seals and fills us –
saving Advocate within.

He, himself the living Author,
wakes to life the sacred Word,
reads with us its holy pages
and reveals our risen Lord.
He it is who works within us,
teaching rebel hearts to pray,
he whose holy intercessions
rise for us both night and day.

He, the mighty God, indwells us;
his to strengthen, help, empow'r;
his to overcome the tempter,
our to call in danger's hour.
In his strength we dare to battle
all the raging hosts of sin,
and by him alone we conquer
foes without and foes within.

Father, grant your Holy Spirit
in our hearts may rule today,
grived not, quenched not, but unhindered,
work in us his sovereign way.
Fill us with your holy fullness,
God the father, Spirit, Son;
in us, through us, then forever,
shall your perfect will be done.

– Margaret Clarkson, 1984

Still scattered.

Today was a beautiful snowy day in Wheaton. Tim and I went out after dinner for one of my favorite things in the whole world – a walk at night when the streets are muffled and snowy, and you can see the the snow gently falling through the street lamps. It's magical.

I put some beets in the oven, wrapped in foil, to bake while we walked and, slightly paranoid, set a timer that would remind us we needed to be home quickly. When we got back inside, the beets weren't done, so we sat down to play a little Race to the Galaxy (I finally won!). I didn't remember the beets still in the oven until the game finished, about an hour after we'd walked in the door. Sigh. Tim's gonna have fun living with me when I'm old and forgetful.




p.s. The beets seem to be okay. Tomorrow they'll become part of "Sweet and Creamy Red Beet Pasta" – a recipe Elizabeth shared with me.

Brilliance

My birthday amaryllis from Tim bloomed this week. It was a long wait, but worth it.