Wednesday, June 10, 2015

Food: A Recipe

Mrs. Ney's step-by-step guide to The Delicious:

Do you want to serve an excellent meal that ticks every box, but isn't fussypants?  Here's what you do.  Since last week you've been wondering what to do with that ridiculous amount of pickled fennel you made for god-knows-what reason:  that's now the lumpy ingredient in the tzatziki you've been craving ever since Purple Pig was mentioned.  You didn't want Purple Pig, you wanted tzatziki.  And dinner grows from this craving.

Paulina Meats sells a very nice lamb-based gyro sausage.  It's lamb, but it's also sausage.  Which means 8 minutes of virtually mindless cooking time.  Buy one sausage for each person @$2.5/.  You may think it's not enough:  it is.

Whole Foods and Mariano's sell baby greens, locally- and hydroponically- grown.  They're delicious.  Buy one container for every two people @$5/.

You'll need fresh oregano and mint.  $2 at Mariano's or $3 at Whole Foods.  One onion and fresno pepper per person, too.

Thursday, June 4, 2015

Summer Begins

Summer, in our house, tends to be a high-low concept. One ridiculously great meal a week surrounded by an easy-peasy, greatest hits-style collection of dinners. Along with a fair amount of grilled food without the grill, some boozy sangrias, more cocktails, and tons of freshness.

So, no ribeye and vanilla mashed potatoes with Bordeaux for us. We want to light, perky and fun, not brooding and self-serious.

This weekend illustrates that point.

Got a cucumber, some tomatoes, and leftover pita floating around? Make fattoush for lunch. Grab some arugula, a bell pepper, a lil sumac, some mint, lemon juice, olive oil. Use those radishes that have been sitting in the  crisper for a bit. Maybe the chervil you bought for a very specific purpose and only used a tiny amount. It's an open book. Cut everything up, toast up that pita, toss it all together. Make it big because this is starting off your weekend. It shouldn't be a salad, with all that entails. It should be a SALAD, like a Seinfeldian "Big Salad" (Julia-Louis Dreyfus on CCGC this week). Drink fridge wine with it, like a 2014 Charles Smith VINO Rosé Wahluke Slope ($10 - Whole Foods), a 100% sangiovese from Washington. It's friendly and fresh, if not the lovely, distinct wonder that is Charles & Charles's syrah-based rosé from Columbia Valley. Maybe watch some 'Family Feud' or 'Cutthroat Kitchen.' Nothing heavy. That's a good lunch, and kicks off the weekend right.