Jon

I wish I was feeling better. Dinner tonight was spectacularly good.

We had ham and bean soup, made with alder-smoked ham from Sea Breeze Farm, my favorite local purveyor of pork, duck eggs, chicken liver pate, and more, and with cranberry beans from Stoney Plains Organic Farm. I finished it up with water, carrots, onions, celery, salt, pepper, and lemon thyme, and it was spectacularly good.

Preparation was simple: cut the ham and veggies up, toss them and the beans in the crockpot with the salt, pepper, and thyme, and cover with water, then simmer all day long. Not bad for 15 minutes of prep work last night and fewer than five minutes this morning. Extremely filling, and I'd estimate the cost at about $2.50 or $2.75 a bowl, because it made about eleven servings. (The ham isn't cheap, nor the beans, but they're the best-tasting I can buy -- I can't say enough good things about Sea Breeze Farm's bacon or ham!) The only trick I missed was that I'd forgotten to put in a bay leaf or three, which I'd intended to do. Still, it was quite nearly perfect.

On the side, we had mustard greens I'd cooked on Sunday night for just this occasion. Two big bunches (about eight cups chopped, raw), one slice of the half-pound of ham for the soup, a couple of dried red peppers, half a head of garlic, salt, pepper, white vinegar, and some veggie stock I'd made from scraps. The stock isn't as useful as I'd like, because I was ignorant and had a bunch of carrot greens in there, which made it rather astringent (though not really bitter), but that perfectly complimented the greens, which were sharp and smokey and quite good.

Laura, a good Kentucky girl, gave the meal her seal of approval -- not bad for a northern boy improvising without a net.

Last night I'd cooked a leg of lamb, also from Sea Breeze farms. I'd de-fatted it the night before, and yesterday morning I rubbed it with salt and pepper, and tossed it into the crock pot with a head's worth of garlic cloves, a medium onion, sliced, and about a bottle of red wine. (I'd meant to put the thyme in that, but I forgot.) At the end of the day, I took it out, dried it off, and browned it nicely, then reduced the wine in that pan to make a gravy, adding two tablespoons of butter.

For veggies, we had carrots and parsnips braised in home-made chicken stock, cooked with salt and pepper, nutmeg, and cinnamon. Laura tossed in a tablespoon or two of apple juice, which made it lovely and pie-like, and at the end I tossed in another tablespoon of butter to turn the leftover stock and spices into a lovely glaze. Except for the apple juice, the carrots and parsnips are my mother's recipe.

Later that night, I snacked on some beets I pickled on Sunday according to Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything, which I do several times a winter. The beets (Chiogga Beets), as well as the carrots and Parsnips, were from Nash's Organic Produce.

The lamb was pricey, but excellent. And we're getting eight to twelve person-meals out of it, about six portions of lamb with veggies on the side, plus probably four portions of Lamb jhal fraizi I'll be making tomorrow with a portion of the lamb I set aside last night when alloquating the leftovers.

Way back on Sunday night, I made pasta puttanesca, which is always different, since I make it by ear and it depends on what I've got on hand. This time, we were a little light on the olives, and I wanted to tone the garlic down from the usual, so I used some extra anchovy paste. Laura approved of that as well.

Thursday, the plan is to make a hot soba soup, making the dashi myself (mmmm... bonito flakes!). I might toss a raw egg in my portion and let that cook, depending on how I feel about it. I'll have beets on the side, most definitely.

Friday's going to be leftovers. Saturday probably leftovers too, if I haven't eaten 'em all by then. (I also have two hamburgers in the fridge still, from Saturday, which I'll be focusing on at lunchtime tomorrow and the next day.) Sunday, maybe, I'll use the pork butt I got at the market to make lime and chili slow-cooked pork tacos, with red onion escabeche, via Kathy Casey's cookbook. But I don't know yet, since that's something I can do any day of the week (due to the slow cooker), and I'll probably be hitting the farmer's market on Saturday this week.

Mmmm... food!