Spring on hold
I can't stand it. I'm looking out my window and the snow is piling up. Okay, what's going on here. We turned in our taxes, we have skiied our last slope, my first proud tulip bulb was seconds away from blooming when a weird storm decided to pass over. I ask you, where was this snow the past few months.
Be that as it may, I have decided to look on the bright side. That bright side being a longer time to make winter food. I have plans for split pea soup this weekend. When I made split pea soup last winter (a non-traditional recipe by my beloved Deborah Madison), I would have had to empty the local aquifer to turn the soup from chewy yellow split peas to the traditional potage that we all usually think when we think split pea soup. Hope springs eternal for this batch.
I'm also desperately behind on the spinach from the Beneficial Farms box. I like spinach, it's so versatile, how did this happen? I think I have three bags of it in the fridge. Other greens are coming fast and furious. We had a salad last night with our small-ish portion of arugula. I say small-ish compared to the building wave of spinach but it was the perfect amount for two dinner salads. In an early round of spring cleaning, I went through my piles of recipes and ask myself seriously "Are you really going to cook this?" That helped to get rid of about a third. How many banana bread recipes does one gal need?
Anyhoo, while looking through my pile of NY Times recipes, I found an article on Greek food that had a salad with arugula AND pomegranate seeds. I have had several pomegranates rolling around in the fruit bin and by golly, they do store well. I grew to enjoy the fruit when we first got them in the box last fall but they have fallen out of the rotation. That was evidenced by my drop in speed in seeding them. When you are finished seeding, pile everything into a bowl, mix up and spoon on top of the greens. There you go, dinner. It was fine and good, it grew on me as we ate through it. However, with my new steely eyes to the backlog, do I really keep this recipe? Did it just make my night to eat this particular item? I'm still thinking.
Regarding the week without groceries from a previous post, it has been a revelatory experience. My grocery bills have dropped significantly and I continue to look to the pantry for inspiration. If this is any indication of things, it was a few weeks after the official week without groceries that I realized that I hadn't touched the pasta in the pantry. Not eat pasta, a busy family's best friend! Madness! Unfortunately, not all things from the freezer have been great. I thawed a container of some mysterious bean stew with butternut squash and some blackish hued basil. It made for a boring but filling dinner. Maybe a good serving of spinach would have perked things up. This week, what wouldn't be completed by a good serving of spinach.
For your cooking pleasure:
Black-eyed-pea salad with herbs, walnuts and pomegranates
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/10/magazine/food-grecian-formula.html?scp...
