In the Kitchen

Ah, it is definitely the dog days of summer, with the weather hot and humid and inclined to brew up afternoon showers and thunderstorms. Running around at work, even in the air-conditioned environs of the store has been miserable. Most people don't notice that our store isn't all that cool because they are swanning around at a leisurely pace pushing a cart of stuff, but if you're actually working and hefting boxes of bags onto check lanes and running from customer service to the furthest registers and back again and pushing carts back into place so that people can actually exit the building, you work up a sweat.

Not much is going on besides work. I am studiously avoiding the laundry room, one of the perils of having all those darned baskets around that are so convenient for storing the laundry in! I've been up to visit my dad and Dogzilla. Dogzilla was happy that last Saturday was actually beautiful for strolling a chubby old beagle boy around. He was less thrilled with Sunday morning's downpours, that are a bit too much like bathing for his tastes. He'd be all expectant and hopeful every time I put my soggy shoes on to indulge his idea that "outside" would be nice.
And then we'd get outside and it would be pouring and he'd decide he was made of sugar and might melt. He stands under the paper box on the back porch while he waits for me to open the back door. Mistakenly thinking that it is large enough to protect his chunky 40 lb. self. He's comic when he does stuff like that.

I've been doing quite a bit of cooking lately. I've decided that I know how to cook fish after I bought some individually frozen tilapia fillets, seasoned them with cumin, pepper, salt, coriander and smoked paprika and baked them according to package directions and they turned out perfect. I served the fish with a fresh salsa of tomatoes, garlic, red onions, diced avocado, chopped fresh cilantro and lime juice, with salt and pepper to taste. Today I experimented with the wide world of baking by making a plum tart and a peach clafouti. I used one of those roll out pie crusts from the refrigerated section for the tart, just putting it on a baking sheet and putting a mixture of sliced fresh plums, a little sugar, a little lemon juice, cinnamon, fresh grated nutmeg and a little cornstarch in the middle. Then you just fold the pie crust edges up over the fruit, leaving the center open. It certainly LOOKS pretty. The clafouti is basically a layer of sliced peaches in the bottom of a pie dish and then you pour what is essentially a pancake batter over it and bake it. I added a little cinnamon to the batter, just to make it interesting. I'm stir-frying bok choy tonight to accompany the teriyaki style country pork ribs in my crock pot. Looking towards lunches for the rest of the week, I made a recipe for a cauliflower and penne gratin. You just blanch some cauliflower florets (about half a head of cauliflower), cook a couple cups of dried penne and toss them both in a light cheese sauce. The original recipe called for Gruyere or Swiss, but lacking them, I substituted Muenster. I also added a grating or two of fresh nutmeg.

If you've never had fresh nutmeg, go forth and find thee a whole nutmeg and a microplane grater next time something calls for nutmeg. You'll faint and die and toss that can of ground nutmeg that has been sitting in the cabinet for 10 years. You'll find reasons to put nutmeg in things. It goes well in most cream sauces and a dash really picks up things like cooked spinach. I put it in the Italian tortellini soup I make. You season good chicken broth (or even canned low-sodium chicken broth) with a dash of nutmeg and black pepper, let it simmer, put in some fresh tortellini and a package of chopped frozen spinach that you've thawed and squeezed the water out of. When the tortellini are done, you put it in a bowl with a grating of Parmesan on the top. With a little crusty bread, this is a quick and easy meal. But I digress. We were talking nutmeg. You'll drag out that recipe for planter's punch and give it another go with fresh nutmeg. It's not that it actually tastes so different, but it does taste FRESH. Nutmeg is one of those things where a little goes a long way. I have a can of whole nutmegs that I got on sale at Kroger. Probably enough to last me for the rest of my life and to become a family legacy, truth to tell.

Well, I have to go check on the things simmering in the crock pot and baking in the oven. Tomorrow is back to work.