I’ve been working basically non-stop for the past month, and I finally hit the wall. Decided to take a couple days “off” and reacquaint myself with my husband and our house. Here is a photo-essay of some of the food activites that went down.
Saw that my neighbor’s “free garden” had copious amounts of green tomatoes left on the vine. Picked them. Thought I’d use ’em for fermented tomatoes in my crock, because I had already pickled a bunch in my end-of-the-garden pickling jamboree the day before. I put up four quarts of green tomatoes, two pints of cauliflower, one pint of purple cauliflower, and a bunch of pints and half-pints of mixed pickle made with green cherry tomatoes, cauliflower, peppers, kohlrabi and green beans.
Went to the farmer’s market for inspiration, and found it in autumnberries, a tiny red berry with a flavor reminiscent of cranberries softened up by cherries. Also called autumn olives, these little zingers are tart when raw, but they made a lovely sauce with pinot gris syrup, butter, riesling vinegar, black pepper and a pinch of salt. Perfect on pancakes with a cup of steaming hot coffee with milk.
To gild the lily, I used more of the autumnberry sauce on a fat pork chop from Emmons Meat Market in Corvallis, grilled by my in-house BBQ Master, and mixed a bit of the stuff into a rice pilaf with my own dried chanterelles.
And, what the heck, I fried up some of the remaining green tomatoes, thickly sliced, in seasoned flour and Italian cornmeal, and served them on the side. A bit incongruous, but still mighty delicious.
Sadly, the weekended, and I’m now back to work. But I have my memories. I have my memories.
Culinaria Eugenius 