Inspiration a la Amazon.com

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens, brown paper packages from Amazon.com… hmm, OK, so perhaps it doesn’t have quite the same ring as “tied up with string”, but front door deliveries absolutely fall into the category of being amongst my favorite things.

Last week, I once again fell victim to Amazon’s “since you bought this… we think you should also buy this” email blitzes and used their efficient mobile app to order the River Cottage Every Day cookbook.  I had no idea what the River Cottage was, but the description made it sound somewhat similar to Heidi Swanson‘s style and the long winter months have left me in need of some culinary inspiration… so I figured it was worth the $17.26 risk.

Two days later, the book arrived at my doorstep.  (Sidenote – I bought into Amazon Prime last year… it’s changed my life in some very small but important ways.)   A few pages in, I learned that River Cottage is a fully sustainable farm/cooking school/restaurant/store in the UK that is out to convince the world of the value of self-sufficiency, food integrity, and the consumption of local, seasonal produce. I also learned some disturbing things about why you shouldn’t eat chilean sea bass which I am now trying to forget.

The recipes in River Cottage Every Day are pretty straightforward and the photography is stunning.   There are an unfortunately high number of pages dedicated to odd meat dishes (lamb liver?) and desserts… but the pages in between have some really great recipes.  I tried three of them last night:  1) seedy spinach salad, 2) tabouleh kisir, and 3) roasted new potatoes (no link that one, it’s pretty basic).  All three are keepers, particularly the spinach salad.  I’ve earmarked another 5-6 to try.

At some point this week Heidi Swanson‘s new book Super Natural Everyday should be arriving (I have had it on pre-order for a few months now), I think it’s formal release date is April 5th.  I’m looking forward to another visit from UPS with another of my favorite brown paper packages, more inspiration a la Amazon.com.

Waiting For Spring

It’s the end of March and spring has not yet sprung – sigh.  The winter coats have not been put away and I’m still dealing with the daily annoyance of trying to convince my kids that it’s perfectly fine to wear mismatched gloves.  I have high hopes for April.

Though we aren’t yet into 70 degree days, the arrival of daylight savings time has inspired me to start using the grill a bit more frequently for evening meals (even I have to wear an extra layer to do so).   This  week, the lighter-than-usual evenings had me looking for something new to go with the grillings so I set off in search of a new wheat berry salad recipe.

I went through my usual online haunts… foodnetwork, 101cookbooks, allrecipes, etc… and found one that met my requirements, which were: 1) the recipe had to be substantially different from the other wheat berry salad I’ve made and 2) it had to be made solely from ingredients I had in the house (it was too gray and cold to venture out to the grocery store).

I found a couple options that looked promising and went forth with a recipe by Ellie Krieger compliments of FoodNetwork.com.  A few substitutions later, I had found a new favorite – a wheatberry salad flavored with dried cherries, cilantro, and lemon.   I liked it so much I made it again three days later.

My Contribution to Snow Removal

I rarely help with snow removal.  I leave this task to my husband who 1) seems to like it and 2) has devised a very efficient system where he shovels just two tire treads worth of space up our driveway and then leaves the rest of it to melt at  some point in the next few weeks.  I honestly don’t know why more people don’t do this – what’s the point of shoveling an entire driveway when you really only need to make sure the car can get in and out?  This obviously wouldn’t work in a situation of more than 8-10 inches of snow… or in a climate that doesn’t see temperatures above 35 degrees all winter…but in most cases around here,  it works just fine.

The main reason I don’t help with the shoveling is because I don’t want to.  I would rather be inside where it’s warm – plus, it’s kind of a pain to get my snow boots out of the front closet (the laces on those things are a bit excessive).  So… to ease my tiny (and they are quite small) feelings of guilt for leaving this task to him, I attempt to compensate by making a hot breakfast of some sort. 

These days, I’m on a hot cereal/porridge kick… one of my favorites being a millet based porridge that’s almost as easy to make as your standard oatmeal and reheats well.    A close second favorite is an amaranth porridge – which consists of nothing more than cooking up a pot of amaranth and adding some honey to it.   Another close second (tied with amaranth) is a new blend of grains that Wegmans has started carrying called “Sunrise Blend“.  In my opinion, it requires the additional of maple syrup to truly be considered in the breakfast category, but with a little syrup – its really good. 

Earlier today, there was a post on the “Joy the Baker” blog with two recipes for a breakfast polenta… Perhaps I’ll give that a try the next time I’m watching my husband shovel snow for hours on end (which, given the winter we are having, shouldn’t be too far away).  Sigh.