WIAW 117, and What I’m Doing
I didn’t originally start discussing weather here because of any illusion that you were all obsessed by the weather in New York City. I started because so much of what I eat is seasonal – and a warm spring or an early frost therefore heavily influence the vegetables I can get, just as the first chilly day in September turns my thoughts to soup.
But this year! Last week I was talking about the cold, and we hauled the comforter out, and today it may hit 90…
We have no seasons any more. One day in the not too distant future I’ll be that old curmudgeon saying to the children gathered at my knee “In my day, kiddos (New Yorkers don’t say young’uns) May was mostly warm and sunny with an occasional chill – not jumping from 40°F to 90°F in one week!” (Since I have no children, nor even the step-grandchildren some of my friends have acquired, I have no idea where I’ll gather those children from – but that’s another whole conversation.)
OK – I’m cranky because crazy weather swings are also really bad for migraine, and let’s leave it at that.
You may have noticed that in my discussion last week of following the blog on social media to get notifications of old posts that are interesting (and may be refurbished a little) I did not mention signing up for my own newsletter. That’s because I’ve been using the Lazy (or ill, or preoccupied) Blogger Method of just having the email list automatically send out links to whatever I publish new – and nothing else. When I started, I needed to be sure that I had a system that could plug along without me if I had a bad week – because my bad weeks then were much worse than they are now.
But even though I grouse, and I’m not as well as I had hoped I would be, I have been gradually getting better… I also find many tasks easier now that I’m used to them. So improving the newsletter – well, turning it into an actual newsletter – is the next step. My intent is to send it out once a week, with links to the new posts, one or more links to older posts I think you might be interested in (generally for other seasonal foods, occasionally for staples) and perhaps a paragraph about other projects I’m working on for the future. So in general – you will receive one email a week, rather than three, but with more content.
I’m currently thinking of sending this out Friday or Saturday – so people can read it over the weekend – does that sound right to you? Would another day work better? When is it less likely to get lost in the flood? I’m seriously asking – I want this to work best for my readers. Also, I am working on a sign up premium – probably a fairly simple one, to begin with. (Gluten Free Grain cooking chart sound good? For everyone branching out into millet, quinoa, polenta, and kasha? So you don’t have to keep reading the box?) Anyone already on the list will receive it – and any further upgrades. I do not believe in ignoring people already in my community to find new ones… You, my current readers, are gold, as far as I’m concerned. And if you have yet to sign up, please do – and watch the transition!
Anyhow… this isn’t supposed to be What I’m Working On (though it’s the best place to discuss that) – it’s What I Ate.
Breakfast – I’m still playing with the enfrijoladas concept. This version was tortillas dipped in, well, the wettest soupiest liquid I was adding to beans… and wrapped around a bit of cheese. Then I poured the boiling beans over it – which melted the cheese quite nicely! One issue is that our store seems to alternate brands of corn tortillas, and one is softer than the other. I’ll get a method down pat with that, and it doesn’t soften the other (you can see these cracked when I rolled them.) I’ll adapt the method to the firmer ones, then the soft ones fall apart. I have no idea where your tortillas fall in this range… but they’re probably in there somewhere… I prefer the firmer ones, myself – the others have stuff added to soften them – so when there’s an option, that’s what we get.
Lunch – I’m finally leaving soup behind, and moving into Salad All The Time season. Well – the only vegetable I had Friday at lunch was lettuce… though that afternoon I was able to extend my salad mix. So Friday, Rich made salmon salad. Mind you, the man fed himself for years, before me… a college housemate tells me he was the best cook in their house (the only one who’d follow the recipe – and lo and behold, that approach worked!) But he was never interested in cooking, so tended to skate along doing the minimum… There were a few things, though, he always made well, and salmon salad has continued to be his recipe, not mine. I ate it with that bit of lettuce we had then, and some (unphotographed) rice cakes (I really do need to get back to working on gluten free bread and crackers.)
For dinner, I did another of the beans and meat combos that I wrote about the other day. Chick peas, this time, also with the shredded pork, and a mushroom sauce. (Another project happening here. Do you miss instant sauce packets, or cans of cream of mushroom soup, especially on low energy days when you just want to stir something into water, bring to a boil and have sauce? This one is coming along very nicely…) And the asparagus I bought that afternoon – sauteed…
I hope all the plans sound interesting, I hope I’ll see you around on the email list, and on social media, I hope you’ll tell me what you think, and what you’d like to see from Inhabited Kitchen!