A Study in Peach

Last week, I stopped at Fresh Fields market and picked up some glorious peaches and nectarines.  There were multiple varieties so I picked up a few from each pile. Last year I learned how to grill peaches, which renders them tender and delicious.  I didn’t feel like firing up the grill just for dessert, so I decided to do some indoor peach cooking.

Took a trip to the Asian market on Sunday. The very large one, where they have an aisle (or more) dedicated to all the major Asian culinary traditions. I took a trip down the Thai and Vietnamese aisles and picked up these goodies. The prices are so low- I got all these for less than $20! I've never tried the ready made panang curry paste and the mountain sauce is a taste experiment- have been trying to approximate the soy sauce from our favorite Vietnamese restaurant- Anh Hong. Finally bought some peanut oil to saute and the coconut milk is for the curry.  Last week I bought some Ma Po sauce (Chinese) and some Somen Tsuyu dipping sauce for noodles (Japanese.) The Ma Po was delicious served over mixed vegetables and Chinese egg noodles. I am so thankful to live in this neighborhood. The thing I have not been able to find at the store are bento boxes.  They have a few Power Ranger boxes that look like cast asides from what was possibly an amazing collection a few months back (or not.) I don't think the girls would appreciate those. I just found this site- Asian Food Grocer - I'll see if they have some good ones.  I've been fascinated by the whole bento culture for a while now. I think the girls would enjoy eating their lunches from tiny boxes. Maybe I can slip some more vegetables into their diets!

How to ruin perfectly good food.

This is a post from March 22, I hadn't posted it, but thought it was okay, so here's to more content!

I have been very sick the last three days with an awful cold virus.  Feeling better, but feel like I've experienced that proverbial lost weekend.  Still have a heinous gut rattling cough, but at least I have some energy again.  So I decided we needed to eat a good meal tonight.  Poor Mark has been hobbling together meals, ordering out, etc.  I set out to make a homemade tummy pleaser.

With no plan in mind, I decided to boil new potatoes.  Then I racked my brain for a new way to cook broccoli so that my picky children would eat it.  I decided some sort of whipped up, creamy broccoli would please them.  So I found a recipe for pureed broccoli on the internet and promptly ignored the instructions. Oh, I can do that, just cook it, puree it in the food processor and voila! Except, I guess the florets never completely disappear, or I just did something wrong, because it was still grainy.  Plus I was out of real butter and had to use margarine, which I'm sure took the flavor down a few notches.  Okay.  So I decide to make a mash potato mix with the broccoli.  That'll fool them!  Hey! Why don't I just throw the potatoes in the food processor too?  Easy cleanup, less work!  Except, why don't I ever remember that you should never, ever, ever, put potatoes in the processor!  They turn to glue pretty quickly. So as I'm scraping out the gluey mess, I decide, okay I will mix this all up and bake it and it will come out like a soufflé!  Yeah!  So I start putting a base of gluey potatoes, to which I have added basil, milk, and margarine into the bottom of glass baking pan. But as I'm looking at it, I think, this looks like potato pancake material (sort of) so- I know!  I'll mix the broccoli, potato, shredded cheese, some panko bread crumbs and I'll fry them up!  Except that does not even begin to work. They are too mushy and they just sit there in the pan, spreading out and getting crispy on one side that refuses to be lifted from the pan.  Oh!  I should have added an egg.  So I do that next.  This one turns out slightly better, but the inside is still a gooey mess.  Not very appetizing.  Then I decide to scrape it all together, add 2 more eggs, more cheese- put it back in the square baking pan and put it in the oven.

The kids did not eat it, nor did anyone else.