Altogether, yesterday was quite a day

[rebeccmeister]

After yesterday morning's headache, I took an afternoon nap, one of those naps where I completely passed out and nearly forgot who I was when I woke up. I figure my body needed it because I really didn't get much sleep the night before. Then I puttered around the house a bit before deciding to attend to a minor foot problem. About a week and a half ago, while removing some agave plants that were overhanging the front sidewalk, I'd stabbed myself in my right big toe with an agave spine. Normally, those suckers hurt for a few hours or a day, then the pain goes away. This one lingered, and the wound site still wasn't looking too pretty, so I performed some minor surgery on myself and extracted a good quarter-inch of spine. I figure it will heal better now, although I have to admit it was kind of cool to see my body's progress in rejecting the spine and spitting it out. It wasn't infected or anything.

Then I actually made it to ceramics. I have about six different small piles of different clay types right now, all in various stages of drying out. So of course I went over to Wet Paint and picked up a new bag of clay. One of the shop owners mentioned that all of the clays were dried out this time around. The softest clay they had of a variety I like was a bag of Rod's Bod, so that's what I got.

I need to throw a lot of big bowls right now, mostly for wedding gifts. They aren't my favorite thing in the world to make, especially with less-than-ideally-soft clay. I gave it a shot anyway, but after three and a half bowls, I was exhausted. I should say, three and a half lopsided bowls. I gave up on the last half-bowl because I didn't feel like messing with it. Centering hard clay is an exercise in futility. Lopsided or not, the bowls could still be quite nice, if they make it all the way through the process. Then I came home and went to sleep.

At around midnight, I woke up to the sound of something fragile breaking, so I got up to investigate. One of R's recent batches of homebrew must be very carbonated, because one of the bottles had exploded, and beer was oozing across the floor. I picked up a few shards of glass, and then went back to bed. A few hours later, I got up, canceled the morning rowing plans, and cleaned up the spilt beer and broken glass.

I hope that today isn't nearly as eventful as yesterday. But I have a question for you: right now, I've got some lovely squashes, mushrooms, roasting-size potatoes, tomatoes, and onions. Oh, and at least one small eggplant in the garden. Suggestions on what to do with them? I made ratatouille last week, which was good, but didn't put a dent in the potato stash. A bonus if the idea is a dish that's eventually served cold. Hmm, maybe I should employ the grill.

Comments

[sandokai.livejournal.com]

On the veggies, grilling could be good. Sometimes I'll roast such things in the oven-- maybe cut the squashes and potatoes into chunks and slice the mushrooms in half. Add the tomatoes for the last 5 minutes.

Oh, when I do this, I swoosh them around in the baking pan with olive oil and spices.

You maybe could make a glaze by boiling down balsamic vinegar.

[scrottie.livejournal.com]

I wound up roasting some squash and tomatoes on the grill then throwing those in the food processor with some canned pumpkin goo and making a bisque-ish soup out of that, cream, butter, salt, pepper, and some moldy mascarpone and serving it with stuffed tomatoes. We agreed the soup needed garlic. The tomatoes came out better than the soup but now I'm thinking they could have used one single serrano in addition to the moldy mascarpone, grilled corn, cilantro, lime, salt and vinegar. But it wasn't bad. It's hard to screw up a dish that has moldy mascarpone in it. I didn't see the potatoes or those probably would have gone in the soup too.

[elmocho.livejournal.com]

I have a recipe for something like a curried eggplant pasta sauce for rigatoni. It has diced zucchini and eggplant, along with onions, garlic, about a can of diced tomatoes, heavy cream and curry powder. You could substitute your ripe tomatoes for canned; don't know if any of the squash will translate to zucchini.

The recipe is vegetarian but not vegan, due to the the cream.

[rebeccmeister.livejournal.com]

Oh YUM that sounds like a delicious idea! I definitely have some curried vegetable recipes that I could hunt through for ideas, and I like the idea of applying it to rigatoni. And mmmmm, delicious cream...

[elmocho.livejournal.com]

I'll get it. I think it's from southern Italy, so they got the curry on a spice route or something like that. IIRC, it seems fussy about the veggies because you have to salt and drain the eggplant, then fry it, remove it, fry and remove the zucchini, then cook the rest of the ingredients, and add the fried veggies back before tossing it with rigatoni.

[elmocho.livejournal.com]

Rigatoni with Eggplant in a creamy curry sauce

1 (1-pound) eggplant, diced.
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
3/4 pound zucchini, diced
1 medium onion, diced
2 cups tomato puree (not paste, and I substitute a 14 oz. can of diced or crushed at will)
Freshly ground black pepper
1 1/2 cups heavy cream or half-and-half
1 pound rigatoni
1 cup fresh finely chopped basil
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese.

1. Salt and drain the eggplant in a colander for 1 hour. Dry with kitchen towels. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the eggplant, saute until tender. Drain on paper towels and set aside.

2. Saute the zucchini in the remaining oil until softened, drain on paper towels and set aside. (I usually just stick it with the eggplant.)

3. Saute the onion in the same skillet until transparent, 6-8 minutes. Add tomatoes, some salt and pepper. Cover and cook 8 minutes over medium. Remove from heat and stir in cream and curry powder.

4. Boil the rigatoni in salted water until al dente. Drain and add to skillet. Add eggplant, zucchini and basil. Mix well over high heat for several minutes. Serve with the parmesan on the side.

Recipe comes from Joe Famularo's A Cook's Tour of Italy Seems to be Sicilian in origin.

[bluepapercup]

German potato salad is wonderful. It involves cold potatoes, spices, and an oil and vinegar dressing. I bet you could put tomatoes in it and it would be awesome.

You could make tabouleh with the tomatoes if you have some parsley around! :)