My housemates are putting themselves through several weekends of permaculture classwork.  This week, it’s our turn to bring treats.  I volunteered whip this up for the group after one housemate picked out a recipe that spoke to her.  I’m not sure where the motivation for the following salad recipe came from, but nevertheless, the outline ended up in my hands.  Let’s see where we took it…

epicurious?

Special Ingredients / Shopping – All of the ingredients were items that we either had on hand, or could be found really easily at our local market.  How about that!  So no special order or big ticket items tonight.

Menu (recipe) –  Smoked Turkey Salad with Hazelnuts and Bing Cherries –

Results –  I’m not sure if I have to blame the sixth cup of coffee, or if the recipe author can take some credit, but nothing I was reading made any sense to me.  So, like ya do, I just kind of chucked the recipe(s), and put together an approximation of what the recipe seemed to be hinting at.  I mean, c’mon, it’s just lunch.  We’re not curing cancer here.

My only curveball came when one of my housemates returned from eight hours(!) of permaculture class to suggest that I make a least half of the lunch into vegetarian fare.  Not a big stretch considering we were going for salad (a pretty vegetable heavy dish) to start with.  Luckily we had more than a half dozen eggs in the Kenmore, so I whipped together a gingery egg salad option.  I hope we’re talking ovo-lacto vegetarians…

Success – I think we did alright by the recipe, and the end product had spirit.  Here’s what we’ll serve the

August 2^nd San Francisco Permaculture Hullabaloo

-Smoked Turkey and Tomato Pesto Salad or Ginger-Fennel Egg Salad  with Mesclun Greens, Plum Vinaigrette, Toasted Nuts, and Bing Cherries-  Good Fresh Bread at Your Leisure –

Thanks for reading, kill your recipes –

-Scotty

Motivation – ‘what the hell am I going to do with that stuff’

wtf, yo

We pulled off this meal in the style that I like to think of as a little daunting, but ultimately one of the most satisfying feats.  Here’s the stuff we had from last night’s sort of pan Asian bonanza:  stir-fried shitakes with shallot and garlic, napa cabbage with onion and chive, orange-glazed pork.  Great.  Kind of as a rule, cooked vegetables and cooked meats don’t really like to be cooked again.  So, I’m poking around in the pantry and here’s what I find:

– Russet potatoes, English style bangers, plums, chicken stock.  And now I can see where we are going.  We also happen to keep a pretty wide array of spices on deck, which really saves my ass in moments like this.  I pull down some caraway, juniper, mustard seeds, Italian herbs, cloves, coriander, poppy seeds, a little bacon (not technically a spice) and some whole grain mustard.

I worked for the summer season at the Fawn Brook Inn in Allenspark Colorado.  This was a shaping experience, for sure.  I lived on-site with the owners, and slept in what used to be their son’s room.  There were some awkward moments, let’s just say.  Anyhow, the chef was German born and his wife grew up in Holland.  The menu was firmly planted in Continental European flavors and traditions.

One of the menu items was (and still is, as their current menu reads) -

Alsatian Vineyard Dinner
a combination of Old World sausages, smoked pork chop and cured bacon. Served with sauerkraut and potatoes.

Bingo!  In chef Hermann’s dish, the cabbage and cured meats cooked in one dish all together.  I could do that.  We had some onion and celery kicking around, so they got chopped up and thrown on the fire as well.

Menu –

A San Franciscan Summer Dinner, Borrowed from Alsace
a combination of Old World sausage, sauteed pork and cured bacon, served with braised onion, cabbage, and mushrooms – alongside lovingly whipped potatoes and a plum mustarda.

From Fawn Brook with Love

Results -  Yes! have some

Success –  Didn’t have to bust into my emergency starch kit -

kill your recipes – see you next time

-Scotty