With Paul away it’s been a bleak week in the kitchen, although he did leave me a freshly made loaf of ancient grain brown bread. Mostly, I ate leftovers along with hard boiled eggs and tuna salad and enjoyed a nice taco salad on Taco Thursday at the Big Stone VFW. Also of note was a very successful Lake Ladies Happy Hour on the porch. Lots of appetizers along with numerous bottles of wine did the trick and Paul would be proud of my hosting abilities in his absence.
Sunday, I attended the Brookings Art Festival with a friend and her sister. Although we visited hundreds of vendor booths, I came home with only two house/yard decorations. Among the many culinary delights on offer, I showed real restraint by ordering a veggie noodle stir fry. The real treat though was quickly finishing off a large baggie of kettle corn my friend sent home with me. I decided to call it dinner! On the way home, we checked out my friend’s sister’s large thriving garden in Twin Brooks and I gratefully accepted a large head of broccoli that I will use for next week’s cooking adventures.
If you recall, I asked four different people to grow eggplants for me this summer. While watering my neighbor’s garden this weekend I was surprised to see my first several eggplants ready for harvest. I posted a picture of them on Facebook and was quickly informed by another gardener friend that there were several more ready for pickup at her house. I also noted numerous healthy flowering eggplants at the Twin Brooks garden and we visit the final gardener volunteer in a couple weeks when she may have some ready for harvest as well. This could get interesting if it’s a good year for eggplant so I better quickly find some ways to preserve it. I have some freshly harvested dill in a white enamel coffee pot on the dining table and the fragrance is wafting around me as I write. This reminds me I must also find a way to preserve dill flowers so they are available for pickling later this summer. I hear you can freeze them but who has freezer room for that?
Next week, I get to make carrot cake and celebrate both our birthdays as well as my mom’s; she arrives for her annual visit with Paul Wednesday night. I doubt she will do any cooking but will thoroughly enjoy the homemade meals while here at the lake. I wonder what new cooking ideas Paul has conjured up while away?