Made clafoutis again because it’s cherry season so why not, and also Ben had never had it before, which was tragic. I tried mixing two kinds of cherries — worked great!
It’s Cherry Season
Turned Into an Omelette
Leftover grilled salmon and asparagus from yesterday, turned into an omelette for me and Ben today, which we consumed while plotting out our session on plot. Well, character and setting and plot, but that’s not as funny. 
Sauté minced shallots in butter until golden, add leftover chopped grilled asparagus and chopped grilled salmon, mix eggs with salt and pepper in a bowl, pour into asparagus / salmon mix. Cook ’til set, garnish with reserved asparagus tips, chopped fresh chive, feta cheese; serve with fresh cherry tomatoes.
A Little More Cooking This Week
Doing a little more cooking this week, I expect, since I have Ben visiting. Grilled salmon with ramp butter from the farmer’s market is the star of the lunchtime show, accompanied by grilled asparagus, and some Costco orzo salad.
15 minutes, start to finish. Well, add 5-10 for preheating the grill, I guess.
Father’s Day Cherry Clafoutis
While we were watching the D&D movie with Anand, I baked Kevin a cherry clafoutis, which was about as much as we were going to do for Father’s Day — we don’t really celebrate it or Mother’s Day much here. But he does love cherries, and they’ve just come into season, and clafoutis is super-easy if you have a cherry pitter. (Thanks, Ann Whyte for ours! We love it.)
Take a few minutes to pit the cherries, mix the batter together in a blender, bake 20 minutes, sprinkle with sugar, bake 20 minutes more. Let cool as long as you need to — I like it pretty hot still, personally. But it’s also good lukewarm or cold.
Pretty Presents
I still get a lot of pleasure out of wrapping up pretty presents of cookbooks and homemade curry powder for folks, especially when they’ve asked me to inscribe a sweet note along with it.
Rhubarb From the Garden, Strawberries From the Market
Rhubarb from the garden + strawberries from the farmer’s market + butter and sugar and spices = spiced strawberry rhubarb topping, lovely with a vanilla ice cream, or pancakes, or cheesecake…
Rescue Cooking Turned Out Well
Rescue cooking last night turned out well. We’d gotten some Thai basil chicken last week that wasn’t great — lots of meat, not enough sauce, not enough other stuff. So last night, I took some of the green onions from the farmer’s market, added in a cube of frozen ginger-garlic, sautéed them with bell pepper and a chopped green chili and about a cup of chopped basil (also from farmer’s market), added the leftover chicken and a cup of freshly-mixed sauce (chicken broth + soy sauce + oyster sauce + fish sauce + white sugar + brown sugar), simmered it all for a few minutes, and served it over hot rice.
SO TASTY.
The only thing that would’ve made it better is if I’d had Thai basil instead, ah well.
Tomato-Mozzarella-Basil Salad
Tomato-mozzarella-basil salad, composed of ingredients from the farmer’s market. Also some cute little mini-baguettes; we get these frozen from Trader Joe’s, and it’s very satisfying to pop a couple in the toaster oven for 3-5 minutes.
Busy Morning Today
I had an iGov meeting from 8:30 – 9:30, and then I lured Anand into accompanying me to the farmer’s market with the promise of fresh donuts. He didn’t realize that it also involved being a beast of burden until AFTER we had gotten there…
Saw multiple people I knew, including the OPALGA+ folks staffing the donut booth, some old friends, a parent from OPRF who knew me from board meetings, etc. Anand was a little bewildered, “Do all these people actually know you? Do you know them?” Well, they know my face, anyway — that’s part of what happens when you run for office. Suddenly, you get a lot more visible, and people have opinions about you…
Lots of fun stuff at the market, per usual. Along with the staples, I got a ghost cucumber (supposed to be thin-skinned, basically like a regular cucumber, but cool-looking), and some sprigarello (a leafy Italian broccoli, apparently). Not sure what to do with the latter, suggestions welcome! We got a 3-year-old cheddar and a 6-year-old cheddar because Anand asked what the difference was, so we’ll do a taste test later and see which he likes better.
I’m mostly excited to make myself a tomato-mozzarella-basil salad for dinner, with olive oil and balsamic. I’d do it sooner, but the next few hours will also be hectic — I have a Clarion training from 12 – 1:30, and then we immediately drive Kavi to the airport for her flight to Argentina, and then we come back and drive Anand to a birthday party at 4.
But there will be chill time after that. And I got half a peach pie, so that’ll likely be part of dinner as well…
What Ended Up in Earth Treat Boxes
I have been more scattered than usual lately, and as a result, completely forgot to label my spring Patreon treats before sending them out. But this was what ended up in the Earth treat boxes:
- one iced vanilla sugar cookie
- two lime & white chocolate shortbread cookies
- one strawberry marshmallow
- two pieces of Sri Lankan cashew milk toffee
- one mini chocolate fudge bundt cake with chocolate ganache
- one piece of Sri Lankan love cake
- one chocolate-tamarind scone
- one little bottle of redbud syrup (nice on pancakes or in cocktails / mocktails; store in fridge for up to 6 months)
- one mehndi tea light (not made by me, but so cute)
- one bar of handmade soap
- one lavender heart sachet
- one resin pendant / necklace
Whew! There’ll be some more items in the higher tier boxes that I’ll send out next week, but at least for now, I’m suspending the higher tiers, as they were getting a little complex for me to manage and cutting into writing time. So just Earth tiers right now — $10 / month gets you a treat box 3 times / year. The next box will ship around September / October.
(And in theory, you can request just food items if you’d prefer and I’ll put in more of those, but I completely forgot to do that with Dawn‘s this time, sorry, Dawn! I was losing my mind a little bit the last few weeks…)
