For Friday night:
challah
baby artichoke and spinach risotto
cold gingered asparagus (Mollie Katzen Still Life with Menu)
baked tofu with wine
canned pineapple and store-bought baklavah
Saturday lunch:
invited out, brought a challah
Seudah Shlishit (Saturday supper)
deconstructed guacamole (avocado with tomato, sliced on a plate)
cold cereal with raisins and rice milk
leftovers
I barely cooked at all this week because I am determined to get my horrendously messy apartment into some kind of order. My husband is doing a lot of the work with me, plus we have some friends who are joining us in moving around all of our furniture. As you know if you have been reading this blog, my beloved grandmother died in February at the age of 95. She left me a lot of things, including furniture. Our apartment was already crammed with stuff. Books overflow every shelf, and we have some kind of problem with filing our papers. Also there is the whole toddler element, a young enthusiastic household member who likes to put things away but not necessarily where his parents think they go.
With help, we seem to be beating back the chaos. But that left me unenthusiastic about my ordinary routine of leisurely Friday cooking. My son really wanted to help me prepare baby artichokes again. As his vocabulary increases and his articulation improves, I find that "baby artichokes" is a phrase he can say very well! He likes snapping off the leaves. Using the basic formula in Sundays At Moosewood, I made a risotto. Somehow the fresh artichokes did not mess with the wine. My husband, who isn't that into artichokes, ate the risotto but now doesn't want to deal with the leftovers.
The asparagus recipe is really great, but I knew that because I've made it before. If you haven't, do. It has everything: it's sweet and sour, with garlic and ginger flavors and sesame oil and soy sauce. The ginger is like home-pickled ginger. I'm very psyched that Mollie Katzen put it on her website, that was so generous!
On Saturday we were invited to friends. They set up a room where my son could nap. I nursed him to sleep and then we sat down to our meal. My friend made a lot of recipes from Crescent Dragonwagon's book The Passionate Vegetarian. I really like Crescent Dragonwagon's authorial personna, but I had tried some of her recipes that were posted on Epicurious for Thanksgiving, and was not enthusiastic about either the process or the products. My friend's Dragonwagon picks were really good! My friend made the Moroccan carrot dip, an ersatz chicken salad made with tempeh that had poppy seed dressing, pineapple and grapes, a nice salad with cucumber and tomato, and plain steamed asparagus. I brought a challah I made on Friday and everyone tore into it and ate it in the first five minutes of the meal.
As usual, even though I have cookbooks coming out of my ears, my hosts had new cookbooks that I coveted. I was especially excited to see the new Gil Marks book of Jewish vegetarian recipes from around the world. I can't tell you much about it though.
Okay, tell me if you think this is funny: my husband teases me whenever one of us drinks Constant Comment tea by making constant comments about it. No, huh? It really cracks me up. Am I a cheap date?
I am excited to try the asparagus recipe next Shabbat, but this Shabbat I will be in Israel! A friend is getting married on Lag Ba'omer, and since Paris is only a 4-hour flight from Israel, I am going for the weekend.
Posted by: Lisa | May 25, 2005 at 02:20 AM
Wow, neat! I will check your blog to read about it. (Is the asparagus in Paris better than the stuff in the US?)
Posted by: balabusta | May 25, 2005 at 01:57 PM
Of course the asparagus here is better. But I don't understand all the fuss about white asparagus. I don't really like it.
Posted by: Lisa | May 25, 2005 at 05:49 PM