supermoon
the people's risotto and foods that crunch
Greetings from the road! By the time this arrives in your inbox, I’ll be on my way to the Okanagan (or at least, I’ll be standing by the door in my shoes urging Jeff to get a move on). Ostensibly the trip is to visit some of our favourite wineries and restock our wine rack, but it’s also just for the thrill of being somewhere else for a few days. We haven’t been anywhere together since 2019, and this is a trip we usually take each summer, so we’re both really looking forward to it.
Each time we go on a road trip I make a new mix for us to listen to in the car, a tradition that’s been in place so long that I still usually find myself adhering to the approximately 80 minutes of music you could get onto a CD-R. It’s a joy for me to put together transitions between wholly unrelated genres of music, and come to associate particular songs with the excitement of being on the road. If you want to give it a listen (in order!), the mix for this trip can be found on Spotify here.
Our friend from Chicago was here for one more weekend, and we went back to House of Funk for brunch. Sadly, this was the last weekend Crack On would be operating out of their kitchen for awhile, and I’ll miss their delicious sandwiches being only a short walk away. We sat at our table talking long enough that it became an acceptable hour to have a beer. Then there was a quick stop to get maple donuts at Cream Pony before walking up the hill to sit in the park, overlooking the harbour and enjoying the shade. Later, I was too engrossed in reading out in the yard to bother thinking about dinner, so we got Mr. Sushi for dinner, a much higher-quality restaurant than the name might imply. Their special rolls are fantastic; I love the cheetos roll (not what it sounds like, I promise) and the veggie dragon.
I’ve had a busy week of work and trying to prepare for the trip, so in the kitchen I’ve been falling back on things I can make while my attention is focused elsewhere. Arriving home tired and sticky after unloading a shipping container in the heat of the afternoon, I only wanted an ice-cold drink and something crunchy. I made a two-litre jar of iced tea using chamomile flowers and a hibiscus rose blend from Bulk Barn— it tasted like chamomile infused with Swedish Berries candy. I’m not sure if that sounds appealing to you or not, but it was so refreshing and we drank the whole jar in a couple of days.
For dinner that night, I turned the last of a jar of homemade mayo into Caesar dressing for salad, and since making croutons was too much effort, I just made garlic bread. While the bread was warming up, I seared some oyster mushrooms in a cast iron, weighing them down with another smaller cast iron on top to make sure they got as browned as possible. This made for a surprisingly filling dinner that satisfied my main requirement of ‘crunchy’, even if it did also deliver on the ‘inescapable garlic breath’ front.
It’s only mid-July, which is early enough in summer to be excited about zucchini instead of sick of perceiving it in all its forms. And the zucchinis are still the small, tasty kind, not the ‘oh shit where did that come from and how did it get so big’ kind. (Not that my garden’s plants are producing anything yet, but anyone who regularly visits the farmers’ market knows what the zucchinis are looking like in late August.) Anyway, I made my version of this orzo— the people’s risotto— which is basically a pasta al limone, with shredded kale and zucchini.
The food processor takes the work out of shredding the zucchini and the rest comes together in one pan in not very long at all— unlike a risotto which, while still easy to make, has you stirring the pot for what feels like a dog’s age. The herbs suggested in the recipe are good, and since I have so much of everything right now I also added dill, basil, and oregano. It’s so tasty, and satisfying enough on its own, but would also be good backdrop for grilled tofu or fish sometime when I have more energy to make such a thing.
There was some of this peanut sauce left after making the noodle salad last week, and I put it to use in a tofu and rice bowl. Erin Alderson’s method of making crispy tofu has really changed things for me on the tofu front; I use it almost every time. For bowls like this I prefer the craggy texture of torn pieces.
Before making the tofu, I used the wok to steam-fry some romanesco broccoli and wilt a few kale leaves, and then kept those warm on a plate under the pan lid while frying the tofu. I make a similar dish fairly often using a curried peanut sauce, also an Isa recipe, but the vinegary spiciness of this one makes the bowl feel a bit more summery. I recommend making a big jar of this sauce and keep it in the fridge for salads and stir-fries— if you like peanut sauce as much as I do, it’ll be gone long before it has a chance to go bad.
Also this week I made linguine puttanesca for dinner after a tattoo session in the afternoon. It’s one of my go-to meals when I have too many tomatoes and too little brainpower. I blanch the tomatoes for 30-60 seconds in the pasta water, then chop them after peeling the skins off (it isn’t strictly necessary to peel them, but I prefer the sauce texture this way). It only takes about 15 minutes for them to cook down in the pan with the capers and olives, which is great news for anyone who happened to be falling asleep in a patio chair in an adrenaline crash, waking up ravenous.
Media:
This by Alicia Kennedy for Gawker was an interesting read: about what it means to be a recipe developer, how attitudes towards home cooking wax and wane, and the necessity (and scrutiny) of a social media presence. It can be difficult to find a balance between having your job be taken seriously as work while having that work feel comfortable and accessible for the people who access it:
Although there’s the trope of folks who go to food blogs through search engines not wanting bloggers’ “life story” before each recipe, that is indeed what people seem to want on social media, which can make for an additional burden.
Put another way, having a “personable” social media approach to maintain (or create!) one’s success can make it feel as though they are what is being advertised, rather than their work. This in turn can make people feel entitled to the attentions of the creator who, ultimately, doesn’t owe them more than what they chose to share in the first place.
Thanks for reading— if you enjoyed this newsletter, please smash that like button below, or share it with someone new! I like providing this to you for free, but it does still involve time and effort, so donations I can use towards cookbooks or future treats are much appreciated. And finally, don’t forget to get yourself a little treat this weekend so you don’t end up in this situation.