Field Peas A' La Provencal

Tonight I got back on track and cooked the next recipe in my cook book. I cooked Field Peas A' La Provencal, which I will tell you was simply yummy. I am a good southern boy and love almost any vegetables, but field peas are not one of the vegetables that I normally have cravings for. After tonight I think that might change.

This is an easy recipe where you cook your fresh field peas and then set them aside. You then cook a sauce of tomatoes and garlic and add in the peas and Chard. Once cooked you top this off with a nice cheese.

With this recipe I did a few substitutions that ended up being just fine. I was out of honey so I just added sugar and I could not find any chard so I decided to settle on cabbage. The end result was really good. When I find some chard I will try this recipe again.

The next time I go home to visit my parents I will make this recipe for my parents. I think my Mother will really love this one. My Mother purchased a bushel of field peas and butter beans for me for my birthday, so my supply of beans is currently plentiful. I am sure to have this recipe many more times to come.

Now to decide what to cook next. I will take the cook book with me to bed and read over it and make my choice.

k

Behind schedule

Well I really just started my cooking challenge and I am already behind schedule, imagine that. The flu got in my way and slowed my cooking and most everything else down to a crawl. I felt like I had been hit by a bus this past Monday. Seven days latter I am just starting to get back on my feet. It has been a long time since I have been this sick from a flu.

The doctor informed me I was in "that age group" where I really need to start getting flu shots and making sure I get my annual check ups and such. "That age group?" What is he talking about? I am still just a baby in my eyes.

anyway back to the cooking challenge for me. I will start up again this weekend. The cucumber soup really turned out well. I served it for dinner to a small group of friends and they all seemed to enjoy it. This recipe will be a keeper for sure. I have my next recipe picked out and I am ready to try it out this weekend.

Making Soup

I just finishing making Cool Dill and Curry-Spiked Cucumber Soup. This was a fast and easy recipe. It really took no time to through this together. The hardest part of the recipe was peeling and grating the cucumber and that is not hard at all.

If this turns out well, I really see myself eating this a lot. I love cucumber soup and I eat a bowl of it every time I go out to eat at G & M(Fast and French) on Broad Street. I hope this recipe holds up to that one.

The soup is currently is the refrigerator waiting for me to try it. I can not wait.

Butter Bean and Tomato Salad

I love the Butter Bean and Tomato Salad recipe. This recipe is a keeper and one that I will make many times in the future. It is full of strong flavors and smells. I can still smell the onion in my kitchen and I love the smell of freshly chopped basil. I think basil is my favorite smell right now.

I had the salad for dinner last night and I liked it well enough to make another salad to server with pita chips at this month's book club meeting tonight. Everyone really seemed to enjoy it and I just got an email from someone saying that it was a keeper. Yea for me, I got a gold star on the first try.

I was right about cutting back on the salt in this recipe. I cut it in half and thought it tasted just fine. Three tablespoons of salt is a lot of salt if you ask me.

One recipe down and many more to go. I picked out my recipe for next time and I decided to make curry cucumber soup. I should be good with the farmers market on this one. I know I can get cucumbers without any problems.

One thing I am figuring out fast is that you need certain staples in your kitchen to really be a good cook. I think by the time this project of mine is over I will have figured most everything out of what I should be stocking at all times. Let's hope any way.


Keller
9/15/09

In the Kitchen

A couple of lessons I need to learn when it comes to cooking is to slow down and pay attention to what I are doing. Right off the bat I started off on the wrong foot. I did not pay attention to the recipe and chopped way to much onions. Then I found myself rushing through the recipe which caused me to begin to stress out. I stepped away from the kitchen for a a few minutes, took a few deep breathes turned on some music and started over again. That was all it took for me to get it together.

The first recipe I decided to cook was Butter Bean and Tomato Salad. The recipe actually calls for the salad to be a topping for bruschetta but I decided I wanted just the salad. My only concern for the salad is the amount of salt it called for. I cut the salt in half feeling it was way to much. I hope I made the right decision. Time will tell.

The Salad has to marinate for four hours before eating. I am going out tonight to eat with friends so I will bring this salad with me to eat for lunch tomorrow. It smells fantastic. The smells from the onion, garlic, basil, parsley, and lemon have filled my kitchen. I can not wait to try it.

keller
9/13/09

My first set back

Today is Thursday which means Farmer's Market day for me. I was excited about today and my shopping opportunity for my cook book challenge. I picked out the recipe I plan on cooking this weekend and made a small list of all the things I would need to purchase to cook the recipe.

All the ingredients I need are in season and the cookbook is a southern cookbook with recipes from South Carolina so I figured I would be set. I grabbed my canvas shopping bag from the trunk of my car and headed over to the tents of the Park Circle Farmer's Market. To my disappointment I found nothing I needed on my list. I left completely empty handed.

This is just a small set back. I will head over to the grocery store this weekend and get what I need. When not shopping from a list of needed items for a certain recipes farmer's markets are not the best thing, I still love my farmer's market thought.

Keller
9/10/09

The Challenge

I will be the first to admit that I am a little odd. If something comes easy then it really bores me. I love a challenge. I like to be pushed and I like to push myself to achieve my goals in life. And I do normally achieve these goals with out any problems.

I have always been this way. It is a way of reinventing myself. Often, I put myself in a situation where I am forced to learn new things and ideas. This blog is my new challenge.

Let me explain. I just recently watched the movie Julie & Julia. It was a very good movie. I really enjoyed it a lot. If you are not familiar with the movie then I will give you an idea of what it is all about. Julie Powell loves Julia Child, so much so that she decides to take her cook book and cook all 500 plus recipes in the book and blog about it. That is the movie in a nut shell, doesn't sound like it would be a good movie but trust me it was.

Here is where the challenges comes in. I have decided I want to learn to be a better cook. I can cook, but just not on any great level. So I decided to follow in the footsteps of Julie Powell and take a cook book and cook each recipe in the book. I have really lowered the bar and chosen a shorter and easier cook book than Julia Child's book. It would take me forever to make my way through 500 plus recipes, and there is no way I could do it in a year.

The book I have chosen to cook my way through is "Southern Farmers Market Cookbook" by Holly Herrick. The book was just given to me by my friend Janice. She knows I shop at farmers markets and have joined a farm share so she thought it would be a great gift. And it was.

As for the rules and details, well I am going to try to finish the book in a years time but the world will not come to an end if I extend it a little. At 160 pages, I really don't see why I can not finish this book before the year is out. The book is sectioned out by the seasons, so I am going to start with the Fall recipes and start cooking. I am also going to do most of my cooking on the weekends so I will have plenty of time to get it done and hopefully blog about it on the way.

So wish me luck. Hopefully there is plenty of good eating coming my way.

Keller
9/9/09

Earth Day

Over the past several years I have been doing what I can to cut back on my waste and to help the environment. Each year I try to cut back more and more. Last week as I reached up for a roll of paper towels it hit me. I thought about the amount of waste I use each year with paper towels. Why waste the paper? And more important why waste the money in buying paper towels. It is all foolish, if you ask me. My Mother has supplied me with enough dish rags and towels to last a life time. So no more paper towels for me. And before you say it, I will not be washing any additional loads of laundry to wash the dish towels. I will just throw in the dish towels in with my regular laundry and use no additional water. It all seems very simple and everyone should try to do it. And in addition, I have started using cloth napkins as well. It looks like my Mom has set me up with lots of cloth napkins as well. Go Green!

Plumbing

So over the holiday weekend my plumbing started acting up. I tried fixing it myself with out any luck what so ever. So this morning I called a plumber. I was expecting the normal crap you have to deal with here in Charleston. With plumbers, contractors and such, you normally have a really hard time getting someone to show up. I can not tell you how many times I have had someone make an appointment with me and then they don’t show up.

This morning the first company I called told me they could have someone out to my house in eight minutes. I was floored. This has never happened. I guessing it is because of the economic bad times. They must not have any work so they jumped at the chance to fix my plumbing.

Now he is working away to fix my problem. Let’s just hope this gets done fast. They charge $100.00 an hour. I need to go back to school to become a plumber.

Rosebank Farms

I have joined a CSA, which is a community supported agriculture program or in this case a vegetable and herb share. Each week I receive a delivery of locally grown herbs and vegetables straight off the farm. I am really exited about this program. It is a great way for me to get fresh vegetables. It is much cheaper than buying from a grocery store. And I am able to support my local farm community. What a great program.

The CSA that I joined is Rosebank Farms, which is a traditional southern farm located just outside of Charleston on John’s Island. Along with the vegetable and herb share, they also offer a cheese and flower share. I did not purchase the cheese and flower share but I am able to add items from their store to be added to my box each week if I wish.

This first week’s delivery consisted of mesclun, arugula, turnips, onions, spinach, and strawberries and as a bonus a couple of eggs and a sample of goat cheese. Along with the vegetables each week I will receive recipes to give me ideas of what to cook.

I am really excited about this. I have been talking about this for weeks now and it is finally here. I am running around like a kid in a candy shop.

The Next Chapter

Looking back over my blog over the past year has really allowed me to see how much I have grown with my glass work. I am amazed at how far I have come with this artistic journey in my life. From the classes I have taken or just trial and error (and there have been many errors), I have really learned a lot.

For me it is never easy to settle on one thing for very long. I am very hyper and my mind wanders and jumps from thing to thing. Maybe it is because I am getting older or maybe it is just because I found something that suits me, but I really like working with glass and I see myself doing this for a very long time to come. I am glad I have stuck with it. I really am starting more and more to feel like an artist each and every day.

One thing that really fascinates me about this past year is the changes I have seen in my thought patterns. I have started thinking differently. I literally walk around and see patterns that I want to reproduce in glass. Often there are times where an idea haunts me till I jot it down on paper or reproduce it in glass. All of this is very exciting and some time irritating because I am not able to cut it off.

Tomorrow night I start a new class at Blue Heron and I will be making some type of glass sculpture. Already I have all kinds of ideas in my head about what I want to make. I am very excited to see where this new chapter will take me.

The Vet

Today I had to take my dog Gypsy to the vet for her annual check up. I arrived early so that I could beat the crowds and sign in first. There is nothing worse then sitting in a waiting room full of people and their pets, while my dog barks and causes trouble at every move and sound that is made.

Shortly after I settled into the waiting room three more people arrived with their pets. The first was a lady with a very cute and hyper long haired dachshund. She was a very nice lady who kept asking me all kinds of questions about Gypsy, also being a dachshund, while her little dog kept running all over the waiting room trying to get Gypsy’s attention. The entire time I kept Gypsy in my hands to prevent her from attacking the dog. Gypsy did not find that little dog cute at all. She kept looking up at me and telling me that she really wanted to get down so she could beat that dog up and show him who really was the cutest one here.

The second person to arrive was a very quiet young lady with a dog that was just a big white ball of hair. She sat quietly in the far corner of the room holding her dog in her lap. Her dog must have been suffering from some type of allergy, because it just constantly made this snorting and sniffling sound that I could hear all the way over on my side of the room.

The third person to arrive was an elderly lady with great big bushy red and gray hair sticking out all over her head. Her hair was held back from her face by these large plastic 1960’s looking framed glasses. When she entered she made a big entrance that got everyone’s attention. In one hand she held a cane and the other a small pet carrier that held a sick cat. With out a free hand she had some trouble getting in the door and banged herself, the cat, and the cane around in making her entrance.

After talking with the ladies at the counter for some time, the red haired lady sat down just across from me and placed her cat, still in its carrier, to her side. She never really spoke to me but looked up often and smiled.

As I sat in my chair struggling to keep Gypsy under control and trying to prevent her from attacking the hyper little dachshund, the red haired lady began to laugh at me. There I sat saying over and over, “Gypsy behave, and be a good girl!” The red haired lady continued to laugh and at one point called out, “Gypsy get him, get him Gypsy.” I looked up and smiled but secretly was thinking that this was great, all I needed was some one to encourage Gypsy’s bad behavior.

A short time later the doctor came out and spoke to the red haired lady. I over heard him tell her that there was nothing more he could do for her cat and that it was his time to go. It would seem that over the last week she had made several trips to the vet to try to get her cat healthy, but he was old and very sick. The red haired lady looked up at the doctor and shook her head and said, “Yes it is his time.” The Doctor asked if she would like to come back to the room with her cat. She declined and said she could not handle that. She handed over her cat to the doctor and watched him leave the room. She sat very quite and poised for a few seconds and then broke down in tears as she buried her face into her hands.

All went quiet and still in that waiting room. You could hear every heart, pet and human, break at that very moment. After a few seconds the red haired lady stood up and straightened her dress. She removed her glasses from the top of her head and her hair went flying all over the place. Glancing over at me one last time, she smiled and then left the room.

I looked over at the two other people in the waiting room and saw them sobbing from this sad moment. I hugged Gypsy tight and kissed her on her head as I glanced out the window and saw the red haired lady drive off. At that very moment the veterinarian assistant called my name to come back. As I walked over, I wiped the tears from my face and said to the veterinarian assistant, “You have perfect timing.”