Fridge-clearing vegetable patties

Fridge-clearing recipes are some of my favorites. You take what you've got -- whatever that may be -- and it comes together to make something edible. No buying something special, no defrosting something frozen, no worrying about it being beautiful.

A few weeks back I made these vegetable patties using all sort of odds and ends in my fridge and freezer, and put them over some rice to make a meal. The list below is what I used (roughly), but the beauty of this is that I think it could work with just about anything. I'm thinking squash, zucchini, onions, shallots, chopped spinach, shitake mushrooms...the list goes on and on.

Vegetable patties

You will need:

1/2 cup frozen peas
1/2 cup frozen corn

3 large cloves of garlic, minced

1 potato, peeled

1 yam or sweet potato, peeled

A handful of button mushrooms

1 large carrot, peeled

1 egg

1 tablespoon flour

2 teaspoons curry powder

A pinch of cayenne

Bunch of chopped parsley or cilantro

Put the peas and corn in a large bowl, and set out. Using a box grater, coarsely grate the potato, yam, mushrooms, and carrot. Squeeze as much of the water out as possible from the grated vegatables. I just grabbed handfuls and squeezed them over the sink. Add vegetables to the bowl, and add minced garlic. Stir in the curry powder, cayenne, and parsley. Add the egg and flour, and mix with your hands, like you're making meatloaf. It will be loose. Add more flour and another egg if you'd like to to come together a bit better.

Heat a large heavy skillet over medium high and add in a splash of olive oil. Form the vegetable mixture into 1 1/2 inch circles and place in the pan. Flatten down with a spatula. Cook for 5-6 minutes on each side, until golden brown. I made a curry-lime sour cream to go on top, below.

Curry-Lime Sour Cream

You will need:

1/2 cup sour cream

1 teaspoons curry powder

Juice from 1/2 a lime

Salt and pepper

Combine all ingredients in a small bowl and blend with a fork until combined.

Road kill is certainly under the $10 mark

NPR is asking for readers to submit meals that will feed four that come in under $10. There are over 300 recipes submitted so far!

Many of the recipes contain rice and beans -- the cheap pantry staples -- but some are so creative and fun! Sweet potato kale quesadillas, brined pork with strawberry chutney, Moroccan chicken tagine, and on and on.

An entry from William Hovey Smith takes us way beyond rice and beans with a recipe for road kill deer stew. Luckily for us, William has a book coming out soon: Backyard Deer Hunting: Converting Deer to Dinner for Pennies Per Pound! I think I speak for everyone, William: Thank you for this amazing gift to literature.

Challenge details and recipes here.

(NPR, could I love you any more? I think not.)

To eat delicious things

Last weekend we went to Blue Hill at Stone Barn for a fantastic anniversary celebration. I keep meaning to write about it so I don't forget all the lovely things we ate, so here goes.

I told them a little bit about my allergies and what to avoid (there isn't a menu, so it's hard to know exactly what you'll be served) and they were super accomodating. I think Peter was a little nervous he'd be given a more limited menu because I was, so he was sure to tell the server that he was super adventurous and just wanted "to eat delicious things."

Cute sheep! I have a thing for barnyard animals. Even bald ones.

They brought over some parnsip soup to start off. It was so light and creamy -- much less bitter than parsnip soup I make at home. My first course was a salad with lots of little micro greens and the most amazing sorrel mushrooms mixed in. There was a creamy green herb dressing smeared at the bottom of the plate that had lots of fresh mint. Mental note to self: cook more with fresh mint.

Then we both got a white fish in a light green herb broth. It tasted super buttery and creamy, but it was fairly small, so not at all overwhelming. The next thing I got was an amazing beef dish. So tender and perfectly pink. Peter had lamb something that he liked a lot (see our lamby friends above).

Then we decided to get cheese. There were two types of cheddar and two types of blue cheeses, served with honey and that amazing pickled celery I mentioned last week. I can still imagine the taste of it perfectly.

For dessert, Peter got an amazing looking coffee brownie with ice cream, and I got a pineapple and sorbet combination. I usually hate fruit desserts. They seem fake to me (hello -- fruit is a breakfast food), but these pineapples were spiced with cinnamon and some other yummy things I couldn't identify. But it was very, very good. (Though I must say, how local are pineapples in April, Dan Barber?)

All in all, it was probably the best celebration spot we've ever been to. Fantastic from start to finish.

Pickled

Ate this amazing
pickled celery at Blue
Hill Stone Barn Sunday.


----------------------------



So I made my own at home this week! Except with carrots, asparagus, and radishes. Pickling has always sounded really hard to me, but quick pickling was so easy.

I've been throwing them in with salads, rice noodles, cole slaw and tacos all week. They would also be delicious paired with a cheese course, which was how we had them at Blue Hill. I'm looking for other things to pickle, and I think fennel might be next.

Aren't they pretty?

Pickled vegetables

You will need:

1 lbs of fresh veggies (carrots, radishes, asparagus, fennel, etc.) cut into tiny matchsticks or shredded with a grater
1 1/4 cups water
1 cup white vinegar
1 cup sugar
2 or 3 garlic cloves, crushed
1 1/2 tablespoons salt
1/4 cup fresh dill

Place vegetables in heat-proof bowls. Bring remaining ingredients to a boil in saucepan, then reduce heat and simmer 2 minutes. Pour pickling liquid over veggies and cool, uncovered. Add chopped dill to the bowls, cover, and refrigerate.

These get better as time goes on, but I ate mine as soon as two hours later, and they were already delicious. They keep, chilled in an airtight container, for 1 month.

One of life's great mysteries

New office dish soap.

Why can I only smell it

for a few days and

then the scent dies off?

Olfactory glands, we need

to talk about this.

Won't be so neat

Chocolate peanut
butter cake: hard to go wrong.
Mine won't be so neat.

Limited

Limited supplies:

single apple, stale cream, and

not much else to eat.

(*Photo isn't of my fridge exactly, but pretty darn close.)

Thank you for smoking

Last night, a man lit

matches and started smoking

in a crowded train.

The lady next to

him was unfazed. Happily

ate fries from the bag.

It smelled strangely

good, that magical meeting

of sulphur and grease.

Roots

Root vegetable

gratin. On top: mustard, cream.

Bake for 45 mins.

*Photo from Food and Wine magazine.

Mine didn't come out anywhere near this neat, and I tweaked the recipe a bit. But that's the fun part, right?

A new mush

No more oatmeal (for
now). Apple sauce and rice cakes
taste way better than mush.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

I had no idea that applesauce was so easy to make at home. I tried it a few weeks ago after seeing this post at the kitchn. So, so easy.

*Photo from the kitchn

I've mentioned before how difficult breakfast is when I'm trying to not break out in hives, but when that diet excludes flour, eggs, and diary, there isn't a whole lot to work with! This is the perfect solution. Breakfast: you and I can be friends again.

Homemade apple sauce

You will need:

3 large apples
1/2 cup water
1 teaspoon of cinnamon

Peel and core your apples. I've been using all different kinds, with excellent results. I tend to think that the best versions come from using different varieties in the same batch, but that could definitely just be in my head.

Cut apples into small pieces, about 1/2 inch big. Add to a pot with water and cook over medium low heat for about 20 minutes. You'll know that it's done when the apples are easy to mash with a fork. Get them to the consistency that you like, and then stir in the cinnamon.

I store this in tupperware in the fridge, and find that this makes enough for about 3 servings. I always heat mine up in a bowl in the microwave for 30 seconds, and it comes out perfectly. Because I like eating a good amount at breakfast, I have an apple cinnamon rice cake covered in peanut butter to go with it.