Some interesting stuff I've eaten lately:
- Yummy quinoa salad at Angela and Pete's house: quinoa with parsley and mint, dressed with a garlic-lemon juice-olive oil dressing, mixed with chopped tomatoes.
- Water buffalo yogurt. It's pretty creamy, but sort of a weird, smooth, firm texture rather than the creamier type I prefer.
- Malabar spinach, bought from Jennie and Rebecca at the farmer's market. I thought about growing this for a while--it's recommended by permaculture books as a perennial green (permaculture is big into growing perennials rather than annuals; it's supposedly much easier on the ecosystem). It's... um... interesting. And by "interesting," I mean "slimy." Like okra, it gives off tons of mucilage, especially the stems. I cooked it with ramen and threw in a couple of beaten eggs for protein. I was kind of appalled as I was eating it and the sliminess gradually dawned on me, and had to look it up to make sure it wasn't rotting or anything. The flavor seemed pretty nice and inoffensive. The slime was just something else. I bet it would be good in gumbo, though.
- Mom and I also did a lot of baking when she was visiting--she made rolls, both white and whole wheat, and I helped her make a whole wheat crust custard apple pie with Jonathan apples from the farmer's market. Yummy!

Yesterday, September 15, was Joseah's birthday, so we had him, Beth, Jeanne, and Steve over for dinner and a screening of David Lynch's Inland Empire (horrible). Jeanne and Steve brought some of their homebrewed beer and delicious homemade mac and cheese--the secret is apparently Worcestershire sauce and dry mustard. I made salsa with some red and yellow farmer's market tomatoes, cilantro, red onion, bottled lime juice, salt, garlic, and some rare chiles we bought from the Chile Woman at the market--I believe they were called Arrivivi Gusano. They were very hot, but with a wonderful fruity taste; half were unripe green and half were pale yellow, and they were perhaps an inch long and fairly thin and tapered. I also made some almond thumbprint cookies from the Joy of Cooking, minus the almonds. I made a few with Maine blueberry jam, for Rahul, and for most of them I used spoonfuls of peach jam Joseah's mom had sent him for his birthday, and that he'd brought over to share. It was all very nice. We had hash browns and eggs at Wee Willie's, went to the farmer's market, and went to the Bloomingfoods grand opening, where I got a free chair massage and some free soap samples.

Today I was woken up with breakfast in bed! I didn't actually eat it in bed, but I was incredibly thrilled to wake up to hash browns, cottage cheese, and a vegetable omelet with sweet red pepper, onion, olives, and spinach.

I made an easy casserole for dinner: emptied a can of organic rice and beans into a glass pie pan, mixed it with a chopped fresh tomato, red onion, fresh spinach, and topped it with some shredded cheese, then baked at 350 for about 20 minutes, turned it up to 450 for the last 10 minutes to brown the cheese.

Now I'm trying to catch up on work and readings for class--spent all day in the library watching the videos I'd missed--and I'm feeling very tired.

Best bento boxes ever:
http://e-obento.com/

A few yummy things to report:
- I ate paw paws last weekend (Labor Day weekend) thanks to Jeanne, who stopped by early in the morning from her shift at the Bloomingfoods stall to pick some up. They were much better when old and soft and brown, and tasted somewhere between banana, mango, and papaya, with a bit of papaya-ish kerosene taste that kept me from fully enjoying them.
- I made cornmeal pancakes with frozen corn kernels and they were really crunchy and good.
- I also made buckwheat pancakes with buckwheat flour from the WIBS mill at the farmer's market, and then tried to make a sourdough-starter buckwheat bread loaf, but it didn't rise. It was really good when fresh out of the oven, though, with that browned grain flavor bread should have.
- I made a tomato sauce with fresh tomatoes and basil from the farmer's market. I think we ate this with rotini.
- I made a tomato stew with Quorn pieces, green olives, fresh tomatoes, basil, cinnamon, cumin, oregano, and sweet peppers from the farmer's market. We ate this over couscous with sauteed mushrooms.
- Went to Camie's house a few days ago, on Sept 5th, where she and Laura showed us how to make salsa, beans, and fresh corn and flour tortillas. I made huevos rancheros the next morning with some leftover refried pink beans and chipotle salsa. Delicious!