Gonna Write Something Different

 Dear Massive Fan Base,

I'm going to write a different kind of book soon. Cookbooks are fun but I have something else percolating. Stay tuned. Or don't.

Some Kind of Garden to Table Bullshit

 Last year, moving to a small town in Skagit County, I had the requisite naïve fantasies about local food garden-to-table grubbings. Well, after some months of angry weeping, I can report that I've had a few "successes." I'll briefly share one with my ever-expanding fan base (Srsly, leave me alone already).

When you harvest the squash too soon because, uh, you cut the vines by mistake

1. Cut the squash off the vines and set aside.

2. Pinch or snip all small (smaller than the palm of your hand) tender unblemished leaves, tiny squash, cute tendrils, flowers, and flower buds off the vine.

2.5 Wash these things carefully, peeps.

3. Cut up a few cloves of garlic.

4. Heat up a sauce pan on medium. Throw in the garlic. Stir and get it to look a bit translucent.

5. Toss in the squash vine bits and bobs.

6. Stir.

.7. Add some vegetable broth, salt, and MSG. 

8. Observe. It is done when the bits and bobs look pleasantly edible to you.

9. Sprinkle on red pepper flakes to taste.

10. Consume with aplomb.

Oopsie

Yummie

Maybe I Should Post Something About Ice Cream

I'll vacuum a few cobwebs from this site and spruce it up for a moment with a new post.

Recently I made some strawberry ice cream. Here's how things went down:

INGREDIENTS

1.5 cups fresh strawberries

1 cup heavy cream

1 cup whole milk

1/2 teaspoon Stevia (or 1/2 cup white sugar for the stevia-phobes)

1/4 teaspoon sea salt

2 Tablespoons vodka

DIRECTIONS

Put it all in a blender and blend until relatively smooth. Pour into your ice cream churn and churn until it looks like a texture you can live with. Spoon into a shallow freezable container and freeze.

I was lazy about the level of blending but it turned out pretty tasty. Obviously I didn't bother to take any good photos but a video of some churning excitement is HERE on my Instagram account. I suppose if you wanted to go vegan with this you could likely use a combination of coconut milk and cashew butter instead of the milk and heavy cream, but I am unsure what the texture would be like. Why don't you try it out and let me know how it goes? 

Slumming It in Hawaii

I recently had an opportunity to work remotely in Hilo, Hawaii. Being the never-ending cheapskate, I opted for a housing situation that was literally a bedroom built on top of a patio between a house and a garage. It did not include a kitchen, but did include a lot of cute geckos as well as a microwave and a toaster oven. It was an amazing opportunity to improvise all kinds of cheap and fun dishes out of local weeds. Here is one of my favorites.

Bitter Gourd (Momordica charantia) Vine Ramen

Ingredients

A generous handful of small Momordica charantia vines, the tenderest ones

1 egg

1 packet spicy ramen such as MaMa

Directions

Wash and chop the vines, set aside.

Microwave the ramen with hot water in a microwave safe bowl. When it's boiling hot, stir in the egg well. Microwave 30-60 seconds longer. Toss in the vines. Stir. 

Consume.

You should eat it