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It has been awhile since I’ve posted anything substantial here. Guess it’s because I’ve been doing a lot of food writing and recipe development over the last couple months, so time to dip the toes (fingers?) back into food blogging. What I’m cooking/baking for fun:

1. If it’s winter, it must be soup season. My routine: on Sunday night I pull out the pressure cooker and make a batch of vegetable stock (easy as sin: I go through the vegetable bins and throw in anything that isn’t yet moldy and take the bits and bobs I’ve been saving all week in the freezer. Fill the pot halfway with water, add some smashed garlic, half an onion, and some peppercorns, and cook in full pressure for 30 minutes. Strain. Vegetable stock.) Then I cook a potato in the stock, throw in a head of chopped broccoli, cook until tender but still bright green, and then blitz in the blender. Season with salt and pepper. I like the soup a little chunky. Then all week I eat it for lunch with a good amount of cheese mixed in. Today it’s leftover buffalo milk mozzarella. Oh, so good — and pretty healthy, too! I’ve also been making lentil soup and French onion soup.
2. Breads — I’m pretty much on maintenance with bread, making our weekly loaves. My MIL was here from Texas a few weeks ago, and she was reminiscing about salt-risen bread. I ran to my Bernard Clayton and James Beard and started researching. Intriguing! Details TK. Likewise, I’m also fascinated with the “greatest bread ever” that Mark Bittman wrote about in the NYT a couple weeks ago. Just haven’t found the time to work on it.
3. Thanksgiving. I’m not a Thanksgiving food fan. I’m a Valentine’s Day girl: chocolate and champagne. Or even July 4 … at least there’s a chance of lobster and drawn butter. Turkey? Eh. Not my favorite meat. We got a smallish (10#) free-range organic turkey, which I didn’t have time to brine. The breast meat was dry, but flavorful. The only thing I really enjoyed was the mashed potatoes (made with loads of butter and hot cream) and cranberry sauce (homemade, of course!)

That’s all for now. I just got a few more recipe development assignments for January, but I hope to be back with some new stuff w/ photos.

The Boston Globe ran a story on my CSA in last week’s food section. Check it out!

Indeed, our CSA newsletter prints many recipes of Mike’s, and they’re all damn good.