Umami lunch

 I got this idea from the Umami Bomb book I mentioned recently. 

I needed labneh (yogurt cheese) so I started yesterday, draining plain yogurt in a cloth over a strainer, catching the whey, now saved for soup, and it was ready this morning.

Then caramelized a pan of onions down to a little delicious heap.

I'd steamed and diced the giant beet when I first got it from Misfits.

Fresh bread, bit of butter, sauteed crisp in oil in the onion pan.

Then the building of the thing, don't know its name.

And it was very good. Each bite was a combo of sweet and tart and soft and crisp.

There's plenty left, to do this again tomorrow with a fresh lot of onions. And the labneh will work as a spread on anything. Anywhere you might use sour cream, too. Or butter.

 It needs a fancy name. If it already has one, and you know it, please let me know.

Just realized..

 Just realized that my cooking is getting more and more like my approach to art. I've always looked for teaching, or mentors, to learn techniques and materials. Never had much interest in what else my teachers had to say about art never wanted recipes on design beyond the basics of color theory and division of space and depth.

They were hugely helpful once they saw what I was doing, steered me to good venues, opportunities, all that. You can learn methods from other people, but your only real art teacher is yourself.

But it wasn't about learning art from them. I used to find out the whole semester's requirements, get them polished off in the first couple of weeks, then spend the rest of the time exploring what I needed to learn.

Translate this into cookbooks and recipes, same thing. What's the gist? Materials? Thank you thank you, now I'm on my own.

I really love this way of living. So many adventures if you stop obeying the rules now and then. And maybe make up new ones! And you get to eat your work! And it's hard to stop!

So here's today in the food studio (!). 

Idea: umami, the other flavor. Depth of taste, as in anchovies, strong cheeses, roast vegetables, sun dried concentrated tomato, all that..

Contrasts, too, the light and shadow in the taste painting.  So you need some bland stuff in there so it's not like a brass band on a plate.

I made anchovy butter, just worked anchovy paste into Kerrygold butter, because it works right out of the fridge. 

That went onto the hot split pea bread right before serving. Butter goes great for texture, the anchovies wonderful with it against the bland bread, except this time I baked it crisp. Better than pancake texture to me. And since fat conveys flavor, the anchovy paste is much more powerful but not harsh, yum.

Then potatoes and fresh tomatoes, big pinch of berbere, very hot and lovely Ethiopian spice mix, kosher salt, olive oil, all roasted in a hot oven. Split pea bread started on the stove in cast iron, finished in the hot oven. Freeform shape but it tasted okay.

You can see why I had a plain salad of torn up romaine with it. No need to dress it, enough going on already. Also I needed to cool 'y 'outh..

This was an interesting path. Not for everyone, but for this diner, fine. And there's enough to do it again tomorrow.

I find I'm doing food in series, the way I did art, always a progression. I wonder if it's my inner bookkeeper at work.

In food I ground up a whole series of grains and nuts to make different flours.

I made a series of spice mixes, curry mixes, berbere, baharat.

Then different soft cheeses, labneh, cream cheese (paneer), nut cheese.

Different breads, yeast risen, yogurt risen, fermented, all sorts of stuff 

I hadn't thought about any of this till today. 

Currently umami is my focus. For now! Sounds so posh, but it's just strong flavors.

I have various ideas about flavoring butter, now that I've got a butter you can work into. There'll be thyme, lemon, spearmint, sage, we'll see where it goes. I'm a helpless prawn of fate at the mercy of this tsunami of ideas.

I also hope it's fun to read about. 

Library and blossom catching up

 Still in Olivia Goldsmith, and today picked up two more attractions, print books this time

And the current Bite Club selection

On the way home, after chats with a couple of friends,  into the park, lovely blossoms smelling like honey

And lovely other blossoms, without smelling of anything other than spring.

And forsythia in the park, all sprawling about, the way I like it, not all tailored and neat the way nature isn't

And my little patio cherry bushes returning after I pruned them down wildly because the fences were going to be replaced any minute. Last summer, that was.

Spice bush likewise

And this little plant is back underfoot, I think chickweed not sure.

 The English version of this smells like ripe apples when you pinch the flower. 

Asparagus here soon. When I grew it, I'd bite the tips off newly picked stems, tasted like green peas. 

Then home to reading, knitting and Irish soda bread

The aggrieved expression on this loaf cracks me up. I bet her relief $$ hasn't come.

Not a bad line-up, all in all.