tonight's pizza

I broke my pizza stone! It was a little wet when I put it in the oven. I thought it would dry while pre-heating, but it cracked instead. Oh well; we've been using it for about 15 years, so we got our allotted time out of it, I'm sure.

beet hummus

I made a batch of hummus, and added two roasted beets. I also roasted the garlic. I think roasting the garlic made the flavor overly mellow (I had never done that before.) It is good, but not as strongly flavorful (read: garlicky) as usual. I don't really notice the beets, apart from the snazzy color.

 We recently bought some butternut squash hummus at a farmers market, and we all enjoyed it. That, and the various forms of pesto I've recently encountered, got me thinking about how all kinds of things could probably be added to hummus and pesto.

We just got our first big box of produce from a CSA. It has beets and chard. I have grown quite fond of beets in recent years, but no one else in my family really likes them. It occurred to me that cooked beets might be an interesting addition to hummus. So I Googled it, and sure enough, I found recipes that went along with what I had in mind.

So last night I made beet hummus, which was really just hummus with some roasted beets added to it. I also roasted the garlic this time, and added some coriander and a dash of cayenne. It was good, but I think the thing about it I like best is the bright magenta color.

Pizza

Here are two of the four small pizzas I made yesterday. They came out GREAT.

Fried green tomatoes

On Sunday I picked a dozen green tomatoes from my back yard. I left behind ones too small or scarred. 

I made a bunch of fried tomatoes slices, and have more tomatoes for later, too. Maybe I will make some green tomatoes salsa.

Fried green tomatoes are sort of a big production,  but I have finally gotten good at it, and streamlined it.  These came out pretty tasty.

Foods Mark doesn’t like to eat:

Last year my blog post quantity dropped quite a bit. I’m not sure why. For 2013, I will work harder at writing about more things that don’t matter and no one cares much about, just because, dammit, I have made a commitment. Even though I actually haven’t made a commitment.

There aren’t many foods I don’t have any interest in, and even fewer that I truly dislike. And I’m not talking about things that are actually bad—poorly cooked food, things that aren’t actually food, etc.  I’m talking about foods that are commonly bought or cooked or served around here.

It’s actually hard for me to think of things to put on this list. Here are a few:

Eggplant: I’ve rarely had eggplant, and I can eat it, and I actually don’t mind eating it too much. However, eggplants themselves sort of weird me out.  They are purple and look squishy, and I just don’t trust them for some reason.  I don’t think I would ever intentionally order an eggplant dish, and would only eat an eggplant dish if it ended up being set in front of me and there just weren’t any other polite options.

Semi-wet chicken dishes: I like baked, fried, and grilled chicken. I also like chicken in soups or stews. However, there is a disappointing category of chicken dishes right in between those. I’m talking about baked chicken dishes that have a heavy sauce, in which you have a chicken breast that is all wet and slimy, sort of sitting in a puddle.  In these dishes, the sauce is always flavorful but runny, and the chicken itself has an unpleasant texture and not a lot of flavor.  I can eat this, but I can never figure out why someone would choose to fix chicken like this when there are other methods.

Overly earthy bread: As the years have passed, we’ve moved to increasingly healthy bread, with varied whole grains and less sugar. I’m fine with it, even though I do usually enjoy lighter breads more. A few times, though, we have had some brand of bread (and I can’t remember what brand it was) that I swear had twigs and gravel in it. Too far. Yuck.

Some internal organs and parts: I think I’d be willing to try most of the ones that people often cook and serve, like kidney and liver, and maybe even heart and tongue. I wouldn’t be excited about the chance, but I’d try it just to see if I like it, if the opportunity arose. However, pig brains and pig feet will never be on my list of potential candidates.  There are probably other things like that, but I’m not going to spend time trying to think of them.

I guess that’s about it. Maybe I’ll think of something else later.