weekend update Sept 2

weekend update, Sept. 2, 2012

Only 2 days of cooking since menus were posted on Friday, so you'd think that there wouldn't be much kitchen activity to report on. Not so, my friends, not so.

Friday, while chopping sweet potatoes, I remembered that over the years, I've participated in several high level "how big should the potato cubes be" discussions.
 Piece talks, if you will.
That dicey question depends both on method and application.
If one is, say, boiling potatoes for mashed potatoes or potato salad, it's important to cut them into pieces that are small enough to cook through, and big enough to keep them from getting water logged.
but, I was roasting these potatoes. So, I applied the dual guideline I apply to stirfry, soup, and salad:
1. I'd rather not have to reach for a knife to reduce the components of a soup or salad or stirfry into bite size bits.
2. The very useful chipmunk rule: I take this piece in one bite, will I look like this guy?

                           It's at this stage that I always wish I'd cut things finer

I ended up cutting them like this:

 

 Olive bread fattoush proved to be another delicious variation of bread salad - I'm at this moment sending another bundle of happy food memory gratitude beams to the sister-in-law who introduced us all to panzanella, the Italian way to turn stale bread into a super side dish. Hmm..... I wonder if there's a french version?  How about Spainish? or South American?  Wow! What a research project!
anyway.
 Though I didn't have a can of cooked chickpeas,  I did have a bag of dry ones. There's sometimes something a little daunting about dried beans, isn't there? As if when you open the bag, they're going to get plump and juicy by soaking up your entire day. And, of course, a can is easier. BUT. Dried beans are easy too, as long as you're going to be somewhere within walking distance of the stove for awhile. And, I've never had a disaster come from not soaking the silly little things overnight.
One little problem. I used less than half of the cooked chickpeas in the salad. Yes, I could've frozen them, but I know very well that three months from now, I'd pull a bag out of the freezer, and say to the dog "Josie, do you know what these funny little frost covered freezer smelling ball things are?" And throw them away. And yes. I could've made hummus, but I stubbornly refuse to do anything but fail at homemade hummus.
So I did this:
 http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/claire-robinson/spicy-baked-chickpeas-recipe/index.html
and made these:

which were enthusiastically endorsed by the home audience. Salty, spicy, snacky, and packed with protein.
And next week?
Avocapalooza, that's what!  33 cents a piece at Aldi! Of course none of them were ripe, but here they go along with a few unripe mangoes into the Avospado bag-

the mangoes felt it was a bit frutist to name this premium Lush paper sack as I did,

 until I explained that 1) Avocados are fruits too and 2) Man-spa-go just doesn't work 

 

They should be ripe by brisket taco time, which will probably be wednesday.

That gives me about 3 days to contact a friend of mine who is a guacamole phenom, and beg him, just one more time (and this time I swear I'll remember) to coach me through a batch. 

Happy extra weekend day everyone- here's hoping it's filled with just the right balance of work and play and rest.