Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Memorial day weekend...The Aftermath











Sounds more ominous than it really is, or was,( the title, that is), but the weekend has come and gone. Good food was made, good food was eaten, good food was digested, you get the rest. Friday was a drive day for me and after a long day on the highways and byways of America's roadways on a holiday weekend nothing says lovin like take out. Zoey and I went Thai Blue Ginger in Greenfield Ma, located right on Main st, sadly they have no website, but they do have a delightfully spicy Drunken Noodle dish which we have enjoyed in the past. Sadly, shrimp and take out equals overcooked shrimp, which I can't blame the folks at TBG for, especially has we delayed in picking up our food, so it sat even longer than it might have had we been on time. One of the things i like most about Thai, and noodles, they keep well and just fine at a summer room temperature. We also had a Green bean, Shrimp, coconut, curry dish, with a name too long to remember, sadly the dish was as memorable. Again, Shrimp, time and take out equaled a less than stellar dish and again, not their fault. I highly recommend Thia Blue Ginger, but i would take the time to eat there, which I have and is delightful. The decor is what you would expect and the Owners/waiters/sisters are pleasant and generally helpful. The spot is small, but never feels crowded even though the tables are close and they usually seem to have a good crowd.








Saturday, tag sale, big fruit salad and cookies, cookies and more cookies. I made some Peanut butter, chocolate chip cookies with Blue corn meal flour which got good reviews and a few requests for the recipe, so though it is not perfected, (nothing in cooking is, or should be), here are the basics, try em and fool around, i plan on making them again in a few weeks, just got a little cookie'd out and can only eat so many, nice to have an event to pawn them all off on...




Follow the recipe on a bag of Toll house chocolate chip cookies, substitute 1 cup of Blue corn meal flour, (which you can find at Whole foods and some Co-Op type markets), for the equal amount of white flour, also add 1 cup of Peanut butter chips and a pinch of Chimayo Red Chili powder.




Make sure you cook on a good thick cookie sheet and lower the temperature to *370, cook for 11 minutes, let rest on the cookie for 2-3 minutes and transfer to cooling rack. I find the cooling rack transfer works really well with all cookies, as the heavier cast cookie sheets retain their heat so well it is easy to burn the bottoms of your cookie, and nobody, I mean nobody, like a burned bottom. Try a small tester batch, you may need to increase the cooking time by a minute or two, most home oven are not perfectly calibrated, and feel free to tweak the mixture to your liking, the next time i make them I am going to up the Spice amount and try to increase the Blue Corn to flour ratio, see if I can get a better blue hue to the cookies, but all in all, the were a success and i hope yours are too.








Saturday night was a simple Grilled Blue fish, marinated in lime, thyme and garlic with a splash of olive oil, little salt and pepper. Add the lime juice about an hour before service or it will "cook" the fish. A compote of grilled Portabello mushrooms and roasted Pablano peppers, topped with a local Goat Cheese, (will get the name for you later), and a garden salad with Ginger mango vinaigrette finished out the dish. Though the fish was out of season, late summer is Blue running time on the east coast, and I cooked it a few minutes too long, Zoey seemed to enjoy it.








Sunday was more tag sale, without the cookies, got rid of everything which was pleasant, nice to unload some stuff, now we can buy more! But, back to the food...Zoey had some nice fresh frozen peaches, so she decided to make a peach upside down cake. Out came the cook books and away she went, with some nice results, see pictures. She thought it was a wee bit dry, but Cool Whip and coffee made it nice.

In the afternoon I made some Goat cheese/Blue fish spread with the left over Blue, added some lemon juice and fresh thyme, black pepper and salt, served with water crackers and Black olives, a nice afternoon snack.
For dinner, Scallops marinated in Lime and Chili powder, two small top round steaks hit the grill, some grilled corn and a salad rounded out the meal. Zoey finished up with some cake and Cool Whip, I hit up some Bart's Mint chip ice cream and passed out in some cool clean sheets.
Now the sun is shining and the grass is growing, so I am going to cut it, will be back later, best to all.






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