some cooking
I didn't work today, so besides taking the boys to the playground and skate park for some pre-snow sunny day fun, I also cooked some things. Since I believe I created a day's menu never before seen in the history of the world, I thought I'd share.
Breakfast wasn't very interesting: egg and cheese sandwiches. Well, that's what I had; Harvey and Zion didn't want cheese, and Zion took the egg out of his and just ate the toast. Oh well. Come to think of it, they weren't really eager participants in anything I made today, so I'll just leave them out of the rest of the story.
For lunch I made sushi, for the first time in years. It's because yesterday, as we did the grocery shopping, I was feeling quite hungry; seeing the sushi rice, it occurred to me how much I'd like to eat sushi. My hunger didn't acknowledge that there were several steps in between buying the rice and the finished product. But no worries, it came together quickly and Leah and I enjoyed our rolls of egg, carrot, and avocado. Zion ate the carrot out of one roll. Oh wait, I said I wasn't going to talk about that part.
Our dinner was motivated by the turnips in the crisper drawer—turnips that Leah hates, not least because they're sprouting and also even before that very large and taking up a lot of room. But I grew them, so I feel a certain tenderness towards them and don't want to throw them out. And now that the squashes are gone, turnips and parsnips are the only garden crops we have left, so I figure we have to at least pretend we'd be able to survive on them. But what do you do with giant turnips (beside feeding them to cattle)? Why, make bashed neeps of course! Which I had never done before, but will again, because it was a very tasty dish, with a couple carrots cooked with one of the giant turnips to provide some sweetness and color.
No one would forgive me for serving turnips as a main dish, of course (never mind that Laura and her family survived all winter on nothing but turnips in On the Banks of Plum Creek). So after a little internet research on the foodways of the British Isles I cooked some sausage and, to tie the meal together, made onion gravy (loosely from this recipe). With pretty-much caramelized onions and beef broth it's very much like thickened onion soup, and it was delicious all mushed together with sausage and mash. Or at least I thought so; the boys were both delighted to enjoy the sausage on its own, plain, accompanied by bread and butter. But never mind them.