Tabouleh, pickles, and other random meals

This weekend we processed a bunch of veggies into things to eat later. I guess humans have been doing this for our entire evolutionary history, but with the advent of grocery stores, well, it's less fundamental to survival. But it still seems a worthwhile thing to do when presented with all this fresh produce, that won't stay fresh forever.

We also swung by the farm, on our way home from other wanderings, and picked more green beans, husk cherries, blueberries, cherry tomatoes, and herbs. Because we totally needed more food. But god are those husk cherries amazing. Planning to make a big batch of pesto, hence all the basil. Oh, and the chanterelles - we happened across them as we were hiking. Can't not stop for that! And they fry up so well with butter. mmm. And we bought two melons from the farm store, a mini watermelon and a mini musk melon.

Anyway, as for the pickles, we've had good luck with lacto-fermented peppers, and preserved lemons, but have struggled with cucumbers in the past. I think this is largely due to getting them from Russos' sale shelf, so they're already old, and also because Ed doesn't always use a recipe. I looked one up. The golden ratio appears to be:

4C water:3tbs kosher salt

The rest is all flavoring. So, one batch of Moroccan-themed carrots, and two batches of cukes, because we do have a lot of those. The brine for both veggies was just the 4C:3Tbs ratio.

Carrots:
peel of 1 lemon (washed, then peeled with a vegetable peeler)
2 small dried red chilis
1 tsp cracked coriander
1 tsp cracked cumin
About a third of a small white onion, cut into thin rings

I think that was it?

Pack the spices and onion in the bottom of a jar, and cut the carrots into sticks. pack the carrot sticks into the jar, and top with brine. Make sure the carrots are fully covered, or else they'll mold, and then you have to throw out the whole batch. Use a weight (like a small jar filled with water) to push down on the veggies, and leave 'em be for 3-4 days.

Cucumbers:
1 tsp peppercorns
1 tsp fennel seeds
a few sprigs of fresh tarragon
1 clove
about a third of a small white onion, cut into thin rings

Same deal as the carrots. Pack the onion and spices into a jar, cut the cucumbers into nice 1/4" rounds, and pack them into the jar. Cover with brine, put a weight on top, and leave them alone for a few days before tasting.




Tabouleh
We make this stuff a lot, but this week's CSA was the perfect CSA for tabouleh. Not only that, but the little fresh red onions they gave us are just amazing - so crunchy and sweet, it's almost like eating something entirely different than an onion. Onion can be hit or miss in a tabouleh, but with onions this good, you're only hurting yourself by not eating them raw. Because we still had a huge pile of cucumbers left over after making two jars of pickles (I think 5?), it was a cucumber-heavy dish, but we made like two gallons of it, so it all works out in the end.

5 cucumbers, diced
2 tomatoes, diced
2 small red onions, diced
~2C parsley, chopped
~1C basil, chopped
2 lemons
2C bulgur
2C water or vegetable stock
1/2C? olive oil
Salt. lots. to taste.

Boil the veggie stock, and once it boils dump in the bulgur and stir it around, then leave it covered for at least 5min.

Dice all veggies and put into a bowl. Squeeze in the lemons and give a couple good glugs of olive oil and pinches of salt. Stir, taste, adjust. Ed and I have different opinions on how wet a tabouleh should be; I like mine relatively dry, he likes his sopping wet. Preferably with oil. We usually compromise by me making it my way, and he'll just add oil.

Season the bulgur with some oil and salt and lemon, taste, and add to the big bowl.



This gets better on day 2 or 3, if it lasts that long.

Other meal photos -


Zoodles and a bolognese. That was a damn good bolognese; normally I think I try to cram in too many veggies, but this one I knew we were serving it over zoodles (zucchini noodles), so I left it alone, and those flavors just sang together.



Bacon (pour off some of the fat but reserve it in case you need to add it back), onion, garlic, ground beef (cook off the fat in a different pan first), tons of fresh savory and oregano and thyme, bay leaf, dried red pepper, oven-dried tomatoes, tomato sauce, tomato paste, a solid 2C or so of red wine, chicken stock as needed. Large quantities of fresh basil are to be served on top of this.

Don't skimp on the wine. Also, when they say don't cook with wine you won't drink, that means you should be drinking a glass as you cook, right?

As for zoodles, I think we both agreed that it was an acceptable experiment, with no need to repeat again.

Ham, cheese, and squash-stuffed french toast. Took about half a grated yellow zucchini to fill between the cheese slices, with the bread dunked in eggs first. Still working on those VT leftovers; sliced bread and lunchmeats? Not really my style, but you can't let food go to waste. Anyway, this was good, despite its resemblance to a sandwich.




Green beans and kielbasa. The green beans were really tasty. A hunk of butter in the pan, tons of garlic, a splash of oil (less than a glug), saute the garlic until golden and add the beans, saute until soft. Add chicken stock as needed if things get dry, and squeeze half a lemon over the whole thing. Top with some toasted almonds.

Then after taking the beans out, we added a spoonful of dijon mustard and reduced the sauce a bit. This paired wonderfully with the kielbasa.

We tried making some zucchini and eggplant chips in the oven. Slice the veggies into rounds, salt and let them sit until they've released some water. Squeeze, then dredge first in egg, then in cornmeal, and bake at 500F. We found that the zucchinis were good, but the eggplant got too soft. I guess actually deep frying would be better, unless you like soft eggplant. Eh, worth a try.




Kale salad, meatballs, and an Ottolenghi-inspired "burnt aubergine" dish. Ed declared the eggplant dish the best thing I've ever made. It was good. Recipe in a different post, because indexing. Oh, and a watermelon-basil-rita. That drink was DANGEROUS. I don't really know what was in it. White overproof rum, tonic, muddled basil and watermelon, and who knows what else.

The kale salad had a dressing of mustard, lemon, oil, and salt. It also used up the last of our redleaf lettuce (not pictured: the big-ass salad I had for lunch Saturday that used up most of the red leaf lettuce). Then some steamed yellow beans, slivered almonds cooked in butter, dried cherries.

I have no idea what Ed did to make the meatballs, but they involved some amount of bulgur, salt and pepper, and a bunch of fresh savory.