Cabin Cooking, Part 2

 

So the first night, May 26 was asparagus, potatoes, carrots, corn. The second night May 27, I concocted a variation on that theme, because that's what I have the cabin. I didn't want to do potatoes again so I did onions instead. And to make sure I had enough protein, and enough to eat in general, I made up a batch of mixed white and red quinoa (about ¾ white and ¼ red), with a generous handful of chopped parsley added after it was cooked.

There's not much to say about them, the picture is worth 1000 words. As you can see, all I had with salt and pepper and the pepper was already ground -- so I used lots and lots and lots of it. A nice simple meal for a simple place. The onions in particular were a real pleasure. They were cooked so that their sweetness started to come through, slightly browned, but they still had some of that onion “bite”, with the edge taken off.

The other revelation was the parsley in the quinoa. I had not planned this when I bought the parsley. I just knew that parsley would come in handy somehow. This part of the dish was like hot tabouli. The quinoa by itself doesn’t taste like much, so it needs something. And I gave it enough parsley to make that flavor a dominant theme…with parsley being my greens for the evening…just like I enjoy tabbouli. I would do this dish again without blinking, even if I wasn’t in a remote cabin.

By now, I had gotten a little bit of a feel for the place, so here's a little bit to give you a feel for the place!

 

Cabin Cooking, Part 1

I am writing this from a personal retreat and cabin in northern Wisconsin, with no running water, no cellphone service, and no internet. Perfect! Without the internet service I stashed away a few blog entries for posting upon arrival back in civilization. I'm back, so now I'm posting. Here's the first.

May 27, 2009

After scouting out the accommodations (thanks Jeff and Emily!) the first order of business was to make some food. Emily took me to the the Farmer's Market in St. Paul, which was conveniently running this Tuesday morning, and purchased some olive tapenade cheese (from the cheesemaker), summer sausage made a bison (from the sausage maker), and some asparagus (from the asparagus grower). The asparagus was the only fresh vegetable available, which is not surprising given that it's only late May. I also picked up a frozen free range chicken that was sustainably raised. At the grocery I picked up some carrots, various grains, potatoes and sweet corn.

I did not want to spend a lot of time cooking as it was a little chilly in the cabin. I thought using the oven would be a good thing. So I decided to roast the asparagus, corn, carrots, potatoes in the oven with a little olive oil and salt. There was only spray olive oil, but it was worth a try. Roasted at 350 the asparagus and carrots were done first. The asparagus and carrots were done to perfection, and the first ear of corn was pretty good but still a little hard, so I left the other ears of corn a while longer with the potatoes. While this was cooking, I kept myself busy with the summer sausage and cheese and some rosemary Triscuits.

The simple roasted veggie meal was the perfect easy meal that also served to heat up the chilly cabin. Filled me up, provided some leftovers, and got me familiar with the kitchen. The lack of running water will be a fun challenge...