Catching up

Apparently it's a real task for me to bring the digicam upstairs to get the pictures off of it. That alone is a good enough reason for me to set up a computer downstairs.

Well, when I was posting my photos, I labeled this as "lamb" but a closer look reveals that it's really a rack of venison. We were at Star Provisions for one of our no-longer-weekly visits (that stuff really adds up!) and I happened to ask when they would be getting venison in again. Charles pulled out an unopened rack just for us. Woot.

So here we had a four-bone rack, cooked very beautifully if you ask me, with some brussel sprouts and sweet potatoes. The brussel sprout recipe was taken loosely off one that I saw on 101 Cookbooks. J is a very huge brussel sprouts fan. Brussel sprouts and cabbage. It's very weird. Anyhow, since we don't have wee little sprouts, I cut them all in half and then blanched them for about a minute. Then I sauteed them in a pan as directed and topped them with parmesan cheese. Incredibly tasty. The sweet potatoes were a little bland. I prefer mine whipped, but we had this the week of Turkey Day and I felt that having them twice was a bit overkill.

One afternoon, I decided to make New England Clam Chowder out of the blue. This development is actually rather interesting because I have a real obsession with n.e.c.c. I've been collecting recipes for it for a couple years now from friends and cookbooks all around. Then I put them into my recipe book and do nothing with them. I've always thought it to be time consuming to make, even though we watched a Martha Stewart special where Jasper White (the king of clam chowder) made it on her show.

So it was pretty funny when I decided randomly to make it out of The Joy of Cooking. The very tasty chowder didn't take long to make, probably only about 1/2 hour. Of course, I used canned chopped clams which really saved time on the clam front as well as providing all the clam juice I needed. The recipe actually called for water, I think, but I decided to add the extra clammy flavor. And after I read the header notes in The Joy of Cooking? Well, what do you know, it was Jasper White's recipe. Funny how everything comes full circle.