Markets and pickles

Well, I'm a little behind in posting. We went to Connecticut for a few days which included a trip to Imperial Palace, though surprisingly ended with no pictures. Everything we had was pretty normal though: Sea whelks with black beans, crab rice, lobster with ginger and scallions, fried "stuffed" tofu, and half a crispy chicken. Delicious.

Following Thanksgiving, we headed to the market with good intentions, despite the fact that we would be going out of town the following weekend. We started off with this beautiful bunch of collards from Farmer Greg. I had made collards before Thanksgiving and they had come up at work, so I had planned to make more collards to bring to people. But now, I am betting the collards are pretty wrinkly so I will probably make a white bean and collard soup.

It's is sad to see all this produce that we didn't use from two weeks ago. One week is pushing it but two... I can only hope that our too-cold freezer has kept things okay. We have some Burge farms spinach, Yoder Farms white carrots, sunchokes and a black radish from Farmer Greg. Some oyster mushrooms from Indian Ridge and shitakes from Farmer Jeff. And some sunflower sprouts and turnips.

On our way home, we stopped off at Pine Street Market as we often do. I'm trying to remember what we bought. I can't! Rusty is trying out making guanciale though, and he gifted us this excellent piece. How delicious! I made a batch of amatriciana, and then another of carbonara. I still have a bit left. Not sure what I will do with that.

Over the holiday, I dedicated some good time to pickling. I made two batches of bread n butter pickles, most of which I have given away, though I did keep some for us over the year. I also pickled some sliced jalapenos, which I hope they turn out okay. Normally I pickle whole jalapenos but Josh said he wanted them sliced so I used the same recipe but sliced them. I also canned these. Then I tried making some dill pickle spears. I am not sure how these will work. The last time I made large pickles, they were soft and bendy. I added in grape leaves which were recommended to keep the spears crisp.

Now that we are all caught up, here is what we bought today. Burge Farms spinach (it's gorgeous!) and green cabbage. Yoder Farms carrots and green leaf lettuce. Indian Farms sunchokes and oyster mushrooms. I'll turn that cabbage into coleslaw later today. Dunno about the rest of all that but it'll be tasty!

More loots! From the Sweet Savannah Shrimp Company, we got their largest shrimp, a 2 lb bag of 10/15 with the head on. So delicious! We also picked up some Riverview Farms Canadian bacon along with their corn meal and sweet potatoes. I'm going to use the cornmeal to fry up some catfish today.

We also got a Heritage Farms squab. I've never cooked with squab before. The first time I had squab, I was 10 and in Hong Kong, eating at a restaurant with my family and grandfather. The squab was fried, small little birds even smaller than the one pounder that got, and it was delicious. It was described to me as "pigeon", so it was years before I understood that this was squab.

Fitting all this food into the freezer is always a challenge, but we are definitely at our limit. In order to fit the squab into the chest freezer, I had to pull out all the bags of shrimp shells, and they are simmering into a nice stock on the stove.

I've been reading the Hot and Hot Fish Club cookbook the last couple nights, and for some reason, the Southern food has got me craving catfish. So we are going to fry up some catfish and hushpuppies tonight and then try out the Hot and Hot coleslaw.