Weekday dinner

Summer is a good time to cook. Josh defrosts some meat when he gets home, and it's pretty fast for me to prep and cook. Everything seems to go together and we know that we are eating well and healthfully. Josh hates the word healthful, but it's been everywhere recently. Anyway, this is the kind of summer food we really like.

I have to admit that sometimes I miss the long-braised dishes, but not the hot kitchen. We go through phases of grilling and then cooking inside.

It's funny how cooking experiences changes you and therefore how you cook. Before the Egg, I was more conservative about heat. True, our range really sucks and I need to get a new one, but I was mostly non-stick pans, reserving the cast-iron for meat. Now, I cook everything in the cast iron. Not big enough? I break out the big cast iron. Still need more room? I broke out the aluminum restaurant pan I have. So here I was cooking the baby fennel and carrots and then I tossed in the last of the broccoli for the year. There was a delectable char on all. Still not a fan of fennel really, but it's good braised.

This is how my dinner plate looked. Of course, we have the broccoli, carrots, and fennel. I had seen plump English peas at the dekalb market and it's hard to resist them. So I shelled them and made buttered peas. Then I parboiled the potatoes (McMullan rosegolds), char'd them a little in the cast iron, and sprinkled them with parsley. The meat was some Colorado lamb, also from the dekalb market.

I'm a bit bored of our meat offerings. We have a ton of sausages from Pine St and Riverview, but I never seem to really want them. Our meat selections mainly cycle through duck breast, lamb rack, pork rack, kobe coulotto, and hanger steak. We rarely have the delicious Savannah shrimp because they take so long to defrost and come loose of their shells. It takes forever to peel and then they look crappy if I only have an hour to soak them. Josh mentioned maybe having more fish. You know that wouldn't make me sad! But it does add to the complexity of picking up for dinner. Well, we'll see how that goes.