What's for Dinner, Sun., Nov. 22, 2015

[NJCher]

I am slow-roasting a baking sheet of sliced tomatoes with garlic and herbs. I may put in three chicken breasts, if I can figure out a good marinade.

In addition, I am making caramelized, roasted eggplant Shanghai style (or so the recipe says .


Cher

[Galileo126]

1. Stuffed pork chops

Bread stuffing (classic) with dried cranberries (reconstituted in boiling water). I bought a bag of dried cranberries at TJ's, and still haven't used them. Today is the day for that. Maybe a mushroom-onion gravy. Spuds and asparagus.

Sad culinary note: My Winco discontinued selling Margherita pepperoni sticks. If you are a Trekkie, I drove home yelling "Khan! KHAN!!!!!!!" Klingon bastids...

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

2. It was supposed to be stew, but I forgot to start it this morning.

So we're possibly doing spaghetti instead, I think.

Housemate spent the morning making more double sided fleece blankets for her etsy shop in various Christmas patterns. It's bloody cold out, but as soon as my jeans are out of the dryer, I'm thinking of going out to decorate our little volunteer Christmas tree. 5 or 6 years ago, this tiny little evergreen had pushed its way up out of the soil next to the edge of the front flower bed area, but not in a place where I wanted it. I stuck a shovel down underneath, and severed the mainroot. I assumed it would die, but in a moment of whimsy, I planted it at the other end of the bed, neatly centered, where I'd dug up a bunch of tulips. To my surprise, it not only didn't die, but positively thrived, to the point where it's about 4.5 to 5 feet tall now. Still a bit on the spindly side, sort of a Charlie Brown tree, but I decorated it with a strand of lights last year, and I think it's going to need a strand with more lights this year. The inside (fake) tree is up and decorated now, and the new dog hasn't bothered it too much, so we're hopeful it will survive her if we keep it misted with bitter apple spray.

Mom's patch of saffron crocus has bloomed, been harvested, and died back, but the seven I first put in a shallow glass bowl and later transferred to a larger tomato cage planter are just now starting to show some life. I think 5 of the 7 have now shown some green above ground, though none has more than a half inch up so far. I'm taking them inside the garage at night but thinking if I can set up some sort of shelf below one of the windows in a south facing bedroom, I might bring them inside entirely now.

[locks]

6. Saffron crocuses

I saw them growing in Spain and Portugal and wondered why we didn't raise them here since the strands are so expensive but add so much to curry etc. Are they difficult to grow and where do you get them?

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

8. Well, they were tricky for me, because I've never grown them before.

After 6-8 weeks without a sign of any growth, I thought all of mine were dead. I'm thinking now it was the kind of planter I had them in, that was alternately not holding water and getting thoroughly soaked. I moved them over into a tomato planter after the tomato was dead, and they finally just are coming up. (Mom had planted hers in a well fertilized, loose compost/manure mix in a raised bed, and hers started coming up several weeks earlier.)

I don't know if they're all the same, though, because when the stigmata dry up, they almost disappear. 'Thread' is a generous description. You only get three stigmata per bloom as well, so it takes a lot of flowers to produce any major amount of it. I'm thinking the price reflects the amount of space it takes to grow them versus the amount produced. I've never bought them as a spice, so I don't know if the commercially grown ones are so tiny as well. The planting season for them is in the fall - I ordered them in may or so, but the company didn't deliver them til September or so, right about when to plant them, I assume. They're mostly sterile, too. They divide asexually underground by forming buds off the main bulb that are ready to be split off somewhere between 2 and 5 years or so, depending upon how well they respond to the environment in which you've planted them, and how crowded they are.

I think they'd possibly be a good plant to grow in shelved beds under LEDs, where you could stack crops so that you've got maybe 8 shelves worth in the same amount of space.

(ETA: as to ordering them, just google saffron crocus bulbs. I think I ordered from some place with meadows in the name, but it's been a while.)

[noamnety]

3. pumpkin pizza

everything pumpkin all the time until I get my kitchen floor back.

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[greatauntoftriplets]

4. Roasted Cornish hen.

Wild rice and carrots.

[fizzgig]

5. mac n cheese

going to mix in some roasted cauliflower and broccoli.

[NJCher]

7. welcome back!

Missed ya'.


Cher