Two at Once?

Last week when preparing dinner I opted to prepare two dinners at once. This was the first time taking on such a task but I felt it might speed things up. Or at least give multiple options when it was time to eat.

My first attempt involved soup and my peasant potatoes. I remember things being a bit hectic while cooking. Mostly because I had not sorted the lentils for the soup yet and that took time I did not have while attempting a roux in the other pot. Both dishes came out well, and Jennifer got a choice when she woke up.

Last night I tried it again. This time doing two soups with some similar ingredients. The subjects were split pea, and broccoli cheddar. Both soups started with onion and added carrots and potatoes. So most of the ingredients were similar. I prepped a lot before actually starting so I wouldn't run into issues distracting me from the roux on the cheddar soup. As it turns out everything went smoothly this time. The split pea went to boil/simmer just before I started the roux on the broccoli cheddar. The broccoli cheddar finished first however, but we were putting that away for another day.

I'm sure professional kitchens do this sort of thing all the time, but it is new to me. I really like it as it may only add 20% more time, but give you double the meals. Another advantage is that prep/cleanup only happens once for two meals rather than twice. This may be a technique I incorporate more into our dining after the arrival of the baby. Of course, it works best with one dish wonders so you are not so distracted by more than two pots.

Compost

Last week I took some time on a dry day to harvest the compost. We use Green Cone composters and I switch between two, filling one, while the other digests. I managed to get over 20 gallons of soil from it.

The harvest was some wonderfully rich soil. Only pistachio shells take longer than a year to break down.


I have taken to putting pistachio shells in the yard waste each week as Cedar Grove crushes the waste promoting faster decomp. Now I only need to wait for Tilth's plant sale.

In other garden news, the garlic is plugging along just fine and about 6-8" high.

Tapenade

We were headed to Matt and Shari's on Friday for a pot luck. Jennifer and I didn't really have any ideas for what to bring. I picked up some items earlier in the day to give us some options and this is what I came up with.

I have made tapenade in the past, although I do not know how traditional I make it. I like to finely chop kalamata olives, sun dried tomatoes and roasted peppers to make a tapenade. We had two out of the three and I proceeded to soak the tomatoes while I started chopping the olives. I didn't add anything to the concoction although I did briefly consider some balsamic vinegar or minced garlic.

The twist was that I took the tapenade and mixed it into some softened goat cheese. We brought a pack of crackers to spread it on, and that was our dish. It got devoured, but not sure how well it was liked. I think it came out OK. It would have been nice to put more time and effort into a more elaborate dish.