why does it feel like winter now?

I'm glad that all three expressions of the American hatred of love are now law. Especially Prop8! See, as you might guess from my last post, I had forgotten how terrible the people here are. I mean, not only was an African-American with an Arabic name elected to the leadership of the planet, but all of the extreme anti-choice measures met with The Fail! North Americans seemed almost not despicable! But, the clear will of The People here is that people who are in love can't get married (i.e., make a huge pile of legal arrangements that are completely reasonable for life-partners) unless there's something about their genitalia--or more honestly which boxes they check on The Forms--that satisfies some judge.

All snark aside, my natural enemy has descended from the skies. Okay, the snark isn't quite over yet. But yo what's with this winter thing yo? SRSLY (as the kids might text). Unseasonably cold, I'm told...by people who actually understand the weather.

Soooo....last night's cooking adventure was a "Clean Out the Winter Vegetables from the Fridge" game. (Tonight will be, too.) We have all these taproots from our CSA--and we have a whole stalk with Brussels sprouts!--so I had to figure out what to do with them. Dinner was: turnips and squash roast, brussels sprouts cockaigne, and sauteéd pork chops with sauce piquante.

The taproots included turnip, rutabegas, and something I failed to identify, but was a deep pink and somewhat elongated. These were cut into chunks that were a little less than an inch thick. An appropriate amount of shallots should also be peeled--probably about a 1:4 or 1:5 proportion by volume. Also a slightly less than equal amount of butternut squash--oi we have too many of those!

The recipe called for fat rendered from whatever meat I had cooked. The recipe also called for about 90 minutes of cooking time, and I wasn't about to sauteé a pork chop and just let it sit for an hour and a half. I mingled bacon fat from the fridge with pure olive oil. This was melted on the stove with butter, for a 1:3 ratio of butter:other fat. An essential part of this flavoring was rosemary.

I put the taproots into a baking dish and spooned the flavored fat over them, and slid the mixture into an oven whose kob was turned to 375. Every twenty minutes or so, the ensemble was stirred. What came out was just delightful! I now will consider taproots a reasonable generic replacement for potatoes. I found the squash a bit too sweet--like eating yams or sweet potatoes (neither of which I like)--but otherwise the dish was just perfect. And, the next morning, sauteé some onions and mushrooms, add the leftovers and some ham, pour a few well whisked eggs into the pan, and you have a yummy breakfast.

For the brussels sprouts, I cut them off the stalk. Butter and olive oil were heated with a few cloves of garlic. The sprouts were cut lengthwise and lain face down in the garlic butter. Cover on low heat for about twenty minutes, and finish with parmesan cheese.

The pork chops were simply sauteéd. I will describe the sauce whenever I get around to my entry on sauce espagnole, the next of the mother sauces I promised I'd share here.