A weekend of good eating ... at home

Pretty much every weekend we have at least one meal out. Usually it isn't anything elaborate -- maybe some tacos for lunch or some pho for dinner. Still, our weekend eating usually revolves around meals at home.

More than 9 Saturdays out of 10, we hit the Austin Farmer's Market downtown in the morning. That usually gets us off to a good start. After we pick up a few tasty ingredients, we can plan out what we're going to make both that weekend and later in the week.

Last weekend, we were unusually busy at home. This time of year, the farmer's market is not at its peak, but we did manage to pick up some nice pickling cukes and hot peppers for making spicy pickles. We've made pickles at home pretty regularly using a simple quick dill pickle recipe, but this weekend we tried out something new, and the results were great.



mmm ... delicious, crunchy pickles

Want the recipe? Sure you do!

Spicy Dill Quick Pickles
Total: 20 min plus overnight brining
Makes 2 quarts

12 oz vegetables
- asparagus: blanched 1 min and cooled
- broccoli stems: peeled and cut into sticks
- carrot sticks: blanced 2 min and cooled
- cauliflower florets: blanched 1 min and cooled
- green beans: steamed 2 min and cooled
- kirby cucumbers: quartered or thinly sliced
3 Tbsp kosher salt
2 Tbsp sugar
1 1/4 cups distilled white vinegar (5% acidity)
2 Tbsp coriander seeds
6 large garlic cloves, halved
4 to 6 long red or green hot chiles, halved lengthwise
16 dill sprigs

Pack vegetables into 2 clean 1-quart glass jars. In another jar, combine salt, sugar, vinegar, coriander and garlic. Shake until salt and sugar dissolve. Add 2 cups water and pour brine over vegetables. Add enough water to keep vegetables submurged. Close jars and refrigerate overnight or forup to 1 month.

Next, anticipating the need for lunch food for the workweek, we soaked some dry chick peas (or garbanzos or ceci, whatever you prefer) and made a big batch of homemade hummus. Still, we were just warming up. After that, Rachel decided that the only good way to satisfy her incredible bagel jones (we live in Texas, remember?) was to make some bagels herself. Working off of a recipe she found on Slate, Rachel made a good batch of cute little bagels. Now we had breakfast for the workweek covered, too.


Bagels in process


Bagels a-boilin'


The end result

To close out the weekend, we decided to make some pizza. Seemed like a good way to deal with our overload of oregano and basil in the garden. I picked up a few pretty sweet peppers at the store and decided to roast them. We put those on one pie and fresh mozzarella and basil on the other. Not quite Pepe's or Sally's, but pretty good for pizza from scratch. Seemed only appropriate to consume along with a bottle of my homemade wine -- a Cabernet-Syrah-Carmenere I made a few years back that seems just to be hitting its prime.


Thems some pretty peppers!


Pies


The C-S-C