dinner

I have been bitten by the spring cleaning bug lately.   The first thing to be tackled was the garage, then our clothes, and then the house as a whole.  I have finally moved into the kitchen.  I tend to grocery shop when I am hungry and buy all kinds of things (like Simmer Sauces at Trader Joe's) that then sit on the pantry shelf or in the freezer.  For example, today I threw 5 potatoes in to our composter (I'll photograph it soon - it is awesome) that had literally liquified at the bottom of my potato bowl in the pantry.  

So this summer, I have a goal to play iron chef with what we already have.  We do subscribe to a weekly CSA - so we also have weekly fruits and veggies to go through. Since my work gave me the day off (which was much appreciated), I spent some time planning and preparing a nice dinner.  In the fridge I found beets, leeks, and fennel.  In the freezer I found a frozen galette dough that I had made from the Alice Water's Vegetables** cookbook (recipe makes two). In the pantry we had walnuts and thyme.  I went to Whole Foods and picked up a Belgian endive and some oranges. 

First - I made a salad with beets, oranges, endive, and walnut from the Alice Water's Vegetables cookbook.  I also got to use the mandoline that we got for our wedding - an amazing tool!  How did we live for so long without one.  It produced perfectly sliced oranges and roasted beets.

The dressing was made with orange zest, orange juice, red wine vinegar, and olive oil.  Very simple and very good. 

I also made a modified version of the leek galette in the same cookbook.  I had made the dough about 3 months ago and froze it - so I just thawed it slowly on the counter and rolled it out. 

I then took the fennel and the leeks and sautéed them.  The bowl in the back of this picture is my pile to go into the compost.  I love not putting this in the trash.

I roasted up the leeks and fennel with some butter and thyme in a new pot we received as a wedding gift.  

The delicious finished product!  We ate the entire thing tonight - the addition of fennel was so good!

** Alice Water's Vegetables cookbook is probably my favorite Vegetables cookbook out there