Little Bang Theory

I’m an Eatist.

A gourmand, an epicure, a pig.

I love to eat. And I especially love it when the food is fresh, local and FREE.

Which is as fine a reason as any to celebrate the full-throated arrival of Spring, when annuals send up tender shoots for the observant to pluck on their rides home from work, or on their joyous weekend mornings.

Here’s a pasta meal (yes, fresh, in-state made pasta) featuring a couple of items which I forraged on the way home from work today: ramps and fiddleheads!

Now you know, all fern “fiddleheads” are reputed to be edible, but some are much more edible than others. For instance, these tender shoots of interrupted ferns are “edible,”

…but gnoshing on them would doubtless be akin to mackin’ on an Italian’s back. So I Just Say No.

The real fiddleheads are the shoots of ostrich ferns, notable for their dark green color, with a deep groove in the inner surface of their stem. And they’re totally hairless.

So, trying as we all ought to be to get that Italian image out of our minds, here’s tonight’s dinner:

Pasta with roasted garlic, organic shitake mushrooms, fresh-picked wild ramps, some nice clean fiddleheads and a handful of thinly shredded hot capicola, sautéed in olive oil and tossed with grated parmesan cheese:

Enjoy!

Well, that ought to generate a few hits.

But really, though I usually home in on chicken, fish and veggies, I occasionally crave meat.

The bloody kind.

One evening last week I asked my local butcher to put aside a flatiron stake for me. He gets a chunk of a cow pretty regularly, but the two flatirons he cuts out of it are always scarfed up pretty quickly, and by the time I get home from work they’re hardly ever still there. So I asked him to put one aside for me, and promised to pop by for it after work.

I drove at dangerous speeds to get home before the store closed and my claim to the fabled Flatiron lapsed, and got there just in time. The eleven dollar price tag surprised me, but as a rare treat, I hoped it would be worth it.

I got home, unwrapped my booty and found not one but two flatiron stakes in the package, which made me breathe easier about the price!

I marinated them both in olive oil, balsamic vinegar and lots of garlic for a couple of hours while I stalked the back roads for things to photograph, then came back and threw one on the grill, slathered with a garlic aioli which I’d prepared for the asparagus which would be my side. Occasional drizzles of olive oil kept the smoky flames leaping, resulting in that exqiusite flavor which just doesn’t ever come off the kitchen stove.

The result:

…Delicious!

But being a little piggy, I ate the next one the next day, and felt like I’d swallowed a cinder block. As a rare treat I’ll do that again , but with one steak, thank you.

Earlier this week I had a delicious dinner of boneless chicken breast sautéed with ramps, the latter courtesy of neighbors Frau Biergut and Miz Lu(mena.) Their afternoon of foraging was obviously productive - Thank You, Ladies!

But by tonight I still had half a breast left, and it was time for Drastic Measures. So out came my little food processor, and the result was a Curried Chicken Salad, here served on a bed of field greens with tomatoes and kalamata olives:

‘Twas guud, and will make a perfectly passable lunch as well.

Enjoy!

Mahogany rice with walnuts and veggies:

Came out almost like a vegetable-fried-rice!

Had to run some errands tonight, and by the time I got home , it was late and I didn’t feel like cooking.

So out came the tomatoes, mozzarella, basil and red onion, and a salad was born:

Topped with lots of fresh-ground black pepper ans a drizzle of balsamic vinegar.

Enjoy!

Got a hankerin’ for some fruits de terre tonight, and I indulged it by rounding up all the Usual Suspects, including turnip, parsnips, carrots and a sweet potato, along with a few veggie accomplices:

Chunked up the harder stuff, tossed it with some olive oil, fresh garlic and rosemary from my window box and stuck it in a 400 degree 0ven while I sliced up the veggies, including a load of Brussels sprouts, some colorful peppers, a big poblano chile and a nice fat leek.  Then it was “All In!,” with a dash of tamari and a smile.

Twenty minutes later, they surrendered, coming out with their hands up, contrite, tender, submissive, mine:

I ate them tenderly.  It was a very good night.

OK, so tonight I got down to the business of assembling yesterday’s ingredients into tonight’s dinner!

I started with some fresh raviolis stuffed with artichokes, roasted tomatoes and mascarpone, added some oil-wilted baby spinach, and tossed it all with some green olives marinated in herbs de Provence and a rustic pesto of roasted red peppers, almonds and garlic:

It did me fine.

So I started chunking up the ingredients for a rustic roasted red pepper pesto, intending to serve it over some fresh raviolis which I procured a couple of days ago.

But Dammit, I got busy processing photos and tripping by a few of my favorite blogs, and the next thing I knew, it was late and I was hoovering the roasted red peppers and mozzarella and green olives marinated with herbs de Provence and thinly sliced prosciutto…

So, Long Story Short, theres nothing to see here folks, I ate the evidence before this meal ever went to trial.

Case dismissed.

‘Cause, you know, a veggie meal every once in a while can’t hurt.

So here’s my version of tofu, done with a bunch of fresh ginger and lots of peppers, onions and fresh basil, all served over a mound of basmati rice.

Enjoy!

There’s no going out into this bright, windy day without a belly full o’ good!

So here it is, a pair of pitas stuffed with a crab and avocado salad, organic field greens and fresh sliced tomato:

And now, off into the Berkshire equivalent of a Fine Spring Day!