Last night's meal of pork chops with barbeque sauce, field peas, and potato/leek salad was very, very good. I got out my first cookbook, Better Homes and Gardens, to remind myself of how to cook the pork chops. I browned them first, and then simmered them for a long time in the sauce. Excellent. Since I snagged the last four chops that Wes had until the fall, I'll save the other two for a special meal.
While I was doing that, I baked a carrot cake. I was not kidding when I wrote that I have never baked a cake. I've never been a big cake eater, which is funny because my mother bakes cakes that routinely bring more than $100 at charity auctions. It's not that I don't like them. I just don't usually save room for them because everything else is so good!
I used up all my carrots except for the three still out in the dirt. I had no idea it would take so long to grate them, and I regretted throwing out the food processor parts for doing such tasks. I assumed that my mouli would make short work of it, but it seems that my mouli is very, very dull.
Then I realized that the cake was not going to be enough for 30 people, and I was too tired to start another one. I had enough ingredients for half a recipe so I got up early and baked another half cake. No time for the cream cheese frosting. That meant I barely had enough time to get to the farmer's market, pick up my chicken from Wes, and shop for half the items on my list.
When I got to Charlie's at 9 a.m., I found out that I misunderstood and there would be 20 people. After actually losing sleep over this and running around like a nutcase this morning. D'oh! But hooray - I have carrot cake to eat this weekend!
Oh yeah, and I used flour from the Old Mill of Guilford. Donna happened to have a special order that didn't get picked up, so she sold it to me. So at least I have found locally milled flour - maybe not from locally grown wheat, though.
Anyway, the workshop was great, but that's another post.
For lunch, Charlie made a spinach lasagna with spinach from his garden, and we made a huge salad from his garden, including radishes from mine.
I'm not sure I can cook tonight. It might be carrot cake, field peas, and potato salad for dinner.
This morning at the market I bought:
chicken, eggs, spring onions, and snow peas from Back Woods Family Farm
dried navy beans and onions - Faucette Farm
alfalfa sprouts - Snow Creek Organics
strawberries - my new friend from Julian, NC
And didn't have time for the rest, so I may be taking a Sunday trip to the Piedmont Triad Farmers Market, something I don't normally do because it is so much farther away off a busy highway. They have a who-o-o-le different thang going on out there. Not better or worse, just a different vibe and some different products. I hear that there's a vendor who brings fish from the coast, so it will be worth the trip to check that out. Especially if s/he has shrimp.
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