Cleaning the Fridge

No dinner entry yesterday because I went to a pot-luck party. Brought a cold asparagus soup recipe—“Asparagus-Orange Veloute” from Twelve Months of Monastery Soups by Brother Victor-Antoine d’Avila-Latourrette. This is a fabulous soup book. The major flavors in this one are the asparagus, white wine, fresh orange juice and crème fraiche. It’s refreshing and very springy.

Tonight there seemed to be no room in the fridge because of odds and ends and things that should have been thrown out.

No real plan for dinner and got home after late yoga. We had some ground beef that needed to be used up and a lot of herbs left over from the red onion vinaigrette the other night. I also needed to make a salad to use up greens and lettuce. I had a small head of cauliflower and what I thought was polenta. So I got an idea for a sort of weird summery kind of Sheppard’s Pie adaptation.

I started by putting on 6 cups of water to boil and then slicing half an onion. Started the onion in the 14-inch pan and chopped 4 cl. garlic. I put about a cup of water in a large pot and set it to boil. Chopped up the cauliflower into smallish pieces. Put them in the large pot, covered it, and turned down the heat (water boiling) to steam somewhat. Added the garlic and then shortly about 2 lb. ground beef, s & p.

I got out half a red onion left over and chopped it fine. Put in small fry pan with 2T olive oil and cooked till almost soft but not. Removed to a small ceramic container and added 3T olive oil.

Meanwhile, the cauliflower was just barely soft, so I removed it with a slotted spoon. Measured out the liquid left and added it to the boiling water pot, then added leftover chick broth (TJ’s) to make 8 c. liquid.

I removed the cooked beef and onions from the pan.

Chopped up and added the following to the vinaigrette: about 2T tarragon, 1T basil, 1t chives, 1T parsley; also juice from ½ lemon, 1T sherry vinegar. Also chopped remaining tarragon—about 2T.

Measured out 2c of what turned out to be corn meal, not polenta. Added it to the boiling broth and water—too fast and it was lumpy; stirred like crazy with a whisk. Was disappointed to be making corn meal much instead of polenta—but it did turn out well (and smooth). Let simmer a little.

In a small bowl, I combined about 3 heaping T of white flour, the 2T tarragon, salt, pepper, and about ½ t of a Cajun Mix spice blend. I heated the fat from the ground beef pan, then coated the pieces of cauliflower in batches and put them in the oil on high heat to cook some more. When they were browned and a little charred looking, I turned off the heat.

Turned off heat from corn meal and added about ¼ c. fake butter and about 1 c. Paragon cheese.

Put the corn meal in a serving bowl as a based. Topped with a layer of the ground beef and onions. Topped that with the cauliflower and garnished it all with the red onion vinaigrette and few sprigs of parsley.

Prepped a greens salad—had some green leaf lettuce already prepared. Washed and sorted (It was on its way out.) a half bag of spring mix. Balsamic dressing.

Two bowls on the table. A little odd, but everyone ate it and liked it pretty well. It seemed the red onion vinaigrette got lost in the corn and meat flavors, but it added a little zest to the tastes. Good for getting rid of things that needed to be eaten.