radicchio triumph
So, my Grey Bears bag this week consisted of two large bags of baby spinach (which I can't eat ever since I had an intestinal infection three years ago), two heads of radicchio one of which was as large as a standard head of cabbage and bitterer than almost anything I have ever eaten, a couple blood oranges, some potatoes, some yellow onions, a medium portabella mushroom, and a tiny anemic heart of romaine, This may sound like I am going to be complaining, but no! I am going to brag.
I gave away the spinach and set about concentrating on the radicchio. It comes about its bitterness naturally: it's one of the chicory cousins and it inherits bitterness as a birthright. So I set about reading radicchio recipes online, finding that most of them are rather better suited for the milder instances of the herb rather than the bitter manifesto I had in hand. But I found one recipe that intrigued me. It called for radicchio to be sauteed with mushroom, onion, garlic, and walnuts, and finished off with lemon juice and parsley. So I made that and it was still too bitter (I mean this. I like bitter, so if I say something is too bitter, I do not say it lightly). Well, I was not done. I thought about what Jozseph Schultz said in his mushroom cookbook about how to adjust for flavors that are too strong in the balance, and started tinkering. My roommate who will never get that being pre-diabetic means that I am screwing up when I use sweeteners suggested honey, but I went with raisins (which have sugars in them but also fiber and delicious, delicious nutrients) (also notice I don't say I never use sweeteners, only that I am screwing up if I do: but I don't feel I am screwing up if I make jam, wine, etc., because I can use these items to deal with the human need for sweets while exposing myself to less actual sugars). Then I served this delicious but still too-bitter concoction in a quesadilla and the extra blandness from the tortilla and the cheese put it right over the edge into heaven territory.
Today I have more radicchio, but no more raisins or garlic, and I don't want to use a tortilla because the ones we have are for Keith and they are white and I'm trying to be a little better every day. So I had the idea of putting sliced potato in for blandness and torn-up dried Satsuma plum slices for sweetness. I also had the idea of putting in kabocha squash to help with umami, blandness, and sweetness, but that got sidetracked because I was so hungry when I was cooking (it was eleven and I had not eaten yet), so I just ended up microwaving (shut up, it's actually a good technique for vegetables you want moister than grilled and drier than steamed) the kabocha squash (half of a tiny one) and eating it plain plain (soo good while it is still hot) while I cooked and now I am too full for the radicchio so I can't tell you how today's came out until supper time, when I will reheat it with (meyer) lemon juice, parsley, and cheese, and that will be my dinner.
On a related note, I have a wild mushroom cookbook in French. I find that with my forty-five year old high school French I can actually read some of it in a useful way, but if you are fluent in French and would like a wold mushroom cookbook, let me know and I will send it to you.
I gave away the spinach and set about concentrating on the radicchio. It comes about its bitterness naturally: it's one of the chicory cousins and it inherits bitterness as a birthright. So I set about reading radicchio recipes online, finding that most of them are rather better suited for the milder instances of the herb rather than the bitter manifesto I had in hand. But I found one recipe that intrigued me. It called for radicchio to be sauteed with mushroom, onion, garlic, and walnuts, and finished off with lemon juice and parsley. So I made that and it was still too bitter (I mean this. I like bitter, so if I say something is too bitter, I do not say it lightly). Well, I was not done. I thought about what Jozseph Schultz said in his mushroom cookbook about how to adjust for flavors that are too strong in the balance, and started tinkering. My roommate who will never get that being pre-diabetic means that I am screwing up when I use sweeteners suggested honey, but I went with raisins (which have sugars in them but also fiber and delicious, delicious nutrients) (also notice I don't say I never use sweeteners, only that I am screwing up if I do: but I don't feel I am screwing up if I make jam, wine, etc., because I can use these items to deal with the human need for sweets while exposing myself to less actual sugars). Then I served this delicious but still too-bitter concoction in a quesadilla and the extra blandness from the tortilla and the cheese put it right over the edge into heaven territory.
Today I have more radicchio, but no more raisins or garlic, and I don't want to use a tortilla because the ones we have are for Keith and they are white and I'm trying to be a little better every day. So I had the idea of putting sliced potato in for blandness and torn-up dried Satsuma plum slices for sweetness. I also had the idea of putting in kabocha squash to help with umami, blandness, and sweetness, but that got sidetracked because I was so hungry when I was cooking (it was eleven and I had not eaten yet), so I just ended up microwaving (shut up, it's actually a good technique for vegetables you want moister than grilled and drier than steamed) the kabocha squash (half of a tiny one) and eating it plain plain (soo good while it is still hot) while I cooked and now I am too full for the radicchio so I can't tell you how today's came out until supper time, when I will reheat it with (meyer) lemon juice, parsley, and cheese, and that will be my dinner.
On a related note, I have a wild mushroom cookbook in French. I find that with my forty-five year old high school French I can actually read some of it in a useful way, but if you are fluent in French and would like a wold mushroom cookbook, let me know and I will send it to you.