Tuesday, September 07, 2010

Penultimate Stir dinner: rabbit food

I can't think of much to say about this Barbara Lynch salad of haricots verts, fennel, cucumber, celery and roasted potatoes except that it made a very pleasant meal, especially if you're on a diet.

What I really want to talk about are homegrown potatoes, how tender and creamy and gratifying they are. My limited storehouse of culinary adjectives fails me. I put less effort into burying those cheap seed potatoes last spring than I expend in any given week updating my Netflix queue. And six months later I have a small mountain of incredibly tasty spuds! I planted blues, fingerlings, and russets from the nursery, then buried some sprouted red supermarket potatoes in a defunct redwood pot on its way to the dump, and neglected them all for months while I went about more important activities, like reading and staring into space and watching TV. While the fruits on my tenderly staked and fertilized tomatoes are rotting, still green, on the vine, the potatoes are literally popping out of the earth. I don't know why everyone shamelessly gushes on about prima donna tomatoes when they could be growing and eating friendly, forgiving, delicious potatoes.

11 comments:

  1. so, this is the penultimate stir meal? i may be mistaken, but i believe you've been in this book longer than any other since tipsy debuted. can we assume it will get the highest tipsy rating?
    and where are you taking us next?
    personally, i'm kind of nostalgic for the kenny shopsin era.
    weird but provocative.

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  2. I planted sweet potatoes. I'll be right back. I'm going to see if I have a harvest!

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  3. Can I ask how you store your potatoes without having them get "sprouty?" I keep mine in a dark cupboard, but still don't get much storage time - two weeks max - before they start growing. :( Best, Ida

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  4. The New Basics cookbook was mostly a dud for me (just didn't fit my kitchen style) but the out of the park winner was roasted potatoes, fennel, and haricots verts, so this Stir combo is piquing my curiosity. Thanks for bringing us with you through the book!
    And maybe I'll try potatoes next. I do love them, and while our tomato plants are robust, there is not a single tomato on them, and we live close to NJ, the tomato capital of the world. I just like the smell of the tomato plant. Mmmm...summer.

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  5. Sigh, not a potato to be found. I ripped out the vines and put lettuce and spinach seeds out instead. I am the eternal optimist.

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  6. My Kids Mom -- Sorry about the sweet potatoes. I have never tried growing those. I was actually shocked at the way these potatoes performed.
    Ida -- My potatoes sprout in the cupboard, too. I guess the solution is to plant them?

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  7. I'd forgotten how different home-grown potatoes taste until we harvested ours. MMMmmmm....
    We're hoping to try barrel-potatoes to save space. If it works out well, it will eliminate storage issues, too.
    -g.

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  8. What a delicious looking meal. I can't wait to try your potatoes.

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  9. Can you tell us the name of the variety of your cheap seed potatoes? Thanks!

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  10. Azure -- I got russet, blue, fingerling and, I think, banana? I just got one of each at the nursery last winter.

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  11. Thanks! I'm not a big seed person, but the sunflowers were a big hit with the kids this summer. (The watermelons, not so much. Zero melons. Maybe we planted too late?) We'll have to try potatoes.

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