Inventing Dinner

For years PK and I have marveled at our daily fare. We think it is the best in the world, and I'm not kidding. That is SO swaggering, but please bear with me. I bow before you whose Monday plates and Tuesday repasts and Wednesday feasts and home-cooked meals throughout the week also bring you to your knees with gratitude and praise. O holy skillet! Masterful grill! Garden font! Made-up recipes!

We  unabashedly exult (no one is around to hear, so we really go for it it) and imagine frequently what it might cost to eat what we eat if we had to buy it in restaurants, if we even could get it. We are the most ridiculous home-cooking foodies I know.

We couldn't afford comparable restaurant meals, for one thing. I have eaten in a few great restaurants —Italy comes to mind. But in general,  I can't remember a restaurant meal that I enjoyed as much as what we eat almost every night, even though I risk sounding prideful because I am the primary cook. (I cook. PK cleans up. That's our deal. Together we grow the food.) But I create the meals, chop the onions, garlic, peppers, tomatoes, potatoes etc. etc. etc., and it is a Zen exercise every time. More on the pleasure of kitchen details later, perhaps. But on to  dinner.
On the plate you see a modest portion of cut-up New York steak, dusted with kosher salt and grilled six minutes a side over a high gas flame. That's it. The steak (a rare treat, actually) was relatively expensive, purchased at Gooseberry's, the only "natural" foods grocery in Grants Pass, Oregon. It was delicious. I choose to believe that the animal who died for this meal did so under a humane hand and was raised in tolerable conditions without hormones and chemicals. Coming to terms with meat will be the subject of a future post. I'm still figuring out the ethics of eating animals,which I've done heedlessly forever, but which  has become more of an issue in recent years due the quiet persistence of a vegetarian daughter-in-law and several persuasive  books and films.

But the scant meat in this meal is accompanied by heaps of vegetables, including sweet, rich and waxy garden  potatoes. What is it about homegrown potatoes? They are so toothsome and earthy and flavorful, not at all like industrial potatoes. Read Ruth Ozeki's All Over Creation,  a really good read whatever your persuasion, and you will question commercial potato consumption.


Potato, zucchini fry
2 medium zukes, cut into small pieces
3 medium potatoes, cut into small pieces
1 medium sweet onion, diced
3-4 cloves garlic, chopped
1 sweet pepper, seeded and chopped
1 jalapeno, seeded and chopped
olive oil and/or butter

Saute the zukes until tender and browned. Set aside. In the same pan, fry potatoes until browned. Add onion, garlic, and peppers and cook about five minutes. Mix in the zukes. Salt and pepper to taste.

Tomato and cucumber salad
Three medium dead-ripe tomatoes, preferably a round variety
1/2 sweet onion, thinly sliced
1 medium cuke, thinly sliced

fresh basil to taste, torn
extra virgin olive oil, about 3 tablespoons
reduced balsamic vinegar*, about 2 tablespoons

Douse mixed veggies with the balsamic vinegar and olive oil and salt & pepper to taste. It's all made up, so taste as you go. Trust yourself.
(*To reduce vinegar, pour two cups into a small saucepan and heat over a low to medium burner til reduced by half or less, depending upon how syrupy you like it. I store it in a small shaker bottle to drizzle it over almost anything.)

The sauces on the plate are essential. One is homemade dill sauce, the other, chipotle sauce.
Both are variations on a theme of a half cup of sour cream, half cup of mayo, 2 tablespoons lemon juice, and either a handful of chopped fresh dill or two or three chipotle cubes.  The chiptole sauce we enjoy year round, thanks to our smoker, but the dill is seasonal, and ours, sadly, has gone to seed in the dozen or so places it volunteered throughout the fading summer garden. Dried dill can be substituted.