Pasta and braised red cabbage

This is a jar of the local supermarket natural line store brand of cheesy marinara, with some seasoned, browned ground beef simmered in it. A pound of fusili pasta. Half a red cabbage, braised with garlic scape pesto (still last year’s… the new share season is starting soon, though), cumin, and wine.

Venison stew, anchovy-garlic cabbage, and butter-fried sweet potato

Venison stew with celeriac and parsnips, split and butter fried baked sweet potatoes, and anchovy garlic cabbage

The last batch of beef stock that I made turned out super gelatinous (this is a good thing) and I’ve been using a quart of it, a few spoonfuls at a time, to braise this and that. There’s some in the venison stew, some in the cabbage. Kevin mentioned this flavor profile to me a few days ago: cabbage with anchovy. Oh, hell yes. And garlic? Indeed. These are a few of my favorite things. Even the cabbage. It’s such an easy vegetable to overlook: it’s cheap and abundant. It’s also nutritious and versatile. I can flavor it with mustard oil, tomato, and cumin, or bacon, onion, and thyme, or like this, with anchovies, garlic, and a few red pepper flakes, and it’s delicious.

These are some sweet potatoes I baked last fall, skinned, and froze. I thawed them, then split them and browned them gently in butter.

The venison stew is as simple as can be, with some parsnip, onion, and celeriac that are all from the winter share. A little wine to deglaze after browning the meat and softening the vegetables, and some more of that thick beef stock.

Leftovers

I forgot to take a picture before I tucked in. No TV tonight. We’re each doing our separate thing on the computer. I heated up leftover meatballs, cabbage cooked with bacon and garlic, and turnips cooked in curried lamb stock.

There is approximately a quarter of a deer on ice in a big plastic container, in my kitchen right now.

An old standby, and the greatest brassica of them all

Chicken and cabbage for dinner

I bake chicken thighs almost every week. It’s our favorite part of the bird. I used to buy whole chickens, because even chicken stock is more popular around here than white meat, but days later, we’re still fighting like tired children over who has to eat the breasts, unless I’ve been smart enough to bake the whole bird for company. Everyone likes the breasts except us.