Mixed Plate: Summer's Last Rites and Just Letting Life Happen

Er...mah....gurd. Yes, I'm alive. And yes, I realize it's been freakin' FOREVER since I posted. Well, almost two months. I took an unscheduled break from blogging because of work and a much-needed vacation. But I'm back! Well, at least for this post. I admit, it's been nice to just enjoy life, live in the moment, and not concern myself with photographing and taking notes on every. little. detail. So that's what this post is all about -- enjoying the moment, carpe diem-ing it, and remembering the sunny summer that was.

Summer's Last Supper, chevre-stuffed squash blossoms with pasta carbonara - Photo by Wasabi Prime

UnRecipe: The Meatball Strikes Back!

I'm back! I'm alive! And I'm definitely looking to ease back into cooking after a fun, but busy vacation. Be patient, I promise to share my adventure soon enough, but until then, I need to cook up something quick, simple and delicious. It's certainly not news that I'm an avid fan of the Meatball Craze that's been hitting the Food Trend World. They're so simple, you can make them with any ground meat combination you like, or even no meat at all, you can do vegetarian versions like my favorite chickpea/quinoa combo that are plenty tasty. We recently got our share of a cow -- we got a quarter of the delicious beast -- and so we've got a hefty supply of hamburger to last us the winter and then some. Meatballs of all shapes, sizes and ingredient combinations - ONWARD!

Meatball craze in full effect, but don't forget a crucial ingredient... - Photo by Wasabi Prime

UnRecipe: Cooked Green Food Looks Terrible, But It Tastes Amazing

Salads look refreshing! A verdant pesto made with garden herbs looks great! But fully-cooked green food...? Not so much. Split pea soup? Baby poop. And green enchiladas? Don't even get me started. Which is why it's ironic that the one dish that tasted great looked so horrible. So, with that in mind, here, look at some fresh garden-grown tomatoes!

Food blogging subterfuge -- look at this thing, right now, and not the other thing! - Photo by Wasabi Prime

The last, gasping handfuls of our vegetable garden aren't a total blog-beard -- they were pivotal in my Green Food Frustration post. As with every year, I always wind up with a lot of green tomatoes. Our growing season in the Pacific Northwest is annoyingly short, and my patience for babying tomato plants wears thin. Cherry tomatoes are my favorite, as even the greenest little underripe buggers manage to ripen in a bowl on the counter if I let them sit long enough. But I always get optimistic and get a few large-fruiting tomato plants like Romas or Sweet 100s, which supposedly grow fast. I wind up with maybe a couple fully-ripened tomatoes and way more green ones, but like they say, when life gives you green tomatoes -- make green food.

Green (and yellow) food -- looks great when it's freshly picked! - Photos by Wasabi Prime

I actually like green tomatoes, and not just for an excuse to watch that charming, yet surprisingly disturbing movie, Fried Green Tomatoes. Green tomatoes are tart and have a unique flavor all their own, so I like roasting them with an onion and blending it all into a sauce, usually salsa. I combine this with other green foods like cilantro, lime zest and juice, and season it with a lot of cumin and chili powder. Everything goes into the blender, I love it -- no fuss, no muss, and there's enough liquid from the roasted vegetables and a lime or two, to get everything blended to a smooth consistency. Shazam.

I did this with ripe tomatoes as well, which I have to say, the studies about certain colors like red, yellow or orange being more enticing to the appetite is totally right. It's basically the same salsa ingredients, just red tomatoes versus green ones, but the red salsa looks exponentially better. I made this with ripe tomatoes kindly given from another person's garden, one who is not as blessed/cursed with green tomatoes as myself. I added some of my own ripe tomatoes to the great vegetable roasting, as well as some tomatillos for tartness, as I didn't have fresh lime. A very tasty salsa, enjoyed warm or cold, I pretty much ate one jar's worth all on my own before eventually sharing the other jar with friends.

Let's face it, red salsa just looks better - Photos by Wasabi prime

I found myself with a couple of pounds' worth of green tomatoes towards the end of the season, so I repeated the salsa recipe and wound up with a pretty pesto-like mixture. I even threw in some roasted/peeled hatch chiles. But I didn't want to push myself along that same dark alleyway of me on the couch with a bag of tortilla chips and a big bowl of salsa for dinner the next few nights, so I thought: Green Enchiladas. In my mind, I envisioned enchiladas filled with chicken, the last of our garden's yellow squash and ricotta, to give it an extra creamy texture. I enriched the salsa verde with some Mexican crema, and that gave it a smooth, velvety texture to coat all the filled tortillas before baking. I covered everything with crumbled cotija cheese and into the oven these enchiladas went.

From green... to baby poop, but damn, it tasted good! - Photos by Wasabi Prime

And... baby poop. Heat just kills the fresh colors of food, especially green things, there's not a lot you can do about it. I remember buying crazy multi-colored bell peppers, and making the mistake of putting them into a stir fry and they turned dirty brown, even though they tasted fine. Not even a sprinkling of fresh cilantro or extra cheese was going to save these enchiladas. So why even bother posting? Aside from the fact that I love the idea of cooking stuff grown in our garden, and as super-grody as these enchiladas looked on the plate -- they were probably the best enchiladas I'd ever made! Doesn't that just kill you when that happens? What resembles little Junior's explosive diaper accident, was freakin' delicious. But the photos will never do it justice. Mixing ricotta with cooked chicken and vegetables, spicing it with some cayenne and cumin, makes for a wonderfully smooth enchilada filling. Think of a hybrid between Italian stuffed pasta and a typical enchilada. The ricotta and a light seasoning keeps it mild, which makes me think a typical red enchilada sauce would be overwhelming. The baby poop green sauce was citrusy, fresh, but rich from the combining of the crema. The night I made this, I had double servings, I loved it so much. I probably ate it so fast, I barely noticed the fact that it looked like hell.

I'm in love! But the object of my affection is ugly as sin and likely something you'd courtesy-flush before eating. So therein lies my food-quandary. I will definitely make this again, but it's a "Just Us," dinner, as the Mister had no qualms about eating Salsa Verde Turdy Enchiladas -- he pretty much bypassed all other leftovers for this green monstrosity. But take my Beauty and the Feast advice: even the ugliest of meals can still make your tummy very happy, even if your food blogger aesthetic is like, what-the-what?! 

UnRecipe: Summer Simplicity

Simplify. It sounds so gosh darn...well, simple, but sometimes that's all it takes to make a really good meal. You always hear chefs talk about letting ingredients speak for themselves and it's not just TV Land lip service, when you select produce at the height of its ripeness, the flavor reflects that. The tail end of summer is the best time to get your fill of flavorful vegetables -- they're sun-seasoned and there's just a wider variety of options both in the store and on farmers market tables. I notice our CSA box has more interesting things versus kale-a-topia. Which leads me to a pretty simple way to just savor this time of the season on a plate or even in a glass.

Fall prefunc meal - Photo by Wasabi Prime

It's not rocket science. Cherry tomatoes, yellow baby squash, mushrooms and a chopped onion pan roasted until caramelized and soft, sprinkled with a mix of garden herbs. Perfectly good on its own, but it can be a full meal when put on top of a creamy bed of polenta. A great option for Meatless Monday or any meal you wish to skip meat. I never grew up with polenta or grits and it's only been within the last few years that I've come to appreciate it, usually in restaurants. Recently I've started making polenta at home, which is about as easy as it gets -- cornmeal cooked in water or broth, made creamy with milk and cheese, serve up and enjoy. I go back to this super-simple recipe from Epicurious. I swap out the mascarpone for cream cheese or just leave it out completely and add more butter. Because everything's better with more butter. It's fast, which is nice in warm weather, you're not spending a lot of time over a stove. If you make it extra thick, it can set up in a pan in the fridge and you can slice it up like little cakes and grilled. The abundance of fresh corn is a  nice thing to add to polenta, bringing up the sweetness and adding more texture.

Polenta with summer vegetables - Photo by Wasabi Prime

I made a meatless and meat-ful meal using the vegetable-topped polenta. One of my favorite things to do with chicken is probably the most basic -- flatten a chicken breast or split it lengthwise, salt and pepper it and add a light dusting of flour before searing it in a pan. Before it's fully cooked, remove it and deglaze the pan with marsala and a little chicken broth. Add the chicken back in as the sauce reduces and thickens, it will gently finish off the cooking of the chicken and keep it tender. I'll sometimes finish with a little lemon juice and zest, just to brighten up the flavor. Essentially chicken marsala, nothing new, but it's one of my favorite dishes for its versatility as well as its ease of preparation, since most of the ingredients I keep on hand.

Truth be told, the lazy days of summer seep into our kitchen -- I just don't want to cook when it's warm out. Bleah, who does? I've been enjoying more meals out or just making simple salads at home. Having a stick-to-your-ribs meal of chicken with vegetables and polenta was a nice kick to the rear for getting ready for fall and winter. I've also been taking advantage of our mint plants, which continue to avoid insect feasts. Everyone thinks of mojitos or juleps for fresh mint cocktails but I've been in a gimlet state of mind, which is sort of like a gin version of a mojito, which is a rum drink, if you've never had the pleasure of one before. Fresh lime juice, some sugar to balance out the citrus, crushed mint leaves and your favorite gin, all shaken up to make a really refreshing summer drink. It's been the perfect ending to a lot of summer days at home, and it tastes even better knowing you're taking advantage of what your garden is providing. Even if your garden still has dinky little green tomatoes and jelly bean-sized strawberries. At least I can drown my gardening sorrows in a minty gimlet.

Gardening mixed results with a cocktail and hearty dinner to balance it all out - Photos by Wasabi Prime

Mixed Plate: The Lazy Garden and the Hungry Eater

It's something special to walk into your own backyard and pick things from your garden for the day's meals. And I'm not even an avid gardener, I've lost a lot of this year's seedlings and starter plants to slugs and snails, thanks to the extra-long rainy spring, and I'm the first to admit I'm a follower of the Ron Popeil School of Gardening: Set It and Forget It! If something doesn't take off like gangbusters in the soil, I'm not going to baby it to get it big and strong. I've done that before in seasons past, and I feared becoming Crazy Plant Lady. But that doesn't mean we don't eat a lion's share of greens and fresh produce in our regular diet, thanks much in part to CSA delivery every other week. I'm reminded of how fortunate we are to be in a region that has so much fresh produce, especially given the disastrous drought conditions that have plagued much of the country. The little kid in me may cringe, but it makes my grown-ass self thankful for the chance to eat my greens!

A little smooch of basil-love from the garden - Photo by Wasabi Prime

Back to my Lazy Gardener's Green Thumb -- it's beyond lazy, it's a severity of sin no one bothered to jot down because it's so wrapped up in its slothful glory. But somehow every year we manage to have at least a few things in our raised vegetable beds, usually herbs like parsley and chives, which I snip as needed and just let go to seed for the next season. I still stuff little bitty garlic cloves into planters so the greens can grow like scallions, or what I like to call Suburbia Ghetto Ramps. I've long been a big fan of sugar snap and snow peas -- they grow quickly, are fairly bug-free, and if you give the plants something to crawl on, they'll grow tall and be lush with pea pods. I didn't even fuss with snipping the pea greens this season because I was so anxious to just let the plants grow during the agonizingly slow spring. And my laziness was rewarded -- I was picking pounds of peas for a few weeks, before the summer heat really hit, slowing the pea patch production down. But in the pea patch's heyday, I didn't even need to get leafy greens, I could just slice the crisp snow pea pods into slivers and make crunchy salads with diced kalamata olives, pickled peppers and feta cheese for a Mediterranean style lunch.

Goods from our garden and gardens nearby - Photos by Wasabi Prime

But one cannot subsist alone on a Lazy Garden. This is of course where our CSA or Community Supported Agriculture delivery comes in. I've talked about this a million times before and I'll keep talking about it because it's something everyone should do at least once. Vegetables and fruit are good for you, and even if you're not eating fresh produce nonstop like a rabbit, you'll at least be regular and you and your doctor will be happy to skip that colonoscopy for another year. The excuses over not taking advantage of a CSA program usually go like this: "I don't eat that many vegetables." "I'm never home, so I don't have time to cook." "I'm not a fan of vegetables, so what if I don't like what's delivered?" The answer is simple: those are terrible excuses! No one eats as many vegetables as they should -- the soggy piece of wilted lettuce on that quarter pounder with cheese doesn't count as a vegetable. Even with our CSA delivery and periodic grocery  trips to pick up filler produce, I still don't feel confident we eat enough veggies. And as for not being home, skipping takeout and cooking a few meals in your personal Kitchen Stadium would be kinder to one's pocketbook as well as one's waistline. I know I make more sound nutritional choices at home than in a restaurant of endless caloric possibilities. When I'm at home, I know for a fact fries do not come with the meal. As for not wanting to eat your greens, shame on you -- you're not five, squinching your nose at the thought of brussel sprouts or onions on your plate. You can customize orders for larger CSA programs -- ours is with Full Circle Farms, which is gigundo-big, and their partnerships allow for order customizations like fresh eggs, meat, even ice cream and kimchee. Not together, of course. That would be weird. Or possibly awesome...?

We should feel fortunate to be armed with the knowledgeable benefits behind a fresh diet. It's what's going to stave off the forces of time and delay that inevitable intestinal reckoning for all those chicken nuggets and Twinkies that line the inner walls of our small intestine nether-regions like a processed food geode. I should know, for the entirety of my college years I lived off packaged foods and the drug-like high that comes from concentrated amounts of sugar and salt. But I also grew up with a mom who cooked meals nearly every night. My bad choices came about like anything else, a little taste of freedom turns into one long Leaving Las Vegas Oreo cookie binge. The Dark Side beckoned, I did my Darth Vader time, terrorizing vending machines for meals that came out of snack-sized bags, but I went into the light like Carol Ann and came out like Tim Robbins in Shawshank Redemption, standing in a rainstorm with a handful of carrots and a bundle of kale. We have to hit rock-bottom and rattle through a lot of movie references before we find a way to pick ourselves up and pry that Snickers bar out of our ninja death-grip.

Figuring out a plan of action for produce - Photos by Wasabi Prime

The bottom line is, fresh produce is a creative challenge to be welcomed every week. We don't have to eat it immediately, guzzling kale smoothies every day, although fruit and vegetable smoothies is one quick way to power through your greens. One of the first things I do on CSA delivery day is to make sure all the vegetables and fruit are bagged and stored in order of use. Onions and potatoes go into the pantry, since they can hang out in a cool, dry place for a spell. Fruit can be tricky -- apples and pears last for a week or two a fruit bowl, but it's stone fruit season right now, and those are more delicate and ripen quickly, so I opt to keep nectarines, apricots and the like in the refrigerator. I plan meals around the most volatile ingredients, the produce that will be most likely to get moldy and mushy fast, like mushrooms, green beans, summer squash and fresh greens. It's a bit like cooking on a ship when you've got a set quantity of items and need to make all work with ideally no waste -- you go through the fresh, delicate items first and save the heartier ingredients for later. I don't always feel inspired (who does?) so it's a lot of stir fry dinners and vegetable skillet hash topped with eggs, but I can honestly say the meals leave you with a feeling of fullness, but not heavy and tired. Maybe it's all in my head, but the food feels clean when the ingredients are kept simple.

When in doubt, pickle it! - Photos by Wasabi Prime

That's not to say processing your food to a certain degree is a bad thing. The CSA box sometimes throws in some curveballs like a random beet or two. And sometimes I'm stuck with more carrots and radishes than I'm wanting to eat in a salad. So I make a pickling brine with a mix of vinegar, sugar and some whole spices, and into the briny deep the sliced vegetables go for quickie fridge pickles. Maybe they'll wind up on sandwiches, chopped finely and added to a relish or salsa -- the bottom line is, they're preserved for the moment and I can figure out what to do with them later. I also rely on oven-roasting to help develop flavor and transform ingredients into something better. I found myself with pounds of eggplant, so I peeled and chopped them up, tossed with oil, salt and pepper, and roasted them down. Eggplant is just a big sponge, like a mushroom, and they shrink down quite a bit when cooked. Roasting some red peppers and onions along with the eggplant, they all wound up in a blender to become a dip that was quite delicious. Dips, pastes, marmalade -- all different ways to process a fruit or vegetable, developing its flavor, and making it into something you can get excited about. And maybe that's the secret behind eating one's greens and vegetables, making a dish that you can get excited about, so that your inner-child will never turn its snotty nose up again.

Mixed Plate: Summer Dazed

I'm already starting to see the Back to School sales popping up at the stores, signalling a significant change of seasons -- summer is on the wane and just the faintest early whispers of autumn are in the air. But don't fret, there's still plenty of time to soak up that Vitamin D and enjoy the many hours of daylight that we will soon be losing. Before summer scurries away, let's celebrate the days we've had and commit ourselves to enjoying what's left of the season before we return to our usual nocturnal Pacific Northwest Mole People status.



Fresh, sweet corn - it epitomizes summer for me - Photo by Wasabi Prime

It's just corn, yes, but how can you not admire how intense and beautiful that color is? No butter, only seasoned by some salt in the water that it was boiled in, which helped develop that bright hue. The natural patterning of gold and white kernels, dotting the surface like some natural Morse Code. And that first bite! Incredible sweetness and a freshness that can only be described as the reason why eating seasonally is the only way to go. Despite the fact that corn should come with a packet of dental floss, for the requisite cleaning of pulpy bits that inevitably get lodged between every nook and cranny of your teeth, sweet summer corn epitomizes summer for me. I spent a lot of summers in Maui, at my maternal grandparents' house "upcountry" in Makawao. The cooler air, mineral-rich volcanic soil and periodic rainshowers made it easy to grow just about anything. I called it a farm as a child, but it was more like a household garden, just big enough to feed a family, which it did for many years. My grandmother had an incredible green thumb. She could grow anything. Someone once gave her hemp seeds, remarking how difficult it was to grow "the pakalolo" and she tried growin' the ganja out of principle, just to see if it was a difficult as the stinky hippie neighbors complained. Luckily, it didn't take, and she left the illicit gardening to more dedicated souls, and our family never had the pleasure of being the subject of a federal raid. But Grandma did grow corn. Tall stalks of sweet white corn in plenty of rows, which myself and all the cousins would help shuck during the summer harvest. I got a rude awakening more than once by enormous, fat caterpillars, nestled between the corn and the husks. Nature can be gross. What the bugs didn't eat, the humans thoroughly enjoyed. The white corn was just that, white, so it never turned that enticing yellow color when cooked, but the sweetness was unparallelled. It was my first taste of something truly incredible, coming straight from the soil to our plate. Even if I didn't realize what it meant at the time, the memory planted a seed that would grow into an appreciation for fresh, seasonal produce, and the importance of eating with the harvests.

Eating with the seasons - Photos by Wasabi Prime

It's not rocket science, but seasonal food just tastes better. I got a bunch of local radishes from our CSA delivery that were literally as sweet as candy. They were perfect red jewels and only a hint of that peppery burn, which only complimented the radishes' sweetness. The snow peas have been plentiful and the new herb starts I planted have been coming along nicely, even if the slugs munched down more than I'd like. These photos of herbs and tomato starts were taken earlier in the season. Mint always does well and I decided to get a regular mint and an orange-mint plant, to round out our natural supply for mojitos and juleps. Cocktail gardening, anyone? The tomato plants have thankfully gotten much larger and are flowering. No tomatoes yet, but I'm keeping fingers crossed...

Herbal infusions and hopeful vegetable starts - Photos by Wasabi Prime

Garden pleasantries not your summertime cup of tea? If I could plant hot dog and hamburger trees in our yard, I surely would. But until that genetic abomination of awesomeness becomes available, we grill like everyone else. Since the Fourth of July when the Mister turned me on to the technique of spiraling wieners, we've been obsessed. Before you think it's some kinky 50 Shades of Gray business that you need to integrate into your next Key Party, step off, it's a food thing. But if you, Bob, Carol, Ted and Alice decide you want to spiral wieners, the video, originally from Cooks.com, has pretty much gone viral, and it's a relatively easy technique. It's a DIY method to convert hot dogs to a more effective grilling meat with a skewer and a small knife. That description alone makes it sound like the most heinous bris known to humankind, but believe me, this surgical act on your food is worth the time.

Here's to summer, let's spiral our meat - Photos by Wasabi Prime

We made spiraled hot dogs topped with kimchee for July Fourth, and at a cookout party later that month, we upped the spiral-ante by weaving strips of bacon in the spiral cut. It made for delicious bacon-wieners and the process elongates the hot dog, so you're ensured there will be no bite of just hot dog bun. True, it's probably a bit over the top -- as if regular hot dogs weren't un-Kosher enough, we added swine. The flavor was grand, but it was tricky to get the bacon crispy. It will cook, but won't crisp on the grill. I'm fairly confident that if I spiral and weave bacon into a hot dog, I need to boil them to par-cook the bacon, possibly in beer, just to add some extra flavor. You'll lose some fat, but I feel like cutting the cook time on the bacon will help it cook more evenly and quickly over the flame.

The joys of summer - Photos by Wasabi Prime

Of course summer is made up of many pleasures. We've been blessed with some incredible sunsets, which flood the social media-verse so that the world can see that the Seattle area isn't all rain and gloom. Flowers are in bloom, Indy likes pretending she's a supermodel in the yard when a breeze kicks up, and I'm still making ice cream. Orange Dreamsicle was the last batch I made, a perfect summer flavor. Another grand summer flavor is Beer. Cold, fizzy, in whatever flavor you like best. Our summer evenings have been regularly enjoyed at spots like Malt and Vine and Black Raven Brewery because they both have outdoor seating and they're a bit more under the radar from more prominent spots with patio seating. I especially like them because it's just drinks, no food, but they let you bring in or order food from neighboring restaurants who are happy to deliver. Malt and Vine is very dog-friendly, which Indy appreciates, both inside their shop and on their patio, plus they have a great selection to do your beer/wine/cider shopping, especially when you're tipsy. Black Raven has taken to having food trucks park in their lot on certain days, which is a plus. They share The Box with Matthews Winery on Fridays and on Sundays, Los Chilangos is there all day. Winning.

The days of summer are made better with beer and scary bonfires - Photos by Wasabi Prime

So grab that SPF 75 to keep those sweltering 80-degree days from burning us to a crisp, and enjoy this marvelous summer, Pacific Northwesticans. I look forward to more spiraled wieners, patio beer and drunken bonfires with propane blowtorches. Viva!

UnRecipe: Spread 'Em

Every year I seem to go through a food phase. Last year I was making ice cream once or twice a month, a phase which continues to this day and could now be classified simply as "normal." A few years ago it was discovering the craft cocktail revival, imbibing new things and filling our cabinets with a worrisome amount of liquor, also a thing that I would consider "business as usual" in present times. This year I have to say I'm definitely in a phase of making savory jams and spreads, a behavior that will soon evolve into daily life and seem about as everyday as making morning coffee. Which isn't such a bad thing when you've got a jar of caramelized onion bacon jam at your fingertips.

Jamming with caramelized onions and bacon - Photo by Wasabi Prime

I never jumped on the Canvolution bandwagon, where everyone was preserving and jamming to their Portlandia heart's content, but I totally get it. For all the stuff we grow in our gardens and the surplus of summer's farm fresh goodies, there's no reason to let any of it go to waste when you can properly preserve it like Joan River's Botoxified visage. I just don't have the know-how or equipment to properly seal the things I make, so the best way to describe the keeping savory jams, marmalades is: freeze the extra jars before the mold grows! In the case of an onion jam, it's almost the opposite -- cooking down a mountain of sliced raw onions into sweet, caramelized little mushy-ribbons of flavor is like the equivalent of Spacebags for food. If you have more onions than you know what to do with, you can cook them down to fit into a couple of clean salsa jars, and you are rewarded with one of the best flavors known to mankind.



Onions are magical, much like unicorns and wizards who make bourbon - Photos by Wasabi Prime

On their own, caramelized onions are divine. You don't need anything beyond an f-ton of raw onions sliced thin and a little olive oil to help them cook down until browned and mushy -- but not burned. It needs patience, Grasshopper, low and slow is the way to go. Add salt and pepper to taste and you've got the starting point for French onion soup, a wicked topping for burgers or hot dogs, intense flavor to add to a grilled cheese sandwich, or just mix with your morning eggs. For my super-duper onion jam, I rendered the fat from a few leftover slices of bacon, set them aside, caramelized the onions in the bacon fat and then added the crumbled bacon bits back in towards the end when the onions were mostly done. I even added a splash of bourbon (one for me, one for the jam) for a little extra depth of flavor. The perfect mix of sweet and savory, but with that dark flavor profile of something that has been cooking for a good amount of time, awaiting like a cobra to strike with deliciousness instead of deadly venom. A much better option, wouldn't you agree? What to do with this rainbow of onion-bacon flavor? I slathered it on some bread with melty mozzarella and let the toaster oven work its magic. I also topped a burger with it to make a crazy version of a Locomoco with weird fridge leftovers like cotija and breaded zucchini. Yeah, our fridge is full of all kinds of crazy sometimes.

Onion and bacon jam Locomoco, because that's how we roll - Photo by Wasabi Prime

Admittedly, the bacon and onion jam doesn't last long enough to be threatened with deep freeze storage. But one thing I do end up making quite a bit of during the summer months is pesto. Traditional pesto is usually basil, parsley, pine nuts, Parmesan cheese, garlic and olive oil, all blended to make a rich paste that can be used as a spread or a sauce. If the slugs hadn't eaten my basil plants to pitiful nubs, I'd be in much better shape, but pesto can be made with... well, almost anything. In our garden, we have a lemon balm plant/bush/forest that I have often referred to as the Thing That Will Surely Take Over Earth. It started out as a plant about the size of a little flower pot and it's since grown like Mothra, threatening world domination and smackdown date with a giant lizard from Japan. I cut it back liberally on a regular basis, leaving me with handfuls of lemon balm bouquets. I don't keep the stems, they can be a little spiny, but the leaves are tender and big, like giant mint leaves (no surprise, it's a close relation to mint), with a fresh herbaceous flavor of citrus, hence the name. Most of our garden pesto is made up of lemon balm, so it's got a refreshing zing to it, and I usually add a bit of whatever else we have, which could mean chives, oregano, even a little rosemary. I blend everything up with whatever nuts I have on hand (insert boy joke here), usually almonds and sometimes pistachios, which give a very pleasant sweetness to pesto if you haven't already tried this. I'll add Parmesan or Asiago cheese, plenty of garlic, red pepper flakes and a lot of olive oil. I prefer my pesto's consistency to be on the loose side, plus the heavy coating of oil slows down some of the browning of the fresh herbs, especially nice when I have to freeze the extra jars. For this recent batch, I had some fresh lemons whose juice also helps the herbs stay evergreen.



Pesto is Best-o with pasta, of course - Photo by Wasabi Prime

 
I slathered the pesto over a thinly-pounded steak, which I threw under the broiler for a quick cook on both sides. I also tossed the pesto with some pasta and peas. Aside from the fact the pasta "looked like a spider's nest," as Brock called it, after it was smothered in a heavy sprinkle of cheese, it still tasted divine. No spider's nest pasta for you, Brock! I still had plenty of leftover pesto, and the same application of the onion jam could be used for the pesto: eggs, grilled cheese, burgers, etc. For a while I was just calling it Hulk Pesto, as it was Hulk-Smashingly tasty, and I probably still had the image of Mark Ruffalo as The Hulk in my head from The Avengers.

Even the Hulk could appreciate this green creation - Photos by Wasabi Prime 

The versatility of flavor in a jar, aside from the benefit of using up excess produce and garden herbs, is especially  nice in the summer. You don't want to be sweating over a hot stove when the temperature rises. This robs you of valuable cold beer time. Chilled pesto with a little mayonnaise makes for a simple raw vegetable dip. Grilling meat or vegetables brushed with some pesto adds easy flavor. I'm a longtime fan of toaster oven cooking, mostly because it doesn't generate much heat and a few slices of bread toasted with onion jam and cheese is a perfect lazy summer meal. So all hail savory spreads, jam and pesto. Intense flavor, not a lot of effort and summer-long rewards.

Flavortown, population: my appetite - Photos by Wasabi Prime

 

FoodTrek: Meatbutter and the Last Supper

It was an oddly apocalyptic weekend when we had two separate conversations about the supposed End of Days a-coming in December of this year. The Mayans predict the Earth bites the dust a few days before Santa Claus comes to town (December 20th, if you want to add that to your Outlook calendar), so if we're going to be robbed of our mad dash to unwrap holiday gifts this year, we may as well start crossing things off on the ol' Bucket List. Which leads to this Dead Man Walking-inspired meal: the Feast of Bone Marrow! Or as I like to call it, Meatbutter.

Meatbutter, because bone marrow doesn't sound much better - Photo by Wasabi Prime

I almost want to create a whole new category of post for this, because this marvelous meal wasn't at a restaurant, and this wasn't something I prepared -- we were lucky to be invited to dine at the house of our friends, the Amazing Katherine and Jimmy, a wonderful couple who travel the world and live a truly bon vivant life with their adorable dog, Marco. The conversation behind this meal originally started out at a restaurant, I was talking with Katherine about food and she mentioned having Melanie Dunea's My Last Supper: 50 Great Chefs and Their Final Meals, an impressive tome of a cookbook that's as much of a collection of portraits as it is recipes. Katherine was inspired by all the suggestions and is hoping to cook her way through it, one dinner party at a time. Homegirl needs to get a blog going, don't you think? Dunea's book is interesting to flip through, as some of the chefs profiled list complex, impossible meals with dinner guests both living and dead (snooty much?) and some list simple dishes with unusual ingredients, not to be eccentric, but to express something they have a genuine connection to, before the Four Horsemen come a-calling. The nice thing about the simpler recipes is you can pretty much reproduce the whole experience, from start to end. Being photographed naked with a freakishly large cow bone(r), optional.

Checking out Bourdain's bone (marrow) - Photos by Wasabi Prime

Katherine wanted to create Anthony Bourdain's last meal featuring bone marrow, topped with a simple herb sauce of fresh parsley and capers. The book's photo is certainly worth a double-take, if nothing else. Is that a femur or are you just happy to see me? So why is the fatty, gelatinous mass encased in the center of bone such a delight? And, no, I'm not talking about Bourdain. Well, there's the answer behind the magic of marrow -- it's basically fat, and when roasted, it takes on the rich, meaty flavor of the bone and the marrow's buttery texture makes it easy to spread on bread, as the French like to do. It reminds me a little of foie gras, a super-concentrated unctuous essence of an animal, but minus the food guilt hangup you may have, if you can't bring yourself to eat foie. If you can eat a hamburger without getting weepy, you can certainly suck the marrow from a cow's bones with guiltless, ghoulish delight. Even if the idea of eating it straight up makes you squeamish, chances are you've enjoyed marrow's flavor in other forms. It's a big flavor component for beef broth, especially if you have things like the Vietnamese soup, pho. If you've ever had ossobuco, an Italian dish made up of slowly braised veal shanks, all the flavor is the goodness in the bones. Food hangups, begone, and just embrace the idea of bone marrow!

Magically delicious with a pasta tossed with fresh pesto and cheese - Photo by Wasabi Prime

Marrow was something Katherine had never prepared at home, it was something on her list of Stuff I Want to Do in Life, and just needed some willing participants. One should never gnaw on bones without eager company. She was thrilled to hear Brock and I have an appreciation for the creamy center of a crunchy skeleton, and honestly, we hadn't seen Katherine and Jimmy in ages and were eager to check out their new backyard and kitchen. Priorities, man.

How does your garden grow? Way better than ours! - Photos by Wasabi Prime

Their garden is amazing, as you can see by the photos -- lots of different fruits and vegetables. New raised planters are full of fresh herbs, tomato plants going wild, squash, corn -- an impressive harvest to come, to be sure. The newly-redone backyard goes nicely with their newly-redone kitchen which is beautiful. I was ooh-ing and ahh-ing at their stove hood, which is something I'd love to eventually upgrade in our kitchen. We started out the evening in the garden, after pouring a round of local bubbly, we snipped some fresh herbs to add to the glass. Pineapple sage has always been a favorite, and it goes nicely with sparkling wine.

A civilized herb infused cocktail before we get primeval on those bones - Photos by Wasabi Prime

Pleasantries aside, we promptly attacked the platter of veal bones stuffed with fatty, marrow goodness. Bourdain said he likes his marrow meal with a pint of Guiness. The fellas agreed the dark beer went well with the richness of the marrow, but us ladyfolks stuck with red wine, which is just as good, the acidity cutting through that intense texture. The bones were simply prepared, roasted until the insides were soft and spreadable, and the outside bones had a nice, toasted color. The ability of the bones to retain the heat helps keep the marrow warm. You make your way through all this with a savoring pace, so it's important the marrow stays spreadable, or it just hardens into Crisco. The fresh parsley and caper topping was perfect, a bit of brightness to compliment the velvety marrow. We made jokes about Mad Cow Disease, lots of Walking Dead zombie references, but really, the only harm a meal like this could cause would be to someone on cholesterol meds. Sorry, no marrow for you, Lipitor junkies. Enjoyed with pasta and a fresh salad made from goodies from their garden, it's a meal that sounds adventurous, yet tastes comfortingly familiar. It's no wonder Bad Boy Bourdain chose this as his penultimate meal -- it's as much a celebration of simple, basic flavors, as it is showing respect for ingredients by keeping them unfussy.

Pasta with fresh pesto and a cold beer makes everything better - Photos by Wasabi Prime

We were also treated to a delicious buffalo roast, which was excellent. Don't brush off unusual cuts of meat when you're browsing the meat aisle! This wasn't part of Bourdain's final meal on earth, but we wanted to make sure it wasn't our last meal on earth by just having a feast of cholesterol. Jimmy made a lovely peach and nectarine crumble, and we all sat around the table until midnight drinking lots of wine and talking about the Zombie Apocalypse. Because, really, that's what life is all about, don't you agree? I think the only one disappointed was Marco. He didn't have his own plate, but I'm sure he got a few nibbles of meatbutter goodness, just so he didn't feel left out. Big thanks to Katherine and Jimmy for having us over, and we won't wait a whole year, a new dog/kitchen/backyard to get together again.  

Bring it on, Apocalypse, I can die a happy girl - Photos by Wasabi Prime

Mixed Plate: I Dreamt a Garden Green Dream

When I think of gardening, I remember the first bite of summer white corn, picked right from the backyard of my grandparents' house in Maui. It was sweet and fresh, with the taste of mountain rain that nourished the plant and an undertone of mineral richness of the red volcanic soil that makes everything grow strong and healthy. With any luck, it was free of any gargantuan-sized caterpillars that loved the corn as much as us -- husking corn never felt so intimidating. My grandparents lived in a small "Upcountry" town, towards the upwards climb of the foot of the Haleakala Volcano, in Makawao. As a child who was born and raised in the smoggy urban sprawl of Los Angeles, this little farm had a big ol' influence. For all the taste experiences and flavors I've had the fortune of being able to sample, that bite of something fresh and raw, plucked straight from the plant it grew on, is the most significant taste I can think of.

Garden freshness, served right on a plate - Photo by Wasabi Prime

Garden-green memories aside, growing your own food is a labor of love. It's certainly not brain surgery, and with the right amount of care and attention, you could cultivate your own garden no matter where you live. But there's a bit of love involved in raising something from seed. You prepare the soil, starting with the foundation of what your plants will thrive on, you spread some seeds and keep them well-watered. You worry a little when the weather turns fussy -- maybe a cold snap hits, the temperature drops and you wonder if the seeds will ever sprout. And then you're rewarded with a symmetrical line of bright green shoots that peek out from the dark earth. They get taller, grow faster than you realize, and before you know it, you have the beginnings of a crop. You'll have to make the hard decision and thin some of the sprouts, ensuring there's enough room for the strongest plants to grow properly. In a few weeks' time you're given the ultimate reward of harvesting something you grew yourself. When you eat something from your own garden, it's like nothing else. It's satisfying, not just from a food standpoint, but a feeling of self-reliance. No, you're not going to chop down some trees and build a log cabin in the woods, but you're taking an active role in how the food gets to your plate and you gain more awareness over what it takes to produce the produce, as it were.

DIY food on your plate - Photos by Wasabi Prime

This post is to psych myself up for this year's garden. I always plant something; it's like a sign of respect to my grandmother who had such a knack for gardening. Keeping our garden producing something every year is a way to honor them and in a way, and I hope keep them smiling down on us, if you're into that sort of thing. When I'm feeling ambitious, I'll do multiple types of plants, cycling them out depending on cold or warm seasons. Years of lesser gardening ambition has me planting one or two types of plants. I'll be honest, this year will probably be less than gangbuster for the garden, but I've already got some things started. My Lazybones Garden Plan includes peas, tomatoes, carrots and zucchini. I'll buy my tomato plants like I did last year from the farmers markets, picking up unusual varieties and getting the plants as large as possible, so they've got a head-start. Carrots are fairly set-it-and-forget-it, and they sit in the ground for a while without needing to be pulled immediately. Zucchini, once the plants get going, can produce some surprising results -- I got some summer squash that were the size of hoagie sandwiches. Squash easily hide under the big leaves and heavy vines, so they'll get forgotten and just grow huge. My favorite thing to grow is probably peas. They are the ultimate lazybones garden item -- they thrive in those rainy, cold spring months and once the summer hits, they grow quickly and start producing. Even when they're in early sprout phase, you can thin the plants and eat the young greens. The mature plants continue to produce peas, as long as you're picking them regularly. Those are my favorite types of plants, ones that just replenish their crops. I tend to not have bug issues with these. Aphids are always a pain in the warmer months, but a diluted mix of dishsoap with water in a spray bottle will help keep them away and not render the vegetables you're growing inedible.

Garden goodness can come out of a box, too - Photo by Wasabi Prime

I don't want to forget the benefit of getting our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) deliveries. It makes our home garden more of a supplement, as a big box of variety will trump whatever I plant. It's another reason why the things I choose to put in the ground are things that can be easily frozen, if need-be. It's nice to know a home garden and CSA delivery can live together in harmony. I don't feel like we're overwhelmed, and it's just the two of us. We definitely eat our veggies, that's for sure.

We eat a lot of roasted vegetable dishes. I like using portobello mushrooms as a sort of "plate" and piling up a roasted vegetable ragout on top. There's no specific combination of ingredients, it's a dish that's meant to be flexible and easily changed out, depending on what you have. And of course, stir fry-aplenty. In the summers when we're flush with vegetables, it's easier to go meatless or just have salads on the too-hot-to-cook days. It's hard to think of hot summer days when we're still battling the gray skies of rainy spring, but warmer weather will be upon us soon, and that keeps the idea of green garden dreams fresh in my mind. Happy Gardening, Everyone!

Cook with what you have - as long as it's fresh, you won't be disappointed - Photos by Wasabi Prime

Trick or Treat, Smell My Feet, Give Me Something Good to Eat...

Happy Halloween, Boos and Ghouls! I hope you're ready for the one night out of the year where it's socially acceptible to run around from house to house, banging on the door for free snacks! You're probably already sugar-coma-ed out from all the pre-holiday candy you've enjoyed; you know what I'm talking about, the bag of Reese's peanut butter cups you bought on sale weeks before Halloween, but then started to slowly eat them one by one before the 31st...  So instead of sweet, I went with savory for Halloween. Along with a peek at our spookily pimped out Halloween house, I bring to you a Ghoulishly Green Tomato Chili! *Insert Vincent Price cackle at end of Thriller song *

The Prime and "V" wishes you a Happy Halloween! - Photo by Wasabi Prime

This post is very Halloween-like, in that it's just a big UnRecipe post wearing a scary holiday costume. I wasn't planning on making "green" chili, it was more like our tomato plants were starting to die off from the cold, there were too many green tomatoes still on the vine, and there's no way I was going to just sacrifice them to the Compost Gods without a valiant effort. So our garden boxes are cleaned out for the season, resting in the chill and rain for another year, and I found myself with several pounds' worth of green tomatoes of all sorts, from a collection of heirloom plants and other varieties. I let them sit in brown paper sacks for a few days, but when it's this green, there's no magical ripening powers that are going to make them bright, juicy red. But that doesn't mean you can't use green tomatoes. Aside from the usual suspects like fried green tomatoes, I wanted to see how they would do in a chili. Green tomatoes are known for being really tart, the sugars haven't really developed yet, and they're quite firm, almost like a tomatillo. Which, by the way, I had a few of those from a CSA delivery. Those are kind of Halloween-y as what's up with the weird sticky film that's on the surface of tomatillos when you remove the paper-like husk? And the fact they kind of taste like apples? Ingredients with costumes and their own sticky ooze -- It's the Great Tomatillo, Charlie Brown!

The Green Tomato Caper, as captured on iPhone camera - Photos by Wasabi Prime

I didn't want to just stew the green tomatoes and tomatillos in a pot, I roasted them first, to cook off some of their liquid and intensify their flavor. There were a lot of pans and casserole dishes full of green tomatoes roasting away in the oven for a few days, as I had several batches. Not everything went into the chili, but the bigger Early Girl and heirlooms were what eventually made it into the slow cooker for the final stew. For the chili, I had a large pork loin that I cut into large chunks, browned in a pot, then softened onions and garlic in the drippings before throwing in several pounds' worth of the roasted green tomatoes. As for the chili seasoning, I went heavier on the cumin than the typical chili powder. I like the smoky flavor of cumin and thought it would go well with the tartness of the green tomatoes. The thing I was most surprised about in the cooking of green tomatoes is even after the oven and slow cook time, the tart citrusy flavor never really went away. Which is a good thing, as it ends up brightening the dish quite a bit. I didn't have fresh cilantro on-hand, just coriander seed, but fresh sprigs of that would have been nice as well. The green of the tomatoes eventually cooks down to a brown color in the slow cooker, especially after adding the spice mixture of cumin, coriander and a personal dry mix I make that has chili powder, finely ground coffee, mustard powder and pepper.

Can't you tell how much I LOVE this time of year??? - Photos by Wasabi Prime

So how was the Ghoulishly Green Tomato Chili? Not ghoulish at all, pretty tasty, in fact. For something that came together out of necessity, as most of our dinners end up being, it was nice to work with the underripe tomatoes and see how they work with other ingredients. It makes me less hesitant to plant tomatoes during iffy seasons, knowing even the green ones have their own unique uses. And having the oven and slow cooker doing most of the work gives me extra time to deck our halls with Halloween decor! I'm a total nut for fall and autumn colors, and L-O-V-E Halloween. I have to stop myself from buying more decorations because I can never provide an acceptible answer to the voice in my head that says: "Sure, it's cute now, but where are you going to store it for the rest of the year?" Pesky voice of reason. I will kill you with more beer, just you wait.

Getting skully with it (no Mulder, har-har) - Photos by Wasabi Prime

And given the fact that it's Halloween, I'm indulging myself in sharing some non-food photos. I was obsessed with skulls in the last few weeks. Seriously, they were everywhere, and not just for Halloween. I was browsing one of my favorite shops, Common Folk, over in Bellevue, and they had glitter skulls and spooky wreaths -- wanted to buy everything, but you know, that pesky Inner Voice of Reason crashed the party in my brain. So I took photos instead of taking my wallet out. Same goes for the Alexander McQueen scarf I reeeeeeeeally liked, but couldn't justify the $200+ price tag for, yes, a single scarf. Maybe I'll treat myself to a little gold skull ring if it's still around and on sale after the holiday... Happy Halloween, y'all. Stuff your face with candy and get your drawstring pants ready -- it's November tomorrow, and you know what's coming up next: Thanksgiving! *Vincent Price cackle*

UnRecipe: Summer Scrounge

I had one of those moments recently where I looked in our refrigerator, pantry and even our backyard and said: That's it! No more buying anything -- we need to use what we have!! I don't even know why that statement needed to be said, as I'm the one who handles all the household upkeep and it's my own foolish overpurchasing during sales that leaves me with three pounds of bell peppers, two cases of canned tomatoes and no idea what to do next. But the biggest bounty has actually been from our own backyard, and figuring out how to use it.

You can be my huckleberry (yes, I'm gonna say that every summer) - Photo by Wasabi Prime

I found myself with several containers' worth of wild red huckleberries. Teeny-tiny red berries that grow wild in our backyard, from bushes that grow from rotted tree stumps. I know, sounds sexy, right? But they're fun berries to use -- a sharply acidic tart-flavored berry, kind of similar to cranberries but more tender and not as bitter. Lots of vitamin C, so no worries about getting scurvy if you eat them. It takes me about a week or two to gather enough to make jam. And when I say make jam, it's one small jar of the stuff. The berries cook down to nothing, but you're left with a super-concentrated paste of sour stuff that works as good as lemon juice, but with a bright red color.

Taking a cue from a previous post, where I made beet tarts, I made another batch of beet tarts, this time with the swirly Chioggia variety of beets, as we got a bunch in the CSA box and as we all know, they're not Mr. Wasabi's favorite, so it's on me to enjoy them. They're beautiful vegetables and the swirl of white and red means it stains your prep surface and hands much less. Barely at all, in comparison to the bloody murder of standard red beets. I spread the tart red huckleberry jam over the puff pastry, with cream cheese, and laid the roasted beet slices over that to finish in the oven. The sweetness of the beets were a nice companion to the sour berries, with the richness of the cream cheese and puff pastry to bring everything together. Just like buttery flaky pastry and creamy cheese to make a party, right?

Swirly-good beets for another colorful tart - Photos by  Wasabi Prime

I've been herb-harvesting in the yard as well -- before the heat totally baked our mint plant, I pulled handfuls of leaves, as well as a small bouquet's worth of lemon balm. I've done herb pestos with them in the past, but the latest thing that I can make easily and helps prune down the plants is herb-infused iced tea. I buy a supply of caffeine-free iced tea bags, usually a weak black tea blend, and steep a few bags with handfuls of cleaned mint and lemon balm. I put the whole thing in, stems, leaves and all. They just cook away with the tea bags, infusing the liquid with fresh flavor. I strain the liquid and let it chill in the refrigerator. I sometimes add sugar, but it tastes fine without it. If I have citrus, it's nice to let the rind of a lemon or orange sit in the mixture as well. It's one easy way to enjoy the garden every week, right in a glass.

Garden herbal tea - Photos by Wasabi Prime

UnRecipe: Three Easy Peasies

The oddball summer we enjoyed/griped about has at least given us one good thing at Casa de Wasabi -- a bumper crop of snow and sugar snap peas. I did a post a little while back about using the greens when I was thinning some of the rows, but for the last couple of months, we've been eating our veggies and then some.

Eat your greens -- we've got a garden full of 'em! - Photo by Wasabi Prime

There's been some weeks where I've been able to collect several pounds' worth of peas. It's more than I know what to do with them, but luckily they last for a while in the fridge before Wilty and Slimy take over. They make for great snacks, dipped in hummus, and when sliced into matchsticks, I like to sprinkle a handful over salads for a nice, fresh crunch. My favorite way to use them is tossing into a stir fry. I know that's kind of a de facto move, but I really do like tossing together whatever vegetables I have on-hand into a hot wok and making an ad hoc spicy finishing sauce. It's fast, but it's also very comforting to me. Especially when along with the peas from our garden, we still get our big ol' box of mystery veggies from our CSA delivery. How's that for roughage?

Mind your Peas and Qs - Photos by Wasabi Prime

When I cook with the peas, I prefer the flat snowpeas, saving the sweeter sugar peas for snacking. Not to be Captain Obvious, but if you've never really noticed the difference between sugar and snow peas, just take a gander above to see how the shorter, more rounded sugar snap peas differ from the flat, wide snow peas. You'll notice the flavor as the season moves along and the sugar snaps have a heightened sweetness. They're one of the easier things to grow in a garden, especially for lazy gardeners like myself -- once you have the pea plants going and preferably climbing upwards on some sort of trellis (I'm super lazy, and just had them scrambling up stakes), they'll flower with these delicate white blooms and before you know it, the plants will be awash with peas. They grow quickly and you'll be surprised how fast your crisper drawer will fill with peas. It'll go from a handful here and there to bagfuls of a pound or two a week, depending on how many plants you've got. I've seen people puree the peas to make a smooth hummus-type dip, but I really like them whole and crunchy. If you throw them into a stir fry as the last ingredient, they'll keep their crispness.

Several dinners, thanks to the backyard produce supply - Photos by Wasabi Prime

As I blah-blah-blah about how great they are in a stir fry, you're probably wondering, what kind of sauce are you making for these mystical magical stir frys, Wasabi? I've mixed things up -- I like using jarred tamarind paste and making a sour, savory Pad Thai-like sauce, mixing a bunch of vegetables with scrambled egg and finishing with crushed peanuts. I also enjoy using black bean paste -- really rich, deep flavor, and you don't need to use a lot of it to mix up a fast sauce that holds up nicely with sliced beef and green onions to go with the peas. The latest bag of peas went into a vegetarian stir fry with a ton of cremini  mushrooms, tofu and chili sauce; kind of a Szechwan inspired stir fry that tasted extra good on one of the oddball rainy, cool days we had in between the heat spells. I'd recommend getting tamarind or black bean paste from your local Asian market -- you can usually find these in the sauces/flavorings aisle. These are ingredients that are probably added into other sauces you've had before, but it's nice to have them at your disposal, and not already mixed into a pre-bottled sauce, as you can control the flavors. I would say you could control the salt, but these are packed full of sodium, so just keep an eye on the labels and you can water them down as needed. I use sodium/sugar-free rice wine vinegar to loosen a sauce as well as add a tart, sharp flavor. Use a corn starch slurry to thicken, since ingredients like fresh vegetables and tofu can give off quite a bit of liquid.

Mushrooms, tofu, bok choy and peas, perfect for Meatless Mondays - Photo by Wasabi Prime