Agenda in the kitchen

I spent the better part of yesterday afternoon cooking.  I had a lot of things I wanted to use up before they got too old.  Now we're set for a few days!

First up was to make some Lemon Buttermilk Sherbet.  Last week when we had guests for dinner, I made a berry cobbler which required a half cup of buttermilk. Of course, the store only had the quart containers in stock!  So I had a Whole Lot of buttermilk left.  I made blueberry buttermilk pancakes over the weekend (for dinner!) but that didn't put much of a dent in it.  I'd made a similar sherbet before with buttermilk and pineapple, but I didn't have any pineapple in the house, so I googled and came up with this. Simple enough!  I didn't have any real lemons either, so instead I added about 2 tablespoons of Key Lime Juice.  The result was delicious, if I do say so myself!  So tangy and refreshing!

This ice cream maker was a wedding gift.  We'll
be married 15 years tomorrow, and we still use
this thing!

Yes, you may have some.  But you have to eat your dinner first.

Next up:  Blueberry Pie.  Mmmmmm . . . pie.  I love pie.  And blueberry is my second favorite (number one being cherry, and number three being Key Lime. Number four is Lemon.)  Last Friday I popped into Whole Foods to get a loaf of bread, and they had pints of organic blueberries on sale for $1.99!  Unheard of!  I bought three.  One became the pancakes and some smoothies, the other two became this:

Would you like a slice with your sherbet?

OK, so it's not the most gorgeous pie you've ever seen.
Thankfully, Martha Stewart doesn't read my blog.
I'm pretty sure.

As it was sitting on the counter to cool, I kept wondering if a hobo would come along and steal it.  Good thing we have an alarm system.

So that's dessert settled.  How about some dinner?  I made a main dish salad of brown lentils, potatoes and garlic-sauteed spinach with green onions, parsley and red wine vinaigrette, a summer favorite of ours.  Delicious (and healthy) to eat, but not so beautiful to photograph.  It's very brown.

Its accompaniment is brown too, but I did take its picture.  I made some garlic crostini, on top of which we put this Sardine-Tahini spread:

I taste much better than I look.  Honest.

And some fresh tomatoes on the side.  Way back in the dark ages, when I was in my early twenties, I decided it would be a good idea to eat a macrobiotic diet.  It didn't last long.  This was the only macrobiotic recipe from my macrobiotic cookbook that I actually liked.  It's super simple to do:  a can of sardines, approximately 1/3 cup tahini (the cookbook is long gone, so I just eyeball it) and about 1-2 tablespoons of soy sauce.  Mush it all together and you're good to go! Fishy and salty - yum!  And full of calcium too. (In case you were wondering.)

And now, if you're still reading, I really ought to invite you to dinner!