(this is actually from Thursday night but it's close enough...)
I made Blackberry buckle courtesy of Bless her heart's blog--I just found this blog that a woman, also in Austin, writes and I love her simple, impassioned dishes that use lots of fresh, local ingredients.
What inspired this endeavor is the wild blackberry bush I discovered today on my walk back to the apartment. On the edge of a vacant lot sits a massive, winding, spiky blackberry bramble with so many delicious berries. I scraped up my legs pretty nicely but after picking a few cups of berries I knew I had to bake them into something. Needless to say, it's all gone. It was delicious and came together so quickly that I honestly thought I screwed it up because it took not even 5 minutes to throw together!
Yesterday really was all food all day. I woke up, walked the dog (Rupert) to the farmer's market. In between the time that people gawked and petted and asked about Rupert I managed to pick up some banana peppers and turnips and I ran into Ben who said he'd come cook with us when he was done working. The plan for the day was pickling some cucumbers I got Friday through Conway Locally Grown. Although, I was originally inspired to pickle from this recipe at Smitten Kitchen I couldn't find it for some reason and used another. After some alterations and halving the found recipe it ended up looking a lot like this recipe anyway though. I ran out of white sugar so I topped off with brown (which I prefer anyways, hopefully it won't screw anything up too monumentally). I also have found very mixed opinions on when to eat the pickles. One source told me 6 weeks, another 1 week and another just a few hours! As much as I'd like to go with the latter I think I'll try to wait it out--if I can!
We braised the leftover pickling cucumbers, just like Julia Child, but they weren't all that so I chalked it up to being the wrong kind of cucumber which was pretty accurate since we tried it again at dinner with some cucumbers picked from the Hendrix garden and they definitely were all that.
For dinner, a friend came over with a backpack full of ingredients. Ben had instructed him to bring whatever he wanted but not to think about an endpoint, just bring whatever he felt like bringing. We decided upon assessing the situation (and with an added request (to use the casserole dish you gave me last year) to make a tortilla casserole. We stir-fried squash, onion, leftover sliced veggies (carrots, cucumber), with spices (cumin, paprika, red pepper), garbanzo beans (that had been seared in a separate pan). Then we layered tortillas, the stir-fry, local jalapeno cheddar cheese and slices of heirloom tomatoes from Ben's farm. Baked for 15 minutes in 350 degree oven. SO DELICIOUS.
Right now I'm waiting for my Foccacia bread to rise.
I think that about wraps it up. I highly recommend the buckle and I'll let you know how the pickles turn out in a week!
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