Shiny Cooking

Weddings. Baby showers. Christmas.

These are the some of the family gatherings where miloste, a Bohemian fried pastry, graced the banquet tables and spreads. Don’t bother googling; “miloste” is a phonetic spelling. We have no idea what the “real” name for these treats is. Hell, we usually call them “those fried things with beer in them and powdered sugar on top.” Read more on foodbuzz 24, 24, 24: girly cousins baking day! making grandma’s old world pastries…

Rhubarb with caramelized onions? Rhubarb salsa? Rhubarb and lentil potage? I can hear you now, the ornery ones of you that is: What the hell, woman…rhubarb’s for pie. Crisps. Crunches.

For April’s Foodbuzz 24, 24, 24 event, I decided to explore the savory side of rhubarb, since there’s a ton of it growing about 50 feet from my front door. As rhubarb is technically a vegetable/herb, why not try some recipes that utilize rhubarb as a vegetable?

Hey, salsa has a tangy bite. I bet rhubarb could work in salsa. So I tracked down a viable candidate in The Joy of Rhubarb: The Versatile Summer Delight. It’s a classic Mexican salsa, with fresh cilantro, green onion (which made me happy; I can’t stand regular onions raw), lime juice, jalapeño for a bit of bite, barely-blanched rhubarb, and lots of sweet peppers and more sugar than salsa normally would have, to counteract the rhubarb’s bite.

Dad’s verdict? “It would be great on hamburgers. By the way, we’re having hamburgers tonight….” Subtle hint there, Dad. Yeah, he went home with some rhubarb salsa. Linda thought it had a bit of a bitter rhubarb taste to it and suggested more sweetener. I loved it. Fresh, crisp, clean salsa taste with the rhubarb adding uniqueness without overpowering it.

Overall verdict for rhubarb salsa: Two snaps up. Read more on foodbuzz 24, 24, 24: rhubarb — it’s not just for pie anymore…

Do you enjoy reading Shiny Cooking? Me neither! Voting is open to all in the Foodbuzz food blog awards until September 30. If you like me, really like me, like Sally Field like me, you could toss a vote to Shiny Cooking in oh, the Best New Blog category. Or Best Writing Voice, or Blogger You’d Most Want to Whack Upside the Head. Voting is here.

The end of summer is a bittersweet time for a vegetable garden. Many plants are ripe or ripening, while others still bravely put out blossoms, uncognizant of the coming frost that will put a halt to their reproductive attempts. Indeterminate tomatoes are the most tragic example of this, showing off their dainty little yellow flowers into October if weather allows.

Tomatoes are living proof of plucky optimism. “Winter is coming? I’ll believe it when I see it!”

In my garden still there are carrots, chard, overgrown bunching onions, zucchini, tomatillos, sweet and hot peppers, tomatoes, beets, cucumbers, baby watermelon, and a stalwart little eggplant.

For Foodbuzz’s monthly 24, 24, 24 event (24 meals by 24 bloggers in a 24 hour period), I chose to celebrate this last hurrah of the garden, at least in northern climes. The frost date for my area is September 25th, so the end of the month usually coincides with the end of the garden’s frost-tender plants, which is most of them.

The original plan was to host a meal. I know! I haven’t hosted a family meal at my place yet!

However, my nephew Justin’s birthday is September 25th, and Jennifer decided to throw his birthday celebration on the 26th — the day I was required to hold my 24, 24, 24 event. We decided I would provide several dishes based on summer’s last hurrah. Read more on foodbuzz 24, 24, 24: summer’s last hurrah — a celebration of the garden’s final offerings…

We love seaweed, how about you?

People were confused when I told them my aunt Linda and I would be making sushi for January’s 24, 24, 24 event. “Isn’t that raw fish?” they asked, knowing I’m not a huge fan of animal foods. Technically, sushi is rice that’s been specially prepared with vinegar and a little sugar, and topped with or rolled with…something.

It could be a shaped piece of rice with a slice of lightly steamed bias-cut carrot on top, tied with a scallion. This is nigiri sushi.

It could be a fat roll of rice bound in nori (seaweed) and filled with imitation crab strips, tamago (japanese omelet), scallion, and cucumber. This is futo maki.

It could be an inside out roll, with the rice outside the seaweed, all enveloping imitation crab, avocado, and pickled beets. This is uramaki. But everyone calls it inside out roll.

It could even be dessert.

Other forms of sushi include battleship roll (gunkan), which we didn’t make, temaki, which we didn’t make, and hosomaki, or thin rolls, which we did make, but I didn’t get any closeups of. Thin rolls use half a sheet of nori and are filled with only one or two ingredients besides the sushi rice.

what’s in this post, and what isn’t

Read more on We love seaweed, yes we do…