Pasta salad with fava beans

I used this recipe from Saveur, without the tomatoes. I also used regular feta, distributed throughout, rather than the whipped feta.

On another note: I'll be really glad when it's fresh tomato season again.

Brisket

Brisket, for those that don't know, is one of the famous barbecue cuts of beef. It sits on the cow's chest; and because cows don't have collarbones, that cut supports about 60% of the cow's weight. Which is why brisket is full of fat and connective tissues, and needs to be cooked low and slow for a long time in order to render it delicious. (Which is why it's great for barbecue.)

When it's cooked properly, it's meltingly delicious. I had the good fortune to get some leftover (cooked) brisket from my restaurant this week. Even a day old and reheated in the microwave, it was amazing. I made a mushroom risotto with some of the mushrooms I got, too, and served it with some brisket pieces on top.

I've never actually cooked brisket myself (just eaten it), but I can say it's definitely worth it. I can also it goes smashingly with mushroom risotto.

Crab and corn empanadas

I know I've said it before, but I love restaurant leftovers.

This week, I got several containers of crabmeat, several of sauteed mushrooms, a couple more containers of fava beans, and at least a pound of cooked brisket.

I see more crab cakes in my future; but I also made crab and corn empanadas with puff pastry.

1 cup crabmeat
1 cup corn
Juice of 1 lime
Old Bay seasoning
Scallions
4 sheets of puff pastry, thawed and cut into four squares each

Mix together. Place a spoonful or two in the middle of each puff pastry square, and fold over to form a triangle. Seal the edges with a little water, and crimp with a fork. Bake at 400 for 20 minutes or until the puff pastry is golden brown at the edges.

Serve with a Sriracha aioli (Sriracha + mayo).

Wine from my collection: Movia Lunar

Remember the undisgorged Puro? This is another wine by those same people.

It's orange. And cloudy. And delicious.

Eric Asimov of the New York Times said, "Movia’s 2005 Lunar is an experimental ribolla gialla wine, in which Ales Kristancic, an owner and the winemaker, tried to produce a wine basically without the touch of humans except at harvest. He put the grapes in specially designed barrels and then allowed them to ferment and age on their own for seven months, without pressing the grapes or adding any chemicals. They were then bottled without filtering."

Read about it here, here and here.

So there you go. Orange white wine, that has an almost chewy mouthfeel, that tastes like acidic orange blossoms and starfruit.

Best of all, I got a bottle for free, for breaking a record at work.

Fresh cold homemade vanilla milkshake

Doesn't that sound like the most awesome thing ever?

I was making vanilla ice cream the other day, when a milkshake suddenly materialized in my brain. I don't know why that never occurred to me before.

Anyway, I let some of the vanilla ice cream sit out and get soft. Then I added whole milk, shook it really hard, and drank it.

So. Delicious.

The Tequila Smash

Lime and mint-infused mezcal
Ginger syrup
Cranberry juice

Shake, serve over ice.

It tastes kind of like a lime and ginger cranberry drink, with smoke. Very intriguing.

Yard sale

The list, in order, of what to do when your husband is laid off.
1. File for unemployment.
2. Put the student loans into forbearance.
3. Have a yard sale.

"Have a yard sale" can be shorthand for "sell your crap on craigslist," too. The idea is to have a forced fire sale of assets, to bring in much-needed money. But this step also gets rid of unnecessary junk, in case of a forced move to a new location for a new job. Since we may very well have to move, and possibly move cross-country, a yard sale is the first step toward lightening that moving load.

So, hey, I'm having a yard sale tomorrow! Anyone in the New England area, you can tweet me @brokefoodie for the address.

I'm making a lot of money at my job, and my husband has qualified for the maximum in unemployment benefits, so hopefully we will not be in danger of either starving or bankruptcy. I've also been selling some furniture on craigslist; that's been bringing in some very welcome extra cash.

It's funny; every time I move I think, "That's it, I'm never doing this again," and I settle in and start nesting. I buy things to fill in the corners. Then I have to move again, and I think, "How did I get all this crap?" and I once again strip it down to the bare essentials.

The lesson here is: Less is more.