Jammin!

Ok so this post is supposed to be about making jam-- my first jam ever!-- but I have to take a second to brag about the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink dinner I just made.  Check it:

So as both a Virgo and an ISTJ (I recently took the Meyers Briggs test for work), I tend to plan somewhat compulsively.  Culinarily speaking, this means I start to think about dinner while I'm munching on breakfast, at least as far as the skeletal ingredients are concerned.  I knew I wanted to use a withering leek I had leftover from potato leek soup last week, and I wanted to find a way to incorporate that with a gorgeous bunch of chard bought yesterday at the farmer's market.  Perhaps some rice? and, Don't I have some leftover arborio somewhere on the cupboard?  I let that stew during the rest of my shift.

But then I got home and opened the cupboard and said despite myself, Ooh!  (While I did it, I realized that that is one of the great pleasures of my life, opening the cupboard, seeing something perfect, and saying, Ooh!  That's sort of what this whole dinner was like.)  There lay some pasta my grandma Neenie loves and buys from Trader Joe's, and bestowed upon me the other night (I think I inherited from her the notion that presenting your host with a package of good pasta is a perfectly respectable alternative to a bouquet of flowers, or bottle of chardonnay): spinach and chive linguine.  Even better than rice!  So I got that boiling while I sauteed some garlic, the leek, and a few minutes later, the chard.

Then the poking began.  I will admit that a shot of tequila and the new Breeders album fueled my recklessness.  I looked in the fridge, way into  the back, past the tower of salsa tubs and crusty hummus (gonna throw it out one of these days) and Adam's perennially empty gallon of soy milk and found... CREAM.  Oh jees, I thought, there goes my food awareness.  Though I was fully aware that cream would make the dish much much better.  Then I pushed the dry goods around on the cupboard.  Hm!  Sunflower seeeds!  Better save those for a garnish.  Wouldn't want them to get soggy.

And, apropos of my recent herb-mania, I traipsed out to the garden and snipped off some oregano, basil and parsley and chopped them all up coarsely.  Then I mixed the whole shebang together-- veggies, pasta, cream, a tad more olive oil (ok and a little butter), s&p, and then sprinkled some sunflower seeds and a few shards of smoked white cheddar.  My LORD it was heavenly.  Probably the best non-recipe'd dish ever.

Well, this post was meant to be about jam, and yet it's turned out to be a rock n' roll inspired pasta dish.  Ah well.  We write about what moves us.  Jam tomorrow, I promise.

Good Gracious.