Hasty pudding and Thai cinema

Making up for a lack of summer Sundays...

Morning at the Wicker Park farmer's market: beautiful shallots, beets, salad greens, haricot verts, baby carrots, tiny potatoes came home with us. Then to Sweet Thang for a slice of quiche- also home of the best croissant around. Then to Red Hen for a baguette. Then for a bike ride to Sunflower Market for a few other details.

Today is a long-awaited day in the kitchen after 3-4 weeks of freelance 24-7. To briefly detail the span of eating out done in that time, much of it not up to expectations... (making me all the more eager for home cooking):

-So-so fish dishes at Feast, but the $9 mini-plate of the most flavorless guacamole made us realize that this is one (we've found others) that appeal to diners for whom location is a greater priority than their palettes. So that one's off the list.
-Appalling dinner at Lucia consisted of frozen fish baked to a rubbery puckishness and frozen vegetables boiled and served without any further ado. Akin to the nursing home cafeteria I used to have to eat in for work.
-While I don't doubt that the brownies and other confections at Bleeding Heart are divine, the sandwiches disappointed. I was informed that they make their own seitan on the premises, and being vegan friendly, I figured if a decent soy cheese exists they must be putting on the Seitan Jalisco sandwich. Bad assumption. The gasoline-y taste was as present as ever, and it ruined all other judgment of the sandwich. The roasted beet and arugula sandwich was mostly bread, but if there had been more than one leaf of arugula on it and the bread were sliced half as thin, I may have not had to pull it apart and eat its other contents: 1 slice of tomato and 3 slices of golden beet, separately. A post-script for J: "soy cheese should be banned from this earth."
-Hot Chocolate, while it remains my favorite place for dessert, proved less spectacular in the dinner category. We had the day's special: a skin-on grilled whitefish fillet topped with an olive tapenade and roasted fennel, next to some clams and bits of potato. The elements didn't come together as anything more than the sum of their parts, which was OK, but not worth the price of admission.

In the recently confirmed awesome column:
El Cid II's fish tacos and everything at Mais in Humboldt Park.

Morning, after walking and food-related errands, consisted of my Mid-East and North African stint in the kitchen that yielded a refreshing cucumber-mint salad with orange blossom water, lemon and olive oil, a failed foul madamas, and a chickpea bulgur salad.

Late afternoon, a bottle of Pierre de la Grange Sur Lie Muscadet, a lemony hasty pudding and Tears of the Black Tiger.

Hasty Pudding

2 c milk
1/2 c semolina
zest of 2 lemons
2 t vanilla
1/2 c sugar

Heat milk in medium saucepan until boiling. Add semolina and whisk until thick, about 2-3 minutes. Remove from heat and add sugar, vanilla and lemon zest. Pour into dish and let cool to room temp.

Something sweet to make when it's too hot to turn on the oven!

Then, J pulled a masterful Iron Chef improv with a vegetable and seitan ragout using today's baby shallots, tender haricot verts, wee carrots and itty bitty red potatoes. There was also fresh mint, thyme, parsley, white wine, garlic, veg stock, olive and butter in there. Pictures and more superlatives forthcoming.