Creamy Goat Cheese Pasta with Asparagus at the Hip Donelson Farmer's Market

In the early days of this blog, I wrote about doing a riff on an asparagus and pasta recipe from the Everyday Food show on PBS. I didn't post a full recipe, but linked to the recipe on the show's web site. The show and its monthly magazine are long gone, and the recipe is now folded into the database for the larger Martha Stewart empire.

It's still a favorite of mine, although I usually make one of my variations rather than following it to the letter. The primary variation is what I demonstrated yesterday at the Hip Donelson Farmer's Market. The market is held every Friday and has a small -- but high-quality -- group of produce and food vendors, as well as a cafe run by a rotating list of local restaurants. There's live music and one or two cooking demonstrations offered by volunteers like me, using produce available that day from the market.

One small step for blogdom

In the spirit of, "Well, everybody else seems to be doing it, why not me?" here's my first stab at a blog. At this point the main focus is going to be on food and cooking (hence the title) but meandering is definitely a possibility. A lot of food blogs I've visited have lovely, high-quality pictures of dishes the authors prepared, and I'm not there yet. So for now, text will have to do. :D

To start, I'll launch right in and talk about today's menu. Last weekend I'd made some black bean soup, portioned into individual servings for the freezer. This morning I decided to have some for supper, but didn't want just "soup." I had pureed it and cooked it down to a pretty thick consistency, like thin refried beans, and thought it would be good over something. I made a pot of polenta, using fat-free half-and-half for part of the water, then poured it into a small loaf pan and put it in the refrigerator to chill. At dinner time I sliced off several slabs of the polenta, gave them a dusting of flour, and pan-fried until golden on both sides. I plated the polenta, then the warmed black bean soup was poured over. Topped with thinly sliced scallions and a dollop of sour cream made a hearty, warm, comforting entree. The side was a tomato-onion ragout, picked up on a rerun of Everyday Food today. Tomato-Onion Ragout (with Flounder).

I was pleased with the outcome, but next time I'd use polenta that was made with just water, and chilled for a longer period. It was cold but still a little soft. The ragout was excellent and I'll definitely be making that again as well!