Win Some, Lose Some / Watercress, Kale and Asparagus

We bought a bunch of vegetables for dinner, and, well, there were a few errors in judgment but it all worked out in the end.

I started by making watercress soup and, because I wanted it all for myself, I made it excessively spicy.  I put two whole habanero peppers in it and I was too lazy to cut out any of the seeds or even to chop the peppers, so I blended them in whole.  It was simple soup, one onion sautéed in olive oil, the two lantern shape beautiful peppers, three big bunches of old-fashioned watercress (dark green not nouveau), a few dandelion leaves and two big glasses of water.  A blender mishap, the middle part of the lid falling off and into the soup bowl with a splash, led to soup all over the wall and it took a while to clean, eventually involving a toothbrush.  It was easy to find a spotless new toothbrush here...I think these kids seldom bother with them.  Anyway, well, this particular batch of habaneros was pretty strong, and, while I knew what I was getting into, I may have crossed a line.  That is based on how I feel right now and how I choked on the vapors cleaning out the blender and pot.  I am fearing for my contact lens transactions later.

So, while I was making the soup, Susannah devoted herself completely to the kale salad.  She worked so hard to chop the curly kale small.  We usually use lacinato (I like the dark blue green and the easy flatter but bubbly version) but all I could find today was big unwieldy curly kale.  She did a really great job and got it small after carefully removing and counting all the stems.  Still not sure why she counted them.  Then, she sliced sundried tomatoes and put them on top of the kale with olive oil and balsamic vinegar and we let it sit a while.  It was perfect and by far the best dish.

Our other mishap, also my fault, was an asparagus situation.  I had put the asparagus in the steam oven and set it for three minutes.  But, the thing is I set it for three hours. And I noticed I did that, but I was so confident that I would not forget it about it, I did not change the timer.  I would not normally time food but the steam oven works on a timer.  Anyway, while I was climbing on the kitchen counter scrubbing dark green watercress specks from in between small beautiful glassy white tiles, the asparagus slipped my mind. 

Sometime later, Susannah mentioned she was waiting to have asparagus as her "main dish." I rushed to open the steam oven and saw thick, dark, mucky, green, soft, mushy asparagus spears.  So she said, "let's just puree it."  So, out came the blender again and this time I was very conscientious about the lid.  The asparagus puree turned out sweet and wonderful but definitely more of a pea soup color than a bright green.