Not Pretty, But Pretty Darn Good

I need to save up for a better camera.  I made a delicious pasta dish tonight, and this photo makes it look rather less than appetizing.  I took nine shots of it, and this was the best I could come up with.  Granted, the primary ingredients were cauliflower and whole wheat pasta, so you might assert that, photo or no, it is unappetizing.  But trust me, it's damn good.  Check out this blog, Pink Bites, for the recipe.

The only difference from that recipe to this, was that I used four times as many onions (2, instead of the suggested 1/2), twice as much liquid or more (pasta water and white wine), and cilantro (instead of parsley).  However, Ms. Pink Bites' photos are ten times better than mine.  

Speaking of whole wheat pasta, Adam made an astute comment this evening while we scarfed our dinners.  Whole wheat pasta is like whole wheat bread.  You grow up (if you're an average American) preferring white bread.  When you take a bite of wheat bread, it's dense and unpleasant.  But then you grow to love it, and find white bread is actually pretty pathetic.  We're hoping that whole wheat pasta will become like wheat bread: an acquired taste.

Cry if I want to

Planning a wedding has turned out to be an extraordinary undertaking.  To be honest, I'm not sure I'd do it again, if I had understood the number of details - and dollars - it is necessary to juggle in one's mind.  (Let me qualify that.  I would and will marry Adam with no doubts.  It's the kind of wedding I chose that I might re-think.)  Here are a few examples of the things I've had to think about this weekend.  The caterer provides glasses for non-alcoholic beverages like water and lemonade, but not wine or beer glasses.  They will however provide linen for the bar table, so all I need to rent at the rental place are pint and wine glasses but no linens.  Also, will we want the preacher miked?  A lapel mike or a standing mike?  A lapel mike will be less unwieldy, but a standing mike will be great for later if people want to make drunken or tearful speeches.  There were invitations envelopes to purchase (fifty unforeseen bucks right there) and RSVP cards (another six).  And the great question of my Saturday morning, how many tables will there be???  I called the owner of the wedding site and the caterer who were not home and sort of evasive (respectively) before I realized that as the bride I decide the number of tables.  Or the wedding planner decides, though we had thought on a sunny mellow day last summer, "Who the hell needs a wedding planner?  How hard can it be?"  Indeed.

And then there's the honeymoon, a backpacking trip from Santa Fe to Taos, which thankfully Adam has taken charge of.  I like the contrast:  We'll be going from a day of apricot-glazed salmon, chardonnay, flowers and a dignified view of the river to seven days of gorp, freeze-dried meals, 12 miles a day, and no showers.  Though I admit I look forward a little bit to being princess for a day, I'll be abolishing any self-perception of royalty pretty darn quick after the wedding by inserting myself into the Pecos Wilderness with only a pack on my back and a map-reading man at my side.  Ah well.  Inflated egos are unbecoming.

So.  With all that in mind, why don't you think about whipping up a chowder for one of your meals this coming week.  It'll be nice comfort food to assuage whatever anxiety is sticking voltage between your shoulder blades.  In my case the wedding worth a small house.  Well, maybe a small shack.  But still, shacks are not cheap ya know.

The chowder I comforted myself with tonight was of the shrimp, potatoes, and corn variety.  It was good - very good - but as you can probably detect by all the butter and cream globules floating on the top, it was not low fat.  If you are not fitting into a wedding dress any time soon, please email me for the recipe.  If you are interested in keeping your calories low, I'd highly recommend another wonderful chowder recipe, Corn and Quinoa Chowder.  I'm sure I'll post on that one at some point, as it's one of my all-time favorites.  But anyway, Here's to the Happy Couple.  Couple of chowders, that is.

Simple. Wonderful.

I feel like I've been trumpeting the glories of roasted vegetables pretty constantly lately, though I can't remember if I've been doing it on my blog, or just verbally to friends, co-workers, whoever is willing to listen.  So let me just praise the roasted vegetable one last time, because a roasted veg will turn a bland, basic meal into a nutritious feast.  See above photo.  Carrots and rice, basically.  How would you feel if you walked in the front door one evening, asked your beloved, "What's for dinner?" and got the response, "Carrots and rice"?  You might lobby to go out for sushi.

But if you hear "Roasted carrots," you'll probably have a seat at the table and tuck the napkin right into your collar.  If you don't recall, the secret to roasting is no secret at all.  Set the oven to 400, chop your veggies into comparably sized pieces, toss to coat thinly with olive oil, and season however you choose.  Remembering a dish from many years ago, I tried thyme and cinnamon on my carrots.  I found some leftover homemade pesto languishing in the freezer too, which went great mixed with wild rice (and felt significantly healthier than pasta).

I made a wonderful veggie roast the other night too, with fennel, a veggie I'd never used before.  The dish was absolutely delicious and was gone before photos could be captured.  So try these veggies in your first vegetable roast: fennel (green stalks discarded, and white bulb chopped), butternut squash, red potatoes, carrots, and garlic.  Do as I did.  Celebrate the winter cornucopia... before bidding it good riddance for the season.

Lasagna Part Deux

I'm learning the art of winning friends by cooking for them.  This weekend I made a batch of lasagna for my friend Lynne as a belated housewarming/Superbowl gift.  This morning in my email box I found such tickling statements as "Truly that was the BEST lasagna I've ever eaten" and "everyone raved about it."  And at the end was a plea for the recipe.  Well!  If one person thinks it was that good, then maybe others will too.  I've spent some time honing my vegetarian version of this dish, so if you're looking for a change of pace from the old ground beef game, then give this a shot.

The way to make veggie lasagna is start about four or five individual cooking projects (make this recipe, by the way, on your day off-- it ain't no 30-minute meal).  At the end each of these projects will come together, each its own layer.  Work on each project as simultaneously as you can.  As you develop your technique you'll be dancing like a prima ballerina from one burner to the next, to the cutting board, to the cuisinart, and back again.  It's really fun.

*Sauce.  Dice one onion and garlic to taste and saute in olive oil.  After a few minutes, add one large can of tomato sauce (cheap stuff=fine) and one can of diced tomatoes.  Season to taste with pepper, oregano, thyme.  Do not add salt!  Those canned tomatoes are very salty already. (Although Lynne, you might need a 1/4 cup of salt or so here...)  The key ingredients of yumminess: a splash of red wine, and a pinch of sugar.  Let simmer.

*Pesto.  This element is optional, but well worth the effort.  Wash and pluck the leaves from a large container of basil (my store sells them in large tubs).  Place leaves in the waiting Cuisinart and add two cloves of garlic (don't need to chop 'em), a large splash or two olive oil, about 1/4 c. pine nuts, two big pinches grated parmesan, salt and pepper.  Blend till a thick paste (add a little water if it balls up).

*Veggies.  Thaw two 10 oz. boxes frozen spinach.  This is one of the few cases where frozen is better than fresh.  Trust me; I've tried it with fresh leaves and they come out like bloated dental floss nestled between the noodles.  Rather unappetizing.  When totally de-thawed, squeeze spinach as dry as you can through paper towels.  [If you really want to waste not want not, reserve the squeezed water for future pasta or rice water, or soup stock.  There's some major nutrients in that green juice.]

Also, chop whatever fresh veggies you want.  A couple zucchinis, halved lengthwise and sliced.  Sliced mushrooms, squash, artichoke hearts, grated carrot.  Chop what you love.

*Cheese.  Mix one large (not huge) container of ricotta cheese with two eggs, a couple pinches of parmesan, salt, and pepper.  If you have made pesto, stir it in too.

Grate a whole wedge of fontina cheese.  It's more expensive than mozzarella but infinitely tastier, and not at all rubbery like our childhood pizza friend, Mozz.  The fontina's too good to waste between the layers, so save it all for the top.

*Assembly.  Spoon enough sauce on the bottom of the baking dish (at least 9x13) to create a thin layer.  Lay out enough no-boil lasagna noodles side by side to cover the whole surface, but don't let the noodles overlap.  Spread half the ricotta mixture on top of the noodles.  Sprinkle half the spinach.  Do another layer of noodles.  Spread another layer of sauce.  Sprinkle your veggies.  Are you getting the idea here?  Continue the layering till the ingredients are gone or the dish is full, with the idea that dry and wet ingredients should alternate.  Make sure the last layer of noodles is covered with sauce so they don't dry out, and then sprinkle all of the fontina cheese over the top.  Bake, covered, at 375 for 45 minutes.  Uncover and bake 15 minutes or so more, until cheese is browning at the edges.

Phew.  That's a large recipe, sorry.  I'll be as succinct as I can when describing the ideal side dishes

Salad.  Garlic bread.  Red wine.

Heart-y Fare

My, how time flies.  It's about as hackneyed a statement as I can think of, but it's really describing my life right now.  It's the tail end of a three day weekend, and I'm finding myself making rigorous lists of the things I need to do to relax today, since I spent the first couple days of the weekend running around accomplishing things (another house-showing, meeting with the mortgage banker, clean the house, help a friend move, wedding errands...).  But wait: should the words rigorous and relaxation be used in the same sentence?  Probably not, but today I want to go for a hike, take a peek at the Superbowl, and do homework for an online class I'm taking.  So though my much-adored ArmchairFoodie provides respite and therapy from my workaday obligations, I'm only going to give some pretty cursory descriptions of two meals we ate this week.

This is just a repeat on a running theme: pasta with sauteed veggies.  This is a great meal because it's always different, and if the precept that one learns from one's mistakes is true, then it's always better than the last.  This time we set chopped onions, garlic, tomatoes and artichokes to a saute.  Boil pasta, and while you're taking the pot of pasta to the sink to drain it-- don't forget this part!-- pour about 1/4 or 1/2 cup of the water into your saute.  This helps break down the veggies and turn them into a sauce. 

Yum.  Good toppings: chopped parsley, toasted pine nuts, parmesan.
A couple days later I took out some leftover green chile enchilada sauce from the freezer.  See former post on that here.  This time though, I whipped up some calabacitas ("little squash," if I'm translating that correctly) to stuff the enchiladas with.  Chopped zucchini, corn, and onions, sauteed with salt, pepper, and oregano.  When they're just tender, roll scoops the stuff in tortillas, line up in a baking dish, top with cheese and bake covered for a while.  After a while is up, take off the tin foil and bake for a smaller while so the cheese gets brown and bubbly.  
This was truly awesome.  While eating it and loving it, I was pondering my favorite foods: enchiladas and lasagna.  They are really just different realizations of one basic concept: an Americanized "ethnic" dish using the appropriate herbs and spices of their respective native lands, but really just centering around the combination of bread and cheese.  Granted, the more veggies, the better; but I'll admit where the real attraction lies.  Noodles layered with ricotta, parmesan, and fontina.  Tortillas smothered in jack and cheddar.  Pizza dough dressed in mozzarella and fontina.  Ah well, at least I'm not a sedentary person.  My fierce attachment to the bread and cheese duo might not be so wise in that case.  And speaking of which, gotta run.  Happy Feb!  

Feeling Centimental?

I'd like to trumpet the SECOND world-altering event of this week, after a lovely inauguration last Tuesday: this is my 100th blog post!  If you were here, I'd pour you a glass of champagne and feed you canapes.  But as it stands, the only people around who actually read this blog are Adam my husband-to-be and my dog Cally.  And it's a toss-up between those two as to who actually reads my posts on a regular basis.  So no champagne for them.

Speaking of Cally, here we are emerging from a nap today.  (And she wonders why I yell at her for getting on the couch.)  It's been a snowy day, perfect for lounging at the coffee shop, the briefest of walks along the river, and cuddling on the bed... not very good fodder for a celebratory blog posting, I admit.  But sometimes 'homey' is the name of the game on a Sunday in late January. 

Dinner actually turned out to be a little exotic: I whipped up a really yummy batch of Pad Thai, that pink-hued noodle dish with shrimp, bean sprouts, and peanuts.  Only my grocery store didn't have bean sprouts and if I was going to spring for shrimp I didn't want to spring for peanuts (I'm trying to buy a house here, people).  The irony of the thing is, peanuts do not sell for peanuts.  Nor do any nuts, really.  It turned out well anyway, though I'll definitely try both stores in my 'hood for bean sprouts next time.  It was missing that fresh, juicy crunch.

It's fun to make, and has some rather unconventional ingredients.  You cook shrimp, green onions, and garlic in a hot saute-- would 'stir-fry' be the appropriate jargon here?; then add ground dried shrimp (sounds grody, but it adds great flavor), fish sauce, chili flakes, sugar, and ketchup (is that what they use in Thailand?!).  Stir for a few minutes, then drag the mixture to one side of the pan, and pour two beaten eggs in to the other side.  Let the eggs cook un-disturbed for about a minute, then scramble them up with the other ingredients.  Dump in the rice noodles (which have been drained after you soaked them in very hot water for 15 minutes), and stir for a couple more minutes over high heat.  Garnish with cilantro and lime wedges (and bean sprouts and peanuts).  Very delicious flavors, though next time I'll probably cut back on the noodles to allow for more sauciness.
Then Adam devised a very scrumptious hand-held dessert.  Homemade (by Adam!) chocolate chip oatmeal cookies with a heavy dousing of Tillamook vanilla ice cream on top.  Mmm.  That's cause for celebration right there.

Thanks for reading, my friends.  If you continue to do so, I promise at least one hundred more.

Braised Be

An otherwise fabulous Alice Waters recipe instructed me to scatter this delectable braised cabbage and roasted potatoes in a circle around the halibut-- for some reason the highest organism on the food chain always gets featured front and center on a plate, with the afterthought veggies serving as a mere picture frame.  If I ever make this dish again, and I can assure you that I will, the cabbage will be shaped into a big heart in the middle of the plate, and the fish and potatoes will be served on a little saucer on the side.  What I mean to tell you is, this method of making cabbage is...  ...the only way to make cabbage.

Now I know what you're thinking!  Ew, cabbage.  Ew, stinky, sulfuric rabbit food.  But no!  Try this recipe.  You will be converted.  Take a head of green cabbage (the recipe called for Savoy Cabbage, which looks like green cabbage with a perm, but we're not that fancy in Hood River).  Cut the head into 2 inch wedges and pack them into a baking dish.  Oh yeah: turn the oven on to 400 while you're prepping.  Sprinkle the wedges with thyme, and tuck a bay leaf in there somewhere.  Pour over it all 1/2 cup of vegetable stock, and 1/2 cup of dry white wine.  Slice up to 3 Tbsp. of butter and dot the tops of the cabbage wedges.  Cover and bake for 30-45 minutes, until the cabbage is tender.  When cooled enough to work with, cut the core off of each wedge and discard, roughly chop the leaves, and return them to their juices in the baking dish.  Here is a shot just before going into the oven.  As is usually the case when something comes out amazing, I forgot to take an "after" shot.  Eh voila.  Cabbage for people who hate cabbage.
Oh, and if you want to make something good to go with your ambrosia-cabbage, you can douse a couple filets of halibut in some wine and veggie broth and roast 'em at 500 for a few minutes; and you can toss some quartered red potatoes in a bit of olive oil, salt, pepper, and maybe some rosemary or something before baking them covered or no for about a half hour at 400.  Or you can just save room for more cabbage.

Wresting Acceptance

I guess when cooking, as with anything in life, failure is inevitable.  That doesn't mean I like failure in cooking (or anything in life).  Losing control over something I'm doing makes the tendons stand out on my neck, and a very small but powerful muscle between my shoulder blades start shooting bolts of electricity outward like wings of tension.  Adam and I had a discussion about control recently, so my failure with falafel last night was aptly timed.  He had said (in a sort of irritatingly Zen kind of way) that exerting control over factors that you cannot change will only cause suffering.  I tried to maintain (with neither of us quite falling for it) that ambition is a good thing, and continuing to strive for control is equal to progress.

I still don't know the answer to the dilemma, though I'm beginning to suspect that a combination of ambition and acceptance-- namely, a little of the former and a lot of the latter-- is one good solution.  (I could choose ALL acceptance like a monk, but those of you who know me know that a Sunday hike to hell and back is a likelier proposition.)  I tried to manifest some acceptance when my falafel turned to mush in the frying pan last night.  But I'll leave it to you to decide on my level of success.

It all started out so well.  Falafel from scratch! Look at the beautiful beans, painted with the lovely hues of cumin, turmeric, cayenne and salt.  And as I added parsley, green onions, garlic, lemon juice, water, and eventually flour to the mixture, I knew-- just KNEW!-- I was onto something ground-breaking.

I pureed them all to a thick paste and heated some oil in a pan.  The batter smelled like heaven itself-- a complete 180 from the powdered mix I had always bought in a box.  This meal was going to be like our new president: in a word, perfect.

I formed little balls of the stuff and placed them lovingly into the sizzling oil.  So far so good.  But after the requisite ten minutes I flipped them over, and they started to disintegrate.  What was going on here??  This was not part of my plan!  Soon I had a panful of boiling falafel crumbs... and there was NOTHING I could do about it. 
The butterfly wings of electricity were shooting outward across my back.  In a few drastic measures of pure reaction I dumped the lot of it into a bowl, and as soon as it cooled I was going to toss it in the trash.  (Luckily I had that foresight, otherwise the burning oil would have burned through the trash bag and my punishment for rashness would have been to wash out the trash bin.)

Then my angel of patience walked into the kitchen.  "What are you doing?" he asked, and I unloaded my wrath toward the falafel (or toward my lack of control?) on him, and he responded wisely.  He was quiet.  Then he said, "Do you want to go out instead?"  I took a breath.  No, I didn't.  I didn't want to give up yet.  But I also didn't want to be a baby.

So, I turned the heat back on under the pan, poured significantly less oil into it this time around, and started over.  Fortunately there was plenty of batter left.  And it worked, kind of.  The consistency wasn't amazing-- they were a bit pasty on the inside, instead of fluffy like they should be.  And the outsides were not crisp-fried since I was afraid to use too much oil.  But they did taste delicious, especially thanks to a fantastic Lemon-Tahini Sauce drizzled over top.  And at least we didn't head down to the pub for a veggie burger with my tail between my legs and a black cloud over my head.  That would have been no fun for anyone.  

So, they weren't perfect, but they were good.  And I'm glad I stuck with it.  So, hey!  One point for ambition!  Oh wait.  Or is that acceptance?  
P.S.  This post is far too long to include recipes, both of which I'd actually recommend, if you've got an idea to prevent falafel disintegration.  Email or comment for recipe(s).

And P.P.S. Let us take a cue from our falafel kerfuffle, and not expect too much from 44.  He's just a person, like the rest of us.

Motley Meals

2009 has been a productive year so far, but in one respect only: food.  I've been making so much of it, I have to cram four different dishes into one blog post.  As for doing ANYTHING that involves going outside (and you'd be surprised by how much of our lives we conduct outside of our homes), there is nothing doing.  The roads are icy, it continues to snow every other day or so, and when it's not snowing, it's raining and leaving a very depressing slush on the ground.  Having hit the bottom of the barrel of my cabin fever yesterday I called a friend to see if she had any snowshoes I could borrow, and happily she did!  I took Cally out to the Post Canyon trail and had a blast-- I'm definitely getting me some snowshoes.  Our trip was cut short when a couple of yahoos started shooting a gun in my general direction, so I came home and made soup (see below).  When stuck or driven indoors by wayward firearms, make soup.  It seems like a good enough answer to the problems of life and winter.

Anyway, here are those shrimp I described in my last post.  The marinade was delicious, but I made the mistake I'm not going to make anymore of buying frozen shrimp.   I can never get frozen seafood to lose its fishy flavor upon cooking.  But here's the marinade.  I'm sure it would be good on any ol' fish or tofu.

1 garlic clove, chopped

1 bird's eye chili, deseeded (if you wish) and chopped

1 Tbsp. tamarind paste/concentrate

1 Tbsp. sesame oil

1 Tbsp. soy sauce

2 Tbsp. lime juice

1 Tbsp. brown sugar

Put the lot into a small saucepan and stir over low heat until the sugar melts.  Cool completely.  Marinate your food item of choice for as long as you can, even overnight.  Recipe from What's Cooking Thai.

Here is a beautiful batch of roasted cauliflower, the idea for which I took from Hilary Kooks.  It's super easy: chop a head of cauliflower into chunks and stir into it several cloves of chopped garlic, some chili powder, dried basil ("or other green herb," says Hil), s&p, a few Tbsp. sesame oil, and a couple Tbsp. tahini.  Spread out in a pyrex dish and roast at 375 for as long as an hour (I cranked it up to 400 for the last ten minutes).  It was good served over quinoa.
This is the best thing I've made recently: Brazilian Black Bean soup.  Inspired by the Moosewood recipe but much tampered with, it goes like this.  And I'm going to be quite general here, because the best soup will contain the ingredients and proportions that YOU like (I know, I know, Hilary is starting to rub off on me here).  

Soak 2 or 3 cups of black beans over night.  When you're ready to start cooking, put the beans (drained) with 4 or 6 cups of clean water to a boil in a big soup pot, then simmer and cover for an hour or hour and a half.  Your life partners will thank you for changing the water-- it reduces gassiness.  

Meanwhile, chop a BUNCH of onions-- three cups or so-- and a BUNCH of garlic-- I used about ten cloves, crushed.  I was weirded out to see the recipe call for that much garlic, but I'm glad I went with it.  Garlic=good.  Then chop a carrot or two.  Toss onions, carrots, and HALF the garlic to saute in evoo over medium heat until carrot is barely tender.  Stir in cumin, salt and pepper.  This'll need to season the whole pot of beans, so don't be shy.

Add the rest of the garlic, and a chopped red pepper and saute for another ten or fifteen minutes.  Scrape all the veggies into the beans.  Add a couple chopped tomatoes if you like.  Add a cup and a half of orange juice.  Simmer for as long as you can stand it.  Stir in some leftover quinoa or rice if you like-- this was my random idea, and an excellent choice if I say so myself.  Garnish with any combination of green onion, cilantro, cheddar, crumbled tortilla chips, hot sauce and/or sour cream.  Oh boy this was good, and it'll be even better today.
And lastly, oatmeal cinnamon waffles.  These were pretty good, but not good enough to share the recipe here.  Email me if you absolutely need the recipe.
Sorry for cramming so much food into so little space.  This blog is starting to look like my fridge.

The Improvisational Kook

So when you're fourteen and a freshman in high school and you're looking around at all the candidates for your life-long best friend, my advice is that you choose someone who is very creative and generous.  Trust me, it really pays off.  After many years of hard work, you can actually trick this person into thinking that you're worthy of her attentions, and she'll start to give you some incredible stuff.

As if walls full of art work, and several rad pieces of handmade or hand-silkscreened clothing were not enough, my well-chosen friend Hilary sent me this book for Christmas.  It is, as usual, handmade-- and when I say handmade, I mean bound and designed by HAND.  This ain't no gussied up storebought sketchbook.  Anyway, in the words of the author, here is the thesis of the creation:

A cookbook!  Or should I say Kookbook?  I have always enjoyed the syntax of Hilary's recipes-- I've got a few treasures from years past, and it's really fun to laugh while cooking at phrases like "splashies of tamari" and "lemon of 1 juice."  This book is no exception in the creative descriptions department, but it is also so so much more.  Look at these pages for example.
Beautiful!  In her characteristic style, she mixes and matches drawings and prints.  How appropriate that recipes are the newest addition to her amalgamation of media; if any of you have ever eaten something that Hilary has cooked, chances are you've swooned and asked, "What's IN this?"  But like any true creative, Hilary shuns precise measurements and instructions.
There are as few numbers and quantities as possible, which can be a bit unnerving for a Virgo cook like me.  But the principle is sound: she wants you to trust yourself and your ability to think of the meal as a balanced composition.  Why should some recipe-writer miles away from one's own town and life and tastes know any better how to assemble your dinner?

And so I started with two of the recipes and ran with them.  It's what Hilary would have wanted.  I made the "Marinated and Baked Tofu" (soy sauce, ginger, garlic, sesame and olive oils, pepper, chili flakes, lime juice-- that was my version, not Hil's) and cubed it up and threw it on top of "Taylor's Favorite Salad," which is now also Megan's Favorite Salad as well.  (Hilary, was this inspired by The Bangkok from Savor?)
It's a pretty basic salad-- lettuce, tomatoes, cukes, carrots, lots of cilantro, green onions, but it stands out in three ways.  One, the aforementioned tofu, especially if it's eaten while still warm.  Two, a lovely and spontaneous sweet and salty Asian-flavored salad dressing composed of orange and lime juices, soy sauce, oils, ginger, honey, and other stuff probably too that you can find if you rummage around.  And three, a crunchy nut topping akin to crack cocaine in its addictiveness.  I got a little wild with my nut topping too-- I threw some honey roasted peanuts, coconut, and cashews into the mortar and pestle and pounded them into a rough crumble.  And as you can see, I did not use sparingly.
It was so delicious!  Adam wasn't feeling well and only ate a bite or two of his before going to bed early, so after inhaling mine I polished his off as well.  I'm not proud to admit it, but I mention it as a testament to the deliciousness.  There are lots of leftover salad makings, so tonight I'm going to make it again, only this time I'm going to top it with Chili/Tamarind shrimp.  Drooling yet?

Here's one last excerpt from Hil's book.  Don't forget the peeper!

Stir Crazy Days

This is my default outfit for the last week.  I told you I wasn't going to show it, but it's become so part of my every day life that it just didn't seem right to hold out on you any longer.  Though the mannish snow pants were strategically cropped from the picture.  Anyway, I've got another snow day from work tomorrow.  The freeway is closed.  My grandma in Wilsonville had to cancel her holiday travel plans to my mom's house, leaving both of them vastly disappointed.  My own trip (romantic getaway to Vancouver followed by a couple days visiting my sister Claire in Seattle),  scheduled for Wednesday, is starting to look dicey.  This weather is starting to be a bit of a bummer, my friends.  I keep telling myself it's really not that bad, but then when I think of Adam driving on the freeway at five o'clock tomorrow morning and I break into a cold sweat, I realize that I have been slightly kidding myself.

And to top it all off, we've been stuffing our gullets with carbs galore.  It must be that cold-phobic, nesting instinct kicking in full force because my meals have consisted of a multitude of flour- and lipid-based products; today alone we had pancakes, cheese and crackers, spaghetti, and cookies.  So by the time dinner rolled around, it was definitely time for something decent. 

Enter the vegetarian's friend, Seitan.  For those of you who have never heard of it, it's a form of wheat gluten that, like tofu, complements the flavors of whatever you cook it with.  Unlike tofu, it has a slightly tougher, chewier texture and in the words of Adam, "Mmm!  It takes like chicken!"  Sorta looks like it too:
After sauteing it with some onions, shallots, and garlic for a few minutes in olive and sesame oils, I added chopped kale and purple cabbage.  Pretty colors:
I popped a lid on the pan for 5 or 10 minutes so the veggies would steam themselves, and then stirred in a sauce consisting of the seitan's juices (reserved), some cornstarch dissolved in water, soy sauce, fish sauce, chili flakes, and pepper.  Served over rice with a splash of sesame seeds on top, it really turned into a "chicken" stir fry to write home about.  If the local postal service weren't shut down, that is.
P.S. I started a new infusion today.  I had all these lemons that I was going to bring to a meeting for work (as garnishes for sparkling water) but it was cancelled because of the weather.  Luckily I had a bit of vodka left and luckily I didn't know what the hell else to do with the lemons, and so in a few days I'll have a zinger of an alcoholic beverage to enjoy in front of the woodstove.  I added some sugar too, to see if I can make it taste like Limoncello.

Cold Day, Hot Food

This is my backyard right now.  Actually, the snow is about twice as deep now as it was when this picture was taken this morning.  Also, that very excellent looking icicle is no longer with us because I discovered today that Adam has somewhat of a compulsion about wrenching off icicles.  As soon as one forms on the eaves of the house, he pulls it off.  The things we learn about the people we love.

Anyway, when weather like this hits, making soup is pretty much required and as luck would have it, I didn't even have to set foot in the snow for it.  If you don't already know it by now, discovering that I just by chance have the ingredients for a cool dish without having to shop is one of the GREATEST things EVER.  So, the presence of a two-pound bag of carrots in the fridge dictated what kind of soup it would be...  
If you should find your backyard full of snow and your fridge full of carrots any time soon, here's what to do.  Wash and roughly chop the carrots (a recipe I was taking inspiration from suggested that I peel them, but I was not about to waste my time with that).  Throw them in a pot with 3 or 5 cups of water, and a quartered potato if you've got it.  Set it boiling, then simmer, covered, till the veggies are tender.
Meanwhile, roughly chop up a cup's worth of onion and/or shallots and saute them in some olive oil.  In a few minutes, add a few cloves of crushed garlic and saute a little longer.  Don't get fancy with your chopping-- it's all going in the blender in a few minutes.  When they're soft, add a few teaspoons salt, and the herbs and seasonings of your choice.  I added cumin, oregano and a little curry powder.  

Transfer the carrots, potato, water and the onion/garlic/herb mixture to a blender and puree.  Unless your blender is industrial-sized, you will need to do this in batches.  Return the lot to the pot and taste.  Adjust seasonings as needed.  Garnish with any fresh herbs you have lying around-- I happened to have my favorite, cilantro.  If no herbs, try some pumpkin or sesame seeds.  If no seeds, good old fashioned salt and pepper will also do the trick.
According to the weather forecast we are due for a blizzard this weekend, so Adam and I stocked up on other comfort foods to enjoy once the soup is gone: homemade tamales from a co-worker, good old spaghetti with tomato sauce and garlic bread, breakfast burritos, pancakes... maybe we'll fit a few carbs in there somewhere too.  Kidding.  More to come from the winter weekend kitchen...

Ghee, this is good.

Hi Honies!!!  I'm home...

Sheesh, I can't believe it's been so long since I last posted.  But cut me a break, my (probably few) remaining devoted readers: it's the holidays, which, even if you're a bigger grinch than the Grinch, really throw a wrench into the schedule of daily life.  Luckily I'm not a grinch, so I don't mind the alterations; I even like them, most of the time.  I even don't mind the several inches of snow we've been showered with over the last few days, though I certainly don't intend to include any photos of myself in my snow gear (hint: this outfit conceals any indication of my gender).

I have been cooking though, and am especially thrilled about the recipe I am posting today, "South Indian Prawns in Coconut."  Before I give you the details, let me plug its cookbook for a sec.  Don't let the Smarmy-Used-Car-Dealer title fool you; The Classic 1,000 Indian Recipes contains the recipes for utterly authentic Indian food, and I can tell this in two ways.  1. Last week I made two dishes from this book that rivaled some of the best Indian food I've eaten in restaurants.  2. The recipes contain ingredients that you're only going to find in either a really good American ethnic grocery store, or in a standard grocery store... in Bombay.  Black mustard seeds.  Asafoetida.  Black cardamom pods.  Gingelly oil.  Jaggery.  Luckily this recipe suffered not in the slightest from a few missing ingredients.

2 lb. cooked, peeled prawns (just get the frozen bagged kind; it still tastes great)

1 tsp. turmeric

5 Tbsp. coconut milk (I used about double this amount-- your call)

1 cup shredded coconut 

2 Tbsp. coriander seeds (I only had ground)

1 Tbsp. cumin seeds

1 large or 2 small dried red chilies 

1/4 tsp. black peppercorns (I pestled them)

1 Tbsp. black mustard seeds (if you can find them!!)

2 tsp. tamarind concentrate (ibid)

1 red onion, roughly chopped

5 cloves garlic, roughly chopped or crushed

1 inch ginger root, roughly chopped

3 Tbsp. water

3 Tbsp. oil

2 fresh curry leaves (if you can find them)

2 Tbsp. chopped fresh cilantro

Mix together the prawns, turmeric and salt and set aside for ten minutes.  Puree the cocunut milk, coconut, coriander and cumin seeds, chilies, peppercorns, mustard seeds, tamarind, onion, garlic and ginger to a paste, adding water if necessary.

Heat the oil and fry the puree for 10 minutes, stirring continuously.  Stir in the prawns and curry leaves and simmer for 10 minutes.  

Garnish with the cilantro and serve hot with rice.  

My revelation about this dish and another one I made from this book ("Chickpeas in Sauce"), is that the thick, fragrant sauce that most Indian dishes are composed of is made from pureed onions and garlic!  If that's your base then no wonder FLAVOR is the name of the game.

The Existential Mess. Dirty Dishes.

Well, it has been a day.  When I imagine my best self-- you know, that productive, talented person that each of us wishes to be and somehow imagines we will become-- I picture a Saturday spent reading copiously, writing semi-copiously, and then procuring in a mere twenty minutes the dinner of a lifetime.  I'm sure you all have your own best imagined selves too.  Maybe you spend three hours in the garden on the ideal weekend day, or perfect your latest screen print, or paint the deck of your boat.  And these projections get so near to our hearts don't they, so important to our senses of self, that when we realize that we are not spending our spare time quite realizing our ambitions, it can be a bit of a crushing blow.

I received that blow a little bit today.  I don't read a book a weekend, and I haven't brought myself to write the sparkling, social commentary-saturated book reviews that I visualize myself being so good at.  But life was wearing big cushy boxing glove because when it hit me that there are probably not enough hours or days to accomplish every item on the Great To-Do List, it then occurred that I might spend my energy enjoying what I do do.  I mean, in other words, life is too short to fret over unattained goals.    

And so what did I do today?  I cooked!

First, Adam and I whipped up a batch of pumpkin chocolate chip muffins.  They are seriously easy, sinfully good, and outrageously fattening.  2 cups of sugar and 1 1/4 c. vegetable oil!  But worth every drop.  Anyway I've heard that applesauce is a good substitute for oil.  But as you can see, I've never bother with such healthy shortcuts.  Case in point: you see that round maroon mound on the bottom of the above photo?  My belly.  Find the recipe here.
Later, after finding three cookbooks on my front doorstep, thanks to a gift certificate to Amazon courtesy of my lovely Grandma, I got inspired to go whole hog and just spend the rest of the evening in the kitchen.  Without the hog, of course.
I wish this red chard translated better on screen.  It was a glistening ruby bouquet.  Inspired by Alice Waters and her Chez Panisse Vegetables, I sauteed some shallots, and then tossed in the chopped chard and braised it, covered, over medium heat for twenty minutes.  When it was done it got a little squeeze of lemon, salt, and pepper, but that's all.
Meanwhile, at the direction of Mollie Katzen in her famous Moosewood Cookbook, which it has taken me five years as a vegetarian to finally buy, I made mushroom strudel and was inordinately pleased by how easy it is to make something with filo pastry dough.  Or is it phyllo?  Katzen spells it filo, the box said phyllo.  Tomato, tomahto.

Saute chopped mushrooms, and mix them with goodies like cottage cheese, yogurt, dill, scallions, bread crumbs, lemon juice, etc. and roll it all up in a log.  Bake, and then slice, as below:
Notice how the chard looks almost black.  Quite a meal.  I'll probably make a few adjustments to the filo next time I cook with it-- you need more oil between "leaves" than you'll probably want to use in order to avoid a thick, cardboard-like material; and next time I won't spend so much time draining the precious juices from the mushrooms, like Katzen directed me.  But, as you can see, the campers were happy.  And there were muffins for dessert.

So, life is short.  If I can't review novels for the New York Times, then I'll review cookbooks and my imagination for my blog.  I'm already happy anyway, so it's all the same.

How to Clean Out Your Fridge Without Making Soup; Or, Casseroles 101; Or, If You Need To Fake It, Bake It

Some people are just cuckoo for soup.  Not me.  I did make soup this season as my faithful readership knows.  It even came out good, not to mention served as a perfect final resting place for some celery that was really starting to confound me.  But, there's something about soup that's just so insubstantial.  So... thin.  I like to chew my food.  So imagine my happy surprise when I discovered that a casserole is just as perfect a place for all the random tidbits in the fridge as soup is.  Even more perfect, really, if you're like me and don't love to drink your meals.  So the above three pictures are examples of casseroles I've made over the past couple weeks-- some were loosely inspired by recipes, but all were made mostly with what I already had on hand.  By the time I got to casserole #3, I was so intrigued by the possibility of baking something delicious without doing ANY shopping, that I deliberately stayed away from the store, even though I might have thought it would benefit from some this or some that.  Self-reliance, people.  That's what we're going for here.

Casserole #1: Rice (pre-cooked), crumbled tofu, chopped kalamata olives, spinach, some kind of cheese (I forget), a couple eggs for a binder, and chopped red onions and toasted chopped almonds both inside and reserved for garnish.  Except for the garnish, mix all of the above and bake in a large dish till crispy and golden.  This one got high marks for flavor, but low marks for moisture.  Next time I'll add another egg, maybe some milk.  

Casserole #2: This really is no different from potatoes au gratin, so I won't trouble you with how to make it, since there are probably several thousand such recipes available on the internet.  Three things I did somewhat creatively, and that I'd recommend: use Fontina cheese (a whole wedge of it, half mixed with the milk and poured in with the sliced potatoes, and the other half sprinkled on top 3/4 of the way through baking); season it with pestled cumin seeds; and garnish it with salsa.  It was a gorgeous, Latin rendition of a classic American dish.

Casserole #3: This one was by far the best, and I'm most proud of it because it was based on no recipe whatsoever, and like I said, I refused to shop for it.  Last night I prepped everything: I made 2 cups (uncooked) rice.  And the best way to make rice is to start out sauteing onions and garlic, then add the rice and water and prepare as usual.  I roasted chopped carrots and, after 15minutes, added green beans to the pan.  In a separate pan I roasted large chunks of tomatoes.  I went to bed.  

Then tonight when I got home from work, I put the rice in a huge bowl and dumped in all the roasted veggies (WITH juices!).  I whisked two eggs with about a half cup of sawdust parmesan (like I said, I refused to go to the store), a half cup of milk, some cumin, oregano, s&p, and then stirred that in with the rice and vegetables.  When the mixture is uniform, spoon it into your baking dish (which I deliberately hadn't washed after roasting the carrots and green beans in it).  Sprinkle with Panko and more parmesan.  Bake at 375 till golden!  Oh, man it was good.  Due to the roasted tomatoes and parmesan, it was faintly redolent of pizza, but is there anything wrong with that?

And just as an aside, I have to point out this tomato (see below).  This came from one of Adam's coworker's gardens, and I used it on the 4th of NOVEMBER.  This is a very late tomato, my friends.  It's an Election Day tomato.  Notice, too, how the tomato is in the shape of a heart.  As in, I (heart) Obama. 

Autumn's Up

When I got home from work this evening I was knocked squarely in the face with the full force of fall.  A crisp bike commute and the fact that it's Halloween did no little work to invigorate me to the season of spices and woodsmoke, so I went inside to get my camera and came back out to just sort of roll around in the leaves a bit.  You know when the clouds get that fuzzy, quilted effect?  (See above picture for a pathetic representation.)  Like the whole world is tucking in and hunkering down.  Which reminded me: I went inside and tossed some firewood into our new favorite contraption, the woodstove, and got it goin' nice and cracklin' hot.  Woodstoves are what every home should come with, because we have not turned on our heat but once or twice this year.  We've also been sleeping on the foldout couch in the living room because our bedroom, on the other side of the house, is the approximate temperature of a meatlocker.  But anyway.

The evening called for something hearty, and the last of the late season's crop of tomatoes, courtesy of our friend Raina, were duly chopped, tossed with a bit of olive oil, salt, pepper, and thyme, and roasted in a big Pyrex with garlic.  I kept the cloves whole, but probably wouldn't again with this recipe.  If you decide to give this a whirl, give your garlic a nice chop.

Meanwhile I boiled a mess of spaghetti and when I poured it out to drain, I let some ricotta melt in the hot pot.  Suggested ratio of pasta to ricotta: about a half pound of pasta to 1 cup ricotta.  For greater richness and fat content, add more ricotta to taste.  

When the tomatoes are shriveled and brown around the edges, spoon them with all their attendant juices into the pot with the ricotta.  Mix the two till you get a thick, pink sauce and add more salt and pepper to taste.  Stir in pasta, and if too thick, add a couple tablespoons of the pasta water, which you have wisely reserved.

Enjoy in front of a hot woodstove.