Kitchen Theater

 Back when I was traveling a lot for work and leisure, I was entranced by the enormous array of food that I encountered--ingredients, flavors, textures, methods of preparation. I would try to recreate many of those dishes back at home, to greater or lesser success. I was never a cook who acquired specialized gadgets, but I would spend time and money acquiring exotic and unusual ingredients, including spices. 

Since coming back from Saudi Arabia in 2013, my culinary palate has shrunk a little. Cooking is still my primary hobby after working with my dogs, but I no longer spend hours making fancy desserts or finding a source for some weird ingredient that I end up only using once. 

Certainly one big change is that, since starting my second career as a veterinary pathologist, my diet has become more and more plant-based. I'm not a strict vegan as you will have to pry the half and half I put in my coffee from my cold, dead fingers, but I only eat meat products a few times a week. 

Mostly I eat some variation of sauteed or baked vegetables with rice, decorated with black pepper or chipotle pepper, fresh squeezed lime or balsamic vinegar, and a bit of salt or feta cheese, which is itself quite salty. I developed a taste for feta in Saudi, where there was always six or seven fresh varieties to choose from. I only cook with olive oil. Sometimes I add honey to promote browning (the Maillard reaction).

And that's it: pepper, salt, fat, and acid. Sure, there are the stereotypes that link this spice to that culture's cuisine, as in you have to use X if you want to prepare a dish from Y country. That's great, but I don't cook like that anymore. Cooking is less of a production for me now. I am no longer interested in performing theater in the kitchen.

You may have seen the Salt Fat Acid Heat show or book. What I am talking about is miles away from what she promotes. Her elaborate preparations have little in common with my simple meals, other than her promotion of the core uses of salt, fat, and acid.  

These change in diet and kitchen activity have also shifted my palate quite a bit. I find most processed and restaurant food to be pretty gross. Palm oil and corn sugars don't taste good to me anymore. I'm certainly not above picking up a box of muffin mix now and then, but I'm much more careful about what's inside the box. 

I also started meal prepping when I was in vet school, and that habit has stuck. Elaborate, fancy dishes with lots of delicate ingredients don't lend themselves to meal prepping.

And COVID took quite a whack at my view of cooking and eating too. Once I started traveling for agility trials again, I started bringing all of my own food--every single meal and snack. Another strike against elaborate and delicate preparations, which don't travel well. After all, if I'm bringing all my own food, I have to bring it in containers that I have to keep track of and cart home.

None of this is to say that I've just rolled over and eat mush every day. I like big, bold flavors and bright colors, which is easy to satisfy with fresh vegetables. I do have to think about protein sources, but there are lots of plant-based options available now beyond just tofu or beans and rice. Although I quite like tofu, and beans and rice.

Take the theater out of cooking, and it becomes a calm, considered activity.

It's Been A While...Time For A Recipe!

The blog post count for the past couple of years has been pretty low. But I'm not ready to toss this baby out with the bathwater, not quite yet.

So today, you get my recipe for Trailer Park Chicken and Dumplings. Or should that be Dumplin's? This is my own variation of a more complicated recipe. Tasty. Cheap. Makes a lot of food.

 

Ingredients

1.5 lb boneless chicken thighs

1 onion

bouillon (I use Better Than Bouillon Roasted Garlic Base)

flour

4-5 carrots

flour 

can of ready-to-bake biscuits (I use Trader Joe's Buttermilk Biscuits)

Instructions

1. Coarsely chop the onion and saute in olive oil until soft. Scrape the onion into a slow cooker.

2. Add 4 cups warm water and 2 Tbsp bouillon. Turn slow cooker to high setting. Sprinkle in 3 Tbsp flour. Whisk gently until smooth. 

3. In the same saucepan, brown the chicken thighs. They don't need to be cooked through, just browned on the outside. Scrape the pan into the slow cooker, including all of that delicious chicken fat. Stir gently.

4. Cook at the high setting for 1 hour.

5. Chop the carrots into rounds. Add to the slow cooker. Add thyme (dried, or fresh leaves finely chopped) and black pepper to taste. If the liquid needs a little more thickening, you can add another tablespoon of flour. Do this carefully to avoid lumps. You won't be able to whisk the lumps out now. Stir, and cook for another 20 minutes.

6. Open the can of biscuits and gently lay the biscuits on top of the liquid in the slow cooker. They will touch each other. Gently press the biscuits down with a spoon until they are submerged/covered. Make sure they aren't sticking to the sides of the slow cooker. Cook for another 20-30 minutes.

7. The canned biscuits will be cooked through and puffed up but will not brown. 

Super Easy Egg Bites

 It's super cold here in central Arkansas. I can't work in the yard or play outside. So what's the best way to pass the time, in between reading and napping? Cooking, of course!

I make these easy egg bites fairly often. They are full of flavor and protein, travel well, and don't need to be re-heated. This version is meat-free but not vegan.

Preheat oven to 350F. Place paper muffin cups in a standard (12) muffin pan. 

Chop half of an onion and 6 or 7 mushrooms. Saute gently with olive oil until soft. Set aside to cool.

Chop two large handfuls of fresh spinach and add to a large mixing bowl. Add 1/2 cup of grated parmesan cheese. Add 1/3 cup of milk. I usually only have half-and-half on hand, which works fine too. Break 6 or 7 large eggs into the bowl. 

Add 1/3 cup of chopped tomatoes to the mixing bowl. I use canned tomatoes, which I drain first. You can also use dried tomatoes but the egg bites are more moist if you use fresh or canned. 

Put in whatever spices make you happy. I usually only put in fresh ground black pepper, but basil, garlic, thyme, oregano, and chili powder are all nice choices. 

Add the onion and mushrooms, making sure to scrape all the lovely browned olive oil into the mixing bowl too. Gently whisk until well mixed. Spool into the muffin cups. To make clean up a little easier, wipe up any spills from the surface of the muffin pan before you put it into the oven.

Bake for 25-30 minutes. The bites will puff up a little. When they are done, a fork stuck into the middle will come out clean.

This is an extremely loose recipe--the only limit is the volume of the muffin cups. Don't like spinach? Try fresh basil. Want some animal flesh? Add chopped (cooked) bacon. Want puffier egg bites? Hand-whip some air into the mix before adding to the muffin cups. Black olives, pesto sauce, sunflower seeds or walnuts--let your imagination and contents of your pantry run free!

Non-Stick

The blast from the past in the bedbug post reminded me that I wanted to post this tidbit too.

Back in 1994, I acquired a set of non-stick cookware. It was a big purchase for me at the time. I was extremely proud of my 10-piece set of Circulon pots and pans--not the top of the line but reasonably priced and durable. I can certainly attest to the durability part: I hauled that set of pots and pans and lids all over the U.S. and even the world. Like Harry and Mimi, the set went with me to Saudi Arabia and back.

Circulon, circa 1994.

For decades, I have been diligent about never using metal utensils when cooking. There's plenty of plastic and wood options out there. But even with care, well made things still wear out. The saucepan was the first casualty--even boiled pasta would stick to the bottom. I kept the pan but it got shoved to the back of the cabinet, replaced with a series of cheap pans and lids I picked up here and there. The skillets went next. They became increasingly hard to clean as the non-stick coating was worn away with use.

Out with the old...

So last month, 26 years after that first acquisition, I decided to get a new cookware set. I went with Calphalon this time, another 10-piece set. One less pot, one more lid--but that lid is for the sauce pan! What a luxury!

...in with the new!

Cooking with the new pans has taken some adjustment. They heat up much faster, and more uniformly, than the old ones, so I have to use lower settings on the stove. I had
forgotten how nice non-stick coatings can be to use and to clean.

The old set is boxed up and sitting in the garage. I can't bring myself to throw it away. I have a history with these pots and pans. I could pull out the still-usable pots and donate them, but I can't bring myself to separate them from the rest. Who knew owning a set of cookware was going to be such an emotionally demanding relationship?

Orange Basil Lentil Salad

I haven't posted a recipe in quite a while. This is a salad that I've now made twice, with good repeatability. The first time I came up with it, I took it to a party where it was complimented by all. No leftovers either. Yes, it was a bit risky to take a dish I literally created on the spot to a party, but I'm pretty confident in my cooking skills. I made it again last night for my Xmas Eve dinner. Total prep time is about an hour if you take time to drink a glass or two of pinot gris while you are puttering about in the kitchen.

Lentils, 1 to 2 cups dried
Fresh basil, lots
Red onion
Feta cheese crumbles, 6 oz or so (one small container)
Navel orange (one or two depending on size)
Dried cranberries, about 1/2 to 2/3 cup
Fresh greens (arugula, spinach, mixed greens, etc)
Olive oil
Honey
Apple cider vinegar (optional)
Black pepper, fresh ground

Rinse the lentils in a strainer. Cook 1 to 2 cups of lentils on low to medium heat (simmer, don't boil). Don't worry about having extra water as you can drain that off. Use French green lentils if you want to be fancy. Set the lentils aside to cool. When cool, put 1 to 2 cups cooked lentils, drained, in a large salad bowl. The lentils don't take long at all to cook. You can make them ahead of time if you want.

Finely slice a red onion and caramelize with some olive oil. This will take about 20 minutes on low to medium heat. Stir often. Set aside to cool. When cool to the touch, add to the large salad bowl.

Put the feta cheese into the large salad bowl.

Add a large handful of dried cranberries to the large salad bowl.

Finely dice a very large handful of fresh basil leaves. Put 1/3 of the leaves in a measuring cup and put the rest in the large salad bowl.

Note that the order in which you add things to the salad bowl is not actually all that important. Don't add the lentils and onions until they are cool though.

I like feta cheese and used an entire small container. Feel free to exercise more restraint. 

I find this recipe only needs 1 large navel orange but you could use two if you wanted. You might want to increase honey and basil if you use two oranges. Cut the navel orange into quarters and peel two of the quarters and divide into sections. Slice the sections into 1 cm-long pieces and add to the large salad bowl. Squeeze the juice out of the other two quarters into the measuring cup.

To the measuring cup, add some olive oil, a tablespoon of honey, and lots of fresh ground black pepper. If you want the dressing to have more of a bite, add 1/2 tablespoon of apple cider vinegar. Otherwise, it will be fairly sweet. Stir very well to dissolve the honey and mix the oil and orange juice.

Add your greens to the salad bowl. Fill that bowl up! Give the dressing another good stir and pour over the top. Gently mix everything well. Enjoy!

For Now, I Have To Pass On That

Cooking has been a hobby of mine for years. Combined with all the travel that I've done, I consider myself a fairly adventurous eater. I pay attention to what I eat, and if I like a dish, I try to recreate it at home. I consider myself reasonably experienced in the kitchen to the point that, with the exception of pastries, I consider recipes to be more suggestive than prescriptive. (Why pastries? That shit has tighter engineering tolerances than manufacturing medical equipment.)

I've also been interested in vegetarian cooking for a very long time. I first learned of this way of cooking when I lived in a strict vegetarian, clothing-optional, coed co-op during my first pass through college almost 4 decades ago. I kept my clothes on but paid close attention when I was on kitchen duty with my housemates. Some of their ideas had a pretty big influence on me. For example, I rarely eat packaged food. I prefer to cook using good quality raw ingredients. It takes longer because all those raw ingredients have to be prepped in various ways, but I refer you back to my first point--cooking is a hobby. It's something in which I invest time and emotional energy. And my diet has always included a decent proportion of vegetables and grains. One of my go-to comfort meals, tofu sauteed with onion and spinach then sprinkled with fresh lime juice, is all the way onto the vegan side of the scale.

A sample of the things I cooked this weekend for the upcoming week: cornbread muffins; white beans with roasted garlic, carrots, and fresh basil; white rice; and roast cauliflower and mushrooms with black pepper.

Fast forward to now. About a month ago, I realized that I hadn't purchased any meat in the previous couple of months. Somehow, in a shift that was subtle enough that I didn't consciously recognize it for months, I've become vegetarian.

I realized it had a lot to do with my new job. I handle dead animals regularly. Well, that's a flat-out euphemism. I cut them up. I cut up dead animals of all species. I surgically take them apart. After I remove entire organ systems, I cut those up too to make sure no lesions are overlooked. That was all soaking into my head too, just like those early cooking lessons, so that when I was at the grocery store doing my shopping on the weekends, I'd walk past the meat section and just...keep walking.

It's not a moral issue. I'm not a smug vegan judging you for your choices. You will have to pry the half-and-half in my morning coffee and yogurt and eggs from my cold, dead hands. Grated parmesan is a perfect garnish for just about anything.

For now, I still eat meat if someone makes it and serves it to me. It seems to be the handling of it that bothers me the most. And I've finally found the perfect agility training reward for Archie--boiled beef. Low fat, low sodium, freezes well, and he just goes nuts for it. I buy the pre-cut stir-fry strips and I don't even have to handle them when raw, just dump them in a saucepan and add water.

Is it just a phase? Does it matter if it isn't? It's sure a lot cheaper. Maybe I'll lose some weight too.

Tomato!

I haven't done any food-related posts in a while, and decided it was time for one. I stumbled across the rough outline of this dish in a magazine in one of the exam rooms in the local emergency vet clinic a week ago (long story, not blog-worthy). I made a small volume of it the next day, and liked it so much that I went all out and made an enormous volume of it this afternoon. This dish is perfect for parceling into lots of plastic containers, ready to microwave for a quick meal. Add a green salad, or if you are lazy and/or pressed for time (I am both), reheat a portion in a bowl, throw some greens on top then dash some of your favorite vinegar on top of everything, and you have a delicious, healthy, quick meal.

Tomato!

Here's the basic recipe that you can scale up as needed.
 
1 can white beans (I like Great Northerns)
1 can diced tomatoes
1/3 large sweet yellow onion, finely sliced (adjust to your taste, I like onion so I use a little more)
1 container (about 300 g) of cherry tomatoes (I prefer the yellow ones, they are sweeter)
fresh or dried basil
olive oil
1 package of fancy chicken sausages (I think Italian works best but you can probably use whatever makes you happy)

Heat oven to 375F. Rinse the beans if they are not low-salt. Drain well and pour can into large glass baking dish. Add the can of diced tomatoes, onion, and spices. Drizzle about a tablespoon or so of olive oil on this. Stir well. Rinse the cherry tomatoes then distribute them evenly across the top. Place the uncovered dish in the oven for about 20 minutes or until everything is bubbling. Remove the dish from the oven.

Cut the sausages in half lengthwise and submerge them under the surface without disturbing the cherry tomatoes on top. Use a fork! Don't burn your fingers! Return the uncovered dish to the oven and let it simmer until the cherry tomatoes begin to brown and burst (perhaps another 25 minutes). Let it cool a bit before serving.

Enjoy--and don't forget the greens!

Comfort Food

During the week before finals, I spent most of my spare time cooking large volumes of some of my favorite comfort foods. As a result, during finals week, I only had to dip into one or another of the plastic containers in my fridge or freezer for sustenance.

One of my regular fallbacks is the oatflake-zucchini loaf that I make following a recipe in my old and beloved copy of Laurel's Kitchen (the 1976 edition). The recipe uses an egg and cheese to bind the thing together and is decidedly old-school vegetarian. If you were dedicated to the effort of being vegan, you could use soy cheese and whole wheat flour or flax seed instead of the egg. I am not so dedicated. I often make the recipe in double volume. It keeps for many days and freezes well. I frequently add a squirt of ketchup before eating a slice.

I never said my comfort foods were haute cuisine. They are simple, cheap, easily reproducible, and reliably stored.

Another comfort meal that I quite like is a rather disgusting but extremely mouth-pleasing mound of mac-and-cheese boiled with a couple of pork sausages. Hey, I already admitted it was disgusting. Cut the raw sausages into five or six pieces and toss into the pot with the noodles and cook away. After draining, you can add the cheese and liquid (milk, butter, water, whatever floats your boat) into the same pot and mix well. There! Ready for apportioning into plastic containers for freezing. Not even close to vegetarian and not even remotely apologetic for it.

I also make a tasty bolognese sauce for spaghetti using ground beef, canned tomatoes, tomato paste, and spices. I don't otherwise eat beef in any form but this stuff can be made in very large quantities and frozen for future use. One night of cooking and I can eat for a week. It's not like the mac-and-cheese-and-sausage potage that is reserved only for my own furtive late-night meals. I've proudly served the bolognese spaghetti to guests.

A comfort meal that I regularly make is rigidly vegan. Take half an onion, slice thinly, sauté in olive oil until nearly clear. Add salt and black pepper while the onion is cooking. Finely cube 1/2 of a package of extra firm tofu (ignore the less firm varieties, they are gross). Put the other unused half of the tofu cube in a large container filled with enough water to cover it; it will keep for several days. Add the cubes of tofu to the onions. Brown slowly but thoroughly. Add red chili pepper flakes. Be liberal! Live a little! Give that chili pepper container another shake or two! Once the tofu cubes are nicely browned, add lots and lots of spinach. At least a half pound, washed, dried, de-stemmed, or just handfuls of the stuff from the pre-washed packages. Stir well, turn off the heat then cover, allowing the spinach to wilt. Serve with brown rice. A vegan's dream meal. Full of fiber and vitamins and none of those nasty animal products. Sadly, this meal doesn't store well (the rice can be made in advance in bulk quantities, however). But it is so cheap and easy to make that I keep it in regular rotation.

Despite making this meal almost once a week, I will never give up butter, yogurt, honey, eggs, and cheese. We humans are omnivores after all. But there's certainly no need to eat meat with every meal. All foods in moderation, all foods enjoyed.

Finally, the comfort food that I make on a regular basis, not just during the last week of classes, is a big pot of either black or pinto beans. I don't bother with soaking them; that is a waste of time and flavor (see this guy for one opinion on the matter). I cook them with no spices or fat of any kind, not even salt. This way I can use them in a variety of preparations and flavor them to taste as the dish requires: beans and scrambled eggs, tomatoes, and cheese; or beans sautéed with small pieces of chicken then topped with fresh mango. Yum.

Surrounded by Lavender

This weekend is the annual Lavender Festival in Oregon. Some of the farms are open year-round but on this weekend, all of them open their gates to the public. The festival website was fun to explore--it included useful map tools since the farms are scattered across the central part of the state. A friend and I did a little bit of planning and yesterday we visited three small farms that were relatively close to us.

This field was vibrating with thousands of bees.

I came home saturated with lavender. Depending on the farm, you might find essential lavender oil, lavender soap, lavender lotion, lavender-infused honey, mint tea with lavender buds, fruit and lavender jams, lavender chocolates, lavender lemonade (you can even get that in most coffee shops this time of year), lavender-infused herbs and salt, dried and fresh and potted and U-cut lavender, make-your-own lavender wreaths, lavender-themed artwork...and some of the larger farms had additional vendors, food, even music.


My friend and I had a good time looking over the lavender bounty. We hung around the distillation demonstrations--for the aromatherapy! I thought that the oil was in the leaves but it is in the buds. They have to be picked before they flower. When you distill, you start with an enormous pile of cut lavender, including stems, and a lot of water, and end up with a few liters of essential oil, a mash of plant material, and many gallons of lavender-infused water, a sort of weak tea. Some farms filter this water and sell it as a body mist; I thought that recycling was pretty clever.

I bought three plants--two are an unusual white-flowering variety developed at one of the farms. Even though HellBeast consumes everything organic that I leave out in the house (and some inorganic things, like flip flops), I also bought a bunch of cut lavender. HB seems to have met his match--he gave it a very thorough examination but the taste test did him in and he won't go near it now!

We sampled homemade lavender chocolates. The cilantro-lavender was a surprise but the white chocolate infused with lemon-geranium-lavender was outstanding.

This farm had landscaped gardens, fountains, and gazebos of various sorts in and around their lavender fields.

For my dinner that evening, I combined lavender honey, soy sauce, white wine, and crushed mint leaves that I cut right outside my front door and used this to pan-glaze a pork chop. I tossed a yam and green onions in the pan to soak up the extra juice. Mmm! You could really taste the lavender. It was fabulous.

Zucchini Loaf

Summertime means zucchinis!

I believe that I have posted at least one recipe from Laurel's Kitchen before. I was introduced to the concept of vegetarian cooking when I lived in a co-op as an undergraduate, and I decided right away that I needed to learn more. I purchased a paperback copy of this cookbook in the early 1980's. That same paperback is now held together by rubber bands and is worn and stained from long, repeated use. 

The authors do a very good job of considering nutritional balance and content. One of the recipes I return to often is for Zucchini Oat Flake Loaf. It has a "comfort food" texture and mild flavor. There is just enough fat for a good mouth feel but not so much that you feel guilty, and lots of good fiber for your lower gut microbes to chew on.

Plus, this recipe is a good way to use up some of those extra zucchinis that you home gardeners will soon be buried beneath! The zucchini loaf freezes well. It might be a bit hearty for summertime fare but you can make a lot of it in the next couple of months and enjoy it this winter! Here is my slightly modified version of the recipe.

Prep time: about 30 minutes

3 cups grated zucchini (3 medium sized ones usually does the trick)
2 cups uncooked rolled oats
1/2 chopped onion, sauteed (dicing the onion results in better distribution)
1/2 cup grated white cheese (I like Parmesan but Swiss will work too; can reduce to 1/3 cup without loss of flavor or texture)
1/2 cup wheat germ (I've substituted bread crumbs with no loss in flavor or quality; however, I would not use wheat flour here because it will make the loaf gummy--trust me on this)
2 eggs, beaten
2-3 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup sunflower seeds
1 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 375F. Sauté the onion in a bit of oil until soft. Allow it to cool. Grate the zucchini into a large bowl. Add all of the ingredients and mix well. Gently press into well greased loaf pan. Bake uncovered for 25-30 minutes.

The original recipe calls for 1/4 tsp nutmeg. I made it that way once and found the taste combination to be unpleasant. But go for it if you like nutmeg.

I rarely make more than one loaf pan at a time but this recipe can easily be doubled or tripled to fill a large casserole. If you choose to go for volume, you may need to reduce the cooking time because the depth in the casserole will be less than in the loaf pan.

Enjoy!

Thai Curry Butternut Squash Soup

The weather was absolutely gorgeous this weekend: clear blue skies, gentle breeze, temps around 70 F. It started out a bit chilly in the mornings with some fog but that burned off quickly enough.

Changing weather with changing seasons makes me think about big pots of beans and roasted root vegetables and other post-harvest foods.

I've got a nasty head cold and that makes me think of spicy foods.

Put those together and you get Thai Curry Butternut Squash Soup. As I've mentioned here before, I believe that limes and red Thai curry paste, and fresh ginger when it's available, should be staples in any adventurous cook's kitchen. They are strong components of this nice alternative to the butternut soup standard.

I used this basic recipe that I found on this blog, but as usual I made some changes. Here is her recipe:

Thai Curry Butternut Squash Soup
Yield: serves 4
Total Time: 1 hour

ingredients:
3 tablespoons coconut oil
1 sweet onion, diced
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon freshly grated ginger
2 tablespoons red curry paste
3 cups low-sodium vegetable stock
4 cups uncooked butternut squash (1-inch) cubes
1 (14-ounce) can coconut milk
1 lime, juiced
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/2 cup torn fresh cilantro for serving
1/3 cup chopped roasted peanuts for serving

directions:
Heat a large pot over medium-low heat and add coconut oil. Once it's melted, add in the onions and the garlic with a pinch of salt and stir. Cook until the onions are soft and translucent, about 5 minutes. Add in the ginger and curry paste and stir until it is incorporated. Cook the curry and onion mixture for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Pour in the stock and add the squash cubes. Cover the pot and increase the heat to medium. Cook until the squash is soft, about 20 minutes.

Once the squash is soft, turn off the heat and very carefully pour the entire mixture into a blender. Blend until the soup is smooth and pureed. Pour it back into the pot and turn the heat on to medium low. Add in the coconut milk, lime juice, salt and pepper, and stir. Cover and cook the soup for 10 minutes until it's completely warm. Taste and season additionally if desired. Serve the soup with a garnish of torn cilantro and crushed peanuts.

[adapted from the cooking light recipe shortcuts magazine (page 18), out until november]


First, I used olive oil instead of coconut oil (which is solid at room temperature). I don't care for the taste of coconut oil and wasn't going to buy a container of it just for this dish.

Second, I eschewed the cilantro and peanut garnish, mainly because I forgot to buy cilantro at the store yesterday.

Third, I added the garlic with the ginger and red curry paste. Garlic will get bitter when overcooked and if you add it at the beginning when you are cooking the onion, it will get overcooked very quickly. I also first smashed then coarsely diced the garlic cloves. Smashing them brings out more of the flavor, in my opinion. It makes it easier to peel them too.

Fourth, as an experiment, I cut up the two butternuts into eights or thereabout, cleaned out the seeds, tossed the squash chunks in a plastic bag with olive oil, and roasted them in the oven for about an hour at 350F. I don't know if this changed the flavor substantially since my head is too full of snot to detect something this subtle (all I can taste is the curry paste and lime, really). But I figured it couldn't hurt. As a side note, this pre-roasting didn't affect the total cooking time significantly.

Finally, I used about twice as much red curry paste as the recipe calls for. You will need to determine what level of spiciness you prefer. I also squeezed in two limes, not one. The acidity of the lime juice perfectly meshes the sweet, creamy coconut milk and the bright spice notes of the red curry.

The soup is smooth and warm and spicy, perfect with a piece of hearty, seedy bread. The rain is moving back in tonight--I'm ready!

Pork Chops and Savory Blueberry Chutney

It's been an unusually hot and dry spring and summer here in west-central Oregon. I'm terribly disappointed and am really looking forward to some rain. I hear it rains often here. I've yet to see it.

One side effect of the hot weather, besides my disgruntling, is that the blueberry crop ripened a bit sooner than usual, and, most interestingly, all at once. This means that the markets have been flooded with tons of cheap blueberries, all at their perfect state of ripeness.

I've been buying them up and washing then freezing them, because nothing will taste better than yummy blueberries baked into a cobbler in the depths of the grey, wet winter (which they say is coming, but I have my doubts...).

I usually eat the berries with oatmeal or simply right out of the colander after I've washed them. But I can only consume so many of them that way. I looked at the gallon of gorgeous blueberries in my fridge and thought, there should be something I can cook up with them now.

I'm not a strict vegetarian by any stretch, although I eat vegetarian, sometimes even vegan, around three or four nights a week. So that means I'm not a rabid carnivore either. In fact, I haven't eaten beef in six or seven months. I stick to chicken, pork, and the occasional bag of salmon or can of tuna. Just because I can, I always have some form of pork in the freezer.

I pulled out a couple of boneless pork chops tonight and decided that they would be delicious with a savory blueberry sauce. I checked out some recipes on the internet but in the end came up with my own.

Rinse and set aside two cups of fresh blueberries.

Coarsely chop half a large sweet onion and set aside. Finely dice three large cloves of garlic and set aside. Coarsely chop some fresh parsley to get half to one cup and set aside. Coarsely dice some fresh tomatoes and set aside or pour a can of diced tomatoes in a colander to drain (I used canned tomatoes, as I usually do, and they were perfect in this dish). Either way, you want about a cup of diced tomatoes.

Wash and pat dry two boneless pork chops. Drizzle olive oil on a plate and drag both sides of the chops through it. Sprinkle the chops with cayenne pepper and coarse salt on both sides. Pan fry the chops and set aside in a covered bowl to keep them warm.

In the same pan (don't clean or wipe it out), gently fry the onions until they begin to turn clear and golden. Add two tablespoons of honey, two tablespoons of balsamic vinegar, the garlic, the tomatoes, and the blueberries. Reduce the heat. Stir frequently. Cook until the mixture becomes thick and the berries begin to open, about 10-15 minutes. Turn off the heat, add the parsley, and stir well. The sauce will be a pleasing dark purple color with bits of red tomato and green parsley bobbing about.

Spoon the sauce over the plated chops and serve with rice or grilled veggies.

In case you think this combination of ingredients sounds weird, keep in mind that the cloying sweetness of the blueberries is rounded out by the acidity of the tomatoes and balsamic vinegar. The honey is mainly to assist in carmelizing the sauce although it does add flavor and sweetness. In fact, this balance of sweet and acid is the exact definition of a chutney.

The cayenne pepper on the chops puts a nice edge on the flavor but this dish is not particularly spicy. You could use fresh-ground black pepper if you are wary of cayenne.

If you haven't tried making a chutney, this is an excellent starting point using seasonally fresh ingredients.

Gardening, Cooking, and Eating

The hippies that lived in this place before me dug several gardens out of parts of the front and back yards. I discovered that, near the back door, they planted arugula. I mowed the stuff three or four times before I realized what it was, then I realized that it came back even stronger after the mowings. So I harvest arugula a couple of days before I mow. This particular garden plot was reseeded with grass so I have to pick out grass stems and other bits when I wash it but it's worth it. Two nights ago I had salmon-from-a-bag (like canned tuna in texture and cheaper than salmon steaks) on a plate-sized bed of arugula dressed with homemade vinaigrette made from organic basil (more on this below), olive oil, apple cider vinegar, a couple of spoons of sugar (I know, some people think that sugar ruins a dressing; I think it adds a pleasing texture), and a generous grinding of black pepper. Yum!

I heard some botanist yammering on the radio about how certain plants release more phytotoxins when they are disturbed (i.e., bitten by an animal or, say, mowed). These phytotoxins can make the plant bitter and dissuade the animal from coming back again, but the chemicals are in fact what we like about bitter greens such as arugula. Simply by chance, I have been conducting my own experiment by regularly mowing the arugula plants.

During my exploration of the yard, I have also discovered a good crop of lemon balm. I think I'll try my hand at lemon balm pesto.

I discovered that we share the yard with three garter snakes, one large one, at least 24 inches long and about as big around as a large carrot, and two smaller ones about half its size. They look exactly like the snake in this link with a large yellow stripe down their backs. I've found at least two of their hidey holes. Unfortunately, Mimi found these dens as well and I've had some problems keeping her away from them. The big snake in particular is most interesting as two times now I've found it lounging on top of the newly revitalized compost pile. I've had to nudge it away so I can dump my bucket of tea bags and cilantro stems. I think it is hunting worms and possibly centipedes or roaches in the compost. The pile is very fluffy after I turned it and it is quite easy for the snake to get in and out of it. Garter snakes eat slugs so I'm being very careful when I mow. I want the snakes to continue to think my backyard is a great place to be.

OSU is a fairly typical ag or land-grant school in that there is a strong emphasis on sciences of growing food, whether in the ground or on the hoof. The university is located in the middle of Corvallis but is surrounded on the west by vast acreages of crop and pasture land. I bike through the university farmland every day. Bees and butterflies, mown hay grass, alpacas--lots of stimulating sights, sounds, and smells.

The crop science students maintain gardens and greenhouses and sell the produce in a building on campus. I ride past that building every day too. And on Friday, I had to stop when I saw the sign said "basil" and "beets". I bought two bunches of organic basil for $1 each and a bunch of organic beets for $2.

Beets. I've never been a big fan of beets. But really, I've never been a fan of the musky red cubes that come out of cans that most Americans think of when they consider beets. They are often served cold in a "salad". I'd rather eat snot.

I saw the sign and thought, now here's a chance to do something interesting with beets.

I hauled my prizes home and immediately went to the BBC food website, my current online source for interesting recipes. I've mentioned before that I am attracted to Nigel Slater's recipes and he came through once again. I found this recipe for lamb, bulgar, and beet patties with yogurt-mint cucumber dressing. I didn't have any lamb, and haven't seen any ground lamb in the store (it would probably be hideously expensive here) but I did have some ground pork. Lamb, pork--both are rich in fat and in my mind effectively the same when making this sort of dish.

The patties were absolutely delicious but the prep time listed in the recipe--less than 30 minutes--was terribly unrealistic. It took me an hour to prep everything and perhaps another 45 minutes total for the cooking (plus the hour the patties sat in the fridge and the half-hour to prepare the yogurt dressing). And I think that I am pretty darned efficient in the kitchen!

The magenta-colored patties would make a decent party dish as I ended up with around 30 of them. Plenty of leftovers for me. The sugar in the beets carmelized during the frying and baking, helping to stick them together. And two heaping tablespoons of dill? I was suspicious as this seemed a lot but it had to stand up to some other strong flavors. And that musky beet odor/taste was nowhere in evidence.

Thai Sweet Potato Mash

I was listening with half an ear to The Splendid Table yesterday on the radio and heard the host suggest something along the lines of this very simple recipe. Since I happened to have two sweet potatoes that needed to be cooked, I thought I'd give it a try.

Two medium sweet potatoes
One lime
Hunk of fresh ginger (about 1 tsp in volume; adjust to taste)
Jar of Thai red curry (red chili) paste
Olive oil

Wash and cook the sweet potatoes. I microwave them because it is then trivial to remove the skin. Alternately, you can peel them then microwave them.

Peel and finely dice the fresh ginger then place in a bowl. Add the peeled sweet potatoes, the juice of one lime (which hopefully you also washed), and a tablespoon of the Thai red curry paste. Add a small amount of olive oil and begin to mash all ingredients. Add more olive oil as needed to smooth out the texture.

And that's all it takes for a perfect side dish or vegetarian main. I ate mine with sliced cucumber drizzled with balsamic vinegar.

As a side note, if you do much Asian-inspired cooking (south or east, doesn't matter), limes, fresh ginger, and Thai red curry paste should be staples in your kitchen. If you don't work with fresh limes that often, select thinner-skinned, very slightly squishier ones (in other words, avoid the rock-hard ones with very thick rinds) and roll them around under your palm on a cutting board, pressing down firmly, before slicing. This makes it much easier to juice them.

Rhubarb 2: Savoury on the Cheap

I decided to give the rhubarb another try tonight for dinner. My plant is enormous, plenty there for more experimentation.

I find that I am drawn to Nigel Slater's recipes on BBC Food more often than some of the other food writers. He seems to revel in simple comfort food.

I was reading his crazily easy notes for roasting rhubarb and I honed in on his closing statement "Use in sweet or savoury dishes...such as ... fried mackerel fillets".

I'm not a big fan of mackerel, and most seafood is out of my budget these days, but I did have a can of tuna in the pantry. Savoury rhubarb and tuna, here we come!

I followed his directions for prepping and roasting the rhubarb, and after I popped it in the oven, I thinly sliced half a sweet onion and put it in a skillet with some olive oil, basil, dried ginger, and a generous amount of salt. Once that began to gently cook, I started half a cup of rice.

When it was done, I added the rhubarb (sliced down to about 2" per piece) to the onion, a tablespoon more of brown sugar, and then a drained can of tuna. I let this mess simmer to boil off extra liquid. The rhubarb began to break down a little and while the original chunky texture was lost, the mixture of flavours made up for it.

I served the rhubarb-tuna-onion mixture over the rice. It was simple, fresh, delicious--and cheap.

It's Rhubarb Season!

I ran into my landlady in the Safeway this afternoon (I know that sounds weird but I live in a very small town outside of Corvallis, which isn't all that terribly large itself). We had a nice chat about the weather and the rental house. She and previous tenants have planted lots of beautiful trees, shrubs, herbs, and plants and I have really been enjoying discovering them as they come into bloom. The tulips and cherry trees are finished but the irises and a small dogwood are now taking over. There are three large rhododendrons in the front yard blooming in glorious varieties of pink.

She told me, the rhubarb is ready for harvesting. The rhubarb? Oh, that looming plant with the enormous dark green leaves. I had in fact weeded out that side bed just the other day and discovered the rhubarb as well as a bed of onions planted by the previous tenants. I didn't recognize the rhubarb but figured it was too large and permanent looking so I weeded around it.

I've never touched rhubarb before but I'm game. My first stop for some ideas was the BBC Food web site. If I had my Joy of Cooking, I probably would have also looked there, but it's on a slow boat from KSA. Of course the BBC comes through. I chose this recipe for rhubarb chutney. It suggests serving the chutney with gammon, a form of smoked pork, and I happen to have some boneless pork steaklets. But the recipe attracted me because I like making chutneys and compotes. They are so easy!




Here's a picture of the rhubarb cooking in the brown sugar with the rest of the ingredients ready to go in.

It took quite a while to cook the chutney down and the pork was still frozen so I'll defer the rhubarb feast until tomorrow. The flavors will be that much better!

Easy Bok Choy and Tofu

Yes, yet another recipe. I’m stressed and cooking calms me. Here is one of my favorite dishes. It is another vegetarian offering because I’ve been eating a lot less meat the past few weeks. I love greens and bok choy is a great one to cook with. It’s not bitter and is easy to handle. If this is the main or only dish, this recipe feeds 2 hungry people. But it is easy to double it.

Put some rice on to cook.

 

Thinly slice an onion and dice two or three garlic cloves. Put in a saucepan with a liberal addition of olive oil and lots of fresh ground salt and pepper. Cook on low heat until the onions begin to turn clear. Stir often to keep the garlic from burning and becoming bitter.

 

Open and drain a packet of firm, lite tofu. I prefer Mori Nu. It has a very smooth texture. It comes in tetrapaks and is easy to use. Dice the tofu into pieces about one centimeter square. Add to the onions. With a spatula, gently fold the tofu into the onions and olive oil. You can increase the heat a bit because you want the tofu to brown. Stir often but gently so you don’t break the tofu squares up.

 

Check on the rice.

 

Clean a bunch of bok choy. Remove the root ends and coarsely chop the rest including most of the stems. When the tofu has begun to brown, reduce the heat and drop the bok choy on top. Allow the pan to rest for about a minute then gently fold the bok choy into the tofu and onions. Cook for a couple of minutes on low heat then turn off the heat and cover.

 

You can add a handful of dried pomegranate seeds after you turn off the heat. They add wonderful color and a sharp bite of sourness.

 

Serve over rice.

Shakshuka

I don't think I can begin to reconstruct how I stumbled across this recipe the other day but I had to try it immediately. Shakshuka (or shakshouka) is a common dish in North African and the Middle East with various groups laying claim to its origin (typical for this area, really; what don't these tribes fight about?) and is often served for breakfast. It can be made in large quantities limited only by the size of your largest skillet and works well as a vegetarian main dish. Don't let the simplicity of the dish fool you: it has some wonderful flavors, textures, and colors.

I'm going to give a bare bones version of the dish here. You can visit this link or this one for more elaborate recipes.

Slice or dice some onion and garlic. Place in a large skillet with olive oil.

Add sea salt, chili pepper, paprika, and cumin to taste. Be generous, this dish is suppose to be quite fiery! Mix the spices in with the onions. Simmer, stirring often, until the onions begin to turn clear.

I've not researched this but I like to add dry spices to cook with onions because I think this method brings out more of the flavor than adding spices later to a cooking liquid. Anecdotal, of course, but my tongue tells me this method works well.

Dice several fresh tomatoes. I used canned because that's what I had and they work just fine too but you need to drain the juice from them. Let's be practical: we don't all have access to good fresh tomatoes and we don't need to be food snobs all the time.

Add the tomatoes and a container of tomato paste to the skillet. Stir well and cook for 15 minutes or so over reduced heat. Stir frequently to prevent sticking or burning. The mixture should be gently bubbling but not throwing tomato sauce all over the kitchen.

When you decide the tomatoes and the spices and the onions have joined forces long enough, carefully crack some eggs on top (be careful not to break the yolks), spacing them evenly. Allow the eggs to cook completely. This might take a few more minutes and you might need to reduce the heat a bit more.

Most recipes call for diced parsley to be thrown over the top but I didn't have any and it tasted totally fabulous without it.

One cooking pan, total prep and cook time about 40 minutes, vegetarian, relatively low fat and low salt (unless you overdo it). Plan on each person eating two eggs. It's a winner!

Red Cabbage and Cilantro Salad

Cilantro is certainly one of a class of foods that people either love or loathe with no room for fence-sitting. I don't use it often since I find the flavor quite strong. But it is a perfect fit for this dish.

I got this recipe off the internet. There are several sites that claim to have "invented" it and I can't be bothered to sort out who is being silly and who is right. But I'm certainly not going to add to the confusion. This is somebody else's idea.

I've made this salad several times now. It turns the most fabulous purple color if you can let it sit in the fridge for a few hours before serving. Because it is easy to make a lot of it, it is tempting to take this dish to parties. Beware the cilantro snobs, however!

Juice two limes. Add one half tsp of sea salt and 1 Tbs of honey. Stir well to dissolve the honey. If the limes are large, add more honey.

Remove the outer leaves and wash one small or half a large head of red cabbage. Finely dice and add to the liquid. Mix well.

Wash a bunch of fresh cilantro. Remove enough leaves to fill about 1/2 cup. You can give them a chop or two with your knife if the leaves are large. Add to the cabbage and lime-honey mixture and gently stir.

Leave in the fridge for at least a couple of hours and give it a good stir before serving. The leftover salad will keep for several days in a tightly closed container.

Mmmm! Goat!

Last week, my new supervisor (I moved to a different group within the company in December) invited me and my office mate to his home this past Thursday (our weekend) for lunch. It’s a big deal for a Saudi to invite westerners to his home, even more so since I am a woman. I had a fairly good idea of what to expect although I am pretty sure my office mate didn’t!

MS has a traditional “villa” located not far from Dhahran. Completely surrounded by 10-foot-high walls, there are separate entrances for men and women, and in fact the women’s part of the house is completely isolated from the men’s part with only a single connecting door near the kitchen (so the female servants can serve food at the men’s parties). I was invited into the women’s part of the house and visited with his wife and two daughters for about 15 minutes. They served me dates and unsweetened Arabic coffee mixed with ground cardamom, a traditional Arabic social custom. The coffee is served in tiny cups without handles. It can range in color from a clear orange to a cloudy yellow. It is an acquired taste for sure—sometimes you’d swear it was nothing but cardamom tea. The dates that are usually served with Arabic coffee are the dry ones, although I prefer the sweeter, sticky ones.

Image from food.com.

I think I’ve mentioned this before but am too lazy to look up at the moment: you can’t assume a Saudi is westernized just because he wears western clothing and seems to be relatively tolerant of us. Our supervisor, MS, wears office casual clothing to work every day, including the frequent appearance of a natty, black, loose silk jacket, yet he maintains a very traditional household such that his wife and daughters aren’t even permitted to mingle with other males in his own family, much less my office mate. The women would of course not join us for lunch.

MS takes his Bedouin roots quite seriously. He built a modern, city version of a bedu tent within his villa compound. I’ve seen them before at fancy restaurants and at a few places around Aramco where they are used to entertain visiting bigwigs. The building has solid walls and the fancy ones have windows. They always have AC units. The walls and ceiling inside are draped with cloth to make it look like you are inside a tent although there is usually a solid roof on top of the building. Inside, the walls will be lined with long cushions and backrests on the floor with an occasional armrest scattered here and there. Shoes are always removed before entering. It is considered rude to cross your legs (I can’t do it in an abaya anyway; I had to wear the hated thing for the entire lunch). Most westerners don’t spend much time sitting on the floor as adults and we struggle with the sitting down and getting up routines that are required by these cushions on the floor.

MS also invited a couple of other Saudis who live near him who work at Aramco (it would have been too weird for it to be just me, WC, and MS) and one brought his son. The three older men wore thobes. The son was in western clothes.

After more obligatory Arabic coffee and dates, it was time for lunch. Even though MS didn’t tell us in advance, I knew what was coming: kabsa.

Kabsa is essentially a meat and rice dish. It can be made in amazingly enormous quantities and is considered a Saudi national dish. The rice is usually basmati, cooked until it is slightly sticky. The meat is where things get interesting. Kabsa is traditionally served with lamb or goat but camel is also common. Non-traditionalists will substitute beef or chicken. The meat is butchered into very large pieces (it is not deboned) and cooked with the rice and an incredible array of spices. The animal can also be partially cooked whole then cut up and added to the rice later. (You can find a westernized version of a kabsa recipe here.)

A tray of kabsa. This is almost certainly a sheep; it's too big to be a goat. Note the head on the left side of the platter. I ripped the picture from high-10.blogspot.com but the original source is unknown.

Kabsa is served on large trays with the meat laid on top of or mixed in with the rice; sometimes the edge of the platter is decorated with fresh veggies such as tomato and cucumber. You sit on the floor around the trays and eat kabsa with your fingers. The technique of balling up some rice and meat and delivering it to your mouth without spilling it all over your lap on the way or without cramming your fingers in your mouth (considered rude) requires quite a bit of practice (a lot of practice). Just as when you dine with Chinese folks, the Saudis will offer you a spoon but are much pleased if you use your fingers (or chopsticks, as the case may be).

The meat can sometimes cause problems for westerners. Fat is not trimmed off and all of the animals are served, including their heads. I laughed when WC and I sat down with the son at one tray and the son pulled off the foil covering to reveal…a goat head staring up at us, white-grey tongue sticking out of its mouth. I wasn’t laughing at the goat but at WC. His eyes were popping out but not because he’d been steaming with rice for hours. Fortunately, we had other bits of the goat that were well worth eating (ribs and legs, for example).

There's another head on this platter too. Kabsa is eaten with the hands. No, let me correct that. It is eaten with the RIGHT hand. Never use your left hand while eating with Muslims if you can avoid it. I ripped this photo off tripadvisor.com.

In between picking out goat hairs from the rice and accepting pieces of rib and cheek meat from the son sitting with us (cheeks are always a choice bit) while deftly refusing tastes of brains and eyeballs, I rather enjoyed myself. When the son grabbed the head and ripped its jaw off to get at some of the meat, WC stopped eating any more meat and only nibbled at the rice. When the son told us his mother was a master at picking all the meat off the head, then grabbed the goat head and jammed two spoon handles into its eye sockets to demonstrate her technique for splitting the skull to get at the brains, I laughed again. WC simply stopped eating at that point.

Me? I’m an adventurous eater. The goat hair had been well cooked along with the rest of it, and I happen to like fatty meat. In fact, I’ve had kabsa served with mutton (instead of the preferred lamb) and it was downright nasty. So I thought the succulent little goat was delicious!

The meal was followed by more gossip and chatter (Saudi men love to gossip) and glass after glass of super hot, impossibly sweet black tea. We also had an eggy dessert topped with chopped pistachios. It was more salty than sweet but it went well with the tea.

I enjoyed the afternoon quite a bit. It is rare to spend time with Saudis in such a casual setting and I am pleased that MS invited us to such a grand feast.