Edible Things

Asian Sesame Salad

2009-03-03T23:01:00.004-06:00

Over the Valentine's Day weekend, Matt and I ate at Doolittle's Woodfire Grill and had an amazing Asian Salad. I was determined to duplicate it. I mean, how complex can a salad be?

I didn't really measure stuff, but here goes:

-shredded napa cabbage

-shredded carrot (julienne if you have the means)

-sliced cucumber (again julienne if you can)

-green onions sliced (I might do them the long way next time)

-fresh cilantro leaves

-canned mandarin oranges

-wasabi peas

-homemade wonton croutons (slice up wonton wrappers and lightly fry them)

I tossed the cabbage and carrot in an Asian sesame dressing. Then dressed it up with the onions, cucumber, cilantro and oranges. Sprinkle with peas and croutons. Enjoy.

Palak Dal (Spinach and Lentil Curry)

2009-03-03T22:36:00.005-06:00

Not the most photogenic of foods, but one of the tastier things I ever ate was Palak Dal. I ate it for the first time on the recommendation of the cooks at Kabob's restaurant in Bloomington. I searched and searched for a good recipe: one where the photo looked something like what Kabob's serves up.

I finally found one and tried it on Sunday. Not as good as guys who grew up in the country of origin for this dish, but it's still very tasty. Some of the ingredients may require you to shop at an ethnic foods store or hit your local co-op and ask for help. Here's my slightly modified version of the recipe I used.

1 cup yellow lentils (I actually used yellow split peas)
5 cups water

1/2 tsp turmeric powder

salt to taste

2 cups chopped fresh spinach

3 cloves garlic, chopped

1 onion, chopped

1 tomato chopped

1 tsp cumin

1 tbsp vegetable oil

1 chopped Serrano chili (seeded)

3 tbsp lemon juice

2 tbsp chopped coriander

1/2 tsp garam masala powder

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper (start with this and add more if you like a lot of spicy)

Cook the lentils in the 5 cups of water for about 30 minutes on a low boil, stirring often because they get all clumped up. Add the spinach and cook another 40-50 minutes. At this point, the lentils will begin to break down and the spinach will get very tender and mix into the lentils some. Continue to let this mixture cook while you do the next step.

In a separate pan, heat the oil and add the cumin and onion. Brown the onion over medium heat.

Add the garlic, tomato, Serrano pepper, coriander, garam masala and cayenne pepper. Cook until everything starts to break down and blend together a little bit, but don't allow it to become mush.

Scrape the onion mixture into the cooking lentils and mix well. Add lemon juice. Taste for saltiness and spiciness now and modify as needed. Let the mixture simmer another 10 minutes to allow flavors to blend a little.

Serve with basmati rice and some flat bread. We had it with garlicky pitas cut into triangles.

Generally, this is a vegetarian dish with plenty of filling power and protein for even the most voracious meat-eater. Matt wanted to have some meat in his the other night, so he cut up a leftover chicken breast and added that.

Fresh Spring Rolls

2009-02-06T21:31:00.005-06:00

These always seemed like some exotic jigsaw puzzle to me when we got them at the restaurant. So neatly wrapped, tight enough the filling hardly ever fell out, but with the most simple of ingredients. I had a craving for spring rolls the other day. Instead of spending $5 for two rolls, I bought all the ingredients to make 2 dozen for about $10. I started with a package of spring roll wrappers and just picked up the ingredients listed on the back.

1 package spring rolls wrappers
1 package rice stir-fry noodles

lettuce or cabbage, cut into long thin strips

carrot, cut into long thin strips

fresh coriander leaves (otherwise known as cilantro)

1 can bean sprouts (or you could use fresh)

1 package salad shrimp (you could use larger ones, these were just less expensive, or you could leave them out or use some other kind of meat or even tofu)

Put very water in a shallow pan. Immerse one wrapper at a time until they are softened. Pull the wrapper out, lay flat on a dishtowel (the non-fuzzy kind works best). Blot extra water off the top with another towel. Place ingredients in small amounts in the middle of the wrap. I placed first a strip of noodles, then some lettuce, then carrots, then bean sprouts, then coriander and then shrimp. Fold the bottom edge of the wrapper over the filling until it just touches the wrapper on the other side. Fold the ends toward the middle. Snug your filling in and roll the wrapper until it sticks to itself and forms a roll. And you're done.

We ate ours with a store-bought peanut sauce, but if you look online you will find some other recipes. I think I will try to make some from scratch next time we make these. I'm also going to make some thai chili sauce for dipping. Next time I'm also going to add cucumber cut into thin strips.

Photos to make you salivate

2009-02-05T22:01:00.009-06:00

Just a few photos of things I haven't written down, but that I have felt were photo-worthy in the last several months. There are more, but the cable for the camera is AWOL at the moment.

Homemade CSA spaghetti sauce with a side of steamed veggies (also from the CSA).

The first round of canning: purple and traditional kraut, kim chee, and salsa made by natural fermentation. I used the Nourishing Traditions cookbook for all of these. We like the purple kraut best. This is the only kraut I will eat. I can't stand the stuff in a can or bag at the store.

Spinach lasagna (used up the CSA loose spinach in this one)

Two cheese grilled cheese on some homemade bread (with the obligatory tomato soup).

Italian pickled garlic and green tomato antipasto. It was inspired by a trip to a local Italian restaurant with a salad bar that had this mixture on it. Matt was hooked, so I figured out how to make it since we had CSA garlic filling our crisper for months and a bunch of tomatoes green on the vine on our little late-fruiting plants.

Second round of canning. This time, only purple kraut, and I cured this batch on the ledge in our basement instead of the counter for only three days and then into the fridge.

Venison Fajitas. We butchered the deer ourselves.

Tomatoes and a jalapeno pepper picked on the second day of December. We had the plants in a greenhouse while we moved and then in the shed with a space heater due to a very late fruiting.

Giant meatloaf (combined ground venison and leftover pork from our wedding), apple tart (apples from a local orchard courtesy of grandma), sweet potatoes with butter and brown sugar and homemade gravy.

My first attempt at a 2 crust pie. The crust made with the lard rendered from the hog from our wedding and the apples from that same local orchard mentioned above.

Another crop of late veggies, this one on December 8.

Into December, we still had a bunch of squash from our CSA (still have a couple actually). Matt fried them up in a pan with some sunflower oil (also from the CSA), butter, garlic and onion.

We learned this one from America's Test Kitchen (on PBS). A diner style omelet. I'll have to spell out how to get this light a fluffy breakfast for everyone sometime. It was huge and amazing, we split it and were still stuffed.

Buckwheat pancakes with pure maple syrup (got the syrup from Matt's uncle who "made" it)

The last of the tomatoes and some more jalapenos. These ones picked 6 days before Christmas! We still have the pepper plants (and our chard) in the basement. Matt picked some more peppers today to use in his homemade venison jerky marinade.

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

2009-02-05T21:48:00.003-06:00

Tonight I made my second batch of the most delicious banana chocolate chip muffins I think I've ever eaten. The first batch went with me to work in 2's as a morning snack (okay a few of them were eaten at home, including the one I had hot out of the oven). It's a super easy recipe and they come out tall and fluffy.

Ingredients:
1 large egg
3 tbsps vegetable oil
3 tbsps milk
3 tbsps citrus juice (I used pineapple this time, but last time it was strawberry/orange/banana)
1 tsp vanilla extract
2/3 cup mashed ripe bananas (I used 2 good sized bananas)
2 cups all purpose flour
½ cup sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
1/2 cup chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350°F
Place the egg, oil, mashed bananas, juice, vanilla extract and milk in a mixing bowl and mix together until well blended.
Add the flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder .
Stir until evenly blended.
Fold in chocolate chips.
Grease a muffin tin and fill with mix to the top of the openings.
Bake for about 20 - 25 minutes. You don't want the tops to get too brown, pay attention to any sides you can see inside the muffin tins and if they are getting brown, it's time to take them out.

p.s. photo coming as soon as I find my cable for the camera.

Crossposting my breakfast

2008-11-26T09:14:00.003-06:00

Crossposting from my regular blog, but it's food related so I think it's warranted.

This morning, I decided to have a real morning, instead of going back to bed when Matt left for work. I had already assembled his lunch (homemade bean soup : pseudo recipe below and homemade apple crisp) and made him a breakfast sandwich (fried up a slice of homemade Goetta sausage on toast, and filled up his thermos with some fair trade organic dark breakfast blend coffee). Time for my breakfast. A slice of the Goetta with a fried egg on some lightly toasted whole wheat with a cup of that same coffee accented with some maple syrup and a dash of whole milk. Yum. I pulled up the shades in our office to let the morning sun shine in and decided I should blog just a smidge. I will be posting some photos a little later today, but I still don't have photo software on our main computer and mine is up in the cold cold attic.

And now the recipes.

Homemade bean soup
I started with pork bone broth (used the bones we had frozen from the pig from our wedding reception). Just simmered those bones in some water forever it seems until they were soft and all the remaining meat and cartiledge fell right off. I used dry beans for soup for the first time. Combining Northern White Beans, Pinto Beans and small Red Beans in a pot, washing them, soaking them, rinsing them, partially cooking them and rinsing again before they were ready for the soup.

Cut up some leftover ham, an onion, celery, carrots, 2 cloves of garlic, and some cabbage and sauted it ever so slightly in butter with some sage. Put about 1/2 cup of dry barley into the broth and set it to simmer for about 15 min before adding in the beans and the other goodies. Let the whole thing sit on low and simmer and hour or two. We had some for dinner last night with some crackers and it was super filling. Has to be all those beans.

Apple Crisp
Peeled and sliced 4 huge Cortland apples from Victoria Valley Orchard (bought for us by Matt's Grandma from the cutest little local orchard you would never know was there). Put them in a 9x13 pan with about 1/4 cup sugar (I used raw sugar), a whole bunch of cinnamon, a dash of nutmeg, a dash of cloves, and a dash of ginger. Mixed up the apples to spread out the spices.

In another bowl, mixed up 3/4 cup whole wheat flour, 2 cups oats, and about a cup of milk. (I also added about 2 tbsp butter this time around, but last time I made it without cause I didn't have any and it was still delicious). Stir this mixture up well until it's kinda crumbly. Spread it evenly on top of the apples. Bake until the topping is crispy and the apples are soft and they appear to be syrupy.

I have been eating this warmed and topped with yogurt.

Goetta Sausage
Ok, so this might make some of you go ew, but this sausage is made from leftover meat and oatmeal. It's kinda sloppy, but delicious. We had quite a bit of pork still left frozen from our wedding reception and didn'tknow what to do with it, so when we found this German delight on the internet, we thought it was worth a try.

I ground 2 lbs of leftover roast pork with an onion. Then I mixed in 2 1/2 cups of oatmeal and 8 cups of water. I also added a pinch of cayenne pepper. You take this whole sloppy mix, bring it to a boil and then simmer for a couple hours, stirring occassionally. It does get stuck to the bottom of the pan pretty badly otherwise.

Once it starts to look like it's thickening up some, put it into greased loaf pans and put it into the fridge to cool and set up. It's supposed to thicken up so you can slice it and fry it in a pan, but ours had a little more fat than we planned on, so it was a bit gloppy. I thought maybe baking the loaf or adding more oatmeal per pound of meat next time might be a good idea. But we still have sliced it up a bit, then squished the slices in the cast iron skillet to fry it up for breakfast. Currently this is what Matt is having as a favorite breakfast. If you make this, try not to judge it before you taste it.

CSA box 9/26

2008-09-29T14:37:00.003-05:00

It's nearing the end of the CSA season and that makes me a bit sad. Our CSA will be offering some late season boxes this year and I think we will take advantage of them. I really could tell the end of summer was here with this box. The tomatoes are quite as pretty as before and there are a lot more roots in here.

This week's box:
-cucumbers
-zuchinni
-potatoes
-green cabbage
-winter squash
-cilantro
-Beauty Heart radishes
-tomatillos
-tomatoes (of three varieties: heirloom, stuffers and sungold cherries)
-carrots
-garlic
-sweet pepper
-onion
-jalepenos (which had turned red)

I'm sure M. will miss his BLT sandwiches when the CSA season is over and we have to see what tomatoes actually cost at the store. But until then, he's in tomato heaven.

Swiss Chard

2008-09-29T14:30:00.003-05:00

Even though October is right upon us, we are still growing our garden strong outside. The advantage of our contianers will be when the weather gets too cold and we would loose our remaining harvest, we can simply bring the whole darn thing inside. We're hoping we'll have enough nice days left to get much of our veggies ripened outdoors however.

Last week, I picked the first bundle of swiss chard from our plot. We needed an additional vegetable for our dinner (there was only one serving of beans left) and I was yearning to nibble on our tender-shooted greens. Because we grew them in a planter, they never got big and woody like the chard I was used to as a child in late season. Instead, every shoot was tender and young tasting. I steamed them and topped with butter and salt. (that's really all they ever need) Very delicious. I hope we can move this plant indoors and continue to grow it into the winter a bit.

Our CSA: Driftless Organics

2008-09-20T22:43:00.005-05:00

For the second year, M. and I are part of a CSA. We chose to join up with Driftless Organics mostly because we love great produce, but also because one of the founders/farmers/owners is a college friend of his. Josh Engel and his brother Noah have been growing colorful organic potatoes since they were young kids. It turned into a full fledged organic farm and last year they started a CSA program.

Every other Friday, I pick up a large box of farm fresh produce. We look forward to finding out what is in the next box like little kids anticipating Christmas presents. I should have been documenting each and every spread as I unpacked the boxes, but so far I have only remembered twice. Also included in our box is a newsletter which lets us in on what's going on at the farm, what's in the box, some ideas on how to use some of the more unusual items we might receive and a recipe or two.

In this box, we received 4 ears of sweet corn, lacinato kale, yellow summer squash, zucchini, carrots, potatoes, pickling cucumbers, some peppers which were brown and very tasty, white onions, mini mixed peppers, sungold cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, mixed heirloom tomatoes, and garlic.

This was our most recent box. In it was, two delicata squashes, carrots, zucchini, red potatoes, red onion, garlic, mixed mini peppers, that spicy brown pepper, very sweet red pepper, eggplant, collard greens, edamame, roma tomatoes, mixed heirloom tomatoes, cilantro, sage, and a giant head of red cabbage.

I am going to try to document what few boxes we have left. We are also hoping to purchase some post-season veggies from Josh. Last winter, we ate our weight in delicata squash and made loads of purple kraut with his amazing red cabbage. I'm hoping we can make enough kraut to last us the winter. Last year, we ran out in January or February and it was rather sad. (I'll be sure to document the kraut production when it happens).

Fried Eggplant on Pesto Angel Hair Pasta with side salad

2008-09-20T22:12:00.007-05:00

We received a nice slender violet eggplant in our most recent CSA box. I didn't really know what to do with eggplant and the only thing that came to mind was eggplant parmigiana. I also had a bumper crop of giant basil leaves in our rooftop garden which was just waiting to be made into some of the freshest pesto in town. So I got creative.

First the eggplant. I have no idea how to cook with such an ingredient, so I just made it up. Thickly sliced and salted each piece. Mixed up an egg, with some flour and some water to a pancake like consistency. After dipping the eggplant I fried it up in some saved bacon grease until each was a crispy golden brown.

Meanwhile I had cleaned and trimmed the basil and some flat leaf parsley (both from our roof-top garden). Toasted some pine nuts and crushed a couple cloves of garlic (from our CSA). Put everything in the food processor with some olive oil and some Parmesan cheese. Blended it up until it was a nice pasty green. Also had some angel hair pasta cooking in my big dutch oven next to the frying eggplant.

When the pasta was done, I stirred the raw pesto (I don't usually cook mine cause I like flavors to be extremely bold) into the noodles. We topped the pasta with a couple pieces of eggplant (which was like candy, so smooth and sweet inside with a crunchy fried coating) and some more parm. cheese.

For a side salad, we chopped some red leaf lettuce, an heirloom tomato (we get so many tomatoes from the CSA this time of year we try to incorporate therm everywhere we can so they don't go bad before we can finish them), some small cucumbers (the first from our garden), some finely chopped onion and dressed it up with some Tarragon Dijon dressing.

Ingredients in this meal which came from our CSA share:
-eggplant
-heirloom tomato
-garlic
-onion

Ingredients in this meal which came from our roof-top garden:
-giant leaves of basil
-flat leaf parsley
-cucumbers

Pork Tacos

2008-09-20T22:03:00.002-05:00

M. and I had one portion of shredded roast pork left from our wedding in the freezer and when I suggested tacos last night, he suggested using the pork. Add some onions, jalapenos, one spicy pepper which we don't know the name(a brown we one thought was sweet, but was obviously not), water and some spicy taco seasoning and let it simmer for an hour or so and we had a luscious pork feast which tasted a little like "carnitas" from Chipotle.

We put the meat in a crunchy taco shell with freshly shredded romaine lettuce, a chopped heirloom tomato, cheddar cheese, and a dollop of sour cream. I also made some spicy rice. Just regular rice with a good glop of salsa, some habenero sauce and Mexican blend corn (corn with peppers) all mixed up. Topped the whole shebang off with a glass of Sangria. Delicious.

Sometimes I wish we either followed a recipe or wrote down more detailed measurements of what we put into our cooking so we could replicate it at another time. This is one of those moments. This was so good I'd eat it every week if we could.

Ingredients in this meal which came from our CSA share:
-jalapeno pepper
-spicy brown pepper of unknown lineage
-red onion
-heirloom tomato

Ingredients in this meal which came from our roof-top garden:
-jalapeno pepper

New beginning

2008-09-19T21:33:00.002-05:00

Throughout the summer, M. and I have been experimenting with food and being very domestic. I have been wanting to document our culinary exploits for some time. So here it is, a new blog focused on one of the things I enjoy the most: food. Be prepared for some exciting posts about our inner-city, roof-top gardening; experimental cooking with what little might be in our kitchen as well as trying to cook up our CSA box without wasting even those things we don't know much about, and just plain good eats.