Salad Days and Nights

Sometimes the day is long and despite my best intentions, I eat like crap. Here is something I did the other night that made me feel a lot better: I made myself a late night green salad.

The act of working with the fresh lettuce, tearing it with my hands, tossing it with the dressing gently, also with my hands, was an instant salve. When I ate the salad, I felt light and rejuvenated, not heavy and bloated like I would have felt if I'd ordered out pizza or something equally greasy. (Besides, if you are still hungry, that's what buttered toast is for.)

Those oval-shaped morsels hiding in the picture are fava beans. They taste bright and green, sweet but with a faint bitterness. They also happen to be real survivors. I planted them back in early December, but an unusually bitter cold spell in January killed them off, down to slimy black stubs. Fortunately I didn’t do anything, and slowly but surely as the weather warmed, the slimy black stubs sprouted new growth, and eventually gave me a decent harvest of beans. Feel free to apply this story metaphorically to your own life while you eat.

Fava beans are a great addition to a green salad, especially if you don’t have that many and need to stretch them out a bit. They only come briefly in springtime, so snatch them up while you still can. I like them best on my salad tossed with a scarcely there amount of olive oil and lemon juice, some shredded asiago cheese, and a little salt (just a little, but important). By the way, people always complain about what a pain it is to prepare fava beans. Don’t listen to them. It’s not a pain. Filling out forms that prove your kids are your kids, and are indeed kids, so the state of Georgia doesn’t kick them off of health insurance is a pain – this is not. What you need to do is shell the beans from their pods, then blanch them in boiling water for a minute. Immediately plunge them into ice water to stop the cooking, and then squeeze them out of their translucent skins. Then toss on your salad and eat.

(In other news, there is now a Southern Fried Curry page on Facebook. You can go check it out by clicking the dilapidated barn on your right. I'll be posting interesting articles I happen to come across, as well as my random thoughts pertaining to food that don't seem to fit into the blog here.)

In the Land of Milk and Honey

Sometimes the art of cooking lies in knowing when not to cook something. I’m not saying we should all become raw food-itarians, but I do fail to see how perfectly ripe fresh-picked strawberries can be improved upon. Nature did all the work for me; all I had to do was plant two little strawberry plants last year, and watch how they spread like mad across my garden plot. This year my girls and I harvested more than six pounds of strawberries from a strawberry patch not bigger than eight square feet. And I didn’t cook a single one of them – I couldn’t bear messing with perfection, and besides, they weren’t around long enough. So, thank you sun, rain, earthworms (and other friendly soil critters), and bees for the delicious strawberries.

I would also like to thank the bees for making honey. I didn’t realize it until I moved to Georgia, but honey is kind of a big deal around here. When I do my DeKalb Farmer’s Market shopping trips, there are at least a half dozen different kinds of local raw honey from which to choose. Orange blossom, gall berry, tupelo, clover, wild flower, etc... I usually choose wild flower because it’s the least expensive, but I’ve tried clover and orange blossom, and both are lovely, particularly the orange blossom. It really does faintly taste of orange blossoms, and I don’t even want to describe it further, because the words “orange blossom” and “honey” speak for themselves.

So, in this world in which bad things like unstoppable oil spills happen, I’m taking the existence of fresh garden strawberries and honey as proof that a benevolent force does exist in the universe. Well, the existence of strawberries and honey, and also the happy, rhythmic mundanity of family life which goes on and on, keeping me centered. Which leads me to a little bit of divine inspiration that occurred the other night: I had just started to make some vanilla ice cream to celebrate my older daughter's learning how to swim, when I realized I was completely out of sugar. (These kinds of things happen to me a lot.) Not making ice cream was not an option, so I looked in my cupboard for something else sweet. Honey! Thank you, benevolent force in the universe!

So I went ahead and made the ice cream with honey instead of sugar, and honestly, it was some of the best ice cream I ever ate in my entire life. The sweetness of each bite started off intensely floral, and finished with a caramelized, almost malty flavor. It tasted so much more rich and complex than plain old vanilla ice cream, and I didn’t even do the custard thing with eggs. So, amazingly, like the strawberries, no cooking was involved! I think the key was the quality of the honey, so if you do this, be sure to get raw honey, not the pasteurized kind, which has all the character cooked out of it, whatever it had to begin with.

This recipe is so easy, you have no one to thank but the benevolent force in the universe, or Nature, or more specifically, the bees and the cows (something Hindus have right). Oh, and the manufacturers of your ice cream maker. So, in honor of that benevolent force, who- or wherever it might be, I am going Old Testament and calling this ice cream Land of Milk and Honey Ice Cream (and also praying for that not-so-benevolent side of the Old Testament God to bring down some thunder and lightning and deliver us from corporate rule,  and dependence on fossil fuels).

Land of Milk and Honey Ice Cream (adapted from the booklet that came with my Cuisinart ice cream maker)
1 cup cold whole milk
2 cups cold heavy cream
½ cup honey (use a good quality raw honey)
2 teaspoons vanilla
fresh strawberries, optional (to top the ice cream before serving)

Mix all ingredients (except strawberries) together well, then pour into your ice cream maker and make ice cream, according to your machine’s instructions. My ice cream tasted better the next day, after it had time to harden in the freezer. Serve with fresh strawberries on top, if you have any left. I only had one left, and that one bite was heavenly (pun intended), but sorry, I didn’t get any pictures. I have a few stragglers waiting to ripen, and when they do, I'm hiding them from everybody until the ice cream is ready.

Bathing Rama, Meet Bathing Sita

"Tradition is innovation that succeeds." Food historian John T. Edge (this past week on NPR's The Splendid Table)

I've been thinking about conservatism vs. liberalism a lot the past few days, as it relates to food – specifically, food in America. My Indian mother-in-law has mentioned to me how it confounds her that we Americans "will eat anything." What she means is, we'll go out for sushi, or Thai, or Ethiopian or whatever, and not only not bat an eyelash, but truly enjoy it. My mother-in-law is different. She'll eat Italian, or Mexican (but prefers to avoid garlic and onions, as well as cheese, which in addition to the strict no meat requirement, makes it difficult), but really, when it comes down to it, likes only one thing: traditional, South Indian fare. No innovations, no funny business. Just the real deal. When I think about it, it makes sense. This is an ancient food tradition, and there's a reason it's survived for so long: It works, meaning it keeps people healthy, and it tastes really good.

With that strong tradition behind her, my mother-in-law tends to look on any culinary innovation suspiciously. One time I took a risk and served her a decidedly non-traditional collard green raita (yogurt sauce to be mixed with rice). She put a polite amount on her plate, and gingerly tasted. I tried to inconspicuously watch her face. What I got was, "This isn't terrible. I can eat this." I considered it a victory, especially when the next day she came up with the amazing collard green bhaji idea, and told me she would start buying collard greens when she saw them in the store.

But then, there's me. I'm not Indian, but rather, American. For me, anything goes. Give me sushi, linguine, tacos, dim sum, potato curry, sauerkraut, tabbouleh, fried chicken, phad thai, tuna casserole, injera, haggis, whatever. It all goes into the stomach, and into the mental file as well. I'm not operating on a sense of tradition (though I've gotten pretty good at mimicking, when it comes to South Indian food); I'm really more of an amalgamator. In goes a dizzying array of food information, and out comes something new. It doesn't always work, but sometimes it does.

All of this leads me to this week's recipe, which I call Bathing Sita. It's an Indianized version of the Thai Bathing Rama (spinach in peanut sauce). My Indian version calls for spinach in a cashew sauce. This is all poetically appropriate, because the Thai epic of Rama and Sita (the Ramakien) comes from the Indian Ramayana, and now with my help, India is borrowing Sita back from Thailand for the purpose of this dish. And just like Rama needs Sita, Bathing Rama needs Bathing Sita. So here she is! (Maybe someone can do a master's thesis on this.)

The Bathing Sita sauce reminds me of the gingery tomato cream sauce from the North Indian dish malai kofta, but is made with cashews instead of cream. I served it with broiled tofu wedges basted with salt, oil and lime juice, which reminded me of paneer (Indian cheese). So you get the creamy, spicy North Indian goodness, and you can lay off the dairy a little.

Bathing Sita (Spinach in Cashew Sauce)
One small onion, roughly chopped
Two cloves garlic, roughly chopped
1½-inch piece of ginger, roughly chopped
1½ cups raw cashews
One large tomato, roughly chopped
Water
A few glugs of canola oil
2 teaspoons brown mustard seeds
1 Thai green chili, sliced in half lengthwise
1 tablespoon ground cumin
2 teaspoons ground coriander (seeds)
½ teaspoon turmeric
A little chili powder or cayenne pepper, to taste
Salt
½ teaspoon garam masala
Juice of half a lime
1 tablespoon butter (optional)
One bunch of spinach, washed, with stems removed

In a food processor or blender, puree the onion, garlic, and ginger. Set aside.

Next, puree the cashews and tomato with enough water to make a smooth paste. Set aside.

Pour a few glugs of canola oil into a saute pan, and heat the mustard seeds and green chile halves until the mustard seeds turn grey and start sputtering and popping. Add the onion puree, cumin, coriander, turmeric, chili powder, and some salt, and cook on medium heat until the onion mixture is soft and slightly browned and no longer has a raw smell.

Remove the green chili halves, then add the cashew paste and more salt, and more water if necessary, to make a sauce the consistency of heavy cream. Simmer for a few minutes, then add the garam masala, lime juice, and butter (if using).

Add the spinach and stir until the spinach is wilted. Cover the pan and simmer gently a minute or two until the spinach is tender. Be careful not to overcook it.

Serve over brown rice. Broiled tofu goes nicely with this.

Menu Plan, Kiss My Grits/Polenta

I don't know about you, but I'm not really a person who likes to plan things ahead of time. It took me many years to accept this fact and stop trying to change myself (an exercise in futility, if ever there was one). But once I recognized who I was (not a planner), and started working with nature, rather than against it, wonderful things started to happen.

You know how all those guides on living frugally tell you to go into the store with a menu plan for the next week, and a list with all the items you don't have that you might need to buy in order to execute said menu plan, and to only buy the items on said list, and nothing else? Well, I can't do that. In fact, I absolutely hate doing that. It turns one of the great joys of being a homemaker (getting to shop for food), into a mindless, soul-killing chore. See, when I go into the store, I like to look around, imagine possibilities, and dream a little bit. If I see something that inspires me, I want the freedom to go for it. I don't want to stick to some boring plan. More so, I don't want to spend the time figuring out the boring plan. That's not to say I go to the store without some sort of framework in my mind. I almost always have a general idea of what I'm in the mood for, some sort of direction, and a few things on a list. But I keep things amorphous until I get to the store and then I let my ideas coalesce. If you keep your pantry well stocked with some basic ingredients, you can shop like this, and not have to run to the store every night.

Sometimes people ask me how I find the energy to cook. Honestly, sometimes it's really hard, and I succumb to exhaustion and we get takeout. But mostly I find it in me, because I'm not approaching cooking as a chore. I'm approaching it as an expression of myself, an act of creativity, and as a performance (my family is the appreciative audience). It's also, of course, an act of love because you are nourishing others, but the selfless thing only gets me part way there. There's gotta be something in it for me, too!

So I wanted you to know I didn't plan this polenta dish I am about to tell you about. I made it out of what I happened to still have in the fridge about a week after my big shopping trip. It was really (I mean, really) good, and it wouldn't have happened if I hadn't let go of the plan. In addition, cooking this way is still frugal because improvisation better allows you to use up all the little odds and ends you might have lying around, that might otherwise go to waste.

I had a couple "lightbulb" moments as I was creating this dish. The first one was, "Leeks and tomatoes taste really good together." That's actually an understatement. The combination is mind-blowingly awesome. The leeks have a sweet, buttery onioniness that's offset perfectly by the acidity of the tomato.

The second lightbulb moment was, "These pan-fried polenta wedges would be even better if they had a crispy chickpea crust." The polenta wedges were made out of leftover grits from breakfast the previous morning. I decided to dip them in a batter of chickpea flour, water, salt, and a little chili powder, and then pan fry each side until they were nice and brown and crispy. The result? When you bite into the wedge, you first get a gentle, salty, oily crispiness, which accentuates the creaminess of the polenta. It just works so well.

I am not trying to toot my own horn, but just wanted to give an example of what can happen if you let yourself go into that creative space. The results may not always be good, but the process is infinitely more fun and rewarding than cooking by rote from a recipe (where the end result may also not be good). For me, recipes are great for stimulating ideas, and for using as a general guideline. But once I really "get it," going off recipe is what keeps me excited and engaged over the long haul.

Leek and Tomato Sauce
Olive oil and butter to generously coat saute pan
Three leeks, white and light green parts only, sliced in half lengthwise and washed, with those halves then thinly sliced crosswise
One large tomato, chopped
Salt
Pepper (fresh ground)

Heat olive oil and butter in a saute pan until butter is melted, and mixture is hot. Add the leeks and some salt and saute on medium heat for several minutes until the leeks are fairly soft. Add the chopped tomato and a little more salt, and cook until the leeks and tomatoes are very soft, and have a buttery texture. Add a very generous amount of black pepper, and more salt if needed. Serve on top of polenta wedges.

Chickpea-Batter for Polenta Wedges
I don't have a recipe for this. Just mix chickpea flour with enough water to make a batter the consistency of heavy cream. Add a little chili powder or cayenne pepper, and enough salt to make it nice and salty. Dip your polenta wedges in the batter, and then fry each side until crisp and brown. Make sure you use a lot of oil, and don't start frying until the oil is quite hot (rippling a little in the pan). Be careful, this tends to spatter. Also, it is useful to have a metal offset spatula for turning the polenta, as it is easier to pick up the wedges without leaving the chickpea batter stuck to the pan.


Making Polenta Wedges
Spread leftover grits in a smooth, even circle about an inch thick on a large plate. Let them cool, then slice into triangular wedges. Refrigerate the wedges until you need them, but be sure to bring the wedges back to room temperature before frying.

If you need a recipe for grits, just do this: Place two cups of whole milk and two cups of water into a large saucepan, and start heating. Slowly stir in one cup of grits and some salt. Cook at a steady simmer, stirring quite frequently, until the grits are done. They should be soft, and pull away slightly from the sides of the pan when stirred. You can stir in a couple tablespoons of butter at the end, to make them even creamier.

Please note, when I say grits, I am not referring to hominy grits. I am referring to coarsely ground corn meal. Hominy grits are also ground corn, but corn that has been nixtamalized. That's my new favorite word, by the way. Another fun fact you might not know: Grits are the official state food of Georgia. And I just battered and fried them. The governor should give me a medal or something.