The Roast Beast Conundrum

Christmas is a difficult time for me, cooking-wise. My side of the family (carnivorous Lutherans) has certain expectations about what should be eaten, and my husband's side of the family (strict vegetarian Hindus) has very definite rules about what should NOT be eaten. My side, like the Whos in Whoville, wants some sort of roast beast. The other side is sickened by the mere thought of roast beast. Sickening people is not something to which a cook aspires, yet at the same time making one's family upset about missing Christmas dinner is also no fun. (I've always been jealous of people who brag about making things like sushi for Christmas dinner. This simply would not fly in my family. Nor would Tofurkey or lentil-nut loaf. Vegetarian lasagna with red sauce, not white, is as crazy as I dare to go without inciting rebellion.)

In early December I got into a conversation with an acquaintance who was raised on a farm in rural Mississippi. The mice were starting to run rampant in the barn, so one day when he was about seven or eight years old, his grandmother called him over and had him kill all the mice one by one with a pitchfork. After relating this story, he told me, "I really think people who have been brought up on farms have the greatest respect for life of any people."

I thought about what he said, my brain buzzing with cognitive dissonance. My dad grew up on a family dairy farm in northern Minnesota. He declined taking on the farm, saying "there's no living in it," (which was sadly true), and went to college and became a research scientist instead. Yet every year he went back Up North to go deer hunting with his brothers. We'd hear tires crunching gravel, then run to watch from the front window as they strung the deer up, blood dripping and making a red mess in the pure white snow. One year I told my little cousin, "Your dad shot Bambi's mom," and he cried for half an hour. Not one of my finest moments, but it was my true sentiment. Having grown up in the suburbs eating meat that came from styrofoam packages covered with plastic wrap, I thought my dad and uncles were callous and cruel. I didn't understand their need to "go out and kill something" at all.

But then we all moved to Seattle, and my dad didn't go deer hunting anymore, and I didn't really think about it much until my friend's pitchfork tale. Then I struggled: pairing "killing mice with a pitchfork" with "respect for life." Then something clicked: No matter what we do, others must die so that we may live. Maybe people who live on farms understand this better than most, because they witness it firsthand. Maybe the question is not "What should I eat?" Maybe the question is, "How can I live in a manner that is most respectful of life?" (For what it's worth, I have long believed that anyone who respects life on this planet would do better to fight corporate control of the world's resources rather than simply stop eating meat.)

With these thoughts fresh in my mind, and feeling ornery about the approach of Christmas and my annual inexplicable need to work myself to the point of absolutely insufferable irritability for a meal that no one was truly excited about, I decided to lobby for a Christmas ham. I did this by picking an argument with my husband wherein I questioned the ethics of his vegetarianism.

I asked him, "What if you have to kill a hundred mice to protect the grain that makes your bread? How is that better than killing one pig for a ham?"

He didn't have an answer to that question. Or rather, he has several answers, but he's still thinking about it. So did we have ham for Christmas dinner? No, we had vegetarian lasagna with red sauce. But however our argument ends, I think we both agree that logic alone does not control our food choices. That, and nothing beats the sheer determination of the Tamil Brahmin vegetarian to not eat meat or have it cooked in the home. (Sorry, no pictures. I was too busy with life. Here's a picture of the new casserole dish I bought, sure to be the vessel of many Christmas lasagnas to come.)

Chocolate Truffles: Easy Last-Minute Homemade Gift

It's T-3 days to Christmas morning, and I know time is short for you as well as me, so I'll make this brief: If you are looking for last-minute little Christmas gifts, you easily have time to make chocolate truffles. People love buttery smooth chocolates so much more than useless junk you get at the mall. (Uh, gee, thanks, Aunt Madge. The red and green sequins really make Rudolph seem to jump right out of the sweater.) And everyone will be so impressed that you made them yourself. Better yet, get your kids to make them. I know they need something to do now that winter break is here. Even more important, they need something to do that is actually useful. I think making Christmas gifts fits the bill. If your child can roll play dough into a ball, then he or she should be able to make truffles.

There are only four ingredients (cream, butter, chocolate, and cocoa powder), so be sure to use high quality ingredients, especially with regard to the chocolate. Ghirardelli is a good choice. I used their recipe, which conveniently was on the back of my bar of chocolate. It's dead simple, and turned out nicely. You can find the same recipe here, using chocolate chips. Replace the chocolate chips with two bars of bitter-sweet chocolate if you wish. If you want to get a little bit fancier, you could go over to Simply Recipes and try Garrett's truffles. You could also try rolling little bits of dried fruit into your truffles. I had intended to incorporate dried cherries into ours, but we ate all the dried cherries before I had a chance to do this. Oh well, such is life.

To wrap our truffles, we placed several into a foil cupcake liner, then tied a square of tissue paper around the liner. Easy! Word of warning: You will likely need to make a double batch if you are planning on giving any away at all. Merry Christmas!

Sweet Potatoes with Your Cumin

When I was a childless, carefree twenty-something in Seattle, I lived a couple blocks away from the food co-op.  At that time in my life, I was fairly undisciplined, and thought nothing of jaunting over to the co-op deli counter and spending five bucks for a small container of cumin roasted sweet potatoes. How I loved those sweet potatoes. The key to their fabulousness lay in the heavy-handed application of cumin. No light dusting for these sweet potatoes. No, on first bite you had to think, "Whoa, cumin." Then, "Oh, sweet potatoes!" And I also loved their chicken salad, which had purple grapes sliced lengthwise, and chunks of walnut in it. I would still pay good money for that. It was the perfect blend of sweet and savory, with nice big chunks of chicken. Not too mayonnaisey, either.

But back to the sweet potatoes. My thirty-something self wants to give my twenty-something self a sharp rap on the knuckles for paying that much for something I can buy for $0.79 a pound, and cook without even batting an eyelash. I am unfortunately still relatively undisciplined, but my lack of discipline currently expresses itself through buying half-off baked goods after 6 pm at the local bakery/deli/meat shop. But then again, it's a lot harder to make a Faux-stess cupcake (Hostess cupcake copy-cat) than it is to make these cumin roasted sweet potatoes.

These make a good side dish with Mexican food, or would be good as sweet potato tacos served in soft corn tortillas with crumbled cotija cheese and avocado sauce* drizzled on top. (And kids seem to love them.)

*By avocado sauce, I mean avocado, sour cream, garlic, and lime juice blended together, with a little salt.

Cumin Roasted Sweet Potatoes
5 or 6 small sweet potatoes, peeled and cut in rounds about ½ inch thick
one onion, halved crosswise and sliced, cutting along the root/top axis
a few glugs of canola oil
approximately 2 tablespoons ground cumin
salt

Preheat oven to 425°. Place your sweet potatoes and onions on a large sheet pan, then pour a good amount of canola oil on them. Use your hands to mix the oil so that it fairly evenly coats the sweet potatoes and onions. Add the cumin and again use your hands to mix, so that it is evenly distributed. Spread the sweet potato mixture evenly over the sheet pan, and sprinkle salt over it all. Place on the center rack of the oven and  bake for about 40 minutes, or until sweet potatoes are soft and lightly browned, and onions are soft and caramelized at the edges.

And now, because I can, I ask you to go and listen to this. You might want to be up on your feet first.

Latkes for All

As you know, the Holiday Season™ is upon us, which in our family kicked off a bit early with Diwali at the beginning of November. Then Thanksgiving came around at the end of November. Honestly, Thanksgiving is always a let down for me. I am just used to the Thanksgivings of my childhood, where we'd go to my grandma's and there'd be twenty aunts and uncles and forty cousins and so much cigarette smoke you couldn't smell the turkey in the oven, or even breathe for that matter. How I miss those days. I say that with not even a touch of sarcasm. It really was a better time we lived in back then.

Anyway, last week as I was wallowing in post-Thanksgiving self pity, looking ahead toward Christmas, my four-year-old approached me demanding to know when we were going to celebrate Hanukkah. "But honey," I tried to explain, "see, we don't celebrate Hanukkah because we're not Jewish."

The child stared at us for a moment, then repeated in a much louder voice, "WHEN ARE WE GOING TO CELEBRATE HANUKKAH?"

So I figured, what the heck? Why not? Maybe it'll cheer me up to make some latkes. And it actually did cheer me up. It's amazing what the lack of expectations and pressure will do to lighten the holiday mood. Even better, some Jewish friends heard about my daughter's determination to celebrate Hanukkah, and thought that was a great excuse for them to hold their own latke party. So we got to have latkes two nights in one week. Ironically, my girl wouldn't touch the latkes with a ten-foot pole. (Of course, she did eat the applesauce.) Thank goodness I can count on the six-year-old to eat anything, so I can blame the perversity of genetics and not my lack of parenting skills.

Now the four-year-old wants to celebrate Kwanzaa, as well as Bahala, which as far as I know is a holiday she made up completely on her own. I have a feeling we've created a monster.

Latkes (How I Made Them)
Latkes are, as you may already know, nothing more than potato pancakes. This is how I made them, and I thought they were quite tasty. It seems everyone has a different way of making them, and I am sure they are all quite tasty. It's hard to go wrong with potatoes and onions fried in lots of oil, is my thinking.

I based my recipe on Joan Nathan's recipe in The Children's Jewish Holiday Kitchen. Ms. Nathan's variation called for zucchini and carrots in addition to potatoes. I decided to go with just carrots and potatoes. The carrots added an attractive touch of color, and stayed a little crunchier for added texture. But I did something else that was even more unorthodox, and purely my own inspiration: Instead of adding matzo meal or flour, I used pulverized yellow corn tortilla chips. Please don't hate me if you're a purist. Just use matzo meal or flour. But the tortilla chips did taste good. I didn't intend to make my latkes that way. I had intended to use matzo meal. But the first store I went to had no matzo meal, and for some bizarre reason only light sour cream. (Yes, I know, what is this world coming to? I mean, if you're that afraid of the fat just don't eat the sour cream. Don't force the abomination known as "light" sour cream on us, with its modified corn starch, guar gum, carrageenan, locust bean gum, gelatin, etc. Have you no decency?) The second store I went to had normal sour cream, but still no matzo meal. Don't ask me why. It was the first day of Hanukkah, so I thought it'd be easier. I really didn't have the time to visit a third store, so I called it quits on the matzo meal. I'm sure flour would have worked just as well, but you know me. Once I thought of using the tortilla chips, I had to see what would happen.

One more thing: Our friends included baking powder in their latkes. Some recipes call for baking powder, some don't. It makes for a fluffier latke, so feel free to add a couple teaspoons of baking powder if you like fluffiness.

Traditionally, latkes are served with sour cream and applesauce. (I'm not going to tell you to serve them with salsa and black beans. Wink, wink.)

3 medium sized russet potatoes, peeled
3 medium sized carrots, peeled
1 onion
3 eggs, beaten
1/2 to one teaspoon salt
pepper
3/4 cup corn tortilla chips, pulverized in food processor (or same amount of matzo meal, or flour)
oil for frying

Grate potatoes, carrots, and onion together into a large bowl. Gather the grated vegetables into a clean cotton towel and squeeze all excess liquid out, then return the vegetables to the bowl.  Add the eggs, salt, and pepper, and combine. Add the pulverized tortilla chips and combine.

Heat several tablespoons of oil in a skillet, and heat. Form 3-inch wide patties with the potato mixture, and fry a few minutes until deep brown on one side. Flip, and fry the other side until deep brown. Serve immediately, with applesauce and sour cream.