Category Archives: rice

Broccoli and cauliflower with tamari, honey, and cashews

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Broccoli and cauliflower with honey, tamari and cashews

Broccoli and cauliflower with honey, tamari and cashews

Each morning this weekend, Malcolm and I went running. In reality this involved short bursts of running followed by long spells of lazy meandering. The weather was perfect, the new green leaves glowed with all their tiny might, and Clio raced through the morning mist like a sleek grey dolphin. I was happy to spend time with Malcolm because I had to work most of the day. I was glad to have some of his thoughts to take to work with me, to mull over if things got dreary. He said he thought it would be a good superhero power to be an animal for one day at a time. So you could be a dolphin if you needed to swim in the ocean, you could be a monkey if you needed to swing around in trees, and you could be Clio if you just wanted to have fun.
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I was doing a good job of turning off my anxieties. I wasn’t listening to the little voice that considered the possible perilous pitfalls of every single situation. “Most likely it won’t happen. It could happen, it probably has happened, sometime in history…” Malcolm fell in some nettles and came up crying, holding his head. I thought he’d hit it on a rock. But he hadn’t! We thought we heard a chain saw ahead of us on a secluded path, which conjured all sorts of nervousness. But we hadn’t heard one! There was nobody there! I was anxious about going to work each day because there was a festival in town and David would be busy with the store and my boys might wander off… Probably not, but you never know! But they were fine! And our Clio was off leash, leaping up and down brambly hills, merrily greeting every dog she met, and so happy and joyful it was impossible to feel too apprehensive. And then we saw some dogs up in the distance. They were off leash, too, and getting along with each other. Clio raced towards them, around a small bend in the path. And then I heard cries of pain, and saw a little commotion. Clio came running back to us with a gaping wound in her side. It will turn out to be fine like everything else, I thought! If I pretend it’s not so bad it will go away! But it didn’t, and the poor girl needed stitches, and now she’s all dopey and crying and she has to wear what Malcolm calls the “cone of shame.” She was at the vet all morning! And I was so nervous and separation anxiety-y that David suggested I chew up some of her toys, since it seems to work for her when we’re gone and she’s missing us. And then I picked her up and she seemed subdued and reproachful, she didn’t fall all over herself with glad-to-see-me-ness, like she usually does. Oh what a dark and grey-day mood I found myself in! Because it’s a rainy day, and I kept thinking that this is what I get for letting my guard down! This is what I get for letting myself not be anxious every single second of every day! Because obviously my constant worrying is what keeps everybody safe! I make protective walls around everybody with my unceasing uneasiness! I talked to the vet and told them I think Clio’s mad at me, and they laughed at me and said, “she’s on drugs!” Ohhhhhhh. And she’s got stitches but she’s fine. She’s cuddled with Malcolm and Isaac on the couch and they’re all fine. And now I just have a little voice in my head saying, “Get over yourself, honey, you don’t have that kind of power!” And yes, it’s a gloomy day, but the new life everywhere is bursting with vivid greenness against all the grey. And the next time the sun comes out our whole world will wake up! Our whole world will shine!

This is another of my honey and tamari numbers. The boys loved it! It’s very simple and quick to make. We ate it with rice, but you could eat it as a side dish or with long noodles, or however you like.

Here’s Sleepy John Estes with Ain’t Gonna Worry No More. I’ve got to get a kazoo and learn to play this to chase away the worry demons.
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Carrots and cauliflower in carrot-ginger-lemon sauce with cashews

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Coconut ginger lemon sauce

Coconut ginger lemon sauce

It’s Saturday again, and you know what that means! It’s story time! Here’s your picture for the week. Who is this fellow, and how did he end up at Joe’s in 1954? As ever, my story is after the jump, and yours could be, too.
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Here’s a link to the post with the original idea for the series.

This was a delicious sauce. It had a lot of ginger in it, which gave a nice little zing to the tartness of the lemon and the creamy sweetness of the coconut milk. It would be good with other vegetables as well – broccoli would be nice! We ate it with long thin pasta, but it would be good over basmati rice as well.

Here’s Mississippi John Hurt with Joe Turner Blues

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Collard purée with roasted sweet potatoes, ginger, smoked paprika, and lime

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Collard puree with sweet potatoes, ginger and lime

Collard puree with sweet potatoes, ginger and lime

Hello, Ordinary friends! Don’t look now but we’re doing it again! Last week I introduced the idea of a sort of writer’s salon, hosted by The Ordinary, in which we’d all (whoever wanted to that is) write a story inspired by a certain photograph. I hope to make it a weekly feature, because I’m enjoying the story-writing, and I’d be curious to see what my story-writing friends come up with. So here’s week two’s picture, courtesy, once again, of Square America.
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My story is after the jump, and I’d love to include yours, too!

This recipe is inspired by the Indian dish sag aloo, which is an addictive puree of spinach with soft comforting pieces of potato in it. This is collards, instead, because I love collards. And sweet potatoes, because they go nicely with ginger and lime, which were the seasonings I chose. It’s a nice dish to have with basmati rice and flatbread, or as a side for any other meal.

Here’s Children’s Story from Slick Rick. Classic!

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Broccoli and chickpeas in coconut curry sauce

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Broccoli chickpea coconut curry

Broccoli chickpea coconut curry

Well! I’ve finally finished Brothers Karamazov, and to celebrate we’re going to have a party. I sent Malcolm to the store and I told him to tell the shopkeeper that Claire sends her greetings, “and will be there directly…. But listen, listen, tell them to have champagne, three dozen bottles, ready before I come, and packed as it was to take to Mokroe. I took four dozen with me then…they know all about it, don’t you trouble…Stay, listen; tell them to put in cheese, Strasburg pies, smoked fish, ham, caviare, and everything, everything they’ve got, up to a hundred roubles, or a hundred and twenty as before…. But wait: don’t let them forget dessert, sweets, pears, watermelons, two or three or four — no, one melon’s enough, and chocolate, candy, toffee, fondants;” That being vegetarian versions of smoked fish and ham, of course! And David said I have to write a twenty page paper on the book, so I’ll share that here, shall I? Ready? Do you have your glass of tea and plate of salted fish and cherry jam? Let’s begin! I’m kidding, of course! No scholarly paper. However, I read that Dostoyevsky had intended to write a sequel about the life of Alyosha, but he died before he had the chance. So I’ve decided to take it upon myself to complete the task. A bit of Karamazov fan fiction, if you will. Of course, we’re going to sex it up a bit for our modern audience. No tortured discussions about spirituality or morality – there’s just no market for that these days. Instead, it’s all going to go like this… Lise, of course, is a vampire. Weak, pale, pretty and wicked, what else could she be? But she’s one of those sparkly vampires. And she bites Alyosha, and then dresses him like this, “I should like you to have a dark blue velvet coat, a white pique waistcoat, and a soft grey felt hat….” And then Alyosha, instead of wandering around trying to solve everybody’s problems and worrying for their souls, will solve all their problems by relieving them of their souls, and turning them, too, into sparkly vampires. Meanwhile, Dmitri’s attempt at escape from prison (which will be described in nail-bitingly extensive detail) will fail, and he’ll be sent to Siberia in exile. But this won’t be a dull, workaday work camp kind of story. Oh no! It will be subtitled Survivor: Siberia, and will tell the tale of a bevy of lordly types roughing it in a grand competition in the frozen wastes of Siberia. They’ll be voted out of exile one at a time, until the winner remains alone. Sadly, he’ll still be alone in exile for twenty years, which will be dull, so we’ll forget all about him. And Ivan, broody young Ivan, will provide the comic relief, as he sets up an apartment with his pesky devil, and they bicker humorously about whether or not either of them exists! Until, of course, he’s turned into a vampire by Lise and then… Well, I confess I haven’t figured out how to end it yet. Something big! Something thrilling! Leave them wanting more! Yes. Actually, I feel a little irreverent for speaking of Brothers Karamazov in this way! It touched me very deeply, and gave me much to think about, and I feel such genuine affection for Dmitri, with his wild impulsive ways and his generous heart, Ivan, with his oddly hopeful despairing cynicism, and, of course sweet, honest, strong Alyosha.

So, broccoli, chickpeas and corn in a curried coconut sauce. This was delicious! And every member of the family liked it and ate several helpings, and I ate the leftovers cold before bed one night. It struck me that the mix of ingredients and spices was a little odd, but I liked them all together. It’s a little sweet, a little spicy, and quite savory all at once. We ate it over basmati rice, and that was nice!

Here’s Saint Behind the Glass by Los Lobos (from Nacho Libre), because it seems to fit!

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Curried chickpeas and cauliflower in spicy rich tomato sauce

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Chickpea cauliflower curry

Chickpea cauliflower curry

I’ve been very fascinated by three words, lately, and I’m going to tell you why. These words are poignant, piquante, and pungent. Why do I love them? I love them because they teeter so wonderfully on the edge! They hover between senses, and they could evoke pleasure, pain, or some place that falls between the two! I love the way that, historically, they can be used to describe words, ideas, tastes, smells, expressions, or even hedgehog quills. They’re so keen and vibrant and cutting! According to my (shoddy) research, they all stem from a similar root. (I learned this while sitting on the couch next to Malcolm on a snowy evening, drinking a glass of wine and reading a dictionary. Honestly, what could be better than that?) They’re all the descendants of words that mean “to prick or to sting.” At one time, a piquant was a sharp object, like a hedgehog quill. From 1494, “The herichon…is…armyt…with spines thornys or pickandis.” And pungent described a sharp and pricking pain. From 1617, “The Vrine bloody, the Excrements purulent, and the Dolour pricking or pungent.” Each of these words also describes a flavor or smell that is sharp and piercing, sometimes pleasantly so, sometimes not. From The Canterbury Tales, “Wo was his cook but if his sauce were poynaunt and sharp.” Each word also describes ideas that are sharply or cleverly expressed. From 1661, “No author hat so pungent passages against the Pride and Covetousness of the Court of Rome.” Sometimes the effect of these words is painful or wounding. From 1651, “By some picquant words or argutenesse to put them into choler.” Piquant, pungent and poignant all describe something stimulating to the mind, feelings, or passions. From 1668, “That our Delights thereby may become more poinant and triumphant.” From Jane Eyre, “Besides, the eccentricity of the proceeding was piquant: I felt interested to see how he would go on.” From 1850, “Every amusement and all literature become more pungent.” But sometimes the emotion provoked is so strong as to become painful or unbearable, just as a scent or taste might be too sharp or spicy or sour to be palatable. From 1684, “Intolerably pungent grief and sorrow.” From 1728, “This final Answer threw the King of Portugal into the most poinant Despair.” Everything is connected! Words and ideas have flavor, scents stimulate the mind, emotions and tastes are so wonderfully provoking that it’s almost too much to bear! Mr. Rochester understood this, he describes falling in love with Jane, “…I was an intellectual epicure, and wished to prolong the gratification of making this novel and piquant acquaintance…” I love the idea of anything felt so strongly, both bitter and sweet, as life is, but fully tasted, fully explored, fully felt.

And this was a piquant dish! It’s loosely based on an Indian Makhani recipe. Makhani means “with butter,” and this does have some butter and a little bit of cream, so it’s quite rich. But it also has tomatoes and spices to keep it lively. The cauliflower is roasted separately and added at the end, stirred in carefully because it’s delicate and flavorful.

Here are Jordi Savall and Christophe Coin playing St. Colombe’s poignant Les Pleurs.

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Roasted chickpeas and cauliflower with kale, raisins and almonds, and manchego cheese

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Roasted cauliflower and chickpeas

Roasted cauliflower and chickpeas

Welcome to The Ordinary: Extreme sports zone! As you no doubt know, we have an extensive sporting complex, here at The Ordinary: from the pristine olympic-sized pool on the roof, to the climate-controlled underground basketball court, to the miles and miles of jogging track that wend their way through our orchards and vineyards. In all honesty, we’re not that sporty. I like playing tag, from time to time. And I like shooting baskets with the boys, although my prowess has earned me the nickname “misses Adas.” I don’t like professional sports at all – at least in America – and find them bloated, cynical and joyless. But the boys are both playing basketball, and this I love!! Malcolm is at such an age that the sport is starting to be taken very seriously, and some of the parents are depressingly aggressive in their court-side advice. Malcolm seems happily oblivious to all this. Strangely, my son – my son – doesn’t have a lot of competitive instinct. He likes running back and forth on the court, but he doesn’t feel particularly happy about beating friends on the other teams. And Isaac is playing, too, for the first time, and I can’t tell you how beautiful it is to watch a bunch of seven-year-olds play basketball! Isaac-basketballThey don’t understand the rules, they don’t keep score, they can’t keep track of all of the things they’re supposed to do at once. Either they don’t dribble at all, or they dribble with painstaking care, watching the ball as it rises and falls with such rapt attention that everything else fades into a colorful blur. They’re easily distracted, practicing dance moves or pulling up knee pads as the ball rockets towards them. Nobody knows who they’re passing to, least of all themselves, until the ball is lobbed through the air in no particular direction. And they hop around like popcorn, so excited and happy, bopping and dancing, dribbling themselves up and down rather than the ball. And then a coach will yell “hands in the air,” and all of them will throw their hands in the air as in joyous celebration! It’s a beautiful thing, I tell you! It’s a mother-flipping life lesson for us all!

roasted-cauliflower-and-chiI started this meal before we left for the epic hour-long basketball game, and I put it all together when I got back. So it’s a good meal for when you’re distracted, it doesn’t take long to make, and it keeps well, either together or in its separate elements. You roast the chickpeas, cauliflower, shallot, garlic and herbs all together, and if they sit in a warm oven, they only become better. You boil the kale on top of the stove, and then you add the raisins, almonds and cheese at the end, with a squeeze of lemon. If you don’t have manchego, not to fear! Any cheese you like would work here, or no cheese at all! Similarly, if you don’t have kale you could substitute chard, spinach, or collards. The boys mixed this with basmati rice to make a sort of pilaf, and David and I ate it atop lightly dressed lettuce and arugula to make a sort of warm salad. Good either way!!

Here’s Jurassic 5 with The Game.

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Kale and chickpea curry with ricotta naan

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Kale and chickpea curry

Kale and chickpea curry

I love to walk to school with Isaac: it’s one of my favorite rituals of the day. He holds my hand and lags behind slightly, and Clio lunges ahead after squirrels, cats, or even any spiraling dry leaf. Clio runs in circles around us, and Isaac sings or tells jokes. His jokes are perfect, sweet and nonsensical. He told an existential one the other day that was very clever, and it went a little something like this…Q: What did the birthday say to today? A: How do you like the present? B’dum tish! Today he told a joke, and I just didn’t “get it,” because I’m quite slow sometimes. I said, “I don’t quite understand your joke.” He said, “that’s okay, it wasn’t much of a joke.” As we approach the school, we start falling in line with his friends, and they form little shifting huddles, and then they all rush, joyously, to their doorway. Clio and I stand watching them, out in doggy exile, and when Malcolm sees us he walks over, cool and slow, and Clio falls all over herself trying to give him hugs and kisses. Miss Sandra, the crossing guard, greets everybody with good cheer, and leaves us all with a “have a good day,” and you believe that she means it, that somehow the fact that she said it might actually help you to have a good day. All around the courtyard, happy excited children fly about, glowing like fireflies. They greet their friends and hug their parents goodbye. I’ve always thought that the amount of energy and love, spoken and unspoken, that radiates from a typical drop-off at our school shines so brightly it could be seen from outer space. It must be like that for every school in the country. Drop-off was emotional this morning. The children flew happily about like they always do, but the parents and teachers – and there were more of them around than usual- were quiet and thoughtful, full of concerns, and hopes, and good wishes, forming a strong web of good will and sympathy that must spread from school to school across the country and beyond.

This was a strange weekend to be at work – so grey and dreary, the restaurant was not at all busy, and I just wanted to be home, where it was warm and bright and my family scampered through the day. I thought all day, too, about making this curry. I wanted something bright and warm and comforting and flavorful. So that’s what I made. It’s got a sauce made with cashews, golden raisins and coconut (I used just plain old sweetened flaked coconut, as it happens.) And it’s got kale, potatoes and chickpeas. It had a nice texture, soft, but not mushy, and the flavor was a little sweet, a little spicy, and balanced with lemon. And these naan!! I had some ricotta left over from a tart I made the other day, and I decided to make the naan with that instead of yogurt, as is traditional. And I added an egg and some melted butter. Maybe I should stop calling them naan, as I drift farther and farther from the original recipe! They turned out so delicious, though. Tender, flavorful, simple. I couldn’t stop eating them!! None of this was hard to make, either, it was an after-work meal, after all.

ricotta naan

ricotta naan

Here’s Ombra Mai Fu, from Handel’s Xerxes. My friend Diane suggested it yesterday, and it’s so beautiful!

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Wild rice & french lentils with roasted mushrooms & butternut squash with cauliflower and carrot puréee

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Wild rice, french lentils and roasted vegetables

We’ve had our power back for over a week now – we’ve had it back as long as we’d lost it. But I still have dreams every night that we don’t have power, and I wake up in a panic. I’m embarrassed that it affected me so strongly, but I’m not alone in my residual stressedness. I’ve talked to many people around town who say that they, too, are having trouble recovering from the incident. They say it feels like getting over the flu – they feel physically tired and draggy and unwell. It’s stress! So strange and powerful a force. The other day on the radio we heard a news story about people driven out of their home by war – worried about keeping their families warm and fed through the coming winter. A small part of me thought, “I know what that feels like!” And then the rest of me thought – “no you do not! Don’t be absurd! You have no idea!” We were anxious and uncomfortable, but we were never really in danger, once the storm had passed. We had a fully stocked grocery store 15 minutes away. We have a house, with walls that keep out the worst of the cold, even when the heat isn’t on, and with doors that lock. We have relatives an hour away who got power back before we did. This is something I think about quite frequently – even before the storm hit. I think about people who don’t have my comfortable life. Who don’t have the luxuries that I’ve come to consider necessities – hot water, electricity, my choice of pretty much any food I can think of. I think about refugees and fugitives – people driven out of their homes by war or occupation. In my own life, I’ve come to realize that it’s the small, every-day things that ultimately make me happy or anxious or disgruntled. I wonder if it’s the same for people who are completely unsettled and unstable. I found myself so undone by … what? anxiety? Discomfort? … that I couldn’t concentrate on much of anything, large or small. I’d been so anxious about the election – so worried that Obama wouldn’t win, but on election night I couldn’t concentrate on the results coming in, and I couldn’t let myself feel as happy and relieved as I should have that he won. I could only feel anxious about when we’d get our power back. I couldn’t think clearly about the bigger political picture. It made me wonder about times and places when the bigger political situation causes stressful personal circumstances. Can you find enough strength and hope to change the situation when you’re brought down by anxiety about your next meal, or when you don’t have a safe, warm home, and winter is coming?

I like wild rice, but I don’t cook it very often, because I’m so comfortable cooking basmati, that it’s a worry-free situation for me. Quick, tasty and dependable. This dish combines wild rice with basmati and french lentils. It’s very autumnal, especially with the addition of roasted butternut squash and mushrooms, and the flavorings of sage and rosemary. I thought this was really tasty – savory, a bit sweet, a bit smoky with the cheese. Comforting! I made a purée of cauliflower and carrots to go with this, and flavored it with sweet smoky spices like cardamom and ginger. Sweet and soft where the rice is earthy and full of texture. A nice combination!

Here’s Police on My Back by The Clash. It might sound silly, but this is one of those songs that gets me to thinking about how you find hope and happiness when your life is dangerously uncertain.
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Mushroom, cabbage, black beans and tamari

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Cabbage, mushrooms, and black beans

Cabbages always make me think of the Vittorio DeSica film Miracolo a Milano. De Sica is better known for his very realistic films – Bicycle Thief and Sciuscia, which show ordinary people in day-to-day situations which become beautiful and incredibly important when De Sica films them. Miracolo a Milano is literally a departure. It’s about ordinary people, about poor people, but it’s a fable, it’s unabashedly magical and fantastical. Toto is found in a cabbage patch, he’s taken in by a kind older woman, when she dies he’s sent to an orphanage, but she’s given him a magical dove. He winds up in a shantytown, and when oil is discovered in the shantytown, greedy capitalists try to send the squatters to prison. I don’t want to spoil the ending, so I won’t tell you how they rise above all that! The film is full of kindness, grace, and sweetness, but it’s also sharp, clever, funny and bitingly satirical.

Here’s one of my favorite scenes…

We’ve gotten a lot of cabbage from our CSA lately. Here’s one of the ways I prepared it. It’s loosely modeled on MooShoo vegetable, but made a bit more substantial by the addition of black beans. Very simple and quick to make, very tasty. We ate it with rice and tortillas.

Here’s The Jackson Sisters with I Believe in Miracles.
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White bean, roasted red pepper, tomato risotto

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White bean tomato risotto

Yesterday, for no reason in particular, I started singing Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend while I was making dinner. I get stupid songs in my head all the time, and I usually can’t stop myself from singing them. Isaac was very upset! I was surprised by his reaction, and tried to laugh it off. I told him what a silly song it was. Or that it was about David’s childhood dog, named Diamond. And then we talked about other things, and I thought he’d forgotten. On the way to school on this drizzly fall morning Isaac said, “Diamonds are not a girl’s best friend!” Very emphatically. No, they’re not, I said. And then he said, “A girl’s best friend is a son!” And I laughed and said, sure it is! And then he started singing a song, “A Claire’s best friend is an Isaac, and a dog, and a Malcolm, and a daddy, and her house, and her land.” (Heh heh, my land! My acres and acres of land!) He’s right, of course! Being a crazy mom, a little whirlwind of reactions spiraled around my head. I’m glad he believes that! I like his anti-capitalist leanings (quite out of proportion with his acquisitive instinct around a toy aisle). I’m worried that he’s worried about money. Have we told him one-too-many times that we can’t afford a certain toy? Mostly I’m proud that he’s such a wise six-year-old, and grateful that he cheered me up. I’ve been in a blue funk lately about my inability to contribute much to the constant struggle to keep our heads above water, financially. It’s David’s birthday today, and I’m sad that I can’t give him something nice. But I’m making him dinner, and I hope he’ll like it, and I’m happy to be doing it! Happy to be thinking about foods he likes, happy to be thinking how lucky I am that he’ll try all my crazy meals, happy to be thinking about all the meals we’ve had together over the years, and the way our tastes have evolved together. Happy to spend a rainy day in a warm and fragrant kitchen, making food to feed someone I love.

Last night, on David’s Birthday Eve, we had this risotto. It’s a nice meal for a chilly fall day, when you still have piles of tomatoes tumbling off your counter. I realized, yesterday, that I’ve never had a risotto with beans in it. Which seems surprising, because rice and beans are so perfect together. I think of tomatoes, roasted reds, olives and white beans as being something of a classic combination. So I cooked it with arborio rice, and left it nice and warm and brothy.

Here’s Louis Armstrong with I Can’t Give You Anything But Love
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