Black bean noodles
We didn’t go to all the trouble that the man in the movie did, to make the noodles, but we did make them ourselves. It turned out to be very easy and very very fun. Not as easy as opening a cardboard box of dried noodles, but much more delicious. We’ll be making more noodles, soon. And different shapes, too. Watch out!
Here’s Culture’s beautiful I’m Alone in the Wilderness.
Turnip & pecan soup
It might sound odd, but whenever I feel physically or emotionally low, I start to crave turnips. They’re not a traditionally comforting food, I don’t think, because of their edginess, but they always sound good to me when I’m not feeling well. Usually in soup form. So that’s what I made. This soup is simple but nice. The star of the show is the turnips, but there’s a pleasant nuttiness from the pecans, and a freshness from the parsley. It’s fairly easy to make – it has plenty of flavor without a broth, so you don’t have to take the time to prepare that.
To make it ultimately comforting, you’d serve it with cheese toasts made with sharp cheddar. We had a lot of leftover pizza to get through, so the toasts felt redundant, but I grated some sharp cheddar in mine, and it was very tasty!
Here’s Nina Simone with Nina’s Blues. One of my favorite songs ever. Why? Because it’s a little bit like turnips. Suprisingly comforting. She’s not doing well (she plans to lay her head on a railway track) but in the end she triumphantly declares that the sun will shine in her back door some day. Ba da ba!!
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Chikoo ice cream
So I brought my two little chikoo fruits home and waited for them to grow nice and soft, and I schemed to make ice cream with them, because it seemed like a nice way to let the flavor shine through against a simple yet tasty and creamy canvas. I cut into the first chikoo fruit. Very pretty, soft amber flesh. Crazy looking spiky shiny black beetly seeds. First taste – swoon! They’re delicious! I cut it into a bowl. I cut into the second fruit. A little firmer and paler. Took one very small bight. Tasted fine, but seconds later, my entire mouth was dry as can be. Turns out when they’re not ripe, they’re astringent. D’oh! So I had one little chikoo fruit to flavor the near-quart of custard and cream I had incautiously concocted. I tried to think of other things I could add. I let it sit in the fridge. I fussed and stressed. 
And then David wisely said that if the whole idea of the ice cream was to showcase the chikoo fruit, obviously, what was needed was more chikoo fruit. We had the nicest impromptu afternoon adventure! We stopped to look for ebony wood. We went to an antique store. We went to Patel’s Cash and Carry, and I bought even more inexplicable produce! I bought frozen chikoo fruit. I bought a can of chikoo fruit, and I bought 4 very very ripe actual chikoo fruits. We can’t afford to go out to lunch at the moment, but we bought two fresh fat 79 cent samosas, which tasted as nearly perfect as you can imagine.
So I added the pulp of 4 more chikoos to my chikoo ice cream. (Minus the pieces that Malcolm, now a fan of the chikoo, snuck from the bowl). It turned out very very delicous! It did taste malty and caramel-y, with a lovely sweetness and a pleasing texture. And I still have frozen and canned chikoo fruits to fuel my future scheming!
This song Deewangi Deewangi was playing in the store when we selected our chikoo fruits. Yesterday my sons made a fort/pirate ship out of blankets on the couch. When I played this song, they both stood up at the helm of their ship, and did an instantly perfectly choreographed dance. Joy!
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dumplings
Sometimes a biggish film breaks through all of that, though, and defies expectations and makes me love it, despite my ornery ideas. I love Kung Fuuuuuuuuuuuuu Panda. I love both films, 1 & 2. Yes, it’s another tale of an unexpected underdog using unexpected physical force to defeat a bully who seems stonger and is really mean! Yes, that story has been told a bazillion times. But there’s something about Kung Fu Panda that rises above all of that. I asked Malcolm why he admired Po (the panda). He said, “because he’s happy all the time.” That’s exactly what I was thinking, although I’d used the word “cheerful” in my head. I love the fact that he doesn’t get discouraged, he doesn’t have a dark and brooding side, he doesn’t have an angry side. When he fights his stronger bullyish foe, he laughs. Even when he’s getting beaten, even when he surprises himself by doing well. He laughs! It’s so unexpected, so anti-drama, and yet it makes you care about him more, which makes it more dramatic. The other quality that I admire in Po, that you don’t see very often in your cooler-stock-hero characters, is that he’s a fan. He admires his cohorts so much that he’s bursting, he’s desperate, he’s glowing with the pleasure of being in the same space as them. Even when he should revel in being the best of the best, instead he’s a warm furry bundle of disbelieving gratitude at being in their presence.
We had a lot of leftovers from our black rice, black lentil, golden beet meal, and Malcolm asked if we could use them to make dumplings like in Kung Fu Panda. Of course we can! It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while. So I made the dough while Malcolm was at school, and we put them together when he got home.
The dough is quite simple. Traditionally, they’re steamed. I don’t have a bamboo steamer, so I used my vegetable steamer, which is not huge. I could fit 3 dumplings in there. I decided to bake the rest, because I’ve always wondered if that was an option. It is! They turn out lovely! Crispy, just the right amount bread-y. The steamed ones were nice, too. David said the steamed ones felt inexplicably lighter. You could put anything in these! Leftover beans or vegetables. Cheese. Just beans, just veg. Anything! Pretty much any filling for any savory pastry I’ve ever posted on this blog would work in here. I’ll give you a few suggested fillings, but…go crazy!!
Here’s Cee Lo Green with Living Again. Another unexpected hero!
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three curries
Isaac and I were making paneer. Here’s how it all went down…I felt a little bad that I hadn’t spent much time cooking with Isaac. It’s nice to have something special with Malcolm, but I was worried that Isaac might feel a bit left out. So I’ve been trying to think of something fun to make that Isaac likes. I noticed that whenever we get Indian food, Isaac goes crazy for paneer, the soft, white cheese. He’ll even eat spinach, if it has paneer in it. Paneer also happens to be quite fun and easy to make. So that’s how Isaac got his first job as sous chef. He made the sauce to cook the paneer in, as well. He chose all the spices, and the main ingredients, and described the taste and texture that it should have.
On the way home from school, Isaac said he couldn’t wait to get home and be sous chef. Malcolm said Isaac was the sous sous chef. Isaac said, “Mommy is the over chef.” Malcolm said, “She’s the ogre chef!” I can live with that title!
Homemade paneer
As you will no doubt remember, we just went to Patel’s Cash and Carry on our Super Bodega Traveling adventure, and I had some ingredients I wanted to try out! So we made a meal with lots of little dishes. Isaac’s sauce had peas and tomatoes and cashews. It was a warm, earthy sweet dish. To go with that, I made a light saucy dish with punjabi tinda (baby Indian pumpkin) and cauliflower; and a very green dal, with whole moong dal, bay leaves, curry leaves, jalapeno, cilantro, lime, and ginger. I added a little black salt to this one as well – it’s a volcanic, sulfur-y salt, that adds a very distinctive flavor! Everything went very nicely together. I tried to make dosa, too, with my new urad flour. Complete and utter failure. Curses and frustration! I’ll try again, sometime, once I’ve recovered.
My friend Chris is playing DJ for this post, and he suggested the perfect song (and video). As he said, it’s a saucy little number! It’s Asha Bhonsle singing a song from Jewel Thief, Baithe Hain Kya Uske Paas.
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Cadbury creme egg tarts
Here’s The Smiths with Sweet and Tender Hooligan. Because these are tender, and decidedly sweet. And we’ll never never never do it again…
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Urad coins & curry leaves
Stop number two in our super bodega travels brought us, on a warm and sunny day, to Patel’s Cash & Carry. Speaking of wonderful! The store felt HUGE! And so full of amazing and surprising food! I love Indian food. It’s one of those cuisines I feel like I know something about. I eat Indian take-out every chance I get. I’ve got two cookbooks! (Madhur Jaffrey and Julie Sahni, in case you were wondering). I’ve loved it since I was small, and my boys (still small!) love it, too. Walking into this store made me realize how incredibly little I know. Which is (part of) the joy of bodega traveling. You get to see, beyond the takeout menus, a glimpse into a rich and diverse history that the cookbooks only hint at. As David said, you could write a cookbook on the flour aisle alone.
whole moong dal
Here’s what we bought…Kulfi for the boys – rose and pistachio flavored. They couldn’t wait to eat it, and it melted in their hands as we walked around the store. Curry leaves. I’ve seen these before, but never cooked with them. What a remarkable smell! A little earthy and smoky, but still very green, if you know what I mean. Two chikoo fruits. (Very excited about these!) Urad flour, black salt (volcanic and sulfuric! rotten eggy), whole moong dal (beautiful!!), Tinda (in a can), which is called baby indian pumpkin, lotus root, and different kinds of snack mixes, which my little ones eat like hungry mice with their whiskers on fire from the spiciness! Then we couldn’t let the boys back in the car because their kulfi was so melted, so they ate on a grassy bank, and Isaac got rose-flavored kulfi on the tip of his nose and in his eyelashes.
For the next few days we’ll be cooking with these, and we’ll let you know how it goes. We’ve got big plans!!
Here’s Donald Byrd’s Places and Spaces. I love it, and, to me, it’s about traveling without going very far from home.
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Parsley soup
Here’s Lee Perry & Niney with Chase Them Down With Garlic.
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My favorite meal in the summer is any meal that involves a lot of different little dishes. A mezze or tapas type of situation. It’s sort of funny that this makes me think of summer, because in the summertime we like to eat outside. If you do the math, you’ll see that this means that we carry lots of little dishes out the kitchen door, down a small path, down a step, and onto the outside table. It’s worth it, though! I swear it is! It was crazy warm last week, so we ate outside, and I’ve already started in with the summer meals.
Let me tell you about this one. I like to make a kind of crepe, a kind of green, a kind of sauce, a kind of salad, and a kind of potato, and have them all together. However…although we’ve had exactly this kind of meal before, we’ve never had anything quite like this!! I made crepes with semolina flour and roasted red peppers. Delicious! Not thin and elegant, exactly, but very satisfying! I made broccoli rabe sauteed with chickpeas and grape tomatoes. Lovely! And I made thinly sliced roasted potatoes seasoned with sage and Spanish smoked paprika. Finished with a simple salad of baby spinach and baby arugula dressed with with olive oil and balsamic, salt and pepper.
I’m going to post Dead Prez’ Happiness at this point. I should probably save it for later in the summer, but I need it now. So here we go…
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pupusa
Back to pupusa – it’s a Salvadoran dish made with masa harina, and it’s stuffed with cheese or meat or refried beans. It’s cooked on a hot, ungreased griddle. I’m sure the version I made is not like the real deal, but it was so tasty! David said it’s like a combination of tacos and mashed potatoes – it’s got a very comforting quality, the taste and texture as well as the process of forming and cooking. You make it by taking a handful of dough, and turning and pressing, turning and pressing, trying to keep the edges neat. I love the idea that the pupusa will be the shape and size of the palms of the maker. You can fill it with anything you like. I chose pinto beans, spinach, and sharp cheddar. Just substantial enough not to be mushy, just soft enough to provide a comforting contrast to the crispy outside. This is one of my favorite things I’ve made in a while – to make and to eat.
It’s also gluten free, as far as I know! And it would be vegan if you left the cheese out.
Here’s Espiritu Libre with A Mi Me Gustan Las Pupusas.
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Out of the Ordinary 