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Salad of warm greens, french lentils and wild rice

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warm kale salad

We’ve had a reprieve in the weather lately. In the afternoons you actually feel the warmth of the sunshine, and there’s a hopeful light that makes you forget we’ve got all of February to get through. And then you buy lettuce or tomatoes, and the iciness comes back to you. Luckily we’ve still got warm salads! This is a very substantial one – with flavorful french lentils and wild rice tossed in, and a handful of almonds thrown on at the end to add crunch. I made a sort of dressing with plum tomatoes briefly sauteed in olive oil and balsamic. This salad is a meal, and this meal is vegan. Cheese would make it taste even better, in my opinion – goat, or fresh mozzarella, or some grated sharp cheese. But then it wouldn’t be vegan, obviously! Anyway, it was quick to make, so I’m going to keep it quick now. (Yup, I’ve got to go to work!)

And here’s Big Daddy Kane with Warm it Up, Kane to sing to yourself while you warm up your kale.
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Drambuie & dolce de leche ice cream with bittersweet chocolate

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drambuie ice cream

I’m a huge fan of ice cream. I can’t think of a more enduringly perfect food. I worked in an ice cream parlor for an embarrassing number of years, long after I should have gotten a “real” job. I dream of ice cream flavors, I really do! So when I found myself with some dulce de leche, and then my mother-in-law brought us a bottle of drambuie (thanks, Ellie!) you could see the little wheels spinning madly in my head. And the one food I find completely irresistible is melting ice cream. There’s something about the contrast between the still-frozen part, and the increasingly creamy melty part that’s about more than the delightful textures. It’s about time passing! There’s a wonderful feeling of risk, almost – you want to take your time, but if you wait too long, it won’t be ice cream any more. There’s a perfect moment, or series of moments, when the ice cream must be consumed! I could eat a whole gallon of ice cream, in this state! The thing about adding drambuie to ice cream, or any alcohol, for that matter, is that it preserves the ice cream in a perpetual state of perfect meltiness! It never freezes completely, so from the minute you scoop it out, you MUST EAT IT!

I should probably mention that since the drambuie’s not heated, the alcohol doesn’t cook off. I wonder how much you’d have to eat to get drunk? Hmmm… We let the boys have small bowls after dinner, and they could still balance on their roller skates. But when Malcolm asked me for some at 9 o’clock this morning…well, I drew the line!

I don’t have a real ice cream maker, I have one of those donvier ice cream makers. Remember those? Do they still make them? Anyway, it does the trick. I’ll give you the recipe, and you can freeze it however you like.

Here’s Ice Cream man, by Tom Waits.
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Pizza with faina

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Pizza with faina

One of my favorite food-related scenes in movie history, is the moment when father and son go into a restaurant and share a bottle of wine and a mozzarella, in The Bicycle Thief. We recently watched Gigante, an Uruguayan/Argentinian film, that I promise to stop talking about soon. In one scene, our hero goes into a restaurant and orders pizza with mozzarella, a beer, and faina. First of all – it reminded me of that scene in Bicycle Thief to such an extent that I was sure it was a tribute to it. Second of all – what is a faina?!? I was so intrigued that I researched it the second the movie was over. Faina turns out to be a Uruguayan version of socca…a chickpea flour-based bread. It’s mixed with olive oil, herbs, sometimes parmesan, and tons and tons of pepper. And then it’s baked in a hot oven, till it’s crispy outside, though still dense and soft on the inside. And then it’s sliced and each slice is eaten on top of a slice of pizza. How strange but tasty does that sound!

I had to try it. I like making pizza anyway. It’s fun and easy and everybody in my family happily eats it, which is always a pleasure. I’ve been trying for some time to make pizza with a thinner, crispier crust – it had always eluded me. It worked this time, though…I used less yeast, more water and olive oil. The dough was quite sticky, but not hard to work with. I put lots of herbs in the dough, and I topped it with a roasted red pepper tomato sauce, dollops of goat cheese, and lots of fresh rosemary.

And the faina. It seemed such a strange idea to me at first, but when I took one bite, it all made sense! The texture was nice with the pizza, but more importantly, it seemed like a vehicle for the pepper and rosemary…flavors that are nice with the pizza, but tend to get distracted in the sauce were distilled into a perfect form.

Here’s The Bouncing Souls with The Pizza Song. When I was in my early twenties I lived across the street from these fellows, and they lived a few doors down from the legendary Tata’s Pizza. Is that what they’re singing about here? We’ll never know.
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Deep pie with black beans, greens and pistachios

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Beans & greens pie

Beans, greens, and … guava paste!?!?! That’s right! Guava paste! It lends a subtle sweetness and a mysterious flavor to this otherwise extremely earthy dish. I’m going to try to mix it up a bit with the bodega express ingredients. I might try one dish that’s a fairly traditional and accurate application of the star ingredient, and one that isn’t so authentic, but strikes me as a nice combination. That’s the plan at the moment, anyway. As it happens, it’s not unusual to find guava paste paired with cheese in an empanada, and this is sort of a giant, elaborately decked out version of that, I suppose. I would have made them as empanadas, and, in fact, I think the filling might work better that way – smaller and with a flakier crust – but I wanted to try out a new and improved version of my hot water crust pastry, so this tall handsome pie is the result. It contains black beans, kale, spinach, smoked gouda, pistachios for crunch, bread crumbs, sage, thyme, basil, allspice and nutmeg, and, of course, smoked paprika. The guava, which is bright and has a hint of tartness behind all of its obvious sweetness, added a nice balance for all the smokey savoriness. Actually, I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of pouring jelly into the hole in the top of a pork pie (although meaty jelly isn’t the most appetizing idea, to me!) And I briefly considered melting the guava jelly down and trying this very practice! I chickened out, though. I think it would have been too sweet.

Anyway, this was very easy to make, and very nice with some mashed potatoes and a crispy salad, and I think it might be even nicer with a flaky paté brisée in smaller empandas. Someday I’ll try that and let you know!

Here’s Johnny Nash’s smooth cover of Bob Marley’s Guava Jelly. Still stuck in my head!!
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Super bodega traveling

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We don’t get out much, these days. We’ve got young sons, an old dog, and limited funds. So for us, at the moment, adventures in world travel consist of happy memories of past journeys, or hopeful anticipation of future ones. We have big plans! We’re going everywhere, man! Someday.

I was thinking that some of the most memorable moments in travel involve food. (Or is that just me?) Not just the nice meals, but the strange and unexpected food – so new for you, but probably completely ordinary for somebody else. It’s the snacks you eat out of paper on a park bench on a summer’s night; the oddly good meal you have with a beer, on a train, at 10 o’clock in the morning, because you’re all befuddled about time. Or the welcome, reviving meal you have at some dodgy dive, because your energy is just about gone, that turns out to be some of the best food you’ve ever eaten!

I feel lucky to live in New Jersey (don’t laugh!) This state is so delightfully diverse, that we’re blessed with hundreds of little bodegas and grocery stores, carrying food from all over the world. Food that, to me, is new, bewildering and inspiring, but to somebody else forms a comforting, powerful link to home.

Well, I’ve decided to go on a sort of bodega-hopping quest. I’m going to visit these stores, traveling the world without leaving New Jersey. I’m going to buy 2 or 3 things at each one. Some intriguing ingredient I have no idea how to use. Then I’m going to do a bit of research. Then I’m going to cook with it. Then I’m going to tell you about it! That’s my travel plan for the near future.

I launched it yesterday with a trip to the Super Tropical Food Mart. It’s about an hour from my home, and I’ve been eyeing it up for years. Yesterday I finally took the time to visit. It’s very lovely! They have food from all over. I bought some toasted barley flour from Ecuador, because it’s a nice color, and because toasted & barley are such nice words. I bought some cassava flour, I’m not sure exactly where it’s from, but it’s somewhere in Africa, by way of Newark. (I read the wikipedia entry aloud to my husband, and he was thrilled to learn that it can cause cyanide poisoning if improperly prepared!) I bought some guava paste from Brazil, which I’m very excited about. And I bought some super horchata from El Salvador! Super horchada from the super tropical food mart! Now I have Bob Marley’s Guava Jelly and Vampire Weekend’s Horchata battling it out in my head!

And so the adventure begins! I’ll let you know how it proceeds.

Gallette with chard, porcini mushrooms and savory almond custard

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galette

Savory almond custard? That’s right! Savory almond custard. Every once in a while I’ll start to muse about why some things are sweet, and other things are savory. Usually at 3 am. Vanilla, for instance. Why always sweet? Why? The other day, as I was making a bakewell tart, I started thinking about frangipane, or almond custard. I love almonds in savory situations, be they ground or slivered or chopped. So why not in a sort of custard? And then came the day I started watching youTube videos of french pastry chefs creating Galettes des Rois – a tart made with puff pastry and sweet frangipane. I got a bee in my bonnet to try to make a savory version. And so I did.

I added chard and mushrooms (porcini & white), because they’re nice with almonds, and I like them together, and I like them in pies! The pie was delicious with chard and mushrooms, but it overshadowed the almond custard a little bit, so I fully intend to someday make a version with only the almond custard. Oh, and I added cheese, too, because I like cheese! I was full of indecision on this score. I could imagine any number of varieties of cheese tasting good here. In the end I decided on smoked gouda, because as I walked the boys home from school the smoke from fireplaces all over town incited a craving.

I used the soaking water from the porcini mushrooms to make a sauce. I combined it with port wine, shallots, herbs, and a tiny bit of cream.

I should mention that my puff pastry didn’t rise as dramatically as the ones in the youTube videos of French pastry chefs. It was very crispy and flaky and delicious, but it wasn’t made up of millions of little layers, and it wasn’t toweringly tall. I’m ordinary, I tell you! I use ordinary flour! I don’t take the temperature of my butter! (You could always buy puff pastry, I suppose!)

Here’s Monty Alexander with King Tubby Meets the Rockers Uptown. I’m sure he brought them a galette des rois! (Thanks, Tony!)
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Pecan-whole grain tarator sauce

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Pecan tarator sauce

I was thinking about tarator sauce the other day. The word means different things to different people, and contains different ingredients in various locations around the globe. For me, a tarator sauce is a combination of nuts, bread-soaked-in-water and seasonings. It is a thing of wonder! These unlikely elements combine to form something subtly flavored, smooth, creamy, and completely dairy-free! At first, I generally used pine nuts and white bread, garlic and lemon. Definitely delicious. Then I used almonds, because they’re also lovely and much cheaper. I made this savory vanilla sauce, for instance. And a tarator sauce can make the base of a creamy soup. My version of Jane Austen’s white soup combines an almond tarator sauce with white beans and cauliflower.

I’ve always thought of tarator as a pale ivory concoction, and I’ve generally used pale nuts and white bread. Well, the other day, faced with a very tasty but rapidly aging loaf of whole grain bread, I thought, why not make a tarator sauce with that? And I used pecans, because they have a wonderful distinctive flavor. And I used balsamic instead of lemon juice, for a little depth. And then I added roasted garlic, thyme, and rosemary, because it seemed to need all those things. Turned out delicious! We ate it as a sort of dip for butternut squash-pecan dumplings. But tarator sauce is very versatile. It’s good with french fries, or on roasted vegetables, or as a dip for anything you can think of dipping in it.

Here’s Soul Sauce from Cal Tjader

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Beet risotto croquettes

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Risotto croquettes

What do you do with all of your leftover risotto? Turn it into croquettes, of course! You could make these with any risotto, I think, but I had beet lime risotto left, so that’s what I used. They’re very very simple to make, and they make a nice meal with a big salad. I couldn’t decide if I should fry them or bake them, they’d be crispier fried, but they’d fall apart and smoke up the kitchen, so I decided to bake them. If I had a deep fryer, I probably would have used that. But I don’t! (As we discussed this conundrum, my husband and I came up with the idea of slow cooker deep frying. For maximum oil absorption! Yum!) Baking them also gives the special surprise cheese in the center a chance to melt. What’s better than melted surprise cheese? We had these with a sauce made of pesto, balsamic, and a little of the broth that I used to make the risotto itself, but you could vary the sauce to suit your mood or the risotto that you used. My son dipped them in barbeque sauce!

Here’s A Tribe Called Quest’s wonderful Ham and Eggs. That’s right, they say “nice red beets”!

Asparagus tips look yummy, yummy, yummy
Candied yams inside my tummy
A collage of good eats, some snacks or nice treats
Apple sauce and some nice red beets
This is what we snack on when we’re Questin’
(both: No second guessin)

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Root vegetable minestrone

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Root vegetable minestrone

I was in the mood for something really simple. Just vegetables in a warm broth, slightly sweet/slightly tart. I liked the idea of using root vegetables, because they seem perfect for the time of year, and for the simplicity I was seeking. They also have a nice contrast of sweet (carrot, sweet potato) and slightly more assertive (turnip). I seasoned this very simply – just rosemary, basil, oregano and a little fennel seed. I made pasta to add if you wanted, which, I suppose, is what makes this minestrone and not just vegetable soup. I used elbows, because there’s something sort of childish and soup-out-of-a-cannish about them, which I like. And I added a few spoonfuls of sugar when it was cooking, and squeezed a lemon in at the end, but you could easily leave out the sugar and let the vegetables shine with their own sweetness. SInce this is supposed to be simple, I’m going to stop talking about it and tell you how I made it!

Here’s Mikey Dread’s Roots and Culture.
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Pumpkin popovers

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pumpkin popovers

These little popovers are very subtly spiced with cinnamon and cayenne. I wanted them to go well with our kale and chickpea stew (which they did!) but also to be good warmed up in the morning with butter and jam. It’s really sinking in that it’s winter, here, with icy drizzle and everlastingly grey days, and these are a good antidote. They have a nice warm color, a mild sweet flavor, and a lovely light soft texture. They’re also incredibly easy to make! I was reading Mrs Beaton’s cook book, the other day (as one does) and I think these are related to her chapter on “batters.” Which makes them also related to yorkshire pudding, perhaps the most famous of batters! Yorkshire pudding is cooked with a bit of dripping in the bottom of the pan, and these are cooked with butter. I let the butter get burnt, because I like the flavor, but if you don’t, just put the pan in the oven for a minute before you’re ready to cook.

Here’s Tricky’s Pumpkin
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