red pepper semolina crepes with broccoli rabe & chickpeas

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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 with pinto beans & spinach

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pupusa

I had a rough week, and for some reason I found it comforting to watch videos of old women making pupusa on youTube. It’s one of those foods, like stuffed grape leaves, and many others, that you like to think about a group of women making together. The process is all made with hands, it’s repetitive and circular and almost hypnotizing. And I have a new fascination with stuffed flatbreads, which goes so nicely with my fascination with savory pastries! I’m also starting quite an impressive flour collection. I’ve got toasted barley flour, rice flour, semolina flour, chickpea flour, tapioca flour, buckwheat flour, wheat flour, and now masa harina. I’ve been intrigued by this for a while, and now I’m a big fan!

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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Beezza

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Beet pizza

It’s a beet pizza! My nine-year-old son asked me to write about this. It was his invention from start to finish.

It’s fun to take a walk with Malcolm, because he talks a lot. He’s a scrounger, and an inventor, and he has a wonderfully vivid imagination. He likes to talk about the things he’d like to create – contraptions he’ll make out of bits and pieces he finds; cars that he’ll invent that will make the world cleaner; superheroes that will make everyday life easier for people, or will save trees or animals. He has such sweet, zany ideas, and they’re always a pleasure to hear about, even though they’re not always possible to carry out. Not yet, anyway.

He has these schemes for things to create in the kitchen, too, and these are possible, they’re always possible. Nobody is going to tell him that it won’t work, or it sounds like a bad idea. (Luckily he has very good food instincts!) It’s a delight to cook with him – he’s so confident and creative. He likes to use the blender and the little food processor. He likes to chop things up. I was nervous about this at first, but I took a cue from my husband, the furniture maker. It will come as no surprise that Malcolm likes to go to David’s shop as well. Rather than tell Malcolm that he can’t use a saw, or a chisel, or (gulp) a lathe, David will teach him the safe way to use it. It takes some of the mystery out of it, and it makes it more fun, because he can create something really useful and beautiful. So I showed him how to chop vegetables with a big knife, but safely. (It’s nice to have a helper with that job!)

Malcolm and me in the messy kitchen

When my boys were littler I used to worry that I told them too often that they were handsome and smart and wonderful at everything. I thought I might turn them into vain little egotists. Now I think you can’t tell them often enough. The world is not an easy place, and the knockings-down start when they’re pretty young. I love cooking, I love sharing it with Malcolm, and I love to see him feel good about what he makes. What a joy to sit down as a family and eat something we’ve made together!

Phew – I just got very side-tracked. Let’s talk about beezza! It’s a pizza, and it’s made with Malcolm’s Supreme Spicy Sauce, which is made with Malcolm’s Supreme Spicy Spice mix. The mix reminds me a little of ethiopian berbere – it’s a little sweet and a little spicy. The toasted beets – also Malcolm’s invention – are in the sauce itself, and then dotted about the top. This is like no pizza you’ve ever tasted! It has a roastiness, from roasted red peppers and smoked paprika; a sweet earthiness from the beets; and a bit of tang, from tomatoes and balsamic. Even Isaac ate about four pieces!

Here’s Body Movin, by the Beastie Boys. One of Malcolm’s favorites. He’s so sweet he’s like a nice bon bon!
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Red lentil cashew curry

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Red lentil cashew curry

We saw a movie last night that was such a good surprise. I didn’t know anything about it beforehand. Guess what? Madhur Jaffrey was in it! She was amazing! And Aasif Mandvi was in it, too. He wrote it! He was wonderful, too. The movie, Today’s Special was about learning to cook (and live) with your head, your heart, and your belly. It had many inspiring scenes in the kitchen. Including one in which the characters mix a masala, or spice mix. I’ve said it before, I love this idea! I wasn’t thinking very clearly about the spices I put in here, but I like the mix I came up with. Mustard seed, sesame seed, a touch of cumin, coriander and cardamom. Lordy, I love the very names of spices!

Red lentils, you say? Why is it green? Why? It’s a funny thing about red lentils. They’re such a pretty salmon color before you cook them, but they turn yellowish after. Still pretty, though, I think! And this is green because it has zucchini and spinach and cilantro. I like to make a red lentil dal that you cook for a very long time, until it separates into cooked lentils, and a delicate, flavorful broth. This isn’t like that! It’s more substantial and thick. It reminded me of oatmeal, a bit, as I was making it. The ground cashews add a sweet nutty creaminess that I find quite pleasant. This would be nice with basmati rice and naan or paratha, but we ate it with grit cakes, which was very good, too!

Here’s a song which is used to wonderful effect in the film, Eena Meena Deeka. The video is wonderful, too!
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Magic broccoli

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Magic broccoli sauce

The other night, I got home from work latish, I was tired, I wasn’t up to making anything elaborate. But I did feel a little guilty about the dearth of vegetables in my vegetarian sons’ diets, so I decided to make some broccoli. I threw some in a pot with a little water, cooked it till it was bright and just starting to soften, drained it, but not very carefully, and added four ingredients. That was it!

The boys loved it! The fought over the last piece! They poured the broth on their plates and mopped it up with bread! They asked me to make it again the next night. Which I did. And I’d like to have saved some to take a picture of, but there wasn’t a morsel left. If you served this over rice or noodles, you’d have a meal! You could always add tofu or chickpeas if you wanted a bit of protein. And you could add nut butter, or hot pepper, or garlic… I had to stop myself, because I think the beauty of this recipe is its simplicity.

It’s magic!

Here’s Junior Murvin with Magic Touch.
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Herbed grit cakes

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Herbed grit cakes

In a blatant attempt to pander to the southern vote, I decided to make something with cheese grits, y’all. Actually, I cannot tell a lie, it has nothing to do with that. I’m not even running for president! Shocking, I know! The truth is, I like to make recipes inspired by songs, and one of my favorite songs is RZA’s Grits. I find it beautiful on so many levels! It remembers a childhood of poverty, of grits for dinner every night. It’s affectionate and honest, and, it’s so pretty!

I’ve had grits a few times, and, to be honest, I haven’t loved them. They’ve been stodgy and tasteless. So I wanted to do something a little different with them. But nothing crazy fancy, I wanted to keep it simple! So I used half milk/half water to make them, and I steeped this mixture with some aromatics as it was warming. Once the grits were cooked, I added eggs and cheese, and then I chilled the mixture for a while, because I had to get the boys from school!

These turned out really nice. They were so far from stodgy that they were almost delicate. A little crispy on the outside, but with a nice, soft, flavorful and comforting interior. We ate them with a red lentil cashew curry, which I’ll probably tell you about later. But they would make a nice meal with some greens, potatoes, and maybe a fresh tomato sauce, or some beans. Anything, really! And I think they’re gluten free.

Here’s RZA with Grits. (I like the video, too!)
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Asparagus & Spinach quiche

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Asparagus quiche

We had this for dinner on St. Patrick’s day, and, I swear to god, I didn’t know it would be so green! It was not a calculated move! As it happens, green is my favorite color, so I’m exceedingly pleased that it turned out so green. I can’t really think of anything interesting to say about asparagus quiche at the moment, so I’ll just relate a few salient points. Firstly, I made this in an hour. One hour, start to finish! As it happens, I had some crust dough leftover, but even if you added dough-making time, it would still be, maybe, one hour 10 minutes. So it seems quite fancy (doesn’t it?) but it’s quick and easy. Second-of-all, I think it’s very pretty (and green). So it makes a nice spring-y meal. Even for a special day like Easter, I’d say. It’s flavored with a little basil and rosemary. And with nutmeg, because nutmeg belongs in a spinach quiche! I added some goat cheese, for freshness and tang. And now I’ll stop talking about it, or I’ll have gone on longer describing it than it takes to make it!

asparagus quiche

Here’s Nutmeg, by Art Pepper
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Beet & Cauliflower soup with tarragon & smoked paprika

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Beet and cauliflower soup

Imagine, if you will, that you’re camping. You wake up in the morning and step out of your tent. Everything is damp and fragrant, and vividly glowing green. The ferns and grass and weeds are sweet and sharp, lemony and herbaceous. The smell of wet earth mingles with the smokiness of the embers from your fire of the night before. That’s what this soup is like! Except that it’s vividly pink, not green. The sweet earthiness of the beets, the smokiness of Spanish paprika, and the fresh green aromatic tarragon are lovely together. The cauliflower adds a creaminess, and helps to temper the strong beety flavor.
We ate this with goat cheese toasts that had been liberally peppered with pepper. They contributed a nice contrast to the sweetness of the soup, and were, admittedly more popular with the small boys of The Ordinary than the soup itself (though they had 2 helpings of that, too!)

Here’s Sweet Fern by the Carter Family.
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Salted rum crispy cookies

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Salted rum cookies

My friends Treefrogdemon and Spotted Richard (yes, those are their real names!) made a lovely dessert containing mango and coconut. They thought it would go nicely with a thin, crispy biscuit. (They’re in England, so I’m going to say biscuit instead of cookie). They asked me to create such a biscuit. I was thrilled! I love a challenge.

I wanted something simple, because too much flavor would detract from the main dessert event. So no spices, no chocolate. I thought about rum, because it goes nicely with coconut, and it’s a sweet, subtle flavor. And then I thought about salt. Perhaps because Treefrogdemon drinks margaritas on Friday evenings! (But does she salt the rims? I don’t know!). So this is what I came up with. They’re crispy on the outside, but they’re chewy on the inside. Good – but not exactly what I had in mind. I’ll just have to keep trying until I come up with something crispy all the way through. In the meantime, these were a very big hit in my house. Malcolm liked everything but the salt, which he said was too strong of a flavor. And Isaac liked the salt the best.

I made a sort of promise to myself never to post a recipe without a picture and a song. I’m going to make a temporary exception for this one, because I’d like Treefrogdemon and Spotted Richard to pick one song each, that they think goes with this post. And then I’ll add the songs!! Guest DJ!

Treefrogdemon’s wonderful choice is Sally MacLennane, by the Pogues. Love it!

And Spotted Richard chose Sara, by Bob Dylan. I love this one, too. It makes me weepy. Memory and regret!
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Spring stew with white beans and asparagus

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Spring vegetable stew

I was thinking the other day that I probably talk about the weather too much. I know it’s a dull subject, and one that people resort to when they have nothing else to say. But weather matters! It’s fundamentally, life-alteringly, earth shakingly important. Of course what I’m really talking about, when I talk about the weather too much, is how it changes my mood. A crazy amount. I was feeling mildly discouraged, for a while. And then we had a few beautiful, sunny days in a row, and the light started to have that hopeful springtime slant, and the air had little pockets of warmth and flower-smells. And I felt hopeful! And happy! And full of energy and spirit! I felt good. And nothing had changed but the weather. And when the weather was nice, I wanted to make a dinner that was green and bright and glowing! Plus, I wanted to eat my lovely pencil thin asparagus, but in some form that wasn’t just steamed with butter and lemon (although that really is the best!) So I made this stew, with bright green vegetables and white beans, and a light broth of white wine and lemon. And I wanted only a few herbs and spices, but fresh, bright ones. So I added fresh thyme and fresh ginger, and a little parsley, with its green clean taste. Lovely! The boys ate it over gemelli, as a nice light pasta sauce.

Here’s Nina Simone’s Feeling Good. One of my favorite songs ever, and the best description of how alive a spring day can make you feel.
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