Sunshine

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A lot of people are talking about post-holiday healthy eating. A profusion of greens and water to clear away the holiday fog. For some reason it made me think about this song by the Jungle Brothers called Sunshine. It’s about eating healthy and thinking healthy. It’s about good food, good knowledge, sunshine and brightness. It always makes me think of that wonderful but elusive feeling of walking down the street feeling good in yourself, and good in the world. Plus it samples parliament! So that’s what I’m thinking in this moment of New Year’s resolutions. It’s always nice to have some sunshine on a cold winter’s day! Do you have any New Year’s resolutions this year?

Nighttime fades away, on to the next day
The weatherman predicts a clear sunny saturday
Relax laid back and feelin the cool breeze
Positive vibes in sauce and the melodies
Gather my leaves and all my minerals
Fix myself a bowl of vegetables
Ice cold water and chopped up fruits
Gonna be a long day so I throw on my boots
Stretch out my hut and beyond the sun rises
…
Yeah Id like to say Id like to say somethin serious
Real serious
The sun shinin, the guidin light
The fire that we all attempt to fight
The only thing is you cant put it out
You blow and blow but that makes it grow
Bright around and it was made for me
A gift from God that he gave to me
You eat it and chew it, and then you swallow it
And wisdom is what you get from it

Cheater’s flaky paratha

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I love paratha. I like any food that has layers of deliciousness that are fun to peel apart and eat. I’ve tried making it myself many times, but the results tend to be tough, oily, and stodgy. Not the delightful combination of light flakiness and pleasantly substantial whole-wheatiness that is paratha. The other day I decided to cheat a bit, by deploying a sneaky application of puff pastry techniques. That’s right! I added butter. Because everything is better with butter. I used a combination of whole wheat flour and white flour (with a bit of basil, because I love basil with curry flavors). I rubbed olive oil into the bulk of the flour, and I made a little square lozenge of frozen grated butter and a tiny bit of flour to wrap inside the dough. I cooked them on a skillet till they got nice brown spots, then put them in the toaster oven till they puffed a bit. They turned out quite nice. Not completely like paratha, but with their own charm. The outside was a little crispier, and the inside was nice and flaky and layered.

Here’s Booker T and the MG’s with Jelly Bread.
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Slow cooked urad dal and black-eyed peas

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urad dal and black-eyed peas

My son got a couple of science experiment kits for christmas. I got a slow-cooker. I’ve never had one before! I like the idea of trying to figure out how to use it without reading too much about it. I feel just like a 6-year-old with a box full of mad experiments to try!!

The first thing I thought to cook in the big beautiful black stoneware pot was Urad Dal. I bought some this summer at an Indian grocery store. They’re beautiful, tiny, black ovoid lentils. They need to cook for a loooooong time, on a looooooow heat. And then they turn out delcious! I matched them with black-eyed peas, because they both have an earthy flavor, and because I liked the little black beans with white spots, and the larger white beans with black spots. I seasoned them with allspice, ginger, cardamom, coriander and basil. Bright and sweet – to go with the earthy. And I cooked them in butter, because Dal Makhani, the traditional urad dal dish, is cooked with butter, yogurt and cream, and I wanted to give a nod to that. Turned out yummy! I cooked it for 6 hours on high, and I think it would have been done an hour earlier, but I wasn’t home. Very tasty with basmati rice and cauliflower in a spicy cashew-almond sauce. It’s not the prettiest dish you’ve ever made, but if you stir in some chopped tomatoes and cilantro at the end, it will have a bit of color and fresh flavor.

This was fun to make in a slow cooker, because I could leave the house with minimal fear of burning it down. But I’ve also cooked urad dal on a low burner for 5 hours, and that’s worked, too. So if you don’t have a slow cooker…don’t despair.

Of course it’s got to be Slow and Low by the Beastie Boys. That is the tempo!!
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spicy cashew almond sauce

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cashew almond sauce

This is a warm-colored, warm-flavored sauce – I picked the spices because they look nice together, but as I have surmised before, this means they taste good together, too! This sauce is extremely versatile. I like it with cauliflower and petit peas, because the flavors and textures go so well. But it would also be good with just about any other vegetable, or with chickpeas, and probably with chicken, though, obviously I don’t know a thing about that!! It’s creamy but dairy-free, and it has a nice nutty, sweet, spicy taste loved by children and adults alike. It’s also quick and easy to make, which is always an advantage.

Here’s MF Doom with Tumeric.
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Portobello Wellington

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Portobello Wellington

Does it seem like I’m stuck in a wellington rut? Perhaps I am. I had thought about making eggplant wellington for Christmas Eve dinner with my family, but my dad doesn’t like eggplant (obviously he’s never tried eggplant everybody can love!) And it occurred to me that the steakiest of all vegetables has to be portobello mushrooms, and wouldn’t that suit a wellington! Yes, it did!

Apologies in advance if this seems garbled. I’ve got a boxing day haze all on my brain. But here is what I did…I cut the portobellos in thick slices, and cooked them in olive oil, white wine and balsamic till they were dark and crispy. I also roasted some white mushrooms with shallots, garlic and herbs to form the first layer on the pastry. And I cooked some big chard leaves until just tender to form the second layer. Then came some sharp cheese and then piles of portobellos.

I used paté brisée instead of puff pastry because I just didn’t have time to do it all! It worked out fine, I think. Crisp and flakey. And we had it with herbed walnut sauce, which I had added a bit of white wine to in the early stages.

Here’s Duke Ellington’s Toot Toot Tootie Toot from his Nutcracker Suite. Because Ellington rhymes with wellington, of course! Plus, it’s brilliant.
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Merry Christmas!

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Merry Christmas, friends, eaters, and mad scientists of the kitchen! These are some little amaretto butter cookies I made with my sons. And we made a portobello wellington for dinner, which I’ll tell you all about tomorrow.

I hope everybody has a glowing, merry, cheerful christmas! Here’s some music to help you with that.

Standing Christmas pie

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…Or how I had a day when the cooking gods frowned upon me…

Standing Christmas pie

Yesterday if felt like everything I cooked turned out wrong. I guess I was trying to do too much at once getting ready for christmas, but nothing was working out for me, and it seemed like every decision I made was the wrong one. First my melted chocolate got a drop of water in it and seized into an impenetrable gritty lump. Then I tried to make hot water crust pastry, and it wasn’t working out at all. The thing about hot water crust pastry, is that there’s always a moment when it seems like the whole thing is a failure, but if you retain a sense of humor about it, and persevere, it works out in the end. If, however, you’re already peevey because of seized chocolate, and you get frustrated – disaster! Anyway. Everything worked out okay in the end.

I made this pie yesterday, based on a very vague recipe I saw for Christmas standing pie, which had minced lamb, apples and raisins. I decided to try something similar with black bean “mince.” I invented black bean mince by accident the other night. It’s not very elegant and doesn’t photograph well, but it’s tasty, cheap, and versatile.

black bean mince

When I made it the other night, I added chipotle puree, sage, oregano and cumin, and we ate it with warm tortillas and guacamole. Last night, I seasoned it with sage, rosemary and thyme, and added a bit of marmite.

The pie turned out fine in the end – not the prettiest I’ve ever made, but surprising and tasty.

Here’s Johnny Cash singing Hark the Herald Angels Sing
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Warm greek salad for a cold day

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I love salad, it’s my favorite thing, and I want to eat it every night! But it can be so disappointing this time of year. Hard, flavorless tomatoes, pale icy lettuces. Bleh. So we’ve reinvented the salad to be a warm mix of lightly cooked vegetables mixed with olive oil, balsamic and herbs, and topped with crumbly, melty cheese. I decided to make a version of a Greek salad, because I had olives and feta, but you could do this with any mix of vegetables, herbs, and the cheese of your choice. It would be good with chard, fennel and goat cheese, or pears, walnuts and bleu. You could mix up the vinegars as well, if you’re feeling fancy. Or try nut oils. (I don’t have any, but I wish I did!) The trick is to cook the vegetables just as much as they need to be cooked…so they still have a bit of life and color and crunch. The cooking brings out the flavor of the winter tomatoes and the herbs. I used Kale, because it has such a nice texture and flavor once it’s cooked. Do the Kale a favor and cook it earlier in the day when nobody is around, then drain it and put it in the fridge till you’re ready to assemble everything. It tastes so much better than it smells when it’s cooking! And I added raw spinach right at the end, which wilts slightly as it meets the other warm vegetables, adding some brightness and crunch.

Here’s Blind Willie McTell with Warm it up to Me
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Oatmeal chocolate-covered-ginger cookies

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These might not be the most colorful cookies on your holiday tray, but they’ll be among the most flavorful! Spicy oatmeal cookies are crispy on the outside, soft and chewy on the inside, and contain the irresistible surprise of chocolate-covered ginger! There’s just something cheerfully salubrious about them, as well. I’m sure I’ve read somewhere that chocolate and oatmeal are natural anti-depressants. Ginger is good for everything. Molasses has lots of iron. So grab yourself a plate of these, a bottle of red wine and a big warm blanket, and head into hibernation for the winter!

I liked to half-dip them in melted dark chocolate. Because more chocolate is always better, they look pretty, and they reminded me of chocolate covered hob nobs, which is surely the most comforting cookie on the planet! They’re good without that extra touch, though, if you’re not in the mood to play with melted chocolate.

Here’s Michigan and Smiley with Little Drummer Boy. Rappa pom pom, eh!!
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Roasted chickpea & tarragon pie

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This pie is full of flavors and textures!! It’s got roasted chickpeas, mushrooms and shallots! (All together they turn out pleasantly crispy/substantial/soft.) It’s got spinach sauteed with hot red pepper, garlic and lemon! It has smoked gouda! It has a flaky lemon-pepper crust! And it has tarragon!

And it all works beautifully together. Although it looks and tastes complicated, it’s really fairly easy. Being so handsome and deliciously impressive, this would make a nice holiday meal for the vegetarians in your life. I made the edge of the crust quite tall so that you could pile your holiday mashed potatoes right on top.

Since Christmas is A-Coming, we’ll let Leadbelly tell you all about it.
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