The Music of the Vegetables

Last week while I was writing about goat song, I sent Nathanael a video demonstrating yodeling and told him he should learn take it up. Over the previous few weeks we had been discussing how a banjo would suit his persona nicely, and I always associate the two; banjos and yodeling.

   As you know, on YouTube, one thing leads to another, and by the time I got home the next day he was learning a couple of methods of Mongolian Throat Singing. I had heard bits of throat singing recordings in the past, and even a few that a friend had recorded in Tuva, but I had never recognized the amazing overtones (whistling type sound) that can be created. And even though Nathanael had only had one day of practice, his demonstration for me produced the same reaction I had the first time I had heard yodeling: giggling. (Despite the variety of wonderful videos on the internet, there really is nothing like hearing these things in person...thus the laughter with glee.)

    For some reason I had also assumed that only guys had the ability to throat sing, but woman (in Mongolia and elsewhere) can, and do throat sing. This video is a good example of both a woman throat singing, and a good example of the overtone aspect of throat singing, because the familiar song she chose helps you pick out the melody.

   And just as yodeling leads to throat singing, searching through obscure Asian videos of people making music in their living room leads to a man playing vegetables as a musical instruments (heita3).

 It's the next big thing, I assure you.

I want to meet this guy.

I want to shake his hand.

What other musical bits from around the world have I been missing out on? 

Do share.

A bounty of Dill

Nathanael and I have been having a very fun time sharing our harvest with our friends and neighbors. When we have given them beans, peas, carrots, spinach or even beets, everyone is ready to share with us how they plan to use them. When it comes to herbs, however, particularly dill, most people have looked in the bag and said, "So how do I use this one?"

   I have to admit I am sort of in the same boat. I love dill, but I don't have a plethora of ideas to utilize it. My first thought is always pickles, but I do have a friend who always makes dill omelets. Our neighbor from Romania recommended tossing dill with other vegetables in a salad, and my dear walking partner from Iran told me she makes dill rice to go with fish (which I recommend by the way, especially with a flavorful brown rice and butter). But, despite the beloved fish and dill combination, I was really looking for a dish to recommend to everyone that would use things they already had...because we really have a ton of dill.

  

If I were a Black Swallowtail Butterfly (also known as Parsley caterpillar), I might spend my whole life surviving on the stuff, and wandering around looking resplendent. 

Papilio polyxenes asterius

These guys were rawists...dill-ists in fact, but had no recipes to share with me.

Inspired by the enormous bunch of dill I gave her, my friend Hannah discovered just the thing I was looking for. A very basic dill potato recipe from Veg Recipes of India. It is simple and quick, but also a perfect way to really appreciate the flavor of dill. The amounts are imprecise; you could spice it up, or add other root vegetables if you wanted to be creative*, but leaving it basic will also please your palate.  

Dill Potatoes yield 4-6 side servings
2 Tbsp canola oil
1 big bunch of fresh dill leaves, chopped (about 1 cup or more when hard stems are excluded) 
3 to 6 medium potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/8 inch rounds
5-6 medium cloves of garlic, crushed or chopped
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
1/4 cayenne pepper
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
salt and black pepper to taste

1. Heat a large, heavy bottomed pan. Add the oil, and once heated add garlic and saute for one minute.

2. Add potatoes and saute for a few minutes until they begin to soften, perhaps 6-7 minutes.

3.  Add dill leaves and spices, mix well. Then, add salt and 1/2 cup to 1 cup water, cover, and cook gently for 8 to 10 minutes. If the water dries up add more.

4. Remove the lid and cook until liquid has evaporated and potatoes are very tender.

Serve as a side dish, or with dal and rice or chapatis.

*Dill and carrots are related so they are also a delicious combination. Prepare them similarly, adding about 1/2 tsp of cumin seeds to the oil at the beginning, a bit of ginger with the garlic, and some powdered cumin and coriander with the other spices.

What recipe comes first to your mind when you think about having boatloads of fresh dill?

Golden: Candied Lemon Peel

I have always loved lemons.
My Mom says it has some correlation to how she always wanted lemons while she was pregnant with me, but I'm not sure which way the lemon love would have been moving; from me to her, or from her to me. A mother's experience during pregnancy has been shown to affect a child's tastes in some ways, like salt preference (read that article, it's so neat!), but I don't think fruit cravings have been researched yet.

Red: Grapefruit Cranberry Marmalade

I have always loved grapefruits. But grapefruits also play a small part in our love story, so Nathanael and I enjoy them a little bit extra. 

Remember how the first installment of the story ended with me not jumping to conclusions, and then Nathanael calling my Dad? That was the beginning of the fall semester of my senior year of college, and in my strong efforts to not jump to conclusions about him liking me or not, I hadn't mentioned Nathanael or his letters to anyone...so my Dad didn't actually know he existed until he called that day and asked to pursue me in a relationship headed the direction of marriage. Needless to say, my Dad was a little surprised. He told him he'd get back to him.

Red: My Quick Meal

I could not have a red series on the blog without sharing my recipe for tomato sauce with you. First because it is a great quick meal, and is exceptionally adaptable. Second, because this is one of my top three go-to meals when I'm not feeling creative (I always have the ingredients). And third, because if you are eating pre-made sauce you're just missing out.

I am biased, yes, because as I grew up my Mom (who has completely Italian ancestry on both sides) was constantly making sauce and creating some delicious dinner for us with it. Pasta, homemade pizza, calzones, lasagna (the only casserole she made), and even homemade crepe-like manicotti a couple of times. And now that we're not small picky children anymore she's been telling us about eggplant Parmesan, polenta, and rice lasagna.

My first taste of pre-made sauce was at my grandma's house, and my little self didn't know what was wrong with the meal, but I knew something was missing, just like something was up with the bread because the "butter" was actually margarine...

New Textures and Tastes

 A number of weeks ago, an acquaintance of mine from our apartment complex and I began walking together on weekday mornings. Since our route is a six mile loop, it takes us just under two hours to complete, and we have quickly become good friends. She is from China, and we both love to learn about the traditions, foods and other differences between our two countries, so we have hardly a moment of silence.
    It has seldom rained in the morning here, but usually at night, so we have only had one rain cancellation on our walk. However, we decided to turn it into a grand occasion. She came to our apartment to play games and have tea with me, and carried with her these neat little pumpkin shaped snacks. They were molded out of a dough composed of sweet potato puree mixed with sticky rice powder. As the stem and as a filling, she used red bean paste. They are a bland little snack of an uncommon texture around here, but it was fun to have them with our tea. (She said I could roll them in sugar if I wanted them to be more dessert-like.) In exchange for this treat I taught her to play Pass the Pigs and Phase 10. Perhaps not the most iconic of American games, but we had fun nonetheless.

Another new thing I have tried lately is bitter melon, also known as bitter gourd. I had seen it at a few different Asian markets, but finally purchased it at a produce stand with a wide selection of mostly local produce. I had a recipe for preparing bitter melon from my favorite Indian food cookbook (Cooking with My Indian Mother-in-Law by Simon Daley).

My recipe instructed me to empty out the seeds and pith, cut 1/2inch pieces, and layer them with salt in a colander for 30 minutes in order to reduce the bitterness, but I have to admit I was still surprised by the intensity. The vegetable reminded Nathanael and I of a cucumber, but dense instead of watery, and the flavor was very reminiscent of a bitter cucumber skin. However, unlike the bitterness of a grapefruit or some cucumber skins, the flavor dissipated quickly and did not disrupt the enjoyment of the other flavors in the dish. I would not prepare bitter melon often, but it would be a neat side dish occasionally. Nathanael will be growing some in his garden during the coming season. (He probably liked it a little more than I did.)

And if nothing else, they are fascinating to look at.

Finally, during our Thanksgiving focused grocery trip, Nathanael and I picked out three Mexican grown mirlitons. They looked familiar, but I neither of us had ever tried one, or heard that name before. When we eventually looked them up we recognized the Spanish name, chayote, which they are more commonly sold under elsewhere in the United States, but here in Louisiana they go by their Cajun name, mirliton. Another cucurbit (member of the cucumber, melon, squash family), the mirliton can be eaten raw or cooked, but either way, it has almost no flavor. Inside there is a single seed, but not a pit, but a very soft squash-like seed, which is also edible and essentially flavorless. 

   We ate our mirliton raw, and it reminded me of a zucchini or summer squash, but very very crisp. Nathanael wasn't a big fan, but I enjoyed it very much, purely for it's interesting crunch. Eventually I had some pieces with salt on them, and ate the others with strawberry-rhubarb jam. I recommend the jam especially.

Dark Chocolate Traditions

 In March I posted one of my family's favorite cookie recipes. This one is the other favorite, and was also passed down to my mother from her Italian maternal grandmother. These chocolate cookies are perhaps a little less suitable for breakfast than the fennel seed ones, but that may not stop you (or me) from eating them for breakfast when they are available. I made them on Monday night because Nathanael and I had a long car ride in front of us on Tuesday, and not only did I want to eat them all the way there, but I also wanted to share them with the family members waiting for us on the other side. As it turned out there was more than enough food when we arrived, so we still have most of the cookies, but that is alright with both of us.

  I remember making these cookies with my mom, sisters, and a family friend one year when we had an all day Christmas cookie bake. There are no eggs in these cookies and the dough is quite delicious; I ate so much of the dough that even our family friend told me to stop. I tried, but I think I ended up still having a few more bits of it. I recall we also made some kind of sugar cookies where you mix 2/3 of the dough with pistachio pudding and they ended up looking like little green UFOs with tan domes.

This cookie recipe has you do some unusual things, which might dissuade you if you are picky, but I would recommend that you be brave and branch your chocolate cookies into this new and gourmet realm. (Just make sure you read the recipe from start to finish before beginning. You will need almost a whole box of cocoa, and probably most of a bag of confectioner's sugar to frost.)

 You will chop not only the nuts, but also the raisins. This will keep them from cracking the cookies as they bake. The recipe calls for coffee, and even though I don't EVER drink coffee, these cookies are one of my favorites. The coffee will not only give richness to the chocolate, but since it is warm it will soften the raisins and melt the shortening. These cookies are the only reason I brew coffee (well, them and Nathanael).

These cookies have no eggs, and the original recipe calls for vegetable shortening, so in their traditional form they are vegan. However, shortening is falling out of style because of hydrogenation, so if you are an adventurous vegan go ahead and try some combination of oils. I typically use some butter and some oil. 

  Sifting your dry ingredients will ensure the cocoa is mixed well with the flour.

 I roasted my cloves in the oven to make them slightly easier to grind with the mortar and pestle, and it made our house smell wonderful until we returned from our trip three days later. However, roasting is not necessary.

 The dough is a scrumptious mixture that is easy to work with and not dangerous to eat. What more could you ask for?

The only thing missing is the almond frosting. Then they will taste really Italian.

Italian Chocolate Cookies  yield 4 dozen
Wet ingredients
1 cup of hot coffee
1 cup shortening (I usually use 3/4 butter, 1/4 canola oil)
1 cup raisins, chopped
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cup sugar

Dry ingredients
4 cups flour
1 1/4 cups cocoa
3 tsp. baking powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cloves (you can add up to 1 1/2 tsp, but my family usually keeps it on the low end)

Later addition
3/4 to 1 cup of chopped walnuts
1/2 to 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (optional and not in original recipe, try to balance them out with the walnuts to equal no more than 1 1/2 cups so that the cookies don't crumble)

 In a medium glass bowl pour the hot coffee over the shortening/butter to melt it completely. Once melted also add raisins (to soften them), vanilla, and sugar. In a separate bowl sift together dry ingredients. Mix wet and dry mixtures together and add walnuts and chocolate chips. Mix with your hands until all ingredients are mixed evenly. Let dough rest for 5 minutes. Roll into 1 inch balls, place on greased cookie sheets, and bake at 375°F for ten minutes only. Remove carefully to a wire rack and cool fully. If desired (and you will desire it once you taste it) frost with confectioner's sugar frosting.

Confectioner's Sugar Frosting
2 cups powdered sugar (sifted if possible)
1/2 tsp pure almond extract (or vanilla if you must, but almond is better)
10 tsp milk (2% or whole)

Place sugar in a bowl and add flavoring. Measure the first 5 tsp of milk into the bowl and then stir the mixture into a paste (this reduces lumps). Slowly add the remaining milk, one teaspoon at a time, stirring after each addition. You will probably use all 10 tsp, but it may depend upon your sugar. Resulting frosting should be somewhere near the thickness of Elmer's glue. Dip cookies in completely, scraping off excess, and set on a wire rack to dry. Allow frosting to harden before storing cookies.
This will frost about 2 dozen cookies, more if you scrape up the drippings.

The Beauty of Every Brain

     I have been thinking lately (though lately covers a long period of time) about differences in the way individuals function. Not simply about personalities or Myers-Briggs tests, though these aspects also played a part in my pondering, but about brain wiring and communication and thought processes.(Excuse my randomness for a moment, it will come together in the end.)
    I try to keep in contact with my friends around the globe, despite our distance, and I have noticed that some of my friends communicate very well on the phone, while with others much more of a connection is established through instant messaging, or emails, or paper letters. For others I have not deciphered their best mode of communication, but they appreciate my efforts and when I finally see them again they do not feel any less close for never having responded. Interestingly, I have not noticed the extrovertedness of a person to have much to do with their strongest form of communication.
   Most nights I have dreams, usually three or four. Sometimes I wake up and tell my dreams to Nathanael and then they slowly fade away, sometimes I only remember that I drempt, and every so often I have a dream that sticks with me and I can picture it perfectly from then on. There are a few dreams I still remember from when I was three or four years old. Nathanael teases me that I live twice as long as some people. He seldom remembers dreaming, and even less frequently remembers what he drempt. During our honeymoon I awoke one morning, looked at Nathanael and asked,"How was your shop today?" Completely believing that he had opened a small business...until I saw the amused look on his face and woke up a bit more. 
    One day during graduate school I mentioned to some friends over lunch how I often wonder if someone else suddenly finding themselves with my mind would know how to use it. Somehow they took it very philosophically and thought I was saying that humans are merely machines with souls, which could be interchanged because bodies do not influence a person's self. I suppose I was wondering something nearly opposite. How much do the strengths and weaknesses of our bodies and our brain wiring distinguish us and the way we take in the world or lend it input? How has my visual thinking, vivid dreaming, and synesthesia given me a different picture of the world than Nathanael, who does not think in pictures. And why is it that both of us have trouble recalling species names of plants and animals we learned very thoroughly a few months ago, while friends who are self proclaimed "C students" seem to remember such things for years.
     Lately I have been thinking that God has given everyone their thing(s). That perhaps sanity and insanity is just a continuum of millions of characteristics and everyone has their strong points and oddities distributed in slightly different areas. (But perhaps I have just drawn this conclusion from being around too many eccentric, sock-in-sandal wearing professors.)
     My wonderings in mind, I was very glad to have recently come across the book, Thinking in Pictures: My Life With Autism, by Temple Grandin.

   Temple writes about her childhood and how her mother, certain teachers, and her aunt enabled her to excel despite having been a child who was hard to reach and might have been institutionalized by others at that time. She writes of feeling fulfillment in her work more than in a social life, and feeling attachment to place more than people. How in order to express herself in words she needs to translate her thoughts from pictures, as if she were speaking a foreign language to the world, even after all of these years of being well practiced at it. In a world where academic expectations are increasingly rigid, Temple Grandin was able to find and pursue her niche with the help of mentors who encouraged her to think the way she was built to think. She worked all the way through a PhD in Animal Science and has gone on to design more than 1/3 of the large scale livestock facilities and slaughter houses in the United States. In her book she also discusses why her designs are more humane and efficient than many of the facilities that were in place; and why she is not a vegetarian, despite feeling as though she sometimes relates more to the thought processes of cattle more than of the men and women she encounters.
     The book does not necessarily answer life's tough questions, or my little ones, but it does explore a lot of them and present a perspective I think is really helpful to consider. I would recommend it to any adult interested in having a lot of things to think about, but even more especially to individuals who sometimes have a hard time understanding or connecting with their friends or family members who have autism, learning disabilities or who just see the world differently.

"It's clear that genetic traits that can cause severe disabilities can also provide the giftedness and genius that has produced some of the world's greatest art and scientific discoveries. There is no black-and-white dividing line between normal and abnormal."  --Temple Grandin, Thinking in Pictures

Other media I highly recommend, which also deals with unique challenges and perspectives that are frequently overlooked:

• Like Stars on Earth/Taare Zameen Par -- Dealing with dyslexia, and also with art, though on screen symptoms also overlap with the autism spectrum. (PG, In Hindi, with subtitles.)

• An Anthropologist on Mars by Oliver Sacks -- Stories about seven individuals with different injuries or challenges causing them to see the world in distinctly out of the ordinary ways (figuratively or literally). Oliver Sacks features both Temple Grandin and Stephen Wiltshire in the chapter focusing on autism. Many of Oliver Sacks' other books are also intriguing.

• Stephen Wiltshire's website is worth exploring either before or after you have read his profile by Dr. Sacks. Be sure to watch one of the video clips detailing Stephen's amazing artistic process.

• And on the topic of synesthesia, Cassidy Curtis has written a detailed article, which is quite an accurate representation of what I personally experience.  Many articles and fictional books are written (by people who do not have synesthesic experiences), which make this disorder sound disturbing and disabling, but very few people find their own synesthesia anything other than intriguing or helpful. In other words, don't believe those freakish videos you see on YouTube.

Do you have any thoughts on the ways people see or interact with the world? 

Any books or articles to recommend?

Do you remember any crazy dreams from childhood?

L.L. Bean Trail Bars: Two Ways...or Maybe More

 Nathanael is taking a wetland plant taxonomy class this semester. They have field trips on many of the weekends, which is a little bit of a bummer for Nathanael's cramped schedule, but he enjoys the interesting excursions nonetheless. The students are required to collect and press 25 herbarium quality plant specimens by the end of the course, but Nathanael has already collected more than enough even though they are not yet halfway through the semester. Preserving species is pretty invigorating once you get into it, and I know that sounds very nerdy, but it isn't really. It is more of a pleasure in understanding your surroundings I think.
  When Nathanael goes on these all day trips into the southern heat we are nearly always out of bread. So he usually requests oat cakes and I fill a container with fruit and vegetables, but I also make him a more outdoorsy snack to satisfy his hunger. So far trail bars have been just the thing.
      Today I would like to share with you this recipe, which is rather drab in terms of color, and probably also not the most healthy thing you have ever eaten...but that is what makes it tasty. Alright, it does involve prunes and an assortment of grains, so it has those things going for it at least. The real reason I am posting this recipe is because various members of my family have been searching for it at a given time, and since I have finally found it, I want others who are looking to be able to find it too. (There are other versions on the internet, but they are not all alike.)
My Mom cut this recipe out of an L.L. Bean catalog some time in the nineties, which I think is unusual because I don't think I have ever seen recipes appear in that catalog on any other occasion. There was a picture, which made the baked trail bars look like granola bars, but when my mom made them they looked like fiber filled brownies. However, when I (at long last) rediscovered the recipe I made one batch that looked like hers, and one batch that looked like granola bars. But, both were delicious and each one accompanied Nathanael as he collected plants. (I include the instructions for each outcome below.)
   You may be skeptical of prunes, but I would like to assure you that prunes complement chocolate wonderfully without being loud in their own flavor. If you are a big fan of original powerbars, make the brownie-like variation (they are not just like power bars, but reminiscent of them), and if you are more of a chewy granola bar person, make the original version. I have substituted almost all of the ingredients at one time or another, so just make these with what you have or see my ideas below.

 

L.L. Bean Trail Bars (original recipe)
Dry Ingredients

1c. quick oats
1 c. flour
1/2c. wheat germ
3 Tbs sesame seeds
1/4 c. sunflower seeds
1/4c. chopped walnuts

Wet ingredients
1/4c. sunflower oil
2 Tbs. maple syrup
1/2 c. honey
2/3c. chocolate chips

Later addition
1/4c. baby food prunes

In one bowl mix wet ingredients thoroughly, in another mix the wet ingredients. Combine wet and dry mixtures, and the baby food prunes. Spread into a greased 8 by 8 inch pan and bake for 20 minutes at 375 F.
Cut into bars while warm.


Brownie-like variation

Heat wet ingredients together in a saucepan until the chocolate chips are melted. Cool slightly, add to dry mixture and stir in baby food prunes. Spread into a greased 8 by 8 inch pan and bake for 20 minutes at 375 F. Cut into bars while warm.

Alternate ingredients
old fashioned oats instead of quick
the addition of any puffed or rolled grains instead of portions of the oats
whole wheat flour instead of all purpose, or gluten free flours because rising is not important here
flax meal instead of wheat germ (or just skip the wheat germ)
your choice of nuts instead of sunflower seeds, sesame seeds and walnuts
canola oil instead of sunflower
additional honey instead of maple syrup
chocolate chunks instead of chips

Refrigerator Pickles

     I don't remember a whole bunch about my Dad's father, but I remember watching buggs bunny on a particular Thanksgiving, Grandpa calling me a "wise guy", and a crystal platter arranged with baby pickles. I don't remember any of the other food, though it is probably because pickles were the only thing I ate.
     My grandfather liked a lot of things; fireworks, Laurel and Hardy, pickles, photographs, and radishes. I didn't understand the radishes-- though the amount of zip packed into something so white was intriguing-- I approved of the other four. The biggest mystery to me was why my grandmother always insisted on draining the pickle juice out of the jar as soon as she opened it, thereby leaving the pickles high and dry for subsequent servings. It just struck me as odd. But then again, this week Nathanael has been doing his evening research with a jar of my pickles and a fork on his desk. Maybe pickles just bring these things out in people.

     Since Nathanael and I left our garden we have been purchasing cucumbers, three for a dollar, at the farmer's market. It's a little ironic since just a few weeks ago we were swimming in them, and even though we were making cucumber sandwiches and sharing them here and there, I seriously needed to make pickles. This was more than fine with me since I could probably live on pickles...if they had a little more nutrition. But, I was in search of a recipe for refrigerator pickles so that I would neither have to spend weeks waiting for them to ferment to perfection, nor store them and create one more box of food to bring South. I had enough cucumbers that I was able to try some different ratios, discovering that I did not really like any of the refrigerator versions I came across online. Usually they had more sugar than vinegar, which I think is preposterous.
Pickles are about the vinegar, people.  (Unless you are making the fermented variety, in which case they are not.)
Therefore, I would like to share with you my very own, fine tuned pickle recipe. I am not going to claim that it is going to make the "best pickles you ever had", because Nathanael told me people have offered him homemade pickles in the past while telling him that very thing, and he couldn't have agreed less. I will tell you that Nathanael, Asher, and a number of others I have shared these with have thoroughly enjoyed them and gone on to finish large jars of them within hours. This recipe is pretty simple and can be modified for zucchini (which we tried), carrots, and even grapes (I hear), but if you have cucumbers start with those.

Refrigerator Pickles
Makes 1 Quart jar or 2 pint jars or a number
of odd small jars (which must be glass)
For liquid
1 1/4 cup white vinegar
1/4 cup water
2 Tbs sugar
2 Tbs salt
For jar
3 Medium or 4-6 pickling cucumbers (pickling are better, but any work)
2 cloves of garlic, each sliced into two or three pieces, lengthwise
1/2 tsp mustard seed
1/2 tsp dill seed
2  (4 inch) branches of dill or  1 scant tsp dried dill weed
*If you don't have any of these spices the pickles are still worth making, they just will have a different flavor.

1. In a small pot, all of the ingredients for the liquid until the sugar and salt dissolve. Then remove from heat and let cool to room temperature. (It will smell so delicious, but amazingly strong too.)

2. While the liquid is cooling, cut your cucumbers into rounds that are 4mm thick (the ones in the pictures were a little too thin and were not as crisp as we like). Place half of the spices and garlic in the bottom of the glass jar.

 Cram the cucumber slices in as tight as you can until the jar is half full, then sprinkle the remaining spices and garlic, and finish filling the jar. (The dill and dill seed we used was also from our garden.)

3. Pour the cooled vinegar mixture slowly over the slices and screw on the lid. Refrigerate and let the flavors meld for 2 days before devouring.

(This is really just a tip, because I usually try a slice or five before the two days arrive, but they really are best after two days.) Eat all of your pickles within two weeks, and use the pickle juice for another batch of cucumbers up to one time. After that too much salt is gone and they won't really pickle.
4. Be sure to wash out your pot to prevent corrosion, even if it is stainless steel. Really.

(Notice the remnants of us still unpacking in the background.)

Brighten your plate, begin with your windowsill.

I have frequently mentioned the produce that Nathanael and I have grown together in our garden, most notably the pumpkins, but I know that many of you do not foresee gardening in your path this summer. For most of you it is lack of land or frequent change in living arrangements that prevent you from producing some of your own food, even though the concept is enticing. For those of you with this problem I would like to recommend a website I recently stumbled upon within the bbc network of websites. Whether you have a little backyard patch, a balcony, or just a windowsill in your apartment or office, the slideshows and articles at DIG IN will explain the best vegetables to grow in small spaces, how to plant and care for them, and provide links for cooking them if you are interested. Pumpkins are not on the list, but I encourage you to try growing some beans or carrots, which have so much more flavor when they are from the garden and not the grocery store.
Another fun thing to remember is that you don't need to purchase conventional pots at the garden store if you'd rather not. Be creative and recycle plastic containers, chipped dishware, and other household objects as long as you are able to punch holes to provide the appropriate drainage for your chosen crops.
If you have a hard time deciding on your plants, I vote purple carrots.

Colorful breads.

I have heard the phrase, “Artisan Breads” mentioned here and there in the last few years. Most people really appreciate interesting breads with something unique about them, but few people make anything but ordinary breads at home. There are some good reasons to keep the breads plain. If you make a savory flavored bread, you might want to make peanut butter and jelly. If you make sweet flavored breads you might want to make a turkey and hummus sandwich. I have definitely had this problem, but you know, peanut butter and jelly on curry bread really isn’t so bad.
My Mom has a recipe for vegetable breads, and the one she makes the most is beet bread. I don’t have her recipe, but essentially you exchange some or all of the water in a bread recipe for pureed roasted beets and voila! A brilliant fuchsia bread! My Dad likes to call it safety bread, saying that he could eat a sandwich on beet bread and not need to wear a safety vest even if he was sitting on an airport runway.
If you use canned beets, the bread is still good, but only has a pink crust with a brown interior. This does not have as many safety features.
So, my recommendation is to find yourself a basic bread recipe and start experimenting by exchanging ingredients. Here is my basic bread recipe, followed by some of my favorite variations…

3 T. canola oil
2 T. sugar
1 t. yeast
½ c. water
2/3 c. milk (or more water)
3 c. unbleached flour (or 2 c. flour with 1c. wheat flour)
1 t. salt
Then follow whatever bread things you like to do…
Nathanael actually makes most of the bread in our house, so most of the time if I am making it I put the dough in the bread machine or mixer to be kneaded, then shape it into a long loaf on a cookie sheet. I leave it to rise for 30-40 minutes, cook it at 325 for 35 minutes, and then take it out. Afterward I wrap the half we haven’t eaten for later. (We like warm bread.)

For a softer bread, I exchange the milk for whole milk yogurt.
For colorful breads here are some of the things I have exchanged the milk (or both the milk and water) for…

Pink: Pureed beets (with 1 T. dried basil)
Green: pureed spinach (with dried oregano, parsley and Parmesan cheese)
Orange: pureed pumpkin or carrot
Red: tomato paste (with basil, oregano and Parmesan for a pizza-like bread)
Yellow: keep the liquids as is and add 1 to 2 T. of Madras curry powder
Crunch: for a slight crunch add a few Tablespoons of raw millet to your dough



Madras Curry bread





Beet bread





Beet bread (using canned beets) after baking. When fresh beets are used the deep pink color is retained after baking.

Aubergine

A little while ago Mrs. Long asked me what I would do with an eggplant.
Eggplants are so interesting. We classify them as a vegetable in the grocery store because they are not sweet, but of course botanically speaking they are a fruit. And whichever way you choose to look at them they are completely odd. Eggplants have always reminded me of a dinosaur. They have leathery skin and their sepals (the leaves near the stem) are thick and tough. Inside they are foamy and probably mostly air. So, maybe the dinosaur thing doesn’t go very far. Still, they seem to have little in common with other items we purchase in the produce section.
Growing up my sisters and I were in a 4-H club with our town, and every year the county would have an event called, “International Foods Day”. At this event all of the clubs in the county would represent a country, cook lots of their foods, create a presentation, and share all that they had learned and cooked with the other clubs. The preparatory time with the other club members was always really fun. On different years our club represented Italy, Scotland, Finland, Mexico, Bosnia, and some others. From most of the countries I can still recall the foods we made, and the dances and games we performed onstage. However, the only thing I remember from the year we chose Bosnia is that a few of us were in charge of a food that involved taking strips of roasting eggplant, picking them up, and squeezing them through our hands to separate the eggplant from its skin and seeds. Raw eggplant seems like such a harmless and bland food, but the roasted eggplant was so acidic that it made our hands itch and burn. No one could have known how hard we had worked for that mushy looking dish.
The most recent eggplant recipe I have attempted did not cause any pain, turned out quite delicious, and was actually pretty quick. I will not post it on here because I found it in a library book I highly recommend called “Cooking with my Indian Mother-in law”, which has provided us with Indian food recipes for weeks now. But, if you are really interested in making Aubergine and potato curry, you can either attempt one on your own (which would probably turn out fine), look it up in the library, or email me. I don’t mind sharing other people’s recipes on a person to person basis, I just don’t want to broadcast them to the world when that’s what they wrote their book to do. I will be sending the recipe to Mrs. Long.

*One tip from this recipe that I found really handy was to soak the eggplant pieces in water after you cut them to reduce the bitterness a bit, and the potatoes to keep them from oxidizing. Press the eggplant into the water with a plate because they will float...they are mostly air after all.

Pumpkins a’plenty

The graduate housing at the university has a community garden associated with it, and though we do not live there, through some good connections Nathanael was able to rent one of their garden plots last year. Since we were married in August, I had no part in the hard work of gardening. Nathanael did all of the seed selection, planting, weeding and maintenance of the garden on his own all summer and I arrived just in time for the easy part: harvest time. From the time I arrived there was no rain at all for more than five weeks, but water is available to each of the plots. Through the end of August until early October we made weekly or bi-weekly visits to the garden usually on our tandem bicycle, filling a backpack with the basil, tomatoes, carrots and peppers, which became a large part of our diet. As the season wrapped up there was one thing we could not carry on our bike…well, twelve things actually.
Nathanael had planted two pumpkin seeds, which resulted in two enormous vines that merrily took over our garden and filled it with twelve large Cinderella pumpkins. In order to collect these beasts we would put them in a wheelbarrow and rolled them down the long hill to our car.
One Saturday afternoon, when we had not been to the garden in over a week and our kitchen compost was brimming to the top, we decided to venture out and collect a few pumpkins and a bit more basil and tomatoes before the frost came. When we stepped outside we realized that it looked like rain was coming, but we were pretty determined and anticipated a quick trip. When we arrived at our plot there was strange stillness. Out of the acres of plots covering the hillside ours was the only one with gardeners foolish enough not to have realized that enormous thunderclouds were blowing in at quite a ridiculous speed.
Hurriedly clipping basil and picking tomatoes, the two of us stuffed our bags and piled pumpkins into the wheelbarrow as all layers of our clothing stuck with wetness and our shoes began to slosh. Not wanting to be struck with lightning, we decided to leave the pumpkins and run to the car. By the time we were half way down the hill we could hear each other when we shouted but not make out the words.
After we had waited out the thunder, we returned to the plot and collected our pumpkins while the purple swirled sky subsided to a drizzle. The square bottomed wheelbarrow had about a centimeter of water covering its bottom.
The storm did not pick up again until we had begun to drive, increasing to cherry sided hail for about three minutes while we found street parking. The roadsides were flooded with rushing water, melting hail and bits of garbage, but our shoes were already soaked through, so we sloshed our way to the door and made our way inside, relieved at the warmth.
Since then we have been canning, cooking and baking with pumpkins, and attempting to give them away.
There are still three in our apartment.


















This pumpkin using recipe is adapted from the book Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Seinfeld, which I recommend to anyone with excess vegetable purees lying around, or to cooks who serve a crowed that just doesn’t have a taste for ordinary vegetables.

















Pumpkin Banana Peanut Butter Muffins

1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
½ cup peanut butter
½ cup pumpkin puree (or nearly any mild vegetable really)
½ cup thoroughly squished banana
1 egg
½ teaspoon vanilla
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt

Mix ½ cup of the sugar with the pumpkin, banana, egg, vanilla and peanut butter. In a separate bowl combine dry ingredients. Add wet and dry until just mixed. Divide into a greased muffin pan (12 muffins), and divide the remaining ½ cup of brown sugar onto the muffin tops and stir once shallowly to make the sugar stick.
Bake at 350 for 15 to 20 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. Remove to a wire rack. Store when completely cool.

The best way to eat kale

During my first year of graduate school I lived in an apartment with girls I had found through a mutual contact. I didn't get to know them well, but I was able to gain some information from them occasionally, whereby I discovered that the apartment had been rented by them or someone they knew for the last two years or so, including summers, without any break. This meant that it had never been completely cleaned out, and that some of the previous residence probably were unaware of some of the things they had left behind. There were odd things, like a rusty old saw, a five piece ceramic cheese and pizza set decorated with french cheese labels, a body pillow, a Sunbeam stand mixer complete with two glass bowls, and various teas, cheesecake pans, and most of the condiments in the refrigerator.
The other girls did not know where any of it had come from or how long it had been there, only that it didn't belong to them (which I think they were wrong about on a number of occasions). One day I discovered an old food processor stuffed beside the refrigerator in its box from the late '70's. This had been my best find yet, and I excitedly experimented with this recipe for Kale Chickpea Soup, which I slightly modified from one I found epicurious. Dark green leafy vegetables aren't always my favorite thing, so I found this to be an excellent way to get those health benefits and still enjoy my dinner. Excited about how the food processor would add to my cooking convenience, I asked the girls in my apartment if they owned the food processor. Neither one thought so, though their grandmother had brought some stuff and that might have been in the mix. When the first girl moved out a few months later I was anxiously waiting...will she take it? will she not? Will she come back for it later. She didn't take it. But she did come back for it later.
I can't really complain though, after Lucy (my last roommate) and I moved out at the end of my two years there I walked out with a free game of Settlers of Catan, Taboo, various bakeware, a brand new pair of Puma cleats, and a collection of other things I sold at a yard sale for about $15 (including the mixer).

Every so often Nathanael will find something in our current apartment and ask, "When did you get this?" to which the constant reply is, "It came with my old apartment."
















Kale Chickpea Soup


2 medium onions, chopped
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 bay leaf
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1 large boiling potato(3/4 lb), peeled and cut into 1/2-inch pieces
3/4 lb kale, stems and lower center ribs cut out and discarded, then leaves very finely chopped in a food processor (4 cups)
3 1/2 cups chicken or vegetable broth (or bullion with water)
2 cups water
1 (14-oz) can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
2 links Italian hot sausage, cooked through by steaming in a pan then cut into thin half circles
* For vegan version omit sausage, add 1/2 teaspoon roughly crushed fennel seeds and 1/2 teaspoon of fenugreek powder.

Cook onion, garlic, bay leaf and peppers in oil in a wide 4- to 6-quart heavy pot over moderate heat, stirring frequently, until onion and garlic are softened and beginning to brown, 5 to 7 minutes. Add potato, kale, broth, and water and cook, partially covered, until potatoes are tender, 15 to 20 minutes. Reduce heat to low, then add chickpeas and sausage and gently simmer, uncovered, 3 minutes. Discard bay leaf and season with salt and pepper.

Granola: colorful textures

My Mom is the queen of granola. She varies the ingredients in her homemade granola from time to time, but the basic texture and dependable goodness are always the same. My sister Melissa has created a number of granola recipes since she began cooking, none of which are anything like Mom’s, but instead they usually have a wide variety of ingredients and an addicting crunchiness. I think that my freshman year of college I probably consumed a gallon or two of that granola all on my own just on the occasions I stopped by her apartment to say hello.
I have made granola in the past, though usually either under the supervision of my Mom (or with my Mom on the phone), or with an end product that was nearly inedible. Probably part of my problem is that I would like to mix the flavor of Mom’s with the texture of Melissa’s. A few years ago I attempted to make a crunchy granola, added 5 or 6 different uncooked grains (wheat berries, barley, buckwheat, etc.) to the oats and came up with something that smelled fantastic, but was destined to break your teeth. My roommates felt sorry for me and ate some, but in the end I threw most of it away.
With a few years of added cooking experience and my Mom unreachable by phone (don’t know what she was up to), I successfully created a tasty granola recipe this morning from some interesting ingredients that gave it a little crunch. Give it a try if you’re feeling adventurous; putting it together doesn’t take very long.





Chipmunk Granola
Toast 5 cups of oats on a baking sheet at 350 F for about 10 minutes
In a large bowl mix:
¾ cup canola oil
1 cup honey
2 Tablespoons flax seeds
½ cup flax meal
3 Tablespoons raw millet
¾ cup puffed millet
1 cup shredded coconut (I used unsweetened)
1 teaspoon vanilla
½ teaspoon salt


Combine mixture with oats and stir until completely coated. Divide onto two baking sheets and bake on the top oven rack at 350 F for 5 minutes, then stir with a wooden spoon. Return to oven and repeat 5 minute intervals until oats are a light golden brown (they will darken as they cool). This took me 15 minutes or so, but it may vary depending on your oven. Stir on tray every few minutes as it cools to prevent sticking. Store in airtight container.

Variation: Exchange the ingredients you don’t have for some you do, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, unsalted nuts, or soy grits. You may also want to add a cup or two of dried fruit, but this should be done right after you take it out of the oven.