Curry Cocozelle, Baharat Beans, and Georgia Bibimbap

Food in jars!

 

That's right. I'm sick. But I still have to eat, so the super easy cookery came out yesterday and this is what I named the dishes at the end of the day.

Oh, man, who am I kidding? I'm always a super easy cook. It only has to be good, it does not have to be extravagant, right?

And because I am under the weather, and because I cook to taste most of the time, these recipes have only approximations. Just like Medieval cookery.  Just like the cooking you've learned from your nana.

That's me, everyone's nana.

Curried cocozelle

Chop a large onion and three-4 large, ripe beefsteak tomatoes . Peel, deseed, & chop a giant  cocozelle.   Smaller cocozelle can be used whole; chop 4-6 small ones--enough to make 4 cups of prepared squash .

Fry the onions in some olive oil. Add the tomatoes and enough water to make a broth— about ½ cup to 2 cups. Seethe the onions and tomatoes for 5 minutes over medium fire, then add the prepared cocozelle. Cover and let the mixture cook until the squash is just a little harder than you like. Add curry powder to taste. Let cook a few minutes more until squash is done and serve.

 

The center and the right to jar above contain this soup . It's a bright orange not because of the  turmeric  in the curry powder, but because of the tomato mixture I used. One of the joys of using your homegrown tomatoes is that you get to experience a wide variety of tomato tastes and colors! So yesterday I used an Aunt Ruby German Green tomato, a Crismon Cushion tomato, and two Amana Orange tomatoes. It's definitely a tomato flavor, without being the typical red sauce you get from the store.  Also, the curry mixture I used was Capricorn Moon from Auntie Arwen.

 

 

Pinto Beans in their own Bayat Baharat gravy

 

Take dried pinto beans and boil them in enough  vegetable stock (or water, or combination of both) to cook them to the al dente stage.  Add salt, pepper, and continue to cook until the beans are quite soft and beginning to break down into the cooking liquid. Add a Baharat powder to taste  and cook down until the bean broth is the consistency of gravy.

 

 

I used Arwen's Ibraham's Mom's Bayat Baharat blend. This blend has a strong cinnamon component, which is very good with cooked grains or injera.  It appears in the picture above in the smaller jars.

Georgia Bibimbap

Heat olive oil in a wok. Chop a large onion.  Chop green tomatoes, as many as you like. sauté the onions and the green tomatoes in olive oil; cook until the tomatoes are soft enough to eat.  Add  soy sauce as needed, a tablespoon of nutritional yeast, and mix. Set aside. Scramble an egg (or otherwise prepare an alternative protein). Set aside. Place cooked rice (preferable a day old, but just made is fine) in a bowl. Arrange the egg, the green tomato mixture, and some collard kraut on top of the rice. Serve with more soy sauce and hot pepper sauce.

Bibimbap is a classic Korean dish. I have been making all kinds of  versions of bibimbap  since the early 80's, something I learned to do while in the Army. This version, however, features items reminiscent of classic Southern cooking and a homemade kraut made with Georgia collards .  When you get your bowl of rice covered  with vegetables and proteins, you mix it all together.  It ends up looking pretty much like fried rice.

 Other cooking notes

 I made a batch of rhubarb chutney with the last of this year's rhubarb. this year, instead of using canned tomatoes, I used tomatoes from my garden. I used  2 fresh fish peppers from my garden instead of the pepper flakes, and I used coriander seed from my garden. Fish peppers? Strike me as hotter than jalapeno but not as hot as habanero. The chutney is a little spicier this year because of it. And coriander seeds, dried in your garden  instead of out of the jar that's been sitting in a spice warehouse for a couple of year, are uber dandy. I actually went to the trouble of puréeing the end product of this year, as I intend to give a few jars away, and I don't want people to be reluctant to try it because it's chunky.

I've canned tomato sauce this year, much more than I did last year .

I canned strawberry jam this year, and homemade strawberry jam is much better tasting than commercially produced.  However, its shelf life, once opened, is also a lot shorter. Next year, I can half- and quarter pints, not pint jars.

I have resorted to drying turnip greens for winter use this year, as my freezers are now full. For this same reason, I expect I will be making kale kraut and am planning to try fermented green tomatoes.

Oh, and tempeh scramble! Whee, my new favorite breakfast. Jodi turned me on to making my own tempeh, which is much nicer than store boughten, and if I felt well enough to cook it today, I'd take a picture of that and talk about that, too. But I don't. So I won't.

Chitown Taters Soup

Back from vacation and slowly moving into the cooking habit.

This was an accident that made Michael say, "What is this? This is delicious!"

I thought I'd better write it down.

Base:

leftover noodle broth--Michael had prepared himself some egg noddles, and buttered and salted the cooking water--totaled about 6-8 cups. There appeared to be about two tablespoons of butter in the water. It leaves a pleasant flavor and so I added the following:

2 large carrots, sliced
4 large potatoes, chunked, skin on

Bring to a boil, and then simmer until vegetables are almost done. Add

2 onions, peeled and chunked

Simmer until onions are soft. Add

1 cup fat free sour cream or sour cream substitute
1 tablespoon of Penzey's Chicago Steakhouse blend.

Blend in. Now, mix

1-2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/4 cup water

until lump free in a separate bowl, and stir in to simmering soup to thicken. Taste. You may need to add a little more of the Steakhouse blend, and a little more salt at this point--adjust according to your taste.

This produces a soup that has a touch of smokiness and a touch of pepper. Michael ate 3 bowls. I ended up adding about .5 tablespoon of the Steakhouse seasoning and about .5 t of salt after the cornstarch; the addition of the cornstarch does reduce the strength of the spices, and as I love spicy food, I added more of the blend and only a touch more salt, as I tend to not like things with much more than a hint of salt.

Some simple cookery notes, because it's only simple cookery going on right now.

I've been hurt since late December or so, and it waxes and wanes in terms of the injury's ability to interfere with what I am doing, and right now, it's a great big wax--I'm hobbled right now, hardly moving. Some notes based on things I've started but have not been able to follow on through as much as I have wanted.

Lima Bean Spread: I love lima beans, frozen, but have noticed that the big lima beans that come dried are a different beast all together. I don't really like them as entities that one can cook up for a larger dish, like a lima bean stew or something. What I have noticed: they cook from dried to mush pretty quickly, and so with the addition of just enough flavoring to mask the faint hint of lima bean, you can make a pretty decent protein spread for a sandwich. It's not as good as hummus, of course, but then, chick peas have a nice flavor that works with vegetables and breads and whatever else. The Lima Bean spread, however, isn't lima bean-ish enough to be really distinctly delish for lima bean lovers, but sufficiently lima-beanish to make it less than invisible, like a sandwich spread based on white beans. My fist solution: a couple shakes of liquid smoke, which worked very nicely. I will be playing with that, because it was nice just served on flat-breads, but it needs a little more to really make it something I am going to be handing around as a recipe. Dried lima beans cooked to mush and a little smoke flavor certainly produces an acceptable spread, but my suspicion is that it can be something more without needing to go quite as complex as hummus-from-dried-chick-peas.


Garlicking Up Sauces: In this old Ars Gratia Artis post, I mentioned my tendency to buy expensive Italian sauces (because it is the expensive ones that have sugar instead of corn syrup, olive or canola oil instead of soy bean oil) and then, after a few bites, garlic it up to the point that any crap sauce would do. Well, I'm running a little low on fundage right now, so I thought, well, maybe I'd try me a can of Hunts spaghetti sauce. At 89¢, it seemed like it might be worth trying despite some of the low quality ingredients--I shouldn't have the soy, true, but if I could get a decent taste out of it, it might not be too bad to use once in a while to make my moola stretch, and I have a very large amount of fresh garlic to use up.

Yeah. It was a waste of good garlic cloves. I pulled out the powder immediately, I could not get that stuff good with anything less than plenty of powder and heaping spoonfuls of giardiana. It's too sweet. Whether one calls that as a WIN or a FAIL kind of depends--if I just need a reasonable sauce to overwhelm with powerful flavors, then... well, it works, but I may as well just use some tomato paste and avoid the soy and the corn syrup.

I dunno. I read the ingredient lists on so many foods, and I'm thinking to myself that it's not really a wonder that so may people are not healthy. It's probable that we will all use *some* processed foods; it's hard to completely avoid it *all* and we'll just have to chant the mantra "everything in moderation." However, it's really easy to go to a grocery story and buy food enough for a month and come out with meals that are all technically appropriate for health according to the "food pyramid" and still have nothing but good-tasting death in your cupboard--which sort of rolls me along to the next small bit.

Real Pancakes from Scratch: Baby K loves pancakes, and wanted some for breakfast. Having none of his favorite pancake mix in the house (whatever that mix might be), I made them from scratch, via the recipe for griddle cakes in the 1975 edition of Joy of Cooking. Things I noted: it's better with a smidge of vanilla added and using 2 eggs. It needs more milk than the recipe calls for. I need to stop putting cooking spray/butter/margerine on the pancake pan I have, as this burns quickly and makes the pancakes look burnt when they are not. But what took me by surprise was the realization that for him, the idea of cooking pancakes from a recipe in a book was worrisome. He knew what he was going to get from a box, and he knew that there are some kinds of pancake mixes that he does not like. But the idea that someone might make them without depending on the "magic" of a boxed mix was weird enough that he wondered if it was going to be something edible. His voice was full of joy and delight when he sang out that they were wonderful and gobbled them up, but his voise also had that tone of relief that indicated he had expected otherwise.

Huh. We never had pancakes much when I was a kid, although I was certainly aware of pancake mixes. But it never occurred to me that cooking them from scratch had become such a rarity in this culture that simply by following a recipe from the 1975 edition of a popular cookbook I was engaged in a resurrected recipe. I knew how to make pancakes from scratch, I just didn't bother. That's true of a lot of people. However, sometime between now and then, that's become more and more rare, to the point that I don't think I know anyone who *does* make them from scratch unless, like me, they have some reason for avoiding particular ingrediants in mixes (generally powdered milk, soy, and eggs), or they want something you can't get in a box (sourdough). It was a weird, weird moment. Pancakes are so simple, after all.

Vegetable Bowls I want to Remember: No pictures here, either, just a bit of recollection. 1: I often stirfry veggies as a simple meal, something I have been doing a lot of these past injured weeks. Two things I noticed: all that peanut oil that I have accumulated from pouring it off of the natural peanut butter I buy (rather than mixing it in) mnakes a very nice stir fry oil when serving the veggies over rice--I've been using olive for so long that I had forgotten about the nice qualities of peanut for anything other than the neat trick of making a chocolate cake taste like a chocolate-peanut butter cake by simply substituting the peanut oil for the "vegetable oil." And 2: I used to eat a lot of somen noodles, but had gotten away from that while with Michael. He hears somen, he thinks ramen, and that's the end of it. But I recalled my love for these, and for soba, and went and got some recently. I used to usually eat this with just some plain mixed vegetables mixed in, but the other day I tried stir-fried mushrooms, onions, garlic, eggplant, and seaseme seeds. A few days latter, I went with green beans, onions, garlic, and I liked that, too, although it takes a much larger amount of green beans:noodle ratio to make me happy than it takes mixed veggie:noodle ratio to make me happy. Not sure what's up with that, but I have plenty of time to try it all out.

Sourdough Pancakes, and grit yeast gravy saves a pie.

Two sorts of sourdough pancakes

I needed to use up the last of the sour dough I had prepared, and so two batches of sourdough pancakes seemed to be the solution. Fox a New Year's present, my dear friend Ghita gave me some duck eggs. Ah, duck eggs. Yum. I love eggs, and can only eat duck eggs, and so if they come to me as presents once a year, you can be sure I will eat every one. However, I did not want to spend ALL my eggs on pancakes, so I tried two different recipes. The first, the pancake on the left, based on this recipe, was very, very simple:

2 cups “heart smart” bisquick mix
1 1/2 cup almond milk
1 cup sourdough starter

Mix this all together, set aside to rise 15-30 minutes, and cook on a griddle pan.

This was actually an excellent compromise between my favorite vegan pancakes and standard sourdough pancakes. They are slightly "gummy," as sourdough can sometimes be, but I think a little more milk and flour might change that--if I bother to try. These were really quite good just the way they are, and I did not find the lack of the perfect pancake texture to be a problem at all. Very easy. Very tasty. Less need for bisquick and almond milk. I used my sourdough after it had been fed for a week; it'll be interesting to see what it's like after one day out of the fridge.

The second pancake, on the right:

1½ cups of starter with
1 duck egg, slightly beaten
1 Tablespoon of canola oil
2 Tablespoons of almond milk

2 Tablespoon of sugar
¾ Teaspoon of salt
½ teaspoon (generous) of baking soda


All ingredients were at room temp. Mix all the wet ingredients, then add the dry ingredients, and stir quickly to mix. Once the baking soda goes in, the pancakes have to be cooked immediately, so don’t mix that up until your pan is ready and you are prepared to cook the cakes. Once you add the baking soda, the rise begins immediately. It’s no joke, you have to cook them up straight away. I cooked them on a moderate heat griddle. I let them cook to the point where they were nearly dry on top—like injera—before flipping. These are thin, liquidy—you have to let them cook enough to be set.
My previous experiences with classic sourdough pancakes have not been great—gummy, with too much alkaline flavor as a result of the rising agents used. This was really good, though—I ate them straight out of the pan, with no syrup, et cetera. They make a thin pancake, and yes, with a slightly gummy quality, but it seemed to me merely to be the nature of a heavy, moist bread. Much better than eating something that tastes like the gel inserts for your shoes. "MMMM, I'm gellin'!" should not apply to pancakes. ;-)

A Vegetarian Shepherd's Pie I like!

And so, with tons of grit yeast gravy left over and a yen for Shepherds Pie that is now a year-old monster craving, I decided to give it a try. Oh, what a WIN. This is mostly a note to myself that quorn crumbles, grit yeast gravy, and sauteed veggies all mixed together will be so very tasty that the lesser quality of mashed potatoes made with vegan spread and almond milk instead of butter and whole milk will be unnoticeable, and this returns to me one of my absolute favorite comfort foods. Ah, Shepherd's Pie, how I have missed thee. You don't taste the same this way, but the difference is not worth worrying about. Yay!

Pennsic Eating When You Are Me

Gingered Pottage

I experimented with pressure cooking at Pennsic this year, and I can say with certainty that it is a partial success. The pressure cooker would come close to hitting standard pressure, but it never succeeded; I presume this is related to the fact that the prevailing winds cooled the pot in exactly the right ratio to the flames heating the pot to perfectly balance the heat on the edge of pressure. Foods cooked more nicely, as the lid reduces steam and heat loss even if it did not hit pressure. It would be worth dedicating a pressure cooker to the camping stuff if I can find a better cooker for home use.

We tried several things--a cooked turkey breast for Michael that was very delicious, and various "period in principle" vegetable pottages, where the idea is that you prepare a vegetable pottage comprised of period (or period like) ingredients and enjoy an easy lunch. The above pictured is the most successful, comprised of fresh garlic bulbs, a huge chunk of peeled and diced fresh ginger, carrots, potatoes, parsnips, and a rutabaga. Oh, and a bit of salt and pepper to taste. Potatoes are barely period, arriving in the occasional euro cook pot in the 16th century, but I'm not sure about the swede. The earliest reliable reference I can find is a vague description of a seventeenth century record that implies the possibility of unrecorded earlier use.

However, it was very good, and a very reasonable vegetable pottage for a Renaissance persona. If you include the gray area in your time frame, you can eat it without feeling like your place in the space-time continuum is too wretchedly disturbed. And if you can't, sub in one sweet potato and one turnip for a similar flavor and all pre-1601 edible roots.

I generally cooked meat separately for Michael, and he would add it to whatever I made. The primary problem I faced: keeping the meat. If one leaves home with rock solid frozen meat, what one brings has to be cooked within 2 or three days, depending on your cooler. Once cooked, it's only good for 2 or three days. Thus, you can only be sure of having decent meat in the cooler for 4 days, with the expectation that you might get to 6. I am seriously considering for next year precooking meats and keeping a dry-ice cooler, a fresh foods cooler, and a small defrost cooler. As bad as that might sound in terms of gear, it's only the addition of one six-pack sized cooler. I already carry 2 medium coolers to Pennsic and have done so for years.

Most years, I just shop at Giant Eagle for food when I get there, but I did pantry shopping this year--I looked at what I had on hand and just brought food from home. This worked out fine, as well--better, in some ways, as much of what was in the fridge would have had to be thrown out upon my arrival home. This fact also makes me think that the dry ice/wet ice/defrost system is going to be a better idea.

The food court at Pennsic is always something of a challenge. There is very little there for strictly vegan fare, but you can do okay if you allow eggs, dairy, or both into your vegetarianism or your piscetarianism. I did find myself in the position of "eat dairy or starve" a couple of times, so I tried the spinach wrap at Once Again/Nobleman's Inn and the Spinach Pie at Fruity Cobbler. These are the things I ate and can recommend as edible that can fit with a picetarian + dairy food style:

*French Fries from various vendors: I found I liked the ones at Nobleman/Once Again's best.

*Spinach Wrap from the same tent.

*Falafel from Fruity Cobbler. Spinach Pie was okay, but I preferred the Spinach Wrap, above.

*Shrimp and Vegetable stir fries from Delights of Cathy--be aware, however, that they do cook everything in the same woks. Their portion sizes have also gone down.

*Vegetable dishes from Cock & Bull (sauce may be butter or margarine, I didn't ask. Having already had feta cheese by that time, it hardly mattered which was used when faced by my huge-o-matic hunger).

There were other dishes I could have tried, but generally, if I was up in the food court and faced with uncontrollable hunger, I gravitated to the french fries, being the best way to control the hunger and not have to fret about how it was cooked.

Blancmange as a savory dish

A Modified Medieval Dinner of Delish +3

Blancmange is a ubiquitous medieval dish, and a careful reading of the many, many, many recipes reveals a lot of different ways to interpret the recipe. My first attempt to do so was straight out of Pleyn Delit and I didn't like it very much.

I needed a quick dinner tonight, though, and something that would appeal to omnivores. Digging through the fridge, I found I had some vegan mushroom soup I had made some while ago, and it occurred to me that this would be a very good way to try blancmange again.

I'd like to say I felt all kinds of clever, but it's not like rice cooked in mushroom soup is any sort of unexpected dish here in the land of hotdish. What I did feel pretty good about was the realization that it would serve as a veganized blancmange, as the soup had been made of equal parts mushroom broth & sweetened almond milk, plus flour, salt, little garlic. So, into the pot it went, one measure of the soup, one measure of water, a teaspoon of Better Than Bullion's no-chicken base, and one measure of rice.

I couldn't believe how good it was when compared to the Hieatt redaction . And it does not taste like your usual Lutheran Church Basement cuisine. Thank heaven. Instead, a hint of savory, a hint of sweet, and what I imagine the flavor profile of blancmange might have been before it evolved into the milk jello of modern cuisine.

That, in and of itself, would be a fine medieval blancmange. Mushrooms instead of chicken and otherwise almonds, sugar, rice. The blancmange is served with asparagus, onions, and a mock chicken breast that had been defrosted and "seared" in olive oil.