Notes on eating when it's so hot that....

Cooking feels like volunteering for Hell.

We are wilting now, and we are awash in tomatoes. Yummy, yummy tomatoes.

I am trying to make things that are good cold, and that Mikey will eat. He's not a fussy eater, mind you, but since I so often cook by the seat of my pants, I do try to recall what worked for both of us versus what did not.

So, what I made this weekend:

1. Turkey sandwiches. There is really nothing to be said about this except I used nasturtium leaves instead of lettuce and that was nice and peppery. I know, I know, not vegetarian. I guess it is fair to say that I am an omnivore who tries to eat significantly less meat than the American diet usually calls for. Meat as a flavoring agent if used, not meat as the foundation of all meals. Omni

2. Fresh Salsa, based on this recipe. I don't really know anyone who does not rave about fresh salsa, but I found it bland and cilantro-y. M liked it a lot. With tortilla chips and M's guacamole  it made an adequate cold meal, Vegan.

3. Gazpacho based on this recipe. M's verdict is that it is not really different from the salsa above, and I would agree. I liked this better because it had no cilantro and I added celery to the mix, but the spice profile is quite similar to the salsa. I will make it again, because it is cold, juicy, tomatoey goodness, but I think I might try a middle eastern or an Italian spice profile, instead. And celery imparts a nice, crunchy freshness to it, so it stays added in. Also, I did not waste my time with skinning and seeding the maters, It was fine. Piscetarian--sub soy or vegan Worcestershire sauce to make it vegan.

4. 7 dairy vegetable soup. This was the only thing I made that actually had to be cooked, but I prepared the veggies in the rice cooker on the porch, so the only stove time was that spent making the soup base.. .about 5 minutes to actually cook. This was really quite good both warm and cold, and it is mildly spiced so that .... say it with me now.... the individual eating it can spice it to their preferred flavor profile. I like Tabasco, the grandkids like bland, M likes Italian. One base dish, 87 variations as needed with no extra work on my part. Anyway, I have to write this one down, because it was made up on the fly.

• Cooked veggies. I used, in order from most to least, red potatoes, carrots, celery,  mushrooms, broccoli, peas. 
• Enough cream of cheese soup to turn the whole pot into an actual cream of veggie soup. This soup base was the seven dairy kind: Water, milk, butter, buttermilk, mozzarella cheese, extra sharp cheddar cheese, pepper jack cheese, Swiss cheese. Flour for thickening. Onion powder, garlic powder, salt, pepper.
• Mix it all together and call it soup. I have also been thinking it would work pretty nicely as a savory pie filling 

Like I said, pretty mild in the spice department. I wanted to note that I really enjoyed the texture of the veggies after they were cooked in the rice cooker versus the way they would have come out if boiled.  I just needed to put in just enough water to cover them and then let the rice cooker do its thing. Lacto-ovo vegitarian, make a soup base from water, plant-based milk, margarine, nooch, flour, spices to make it vegan.

5. Shrimp Supper Sandwiches. Another one I made on the fly and so have to write it down. It was based on the idea of tea sandwiches, but I am not going to waste my time cutting it to delicate little finger snacks. This was: On toasted bread (M gets Whole Wheat, I had Rye, both were good), thin spread of mayo with a touch of chipotle seasoning. Cover with sliced cucumbers. Mix Neufchâtel cheese with cooked and peeled and tailed salad shrimp and lots of chives. Spread this on your bread. Ta-da, sammich fer supper. Add an apple and you have a cold meal. M felt the balance of shrimp filling to cuke was out of whack, wanted either more cuke or less filling, but was quite happy to eat it as it was and asked that it get moved into the cold meal rotation.  Piscetarian. I can't think of a way to veganize it without altering it so significantly that I could not eat it, but if one wanted a similar sandwich, one might try blending tofu, nori, and chives.  A furikake seasoning might be nice, too, but DIY to be sure it is vegan.

Summer stuff in my Tsardust Fried Rice.

I made a variation on the Tsardust theme, and Michael mentioned it especially tonight. "Did you write that down?" he asked, and so here I am.

Olive oil to saute a poblano pepper, chopped. When the pepper is al dente, toss in some chopped fresh cabbage, a 1/2 cup of drained collard kraut, and a cup of cooked dandelion greens. When heated through, add 2 cups of cooked rice (I had leftover jasmine rice, this time) and a quarter to a half cup of whole raw almonds. Saute this mixture a bit. Throw in a tablespoon of Magi seasoning, a tablespoon of nutritional yeast, and a heaping teaspoon of Tsardust Memories.

I was particularly pleased that he liked this, because it contains dandelion greens and collard kraut. This batch of collard kraut is a little too salty-fermenty for most people straight out of the jar, but I have found that when drained and tossed into a dish, no one realizes that it's a home ferment. Awesome.

I used the recipe here to make the kraut, sort of. What actually happened is that I used leftover brine from making watermelon pickles and a tablespoon of sugar, so this is probably why it is a little salty. The brine is way more than the teaspoon of salt the original recipe calls for.

For my reference, in case the original site ever goes away, here is the original recipe, as referenced above:

Collards, desired amount. Cut real fine, pack in quart jars, add 1 tsp. salt, 1 tsp. sugar in each jar. Pour boiling water in each jar. Run knife on each side in jar to get the air bubbles out. Make sure the jar is full of water; seal and it should be ready in 2 weeks.

I let it ferment until the collard kraut settled down to clear again (while fermenting, the liquid gets cloudy) and then put it in the fridge to stop the ferment.

Gawrsh, it makes me happy to eat my yard on such a snowy day.

Beer and Tsardust

or, The Fried Rice Engine.


... what was I wanting to share about beer? I forgot. Other than I collected a multiple number of beer based recipes that I want to try, of course.

Anyway, I took a run out to Penzey's. Very soon I'll be off to Pennsic, and so I don't want to invest in too much as far as cooking spices go (saving my money for Auntie Arwen), but I did feel the need for smoked paprika, based on one of the beer recipes I've got hanging around. While there, I found a spice blend with the enchanting name of Tsardust memories. The ingredient list read like a typical period receipt (salt, garlic, cinnamon, pepper, nutmeg, marjoram--so, salt, garlic, marjoram, and poudre forte, all found in medieval European cooking) and so I had to bring a jar of it home with me.



This is what I did with it, that first try, and I quite enjoyed it. I do tend to throw vegetables into leftover rice for a quick meal--really, really often, as it happens. Like any bit of cooking that's really more a process than a measured out recipe, it's a little different every time, and, frequently, once the brassica family gets involved, so does some sort of oriental sauce--schezuan, usually, just a little something drizzled over the stir fry.

The usual sauce mix for it involves:

1 T nutritional yeast
1 T Maggi seasoning (or soy or worchestershire--vegan or regular)*
1-3 T olive oil

Into this goes an onion (and thence, sauteed), the rice, and whatever vegetables I decide will complete my meal today. Today, I tossed in a couple teaspoons of the Tsardust memories. It was nice! Nice enough for me to write it down to make sure I try it again.... and can find what I did when I am ready to try.

Many a tasty dish is lost to me because I forgot to write it down.

Notes for ROUS pie, first, easily supportable version.

These are just some links I want to save, some quick notes on the whole ROUS pie thing; it works kind of in conjunction with having finally made the Sage Onion Fava concoction to my satisfaction and, while looking for the recipes that were going to support it as a Reasonable Substitution For Vegans Seeking Nosh for SCA Events, got reminded of the ROUS Pie Project.

Because I found a receipt that makes me want to laugh: "If you want to make pies that have the flavor of cheese." Circa 1300 France, the very basic steps are thus: grind roe and bread with almond milk, and put it in your pies to give the flavor of cheese.

I've been working the geeze gravy thing for a while, and haven't yet come up with anything that is significantly better than any other nootch fake cheese sauce recipe online, although I'll eventually get around to sharing them here, if only to ensure that I always have access to them. And, of course, every Lent, folks in the Middle Ages would become experts at substituting out all animal products aside from sea creatures. But it makes me laugh to find this recipe--apparently, I'm not the only one ever had this issue.

Oysters in Gravy is popular across centuries and cuisines, and, if you are willing to use the word unguent as a loose synonym for gravy, wipes out 2 of the 4 letters--the other 2 then become easy, using the "For to make fysche tartes owt of Lent" (here) from form of curry: Rice and Spices. It's a simple as pie redaction/recipe bash/compatible cookery bit. I still want to do it as an Oyster/Eeel/Shrimp/"Rarebit" pie, but I want to see what I can do with the limits imposed by these two recipes, as well.

One of the things that's kind of a kick about the medieval cookery database is that it's done by hand, so you never can be sure that you've found everything you mean to find. It pops you up a lot of treasures when you don't expect it, but one of the reasons I had to save the links is so that I can go back and print off a hard copy of the recipe sometime in the next few days. I have found, much to my chagrin, that I sometimes need months to again find a recipe in the data base if I wasn't paying attention to the keywords I used to find it the first time.