Yesterday I was reading an article on the NY Times about Hanukkah recipes, and decided to whip up some latkes for dinner, since even picky eater girl loves a good latke.  I grated a couple of sweet potatoes, salt, pepper and cinnamon (Vietnamese cassia) and mixed with 3 eggs and maybe 1/2 cup of cottage cheese.  They fried up beautifully on the cast iron griddle, and were a big hit as usual.  I like the sweet potato better than standard for these, as they are easier to cook and the sweetness works well with the cottage cheese.  

Anyway, I had hit upon this plan relatively early in the day, and was wondering what to make to go with them, when I remembered the forlorn can of pickled beets in my pantry at home.  Borscht!  Vikki favors a good cold borscht, so I made it so.  I tossed two small diced yellow Finn potatoes and about 5 cloves of garlic into 3 or so cups of chicken broth, and cooked until the potato was soft, then cooled it down with ice.  When it was cool I added the juice from the pickled beets, as well as the beets themselves (chopped), salt, pepper and the juice of one lemon, as well as about 4 more cloves chopped raw garlic, and some fresh dill.  To serve, I added some sour cream (low fat) and some homemade sauerkraut which was very chunky and crunchy.  I'll definitely be doing this one again.  It was fantastic.  Sweet, sour, crunchy, beety goodness with just enough bite from the garlic.  When we were first married, we lived up stairs from a nice Russian lady who really liked Vikki and was always bringing her food.  This was a lot like I remember her cold borscht, only hers was clear.  I used Pacific Foods organic chicken broth which was not clear, and I'm not much for the skimming.  But the flavor was pretty close, I think.  If only I could find some good dark rye...

I love leftovers.  There are an infinite range of possibilities for reusing stuff.  I surveyed the fridge last night, and decided to kill two leftover birds with one stone.  I took the last of the kahlua pork and some leftover greens cooked in coconut milk and used them to stuff enchiladas.  I drained the greens, and filled each enchilada with some pork and greens, rolled them up, and topped them with some Tex-Mex style red chile gravy.  Basically instead of the New Mexico style red chile and water enchilada sauce, this is more like standard gravy (begun with a roux and everything) with lots of red chile, cumin and garlic.  To top it off I (or rather the 9 year old) grated a bit of Tillamook extra-vintage white cheddar, which proved just the thing.  30 minutes at 350° and all was good.  They were a bit hit, and I'll definitely be playing with the chile gravy some more.  It would be just the thing for a good CFS.

I've been having lots of fun with fermentation lately, thanks to some very cool books like Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats and Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods.  I'm on my second batch of fermented beans, and the 3-4 batch of sauerkraut  now. 

This morning it all came together in a fine breakfast.  I took a "hand made" corn tortilla from Trader Joe's, heated it up with some cheddar cheese, then layered on some of the fermented beans (made with pinto beans and garlic this time), some cortida (Latin American-style sauerkraut), some pickled jalapenos, and some piima cream.  Simple, fast, and oh-so-tasty. 

Next up... I've got some gingered carrots and some turnips and beets bubbling their way toward pickle-hood on top of my fridge.  A few more days until they are ready.

I had some little fingerling potatoes that I needed to use up (nice yellow ones) and decided to pair them with some purple kale and some lovely Pacific cod (wild caught in Alaska). 

I oven roasted the potatoes with some salt and olive oil at about 400 until tender, and chopped them roughly.  Separately, I sauteed some onion and garlic in olive oil, then added the chopped purple curly kale until it was all tender, and added that to the potatoes.

To finish up, I fried the cod in coconut oil until it was cooked through and lightly browned, then broke it up and mixed with the veggies, then at the last minute added some lemon-infused olive oil, sel gris, and some Balinese "long pepper", which has a very nice floral, peppery scent.

The result was a big hit with the whole family.  The soft cod contrasted nicely with the tender-but-firm kale.  Vikki suggested that next time I serve the potatoes on the side, largely because I was a bit off on my ratios, and the dish ended up a bit potato-heavy.  Maybe only half the bag of fingerlings next time...

Another new Viking recipe I've been working on...

Saute some leeks in butter, along with diced carrots and rutabegas.  When just starting to soften, take off the heat.  When they are cool, mix with some sour cream. 

Very reminiscent of the modern Scandinavian beets in sour cream.  The rutabegas come out very sweet, and stand in well for the beets, which aren't Viking period. 

This was a big hit with pretty much everyone, including a number of avowed root-vegetable-haters.  It went well with the barley bread.

I'm going to be experimenting with dairy products as the Viking Age Scandinavians would have made/used/consumed them over the coming months.  I've been making a soft fresh cheese curdled with vinegar for years, but I think that's probably not the most accurate. 

For the first experiment, I made my first batch of skyr this week.  Skyr was once purportedly made all over the Viking world, but has only survived to the present day in Iceland, where it has remained daily fare.  We don't know how closely modern Icelandic skyr resembles Viking skyr, but it's such a simple process that I don't imagine it's changed all that much. 

To make skyr, you bring non-fat milk up to around 185 deg. and hold it there for 5-10 minutes, then let it cool down to slightly warmer than body temperature, around 108.  Take your culture (I've seen references to using sour cream or buttermilk, or yogurt of various kinds.  The Vikings would have used some skyr from the last batch.  I read a couple of references to the use of s. thermophilus and l. bulgaricus, which happen to both be in "Greek" or "Bulgarian" style yogurt, so that's what I used.  Greek Gods brand to be specific.) and mix it with a little of the warm milk, then add the result to the rest of the milk, along with some rennet.  I used Junket brand from the grocery store, but will soon be trying cheese-making-grade rennet, and I'll report on the differences.  Then let the milk sit for something between 6 and 24 hours.  I've seen various suggestions.  I let mine go about 24 hours. 

The milk-mass should start to pull away from the sides of the container, and you'll see clear-yellowish whey around the sides and over the top of the curd.  That's good.  Scoop out the curd with a ladle or spoon into a sieve or colander lined with several layers of cheesecloth, or better still, a nice clean piece of muslin fabric.  Let it sit until most of the whey has drained out, and it starts to firm up to somewhere between firm yogurt and soft-serve ice cream.

Store it in the fridge when it's done.  The result I got was not very sour, and has a very pleasant texture.  I've used it in crepes, and with granola so far with great success. 

Save the whey, which you can use in soups of porridge.  I have more whey experiments to try too.  The 16th Century Icelanders let the whey ferment until quite sour, and then used it as a refreshing drink, and also as a medium for pickling meat, eggs, and vegetables for long storage. 

Big fun...

Over the next few weeks I'll be (finally) coming back to the Viking food topic.  I just finished entering a big competition with a research paper on reconstructing Viking cooking, and I've learned a lot over the last 6 months. 

After getting feedback from the competition, the paper needs some serious editing, but once that's done I'm going to try and make it available. 

In the meantime, I've been experimenting (as part of the research for the paper) with recreating some Viking bread, like those found in cremation graves in Birka and elsewhere.  One of the finds from Birka clearly shows prick marks on the surface, which hints at them being intended to keep a long time.  The prick marks are (I assert) similar to those on modern pilot bread.  They are intended to increase the surface area so that the bread will dry out completely, thus keeping longer.

In recreating them, I looked at some chemical analysis of the bread remains that suggest that most of them were predominantly made from barley, although oats, rye, flax, green peas, and a little wheat also appear.  They contain comparatively few fats, again suggesting that they were intended to keep.

I made mine with about half barley flour, and half a mixture of oat flour, ground flax seed, rye flour, and (in some) green pea flour.

The resulting mix should be about 2 cups.  Then I added a bit of salt, and mixed in some liquid until a stiff dough comes together.  I tried different combinations of water, honey, buttermilk, and goats milk.  Personally, I liked the goats milk ones the best.  I kneeded mine for a while to make sure everything was as together as it was going to get, then divided the dough into two pieces.

The pieces were then flattened into rounds.  Most of the archeological evidence suggests 8 -12 cm. across, and 1-2 cm high.

Then I pricked the surface, and baked them at 300° for around 30 minutes.  This results in a fairly soft bread good for eating fresh.  You'd have to bake them either quite a bit longer, or at a higher temp to get the to dry out hard.

The resulting breads were very good with cheese or green pea spread.

I had some leftover BBQ brisket (I'm a big Texas style BBQ fan) that I needed to use up, so a batch of frijoles borrachos (drunken beans) was just the thing.

I cooked up some pinto beans until they were mostly soft, then in a separate pan fried up some onions, garlic, a few pickled jalapenos, some chili powder, ground Mexican oregano, salt, and ground cumin.

When the beans were done, and the veggies soft, I threw the veggies in with the beans, a beer (hence the borrachos part) and a bunch of chopped brisket. 

That cooked down until it was saucy but not soupy, and some chopped cilantro went in at the last minute.  Served with quesadillas, it was a bit hit.

Boy, it's been a while since I've posted anything here.  There's probably something I can do to fix that...

I've been craving the food of my youth lately, i.e. hippy vegetarian food.  I've been dragging out my original vintage copies of Moosewood, The Vegetarian Epicure, The Tao of Cooking, etc. 

In that spirit, I made a batch of tofu "egg" salad. 

Mash up some firm tofu, and add mayonnaise to your taste, a little curry powder, salt and pepper, celery, and a handful of cashews.  Tastes just like egg salad (only without all the egg peeling and cholesterol) and makes great sandwiches or cracker spread.

Once again, I had some winter squash that needed using up, and I happened to recently come across a reference from the journals of Lewis and Clark about a stew they were fed by the Mandan/Hidatsa while wintering at Fort Mandan.  They referred to stew of pumpkin, chokecherries, beans and dried corn.  I thought that sounded good, so I gave it a try. 

I added some stew beef (buffalo would have been better) and a few spices, but otherwise pretty much stuck with the basics as described.  I used parched sweet corn, pinto beans, dried cherries, and butternut squash, and added some dried sage and salt and pepper, plus a dash of balsamic vinegar, as it was a bit too sweet for my taste otherwise. 

I started by browning the beef, then added the dried pintos and water to cover, and simmered until the beans were nearly done, then added the dried cherries and parched corn, and cooked until the beef was starting to get tender, then added the chopped squash, and cooked it until it was soft but not mushy. 

Served with green salad and cornbread, it made a nice Fall dinner.

I had half of a lovely Amber Cup squash to use up, so last night I tried Saffron Trail’s Parsi Dhansak, which is basically dal with pumpkin.  My favorite part was that you pressure cook the pumpkin with the dal, and it all came out done just right.  Very easy to get right.  I didn’t have any methi, so added some cilantro instead, which I thought came out well. 

I love winter squash, but it’s one of those things that I just never think to cook.  I bought a bunch of beauties at the farmers market last weekend, so I’ll be experimenting with some more squash recipes in the next week or so.  Over the weekend I made a squash soup (with the other half of the Amber Cup) with some apples, pears, onions and fresh sage.  I added just a touch of balsamic vinegar at the end, since it was a little too sweet with the fruit.  The balsamic cut it just enough.  I topped each bowl of soup with some fried sage leaves (fresh sage leaves fried in oil until crisp) which make a really attractive garnice, and they’re tasty too. 

I’m thinking Morroccan-themed pumpkin & tomato over couscous tonight.  Report to follow…

I had some rutabegas I needed to use up (doesn't everyone?) and decided to try the traditional Scottish version, "bashed neeps".  Basically, you cube your rutagegas (turnip? swede?) and boil until tender, then mash with some salt, pepper, a touch of mace, and plenty of butter.

These made a great side dish with some of New Seasons' pork bratwurst cooked in beer (Fat Tire) with some onions.  Much more interesting than mashed potatoes, and less starchy.  The rutabegas have less of a "turnipy" taste (IMHO) than the white turnips, so might have a wider appeal. 

Monday night I had to use up some turnips ( ) so I made some "armored turnips" which is a medieval recipe.  Cube and boil the turnips until tender, but still firm, then drain and add some butter, salt, pepper, cinnamon, and ground ginger, then stir in some cheese.  I used parmesan.  Very tasty, and a quick and interesting side dish.

I have a great and abiding love of almost all things leafy and green, but possibly my favorite prepration is Southern style 'greens' with some kind of pork product.  I had some collard greens I needed to get rid of, so I got some bacon and set to work...

I chopped up the bacon, and fried it with a couple of chopped onions until the onions were soft and the bacon had started to harden up a bit, then added the greens.  I discovered lately that WinCo has pre-washed and cut up greens of several varieties, which makes them sooooo much easier to use.  I dumped in half a bag of collards, and a full bag of mustard greens, and stired them up with the bacon and onions until they started to wilt a bit.

On top of the greens I tossed in some chopped garlic, a splash of sweet vermouth, a few dashes of Angostura bitters, a couple tablespoons of balsamic vinegar, and some salt and pepper, plus just a bit of sugar (I used Rapidura, 'cause I like it). 

After that, I just let it all cook down for about 45 mintues to an hour, and served it up with some leftover jambalaya.  Made for a great easy meal.  The sugar and the complexity of the vermouth and bitters really played well with the mustard greens, which can be a bit strong, but ended up in this case not notable different from the collard greens, which was just about perfect.

I was down in Northern California last week, and had a chance to check out some of the fantastic produce they have there-abouts.  We even made it to the San Rafael farmer's market on Thursday, which was truly amazing.  Beautiful produce, much of it organic. 

Anyway, I got to cooking one night and made an eggplant/tomato dish that worked out pretty well.

I started by slicing up some eggplant from Whole Foods into probably 3/8" slices, which got soaked in salt water, then drained, dipped in oil, and baked at 350° for about 1/2 hour until they were tender. 

I layered about half of the eggplant in the bottom of a backing dish, then laid out some onions and red sweet peppers that had been grilled on the barbeque, then more eggplant on top. 

Then it got topped with a mixture of chopped heirloom tomatoes, garlic, salt and fresh basil.  Over all that went some grated asiago cheese.  Then it was back to the oven, under the broiler just until the cheese melted. 

Last weekend my son and I headed up to the Indian Heaven wilderness with some friends, and had great fun doing it.  Food-wise, we brought stuff to keep up going, but that didn’t weigh very much.  For lunch, we had tortillas (low carb for me, white flour for him) with either PBJ or vacuum packed tuna fish.  We tried both the whole “gourmet” tuna fillet with lemon and cracked pepper, and regular old plain chuck tuna.  Both were good.  The whole fillet was a bit dry eaten cold. 

For breakfast, we had Nature’s Path “Optimum Zen” instant oatmeal, which was fantastic.  It’s seasoned with ginger and cinnamon, and includes roasted soy nuts and dried cranberries.  Very tasty, light weight, and a good nutritional balance.  The second day we had rice crispies with freeze dried strawberries and bananas.  We used Organic Valley powdered milk, which was much less penetential than the powdered milk I remembered from my childhood.  I think it seemed more finely powdered than I remember as a kid, and so dissolved better. 

For dinner, we had one Mountain House entree (sweet and sour pork, our favorite) and then ramen with freeze dried veggies and tofu.  That came out very well, and was a big hit. 

We also tried some “corn chowder” which I found at New Seasons.  It’s basically dehydrated yellow pea soup with corn and red peppers.  Not quite “chowder” but very tasty and filling, and convenient in a “just add water” kind of way.  The also had curried lentil, and green split pea varieties, which we haven’t tried yet. 

Rounding out the pack was some tea, hot chocolate, and s’mores makings (with organic, fair traded chocolate, of course). 

I brought a bit too much food, which is probably better than too much, but it was still nice carrying a less heavy pack on the way home.

I had to go back for more garlic spears today.  To try something completely different, I got a boneless chicken breast, cut it up, and sauteed in coconut oil, then added the last of the lovely carrots, and cooked until just heated, then added the cut up garlic spears. 

Once those were just about done, I threw in some Thai “chili and sweet basil” sauce, which is mostly chili, basil, salt, and some soy beans.  Next went some bean thread noodles softened in boiling water.  Just before serving, I threw in a dash of soy sauce, and some chopped fresh mango.

Once it was off the stove and in a bowl, I added some very thinly sliced, raw red onion, and some pickled turnip.  I had some Chinese style “wulin vegetables” but Thai pickled veggies would be good too.

The result was light, not too spicy, and well rounded.  I just couldn’t resist the urge to take advantage of the garlic spears before they disappear.

Last night at New Seasons I noticed that the garlic spears have appeared (yay!) so I had to come up with something to showcase their mild, garlicky goodness.  While browsing around, I found some truly fabulous looking carrots, so those ended up in the basket as well, along with some frisee/curly endive. 

I sauteed the carrots in coconut oil until they were starting to get soft, then added a little salt, cinnamon and galangale, and just a dash of balsamic vinegar.  The garlic spears went in next, followed by the frisee, and just as the frisee was wilting, I tossed it all with some whole grain spelt rotini.  Quick, full of fiber, and very tasty.  The galangale gave it a very nice smell, and the slow sautee of the carrots along with the cinnamon really brought out their sweetness, which played nicely with the slightly bitter escarole. 

Garlic spears are one of my favorite heralds of Spring, and since their season is even shorter than asparagus, it’s worth picking some up if you see them.

I decided to enter a cooking competition at an SCA event this weekend, the theme of which was “30 Viking raiders have shown up at your farm, and if they like your cooking they’ll leave in peace”.  A worthy theme.  The only thing I didn’t like was that the one sentence comprised the whole rules.  Not very specific.  I took second to a dish made with (canned) tomato sauce.  Go figure.

Anyway, I decided to make a barley pilaf using only ingredients that appear in the archeological record in a Viking context, using techniques and equipment that they had available (again based on the archeological record).  I set up my brazier and tripod with a nice charcoal (real, not briquettes) fire and over it hung a big cast iron pot.  Into the pot went butter, onions, carrots, turnips, parsnips, and apples.  When those were starting to carmelize, I added probably 2 cups of pearl barley (hulless would have been better, but too expensive) and enough water to cook the barley. 

When the barley was al dente, I added salt to taste, and some chopped watercress.  The result was pretty good, and I think probably represents the kind of food that Vikings were eating day to day. 

I had intended to serve it with some chicken cooked with strawberries, watercress, and horseradish, but sadly the chicken wasn’t done on time, and the strawberries went bad in the cooler overnight, so I just cooked the chicken with some apples, onions and watercress and served it up for the evenings pot-luck feast.  Pretty tasty. 

I had to crank out a quick dinner last night so we could make it to Vikki’s CERT final, but I didn’t want fast food.  Luckily I had some Chinese broccoli (gai lan) in the fridge, plus a nice fresh block of firm tofu.

I sauteed some garlic in peanut oil, then fried up the gai lan until it was just starting to get tender, then tossed in probably 2 T. of hoisin sauce, and a little ginger paste, maybe 1/2 cup of chicken broth, and the tofu (cubed).  As soo as the tofu was warm I dished it up with some white rice. 

The whole process (since the rice was already cooked) took maybe 20 minutes, and was quite tasty for a quick meal.

Last night I found myself wondering what to do with extra chicken livers.  Not a typical conundrum, to be sure, but that’s neither here nor there.  Over the weekend, New Seasons has a huge tray of gorgeous organic chicken livers at the meat counter, and we couldn’t resist.  My wife and I are both chicken liver fans, and our son likes them too, as long as they are properly wrapped in bacon.  So we had a (moderate) pile of rumaki for brunch on Sunday, with good, thick nitrate free bacon.  I’m really loving my new oven (we moved recently) and one of its best features is the broiler.  I discovered that I had to turn the rumaki half way through to deal with the thick bacon, but everything worked out well. 

In order not to completely overdose on rumaki (easy to do) I only used about half the livers, which brings us to where I started this.  Too many livers. 

Anyhow, I decided that the best course what pasta sauce.  Chicken liver gives a very nice texture to tomato sauce, so I sauteed the livers with some ground beef until everything was well browned, then let the whole mess cool a bit and hit it with my trusty hand blender until it resembled course liverwurst.  Then I put it back on the heat, and added garlic, tomato sauce, some diced tomatoes, a bit of white wine that wasn’t getting any younger, and finally seasoned with some oregano, basil, and a fair dose of black pepper.  After most of the extra water had cooked off, I tasted it for seasoning, and decided to add some salt, a bit of thyme, and a small hit (maybe 1 1/2 T) of pomegranate molasses.  I’ve used that a few times in spaghetti sauce, and it makes a less harsh souring agent than vinegar. 

The whole came together well.  The taste of the livers was evident, but not strong at all, and it added a very nice texture to the sauce.  Definitely something I’d do again.

I had some leftover daikon radish from the mooli parathas the other night, so last night I decided the rest was bound for soup.  I chopped the daikon into large-ish chunks, and threw them in with some chicken broth and sliced shiitake mushrooms.  When the radish was starting to get tender, I tossed in some meatballs made from ground pork, seasoned with some garlic-ginger paste, cilantro, green onions, and a little salt and soy sauce.  Right at the end I added some fresh spinach, some green onions, and just a little soy sauce. 

It came out really well, light but satisfying. 

One of my buddies at work and I frequently hit the local Indian (Swagath, @ Orenco station) buffet for lunch, and his all time favorite is what he refers to as “green stuff”, or saag paneer.  I’m a big fan too, but couldn’t remember having tried making it at home.  I finally took the plunge a couple of days ago using Indira’s recipe from her truly excellent blog, Mahanandi, which has become one of my favorites.  I particularly liked her recipe for being easy, and relatively low in fat.  Lots of saag paneer recipes involved heavy cream, yogurt, ghee, etc.  I found that the cashews gave it a very nice body without being heavy at all, although I should have ground them finer than I did.  I’ll know for next time.  I made the paneer from scratch, which isn’t hard, and I had all the stuff, as paneer is very similar to the kind of cheese my wife makes regularly for SCA events. 

I served it up with some methi paratha I had stashed away in the freezer, which went pretty well with the spinachy goodness that is green stuff.

Yup, radish bread.  Last night I tried making mooli paratha, as described in loving detail by Saffron Hut.  I won’t try to capture her recipe, read it for yourself, but the synopsis is that you grate a big daikon radish, mix the grated radish with some spices, then use the mixture to fill whole wheat flat breads.  They were delicious, and the recipe was very thorough and easy to follow.  It took less time that I would have thought, and rolling out the breads wasn’t hard at all.  I tried some aloo paratha a while back, and had a very messy time with potatoes shooting hither and yon, but the mooli was much easier to work with. 

I also tried working with fresh coconut for the first time.    Cracking it open was much easier than I had feared.  A couple of stout whacks with the back of a cleaver did the trick.  Grating it was a much different story.  I don’t have any sort of coconut grater, so I had to break the shell up into small enough pieces that I could grate off the meat without the curvature becoming too much of a problem.  I can certainly see why a specialized tool is called for.  The fresh cocunut was well worth it.  Completely different from the dried stuff I’m used to.  I used it in two different dished to go with the paratha. 

For the first, I boiled some channa dal until it was starting so soften up, then added the water from the coconut, about 1/2 cup of the grated coconut, some garlic, salt, tumeric, coriander, and 1/2 an onion, plus some curry leaves, and cooked it until was almost dry.  It had a very nice texture.  The channa dal didn’t mush out, each one remaining relatively intact but tender.

The other was a yogurt salad with chopped radish, tomato, cucumber and some green chili and cilantro, seasoned with salt, a little garam masala, and maybe 1/2 cup of grated coconut.  Quick and easy, and very refreshing.  Next time I might try it with some chaat masala instead for a little brighter flavor. 

My son informed me that we’ve been having far too much Indian food lately so tonight I’m thinking maybe some Korean food. 

In an effort to sport more pictures, I documented the Spring vegetable salad I made for dinner this evening.  I was at New Seasons, poking through the veggie aisle when I spotted these gorgeous “French Breakfast Radishes” and I had to have them.  Of course, then I had to have some other stuff to go with them.  I started out with some sliced red onion, which I let “pickle” for a while in some fresh lime juice, sel gris, and a little crystalline fructose (a good low-glycemic sweetener).

To that I added the lovely radishes

followed by a very nice Pinkerton avocado

and a nice hothouse tomato. 

Oh how I look forward to the heirloom tomatoes of Summer…  The farmer’s market starts up in Hillsboro next month, but it’ll be a while before we see any local tomatoes.

The salad got finished off with a little more sel gris, and some pepper.

I see that I need to work on my food-photographing techniques.  At least they’re marginally in focus.

One last pic.  I served the salad with some asparagus sauteed in ghee, and then sprinkled with lemon juice, sel gris, and a mixture of tarragon and “grains of paradise” which I just happened to have lying around.  I got inspired by the asparagus with long pepper over at Tigers & Strawberries, but I had “grains” not long pepper.

To round things out, we had bread and cheese, and for dessert, a “strawberry papaya” filled with vanilla ice cream.  Sadly, the camera battery was dead at that point, so I didn’t get a shot of th every amazingly orange papaya.  I have another one for tomorrow, and the battery's charging, so hope for the best.

Vikki’s birthday was last week, so over the weekend we invited some friends out to my Dad’s place at Black Butte Ranch for a weekend-long birthday party and lying about fest.  Since my favorite thing to do while lying about is cook (and eat) I had tons of fun making way too much food.

Saturday’s breakfast was every kind of toast in the world (we must have had at least 5 varieties) and Parsi Egg Curry, which I learned to make from my Dad, who learned it while living in Singapore back in the day. 

Parsi Egg Curry

• start sauteeing some onions, ginger, and diced hot pepper, I usually use serrano or jalapeno.  You can leave out the chilies if you like
• while those are softening up, beat as many eggs as needed with a goodly amount of ground coriander, a bit of tumeric, salt and pepper.  I’ve occasionally used ground ginger too, in lew of fresh, but it’s not as good
• after the eggs are all beaten, stir in some chopped fresh cilantro
• when the onions et al are soft, add the eggs, and cook however you best like your scrambled eggs
• serve with something sweet.  Works great with coffee cake, raisin bread, toast and jam, etc.  The sweet makes a great contrast with the spicy eggs.  My Dad always served with a cream-cheese and fruit filled, yeast risen “Russina coffee cake” and corned beef hash.  It doesn’t get any better than that.

Dinner on Saturday was dim sum.  I made the fillings, and everybody pitched in to help wrap up char shiu bao, pot stickers, shui mai, and spring rolls.  Dim sum makes a great dinner party theme, since everyone can be involved in preparation and cooking, and it’s too much work for one person.

Saturday night, I put some steel cut oats in the slow cooker, and by Sunday morning we had some very nice oatmeal, which we topped with freshly made apple crisp and dried blueberries. 

Sunday lunch was pretty much whatever was left over, since we had to clear out the fridge.

 

Over the weekend we were entertaining some out-of-town family, so I decided to whip up some chicken fried steak (or chicken fried chicken for our one non-beef eater) for breakfast to mark to occasion.  I’ve been experimenting with CFS for a while, and it’s been getting progressively (IMHO) better.  Having never seen a CFS until I went to college, I have some catching up to do.  I got some pretty decent quality cube steak, and coated them with flour-then-egg-then-flour, where the flour had some salt, pepper, and (my favorite) a little poultry seasoning added.  Fried up in very hot canola oil and kept warm in a low oven, they were ready and waiting for the sausage gravy.  I tried some Jimmy Dean “bold” sausage for the gravy, which was pretty darn good.  In a perfect world, I prefer the fantasic bulk sausage from New Seasons, but you make do with what you have (in Sisters, OR).  I used whole milk for the gravy (might as well go all out) and again added a touch of poultry seasoning.  Plain rubbed sage works great too.  The whole thing worked out pretty well.  And since we’d polished off quite a helping of biscuits and gravy and poached eggs the morning before, I was pretty sure it would be a crowd pleaser. 

I was in the mood for quick and simple last night, so I took stock of what I had on hand and picked up a few extras, and the result, BLT’s with the addition of guacamole, and some tomato soup.  Just plain good. 

I used my new favorite sandwich bread, the “Rockin’ Rye” from Dave’s Killer Bread, toasted.  One side got a little tofu mayonaise, the other a coating of some pretty good Costco-issue guacamole.  Inside was the usual bacon (again, Costco issue.  Not the worlds best, but pretty good) some organic iceberg lettuce, and some flavorful is a bit still organic tomatoes.  I long for summer heirloom tomato season…

Accompanied by some “Creamy Tomato Soup” from Pacific Foods, it made a darn fine, quick dinner.

Since I’ve been testing out my new iPod the last couple of days, I’ve been checking out some podcasts (the new iTunes/iPod support for podcasts completely rocks), and I found one that I totally dig.  It’s called “Eat Feed”, and it has all kinds of food related content, including recipes and (best of all) food history.  I listened to their latest show this morning, which focuses on winter-time “comfort food” but also has an interview with author Jackie Williams, author of the very good books (I’ve read them both) Wagon Wheel Kitchens: Food on the Oregon Trail and The Way We Ate: Pacific Northwest Cooking, 1843-1900.  Ms. Williams had some very interesting things to say about eating in the Northwest in the latter half of the 19th C.  Very cool stuff.  I had no idea that people in Washington State were exporting oysters to the California gold fields in 1850. 

Anyway, if you’ve got any way of playing MP3 files (iPods included) check out the Eat Feed podcast.

So I had this leftover pork, and needed to do something with it, so I decided it was the perfect candidate for pozole, which has got to be one of my all time favorites.  I made it a bit differently than I usually do, and the results (IMHO) were pretty darn good.

I started with some chicken broth (I like Pacific Foods organic), a can of diced tomatoes with green chiles, and a big (24oz?) can of Mexican style hominy.  That was followed with a chopped onion, and the leftover shredded pork.  For seasoning, I added one dried California chile (that I pulled out whole before serving) and some Mexican oregano.  Make sure you get Mexican oregano for this.  It’s a different plant from the Italian kind, and tastes quite different. 

That all simmered until the onions were transparent.  I served in big bowls with plenty of space for fresh garnishes.  I used cubed cheese (Cassero in this case), diced avocado, and shredded lettuce. 

My lovely wife got me a new slow-cooker the other day, and I was itchin’ to try it out.  Luckily, my buddy Greg turned me on to his pulled pork recipe, and it was just the thing.  And it couldn’t be simpler (best kind).  Basically, you put some pork, some onions, and salt/pepper in the slow cooker and cook the dickens out of it. 

In a little more detail, I put the pork (I had a picnic roast) and 3–4 sliced onions in the cooker with salt/pepper and maybe a 1/4 cup of water, then cooked on low for close to 24 hours.  After that time, shred up the pork with a couple of forks, slather with BBQ sauce of your choice, and go to town.  I serverd over sourdough hoagies with pickled jalapenos.  Baked beans would have made a good side, if I’d have thought of it. 

This one was a big hit.  I was being lazy, and it turned out for the best.

I started with a box of Pacific Foods’ beef broth, added a can of diced tomatoes, and some Costco frozen Italian meatballs.  Once that was all hot, I dumped in a bunch of spinach (I like the prewashed baby spinach) and just barely wilted it.  At the last minute, I tossed in some torn up fresh basil, which gave it a really nice smell.  Served it up with a loaf of New Seasons’ fabulous Como bread, and all was good.

I was cruising New Seasons last evening, and was inspired by some nice looking greens, so came up with something to host them.  I was thinking about the northern Italian dish whose name I can never remember involving buckwheat noodles, cabbage, potatoes and cheese. 

I got a bag of red fingerling potatoes, and set them to roasting at 400° coated in oil, salt and pepper.  Then boiled up some pasta.  I used organic whole wheat gamelli.  While those were cooking, I sauteed some broccolini and some kale (the really skinny, dark kind, usually labeled “dinosaur” or “lacinto”).  When everything was cooked, I added the pasta and the taters (chopped) to the greens, and tossed in a goodly portion of fontina cheese.  Stirred up enough to melt the cheese, and it was good to go. 

Very tasty.  The kids were down with it too, probably thanks to the cheese.

My wife wanted to host a “tea” at an SCA event this past weekend, and so I needed to whip up some finger sandwiches (since that’s what you have at tea).  I went with the standard egg salad and cucumber and cream cheese, and for something different I tried making a chicken salad for some of the sandwiches.  It turned out to be a really big hit, and since it was so easy I wanted to pass it along.

I used canned white meat chicken (whatever brand they have at Costco, I didn’t notice), added some manyonaise (I use Nasoya brand tofu mayonaise) some salt, a healthy dose of Penzey’s sweet curry powder, and some raisins.  That’s it.  Beat everything together and spead on bread.  I was kind of surprised that it was so popular.  In a perfect world I’d have added some chopped celery, and some roasted cashews, but I didn’t have those things.

I had some leftover green beans from Thanksgiving, so last night I decided to try my hand at something that I always loved as a kid:  greenbeans and spaetzle.  Of course, the ones I loved as a kid were the frozen Birds-Eye variety, so I figured I could do better than that.  If you’ve never had spaetzle, they are little tiny noodles/dumplings made by dropping little bits of batter into boiling water.  Mine came out a little larger than pea-sized, and tasting basically like egg noodles.

I also had some leftover ham, so I decided to work that in too.  I cubed some of the ham and sauteed in in some butter in a heavy pan.  Meanwhile, I blanched the greenbeans for 3 minutes in boiling water, then took them out and ran cold water over them.  The recipe for the spaetzle came from Jeff Smith’s “Our Immigrant Ancestors” which is a great cookbook with a smattering of dishes from all over the world. 

The spaetzle started with 2 eggs, 2 T. of olive oil, and 1/2 cup each of water and milk.  Blend that up (I used a hand blender with a whisk attachment on it) and then add 2 – 2 1/2 cups of white flour, 1/2 t. of salt, and 1/4 t. of baking powder.  You end up with something like thick pancake batter.  Now comes the tricky part if you don’t have the right equipment.  I have a groovy little spaetzle maker I got from Lehman’s that makes it super easy.   If you don’t have one of those, I’ve also used a metal colander (messy) or a big potato ricer (hard to get them even).  If you don’t have a special tool, the colander is probaby your best bet.  Put a couple big scoops of the batter in the bottom of a colander while holding it over a pot of boiling, salted water.  Then rub the spoon around the inside of the colander (use the back of the spoon) to get the little balls to drop through.  When the spaetzle float, they’re done.

I added the spaetzle and greenbeans to the ham, and brought everything up to temperature.  Salt and pepper to taste.  It was quite the hit.  My daughter even ate the greenbeans, despite their green-ness.

This worked out really well…

I started with some baby shiitake mushrooms I happened to have (little ones about the size of button mushrooms) and some leftover corn on the cob, so I worked from there.

I got a red bell pepper, chopped it, and sauteed in olive oil until they softened up a bit, then tossed in the mushrooms, and the corn (cut from the cobs).  When that had heated up a bit, I added a box of Imagine Foods new Creamy Sweet Potato Soup, and maybe another 1/2 box of water. 

Seasoned with salt, white pepper, a little thyme, and some ground mace, which worked really nicely with the sweet potato.  I had intened to sprinkle the tops with some green onions, which would have completed the color balance, but I totally spaced it.  Next time.

It came out really well.  Just the thing for a cold and blustery night.

I’m a huge fan of meat pies, but in the past I’ve had limited success.  Last weekend I finally hit the jackpot though, with (IMHO) the best chicken pot-pie I’ve yet made.

I started by melting about 4 T. of butter in an oval casserole (love my LaCruset) on the stove, then added a chopped onion and let it brown a bit.  That was followed by some celery, chopped carrots, and mushrooms.  When most of the water had cooked out of the mushrooms I threw in about 4 T. of flour, cooked briefly, and added around 3 cups of chicken broth and maybe 1/2 cup of half-and-half, and a can of peas (fresh or frozen would have been better, but that’s what I had), and leftover chopped chicken, and brought it to a boil for a bit on the stove.  I seasoned with salt to taste, some black pepper, dried sage, and a little thyme.  It looked a little thin, so I added a little cornstarch and water until it thickened a bit.

The oven, meanwhile, was pre heating to 425°.

The I whipped up a quick batch of biscuits with about 2 cups of flour, 1 t. of salt, 3–4 T. of butter (lard would have been better) and cold milk until it came together.  I dropped the dough in biscuitty shaped on top of the chicken mixture and popped the casserole in the oven for about 30 minutes, until the biscuits were well browned.

It worked out really well.  Not too runny, but not gluey, nice crunchy biscuits on top, very flavorful.  Hopefully the leftovers will work out well too.

This weekend I got a couple of little cans (about the size of small cat food cans) of pre-prepared Thai curry paste.  The recipe on the can said use the whole can with two cups coconut milk, et. al. for a green curry.  Great, said I, I never have enough time to make my own, so lets give it a go.  I figured that such a thing would be scaled for howlies, rather than Thais, but how wrong I was.  I made up a batch last night with tofu, Thai eggplant (the little green ones), bamboo shoots and some canned straw mushrooms. 

The flavor was fantastic, but it was so hot that even I was a bit put off, and I consider myself to be a pretty dedicated chile-head.  Wow, it was hot.  My wife found it almost inedible, and the kids wouldn’t go anywhere near it. 

Ah, well.  Now I know.  I think these may have actually been a Thai brand (I didn’t look that closely).  Taste Of Thai makes some pre-made curry paste that’s a bit more moderate.

I went out to the Pumpkin Patch on Sauvie Island last weekend, and when faced with the wealth of fabulous produce decided I must make borscht.  The had some lovely beets, and it just sounded really good.  A perfect fall soup.

Anyway, I started out with some stew beef and some ham, browning each a bit, then added an onion or two and some garlic and browned some more.  Then I tossed in a can (big one) of crushed tomatoes, since I like borscht on the tomatoey side.  I also added about two extra cans of water at that point.  Then came a carrot, and some celery.

That simmered for around an hour, until the beef was starting to get pretty tender. Then came beets, which I had previously baked until they were tender (about 1 1/4 hours at 350°) and chopped, one diced apple, and a bunch of fresh shell beans (maybe 1 1/2 cups worth).  Simmered another hour, then added salt, pepper and dill weed.

I served it with a big bowl of potato and cheese pirogi, and some sour cream.  Not only was it pretty darn tasty, but there was plenty left over for another time.

These worked out well as a taco filling…

I took some “country style” boneless pork ribs, slapped them in a 9 X 13 baking dish, and sloshed them with a mixture of

• lime juice
• olive oil
• tequila
• garlic paste
• Mexican oregano
• a dash of cumin
• salt
• a fistful of cilantro
• a tablespoon or so of soy lecithin (keeps it from separating, I use Bob’s Redmill brand)

I hit the sauce briefly with the hand blender so it was a smooth consistency.

Baked in the oven at 375° for about an hour, sliced them up across the grain and used for tacos. 

My wife has been goat-sitting for some friends-of-friends the last couple of weeks, which means we’ve been getting a bunch of goat milk.  Over the weekend, she decided to make most of the supply into farmer’s cheese, which left a big pot of whey left over.  We didn’t want to just throw it out, since not only is it tasty but quite nutritious, so we decided to make soup. 

I threw in some barley, and let it cook until the barley was soft, then added a can of diced tomatoes, a bunch of dried basil, and some pepper, plus a bunch of pre-made frozen meatballs (yay, Costco) and a couple of handfulls of pre-washed baby carrots.  My total involvement was about 5 minutes, with maybe an hour total cooking time (mostly for the barley).

The result was quite tasty, with a distinctly sweet taste from the way, and a very rich, velvety texture.  The slight sweetness mixed with the tomatoes made me think of Spaghetti-O’s, only good.

The only thing I like better than easy food is easy food made from ingredients I already had.

Last night I finished up making the snacks for the party this weekend.  I've read several times that there are numerous examples of the Vikings using pea flour in their bread, and I had to try it. 

I used my hand-cranked grain mill to grind split peas into fairly fine flour, then mixed it with barley and oat flours and proceeded as I described for the other breads.  The result is quite tasty, and the pea flavor is not really evident, which is interesting. 

The last thing I made was some root vegetables in sour cream.  Beets with sour cream is a common modern Scandinavian dish, but I didn't have any evidence for beets in a Viking context, so I used diced carrots and parsnips.  I sauteed them until semi-soft, then added sour cream, salt, cumin, and mustard seed (whole).  Pretty good on the crackers.

I'll post some info on sources soon, I don't have them on my just now.

More snacks to add to the pile.  I made two sets of flatbread so far, which basically come out like big crackers.  These can be used to spread things on, such as the already made cheese, pea spread, etc.  Or herring, since who doesn’t like a good pickled herring?