Happy Mardi Gras!

Stacy in a very nice voicemail pointed out that I've been neglecting the blog. It is true. I've been a little uninspired in the cooking department because I'm between kitchens. My version of cooking has been carrots and hummus or apples and peanut butter. But I have been dreaming up my next project (veggie burgers.)

Anyway Stacy suggested this post. I'm leaving for a conference tomorrow morning, but if I weren't I'd be making red beans and rice and king cake and trying to coax my coworkers to come over for dinner. I'm still going to devote a solid hour of packing/butt shaking in honor of my hometown.

Here's a recipe for king cake. (The only thing that is tricky is that this is basically a sweet yeast bread. So the yeast has to be alive (it will react to hot sugar water) and, like a bowl of goldfish, it doesn't like to be left anywhere drafty or sunny or cold or hot.

Warm, yummy, "pu-pu"

"So i tried pu-erh [sic] again." That's how my last email to Chad began. We'd been having discussion about tea since 2007, I think. We'd talked then about his other-wordly love and my dirty hatred for Pu Erh. (Vince and I started calling it pu-pu.) But this time was different. Maybe the water was the right temp, maybe I didn't add too many leaves, adjusted steeping time just-so. This time it was good in a way that made me stop reading for half a sec and look up and...just sit. I took notice of how nice the taste was. Not filthy, sticks and leaves and dirt, but delicate, almost earthy, almost sweet. Besides that, Pu Erh, according to my favorite tea company, gets its name from a small town located in southern Yunnan. Tea had been cultivated in this part of China for about four thousand years. Its popularity owes much to the many trade routes that flowed through this region. With popularity came royal inquiry. And so, Pu Erh teas have been offered in tribute to many a generation of Chinese emperors. It is among the few teas that improves with age. Similar to wine, one may find very expensive Pu Erhs that are decades old. "Slimming" is one of the properties the locals attribute to it. Recent studies seem to show there is some validity to this reputation. This tea's unique fermentation process imparts it with some cholesterol-fighting powers.

Note, too, Pu Erh, is a black tea. It's considered, again by my tea pimps perhaps the most esoteric of Chinese varieties, has a pronounced earthy aroma and taste. It is very popular in China due to its notoriety as a slimming diet tea. Recent studies seem to support this claim, but attribute this property to all teas. We suggest trying a sample before committing to larger quantities. The earthy taste is not subtle. Chances are, you'll either love it or hate it. (All the above bloviating by adagio tea.)

My note to Chad continued: "I like it."

Chad wrote back, quickly: "Enough puerh [sic] for now. I am into Sencha green teas. Do you have a decent place to get good loose leaf tea? If so, check out Sencha. There are several of them. They have a very thick, grassy flavor and it is so so good. At first it took my by surprise, the taste, and then it really grew on me. Sometimes it tastes like scallops smell."

Here is the Sencha leaf:

"The other tea i am really into right now," continued Chad, "is a yellow tea. The yellows are similiar [sic] in antioxidants to the white teas, but the yellow is much rarer and really subtle. Almost tastes like warm water, but if you are still and quiet it is a really amazing mellow experience drinking yellow teas. The yellow i have tasted is called Huo Shan Yellow.

"The other tea i am ga ga over right now is an oolong called Wuyi Shang Red Cape. A totally exquisite experience. I found myself stopping on the sidewalk, while sipping, to tell my wife how good this was...repeatedly...and she argeed [sic]; she added that it tasted like the tea her grandmother used to make with fresh berries and herbs.

"PUERH began all of this..."

And isn't it strange and good--when something you took for shit not so long ago turns a corner and makes you appreciate even one small moment now--and kick out a single sentence that contains the words "ga ga," "oolong" and "cape"? That's "pu-pu" for you. Right, Chad?

I was slouching on the couch, reading something serious and sober when

this happened:


Vince discovered our friend Ellen's 5,000-ounce bottle of A-1 steak sauce.

Now that's awesome eatin.

[Even funnier: I posted this by mistake to Identity Theory's "What We're Reading" blog. Oops. All better now. But if you look (http://www.identitytheory.com/bookblog/index.html), you can see the hole Vince burned into the webpage in the wake of his escape.]

Tapioca operator

I am not a smooth operator. I started cooking last night b/c I didn't want to look at anyone in my family and when you've got a knife and something to cut, you don't have to. So I made chili. This is starting to sound like a story I once read.

Anyway, I made some angry chili last night. This is seriously the hottest chili I've ever made. I kept on adding chipotle peppers and cayenne. I was practically sobbing b/c of all the onions. It is good, but I can't help but wonder if a little of my anger got in the pot.

I think the foods that I make that I never use a recipe for are probably the ones that I tend to project onto. And chili is probably one of my favorite recipeless foods.

Tell me your food projection story. Tell me about the ones that you don't use a recipe for.

old sweetie pie faithful

I'm making pies this week. Two for my family thanksgiving and two or three for the basketball team. (Don't ask).

I was all for experimenting with new and exciting recipes. But my family wants this which I have made for the past two years. (Scroll down to "Thanksgiving Pie" recipe. I make it as a cobbler since we are all on the chubby side and no one else appreciates a homemade crust. I also cut the sugar--I use maybe 2/3-1/2 a cup of un-packed dark brown sugar in the filling.)

The thing is, it is always kind of liquidy at the bottom. Have any of you ever put a little tapioca in a pie? Am I courting disaster?

Also, pumpkin or sweet potato?

UPDATE: Add 1Tablespoon of tapioca to the pie filling (make a deep dish pie crust) if you aren't going to serve it with ice-cream or anything and therefore don't want as much goo.

Potato, Pepper and [vegan] Kielbasa Casserole

My resistance has turned. Now I'm mad.

Abby, somebody, can you tell me whatever happened to citing your sources?!

This Cooks.com thinks its so great in 2008, using but not citing its Potato, Pepper and Kielbasa Casserole--a sweety-hot little number from Busy Cook's Book - Family Circle (published 1988) that's been my favorite for almost that long. Gah, I hate that.

So the original recipe is wordier. Seems we hate verbosity now; we've come to expect everything quick-quick-quick. And but so the original recipe is social, helpful, like a friend almost, with its suggestions of complimentary side dishes, including broccoli, semolina bread and apple cake. It also gives you full-on directions for microwave, in case you're that type. The original is, is...it shows you, in a real teaser photo, how pretty your food will be if you don't fuck it up too much. (This one here, she's mine.)

Take that, Cooks.com.

So here--for all you who kick it old school when it comes to citing your sources, your forebears and, if not your betters then at least your cheat sheet--ti prisento the original recipe (unless Busy Cook's Book ripped it off, too) of...

Potato, Pepper and Kielbasa Casserole, taken from p 102 of Busy Cook's Book--Family Circle (published 1988):

(serves 4)

2 lg sweet peppers, green and/or red [I used red]
2 med red onions
1 lb small red-skinned potatoes (~8) [I used purple finger variety]
12 oz kielbasa [I used Tofurkey]
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper [I added an additional 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes for heat]
1/4 c olive oil
1/2 c heavy cream [I used soy. In past, I've used dried, full-fat, 2% and skim. All are good.]
chopped parsley, for garnish (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

2. Core and seed peppers. Put into large bowl: 1-1/2-inch-cut peppers, thinly wedged onions, halved potatoes, 1/2-inch cut kielbasa (peel casing if necessary). Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Add oil. Toss well to mix.

3. Bake at 400 for 45 minutes. Stir in cream [or milk] and bake for another 10 minutes or until bubbly. Garnish with parsley.

Microwave instructions: Reduce cream to 1/4 c. Use microwave-safe 2-quart dish. Cover. Microwave at full power for 15 minutes. Mix in cream. Cover. Microwave another 2 minutes.

Dog ear that, Cooks.com.

Jicama-Citrus Salad, extra ordinary

This week has been all about resisting. Resisting the dark chocolate with nibs sitting on the counter winking at me, resisting the daily workout, the cold weather, another meatless meal (hence yesterday's bacon-meets-eggs ice cream fantasy). I mean, I'm resisting everything--writing, cleaning, brushing my teeth. It's all work. I don't even want to plan for the closer-than-it-appears-and-speeding-like-a-fiery-el camino holiday. I'm loathe to admit it, but I even feel myself resisting that pull, that slide into politics as usual....

So today, I didn't have to be anywhere, and I did the only thing I knew to do to stop my resistance: I gave in to my urges.

All of em.

I gobbled up more than I'll tell you of the 2-lb. bar of 79% cocoa-ified chocolate. For breakfast. I skipped my workout today (I'm sore from last night's walk in the Elliptical jungle, anyway). I flung open all the windows and covered myself in my bathrobe overtop two sweaters and a sweatshirt, a pair of sweatpants, sweat socks and slippers. I read and read and read and didn't write anything I didn't want to. I didn't clean the floor (except for that one spatter (I hate when gloppy-liquidy-food items smack and dry on the kitchen floor; I can't control myself--it's like a homicide I have to report)). I didn't brush my hair, my teeth or the counter after I ate my lunch over it without a plate--nutty-seedy toast that I just waive the butter and jam at, my favorite.

I had to cave, man. It's like, once in a while, no matter how strange or crazy-seeming--once in a while, if we don't give in to our needs, then that natural tension, that normal level of resistance will turn on us, eat us up, make us mean. Know what I mean?

I don't wanna be mean.

Another thing I had to kick to the curb today was all the soup in my fridge. I've been making soup lately because, well, we already know: it's cold out. And I love soup. But not today. No way.

Today I made something so un-soup-y, so un-cold weather-y, that I coulda been on a Mexican beach--and that wind whistling through our crappy window screens wasn't signaling snap freeze but kisses blown for sailboats in the bay. And my triple layered, pink robe-topped getup--just the latest in beach ware.

Anyway, instead of the baby lima bean and chipotle soup I'll tell you about next time, I made this:
Jicama-Citrus Salad.

If anything is outside the ordinary, it's jicama. A flavor you can't pin down, it wavers weirdly between a bean, a radish and a potato. Its consistency, too, kinda pear, kinda potato, but with density. It's not sweet, exactly, no. More legume-y. It goes happily with orange and lime, onion and cayenne. It's a fun crunch-substitute for water chestnut. Oh, just look it up.

It is damn good.

Tomorrow my resistance will likely be back up and I'll be living again in San Marcos, Texas, worrying my work and the economy and our president. Today, though, today was just for me and hope for something outside the routine...or, in a word, extraordinary.

Here's how you, too, can live 6-8 servings worth of extra ordinary:
Jicama-Citrus Salad

Peel, half lengthwise, and cut into matchsticks:
1 med jicama (~1 pound)

Cut into 1/4-inch slices:
2 small cucumbers, peeled, halved lenghwise, seeded and diced

Cut both ends off:
3 med Naval oranges

Stand the oranges on a cutting board and cut away the peel and all the white pith. Halve lengthwise, then cut crosswise into 1/4-inch slices. Toss the jicama, cucumbers, and orange slices in a large bowl, along with:
6 radishes, thinly sliced
1 small red onion, thinly sliced
1/3 c fresh lime juice
Let stand for 20 minutes, then season with:
salt, to taste

Spoon the salad onto a platter and drizzle the accumulated juices on top. Sprinkle with:
2 tsp ground chili pepper
1/3 c chopped cilantro

(from The Joy of Cooking, 2006 edition)