Gardening Deep Thoughts

I dug up a potato in the garden yesterday.  It's not one of the seed potatoes I planted and are growing so slowly I expect they'll all die before they see the sun. This is a potato from last year's crop, accidentally left to winter in the soil. I'm going to eat it for lunch.

And that's the sum total of my harvest so far. It could very well be the total of my harvest all summer--you just don't know, you know?

That's gardening--it's all about hope. Of course there's some work involved--hauling, digging, planting, mulching and weeding, to name a few manners of work.  Since this sort of work requires bending, squatting, lifting and walking, you could call it a workout and skip the gym. I don't think many people garden for the exercise, though--I've known a lot of plump-ish gardeners but never heard them mentioning they do it for the "great abs".  "Great tomatoes," maybe.

You may think that with modern technology there's no need for hope in gardening. Brocolli infested with aphids? Blast 'em off with the hose. Armadillo digging holes in the okra? Put out repellent. Lettuce looking yellow? Toss on some fertilizer.  The general attitude seems to be that we're mankind and we're the boss of nature. We can have anything we want, and if it doesn't come naturally, run to the Wal-mart and buy it.

Taking a walk around the streets where I work, I pass by several large office buildings. Each has their plantings out front--beds of pansies, ornamental cabbages, alyssum and geraniums. They're lovely year round, and they give a pleasant smile to the brown granite and glass boxes they adorn. But here's the thing--twice a year or more, sometimes at the height of their beauty, they're completely dug up and replaced! I went by one day and noticed the alyssum was absolutely gorgeous, and went by the next and it was all gone!  If I'd only known, I'd have dug some up and took it home.

What's your problem, you say? Don't gardeners do the same thing? No! We don't dig up things just because the calendar says to. The calendar is man-made, remember?  If a tomato plant is still setting fruit in July do we plow it under to plant the fall turnips? Maybe some people do--commercial farmers have to--but not gardeners. Not me.

Gardening--aka hope--relies a lot on patience. Right now my carrots are feathery little sprigs. There's not nearly as many as I'd planted, and the space could be better employed by planting a summer crop of squash. A single armadillo or a wandering cow could wipe them all out.  Even myself, with a careless swing of the hoe, could smash them into oblivion; some other human could mow them down and not even realize what he'd done. They can't be replanted--carrot time is over for north Texas.

But until that happens, I'm going to let them grow. They may be tough or bitter; they may be sweet and delicious. I have to wait to find out, but I have no other choice. I can't hire a landscape service to rip up the dirt and put in a new crop--planting time is over and anyway, I don't want their showy petunias or short-lived geraniums. I want my carrots; they're all I have left. I'll give them time to grow.

Recipe Reduction 153..151

 

Black rice porridge with apples
from Elyse Kopecky


Black rice is strange stuff, isn't it? The cooking water came out gray.

It might have been good if I hadn't forgotten to take it to work for breakfast!

(Second day) Remembered it! But not so good. Neither good nor evil, like the Nazgul. No--wait--that was neither alive nor dead.  Which may be a good description of this dish. Delete.


 Sichuan Tofu With Garlic Sauce
from fat-free vegan kitchen

The queen of fat-free cooking has made a valiant effort at doing Szechuan without oil. (Ignoring the cooking spray and 1/4 tsp toasted sesame oil, optional.) Her result was virtuous, but not very much fun.

No, no--that's not fair of me. It had a lot of flavor going on, what with all the vinegar and wine and soy sauce and chili garlic sauce and black pepper that replaced the oil. You could almost say it had too much flavor--and not in a good way. It might work for some people; it didn't for me.

And have I ever mentioned that I hate black pepper? It belongs in exactly two dishes: steak and crawfish etauffee. Anywhere else it's an overpowering bore, like the drunk in a bar who won't stop talking.  Maybe we should become equally obnoxious--in restaurants, when they ask us if we'd like some freshly grated black pepper on our food, we should ask, "Why? Is it rancid and needs something to obliterate the taste?"

Curried Lentil, Tomato, and Coconut Soup
from bon appetit

Even though I used chopped tomatoes instead of crushed and I forgot that I had a garden was full of cilantro until I was too tired to venture outside--good. Lentils, curry powder, coconut milk -- a trio that's tried, trusted and true.

I probably won't make this particular recipe again; it's okay, but I have others. Maybe if this 199-recipe challenge ever completes I'll go back through all the saved ones and try to get them down to twenty or thirty that will constitute my entire repertoire. Eventually I'll have them memorized and be able to do them with an audiobook on.

Romp with an unruly princess

A Royal Pain
Her Royal Spyness Mysteries #2
by Rhys Bowen

Once again I thought I was checking out the first in the series only to be wrong--this was the second.  That's better than the eleventh, don't you think?  I'll have to read the first one on paper because I canceled my Audible membership. For a while.  I have at least three months worth of books on CD at the library I want to hear, first.

Solidly good but repeated scenes from the other book. Not word-for-work, just in character and 'feel'. (Technically, the other book repeated this one because I read them out of order.) But I didn't mind--it was cozy and familiar. And there is one line that I hope will be repeated in every book, because it's the sort of line which will get a bigger laugh every time it's said. (I'm not saying--find out for yourself.)

I have to admit it's a little weird to watch character development in the reverse. But that's my own fault.  If you're looking for a quick, charming and very funny mystery about the Brits in pre-World War II England, this is the ticket!

Book one of six and I WILL be reading them all

In the Bleak Midwinter
by Julia Spencer-Fleming

I'm hooked. This is one of the best detective mysteries I've read in years. It's not for everyone--the amateur detective gets equal play with the Police Chief; there are too many coincidences; there's subtle but near-omnipresent romantic tension. It's snarkily witty, painfully grisly, and the action scenes are nerve-wracking. It's definitely not a 'cozy' but nowhere near hard-boiled.

So not for everyone, but definitely for me. The character development is spot-on. You like most everyone and passionately hate a few--notably the lawyers.  Many scenes are funny verging on very funny, especially if you've ever tried to drive a sports car on icy pavement. The clues are easy to pick up on--it makes you feel smart to realize you've noticed something the detectives did not--but of course they will eventually.  And the clues won't have to be hammered into their heads--the detectives aren't stupid. And neither are the criminals.

One word of warning: if you're at all interested, be very careful not to pull up the series on the library web page where it shows the publisher's back cover blurbs. Even if you try not to read them, your eagle eyes were pick up a fact or two that you really didn't want to know yet, dammit!

Gardening in my roots, can't be summer yet!

Saturday was a long day--transplanting all the tomatoes, almost all the peppers, finishing the planting of beans and getting the soil ready for cucumbers next week. Then I gave it all a long soaking and I think it was happy. I certainly was.

Doesn't this kale look happy to you?

 


Beans are up!  Don't tell the birds or squirrels or anything else that might enjoy a meal of bean sprouts. Hush!

Possibly tonight the heavens are going to smile upon us?
We will see.











d

If the garden were to bear fruit...ideas galore

Homegrown Pantry: A Gardener's Guide to Selecting the Best Varieties & Planting the Perfect Amounts for What You Want to Eat Year-Round

by Barbara Pleasant

If you're looking for a single book to tell you how to select, grow, prepare and preserve vegetables and fruits, this could be it.  The selection parts were mostly useless to me--they didn't reflect the tremendous variation in climate and growing space of different parts of the country. Saying that "sweet banana," "lipstick," and "early jalapeno" are good varieties of pepper is pretty much useless to me--I couldn't find peppers under those names and even if I did, are they good for the Pacific Northwest or for South-Central Texas?

She did much better when she steered away from specific varieties to general characteristics, such as her descriptions of the varieties of carrots or kale. Very helpful to know that Tuscan kales grow slowly, curly kales perform much better in the fall, and flat-leafed Russian kales are fast growing and very cold-hardy.

The growing hints were better, but nothing much I didn't already know.  But on preservation and storage, she knows her stuff!  I never thought of drying potatoes--the idea sounded too much like those boxes of flakes that make totally textureless mashed potatoes" Tasteless, too.  To a Tee.

But doing it myself might be a great idea--if I could just find the dehydrator.  Flipping back through the book, I see there was a lot of stuff I missed. I'll give it a re-read and just might put it on my "to-own" list.

You're doomed. Or maybe not.

The Hungry Brain:

Outsmarting the Instincts That Make Us Overeat

by Stephan Guyenet

Looking at the raving reviews that the publisher chose to post on the back cover, I see that the Paleo Diet people read no further than the first couple of chapters. And that's sad!  It's like a person who goes to the Smithsonian and only looks at the Anasazi pottery from Arizona. Yeah, it's there, but there's a whole lot that comes after it!

Whether or not farming started 12,000 years ago or as early as 23,000 (interesting article -- https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/07/150722144709.htm), I take offense at the notion that we need to be eating like our prehistoric ancestors. We've evolved physically (ex: LCT gene), socially (ex: fermentation), and microsopically (the average lifespan of a gut bacterium is less than one day).  But I won't harp on my personal peeve any longer--that would really do the book an injustice.

He's covered a lot a ground, deeply and widely, and he writes so well this flows like a mystery novel. 

...imagine an infant trying to grab the tail of a cat sitting in front of him. He's not coordinated enough, and he mostly flails around, sometimes touching the tail but having a hard time grasping it. Suddenly, by chance, his arm and hand move in just the right way... With practice, his brain refines the movement, until he can terrorize the cat at will.

And who can resist a chapter heading like, "The United States of Food Reward."  Be sure not to miss this one very important point:

Our current food system is less than a century old--not nearly enough time for humans to genetically adapt to the radical changes that have occurred.

A century.  100 years--not 12,000. He's not talking about the Paleolithic Era vs. 1950 A.D., he's talking about the modern world where you can have a breakfast burrito and iced mocha at the gas station; a thickburger, fries and 32-ounce drink at the fast food drive-through; a frozen pizza plus a six-pack of beer at the grocery. Toss in a gallon of Rocky Road for me, too.

...our own innate food preferences are commercially exploited by concentrating and combining the properties we find most rewarding, resulting in foods that are more seductive than what our ancestors would have encountered. Creating an obesity epidemic wasn't the objective; it was just an unfortunate side effect of the race to make money.

We're not helpless slaves to our environment, and he includes ways to avoid the traps we lay for ourselves.  My favorite:

High-reward foods tend to increase food intake and adiposity, while lower-reward foods tend to have the opposite effect. This suggests a weight management "secret" you'll rarely find in a diet book: eat simple food.

This isn't just a cute quote--it's fully backed by research in his book. Later, after explaining the influence of genes on our food choices, he concludes with the gentle reminder:

A century ago in the United States, people carried the same genes we do today, yet few people had obesity. What has changed isn't our genes, it's our environment--our food, our cars, our jobs.

...As Francis Collins, geneticist and directory of the National Institute of Health, is fond of saying, "Genetics loads the gun, and environment pulls the trigger."

Recipe Reduction 155..154

Flank Steak Kebabs
 
Excellent, if I say so myself. Asian-style marinade. I didn't hear any applause but no complaints, either, and I wasn't in the mood to solicit comment. Other than the two chunks I tasted for doneness, I didn't eat any. Sometimes cooking has the effect on me of making me not want to eat--I just want to get away from it all and relax with a book.  But I'll have no such issues tomorrow.

(Tomorrow) Absolutely marvelous. But what else could you expect when you marinade good, grass-fed beef in honey, sesame oil, garlic and rice vinegar, sprinkle it with sesame seeds, and char it on a grill?

Grandma Louise's Peach Pie Supreme

Looks pretty. Waste of good peaches. Even some cinnamon wouldn't have rescued it from a bland oblivion.

Recipe Reduction 157..156

I'm going to throw this in as a freebie.
Prepared Horseradish
The next recipe called for it, so I looked to see what it was. Turns out it's just fresh horseradish root ground up with a little water, then dressed with vinegar and salt. I had some horseradish I'd ground and frozen last fall, but I also had two 8" pieces of root I'd pulled up in the garden yesterday.  I was planning to toss it in the compost pile, but what the heck?

Into the house came those dirty little roots; scrubbed and peeled and grated up nicely, they made a lovely little pot of heat.  Supposedly the vinegar will "stabilize" the horseradish and not let its heat fade away in storage. If true, from now on I'm doing this every fall.

If you think I'm careless in my waste of garden produce, think again. We planted one little root of horseradish ten years ago; every year since, it's popped up in new and mysterious locations. Even in the hard-packed paths between the beds.

Winter Root Vegetables
from Taste of Home
I only cooked this recipe so I could make fun of it.
No, seriously--it said to chop up potatoes, brussels sprouts, parsnips, carrots, and turnips, cook each separately, then mix them all together.  I'm not talking stir-fry here--I'm talking boiling a bunch of vegetables in water. What kind of idiot cook would do that?  Was I supposed to use five different saucepans or boil them in succession in a single pan?

Needless to say, I used one pan and threw them all in together.

But what interested me about the recipe was the topping--butter with horseradish, vinegar, and dill. It seemed like an interesting combination...it wasn't.  It would have worked better with mayonnaise instead of butter and served cold. This recipe is going straight to the "Do Not Try Again" folder.


Slow Rise Bread
by David Tanis

Almost, kind-of sort-of, worked!  And it tasted good.  It didn't puff up in the oven, but it wasn't flat as a pancake, either.  However, if I'd baked it the full hour they said to, it would have been a rock.  Luckily I smelled it from the other room and pulled it out early.

The normal steps of break making are: mix the yeast with water and a little flour, let set, add the rest of the flour and some salt, mix well, let rise, knead, make a loaf, put it in the baking pan, let rise again, bake.  This recipe followed the steps up through kneading, but then instead of making a loaf, you put it back in the bowl and let it rise. Once risen, you pour it into the baking pan, slash the top, and bake.  But the "pour it in" step deflates the bread!  And the "slash the top" even more so--at least with my dull knife.

So I'm wondering--if I made the same recipe, with the same overnight rise in the refrigerator (that gave it the good flavor), but did the normal steps at the end, would I have been able to sneak it into the oven and made a nice, puffy loaf out of it?

I say it's worth a try. I may weigh 200 pounds when this experiment is over, but worth it for the advancement of science.

An Exhortation To Mystery Novelists

I've seen it done--once. When Harriet Vane was about to head outside and potentially confront the suspect in the Poison Pen mystery (Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers), she left a note saying where she was going and why.

Why can't we make this standard practice? Is it because protagonists in detective fiction are so human they never consider the possibility they might die? If so, it's time to stop! Leave a clue behind for the cops and if you come back alive, burn it, and blush. Heroics that don't come off are the very essence of burlesque. -DS

So please, dear authors, the next time you have your highly intelligent and sensible amateur detective drive off in a snowstorm to a hunting cabin out in the hills where the dead girl's sister and mother are hiding because "they know who killed Katy," have him tell someone where he's going. Or at least leave a note. A cell phone isn't good enough--service might be knocked out. And for crying out loud, in your note write down all the other incidental facts you've gathered that the police don't know about yet. Give 'em a break!

Didn't finish; photo included to remind me not to try again

Red Rising
by Pierce Brown

I'm going to do myself a favor and give up on this. Give me credit for trying.

So many people gave it five stars, including JP whose advice I respect, that I felt it had to be worthwhile and didn't read any details about what I might be getting into. I put the first volume on reserve at the library, picked it up, and began reading.

From Page One I was finding the reading experience difficult due to the excessive number of made-up constructs he felt the need to clutter on the page. Helldiver--good; I liked it. Haemanthus--a little trickier, but after saying it out loud a couple of times, it felt familiar. Then bloodydamn; clawDrill; rockmelting; holster seat; scanCrew; headTalk; argh! Argh! Argh! I guess these words were supposed to be so evocative that I'd fall into his world headfirst and never look back.

But I'm not that quick on the uptake. Unfamiliar words slow me down; too many of them and the story starts to drag. When I got to the part where they went up to the planet surface and looked at the sky--so very Hunger Gamesey--I thought it was getting better.  But then I did what I should have at the start--went to the reviews.  Other than the many people with the five star reviews, there were a few who had pretty harsh things to say. Like "boring", "slow", "overly wordy", "kills off too many characters," "inexplicable personality swings of the main character." And no one mentioned the main reason I'm giving up on this--

The Red Rising Saga is up to six books already, each 400-500 pages long, and I don't see a end in sight. As Danny Glover says, I'm too old for this sh*t.

Gardening In My Roots - Wonderful Weather

After two hot, dry days near 80 degrees, a smart shower has made things right again. I can practically see things growing--













Kale. Ignore the little purple flower in front of it. It's just Henbit, a harmless weed. 

Lettuce badly in need of thinning, and snap peas trying hard to get somewhere before the heat takes them down. It appears they grow very slowly--I started them in late January; they took about three weeks to come up. No blooms yet, which is okay. They should save their strength for now.














Amazing bunch of shallots overwintered and doing fine! Problem is, I'm scared to dig any up. Maybe I'll try some leaves in my salad.





Seven tomatoes in the ground! I'm declaring war on Father Weather. But I have seven buckets (for frost) ready.








Here's what happens when you cram a pepper in among some snapdragons and accidentally leave it out for an overnight frost. I think it's officially determined that our overnight lows are at least 4 degrees lower than those posted for McKinney.

But here's what happens when you rescue a bunch of nearly dead pansies on the markdown last fall, cram 'em in a pot and leave them outside all winter. Magic!

 

Impossible to put down at the end

The Girl You Left Behind
by Jojo Moyes

With all that I've read about World War II in my days, it's a pleasant change to go back to the innocent days of the first war.  Still war, of course, never innocent and not very pleasant. but at least civilians weren't sent to death camps (just worked to death in work camps) and they weren't gassed--although a lot of soldiers were.

Ms. Moyes did a great job at creating people who were so real and lifelike that I had strong emotions throughout. Which is why it took me so long to read it--I just didn't like the main characters!  They were too aggravatingly human and flawed. Too headstrong and irrational and emotional and admirable--and always, so very very upsetting.

If you're like me and want to quit after the first few chapters, don't. There's a switch coming. Is that too much to say? No, the book jacket spills the beans. I'd had all I could take of Sophie early on and it was a relief to leave her behind.

Great writing; great story. not entirely my own personal cup of tea, but welcome for a change.

Recipe Reduction 159..158

Fat-free Onion Ranch Dressing
by Susan Voisin

My apology for the pink color: she told me to use white onions but one of mine was rotten and I had a red onion sitting right there. Just close your eyes and make believe.

Tasted like baked onions. What did I expect?  I ate it twice and threw the rest away.  It would be interesting to try with super-sweet Vidalia onions and double spices, but still I wouldn't call it ranch dressing. I know and love ranch dressing--this is an insult to the intelligence. Call it Double Onion Dilly Dressing.

 



Potato Chowder With Miso Broth
Adapted from Donabe: Classic and Modern Clay Japanese Clay Pot Cooking by Naoko Takei Moore and Kyle Connaughton. (Ten Speed Press)

Very good!  And the Chunky La-Yu Sauce was die-worthy.








It could have been just a little spicier--I need to test the degree of heat in my gochugaru (chili flakes.) The recipe said to use both this and some hot chili flakes, but silly me just doubled up on the gochugaru and skipped the flakes.

One thing about the chowder bothered me--it called for the lentils to be cooked separately but the potatoes to be cooked in the broth. They both take about 20 minutes to cook, so why not throw them in, too?  Not that I'm lazy or anything, but that would have meant one less pan to wash.

Recipe Reduction 161..160

 Breakfast Oat Pudding with Raisins, Honey and Toasted almonds
from Vegetable Literacy

Wow. Surprisingly good. Cook oat groats for an hour, add some regular oats and the stuff, top with toasted almonds. At first taste it didn't seem sweet enough, but when eaten for breakfast it was just fine.

Just be sure not to throw the almonds in the toaster oven, set the minimum timer (about 10 minutes), and leave the room. My house smelled of blackened almonds for the rest of the day. Do as I say, not as I do.

Mushrooms Stuffed with Sun-Dried Tomatoes
Adapted from Gourmet, March 1996 by Smitten

I've saved this recipe for five years. Seems impossible, doesn't it?

Now I've cooked it, and now, I'm going to delete it. They were certainly pretty--festive, don't you think?
Problem is, they didn't taste all that good. Maybe my ingredients were at fault--maybe my Parmesan was old? (But the leftover shavings tasted fine to me, as I shoved them in my greedy little mouth.) I did do a tiny substitution or two--extra chives, green onions and garlic instead of the shallot.

Puzzling...puzzling...got it. It wanted a different kind of cheese and the caps should have been sauteed in butter instead of baked. Maybe. I think I'll leave this one for the experts to puzzle out.

Undescribable--won't try

Walking It Off:

A Veteran's Chronicle of War and Wilderness

by Doug Peacock

I want to toss off a joke, I am not worthy! to read this book. It wouldn't be funny but it would be true. It can't be read quickly, or lightly, without a lot of pain. He writes of things  which no one should have to speak. His stories of war and genocide would be bearable if I could read it as a history that will never repeat....

It's repeating, right here, right now. Syria. Myanmar. South Sudan.

But the war experiences are only a tiny fraction of the whole of this, although they may be the cause of it all. Dunno. He writes about Ed Abbey, his travels, his losses and his furious struggle to make sense of it all. And he writes so well that I didn't want to include quotes for fear I might be taking them out of context and missing the point of it all. Like this,

Ed knew that the best wisdom came directly from the earth; it runs right up our roots into the spirit. Walk on. The feet will inform the soul.

And,

Death was not the enemy of life, I thought, the foe was fear of capturing the truth, fear of true introspection. I had learned that from Ed and tonight the instruction returned with humbling veracity. At the end you had to release, let go of anger, all grasping and attachment, even desire.

Sometimes he says things, that make no sense. But tickle your mind.
Like a Zen Koan.

...sleep well, my old friend. I will dream you in the little death of winter.

Maybe I'm not modern enough for this book

A Modern Way to Cook: 

Over 150 quick, smart and flavour-packed recipes for every day 

by Anna Jones

I'm not going to "officially" review this book because I haven't cooked from it yet. I allow myself to review cookbooks that are more biography or travelogue with a few recipes sprinkled in; but this is strictly a cook book.

But I just wanted to point out a few things in addition to the impossibly cooking short times:
- not enough pictures
- recipes split across two pages when they didn't need to be.  I HATE having to flip back and forth with greasy hands.

Publisher's fault, of course.  But I can't blame the publisher for these ingredients:
    a handful of coconut flakes       
    1 Tbsp maple syrup
    1 tsp smoked paprika
So you grab a "handful" of coconut flakes--would that be a 6-foot tall man's hand or a 4-foot tall woman's?--but you use exactly 1 Tbsp of maple syrup and 1 tsp paprika.  I find that unbearably annoying--be loose or be exact, but not at the same time!

I am happy to report that Ms. Jones doesn't put pepper in everything, but I still say there's too much of it. I like her chatty attitude--it's encouraging. It almost had me believing that I could actually  be turning pasta every 30 seconds or so as it cooks, and at the same time be removing any tough stems from the kale and coarsely tearing the leaves.

Sound easy? For a three-handed space alien, easy. Or maybe with a lot of caffeine....

Garden in my Roots, March and Mad!

Lowes got another shipment of peppers!  I'm now at my full complement of pepper plants and one over on the tomatoes.  None of them are going into the garden yet--there's a good change of frost this week. Or should I say "bad chance"?

Looking in the garden book, I see that kale needs a steady supply of water during the growing season. Since Mother Nature isn't supplying it any, my garden hose is. Every single day. The kale also appreciated me getting out there with a hand-cultivator and scratching up all the hard crusted clay around it.

The surviving spinach is looking much better. I wonder if it knows it's in a race against the Texas heat?









But the real news of the garden this week isn't in the garden. It's Spring!

I promised to start reading books about people my age. This is close.

The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe
by Kij Johnson

At least it was short. The author went all-out trying to create a magical world in colors and shapes, with mountains, valleys, oceans and mysterious moving lights under the ocean that you weren't supposed to speak about.  The bad guys were the gods, of course--jealous petty little beings who meddled in human affairs and spread misery whenever they woke up long enough. Then there were the ghouls--or was that gogs?--some sort of smallish human-dog creature who delighted in fresh corpses but could be coaxed into helping out a traveler--if you promised them a whole graveyard full of fresh corpses at the end.

Early on I decided she was an artist or had written her florid prose with an artist's color chart near by. An obsolete color chart to boot. I recognized the words--or thought I did--but they didn't bring up the images she desired. Try for yourself: cerulean...
vermilion...carmine?
I'm not doing the book justice here, so I'll stop. I think you can tell by my tone that it didn't exactly grip me. It shows promise and most people loved it.

Recipe Reduction 162..161

Perfect Grilled Shrimp

I'd saved off at least four recipes for grilled shrimp. Two of them called for lemon juice and a two-hour marinade time. But wait--I've read that is an absolute no-no.  Shrimp in acid will turn mushy and sort-of cook--technically it's called denaturation. I don't want mush, I want shrimp!

So I ditched them all and found a recipe on Serious Eats https://www.seriouseats.com/2015/07/food-lab-how-to-grill-shrimp.html where they were willing to experiment to create a perfect grilled shrimp. I was using the indoor grill so I didn't get quite the markings I wanted. But the result was darn near perfect.

The only change I'm make would be to sprinkle a little Sriracha in the marinade. When I bite into a shrimp, I like it to bite back.

Mango Curry Hummus Quinoa Bowls
author lost



I failed to include the last ingredient: additional veggies of choice (pictured is roasted rutabaga)

But would it have helped?  This was really good in a really not so good way. Hard to explain--you take plain cooked quinoa, good, top it with hummus made with a mango and some curry powder, good, and spoon a pile of fresh carrot slaw on top. I don't see how that could have gone wrong, and it didn't. But...it just didn't go right.

I don't know what else to say. The mixture of flavors and textures didn't sing for me.

Recipe Reduction 165..163

Tomato and Eggs Over Rice
 By Joy Huang The Cooking of Joy

I strongly suspect this recipe could have been good if only I'd had home-grown tomatoes ripened in my garden. Supermarket tomatoes, planted in sterile soil, picked green, and gassed until they turned red, just didn't cut it. The result was was sour and gross. Canned tomatoes would have been better, but still not good.

Try again, in season. Maybe.

 


Strawberry Cheesecake
by Luverene Dove

I cheated and used blueberries. Shoot me!

It looked pretty and tasted fine, but not as good as the "elegant cheesecake" recipe (topped with sour cream) that I usually make. And we prefer our topping to be lumpy, with bits of whole fruit, not blended into a thick syrup. On the other hand, this was extremely easy to make.

One thing to complain about--there is no way that amount of graham cracker crust would have been sufficient even if I had the right kind of pan. Don't skimp on the crust, folks. If people think it's too much, they can leave it on their plates. Me, never.






One other complaint--can't people figure out how to make cakes right in the pan, so there's no delightful delicious batter left in the bowl? How to resist?



Spicy Roasted Brussels Sprouts
by Erin McDowell on
Epicurious

Appears to be a matter of taste. I loved 'em; others hated.

Intrigue and murder and ladies maid issues

On Her Majesty's Frightfully Secret Service
by Rhys Bowen

Warm, cozy and frightfully funny.

There's a time and place for a book where you can tell from page one that nothing terribly bad will happen and everything will come out right in the end. There may be a murder or two, but the detective's loved ones will emerge unscathed, she will eventually solve the mystery, and the terribly efficient Austrian housemaid will clean up her muddy shoes.

It's not for everyone, but sometimes, it's just right for me. The last murder mystery I read had no such assurances. In fact,  it didn't even have an incontrovertible resolution. And the book I just started reading, while not a murder mystery, has some real ugliness coming on. I put it aside and haven't been able to pick it back up--it's almost like I want some reassurance up front that it isn't going to hurt too bad.

For shame! What a coward I am. But not so Lady Georgiana--she ventures out of her not-so-comfortable castle to take tea with the queen and then travel to Italy, without a maid! Or maybe without a maid. That's still to be determined. The author, Rhys Bowen, doesn't get in a hurry with her story and I didn't want her to. Imagine--traveling without a maid! Too droll.

I don't remember any laugh-out-loud moments, but I distinctly remember grinning insanely while I stirred risotto with the earbuds in. Would it be worth keeping up my Audible membership long enough to hear the next one?

Oh, no no no! This wasn't the first in the series--it was the eleventh out of twelve! What have I done?

Gardening In My Roots, post-deluge

I think I think I think--I've found carrots! Are these carrots?










This is really sad, though. The really hard rain we had last week washed some of the baby spinach seedlings right out of the ground. They're pitiful, laying on their sides, all forlorn.  I can't help them.




I didn't plant any of these (below), but if I had to swear, I'd say this was a black-eye pea!  If its in the row that I'm planting with "green manure", I'll leave it. If not I'll maybe move it. You gotta respect that dogged determination.

Recipe Reduction #166

No Knead Crusty White Bread
by the King Author Flour Company

It seemed to work up until the end. Sticky--more on my fingers than in the bowl....



At the final rise, right before baking, the recipe warned that it wouldn't rise much but simply settle and expand. Mine settled A LOT and expanded EVEN MORE, filling up the cookie sheet. 






I forgot the final step of slashing the top with a knife, but that wouldn't have mattered. It went into the oven flat as a pancake and came out the same.

All that said, it's not bad bread. It'll taste divine when toasted and spread with pesto.

 

xxx

A Rant and a Rage

I was paging through some 15-minute recipes in A Modern Way To Cook, and just as I've done many times before, I objected.  I only know of two REAL 15-minute recipes: a grilled cheese sandwich or a bean burrito. That's about all I can prepare from scratch in 15 minutes.

How to define scratch? To me, it's simply this:
    A cook walks into a bar...uh...no...try again....
    A cook walks into a cold kitchen....
That's all; period. Nothing can be peeled, measured, chopped, or sliced. The knives, forks and spoons are in the drawer; the spices are on the rack; the cans, bottles and jars are unopened.  And--since this is real life not a cooking show--at least one essential item has been misplaced and will take five minutes to locate.

I'll allow the use of canned food, pre-made picante sauce, and grocery store tortillas; I'm not expecting you to grind your own corn or mill your own flour. But there ought to be a certain amount of contact with raw ingredients. Does making waffles mean flour, salt, milk and eggs, or does it mean a box of Aunt Jemima's? I'd say it's the former but someone with a box of Leggo waffles in the freezer might say the latter.  So let me lay down my own personal rules, and I'd love to hear how they differ from yours.

1. If the recipe calls for one clove garlic, minced, then the peeling and mincing time needs to be included.  I certainly hope a cookbook author wouldn't use the pre-minced garlic that comes in a jar. That's yucky.
2. If it calls for things like bread crumbs, chicken stock, or cooked beans, then they can be made in advance.
3. If something needs to be zested or grated or squeezed, the author needs to assume you're doing this with a hand device--not a power tool.

Given these sort of rules, I say that 99% of 15-minute recipes are lies. I'm not the only one to notice this. Here's a great article--
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/holidays/2010/11/the_worst_of_times.html

and another
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/scocca/2012/05/how_to_cook_onions_why_recipe_writers_lie_and_lie_about_how_long_they_take_to_caramelize_.html

But, let's get back to discussing A Modern Way To Cook.  She doesn't deviate from my stated rules above, but I still have issues with her time estimates. One comment said, "The timings are rounded down a bit," and gives an example of one which is notably off--if you simply add up the 'grill times', they exceed the total time. But other people say that they like the grouping of recipes into 15-minute, 20-minute, etc., because that gives them a good feeling for how long it will take. "No matter how little time you have, you can prepare a great meal."

So what's the answer? Is bad data better than no data at all?

I say NO, and I double-dare anyone to choose three recipes at random and complete any two of them in the listed time.

I'm not trying to give her a hard time (pun intended), and I certainly don't expect her to pad her numbers to reflect the misarrangement of her reader's kitchens.



(My starting point)



 
I simply think they're ideals, not realities. I'm going to copy out three recipes that appeal to me, trying hard to ignore the times and concentrate only on what I'd like to eat. I'll start the clock at "a cook walks into a kitchen." Then I'll get the ingredients and tools together; take the plastic wrappers off things and open all tamper-resistent packages. At that point I'll mark the time--just for future reference--and then, reset the clock and start the race.

All ingredients and tools are on the counter, but nothing will be cut, measured, or grated. Lids will be on jars; skins on onions; florets on heads; oven on zero.

Stopwatch ready--
Go.
I'll post the results as soon as I can. Most of them call for fresh tomatoes and they're not in season yet and supermarket tomatoes are vile.

Recipe Reduction 169...167

I am vindicated!  Maybe not a Top Chef yet, but at least I got something right.

The recipe I'd saved was called Blue State Mississippi Roast.  You brown the meat, put it in a slowcooker with lots of pepperonici, then top with a home-made ranch dressing. Cook for many hours and it's supposed to be heavenly. Oh yeah--did I forget to mention the butter?

So, instead of wasting my entire chunk of grass-fed chuck roast on a weird recipe, I chopped it in half and used only half of it. It came out tough, greasy, and peculiar.

The other half I put in the oven with onions, garlic, beef broth and a chopped jalapeno. Cooked at 275F with a lid on for about four hours. It came out tender--almost melt-in-the-mouth--and delicious. I found it hard to stop sneaking just one more bite while it rested on the counter.

Sometimes you got to go with your gut.  And never, ever, put butter on beef.


Italian Risotto

I've always been scared of making risotto, or any other dish that requires constant stirring for 25 minutes. You can't image how delighted I was to discover Alton Brown's oven-baked roux--no stirring; perfect product. But finally I bit the bullet and made Italian Risotto.

And now I know the secret of risotto. It's (whisper) books on tape. If you are going to stand in one spot moving your arm around for forty minutes (that's how long it took), you'll be a lot happier if you're listening to the exciting climax of a murder mystery.

How'd it taste? Good, nearly great, but the tomato and onion didn't add anything--I'd have preferred it plain. Also a little bland--since I've never eaten it before and haven't a clue how it's supposed to taste, I'd have loved a hint about how much salt to put in it.

Dear, kind, people who share recipes, can't you at least provide a hint for how much salt to use? Give the amount you use and add a disclaimer. PLEASE?


Miso roasted tofu with sweet potato
By Jennifer Joyce

Well-pressed tofu cubes doused with white miso, mirin, and lime juice; sprinkled with sesame seeds and toasted in the oven. I could stop right there but it was served over sweet potatoes and peas. Three of my favorite things!

Actually the recipe called for green beans, but I prefer peas. Peas & sweet potatoes = mmm. But if you run out of peas and decide to pour in half of a bag of edamame instead--don't. Just because they're both small and green doesn't mean they taste the same. At all.



One comment I should provide--you were supposed to put the tofu cubes on a baking sheet and drizzle with glaze. And as you'll see in the picture below, doing that wasted a lot of the glaze. Shame!  She should have had you toss them gently in a bowl. It was sad to throw away the parchment paper with all that burned-on glaze. I guess I could have cut it into strips and served it on the side; you could scrape it off with your teeth like artichokes with butter.