Rice and Beans A Belizean in the USA

(Belizean) Breakfast Series: Fried Fish and Johnny Cakes

2011-11-10T16:21:00.006-05:00

I think a fish head is probably one of the more controversial aspects of seafood consumption in the United States of America. Many Americans find it difficult to eat an animal when it is staring at you from the plate. Where I'm from, however, its a tasty meal. Some fish, like groupers, are even prized for the delicate and flavourful meat found in the cheeks. Not only in Belize, but in restaurants across the globe, no stew would be complete without the depth of flavour found in your average fish head (we just leave the head in, while the average American restaurant makes fish stock from it and then throws the head away). And most fish are fried whole, head and all.

In the coastal regions of Belize, fried fish is not only good for lunch, but is also considered a hearty breakfast, instead of the sausage and bacon that many Americans traditionally associate with that meal. Another favorite is fish hash, made of left over fish, picked off the bone and sauteed in coconut oil with minced onion, garlic and sweet pepper. Regardless of how it is made, if fish is on the menu for breakfast or tea, a popular accompaniment is johnny cakes.

These delicious quick breads are loaded with coconut flavour, flaky almost like a biscuit, and flattened for quick splitting, like an English muffin. They are standard breakfast and tea fare for many people in Belize, and they are very easy to make. Some people use vegetable shortening or lard in these along with the coconut milk, personally I like to up the coconut flavour even more by using coconut oil. All you need is:

Recipe:

2 and 1/2 cups wheat flour (I like to use white whole wheat flour, or half white and half whole wheat flour)

2 heaping tablespoons virgin coconut oil (refined coconut oil has been bleached and deodorized so it doesn't smell or taste like coconut at all, which I think completely defeats the purpose of using it).

1 and 1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 can or about 1 and 1/2 cup full fat coconut milk

Procedure:

You can bake these in the oven or in a cast iron pan on the stove top. If you are baking them in the oven, turn it up to 350 degrees before you begin and get out a sheet pan. Otherwise, put a cast iron pan or a griddle on your burner and turn that on medium heat.

1. Dump the flour, baking powder and salt in a large bowl and stir to mix.

2. Add the coconut oil and work it through the dry ingredients with your hands until you have small pieces no bigger than the size of peas evenly distributed throughout the flour mixture.

3. Add coconut milk while mixing with a clean hand or a spoon until you have a firm, but not sticky ball of dough. You may not need all the coconut milk, depending on the moisture content of your flour.

4. Knead this dough for an minute or two, just enough to bring it together into a firm ball.Then roll it out into a snake on the counter top. Pinch off balls about twice as large as a golf ball and let them sit on the counter for a minute. Then pat out each ball into a circle about 1/2 inch thick. With a fork prick the dough through on the top.

5. If you are baking your johnny cakes, place them on an ungreased cookie sheet and put them in the oven for 15-20 minutes (check on them and if necessary flip them over to slightly brown the tops. They wont take long to cook). If you are doing them on the stove top, place several at a time in your cast iron pan, dutch oven or griddle. You will want to cook them for 3-5 minutes on the first side and turn them once they have browned slightly and cooked half way through. You can also put the lid on the pan to hasten cooking.

Classic accompaniments to johnny cakes are refried beans, hashed fish, fried fish or fresh corned fish, ham, cheese, eggs, or for a sweeter approach, butter and guava jelly. Johnny cakes are Belize's egg Mc-muffin. In gas stations and shops across the country you can buy them stuffed with fish, refried beans, pulled stewed chicken, or a basic ham and cheese. However you eat them, they are quick and easy to make and delicious to eat warm, at room temperature, or re-heated in the toaster. So next time you pass those cans of coconut milk at the grocery, forget about Thai curry and think brunch-with a Belizean touch.

Belizean Breakfast

2011-08-18T08:51:00.000-04:00

Pinto beans cooked with onion, garlic, thyme, pigtail and coconut oil topped with a sunnyside egg and homemade pepper sauce (red onion, cilantro, habanero pepper, vinegar and lime juice).

Belizean Bounty and Food, Sex and Culture

2011-04-24T17:47:00.001-04:00

It has been so long since I posted on here that folks have probably given up on me again. I am in the midst of completing what should be my last semester of classes ever and looking forward to spending the summer in Placencia, Belize, where I will be running a fieldschool and hopefully conducting some research of my own. If all goes according to plan (fingers crossed), I should be done with my qualifying exams and back in Belize with a finalized dissertation research topic in November of this year. And yes, it will probably be about food.

In the meantime I'm busy writing papers and counting down the days to the end of the semester and packing for my summer move-out. I was lucky to find in my inbox this morning these two beautiful photos from my mother of the glorious produce from the garden that my brother planted the last time he was home. Since I am moving I have no garden this spring and these pictures make me miss the farm.

I thought I would share them with you all and also share a paper that I recently published in Indiana University's folklore journal about food-for-sex metaphors in the Anglophone Caribbean. Its specifically about Belize, and contains the results of some exploratory research that I conducted last summer. So if you wonder why I'm not updating my blog like I used to, this is why. Check it out! Fruits and Culture: A Preliminary Examination of Food-For-Sex Metaphors in English Language Caribbean Music.

Winter Break in Belize Part 1: Lobster.

2011-02-05T18:10:00.000-05:00

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. I think these pictures add up to 10,000 at least, especially in the cold wintery weather that we are currently experiencing here in Indiana. My winter break was spent in Belize: at home on the farm and also in the village of Placencia, a fishing community turned tourist zone located on a peninsual of pure sand. These are the pictures of Placencia. Its a pretty sort of place, and not coincidentally, where I will be doing my dissertation research starting (if all goes according to plan) the middle of this upcoming autumn.

Placencia was once one of the biggest fishing villages in Belize, and is known for spiny lobster, the Caribbean cousin of the large clawed animals some of you may be more familiar with. These pictures tell the tale of a lobster fishing expedition that I went on in December. We got a couple conch and a big crab as well.

Cleaning lobster is best done on the beach. The limes provide a great cleanser for the hands afterwards and keep the lobster sprightly til you get them in the freezer or cook them.

Mark made lobster stew. Lets just say, it was fantastic. Chopped up lobster, cleaned heads and all, sauteed in coconut oil with onion, sweet pepper and a panopoly of seasonings, including soy sauce, cumin, recado and fresh thyme and finished off with fresh coconut milk and cilantro.

A couple leftover cooked lobster tails=lobster tacos for lunch! Sauteed in butter with the ubiquitous onion and sweet pepper (the vegetable back-bone of Belizean Creole cooking), and served in fresh corn tortillas from the tortilleria down the street, topped with homemade pepper sauce, these were absolutely delicious!

Belizean Stew(ed) Chicken

2011-02-02T00:53:00.002-05:00

Belizean popular cuisine centers around rice and beans, preferably with some kind of protein accompanying it. Since the beans are usually flavoured with a nice fat pig tail, you can probably already guess that the protein is unlikely to be soy-based. I have yet to meet a Belizean vegetarian although assuredly one must exist somewhere. Fish and other seafood, beef, chicken, pork and even game animals such as deer (antelope in local parlance), wild pig (peccary or warrie) and gibnut (a large and tasty member of the rodent family affectionately nicknamed the royal rat for once having been served to the Queen of England) may appear on the side of a plate heaped high with our traditional staples. Ideally fried plantains and some type of salad (more a garnish than anything) perch on the margins of this loaded platter, and the whole thing is commonly doused by the hungry consumer with liberal quantities of home-made or store bought hot pepper sauce.

You will find some variation of this meal at most Belizean restaurants and in many homes around lunch time, traditionally the biggest meal of the day. (although Kekchi and Maya Belizeans usually eat corn tortillas with their beans). While the diverse nation that is Belize boasts a wide array of delicious foodstuffs, this meal is what most Belizeans think of when they talk about "Belizean food" and it is what they crave when they are far from home. The two staples: rice and beans (or corn and beans for some Belizeans) form the backbone of daily sustenance. The meat is an accompaniment: to eat it without beans and rice would be unusual.

Although animal flesh is relegated to the side of the plate, that does not diminish its importance. While one can certainly eat rice and beans (or stew beans and rice, which is not the same thing) by themselves, most Belizeans strive to ensure that some type of animal accompanies them. Fish and seafood may be fried, baked, grilled. To accompany rice and beans, land meats are usually stewed. Stewed Chicken (stew chicken in Belizean Kriol), is a particularly popular choice in restaurants. I got my recipe from a woman in Cayo District who made the best stew chicken I had ever tasted. In the coastal village of Placencia I learned another trick to add to the flavour of the dish. The recipe I offer below is an amalgamation of techniques from across the country, and I encourage you to make your own changes as you see fit. No two people make stew chicken exactly the same way. In keeping with this tradition, I present the recipe below as it was given to me: with no exact measurements.

Stew Chicken

The meat:
A whole chicken, cut into pieces, or conversely 4-5 chicken legs and thighs or breasts with rib meat, skin on.
(Do not under any circumstances try to make this with boneless skinless chicken breast. In fact, I strongly recommend using either a combination of white and dark meat, or dark meat alone, for the best flavour)

The vegetables:
onion
sweet pepper (green)

The seasonings:
garlic
red recado (more about recado here)
Soy sauce
Worchesterschire sauce
cumin
thyme
oregano
salt
fresh ground black pepper
bayleaf or allspice leaf (optional)
cider or white vinegar
coconut oil (1-2 tablespoons)
1-2 tsp of sugar

Procedure:

1. Take the cut up chicken, place in a bowl and rub thoroughly with a mixture of about 2 tablespoons of vinegar and a piece of recado about the size of half an egg.

2. Add several tablespoons each of soysauce and worchesterschire sauce and cumin, and dried thyme, oregano, and black pepper. Don't add salt yet.

3. Chop an onion or two and one large or two medium sweet peppers and chop up 3-5 cloves of garlic.

4. Heat the coconut oil in a large saucepan to medium high heat. Toss in the sugar. Add the chicken, skin side down, and brown, then turn and brown on the other side. Reserve the marinade from the chicken.

5. Add the onion, garlic and sweet peppers, turn heat down and saute until onion is transparent, then add the liquid from the chicken bowl, along with a glass or two of water, enough to almost cover the chicken.

6. Let simmer for 40 minutes to an hour, taste for flavour and adjust seasonings as needed. You may need to add more soy sauce, worchesterschire sauce or herbs to your taste. Add salt if needed.

7. Serve with rice and beans or stew beans and rice, fried plantains and a little side salad (coleslaw is classic) for a taste of one of Belize's most popular lunches.

Mark's Serre: a tale of the Belizean Love Affair with Coconut

2010-09-02T22:27:00.004-04:00

The Coconut. Round, brown, full of tasty white meat. Stacked up like cannon balls in your grocery store. In Belize coconut oil and coconut milk are ubiquitous ingredients in both Belizean Kriol/Creole and Garifuna cuisine. All Belizeans enjoy coconut flavoured rice and beans, or stew beans and rice, often accompanied by the rich umami of pigtail. But coconut oil and milk pop up in other places too: a wide range of breads, soups and stews demand their presence, and the oil is used to fry everything from plantain chips to fish.

Coconut milk based stews include crab soup, conch soup and serre, a delicious fish stew. All these hearty concoctions are the coconut equivalent of a cream-filled chowder, and just as rich, tasty and filling. I was lucky enough to eat all three during my time in Placencia, but Serre is probably the easiest to replicate anywhere a well stocked supermarket can be found. This is my friend Mark's recipe. A fellow foodie and Placencia native, his love of the sea and good cooking led to some memorable meals, ranging from freshly caught lobster salad and conch ceviche to braised barracuda steaks with sour cream. This was one of my favorites.

Mark’s Serre

Fish: about 2 pounds of mackerel, barracuda, culibri, any firm fleshed fish, steaked or cut into other bowl sized pieces.

Coco yam about 1 lb (or dasheen or taro root, found in most well stocked produce sections, in the "exotics" section. Ask your grocer, or substitute potatoes if you absolutely have to. See a picture here: coco yam)

Cassava root about 1 lb (again, most well stocked produce sections in a grocery store will have this around. See a picture here: Cassava root)

Onion (about two medium, finely diced)

Bell pepper (about two medium, finely diced)

1 can (2 cups if fresh) coconut milk

Water

Garlic (plenty, finely minced)

Cumin

Black pepper (fresh ground, to taste).

Cilantro

Salt

Preparation:

1. Peel cassava and coco yams (collectively known as ground-food in Belize because they come from the ground), cut into big chunks. The brown skin of the cassava will come off along with a white thin layer of underlying flesh. Finally chop onion, bell pepper. Crush black pepper, salt. Cook all vegetables and ground-food in a pot with coconut milk, plenty of minced garlic, pepper, a little cumin, salt and enough water to completely cover the ground-food. Cook until ground-food is tender. Add minced cilantro to taste .

People often include breadfruit, ripe plantain or green plantain fu-fu (cooked mashed green plantain dumplings) in this stage of the serre.

2. Once fish is cut into steaks or pieces, fry until browned in a little coconut oil.

3. Place fish in pot, on top of the stew of tender ground-food and vegetables, simmer til fish is done. This won't take long, test with a fork if need be.

4. Serve with pepper/onion sauce.

Pepper or Onion sauce

This is an essential accompaniment to the Serre. The acidity of the lime and vinegar and the heat of the habanero cut the richness of the coconut milk and create a perfect balance of flavor. Whether you call it pepper or onion sauce depends on the ratio of onion to habanero-go with what works best for your tastebuds and heat preference.

Habanero peppers

Onion

Cilantro

Lime juice

Vinegar

Preparation: Mince an onion and add to taste a quantity of finely minced habanero pepper. Remove the seeds and white internal membrane if you want to tone down the heat even more. Add minced cilantro, lime juice, vinegar and salt to taste. Some people like more vinegar, some like more lime juice. Experiment and see which you prefer. Let the whole concoction sit in a glass container. You can leave it covered on the counter for several weeks and it will stay perfectly fresh as the onion and pepper pickle themselves in the lime juice and vinegar.

Serve with Serre and other heavy stews, with refried beans at breakfast, on top of guacamole or anytime you need some hot pepper flavour.

Yes, I meant to post this in June but....Tropical Storms and Jam.

2010-08-21T15:14:00.002-04:00

This is a mango. Ripe, juicy, ready to be eaten over the sink so the dripping nectar doesn't mess up your kitchen counter. This particular piece of fruit was harvested the third week of June, on my family farm in Toledo, Belize. As you probably have noticed, its late August now. You may also have noticed that since I arrived in Belize for the summer, I haven't been very good about posting updates. It turns out that uploading photos on slow Internet is a frustrating exercise, one that was far less appealing than doing fieldwork or going for a swim in the Caribbean. So after my first heroic post, I decided to focus on my research and update everyone once I returned to the land of 4G networks and high-speed everything. But I had already written this article back in June. So keep that in mind as you read it. Everything below was typed in the last days of early summer.

So Belize just got hit by Tropical Storm Alex, which was the hurricane season equivalent of getting slapped out of nowhere. From a tropical wave to a storm in less than 24 hours, it was the first storm of the season. Luckily, apart from a few downed trees and electrical lines and mostly mild flooding, it was just really bad whether for about 36 hours. The contrast is ridiculous. Yesterday the winds were howling and gusting to almost 40Mph in Placencia, which is a quite a bit south of Belize City, which bore the brunt of the storm. Rain poured down and lashed the sides of the houses and drenched every inch of every person who ventured outside, regardless of how much gortex they had on. I came home from my fieldwork expedition outside with the beginnings of hypothermia and bright blue nails.

Today, it was warm, almost hot, with a light breeze and brilliant blue, partially clouded skies. Except for the occasional flooded yard, the inch of water on my kitchen and bathroom floors, and a couple sunken boats, you couldn't tell a storm had ever passed through.

But this blog entry is about something even more exciting than Tropical Storm Alex. This post is about my trip to my family farm in Toledo District, Belize. South of Placencia, in a bight on the coast, accessible only by boat, was my childhood home and the only place on earth where I can point to hundreds of trees and say "I planted those". There's nothing like the feeling of being surrounded by the fruits of ones own labor, waving their leaves at you in greeting in an afternoon breeze. I couldn't wait to get there.

Two days after I arrived in the country I got up super early to catch a water taxi, otherwise known as a large skiff with seats to cram 20 or so passengers eager to get from Placencia to Mango Creek. In Mango Creek (close to all the mango plantations) I walked up the road, had a leisurely breakfast and awaited the bus south. By 11 AM I was in Punta Gorda, the district capital for Toledo District, and the only official town. My parents met me and after a quick snack we jumped in our skiff and headed home. On a nice day, this is what the ride looks like:

Luckily for me it WAS a nice day and we had a good ride home. I spent about four days on the farm. In Mid-June the place was full of fruit: bananas, papayas, hundreds of mangoes dripping off the loaded trees and the American-football shaped Mamey Fruit, deeply sweet and mahogany hued, and one of my favorite fruits. Also bearing were Suriname cherries, red, ribbed with juicy flesh perfect for jam.

I made both mango and Suriname cherry jam, did a day of underwater archaeological fieldwork with a team from another university, hung out with my folks and enjoyed the beauty of the place. It was good to be home on the farm before the bulk of my research began. And the jam made good gifts for people that I had already started befriending. Even better, the only ingredient I had to pay for was sugar. All the fruit were free for the picking. I felt like a beachcomber a la my hero Euell Gibbons. It was refreshing experience that sent me back to Placencia in a good mood and ready to tackle my field work. Have you had any "free" food experiences? Maybe foraging wild plants? Or discovering a neglected apple trees on a street corner?

Belize, Beach and of course FOOD.

2010-06-17T20:12:00.000-04:00

So I'm in Belize for my aforementioned 2 months of predissertation research. I arrived this past Tuesday. In two days I have already amassed over 16 pages of typed notes from what we anthropologists like to call participant observation (otherwise known as wandering around, watching people, hanging out, helping out and chatting folks up). Since my area of focus is food my participant observation has involved a lot of eating and a lot of grocery shopping. I just wanted to share a couple delicacies with you.

Like mangoes! I have eaten two since I got here, one the size of my two fists, and one only a little bigger than a golf ball and sweet as sin. I love the wide range of mangoes available in the tropics. Ladyslipper, "hairy mango", Tommy Atkins, Julie mango, and those are only a very few of the many different shapes, sizes and flavours. Mangoes grow very well in the sandy, generally crappy soils found in this part of Belize, and especially on the penninsula that Placencia is on, which is basically just a strip of sand. The one pictured above is only about 2 inches long and fantastically sweet and flavourful.

What, ask you, are those other things? Those, my friend, are what we call "tableta" or "cuttabrute" a must for all coconut lovers, its made out of local brown sugar and grated coconut cooked together with coconut water and either pressed into a pan and cut into squares or shaped into bite size balls like these. I obtained both the cuttabrute and the mini-mango from this lady:

This is Ms.B. (for the sake of privacy I dont reveal her full name). She is a born and bred resident of Placencia and an excellent cook who has one of the best kitchens in the world. Check it out under the coconut tree, a mere 10 feet from the Caribbean.

You get to catch the sea breeze while you cook over the open bbq grill. She had rice (made with coconut oil) and jerk chicken (not a traditional Belizean dish, but thanks to tourism, one that you see around Placencia). I bought a plate and hung out with her for a while. It wasnt my only meal of the day. I started out with fresh corn tortillas from the tortilla factory down the street from my house, my big mango that a friend gave me,

local honey, hot tea and some cheese. And after my meal with Ms. B, I walked down the main road to Tutti Frutti, an Italian run Gelateria featuring tropical flavours like mango, coconut, banana, lime, soursop and the classic rum and raisin, with local rum. After my banana and rum and raisin I was ready for a nap. Thank goodness for siesta time! Tomorrow, I head to my family farm in Toledo District. Its only two boat rides and a bus away, and we are planning to catch some land crabs and have a crab boil while Im there. I'll be taking pictures, so stay tuned!

Rye Bread, Sushi and Tattoos: My weekend in Washington DC

2010-06-15T12:48:00.001-04:00

I just got back Sunday from an impromptu four day trip to my former home of Washington DC. I hadn't been in town since Cherry Blossom Time. By early June it had already become Sweaty Hot Outside and Freezing Inside Time in the nation's capital. But I didn't care because I was busy eating. Eating, cooking, drinking tequila and dancing. It was a good weekend. The only thing I didn't do much of was sleep, but that, as they say, can wait until I'm dead.

These ruffians are some of my culinary companions. The man on the left was my constant co-host of what we dubbed "Culinary Madness" during my years in DC. Lets call him "The Punk Chef". He would like that. In the middle, one of our many faithful taste-testers. To the right, a professional chef at the Greenbriar hotel in West Virginia, in town to wreak culinary havoc with The Punk Chef and I. We three shacked up in The Punk Chef's home, a rambling, art, junk and cat filled mansion in Georgetown which he takes care of for its wealthy and eccentric owner. The servents' quarters, on the first floor, boast a large and comfortable kitchen, which, apart from our quarters, was the only space free of the cloying scent of cat piss. It was the perfect spot to prepare the first meal of the weekend, which had been planned by my host before my arrival. A Russian Meal was the theme and the local Russian market had been raided to provide us with goodies ranging from smoked mackerel to a mustard of such pungency that it put wasabi to shame.

The mackerel was dismembered, the dumplings, sauerkraut, potatoes, rye bread, and other smoked fish was prepared and the hearty meal was enjoyed by all. The only thing missing: ice cold vodka. But that we remedied later that night. Post-prandial shenanigans ensued:

The next day we were all tired, hungover or both so supper was simple: left over rye, a nice baguette, triple cream cheese, a huge salad of organic pea shoots, lettuce, cranberries, rosemary, pecans and fresh goat cheese and a seared pork tenderloin, courtesy of our Greenbriar Chef.

We invited some friends and chowed down in our big comfy kitchen.

While in DC I made sure to eat at Nandos Peri Peri, the fabulous South African chicken chain that, so far, has only invaded Washington DC. If its raging success is anything to go by, it should soon be driving Popeye's out of business across the nation. You just can't compete with sangria, spicy grilled chicken, delicious butternut squash and couscous olive salad. You just can't. I don't have any good pictures to share, but just take my word for it and eat there. I also lunched on tapas at Jaleo, the original flagship restaurant for the Spanish DC restaurant mogul Jose Andres, and I have a photo to prove it. The gazpacho was perfect on a sultry DC afternoon:

The next day was sushi day: sushi from Sushi Uni, my favorite neighborhood sushi spot in Dupont Circle. It was also tacos de lengua day: tacos from the only real Mexican taco stand in the tri-state area, located conveniently outside the Maryland DMV. It was also Pride Parade Day and World Cup England vs. USA Game Day, but that's another story entirely!

Next stop: Belize and Placencia's Lobster Fest. I arrive tonight and I am already anticipating the taste of Belizean stewed chicken and coconut oil laced rice and beans.

A Few Changes Here, A Couple Updates There...

2010-05-20T13:34:00.001-04:00

If you are one of those patient folks who have actually followed my blog over its bumpy progress these past 12 months, you will probably notice some recent changes. A new header picture, featuring one of my favorite peppers (yes, its habanero), some adjustments to my side-bars and last but not least, a new blog name, Rice and Beans, a Belizean in the USA. Since I am no longer in Washington DC at the moment, and cannot predict with 100% certainty my next destination after Indiana, I figured a more general title would do the blog justice. For the same reason I got rid of my DC Blog-Roll by combining it with my general blog roll and deleting those blogs that have not been updated in the last year.

Another great addition has been a search option, also located on the side-bar right by my recipe index. So now you can search for a recipe or ingredient or topic and the search results will appear at the top of the page above the latest blog entry.

I hope that these changes will make the blog easier to navigate and more enjoyable to read. Let me know if you have any comments or suggestions!

And the gorgeous picture? Monticello Gardens, which I had the good fortune to visit when I still lived in DC several years ago. What beautiful places have you visited lately?

Watercress Salad with Mango and Lime

2010-05-19T11:00:00.003-04:00

So this salad was an experiment, the result of a big bunch of watercress and an invitation to a foodie BBQ being hosted by one of my fellow Anthropology of food cohort at Indiana University. I wanted to make something with the watercress and I ended up with a salad that combined it with mango, walnuts and dried cranberries, pecorino Romano cheese, mint and an olive oil and lime dressing. Despite my trepidation at the mix of ingredients, it was full of flavour and disappeared quickly at the BBQ. I fully intend to make it (or something like it) again. Who knew that mango and watercress could be such tasty bedfellows? Again the tropics and the temperate zone unite in something delicious.

Watercress Salad with Mango and Lime

1 large bunch watercress

Several handfuls of baby lettuce leaves, or one heart of a butterhead lettuce

3-4 sprigs of mint

About 1/3 cup dried cranberries or to taste

Half a large mango, cut into thin strips

Pecorino Romano cheese

About 1/3 cup toasted walnuts or pecans

1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp sugar

a couple grinds of fresh black pepper

Juice of one lime (may substitute the juice of one small lemon)

Procedure:

1. Rinse the lettuce and watercress and toss out the big stems and any discolored leaves. Thinly slice the mango and cut into matchsticks.

2. Pat greens dry with paper towels and place in a large bowl with mango, thinly sliced mint leaves and toasted nuts.

3. In a jar combine the cranberries, olive oil, sugar, salt, pepper and lime juice. Shake until emulsified and pour over the salad greens. Toss.

4. Top the salad with thinly shaved pecorino Romano to taste and serve.

Bloomington Farmers Market and Chickpea Andouille Soup with Greens

2010-05-12T14:33:00.037-04:00

This week has not been the kind of weather I expect as spring heads full blast towards summer. After days of sunshine and temperatures in the 80s, of sun-dresses and iced tea on the patio at Soma Coffee Shop and Juice Bar in downtown Bloomington, I was surprised by a sudden 30 degree drop and the arrival of thunderstorms, cold rain and even cooler air. Yesterday was day two of the cold weather and I had a lot of free time on my hands.

The month of May, now that my classes are over, has been slower than I thought it would be. Getting approval from the Institutional Review Board to do my research was a fast process, and my grants were disbursed without any hitches. So Tuesday found me at home, avoiding the gym and the reading I had planned to do in preparation for the field, with nothing else that I really needed to do. I decided to make bread, and set about stirring together the sponge for my Mom's all purpose recipe.

I went to the Bloomington Farmers Market this past Saturday and found it full to bursting of greens. Collards, five kinds of kale, Swiss chard, lettuces of all sorts, fresh picked spinach, watercress, dandelions and arugula. I loaded up on some Swiss chard, kale, watercress and bok choi. I already have plenty of lettuce on my balcony!

It was a cold day, with a brisk wind keeping customers and farmers alike shivering. But signs of spring were everywhere:

So this Tuesday I began thinking about what I would cook to go with the bread:

I had a bunch of left over chickpeas from the last batch I had cooked which I had planned to make into hummus, but the weather called for a different preparation. Normally I would have made my standard chickpea and pasta soup, but I didn't need pasta on top of the bread I was already making, and I had a lot of greens to get rid of. A walk to Bloomingfoods (a local food cooperative store) led me to procure a pack of humanely raised pork andouille sausage and some fair trade organic red wine from South Africa. A delicious idea was wafting through my mind: a deep rich broth filled with the flavour of andouille, soft savory greens, hearty chickpeas and tomato.

So I set to work and ended up with a bowl of the perfect hearty soup for a cool spring day. Along with the freshly made whole grain bread and a glass of wine. This is a simple recipe that begs for quality ingredients and is open to experimentation. I think it would be great with cannelini beans instead of chickpeas, and that an equally tasty version could be made with chorizo instead of andouille sausage. And omitting the sausage and replacing chicken bouillon with vegetable results in an equally good vegetarian soup.

Chickpea Andouille Soup with Greens

3 cups cooked chickpeas (may use canned, if washed and drained)

4 ounces pork andouille sausage, thinly sliced (or omit or substitute another sausage of your choice)

1 large bunch kale, collards or Swiss chard (about 6 cups with any tough stems removed and thinly sliced)

1 28 ounce can chopped tomatoes

1/2 tablespoon olive oil

4-5 cloves garlic, peeled and thinly sliced

2 teaspoons chicken bouillon

Water (3-6 cups as needed)

About 1/2 cup of your favorite red wine

Freshly ground black pepper

Oregano and basil, dried

Red pepper flakes (1 teaspoon or to taste)

Preparation:

1.Wash your greens of choice thoroughly. Cut out any tough stems off and chiffonade: stack the leaves up several at a time, roll them into a tube, then thinly slice with a sharp knife. They will come out in thin strips.

2. Thinly slice the sausage. Heat the oil on medium heat in a large pot, then add the sausage and cook for several minutes. Add the greens and stir, cooking until wilted. Add red pepper flakes, garlic, black pepper, oregano and basil to your taste. I like a good teaspoon of red pepper flakes and half a teaspoon of oregano, with just a touch of black pepper and basil.

3. Stir and cook for another minute or two, then add the tomatoes and chickpeas, chicken bouillon and enough water to make plenty of broth for dunking your bread. Add the red wine and let simmer for at least half an hour, preferably longer, to let the flavours meld.

4. Serve with slivers of Parmesan on top, and a hearty baguette or multigrain bread, something with a crust to soak up all the delicious broth.

Container Gardening, Anthropology of Food, and Upcoming Adventures in Belize

2010-05-06T15:34:00.025-04:00

Look at my tomato plants! Aren't they just divine? Don't they look happy? With their fuzzy leaves that smell like a ripe tomato leaping towards the Indiana sun? The frustrated farmer in me is ecstatic. While I did alright with my plastic lined wine crates in the window-sill back in DC, I have to admit, an ample balcony has been the agricultural equivalent of upgrading from a New York City studio to a Hollywood mansion.

Feast your eyes on cilantro, flat leaf parsley, lemon basil and baby lettuce-leaf basil that I keep willing to grow faster as I drool in anticipation of vats of pesto, radishes that are getting fat in their little pots, 2 different kinds of tomatoes (San Marzanos for sauce, Giant Goliaths for eating fresh off the vine), Italian heirloom grilling peppers, nasturtiums, butterhead lettuce. For aesthetic appeal, dahlias and two kinds of calla lilies. And this is just the first year. Next summer I want cucumbers. I want more kinds of peppers. I want oregano, thyme, mint, rosemary. I want it all!

Did I mention there's room for my new weber grill and post run exercises on my yoga mat as well? With a balcony this big, I could grow pretty much everything but corn and pumpkins. And who knows, with a big enough container...

I have PLANS for this balcony. Aside from gardening, I'm thinking a kiddie pool would be perfect for lounging in while reading on hot summer days. And perhaps I'll reach over and pick a ripe tomato, without even having to get out of the water!

But these fantasies will have to wait until next summer. Because, as the title of this post indicates, I am anticipating Upcoming Adventures in Belize. Thanks to several small grant-making institutions on campus, I am the proud recipient of enough money to go do some pre-dissertation fieldwork in my home country. So instead of lounging in a kiddie pool in Indiana, taking summer classes and picking tomatoes, I'll be living in a small beach town in southern Belize, talking to people about their experiences and attitudes towards food and its role in the construction, maintenance and refutation of sex and gender roles.

That's right, I'm researching three of my absolute favorite topics. And I'm nervous as hell about it. You try marching up to someone and asking them what they think about food-for-sex metaphors (for those not familiar with the concept: when a banana isn't just a banana, that's a food-for-sex metaphor) and the gendered nature of power struggles over appropriate sex and gender roles as they are played out through food. It can't be done. Food and sex are two of our most intimate and fundamental drives/acts/desires and most of us do not respond kindly to strangers inquiring about them. Plus, check out this sign that I ran across last time I was there:

Apparently I have an uphill job ahead of me. So instead of marching, I shall be sidling (in a friendly manner) up to folks on the street, at the local eateries and corner stores, and hoping to find people who are interested in talking to me about their life experiences with food. With any luck, I'll be able to learn about gender roles in the different aspects of food procurement, preparation and consumption. People like to tell stories and it shouldn't be hard to find out if little Linda learned to cook from her mom while Jose was never taught, or if there is any particular food that is associated with men or women (see my earlier post on gendered food).

I expect to be working hard. Yep. Its gonna be a tough life living here for two months:

Did I fail to mention that Placencia puts on a three day long annual Lobsterfest the last weekend in June? Complete with dance competitions, grilled spiny lobster fresh from the Caribbean, and a full on Belizean Beach Bashment? (otherwise known as a party on the beach). I shall be forced to attend, I'm afraid, as a three day beach party celebrating a local food is the perfect spot to investigate food, sex and gender in action. What's a researcher to do!

What are your summer plans and what kind of great foods are you looking forward to eating? Me, I can't wait for fish panades, garnaches, rice and beans, fry fish with Marie Sharps hot sauce and a nice cold glass of lime juice on a hot Belizean day.

Fun times with winter salads

2010-03-06T20:52:00.012-05:00

The stereotypical American restaurant salad usually involves lettuce (iceberg in chunks for the especially unlucky) and tomatoes in combination with a few other possible veggies like little strips of carrot or purple cabbage, strewn confetti like, and topped with too big croutons or (the horror) shredded american cheese.

Luckily for me I usually eat my salads at home and I like to avoid stereotype. I also like to avoid tomatoes in the dead of winter: they can't possibly be from anywhere near Bloomington Indiana in these frigid times (no greenhouse farmers in this neck of the woods) and they arent near as good, usually, as the fabulous local tomatoes I had last August.

In the winter-time there are a lot of other options for salad experimentation: some of the best U.S. grown citrus is in the grocery stores, winter squashes are waiting to be cooked, diced and added to the salad bowl, and a variety of greens, beyond the lowly lettuce, may be around.

The salad pictured above was the first of two recent creations. This one involved chickpeas, red onion, locally grown spinach from the winter farmers market, feta cheese, carrots and a tahini-garlic dressing. In retrospect I decided that the grapefruit and garlic DID NOT match, but I think the salad would be a real winner if the garlic was omitted and the tahini lemon dressing retained.

The second salad that I threw together was a real winner AND did, I am afraid, involve both tomatoes (at least they were US grown) and avocado (also US grown, yay California!). I'm afraid local foods were totally out on this one, but it was very tasty. Chickpeas (yes, again, I had just cooked a big pot of them, so sue me!), avocado, feta cheese, red onion, tomato and lettuce with a squeeze of lemon ( I didnt have a lime in the house), salt, a touch of hot sauce and some fresh cilantro made for a great post-workout lunch.

So the next time you go the salad route, think about trying something new. Maybe some grapefruit. Maybe some chickpeas. Or try out my other awesome citrus winter salad, guaranteed to stave off any common cold: Butterhead Lettuce and Orange Salad. Live it up! Iceberg lettuce will only take you so far...

Experimenting with Cookies

2010-02-15T18:42:00.010-05:00

So today I had to help my brother lug his baggage through the snow and down a slushy road (the sidewalks weren't shoveled) to the bus stop near my house. Driving downtown so he could catch a shuttle to Indianapolis airport was out of the question as the snowy slope of the drive easily defeated our toyota corolla, obviously made for sunnier climes. We got the bush right on time and made it to campus an hour before his shuttle, so sipped chai lattes and caught up some more before his departure.

However, I wasn't feeling so hot already and by the time I trudged through more snow, caught a bus home and then slushed my way into the icy wind back to my apartment I was feeling distinctly under the weather. It was warm in my apartment, WARM and COZY and INVITING and all those words that northerners invented just to make themselves feel better about the fact that they are stuck in frigid temperatures for months out of the year while us tropical folks enjoy 12 months of tan lines.

This particular transplant to the north was ready to collapse into bed, but I had work to do. So I did a little writing on my paper, and then pleasantly distracted myself by cooking. The perfect thing to do when its 10 degrees and blowing snow outside. Plus it helps heat up the apartment without having to raise the thermostat, and produces food! A win, win, win situation. So I made beer bread, courtesy of Susan of the great blog Farmgirl Fare. Then I made a great chickpea pasta soup that I'll blog about later, to go with the bread, of course. And since the oven WAS already on, I decided to do some experimentation with cookies.

I dont usually bake sweets mainly because me and my partner in crime both have serious sweet tooths and would eat way too much sugar if I started churning out cakes and pies every week. So it had literally been months since my last sugary baking project. But I had been thinking about my morning oatmeal and how I could turn it into a cookie. I love my oats cooked with dried cranberries, candied ginger, sunflower seeds, dates and bananas. Sometimes it'll be walnuts or coconut instead of sunflower seeds. Some days I wont have bananas. Some days I run out of candied ginger. But the overall flavour combo is terrific and I wanted an oatmeal COOKIE that could capture that awesomeness in a less wholesome and more desserty kind of way.

My final cookie incorporated candied ginger, dried cranberries, dates and toasted chopped macademia nuts. I also added sea salt for a savory crunch. They need a little tweaking before I post the recipe here, but they were definitely very good and I'm trying to keep from eating them all tonight. I hope to post the final recipe soon. In the meantime, its back to schoolwork for me.

Food, Sex and Gender....A new semester at Indiana University

2010-01-31T22:30:00.002-05:00

So its a new semester for me at Indiana University (as of a month ago:P) and I'm excited to say that my first class of the week, my Monday afternoon delight, is a course taught by my advisor Rick Wilk on food, sex and gender. This lovely triumverate of topics brings a whole new meaning to the term "food porn" and elicites thought about the extremely gendered nature of food and food advertising. For example, to judge by today's advertisements, only women consume yogurt or soymilk in any form. These foods are almost exclusively marketed to women: svelte, healthy and happy looking women with perfect digestive tracts thanks to the wonders of the products they are consuming.

Some other highly gendered foods: chocolate, salads, steak, hamburgers, desserts and sweets, quiche ("real men don't eat quiche"). What gender is my photo up top? I would love to hear peoples' views on how marketing and social interaction genders certain foods. What foods are gender neutral? Any comments? Insights?

Our class is doing a panel at an international food studies conference in May. The title? "Sometimes a Banana is Just a Banana". And sometimes it isn't. What do you think?

Its Cold in Pennsylvania!

2009-12-19T11:50:00.014-05:00

Normally I spend my Christmas holiday in Belize. Warm humid air, coconut trees, parrots waking me up in the morning, rain pounding on the tin roof at night, and black fruit cake and breadfruit on the Xmas dinner table are all traditions that I hold dear. This year, however, my father had to have a surgery that involved physical therapy which he could not obtain in my remote part of Belize, so my parents stayed on in Reading, PA over the Xmas holiday. For my brother and me, that meant canceling our plane tickets home and heading to Central Pennsylvania instead of Central America for our winter vacation.

I'm not a fan of winter. I like sunshine. Winter is often dreary and grey and it gets dark at a ridiculously early hour. I like humidity. In winter the air gets so dry I wake up in the middle of the night with my skin tightening over my body like a sausage link on a grill. I love warmth. Winter, my friends, is COLD. Therefore, I do not like winter, and I greet its arrival with disdain and its departure with a level of exuberant celebratory happiness usually reserved for weddings, New Year's parties and lottery winners. The one and only thing I like about winter in the temperate zone is that I have an excuse to wear my awesome leather biker jacket. But I would give that up immediately if the alternative was bikinis by the pool.

Now for all those real Christians and secular (or, as I like to call myself, pseudo) Christians out there, Winter means Christmas and Christmas means food. Holidays often function like a black hole for custom, pulling in and retaining traditional practices and activities long after their meaning or the original cultural context has disappeared. This explains the continuing popularity of songs about horse drawn sleighs when ford tundra SUVs with built in back seat DVD players are more likely to be the suburban transport of choice. It also explains the preponderance of "traditional" family recipes around this time of year. In Reading, PA, which is only a stone's throw from Lancaster County, heart of Pennsylvania Dutch (really German) culture, this means masses of cookies, pies and other sweets along with the very important sours: pepper cabbage, three bean salad, sauerkraut and other vinegary foods that offset and complement the German sweet tooth. While I am missing my black fruit cake, rum po po (a very strong rum based egg nog) and other Belizean holiday treats, I am looking forward to chowing down on some sauerkraut real soon. In fact, I was lucky enough to enjoy some homemade sauerkraut at my last Food, Art and Identity class just last week and it has just primed my taste buds for more.

Today I was supposed to go help a family friend make venison scrapple, and I was planning on posting all about this regional delicacy right here, with pictures and all, but the snow has kept us from driving up into the hills to his house. So instead I wanted to ask you all what food or beverage do you consider absolutely essential to the winter season? Is it hot chocolate piled high with whipped cream? Peppermint candy canes? Sugar cookies sprinkled red and green? Your Granddad's famous beef stew? Or your Auntie's best black fruit cake?

Its been three months.

2009-12-04T11:45:00.005-05:00

Its been about three months since I last posted on this blog. And I was beginning to think that I would never get back to it. Because on August 16th Jose and I drove 10 and a half hours from DC to Bloomington, Indiana. We arrived tired, headachy, and starving. I promptly hopped on the local wireless and did a search for "best pizza in Bloomington". Thus I found Avers Pizza, a Chicago style place, and ordered our first meal, a Deluxe deep dish.

The next day after crashing on an air mattress in an otherwise empty bedroom we arose at 7 AM to greet the moving truck and spent all morning and days afterwards moving into my new, suburban apartment. After living in the beating heart of downtown Washington DC it was quite an adjustment, and continues to be so, to live in a culdesac where at night it is completely pitch black outside. A 10 minute walk takes one to the strip mall, a grocery store and movie theater and many other suburban amenities, but it just doesn't replace my DC neighborhood.

So then why, one may wonder, would I leave DC for Indiana if DC is so wonderful? Well, as I have mentioned previously, its all about the PhD. Specifically, the PhD in socio-cultural anthropology with a concentration in Food and an outside minor in Human Sexuality (at the famed Kinsey Institute). The past three months I have spent trying to construct a new life, in a new (college) town, a new routine, new friends and a new focus: my PhD. I've also returned to DC several times already to see my friends that I consider family, and to eat seafood without feeling guilty. (Its just hard for me to eat seafood when living in a state that is soo freakin' far from the sea!).

So for those that were wondering, that is where I have been. My first month here I barely cooked except for the occasional pasta. Even since then my cooking has taken a nose dive. Bowls of oatmeal, grits and cereal, pasta and canned sauce and quick one pot melanges of whatever veggies are at hand have been my mainstay during the past weeks, supplemented by eating out way too often for health or budget at cheap cafes in Bloomington.

But yesterday was my birthday and even though I am in the middle of my final papers (including a treatise on the role of terroir, sustainability and landscape in the debate over the meaning of Organic Agriculture), I have promised myself that I would start updating this blog again. It has been a source of great fun and fulfillment to me since I started it and I hate to see it fall by the wayside. So again, for those of you who have given up on me ever updating this little site again, I promise to be better in the future and try to put up at least a couple entries with photos and food every month. I will also probably share with you some of my work and discoveries about food and farming from my PhD projects. Thanks for waiting and I hope not to disappoint in the future!!

I thought I would share a picture of my food, art and identity class, where each Monday we discuss our readings, watch films and eat delicious food that we have brought to share:

New Orleans Sandwiches!!!

2009-08-24T14:02:00.001-04:00

So I spent 8 days in New Orleans this July. New Orleans is just a culinary kind of town. Its impossible to say the name of the city without starting your mouth a-watering imagining crawfish and shrimp, etouffee and jambalaya, pecan pralines and crab gumbo. But one thing stood out. And that was the sandwiches. Two famous sandwiches call New Orleans home: The Po' boy and the Muffaletta/Muffuletta. Both are delicious. Both are indigenous to this unique city. And both got devoured by yours truly on my vacation to the big easy.

According to my friend Vincenzo, who has lived in New Orleans for a number of years now, the best muffaletta is to be found at an Italian diner type place called Franks, located in the heart of the French Quarter.

Here I am in front of the famous Frank's, which operates a bustling to-go service as well as serving sit-down diners.

Some of the delicious pickled olive salad that goes into an authentic muffaletta, on display in Frank's window.

Doesn't it just look delicious? Layers of cheese, Italian cold cuts and the most important of all: the olive salad. And dont forget, it should be warm upon serving!

This is a huge sandwich by the way. Frank's sells them whole or by the half. If there is only one of you, order a whole one and save the other half for dinner: believe me, this is a taste thats so good, you will want to enjoy it twice.

The other world famous sandwich from New Orleans is even better known: the Po'boy. Vincenzo took us to Mother's, a famous local spot that tourists rarely make it to, located near the business district downtown. They get a lot of lunch traffic from the nearby highrise office buildings as people hurry in to get the famous baked ham po'boys. The better known oyster, fish and shrimp po'boys are on offer as well, but its the meat the makes Mother's famous.

My friend Ted in front of Mother's.

Like any good down home joint, the menu is written on a chalkboard and the entrees are served up from a heat table. Almost everything is good, but we are here for the po'boys!

They only take cash.

The interior doesn't have to impress, the pictures on the wall tell the story of a place with staying power.

My sandwich. With the famous baked ham, as well as pulled pork bbq and roast beef. And coleslaw on the bottom. It was amazing. And mind you, this is only the half po'boy. Order the full size if you want enough calories to last you two days.

Vincenzo digging into his po'boy. If you ever go to New Orleans, don't forget to try these unique and delicious sandwiches out at these great locations. While there is always going to be plenty of argument about where the best muffaletta or the best po'boy can be found, I guarantee that Mothers and Franks both have excellent sandwiches. You wont regret a visit!

Culinary Madness at Fort Myer Army Base

2009-07-12T22:47:00.001-04:00

As I mentioned in a previous post, my friends and I like to get together to do a little thing we call "Culinary Madness". This food-focused extravaganza can take place anywhere at any time and involve any number of people. This time we had an unusual locale: Fort Myer, an army base located next to the Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, just across the river from Washington DC and about a 3 mile walk from my apartment. Fort Myer is home to the Old Guard, a prestigious group of soldiers who perform the funerals, stand watch at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and participate in many other ceremonial duties at Arlington National Cemetery.

One of our close friends happens to be an Old Guard soldier who was not allowed off base on this lovely weekend in late June. What made this particularly frustrating for him is that his only sister was in town specifically to visit him, yet he could not leave Fort Myer to spend time with her. So instead we brought the fun to him in the form of a Culinary Madness BBQ!

That morning I had visited the Dupont Circle Farmers' Market, where I picked up new potatoes, cross cut lamb leg steaks, zucchini and sweet onions. The fruits at the market looked tempting and I bought the season's first peaches, blueberries, raspberries, strawberries and the juiciest most delicious apricots I've ever eaten.

A stop by the grocery yielded the rest of our ingredients. Back at my apartment I cut the leg of lamb steaks (which are basically a cross section of the lamb leg) into kebab pieces and marinated them in garlic, fresh rosemary, olive oil and salt, a touch of cumin and a dash of smoked paprika. Then we loaded everything into my friend Sophia's car and drove across the river and through the security checkpoint up to our friend's barracks. There we found the bbq pit and set out to make the best grilling action that Delta Company had ever seen!

Our work space consisted of a wrought iron table next to the grill:

Check out the new potatoes, which we dressed simply with salt and olive oil and cooked in foil packets on the grill:

Yum!

This is our soldier friend's famous fruit salad which he concocted with the Farmers' market fruits. Macerated in a touch of sugar and topped and with whipped cream they made for a fantastic dessert.

Sophia's plate. Note the yogurt-mint-garlic sauce to complement the lamb, and our handy wine "glasses".

The siblings chowing down on some kebab with music from our barracks-blaster aka a blackberry perched above them:

Me dancing to techno and cutting veggies for the kebabs:

As we were cooking people from the company circled around and some ended up sampling our kebabs. Here our friend (to the far right) and some of his buddies pose with lamb.

It was a good day: we had great food and enjoyed the outdoors and our friend got to see his sister:

Enjoying good Food, Friends and Family, that's what Culinary Madness is all about!

Healthy Garlic Bread

2009-07-06T21:41:00.000-04:00

Ok, those of us in love with the allium family know all about the glory that is garlic bread, right? Hot, crispy around the edges, dripping lashings of butter, fragrant with garlic, just asking to be torn to pieces and stuffed into one's hungry maw....

But one thing garlic bread isn't is healthy. Most recipes call for tons of melted butter. This one is made with heart-friendly olive oil, scads of Garlic, fresh herbs and large grained sea salt. If you are watching your sodium intake just omit the salt, its still delicious!

Healthy Garlic Bread

Serves 6 as a side dish. The choice of herbs is up to you, I list here the ones that I am partial to. This is a wonderful recipe to showcase fresh herbs from the garden.

1 (preferably whole wheat) baguette, split length-wise and then cross wise into 6 pieces total.

1/4 to 1/3 cup olive oil

1/2 to one large head garlic, minced or squashed

1 small handful basil leaves, minced

1 or 2 sprigs rosemary, minced

2-3 sprigs of oregano, minced

1 heaping teaspoon large grained sea salt (optional)

Optional: while not quite as healthy, the addition of 2 tablespoon of freshly grated parmesan or reggiano cheese contributes another layer of flavour to the garlic bread.

several grindings of fresh black pepper.

Procedure:

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Cut the bread and mince the garlic and herbs.

2. Mix the garlic and herbs with the salt, pepper and olive oil in a small bowl. Stir in cheese if using.

3. Place the bread face up in a bake pan and using a pastry brush or a spatula, spread the cut surfaces with the garlic-herb-oil mixture.

4. Place the garlic bread in the oven and bake for 10-15 minutes or until the edges get golden. A couple seconds under the broiler can toast the surface further if desired.

5. Serve immediately. Perfect with a fish or steak dinner along with a side salad or grilled vegetables.

It's been a while...

2009-06-09T17:30:00.004-04:00

Those of you who follow my blog probably have been wondering what the heck happened. Where did she go? And whats this with no posts AT ALL for the month of April? I think I've hit a record high for not keeping up with my bloggerly responsibilities.

But its been a busy and exciting time for me. So I have excuses. Tons of them. Pages and pages of them. Books full, in fact. Starting with my Archaeology text books, and moving on to my Linguistic Anthropology text books (which ironically talk about, among other things, texts, intextualization, contextualization, detextualization and retextualization)and finally to a huge stack of fascinating work by Anthropologists from Latin America for my Anthropology of Latin America class. From the really frigid and dark depths of winter I have read, written and studied my way to the warm and sunny days of spring, past the cherry blossoms and into those fresh clean green days of late springtime when the weather demands that you rush outside and play. And now, I'm done.

As of mid-May I turned in my final paper and have found myself enjoying the joys of not having to read anything I dont want to, not having to write except when I feel like it and not having to get up at 6:30 in the morning and spend all Friday in front of books, notes and my computer just so I could justify a night of dancing instead of studying. I graduated with my Masters in Anthropology on May 18th and I couldn't have been more ready.

But thats not the end of it. As some of you know, I applied to various schools last fall to enter a PhD program in Anthropology. I even did a post all about Bloomington Indiana where Indiana Univeristy, with its PhD in Anthropology with a concentration in Food Studies, is located. As March turned in April this year I waited anxiously to find out where I got in. And finally I got the news that not only had I been accepted at Indiana University, but I got a full scholarship as well. So this August I will be moving to a whole new region of this fascinating country, where, no doubt, I will experience culture shock all over again, but will also eat some new and delicious food and have some great experiences.

In the meantime I am trying to enjoy every moment of my time with all my friends here in Washington DC. This has involved a lot of eating out, but there has been some cooking via a program we call "culinary madness". I'll be talking a bit more about that in my next post. For now, I leave you with a picture of the graduate celebrating at the Cheesecake Factory where I had possibly one of the best vegetarian sandwiches, an amazing eggplant sandwich, that I have ever consumed. I know, I can't believe it either! The cheesecake factory is not exactly known for fine cuisine but this was scrumptious! And a perfect celebratory meal after standing in drizzle on the National Mall for several hours of graduation commencement.

Some ideas for your next one pot dinner.

2009-05-01T10:07:00.011-04:00

Its that time of year again. Asparagus time! The farmers market down at Dupont Circle is full of bunches of green and purple tipped sprouts, fat and tasty, just waiting to be chopped into a salad or sauteed with olive oil and lemon. Here is a great one pot spring dish that is flexible enough to be adapted to your left-overs. Turkey, Orzo, Fresh Asparagus, Lemon Juice, Olive Oil, Parsley and Capers dress up this spring "stir fry" in my version but feel free to substitute barley, wheat berries, brown rice or some other grain for the orzo, omit the turkey entirely or use ham or chicken instead.

Orzo with Asparagus, Lemon and Turkey

About 2 cups turkey meat chopped into bite-sized pieces (or chicken or ham or omit entirely)

2 large bunches of asparagus, washed and cut into sections.

2 cups cooked orzo (or substitute brown rice, barley, wheat berries or other cooked grains)

1/2 cup feta cheese, or to taste (you may use low or non-fat feta if prefered)

Zest and Juice of one large lemon (organic of course)

1-2 tbsp capers or to taste

around 1/2 cup of white wine

about 1/2 cup minced flat leaf parsley

2 medium cloves garlic, minced or smashed.

1 large bunch green onions, chopped

2 tsp-1 tbsp olive oil

Salt and fresh ground black pepper

Red pepper flakes to taste

Procedure:

1. Heat the olive oil in a large saute pan to medium heat. Sautee the green onions and asparagus, add the garlic and half the parsley and cook for a minute.

2. Add the cubed turkey meat and brown for a minute or two.

3. Add the white wine, capers, lemon zest and half the juice. Stir in the cooked orzo or grain of your choice. Lower the heat to medium-low and cook for several minutes, stirring regularly.

4. Add salt and pepper, red pepper flakes and lemon juice to taste. Stir in remaining parsley.

5. Turn off the heat, stir in the feta cheese, adjust seasonings if needed, add more lemon juice if necessary. Serve with a side salad and a nice glass of wine.

Happy St. Paddy's Day!

2009-03-17T22:09:00.003-04:00

A little bit of Ireland in Florida, at TooJay's Gourmet Deli in Altamonte Springs. Happy St. Patrick's Day everybody!

My Grandma's "Raisin Breakfast Biscuits"

2009-03-16T21:39:00.000-04:00

My Grandma is famous for these delectable breakfast breads, which she has been making since the early sixties, when she had 8 hungry little kids begging for them on special occasions like Easter and Christmas and their birthdays. My Mom always called them breakfast cookies, and that is an apt name, as they are sweet and moreish. One simply can't eat just one of these tasty brunch treats. They are a staple at Grandma's house when relatives come to visit, and so it was no surprise that we enjoyed them this week during my spring break visit with my mom, aunt, uncle and cousin.

My Grandmother got the recipe from a magazine proudly toting the virtues of California Raisins. It is easy to make and relies on pre-made biscuit dough. You, however, are welcome to substitute a recipe of your favorite biscuit dough if you would prefer to make them from scratch. Simply roll and cut the biscuits and then proceed as below. This recipe makes enough topping to cover at least 30 biscuits, but you can simply store any leftover topping in a tightly closed container until you want to make some more. And believe me, you will want to make these regularly!

Mix together the 1 cup of brown sugar, 1 cup of chopped nuts and 1 cup of raisins. My cousin hates raisins, so my grandma always mixes up a bit of sugar and nuts (sans the hated dried grapes) for her. If you are in the no-raisin camp, you can simply use 1 and 1/2 cup brown sugar and 1 and 1/2 cup of chopped nuts, or replace the cup of raisins with dried cranberries, blueberries, cherries or chopped dried fruit of any kind. You may also flavour the topping with cinnamon, ginger or other spices or add a bit of minced candied ginger if you so desire. Personally, I love them just the way they are, but that won't prevent me from future experimentation.

The pre-made biscuits.

Patting them out.

The magic mixture!

Ready for the oven!

Inauguration and A Glance at DC Dining...

2009-02-21T08:02:00.028-05:00

It is getting on towards the end of February and I know that makes it a bit late to be talking about the inauguration, after all, that was so last month! But here in DC we are still getting used to having someone in the White House that we actually voted for (something like 94 percent of the city votes Democrat), and the civil rights history of Washington DC gives Obama's presence in our town a special meaning for those Washingtonians who saw the marches, riots and struggles for equality first hand.

The inauguration was a time of hope, celebration and insanity as roughly 2 million people descended on Washington DC. Restaurants and bars were given special dispensation to stay open for 24 hours at a time and many took advantage of the crowds, hoping to make enough over the weekend to keep from going under in this time of recession. Personally I hosted friends from New Orleans, who made us a mean jambalaya one evening, but we also enjoyed a couple of restaurants that are worth mentioning (I'll get to them in a bit).

The morning of the inauguration itself we headed to the World War II Memorial, which is located on the National Mall on the end further away from the Capital. We knew we weren't going to catch a glimpse of the first lady and president in person, so we settled for a less crowded area where we could watch the ceremonial events on an enormous video screen with a bunch of other freezing, excited folks. Some people had already been on the mall or along the parade route since 5 in the morning. We weren't quite that extreme, sauntering down past the national guardsmen and the security blockades at a decadently late 9:30 AM.

A friend and I in the crowds at the National Mall.

The folks standing to our left.

It was cold out there and by the time the swearing in had occurred, certain of our party could no longer feel their feet. So we hightailed it back to the warm apartment and settled down with hot cocoa, tea, orange slices, tortilla chips and salsa, pretzels and other snacky items. Soon phone calls came from frozen friends and it turned into a little post-inauguration get together as other people dropped by to warm up on their way home.

Maybe it was all those hours standing out in the cold, or maybe it was the food, or the pre-inauguration parties the night before, but some ended up staying longer than they expected. Snack-time turned into a mid-afternoon slumber party. The cat whole-heartedly approved.

But enough about the inauguration, let us talk about dining out in Washington DC! During that exciting week I ate out a couple times, once at Mourayo, a fabulous, somewhat upscale Greek restaurant in Dupont Circle, where we enjoyed attentive if unsmiling service, grilled pita with an excellent olive oil, a beautiful octopus appetizer and hearty and filling bowls of goat stew, and once, as a very belated birthday present, at the famous chef Michel Richard's relatively affordable bistro, Central. There I sumptuously dined on the most delicious tartare (of filet mignon) that I have ever eaten in my life, and a very tasty salmon and lentil entree. I left vowing to return just so I could have the tartare experience again. The service was wonderful-when the waiter saw me staring over a half wall to catch a glimpse of the cooking action, she offered to re-seat me and moved us to a table right next to the open kitchen.

I highly recommend both locales. If you go to Mourayo, get the octopus appetizer, and Central's filet mignon tartare, if you aren't a vegetarian, is really to die for. Mourayo recently expanded their space so it is almost twice its former size and the atmosphere has improved as a result. Central is chic to the max, and the best deal, so they tell me, is to sit at the bar, get a famous cocktail from their mixologist and order one of the hearty appetizers (like the tartare), which are really a meal in themselves. The inauguration may be over, but if you come to DC for some other reason (and if you don't currently have a reason to come to DC, these restaurants should be excuse enough), these are two dining options that you don't want to miss.

Butterhead Lettuce and Orange salad with Pepitas and Cranberries

2009-01-29T22:00:00.013-05:00

I was in Orlando, Florida for a brief couple of days in January, before my final semester of graduate school began. While I was there I went by the local citrus shack with my Grandmother to pick up some fresh squeezed orange juice. The place is nothing more than a little wooden building and gravel parking lot with sacks of enormous oranges and grapefruits displayed on rough wood stands next to the doorway. Out back the packing shed attaches right onto the retail store, which contains fresh citrus of all kinds, bottled key lime juice, marmalade, fresh juices and kitschy coconut and seashell themed food gifts for those deprived of the Florida sunshine. They have free juice samples and cut up fruit to try, which we always do, and they ship boxes of fruit all over the country.

My Grandmother regularly ships grapefruit and oranges to her ice-bound offspring in the far north. I thought this was a good idea and so I ordered half a bushel of oranges for myself while I was there. They arrived in DC about 3 days after my return and you could smell them through the heavy corrugated cardboard as I lugged them from the front desk of my apartment building.

I unloaded them in my kitchen-huge navels the size of mutant softballs, heavy with juice. Soon every nook and corner of my fridge was stacked high, but I still had half a box sitting open on the floor. For the last 2 and half weeks I have been eating oranges everyday, starting my morning off with a big bowl of the cut up fruit. Faced with a surfeit of quality citrus, I did the only thing I could do-began inventing recipes.

I know it is the depth of winter for those of us in the cold north, and salads are probably the last thing on your mind. But this salad is a flu-preventative all by itself. Packed with flavour and colour, vitamin C, fiber and healthy fats from the pumpkin seeds and olive oil, this salad will cure what ails you and is a great way to use the nice oranges that can be found in most markets this time of year.

Butterhead Lettuce and Orange Salad with Pepitas and Dried Cranberries

Serves two generously, 4 as a side salad.

Roughly 4 ounces of butterhead lettuce, washed and torn into bite sized pieces (about 1 medium or half a large head of lettuce)

8 ounces of orange, either supremed or merely peeled and chopped into bite sized pieces.

2 ounces of red onion, thinly sliced. (about half a medium-small onion)

3 tbsp dried cranberries

2 tbsp toasted pepitas (pumpkin seeds-you can use your own or buy them shelled if you prefer)

1 tsp olive oil

Juice of half a large lemon

Sea salt and fresh ground black pepper

About 1/2 tsp smoked paprika (to taste)

Optional: 2 ounces of feta (I use fat free. This makes for a more substantial, meal-like salad)

Procedure:

1. Tear up your lettuce and place it in a large bowl. Cut up and add the oranges and any juice that comes with them. Thinly slice and add the onion. Generously salt and pepper your salad.

2. Toast your pepitas in a frying pan or cast iron pot over medium heat until them begin to smell good and make popping noises. Add them and the dried cranberries to the salad.

3. Squeeze over the lemon juice, add the olive oil and smoked paprika and the feta cheese if you are using it. Toss the salad well and serve. The orange tends to migrate towards the bottom of the bowl, so make sure to dig deep so everyone gets the citrusy goodness.

Blueberries and Malt?

2009-01-27T22:32:00.004-05:00

Seems a strange combination, you might say. But I'm addicted to it and I blame it all on the King Arthur Flour Company and all those Dori Greenspan recipes out there featuring malted milk powder. Well, maybe there was only one Dori Greenspan recipe, but those Chocolate Malted Whopper Cookies sure got a lot of press! All the articles reminded me of how much I love malt and malted milkshakes-my absolutely favorite way of using ice cream in a dessert. Plus, I wanted to make the bagels featured in Peter Reinhart's great bread book, the Breadbakers Apprentice.

So I just went ahead and bought malted milk powder for dessert purposes and diastatic malt for bagel making. You can learn all about the differences between the two here. I couldn't find either of them at the grocery stores near me, so I popped onto the King Arthur Flour website, which I had never been on before, and ordered a pound of each. Since then I haven't made a single bagel (I will sometime, I promise), but I have discovered a new and gorgeous ice cream flavour combination.

Some of you may recall my penchant for making frozen yogurt with that already sweetened non-fat vanilla yogurt (organic of course) that you can find in most stores. Well, since I love all things ice-cream and am always looking for frozen treats that are low in saturated fat (no french custard creams in my house), it wasn't long before I started adding malt to my standard frozen yogurt recipe. At that point I had been making it with tiny frozen blueberries from Trader Joe's. These little blueberries (grown organically in Quebec) have much more flavour and less water in them than the huge ones you usually see, and they mixed deliciously with my vanilla frozen yogurt. But the addition of malted milk powder took the whole thing to a new level of yumminess-to the point where I eat some of this concoction almost every day for dessert.

Blueberry Malt Frozen Yogurt

Makes 4 servings, 135 calories each.

This recipe is simplicity itself. All you need are:

2 cups of non-fat vanilla yogurt (if you want to use part or full-fat you are certainly welcome to do so)

1 cup of frozen blueberries (or you may use fresh if they are in season, but keep in mind that room temperature berries will cause the ice cream to take longer to churn-freezing or chilling them makes the most sense)

1/4 cup of malted milk powder (do NOT use chocolate malt powder- you want plain malted milk powder for this recipe)

Procedure:

1. Dump the yogurt in a bowl and thoroughly stir in the malted milk powder.

2. Place the mixture in your ice cream machine and turn it on.

3. When the mixture is partially frozen, add the blueberries. Churn until thick.

4. Be aware that because this is fat free, it will freeze completely solid if you don't use it within an hour or two. I usually just make it when I plan to eat it immediately. Plus, the flavour is best if the ice cream is served straight from the machine, when it is still at the soft-serve stage. If you want to keep the ice cream, try adding a couple tablespoons of vodka to the mixture while it is churning (vanilla flavoured vodka would be especially good). The alcohol will help prevent the yogurt from freezing solid even without any fat. If you use full fat vanilla yogurt, the fat may help prevent it from freezing hard, but I only make the fat-free version so I don't have any personal experience trying that out.

Give it a try and let me know what you think-am I crazy or is blueberry malt just a fabulous combination that will sweep the restaurants and recipe books of 2010?

Couscous, Fennel and Cannolini Bean Salad

2009-01-08T16:02:00.014-05:00

Ok folks, I know I haven't posted in a long time, nor answered emails, messages or even read other peoples' blogs. As we know this is a constant problem with me. After my last post on December 11 I was plunged into the heady chaos of final exams in statistics, final project papers in statistics, final qualifying exams in Anthropology and a general haze of academic overload through Monday the 15th of December, when my PhD applications were due, my qualifying Anthropology paper was due and my statistics final took place. After which I had 48 hours to buy Christmas presents and get on a plane for Belize.

But this is all far in the past now. I am returned, relaxed and refreshed after two weeks of cloudy, rainy, but at least WARM weather and time spent in the company of my wonderful family, eating black fruitcake, drinking rum and reading Terry Pratchett novels out loud to each other. I begin my final semester of graduate school on Monday, but for now, I am relatively undisturbed by work, stress or paper writing.

So I thought I really should post about this awesome salad, which I mentioned about 2 months ago but never got around to writing about in detail. This salad combines quick cooking whole wheat couscous with cannolini beans, frisee, tomato, red onion, a touch of fennel, feta cheese, lemon juice and olive oil to create a light but filling salad that makes a meal or a delicious side. With the beans and feta you get plenty of protein, whole grains with the couscous and a nice large serving of vegetables.

Frankly this salad is a late summer creation, best made when frisee and fennel have appeared in the market, but tomatoes are still lingering on before the first frost. But you can make it anytime and vary the ingredients to taste. The frisee is not strictly necessary although it adds a nice touch to the plate, and the fennel can be omitted if desired although I think it adds an important note of flavour to the whole dish.

Couscous, Fennel and Cannolini Bean Salad

Makes about two good sized servings. About 580 calories for the whole salad, 290 per serving.

1-1/2 cup cooked whole wheat couscous

1 cup cooked white northern (cannolini) beans (you may use canned, but make sure to rinse them well)

1 ounce fat free feta cheese ( Or more to taste. I use fat free feta, but if you aren't watching your saturated fat intake feel free to use partial or full fat feta cheese.)

1/2 ounce (about two tbsp) finely minced red onion (or more to taste)

1/2 ounce (2-3 tbsp) finely minced fresh fennel bulb

Several leaves of frisee for serving, plus about half a cup finely chopped for the salad. (optional)

1 small/medium ripe tomato, about 2.5 ounces

1/2 to 1 tsp olive oil (may use more to taste)

juice and zest of 1/2 large lemon or 1 small lemon (may need more juice to taste)

salt and pepper to taste

Procedure:

1. Mince onion, fennel and frisee if using. Finely chop the ripe tomato.

2. Toss cooked couscous, beans, and feta cheese together with the olive oil, lemon zest and juice.

3. Gently stir in the onion, fennel, frisee and tomato. Taste, add salt and pepper and more lemon juice/olive oil as desired.

4. Serve on a bed of frisee.

Orange, Carrot and Honey Salad

2008-12-11T23:00:00.000-05:00

I don't know about you, but lately I seem to be surrounded by sick people. They pass by my desk at work, coughing and blowing their noses. They sit next to me in class, wheezing with glazed expressions on their faces as they try to concentrate on the discussion. Everyone seems to have the flu, a cold, strep throat or bronchitis. Its just that time of year.

This recipe, another winner from the Moosewood Restaurant Lowfat Favorites cookbook, is what you need to keep you chock-full of healthy nutrients and vitamin C so you can avoid becoming one of the hacking, sneezing masses.

Orange, Carrot and Honey Salad

From Moosewood Restaurant Lowfat Favorites. The original recipe doesn't include golden raisins or pineapple, but I think they add a nice touch if you happen to have them around. Feel free to omit one or both if you desire or if you don't have the ingredients at hand. The salad will be just as tasty.

2 to 3 large carrots, peeled and grated (about 4 cups)

2 large navel oranges

1 cup finely diced fresh pineapple (optional)

2-4 tablespoons golden raisins (optional)

2 tablespoons fresh squeezed lemon juice

l tablespoon honey

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Procedure:

1. Place the grated carrots in your serving bowl and set aside. Supreme the oranges. This isn't near as hard as it seems. You don't, however, want to cut your orange into sections like the picture above. IGNORE THE PICTURE! Do as I say, not as I do. For a step by step photo example of how to supreme an orange, go here: Coconut and Lime: How to supreme citrus. Do this over the serving bowl, and squeeze all the juice out of the membrane when you are done cutting out the orange sections, so that the juice of the citrus won't be wasted.

2. If you are using the raisins and pineapple add them to the bowl. Combine the lemon juice, honey and cinnamon and pour over the salad. Mix, and let sit for at least 10 minutes so the flavours can meld before serving.

Ceviche!

2008-11-13T19:07:00.003-05:00

I promised ceviche and here it is. Now before you start arguing with me about my recipe, let me preface it by saying that ceviche, otherwise known as the art of "cooking" fresh fish or seafood in lime juice mixed with other ingredients, is a popular dish across the length and breadth of Latin America. For that reason, there are as many versions of ceviche, each using local ingredients and methods, as there are countries in the Americas (probably more once we start counting different regions and districts).

This ceviche recipe is a Yucatec style dish, modelled after the ceviche that I have had the pleasure to eat at home in Belize. While in Belize Conch Ceviche, made from the tender and sweet foot of the queen conch snail, is a particular delicacy, I have not seen conch for sale in the fish-markets and shops of DC, so I am using another good choice: red snapper.

It is essential that your fish be as fresh as possible. You CAN NOT use frozen fish for this, it will turn out mushy and disgusting. Be warned, this recipe is spicy. If you don't like spicy, replace the habanero pepper with a dash of mild hot sauce, but the taste wont be the same.

Lyra's Red Snapper Ceviche
This is easily multiplied but makes enough for 3-4 as an appetizer, or dinner for 1 very hungry ceviche lover!

4-5 ounces of skinless red snapper fillet, as fresh as possible and not frozen
one small handful of cilantro (the close, but stronger flavoured relative culantro is usually used in Belize)
2-3 large ripe limes
1 small habanero pepper, seeds removed and minced. (Jalapenos are a milder alternative)
1 small or 1/2 medium onion, finely minced
Salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste

Procedure:

1. Cut the snapper into bite sized pieces and place in a container that you can cover (I recommend glass over plastic, which absorbs the heat of the habanero).

2. Add the minced habanero and onion, salt and black pepper. Squeeze over enough fresh lime juice to cover the raw fish. Chop and mix in the cilantro.

3. Let the ceviche sit in the fridge for at least 2 hours so the lime juice can do its work, chemically "cooking" the fish flesh and making it white and firm. When the fish is no longer translucent, enjoy with some good quality tortilla chips (or make your own).

Eating Bloomington: A Belated Report

2008-11-01T21:40:00.002-04:00

The main campus gates, looking out on Kirkwood Avenue, the main drag and where most of the restaurants and bars are located.

Some imposing campus architecture.

It has been over a month since my trip to Bloomington Indiana and I know I owe you all a report. In fact, I promised you one not once, but twice, and then proceeded to post about cabbage and chowder and turnips. And sadly about Bri's passing. I promised that I would post a recipe for ceviche, and I will but first I want to give you my short report on my trip to Bloomington, taken oh so long ago in September.

First off, the school visit went well. Indiana University is huge! I had no idea that it was so enormous. Their campus is 1800 acres, stuck smack dab in the middle of Bloomington, which, compared to the university, is pretty small. There are about 71,000 people in Bloomington, and 40,000 of them are students. That, combined with the fact that IU is apparently one of the top five "party schools" in the USA, meant that there were a lot of bars lining the streets outside the main university gates. Thanks to IU's famous sports teams, most of those are well provisioned with loud tvs turned to the game for the benefit of fans.

Ivy covered university buildings.

But luckily for me, some of them also serve pretty darn good food, and there were even some real restaurants tucked away here and there too! In fact, Indiana natives are pretty proud of Bloomington's restaurant diversity. Its like a little DC: instead of hundreds of Thai and Indian restaurants, there are just a couple, but for a small city in the middle of southern Indiana, that's doing pretty good. Bloomington even does DC one better by having two Tibetan restaurants, one of which we had lunch at shortly after our arrival in the city. This surprise is by virtue of the fact that his Holiness the Dalai Lama's elder brother lives in Bloomington, where the country's only Tibetan Cultural Center is located. As you can see, despite the sports and beer vibe, this place is not quite your normal mid-western college town.

Over the course of the weekend we ate out at the following places (listed in the order in which we ate at them, for your viewing pleasure):

Anyetsang's Little Tibet (Get the momos, but be warned that the "level 5 spice", the hottest they offer, is a far cry from what is considered spicy in DC, not to mention Belize...)

Soma Cafe (a great little independent coffee house with yummy no nonsense fruit smoothies: nothing but frozen fruit and apple juice. No powdery mystery mixes, no added sugar, nothing but pure fruit flavour). Also has vegan baked goods that looked mighty tempting, but we didn't try any.

The Irish Lion (The whisky pie is no joke, the walnut cake is decadent and don't forget the tasty fish and chips, Irish soda bread, and stew served in a bread bowl!)

The Uptown Cafe (awesome oatmeal raisin pancakes on the specials list!)

Nicks English Hut (it seems almost dangerous to put this next to the Irish Lion, doesn't it?) (get the juicy and satisfying elk burger, and the house salad with sun-dried tomato vinaigrette!)

Farm (should have had Jose's bacon and egg pizza...that thing looked tasty. Got a too small yogurt and granola parfait instead.)

The host stand at Farm. See chef and owner David Orr's book on the display stand.

A service counter at Farm with a nice herb collection.

Some heirloom tomatoes and peppers in the deli case.

The Scholar's Inn Bakehouse on the town square. A pretty mild chicken and habanero combo, "the spicy kickin' chicken wrap" didn't quite live up to its name, although the flavour was tasty. It came with a generous serving of hard pretzels that made a nice snack for later, and the pickle was fresh and crispy. I think I just ordered the wrong thing for Bloomington, which seems to be pretty timid when it comes to the spices. The baked goods looked excellent.

Here is the famous fountain gazebo at Indiana University. Pretty isn't it?

There are a bunch of other places that I wanted to eat at while in Bloomington: the famous Restauant Tallent, Roots, Laughing Planet Cafe, Janko's Little Zagreb, Casablanca Cafe and the Blu Boy Bakery among others, but I will have to save those for next time.

Bri is gone.

2008-10-29T00:21:00.005-04:00

Briana of figs with bri is gone. She passed away in her sleep on the 26th while holding her husband's hand. Her wonderful spirit, recipes and personality live on. Please visit Jugalbandi's post and light a candle in her memory. Bri, these flowers are for you. As bright and beautiful as the person we all came to know through your blog. May you rest in peace.

Autumn musings.

2008-10-29T00:10:00.002-04:00

Tonight, I had the option of reading the U.S. Army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual in preparation for a no doubt extremely heated class discussion in my development anthropology class on Thursday. Or, goofing off and writing blog posts after a month of ignoring my duties here at Rice and Beans: A Belizean in DC. Try and guess which I ended up doing.

Yes, the allure of reading about interrogation and espionage tactics just couldn't keep me from my blog. That's how devoted I am. Mind you, the fact that I had to venture out on foot in 30 mile an hour winds and the freezing cold to retrieve the book from a big chain store in Georgetown may have played a part my decision making process. After losing all feeling in my fingers, a cup of hot masala chai and some relaxation time sounded better than military jargon. Plus I just finished writing a paper today, thanks very much. I deserve a break and you guys deserve some more posts!

So here I am, hanging my head and sending abject apologizes your way. If you haven't given up on me already, you will see that I have also posted a couple recipes in the last day or two, in a rushed attempt to make up for four weeks of silence. I beg you to try the sweet potato and corn chowder. And make extra. It just gets better after a couple days in the fridge.

Things have been busy here. For one thing, as you can see we now have a kitten. A beautiful grey fluff-ball with blue eyes that a police officer rescued from some kids intent on killing her and her siblings. How? By putting them in paper bags and tossing them repeatedly in the air. It worries me to think what the parents of those ten year olds must be doing to them that they would be so sadistic towards such tiny creatures. Nonetheless, our kitty was rescued and ended up at my boyfriend's work. He, of course, took one look at her and couldn't say no. So now we have a kitty named Blanche after the Golden Girls character. Who hasn't been weaned yet. And must be fed with an eye dropper. Every couple hours. Without fail. First thing in the morning, as soon as I get out of work, before class, after class, before bed. After two weeks she is much bigger and healthier but she refuses to eat on her own even though her teeth are getting bigger (and sharper) every day.

Schoolwork, well, schoolwork is the reason you haven't heard from me in a month. Lets leave it at that. I have been cooking, but that is because I have to eat, don't I? And believe me, there have been no all-evening culinary sessions in my apartment in a long time.

Then there are the university applications. Aside from Indiana University, about which I wrote previously, I am also applying to Brown University and Emory University, both excellent schools with excellent anthropology programs that require excellent applications and perfect statements of purpose, writing examples, etc. Do I have time for this? No. But the deadlines are in December, so I am trying to squeeze it all in between my current schoolwork.

Aside from the turnips and the chowder, I recently came up with two new salads that I have been going gaga over and plan on posting about as soon as possible. They involve, respectively, apples and fennel and whole wheat couscous and cannelloni beans. Can I just say that whole wheat couscous is awesome? It cooks in 5 minutes (if you do it the American way), which is perfect for someone with no free time (ahem...think working graduate student) and its whole grain! What a great invention. I've been getting mine from Trader Joe's but I'm sure there are other sources.

I also recently tried this fantastic recipe for a North African tagine-style chicken with olives and apricots, and then made it again with just vegetables. Both ways it is scrumptious! Many thanks to Warda of the 64 square foot kitchen for sharing it with the world.

Ok, I promise my next post will include a recipe. Stay tuned for: Red Snapper Ceviche, Belizean-style (yes, that means it is spicy. In fact, you might as well go put habanero peppers on your grocery list right now.)

Til next time! (which, if fate allows, will be less than a month from now).

And my favorite new vegetable is...

2008-10-28T19:15:00.013-04:00

Turnips. What can I say. Maybe its a German thing. After all it's well known that all poor German farmers subsisted on for winters at a time was moldy wheat, turnips and cabbage, enlivened with the occasional hunk of horseradish. Or maybe it wasn't that bad. But a heck of a lot of 'em sure ran straight to Pennsylvania when the opportunity to strike out for fresh country arose. And when they got there...they ate turnips.

My Dad ate his share growing up-yet another common side on the traditional Pennsylvania deutsch table. Mashed with butter and milk, or grated raw into vinegar as a relish, they appeared under many guises.

Despite all this turnip heritage I ignored them at my local farmers' market for years. Until this fall. Inspired by recipes of roasted winter vegetables and with cozy pictures of carrots and parsnips and turnips wafting a delicious fragrance through my kitchen while it sleeted outside, I picked up a bunch of them 2 weeks ago. 6 small turnips, only about 3 ounces each, white as a boiled egg, with a huge bunch of greens on top. Organic, of course. And since they were organic, once I got them home I decided to go for the simplest treatment I could think of. I washed them, leaves and all, making sure to scrub off any clinging dirt. Then I oiled them with olive oil, powdered them with salt and pepper, and lay them in a pan to cook in the oven. About 30 minutes later I sat down to one of the most delicious plates of greens and root vegetables that I have had in years. The sweetness of the turnip root, caramelized from the oven! The delicious umami of the greens! I was hooked.

Probably next week it will be parsnips (I have yet to spy any at the market though), and I certainly am enjoying the crisp and sweet carrots of the season. But for now, The Turnip is King!

Roasted Turnips with Olive Oil
I plan to think up some more elaborate variations on this roasting thing. Try different spices. Try different oils. Try mixing them up with some other vegetables. But for showcasing the turnip, in all its naked glory, this is the way to go. Make sure to get small, sweet turnips. One of those big purple types might be a bit too pungent for this preparation. If in doubt, ask the farmer.

Turnips: about 6 small ones with the greens attached.
Olive oil: about a teaspoon or more if you desire
Salt
Fresh ground black pepper

Procedure:

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit. Thoroughly wash the turnips and their attached greens. Scrub the roots til they shine.
2. Take a pan just big enough to hold the whole turnips. Spritz in the olive oil, add the turnips and using your bare hands, coat the turnips in the oil.
3. Shake over the salt, grind over the pepper-to taste. Turn the turnips in the pan to make sure all sides get a good dusting.
4. Place the pan in the oven. Check every 5 minutes or so and turn the turnips as needed so the roots cook evenly and the leaves don't get too crispy (though the crispy bits are good too).
5. Place your turnip on a plate, grab a steak knife and a fork and sit down to dinner. Cut the greens off and into bite sized pieces-pour over a little vinegar of your choice if you so desire. Enjoy!

Fat Free Sweet Potato Corn Chowder with Caramelized Corn Salsa

2008-10-24T19:35:00.021-04:00

This soup is one of my new favorites. Its from a really great book by the people up at Moosewood Restaurant called Moosewood Restaurant No-Fat Favorites. The first time I read through this book I marked so many pages that I still have about 25 recipes to try. But this was the first thing I made and it was delicious. This slightly spicy, chunky and flavourful is a snap to put together, especially if you have some frozen or canned sweet corn lying around. I had some of the season's last sweet corn from the farmers' market and cut it off the cob for that great fresh from field taste. Plus I had extra to make a little caramelized corn salsa-my own recipe, which I think really complemented the soup.

Southwestern Corn and Potato Soup
From the Moosewood No-Fat Cookbook. I doubled the recipe to serve 5-6 as a main course. The calorie content of the entire recipe as presented here is 1600 calories, it makes about 10 cups.

2 cups finely chopped onions
4 garlic cloves, minced or pressed
2 small fresh chilies seeded and minced
1/2 tsp salt
6 cups vegetable stock
4 tsp ground cumin
4 cups peeled and diced sweet potato
1 medium red bell pepper, finely chopped
6 cups fresh or frozen corn kernels

Procedure:

1. In a covered medium pot, simmer the onions, garlic, chile and salt in 2 cups of vegetable stock until the onions are soft. Stir in the cumin, then add sweet potatoes and the remaining stock.
2. Simmer until the sweet potatoes are soft, then add the bell pepper and corn and cook until all the vegetables are softened.
3. Blend about half the soup in a blender, or use an immersion blender. Heat again on low heat. Serve topped with caramelized corn salsa and tortilla chips (try the baked kind).

Caramelized Corn and Roasted Pepper Salsa

2 cups fresh corn kernels
1 medium-large tomato, finely diced
2 medium or 1 large red bell pepper
juice of 1 large lime
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
1/2 tsp ground chipotle pepper
1/4 tsp salt
1 tablespoon turbinado or raw sugar (can substitute regular brown sugar)

Procedure:

1. Turn on the broiler in your oven. Place the bell peppers in a pan and put them in the oven under the broiler. Turn regularly and let blacken on the outside in places until they are well roasted. Remove from the oven and cover the pan for 10 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, put the paprika, chipotle and salt in another baking pan with the corn kernels. Mix together, stick under the broiler and let roast, stirring regularly, until the corn begins to brown and the sugar caramelizes. Remove and turn off the broiler.

3. Take the cover off the pepper pan and remove the peppers. The trapped moisture should have loosened the skin so that you can easily peel it off. Do so, then cut the peppers open and de-seed them. Finely dice the pepper flesh, mix together with the corn, the finely diced tomato and the freshly squeezed lime juice. Stir and taste, add more paprika or chipotle or salt to taste.

4. Serve by itself with tortilla chips or on top of the corn chowder-with tortilla chips.

Cabbage with Curry Leaves and Mustard Seeds

2008-09-30T22:10:00.000-04:00

I know I said I would tell you about my trip to Bloomington and I swear, I have a post partially written. But (you knew there was going to be a but, didn't you), I have been too busy with school (yeah, that lame old excuse again) to finish writing it, so I am going to treat you to a recipe instead. I got this off the BBC food website, the recipe is by their chef Roopa Gulati, and it makes a nice slightly pungent (thanks to the mustard) side dish for an Indian feast. Serve with rice and dal and maybe some yogurt on the side.

Cabbage with Curry Leaves and Mustard Seeds
Courtesy of Roopa Gulati of the BBC. Makes about 4 cups, roughly 40 calories per cup if you use my quantity of oil, 95 calories per cup if you use the original 2 tablespoons. I also increased the amount of mustard seeds and chili powder in this recipe, as it seemed a bit bland at first taste. Feel free to reduce the heat if you desire.

1/2 medium-small cabbage, finely shredded (9-10 ounces)
2 small or 1 medium onion, thinly sliced
2 tbsp or 1/2 tsp oil (see comments above)
1/2 tsp black mustard seeds
1/8 tsp fenugreek seeds
12 curry leaves (these are the leaves of a specific tree used to flavour curries and other dishes, and can be found in Indian markets and some ethnic groceries. If you can't find them in your area you can proceed without them, the dish wont be the same thing, but it will still be tasty)
1 dried red chili
3/4" piece of fresh ginger, minced
3/4 tsp turmeric powder
1/2 tsp chili powder
salt to taste
1 medium tomato, blanched in hot water, seeds removed and diced (I just cut it up and tossed it in and it still tasted good)

Procedure:

1. Heat oil over high heat in a large frying pan (preferably non-stick). Add the mustard seeds, curry leaves and dried chili (broken into pieces). Cover the pan as the mustard seeds will start exploding and popping and jumping all over the place once they hit the hot metal. Shake the pan to move the spices around and then lower the heat to medium.
2. Uncover the pan and add the onions and ginger. Cook until the onions begin to soften. If using the smaller quantity of oil, add a little water if needed to prevent sticking.
3. Add the turmeric and chili powder, the cabbage and salt.
4. Cook until the cabbage still has a little bite to it but is mostly tender. Or you may cook it until it is soft, if that is what you prefer. Keep stirring regularly to prevent sticking and add a little water if necessary.
5. Add the tomato and cook for a couple minutes longer.
6. Serve as a side dish with rice and dal or just dump it on top of some brown rice, add some cooked tofu or tempeh, and call it a meal.

Thai style soup with lemon grass, basil and green papaya

2008-09-22T22:09:00.001-04:00

I didn't find any fish sauce in my hometown of PG, Belize, but this Thai style soup was still a nice first course offering. The abundance of basil and lemongrass (which we call fevergrass) growing around our cookhouse inspired me to try something new. The result was a nicely balanced broth infused with lemongrass, basil, habanero pepper and lime juice.

Thai Style Green Papaya Soup

This soup was another attempt to use up the abundance of papayas that we were dealing with at the time by eating some of them green. Since green papaya is such a tasty vegetable, it was no sacrifice on our part. This soup is very simple in the making and other vegetables such as young zucchini could be substituted for the papaya. If you have some fish sauce, I am sure a dash would improve the flavour dimensions.

1/2 medium green papaya, peeled and diced.
2 large ripe tomatoes, diced
1 large onion, diced
1/2 habanero, minced, with seeds and membrane removed (unless you like it as spicy as I do, in which case, include the seeds and membrane, or even toss in the whole pepper)
One stalk of lemongrass (the white interior part, not the leaves), thinly sliced
A handful of basil leaves
1 cube of vegetable bullion (optional)
2-3 ripe limes
2 tsp of fish sauce if available, if not, use worchesterschire sauce, or omit for a vegetarian soup.
Salt and pepper
About 4 ounces of quick cooking Chinese style noodles
4 cups of water or more as needed

Procedure:

1. Saute the lemongrass, habanero, onion and papaya in a drizzle of vegetable oil for a few minutes until they begin to soften slightly.

2. Add the tomato, water, salt, black pepper and basil leaves, and the bullion if using. Bring to a simmer and cook until the papaya is firm but tender. Add the juice of the limes and the fish sauce. Taste the broth and adjust as necessary, adding more lime juice, fish sauce or other seasonings if needed.

3. Add the noodles, breaking them up as you toss them in, and cook for a few minutes until they are al dente. Serve the soup as a first course with a lime wedge and basil leaves to accompany it.

Off to Bloomington Indiana, and Stuffed Green Papaya

2008-09-18T22:09:00.015-04:00

Ok. I admit it. School has got the best of me. I barely have time to look at a blog, even mine. Even when people leave comments. Even when people post amazing recipes and I receive emails announcing them to me in my inbox. I haven't read the comics page in weeks. Words like postmodernist and epistemology are pouring out of my ears. I am working on 5 1/2 hours sleep, a 3 inch stack of flash cards and 700 pages of reading. And I have a flight out of DC at 6:45 tomorrow morning.

But I thought I had better at least post something to let people know that I am still alive and breathing. I'm still eating too, but I haven't taken a single picture of food since I got back from Belize. My meals have been centered around rapidly assembled salads and things wrapped up in some kind of flat bread: hummus and pita sandwiches, burritos, wraps made with the overwhelming abundance of late summer peppers, tomatoes, eggplant and zucchini that I lug home from the farmers' market every week. Saute with spices, toss onto a tortilla. Eat. Peaches and plums are hastily devoured while standing over the sink. Lengthy culinary preparations are a thing of the past. The question now is, what can I cook in 10 minutes, eat in five and be on campus in time to meet with my advisor?

I'm hoping that I will settle into my new routine soon and have more time to post, but until then I'll be happy if I can churn out four new articles a month. I'm only working 25 hours a week this semester instead of full-time so you would think that would help take some of the pressure off, but my classes seem to have simply gotten harder to make up for it.

Today I'm going to post a few pics of another recipe from my August vacation in Belize. It seems like a distant memory now, as I lug around my bag full of books and flash drives, but this stuffed green papaya was a delicious meal for my parents and I, and healthy too!

Stuffed Green Papaya

This recipe lends itself to experimentation. A green papaya, like a big zucchini, can be stuffed with pretty much anything. My combo of papaya flesh, tofu, carrot, tomato, sunflower seeds, onion, garlic and various spices topped with bread crumbs was a tasty vegetarian version. Feel free, of course, to substitute any filling of your choice.

1 medium large green papaya (about 3 lbs)
1 large onion
2 medium large tomatoes
1 large or 2 medium carrots, grated
2-6 cloves of garlic-to taste
salt
fresh ground black pepper
lots of oregano (2 tsps dried or to taste)
red recado or just use a good quality chili powder instead
1 tsp paprika
1 cube vegetable or chicken bullion
1 lb firm tofu, crumbled.
2-3 tablespoons sunflower or sesame seeds (optional)
1 tsp olive oil
1 finely diced medium bell pepper (optional)
1 cup fine breadcrumbs
Juice of one lime

Procedure:

1. Cut the green papaya in half lengthwise. Remove all the seeds and scrape out any white membrane. Steam until still firm, but pierce-able with a fork. Scrape out about half of the flesh and mince finely. Set the papaya shells aside in a baking pan. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

2. Finely chop all the vegetables. Saute them over medium low heat with the olive oil, sunflower seeds, bullion and spices. Add the garlic after the vegetables have begun to soften.

3. Add a little water as necessary to keep things from sticking. Add the crumbled tofu and minced green papaya and cook until the flavours have blended together. Take off the heat and mix in the lime juice.

4. Mix the breadcrumbs with a bit of salt and pepper, a spritz of olive oil, oregano and recado to taste.

5. Stuff the papaya shells with the filling, top with the breadcrumb mixture and bake in the oven for 30-40 minutes or until the breadcrumbs have browned and the papaya is soft on the outside.

6. Cut in sections to serve, accompany with extra lime wedges to squeeze over. The skin of the papaya is bitter, so you will want to discard that bit while eating. The flavour of green papaya is excellent, like that of a slightly sweet summer squash. It also makes a good stand alone vegetable (although why let a decent vegetable stand alone?) and a good addition to soups and stews.

I am off to Bloomington, Indiana for a weekend fact-finding mission. I leave at the crack of dawn tomorrow and return late on Sunday evening. The purpose of the trip is to see what Indiana University at Bloomington, the Anthropology Department there, and the city itself, are like in the flesh. Of course it is also a great excuse to eat out in a new place. I hope to post some pictures and report on the Bloomington food scene when I return. Til then, I recommend scrolling through the excellent websites listed on my blogroll if you have not done so already. There are some great posts out there! Now if only I had time to read them myself...

A National Holiday and Breadfruit Gumbo with Land Crabs

2008-09-10T22:27:00.006-04:00

Today is a national holiday in Belize, so it seems an appropriate time to update my blog after an inexcusably long lapse in posting. Hardly had I celebrated the one year anniversary of this website when the beginning of the semester descended upon me. I have just begun to get used to my new work and study schedule, and I am still feeling quite overwhelmed with homework. But, today is the 210th anniversary of the Battle of St. George's Caye, and national pride demands that I post something here to acknowledge it. September in Belize is a time of celebration. In fact, although the official state holidays don't begin until the 10th, the entire month is devoted to parties and parades, to singing and dancing, and to general expressions of patriotic fervour.

The Battle of St. George's Caye commemorates Belizeans' decisive victory in a small sea battle that led Belize to become an official colony of Great Britain instead of an ignored backwater of New Spain. This rather dubious holiday is closely followed by our Independence Day on the 21st of September. So first we celebrate being handed from one empire to another, and then we celebrate kicking them out altogether. There are concerts, carnival parades in Belize City, cultural performances, competitions, dances and ceremonies, and of course the obligatory waving of thousands of little flags. Its a heady month, I tell you!

As I promised in August, I have lots of photos and stories from Belize and since I can't turn on the radio and sing along to patriotic songs, or dance behind a carnival float, I thought I would post about a recipe that I made up while at home. No, this is not a "traditional" or "authentic" Belizean recipe (whatever that means), but it does use foods that are commonly eaten across the country, and it results in a tasty stew that would be appreciated by any Belizean. So Happy St. George's Caye Day, and enjoy!

This breadfruit gumbo with land crab claws was a creation that came out of the very local ingredients of the farm in August. Breadfruit were plentiful, weighing down the brittle branches of the tree near our kitchen, and land crabs were venturing further from their holes than usual in their pursuit of food and mates. Unlike blue sea crabs, they turn off-white, not red, when cooked, hence the pale hue of the claws gracing my plate at the top of this post.

Breadfruit Gumbo

This can be made with crab, tofu, fish or shrimp. I imagine that it would probably be tasty with chicken or pork as well. I made the stew with tofu in it and served the crab claws on the side, as one of our party can't eat crab, but personally I stirred my crab meat into the gumbo, and I think it tastes best that way. So feel free to nix the tofu and replace it with crab meat if you so desire (and if you have some on hand). Just be aware that crab and shrimp are both high in cholesterol, so if you are trying to avoid that substance, fish, chicken or tofu might be a better bet.

I say "or to taste" a lot in this recipe, so make sure you keep tasting your stew as you go along and adjust the seasonings if necessary. If in doubt, start with the smallest amount of spices and herbs and add more as needed.

If you live in the USA you will probably have a pretty hard time tracking down a breadfruit. I know that personally this is a dish that I will only make in Belize, where these ingredients are local and plentiful. Hopefully you will still enjoy reading about it!

Water

3/4 medium or 1 small green breadfruit, steamed, boiled or roasted until cooked through, then peeled and diced. Should yield about 4-5 cups of breadfruit.

2-3 cups cooked moringa oleifera , chaya or coco yam (aka dasheen or taro) leaves, or uncooked malabar spinach or callaloo. (Feel free to substitute your favorite cooking greens. I used par-boiled moringa leaves)

2 cups chopped fresh or diced canned tomatoes

About 1 cup chopped young okra or to taste

1 large onion, chopped

4 cloves of garlic, minced

1 large allspice leaf (may substitute 2 bay leaves)

4-6 green allspice seeds, lightly crushed (may substitute dried allspice seeds)

5-10 black peppercorns, crushed (I used closer to 10)

Roughly 1 tablespoon of red recado

2-3 tsp Marie Sharp's hot sauce, or 1-2 habanero peppers, minced, with seeds and white core removed. (Start out with less and add more only if needed, or else you might make it too fiery for your taste)

1 tsp tamarind concentrate or 1-2 tbsp tamarind pulp or 1 tbsp tamarind based hot sauce

1/4-1/3 cup white vinegar (to taste again)

1 tsp vegetable oil

About 1 tsp dried oregano or to taste

1 tsp salt, or to taste

1 cube vegetable or chicken bouillon

Protein options: 2 cups crab meat, 1/2 lb cubed tofu, 1/2 lb shrimp, fish, chicken or pork.

1 large lime, in quarters

Brown rice to serve

Procedure:

1. Cook the crabs, breadfruit and greens (if using greens that need pre-cooking) in advance, this makes assembly of the dish easy.

2. Get a large pot, add the oil and saute the onion along with the allspice leaf, allspice seeds, peppercorns, habanero peppers, recado, tamarind, oregano and bouillon.

3. When soft add the salt, garlic and tomatoes, the greens and the breadfruit and enough water to cover everything.

4. Simmer for about 20 minutes over medium-low heat, then add the chopped okra and vinegar. If using tofu, diced raw chicken or pork, add it now as well. Simmer for another 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally to keep anything from sticking, then remove from the heat. If you are using raw fish, remove the bones, cut it into bite sized pieces and add it to the stew 5-10 minutes after the okra and vinegar. Cook just until the fish is done, then remove from heat. If using cooked crab meat, stir it in right before serving. Taste and adjust the seasonings before everything is cooked through.

5. Serve over brown rice with lime wedges to squeeze over the stew.

Happy Blogiversary! One year of Rice and Beans

2008-08-25T13:49:00.020-04:00

This, my 101st post, is to commemorate a little happening that slipped by me while I was enjoying myself on the farm. That notable event was the 1 year anniversary of Rice and Beans: A Belizean in DC.

Its hard to believe that a year has passed since I started this blog, but in fact it has only been 12 months and 2 weeks since I posted my first post and started on this fateful journey. It has been a fun and delectable one, that is for sure!

With school I have found it hard at times to post as much as I would like, and I dearly wish that I had more time to browse other blogs and participate in blogging events. Despite this, I have greatly enjoyed interacting with my fellow food bloggers, reading their wonderful blogs, trying their recipes and drooling over their photos. Thanks to all of you and to all my readers out there for your helpful comments and emails and general encouragement. Its nice to know that I'm not blogging in a vacuum!

But beyond the amiable community of the food blogging world this little web page has brought even greater opportunities and changes to my life. Early this spring I received an email from one Dr. Richard Wilk, an anthropologist at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, and the director of the country's first PhD program in the Anthropology of Food. Dr. Wilk has conducted extensive research in my home country of Belize for the past 20 years, a good portion of which focused on the intersections between agriculture, food, culture and globalisation. He has published a great book about his findings, called Home Cooking in the Global Village, which I own and highly recommend. (It now smells strongly of Belizean coconut rum thanks to the adventures that my lost and now recovered luggage experienced a couple days ago, but that seems almost appropriate when I think about it).

Dr. Wilk found me through my blog and emailed me to let me know about the PhD program that he is directing. As I am currently in the middle of a masters degree in Anthropology, with plans to continue on to a PhD, I was quick to visit the Indiana University site. I was interested in what I saw and continued to correspond with Dr. Wilk over the succeeding months. Then coincidentally it turned out that he would be in Belize at the same time that I was. We ended up planning a meeting and I got to have dinner with him and his wife, archaeologist Anne Pyburn. We dined exceedingly well, but the most exciting part of the whole thing was talking to anthropologists who were interested in food, specifically Belizean food.

My little blog is to be thanked for giving me the opportunity to meet Dr. Wilk and Dr. Pyburn and to learn about Indiana University's PhD program. I will be visiting the campus on September 19th, and applying to the program this fall. If all goes well, Rice and Beans in DC will become Rice and Beans in Bloomington as I move to Indiana in August 2009 to start a PhD in the Anthropology of Food.

Its exciting to contemplate this next chapter in my life, and I owe this opportunity to food blogging. So on the first anniversary of Rice and Beans in DC, I would like to pose a toast to my blog and to many more posts!

Homemade Belizean Pepper Sauce

2008-08-24T17:24:00.030-04:00

I am back from Belize after a especially long trip to DC. The Miami International Airport was temporarily shut down due to electrical storms, and my luggage-which contains my precious coconut rum as well as various jars of canned delicacies- is still missing as I type this. The airline wouldn't pay for my hotel room because the delays were weather related. But at least I made it safely to Washington DC, albeit a day late.

Now, with daily access to the Internet I look forward to regaling you all with tales of Belizean food and my own tropical creations. I thought I would start with a little recipe that I used on my last day on the farm, to turn some left over habanero peppers into a fiery hot sauce for my parents. This recipe is a great way to use up any hot peppers, so feel free to try it with different types that you may have languishing in your garden or on your counter top.

The habanero, long famed as the world's hottest pepper, has in recent years lost that title to much hotter capsicums discovered in India and Pakistan. However it remains renowned for its fruity and scorching hot flavour. The habanero, especially an orange variety known as the "Scotch Bonnet", forms the base of Belize's most ubiquitous hot sauce, Marie Sharps. However today I want to focus on another hot sauce-a homemade hot sauce that, in these times of economic uncertainty, provides Belizeans with the heat that they seek without having to pay for a bottle of the commercially prepared stuff.

The recipe is so ridiculously simple that anyone can make it, but I strongly urge you purchase a pair of protective gloves before you start. You may be able to eat habaneros without fear, but getting the juice all over your hands will make them burn uncomfortably for hours.

Homemade Habanero Pepper Sauce

About 1 dozen habanero peppers (if you grow your own you should have no trouble getting this many. They are also sold in some Latin markets and some supermarkets in the USA).

About 2 cups of plain white vinegar, or another vinegar of your choice.

1 medium white onion

Optional: 1 small carrot, grated.

1 glass jar with a lid (a leftover peanut butter, jelly or pasta sauce jar with a wide mouth is ideal)

Procedure:

1. Briefly wash the habaneros and remove the stems. Wearing rubber or polyurethane gloves and using a sharp knife, finely chop the habaneros, seeds and all.

2. Peel and finely chop the onion. Grate the carrot, if using.

3. Dump both chilis and onion (and carrot) into the jar and cover with the vinegar. Stir and close the lid. This sauce will keep perfectly well on your kitchen or dining room table, but you can also keep it in the fridge if you so desire. Keep a little spoon around to dip out the spicy mixture. If you want a little less heat, just use a little of the fiery vinegar instead of the chopped habanero itself.

A few pictures...

2008-08-18T12:23:00.018-04:00

I don't have time today to write up a long recipe so I mean to entertain you with a few pictures from the farm. Yesterday my good friend Dr. S. and I got up at dawn to collect bait and in the cool and calm early morning we caught three nice fish: two mangrove snappers and a yellow tail jack. All were grilled on the stove-top in foil and made a delicious lunch and dinner with black beans, rice, roasted breadfruit and okra for accompaniment. Not to mention my Mom's homemade bread and lots of guacamole (the avocados are just raining down from the trees these last couple of days). I didn't get a picture of the spread because it disappeared too fast!!

All I can say is that its a good thing we took a long hike in the jungle after lunch! Check out the strange seeds we happened across. Bright colors like that usually mean "stay away, I am poisonous", so I did not sample these. Pretty though.

I'll show you how we cooked this critter later, but big land crabs are a real delicacy in Belize, and the rainy season is the best time to catch them, so I made sure to grab some during my stay at home.

Blogging from Belize and Papaya Pickles

2008-08-08T13:10:00.010-04:00

That's right folks, I'm in Belize again, for three solid weeks on the farm before I return to the hustle and bustle of Washington DC. I'm absolutely loving it. I am eating breadfruit, okra, mangoes, avocados and papaya straight from the farm, working in the garden and spending every minute of the day outside. Its a far cry from my receptionist job in the city-there's actually sunshine and rain. I missed the weather badly and now I'm living in it, and with it, everyday. It is wet season here, so the steady drum of rain drops on the tin roof lull me to sleep at night. Much more relaxing than police sirens. This week I climbed a mango tree, helped prop up fallen citrus trees in our orchard and split a ripe tangerine with our dog Mattie (Mattie has a broad and discerning palate and appreciates the taste of many tropical fruits).

We have tons of papayas on the farm right now thanks to three prolific trees that I planted in the garden last time I was here. Papaya trees like rich, well drained soil and so they don’t usually do too well in the waterlogged clay found across our farm. However, these babies got their start in a big pile of rotted cacao pods, rich and teaming with worms.

Now we are reaping the benefits of that soil amendment, in the form of ripe and green papayas. Most people think of papaya as a fruit or dessert course, but it is very tasty eaten green as a vegetable, as anyone who has been to a Thai restaurant, where green papaya salad is a favorite appetizer, can attest. Diced and boiled, roasted or steamed, green papaya makes a nice vegetable with a slightly sweet flavour and the texture of a smooth summer squash.

This recipe is from Euell Gibbons famous book, the Beachcomber’s Handbook, which chronicles his three years living off the land in Oahu not long after the end of the Second World War. The papaya pickle is made using a half ripe papaya-only pale orange inside and still quite firm.

Papaya Pickles

Peel and cut one medium papaya into spears.You should get around 5-6 cups of spears. Bring a pot of water to a boil and drop the papaya in, cook for 5 minutes, then drain.

Meanwhile make a syrup with 2-1/2 cups of sugar and 2-1/2 cups of vinegar (I used a mixture of white and cider vinegar). Add 2 teaspoons salt, 10-15 peppercorns, 16 whole cloves, 10 whole allspice berries, 2 bay leaf (I used a large allspice leaf) and if desired, 4-5 of the tiny fiery hot bird peppers common across Central America and the Caribbean (you may substitute a finely chopped habanero or jalapeño). Bring to a boil and add the partially cooked papaya spears. Cook in the pickling mixture for 12 minutes, then seal in sterilized jars*. Let sit for at least 3-4 days before trying them so the pickle mixture has time to fully permeate the papaya.

* To sterilize jars take thoroughly washed glass jars and their lids, (your empty peanut butter or jelly jars will be perfect for this), and place them mouth side down in a shallow pan filled with 2-3 inches of water. Place the lids face up, fully submerged under the water. Bring to a boil and boil for 10 minutes, then lower the heat and use tongs and oven mitts to take out one jar at a time. Pack the papaya spears into the jar, then seal with the hot lid. Let sit until completely cool before storing. The pickles do not need to be refrigerated until the jar is opened and the seal is broken.

Salmon Salad with Roasted Summer Vegetables

2008-07-22T07:16:00.022-04:00

I had 7 ounces of salmon sitting in my fridge last night when I got home from work, but I just wasn't in the mood for my typical weekday treatment of this fish: spritz with olive oil and lemon, add salt and pepper, bake until done and eat with rice. It tastes good, don't get me wrong, but I have a kitchen bursting full of produce from the farmers market this week and I wanted something more exciting, something that would showcase some of the mid-summer vegetables that have just begun to appear in the stands and stalls of my favorite produce purveyors.

A quick Internet search revealed that Salmon Salad is a rather popular item and that pairing it with pasta is a classic combination. Most of the recipes I found mix the salmon and pasta with raw vegetables such as celery and onion. My salad takes a slightly different approach. The salmon and the vegetables are all roasted together and then combined with the pasta at the end. Fresh dill, lemon juice, a dash of white wine and capers liven up the rich flavours of the roasted veggies and perfectly complement the salmon. An optional touch of red pepper flakes adds a nice spark to this salad. I ate this hot for dinner last night and cold for lunch today and it was good both ways.

This recipe is a great way to use some of the summer vegetables that may be crowding your kitchen or garden. If you have zucchini, here is the place to use it. I think diced bell peppers would be an excellent addition to the roasting pan as well.

Salmon Salad with Roasted Summer Vegetables
Serves three, about 310 calories per serving or 930 calories total.

7 ounces of salmon fillet, no skin (wild caught is considered most sustainable)

4 ounces of whole wheat fusilli pasta (about 2 cups dry), cooked and drained

1 pint of cherry tomatoes

1 or 2 (or 3!) medium zucchini, about 7 inches long, cut into bite sized chunks

2 small onions, peeled and cut into wedges

6-12 cloves of garlic, peeled and cut into 2-3 pieces (I used 12 cloves, which my boyfriend thought was too much. It seemed fine to me, but let your conscience-and your palate-be your guide)

1/2 lemon

2-3 tablespoons chopped fresh dill (to taste)

2 tablespoons capers

2 tsp olive oil

large grained sea salt and fresh ground black pepper

Optional: 2 tablespoons dry white wine (I used a Savignon Blanc)

Optional: 1 tsp red pepper flakes (I think this is a good addition but if you don't like spiciness at all it can be omitted)

Optional: about 1/2 cup thinly sliced fennel (omit if you don't like its slightly licorice flavour)

Procedure:

1. Heat the oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit. Prep your garlic and dump it in a large, lightly oiled (1 tsp of the olive oil should do the trick) baking pan. Because the garlic needs a bit more roasting time then the rest of the ingredients, go ahead and put the pan in the oven now while you continue to prepare the rest of the vegetables. Once you have your zucchini, onion and tomatoes (along with optional fennel or perhaps bell pepper) ready for the pan, pull the garlic out of the oven and add the rest of the ingredients, along with half the chopped dill and a few lacy fronds from the fennel bulb, if you are using it.

2. Lay the salmon fillet in the middle of pan with the vegetables, and season the whole shebang with large grained sea salt, fresh ground black pepper and the red pepper flakes, if using. Spritz on another 1/2 to 1 tsp olive oil and stir the vegetables gently to coat them, then pop the whole thing back in the oven and let it bake for about 15 minutes, stirring the vegetables so they cook evenly.

3. Check the salmon when it is done, turn on the broiler and place the pan under it for a couple minutes to lightly brown the vegetables. If you don't have a broiler, this step is not necessary, but it is a nice touch.

4. Turn off the broiler, and place the pan on the stove-top. Add the two tablespoons of white wine, if you are using it, as well as the juice of half a lemon (and some of the zest if you like), the capers, the remaining dill and the whole wheat fusilli. Stir to combine, taste and adjust the seasonings as necessary. Serve warm or cold.

Grilled Zucchini Wraps with Pineapple and Smoked Paprika

2008-07-19T19:07:00.003-04:00

I know what I'm eating for the rest of the summer. I thought it was going to be ice cream, but it turns out I was wrong. I have discovered the perfect summer food, and I am going to enjoy it as long as I can. I have made and devoured these grilled zucchini wraps three times now and they are the most mouthwatering, flavourful and versatile meal I've had in ages.

These wraps are serious contenders in a field normally dominated by field fresh tomatoes and corn on the cob, farm house mozzarella and home grown basil. They are fresh, bursting with the flavours of summer, and quick and easy to make even if you live in an apartment with no balcony and don't have a real grill. The paprika adds a wonderful smokiness to the vegetables even without charcoal and the cumin, chipotle and olive oil combine with the sweetness of the pineapple to wow the tongue with every bite.

The key to this wrap is fresh ingredients. Obviously unless you live in the tropics, your pineapple is going to be a bit ship worn, but look for one that smells ripe (stick your nose close to it. If you don't smell anything, don't buy it). If at all possible, buy your zucchini organic and local, and get small ones, the big boys tend to be tough and we don't want that. Same goes for the tomato. We want the freshest, ripest and most flavourful tomato one can find. If you can pick it from your backyard, all the better. If not, try to find a local farmer you can buy some from. Tomatoes that are shipped long distances (say, from California to Washington DC) are usually picked before they ripen fully, and they never have the flavour and texture of those plucked ripe from the vine.

Grilled Zucchini Wraps with Pineapple and Smoked Paprika

Makes two wraps. This is a very forgiving recipe, so if you don't happen to have a fresh pineapple sitting on your counter, go ahead and try it without, or substitute mango or peaches. You won't have the same distinct pineapple flavour, but it will still be good. Personally I ate this twice before thinking of adding pineapple to it, and it was delicious without any fruit at all.

While this wrap is great as is, you can also add grilled tofu or tempeh or some fish, shrimp or chicken. Just rub your protein of choice with the same spices as the veggies, grill until done, and add to your tortilla. If you are using fish you probably will want to wrap it in tin foil so it doesn't flake apart on your grill. With both the fish and chicken you may want to pull the meat apart into little pieces, carnitas-style, so that you can easily chow down on your wrap.

Finally, you can also experiment with different vegetables. Personally I plan to try this with some young eggplant, you might also want to use strips of bell pepper for a classic fajita-style combo. If it sounds good, it probably is, so let your palate be your guide and don't worry about straying from the recipe, that's how new ones are invented!

I grilled my zucchini on a small, plug-in George Foreman counter top electric grill. If you are lucky enough to have the real deal, lucky you! If you don't have any type of grill, you can simply cook the pineapple and veggies in a dry cast iron, or in a pinch, non-stick, pan. Keep an eye on them so they don't stick and cook until the onion is slightly caramelized and the zucchini and pineapple have softened. If you have a grill pan, use that to get those awesome stripey grill marks.

4 ounces zucchini (1 medium zucchini, about 7 inches long, or 2 small ones)

1 medium tomato

about 2 ounces of pineapple, or 4 or 5 thin strips, cut vertically (top to bottom) from the fruit.

1/8-1/4 tsp smoked Spanish paprika ( I used pimento de la vera)

1/8-1/4 tsp ground cumin

about 1/8 tsp ground chipotle pepper or to taste

Salt and fresh ground black pepper

1/2 tsp extra virgin olive oil

2 whole wheat tortillas or wraps (use your favorite wrap of choice)

1 lime cut into wedges

A small handful of cilantro, chopped

Procedure:

1. Fire up your grill, plug in your George Foreman or pull out your grill pan and turn on the burner. While your method of choice is heating up, wash the zucchini and slice it very thinly lengthwise into strips. Peel and thinly slice the onion. Cut the top and bottom off of the pineapple, then cut a wedge out like you would from a melon. Once you have the slice in hand, lay it skin side down on your cutting board and run a sharp knife along between the skin and the flesh to remove the skin. Cut out any eyes with the tip of your knife. Then cut the wedge into several very thin slices lengthwise. Note: By peeling the slice after cutting it from the pineapple, you can leave the rest of the pineapple unpeeled, wrap it in plastic wrap or a plastic bag and store it for up to a week in the fridge. If you peel the whole fruit at once, you will want to use it all in the next couple days. To see a tutorial of how to peel a whole pineapple, go here.

2. Toss the zucchini, onion and pineapple in a bowl. Spritz lightly with about half a teaspoon of olive oil. Using your hands, toss the fruit and vegetables until they are lightly coated with oil, then add the spices and toss again until they are evenly seasoned.

3. Lay the slices carefully on your grill and cook until you get good grill marks and the onions are soft. Turn the zucchini and pineapple to mark both sides. On my Foreman grill it only took 2-3 minutes on each side to cook the zucchini and caramelize the onions and pineapple. Be especially careful with the pineapple, since the sugars in the fruit burn easily. Meanwhile, heat up the tortillas, either on the grill or grill-pan or in a hot, un-greased frying pan (preferably cast iron).

4. Place a hot tortilla on a plate and load it up with onion, zucchini and pineapple. Top with thinly sliced tomato. If you grilled any meat, fish or tofu, add it to the wrap as well. If you like, you can add some mayo, Cajun remoulade or any other spread to the tortilla. However, the wrap is just as good with a hearty sprinkle of chopped cilantro and a big squeeze of lime juice. I like a little hot sauce on top too, but then I think everything is better with hot sauce.

Tried and Tasted Roundup: One Hot Stove, and July's Challenge!

2008-07-16T11:55:00.009-04:00

I have an recipe file in my inbox where I store all the wonderful, mouthwatering, fabulous foods that I run across while surfing through my fellow bloggers posts. I have literally hundreds of recipes stashed away, some of which I have tried, the majority of which I have only drooled over. In there right now are a bunch of recipes from One Hot Stove, which was selected by Zlamushka of Zlamushka's Spicy Kitchen for the month of June's Tried and Tasted event.

You may recall that I participated in the inaugural session of this great new food blogger event by making Peanut Punch from Cynthia's blog Tastes like Home. Unfortunately, all my great plans for making something delicious (Puris? Halwa?Maybe a snack food from the streets of Mumbai to take me back to days as a teenager travelling with aunt in India?), fell by the wayside as my June got busier and busier. It was after the 4th of July when I realized I had missed the thing entirely.

Luckily other people managed to find the time. The number of participants is growing by leaps and bounds-51 people cooked something from One Hot Stove, testing a total of 53 different recipes. You can see the full spectrum of the delicious appetizers, snacks, drinks, main courses, sides and desserts right here on Zlamushka's blog.

And if, like me, you didn't manage to participate in the June event, July is here and so is the next blog to be Tried and Tasted. This time it is Meeta's blog, What's for Lunch Honey? that will face the T&T challenge. Head over to One Spicy Kitchen to learn how to participate and then to Meeta's blog to pick something to try from her delicious recipe index. Personally I'm eying the lemon and coconut cake...

Breakfast Series #10: A Belizean Breakfast

2008-07-12T19:20:00.043-04:00

Today I enjoyed a classic Belizean breakfast...for lunch. At 2 in the afternoon even calling it brunch was pushing it a little. But I needed to hit the gym before chowing down on this spread. This meal comprises some of the classics of generic Belizean cooking. Fry jacks, a fried dough triangle similar to Indian puris, are made out of flour tortilla dough and deep fried until they puff up and turn a golden brown. They are usually served for breakfast with refried beans and hot sauce enhanced scrambled eggs, and sometimes with callaloo, which is what we in Belize call amaranth greens. While the callaloo is only an occasional accompaniment to this meal, I think it helps to round out an otherwise protein and carbohydrate heavy breakfast. Normally it would be scrambled with the eggs, but in deference to my significant other, who has a fear of green things, I served it separately.

You will find this breakfast in most restaurants across Belize. As a child growing up fry jacks with refried beans and eggs were a treat to be had on town day, at a local restaurant, or on the odd weekend when my father would make them, stuffing the fry jack dough with banana mashed with cinnamon and nutmeg before deep frying them in a smoking hot cast iron dutch oven over our wood stove (you won't find his non-traditional version on most Belizean tables).

Fry jacks are normally served with savory accompaniments, but they are also great spread with jam and topped with a slice of cheese. Imported foods play an important role in Belizean national cuisine, a fact which the fry jack, which is made with imported wheat flour, clearly illustrates. A truly indigenous breakfast would be based on a pile of freshly made corn tortillas and home grown beans, but despite the cost of flour, fry jacks are exceedingly popular across the country. Try out the recipe yourself and you will see why.

The callaloo was stir fried with some garlic while the eggs were scrambled with a habanero pepper jack cheese from our farmer's market that is sold under the apt name "dragon's breath". Of course, that didn't keep me from adding more Marie Sharp's hot sauce while I was eating. The refried beans were from a can ( I know this makes me a bad Belizean!) but I gussied them up by sauteing recado, oregano, cumin seed and onion before adding the beans.

Fry Jacks

Fry jacks are made out of flour tortilla dough that is deep fried instead of baked. Traditionally flour tortilla dough is made with lard, but in Belize many people have replaced it with cheap vegetable shortening imported from abroad. Most recently I have seen Belizean recipes for fry jacks calling for the use of vegetable oil. This recipe uses oil because I wanted to avoid the saturated fats found in most vegetable shortening. I couldn't tell a difference in the flavour or texture between vegetable shortening and vegetable oil based recipes. I also substituted 1/4 of the flour with whole wheat flour to add a little whole grain.

This recipe makes 32 fry jacks, but you can keep some of the dough balls in a ziplock bag in the fridge for several days, so you don't have to cook them all at once. Each triangle of dough is 46 calories, which does not include the oil that it will pick up when fried.

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1-1/2 cup white flour

1-1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 cup vegetable oil

about 3/4 cup of water or as needed

Procedure:

1. Belizean cooks will "knead some flour" as flour tortilla making is called, on a big round board specially designed for tortilla making. You can use a clean counter top. If you want to make it even easier (though less traditional) you can also use a mixing bowl. Measure out your flour, salt and baking powder into a pile on your counter top. Make a well in the center and pour in the vegetable oil. Using your hands, work the oil into the flour until you have little pebbles of oil saturated dough evenly distributed throughout the flour.

2. Make a new well in the center of the mixture and pour in the water a little at a time, using your other hand to stir the flour into the water in the center of your pile. Keep adding the water and mixing it in a little at a time until you have formed the entire pile of flour into a rough ball of slightly sticky dough. If you are using a bowl, do the same thing. Depending on the moisture content of your flour you may need more or less water to obtain a slightly sticky consistency.

3. Once you have your dough, liberally sprinkle your counter with flour and begin to knead. Knead the dough for about 5 minutes until it is smooth and stretchy. Then roll it out into a snake shape and cut it into 8 equal sized pieces. Take each piece and roll it into a ball between your two palms (or on the counter top). Cover the dough and leave the balls to rest on a lightly floured surface for at least 30 minutes.

4. Once the dough has rested, take a deep sauce pan and fill it with at least 2 inches of high temperature cooking oil. I used grape seed oil, but canola or sunflower would work as well. Set over high heat. To test if the oil is hot enough drop a tiny scrap of dough into the pot. If it bobs merrily to the surface upon contact, the oil is ready. If your oil starts smoking, its probably a bit too hot, so turn down the burner a little. And don't forget to retrieve your test scrap or else it will start smoking too as it turns into a little piece of wizened carbon.

Now grab one of the dough balls and pat it out into a circle, about 6 inches across. Take a knife or pizza cutter and cut the circle into four pieces. Once your oil is hot, drop one piece into the saucepan. It should cook very quickly, so don't leave it alone. After 10-20 seconds, check to see if the side in the oil has browned. If so, flip the fry jack over with a fork and let the other side cook, then lift it out with a slotted spoon. As a child making fry jacks on the farm, I used old dry banana leaves to soak up the excess oil, but you can let them drain on a plate lined with paper towels.

If you are serving these with refried beans and eggs (and you really should), I strongly suggest you make the refried beans before cooking the fry jacks. The eggs can then be quickly scrambled afterwards, while the fry jacks stay warm in the oven. Cold fry jacks are certainly edible (try one with some jam), but nothing beats a freshly made one with some refried beans, so please don't try cooking them ahead of time.

Breakfast Series # 9 : 5 Spice Muffins

2008-07-08T07:10:00.000-04:00

Behold! The Golden Muffin! Glowing in the morning sun! Ever-ready to bring fiber, flavour and sustenance to the masses. Standard-bearer for the forces of breakfast, fighting against the apathy of sickeningly sweet pop tarts, diet colas in the car on the way to work, and the greasy, cold, post-meeting doughnut. I hail thee as my snack saviour, picking me up at ten in the morning or three in the afternoon, perfect plain or toasted, warm or cold. Thanks to thee, Golden Muffin, I can blithely turn my back on those tarted up monster cupcakes in the break-room, and enjoy a tastier treat by far: a sweet, but flavorful muffin packed full of banana and spices, candied ginger and dates. Who needs Au Bon Pain with you around? Today I take a stand and say "not I!".

5 Spice Muffins (with dates, crystallized ginger and bananas)
This recipe makes 11 muffins-not quite the round number I was looking for but that is how many it makes. Each one is about 167 calories, or 1839 calories for the whole recipe. There is no added sugar in the ingredients list because the dates and the candied ginger, which is cooked in a sugar syrup, add more than enough sweetness to the muffins.

1-3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour (may substitute all purpose flour)
1-1/2 tsp five spice powder
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1-1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup canola, sunflower or grape seed oil
1/4 cup egg white (about one large egg white)
1/2 cup 1% or other low fat/fat free milk
2 very ripe bananas, mashed
2-1/2 ounces or about 1/3 cup of finely chopped dates (I like medjool dates best because they are more moist)
1 ounce of candied ginger, finely chopped (a heaping 1/4 cup)

Procedure:

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit and prepare a muffin tin. Mash the bananas and add the egg white, oil, milk and chopped dates.

2. Stir together the flour, soda, baking powder and spices and salt in a bowl. Add the finely chopped candied (also called crystallized) ginger and stir so the flour coats and separates each piece. You will notice that there is NO SUGAR in this recipe. This is not a typo. The crystallized ginger, the bananas and the dates add more than enough sweetness to these muffins, making extra sugar unnecessary.

3. Stir the wet mixture into the dry and mix swiftly to combine. Don't over mix, just make sure that everything is just blended together and then fill each tin 2/3 full of batter. Bake for about 25 minutes. Keep an eye on the muffins during the last 10 minutes, as they may be ready sooner in your oven.

4. Let the muffins cool completely before storing in a Ziploc bag with a sheet of paper towel. Make sure to squeeze all the air out before sealing it and the muffins will keep fine this way for several days. After that, move the Ziploc to the freezer where they can be stored for several months.

Pickled Mushrooms

2008-06-30T19:17:00.027-04:00

Heaven knows I like my pickles. I think its a genetic thing. Vinegar and spices run through my Germanic veins and my Pennsylvania Deutsch ancestry practically demands that I crave some sours along with my sweets. In fact, this recipe is the result of recent exposure to some Pennsylvanian food. Pickled mushrooms were served at my cousin's wedding in Reading, PA over memorial day. While they are actually more Italian then German, the Germans know good food when they see it, so they were quick to adopt these Mediterranean treats.

I returned to DC determined to make my own. After searching the Internet and finding multiple recipes, I combined what I liked best about several of them and came up with the version you see below. But before I could try it I had to get my mushrooms. On my lunch break I headed down to Whole Foods one day and positioning myself in front of the crimini bin, began to assiduously pick my way through, plucking out the smallest mushrooms I could find. Soon a man sidled up next to me and began doing the same thing, except he grabbed the largest specimens in the box. A peaceful coexistence reigned as each person's trash became the others treasure. I would like to end this paragraph with a great punch line, maybe with the man turning to me with some witty remark, but I'm afraid we each went our way without any sitcom style exchanges. I don't think the mushrooms suffered from the lack of dialogue, but it would have made for a better blog post, no? Either way, if you like pickles and mushrooms, you definitely want to try out this recipe. And if you can't think of what you would do with them, scroll to the bottom of this post for some ideas.

Pickled Mushrooms

Makes about 5 cups, 617 calories for the whole recipe or about 62 calories per half cup serving.

1 lb Crimini or white button mushrooms (use the smallest ones you can find)

2 medium onions, sliced and separated into rings

About 3 ounces of red bell pepper cut into strips (about 1 small pepper, use more or less, to taste)

1-1/2 cup red wine vinegar

1-1/2 cup water

2-1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 tsp whole allspice berries (you may omit this if you can't find them)

2 bay leaves

2 tsp whole black peppercorns

1 tsp hot pepper flakes or to taste

Dash of ground cloves

1/2 tsp mustard seeds

Procedure:

1. You will need a medium saucepan and a big pot, 3 pint, 6 half pint or 2 quart jars with lids (try using your old, clean pasta sauce or peanut butter jars for this). Make sure the rubber seal on the inside of the lids is intact. Fill the big pot with about 3 inches of water and place the lids face up in the water, and the jars mouth down on top of them. They don't have to line up, they just need to be under the water. Place the pot over high heat while you get started with the mushrooms.

2. Thoroughly clean your mushroom of choice, and prep your other vegetables. Feel free to use different spices than the ones that I list here, you will still get a good result, just different flavours.

3. Combine the spices, salt, sugar, water, vinegar, onion rings and pepper in the medium saucepan. Bring to a boil, then add the mushrooms and let simmer for about 5 minutes. Stir so that the mushrooms all get a bath in the spicy broth. Take the saucepan off the heat.

4. By now the big pot with your jars should be boiling. Let it boil for about 10 minutes, then turn off the heat.

5. Using oven mitts and a pair of tongs, pull a jar out of the big pot, set it right side up on the counter and using a ladle or a cup measure, dip the hot pickling mixture out of the saucepan and fill your jar, leaving about half an inch of air at the very top. Use tongs to fish a lid out of the big pot and your oven mitts to tighten it down on your jar of pickles. Set aside and repeat until you are out of mushrooms.

6. You are done! This whole recipe can be put together in about an hour, including veggie prep time. Unfortunately you have to wait a while before you can enjoy the fruits of your labor. Set those alluring jars aside to cool completely and then put them in your cupboard for at least a week before opening. If you try them sooner, the mushrooms wont have absorbed the full flavour from the pickling juice. Once the jar has been opened, the seal will be broken, so then you will want to keep it in the fridge.

Some ideas for your pickled mushrooms:

1. Blend or mince finely and mix with mayo or mustard and use as a spread in your favorite sandwich.

2. Top a salad with a couple of these for a delicious accompaniment.

3. Use the mushrooms (and onion and pepper) as a topping on your next pizza.

4. Toss with some short pasta and a bit of mayo for a great pasta salad.

5. My favorite way: sneak into the kitchen just before bed and eat them out of the jar with a fork.

A Preliminary Recipe Index

2008-06-24T11:23:00.097-04:00

Beverages

Banana Maple Smoothie with Kale

Cardamom Addict's Masala Chai

Tastes Like Home's Peanut Punch

Salads

Butterhead Lettuce and Orange Salad with Pepitas and Dried Cranberries

Carrot, Orange and Honey Salad

Couscous, Fennel and Cannolini Bean Salad

Curried Chickpea and Avocado Salad

Dandelion Green Salad

Blood Orange, Kumquat and Kiwi Salad

Macerated Oranges with Cinnamon and Rum

Apple Spinach Salad

Autumn Slaw with Dijon Vinaigrette

Cherry Tomatoes with Micro-basil and Goat Cheese

Wheat Berry Salad with Feta and Olives

Salmon Salad with Roasted Summer Vegetables

Watercress Salad with Mango and Lime

Ingredients and Produce

Breadfruit and Winged Beans

Caramolas, Pineapples and Apple Bananas

Green and Black's Chocolate

Marie Sharp's Habanero Hot Sauce

Pumpkin

Vegetables

Lambs Quarters

Dandelion Greens with Bacon

Broccoli with Kumquats and Red Pepper Flakes

Leeks with Dijon Mustard

Late Summer Sweet Potato and Green Bean Stirfry

Roasted Turnips with Olive Oil

Zucchini Fritters Five Ways

Grilled Zucchini Wraps with Pineapple and Smoked Paprika

Stuffed Green Papaya

Legumes of all types

Stewed Red Kidney Beans, Belizean Style

Ginger Tofu and Chickpeas

Pasta, Rice and other Grains

Clams and Calamari with Lemon, Capers and Fettuccine

Spring Vegetable Fusilli with Feta Cheese

Pseudo-Saffron Rice

Seafood

Clams and Calamari with Lemon and Capers

Easy Catfish Gumbo

Red Snapper Ceviche, Yucatec Style

Snapper grilled in Allspice Leaves

Amotik: A Goan Fish Curry

Jose's Maple Almond Encrusted Salmon

Salmon Salad with Roasted Vegetables

Condiments, Chutneys, Jams, Sauces and Dressings

Apple Ginger Chutney

Caramelized Sweet Corn Salsa

Homemade Belizean Pepper Sauce

Wild Crab Apple Butter

Meats

Stove-top Pan Barbecued Chicken

Goat and Garlic stuffed Apples

Desserts

Blueberry Malt Non-fat Frozen Yogurt

Gingery Vanilla-Peach Shortcake

Grandma's Lemon Sponge Pie

Grandma's Bread Pudding

Guava Pudding

Desert Candy's Key Lime Pie Ice Cream

Tahini Honey Chews

No-Bake Peanut Butter Chocolate Balls

No-Egg Mint Chocolate Cookie Dough Ice Cream

Low fat Vanilla Bean Ice Cream

World's Easiest Vanilla Frozen Yogurt

Tropical Paradise Ice Cream

Yeast Breads

A Year in Bread's Rosemary Raisin Loaf

A Year in Bread's Grape Foccaccia

Belizean Creole Bread

My Mom's All Purpose Bread

Light Honey Rye Bread

Quick Breads and Muffins

Brown Bread with Raisins and Cardamom

Johnny Cakes

5 Spice Muffins with Ginger, Dates and Bananas

No-Egg Carrot Raisin Muffins

Cranberry Date and Coconut "Sailor" Muffins

Pumpkin Molasses Muffins

Wild Persimmon Bread with Walnuts

Breakfast and Brunch

Breakfast Polenta with Cranberries and Maple Syrup

Coconut Date Oats with Banana

Whole Wheat Orange Blueberry Hotcakes

Belizean Fry Jack

Soups

Breadfruit Gumbo

Catfish Gumbo

Curried Pumpkin with Lime and Plantain

Fat Free Sweet Potato Corn Chowder

Thai-style Green Papaya and Lemon Grass Soup

Chickpea Andouille Soup with Greens

Cherries and Chow Chow

2008-06-24T08:52:00.000-04:00

These are from my weekend in Reading, Pennsylvania. My family found the cherries at a local farmers market. Sweet Ranier cherries, too delicious to do anything but eat them raw. The whole quart disappeared in about 20 minutes. I spotted some sour cherries at my Dupont Circle market the weekend before. Are you seeing any cherries in your neck of the woods?

I also picked up a jar of chow chow while I was in PA, a sweet pickle mix of peppers, beans, corn, baby onions and other vegetables that you can find all over that part of the USA. I can't wait to dig into it!

Curried Chickpea and Avocado Salad

2008-06-19T20:41:00.000-04:00

I made hummus the other day for a pool party and even though I blended up a quart of the stuff, there were still tons of chickpeas left over from the 5 pound can that I had lugged home from a nearby Syrian fast food joint.

So last night in class when things began to drag a bit I started dreaming up something to do with all those garbanzos. Something fresh, something that would also use up a few of the avocados that were slowly over-ripening on my counter. As they say, necessity is the mother of invention, and in this case it was necessary for me to avoid losing 3 dollars of expensive tropical produce just because I was tired of eating guacamole every day.

This is what I came up with. It is tasty, fresh with bright, sharp flavours that wake you up and make you pay attention. I can think of a lot of variations on this salad, so feel free to add some different spices or new ingredients. I think if you had the time that caramelizing the onions and warming up the chickpeas would create a whole new spin on this combination.

Curried Chickpea and Avocado Salad
Serves one as a meal, about 382 calories

1 cup chickpeas (about 8.4 ounces)
1/4 cup cilantro leaves, chopped
1/4 cup onion, minced
1/2 medium avocado, chopped (about 2 ounces)
salt and fresh ground black pepper
1/4-1/2 tsp good curry powder
1/4 tsp cumin
1/4-1/2 tsp Chipotle powder (or to taste)
Juice of one lime

Procedure:

1. If the chickpeas are canned, thoroughly wash them and rinse.
2. Toss the chickpeas, minced onion, cilantro and spices.
3. Top with the cubed avocado and squeeze the lime over all. Let sit for at least half an hour to allow the flavours to meld.

The Tackle Box: A Restaurant Review

2008-06-12T15:06:00.000-04:00

I believe I've mentioned before how much I love DC chef Barton Seaver's upscale sustainable seafood restaurant Hook. Despite my great love, however, I have only been there twice. Why? Well, when I say upscale I mean expensive and I don't quite have the budget to match. So you can only imagine how excited I was to hear that Seaver's new project, what he describes as "a New England lobster shack in the heart of DC", had opened. Named Tackle Box, this little picnic bench and paper napkin restaurant is located right next door to its more pretentious sibling on M. Street in Georgetown, one of DC's most expensive neighborhoods.

Unlike Hook, however, I can actually afford to eat at this place more than once a year. In fact, for 13 dollars I can get a main course of sustainable, fresh seafood, two sides and a house-made sauce to dip it all in. Walking in the door on a sweltering day this past weekend, the first thing that caught my eye was the big blackboard on the far right wall, listing appetizers (from 6 to 12 dollars depending on what you get), the 13 dollar "Maine Meal" offers, sides, extras and sauces. I like how the "maine meal" offerings are divided by style of preparation: you can order seafood that is either "crispy" (deep fried) or "wood-grilled". Between the appetizers and the "maine" meal, scallops, shrimp, clams, oysters, bluefish, catfish, tilapia, calamari and rainbow trout are all represented. The clean concrete floors and walls give the place a stripped down feel that is only increased when one goes to the counter to order and pay. This is definitely not Hook, with its luxurious chairs and well-dressed waiters. That's not a bad thing though. Sitting at a picnic bench sucking down some water from the pitchers sitting on a side table, I enjoy the relaxed ambiance and the fact that the air conditioning isn't blasting at a frigid 60 degrees like so many other restaurants in the summer. For once I don't have to pull out a sweater.

And I enjoy the food. The meal comes out quickly, my number called only a few minutes after I am seated, but at the first bite it is clear that this is no fast food joint, despite the tray and disposable utensils (which according to Metrocurean are made of biodegradable materials, and certainly are more sturdy than plastic-ware). My fried oysters are fantastic. Not greasy at all, with a bit of spiciness to the crisp breading, plump and juicy and with a clean oyster flavour. My boyfriend got the burger, which seemed like a cop-out until I had a bite. Top quality meat went into that meat patty, and the results were something that you could never find at McDonalds. His New England clam chowder was equally flavourful if not as thick as the type at Legal Seafoods.

As for the sides, my mizuna greens salad with pesto dressing was tasty, but the wood-grilled asparagus were outstanding. A slight smokey flavour permeated them and dipped into the garlic-lemon aioli (the same sauce that you can find next door at Hook), they were a meal in themselves. Because my boyfriend didn't want a sauce to go with his burger, I got two to try out my oysters with: the aioli and a yummy tarter sauce. Both were lovely although my food was so good that frankly they were just icing on the cake.

While researching the Tackle Box before my first trip I found a number of comments on Chowhound complaining about the size of the servings. I know that serving size is a relative thing, but I can say without a doubt that I was very full when I walked out the door. One dozen deep fried oysters, to my mind, is a pretty large amount of seafood especially when it comes with a heaping pile of mizuna and at least 4 fat spears of asparagus.

Would I go back to Tackle Box? Hell yes, and indeed I plan on it. Its great to know that there is a seafood place just a walk away where I can eat sustainably without breaking the bank. Next time I'm going to try out the house-made lemonade, and maybe see if I can plow through a half-pound of sustainably sourced peel-and-eat shrimp.

Tried and Tasted Round-Up!

2008-06-10T11:30:00.001-04:00

Zlamushka of Zlamushka's Spicy Kitchen was kind enough to remind me that the round-up of recipes for the first Tried and Tasted event, featuring Cynthia's blog Tastes like Home, has been posted this past weekend. I was impressed to see how many entries there were-45, by 29 different people! Another thing that caught my eye was the number-one most popular recipe: flaked roti. I am going to have to make me some of those but soon! Of course the rich and creamy peanut punch was number two, and it seems that Jai and Bee over at Jugalbandi agree with me that the alcohol is an important, if not essential, ingredient in this tasty treat! Other entries ranged from egg curries to puris to coconut ice cream and scotch bonnet hot sauce. Check them all out at Zlamushka's Spicy Kitchen, and then get ready for the next Tried and Tasted event, featuring the blog One Hot Stove by Nupur. So lets head out of the Caribbean and set those taste buds for Indian food!

I Love Bread

2008-06-09T21:40:00.000-04:00

Did I mention I love bread? If you have been reading this blog for a while you are probably well acquainted with that fact...but I figured I should bring it up again just in case it slipped your mind.

A big ol' carb lover, that's me. At least I like it multi-grain. If I can substitute whole wheat or white whole wheat or whole wheat pastry flour for that lily-white all purpose stuff, I do. Most of the time it turns out pretty darn good, although sometimes you just can't substitute for the bread flour.

This is an excellent loaf of sourdough that I made with a starter that had been neglected in my fridge for about 2 months. The morning before I started my baking I stirred two cups of flour and the equivalent weight of water into about three cups of my extremely sour and sad looking starter and let it sit out for the day. When I got home from class that night it was all excited to see me, peeking over the top of the container and bubbling happily. I was pleased to see that it hadn't held a grudge against me despite not being fed for almost 8 weeks. So I scooped out three cupfuls, added 1 cup white bread flour and 2 cups wheat flour and stirred and then squished it into a rough ball and threw it into the fridge before bed.

That morning I got up to find that the dough had risen before me despite the cold refrigerator (how I love those culinary puns...or did I mean buns? I'd better quit while I'm abread, er ahem..I mean, ahead...). I tilted it out and kneaded it into a supple round that then got tossed back into the bowl. There was flour in the bottom which I didn't bother to pour out, hence the lovely floured top on the loaf. But we can all pretend that I did that on purpose. You know, for decorative effect.

So my bread got to sit all alone again, until I got home from work. It had doubled in size in the fridge, so I poured about a teaspoon of olive oil into the bottom of a 9" round cake pan and carefully flipped the dough ball into it. Talk about easy shaping. The floury bottom became the top and I left it to warm up and finish rising while the oven heated. It was at this point that I realized I had forgotten the salt. Basic bread= flour+water+leavening+salt. Except that mine was, at that point, definitely a no-sodium treat. While I don't use a ton of salt in my cooking, it does bring out flavour and this bread looked so pretty that I was depressed at the thought of it tasting flat (sour, yet flat). Then I had a great, save the moment idea. I patted a couple teaspoons of big grained sea salt onto the top and sides of my rotund loaf, careful not to upset it. If one disturbs a loaf while it is doing its pre-oven meditation it might fall, and I didn't want to turn out a sourdough brick like last time!

Luckily for me this one came out great. It baked in about 30 minutes at 450 degrees, and when I took it out it smelled fantastic. I squeezed it and it crackled merrily at me, always a good sign. It has kept fine wrapped in paper towels in a plastic bag on my counter, although the salt tends to attract water and make the top a bit more moist than I would like, which frankly is the only downside. Nothing that toasting can't fix! Most important of all, it tasted delicious with a surprisingly subtle sourness and the occasional salty crunch on the crust. Toasted, with some homemade fresh goat cheese, it was the best breakfast ever. So, do you love bread too?

A Fundraiser to help Figs with Bri Beat Cancer

2008-06-05T11:42:00.000-04:00

It was very recently that I began reading Briana's blog, Figs with Bri. So recently, in fact, that I haven't even added it to my blog-roll yet (that changes today). So I learned more about the site and the woman behind it from reading about this fundraiser than anything else. Check out Bri's website and make a donation below, or participate in the raffle and the photography contest.

This is an appeal on behalf of a group of food bloggers who are friends of Briana Brownlow @ Figs With Bri. Bri was diagnosed with breast cancer two and half years ago. A mastectomy, chemotherapy and two years of relatively good health later, the cancer is back. It has metastasized to other parts of her body. At the age of 15, Bri lost her 41-year old mother to the disease. Now, she’s waging her own war against breast cancer. More about it here.

She is going through intensive chemo and other treatments and needs to focus single-mindedly on healing and finding what treatment works best for her. Her health insurance, unfortunately, does not cover holistic alternatives which she would like to try. Bri and her husband Marc have enough on their plates right now in addition to worrying about her medical bills.

The team organising the JUNE edition of CLICK at Jugalbandi has organised a fundraiser to help Bri and her family meet her out-of-pocket medical costs for ONE YEAR.

CLICK is a monthly theme-based photography contest hosted by Jugalbandi. This month’s theme is: YELLOW for Bri

Yellow is the colour of hope. Through the work of the LiveStrong Foundation, it has also come to signify the fight against cancer.

The entries can be viewed HERE. The deadline for entries is June 30, 2008. The fundraiser will extend until July 15, 2008.

The target amount is 12,000 U.S. dollars. We appeal to our fellow bloggers and readers to help us achieve this. Bri deserves a chance to explore all options, even if her insurance company thinks otherwise. There’s a raffle with exciting prizes on offer. After viewing the list, you may make your donation HERE or at the Chip-In button on any participating site.

Your donation can be made securely through credit card or Pay Pal and goes directly to Bri’s account. This month’s photo contest also has some prizes. Details HERE. You can support this campaign by donating to the fundraiser, by participating in CLICK: the photo event, and by publicising this campaign.

No one should have to worry about bills while fighting cancer. Unfortunately that is the reality that many people face every year. Lets help Bri so she can put her energy into beating cancer and exploring all the options available. Go Bri!

Rhubarb and Strawberries...

2008-06-04T22:23:00.000-04:00

This past Sunday I went to see an outdoors performance of Hamlet at the Carter Baron theater in N.W. Washington DC. The Shakespeare Theater Company does these free performances after their for-profit runs, and on balmy summer evenings they are the perfect low-budget outing. I thank my friend M. for introducing me to the series last year, when we saw a fantastic and wacky Indian -1960s-Beatles style interpretation of Prince of Verona. (It was trippy dude!)

Because the shows are free, it is best to arrive early so you can get good seats, and, if you are driving, a parking spot in the lot. Thousands of people turn out for each show, and this was the last performance of Hamlet and was sure to be crowded. So we decided to get there early and have a picnic dinner on the grass near the parking area before venturing through the green and gold evening woods to the amphitheater.

Everyone was supposed to bring something to eat for themselves and a little extra to share. Coincidentally I had been reading Smitten Kitchen's recipe for Rhubarb-Strawberry pie last week, after a Memorial day weekend potluck at which I ate a delicious rhubarb pie. Then Sunday morning at the Dupont Farmers Market I found the first strawberries of the season, scenting the air and bursting out of bright blue baskets, as well as green batons of rhubarb. It was a sign. I bought lots of both and headed home, with a plan already forming in my head. I had a paper to write, but after a couple pages of notes, the pie took over and it was all pastry from there. I used Smitten Kitchen's recipe with only two alterations: I added the grated zest of one orange to the filling instead of vanilla and I used whole wheat pastry flour for the crust.

I am not a pie expert. They definitely fall into the high fat category of desserts and so I rarely make them. But despite my ineptitude, the crust came out beautifully. I followed Smitten Kitchen's handy tutorial on how to make a lattice top, and it turned out great. When I finally unveiled the pie and set it down on our picnic blanket, it was the star of the show. Smitten Kitchen was right: bringing a home made dessert always makes one a welcome guest. Especially when it is this summery delicious pie, in a flaky crust. Thanks Smitten Kitchen! This pie is definitely getting a thumbs up from me!

Try out the recipe here: Smitten Kitchen's Rhubarb-Strawberry Pie. And in case you were wondering, if you cut this pie into 12 pieces, each piece is 366 calories. So no, its not a low-cal dessert. But it is delicious. If you wanted you could probably cut the sugar down to 3/4 of a cup and it would still be great.

Oh-and Hamlet was pretty good too.

Tried and Tasted: Tastes Like Home's Peanut Punch

2008-05-31T10:19:00.000-04:00

Zlamushka of Zlamushka's Spicy Kitchen is hosting a great new blogging event called "Tried and Tasted", where every month a food blog is chosen to have it's recipes tried out by other food bloggers. The first blog to receive this honor (and trial by fire) is the blog Tastes Like Home, written by Cynthia, a talented cook and photographer from Guyana who is in the middle of finishing up her very own cookbook!

Cynthia was one of the first people to comment on my blog and has been a source of recipes, banter about tropical ingredients and general camaraderie. I was excited to have an excuse to finally try one of her recipes and blog about it. I even emailed her and promised that I would participate for sure! But then life intervened with weddings and classes and work and the next thing I knew it was May 30th, the night before the deadline, which is today my dear readers, and I realized I had yet to make something from Cynthia's beautiful blog. So this morning I made myself some Peanut Punch. This is one of the few recipes that Cynthia has posted directly on her blog, although if you want to make any of the things she writes about, she will be happy to send you the recipe if you email her. The punch was delicious, and I have some leftovers chilling in my fridge, for a drink later on this afternoon.

So here it is, my contribution to Tried and Tasted: Tastes Like Home. I changed up the ingredients just a little, by adding some Belizean coconut rum. Because, you know, everything is better with rum! Enjoy!

Cynthia's Peanut Punch (with a Belizean twist)

Get the original recipe here. This version serves 2. The recipe is about 500 calories if you err on the teaspoon side with the rum (though why you would want to do that is beyond me.) With no alcohol, the recipe contains 460 calories.

1 tsp to 1 tablespoon coconut rum (to taste)
3 tbsp creamy peanut butter
1 cup cold 1% milk (for a colder drink, try freezing a few milk ice cubes to add to the blender)
1 tbsp sugar
dash of cinnamon
about 1/8 tsp nutmeg

Procedure:

Blend everything together on high until smooth. Serve ice cold with a dusting of nutmeg and a couple peanuts on top. They will soon sink to the bottom, but the crunchy ending is delightful. As you can see, mine didn't last long. Thanks Cynthia!

Whole-wheat Orange Blueberry Hotcakes

2008-05-30T09:13:00.001-04:00

Hello Everyone! It certainly has been a while hasn't it? Over ten days and I haven't posted a thing. I have an explanation for that though! (Don't I always.) It has been a hectic fortnight around here. I started an intensive summer class last week. It is titled "food, security and globalization" and addresses food security, hunger and food prices around the world. Very topical, and very interesting, but also a lot of work. So instead of trying to take pretty pictures of my food, lately I have resorted to simply eating it, and feeling grateful to have it in front of me.

Then last weekend my cousin got married so I spent a long weekend in Pennsylvania, overeating at the reception, my favorite local pizza joint, and a memorial day pot-luck. The venison burger and rhubarb pie were especially yummy. I couldn't stay away from you guys for too long though, so here is a picture of my breakfast. This is one of my favorite recipes, orange-blueberry hotcakes. I topped mine with home made Greek yogurt, honey and blueberries (previously frozen!). I actually made these yesterday, but pancakes, hotcakes, flapjacks and the like keep pretty well if you put them in a Ziplock bag with a paper towel and toss them in the fridge. Then you can pop them in a toaster for a quick meal or snack. They are also great as a healthy treat at work.

Whole Wheat Orange Blueberry Hotcakes
This particular recipe is whole grain and fat free and can easily be veganized by replacing the milk with soy or rice milk. If you don't care for berries, omit them and enjoy some plain orange hotcakes. This recipe makes roughly 14 hotcakes at about 55 calories a piece.

1 and 1/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 tablespoon flax meal (optional, but gives the hotcakes a nice golden colour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt (optional)
1 cup orange juice
1/4-1/3 cup milk or soy milk (lowfat or skim is fine)
Zest of one orange
Zest of half a lemon
1 tsp sugar (or more, to your taste)
About one cup blueberries, fresh or frozen

Procedure:

1. Sift flour, flax meal, soda, salt and powder into a bowl.
2. In a small cup or bowl mix together the sugar with the zests, then add to the dry ingredients.
3. Quickly stir the orange juice and milk or soymilk into the flour mixture. Don't worry about a few lumps. The batter will not be thin and runny, but it shouldn't be like a biscuit dough either, add more milk if you deem it necessary, until you get something like a rather wet muffin batter.
4. Fold in the blueberries and drop by spoonfuls onto a medium-hot, preferably cast iron, griddle or frying pan. (Nonstick works too). Flip when the tops look a bit opaque, or if bubbles on the surface begin to burst.

Toppings:

While the American choice of Maple syrup is always good, I also recommend topping these with a nice marmalade, orange blossom honey and Greek yogurt, or a compound butter. Try this one on for size:

Orange Honey Compound Butter

1 part orange blossom honey
1 part softened butter
zest of orange and/or lemon, to taste

Procedure:

Just cream the honey and butter together thoroughly, then add citrus zest to taste. You can freeze or refrigerate this for weeks or even months if you keep it covered, and it is delicious not only on these hotcakes, but also on scones, biscuits, muffins and fresh cornbread.

Lambs Quarters

2008-05-18T20:03:00.000-04:00

You thought you were going to see big hunks of meat didn't you? That's the funny thing about this vegetable. Called pigweed, lambs quarters or any of a dozen other names, this delicious relative of spinach is found growing in parks, fields and roadsides across North America. Also known as chenopodium album, lambs quarters is one of my favorite foraged foods. This green is just plain delicious, and it doesn't require any fancy cooking to bring out its full flavour. Like beet greens and spinach, it can be cooked relatively quickly with just a little water, and cooked lambs quarters can be substituted wherever you might use cooked spinach. (It is tough and gritty raw, however).

I ran across some lambs quarters the other day and stuffed a plastic bag full of the tender tips. They will quickly send up new shoots to replace what I took, so I didn't feel bad about raiding the patch. Here is what I did with them the next day:

Your basic Lambs Quarters

A large bunch of lambs quarters
about 1/2 cup water
hot sauce to taste
several tablespoons red wine or cider vinegar
salt and fresh ground black pepper

Procedure:

1. Thoroughly wash the lambs quarters. The leaves have a slightly downy feel to them, and the water will run off without completely wetting the leaves, but clean them up as best you can.

2. Strip the leaves off of the bigger and tougher stems. You can keep the whole tender tips, stem and all. (If you can pinch through the stem without too much effort, its a keeper).

3. Heat the 1/2 cup water in a big pot over medium heat. Add the lambs quarters, cover and cook until tender. This will take 10-15 minutes, depending on the size and toughness of the leaves. Taste one if you aren't sure.

4. Add the vinegar and hot sauce to taste, along with the black pepper and salt. Cover and let cook for a minute or two more.

5. Remove the lambs quarters and the juice (pot liquor) from the pot and dump into a bowl. Place in the fridge or freezer to quickly cool them down to handling temperature. Get yourself a good cutting board and knife, take the bowl out and grab a handful of the lambs quarters. Give it a nice squeeze to let the juices run back into the bowl, place on your cutting board and chop thoroughly. Do the same for the rest of the lambs quarters, and return to the bowl with the pot liquor. Serve with curried chickpeas, black eyed peas, red kidney beans or any other type of bean and rice, or use as a side dish with a meat (or tofu) and potatoes meal.

I ate these lambs quarters with some curried chickpeas.

They were delicious, and free, which is great considering the price of food these days.

Its all been done before...Spring vegetable pasta with feta

2008-05-14T07:08:00.001-04:00

It seems that pretty much everyone has done some kind of spring vegetable dish by now. And inspired by all the leading runners, I have finally gotten out of the starting gate with a weeknight recipe that only takes about 20 minutes to make. It is also quite delicious and pretty good for you too, as long as you don't overload it with cheese.

Spring Vegetable Pasta with Feta
While I availed myself of frozen peas and young Lima beans in my freezer, you can certainly use fresh if you prefer and I am sure the result would be even more sublime. Feeds about 6.

About 2 cups dry whole wheat fusilli pasta

About 2 cups broccoli, cut into bite sized pieces

About 1 cup baby Lima beans (fresh or frozen)

About 1 cup peas (fresh or frozen)

About 2 ounces of good quality feta (I used a sun-dried tomato feta from my farmers market)

2-3 tablespoons capers

1/4-1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley

A splash or two of white wine (I used a cabernet sauvignon)

About 1/2 tablespoon of good quality olive oil (or to taste)

salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste

A sprinkle of red pepper flakes (optional)

Procedure:

1. Set one large and one small pot of water to boil. When they do, put the pasta in the large pot and cook it al dente. It will get a few minutes more cooking time later on, so you don't want it to be too soft. Toss the Lima beans and peas into the other pot. If they are frozen they should both need about 10-12 minutes of cooking time. Otherwise, cook the fresh beans and peas until tender, which should take less time than with the frozen version.

2. Once the pasta is cooked, strain it and leave it in the colander. Drain the beans and peas as well, and reserve. Heat a couple tablespoons of water in the pasta pot and dump in the broccoli. Cover the lid on medium low and let the broccoli steam for a couple minutes. Open the lid and stir, letting the water evaporate. Turn the heat to medium low.

3. Add the beans and peas to the broccoli, then add a couple glugs of white wine and about half a tablespoon of good quality olive oil (or more if you so desire). Toss the vegetables and then add the fusilli pasta, the salt and black pepper and the red pepper flakes, if desired.

4. Stir for a minute or two, then add the parsley, capers and feta cheese, breaking it up into little pieces as you dump it in. Toss everything over medium low heat until the cheese has melted a bit and coated the pasta and vegetables. Add a swig more of wine if desired, stir until thoroughly mixed, and serve.

This is delicious fresh but it also can keep for up to a week in a closed container in the fridge, and when reheated in the microwave makes a nice workday lunch. Personally I really like the meaty feel and satisfying flavour of the Lima beans combined with the sharpness of the capers and feta.

Sourdough focaccia with various toppings...

2008-05-08T01:00:00.000-04:00

One of my dinners lately...some fun with sourdough focaccia.

The watercress just didn't work out as nicely as I had hoped. The olive/feta/onion combination was, of course, delicious.

What are you doing to cut down on your food costs?

2008-05-01T15:12:00.001-04:00

Today I read an article in the Washington Post about rising food prices. Titled "Clipping, Scrimping and Saving", it discussed the effect of high food costs on Americans across the country.

It made me think about how many of us have had to tighten our belts, or, at least, shorten our grocery lists, as we plan our weekly budgets.

Personally I have stopped buying meat almost completely and seafood has, unfortunately, been relegated to the back burner, since I am not about to start buying ecologically destructive farmed shrimp or Tilapia from Thailand or Vietnam, and most other seafood is too expensive. I stocked up on lentils and other hearty, yet cheap, organic produce the last time I was at Whole Foods-and that was a while ago. At the Farmers market I select my groceries judiciously, going for whats cheapest, and avoiding expensive items like mushrooms, meat, pre-made foods or particularly rare (and expensive) veggies and fruits. I do, however, still buy cheese. One can't give up everything, and I need my goat cheese darnit!

Another way I save money is by making my own yogurt and bread at home. Both save a significant amount of money, but even if bread was a dollar a loaf I would still bake it often, so I can't say that economic reasons drove me to my oven.

So, I'm wondering, how have high food prices affected you? Are there certain things that you buy less of, or simply don't buy at all? And what is your must have splurge item?

Tahini Honey Chews

2008-04-29T20:34:00.000-04:00

So tomorrow is my last day of class for the semester. Then I am free! Free, that is, until the 19th of May when my summer course starts. Oh, and there is that field research report due May 12th. And, of course, the field research itself, which involves riding all around town on my bicycle and drinking beer. (Bike messengers are notoriously mobile and can only be pinned down at their watering holes).

But in between all these fun activities I found the time to invent and test a new recipe, one that I had listed in my journal for over a month now. In Belize when I ate tahini it was always mixed with honey and spread on my Mom's fresh baked bread. I wanted to recreate that, but as a portable dessert. Basically something like a peanut butter cookie, but with sesame. And something that would be sweet, crunchy, but chewy. So I came up with these cookies. They are tiny and delicious and moreish. And they are even, I think, gluten free, so you can serve them with tea to your most discriminating guests.

Tahini Honey Chews

Makes about 32 small cookies, at around 45 calories each.

1/2 cup tahini (if your tahini has separated so there is oil on the top, pour that away into a separate container before you measure)

1/4 cup flax seed meal

1/4 cup toasted sesame seeds

1/4 cup turbinado sugar (for added crunch)

1/4 cup honey

A pinch of salt if desired

Procedure:

1. Heat the oven to 375 degrees Farenheit and move the rack to the middle of the oven. Place a silpat or parchment paper on 2 cookie pans. They do not need greasing. Toast the sesame seeds by stirring them in a small skillet over medium low heat until they begin to color slightly.

2. Cream together the tahini and honey. Add the sugar, sesame seeds, salt, if used, and flax meal. Stir together thoroughly.

3. Using a teaspoon, scoop small balls of the mixture and place them on the cookie pans. Tip: keep a small cup of water nearby to dip the teaspoon in as needed, this will make removal of the dough easier.

4. Flatten the cookies slightly with the palm of your hand. Pop in the oven and check after 4 or 5 minutes. If the edges of the cookies are a deepening brown, quickly remove them to cool. The middles may look soft, but they are done. If you wait too long the bottoms will burn before you know it. Let them sit on the cookie sheet for 5 or 10 minutes, then remove to a rack and cool completely before storing. Store in a cookie tin and they will taste just as good a couple days later, if they last that long.

For a cup of Rice.

2008-04-22T16:00:00.000-04:00

It is hard to blog about food these days without getting political. Without thinking about starvation, and famine, and countries that continue exporting their crops to us while their people riot in the streets for want of food. But Tea over at Tea and Cookies says it so much more eloquently than I.

Please stop by her blog, where you can read something written with real conviction and insight, by a truly talented writer: Tea and Cookies: No Words.

How to buy Organic without breaking the Bank.

2008-04-19T21:00:00.000-04:00

As you can probably guess, I advocate buying locally, organically grown foods as much as possible. But like most people the world over, rising food prices have been hitting me hard. I greatly appreciate that I am not starving as a result of this inflation. I have a job and a roof over my head and I still shop at my local farmers' market. At the same time, as a full time graduate student living in an expensive city, I have had to change my eating habits, mainly by trying to eat out less, and searching for organic bargains (they do exist).

If you are trying to eat healthily and sustainably, but finding that food prices keep you from buying all local and/or organic products, you might want to try shopping selectively. The other day I opened my hotmail account only to see that MSN has come out with a slide show of the top 12 foods that you should buy organic. This handy list of the top ten vegetables, fruits and grains that you should buy organic is from the consumer's union's 2001 report on the EPA.

Why should you buy organic for these particular foods as opposed to any others? As the lists explain, some "conventionally raised" food products can be particularly bad for you. The reasons are legion. To keep it simple, lets tackle each group at a time:

Dairy products and beef: Monsanto's Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH) was approved for use by the FDA going on 20 years ago and has raised concerns ever since. This hormone forces dairy cows to produce more milk when raised conventionally and opponents believe that it poses serious health risks to humans. Read more about it at Wikipedia. rBGH aside, milk cows and beef cattle are normally not allowed to graze freely and beef cattle may be force fed in overcrowded stock pens to quickly bring up their weight. Animals are packed so tightly together that heavy doses of antibiotics are necessary to keep down the levels of infection and disease. The same applies to chicken and pig farms, where thousands of animals are jammed together in large buildings. These animals don't merrily run around in a grassy field, in fact, many of them never see the sun in their entire lives.

Even if you don't care about what this does to the animals, it is important to remember that you are what you eat. Stressed out farm animals loaded full of growth hormones, pesticide and herbicide residues and antibiotics not only aren't good for you, they also don't taste as nice. Why do you think they massage wagyu cattle? A happy animal equals better meat and dairy. This goes for eggs too. Crowded and insanitary conditions only increase the chances of salmonella, mad cow disease or other fun stuff making its way into your kitchen.

Fruits and Vegetables: While perusing the two lists that I linked to above you probably noticed that some fruits and vegetables appear on both. So, if you can't afford to buy all organic produce, why should you at least ensure that these particular items are? For two reasons. Some fruits and vegetables have thin permeable skins that allow pesticides, herbicides and chemical fertilizer residues to soak right in. No amount of washing will remove these chemicals, so if you buy conventional strawberries, peppers, celery or apples, just to name a few, be aware that you will be consuming the residue of up to 40 different fungicides, pesticides and herbicides. Yeah, I said 40. That brings us to number two. Some crops are hit with up to 500 lbs of chemicals per acre (think strawberries). And these aren't innocent chemicals either. Pesticides are meant to kill things, and some are very persistent carcinogens and mutagens. You want to reduce your exposure to these babies as much as possible.

Soy products and Canola: If you buy conventional soy products in the USA, you are pretty much guaranteed to be eating genetically modified (GMO) soy. Most conventional canola oil and other canola products are GMO as well. What's bad about genetically modified organisms? Well, some say nothing and others say a lot. Personally I don't like the effects of the GMOs as they have been observed so far. There is no labeling requirement for GMO products in the USA, so if you want to play it safe, buy organic. Certified organic products cannot be genetically modified.

You can read more about the issue here and here. Or just Google it. This is an ongoing controversy with a lot of people on either side, and if you don't know anything about it and want to learn more, the Internet is full of institutions, corporations and individuals arguing both for and against genetic modification (specifically manipulation, splicing and inserting of genes) of animals and plants. It is important to clarify that genetic modification as it is used here does not mean hybridization, or the natural crossing of different varieties of a plant or animal to yield a new variety. Genetically modified organisms are usually created by inserting genetic material from one plant or animal into the genetic structure of another. For example, Monsanto's infamous Roundup resistant soybeans. If you want to avoid supporting these creations, buy organic soy and canola much as possible.

Wheat products: Conventional wheat has some of the highest pesticide residue levels on the market today. For this reason the Consumers Union suggests that you buy organic wheat and wheat products whenever you can.

The Bottom Line: Of course it all comes down to money. And sadly food, health and economic class are closely intertwined not only abroad but right here in the USA. The bottom line is that sometimes one can't afford to buy organic. At the same time, what we eat is also about choices and priorities. Do we pay for cable TV or do we buy organic veggies instead of conventional ones? Should we splurge on consumer electronics or organic meat? Do we purchase an extra grande cappuccino on the way to work each day or do we use those extra bucks to make sure our fridges are stocked with organic milk instead of the conventional stuff? However, if it ever comes down to either buying organic strawberries or paying the rent, please just put that pint basket down and call it a day.

Clams and Calamari

2008-04-13T23:06:00.001-04:00

So I'm in the last two weeks of a busy semester. Final papers to write, projects to present, data to collect and of course, books to read. Barely any time to go to the gym and certainly hardly any for blogging. However, we all have to eat, so believe it or not, I have been cooking. This month I have been exploring Indian cooking. I love curries and in the past few weeks I made chicken tikka masala and a lamb vindaloo. I also tried out a chicken kung pao recipe that my boyfriend claims is "just like the restaurants". I promise I will post about these sometime. The tikka masala and the lamb vindaloo were both good, but not "restaurant quality". Something was off with the spices. I need to invest in more red chilies.

Another culinary first for me happened on Sunday when I cooked clams and calamari at home. I love seafood. Love it. Could eat it everyday. But because of the cost and the ecological impact and the fact that we are causing serious global problems through overfishing and badly managed fish farming, I don't. But on Sunday at the farmer's market I saw clams for sale, direct from the Chesapeake bay, courtesy of the seller, the latest in a long line of family fisherfolk. So I grabbed a bag of a dozen and went home to concoct something.

In my freezer was a one pound bag of pre-cleaned calamari, supposedly caught in US waters. I bought it after eating some fantastic black squid ink risotto with calamari at Hook, one of my new favorite restaurants (or it would be if I could afford to eat there more than once or twice a year). You support sustainable fishing while enjoying fine dining-what a great combination!

Anyways, I soon realized that without squid ink I couldn't replicate the risotto, so I decided to mix it up with my clams and some wine and pasta and call it a day.

Clams and Calamari with lemon and capers

This isn't so much a recipe as an idea. Feel free to change things, especially the seasonings, and toss in some vegetables. I mixed some of my leftovers with sauteed broccoli, Lima beans and artichoke hearts for a nice spring dinner last night. Serves two.

4 ounces whole wheat linguine or spaghetti

1 lb cleaned squid cut into bite sized pieces or rings

12 clams, scrubbed and prepped by placing them in a bowl of salt water for an hour or so to clean out the sand.

1 tbsp olive oil

about 1/2 cup white wine

about 1 tsp red pepper flakes

3-4 cloves of garlic, minced

salt and fresh black pepper to taste

zest and juice of one lemon

2 tbsp capers or to taste

Procedure:

1. Heat half the olive oil in a cast iron pan (non stick pans will get scratched), toss in your clean clams and stir. Pour in the wine, put on the lid and let the clams steam open. Remove them and their juice from the pan. Take all but a couple of the clams out of their shells.

2. Get some hot water boiling in a big pot and toss in your pasta. In the same frying pan, heat the remaining olive oil at medium high heat. Toss in the pepper flakes and calamari (if it was frozen, let it thaw before using and pat off the excess water with paper towels). Turn the heat up for a minute. Turn the heat to medium-low, add the garlic, capers and the clams and their juice. Add the salt and pepper, lemon zest and lemon juice to the pan. You should time it so that your pasta is finished by now. Dump the drained pasta into the pan and swirl it around so it soaks up the clam juice, wine and lemon juice. Give everything a taste and adjust the seasonings as needed.

Eat!

Hook gives out a handy guide to sustainable seafood that I use while shopping. It is put out by the Blue Ocean Institute and you can access a copy here: Blue Ocean Seafood Guide. You can see that one of the more important aspects of buying seafood is knowing where it was farmed or harvested. You would be amazed at how much shrimp is farmed in South East Asia. I have yet to find US-farmed shrimp (supposedly the most sustainable choice), at any supermarket around Washington DC.

In the end, the best fish is the fish you catch yourself. If the Potomac river wasn't so full of lead, I'd be there with a pole right now....

Nothing says Spring quite like Dandelion Greens

2008-04-06T21:11:00.001-04:00

Sometimes you can find them at your farmers' market or specialty grocery. Bundled and placed next to the other expensive greens, they make a fine treat, but put a real dent in your pocketbook at $5 a bunch. Or you could just stuff a plastic bag in your pocket and go out for a walk. I guarantee that you will find some dandelions before long, poking up in your neighbor's lawn, clumping in green queues next to the sidewalk, or squeezing through a crack in some vacant lot.

If you intend to eat your dandelion, though, I wouldn't go searching for it in a nearby yard, unless you know for sure that it isn't sprayed with all sorts of poisonous lawn chemicals meant to kill the very plants you are out to collect. Find a dandelion that hasn't been assaulted by human kind, one that doesn't have any flower buds on it yet, and cut those leaves off right at ground level. Stick them in your handy plastic bag (aren't you happy you brought that along?) and head on home.

Once you get there thoroughly wash your dandelion, scrubbing behind the ears and removing all dead leaves, dirt and debris that may be left over from winter. Now pull off a leaf and give it a taste. If you are lucky, and picked a young dandelion that hasn't been exposed to too much warm weather, the leaves may carry hardly a tint of bitterness. If you aren't so lucky, you may find yourself making faces like someone who forgot the sugar in their lemonade. Either way you can eat your dandelion greens, but the bitter kind may take a bit of processing to be palatable.

If you have mild greens, with little bitterness, a simple salad will properly display the virtues of this famous potherb. Just toss the leaves in a little olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper. They go wonderfully with slices of pear and a bit of cheese.

For the bitter dandelion, you need a kettle of boiling water. Coarsely chop the dandelion leaves and place them in a pot. Pour boiling water over them, stir, let sit for a few seconds, then drain. Repeat two or three times with fresh boiling water. While the taste of spring dandelions may be greatly improved through this method, I don't know if boiling water is enough to rid dandelions that have already bloomed of their overpowering bitterness. If you have experience in this area, please let me know! Once you have reduced the bitterness of your dandelions to a palatable level you may then saute the greens with a crumbled piece of good bacon, or simply spritz them with olive oil and a dash of red wine vinegar and serve with a sprinkle of your favorite hard cheese.

The Breakfast Series # 8: Coconut Date Oatmeal with Banana

2008-03-28T08:26:00.000-04:00

Easter Egg Radishes that have nothing to do with Oatmeal

I am a fan of hot, filling, stick-to-your-ribs cereals, as anyone reading about my breakfast polenta already knows. Heidi over at 101cookbooks.com also has a nice breakfast polenta recipe up, with a photo that blows my bleary-eyed snapshot away. For me, especially on a cold morning, hot cereals are the perfect meal. They fill you up with whole grains and keep you going through a busy morning at the desk or on the farm.

In the USA there is a long-running argument over hot cereals. Southerners claim that corn grits is the only way to go, while Northerners traditionally prefer cream of wheat or oatmeal. Cream of wheat was invented in 1893 by wheat millers in Grand Forks, North Dakota, where it no doubt kept people warm through those frigid winter days. It is made out of coarsely ground wheat grains. Grits, on the other hand, are made out of coarsely ground corn. White corn is considered "traditional", but yellow corn is also used. Polenta, an Italian take on grits, is usually made with yellow cornmeal and lots of Old World cheese.

Oatmeal, the topic of today's recipe, technically refers to ground oat groats (hence the use of the term "meal"), but is also used to describe cooked rolled oats and steel cut oats. Rolled oats are groats that have been steam treated and had the bran removed. Each grain is then rolled flat by heavy rollers. Large flakes are sold as rolled oats while small ones are often packaged as instant oatmeal. Steel cut oats are oat grains that have been steam treated and chopped into small bits, retaining some of the bran layer, so they contain more fiber than other oat products. However steel cut oats take about 45 minutes to cook, so if you haven't bothered to mix up a batch on the weekend to last you through the week, rolled oats are the way to go. The large flakes have more substance than instant oatmeal, which is bland and mushy, and the oat flavour is more prominent. Get some organic rolled oats next time you are at the store and try out this recipe. You will see what I mean.

There is no picture of today's featured recipe, mainly because I was up late last night working on a paper about Italian fertility policies and when I stumbled out of bed this morning I didn't think to nicely arrange my breakfast for a photo-op. By the time the idea crossed my mind there was a half eaten bowl of cooked oats in front of me-far from photogenic. So I decided to entertain you with an appropriately spring-like photo of some lovely easter egg radishes. Delicious in a salad, just don't get the wrong idea and toss them in your oatmeal. That is one flavour combination that no one needs to try.

Anyways, you guys already know what oatmeal looks like. A picture is superfluous. What you need to know is how this recipe tastes. There are a lot of ways to window dress oats. Cinnamon and apples, maple syrup, blueberries and cream, raisins, the list goes on. I think this combination is particularly scrumptious because of the winning combination of sweet dates, bananas, and the lovely aroma of coconut. You don't need much coconut to get a good flavour, so this dish won't compromise your healthy eating, and it just might remind you of your last Caribbean vacation (or set you to planning one).

You may wonder, where's the sugar? You wont need any. The two dates furnish ample sweetness in this dish, in fact I found it slightly too sweet, so you might even prefer using only one date. This is a really filling meal, but if you just got back from a long run, you might want to serve it with one of the citrus salads that I posted about the other day. The bright orange flavours are a perfect palate cleanser after chowing down on this creamy dish.

Rolled Oats with Banana, Dates and Coconut

This recipe makes one hearty serving, just multiply it by the number of people you have over if you are making it for a crowd. The total calorie count for the original version with nonfat milk is 429 calories.

1/2 cup rolled oats
1 cup nonfat milk
1/2 organic banana, sliced
2 medium dates, chopped
1 tablespoon dried, unsweetened coconut
6 almonds, coarsely chopped (you may omit these if you like, but I like the added crunch )
1/8 tsp ground ginger or to taste
1/8-1/4 tsp cinnamon or to taste
A dash of salt

Procedure:

1. Heat the milk, oats, banana and dates until the mixture begins to bubble. Stir regularly to keep it from sticking to the bottom. Lower the heat to medium. The mixture should begin to thicken after about 5 minutes.

2. Add the ginger, cinnamon and salt, coconut and almonds. If you want, try toasting the coconut and almonds in a skillet before adding them. It is amazing how much a little dry heat enhances the flavour.

3. Serve with a sprinkle of coconut on top.

Variations: While making this I pondered some of the more decadent options to be explored. For a richer meal and more pronounced coconut flavour, try replacing half the nonfat milk with coconut milk. If you don't want a saturated fat overload, I recommend using "light" coconut milk, which usually has about 60% less fat than the regular. As always, please buy organic if you can.

The Breakfast Series #7: Two Great Things to do with Oranges

2008-03-20T23:48:00.001-04:00

Blood Orange, Kumquat and Kiwi Salad with Toasted Coconut

This was a no brainer. Peel, thinly slice and arrange on a plate:

1 blood orange (or a regular orange if you prefer)

1 kiwi fruit

2 or 3 kumquats (no need to peel these)

Sprinkle about a teaspoon of sugar over the fruit and leave it to rest. Meanwhile, heat up a cast iron pan or griddle and toast a couple tablespoons of grated coconut until fragrant and slightly browned. Sprinkle on top and serve. If you don't feel like arranging fruit, you can just cut everything into chunks and toss it in the sugar and coconut. This is a basic salad that works not only with oranges, but also with other citrus like grapefruit. Feel free to add in a couple strawberries if you have some nice ones lying around (unlikely this time of year, but you never know.)

Another great recipe with oranges is not suitable for your tea-totaler or straight-edge punk friends because it involves a liberal use of good quality rum. Get ahold of some and try the following:

Macerated Oranges with Rum and Cinnamon

Serves 4 as a great brunch side dish.

4-5 juicy oranges

Fresh ground cinnamon (not a container that has been sitting on your shelf for a year)

Good quality rum (I use a light rum so it doesn't overwhelm the oranges)

Sugar (I used white sugar for this)

Procedure:

1. Peel and thinly slice the oranges, removing any seeds that catch your eye. Place one layer of the orange slices in an attractive dish (a wide glass serving bowl or a deep platter that can catch the juices).

2. Sprinkle the layer of oranges with an equal mixture of sugar and cinnamon. They shouldn't be buried under cinnamon-sugar, but you probably will need at least a teaspoon or two of the mixture for each layer.

3. Glog a couple splashes of rum over the oranges.

4. Repeat with each layer until you run out of oranges. Depending on how much rum you poured on the first time, you may decide against adding more with each layer-it is really up to you. Sprinkle a bit more cinnamon-sugar on top and let rest in the fridge for at least an hour to allow the flavours to blend together. The sugar will pull the juices out of the orange slices, which will mix perfectly with the rum, sugar and cinnamon.

This dish is fantastic for a Caribbean or Latin American inspired breakfast. Serve with some of FX Cuisine's ginger allspice banana fritters and you have yourself a veritable feast!

Broccoli with Kumquats and Red Pepper Flakes

2008-03-15T20:57:00.000-04:00

Where oh where would I be without my red pepper flakes? Whenever I need a touch of heat and hot sauce just wont do (rare though those occasions may be), there you are, ready to add colour and flavour to everything you touch! Yes, you are most famous for spicing up pizza, we all know how you love to be shaken over huge slices of late-night thin-crust pies oozing cheese and dripping oil onto the shoes of hungry club goers; but there is so much more that you can do!

Red pepper flakes are a wonderful ingredient for any cuisine: Italian, Pan-Asian, American. Any vegetable stirfry is better when red pepper flakes are involved, and after eating massive quantities of chili cheese fries and hot dogs at Ben's Chili Bowl earlier today I definitely needed a light, vegetable oriented meal for supper.

Stir-fried Broccoli with Kumquats and Red Pepper Flakes

Serves 2 as a side dish, total of 132 calories or 66 calories per person

1 medium spear or 6 oz of broccoli
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste
about 1/2 tsp of olive oil
1 tsp seasoned rice vinegar (Mirin)
1 tsp sesame seeds
2 kumquats, thinly sliced and seeds removed
slivered zest of 1/3 orange

Procedure:

1. Very thinly slice broccoli stems and florets. Heat oil over medium high in a nonstick pan. Add the sesame seeds, stir and let toast for a minute or two.

2. Add broccoli and 1 or 2 tbsp of water. Cover the pan for a minute or two. Uncover and stir, add red pepper flakes, kumquats, orange zest, salt, pepper and the mirin. Cover again for 1 minute.

3. Remove the cover and stir over medium heat until the broccoli is still a bit crunchy and you can smell the citrus. Serve immediately with a squeeze of orange juice if desired. I ate mine with more wheat berries, but rice would be as good.

Wheat berry salad with feta and olives

2008-03-12T21:32:00.002-04:00

Wheat berries are one of those things that I'd never eaten, except in tabbouleh. Until today that is. Yet another acquisition from Whole Foods, I put them to soak in a big bowl of water this morning and found them plump and pliable by dinner-time. Wheat berries take a while to cook-much longer than cracked wheat, and even boiling them on my biggest burner, it took about an hour until they reached al dente perfection. These babies suck up a lot of water, so make sure that you have plenty in the pot or they will stick to the bottom and burn. I had extra water left by the time they were cooked and so I just drained the berries in a colander.

I was pleased to see that 1 cup of dry berries resulted in two cups of cooked grain. I stuffed the rest in the fridge and tossed this salad together for dinner. The slightly chewy berries melded perfectly with the salty feta and the sauteed mushrooms and spinach. A little lemon zest and juice is a good, though optional, addition. This salad is open to experimentation-I think quinoa or brown rice or pasta would work almost as well as the wheat berries, and one could certainly substitute different cheeses for the feta or try sauteing peppers in place of the mushrooms or kale instead of the spinach.

Wheat Berry Salad with Feta and Olives

Serves 1 as a light main course, two as a small side. About 365 calories total if using fat free feta.

3/4 cup cooked wheat berries

About an ounce of crumbled feta (I used fat free, but pick your favorite)

3 olives (or more, to taste)

A large handful of fresh spinach

Optional: about a cup of sliced Crimini mushrooms

A splash of sherry (optional)

Salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste

1/8 tsp red pepper flakes or to taste

Grated zest and the juice of 1/2 lemon (optional)

2 tablespoons minced red onion (or to taste)

2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley (optional)

1 tsp olive oil

Procedure:

1. Slice mushrooms, mince the red onion and thinly slice the olives.

2. Heat the teaspoon of olive oil in a nonstick pan to medium low heat. Toss in the spinach and mushrooms and turn the heat low, add the sherry, if desired, cover the pan and allow the mushrooms to "sweat" for several minutes. You may also add the onion at this point if you don't like it raw, otherwise save it for garnish.

3. Uncover the pan, add the black pepper and crushed red pepper and salt if needed. Toss in a bowl with the feta, wheat berries and olives. Top with the parsley, onion and lemon zest, and squeeze a bit of lemon juice over the whole shebang before serving.

Pumpkin Soup with Ripe Plantain and Lime; Curry Bison Topping

2008-03-06T07:20:00.000-05:00

This is version 1.0 of my newest favorite soup. That's right, the one I promised I would blog about a couple weeks ago. No, it wasn't the catfish gumbo I was talking about, although that is good too. This is my riff on all those curried pumpkin soup recipes floating around the Internet. For all you cilantro haters out there, you will be glad to see that I avoided this ubiquitous ingredient without compromising the taste.

An explosion of flavours, umami and spice predominating, permeates this dish. Silky smooth yet filling pumpkin, plantain and coconut milk, warm and spicy curry powder and chili, tangy lime and lipsmackingly meaty bison may seem like too much to handle, but I assure you that the taste is sublime. I call this version 1.0 because I already have ideas for variations on this theme that I like would like play around with in the future, and I hope to post a 2.0 sometime this spring. In the meantime, pick up some pumpkin or squash on your next food run and try this one out.

Pumpkin Soup with Ripe Plantain and Lime

The plantain flavour is not too strong in this soup, so if you want it to show through a bit more I would suggest substituting two more plantains for a cup and a half of the pumpkin. Making a more plantain based soup is on my list of priorities for this recipe. With low fat coconut milk, 1 cup of soup (sans toppings) contains about 167 calories and the recipe makes about 6 and a half cups total.

2 ripe plantains, peeled and chopped (about 1 and 1/2 cup)

1 cup chopped onion

4 cups pumpkin or winter squash puree (either cook and blend your own squash-I keep mine frozen in the freezer, or you can buy a couple cans of pumpkin)

2 cups low fat chicken stock or vegetable stock

1 can low fat coconut milk (about 2 cups)

About 1/2 tbsp minced fresh ginger

1/2 tsp salt

1-1/2 tsp red pepper flakes (or to taste)

1/4 tsp fresh ground black pepper

1 bay leaf

1/2 to 3/4 tsp good quality curry powder

Juice and zest of one large lime

Procedure:

1. Get out a big pot, heat it over medium heat and saute the onions in a spritz of olive oil until soft. Add the spices and plantain and cook for a minute or two more, stirring as needed, then add the pumpkin puree and simmer over medium heat until everything is cooked through.

2. Remove the bay leaf and blend the soup with the coconut milk until smooth. Reheat over low heat and stir in the lime juice. There may be some curdling, but keep stirring and it will disappear. Serve over rice (left over Chinese take out rice in my case, but I think this would be good with a jasmine rice or a medium or long grained brown rice), and top with a sprinkling of lime zest and a spoonful of curried bison if you aren't vegetarian (see the recipe below).

Curried Bison or Beef

Although I made this with some ground American bison meat that was stuck in my freezer from my last trip to the Dupont Circle Farmer's Market, good quality ground beef can be substituted instead. Given that bison is quite lean, pick the leanest ground beef you can find, as the recipe will be too greasy otherwise. This recipe makes about 1-1/2 cup and is about 300 calories per half cup. You should only need a tablespoon or two for each serving of pumpkin soup. It is spicy so if that isn't your thing you may wish to skip this recipe.

1/2 lb bison or lean ground beef

2 garlic cloves

1/2 cup tomato paste (I ran out and used ketchup and it was sacrilegious but still delicious)

3/4 cup finely minced onion

1 finely minced small red chili

1 tsp sugar (or to taste)

A couple grinds of black pepper

2 dashes ground all spice (optional but rounds out the flavour)

2 tbsp of Patak's Tomato and Cumin Hot Curry Paste (Available online and at Whole Foods-this stuff is amazing!)

Procedure:

1. Heat a nonstick frying pan over medium high heat. Dump in the ground bison or beef and let it brown for a couple minutes. When partially browned, add the hot curry paste, which is quite oily, and lower the heat to medium low.

2. Add the minced onions and using a garlic press, smash the garlic and add it as well (or mince it finely). Add the allspice and minced chili. Let the mixture saute over low heat until the onions are soft and transparent.

3. Add the tomato paste and sugar and mix thoroughly. Let the mixture cook on low heat for 5-10 minutes to allow the flavours to mix. Serve as a topping for Pumpkin soup with Plantain, or with rice.