5 observations and roasted sweet potato wedges

an embarrassment of papayas

1. There's such a thing as too much papaya.  We have more papayas than we can eat.  We've been giving it away, and there are still more to come.  My kids are sick of it (me too if truth be told).  I was thinking of this dish made in Costa Rica with green papaya and ground beef... but I really only half liked it and I know my kids wouldn't eat it.  I suspect we'll end up giving away most of the remaining papayas and then there will be none and I will miss them.
2. I saw a beautiful young woman with a plastic bag on her head.  She was waiting to cross the street.  She was protecting her hair from the humidity and drizzly rain.  I admired her defiant beauty; I could never pull off that particular look.
3. The metro seems like it's really going to happen.  Via España is a mess.  I noticed a lot of standing water when I was there yesterday and I hope they fix the drainage problems while they have the whole street tore up.  I am cautiously optimistic about the metro; It's definitely needed.  I just hope all the contractors and engineers are competent (and not too corrupt) and that the work gets finished.  Oh, and I hope people leave their cars at home and use it.
4. I feel a little wary of one of my daughter's friends.  This girl calls on Monday to plan what they will do on Friday--like she needs to lock her in before anyone else can make plans.  It's her pushiness that bothers me, but I can't pick my daughter's friends and my daughter adores this child.  Maybe I'm just jealous because lately my baby always has somewhere more fun to be.
5.  This is a great song that will definitely be on my playlist on Sunday when I run my 15k race.  This is not the official video for the song but a video of some women long-boarding in Spain that uses the song.  The song is "Rox in the Box" by The Decemberists. 

I don't think that roasted sweet potato wedges should just be served beside veggie burgers in funky vegetarian restaurants, I think they should replace all fries everywhere.  My kids would certainly disagree, but I'm hoping to one day bring them around.  Sweet potato is as certain in my week as good dark chocolate and a glass of wine.   I love it and I especially love it like this:

Roasted Sweet Potato Wedges with Tahini Dipping/Glopping Sauce
4 large sweet potatoes (called camote here in Panama)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/4 teaspoon sea salt or to taste

3/4 cup tahini
juice of one lemon
1 clove of garlic (finely minced or pressed)
1 teaspoon of olive oil
1/2 cup water
salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 400°.
Cut the sweet potato into wedges.  Toss the wedges with the salt and olive oil.  Spread the sweet potato out on a baking sheet.  Roast for 25-30 minutes depending on how thick your wedges are.  
While the sweet potato is roasting, make the sauce.  Combine the tahini, garlic and olive oil.  The mixture will probably be quite stiff  so add water to give it a lighter texture.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

5 observations and lamb stuffed eggplant

5 things I noticed this week:

1. Dawn is a particularly nice time to run.  The pre-dawn darkness might be a little creepy and too-quiet, but there's nothing like a sunrise to make you feel happy to be alive.  And the air... it's like it's new air.
2. People who park on the sidewalk should not be surprised when pedestrians continuously set off their car alarm.
3. Eleven year olds are kind of prim.  My eleven year old told me about seeing an older man walking with his grandson after school, the street gets a little congested in front of the school at home-time, and someone started honking.  This grandfather went over to the car and cussed the driver out (apparently it was some pretty impressive swearing--I'm sorry I missed it).  "In front of his little grandson," she told me with wide outraged eyes.  Later, when talking about a kid who swore in class, she said, "yeah he probably learned it from his grandfather."
4. If you are an obnoxious entitled arse, your kids will usually (but not always) be obnoxious, entitled, arses.  This particular observation makes me fear for this country.
5. This song makes me as happy as it did twenty (?!) years ago:

Just for you, a recipe I'm rather proud of:

Eggplant Stuffed with Lamb

Ingredients:
4 small to medium eggplants
1 onion finely chopped
1 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
2 tablespoons olive oil and more for drizzling
3 roma tomatoes
2 lemons
a small handful of parsley
2 tablespoons of toasted pine nuts
salt and pepper to your taste.

Preheat oven to 350°
Slice the eggplant in half length-wise and scoop out the flesh.  Set the little eggplant canoes aside.  Chop the eggplant flesh and set aside.

In a frying pan heat the olive oil.  Add the onions and spices and soften.  Add the ground lamb and brown.  When the lamb is brown add the chopped eggplant.  Cook until the eggplant is tender.  salt and pepper to taste.

While the lamb is browning blacken the tomatoes directly over the gas flame, or in a very hot (no oil) cast iron pan.  Remove the blackened skin under running water and roughly chop the tomato.  I didn't seed and core the tomato, but you could certainly do that.

In a bowl mix the lamb with the chopped tomato.  Add the juice of one lemon.  stir and check the salt.

Put the lamb filling into the eggplants.  Rub some olive oil on the bottom of a baking tray and arrange the eggplant on the tray.  Cover the tray with foil.

Bake the eggplant for 30 minutes covered, and 15 minutes uncovered.  The eggplant should be tender.

While the eggplant is baking chop the pine nuts and parsley together.

To  serve, arrange the eggplant on a platter.  Sprinkle with the chopped parsley and pine nuts.  Drizzle olive oil and lemon juice over the parsley.

Enjoy! (really, make this--it's good)

Red Pepper Walnut Dip

So two Fridays ago I was thinking about quitting the recipes and then I made this:

It is delicious.  I dread recipes that have too many ingredients and ingredients I have to go to the health food store to find.  This is not that kind of recipe.  It is simple and fine for people with all kinds of dietary restrictions (vegan, gluten free, paleo--of course it wouldn't really work out for someone with a nut allergy).  I served it at a barbeque last week along with a more traditional dairy dip and our guests preferred the walnut dip (I was pretty surprised by this, as spinach dip is such a perennial favourite).  This dip is as rich and satisfying as anything with a cream cheese base, and roasted red peppers?  I think they are good in anything.

Red Pepper Walnut Dip


2 cups of walnuts (soak the walnuts for a couple of hours to soften them)
1 small jar of roasted red peppers drained (or roast your own by all means!--2 roasted peppers)
2 cloves garlic roughly chopped
1 teaspoon of cumin
3 tablespoons of olive oil
a generous squeeze of lemon juice
salt and pepper to taste

Heat the olive oil in a small pan, add the garlic and cumin.  Heat the oil gently, the idea is to infuse the oil with the cumin and garlic and to mellow the garlic.  Do not brown the garlic.  This will just take a couple of minutes on a low flame.

In a food processor puree the walnuts and the red pepper.  Add the olive oil and garlic/cumin.  Also add the lemon and salt and pepper. Pulse the food processor a few times to mix everything.  Taste it and adjust salt, pepper and lemon to your taste.

Enjoy!

food on Friday

I  started this blog with the plan to do food and recipe posts on Fridays.  I love to cook; I've always loved to cook.  But I made some dramatic changes in my eating a couple of months ago, and it's changed how I cook and think about food.  It's also left me uncertain about what to write about here on Fridays.  I'm in the middle of an experiment and I'm not sure if it's too early to talk about results.

I decided to start experimenting with my diet because I was increasingly not feeling well.  I've had migraines my entire adult life but they were becoming more frequent and more debilitating.  And more than that, I just felt sort of lousy and tired all the time.  I had these running goals, but was bowing out of training way too often because of headaches.  So I did an internet search and the paleo diet came up over and over again.  I was skeptical (the concept still does not sit entirely comfortably with me), but there were so many testimonials that I decided to try it.

So if you don't know, to follow a paleo diet you stop eating sugar, dairy, grains and legumes (eat only things that were available to paleolithic humans).  It is low carb, high protein and it seems impossible at first.  I'm still struggling with the meat--I've always had vegetarian tendencies.  But, the headaches are gone, even the monthly menstrual migraine.  I can't explain this and I have no idea if this would be true for other people, but it's been amazing for me.  

Also, I don't ache.  I assumed my achey joints were just a natural outcome of years of treeplanting and I never even questioned it.  Three days into my paleo experiment and the stiffness in my hips was gone.  It seemed kind of miraculous at the time.  It was so unexpected that it convinced me that I was doing something right.

I feel good and I suspect there's no going back.  So how do I write about food when mostly I just cook meat and vegetables as simply as possible?  I don't know.  I've always been skeptical of special diets and believed in moderation.  But here I am, anything but moderate; one of those annoying people who won't even have a bite of pizza.  So I'm not sure.  It's possible that next week there'll be a recipe for hemp pumpkin seed bars, or I'll just stop writing about food all together because, frankly, I'm a little embarrassed.

Completely unrelated, I did an interview with  BlogExpat.  Check it out.

Father's Day Feast

On Father's Day we pulled out all the stops for my husband.  There was breakfast in bed, and glittery homemade cards.  And a late lunch with the pretty plates and wine.  I love getting the pretty plates out--I should do it more often.  And yes, he deserves all this and more.  I feel very lucky to have such a good guy in my life.

We had grilled rack of lamb.  I am very annoyed with my picture-taking-self because you can't see the ribs.  I french-cut the rack myself and I should have showed off a little!  To prepare the rack for grilling I just smeared it with good mustard and sprinkled course salt, chopped rosemary, and pepper over it.  We grilled hot to sear it and then finished it over indirect heat.  Perfect medium rare!

I served the lamb with tree tomato pineapple chutney:


2 tablespoons oil
1 onion chopped
1 tablespoon cinnamon
2 teaspoons cumin
salt and pepper to taste
1 cake of raspadura (unrefined cane sugar=3/4 to 1 cup brown sugar)
1/2 a pineapple chopped
6 tree tomatoes blanched, peeled, and chopped


In a sauce pan, saute the onion with the cumin and cinnamon until the onion is soft.  Add the rest of the ingredients and cook over a low flame until the the fruit is thick and jammy-1 to 1 & 1/2 hours.

Rounding out the menu with roasted lemon potatoes, spinach salad with almonds, apricots and shaved parmesan and a disassembled Greek salad (that is, tomatoes, cucumbers, olives and feta cheese on a platter--my kids like it better like this, and it looks prettier).  I also made a loaf of white bread (always such a treat) so my younger daughter would have something to eat.

It was lovely.  We finished up with Nigella Lawson's Chocolate Pavlova.  I totally recommend this recipe.

I think Pavlovas might be my new thing.

Lovely Lamb Shoulder

We have freezer full of lamb thanks to some enterprising friends who've gone into the lamb business here in Panama.  Their lambs are grass fed organic and the first thing I noticed, was that the lamb looked considerably leaner than the lamb I was familiar with (there was very little fat to score on the shoulder roast).  I decided to slow roast the shoulder quite simply so we could get a good taste of the meat.

This seems like less of a recipe and more of a technique.

Slow Roasted Lamb Shoulder with Garlic and Rosemary
ingredients:
lamb shoulder roast
olive oil
coarse sea salt and pepper
4 sprigs of fresh rosemary
1 head of garlic

Heat the oven to 500°F/260°C and prepare the lamb.  Score the fat on top of the roast (there was very little on this particular roast) and rub it all over with olive oil.  Sprinkle the course sea salt and fresh ground pepper all over the lamb.  Break up the clove of garlic don't peel it).

I roasted the lamb on a cookie sheet because I don't have a big roaster (a large roaster would probably be better).  Put three sprigs of rosemary and most of the unpeeled garlic cloves on the pan.  Set the lamb on top and put the remaining rosemary and garlic on top of the roast.

Tightly cover the pan with foil and put it into the hot oven.  Turn the oven down to 325°F/160°C and let it roast for 4 hours.

The results are buttery, fork tender roast.

It was amazing!  I didn't make gravy from the pan drippings but that would certainly be a good idea.

mustard greens

I love greens.  When I was pregnant with my oldest daughter I bought and ate ridiculous amounts of greens.  I remember particularly liking turnip greens, and that's funny because I'm pretty sure I haven't eaten turnip greens since.  Sardines were my other obsession and I still love a pan of greens sauteed in the oil from a tin of sardines; a delicacy I invented while pregnant (it's probably not to everyone's taste).  My zeal for greens when I was pregnant came from my desire to eat healthfully and really, I doubt there many foods more wholesome than a big plate of greens.  Mustard greens are a recent discovery for me and lately we eat them a couple of times a week.  They are cruciferous (like broccoli, cabbage or kale) and excellent cooked or raw.  The flavor is stronger when it's cooked a short time and it mellows with longer cooking (lightly sauteed=strong, braised=mild).  Mustard is high in vitamins A, K, and C and it is also antioxidant and anti-inflammatory.  It's pretty common in Chinese, Indian and Caribbean cuisine.  It can be used like you would use any other bitter green.

We like it best in salad.  Our favorite salad is half mustard greens, half romaine, with some chopped mint, dressed with lemon and olive oil, and served with generous handfuls of kalamatas and feta cheese.  I had been trying to get my daughter to eat salad for a while by making sweet or creamy dressings (that I imagined to be kid friendly) and she never liked it.  But this salad she loves, and that makes me very happy.  My younger daughter does not eat any green food, so I don't even offer her salad (I keep hoping she will grow out of her infernal fussiness, but there are no signs of that happening any time soon).

Mustard greens are nice cooked too.   They are good simply sauteed and dressed with lemon and they are also great braised.  Braised is probably more traditional and the flavour is definitely mellower.

 Braised Mustard with Bacon
4-5 slices of bacon
1/2 onion chopped
2 bunches of mustard greens, stemmed, washed and chopped
1 cup chicken stock

Fry the bacon and remove from pan with slotted spoon.  Chop the bacon and set aside.  Saute the onion in the remaining bacon fat (remove some if it looks like too much).  When the onion is soft, add the mustard greens.  Let the mustard greens sizzle with the onions for a couple of minutes and then add the chicken stock.  After you add the stock turn the flame down low and let the greens cook gently for twenty minutes.  The greens should be tender and the liquid reduced.  Add the chopped bacon back to the greens and serve.

If you have leftovers, this also makes a nice filing for omelettes.

breakfast place

When I was in university in Vancouver, Sunday morning breakfast with friends was an important weekly ritual.  I think now that this might have been because breakfast was the most affordable restaurant meal, but I remember it fondly.  We went to funky little places on Commercial Drive, or the Guatemalan place on Main St.  These were good breakfast places with big tasty portions and I've sought out something similar everywhere I've lived since.  In Costa Rica this was easy.  Gallo Pinto (beans and rice fried together), with sour cream or fried eggs is a typical breakfast.  A good breakfast (and by this I mean, really yummy) in Costa Rica is cheap and easy to find.  Panama is quite another story.

The typical breakfast in Panama is a plate of fried food.  Fried dough (hojaldre) fried plantain, and maybe some meat or sausage.  I love Panama, but the typical breakfast here is not for me.  I've tried; doused in hot sauce with fried egg I will eat and even enjoy it.  But I do not seek it out.  So the breakfast place thing became a bit of an issue for me.  I lamented the lack of breakfast as I like it.  Now that I've lived here a few years I've figured it out.

Dim Sum is popular and Chinese restaurants do brisk business on Sunday morning.  Also, the Marbella location of the Colombian Chain, Crepes and Waffles, has a Sunday brunch with waffles and pancakes and eggs benedict.  My favourite place though, is The New York Bagel Cafe in El Cangrejo.  You have no idea how happy this place made me the first time we went.  They have pancakes and bagels and egg things, hash browns and toast.  The music is decent and the vibe is relaxed and fun.

Everything we've eaten here has been good.  I love that the huevos rancheros are served on Panamanian tortillas (which are thick and chewy).  It's probably better to order regular coffee rather than expresso (this would be my only quibble).  It's a yummy place for breakfast and now that they've expanded it's possible to be leisurely.  Sunday morning exactly as it should be.

Passion Fruit

I never call passion fruit passion fruit.  I always call it maracuyá.  Now this is possibly a little pretentious of me, but I have my reasons.  Do you know why it's called passion fruit?  The Catholic missionaries who came to the new world with the Conquistadores, thought that the flower looked like Christ's crown of thorns.  They named the plant passiflora for the passion of Christ.  Now I know that this is one small thing in a catalogue of acts that include tremendous brutality.  But, what kind of person looks at flower and sees a crown of thorns?  It makes me think of subjugation, and the naming of things that most certainly already had names.  So, at dinner parties, when someone waggles their eyebrows lasciviously and says "mmm passion fruit mousse" I usually shut them down with a story about Conquistadores and zealous Jesuits.  Yes, I'm that wet  blanket.

Maracuyá is possibly my favourite tropical flavour (I'm awfully fond of tamarind as well).  It is tart and refreshing; perfect for this climate.  I have been trying out recipes for this post all week, sometimes without much success.  There was a homely tart:

 and some runny mousse:

I was most satisfied with these custardy squares.  But honestly, the best thing to do with maracuyá is mix the strained juice with some simple syrup and water and make juice, popsicles or sorbet.

Passion Fruit Bars
Base:
3/4 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 tsp salt
2 cups all-purpose flour

Top:
4 eggs
1-1/4 cups granulated sugar
3/4 cup passion fruit juice*
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder

icing sugar for dusting

Preparation:
Preheat oven to 325°F.   Grease 9- x 13-inch pan. Set aside.
BASE:
In bowl, beat together butter, sugar and salt until light; stir in flour until blended. Press into prepared pan. Bake in centre of oven until golden, about 25 minutes. Let cool.

TOP:
Meanwhile, in bowl, beat eggs with granulated sugar until pale and thickened. Add passion fruit juice, flour and baking powder; beat until smooth. Pour over base.  Bake for 25-30 minutes.  The custard should be set.  Let it cool and then dust it with icing sugar.

*Split the fruit in half and scrape the seedy pulp into the blender.  Pulse the pulp--the idea is to loosen the pulp from the seeds.  If you break up the seeds your pulp will have pretty black flecks (nice for ice cream).  Push the seedy pulp through a mesh strainer.  Four good-sized maracuyás will yield a cup of strained juice/pulp.

Quesos Chela

If you are driving between Panama City and the Pacific beaches, you will pass Quesos Chela and you will see tons of cars packing the parking lot, and you will wonder.  You will wonder, "What's so great about that place?"or "is it really worth stopping?"  I'm here to tell you it is.

Quesos Chela is a take-out place in Capira, and on the weekend it's busy.  The queues are chaotic and, if you don't have experience getting in line for things in Panama, daunting.  My advice, just relax, look around, figure out more or less what want (two or three people will probably push in front of you while you do this) and then really get in line.  When you are really in line, pay attention, and keep moving to the front with determination (very similar advice could be given about driving in Panama).  If you don't hesitate, the line will move quickly, if you do hesitate, people will butt in front.

Buy some cheese.  The cheese here is all mild, fresh cheese.  I like wedges of the big, round, fresh cheeses (plain. or  with herbs or olives).  These seem tastier to me, and have better texture than the cheeses that are prepackaged.  The vacuum packed cheese always seems a bit rubbery.  The bread is delicious, crusty and chewy.  Don't make the mistake of buying just one of anything!

The empanadas are excellent.  Like any fried food theses are best fresh, and at this place, everything is fresh.  The crispy, corn flour pastry is a little sweet and an excellent foil for the salty fresh cheese inside.  This kind of empanada is sold all over the place in Panama, but they are rarely as good as these are.

So get out of the climate controlled comfort of your car and get into a hot, pushy line to buy some cheese and empanadas.  I promise you, it's worth it!

tomato fish soup with basil croutons

I love soup made with fresh tomatoes.  If the tomatoes are very ripe and tender (as these were) I don't fuss with peeling, seeding, and coring, I just chop them up as they are.  I used sole (lenguado), but something sturdier would probably be better.  The basil croutons really make the soup so don't leave them out. 

for the croutons:

half a loaf of stale whole wheat bread cut into cubes

handful of fresh basil

3 tablespoons olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

Finely mince the basil. In a bowl, toss the basil with the bread, oil and salt and peper.  Spread the bread onto a baking sheet and bake at 350º for 10-15 minutes.  The croutons should be crunchy.

for the soup:

1 bulb of fennel chopped fine

1 carrot chopped fine

1 leek chopped fine

1 stalk of celery chopped fine

3 cloves of garlic minced

3 small potatoes diced

8 plum tomatoes chopped

3-4 tablespoons of olive oil

4-5 fillets of firm fish

3/4 cup white wine

1 1/2 cups stock or water

salt and pepper to taste

Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in dutch oven or large pot.  When the oil is nice and hot sear the fish--about a minute a side.  It won't be completely cooked.  Take the fish out of the oil and set aside.  Add the remaining oil, bring to heat and add the fennel, carrot, celery, leek and garlic.  Saute the vegetables and after a couple of minutes add the potatoes.  When the potatoes are glistening and the other vegetables are soft, add the wine.  Deglaze the brown bits from the bottom of the pot.  Let everything cook until the liquid is reduced by half.  Add the tomatoes and the remaining liquid (water, stock), salt and pepper.  Let everything cook at medium heat until the potatoes are soft and the tomatoes broken up (about 20 minutes).  Just before serving, cut the fish into bite-sized pieces and add it (and its accumulated juices) to the soup.  Let the fish finish cooking in the soup (3-5 minutes).  

Serve the soup with the croutons.

This soup was enjoyed by my whole family, except for one small person who only eats peanut butter sandwiches and quesadillas.

corvina grilled on banana leaves

So it's Lent, and fresh fish are plentiful and irresistible in the supermarket.  The fish case is full of small corvinas (sea bass) and red snappers stashed in ice.  I grew up on the prairies, and obviously didn't eat a lot of fish (Captain Highliner fish sticks were a rare treat) but adore it.  I'm figuring fish out, everything beyond breaded fillets is an adventure.

We were admiring the fish counter the other day, debating corvina or red snapper, and we finally asked the opinion of a nice man who was looking over the fish himself.  He told us corvina were flavourful enough cooked simply and that the snapper really needs a marinade or sauce.  He was a very enthusiastic advisor, and I totally took his word for it; we bought the corvina.

One of my favorite Panamanian dishes is the whole fried corvina.  It is the simplest thing, but so tasty.  The key is really, fresh fish and the short, hot, cooking time in the deep fryer.  I don't have a deep fryer or even really the will, to attempt deep frying a whole fish at home, but fresh fish and hot, cooking temperatures I can do.   I've been experimenting with grilling.

One of the problems with grilling fish is the sticky mess that can result.  So, to avoid mess I did parchment packets on the grill.  This worked well but I wasn't happy with the parchment--it's really too expensive to be practical.  I also didn't think the texture was as good as it could be, because the fish was steamed--corvina seems to get mushy when cooked like this.  It occurred to me that all kinds of things are cooked in banana leaves, and then I remembered some delicious, grilled arepas we ate on the beach in Colombia years ago--grilled on banana leaves.  A quick internet search revealed that this was a common South Asian technique for grilling fish.

I did some research and decided to stuff the fish with fresh herbs.

I used culantro and basil.  The basil that is widely available here is sweet basil, with a strong anise flavour.  It's important to slash the sides of the fish a couple of times for even cooking.  I stuffed a sprig of a basil, a couple of culantro leaves, and a pinch of salt and pepper into each fish.  I tied the fish closed with twine and brushed them with oil and sprinkled them with course sea salt.

When I had a heap of very hot coals in the barbecue, I covered the the grill with two layers of banana leaves.  I had washed and cut the spine out of the leaves making flat, paper-sized, sheets.

I didn't brush enough oil onto the leaves so I lost some skin when I flipped the fish over (at least it stuck to the leaves and not the grill).  Also I think three layers of leaves would be better.  The fish cooked very quickly 7-8 minutes a side--so make sure the rest of your dinner is ready!

getting a little dark for a photo!

The fish was excellent, the texture was flakey, and the smoky flavour from the banana leaves was very nice.  I served this fish with coconut, brown basmati and a big mixed salad with ginger miso dressing.  We drank cold beer and the kids had icy maracuya juice.

Next time I'll try some snapper in banana leaf packets.

lentils for lunch

Homemade pita, salad and lentils with mushrooms

I am a lentil evangelist.  I think everybody should make and eat lentils, often.  They cook quickly and are virtually impossible to mess up.  They are tasty and cheap.   Hot, or cold in salad, as a spread, or a soup, they are amazingly versatile.  If I don't know what to cook, lentils are my fallback.  I didn't always love lentils (I am a relatively recent convert).  I actually thought I hated them.  Then, one day while staying at a friend's, I discovered lentils in all their, last-thing-in-the-pantry glory, a lentil epiphany you might say.

My friend's recipe was unbelievably simple, you saute onions and carrots then add the lentils.  Brown everything, and then add some tamari and dijon mustard (tamari is pretty salty so go easy)--loosen anything that's stuck to the bottom.  Top up with water, and cook the lentils.  Now you may not believe me, but really, this is delicious.  Add some rice and a salad and you have a fine (if a bit hippyish) meal.  Honestly, this recipe was a revelation, and I've been cooking lentils regularly ever since.

split red lentils, whole red lentils, brown lentils 

If I don't have a lot of time, or if I'm making a spread, the split red lentils are a good choice.  They cook quickly and don't hold their shape.  Whole red lentils take a little longer to cook and hold their shape fairly well.  Brown lentils are classic, and are great with chorizo or bacon--they hold their shape well and take the longest to cook.

Lately my favourite spice combination is:

cumin, oregano, bay,  smoked paprika and sea salt

Now this combination of spices is great for meat (I make an awesome BBQ rub with a combination like this) but it is also excellent with lentils.

Lentils with Mushrooms
2 cups dry lentils (I used red lentils)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion chopped
3 cups chopped mushrooms (I used meaty portobellos)
3 cloves garlic chopped fine
2 teaspoons cumin
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
2 teaspoons oregano
3 bay leaves
salt and pepper to taste
1 1/2 cups white wine
2 tablespoons wine vinegar (optional)

Rinse and pick through the lentils (watch for pebbles).
In a large pot or dutch oven, saute the onions in the olive oil.  Cook the onions until tender and add the mushrooms, garlic, cumin, paprika, oregano, bay, salt and pepper.  When the mushrooms are juicy add the clean lentils.  Cook over medium heat for a couple of minutes--until it starts looking a bit dry.  Add the wine.  Cook until the lentils start to look dry again and cover with water--there should be a centimeter or two of water covering the lentils.  Cook the lentils, frequently stirring and checking the liquid level--add more water as you need it.  When the lentils are done check for salt.  If you feel like the lentils could use a little zing add the vinegar.

Serve with rice or pita.  This also purées nicely into a spread.

Enjoy!

bread every day

During my twenties I was a tree planter and later, a tree planting camp cook.  To be clear, I mean all of my twenties (age 19 to 30).  It was much more than a summer job, it made me who I am (example: I met my husband tree planting).  In tree planting camps I learned many important things: don't be late for dinner, bears like toothpaste, toilet paper and duct tape are indispensable,  and I learned bread.  First, I learned to eat it, warm and slathered with butter, held in filthy hands, waiting in line for a shower after a day of work.  Then I learned to make it, that beautiful mound of dough expanding on the counter of the hot, cramped, camp kitchen.

I grew up with homemade bread.  Both of my grandmothers knew, and my mother knows, their way around a bread pan (my mom is famous for her buns).  A huge pan of bread dough rising was a familiar sight in my childhood.  Funny thing, I never learned how to make bread from my mom (I did make an experimental documentary about it once though).  I learned how to make bread on my own, in a camp kitchen.

I started out with  Edward Espe Brown's  Tassajara Bread Book and it served me well.  The basic recipe in that book is perfect for quadrupling, and I used to make six or eight big loaves every day.  Following Brown's instructions, I never had a bad batch of bread.  I put that bread out hot, with  a big pot of soup, at the first sound of hungry planters bursting out of the trucks (My anxiety dreams to this day, start with the sound of truck doors opening---oh my god I haven't even started dinner!  Why don't I have any pants on?).   Bread was my signature as a camp cook.

I still make bread often.  I don't use the Tassajara recipe anymore.  I use Mark Bittman's food processor technique (not the no-knead NY Times one--which I haven't had luck with to date).  It is ridiculously easy and more or less 'no-knead.'  I usually set it up some time in the morning; my hot humid kitchen is the perfect environment for bread rising.

Campesino Bread (they call the baguettes made with a whole wheat-rye mix 'campesino' at the supermarket here)
1 cup rye flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cups bread flour
1 teaspoon yeast
2 teaspoons sea salt
1 1/2 cups water

Put the flour, salt and yeast into the bowl of the food processor and pulse to mix.

With the food processor on, add the water.  The dough should come together into a sticky ball.  Process for 30 seconds.

sticky

Put the dough into a bowl and cover with a plastic bag; leave it to rise for at least two hours.

On a floured surface, shape the dough into a boule.

it should have a smooth tight surface

Put the boule onto a pan lined with parchment, cover it and let it rise another hour.  Half way through the rise preheat the oven to 450°

Bake for 30-35 minutes.  It will be beautiful!

vegetable soup with pistou

Our Culantro Rojo basket was filled with the usual veggie goodness.  We are not vegetarians, but I cook vegetarian about half of the time.  I thought I'd use the shell beans as the base for soup.  Soup seems all wrong for the tropics, but I think it works when it's not too heavy (with cream or meat).  A light soup, finished with fresh cilantro or basil is just about perfect on a hot day.  This soup is finished with pistou, which is like pesto without the nuts.  This soup is very simple, almost too plain, but the pistou makes it surprisingly tasty.

shelling beans is the perfect job for a kid

Vegetable Soup

shell beans (these came in a sweet little bundle--about a cup and a half shelled)

2 bay leaves

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 tablespoons thyme

1 onion chopped

2 carrots diced

1 cup cubed squash 

2 cups green beans chopped 

2 cups zucchini diced

6 tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped (reserve blanching water for soup)

salt to taste

pasta (I used half a box of whole wheat rotini that was in the cupboard, but orzo or something small would be nicer)

To cook the beans, bring a medium pot of water to a rolling boil.  Add the beans and bay leaves.  Cooking time depends on the beans--up to two hours of simmering. 

beans and bay

When the beans are just about cooked, start the soup.  Saute the onion, thyme and carrot until the carrots are tender.

Add the green beans and squash.

strings off!

Next add the zucchini and tomatoes and their water.  Add the shell beans with their cooking liquid (leave the bay leaves in).  Top up with water to get a nice soupy consistency.  Salt to taste. 

Bring soup to a boil and add pasta.  When the pasta is done the soup is ready!

While the pasta cooks, make the pistou.

too bad there's not scratch n' sniff on the internet!

Pistou

large bunch of basil

1/4 cup olive oil

2 (or more) cloves of garlic

salt

Pulse in the food processor to an even consistency, or if you're fancy use a mortar and pestle.

parm and pistou

Serve the soup.  Finish the soup with grated parmesan and a large dollop of pistou.

yummy!

Happy Valentine's

So we are not big celebrators of the day.   The armloads of roses being sold at every traffic light are lovely, but not really my thing.  I do love to speculate about the men buying those traffic light, roses (for his wife, mistress, maybe his mom...).  For me, a good bottle of wine and some homemade cards from my kids are preferable to roses (I'd like to think he cares enough to get out of the car!).  And I do like to make something sweet for my darlings.  This year, I made a Red Velvet Cake (as red as any street corner rose!).  I'd never heard of this cake, and I kept seeing it on different food blogs; It looked so pretty I had to try it.

 Now, I think when I was a kid, people put red food colouring into Devil's Food Cake.  Devil's Food is very similar to Red Velvet, but chocolatier, and I don't think anyone puts colouring into it anymore--it's reddish enough from the cocoa-baking soda-vinegar reaction.  I'm not really into food colouring, and the recipe called for 2 oz of the stuff!!  I made it with 1 oz and I think the results were sufficiently red.

I'm not going to link the recipe because I didn't actually like it that much.  It's very pretty, but too sweet and not enough chocolate for me.  In the end, I kind of felt all that beautiful, cream cheese, frosting was wasted on a mediocre cake.  Oh yeah, and if you thought that frosting this cake, and eating great, glopping,  tablespoons of frosting, and then going for a run would give you terrible heartburn, you'd be right.

 Happy Day!

Squash Sweet Corn Fritters

On Sunday our bi-monthly basket of organic produce came (thanks Claudia and Eylon!).  There were lots of good things in the basket as usual, but I was inspired by a big piece of squash.

The following recipe was adapted/inspired by Yotam Ottolenghi's fritter roulette recipe.  I don't have a kitchen scale or padron peppers (or coriander seed for that matter) so inspired is probably more accurate than adapted.

Squash Sweet Corn Fritters


3 free-range eggs
1 can coconut milk
3/4 cup self-raising flour
1/2 cup cornflour
1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
½ tsp ground turmeric
1 tsp salt
freshly ground black pepper
4 cups squash grated
kernels cut off 4 cobs of sweet corn
3 green onions, chopped
oil, for frying


Mix the first twelve ingredients together.  I recommend  sifting the flour into the batter.  Here in the tropics sifting is essential; the humidity causes terrible clumping.

Heat the oil.

Drop spoonfuls of the batter into the hot oil and fry a couple minutes until golden and crispy.  Carefully flip the fritter over and finish frying it (another minute or so).

Remove fritter from oil and drain on wire rack.  I put paper towel under the rack to catch drips.

Serve with wedges of lime and hot sauce.

We enjoyed these fritters for supper with a nice big salad.  The fritters were light and crispy with sweet bursts of corn.

pickles on the grill

We often barbeque.  A meal of grilled meat, green salad and loaf of bread is a wonderful thing (a respectful nod to my Argentine in-laws who taught me everything I know about grilling!) .  Wash that down with big glasses of red wine and club soda and you have something like perfection!  It's the kind of eating that suits this climate. 


Last night, needing some inspiration, I took a look at Mark Bittman's list of grill recipes, and decided to give the grilled pickles a try.  I love anything pickley, and I was in the mood for doing something weird, but easy so...


I sliced five medium sized cucumbers lengthwise and grilled them quickly while the grill was hot (too hot for meat).  The cucumbers came off the grill with grill-marks on the cut side, and slightly charred on the peel side.

I chopped them roughly, but I think I'd go for a finer slice next time.

I put the pickles in a bowl with some course salt, white vinegar, and sugar to my taste (more salty and sour than sweet).

They were good, kid-friendly and simple.  I think they'd be better with some grilled pepper and onion (unfortunately, my kids won't eat onions and peppers).


Of course we didn't just have pickles for supper.  I grilled some steak, rolled chicken breast (also from Bittman's list) and chorizo.

The perfect end to a busy Saturday.  Everything was great, except the green salad.  I had added some truffle oil to the vinaigrette, and it turns out I don't like truffle oil.  So don't believe the hype about truffle oil; a few drops can ruin a perfectly good salad.