Steamed carrots, leeks, and baby turnips; sauteed baby turnip greens

Originally uploaded by wbajzek

For lunch today I steamed the carrots, leeks, and baby turnips. The steaming water had some earl gray tea and rosemary from the yard in it; it added a subtle but nice flavor to them. When done, I poured on a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper, and stirred it up.

Meanwhile, I washed, chopped, and sauteed the greens from the baby turnips with a bit of grated ginger.

We still have more greens (kale, I think), so I may sautee them and serve them for dinner with the leftovers c, l, and bts from lunch.

More solar cooking

leeks, carrots and greens
Originally uploaded by wbajzek

Since the last time I'd used the solar cooker, I bought an oval-shaped aluminum roasting pan, which is painted dark. The hope was that it would heat up more quickly than the cast iron dutch oven did and NOT impart that cast-iron flavor on everything. It did the trick, and has a pretty big capacity. WIth enough preparation, I could cook multiple dishes in it at once.

The dish in the rear of the photo consists of carrots and leeks roasted in the solar cooker with sage, mint, oregano, chopped crystalized ginger, and olive oil. They cooked for about 4 hours and came out a bit crunchier than I'd intended but still very good. I am not sure they would have been better off cooking longer, but since there was a lot of juice at the bottom, I wonder if covering them with foil or something would have caused them to be soften up a bit more.

I never would have thought to eat leeks like this before I read "Seitan a la Ficelle" from What the hell does a vegan eat anyway. I was so inspired by the photos that I decided to have leeks some way other than boiled for a long time in soup, and also to perhaps start posting more photos as well. To that end, sorry for the blurriness of this photo, the lighting was not good and I had not properly prepared for it. 

The mustard greens and rapini were steamed for 5 minutes and then given a sprinkling of salt, pepper, olive oil, and fresh-squeezed meyer lemon juice. This dish came out nicely, too; the greens were a bit bitter when raw but they mellowed out nicely with the steaming.

stock

I'm making stock for the first time. Who knows how it'll come out? But here's what I put in it, so I don't forget in case it comes out well. 

• 1/2 onion
• 5 carrots
• 1 large parsnip
• most of a head of cabbage
• 1 tangerine
• 1 small (6 inch) butternut squash
• 6-8 stalks of celery

I think that's it. Oh yeah, and lots of water. Basically, I just put as much of what was available in as would fit in the pot. 

Holiday stuffs

Nothing surprising here. Stuffed acorn squash much like last time, but substituting replacing the channa masala spice blend with basil, oregano, and sage from the garden. It was a hit at the party we went to! Today I'm making another veggie pie/tortiere with onion, carrot, fennel, and those same garden fresh herbs sauteed together. At the end, I added cashew butter and nutritional yeast to try to make it gooify, as a "problem" with this type of dish is that it tends to fall apart when serving. This stuff lined the bottom of the pan, with a middle layer of cooked green lentils and black beans and topped with mashed potatoes from yesterday. I smeared on a bit of olive oil in hopes that the top will brown a bit.

As for the fennel, I used both the bulb and one of the stalks, which took on a surprisingly different flavor once sauteed. I think this will be one of my best dishes yet.

Thai curry

I've never really been satisfied with my thai curry... The first time I made it, years ago, I made it from green curry paste and it was quite good, but I've never really gotten it back up to that level yet. I think it's because I got lured in by curry powder, and then later started making my own spice blends, which basically amounted to curry powder anyway. Curry powder doesn't really taste like thai curry.

Using some thai curry paste recipes for inspiration, I set out to cook some of the remaining veggies I had into a tasty dish. At this I succeeded, although it is not quite there yet... I place the blame squarely on my inability to find galangal. I will have to track some down for next time. You can substitute in ginger, but it's not the same. Also, I am not going to put shrimp/anchovy/etc paste or fish sauce into it. Or garlic, for that matter, as I think I am somewhat allergic to it. Maybe I should put in some salt to make up for the lack of these things.

I rode my bike to the market this morning and picked up some tofu, ginger, and coconut milk. Whilst boiling the tofu (cut into triangles) for texture, I threw some red chilis in the food processor with ginger, lemongrass (dried, sadly), cumin, coriander, paprika, and cayenne. In spite of the skin-burning capsaisin in the chilis, they are not all that hot, and I didn't use enough cayenne to make it really hot, although I tried. Anyway, I blended that all up into a paste and sauteed it for a bit, then added onions, carrots, and water, and cooked until the onions went translucent. Then I added two cans of coconut milk, a pile of chopped bell peppers, and the tofu. At this point, I whipped up some more curry paste, because it clearly wasn't enough. I don't think there's an exact science to the proportion, but a basic guideline I can use in the future is two chilis per can of coconut milk.

I'm eating it with some jasmine rice, and enjoying it a lot. It's still not quite right, but it's the closest I've gotten in a long time. Something that worked well once in the past was to deglaze at one point with a cup or so of crisp white whine (like chardonnay) and add in some brown sugar. I think it really needs galangal and fresh lemongrass to really sparkle.