Reaching the Bottom

Bleak.  That’s what it looks like to me, all of it.  My little raised bed, my yard, my house.  At some point every winter that’s what everyone’s yard looks like.  It’s cold.  (The persimmon seed prediction turned out to be fairly accurate, for the record.)  The only 50 Shades of Grey I can see is the sky.  We all react in different ways to the depths of winter; some of us escape into seed catalogues, some of us take to the bottle, some of us get involved with holidays or parties or social outings, some of us escape for real in a plane or car headed to warmer climes.

And…some of us feel a little stuck, not knowing what to do next.  I’ve checked out a little bit, I guess.  I’ve been writing on other projects, distracted by friends’ comings and goings.  The stretch of holidays from Halloween to Valentine’s Day has come and gone, and Mardi Gras—the fattest of all Tuesdays—is calling me to make gumbo and to get in touch with my Catholic alter ego, if only to be part of the Lenten countdown to spring.  But I have to admit I feel a bit lost.  Purse strings and calorie counts are tightened after Christmas, of course, and I’m pretty much on auto-pilot to shop local, eat local, cook local, and even to do some shopping at home.  Trying to get busy to chase away the winter blues/blahs I’ve cleaned out the fridge and a cupboard or two in hopes that I’ll be able to fill them again with summer’s bounty.  I’ve managed to empty and clean out one of my chest freezers, then will relocate the contents of the second freezer to the first and do the same for the second. 

In the course of emptying my freezer, though, I found a metaphor for my dilemma.  Turns out, once I’ve emptied everything out, used pliers to open the drain on the inside, and opened the drain on the outside, and I can see every bit of spilled muck and breadcrumbs and twistie-ties lying on the bottom, I find I can’t actually reach the bottom.  My arms are too short, my frame not elastic enough.  Dammit!  My attempts even to gain a sense of accomplishment from the menial tasks of cleaning have been thwarted.  What to do?  I mean, I can see the bottom from here, and I suppose I could use a mop or a wet vac to get it clean, but I prefer to do the thing that will get the job done best.

I’ll ask someone else for help.

You see, we’re all kind of crabby, stuck inside the same four walls.  And if I ask for help from my fellow Winter Doldrummers, maybe we can all get through this together, and out the other side with a sense of accomplishment.  And maybe, just maybe, though I can see the bottom, it will be a comfort to know that I can’t actually reach it.  And I will always have my team—my little family—to help me get the job done, and get everything back on track.

Now…time to look for gumbo recipes…

New Year, New Foods

With the perfume of New Year’s resolutions still in my nostrils, and the crispness of a new fallen snow shocking my eyes, and the cold wind burning my cheeks, and the warmth of The Little Wood Stove That Could pumping out of her vents, I am taking a moment to reflect on 2014.  It was—as any year lived—a mixed bag of tricks.  I had some accomplishments and made some wonderful memories. Unexpectedly low lows, however, make me glad to hit the restart button and put that particular number behind me.

Foodwise, it was a year of learning and exploring, of making my first garden in a raised bed, of expanding my repertoire and my preparation horizons.  I have much to be thankful for, and mostly to always have a full larder.  So many in the world, and so many in our history, have gone without.  Too many are suffering from starvation still.

So, being blessed as I am, I am making goals for 2015 (and not a minute too soon!):

1.     To try new foods, challenging my palate and opening my horizons.

2.     To incorporate more fruits and vegetables into every day’s meals, fighting the tendency to center meals around meat and starch in the winter months.

3.     To make “shopping at home” a regular feature, perhaps monthly.

I’ve already gotten started on #1.  The last of the indoor holiday markets was the Saturday before Christmas.  I had pre-ordered from Greg at Claybank Farms, so I went to pick up my order.  On the table in front of me lay some plastic bags containing something that looked like huge bulbs of ginger.  Now that I’ve known Greg for some time, all I had to do was point at the bags and raise one eyebrow to get the full story and inevitable sales pitch.

It seems that Jerusalem artichokes (also known as sunchokes) are like Grape Nuts, in that they are neither from Jerusalem, nor related to the artichoke.  They are actually the tuber roots of a certain kind of sunflower native to North America, and were even cultivated by Native Americans long before the arrival of European settlers.  According to Wikipedia, they contain a large amount of inulin, which we cannot digest in the stomach.  You know what that means?

That’s right.  Gas.

But I digress.  Greg persuaded me to try them and gave me a recipe that seemed simple enough.  I was to wash them (but peeling wasn’t necessary), cut off the end of each where the tuber attached to the plant, then slice them thinly length-wise.  I could toss these with a tablespoon or so of olive oil, salt, some herbs (I used Fines Herbes to get a good mix), and a whole lotta sliced garlic (I used about 5 cloves).  I should spread them out in a baking dish and bake at 425° for 15 minutes, then switch to a high broiler setting for about 5 minutes to brown them on top.  I bought them and thanked him, wished him Happy Holidays, then tucked them into my vegetable drawer to be ignored until the calendar had been switched and the Christmas decorations had been removed.

I’m not sure why I’m nervous about trying to cook new things.  Some things don’t scare me at all.  For Christmas I made two things I’d never attempted:  Beef Wellington (was delicious, but not perfect; perhaps for another blog entry?), and flourless chocolate cake (also deliciously flawed).  And my family ate them both with aplomb.  If they had failed, well, we do have a dog.  And a compost heap.  And other things to eat.  So, I’m not sure why I was procrastinating about preparing those wiggly little sunchokes.  Maybe because they looked like ginger.  Maybe because I thought they’d be hard to slice, and I just wasn’t up to the task.  Maybe because I thought they’d taste terrible, and leave an aftertaste on my palate it would take days to get rid of.  Maybe because I keep hoping my son will like one of these vegetables, but of course he never does.  Maybe I should have worried more about the gas.

I needn’t have worried about making something unfit for human consumption.  I was making pork steaks and green beans, and the ‘chokes would be an optional side dish.  They were surprisingly easy to cut, sort of like a radish.  And they came out perfect after a few minutes in the oven.  The garlic balanced the sweetness.   The flavor is mild, but difficult to describe.  The closest flavor I can think of is a turnip, but without the gritty, mushy texture I despise from turnips.  The simple preparation allowed me to test out this new (to me) vegetable.  I can’t say I’d like to eat them every day, but my son ate one without spitting it out, which is in fact a stunningly positive recommendation.

In all my trepidation and fuss, I overlooked taking the obligatory food shots.  If you want to see pictures of sunchokes, I suggest you visit the Wikipedia page.  I will instead leave you with a shot of our holiday decorations, which every year I am sad to take down.  The end of another year.  The beginning and promise of a new one.

How [not] to make Persimmon Pudding

It all started with a trip to the big box store where I get my toilet paper, my kid’s lunch snacks, and my frozen goods.  There they were, beaming up at me.  Persimmons.  I have to admit to a secret love affair with persimmons.  They’re mysterious.  They’re sweet and sour at the same time, which is why my son named our dog Persimmon.  They look like a yellow tomato, but they’re not.  They grow from a variety of ebony tree.  Native to China then exported within milliseconds to Japan, their varieties have beautiful Japanese names, like Fuyu and Hachiya.  The Hachiya looked gorgeous, and I had a potluck coming up Saturday night, so I would try my hand at persimmon pudding.

Saturday morning dawns, and I make breakfast for my husband and myself while my teenager wannabe has a lie-in.  As we wait for the water to boil, I offer hubby a slice of one of the gorgeous Hachiya persimmons with the USA sticker, and I bite into one myself.

Big mistake.

I instantly feel as if I downed a bottle of 100-year-old Bordeaux.  Without the buzz.  My gums pull away from my teeth.  My tongue grows hair.  I start clearing my throat at the rate and with the sound effects of an 80-year-old man with a sinus infection.  Good gods!  What is happening?  This is not the persimmon I knew and loved!

A quick trip to Wikipedia tells me I am not suffering from an allergic reaction, and, to my relief, would not need to visit the ER.  Turns out that Hachiya and Fuyu are quite different varieties.  Fuyu, which are short and squat, can be eaten like apples.  Hachiya should be kept on one’s windowsill until they’re completely soft and mushy.  Until that point, the tannic acid—the same tannic acid found in oak barrels to keep wine, and in such fruits as the cashew apple—has an extremely astringent effect.

I’ll say.

Once my hairy mouth wears off, I head off to the farmer’s market.  Once I get an idea in my head, I’m not easily dissuaded.  I ask my friend Sarah, the second-in-command at the market, if anyone sells persimmons.  I had never seen them there, but Sarah is in the know.  As luck would have it, the first-in-command had just purchased some from none other than my beloved Claybank Farms’ farmer Greg.  Whaddya know.  I smile and try to keep myself from running to his booth.

I’m pretty sure my love affair with persimmons started with a family recipe of persimmon pudding from my youth.  My mother and aunt talked about a persimmon tree that grew on their parents’ farm in Clay County, Illinois, coincidentally not far from the Claybank Farm itself.  A little more Wikipedia research tells me that there is an eastern US variety of persimmon, the American Persimmon, that is even higher in vitamins and minerals than its Asian cousins.  Flavor and nutrition?!  I’m hooked.

I ask Greg about the persimmons, and his face lights up.  “Why, yes, the persimmons are finally in season!”  He goes rooting around in his coolers and comes up with a Ziploc bag of what looks to be orange pingpong balls in mush.  Yes, this is what I remember.  This.  He proceeds to tell me that his aunt recommends simmering them before running them through a strainer or food mill.  I add the persimmons to my weekly order, and as I’m paying him, he asks, “hey do you know what you’re supposed to do with the seed?”

I shake my head no.

“Well, if you cut the seed in half, it will predict what winter is going to be like.  Of course, the persimmons have to be local.”

Of course.

“If you see a spoon, the winter will be full of snow and precipitation, but not very cold.  If you see a fork, the winter will be dry and windy.  That’s what I’ve been told, anyway,” he winks at me.

I can’t wait to get home to split one of those seeds open. But first, persimmon pudding.

So…in keeping with my romance with the southern Illinois persimmon, I feel I have to use my grandmother’s original recipe.  I crack open the Ancient Binder of Secrets, and find this:

Sorry, Grandma, this is completely unusable.  First of all, despite being a food hoarder, I simply cannot imagine cooking a recipe that calls for milk and flour in units of [half] gallons.  Second…what do I do?  Where are the instructions?  Third, what is a “slow oven?”  I have a high ambiguity tolerance in general, and usually I’m OK with vague cooking instructions, but this has me beat.  Once again, I turn to the internet.  I find a couple of recipes here and there, and glom them together to make something I think would be tasty, and more pudding-like than cake-like.  All the recipes have flour, milk, eggs, baking soda, cinnamon, sugar.  And, of course, persimmon pulp.

Next, to process the persimmons into persimmon pulp.  According to Greg, after simmering them for a bit it should be relatively easy.  I simmer for a few minutes, then let them cool.

Curses to you, Greg.

I start with my grandmother’s ancient food mill.  I grind and I grind and I grind.  A half-inch of pulp clings to the bottom of the mill.  I scrape it off and start over.  Almost nothing.  Frustrated, I grab a strainer and start pushing it through.  Even worse.  After going back and forth between food mill, strainer, and colander, I am cussing.  And the beautiful persimmon-y orange color has oxidized to a dark brown.  Finally, after about a half an hour of processing, I get enough pulp to make a double-recipe of the stuff.  I swear I will never do it again.

I started with the food mill

... then the strainer

...and finally the colander

But after baking the pudding in a water bath, it is splendid.  It’s not too sweet, which I prefer, and with a drizzle of maple syrup, it’s just as I remember.  A dollop of vanilla ice cream makes it divine.  And although most people thought I had brought brownies to the potluck, they soon discovered the wonder of my family’s fall culinary heritage highlight:  the persimmon pudding.

No photo.  You know what brownies look like, right?  Like that.

But, wait…what about the seed?

My husband and I rescue one from the compost bin, and I come as close as I ever have to cutting off my own finger in an attempt to cut it in half length-wise.  After last year’s horrible winter, we want to know what we’re in for.  We hold our breath to see if it’s a spoon or a fork.

It’s a knife.

We go through the process again, again narrowly close to losing a limb, only to find the same exact shape.

Most decidedly a knife.

For the third time, I thank the powers-that-be for the blessing of the internet, and all the knowledge that she holds.  (Farmer Greg will get an earful the next time I see him). A site with the full farmer’s almanac lore sheds more light on the matter; if the kernel inside the seed is shaped like a spoon it means indeed a warmer, snowier winter (spoon = shovel); a fork indicates a mild winter with powdery snow; and a knife indicates a cutting, fierce wind and lower-than-normal temperatures.  See for yourself at http://www.almanac.com/content/predicting-weather-using-persimmon-seed.

Family folklore, winter weather wiles, and cinnamon-persimmon-y goodness? That’s something you can’t get from those puckery persimmons at the grocery store…

Day 7, Final Day of Shopping at Home: Reflections on the Experiment

I cheated.  Well, sort of.  My son had the day off from school and we took the opportunity to visit our local pumpkin patch and apple orchard.  We found gorgeous pumpkins, and just couldn’t resist the pull to pick our own luscious apples right from the tree.  You can’t get more local than that, right?  And then, you have to round out the experience with the apple doughnuts and the apple cider, right?  So…technically, we bought food to bring home, but I still wouldn’t count it as grocery shopping.  I’m still pulling from my stores for dinner.  I’m on the last of my eggs and milk.

I’m calling the week’s experiment a success.

Dinner was simple.  I thawed bratwursts from Triple S and set them to boil.  This time I looked no further than my countertop for inspiration, where a big bowl of sweet potatoes has been staring me in the face for a couple of weeks.  I used my favorite recipe to make sweet potato oven fries, a recipe passed on to me from a neighbor.  I thoroughly cleaned two pounds of the organic jewel sweet potatoes from the Co-op, trimmed the ends and bad spots, and cut them into cottage-fry-sized pieces with the skin still on (I would only do this with organic sweet potatoes, by the way).  I tossed them in a blend of olive oil, equal parts salt and brown sugar, chili powder, cumin, and a pinch of cayenne, and spread them out on two baking sheets to roast at 425 degrees for half an hour, turning them over halfway through.  I stuck the boiled bratwurst in the oven to brown for the last ten minutes.

We didn’t have a green vegetable, but since we had beautiful, fresh apples for dessert, I figured that was OK.  And Friday evenings are like that sometimes; often those dinners are the three of us grabbing and reheating our favorite leftovers from the past week, so actually cooking something was an achievement.

So, now that the Shopping at Home experiment is over, what next?  What have I learned?

1.           My food hoarding is over the top; I could—and I just might—cook for another whole week without shopping.  I won’t be blogging about it daily, but I’ll keep you updated on my progress!

2.          I didn’t even have to be that creative to use up my stores; my son said, “I can’t even tell you’re not shopping.  It’s just the same as when you shop!  Well, except for that fried rice.  That was really good!”

3.          I will need to use more frozen goods in the near future.  I haven’t really made a dent in any of my freezers.  I tend to buy frozen fruits or vegetables, or freeze them myself, then completely forget about them.  Freezer organization is key.  So is weekly meal planning, starting with the ingredients already in my inventory.

Meanwhile, I’m off to the farmer’s market.  

I’m only buying a few things, I promise….

Day 6 of Shopping at Home: Kids and Vegetables

I’ve lamented in the past (here) my difficulty of getting my kid to eat vegetables, or at least the amount and frequency of eating vegetables that I feel is appropriate to help him grow well and protect his immune system now and in the future.  It is a battle I fight with ingenuity and persistence, and even when I’m in the middle of a Shopping at Home Campaign.  (To his credit, he seems to be rooting for my success, checking every night before dinner, “did you go shopping for this, Mom?”)  I always put vegetables on his plate, and I always make him taste them, even if he says he’s tasted the dish before, and he knows he doesn’t like it.  I tell him that tastes change over time, and someday he might actually decide he likes whatever it is.  Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose; fortunately, tonight I won.

I was tempted to dive into the packaged vegetables in the freezer, but I knew I needed to clean out the refrigerator, and that I had been avoiding the vegetable drawer.  No more.  Tonight would be my unique version of pork fried rice.  I started with making a large quantity of long-grain jasmine rice (my favorite).  I sliced up the pork cutlets cooked last night.  From the depths of the fridge I found both leftover and fresh veggies, and prepped the lot.

Discovered:  1. Huge bag of organic baby carrots.  Cut up about a cup of them into tiny nubs.

2. Collard greens from farmer Greg at Claybank; about half were turning yellow, the other half were salvageable.  Removed the spines and chiffonaded the leaves.

3. Brussels sprouts. Trimmed the outside leaves, then cut them into small pieces.  Still have a portion left which might be my lunch tomorrow.

4. Green beans, left over from last night’s dinner.  Cut into small pieces.

5. Green onions, also from Greg, drying out.  Stripped off the outside layer and chopped them into the light green part.

6. Triple S pork cutlets, left over from last night’s dinner.

7. One of three little lonely yellow onions left in my basket.

Purged:  1. Half of the collard greens.  This made me sad.

2. A bunch of kale from Blue Moon.  This made me even sadder.

3. A plastic bag with a small handful of arugula, also Blue Moon.

4. A plastic bag with a small handful of Blue Moon cilantro.

5. A tiny, spongy cucumber from my own garden.

6. A tiny bunch of radishes from Blue Moon.  I love them on salad, and had totally forgotten about them.

7. A quarter of a red onion from ???.  I always seem to end up with a quarter of a red onion left over, no matter how small of an onion I buy.

I started with parboiling my uncooked veggies—the Brussels sprouts, the carrots, and the collard greens-- just to even the playing field with the green beans.  I drained them, then added a splash of rice wine vinegar to remove that earthy flavor and add some pizzazz.  I set them aside.  I put a couple of tablespoons of coconut oil in my giant cast iron skillet.  This oil is a good choice for high heat, and I love the flavor it adds.  I diced up a regular onion, then sautéed until it started to brown, and then added my veggies, including the green beans, and small pieces of diced pork cutlet. They were on high heat for a few minutes, then I beat three small farm eggs (with their gorgeous dark yellow yolks), scooted the veggies to one side of the pan, and poured in the eggs to scramble.  Once they were done, jumbled into pieces, and mixed in with the rest, I added a stir-fry ginger sauce, then a whole lotta shoyu (soy sauce would work here too).  I mixed in about two or three cups of rice, and made sure the whole thing was hot, and all the liquids were absorbed, trying to avoid letting the rice stick to the skillet.  I threw in the green onions at the last minute.

I dished it up just as my son was getting back from soccer practice, and he immediately pronounced it “delicious.”  I beamed with pride. Two minutes later, his little eyes squinted and he said accusingly, “You are sneaky.  You somehow managed to sneak Brussels sprouts in here!”

I only smiled.

“And what is this?” he asked, trailing a ribbon of collard green from his fork.

“More vegetables,” I responded.

“Then why does it still taste good?” he asked.

“Because I’m just good that way,” I said with a wink.

Full of vegetables; even Persimmon thinks it smells great!

Day 5 of Shopping at Home: My Roots are Showing

My parents grew up in southern Illinois, and occasionally I can’t help but let loose my cooking alter ego, the southern farm gal.  I grew up on dinners like these; all I can say is you should either be bringing in the harvest or walking the dog a lot if you have these dinners more than once in a blue moon.

Thanks to my mother’s tutelage on the making of a fine southern gravy—to which I’ve added my own twist—tonight’s dinner was embarrassingly easy.  I defrosted a package of pork cutlets from Triple S and pan-fried them in my super-sized cast iron skillet, adding a sprinkle of salt and white pepper.  While the microwave was doing its magic on my frozen green beans, I whipped up a little gravy.  Pork cutlets from Triple S fortunately, or unfortunately for gravy-making, have less fat than their commercial counterparts (hey, I’ve personally seen those pigs move), so there are very few pan drippings to use.  Here’s where the southern cook part comes in:  I add a couple of tablespoons of butter to the pan after the cutlets have been browned and transferred to a plate on warm in the oven.  After the butter has melted and blended with the pan drippings, I whisk in about 1/3 cup of flour, creating a skillet full of little delicious lumps.  Keeping the flame on medium, I whisk in milk a little at a time, stirring until the lumps mostly dissolve.  I keep whisking and heating and pouring milk until the desired amount of gravy is produced (usually around 1 1/2 cups), keeping in mind it will thicken even more as it cools.  When it reaches gravy perfection, I add salt, white and black pepper, and a teaspoon of my favorite herb, dried thyme (yes, the thyme is the “twist” I mentioned earlier).  I simmer a couple of minutes more on low heat, and then pour the gloppy deliciousness into my Fiestaware gravy boat.

My mom taught me that milk gravy is always made from chicken or pork drippings, but beef should be accompanied by a water gravy, using beef broth or the water from cooked vegetables as the liquid instead of milk.  She also taught me that biscuits are not necessary; all you need is a fine slice of high-quality bread to soak it up.  In our case, a slice of rye bread from Pekara bakery worked very nicely.  Gravy can be poured over the bread, over the bread and veggies, or over your entire plate of food.

My boys focused more on the gravy than the meat, so there will be leftover cutlets for tomorrow’s dinner.  I’m already making plans…

Days 3 and 4 of Shopping at Home: Transformed Tomatoes and Jiffy Nostalgia

So…Day 3 went pretty much as I imagined, eating up the leftovers of zucchini soup and pizza.  Perhaps an odd combination, but I do not want to have too many leftovers.  I mean, the purpose of this week’s exercise is to get things out and used up, not to make more to have hiding in the back of the fridge.

Day 4 is a planned evening out with some friends for me, and my son has soccer practice in the early evening, so I need to prepare something that can simmer on the stove or in a crock pot until the boys are ready to eat.  During my sweeping search for shredded cheese, I discovered two more pounds of Triple S ground beef I didn’t know I had.  Also, some of those green tomatoes from the last garden haul?  They’ve magically turned red!  So chili is a natural consequence, easy, tasty, and nutritionally complete.  Mine is not a special recipe by any means; I always have dried black beans or cans of them available, and they are my favorite for chili.  Sometimes I add kidney beans, but I don’t have any this time, and no shopping allowed!  My “secret” final ingredient is to add half a beer while the chili is simmering.  This will help diminish the Corona in our fridge downstairs, as it was left over from a party long ago, and not really the kind we like to drink.

Discovered:  1. Tomatoes needing to be rescued; they look a bit dry for eating, but will be perfect in chili.

2. Ground beef, and lots of it.

3. A giant box of Saltines on the verge of going stale.  I could see my boys using up a sleeve or two of those in chili.

4. Corona.  Don’t even remember how this came to our house, but probably some sort of summer gathering.

Purged:  Nothing this time, but I might want to take another peek into my veggie drawer just to be sure.  Some cilantro might be hiding in there, which is great as a chili topping, but it might be ready for the compost bin.

Back in the day I was less concerned about organic and natural foods, and I kept a stash of Jiffy prepared corn muffin mix on hand.  Believe it or not, I get slightly nostalgic about Jiffy cornbread.  It would go so well with the chili, and it’s so inexpensive and easy. Those little light blue boxes are so cute and compact, and the packaging hasn’t changed since at least the 1970s.  Just add eggs and milk.  Sigh.  But, alas, no.  One look at the ingredient list convinces me that I should either make corn muffins from scratch, or stick with the Saltines.  And begin planning Day 5…