article post.

cool: i didn't know that.

i'll have to add spinach to my shopping list,
when i return from visiting my parents.

Kids Taste A Sweeter Veggie, White House Style
by Allison Aubrey

If you didn't know that spinach tastes sweeter when it's grown in cool temperatures, it's likely you haven't been digging around in a winter garden. The White House has just planted a slew of cold-weather vegetables, and a group of students from an after-school cooking class in Washington, D.C., were among the first to visit.

after hours (read: drunken) cooking!!!!!!?!

it seems to me that i haven't done much proper cooking in a while. on the other hand, the "should i, shouldn't i" questions do not pertain to nights after a bit of beer and other bits and pieces besides.

so here: the ugly cooking after a bit of beer. it is ugly, but for now i find it quite good. come to think of it, this food is kin to an english breakfast. if you look closely, you will find tomatoes and mushrooms.

on the other hand, i have never found beans in a good english breakfast. so: ta, to that!

---

epilogue. forget what it is, english or not. it is good .. (-:

miso @ 3am.

late at night, especially winter, it is a fine thing to have miso soup. it warms you up without having a full commitment of making soup from scratch.

of course, saying that requires me to have access to some asian grocery within striking distance, and yes, this is key. were it not for miso paste, i could not tell you how nice it is, after a night of drinking, to set a kettle to boil and chopp green onions and tofu, break a fistful of cellophane noodles, and add it all into a nice, half-fortifying soup.

good times, good soup. no harm, that!

ode to soup noodles.

there is something to be said for one's own culture. people say i'm american (and i agree with them) but i was born to chinese parents, and there will always be part of me that loves good chinese food.

gardenburgers and fries get old,
falafel and hommos get old,

dal and samosas and bhindi masala are wonderful,
but i couldn't eat them all the time.

on the other hand, a mai-fun noodle bowl with choy and with veggie shu-mai can't be beat. it is easy to make at 3am, which is a true test of a comfort food.

i could eat it on the hottest day of summer, sweat for an hour, and still be happy. as it happens, the calendar favors me now, and i can warm up to soup noodles [1] all winter long .. (-:


[1] "noodle soup" reminds me of chicken noodle soup from bad cafeterias. this is not what i mean. i mean noodles served in soup, but not as a stew.

to cook well, then (1) make a menu, and (2) use parallel processing.

occasionally i adjust my strategies, in efforts to cook more often.

one of them includes writing a menu for the week. by necessity they require ingredients and preparation times, which immediate gives rise to setting up schedules and shopping lists.

anyway, here's a rough draft of this week's menu:

southwestern special:

spicy black bean stew w/ adobo,
savory corn muffins,
vegetable fajitas [1]

lazy noodle bowl [2]:

miso soup with rice noodles,
sauteed choy from the asian market
pan-fried gyoza.

proper stir-fry:

curried asian eggplant, mushrooms, and tofu,
rice-quinoa pilaf.

soup which i can cook, while writing a seminar talk:

as made with potatoes, lentils, peas, carrots, maybe fish or seafood, too, and served with good bread and hommos.

---

cooking notes:

[1] along with the standard saute veg like bell pepper, mushrooms, and such, i'll follow a friend's style of adding mashed potato or yam, as a twist on refried beans. it would save me the stylistic redundancy of having beans in two dishes.

[2] this is not so much 'lazy' as impatient. if you stack the steps, then it takes very little time to make this.

it's the cook's version of parallel processing. if you know how to code, then think of the soup as one thread. the gyoza and choy form another thread where the racing condition for the saute pan is solved with a lock; since the choy needs more prep than the gyoza, it goes last.

the key is that you don't have to watch the saute pan every minute. if only for reassurance to newbies -- for a conventional stove on "high" heat settings, there wouldn't be enough time to burn anything anyway ..

first,
(1a) boil water for the soup,
(1b) wash/chop the choy,
(1c) thaw frozen gyoza in microwave (1min),
then add with oil to a frying pan -- 5 minutes.

then,
(2a) add noodles to the boil,
(2b) turn the gyoza over,
(2c) smash/chop a clove of garlic -- 3 minutes.

and then,
(3a) place the gyoza in a separate bowl to cool,
(3b) turn off the boil, remove from heat -- 30 seconds.

lastly,
(4a) add miso paste to the noodles & water,
(4b) fry the choy and garlic,
(4c) dice 3 fingers of tofu, 1 finger of green onion,
add to the noodles, raw -- 3 minutes.

(5) add everything together,
voila: a noodle bowl in <12 min: game on!

today's breakfast: oatmeal, with untried possibilities.

this dish is good but makes poor photography, so as a result: no photos attached.

• 1 1/2 cups oatmeal, old-fashioned or steel-cut,
  cooked in a bath of boiling water, then drained;
  
  
• 2 big spoonfuls of unsweetened applesauce;
  
  
• a drizzle of honey;
  
  
• a few shakes of garam masala
  

remarks:

1. i'm not opposed to milk or cream or soy milk; it's just that i didn't have any in the kitchen.
   
   
2. i have no real loyalty to garam masala, either. it's just that i was unable to find the cardamom this morning.
   
   
3. cut, fresh fruit would probably be good in this, but nothing too acidic. maybe really ripe peaches.
   
   for something more exotic, sweet red beans and condensed milk (in place of honey) could work really well. any takers?

dinner for 2, for a while.

my girlfriend is visiting me, these two weeks. she's what i call a healthy vegetarian:

it's not enough to abstain from eating meat, but one should eat lots of fresh vegetables. so in the last few days we've been visiting and revisiting the produce section of the local supermarket.

it also seems our habit to cook more and eat out less, so i've been doing my best with switching up my recipes.

so far, what we've made:

garden pasta: sauteed squash/zucchini with tofu, tomato sauce from scratch, whole-wheat penne.

curry: red potatoes with green lentils and onions and peas, over quinoa-brown rice pilaf. as a side, there was sauteed kale with tofu and .. er, something else. i can't remember.

mediterranean-ish: hommos on bread, good cheese, fruit, sliced vegetables.

tentative ideas, for future meals:

southwestern: black bean veggie chile over fresh-baked corn muffins, chopped salad.

stir-fry: tofu with shittake mushrooms and peas, sauteed greens, with brown rice.

noodle bowls: miso soup with rice noodles, gyoza, napa cabbage and sliced bell peppers

something which involves an eggplant, 3/4's of a tin of tomatoes, mushrooms .. so i suspect something italian is in order.

more ideas are welcome!

a 3-ingredient late night snack, good with tea.

it's been a while, hasn't it?

since the last post, i've been applying for grants, writing, proctoring, and grading a midterm, and subsequently running damage control for those students i've spooked.

---

anyway, i've no new recipes yet, unless you count this one. i prefer to think of it instead as an excuse to use two disparate ingredients:

• two slices of whole-grain wheat bread, lightly toasted,
  
  
• natural peanut butter
  (the kind which, on the ingredient label,
  reads only: peanuts, peanut oil)
  
  
• freshly ground black pepper!!!!
  

the directions can be easily surmised. (-:

quick tips, when making rice.

as long as you're taking the easy route to steamed rice, it's easy to infuse flavor into it. try:

• replacing water with vegetable or seafood broth.
  
  lighter flavors are best,
  as not to overwhelm the simple flavor of rice.
  
  
• adding ground herbs or spices to the rice mixture.
  
  again, avoid strong flavors (like rosemary).
  
  moreover, be careful with fresh herbs: if you're a cilantro person, then it's best to steam the rice and stir in the chopped cilantro just before serving. otherwise you get wilted, gobby green flakes within a sea of rice.
  
  as for what i've tried:
  
  jasmine tea leaves (resting on top of the rice),
  lemongrass powder or garam masala (both stirred in).
  

a warm salad: recipe without words.

+



+



=

(-:

pasta without tomatoes.

it wasn't until college that i started making pasta without a tomato sauce of some kind. for some reason it seemed sacrilegious.

in fact, there were a few times when i ate spaghetti with medium salsa .. but hey, we're all young once. (;

---

when i think about it, this recipe sounds like one that mark bittman (the "Minimalist") would think of.

green (but not pesto) pasta
(serves 1, but can be scaled up)

ingredients:

• 1 serving whole wheat thin spaghetti / angel hair pasta
  
  
• 1 fistful curly parsley [1], finely chopped
  
  
• 1 small bowl of frozen peas, thawed [2]
  
  
• 1 big / 2 small cloves of garlic,
  smashed with the side of a chef's knife and chopped finely.
  
  
• enough olive oil to dress the pasta
  
  
• salt & pepper to taste
  

<digression>
if anyone cares to try, some ground parmigiano-reggiano cheese would probably do very well, but i didn't have any.

small, pitted deli olives would have been good, now that i think about it. argh .. i should have bought some!

the best thing about this recipe is that it can be made in parallel: several steps at the same time!
</digression>

"directions"

1. boil water, thaw out peas, chop parsley. (since the water will take a while to boil, you can slow down your chopping; i'm not that fast, myself.)
   
   
2. add pasta to the boil, smash/peel/chop garlic.
   (as a tip, smash first, then peel.)
   
   
3. add peas to the boil, heat up a pan and add olive oil.
   when ready, add garlic to the pan.
   
   
4. when you can smell garlic, remove from heat.
   drain pasta/peas in a colander, but do not rinse!
   dress pasta with the garlic and oil, parsley, salt, pepper.
   

[1] at some point in my life, i developed the habit of buying the cheapest fresh herbs (per bunch) from the grocery, each week. admittedly, i like cilantro more than parsley, but parsley seems a more adaptable ingredient.

[2] a bag of frozen peans are great in a pinch. they also serve well as an ice pack, in the event of sprains, bruises, and burns.

thoughts about a(n upcoming) dinner party.

1. having friends over for dinner is a good excuse to buy several types of good cheese. some items, in plenty, are too decadent for solitary consumption.
   
   
2. one guest has repeatedly offered to make something. in retrospect i should have let him make the salad. in conversation and in email, he's brought it up ..
   
   as for why i didn't, he called me (less than an hour after emailing me) about whether he should bring salad. i was at the grocery at the time and had just bagged a head of green-leaf lettuce, as well as other sundries.
   
   he's on baguette-&-red wine detail, now. hopefully he isn't offended.

tonight's dinner: "leftovers" sandwich.

ingredients:

* last 2 pieces of whole wheat bread, pan-toasted [1]
* last 2 dollops of roasted red pepper hommos
* leftover chopped salad (cucumbers, tomatoes, curly parsley, vinaigrette)
* several slices of gorgonzola (under the salad layer)

this was a wonderful sandwich.

i would have taken photos of the cross section, between bites, but the filling overflowed and my fingers were too deliciously messy to operate a camera.


[1] if you own a toaster, go ahead and use it.
it's a labor-saving invention, after all.

a salad without a name. it wasn't bad, though.

i only have the word of two mathematicians to tell me that this salad was good. actually ..

[re-counts]
.. three mathematicians.

sometimes i forget that i count, too. this is the sort of salad which might be easier to eat with a spoon than with a fork. thinking about it, it would work well as a topping on crispbread.

anyway, here's the recipe.

"i don't know but it might be good" salad.

INGREDIENTS:

• one package pea pods, from a farmer's market.
  
• 1/2 can of black beans that you're trying to get rid of
  
• 3/4's a bunch of curly parsley, finely chopped
  
  (i saved 1/4 in case i needed it later in the week. as long as the food is good, there's nothing wrong with holding out on dinner. it's your groceries after all.)
  
  
• one package cherry tomatoes, cut in halfs and quarters and sixths
  
• two handful of walnuts, pan-toasted.
  
• olive oil
  
• rice vinegar
  
• salt and fresh ground pepper to taste.
  

[remembers]
.. f*ck! i forgot the diced red onion!!!!
i was wondering if it would taste good if i added some ..

.. no matter.

DIRECTIONS (of which there are few):

i boiled the peas in their pods for 4 minutes, in the event that my company didn't like raw peas, and then i popped them out of their pods. this is quite easy, because after boiling, the pods are very soft whilst the peas are not.

(they're easier than edamame and fava beans, at any rate.)

as for toasting walnuts, take out a frying pan, set to medium, and add walnuts. NO OIL. shake the pan every so often. when you smell a nutty smell, count to 30 and then remove from heat.


MOTIVATIONS:

1. if i didn't use the peas, then they would go bad. the same goes with cherry tomatoes. it's a sin to waste food from a farmer's market.
   
   
2. i'm on a curly parsley kick since my ann arbor days, because so many places there make good tabbouleh. to name a few, jerusalem garden, pita kebab .. and that place on south university avenue which used to be a hole in the wall but has remodeled to be a sit-down place and won't give you free baklava with a large wrap anymore ..
   
   .. i really liked the free baklava. it wasn't great baklava, but there was this crunch and hint of honey that would be good with afternoon coffee ..
   
   
3. the black beans were left over from when i made .. er, never mind. it wasn't very good -- one of my culinary experiments to which i refuse to subject others. i vowed, however, to make something better with the latter half of the can.
   
   
4. rice vinegar isn't necessary. any acid would work: balsamic vinegar, perhaps apple cider vinegar .. heck, even lemon juice or lime juice. i draw the line at orange juice, because the sweetness would overwhelm the salad.

thoughts after: food, inc.

for the type of film that it is, food inc. is rather watchable. i wouldn't call it a balanced opinion .. not that i want one, of course.

what struck me, though, was that they made a lot of use of commercial-ish images and video footage in a way which resembled brainwashing, or rather, debrainwashing.

in tv commercials, one watches people eating hamburgers with enjoyment and gusto;

everyone eating a hamburger in this film appeared doing so out of habit and certainly not out of joy. that, of course, is reality. there are a lot of hamburgers and fast food out there and people do eat them regularly.

as a film, it followed a core agenda: industrial food. they did it quite well.

the end guidelines -- suggesting what we can do to make healthy food accessible and affordable -- included cooking for and eating with your family.

fine and dandy:
the problem is, how do you start?

it's not hard to learn how to cook. it's not easy to learn how to cook well, without help. it's not easy to learn how to cook well and fast, without practice. barring a really good, quick recipe -- of which many do exist, but you have to look for them -- a beginning home cook cannot compete with restaurant food.

there are several dice loaded into this. what's the point of going to a farmer's market if you can't cook?

there goes another guideline.

restaurants are really good at their job, which is making tasty food. if it's a question of immediate gratification by taste, the restaurant will win, even if it's less healthy and bad for the ecosystem / farmers / health / world / etc.

i guess i was hoping for a few words like "starting out, it's not going to be easy, but you'll get there." it's hard enough for people to gain enough momentum to try to change ..

you say dinner, i say breakfast ..

so far i've nothing but breakfast food, today.

breakfast: coffee, doughnut
lunch: spinach-mushroom omelette with a green salad
just now: whole grain bagel

to be honest, i'm tempted to go home and make myself oatmeal now -- maybe with some brown sugar, cloves, and cardamom. (-:

choy, glorious choy!

these days a lot of supermarkets sell bok choy and napa cabbage, and broccoli rabe is a reasonably good substitute for gai lan.

nonetheless, there are plenty of types of asian greens which never find their way into suburbia. the contrast is striking when you realise that, in new york chinatown, they will sell these otherwise-rare veg ..

.. on street corners, by the pound.

---

when i was younger, supermarkets in nyc chinatown were rare. visiting now, i see more of them.

lao wai choi (老 外 菜), mostly.

11 & 1 o'clock: radish-like root veg,

then there are other asian sundries, like tofu, fresh rice noodles, as well as rice-flour wrappers used to make wontons:



soy sauce, anyone?

4 o'clock, green label: organic soy sauce!

while in harrisburg: burritos.

i had the strangest burrito yesterday, at a place called

(the neon sign, which resembles this graphic, caught my eye.)

as for the ingredients,

      * black bean hommos
      * "barbecue rice" [1]
      * cucumbers
      * sour cream
      * salsa of the day

so it was more like a wrap than a burrito. not bad, though.

---

it's a no frills place; a few tables outside, a few more inside, a few window stools and a thin table for loners. i've seen a lot of indie coffeehouses, but this was my first indie burrito joint.

also odd: for those of you who eat meat regularly, they offer a buffalo burrito -- not the sauce, but the animal meat.



[1] which was just rice with bbq sauce; i should have gone for the brown rice.

i said, "bring them back alive."

against my better judgment, i bought two herb plants yesterday:



you see, every plant for which i've cared has eventually died of negligence. [1] my initial thought was to name these two butch and sundance. [2]

then it occurred to me that almost all the plants that i've ever bought have been dead or dying. they're called grocery vegetables.

this improved my mood somewhat, so i have chosen more optimistic names:

reggie, the oregano plant, & rosie, the rosemary plant.

herbs and veg are funny. when they die, i don't feel that bad about it. maybe there's regret that it could have lived longer and i could have gotten more herb out of them.

in contrast, i don't think i could name deer that were about to be shot, or cows destined for the slaughterhouses.

[1] well, except one: i once drowned a plant. the pot was too big, i left it outside, and subsequently a downpour ensued.

[2] that wouldn't work, anyway. i already named my climbing shoes butch and sundance.

desperate times, lacklustre recipes.

last week i flew back into the united states, only to leave 12 hours later to attend a wedding.

i flew back home last night, to a refrigerator empty of anything fresh, much less vegetables. if i had eggs, i'd have fried some. i had even run out of frozen peas!

there is always something, though. it doesn't have to be amazing, but it has to be tolerable. so this is what i made.

---

bean salad.

ingredients
* several handfuls of dried lentils
* 1 can kidney beans
* 1 medium onion
* lemongrass powder
* cloves [1]
* salt and pepper and olive oil, to taste.

directions
boil the lentils in salted water, with the cloves, for 5-10 minutes. during the boil, (1) finely slice the onion while heating a non-stick pan, (2) fry the onion in olive oil, salt, lemongrass, and pepper, until it has color. drain the lentils of water and cloves, open and drain the tin of kidney beans. mix it all, dress with olive oil, and serve warm.

regrets
if i had any parsley i'd have chopped some and added it in. the same goes if i had a fresh tomato or a bell pepper or any sort of fresh veg.

oh well. sometimes one makes do.

---

(readymade) frozen gyoza.

suggestion/warning
microwave them first, then quickly pan-fry them for color. this shortens the cooking time, but due to the moisture from the microwave, beware of splattering saute oil.

oh well. at least i still had some sriracha sauce around, which goes wonderfully well with these things.


[1] if i had bay leaves, i'd have used them. no luck in the pantry.

you call that minimizing? (:

from bitten, the NYT food blog --

there was a post today about how how they were minimizing the Minimalist:

Mark Bittman advocated broccoli rabe with pasta, and Edward Schneider advocates rabe on toast, like a bruschetta.

well, i claim to have further minimized this iterated minimization.

it's happened several times that i cooked broccoli rabe with garlic, red pepper flakes, salt, and olive oil, and ate it straight from the pan.

heck, i even ate with the chopsticks with which i stirred the rabe!

granted, this happened at an instant of laziness. it was 2am and i had planned to fry an egg and boil up some udon noodles to go with it.

by the time the rabe was ready, though, i decided against the extras.

---

this, i think, is not such a strange phenomenon. i grew up in an immigrant cantonese household, where choy was a part of many meals i ate as a child.

also, broccoli rabe is the closest western version to gai lan (芥蘭) (or "chinese broccoli") that i know of, which means that it holds a dear place in my heart.

ironically enough, broccoli translates to "lao fan gai lan (老番芥蘭)" in cantonese, which literally means Western gai lan.

vegetarianism in catalunya.

i'm unimpressed with how vegetables are cooked in catalunya .. or rather, in the campus cafeterias at universitat autònoma de barcelona.

the salads are plain things:
undressed iceberg with a few tomato decorations.

as for cooked vegetables,
i have seen only grayish cadavers,
their culinary lives cut short by a death from zealously boiling waters.

then again, this doesn't mean that catalunians don't understand vegetarian food. i had this for dinner, for example:

clockwise from left: vegetable tempura, hommos, salad, spinach pudding;
middle: spoon of unknown but tasty sauce;
upper-left corner: a local draft beer called cruzcampo.

comments: i suppose that "tempura" has a fancier name, but these were veggie fritters -- good, but not tempura.

the term "pudding" refers, i think, to the british terminology; like yorkshire pudding. it tasted like a mediterranean spinach pie but more substantial and without the puff pastry.

all in all, though: a good meal.

don't be a hero: splurge on salt.

currently i'm in barcelona for a mathematics summer school. the host university has put us up in apartments with fully stocked kitchens .. except for food, of course.

so if i've learned anything from these past few days, it's this:

always buy salt.

it's worth it.
nothing replaces it, not even freshly ground pepper.

today i made a quick soup of new potatoes, lentils, and onions, doing everything i could to infuse flavor. (i didn't buy broth, either.)

i flavored the broth with stalks of parsley.

i made garlic into a paste and stirred it into the soup.

i added pepper to the point where there was a definitive layer,
floating on the water surface.

when it was done, i served it with shavings of cheese on top.

it still tastes bland. it needs salt.

not exactly gnocchi; close enough.

sometimes i feel like gnocchi, but then i realise how much time and effort is required to make the dough.

(refridgeration is required, at some stage, otherwise one puts glop into boiling salted water instead of pasta.)

then i think harder:
all i really want is that potato taste.
so, why not?

for lunch today:
parboiled, braised potatoes in pasta sauce.

a quick veggie snack.

there's a scene in one of the episodes of "jamie @ home" (feat. jamie oliver) where he criticizes iceberg lettuce. at the end of the scene, he tosses it outside to feed the chicken hens.

i'm not a big fan of iceberg lettuce on salads,
but i wouldn't go that far.

for example: in an informal setting, they make great wrap covers.

lettuce hommos wraps:

* several leaves of iceberg lettuce, rinsed
* a tub of hommos (flavoured, if you like)
* pepper and olive oil, to taste
* some chopped salad vegetables, to be eaten raw:
      e.g. tomatoes, bell peppers, cucumbers

directions:
make, as you would a taco or burrito or any other sort of wrap.
just don't be afraid of getting a little messy.

---

to make this a meal, here's a side or two:

southwest salad, small pieces:
* (tinned) corn, rinsed,
* red onion, finely chopped
* chopped and peeled celery
* black and kidney beans, cooked and cooled
* coriander, finely chopped
* salt and pepper, to taste
* optional: diced tomatoes and/or finely chopped red chiles

directions:
stir together, serve in bowls.
this might be good with tortillas or chips.


corn bread: i don't know how to bake, so find your own recipe.