Pomegranate Oatcakes

 I awoke this morning and found myself, like Alexander from the children’s book, in a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad mood. The kind of mood that is only subjugated by doing something that makes me truly happy in a Zen sort of way. It’s an important day and I can’t take any risk of being flustered or aggravated. I need my wits about me and a sense of inner peace to prevail over the morning and afternoon to ensure I am in top mental form come 3pm. So I did what I always do when I want to shut out the world and tuck into my happy place; I rolled out of bed, pressed some coffee in my new french press and tied on an apron to get lost in some kitchen therapy.

I had a game plan. The fridge needed cleaning out. The last of the Thanksgiving leftovers needed to be thrown together into something edible. I had a new gluten free breakfast recipe I had in mind and I had a pile of persimmons and pomegranates I had picked up last weekend that needed attending to. Unfortunately, the persimmons weren’t ripe yet so I replaced them with pomegranate seeds in the oatcakes I wanted to try out. Being gluten free, some of the things I miss most are bread-y breakfast foods. I never ate them often before but sometimes you really crave things like waffles and pancakes. Crepes and croissants. Scones and biscuits. You get my drift…

I usually play around with a recipe several times before I like it and feel willing to share it with the world but today was one of those rare days where lo and behold, I got it right on the first try. Spot on deliciousness. (Mood improvement well under way.)

How many times have you come home with that pomegranate you couldn’t resist at the market? It’s jewel-like skintone begging it’s way into your shopping cart only to get it home and realize that apart from hacking it open and struggling to get the seeds out while bursting more of them open than you manage into your mouth, you really don’t know what to do with it? But only after staining whatever inevitably white shirt you had been wearing and plodding off in search of a slightly less labor intensive snack. Perhaps one not quite so messy. Well, pull yourself together and give it another go because these little fritters are the answer to your pomegranate conundrum.

 How to seed a pomegranate: cut into wedges like you would an apple or orange and instead of pulling the seeds out, pull the flesh back and away from seed pockets releasing them from the pith. There will still be a certain amount of spray and collateral towel damage so wear an apron and use paper towels if you don’t want to stain your kitchen towels.

I fried these in a cast iron skillet with butter because that’s how I roll, but you can also bake these as a cookie type thingie at 350 for about 35 minutes and they are quite tasty and VERY healthy. I made one batch this way and they seemed to go over well. (I won’t lie to you and say they were as good as the pan-fried ones. Let’s be honest, butter really does make everything better.)

Get this:

3/4 cup pomegranate seeds

2 cups rolled oats
1 cup rice flour (Or tapioca flour, or oat flour or any other gluten free flour.)(Or regular flour if you don’t need them to be gluten free.)
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons good quality maple syrup plus more for serving. (I like grade B.)
1 cup skim milk
2 tablespoons butter
Do this:

Mix together oats, flour, soda, powder, and salt. Add milk and maple syrup. Combine and microwave two minutes. Mixture should be sticky but not wet. You should be able to get solid dollops. Yes, that’s the technical term. If it’s too wet to form add a little more flour. Gently fold in pomegranate seeds.

Melt butter in a skillet and drop tablespoon sized dollops into pan flattening out into patties as you go. Brown on both sides and drizzle with more maple syrup. Enjoy!

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Blueberry Jam for Autumn

This homemade jam is just heavenly spooned over yogurt, oatmeal, ice cream or anything really. I know blueberries are usually reserved for summer baking but this is a great way to incorporate them into your fall and winter repertoire as well. The mace and brown sugar warm them up and the orange peel gives it a marmalade like texture that I just love. I suppose technically it’s a compote since there’s no pectin or gelatin. Whatever you call it, I’ve been caught eating it by the spoonful!

Blueberry Jam

Get This:

2 pints fresh or 1 bag frozen blueberries
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
pinch of mace
candied peel of 2 oranges **
zest of one lemon

Do This:

Combine berries, sugars, mace and orange peel and boil till reduced to a thick jam-like consistency. Grate the zest of one lemon into the jam and stir in. Cool and store in fridge. Jam will keep about one week, however, I highly doubt it will last that long,

 

**For the candied orange:
Using a vegetable peeler peel just the outermost orange part of the peel off of two oranges. Try to avoid getting the white pith. This part is bitter. Slice the peeled parts thinly and bring them to a boil in equal parts sugar and water (making a simple syrup). Using just enough liquid to cover the peels. Turn off heat. Let it sit five minutes and repeat two more times. (Bring to boil, shut off heat.)

Show and Tell: The week in links

Photo: Piru, CA

Nomming our way through the web…

Here’s a compliation of links that made us smile, laugh, think and salivate this week.

An Open Letter to All Thanksgiving Cooks from the folks over at Gilt Taste.  A true holiday dinner survival guide for everyone from the novice to the professional!

I was skeptical of this beet and chocolate cake recipe initially but I can’t resist wanting to try it. Decadent for sure! 

On Jews and Chinese food at Christmas via Twitpic.

One more reason we should all be buying local honey.

Hints, tips and thoughts on a Slow Thanksgiving from Slow Food USA.

Without changing Thanksgiving classics too much you can still put a creative, and delicious, spin on them this year. Gluten Free Girl’s take on mashed ‘taters plus.

OMG! Best gift idea of the season so far! DIY felt coffee cozies!! 

Torchons.  Another great gift. (Feel free to send some my way! I love these French kitchen towels for all their myriad uses.) 

Seven truths about writers from The New Yorker’s, The Book Bench. (#7: “Writers wear atrocious clothing when they write.”  That is SO supposed to be a secret! (She says in her Caftan… )) (Yes, I just used parenthesis inside of parenthesis…can you do that?)

Fusilli Amatriciana

Last night I had dinner with a friend. Not just any friend. An old, dear friend. One of those rare people in life with whom you find that even though well over a decade has passed since the last time you saw them you know that you will share a hug that feeds your soul. Time will revert to a place where it feels like you saw them only days ago and the conversation is easy and comfortable. I can count the people in my life that fall into this category on one hand, with digits to spare. And while these are the ones I want most to cook for (it’s how I show my love) I want the time to be focused on catching up and reconnecting and not in the kitchen wrapped up in some complicated recipe. Also, from what I remembered he was always more of a burger and fries, no frills kinda guy. I wanted dinner to be simple and low-key in respect of that.

Pasta Amatriciana is the perfect meal for such an occasion. It is barely more complicated than your basic marinara sauce. (Sidenote: While on the topic of marinara, I know there are multitudes of people who are of the school of thought that sauce needs to simmer for hours or days or millenia or what have you. Nothing could really be further from the truth. Marinara is a quick sauce. Garlic, basil and raw tomato in my book. That’s it. I’m a purist, what can I say.)

Amatraciana is named after the town of Amatrice in Abruzzo, Italy and classically served with buccatini (hollow spaghetti) pasta. It would traditionally be made with guincale(cheek)or prosciutto(belly) or some other un-smoked type of Italian bacon. I live in the States and I like American bacon, applewood smoked if I’m feeling crazy. I try to buy the bulk, end pieces for this since I want lardons of bacon. That’s french for meaty chunks.

Aside from being simple and a perfect comfort dish, this only uses two pans. One for the pasta, one for the sauce. Less dishes = more time to talk your face off.

GET THIS:

• 1 large yellow onion, sliced into half moons
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1/2 lb thick cut bacon, sliced or cubed
• 1 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
• 2 Tbs. Olive oil
• 1 28 oz can crushed tomato

DO THIS:

Render(**) bacon and soften onions in olive oil over low/meduim heat in a large skllet. When bacon is browned and onions are very pliable and soft (about 15-20 mins.) add the garlic and chili flakes and cook for two minutes. Add tomato and cook 5 mins. Season with salt and pepper and toss with your pasta of choice. I used a brown rice, wheat-free fusilli (no one was the wiser) but whatever you have hangin’ out in the pantry is good.
If you happen to have a few sprigs of fresh thyme kickin’ around I’d add those at the same time as the garlic. And of course, finish with a smattering of chopped fresh flat leaf parsely and some grated Italian cheese if you’ve got it.

**There are two basic methods of cooking bacon. Browning and rendering. Browning, or frying, uses higher heat; either direct(stovetop) or indirect(oven). This quickly cooks the bacon resulting in crispy, crunchy stand-alone bacon-ey goodness. Rendering uses a lower heat to literally melt the fat and infuse whatever the end product will be (soup, sauce, dressing) with a concentrated, smoky bacon flavor and yields smaller bits of the leftover protein.

A few words from one our friends…

Today’s post comes to you in the form of a guest blog from my friend Marisa Fanelli, owner of Healing Point Therapeutics in Wayland, MA. Marisa has recently discovered the many benefits of juicing. Something I have not quite dabbled with myself even though we have the exact same juicer in the house and I have several friends and family members that swear by it. Maybe this is a sign that today is the day I should start pressing my fruits and vegetables through the machine. Or maybe I should just make some fudge instead…I’ll keep ya posted.

______________________________________________________________

 As an acupuncturist, I try to steer my patients in the right direction when it comes to diet.  However, I don’t push.  It’s important to me to have my patients feel comfortable admitting their guilty pleasures without feeling judged.  In fact, several patients have commented on how grateful they are to be able to tell me anything without fear of disapproval.  You might have to bow your head in shame while discussing your love of cheese with your physician, but in my office? Bring it on.  Honesty is the best policy, and who among us can be completely honest when they know they are going to be admonished for it?

   It’s also easy for me to commiserate with my patient’s lack of willpower, because my own hedonistic tendencies win out so often.  Who am I to judge, when patients can probably still smell the truffle oil from my breakfast omelette?  I love chocolate, and cheese, and wine…oh, how I love wine.  I could never take that away from someone else, when it brings me so much pleasure.  The key, of course, is moderation.  Two glasses of wine is fine; two bottles are not.  We can live our lives depriving ourselves of everything unhealthy, but is that really living?

   I have always struggled with maintaining a healthy, balanced diet.  In all honesty, I’d be happy living on nothing but protein and carbs.  Give me some meat and bread, and I’m perfectly content.  Since I realize that I need more, I force myself to be more inclusive in my diet.  Each week, I buy plenty of organic fruits and vegetables.  And each week, they first take up space, and then rot in my refrigerator.  Although I am aware that I would feel better incorporating fresh vitamins into my daily routine, all my will drains away by the time I have put my groceries away.

   Don’t get me wrong: I do enjoy some fruits and veggies.  I love apples and cherries…when they’re baked into a pie, and topped with ice cream.  Spinach can be so delicious when it is creamed and served with steak.  And I even enjoy the occasional carrot (cake).  But I would never think of biting into a fresh apple, or peeling an orange for a snack.  I simply have no interest.

   I remember visiting my parents a few years ago and getting annoyed at their attempts to foist their garden pickings on me.  My mother had bags and bags of eggplant, tomatoes, and zucchini, all plump and still warm from the sun.  As she piled up bags for me to take home, I protested, “All of this is just going to rot in my fridge!  Why are you giving it to me when you know I won’t eat it?”

    “But these tomatoes taste like pure sugar!” my mom said.  ”Just try them!”

    Fast forward to a few weeks later: My refrigerator was now filled with softly rotting tomatoes, and there were fruitflies everywhere.  As I mopped up stinking tomato sludge from the veggie drawer, I vowed to never accept unwanted gifts of produce again.

    Yet, still, I tried.  I bought things that I kind of liked, a little.  At least, I liked them enough to force them down my throat without gagging.  I have tried buying food that are wildly overpriced, just to guilt myself into eating them.  I’ve also had times where I only bought fruits and veggies, hoping that I would get desperate enough to eat them.  Nothing worked.  I had resigned myself to a produce-free existence when, one day, I woke up with an idea.

    I was spending all this time trying to trick myself into eating certain foods, due to my distaste.  Why not just admit that I hated these foods, and try to work them into my diet in a different way?  I would drink disgusting protein powder drinks for breakfast, and it was easy, because I could just pour them down my throat without thinking about it.  What if I could do the same with my fruits and vegetables?

   When I get an idea in my head, I need to get on it immediately.  That morning, I drove straight to the mall and headed into my happy place:  Crate and Barrel.  I asked the saleswoman for to find me a juicer that was designed for the lazy and stupid.  I wanted something that had no steps, no cleanup, and no instructions.  In short, I wanted a magic juicer.

    Five minutes later, I found my magic juicer:  The Breville Compact Juice Extractor.  ”I’m sure you’re not stupid,” my saleswoman said as she rang me up, “but even if you are, you’ll still be able to use this.  It is sooo easy, I promise.”

    In celebration of my new find, I stopped at the grocery store and picked up several items to juice.  I was like a kid at Christmas.  Part of me was excited to play with my new toy, yet I also feared disappointment.  What if I had to core and peel things?  I knew that was way too much work for me.

    As it turned out, I had nothing to worry about.  I christened my Breville with a whole apple, and was rewarded with about 4 ounces of juice in less than 3 seconds.  Inspired, I tossed in a carrot, then a beet.  Holy crap, this thing was amazing!  In less than 30 seconds, I had juiced 7 large fruits and vegetables.  I tentatively tasted my creation.  It tasted like a glass of apple cider, which I actually like.  I had images of all the fresh fruit cocktails I could now make dancing in my head.  This was unreal.

    And the best part?  I saw a HUGE difference in my energy levels once I started juicing daily.  One day, I realized that I hadn’t had coffee in a week, yet I felt kind of buzzed with caffeine.  My mind was alert and ready to go; my heart even felt a bit speedy, but in a good way.  I went to the gym and worked out at the same level I normally did, yet it seemed too easy for me, and I had to increase my speed and intensity on every machine.  ”What the hell?” I thought….and then it hit me.  This was what healthy people felt like!

How Eastern Medicine Changed My Life in Ten Minutes

In the past few years I’ve become pretty empassioned about the correlation between our food supply and our health as a nation. A few weeks ago my dear friend Marisa, of Healing Point Therapeutics in Wayland, Massachusetts, asked if I would be interested in writing a Guest Blog entry for her Blog, Balancing Point. Marisa is an acupuncturist and I credit her with not just being a superb practitioner but playing a key role in helping me to uncover some health problems I had been suffering from a few years ago by introducing me to the world of Eastern Medicine, specifically acupuncture. I was thrilled to be able to share my story with her readers and am looking forward to being able to return the favor and have her spotlight as a Guest Blogger here on Nomapotamus sometime in the very near future. I am re-posting the entry here for you to read but if you are interested in learning more about how acupuncture works, what it can do for you or happen to be in the Greater Boston Area and are looking for a practitioner I highly recommend checking out her website!

How Eastern Medicine Changed My Life in Ten Minutes

originally posted on Balancing Point Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Around the summer of 2007 I began noticing some changes in my health and the way I felt on a day to day basis. At first I thought I was just getting older. I was approaching thirty and I had always heard people talk about how your thirties are the time when you begin to develop real health issues and things start to decline a bit. Joints, metabolism, energy levels, etc. So I brushed off the symptoms as being a normal part of the aging process and continued on. Unfortunately over the next few months I became increasingly tired to the point of lethargy. I would spend my days off lying in bed till the late afternoon only to forcibly drag myself up and out of the house in order to accomplish whatever things I simply couldn’t justify putting off. I lived on the second floor and I began to dread going up and down the stairs because my feet were so tender. I was constantly on the search for new shoes thinking I just needed to find the right, comfortable pair. God forbid I had to put on a pair of heels. When the pain and tenderness started presenting in just about every other joint in my body and my hands became unclenchable I knew it was time to see a Dr. If I couldn’t hold a razor to shave my legs on certain days or put a pair of earrings in there must be something wrong, right?

I had done a bit of self-diagnosing on the internet and was prepared for the worst when I finally got an appointment with a rheumatologist. She didn’t say it right away, but I knew what she was thinking, I told myself; Rheumatoid Arthritis. The debilitating, degenerative autoimmune disorder that could basically destroy my life. Dramatic, yes, but you know how your head gets away with you when you spend too much time on Web-MD.

I was tested and had been ruled out for RA (THANK GOD!) but over the next three years I saw several different doctors, had numerous blood panels and had been prescribed more prescription NSAID’s that I can remember trying to manage the pain and inflammation. By that time I had a perpetual low grade fever, chronic joint pain, gastro-intestinal disorders that I didn’t even realize until later were abnormal because I had become so accustomed to them and this bloated feeling that no matter how much water I drank or how much dieting I did never seemed to go away. I looked pregnant on my worst days and just plain round on a good one. I was tested for everything that could possibly cause one or more of my symptoms: Lupus, Lyme’s Disease, Fibromyalgia, RA, Chron’s Disease, Grave’s Disease and a host of other autoimmune disorders that I’m sure I’m forgetting. They all came up negative and there was nothing to do but treat the pain. The only problem was that none of these medicines ever worked for more than a few weeks. Which resulted in my rotating through as many of the drugs as I could until I just settled into the cheap regiment of a high dose of naproxen sodium (Aleve) every day. It was the only thing that seemed to work longer than a month. The only problem was that with longterm use of naproxen comes stomach and/or esophageal ulcers, possible kidney damage, possible hearing loss, dizziness, excessive sweating. I managed almost two years on it before I began to develop the esophageal ulcer and realized it was absolutely imperative that I find out what was going on once and for all.

I had known Marisa throughout her acupuncture schooling and she had encouraged me several times to use acupuncture as a means of pain relief. I did, off and on, and it always helped alleviate some of the discomfort and seemed to balance things out for a while. Inevitably the issues returned but it was more effective than anything else and seemed to center and calm me enough to make it a little easier to deal with the frustration of feeling like an eighty year old, day in and day out. I also had a friend who swore by his practitioner in helping with his chronic neck pain. So I booked an appointment to start treatment thinking I would just go a few times a week to deal with the pain since I could no longer take any drugs.

On my first visit I sat down in Dr. Axman’s office and filled out the intake form. He came in, took a quick glance at it and told me it looked to him like my problem was probably diet related. He consented to treat me for the pain as long as I needed but suggested I try an elimination diet. Two weeks of cutting out a certain food to clear out your system and then adding it back to see how your body reacts to it. He wanted me to try the most common culprits first; wheat gluten, dairy, eggs and soy. On a lark I started with wheat. Within three days I had lost 7 pounds, bloating–check. By day five my stool was normal and the gas and abdominal pain was gone, gastro–check. A week in and my joints were 100% normal and I had NO pain or inflammation. My energy levels soared. And more, my depression, which I had struggled with for years seemed to be waning and not really an issue anymore. Could it be possible that gluten was causing not just my physical problems but my psychological ones as well? You bet it was.

I had been stuck in this spiral that reminded me of an Albert Einstein quote, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results”. With the Western Medicine protocol I was surely doing the same thing over and over again and the outcome was always the same. Nobody knew. No one could help and I felt I was on the verge of insanity. My acupuncturist had figured out inside of ten minutes what was going on with my body using an Eastern approach. By looking for a cause instead of simply shrugging and treating the symptoms. Not to mention the amount of money I had spent on the specialists and medications over that time and now here was someone who was willingly putting himself in a position where if he were right, I wouldn’t even have a need to see him and he wouldn’t be making any money off me at all. Quite the opposite from our Western Medical ideology that really seems to serve to ensnare a patient into a lifetime of doctor’s visits and expensive prescriptions.

It’s been over a year since I was diagnosed Gluten Intolerant and I will admit sometimes I flub and give into the craving for a sandwich or a slice of pizza or birthday cake. When I do, I pay for it, but at least I know what the cause is.
As a food professional I am pretty consumed nowadays with what we have done to our food suppy to create such rampant food allergies. I suspect it has mostly to do with things like preservatives, pesticides, genetically modfied foods and the monocultures of soy, corn and wheat that we have turned our farmlands into. These allergies, intolerants and new diseases are not normal and I expect that over time it will be an Eastern approach that will help identify not just the specific problems but the solutions to the epidemic our current food model has created. Much in the same way my Western doctors could not see the possible origin of my sickness and simply treated me with more medicine, Western scientists seem to ignore the almost obvious reality that our nation’s health is being compromised by the way we are running our food system and the only response they offer, if any, is to use more preservatives and increasing amounts of harmful and systemic pesticides. What if these scientists and doctors were to ask the advice of a farmer from a culture that bases diagnosis on the health of the whole entity? Who acknowledge that if there is an imbalance in one place the entire body (or industry in this case) must be treated? We might find that the future fate of American agriculture could also be changed in ten minutes. Just a thought.

My Kingdom for a Pumkpin (Soup, That is)

While I am loving getting reacquainted with my hometown of Los Angeles I cannot avoid indulging the tug at my heartstrings when I think about fall in New England. Having celebrated more birthdays than I care to mention amidst the crunchy leaves and early snow flurries of mid October it was a bit of a shock to endure ninety degree weather this year when adding another tick to the tally.

The very first day I felt the slightest chill in the air here I rushed out and bought pumkpins of various sizes, shapes and colors to adorn the porch and colorful indian corn to hang on the door much as I would have done in my Connecticut home. I was placated to think that even if I couldn’t be there for the changing foliage and blustery evenings when it starts to get dark earlier and earlier I could at least proclaim my enthusiasm for the harvest season with some festive decoration. What didn’t occur to me was that in the ninety plus degree weather putting fruit outside on the brick steps was the equivalent to baking it in a brick oven. It was less than a week before I had a puddle of pumpkin-ey goop, meaning I had to go out and buy a whole new batch if I wanted to have them out for Halloween, much less Thanksgiving.

I live for Thanksgiving. It has been a longstanding known fact over the years that if anyone ever had no place to go for the holiday then you would be at my house. There would be more food than you would know what to do with and a good time would be had by all. On any given year there would be upwards of twenty-five friends and randoms piled into whatever tiny apartment I was living in at the time. These were seriously the happiest days of my life.

One of my favorite cool weather recipes is also one of the simplest I know. With a mere six ingredients and a total cooking time of maybe twenty minutes, add a loaf of crusty bread and a thick slather of some sweet cream butter and you have the perfect meal for a night when you come home exhausted and don’t feel like dragging out numerous pots and pans — or cleaning them for that matter.

Now I’m usually pretty die hard about making ingredients from scratch but there are a few things that I truly don’t see the need to go all out and make myself. Pumpkin puree is one of them. One of the things you learn in a kitchen is that sometimes a scratch product just isn’t worth the labor involved when the quality of its commercial equivalent is just as good. Our grandparents and great-grandparents canned for a reason and I see no problem in using canned goods as long as they are not loaded with preservatives. (tomatoes and pumpkins, specifically) And I personally find no difference in taste between fresh pumpkin puree and the canned stuff. (Note: I am only talking puree here, not pie filling. Don’t be a schlub and use canned pumpkin pie filling.)

~~How serendipitous that while I was already writing this weeks pumpkin-loving blog entry Kelsey over at http://www.thenaptimechef.com was cooking up a contest giveaway for just such a recipe. You should all head on over and enter to win a King Arthur Halloween Baking Kit (Including some black cocoa powder that looks really awesome!) Details, rules and deadline (As well as a really great recipe for some pumpkin pie fudge that I think I’ll make this evening.) can be found here. ~~

You’ll need a small bermixer for this. (Also called a hand, stick or immersion blender.) You can pick one up for under twenty bucks and you’ll be glad you did. Once you have it you’ll find all kinds of uses for it. It’s a great way to make smoothies in the morning without dirtying up the blender and it’s easy-peasy to clean. You just pop the stick off and wash that. If you don’t have one you can process the soup in your food processor in batches or forego the smoothing process altogether and live with some very small chunks. It’s your call.

Crazy Easy Curried Pumpkin Soup

Get this:

1. 3 cloves garlic, chopped
2. 1 small yellow onion, diced
3. 1 Tbs. Madras curry powder
4. 1 29 oz. can pumpkin puree
5. 4-6 cups chicken stock (Depending on how thick or thin you like your soup.)
6. 1 15 oz. can coconut milk

Do this:

Sweat garlic and onion in about 3 Tbs of whatever fat you like. (butter, vegetable or olive oil)over med/low heat until soft. Add curry powder and stir 1-2 minutes until fragrant and toasty. Add puree and stock, bring to a boil and let simmer 10 minutes. Add coconut milk and bring back to a boil. Adjust salt and pepper to taste. Enjoy.

**Great Garnishes for this: roasted pumpkin seeds, fried onion strings, sage leaves tossed in browned butter, crème fraiche, garlicky croutons.

I Like a Spicy Pickle

I lied to you, dear readers. I baited you with promises of delicious persimmon-ey delights. I have a line-jumper here instead, and the reason is two fold; I had expected to have a bounty of persimmons available to me by now but it seems I have a few weeks to wait before they are prime fruit real eastate in the Land of Nom. I am still getting used to the seasonality of certain produce here in Southern California. Forgive me. Also, ’tis the season for canning and pickling! How can I resist a post that celebrates that?

There’s this Thai restaurant I frequent that serves these sweet and spicy little pickles as a condiment. I love them and usually can’t go a week without them. It seems fitting that the piles and piles of petite persian cucumbers I keep coming across find a happy and briny home sweet home in the dozen canning jars I recently acquired.

Since this is the first time I will be attempting the sweet and spicy asian-style pickles I am going to go with a simple “refrigerator pickle”. This means that I won’t actually be going through the whole process of sterilizing, heating and following the typical canning procedure. It’s just the brine poured over the pickles and left to marinate overnight. Kept in the fridge these will stay fresh up to a month or so. It’s easier if you are a newbie to canning and want something that will allow you to get your pickling feet wet without taking on the whole process. (Which truthfully, isn’t that complicated either. However, It’s nice to have the option of baby-steps if you are one of those people who like to get in the pool inch by inch rather than jumping right in.)

I’m using half a dozen of the canning jars and will save the other half dozen for some classic bread and butter pickles that I will go the whole way with and preserve for my Dad to eat his way through over the next few months. Six jars of unprocessed pickles seems like a manageable amount if you love to gift-give like I do, but feel free to halve the recipe if you don’t think you can find homes for them all in under a week.

It seems that nobody has tepid feelings when it comes to Martha Stewart. You either love her or you love to hate her. She does however have this great checklist regarding some of the finer points to keep in mind when canning. You should consult the “Ten Commandments of Pickling” before you attempt doing any serious canning at home. I’m sure you’d hate to kill a friend or loved one with a bad jar of juice. http://cookeatshare.com/recipes/the-ten-commandments-of-pickling-martha-stewart-living-445360

On with the show…

This is really more of a technique than a recipe. As most of my recipes are. You can tweak it to fit your own taste and preference and you should!

Get This:

• Approx. 30 Persian cucumbers (Or whatever variety you like. Just avoid the really waxy ones from the grocery story. The wax prevents the pickles from absorbing the brine. If you use large cukes you’ll need about 7-8 cups for 6 32 oz. Mason jars.)
• 2 Tbsp. Kosher salt
• 6 Thai chiles, sliced thinly on the bias.
• 6 stalks lemongrass (cut down to fit two lengths in each jar. About 6 inches each.)
• 1 head garlic, peel and smash the cloves lightly with the side of your knife to release the juices.
• 2 Tbsp. coriander seeds
• 3 thick “fingers” of ginger, peeled and sliced as thinly as you can. Use a mandolin if you have one. This way you wind up with lovely slices of pickled ginger that you can eat as well as the pickles themselves.
• 4 c. sugar
• 48 oz. rice vinegar
• 3 oz. fish sauce
• 1 c. persimmon vinegar, optional. (I just was on the persimmon kick and happened to find this in my travels through the Korean market and thought it would be a fun addition. You could use another fruity vinegar or omit altogether. DON’T replace for the other vinegar, though. Fruit based vinegars, except for apple cider, don’t have a high enough acidity to properly act as a preserving agent.)

Do This:

• Slice Pickles 1/4 in. thick. Again, use a mandolin if you have one. Toss with salt and let sit in a colander for 20-30 minutes to leach out some excess water.
• Heat vinegars, fish sauce, sugar, coriander, ginger, garlic and chiles to dissolve sugar.
• Fill jars with pickles and ladle brine over. Fill to one half of an inch from the rim.
• Lastly, with a meat mallet or heavy pan, smash the lengths of lemongrass to release the juices and insert two lengths into each jar.
• Place caps and rings on.
• Cool to room temperature and chill in refrigerator at least 8 hours. Enjoy!

Season Finale

As summer draws to an end I find myself growing wistful for the vegetables I didn’t get around to planting, the dishes I put off making and will now have to wait another year for to do so at peak season. I also reproach myself for not making it to the Farmer’s Markets as often as I would have liked. Would that I could…

Here is a little visual tour of some beauties I found the other day at a farm stand near me that I simply couldn’t resist. A little eye-snack to tide you over until next week when we celebrate…wait for it…the Persimmon! That blushing princess of a fruit that no one seems to know exactly how to approach or for which what culinary application to employ. Daunting, at first, but a treat worth getting the recipe books out for, I promise you.

Until then, enjoy the last of summers bounty while you can. Nearer than you think are the days when you will find yourself the recipient of a tomato on a salad or in a sandwich that isn’t pure crimson and bursting with meaty flesh, perhaps still warm and fragrant from the garden but instead slightly hard and flavorless.  We must not take these things for granted.

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Homecoming…

It is often said that the beginning is the hardest part. Getting started. Be it a new fitness regime, an academic project, an artistic endeavor or just sitting down to compose your thoughts. Truer words were never spoken. When I moved back to Los Angeles almost seven months ago I thought to myself, “Self, with some downtime in your professional life this would be the perfect opportunity to start that food blog you’ve always wanted to write.”

Sixteen years on the East Coast had wound me up so tightly my neural sprockets had become prone to paroxysmal bouts of near insanity. I am not inherently a person who rushes things. I prefer life to unfold in its own organic way and marvel at it bit by bit. However, upon my return, I may have let the relaxed pace of Southern California permeate a little too deeply. I knew I deserved some time to slow down. Process where I had been and figure out a new direction to take my career. But seven months? Well, that’s just sheer laziness.

So, here I am; at the end of my little self-imposed professional hiatus and ready to shift gears. To share a few tidbits with you fine folks and plunge into the culinary dream that is eating in Los Angeles, marvel at the abundance and quality of produce available here in the Golden State and indulge in the all-around tongue trip that is here for the taking right here in my own hometown.