Roasted Okra

I've been on an okra kick lately.  I'm not sure how it started.  Growing up I only ever had fried okra at school (yes, in the south, fried okra is a school lunch vegetable) and when I lived in Houston I got to know it as a component of gumbo and some Indian veggie dishes, but I wasn't really partial to it and I have no idea what possessed me to buy some at the grocery store the other day, except for the fact that I don't think I'd ever seen in my Cambridge grocery store.

Once I got it home I wasn't sure what to do with it, so I did what I do to all new vegetables [and most of my favorites]: I roasted it.

It was fantastic.  The okra flavor was rich and earthy, and the roasting made it not at all slimy. [Okra is boiled in gumbo and curries because the goo it releases acts as a thickener.]  I wanted more, but a week later the store seemed to have the same batch of okra sitting out and they were no longer green and firm but soft and spotty brown... I guess when you don't usually carry a product and your customers aren't too familiar with it, you can get away with letting it go bad in full display?

I was bummed until I discovered something wonderful.  I went to little Indian convenience store on the corner for a quick gallon of milk and down on the bottom shelf of their refrigerated section was a giant box of fresh okra for half the price per pound I'd paid at the big grocery store.  Of course!  I think of it as "Southern", but it's native to Africa and grown throughout India... and Indian food is much cheaper than Southern food in Yankee Land. The ethnic store wins again!


Recipe: Oven Roasted Okra

A Sign of Spring

Yes, it snowed all day today in Yankee Land, but I'm feeling perkier than my last post.  Why?

My rhubarb is sprouting!

Surely this snow -- and the forecasted snow on Wednesday and Thursday -- is almost the end of it...

Right?

Toasted Mushroom-Avocado Sandwich aka "The Gandalf"

So there's this place in Houston called The Hobbit Cafe.  [It was The Hobbit Hole when it was located in an appropriately hobbit-like old house, but it moved well before my time.]

It's quaint. There are Lord of the Rings drawings and posters and figurines, most of which are at least 40-years old, and the food is great and mostly healthy-ish... and named after LOTR characters.  Back when JG and I lived in Houston, we'd go there fairly often and split a "Gandalf"... a toasted sandwich of sliced avocado, mushrooms, and swiss cheese on whole-grain bread, served with a side of shredded carrots [though this was before I was particularly interested in healthy eating and we usually subbed potato chips for the carrots.]

There was a certain magical flavor in the sandwich not attributable to any of the stated components which elevated the whole thing to the sublime, and one day JG asked what it was.  The server went back to the kitchen and reemerged with a spice bottle labeled "Spike."  We'd never seen it before but promptly went to the grocery store and found it with the rest of the spice blends.  [It turns out it's like the MSG of hippie food, created by a natural foods advocate circa 1925 named Gayelord Hauser, whose dislike of white bread might have been greater than mine.]  It was indeed the key ingredient to recreating the perfect Gandalf at home.

JG and I had kind of forgotten about that lovely sandwich [It's getting close to 10 years since we lived in H-Town] but we made blue cheese turkey burgers with avocado -- on homemade buns -- the other day, and as the slices popped out the sides it brought back memories... so I picked up another avocado on my way home from work yesterday [there's one grocery store on the way that always has acceptable if not great avocados] and we made paninis for dinner on leftover buns.  In tribute to the Hobbit Cafe, I also made my spicy carrot slaw to go on the side [it's so easy and surprisingly good]... and it really was a much better meal than with chips.

It was a slightly odd dinner for a 30-degree evening, but it felt like spring in the kitchen.

Recipe: Mushroom-Avocado Sandwich: The Gandalf

Healthy Food in 5 minutes?

Last week, a commenter who knew me before I could cook* asked about healthy meals for toddlers... to be consumed within 5 minutes of the parent arriving home from work.  She said he's so hungry when she gets home that she usually just microwaves something quick -- boo her.  Here are my thoughts [I apologize if it's a little disjointed and rambling, but I wanted to respond before the question got too old]:

First, I've got nothing against microwaves and reheated dinners... it's just a matter of what you're reheating.  Whole grains win every time for having more vitamins, minerals, and protein than their white/refined counterparts, and if you make them part of your diet, you'll have them around to reheat in a jiffy.  Some of them do take 20-50 minutes to cook, but they can also be made ahead and kept for a week in the fridge or months in the freezer. 

Stewed lentils with Indian spices

My basic wholesome dinner includes:
Whole Grains:** brown rice, polenta, whole-wheat pasta,  and corn tortillas are my go-tos but wheat berries, whole-wheat cous cous, bulgur wheat, and quinoa are good to mix it up
Lean Proteins: BEANS,*^ lentils, chicken, fish, tofu, egg, lean chorizo, plain yogurt
Veggies: canned tomatoes, hearty greens like kale, and frozen green peas, broccoli, and green beans are my winter staples.  Salads are good as long as you don't drown them in dressing.
Optional Toppings: hot sauce/salsa/fresh herbs/cheese/fried egg

[BONUS: Bean and lentils -- which are a subset of the bean family -- count as BOTH lean proteins AND vegetables, but are lacking certain aminos, which is why they require a grain to make a complete meal. Beans & rice is my #1 weekday meal, and with so many varieties of beans and spices available, it never has to be the same meal twice. If you make your own hummus or bean dip (to control the fat content) and serve it with raw veggies and whole-wheat pita, that's a perfect meal, too.]

Microwave Polentta

or Eggs:
As I mentioned in my initial response, eggs are always a solid option.*^* They cook in just a few minutes and can always be topped with a little cheese, if that's a selling point.
Scramble eggs with thawed frozen veggies and serve with whole-grain toast or corn tortillas.
Stir veggies into polenta and top with a poached or fried egg and mild-enough salsa  or serve that egg over beans and corn torillas
Turn your wholesome leftovers (grains included) into a Leftovers Frittata that can be served hot or eaten cold [leftover's leftovers].
Leftovers fried rice can be done with any grain or pasta, and probably makes for less messy toddler eating since it clumps the grains together.
... and it's a great idea to have some hard-boiled eggs on hand for my next option:

Fried eggs over polenta with roasted wax beans and fresh tomatoes (summer produce)

Stall for Time When You Need It! 
A few slices of hard boiled egg, a single stick of bumps-on-a-log, a small handful of nuts, a glass of whole milk, a little wedge of whole-wheat pita with a smear of thick hummus, a low-fat string-cheese stick... anything with good protein takes a bit of time to digest and should take care of immediate hunger pangs to give you a little more time when you get home... even if that means just sitting with your toddler for a few minutes to collect yourself before starting the 5-minute dinner reheat.


A Caveat:
I do not have children. I have one in the making that feeds on my dinner through an umbilical cord with no conscious effort on my part. I do not speak from experience about feeding toddlers. I don't know if any given toddler will eat these things I've listed -- particularly if they've gotten used to pre-packaged foods that always taste a certain way -- but I don't believe in feeding children entirely separate meals based on what they prefer and if you encourage picky eating of limited foods you're doing both their growing bodies and their palates a disservice.... but check back in a few years and see if I managed to maintain my ideals.

Cannellini dip

Other Resources:
I looked for other blogs and websites that might be useful to you, but most seemed healthy but not super speedy (nothing under 30 minutes) or speedy but not healthy at all.  I thought this site might be useful.  They have a Toddler nutritional guide and a few recipes to make ahead and freeze.
 

My pantry bean supply.  I'm not necessarily advocating Goya, but they're usually the cheapest beans in Beantown.

Beans and rice are infinitely adaptable with whatever you have on hand, but it's nice to start with recipes. I just realized I've only posted a couple for beans and one for lentils, but Google'll give you a million and this page has some nice variations.
 ___________________________________________________________________________________

The commenter and the blogger, circa 1984

*HISTORY:
Our first forays into cooking were scrambled eggs which occasionally [always?] had too many additional ingredients to hold together properly and probably would have been too dry except we smothered them in melted American cheese. We would make them for the hosting parents whenever we spent the night at each other's house -- pretty much every weekend -- and were very proud of our culinary skills.


**WHOLE GRAINS:
Cooking times for stovetop, unless specified otherwise.  You can make a big batch one night or weekend afternoon and it'll keep all week, or you can freeze any grain (not the pasta) in smaller portions and switch up your grains from day to day. 
Whole-Wheat Pasta - 8minutes
Whole-Wheat Cous Cous - 5minutes
Bulgur Wheat - Pour boiling water over and let site 10 minutes
Polenta [corn grits] - 10 minutes in the microwave.  
Quinoa -  20-25 minutes... the same as white rice, except it's a complete protein
Brown Rice (short grain Japanese rice is much tastier than long grain) - 50 min
Wheat Berries - 50 min 

*^BEANS:
I keep dried beans on hand, but almost always use canned for convenience  If you have a problem digesting beans, it's because your body isn't producing enough of a certain enzyme that breaks down the beans in your gut.  [same goes for cabbage, but different enzyme, I think] Keep eating them and you'll stop getting unpleasant side effects... and maybe take Beano in the interim.

*^*EGGS:
My grandad's entire family lived off eggs for the most part during the Great Depression [his mother worked at an egg factory and she got to take home the fertilized eggs they couldn't sell] and it didn't stunt him in any way-- he still grew over 6 feet tall, played football on scholarship, became a rare earth chemist, and is still mentally sharp as he approaches his 90th birthday.  If that's not an ad for eggs, I don't know what is.

Easy Pea Soup

Do you ever get frozen peas that just aren't great? I got a huge bag of them from my little corner store.  Granted, they made no claim of being sweet or young or tender, but after the first serving of the big, starchy things I knew I wouldn't eat the next two pounds very fast.

Boston Snow Meter

...but you may have heard we've gotten a bit of snow here in Yankee Land (~6 feet total with more expected this weekend) and it's an excellent time to make soup.  JG has a deep affection for his mom's split pea soup with ham [which was only made with the bone from a big ham feast] and I happened to have a pork joint bone stashed in the freezer from a bone-in shoulder we slow cooked a while back.  I used it to make a simple pork stock, pulled out the bone and bay leaf, threw in the peas, and pureed it all together.  It was really, really good.

Stock after simmer

You could make this with a quart of store-bought stock, but you'd want to add a little powdered gelatin. Why?  Gelatin is gelling agent [guess where the word "gelling" comes from] that's derived from animal collagen, and bones/marrow release a lot of it to gives the stock more body.*  You can see it in the viscosity of the liquid in the picture above. That gelatin content is key to the texture of the soup.  As it happens, gelatin is most commonly made from pig skins and bones.**  How's that for an easy cheat?

Recipe: Frozen Pea Soup

Pressure Cooker Chicken Posole

I've posted my posole recipe before, but I recently went back to the post [after I made the current batch] and discovered the pictures were no bueno so I'm posting it again.  Plus, posole is a beautiful thing and I want everyone to try it.  It can be hangover food or comfort food [it is Mexican chicken soup, after all] or chilly-day food and it doesn't require anything you can't find at any grocery store. [Hominy is sometimes with the canned veggies and sometimes with the Mexican food, but it's always there somewhere.]

I made this batch in the pressure cooker in just under 45 minutes last Sunday as chilly-day food and it was just what I needed.  The only problem was that after cooking the bone-in legs and thighs for 30 minutes, the meat fell apart so thoroughly that I had trouble finding the cartilage caps that had slid off the bone and secreted themselves in the meat chunks.  [Have I mentioned that I love pressure cookers? Modern ones aren't scary at all.]

As for the garnishes -- which I considered weird the first time I had this at a friends house -- none of them are required, but each adds complexity in both texture in taste.  I forgot to add cilantro to this bowl and didn't miss it 'til I saw it sitting on the counter.  I threw in raw tomatoes and they added a great brightness that could be used in place of the lime juice.  Sometimes I eat it plain.  Sometimes I add a lot of hot sauce.  Sometimes I add the juice of a whole lime.  Sometimes I throw in pickled jalepenos... Do you catch my drift?

Recipe:  Pressure Cooker Chicken Posole

Superfast Elote Asado... with a Caveat

The polenta was almost finished when I remembered I had a couple ears of corn languishing in the fridge. It's not like me to neglect sweet corn, but we went out of town for a wedding and sometimes these things happen.  I thought a little roasted corn flavor might be nice in that polenta, but there just wasn't enough time to make elote asado before everything else was ready for dinner, so I gave it the chile pepper treatment and held with tongs over the open flame of my stove burner.  The kernels spit as they charred, making these wacky little bursts of sparks [It's not as scary as that may sound.]  As soon and they were spotty all over,  I transferred them to a cutting board, gave them a minute to cool while I checked the polenta, then cut the kernels from cob and stirred everything together.  The texture of the kernels was a little chewier -- it's definitely not a replacement for stand-alone elote asado* -- but it had the desired flavor and made the polenta dish taste like super gooey, whole-kernel cornbread.  It was good.

 

I topped it with fried eggs and scattered raw yellow tomatoes and roasted wax beans around the plate. It was supposed to be a textural and tonal dish, harkening back to the early days with JG when I'd regularly make an all-yellow meal of blue box macaroni and cheese, fish sticks, and canned corn [I've come a long way, baby]. Aesthetically it wasn't much prettier than that meal from the old days... I could have scattered some bright green cilantro over the whole thing and it would have been lovely, but I didn't garnish back them and I was overly committed to the theme.  At any rate, it tasted great with a few splashes of [tonally acceptable] Cholula hot sauce and was a _bit_ healthier than my yellow dinner of yore... and at ~15 minutes of total cooking time, the new, whole grain/fresh produce version might have even been faster.

*that's the caveat