Asparagus now, asparagus later

The statistics of our life: Chuck and I are leaving on Friday, to drive the 1006 miles to visit our children. Before that, he will drive 500 miles roundtrip to pick up the college student who will be house sitting while we are gone. There is a lot to do, the packing, cleaning the house, shopping for road food as well as making sure there is some food here for the house sitter. Which might lead one to wonder, then, why I was blanching and freezing 115 spears of asparagus this evening. (One might also wonder why I am sitting here blogging, but hey, there has to be some mystery in life!)

Well, the statistics of local food- the asparagus is ready now, and it won't wait for me to get back from gallivanting about the country.

My sons tell me I am the weirdest woman in the world when it comes to food texture. Not only do things have to taste right, they also have to feel right in my mouth. I've been known not to eat things that have a fine flavor but a disturbing texture.* Asparagus is definitely on of those things. I've always felt that asparagus is one of those things that is perfect when fresh, lightly steamed or sauteed so there is a satisfying crunch when you bite into the stalk. Frozen asparagus is tolerable IN things like stir fried vegetables, but not eaten by itself like fresh. Canned asparagus is vile, good only for things like asparagus quiche, where the soggy green spear can vanish into the whole- the texture of canned asparagus is so very creepy, even though the flavor is acceptable. I have a jar of pickled vegetables made by my brother-in-law in the cooler, and I can see asparagus spears lurking in there. I have to admit, it's the main reason I haven't opened the jar- I can't quite get my mind around pickled asparagus. I'm afraid that neither the taste nor the texture would be quite right.

For the same texture reason, I was rather put off when I saw a recipe for roasted asparagus. Sure, the drizzling with oil sounded good, the balsamic vinegar and the sesame seeds sprinkled on top. But the texture? How could asparagus be good if it wasn't crisp, and how could it be crisp if it were roasted? I rolled it over and over in my mind, and finally decided to give it a try. On Mothers day, no less, because asparagus always reminds me of my mother- she is the one who taught me to love the first thin stems of spring best.

Wow- It was terrific! It was soft, but the roasting gave it a crispyness different than but not inferior to the crispiness I was used to. I used an olive oil infused with a hot red pepper, so there was a little bite, and I added garlic. This is definitely something we will have again.

And now we have come back to the 115 stalks of asparagus. They cost, all told, $20.25, which is $0.18 a stalk. I washed them, blanched them, and lined them up in layers in my 9 by 13 inch cake pan to freeze individually. Tomorrow I will parcel them up into my vacuum sealed bags, and will seal them up. My hope is, if I put them in the oven still frozen, that I can approximate the yummyness of Sunday's dinner.

115 stalks of asparagus will give us about 10 asparagus meals. And at each one, I'll remember this evening. That's one of my favorite parts of eating local- I love the connections.

There really is no recipe for the asparagus- I washed about 20 stalks, snapped off the woody parts on the ends, put it in my 9 by 13 inch cake pan. Drizzled a little (a couple of tablespoons, if that much) over the asparagus, chopped some garlic cloves fine, and sprinkled that and some sesame seeds. I heated the oven to 400 degrees F, and left them in for 10 minutes. Cooking for Engineers has a slightly more hands on method, and Kalyn, at Kalyn's Kitchen has a slow roasted asparagus I may try with some of the larger of these frozen stalks.

Rhubarb

Rhubarb is one of those things that you either love or hate. At least one, perhaps more, of my sisters loathes it. Understandable- back in the early 70's my mother was always on the look out for diabetic friendly foods. Rhubarb, sweetened with the nasty artificial sweeteners of the day, was one of those foods, and she served a lot of it. It was, in fact, pretty loathsome. Slimy and stringy.

However, while I developed an intense dislike for artificial sweeteners, I never developed an antipathy for rhubarb, and it's a HUGE favorite at our house. My husband and sons like to eat it raw, right out of the garden, and while I don't like it quite so fresh, I still enjoy it many ways. We've had it stewed, roasted, made into jam, muffins and pies. I've dried it, frozen it and canned it to eat later. I even tried making rhubarb ice cream. And I proved my "good mom-ness" by sending each of my sons a rhubarb cobbler kit- a bag containing some dried rhubarb, another bag containing the correct amount of sugar and flour for the pie, and directions calling for refrigerated crescent rolls as the crust. All they had to do was buy the rolls, add water and cook! (Did they make it? No. Crummy kids.)

I thought rhubarb was native to the US, but the Rhubarb Compendium tells me that the earliest written reference to Rhubarb was in 2700 BC in China. It also mentions that the name is derived from the Rha River, an early name for the Volga in Russia, because rhubarb grew along the banks. The Rhubarb Herbal at Botanical.com lists 3 kinds of rhubarb; Turkish, English and Monks. It describes the medicinal uses of the plant.


Finally, for those who REALLY enjoy rhubarb, there are the Rhubarb Festivals. The Wakefield Rhubarb festival in the UK is over for this year, but the festival in Intercourse PA is next weekend, May 18th and 19th. I'll have to put it on my schedule for next year; Intercourse is just a hop skip and jump over the mountain for me. Alas, I'll be in Kansas City that weekend.

I'm not the first to write about rhubarb for Weekend Herb Blogging- Writing at the Kitchen Table did a savory mutton in saffron and rhubarb sauce. Food Lover's Journey made a rhubarb streusel loaf, while Delectable Victuals did rhubarb scones. They all sound wonderful- especially the scones. While not a weekend herb blog entry, this rhubarb and custard sounds divine, and the photos are stunning.

This recipe for rhubarb tea sounds appealing, although it calls for strawberries and citrus along with the rhubarb. This tea is more basic, just rhubarb and sugar, with a strawberry for garnish if you desire.



I love my rhubarb plant- it takes little or no care from me, just a dressing of compost in the fall. I think it is beautiful- the long red stems, the deep green enormous leaves. I love the way they smell when I cut them up. Like my grapevine, it was planted by the previous owner of the house, and every time I harvest the stalks (by the way, the leaves are poisonous, eat only the stalks) I am so happy I bought a gardeners house!

Weekend Herb Blogging is being hosted by Up a Creek Without a PatL this weekend. I am terribly envious of her lovely visitor mentioned on the May 5 entry- go check this out! And, of course, see the round up of other Weekend Herb Bloggers.

Tofu, anyone?

I always thought I was a pretty good cook, if not a fancy one. The people who ate my food seemed to agree. But last summer, a foreign exchange student from Belarus made an off-hand comment that has stuck with me, causing me to re-evaluate.

One of the best things about having foreign students live in your house is it makes you think hard about your way of life. In order to answer their questions, you have to truly understand why things are the way they are. And just hearing the questions they ask makes you question yourself and the way you do things. Or the way your fellow citizens do things. When Vadim was here last year, he mentioned that he thought American had too many prepared food items. I was taken aback by that, because I thought, at least at our house, that we ate very few prepared items. At that time, we were hip deep in our CSA vegetables, I haven’t bought a frozen lasagna or tv dinner in years, and I never buy box meals; heck, we don’t even eat out very much. I dismissed his comment by assuming he meant it as applying to Americans in general, not to us in particular.

But over the months since he was here, I keep returning to that statement in my mind. After participating in the Penny Wise Eat Local Challenge last week, I think I understand what he meant. And, as usual, I am grateful for the questions both asked and answered.

It was hard for me last week to not reach into my cabinet and pull out a barbeque sauce (Gates, from Kansas City is the best!) or a curry sauce to enliven our meals. It seems I am not so much a good cook as I am a good “combiner”. The bare bones of my meals– meats and vegetables- are usually minimally processed and local. But the other parts of the meal- the sauces and marinades, rubs and seasonings, are mostly “store-bought”. I doctor them up so they are more or less unique, but is it really cooking? I can make my own salsa and tomato sauces, but I just don’t like them as well as some of the commercial ones. I rely on commercially produced ingredients to add “pizzaz” to our meals. Perhaps this is what Vadim noticed.

On the other hand, I am always interested in the process of creating things from beginning to end. In my fiber life, I have taken fleece right from the sheep all the way to a finished garment; washing, spinning and then weaving or knitting and finally wearing.

My food life is no different- I make my own yogurt and yogurt cheese, have made my own butter and ice cream, granola and bread. We don’t raise our own food animals, but if we did, I would love to smoke my own bacon, or make my own sausages. Recently I read an article on how to farm catfish, and found myself eyeing the goldfish pond in the backyard in a whole new light.

I can, freeze, dry; make pickles and jams. I’ve been known to harvest wild black walnuts and hunt the elusive morel mushroom. My gosh, I made dandelion soup, for goodness sake! When my sons were little, I took great pride that I made most of their clothes, and the food they ate was either breast milk LITERALLY made by me or, as they grew older, bits of our dinner unseasoned and ground in our handy dandy baby food grinder. I may not BE self sufficient, but I like to think that I have the knowledge and skills should I ever really NEED self sufficiency. (Besides, I just like to know stuff.)

Well, one of the things I now know how to do is make my own tofu. Using The Book Of Tofu, by William Shurtleff and Akiko Aoyagi. I’m not going to describe the process in great detail, but here are the highlights.

First- soak 1.5 cups of soybeans overnight
Then divide the soaked beans in half, add 2 cups of water, and grind fine.

Put the ground beans in a big pot, repeat with the other half of the beans.
Bring it to a boil and cook for a while

Strain the ground soybeans through a cloth, catching the soymilk in a container.

Press the liquid out of the ground beans. Keep the pressed beans to use other ways.

Heat the soymilk to boiling again
Add solidifier

curds and whey

Ladle curds into a pressing box lined with a cloth

Press liquid out.

Take out of the box and unwrap
Eat!

I am not sure what we did wrong, but instead of a cube of tofu, we got what Chuck termed a "laminate" of tofu- barely enough for us to eat. It did taste good, I thought. (Chuck's taste comment is below.) One thing, I didn't soak the beans overnight, instead I brought them to a boil and soaked for a couple of hours in the hot water. I may not have ground the beans long enough, although the okara, or residue from the beans seemed pretty fine. We'll try changing those two steps next time and see what we get.

I found a couple of sites with good directions if you don't want to rush out and purchase The Book Of Tofu. Lili Pintea-Reed wrote this article on Bella Online, and I found this on primalmommy.com. (I was excited to see Lili's name here- I met her several years ago on a Fiber Arts mail list.) Both sites provide easy to follow directions. And I bought my tofu making box and solidifier from SoyaJoy-Chuck did say he thought the tofu tasted like cedar...

Hearty Oatmeal Pancakes

The picture over on Plants and Animals is better...

We ate these pancakes for our first meal on the Penny Wise Eat Local Challenge. They are my favorite pancakes, from a cookbook trio I find myself using most often these days. Simply In Season, published by Herald Press, is terrific. Years ago, I bought a cookbook called More With Less, also published by Herald. The recipes were contributed by members of the Mennonite Community, and came from all over the world. I used it for years, and gave copies of it to some of my sisters- I wanted to share the low-impact eating and cooking style.

Last year EunJee gave me a copy of Simply In Season, the next cookbook commissioned by the Mennonite Central Committee. The book is divided into sections- starting with Spring, passing through Summer, Autumn and Winter, with a fifth section called All Seasons. The recipes in each section feature the foods that are abundant during that time. But even more than the recipes (which are delicious), I enjoy the comments found on most pages. The cookbooks are an education just to sit and read. Take, for example this comment on page 295, the same page as the pancake recipe

"Who's the most efficient?

One common perception is that farmers today must "get bigger or get out": in order to compete, they must become as economically efficient as possible. That is thought to mean having bigger farms, more powerful machinery and fewer types of crops.

A growing number of studies, however, show that small farms are more productive than large ones, yielding as much as four to five times greater output per acre. The difference is largely attributed to the kinds of crops grown. A thousand acre farm that grows only corn and soybeans may produce more than a small farm where corn is grown with other crops. But the total amount of food will be more on the small farm, whether judged by volume, weight, calories or cash value."

It reminds me of the comparison between spinning wheels and drop spindles; Industrialized people can never understand why indigenous people would want to keep spinning with drop spindles when spinning wheels are available. But to spin on a spinning wheel, the spinner must sit and do nothing but spin, whereas a spinner using a drop spindle can mind children, herd animals, even cook, if he or she has sufficient skill. Drop spindles, a technology that has been in use by humans for thousands and thousands of years are said to be "slower by inch but faster by the mile because the spinner can utilize all the odd bits of time available to her, and end up with more yarn overall.

OK, Now everyone is wondering "What on earth is she going on about? Yarn? This is a food blog! Sorry, that's my life, I see connections everywhere. But now that I have drug you down a completely irrelevant path, here's the recipe.

Hearty Oatmeal Pancakes

2 cups (500 ml) rolled oats

2 cups (500 ml buttermilk or plain yogurt

The night before using, combine together in a large bowl.. Cover and refrigerate overnight.

2 eggs (lightly beaten)

1/4 cup (60 ml) oil

In the morning, stir into oat mixture

1/2 cup (125 ml) flour (We use white whole wheat)

2 Tablespoons sugar (We used 2 Tablespoons honey because of the Eat Local Challenge)

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon salt

In a small bowl, mix together, then add to batter and mix briefly in a hot, greased fry pan (or griddle.)

The batter is VERY thick. Often we will add grated apple to the batter which makes it a little thinner. The recipe also suggests stirring in blueberries. I think I would add almost any fruit, to tell you the truth. Peaches would be very yummy. This time we used a jar of canned apple slices- Chuck put the apple slices on the griddle and then spooned the batter over the apple slices. We like to eat them with peanut butter and maple syrup.

Almonds, almonds everywhere

What do Toffee Marzipan Walnuts, raw food and Tofu have in common? Not very much, but they all floated through my consciousness at about the same time, and resulted in this post.

Synchronicity- it's a wonderful thing.

Recently, Chuck and I started craving nuts, and purchasing mixed nuts to eat as snacks. We congratulated ourselves on the Omega-threes we were getting.

Never one to take something off the shelf and eat it straight, I bought different kind of mixed nut combinations (with NO peanuts- they have their place, and it's not in my mixed nuts!) Cans of exotic blends marched into the house, and were promptly dumped into a huge mixing bowl, recombined and poured back into the original cans, surprising Chuck every time he opened one. My favorite- cashews, pecans, pistachios, macadamia nuts and a spicy smoked almond, combined with a run-of-the-mill deluxe mixed nut blend, and a couple handfuls of dried cranberries thrown in for color and surprise. Something different in every handful.

Unfortunately, it become expensive. And salty. I decided we needed to cut this out.

A week or so ago, Haalo down under at Cook Almost Anything Once posted about Toffee-coated marzipan walnuts. Visions of marzipan danced in my head, walnuts sounded appealing, even though I really haven't liked them much. I'm a pecan woman, myself.

During this time period, in ways that will be explained in another post, I became interested in making my own tofu. To the amazement of the young woman visiting us for Spring Break, I pulled out a book I purchased years (I'm talking back when I was a vegetarian, before 1979) The Book Of Tofu, by William Shurtleff and Akiko Aoyagi. There will be more about this in this other post, but deep in the book, Shurtleff talks about making tofu from almonds. An whisper of an idea lodged itself in my brain.

About the same time, my sister Amanda told me about some sprouted almonds she had eaten, and how wonderful they were. She described the process she was told created them. I was intrigued.

My will power crumbled, and I took myself off to my local bulk food store, around here run by Mennonites, and frequented as often by women wearing prayer caps arriving by horse and buggy as by those of us in bare-headed in cars. The price was better (But still not cheap, as is the nature of nuts) and the nuts unsalted.

Many dollars later, I returned with pounds of walnuts, mixed nuts, almonds, whole pecan halves. No marzipan.

My main goal was to coat my almonds with a spicy, sweet coating to add to my mixed nut compilation. But I saved some out for sprouting, so I could let Amanda know how it went.

To coat the almonds, I looked in my cabinet. At any given time, I have a wide variety of stuff to make food spicier. Since we are still working on getting the pantry cleaned out from before I became a local food fanatic, not a bit of it is local, (spicy isn't high on the taste priority list around here. ) Well, I consider the stuff from Original Juans (with the screaming faces, or 100% Pain) local, but only because I stop by the factory outlet when I am in Kansas City.

I decided on the two at the far left- Dan-T's smoked chipotle sauce, and the Fiesta Raspberry Jalapeno. I was hoping for a sweet, hot, smoky flavor.







I combined 1/4 cup of each sauce in my big Pyrex mixing cup, and tossed 4 cups of almonds in it until they were well coated.




Before

I dumped them into a 9 by 12 cake pan, and roasted at 350 degrees F for about an hour, stirring every so often.
After

These were OK- not as hot or as sweet as I wanted, but OK. Next time I'll add some honey to the mix, and perhaps a habanero sauce instead of jalapeno. OR, I might get fancy and make my own sauce.

I also wanted to try the sprouting almonds thing. I did a little research on at a place where I have shopped before- Sprout People. Turns out sprouted almonds are really soaked almonds, because they aren't left long enough for a real sprout to appear, just long enough for the enzymes to activate and (supposedly) make the almonds both more digestible and healthier.

Now, my bulk store lady isn't sure whether or not these almonds are really raw- they don't say so on the bin, but the label that prints up when she enters the code comes up as raw. Anyway, I soaked them overnight, then put them in a sprouting jar for 24 hours. I rinsed them, and then put them on my dehydrator for another 24 hours.

They are OK- certainly not the marvelous taste delights Amanda described, but nicely crunchy and light.

The final two items in my Almond Synchronicity- this article about the California Almond Board and their decision to pasteurize almonds but still market them as raw

And this post from bad home cooking with a recipe for almond lemon almondrados. I once handed my dog a piece of particularly aromatic Provolone cheese, and she threw it to the ground and rubbed herself all over it in ecstatic delight before she ate it. At the time I found that peculiar, but just reading about these almondrados makes me understand the urge...

Sorry for the terribly long post. It took me 3 days to finish!

Do you know the muffin (wo)man?

(These are apple muffins)

Actually, I am the muffin woman. It's a fairly recent transformation, and mildly surprising even to me. I never liked to make cupcakes or muffins because of the fussiness about them- I didn't like playing around with the paper liners, I didn't like measuring out the small amounts of batter. But last fall, I became the muffin woman in a big old way.

My younger son was married in September of 2006. The bride and groom, as well as all other members of our extended family, live in Missouri. The wedding was to be held here, in Pennsylvania, because this is the bride's home; all of her family lives here, as do my husband and I.

For some reason, about 3 weeks before the wedding, I became concerned (some might say obsessively concerned) about the number of people from our side of the family who were making a long trip for the wedding. I decided that the best way for me to honor them for making this trip was to make them breakfast every day. All of them. To that end, I started making muffins. Fourteen dozen muffins. I filled my freezer, and the freezer of my co-worker with muffins. We had a lot of muffins.

Some were good, some not so good. We had muffins left over. I sent muffin care packages back to Missouri. I took muffins on a work retreat a few weeks later.

In all the muffin making, I found a good, versatile recipe. Last night, my son told me that he had started on a healthy living routine, one facet of which was eating breakfast instead of skipping it. He added that his lovely new wife was making him muffins for breakfast. So I thought I'd share my good muffin recipe with my daughter-in-law and all of you!

This recipe is adapted from one of my favorite cookbooks- Simply In Season, from Herald Press. In the cookbook, it's called Nutty Pumpkin Bread, on page 178.

1.5 cups (375 ml) flour
1.5 cups (375 ml) whole wheat flour (I like white whole wheat)
1 cup (250 ml) wheat germ (I use oat bran instead)
1 cup (250 ml) brown sugar (I use sucanat*)
1 cup (250 ml) white sugar (I use sucanat for this, too)
2 teaspoons baking soda
1.5 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoon ground cinnamon (I alter this based on what fruit I use)
0.5 teaspoon each ground ginger, nutmeg, cloves (ditto on the altering)

Mix together in a large bowl and make a well.

2.5 cups (635 ml) pumpkin or winter squash cooked and pureed (I have substituted grated zucchini or chunky applesauce or peachsauce or other thick cooked fruit puree for this)
4 eggs lightly beaten
1/2 cup (125 ml) oil
1/2 cup (125 ml) pecans or other nuts (I have used almonds and sunflower seeds)
1 cup (250 ml) raisins or dates (I have used dried apples, dried cranberries, dried peaches, any dried fruit)

Add into the well and mix just until all of the ingredients are moistened. Pour batter into 2 greased 9 x 5 inch loaf pans (I use 2 silicone muffin pans- I know a lot of people don't like these, but I love them- I freeze the muffins right in the pan, and then pop them out to seal in a bag)

Bake in a preheated oven at 350 degrees F (180 degrees C) until a toothpick place in the center of the muffin comes out clean 50 minutes for loves, 30 minutes for muffins.


Now, it may be that I have a high tolerance for variance in muffins, but I have been happy with every combination I have used. I think the yummmiest were the ones I made with peachsauce, dried peaches and pecans. These are pretty dense, which is OK with me, but some others might find them overly heavy. Anyway, Jen, this muffin's for you! (actually, you have the cookbook!)


*Sucanat is a very lightly refined sugar cane product. I have read that it has a higher glycemic index than white or brown sugar. I buy mine in bulk.

What's for dinner?

More food I didn't cook.


Sometimes I have to fight a battle with myself. I want to be good, and eat locally. I also want to sample all the foods of the world. Sometimes I can make reasonable facsimiles at home, but sometimes I just have to bite the bullet and go with the real thing.


Sunday we stopped at the European Grocery in the next town. I bought some of thier wonderful flatbread, a container of Kajmak and a jar of Ajvar. Kajmak is sort of like butter, and sort of like cream cheese, and very tasty. Ajvar is a roasted pepper spread. The flatbread is unlike any I have had before- less flat and more bread-y. At any rate, it's all yummy. And it was supper 2 nights in a row.

I don't know if you can read the label on the top of the ajvar jar- it says "Home Made". This summer I plan to try to make my own Ajvar, guess I'll have to make myself little home made labels!

Here is a recipe from Epicurean.com . I haven't tried it, but it's probably what I will use as a springboard this summer. If you make it before I do, let me know what you think!