Handling my Hot-Plate? Africa Post

Hey guys! I'm in Africa! I don't have any oven to love, nor do I have a microwave, stovetop, or a refrigerator that doesn't gross me out. But I do have a hot plate! I cooked pasta fagioli on it, which I probably already posted somewhere in this blog, but this time it's Africa pasta fagioli. So there.


First, assemble your ingredients. Then you can entertain yourself while the hotplate take 8 years to boil your water for the pasta.



While you're waiting, you can chop your onions and fry them. Luckily, that will take 8 years too, on the hot plate, so you can finish the pasta and onions a the same time.




When one of those things is done, you can heat up the vegetable broth and pasta sauce, and add the beans and eventually the onions.



Add the pasta and you're done! Delicious and pretty easy!

Casada - a Costa Rican Union of Fried Plantains, Volcano Rice, and Kidney Beans + Scott Pilgram

Casada was basically all I ate (read: could eat) for a week in Costa Rica with my roommate and her family and it is still in the top three of my list of Foods I Would Choose If Some Omnipotent Figure Forced Me To Only Eat One Thing For The Rest of My Life. So, um... yeah. It's good.

In some ways, you are forced to start this dinner an indeterminately long time in advance. Since we do not live in Costa Rica (well, I don't, maybe you do, in which case this recipe is pretty unnecessary to you), we do not have nice fresh plantains to pick off our trees. You can use bananas but I promise it won't be as good. Instead we get them picked when they are green and shipped here to ripen in their own good time, which can be anywhere from 1 week to 6 weeks. Seriously. I buy like 6 and keep them in a brown bag in the pantry and check on them periodically and then cook them when they look something like this, as the more yellow and brown they are, the sweeter and softer and less like a potato they taste.



So, basically, they rule my cooking schedule. These took 4 weeks to get this way, but the other 2 I bought them with were ready in one week. Ridiculous.

Anyway, now that you understand the mysterious nature of the plantain, I need to tell you that they are ridiculously delicious, even if you don't like bananas much, because they take everything bad about bananas and make it good (less intense smell, less slimy and gooey, you don't feel the banana fumes in your mouth when you eat plantains).

Okay, now how to cook them.

Actually you should start the rice first, especially if you have a rice cooker to keep it warm (have I convinced you you need one yet?) I used Volcano Rice that I bought at the Green Festival in SF. It is organic and delicious and can be bought here (http://www.lotusfoods.com). Really, all their rice is delicious, but I'm sure the rice you have in your pantry is very nice too. I didn't take a picture of it for some reason, but there's one at the end, so you'll just have to wait.

So now we can start the plantains. First, get a nice layer of oil in the bottom of a skillet and heat it up. While it's heating, slice your plantains up.



The oil took awhile so I made some iced tea too. Teavana's Jasmine Dragon Peals and Roobios Tropica are really good together. These companies should really be paying me for all this fabulous publicity.



So your oil is heated now and you can tell because you put your fingers under the faucet and flicked a few drops of water into the pan and it danced. So now you can place as many plantains as fit in the pan and let them cook (on medium heat, or low if necessary, you don't want it to get too hot or the pan will spit hot oil in your face). Let them cook for like 5 - 10 minutes, and check on them periodically. The bottom side should look like these guys in the back left:



When they look sorta like that you can flip them all over and cook the other side. Meanwhile, you can open a can or two of kidney beans and heat them up. (Or, if you are judging my use of canned beans, feel free to go back in time and make your own dried beans. I'm not that intense, sorry.)



Yum.

This dish is called casada because everything is mixed together. Like being married. So I hope you didn't divide each thing into a separate part of the plate, cause its supposed to look all good and mixed up, like this



I've recently begun reading the 6- volume Scott Pilgrim graphic novels by Bryan Lee O'Malley and enjoying them thoroughly. The humor is perfectly tailored to my weird tastes and the drawing is pretty fabulous too. Plus there is an impending movie with the inappropriately-cast Michael Cera, which otherwise looks pretty exciting. So check them out!

Lentils, Roasted Brussels Sprouts, and Red Quinoa

This is the epitome of Healthy Vegetarian Dinner, but it is also really tasty and makes your body feel nice after you eat it, so we have it kinda frequently. My friend Anastasia, however, does not have it ever, so when she heard what I was making for her visit, she was a little hesitant. But after helping me make it and a little wine, she was very excited and even put the meal on her tumbler (http://whatsonyourplate.tumblr.com/), so hooray!

I started with the red quinoa, which I buy at Trader Joes. We have a rice cooker, so it can just chill (or warm, I guess) in there until the rest of the meal is done and it won't get cold or dry or anything. 2 cups water to 1 cup quinoa :)



I looks like I also added some herb, but I'm not sure what it is... sage maybe? Try it out, lemme know if it tastes nice.

Next, I started the Brussels sprouts. I preheated the oven to 400 and preped the sprouts by cutting off the icky end bit, slicing them in half, and then rolling them around in a bowl with some olive oil.



Then I sautéed them with plenty of brown sugar and more oil so they could get soft and sweet.



While they sautéed (for about 5 minutes), I cooked the lentils. First I cooked 1/2 an onion and 2 carrots (both chopped) in a pot with some oil for about 5 minutes. Then I added a couple cloves of minced garlic and cooked another minute. Then I added 1/2 of white wine, 2 cups of vegetable broth and 1 cup of the lentils, plus a bay leaf. The mixture simmered away and I left it partially covered for about 25-30 minutes, stirring whenever I needed something to do in order to look like a Busy and Important Chef.



By now, I had put the Brussels sprouts on a baking tray and had moved them into the oven (I did that while the onion and carrot were cooking, keep up).



They were meant to stay in there for 30 minutes and I was distracted by Anastasia's charming company and so didn't check on them enough - they were darker than I like when I took them out, but still sweet and good. So check on them. Speaking of which, you should probably check those lentils right about now, they might be soupy. You don't want that. Anyway, make sure you flip the Brussels sprouts and know that 30 minutes is a random estimate. Just take them out of the oven when they look a little toasty and brown and like something you would want to eat.



This is why my Brussels sprouts burned.



Finished product!



And, look, the quinoa is done too!

So I know I talked about reading Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond last time, but that was a whole two months ago and due to work and busy-ness and all the reasons I have for blogging about something I ate 6 weeks ago, I haven't finished the book yet. Another reason is that reading it is like taking a full college course in the history of all civilization. So I am going to recommend it again, this time based only on the sheer volume of interesting and relevant things I learned - things that, in fact, I frequently had to stop reading for a few minutes and take in and review in my mind, so I would remember and understand it all fully and use it to understand and explain societal phenomenon in my daily life. Seriously, read the thing.

Pasta Primavera and Garlic Bread and Guns, Germs, and Steel

A lot of the things I cook take awhile, but this dish is healthy and quick and tasty, for the sevantless American cook. Like the trifle, it is particularly nice for farmer's market groceries, which are fresh and spring-y. I used an onion, carrots, broccoli, snap peas, bell peppers, zucchini and mushrooms. I also made garlic bread from scratch, which is less quick and easy, but you could buy a baguette and that is good too.

I started the garlic bread first, mixing 3 1/2 cups of bread flour with 3 tablespoons sugar, 1 tablespoon salt, 2 tablespoons shortening, and 4 1/2 teaspoons yeast. Add 2 1/4 cups very warm water and stir with a spatula. Continue adding the flour and stirring, 1 cup at a time, until the dough is easy to handle (up to 6 or 7 cups total). Spill it out of the bowl and knead it for about ten minutes until it is springy and nice.

Wash the bowl and put the dough back in. Cover it loosely with plastic wrap and let it sit for the length of one Dr. Who episode on instant Netflix (45 - 55 minutes). Grease two bread pans (I like using shortening and then a bit of flour) and punch the inflated dough. Tear it into two pieces, each of which you should roll into a 18" by 9" rectangle. I spread a few cloves of crushed garlic over the rectangle so it nice and flavorful. Roll the rectangle up and pinch it periodically so the air gets out and place it in one of the bread pans.



Let warm for the length of another Dr Who episode and then place the pans in an oven preheated to 425 and let cook for 25-30 minutes.

After I put the bread in to bake, I started the pasta boiling. We had some fun shapes and colors which definitely made everything prettier and more tasty. I cooked about 2 pounds to feed our house of 6 with some left over.



After about 12 minutes, I drained it and left the colander in the sink, covered with a large pot lid to keep most of the heat in.

As the pasta cooked, I chopped up all the veggies and started the broccoli, onion, and snap peas sautéing with a couple tablespoons of oil. I was pretty generous with the oil because I didn't use any other sauce on the pasta. Robbie had steamed some carrots the night before and I used the leftovers so they were already soft, but if yours are not, you should put them in with this first round of veggies. They sautéed for about 7 minutes.



Then I added the bell peppers, mushrooms, steamed carrots and zucchini with a bit more oil and let them sauté a few minutes more.



Finally, I melted about 1/4 cup of butter and mixed it with 3 cloves of crushed garlic for an extra garlic-y taste sensation. I sliced some of the freshly-baked bread (I have a bad habit of not letting it cool, it's too tempting) and laid out the buffet spread for my hungry roommates.



Gun, Germs, and Steel is a book by Jared Diamond about why European people were able to conquer and exterminate and enslave so many non-European people. The short answer is that they had guns, germs, and steel, but the longer answer explores why they had those things and many of the non-European people did not. It is fascinating and readable and extended over lots of interesting disciplines, sometimes discussing how wheat and bananas evolved and other times discussing how good hunters coming from Africa killed off all the large mammals on not-Africa. It's excellent and I, of course, recommend it highly, even for people (me) who aren't crazy about non-fiction. So check it out!

Yummy Ratatouille

I made ratatouille for the first time last Wednesday! It was pretty good, but a little too liquidy, so you will want to check the pot pretty frequently (I did not do this).

First step is to chop up lots of things - an onion, 3 garlic cloves, an eggplant, 2 zucchini, a yellow squash, 2 bell peppers, and 4 tomatos



Yummy cut things!



Put 1/4 cup of olive oil in a big pot and put all the veggies in (except the tomatoes) with a couple bay leaves and some thyme and salt and pepper.

Leave them in there, covered, over a medium heat, for 15-20 minutes.



Meanwhile, add some chopped parsley to your chopped tomatoes. Pretty!



Now that the other veggies have softened, add the tomatoes and parsley to the pot and cover for another 15-20 minutes. Be sure to watch it and uncover it when everything is soften enough, but not falling apart. While you're waiting, stick a baguette in the oven to make it nice and crusty.

Dinner!



It is finals time, which means that, if you are an English major, you are all done reading the assigned books for the semester and you can enjoy reading stuff for yourself. What I want to read most is Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke. I read it once last year and it was Most Excellent. If you enjoy alternative reality period novels that include magic, silly and cranky and pedantic English people, and novels that have fun and informative (lying) footnotes, then you should read this novel too. I happen to like all if these things, and I love, love, love stories that have parts set in Faerie. So this is what I'm reading now.

Enjoy with your tummy and with your brain :D

Falafel-y Dinner!

Tonight was a night for Greek food! Delicious! I made (assembled, really) falafels, tabouli, minty cucumber salad, and pita bread.

First the tabouli, which is cracked wheat and diced vegetables with yummy herbs. Like the busy kid I am, I made it from a box (sorry :( someday I'll do it right and you'll be the first to know. Yes, you!) Anyway, all I had to do was dice a tomato, and add 1 1/2 cups water and 1/3 cup olive oil to the mix. Then I just put it in the fridge for 45 minutes so the wheat could soak up the liquids and it would stop being goopy.


Yum!

Then I mixed 1 cup of water and the little bag of falafel mix (What, you think if I don't have time to bike to a store that sells cracked wheat that I've got dried chickpeas hanging around?) Anyway, I let it sit for 10 minutes and then rolled it into cute little patties of vegetarian delight.


Eee!

While the oil in the skillet heated up, I chopped some stuff, like the mint and cucumber for the salad.



Oh no, I seem to have too much mint. I'd better make a mojito.



Much better. I definitely feel like Julia Child now. Time to fry some falafels. Be sure to flip them so they brown on both side, and don't let your oil get too hot. It will spit at you and your falafels will be burnt.

Now that all that mint is taken care of, I can mix up the salad. I kinda made up the portions, but it was sort of 2 cups of yogurt and maybe three tablespoons of chopped mint and some cucumber and a few squirts of lemon juice. Don't worry it'll taste right and then you'll know.

Also, I stuck the pita in the oven to make it nice and warm.


A delicious spread!



My dinner!


I am not reading right now, although I should be, for class. Instead I am watching Sexy City. You should too!

Burger Night and Amy Lowell

Last week I had an American Night! We ate non-meat burgers, French fries, and tasty milkshakes

First the burgers! I love 'em, even though I am a vegetarian. So we eat Gimme Lean ground beef, which tastes and textures pretty much like normal ground beef, and also is full of health and low calories. Plus, you don't really have to "cook" it, just heat it in the pan. Then, flip and put your favorite cheese on top (is it smoked Gouda? it is for me!), and cover it with a pot lid to make the cheese melt a little faster.



Yummy!

Now, French fries! I made them from potatoes! Apparently, that's where they always come from! Preheat the oven to 475 degrees. Then peel the potatoes (or, you know, you could not), then cut them into sort of equally-sized wedges. Boil them for 10 minutes or so and them drain them and coat them in some olive oil.



Spread them on a cooking sheet and cover them with salt and pepper. Then cover the pan tightly with tin foil and put it in for 10 minutes. Take out the pan, turn the fries and recover and cook for 10 more minutes. Are they nice and browned? If not, keep cooking until they are.



Finally, milkshakes! I used mint chocolate chip and peanut butter swirl (separately). I blended two parts ice cream with one part milk and turned it on. Real tricky!



Easy and delicious and vegetarian "American Food"!


Now for reading! In American Lit class last week, we read Amy Lowell and I liked her immensely! She was an obese, lesbian heiress and all the other poets and critics judged her for her wealth and writing, which I found, ironically, far less pretentious and more approachable that other early 20th Century poets.

Grotesque

Why do the lilies goggle their tongues at me
When I pluck them;
And writhe, and twist,
And strangle themselves against my fingers,
So that I can hardly weave the garland
For your hair?
Why do they shriek your name
And spit at me
When I would cluster them?
Must I kill them
To make them lie still,
And send you a wreath of lolling corpses
To turn putrid and soft
On your forehead
While you dance?

This is my other favorite (long but Worth It)

Patterns

I walk down the garden paths,
And all the daffodils
Are blowing, and the bright blue squills.
I walk down the patterned garden-paths
In my stiff, brocaded gown.
With my powdered hair and jewelled fan,
I too am a rare
Pattern. As I wander down
The garden paths.

My dress is richly figured,
And the train
Makes a pink and silver stain
On the gravel, and the thrift
Of the borders.
Just a plate of current fashion,
Tripping by in high-heeled, ribboned shoes.
Not a softness anywhere about me,
Only whalebone and brocade.
And I sink on a seat in the shade
Of a lime tree. For my passion
Wars against the stiff brocade.
The daffodils and squills
Flutter in the breeze
As they please.
And I weep;
For the lime-tree is in blossom
And one small flower has dropped upon my bosom.

And the plashing of waterdrops
In the marble fountain
Comes down the garden-paths.
The dripping never stops.
Underneath my stiffened gown
Is the softness of a woman bathing in a marble basin,
A basin in the midst of hedges grown
So thick, she cannot see her lover hiding,
But she guesses he is near,
And the sliding of the water
Seems the stroking of a dear
Hand upon her.
What is Summer in a fine brocaded gown!
I should like to see it lying in a heap upon the ground.
All the pink and silver crumpled up on the ground.

I would be the pink and silver as I ran along the paths,
And he would stumble after,
Bewildered by my laughter.
I should see the sun flashing from his sword-hilt and the buckles on his shoes.
I would choose
To lead him in a maze along the patterned paths,
A bright and laughing maze for my heavy-booted lover,
Till he caught me in the shade,
And the buttons of his waistcoat bruised my body as he clasped me,
Aching, melting, unafraid.
With the shadows of the leaves and the sundrops,
And the plopping of the waterdrops,
All about us in the open afternoon --
I am very like to swoon
With the weight of this brocade,
For the sun sifts through the shade.

Underneath the fallen blossom
In my bosom,
Is a letter I have hid.
It was brought to me this morning by a rider from the Duke.
"Madam, we regret to inform you that Lord Hartwell
Died in action Thursday se'nnight."
As I read it in the white, morning sunlight,
The letters squirmed like snakes.
"Any answer, Madam," said my footman.
"No," I told him.
"See that the messenger takes some refreshment.
No, no answer."
And I walked into the garden,
Up and down the patterned paths,
In my stiff, correct brocade.
The blue and yellow flowers stood up proudly in the sun,
Each one.
I stood upright too,
Held rigid to the pattern
By the stiffness of my gown.
Up and down I walked,
Up and down.

In a month he would have been my husband.
In a month, here, underneath this lime,
We would have broke the pattern;
He for me, and I for him,
He as Colonel, I as Lady,
On this shady seat.
He had a whim
That sunlight carried blessing.
And I answered, "It shall be as you have said."
Now he is dead.

In Summer and in Winter I shall walk
Up and down
The patterned garden-paths
In my stiff, brocaded gown.
The squills and daffodils
Will give place to pillared roses, and to asters, and to snow.
I shall go
Up and down,
In my gown.
Gorgeously arrayed,
Boned and stayed.
And the softness of my body will be guarded from embrace
By each button, hook, and lace.
For the man who should loose me is dead,
Fighting with the Duke in Flanders,
In a pattern called a war.
Christ! What are patterns for?

African Feast and Buttercup Festival

Today, readers, I made a dee-licious feast from my African Kitchen cookbook, by Josie Stow and Jan Baldwin. They work at a safari resort in South Africa, where people come and go on a safari and Josie and Jan cook their meals. Is this the ideal job of all time? Yes. Is making the dishes at home nearly as cool? No, but it's still fun and good-tasting.

The dinner table:

Ethiopian Honey Bread

I love bread, making and eating. Unfortunately, it takes ages, so if you want it at your meal, you should maybe make it ahead of time. This bread is one of the tastiest breads I have ever made and we all ate it to the point of discomfort this evening.

Start by heating 1 cup of milk and 4 tablespoons of water in a small saucepan, while melting 7 tablespoons of butter in another. Mix 1/2 cup of honey, 1 egg, 1 tablespoon of ground coriander, 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt, 1/2 a teaspoon of cinnamon and a little bit of ground cloves in a small bowl (are you anticipating how excellent this is going to taste yet?). Put 5 cups of bread flour and 2 1/4 tablespoons of yeast in a big bowl and then make a little well in the middle. Pour the contents of all the other containers (milk, butter, and spicy egg-honey) into the well. Mix it up, using a wooden spoon or spatula (unless you have an electric mixer with a dough hook, these are the easiest tools for this). Eventually, you'll want to dump it onto the counter and knead it until it is smooth. You will recognize this time because your arm will be very tired from trying to mix this bread with your dinky wooden spoon. After you have kneaded it to a spring and smooth consistancy, let it sit, slightly covered, in the bowl in a warmish spot for an hour.

It's doubled! Like magic! Knead it some more, separate it in half, and put each half in a loaf pan, to rise for another hour. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 300 degrees (yup, this is a little less than most bread). Bake it for 50-60 minutes, or until it is light brown and sounds hollow if you tap it. Pull it out, let it cool, and eat it up!



Cookies are another story, for another day!

The second yummy African dish I made was Green Lentil and Banana Salad. We love lentils in this house, since we rarely eat meat. This combines savory and sweet tastes, but in a way that even Jessica could not disapprove of!

First you make your lentils, which you do by simmering one cup of dried lentils in 3 cups of water for 20 minutes. Strain out the water and put the lentils out of the way, cause it's time to cut! 1/2 an onion, one bell pepper, 3-4 bananas and 4 cloves of garlic should be cute nice and small (the bananas can be sliced normally). Put the onion, pepper, and garlic in a skillet for a few minutes to make them soft and flavorful, while you chop 3 tablespoons of cilantro and 2 of parsley. Take the skillet off the heat and add the herbs, banana, lentils and a bit of balsamic vinegar, as well as a bit of salt and pepper. Stir it all together and serve at any temperature.



I also baked some butternut squash with rosemary. This is the easiest, just cut the squash in half, then half again. Scoop out the seeds and cover it with olive oil, rosemary, salt and pepper. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes and serve it. For some sweetness, sprinkle some brown sugar on with the olive oil, instead of rosemary.



Finally, I made coconut lime cookies for dessert. First, cream 7 tablespoons of butter with 1/2 cup of sugar. Then, add 1/2 a cup of flaked coconut and 1 teaspoon of each lime juice and grated lime rind. I added a bit more coconut and lime for extra flavor, and I also added the tiniest drop of green food coloring to make them just tinted green. Mix all that together and beat in one egg. In another bowl, sift 1 1/2 cups flour, 1 teaspoon cream of tartar, 1/2 teaspoon baking soda and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Fold this flour mixture into the first bowl and mix it until it makes an even cookie dough consistency. I veered from the recipe here, but rolling the dough into balls, dipping them in more coconut flakes and putting them on the baking tray. I then baked them at 350 degrees for 10 minutes and they were a hit!




This evening was one of the few evenings that all roommates were present at some point during dinner and also to watch an episode of Arrested Development. A photographic celebration is in order!



Robbie and Bridget, ready for fun times.



Christine and Eve share a Snuggie Huggie



Jessica and I practice Sort-of Yoga.

I am going to give you another webcomic (of sorts) that you should check out. Buttercup Festival by David Troupes (http://www.buttercupfestival.com/) is a world of whimsy and existential quandaries, complemented with graceful artwork. Check out one of my favorites:



Now go enjoy more!

Pizza and Dinosaur Comics

Last Wednesday, my dear friend Joleen came over and made pizzas with me. They were mozzarella with peppers, tomatoes, zucchini and onions, and, my special creation, smoked Gouda with sliced pears. Hooray!

First, we made some delicious dough, courtesy of Betty Crocker. First, take a cup of flour and mix it with a teaspoon of salt, 2 1/4 tablespoons of yeast, and 1 delicious tablespoon of sugar. Sift it nicely and make a little well in the middle to pour 3 tablespoons of olive oil and one cup of very warm water. Stir it up until the flour is mixed in and then add in more flour, one cup at a time, until you've gotten 2 1/2 to 3 cups. Eventually, it'll be really uncomfortable to stir and lots easier to just knead it, but don't do this too soon, because it'll be sticky and awful. Knead it until it is consistent and then leave it in a warm-ish place for 30 minutes.



See how nicely Joleen kneaded this? Hooray!

Meanwhile, you can grate some cheese! Joleen grated 2 1/2 cups of each mozzarella and smoked Gouda.



And I cut up a couple of zucchini, a few tomatoes, 2 pears and a red bell pepper. Also, I sautéed an onion.



Yum!

Look over there! Your dough is twice its original size! Time to punch it!




Knead the air out of the dough and split it in half. Roll each out with your rolling pin and put each on a baking tray. Stick them in your 425 degree oven for about seven minutes so the crust doesn't soak up the sauce.

Take the crusts out and spoon some tomato sauce on one but olive oil on the other. Then sprinkle (generously!) the mozzarella on the tomato sauce crust and then decorate it with the veggies. Pile on the yummy smoked Gouda on the olive oil crust and arrange the pears in some artistic manner.



So pretty! And delicious! Cook it for another 8-10 minutes and enjoy!


Sometimes I read webcomics. Maybe you do too? Dinosaur Comics, by the very clever Ryan North, is my favorite! Here is a link so that you, too, can enjoy the bizarre hilarity of dinosaurs talking about things anachronistically: http://www.qwantz.com/index.php. The first thing that is my favorite about Ryan North is that he does not draw and uses clipart pictures of dinosaurs, which never change positions, instead. My second thing is that he is chock full of literary references and time travel paradoxes. In case you did not know, these are two of the most important items in a writer's toolbox.