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Zucchini, Spiralising, and Eating Flowers…

April 30, 2022April 30, 2022humanist55

f you have seen my Theme Reveal for the A2Z Challenge 2022, then you will know that I am writing about becoming Vegetarian gradually as a response to the crisis in food supply chains sparked by the pandemic and made worse by the WAR in Ukraine. As well, I am keeping to the theme I originally planned of food which can be eaten in its own right as well as becoming an ingredient in other dishes…

Although Ratatouille was in my beloved copy of Elizabeth David’s “Mediterranean Food“, I really learned to make this dish in my first restaurant job. I blagged my way into working at “The Good Food Shop” in London to assist the chef by cooking at weekends and taking some of the load off her, and ratatouille was one of the dishes I had to prepare in commercial size saucepans… Elizabeth David stresses that this Provençale ragout of onions, aubergine (eggplant), Zucchini, peppers (pimento) and tomatoes, should be stewed very slowly in oil. She doesn’t say how much oil (much like some of my own recipes here, I think you have to figure out quantities by experience) but the author of the recipe pictured above is more explicit and uses a total of six tablespoons of olive oil. If you want stage by stage with pictures check his out. Elizabeth Davids recipe does not include Zucchini, but she says of her list of ingredients “usually” and most recipes seem to include them routinely, however, it shows that cooking is never set in stone and once you have a principal under your belt, then adapt, make a fusion with your own favourite ingredients – go forth boldly! Here though is Elizabeth David’s recipe with the addition of Zucchini, garlic, and herbs – my additions [like so]..

Ratatouille

2 large onions, 2 aubergines, 3 zucchini, 3 or 4 tomatoes, 2 red or green pimentos, garlic, fresh basil and thyme, oil, salt and pepper.
Peeel the tomatoes and cut the unpeeled aubergines [and Zucchini) into squares
Slice the onions and pimentos
Put the onions [and sliced garlic] garlic into a frying pan with plenty of oil, not too hot.
When they are getting soft, add first the pimentos, aubergines and lastly zucchini, and ten minutes later, the tomatoes.The vegetables should not be fried, but stewed in the oil, so simmer in a closed pan for the first 30 minutes, uncovered for the last 10. By this time they should have absorbed most of the oil.
[Sprinkle with fresh herbs to serve.]

The flowers of Zucchini can be stuffed with a mixture of Ricotta Cheese and Parmigiano Regianno and deep fried see here – an Italian recipe. You can also make a stuffing out of Zucchini which I remember from a 1970’s magasine article where it was put under the skin of a chicken to roast. You grate the Zucchini and sprinkle with plenty of salt and leave till the water is drawn out, squeeze them dry, mix with ricotta cheese, an egg, and herbs and seasoning – you could just bake this in ramekins as a vegetarian dish…

Lastly, you can use a spiraliser or such like, to make zucchini sphagetti for a gluten-free, carb-free alternative to normal sphagetti.

With Z, we have come to the last of this year’s A2Z Challenge – whther a reader or another participant, I hope you have enjoyed the ride or maybe it should be – the feast. As well as the food, I hope I have helped along the road to eating less less meat – a choice we may all be faced with in the coming year. I will be doing a Reflections post and participating in the Roadtrip in which I will visit and review some of the sites I haven’t had time to this month – hope to see you then…

Xigua and Xouba…

April 28, 2022April 28, 2022humanist55

If you have seen my Theme Reveal for the A2Z Challenge 2022, then you will know that I am writing about becoming Vegetarian gradually as a response to the crisis in food supply chains sparked by the pandemic and made worse by the WAR in Ukraine. As well, I am keeping to the theme I originally planned of food which can be eaten in its own right as well as becoming an ingredient in other dishes…

https://thekitchencommunity.org/26-foods-that-start-with-x/

Well I bet there has been a lot of head-scratching all over the A”Z Challenge as to what words to come up with for the last three days, and for X in particular – fortunately, there are always foreign names for familiar things even if I did have to resort once again to “foods beginning with X” to find them!

Xouba

Xouba, or Sardines, are eaten in many countries and are delicious eaten simply grilled or pan-fried so they meet my criteria of foods that can be eaten on their own, but although I have never made it, I will one day try the magically named, Stargazey Pie. Since I haven’t made it, I am going to direct you to this BBC Food recipe by Tristan Welch for a version of this famous Cornish recipe. Stargazey pie is famous because it is made with the fish heads poking through the pastry topping as if gazing up at the starry sky… A romantic notion and although many might find the fish heads disturbing, but I think that we are so often divorced from the reality of the animals we eat, by dint of pre-packaged, filleted pieces from the supermarket, that there is an honesty about Stargazey Pie.

https://matadornetwork.com/read/christmas-mousehole-fish-head-pie/

Xigua

After ruling out Watermelon in yesterday’s post in favour of Water as an ingredient, it pops up again as the Chinese name for it, the name translates as “Western Fruit” meaning it is not native to China but like so many foods, has been spread around by globalisation. Watermelon, especially chilled is a most refreshing fruit in Summer and can be eaten on its own or served in salads or as an accompaniment to savoury dishes since it is not so sweet as other melons like Cantaloupe or Honeydew. Not that sweetness is a barrier to mixing foods which are sweet and savoury – far from it! However the recipe I am going to link to (since again, it is not one I have made), is for Xi Gua Lao and although it is mentioned on several sites and the yummy looking photo also appears in several places on the www, the same rather thin description appears, suggesting that everyone is referencing the same source. At least this site gives some quantities and basic directions. The idea is to extract the juice of the watermelon, and thicken it with agar (A vegan substitute for gelatine made from seaweed) and sugar to form a jelly in which cherries suggest the watermelon pips (that have been removed) and the jelly is set to resemble slices of watermelon. The result is shown in this much-travelled image below and very pretty it is!

And here is the real thing…

And that’s X done – phew!

Water – the Vital Ingredient…

April 27, 2022April 27, 2022humanist55

https://thewaternetwork.com/article-FfV/food-security-impossible-without-water-security-aiWmpPPiaCeDNrFfv1bhlA

When I made my first tentative list of posts for this year’s A2Z, I put down watermelon, wine and watercress and whilst I could have covered watercress (so-called because it is grown in gin-clear streams of water) since it makes an excellent soup, I wasn’t really inspired- something niggled at my brain – and then it came to me – Water – how could we cook without it? Aside from the fact that it is a constituent of many foods and of course drinks, it is also used as a solvent to dissolve other ingredients, to extract flavours, and it’s physical properties are vital to the cooking process. Water has three states – solid, liquid and gas, and all of these can be used in cooking, after slowly raising the temperature of greens in water to near boiling, the sudden cooling with ice cubes (blanching), preserves and enhances the greenness (and nutritional qualities) of the vegetables. Boiling foods in water is one of the commonest forms of cooking and, given that ability to dissolve and extract taste, steaming vegetables is even better if you want them really tasty. Water, or rather it’s removal, is involved in preserving many foods, from pulses to the powdered, dehydrated ingredients of packet soups – and to reconstitute? Just add back the water!

The name of Whisky is derived from the Celtic word isca, meaning “water” and some people call it “the water of life” and to make Scottish whisky, you must have a source of richly stained peaty water which contributes both to the taste and colour of the whisky. In fact, most liquids we know in the kitchen will have some water in them – even whisky, since we don’t drink 100% proof, nor is vinegar 100% acetic acid. One of the common instructions in recipes is to reduce a stock (made from simmering meat or vegetables in water) in order to lose some of the water and concentrate the flavour.

Water is vital to growing food, meat or vegetable, and with climate change producing either too much or too little water, flood or drought, often, but not exclusively, in the poorer parts of the world, then water is a major geopolitical issue. The photograph at the top is from a site which can keep you informed about such issues…

The water we drink and use to cook with, varies in taste and purity, depending on it’s source and in simple terms, this is likely to be tap water (with various additives to keep it clean), and bottled water – still or sparkling – also with a variety of different minerals, depending on it’s source. This is particularly the case with sparkling water where the dissolved carbon dioxide that makes it bubbly, may come from a naturally carbonated source or may have been added at the bottling plant. Vichy and San Pellegrino are well-known examples and as well as the bubbles, they have distinct flavours due to their mineral ingredients.

Adding sparkling water to batters such as Tempura batter produces a lighter, fluffier batter…

Tempura Batter
85g of plain flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp sugar
200ml of sparkling water, chilled
1. Add the dry ingredients to a mixing bowl
2. Gently whisk/fold in the sparkling water – over whisking will cause gluten to form and the bubbles to be lost making the batter heavy
3. don’t leave the batter standing. Coat the things you are going to fry with flour before dipping them.
4. Quickly fry in hot oil till golden brown!

Water is the thing that makes our planet so unique and hospitable to life, it makes up a large proportion of our bodies and the more we investigate it, the stranger it becomes -as always, the Wikipedia elves have lots of info…

Vegetarians to Carnivores – the whole spectrum…

April 26, 2022April 26, 2022humanist55

https://www.glasbergen.com/diet-health-fitness-medical/vegetarian-cartoons/

Today, as we are willingly, or unwillingly, being led down the path from meat and two veg, to Vegetarian or even beyond, to Veganism, I thought I would try and outline the whole spectrum along with the pros and cons – starting at meat and ending with veg. These are not comprehensive essays but merely a few thoughts…

The Atkins and the Keto Diets

I remember watching a documentary about how scientists were trying to work out why people on the Atkins diet worked to cause weight loss when – by their calculations, it shouldn’t. People on the diet enthused as to how they could eat as much meat as they liked and even lashings of cream because they were allowed on the diet, but at the end of the film, the scientists looked d at how much the people were actually eating and found that it was not as much as they made it sound – eating proteins satisfy your hunger much quicker than eating carbs. and that is what the Atkins Diet and the Keto Diet have in common – they are low-carb diets, but they also have significant differences, with the Keto diet aiming to keep you in a state of Ketosis (where the body is forced to consume it’s own fat in the absence of carbohydrate). Atkins gradually returns your carbohydrate consumption to nearer to normal levels – although at a final 100gms it is still well below the 250gms of carbohydrate most Americans consume daily.
Both these diets can help to lose weight, and for Type 2 or even Type 1 Diabetes sufferers, they can both reduce the need for medication, but they are both difficult to stick to and generally involve a lot of meat-eating. You can find more about them here.

The Omnivore and Flexitarian Diets

The Omnivore (eats anything) is what many people regard as the norm, but in the world we are entering – climate change (contributed to by deforestation to raise methane-producing animals), threats to the global supply chain, cost of meat, health issues, ethical concerns for animal welfare, global food (and water) inequality, mean that the move to, at the very least, a reduction in the meat element of the diet, is desirable, and this approach is called Flexitarian and is what I have been nudging towards in this year’s A2Z Challenge. The Flexitarian diet is less about restrictions and more about adding plant-based diversity to the diet with its concomitant health benefits. More plant-based elements in your cuisine will improve your take up of micronutrients, vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals and reduce the risk from animal additives like antibiotics and growth hormones. You can still indulge in a dirty burger at a barbeque – occasionally – but as you explore the flavours and diversity of plant-based eating, you may find that the craving for meat reduces naturally. This approach will have health benefits all around without great pain…

Pescatarian Diet

One compromise in order to retain some intensive animal protein and to avoid the lack of B12 and Omega 3 fatty acids, is to eat vegetarian but with the addition of seafood as a protein source. Some pescatarians will also eat dairy and eggs. As with all aspects of food choice, there are some difficult aspects – for example, huge factory ships hoovering up the fish stocks of poorer nations due to corrupt rulers selling off the rights to the fishing, overfishing generally, and bycatch, where unwanted species or too small fish are thrown back (dead) or large fish such as dolphins or sharks die in nets. So there is a need to choose sustainable fish if you go down this route…

Vegetarian Diet

I think by now, that I have covered the many benefits of choosing a Vegetarian lifestyle, better in many ways for you the individual, but also much better for the environment, not to mention animals. If all animals were raised in good conditions, it would still be an ethical issue as to whether it is right to kill and eat them, but in order to keep meat cheap, animals are frequently raised in sub-optimal conditions, are given antibiotics routinely to mitigate against their poor conditions, suffer stress and are consequently not even the best that meat can be. Becoming vegetarian can improve health provided some precautions are observed with respect to Vitamin B12 and Omega Fatty Acids, typically heart and diabetic issues, but I think it is prudent to discuss any drastic change in diet with your doctor.

Vegan Diet

Going fully Vegan is quite a big step, even from being Vegetarian. Once you drop all animal products such as eggs, honey and dairy, then you have to work harder to include sufficient protein. The reason milk is off-limits is that cows must give birth in order to produce milk and so for the males it’s curtains pretty much straight away and so you are part of the meat industry. Some people do not realise this because we are all so divorced from the source of our food. Personally, I am not bothered by collecting honey since the management of the beehives allows for this without damaging the bees and since the commercial use of bees to pollinate crops such as Almond trees, generates so much honey, it’s hard to imagine what you would do with this sweet byproduct. So both diets such as the Atkins or Keto, at one end of the spectrum, and Vegan at the other, require big shifts in relationship to food and eating and probably need monitoring loosely, by a health professional.

Joy!

“It is easy to lose sight of the fact – especially when the word diet appears frequently on a post, that eating is meant to be a joy and not just a maintenance task! I hope that I have brought some of my own joy in the recipes that I have brought to the table, and certainly your comments have told stories of your own experiences of food – up to and including joy. Here are some of my favourites…

“I’m a guinea pig and I eat only vegetables, and I eat them raw. But you probably want to know more about my Mummy. She’s been vegetarian since 1986, but she eats cheese. She doesn’t eat fish or meat and avoids eggs.
She’s been doing quite well on her eating programme to lose weight until Easter. I think she should go back to it, even if it does mean she spends longer in the kitchen every day.
She says the problem with most people going vegan these days is they don’t eat a balanced diet – beans and lentils are essential, not ‘meat-free’ products they substitute meat-looking dishes with.
I only wrote that because she told me to. 🙂
Ludo” – https://how-would-you-know.com/2022/04/urid-dal-umeboshi-and-you-pronounced-u.html#comment-562

“Ah I am from India and connect a lot with Urad dal. You can use it to make anything from dosa (crepes) batter to fritters. Just ping me if you need any recipe and I’ll share the easiest and perfect ones with you! You would generally need to soak urad dal for a couple of hours to make anything for better and quicker results. “ – https://how-would-you-know.com/2022/04/urid-dal-umeboshi-and-you-pronounced-u.html#comment-561

“Is it an indication of my proclivities that your Tofu image looks like Indian sweets to me? (And now I want some).
Thanks for the “fun” fact about diabetes. I’m on that road, and trying to reduce my sugar intake. Very difficult. Hoping dates will help.” – https://how-would-you-know.com/2022/04/tofu-tomatoes-and-type-2-diabetes.html#comment-559

“I’ve never eaten rhubarb… keep hoping someone will make me a pie with it someplace so I can try. I don’t like making foods I’ve never eaten. LOL” – https://how-would-you-know.com/2022/04/rhubarb-and-the-return-of-mrchantilism.html#comment-537

“Love this connection and all the research involved. I love rhubarb because my grandfather grew it in backyard of the house where I lived as a kid.” – https://how-would-you-know.com/2022/04/rhubarb-and-the-return-of-mrchantilism.html#comment-548

“I was never a huge fan of olives – black on a pizza or kalamata in a salad – until we visited Turkey and they served a plate of olives to nibble on while perusing the menu. My husband never cottoned on to olives, but I became a convert.

I’m fortunate to live in a part of the world where most foods are fresh, not prepackaged, preservative-laden, and prepped in bulk to be shipped to chain restaurants.

Visiting from A to Z
Doesn’t Speak Klingon“ – https://how-would-you-know.com/2022/04/olives-and-overeating.html#comment-503

“I would happily overeat on olives, I love them.” – https://how-would-you-know.com/2022/04/olives-and-overeating.html#comment-507

“I look forward to this blog and anticipate what I can learn and add to my diet.
10 years ago my (new) husband was diabetic and weighed over 300 pounds (not sure what that is in Kg). I challenged him to get rid of the diabetes by diet and exercise. 10 years later by introducing things slowly he is a few pounds about 200 and no longer a diabetic. It’s taken changes like a handful of nuts (no salt for us) instead of a bag of crisps. Meat is rarely on his plate.
Your great recipes are adding to my growing recipe book – thanks
What Next – https://how-would-you-know.com/2022/04/nuts-and-nature-naming.html#comment-486

“I belong to the Tamil speaking Brahmin community of South India… we are vegetarians and the orthodox followers refrain from eating even pungent items like garlic, onion and even cabbage. I often have people questioning the lack of proteins in a vegetarian diet but it did not seem so as we do include dairy , lentils and nuts… my grandmother lived upto 92 on an only veg no onion, no garlic diet … and had all her teeth intact ha ha … interesting notes there on the marketing tactics… I was not aware of the wholemeal part

Jayashree writes“ – https://how-would-you-know.com/2022/04/nuts-and-nature-naming.html#comment-489

“I did not used to be a mango fan, I’m still not a fan of the whole fruit (but that’s just me and most fruit), but I do love it pureed. Have a fab recipe somewhere for mango and coconut ice cream, which is mango and coconut milk blitzed and frozen – very easy.
My sister makes a fab steamed treacle sponge in the microwave and I wouldn’t use anything else for melting chocolate these days. I also start all of my jacket spuds in there before popping them in the oven, to reduce cooking time and give a fabulous texture.
Tasha
Tasha’s Thinkings: YouTube – What They Don’t Tell You (and free fiction)“ – https://how-would-you-know.com/2022/04/mangos-miso-and-mirowaves.html#comment-471

“the sussex pond pudding sounds utterly intriguing, both disgusting and delicious. I must try it.” – https://how-would-you-know.com/2022/04/mangos-miso-and-mirowaves.html#comment-472

“I am trying to up my water intake ( for so many reasons), especially during a wickedly humid summer. A squeeze of lemon juice makes it easy peasy, otherwise it’s like feeding brussel sprouts to a three year old.” – https://how-would-you-know.com/2022/04/lemons-and-land-use.html#comment-462

“I love lemons, and you can always count on me to volunteer to cut them, squeeze them, any thing in order to get a bit of the oil from the zest on my hands. I’m hopeless. How absolutely delightful you got to lemon pick from your patio in Crete. And a shop named Zest! How fun.

The land usage facts are pretty compelling aren’t they?” – https://how-would-you-know.com/2022/04/lemons-and-land-use.html#comment-464

“If one sees the love shown by a mother cow to the baby calf or even a mother pig to its piglets with some attention many of the worlds meat eaters would turn vegetarians I feel

Jayashree writes“ – https://how-would-you-know.com/2022/04/lemons-and-land-use.html#comment-492

“”I regularly have to hide veggies in the meals I prepare — I love them, but not everyone I cook for appreciate their deliciousness. LOL.

Ronel visiting for the A-Z Challenge My Languishing TBR: J” – https://how-would-you-know.com/2022/04/jerusalem-artichokes-juicing-and-hide-the-vegetables.html#comment-441

“Yes to frozen baby peas and butter beans (or lima beans)! I prefer frozen peas to fresh, I think they’re sweeter. Corn is one canned veg I prefer to frozen. I think it comes down to the sweetness factor.
I make a lot of freezer jam, which tastes fresher than cooked. I even store my marmalades in the freezer, to not bother with the boiling water bath to seal the jars.” – https://how-would-you-know.com/2022/04/fish-and-freezers-on-the-road-to-less-meat.html#comment-445

“I love the idea of a dehydrator, but are they expensive to run?
I call myself a ‘reducitarian’ (i think coined in the Guardian) and have stopped referring to dinners as ‘vegetarian’ because they have no meat in them, we just call them dinner.” – https://how-would-you-know.com/2022/04/dates-dehydrators-and-the-death-of-globalism.html#comment-407

“I am a carb-loader and absolutely love bread of all varieties! My mother made homemade bread when I was a kid and she still makes dinner rolls from scratch every holiday. She also makes amazing cinnamon rolls whenever I visit. 🙂” – https://how-would-you-know.com/2022/04/bread-in-geopolitics-in-vegetarianism-and-as-an-ingredient.html#comment-379

Of course – not everyone is heading in the same direction of V…

“I stopped eating meat (but not seafood) in high school, and I think it was primarily to irritate my parents. In addition, I was attending a girl’s boarding school, and the meat offerings were gross. Plus it was the ’70s.
This eating style, pescatarian, continued until I turned 40 and succumbed to Bacon. Well, yes, there WERE the occasional Chinese Green Beans with bits of pork prior to that, but I clearly remember standing in a kitchen in Indianapolis scarfing down a slice while frying some for my mid-life crisis boyfriend.
It took another 20+ years to confess to my mom that yes, I now ate (some) meat. I wanted her meatloaf recipe!
Anyhow, it was never anything moral, it was simply youthful diffidence and then flavor (and mouthfeel – still don’t like chewing slabs of meat).

ps: I hear you on the difficulties “pantsing” A-Z. This morning, not only did I have to write the post, I had to create the artwork! (And it took 3 images before I was satisfied). https://www.anne-m-bray.com/blog/177137/atozchallenge-2022-u-is-for-utah“ – https://how-would-you-know.com/2022/04/urid-dal-umeboshi-and-you-pronounced-u.html#comment-558

Well thank you all for your comments and especially Ane for that last brave confession! Only four more letters to go – phew!

Urid Dal, Umeboshi and You (pronounced U)…

April 25, 2022April 25, 2022humanist55

www.theedgyveg.com/2018/01/08/instant-pot-dal-indian-dal-recipe/

It turns out, that to meet my criteria of foods that can be eaten on their own or used as an ingredient, “U” is the most difficult yet! I had to resort to searches for food beginning with “U” and Urid Dal and Umeboshi were the only two. Now Umeboshi is a Japanese salty pickled plum which, though eaten on its own as well as a central ingredient in Japanese cuisine, and which I have tasted, I cannot claim any knowledge of recipes, so your google search is as good as mine! What I can say, is that of the five basic tastes, Sweet, Sour, Salty, Bitter, and Umami, it hits Sour and Salty spot on! Although Umeboshi is often described as a salted Plum, it is more nearly related to an Apricot. If you are a super-taster and enjoy new flavours, I urge you to try it – it grew on me and I really ought to try finding and trying some recipes.

Urid Dal is one of the many varieties of lentils so popular in Indian cooking, it is a white lentil and I decided to give it a try in my new pressure cooker. I found a recipe (pictured above) by the lovely Candice aka The Edgy Veg! It was an InstantPot recipe and since my Ambiano pressure cooker is not, and cannot achieve the same pressure, I had to adapt the recipe by adding 1/3 extra minutes according to instructions from this site – intriguingly called The Aisle of Shame – those of you who frequent Aldi or Lidl supermarkets will know what this alludes to…. It is in fact a site which promotes Aldi goods despite the name!

So using sixteen minutes and substituting a can of tomatoes for fresh, I can report that the lentils were absolutely, perfectly cooked! Not so my next attempt with the pressure cooker – to cook butter beans – always a good test because they are a large bean and prone to losing their skins aka turning to mush… There is a slow cooking setting on the Ambiano pressure cooker which runs for two hours, I soaked the beans first with a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda – it helps to soften pulses – and after rinsing them well, covered them liberally with water, chose the high pressure option and crossed my fingers. The Butter Beans were al dente and I foolishly decided to try another short period of cooking at full pressure – mushed! Ah well, a pressure cooker of any description has a bit of a learning curve…

You! Pronounced “U”

I know – it’s a stretch but, as Archy, the cockroach, reincarnated from a free-verse poet used to say “wot the hell – wot the hell” (Archy and Mehitabel by Don Marquis)

Tomorrow I am going to summarise all the diets from full-on Carnivore to payed-up Vegan and I would please like to know YOUR story and where you are both in reality and aspirational on the spectrum if you care to share in the comments and I will feature tomorrow… Why do you eat what you eat, are there health reasons or other necessitations or do you roam freely through foodstuffs purely on taste…

Idaho Potatoes, Ice Cream and Inventiveness…

April 11, 2022April 11, 2022humanist55

https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/281921/basic-hasselback-idaho-potatoes/

Dang! Another difficult letter when it comes to food items. Cheating a little bit, I am going for the Idaho Potatoe because (apart from the fact there is an I in there) – the Idaho is a floury, or mealy potato and this is perhaps the most useful type as an ingredient. Waxy potatoes are great for salads and they will hold together in a stew, but floury means mash, roast potatoes with rough, crisp outsides, soups and purees.

Ice cream – well I manage an ice cream, or rather gelato factory so some room for disambiguation there…

This site, though American, is a pretty good guide to the main types of potato eaten in the US and Europe but let’s not forget that the potato originally came from South America. Here is an excellent book telling the history of the spud – and it is truly a fascinating one…

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Potato-Humble-Rescued-Western-World/dp/0571199518

To understand why floury potatoes do what they do, I turn to my culinary bible “McGee on food and Cooking – an Encyclopedia of Kitchen Science, History and Culture“. He says “Mealy types […] concentrate more dry starch in their cells, so they’re denser than waxy types. When cooked , the cells tend to swell and separate from each other, producing a fine, dry, fluffy texture that works well in fried potatoes and in baked and mashed potatoes.”

I am tempted to give you the recipe for Greek Lemon Roast Potatoes which I discovered when we hid from Covid in Crete for the winter of 2020 – I had never imagined pairing lemon and potatoe but whilst amazing, it is hardly the potato as ingredient, but you can find it here. Instead I give you PatataFagusta – a Maltese dish which translates as “drowned potatoes”. I discovered this on holiday in Malta some 43 years ago and found it to be almost a whole new method of cooking…

Patata Fagusta
1. Fill a medium saucepan with 50% Potatoes and %0% Onions – both cut into one inch cubes
2. Add plenty of chopped garlic and mixed herbs fresh or dried – a Provencal mix is great
3. Por over 1/2 a pint of water and a good shot of olive oil
4. Bring to the boil slowly under a tight fitting lid, stir and reduce the heat to the lowest for some 25 minutes and stir once or twice.
This is the basic recipe and produces a sort of stew, but much more quickly than normal and once you have the method down, you can embellish it with small amounts of Chorizo or prawns, or a tin of chopped tomatoes, orcurry paste instead of herbs – you get the picture…

Which leads me nicely on to Invention or should it be Improvisation? I rarely follow recipes exactly, except perhaps for baking, but even with baking, once you have done it for long enough, you can start to invent – otherwise, how would any new cakes emerge? No, what I do is to look for principles or methodologies in cooking which I can adapt to what ingredients I have in my part of the world, what equipment I have in my kitchen. Hence with the recipe above – it is definitely not a conventional stew where different things are added to the hot pot in sequence and then stock added and the whole cooked off. No, everything goes in cold and is brought up to temperature and then reduced to a slow cook with the water and oil at the bottom, preventing sticking. and the modifications you can make bring it into the realms of invention.
I put my inventiveness down to my mother’s cooking, she was a classic English housewife cook of her time, but she read the cookery sections of Woman’s Weekly and would try out things like Sweetcorn Bake, or for the rare dinner parties, Beef Olives (thin slices of beef flattened further and wrapped around stuffing, tied up, browned and cooked in a casserole – nothing Mediterranean to be seen here!). I don’t remember ever having olives till after I left university and moved to Brixton in London. My mother’s cooking was sufficiently inventive to give permission to follow suit. At university, I caught the bug for cooking and devoured cookery books (not literally) Chinese cookery, the Penguin Indian Cookery and most inspiring of all Elizabeth David’s Mediterranean Coookery. This reputedly racy woman is credited with changing the course of cookery in England and she certainly did it for me with her beautiful descriptions of the food she found as she travelled around Europe. She also wrote one of the definitive, scholarly works on English Bread and Yeast Cookery.

Oh! I promised to disambiguate Ice Cream v. Gelato… Well, Gelato is denser, more intensely flavoured than Ice Cream, the latter having more air whipped into it during the manufacture. The ingredients are much the same. Ice cream will melt more quickly in your cornet but who is to say that that lighter quality is not just as nice on a hot day. Gelato is to be enjoyed with a small spoon, summer or winter, day or night…

Have you invented a dish you are proud of and what influences have you absorbed into your cooking style?

Ginger and Grow Your Own…

April 8, 2022April 8, 2022humanist55

Ginger is, along with garlic, the base ingredient of South asian cooking just as olive oil and tomatoes might be said to be the base of say Mediterranean cuisine. It nearly doesn’t qualify for this year’s theme, but you can eat ginger in it’s own right – albeit candied or crystalised. As an ingredient it comes in many forms fresh (for that savory cooking base), dried and ground (think – sprinkled on melon), pureed for the lazy, and the aforementioned sweet stuff can be used in all sorts of desserts – Rhubarb and Ginger Crumble (or jam). Ginger is so ubiquitously available around the world, that if global supply lines are forced to prioritise, I sincerely hope that Ginger will be a top priority.

The other part of this post is about Growing You Own – be it a garden or an allotment, in the WAR that we all find ourselves in, with food prices rising, we can remember the British World War 2 exhortation to Dig for Victory – or at least, dig to save your bank balance!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zwscng8/revision/4

Unfortunately, unless you live in the tropics, you cannot grow ginger outside, all year around but this site tells you how to manage it between indoor and outdoors… Back in 1968 when I was 14, we visited Australia and in the holiday between the two terms we were there, we did a 4000 mile round-trip by car, and we visited what claimed to be the largest ginger plantation in the southern hemisphere at Bundaberg. Decades later, courtesy of globalisation, I can buy Bundaberg Ginger Beer here in England! I once talked to a sales rep. for Stones Ginger Wine about the difficulty of extending this warming drink beyond it’s traditional Christmas slot when it is often consumed in the form of a WhiskyMac. I mentioned the Australian connection but he said that they had to be careful of that because ginger wine is sold in six-packs of “tinnies” in Australia and often represents young Australians first experience of drinking. (Confirmation please from any Australians reading this?) I believe in California, the same slot is filled by Thunderbird Wine (made from pears?).

My partner and I have had an allotment for some three years now and have brought it back from a weed-strewn wasteland to a productive neatness and pride forces me to show it you!

Recipe wise I have one tip today – when making jam with rhubarb – a favourite from our allotment – try and pick early, thin stalks – they are tender and less acid. Now, instead of chopping and boiling the fruit before you add the sugar, as you do for most fruit, chopt the stalks into 1/4 inch lengths, weigh and put into a bowl. Add an equal weight of sugar poured over the fruit but not mixed and cover overnight. the next day you will find the sugar will have pulled a lot of juice out of the fruit, leaving it tougher when you gently bring the jam to the boil – in other words it doesn’t all go to a mush, as rhubarg is prone to. And do try it with ginger added – to your own taste of course…

A to Z Challenge 2022 Theme Reveal…

March 8, 2022April 1, 2022humanist55

For my third year of the A2Z Challenge, I am reverting to one of my passions in life – Food! Two years ago, I only discovered the challenge on April 1st, the day the challenge started, so I had no time to prepare and plunged into the effects of the burgeoning pandemic. Last year, I decided to try and finish a novel and write around its theme – I didn’t finish it within the month but it gave me enough impetus to have finished it since and if any of you readers from last year want to read it – please let me know and I will send you a pdf.

The aspect of food I was going to tackle is ‘Foods that can be used as an Ingredient’ – so for example, Apples can be eaten in their own right as well as being an ingredient in other dishes. Tumeric cannot really be eaten on its own so it doesn’t make the list… There will be recipes of mine, links to other peoples’ recipes and odd food facts.

However, the world finds itself in a crisis due to the war in Ukraine and so I am going to add substantially to this theme – shades of the 2020 challenge when Covid was on the rise… Here are two things to consider -Ukraine is seventh in the league of worldwide wheat producers (but not for the next year). 50% of the Wheat imported into Germany, is fed to Pigs – it takes 7kg of wheat to create 1kg of pork. Imagine the price hikes coming down the line, from the price of wheat ‘feeding’ through to the price of pork (and other meats). What better time to consider choosing to eat more vegetarian meals. Note that I didn’t suggest becoming vegetarian, but at least increasing the amount of meat-free meals. There are other reasons for considering this, principally the Environment – less land use to grow all that food for animal feeds, less farting animals contributing methane to greenhouse gasses (methane is worse than CO2), less expensive, refrigerated transport of meat around the world. More grain for everyone around the world – poor countries in Africa will be hard hit by Ukraine being unable to plant this year, and not just wheat…

I have had in mind, for a long time, writing a book to be called ‘The Gradual Vegetarian…” I imagined a family where the progressive (probably) females in the house desired to go vegetarian for all the good reasons – ethical, environmental, health – and the (probably) males are resistant to the change. So the book would be vegetarian by stealth – gradually introducing recipes that give the lie to the idea that vegetarian food is bland and boring. Also, you don’t want to rush out and buy lots of new equipment and ingredients before you’re sure the change will take, so the idea of a book that gradually introduces vegetarian recipes, equipment, and ingredients, always seemed a good one to me and I am going to inject it into this year’s challenge…

There will be some jam recipes and so as a ‘taster’, I give my generalised method below, little wrinkles may appear with further recipes…

Making jam is simple, you need fruit and sugar in equal parts plus jam jars…

Making jam is simple, you need fruit and sugar in equal parts plus jam jars. Almost all jam jars these days can be recycled because they have a silicone seal inside the lid edge so you don’t need to mess about with acetate covers, rubber bands and waxed disks – unless you want to!

Weigh the fruit so you know how much sugar to add.
Cook the fruit in a large saucepan – some fruit needs chopping into small bits.
When the fruit is mushed down, add the sugar and stir till dissolved and bring to a roiling boil.
Take a spoonful of jam out and put in the fridge till cold, if you can draw your finger through the cooled jam and it wrinkles, you have a set – if not repeat until you do.
Meanwhile boil a kettle, stand the jars and their lids on a newspaper and fill both to the brim with boiling water.
Once you have a set, carefully empty the jars and lids and use a heatproof jug to pour the jam into the jars. Immediately screw the lids on tight. It’s good to have a couple of smaller jars in case there is some left over.
As the jars cool down, you should hear a pop as the vacuum forms and sucks the lids in – then your jam is properly sealed and will keep forever! This whole process can take as little as half an hour…

I am trying to write as many as possible in advance so that I can spend more time reading other bloggers’ posts, connect with old friends and make new ones. I have had to come out of semi-retirement and go back to four days a week as the company I work for (Gelato and Puddings) – is moving to a larger factory so it is all hands on deck! But by April, I hope the worst will be over and I can put the effort in here…

There is a hard-working team behind the scenes of the A to Z Challenge and this year, Jeremy, the graphic designer responsible for all the badges and banners, sadly passed away, so the badge below is to honour him…

Train Wreck Completed

February 17, 2022February 17, 2022humanist55

If you were following this blog during last April’s A to Z Challenge, you will remember that I was attempting to finish a novel, and although I didn’t succeed in that goal, it nevertheless gave me a huge impetus and ten months later, the job is done. The cover, above, I made using photoshop and 3D AutoCAD, and it shows the climactic action at the end of the book, taking place at the LaGrange point where everything hangs in the balance.

‘Train Wreck’ is science fiction, but like much sci-fi, it is really about human beings and in this case, it sets out to explore the Utopian dream through the lens of a sci-fi setting, framed as a mystery/thriller…

Some of you were good enough to leave very helpful comments last April, and should you wish to receive a pdf of the finished book, then please let me know how I can send you a file. I would truly value feedback at this stage as I contemplate how much editing is required – where to expand, trim or omit…

If you don’t want (sensibly) to share your real email address, then here is a place to get a temporary email address…

Ideal Inspiration Blogger Award

July 29, 2021July 30, 2021humanist55

Thank you Jamie of uniquely maladjusted but fun for this nomination – I “met” Jamie through the 2021 A2Z Challenge this year where she wrote an intriguing story in instalments following a double date with a twist at the end – give it a whirl… Challenging questions Jamie!

https://uniquelymaladjustedbutfun.blogspot.com/

Rules for the Award

1. Thank the person who has nominated you and provide a link back to their blog.
2. Answer their questions.
3. Nominate up to 9 other bloggers and ask them 5 new questions.
4. Notify the nominees through their blog by visiting and commenting on their blog.
5. List the rules and display the “Ideal Inspiration Blogger Award” logo.

Jamie’s Questions…

1. If an employee under extreme stress says (verbally or written) something that is construed as insensitive to a group of people (age, gender, religion, orientation, etc), should that employee be terminated/ not have their contract renewed, or should they be given one more chance if they agree to some sort of approved sensitivity training reeducation program?
- There are two issues to be addressed here – “If an employee (were) under extreme stress…” such that it is implicated in anti-social behaviour, then the nature of that stress needs to be examined and if it is in the remit or ability of the employer to ameliorate that stress then that should be done anyways. As for the insenstive comments, then certainly a second chance should be given but surely subject to that person satifactorily undertaking ” approved sensitivity training reeducation program”. It’s not just a “give a second chance” principle but with the exception of a few gross misdemeanors, employment rights – certainly here in the UK – mean there are a whole progression of warnings which have to be applied before you can fire someone.
2. At what age is it no longer appropriate to Trick-or-Treat for yourself? (Meaning exceptions are in place if accompanying a younger child, such as taking a younger sibling ToT so parents can stay at the house and give out candy.)
- I think that the age at which children stop believing in Father Christmas should be the guide here! After that you only get to Trick or Treat when you have children of your own (below the age of Santa disbelief) then again when you become a Grandparent you get another bite of the cherry. Stealing other people’s children (Kidnapping – Ho! Ho! Ho!) to go Trick or Treating is not to be recommended!
3. Would you support or oppose a mandate that 75% of the human population be required to be vaccinated against Covid-19 (SARS-CoV-2 including variants and mutations)? Would your answer change if this mandate were global, your country only, or your local area only? Is there a number or percent of deaths that would influence your support or opposition of such as mandate?
- I would consider myself to be Libertarian, but the thing which which many objectors to vaccination (and certainly mandatory vaccination) forget, is that Libertarian means you should be allowed to do whatever you want but only if it doesn’t hurt other people! If we didn’t have vaccinations, we would still have Smallpox. The anti-vaxxers have been responsible for an unwelcome return of measles and mumps – diseases which some doctors had never encountered, so successful had immunisation become and these are serious diseases for pregnant women and for causing infertility respectively. I blame Trump and the unrestrained spreading of misinformation on social media, but I also think we have missed an opportunity during Covid, to spread some positive social behaviour. In China and Japan, wearing a mask whenever you have the “Common” Cold (which can be another form of coronavirus) – is quite normal behaviour so that you don’t spread it to your fellow human beings – that’s just the kind of societies they are! People who think they haven’t got Covid 19 don’t know – that is the whole reason why it has inevitably become a pandemic – and wearing a mask to protect others (and hoping they do the same) is at one end of the scale and at the other is an even better example of the “selfish” benfits of altruism. The UK government crows about how successful it’s vaccination programme has been, but until they, and all the other first world countries make sure the whole world is vaccinated, then variants will multiply and we shall never be free of the disease. So I am happy to have 100% mandatory vaccination but few governments will go there let alone the right wing idiots who tout it as an issue of right-to-choose…
4. Should celebrities be given exceptions to laws, rules, and terms of service? If so, how famous does one have to be to get that exception?
- Get away! If anything – celebrities should be held to a higher standard of account since what they do influences lots of other people so – its tough love, or just say no to being made into a celebrity…
5. What is your favorite recipe to use with leftover cooked turkey? Or, what is your favorite summer pasta salad recipe?
- I love to make a good stock from the carcass and then make a Christmas Dinner Soup with all the tiny bits of tukey but also leftover potatoes, gravy, sprouts, stuffing – Yayyy!!!

Nominations

All of my nominees commented on my blog during the April A to Z Challenge 2021. So in no particular order and many nationalities…

Tamara – https://thethreegerbers.blogspot.com/
Anne M Bray – https://www.anne-m-bray.com/blog
Sara Zama – https://theoldshelter.com/
Frédérique – https://quiltingpatch.blogspot.com/
Zalka Csenge Virág – http://multicoloreddiary.blogspot.com/
Sharon E. Cathcart – https://sharonecathcart.wordpress.com/
Pooja Priyamvada – Second Thoughts First

My five questions to my nominees:

Have you ever met anyone online (blogs, dating sites – whatever) and then taken it from the virtual to the “Real” World and what happened?
If you could meet anyone – Historical or Present Day – who would it be and why?
Who would you want as a Creative Writing Coach?
What is the Blog Post of which you were most proud but which got less of a response than you hoped – (please link to the post)?
Do you agree with the idea that we make a choice as to how we are going to die at quite an early age and do you think that choice influences whether that death will come to pass oh, and if you have made such a choice – care to share?

PLEASE let me know if you make a post with your answers! I don’t want to miss reading it.