cooking

Ristras

/ Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

2016-04-19 12.51.22 cropHung on the kitchen fireplace mantel, a ristra of hot peppers looks beautiful, and is said to bring good health and good luck.

But mostly it just brings good food.

They’re often just used for decoration these days, but stringing chiles began as a way to dry and store them. And a string of chile peppers in the kitchen makes it easy to add spice to any meal.

I grew up in a house with all sorts of dried plant material hanging from rafters and tucked into baskets. It was all purely for decoration. My house today has a similar profusion of plant material, but for more utilitarian purposes. Ristras are convenient ways to dry and store peppers, garlic and onions. They’re also very convenient hanging in the kitchen.

Do I make sure my ristras look nice? Do I string twice as many peppers as we can realistically use, so that I can pair the ristras on each side of the mantel? Yes, of course—they do make nice decorations, after all.

Pumpkins

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About a third of the harvest.

About a third of the harvest.

Autumn wouldn’t be complete without the requisite wheelbarrow loads of pumpkins and other winter squash. In spite of some late-frost drama this spring, the harvest wasn’t bad.

My kids ask every year, “Which are the pumpkins and which are the squash? What makes a pumpkin a pumpkin?”

The short answer is that a pumpkin is a squash that we call a pumpkin. There are four species and countless varieties that variously get called pumpkin and squash. Some fruits are known as pumpkins in one place, and squash in another.

I don’t bother with the distinction. The important distinctions are between varieties. Some are best made into soup, others make splendid pies. Some have robust, dry flesh that holds up well in savoury galettes. Some are just the right size for baking whole. Some keep well, and others need to be eaten quickly after harvest. Some have flesh only useful as goat food, but have naked seeds that are wonderful toasted with salt and spices.

Which is, of course, how I justify planting so many pumpkins of so many varieties. I need them all!

What do you do with a giant zucchini?

/ Robinne Weiss / 3 Comments

2016-04-02 18.47.15 smTo the tune What do you do with a drunken sailor?

 

What do you do with a giant zucchini?

What do you do with a giant zucchini?

What do you do with a giant zucchini,

Early in the morning?

 

Hey, they just get bigger.

Hey, they just get bigger.

Hey, they just get bigger.

You can’t eat them all.

 

zucchinienchiladassmCook ’em in a sauce and make enchiladas,

Cook ’em in a sauce and make enchiladas,

Cook ’em in a sauce and make enchiladas,

Early in the morning!

 

Hey, they just get bigger.

Hey, they just get bigger.

Hey, they just get bigger.

You can’t eat them all.

 

chocolatezucchinicakesmBake ’em in a cake and add chocolate chips,

Bake ’em in a cake and add chocolate chips,

Bake ’em in a cake and add chocolate chips,

Early in the morning!

 

Hey, they just get bigger.

Hey, they just get bigger.

Hey, they just get bigger.

You can’t eat them all.

Cape Gooseberries

/ Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

2016-03-22 19.08.56 smCape gooseberries (Physalis peruviana) are not something you’re likely to find in the grocery store. The plant is native to Peru and Chile, and has been introduced into most temperate and tropical climates around the world as a fruit for home gardens. It has been only sporadically commercially grown, however.

The fruit’s flavour defies categorisation. It is like a sour grape crossed with a tomato—not entirely surprising, as it is related to tomatoes. The initial sensation is the sour, and then they leave a lingering fruity tomato flavour in the mouth.

Cape gooseberries grow reasonably well here—some years they grow too well, actually. I’m still learning how to use them and how to enjoy their odd flavour. This year we got only a handful, as I wasn’t able to water them as much as they needed in this hot, dry summer.

Their tartness goes well in jams, chutneys, pies, and fruit salads. They’re also good eaten right in the garden—the papery husk acts as a handle, so you can snack on them even with hands dirty from gardening!

In temperate climates they are an annual, though here they often overwinter, if the weather is mild. In tropical climates they are perennial.

They’re definitely a plant to try, if you’ve never grown them.

Summer Soup 2016

/ Robinne Weiss / 2 Comments

2016-03-06 19.55.54 smEight pm, and I feel like I’ve hardly stepped outdoors today.

I remember the air was still and warm early this morning. I milked by the light of the stars and a sliver of a crescent moon.

I remember the cool drips of water in the freshly watered vegetable garden just after breakfast.

But, aside from a hurried trip to the goat paddock with an armload of corn husks or carrot tops, I haven’t been outside since eight am.

Just after breakfast, the whole family got to work making the year’s Summer Soup (which I’ve blogged about before). We spent the morning chopping vegetables and making up the soup together, then I settled in alone for the long slog at the pressure canner.

It was a hot day to be in the kitchen canning soup. I thought it was just that I had four burners and the oven going much of the afternoon, but when my daughter walked through the kitchen looking wilted, I realised it was just a hot day.

That was the closest I got to knowing what it was like out there.

But I’ll appreciate this lovely summer day spent indoors—over and over again all winter. The final tally for the day was nineteen quarts of soup and six quarts of vegetable stock. That’s a lot of summer, stored up to cheer us on a cold winter evening.

The Beginning of the End

/ Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment
Pumpkins are filling out and beginning to harden off.

Pumpkins are filling out and beginning to harden off.

March 1—first day of autumn here. It is appropriately autumnal today, with a grey sky and brisk, cool wind.

But it didn’t take a cool day, or the calendar to tell me summer was coming to a close. I have been milking in the dark for weeks—a sure sign the equinox is coming. Last week, the first of the elm leaves crunched brown and crisp underfoot. The poplar trees are looking sparse. The dry beans have started to senesce—pods bleaching, yellow leaves plopping to the ground.

The coming weekend will be full of harvest activities—no time for the beach, regardless of how hot it is. Soy beans, dry beans, and corn will all need harvesting. We’ll make the year’s summer soup. I’ll make another batch of pesto for the freezer before the basil is finished. I’ll dry some tomatoes.

There will be plenty more hot days, and likely a few trips to the beach. There will be many more tomatoes, eggplants, beans, and melons. Summer’s not really over. But it’s beginning to pack its bags and get rid of whatever it can’t take with it when it leaves for the Northern Hemisphere.

The Season for Salsa

/ Robinne Weiss / 2 Comments

2016-02-26 16.28.01 smNothing beats a good salsa. And there are limitless variations on the theme—tomato or tomatillo, cooked or raw, spicy or mild, cilantro or none…

If I’m using tomato, I prefer a raw salsa, but if I’m making salsa verde—based on tomatillos—I like it cooked.

I have a love/hate relationship with tomatillos. On the one hand, I quite enjoy them in salsa verde. On the other hand, we don’t tend to like them in any other form, so we’ve never been able to eat all the tomatillos produced by even one plant, and the rotting fruits in the garden are truly disgusting.

But salsa verde is a lovely alternative to ketchup on burgers and fries, is fantastic in burritos, and makes a great chip dip. I’ve seen many variations on salsa verde, but this is what I do.

 

500 g (1 lb) tomatillos, husked and rinsed

½ cup water

1 fresh chilli pepper or a pinch of cayenne

2 red sweet peppers, charred

1 onion

1 clove garlic

½ cup chopped fresh cilantro

2 Tbsp cream or half and half (optional)

salt to taste

 

To char the sweet peppers, spear a whole pepper on a fork and hold it over the flame of a gas burner, turning regularly, until the skin blackens. Drop the charred pepper into a bowl and cover with a plate for a few minutes to let the skin steam and loosen Peel off the blackened skin before using. Roughly chop tomatillos, chilli, sweet peppers, onion, and garlic. Place all ingredients except the cilantro and cream in a saucepan and cook 15-20 minutes until the vegetables are soft and the liquid is reduced by about a third.

Blend until smooth (I use my immersion blender). Stir in the cilantro and optional cream, and adjust the salt. Serve hot or chilled.

This sauce freezes well—I freeze it in small quantities and pull it out as we want it.

 

Beautiful food

/ Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

2016-02-22 17.55.00 smI was making a lovely Indian dish the other day, with paneer, zucchini, green beans and tomato, and as I stirred everything into the pot, I couldn’t resist taking a photo.

And I realised that half my enjoyment of food comes from the beauty of the colours and shapes in the pot and on the plate. That beauty is what turns an ordinary meal into an extraordinary one.

Pilando

/ Robinne Weiss / 1 Comment

PilandocoffeeJulian smThrowback Thursday was so fun last week, I thought I’d do another one this week.

This week I dredged up a photograph of Julián, our landlord and next door neighbour in Panama. He was tickled to pose for this photo—he always enjoyed sharing cultural differences.

In this photo, Julián was grinding coffee in a massive mortar and pestle called a pilón. These tools get near-constant use—grinding coffee, pounding rice to remove the hulls, grinding corn—and I loved to hear the deep, rhythmic thud, thud, thud of the neighbours at work.

And I was always grateful to buy my coffee already ground…

A pilón is carved from the trunk of a tree, and when it’s not in use as a grinder, often serves, tipped on its side, as a bench in the kitchen. Every family we knew had one, but they must last forever, because I never saw a new one. They were all beaten and dinged, and I imagine they must be able to tell some great stories.

Boletes! Cepes! Porcini!

/ Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

2016-02-05 18.22.23 smIt’s that time of year again. A little rain last week, and we’ve got porcini mushrooms (aka Cepes, Boletus edulis), collected from a location that will remain undisclosed, lest others beat us to them.

The wonderful, earthy flavour of these wild mushrooms makes any dish special. Bored with the “usual” meals, I decided to make Friday’s dinner a Fun Friday sort of meal.

2016-02-05 18.28.40 smInspired by the mushroom packets in Yotam Ottolenghi’s book Plenty, I put together these divine little parcels that turned dinner into Christmas morning.

 

The following quantities made nine packets.

 

600 g small boiling potatoes, cooked

500 g fresh green beans,

125 g fresh oyster mushrooms

1 medium fresh porcini mushroom

½ cup chopped cutting celery

½ cup chopped fresh parsley

¼ cup chopped fresh oregano

1 Tbsp chopped fresh thyme

½ cup olive oil

1/3 cup half and half

Salt and black pepper to taste

 

Chop the vegetables and mushrooms into small cubes. Gently mix all ingredients in a large bowl. Place portions of the mix in the centre of large squares of baking parchment. Scrunch up the edges of the parchment and tie with cotton string. Place parcels on a baking sheet.

Bake at 200˚C (400˚F) for 20 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to sit for a minute before serving.