Rosemary

July 25, 2015 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

In Minnesota, I grew rosemary in pots and brought it indoors for the winter, lest it be killed by the cold. Here in New Zealand, I grow my rosemary in the garden, and have to hack it back twice a year to keep it from growing taller than I am.

Rosemary is one of my favourite herbs, whether in dinner, in the garden, or in a flower arrangement. It is decorative as well as delicious.

Rosemary was named by Pliny in the first century. Ros (foam) mare (sea)—meaning that it grew so close to the sea that the foam sprayed on it. The Greek gods supposedly valued a rosemary wreath more highly than one made of gold (think how much I could make selling my biennial rosemary trimmings to Zeus!).

Rosemary was first used medicinally and culturally. It entered the kitchen in the Middle ages as a way to disguise the saltiness of salt-preserved meat. I’m told it goes well with lamb, pork, and game. As a vegetarian, I like rosemary with potatoes, pumpkin, and in Italian tomato sauces. And I love to brush the bushes with my hands as I walk past, so I can bring that lovely smell with me wherever I go!

Lentils

July 21, 2015 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

Ever since our stint in the Peace Corps, we’ve eaten lentils at least once a week, often several times. Lentils and rice was a staple meal in Panama, and it has since become a comfort food. And since lentils feature in many cuisines, they find their way to our table in many guises.

As a gardener, I found lentils intriguing. They show up in none of the seed catalogues, yet they can be grown in a wide range of conditions and locations. The two biggest lentil producing countries are Canada and India. If they grow in these disparate climates, surely I could grow them here!

With this in mind, a couple of years ago, I took a handful of lentils purchased at the grocery store and tested their germination—100%. Hooray! I was in business! I planted two types of lentils—brown and French green—at the same time I planted my beans. They sprouted well and grew vigorously. Their feathery leaves were a beautiful and intriguing addition to the garden. Patiently I watched them grow, flower, and set seed.

When the plants died back and the seed pods dried, I harvested whole plants, laden with pods.

Then I discovered why home gardeners don’t grow lentils.

Each pod contained only one or two seeds. If the plants were sufficiently dry, many of the seeds could be extracted from the pod by rubbing the plant between my hands. But even dry, a lot of seeds had to be picked individually out of the pod. And rubbing the dry plant left a lot of chaff mixed into the lentils. The chaff and the lentils were about the same weight, so blowing the chaff off also blew off many of the lentils.

After hours of painstaking work, I had enough lentils for, maybe, two meals. From the same garden space, and for a lot less work, I could have produced a year’s worth of dry beans.

I don’t regret growing lentils, and I’m pleased to know I can grow them. I’m also quite content to let someone else grow them (and harvest them mechanically) for me.

Wedding Bowls

July 19, 2015 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

Twenty-three years ago, when Ian and I got married, a whole lot of people gave us gifts. Most of those gifts were kitchen items. In addition to pots, pans, and knives, we acquired 23 bowls that day–ceramic mixing bowls, stainless steel mixing bowls, hand-blown glass serving bowls, artistic pottery bowls, wooden bowls… You name it, we got it.

We could have broken one a year for every year of our marriage so far. But most of those bowls are still with us, 23 years later. All are well-used, and remind us even now of the people who gave them to us all those years ago.

So, thanks everyone! Our wedding bowls ring daily!

Fakin’ Bacon

July 15, 2015 / Robinne Weiss / 1 Comment

For many years we resisted the vegetarian meat substitutes. TVP always tasted like tough cardboard to me, and I’d never had a vegetarian sausage that I wanted to finish eating. Besides, who really needed meat anyway with all the variety in the vegetable world? To try to get a meat fix by eating some highly processed vegetable just didn’t seem right.

But after a trip to China, where the art of meat substitutes is, apparently truly an art (they go to great lengths to make the substitute taste, feel, and even look like the real deal (down to gristle, and skin), Ian decided he wanted to try making some of those substitutes, just for the fun of it. The gluten-phobic should probably read no further, because these meat substitutes use wheat protein (gluten) to replace the meat protein.

I was highly suspicious, as Ian worked with the stretchy, slimy mass of gluten, and still wasn’t sure, even once the fake meat was made and ready to be prepared for a meal. But to my surprise, I ended up quite enjoying the stuff.

What we found was that preparing these meat substitutes makes all the difference in whether they are good or revolting. The mock duck he made was great when fried and served in flavourful oriental dishes, but took on the texture of a gumboot when boiled in a stew. The bacon was delicious, but needed to be very thinly sliced and fried hot to get that crispy bacon texture.

I prefer the bacon over the mock duck–I find that greasy, salty, crunch irresistible. And as a bonus, the bacon fits nicely into the bread oven’s heat cycle, making use of the cool tail end, and eking yet another few meals out of a bread day’s labour.

You can find the vegetarian bacon recipe Ian uses here. Whether you’re vegetarian or not, it’s a fascinating food, and well worth trying at least once, just for the adventure.

Getting over the hump

July 13, 2015 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

I am not a knitter. People have been trying to teach me to knit since I was seven years old, to no avail. I’m very crafty in other ways. I weave, sew, quilt and embroider; I was once quite good at macramé (when macramé was “in”); I’ve done quilling and scherenschnitt, basketry and rug braiding, beading and jewellery making. I’m proficient at all these crafts and more, but put knitting needles in my hands, and suddenly I’m all thumbs.

But I’m also stubborn. When my mother tried to teach me to knit, and failed, I tried again. When the neighbour tried to teach me to knit, and failed, I tried again. When a friend tried to teach me to knit, and failed, I tried again. I bought Debbie Bliss’ book How to Knit, and forced myself to knit and unravel, knit and unravel, until I could manage to knit a row without dropping or adding stitches. It wasn’t pretty, and it was a stressful process. I’d finish a knitting session with a sore neck and tense muscles. I made myself a pair of slippers. Then I made another pair, and another, and another, and another. Six pairs of slippers later, I was thoroughly sick of slippers, and still struggled with knitting. I took a break…a ten month break. When I came back to knitting, I had to learn all over again. I tried out some different stitch patterns, attempted knitting in the round, and ended up unravelling most of my work.

Another year passed. My slippers wore out, and winter came. My feet were cold, so I tried knitting again. I had to pull out the knitting book in order to remember even the basic stitches.

But something had changed. After the first clumsy rows, I began to relax. The stitches came naturally. My fingers didn’t cramp. I finished the first slipper in a day. I was over the hump.

As parents, my husband and I regularly have to push our children to get over that hump. Learning a new skill is hard work, and there are precious few rewards at the beginning. Playing the piano, there are many wrong notes, and the songs sound clunky, the rhythm erratic. Making pastry, there could easily be half a dozen dense, oily lumps before the first magical, flaky crust. Juggling, there are a lot of balls rolling away on the floor before they soar effortlessly from hand to hand.

For some skills, the hump is low, and easily surmounted. For others, that hump is like a steep mountain with no breathtaking views until the very top. As a parent, one of my jobs is to push the kids to get over those mountains and not quit before a new skill becomes fun. It doesn’t mean becoming a tiger mom, but it does mean enforcing some discipline in kids who may not want to practice their instrument, because it’s a struggle, and they know they sound awful. It means asking the kids to help prepare dinner, and patiently encouraging them as they slowly and unevenly slice the carrots or mix the dough. It means cheering on the child who comes last in the race, and running alongside her as she prepares for the next one.

Hopefully, if we do our job right, the kids will be able to push themselves over those humps on their own one day.

They might even learn to knit.

Paneer

July 12, 2015 / Robinne Weiss / 1 Comment

This is such an easy, wonderful cheese to make, that even without a ready supply of fresh goat milk, I’d keep making this cheese.

Paneer is used largely in Indian cooking, though I’ve been known to throw it into oriental stir fries where it takes the place of tofu. No matter where you use it, it gets lovely crispy edges when it fries, and it soaks up spicy flavours.

Paneer takes almost no time to make (in cheese terms, anyway), and requires no special equipment or cultures. As a friend of a friend once said, “Paneer is very dangerous.” Too easy to make and too good to resist! Give it a go!

1 gal whole milk

2 tsp citric acid, dissolved in ¾ c. hot water OR ½ c. fresh lemon juice

Heat the milk on high to a foaming boil, stirring constantly to avoid scorching. Turn the heat down to low and quickly add the citric acid solution, stirring very gently. The milk should curdle almost instantly. (If it doesn’t, add a little more acid). As soon as the milk has curdled, remove it from the heat, and let it sit, covered, for 10 minutes. Spoon the curd gently into a colander lined with cheesecloth (3 layers if you’re using “cheese cloth”, 1 layer if you’re using butter muslin (known here as baby muslin; you can also just use a clean handkerchief). Once the large chunks have been transferred to the colander, gently pour the rest of the liquid and curds into the colander. Pull up the corners of the cloth and twist gently. Hold the bundle under lukewarm running water for 10 seconds, then hang to drain for 3-4 hours. To speed up the draining, you can press the cheese under a light weight (put a small plate or saucer on top of the cheese to spread the weight evenly; I use a 2 litre bottle of water) for 1 ½ hours. Refrigerate until you’re ready to use it; use within 3 days.

*When it comes time to cook paneer, most recipes say to fry it. If you don’t use a non-stick pan, the paneer will stick and fall apart. If you do use a non-stick pan, the paneer will sputter and spit hot oil everywhere. I avoid both by baking it on a lightly oiled non-stick baking tray in a hot (230°C/450°F) oven until it is nicely browned.

Pumpkin Ravioli

July 8, 2015 / Robinne Weiss / 1 Comment

Ravioli slicer/sealer

With a scratchy throat and the sniffles, I was thinking about easy dinners for this evening. I baked up some pumpkins mid-afternoon, and asked the kids what they thought I should do with them for dinner.

“Pumpkin ravioli!” was the enthusiastic response. I had to admit, it sounded like a great idea, in spite of my lingering cold.

“If you’ll help, I’ll make ravioli.”

And so my daughter and I made ravioli together. Pumpkin ravioli has traditionally been one of those once-a-year meals that I swear I’ll never make again every time. The ravioli takes forever to make, then explodes when it is boiled. I’ve used a ravioli maker with little wells in it, I’ve cut my ravioli with a biscuit cutter and sealed it with my fingers, I’ve cut it with a knife and sealed it with a fork. Doesn’t matter, it takes forever to make and falls apart in the water.

This time, I used a ravioli cutter/sealer my in-laws gave us for Christmas. Used like a pizza cutter, it rolls along, sealing the edges and cutting the ravioli apart in one quick motion. I was dubious, and I explained to my daughter that “this probably won’t work, and we might end up having to just make pasta noodles and use our filling as a sauce.”

Much to my surprise and delight, the little cutter did a brilliant job! I’ve never had ravioli go so quickly (even in spite of the fact the power went out half way through dinner preparation)—we rolled out big sheets of dough, dolloped them with filling, topped them with a second sheet, and ran the cutter along the edges. Slick as…

And the taste? We topped it with a sauce of butter, garlic, rosemary, sage, and dried tomatoes. Fresh Parmesan cheese grated onto it at the table, and it was absolutely divine!

Unfortunately, with the power out, I got no photographs of the finished ravioli, but we had a delightful candlelight dinner—quite appropriate for glorious homemade pasta.

Leftover Soup

July 7, 2015 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

There could be anything in here…

It always happens. At some point in winter, we start to see the end of the vegetables. Winter’s vegetables lose their fight against the cold and rain. The remaining potatoes are small and beginning to sprout, the pumpkins are nearly gone, as are the onions. The garlic is sprouting. The frozen and canned vegetables are harder to find, requiring rummaging around in the freezer or cupboard. There are still vegetables to eat, but we can start to see the bottom of the barrel.

At that point, leftovers from dinner stop going to the chickens. We keep an ice cream tub in the fridge, and leftovers go there instead. When the ice cream tub is full, we have enough for leftover soup.

Leftover soup is always a surprise. Indian food mixes with Italian food. Tomato sauce might mix with a Béchamel. Doesn’t matter what it is, it goes in. Add a little water, maybe make some savoury muffins to have with it, and ‘voila’! A dinner that doesn’t deplete the remaining stores from summer. And, usually, it’s not half bad, either! It usually takes us a week to build up enough leftovers for soup, and we’ll often time a leftover soup night for Friday. An easy dinner, then a family movie is a great way to kick off the weekend!

Half Way!

July 2, 2015 / Robinne Weiss / 3 Comments

I have reached the halfway point—half way through my 365 Days of Food blogging challenge. So far, except for technical difficulties, I have not missed a day.

It has been an interesting journey from a writing standpoint, and I still feel as though I’ve not begun to exhaust my ideas around food. Winter, I will admit, is tough because there is little to do in the garden, and our diet tends to shrink to a few ingredients that store well. But invariably, every day brings something blog-worthy.

This morning, I took two friends to the airport for their trip home to the US. We spent the past week travelling, talking, and eating…and often talking about travelling and talking about eating. It was good to talk to them about food and our relationship with food. They asked probing questions that forced me to verbalise some of my thoughts about food that I have not really discussed with anyone before. Their reactions to my food and lifestyle choices made me reassess and appreciate anew the value of those choices.

I’m sure those discussions and new perspectives will make their way into this blog over the next days, weeks and months, and I suspect that when I reach the end of my blogging Food Year there will still be more to be said. So pour yourself a glass of wine and settle in!

Potato Soup

June 27, 2015June 26, 2015 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

Potato soup is one of those comfort foods. A winter warmer that takes the chill off even the coldest day.

I grew up eating my mother’s delicious potato chowder, with milk and hard boiled eggs, but my potato soup repertoire has expanded since then, and I’ve tried many variations on the theme.

One my favourites has become this shockingly simple potato leek soup. It’s simplicity belies its rich, satisfying flavours.

1kg potatoes

4 large leeks

3 Tbsp butter

¾ tsp salt

Salt and pepper to taste

Slice the white part of the leeks as thinly as possible. In a large pot, sauté the leeks very gently in the butter until they are golden. Peel the potatoes and slice as thin as possible (We use our mandolin on the thin setting. You could use a food processor, or slice them by hand, too). Put the potatoes into the pot along with the salt, and add just enough water to cover. Bring to a boil and cook until all the potato slices are soft, and some are disintegrating. Adjust salt and season with black pepper to taste.

*If you like potato skins, as I do, you can leave the skins on, but peel off several strips of skin from each potato. Otherwise the skins will slip off the thin slices in long rings and make your soup stringy.