Kitchen Garden

When we moved into this house in 1999 there was a small flower bed next to the back door, right outside the kitchen. Garden-starved after several years of city apartments and patio containers, I knew immediately it would be my kitchen garden. I'm not sure where I first heard the phrase "kitchen garden," but I loved the idea of fresh herbs right outside the kitchen door. 

Making that patch of dirt a little bigger was one of my first tasks in the new house, and over the years I've always grown herbs there, along with a few non-edible plants that have sneaked their way in. That black-eyed susan in the background was a gift for Tom's first father's day 10 years ago. I transplant new offshoots out of the bed every year and we now have a dozen of those black-eyed susans around the yard. 

In the picture above, you can see thai basil, tarragon (hidden behind the basil), thyme, cilantro, marjoram, parsley, chives. Pots on the stand tucked behind the fountain contain rosemary, oregano and sage. 


I took this photo just a few days ago and with the hot weather already the cilantro is thinking about going to seed. I'll have to make sure I snip off any seedy parts to try to keep the yummy green leaves as long as possible. But here's a tip about cilantro: you pretty much have to plan to start a new plant every six weeks. I have some seeds sprouting in the kitchen window now. I used to think I was doing something wrong, but apparently cilantro has no staying power in this zone. In a month this plant will be spikey and seedy no matter what I do to it. 

oregano

I was able to overwinter my oregano this last year in the kitchen. It sort of went dormant and then turned into this gorgeous green fountain as the days got longer in March. I used some in yesterday's vegetarian chili. As with all fresh herbs, the flavors are not as strong as dried, especially in a slow-cooked dish. So I used some of each.

thyme

Thyme is perennial, and I had some creeping thyme in this spot for about 5 years but it didn't make it through last winter. The replacement plant from the conservatory sale looks good so far!

marjoram 

I adore marjoram and have no idea how other people get by without it. The flavor is something like a sweet, mild oregano. It seems to add richness and flavor (for example, to salad dressings or broths) without having that distinctive Italian-pizza association. It is also perennial, at least in this sheltered bed, and spreads (although slowly.) I like the wonderful pale green color. 

This is sorrel, new to the garden this year. I thought it was pretty but apparently it can be used in salads too.
It's supposed to get fairly large (if whatever is nibbling on it will leave it alone!)

 

We grow regular basil and chili peppers in the vegetable garden, as well as chives and green onion. Some dill is coming up from seed as well. The best thing about cooking during the warm-weather months is being able to go out the door (or send a child into the garden) to pick fresh, flavorful herbs. 

Do you have a kitchen garden or windowsill herb garden? What's in it?

Stuff My Kid Can Cook

It was one of those weekends where no one had been grocery shopping yet, during the Lenten time of food discontent when nothing fresh is in season and even new curries and chiles fail to inspire. 

“What should we make for dinner?” “I don’t know, what do you want?” [pause] “no, really, what should we make for dinner?” (are we the only ones who do this? No, don’t tell me.)

I looked at the ten-year-old. “What should we have for dinner?” And he said “I’ll cook dinner, no problem."

And he did. He looked at what we had in the pantry and refrigerator (not much), and thumbed through a couple of books, and found a recipe I’d never noticed before in the Betty Crocker cookbook. And then he followed the recipe and made it. And it was good. 

Thus, a page was turned and another seat-of-pants cook was born into the house of Stuff My Kids Will Eat.

Refried Bean Bake

from Betty Crocker’s Cookbook, 1986 edition

1 can (17 oz) refried beans [James used vegetarian]

1 medium onion, finely chopped

4 eggs

1 ½ cups grated cheddar cheese (6 oz)

1 teaspoon chili powder

1/8 tsp. garlic powder

1 jar (12 oz) Mexican salsa

Mix beans, onion, green pepper, eggs, ¾ cup of the cheese, the chili powder and garlic powder. [I’d whisk the eggs first although the recipe didn’t specify this] Pour into ungreased square pan, 9 x 9 x 2 inches. Sprinkle with remaining cheese. Bake uncovered in 350 degree oven until hot and firm, about 30 minutes. Heat salsa, stirring occasionally, until hot; serve with beans [James chose to spread the salsa on top of the casserole.] 8 servings, 190 calories each. 

James also provided green onions and cilantro garnish.

Omnivore's Dilemma. Solution by Boxty

"I hate St. Patrick's Day dinner. Dad makes corned beef and the only thing for me to eat is boiled cabbage." You know, the vegetarian kid has a point - boiled cabbage, potatoes and carrots are pretty unexciting when you're 10. What's an omnivorous dad to do? Answer: Boxty. 

 

I have to admit, it livened up the traditional meal in a way a boiled potato never has. Next year - colcannon?

Boxty

1 part mashed potatoes

1 part grated raw potatoes

1 part flour

1 egg

salt and pepper

A little milk

[Tom says a "part" is a half pound or about 2 cups.] Mix all ingredients. Form into patties. Fry in oil until nicely browned. Serve with vinegar and/or sour cream to happy children.

 

Mardi Gras Red Beans and Rice (vegetarian)

I’m kind of food-holiday agnostic, or maybe the opposite (whatever that word would be), since I’ll glom onto anybody else’s yummy holiday tradition. This morning we made our usual pilgrimage to the Oak Park Bakery for paczki doughnuts.

For dinner Tom took us to the bayou, vegetarian style, with his red beans and rice. It’s a simple dish, but I love the piquant sauce and the creamy, well-cooked beans. The boys like it garnished with sour cream.

I swear this was better than it looks in this photo!

There will be more paczki for dessert. We've got party beads. Bring it on, March. We’re fortified for your bluster now.

Red Beans and Rice
(Tom gives a nod to the heavily-adapted Frugal Gourmet Cooks American recipe he started with)


2 cans red beans, drained and rinsed
Olive or vegetable oil for sauteeing
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
1 bunch green onions, chopped (or substitute more onion)
7 gloves garlic, minced
About ½ cup of red wine (or water) for deglazing
3-4 ribs celery, chopped
14 oz. can of diced tomatoes
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon Tabasco sauce
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon thyme
Salt and pepper to taste

In a heavy saucepan, dutch oven, or large skillet, sauté onion, peppers and celery until soft and starting to brown. Add garlic and green onion and continue to cook until mixture is starting to get quite brown (for flavor – don’t let the garlic burn, though.) Deglaze pan with wine or water. Add all other ingredients. Cover and cook on low or medium low for at least an hour. Remove bay leaf. Using a potato masher or back of large spoon, mash about half of the beans. Mix beans. Serve over rice. (serves 4)

Mmm, slow cooker. Mmm, Indian food

Life got in the way of blogging these past couple of weeks. Apologies! 

February is Cheap Eats month at Stuff My Kids Will Eat, but clearly even if I’d been keeping up, a 28-day month is not enough time to do justice to Cheap Eats, and boy, do I have lots of “stuff” to share. So, let's call it Cheap Eats Late-Winter. We’ll do what our agrarian ancestors did and keep up the cheap eating until it’s time to, I don’t know, slaughter the Easter ham and/or tofu block. 

One goal I have (and have been avoiding mightily) is to figure out how to budget and plan for a whole week of dinner menus. It sounds frighteningly planful. More on that soon.

In the midst of all the blizzarding and budgeting, an amazing new cookbook came into my life and became an obsession, thanks to friend Molly, who mentioned the Indian Slow Cooker Spice Tour on facebook (To which I said, Indian? Slow Cooker? Devon Avenue? YES!) 

Anupy Singla is the local author of The Indian Slow Cooker. We joined her for a fun and informative shopping spree followed by a yummy, inexpensive lunch at  Annapurna. Then I came home with all of my lentils, spices, seeds, and yes, curry leaves – at last! – and cooked until my kids started to wonder what was going on (“mom, I like Indian food, but are you ever going to cook any other kind again?”)

Spiced [meatless] Crumbles with Peas (p.116)

The book is gorgeously photographed and includes useful information on the basic spices used in Indian cooking. It’s great for anyone starting out with this cuisine, and for anyone looking for new uses for the slow cooker.  Anupy includes a lot of vegetarian recipes in here, which is great for me because finding vegetarian slow cooker recipes of any kind is pretty difficult. One note of warning – as Anupy told me, the “heat” in these recipes is the authentic style. If cooking for kids, you may want to be cautious with the chili powder and fresh chiles. 

You can buy paneer on Devon Ave. Also, this whole wheat roti.
p. 96, Anupy's Curried Spinach with Homemade cheese.
The dish at left top is a Sambhar vegetable and lentil curry (not slow-cooked)

If you’re in Chicagoland, check out Anupy’s website for cooking classes and spice tour dates – she does the spice tour every month. Did I mention that’s she’s super fun and friendly, too?

Our group

I learn about lentils

Fun with Legumes

My husband enjoys cooking for adventure. He’s an explorer of flavor, ascending new culinary terrain "because it's there." Or just to say “I did that once.” (ahem, haggis). 

I don't cook for adventure, but there is definitely an emotional satisfaction in being the kitchen. As I stewed and stirred last week during our blizzard snow days, I felt a connection with people in other times and places who have cozied up in a steamy, fragrant kitchen on a cold winter day.  I like the feeling that I'm just another link in generations of cooks creating comfort food across continents and centuries: a legume, a grain, some root vegetables, dried fruit or canned tomatoes, local seasonings and time over the fire.

Here are three of the dishes our family enjoyed during the recent blizzard season. Most of the ingredients are things that can be kept on-hand in the pantry, and these are cheap, hearty foods. I don't think any of these cost more than $5 to make.

Lentil Soup
You knew there would be a lentil soup during Cheap Eats month, right? I am still looking for the perfect lentil soup recipe, but this is pretty good, and pretty easy. At this point this soup is a “whatever I have and what I’m in the mood to throw in” recipe, but I have to give credit to the Daily Soup Cookbook which (as it often does) provided the original recipe that I've tweaked over time.

1 head roasted garlic, cooled, skinned and pureed.

wrap whole head of garlic in foil. Roast in oven for 20 minutes until tender. Allow to cool. Peel and puree in food processor (or with immersion blender – doesn’t work as well, but I hate washing the food processor.)

Butter or oil, about 2 Tblsp. (note: you need the richness of some kind of oil or butter for the lentils – don’t skimp)

1 onion chopped

2 celery stalks, chopped

2 carrots, peeled and chopped

1 tsp. rosemary

1 tsp. thyme

2 bay leaves
1 bag (1 lb) lentils, rinsed and inspected. (I use regular brown lentils as found in the grocery store)

Salt and pepper

8 cups vegetable stock, or water + stock, or water and Penzey’s vegetable soup base, or just plain water

1 large (28 oz.) can whole tomatoes that you have drained and diced.

½ -1 small can tomato paste

1-2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar or fresh lemon juice

(optional) fresh parsley for garnish

In a stock pot or big sauce pan, saute the onion, celery and carrots for about 5 minutes until starting to get tender. 

Add the spices and stir.

Add the bay leaves, lentils, stock or water, tomatoes and tomato paste. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and cover (leave lid slightly ajar or use a vented lid.)

Simmer for 1 hour. Check and add liquid if needed during the last half of cooking time.

At the end of cooking, add the roasted garlic and cook for a few minutes to blend flavor. 

Right before serving, add the vinegar or lemon and taste. Add more vinegar or lemon if needed. Garnish bowls with parsley if you like.

I like the heartiness of lentils a lot, and my kids like them too, but I find them to be kind of a one-note flavor, which is what the vinegar or lemon is for - to punch it up a little. Because the garlic and vegetables add sweetness, you will probably want to add salt at the table, and you should also put out vinegar and hot sauce for serving.

Serves 8

Curried Yellow Split Peas

I am going to be experimenting with yellow split peas in dahl more often – the flavor is rich, different from lentils. 

When the kids are underfoot and asking when dinner is, it's hard to get a decent photo!
It was delicious - much better than it looks here.

I followed this recipe from Viet World Kitchen http://www.vietworldkitchen.com/blog/2011/01/basic-yellow-split-pea-dal-recipe.html pretty closely, except that I left out the cayenne for the kids. We ate the dal with naan that I had in the freezer.

Arroz con Gandules (Pigeon Peas and Rice)

Halfway around the world again, back to the Americas and Puerto Rico. My friend David encouraged me to look for a pigeon peas and rice recipe when I was first exploring the world of legumes. It was the comfort food of his childhood, and I can see why – pigeon peas are a really yummy and easy ingredient to work with. 

Traditionally, this dish has ham or another smoky meat and I haven’t really tried to sub that. I feel like it has quite a bit of flavor without it.

1 tablespoon olive oil

¾ cup sofrito. You can buy sofrito (which looks to me like what I call “fresh salsa”) but I just make it by mixing:

Roma tomato, diced small

White onion, diced small

Bell pepper (green and/or red)

Fresh cilantro

(optional) fresh chile pepper (such as jalapeno, Serrano), chopped very fine

Salt and pepper

2 cups white rice (I haven’t tried brown, but you could use it – increase the water and cooking time.)

4 cups water

1 packet Sazón Goya, Sazón with Coriander and Annatto* (or, substitute seasoning of your choice – salt, pepper, garlic powder, and mild paprika is what I've used.)

1 15-ounce can Pigeon Peas (drained and rinsed)

               

*I confess: I used the MSG-containing Sazon this time. We had it in the house, and wow, it really does add that umami fullness to the flavor. If your kids, like mine, want the orange color, it is just annatto, which is a natural food coloring made from achiote seeds and you can buy it as a spice.

Heat olive oil in roomy skillet (I used a 10” cast iron frying pan).

Saute the sofrito briefly.

Add the rice, water, sazon and pigeon peas

Bring to a boil. Cover tightly and reduce heat to low. Cook for about 35-45 minutes, checking and adding water if needed, until rice is cooked and peas are soft. Serves 4.

Snow Ice Cream

It’s Cheap Eats February, and what better way to start the month than with a blizzard, a snow day, and a treat that falls out of the sky? This recipe for snow ice cream from friend and snow day parent Teresa S. is surprisingly delicious! 

We collected show in a clean 30 gallon tub overnight and didn’t get to ice cream until a little later in the day, so I think our snow was a little more dense than the snow used in the original recipe. We used 8 cups of snow, and halved the rest of the ingredients in the recipe below. It made enough for 4 generous bowls of ice cream and another serving or two in the freezer.

I’m sure there are all kinds of health reasons you should not eat ice cream made of snow – even perfectly fresh snow. So don’t try this at home, or if you do, for goodness sake don’t blame me (end disclaimer).

Enjoy!

 

Snow Ice Cream

24 cups of fresh snow

1 cup of sugar

1-1/2 cup milk

1 Tbs. vanilla

1 can sweetened condensed milk

Mix all ingredients thoroughly and enjoy! Freeze leftovers

Makes 8 cups