stores well on counter

Ever have a butternut squash on your counter for a month before using it?

How about two months?

Three?

Four maybe?

If the answer is four then you win because I was tired of the one on mine after a mere 3 months of taking up space and collecting flour and other dust. Besides, it finally had a slightly puckered look around the stem end, so I put the steel to a big knife and did something about it. First stop: vegan calzone.

Start with the secret ingredient for super-hella bomb big taste, every time. Can you say carmelized onions? They act like sauce AND filling at the same time when forgoing the cheese. Add some thinly sliced mushrooms, a pinch of garam masala and some old-ass winter squash and you're in business! (Please bake on a pre-heated stone and make sure the dough or mushrooms aren't as old as the squash and this will come out great.....)

And now for the onion segue to our second stop.....

Why is it we only buy the bulby round part of the onion plant? Why don't we use more? Probably because we are no longer growing them regularly in our own yards. You see, when onions are getting big and mature, like a lot of other plants they wanna bloom. Since you're typically only after eating the bulb part, the bloom stem or "scape" is of no use and is generally cut off and discarded. I've seen garlic scapes bundled together and sold at the BFM, so why not use onion ones? Since we have twenty or so torpedo onions out front currently 'scaped, I figured it was time for a little experimenting. We ventured out and I hacked off a few while my daughter snapped the picture. Now, actually cooking with them. Hmmm, let's see.........

How about adding freshly chopped onion greens to pan browned beef and then smothering in a nice tomatillo sauce? Yeah, when I first thought of it, it sounded good to me too. It just had to happen. Now we're getting somewhere! Let's get on to the Second stop: butternut verde.

I looked at the remaining two-thirds of the ancient, now decapitated looking gourd. Grown and harvested by my father in-law back in October, sitting with it's own kind and some larger pumpkins in his barn on a wooden pallet for a few months, then transferred to my counter for another three, only then, or more really two days since I cut the stemmy portion off and used it.....(gasping for air) it was time to finish off this winter squash from hell.

Big, somewhat dry chunks of butternut went in beside our last little harvest of potatoes from the yard, pulled the week before. It made me very happy to be using up the rest of these foodstuffs before they turned to compost on the counter. I tasted the concoction and it needed adjusting, so I tossed in a touch of sugar to cut the acid and bitterness from the green sauce and let it begin simmering until all was nice and tender. I got my rice going and contemplated making a hollandaise sauce.

Well, maybe no sauce for the spears (as we'd had with our second round of asparagus this season) but plated up, I still think it looked good. More importantly though, the beef chile verde with butternut and potatoes had enough kick to accompany the homebrew IPA rather nicely.

Oh, and the squash from hell lives no more.......

Welp, I guess that's it, so remember, like, Everyday is Earth Day man!

the tao of food

When people see some things as beautiful,
other things become ugly
When people see some things are good,
other things become bad



Sometimes, you just have to go with the flow. For me, that means doing what the monkey loves best and taking a ferry ride every few weeks to the aquarium. And doing this on a Tuesday morning means hitting the market, because you always need a snack. Or maybe two. One spicy dry chorizo, tub of mozzarella balls and loaf of bread later, plus a bag of produce, we were on our way.

With our friends and goodies all collected, we crossed the embarcadero to catch the streetcar. Over on the platform, sitting on the ground near the bench was some cowgirl's bag with a pretty little wedge of cheese in it. This sounded intriguing. I'd never had Tome au Dauphine, and a receipt showing its purchase some 45 minutes earlier made us think twice about leaving it by its lonesome self out in the cold. We picked it up, reasoning that some poor soul would be having a cheese-free lunch, and boarded the next car contemplating our next move. Hmmm. Street cheese. Might want to down-play this one, so as to not encourage the monkeys from harvesting food from the street. K and I discussed whether we would really consume it later.

The car slowly pulled up to the next intersection. While we were waiting, I realized I had left our bag of groceries and snacks behind, near the cheese finding location. We asked to get off and walked back the few hundred feet, reserved that the train would pull away any second. I saw my bag, grasping it with relief and looking down the tracks for the next car. Nothing. We looked back at the car we just departed a moment before and saw it reamining still despite a green light. We made a run for it. The driver opened the door, then stood in the doorway looking around the next turn in the track at a broken down car ahead of us. A bizarre sense of fate came to mind, but we were happy to have re-boarded, with our freebie cheese and groceries now safely tucked in our backpack.

With the broken car quickly removed, our ancient Italian thing with slick seats rambled on. The varnished wooden benches have nearly nothing to hold on to. Very easy to fly from if you're little and not used to these things. A parent can only warn of this happening so many times before it actually does. On one of the next green lights the car jerked forward and I felt the monkey's hand leave my knee suddenly. I looked to my left and found her four feet away and on the floor, facing backwards. She landed like a little cat, with back arched and upright. If she had a tail, it would have been quivering no doubt. I'm pretty sure I saw some back fur standing up though.

Blemish free and no worse for the wear, she had an expression of bewilderment when I picked her up and dusted her off. Back on the seat, with her back in big city observation mode, I tried to slip in a reminder.
"Honey, you gotta hold on when the car starts and stops."
"Yeah, or you might drop your bread!"
"Well, yes honey, but you could hurt yourself real bad."
"Yeah, you could fall down and go BOOM!"
"Luckily you're just fine. Please pay more attention to holding on sweetie, these seats are slick!"

Nice priorities on that little one. Definitely my kid.
Go with the flow, I told myself, and rejoice when these lessons occur. Without injury that is. What had appeared to be a near disaster was now a bright spot in life's lessons. You gotta hold on, or your bread will be swept away in the current. Well, that and you just might smack your noggin.

Arriving without any more momentum lessons we stashed a stroller in the parking area and got down to some exploration. We saw the baby penguins and admired the fish, making sure to play in the bubble windows that allow you to feel like you are in the tanks. After burning out on watching critters, we went and horked down on cheese and bread. Upon opening the chorizo however, I was greeted with what looked like a fuzzy blanket over part of the casing. Drag. When some things are beautiful, other things become ugly, came to mind. I could eat some, maybe, but I wanted confirmation that this was normal before going any further. With the freebie cheese nearly off-setting the price of the fuzzy meat, I tried to go with the flow of food, reasoning that in the end it was a fair trade.

After lunch, we stood for a while at the models showing how the new academy is being built. As wondrous as the enormous under-construction tanks will be, I couldn't keep the possibly bad chorizo off my mind. Tired, amazed, and stuffed, we waddled out to the street and made our way back to the ferry.

Back at the ferry plaza, I returned to the site of the purchase to show them the quantity of mold involved and to ask if this was normal as I suspected. I really wanted confirmation of such. The counter help took one look and said "Oh, that's a good one. I mean, that's nothing compared to some. Some are really hairy looking, even black sometimes." I looked down and felt better about my sausage. We went and boarded the ferry, riding the waves back to the East Bay. It would take a few days to get to do anything else with the chorizo besides sample it, but that's just part of the flow of food when you have kids. I went with it, eagerly awaiting my opportunity.


The soft overcomes the hard.
The slow overcomes the fast.
Let your working remain a mystery.
Just show people the results.


On the next baking day, I ran the experiment. I set aside some of the herbed dough that went into these focaccia and rolls with the intent of making pizza. (The english muffins were also good, but not herbed.) I took out the ingredients on hand and started to whack, chop and mince. Into a pan they went, to sauté. Then: wait a second, if I'm cooking this now, the hard will become the soft and it would make a better filling wouldn't it? The flow, the flow! Calzone it is!

I fired up the oven with a pizza stone to about 500 degrees. This would be the slow overcoming the fast, as this takes upwards of an hour. With the calzones ready to go, I popped them in, as we needed some munchies to get us through the vigorous task of brewing before dinner. Eating requires something flow through the lips to aid digestion, so we had to open a few beers. Which is a good thing, for in order to make more beer, you have to drink some too. It's part of the flow.

During the initial stages of brewing, when we got around to eating the calzone, I just had to laugh. The chorizo was fantastic, the mushroom, onion and pepper combo divine. With garlic jack and an herbed crust the flavor topped out somwhere near hugemongous. I forgot completely about the fuzzy meat. Then remembering that I had forgotten, I began to wonder why I ever questioned eating it in the first place. I mean, why is a guy who eats moldy cheese he finds on the ground so concerned about moldy meat he buys from a reputable source of salumi? Yeah.......go figure. It all comes down to being in accordance with the tao. (Or in this case, not.) When you're flowing with it, and "free" food is coming your way, you're thankful and less discerning, allowing yourself to enjoy the experience more fully. When you're paying for it, you expect the absolute best and are quick to judge. I jumped into the tao of food and had another.



So maybe I showed too much of the workings there. And not enough of the results. Oh well, that's part of the flow too.



*excerpts taken from the Tao te Ching

now entering: the "goat zone"

I was at a friend's for lunch. Amongst no less than four kinds of meat was a largish, goaty, hunky portion of torso thing. It had some ribs and some type of leg socket something or other. When all was done, the remains of the remains ended up coming home with me. I wan't sure what I'd do with it, but if the past is a place to reflect upon and learn from, I'd have to guess that if all else fails I could stuff the stuff in sourdough. It was time for goat calzone, or goatzone, if you will.

So I went with the calzone triple combo: bell pepper, onion, mushroom and garlic. I know that's four, but garlic doesn't count. It's more like a spice. Or so I think somtimes. Like, now. With these items releasing their magic aroma, and fresh dough on the counter, it was no suprise that Rohan would show up. He has a calzone radar.

"Knock, knock."
"Hey whassup Ro?"
"Not much bro."
"No really, what's up......you in the hood and thought you'd drop by?"
"Yeah, that and the fine goat I could smell from 3 miles away."
"And what, you want some?"
"Like, yeah."
"So I guess this is gonna be another one of your lapses from that strict vegan diet?"
"Mmm hmm. What can I help with?"

So while I reeled at my cousin's unexplained and imminent "lapse," I was happy he offered to help. I asked him to go hit the garden to harvest out first lettuce of the year and get some herbs for the veggie fry. He scored a green onion, thyme and parsley. The herbs would go nicely with the goatzone and the onion would pair well with the avocado, carrots and lettuce after being smothered in a honey mustard dressing. Then I asked. I just had to, to find out what his twisted logic was this time.
"Are you really gonna eat meat again?"
"Yep."
"Because.......?"
"Because goat is the most widely distributed meat on the planet."
"Huh? Where the hell did you hear that one? Nevermind. That makes it good for a vegan how?"
"I don't know really, something about the least number of cultures being offended by the consuming of said creature. Let's talk more when our mouths are full and the beer is flowing, I'm bloody famished."
"Right. Uh, yeah. Me too."

We rolled out a few rounds, added some of the cubed up goaty remains, plopped down some veggie fry and topped it all with grated cheese. We played around with the proportions of filling a bit, knowing that the goat was smoked and thus quite a powerhouse of full flavor. I was afraid it might overpower the rest, so Ro suggested we make a few with just goat and cheese. I raised an eyebrow at these decidedly non-vegan items and received a curt "oh, sod-off would you?"
"This has nothing to do with grass Ro," I quipped.
""Would your readers rather I say fuck-off instead? I can do that."
Point taken.

After folding over the top and sealing the edges with a touch of water and a bit of crimping, I placed the ready ones on parchment paper. I cut a few slits in the tops so they wouldn't explode, pushed them in the oven, shut the door and prayed.
My pizza stone is a bit small like my oven, so we did three at a time. I believe one was all veggie and cheese, one goat and cheese, and another filled with all the ingredient options.

I just love what a nice hot 12x12 tile that costs under four bucks can do. In essence, if it's a high-fire tile (one where the heat involved not just dries the clay very well, but actually melts some of the material and allows mineralization to occur) the results are indistinguishable from a real pizza stone. (Which is just a high-fire tile in a different shape, maybe with a thicker or thinner profile, and costs like ten times more.)


We sat down to our calzone, served with the garden salad and some potatoes that I tossed with herbs, olive oil and salt, and baked while the oven was heating up the stone. It was smokey and fresh with a nice chew to the bread envelope.
"Man I love being in the zone!" Ro blurted out after his first bite.
"What, the meat zone?"
"No the goat zone."
"You mean goatzone?"
"No. Not goatzone like calzone, but two words like goat zone. Like the twilight zone, but tastier. Kinda like that episode where the lady goes in for an operation to look more normal. Only after, when they are taking off her bandages, they realize she still looks the same. She doesn't look like everyone else and so the doctors start discussing her options of going and living in a special community where others are like her, where she can live out a more normal life."
"Weren't the doctors all ugly like pigs though and she was actually beautiful?" I asked, failing to see the connection he was trying to make.
"Yeah, that's the one."
"And how is being in the goat zone like that one?"
"Well, I'm beautiful, unalterable, misunderstood, and being a goat eating vegan, destined for living on the fringe of society."
"I see."
"Is there any more beer?" we said in unison while reaching for the last goatzone.

Sorry Ro, I mean goat zone.

And thanks again for the "hunk" of goat Dr. Biggles. I'll be dropping a few goatzone off for lunch tomorrow, and then you can tell me about your experience in the "goat zone."

february was vegan abandon month

Yeah, I know. This post is coming out in March, but I need to document an experiment before it fades from memory.

My cousin Rohan dropped by last weekend after hitting the farmer's market. A strict vegan, he unloaded his veggies all over my counter and then said "ho, what have we here?" and presented me with two pounds of ground lamb.
"Damn, bloody hell Rohan, what gives with the meat?"
"Well, Ted had some good looking stuff and I was hungry for samosas."
"LAMB samosas? Are you running a fever of something? The last time I checked, lamb was still considered meat."
"But it's february."
"And......"
"And I eat some meat and a few sorts of carefully selected animal based items then."

His logic went something along the lines of this: being the shortest month of the year, if a vegan is going to "loosen" their restrictions for a bit, then it makes sense to have it be then. We were nursing beer while he pontificated on this one, and by the end of his diatribe I was grinding up a garam masala. At least he offered to do more than play with bread this time and set about making a dough for the samosas.
"Really, it's kinda like your grandma's pasta dough, but without the egg. You'll get the hang of it in no time."
While our dough was resting, he sauteed the lamb with an onion and potatoes, then finished it with peas. He showed me how to pack the dumplings and while assembling them, we began to fry them as we went.

They looked delicious and were well received by the mouths around. We all gorged on at least two, but had leftovers. Bummer. They might not be as crisp the next day, but tasty indeed. I immediately looked forward to waking up the next day. I fed my starter, and started thinking of what to add to my dough tomorrow. Rohan raised a brow at the prospect of bread, and begged to crash on the couch, promising to not snore too loudly, and even referring to making breakfast for us sometime before noon, if he should wake.

The following morning we had plenty of leftover meat filling, so Ro heated it in a pan and poured in some scrambled eggs. It was before noon, a two full hours in fact. I began thinking that maybe he should eat meat more often.
"What do you call this dish cousin? Samosa scramble?" I asked.
"Nah, Huevos Rohanos. Hey these eggs are nice and fresh amigo, did you get them at the tienda or the farm-mark?"
"Yeah fresh indeed, from Senor Velasquez at the Tuesday night. They're laid the day or two before I get them, can't beat it huh?
"No you can't. Hey did I ever tell you about the time a chicken laid an egg in my hand while I was holding it?"

Always one-upping me that guy; fuck he can be annoying sometimes......

Before the scramble, while he was getting his beauty rest, the monkey and I pounded out some sourdough, and shortly after breakfast, we punched it down for the first time.
"Hey can I run an experiment with some dough?" he wondered aloud.
"Sure, what'cha thinking? Calzones?"
"Whoa, how'd you guess?"
"We've made them together before Ro, remember?"
"Kinda, did we have a few beers?"
"I'm positive. Maybe even more than a few."
He sighed. "Oh yeah.......those were rippin'!"

We formed a few rounds and filled them with our meat filling and a bit of jack cheese, then folded them over and crimped the edges. Into the oven they went. When they came out, we did a side by side taste test with the samosas as the challenger. I included some hot mango chutney as a dip for my samosa and Rohan went with some hot pepper spread for his calzone. I suspected that he wouldn't hardly touch the spread, not for lack of taste, but distraction with the sourdough encasing the lamby, spiced filling and cheese.

We reflected on my latest reading adventures and started to pick apart our meal. The lamb was a touch "older" tasting as they tend to be this time of year at the ripe age of one or so. The potatoes were creamy and soft and complimented the green pop of the peas nicely. Our garam masala was just divine for this flavor pairing, and the construction of the samosas was a simple task to execute overall. The calzones were equally yummy and the sourdough had a nice chewy texture and strong flavor that went well with the seasoned lamb. Looking at the two side by side, I thought about how it represents my cousin and I. I'm thinner skinned and a bit crunchy on the outside. He's soft and doughy, but a bit sour. But we both have the same insides, even if his is a little.....cheesey.

I love my cousin dearly, even if he is a total quack. And with an ever-changing set of culinary restrictions, he is a hard man to pin down. I can't wait for our next adventure in californio indian cuisine. Until then, this is more or less what we did:

LAMB SAMOSAS

garam masala for this:
1 t cardamom seeds
1 T black peppercorns
2 t coriander seeds
1 t cumin seeds
1 t brown mustard seeds
6 cloves
1 stick cinnamon

grind into powder and store in a sealed container. this made about twice as much as needed for the meat filling.

lamb filling:
2 pounds ground lamb
1 pound russian fingerling potatoes
1 large yellow onion
1 cup frozen peas
garam masala powder
1/4 t turmeric

saute onion with about a tablespoon of the garam masala in hot oil. add lamb and continue to cook. add diced potatoes and cook until lamb is no longer pink anywhere. decide that it needs a bit of yellow stain for those creamy potatoes and add some staining powder. cover and lower the temp, checking every few minutes until the potatoes are tender. add peas, stir, replace cover and remove from heat. make dough while this is cooling some.

samosa dough:
1 c whole wheat flour
1 c all purpose flour
1/4 cup canola oil
about 1 c warm water
1 t salt

combine flours and salt with oil. begin mixing and start to add water to the dough a few tablespoons at a time until it starts to form a shaggy ball of sorts. knead for what seems like ten minutes and set aside to rest for a while. divide into 12 balls and begin rolling each into a flat disk. roll each disk into a cone, pack the hole with filling, fold over the "flap" and pinch the edges closed. the pot we fried these in would only hold two at a time, which worked out to be perfect as it took about as long to fry them as it took to construct two more. serve with your favorite hot style condiment and a large beer or two.

Should you feel adventurous and want to try the filling stuffed into a dough of sorts, go right ahead, you'll like it. Indian lamb calzones are really good. We were kinda pissed we only made two, as it necessitated us reverting back to childhood and fighting about who got the bigger one. We never really grow up do we? Especially with family around.

various breads from the past month

Can you say Death Valley? There is nothing like a fresh bread in the morning, especially when the backdrop is like this. This was looking East/Northeast from our camp at the southern end of Hidden Valley in mid October. The day before I made up a pizza dough and we went on a gnarly hike, returning a little too spent to have too much for dinner. The dough became a pizza the night before, and morning rolls the next. They were white and fluffy on the interior with a nice matured sour that blended well with the grated parmesan in the dough. Considering that we were about forty miles from any paved road, they were pretty damn good if I say so myself. In fact, a bit of starter has now made it on about half dozen camping trips and is becoming a nice way to bring some "home" out doors. My friend's mom would call it my zinger.





Whole wheat with soy flour based on sourdough. This became a plain baguette and a little something called sharkie bread (the San Jose Sharks need a new mascot, what better way to blend our food with sports?) It had a light coating of seeds and a few slashes to augment the overall shape. Too bad it didn't make it long enough to be intact for the photo shoot.

I had just pulled the various breads from the oven and I spotted her. Fae Fae the lover of meatballs. She is a kenyan bread hound and is therefore seldom from sight of the kitchen. She can be seen with a few experiments based on a whole wheat with rye flour dough, sourdough of course. The S-shaped loaf is a contorted baguette roll that is stuffed with a celery-onion-mushroom and blue cheese mixture. The calzone is the same mix, minus the cheese, with some meatball pieces and a touch of red sauce. And then there is the pizza. It had the above mix, plus the cheese and meatball. All of it turned out nice, but I think I liked the calzone the best.



The last two days were filled with bread so I couldn't decide which to have the next morning. So I toasted a piece of the onion-celery-mushroom with blue stuffed baguette and then slathered it with butter, and toasted a piece of the plain baguette and put rasberry jam on top. The blue cheese contrasting with alternate bites of rasberry was like doing culinary calisthetics from sweet to savory and back again only to be repeated several more times.




After several days of sourdough I was hankerin' for something else in the bread department. So I worked on it by deciding corn bread would do the trick. I went out and purchased some organic blue corn meal to go with the eggs from the farmers market and straus milk in the fridge. I just HAD to double the recipe, so it became a round dished loaf and some muffins. With melted butter it hit the spot. And just because that last one was a bit crooked, I thought I should end with another, but make it from DV for some kind of symmetry to this one......

navarathna korma with a side of alter-ego

In my dream our mortar and pestle was grinding away without me. It didn't need me to define it. It knew what its purpose was in life, so it merely performed it. It was calling out for a garam masala. It wanted hot and sweet and I had a recipe in mind......we have had Reedley produce still lying around so I got to work on a butternut and a few eggplant, and added tomatoes from our garden. Also a sweet potato that needed cooking. These were roasted on a pan in the oven at 400 for about an hour while I ground 1Tcardamom seeds, 1T black peppercorns, 3 sticks of cinnamon, 1t coriander, and 1t fennel. To this I added 1t ground cloves and called it good.
With the garam masala ready for takeoff I needed to work on some veggies to saute. Two huge onions were chopped, about 10 mushrooms, plus an inch or two of fresh ginger and cooked in olive oil. I added 1/2t chili powder and about 1/2 of my masala and stirred well. Next came a large can of diced tomatoes and some lentils I had boiled earlier. When the roasting veggies were done, they too were added, plus some diced carrots and frozen peas. Then a top for the pan was found and this concoction was put on the back burner for a while. I served this with pita and sticky white sushi rice, of all things, cause I was in the mood. It was very satisfyingly spiced and I derived great pleasure from the garam masala in particular.



The next day my cousin Rohan dropped by. Upon hearing of the leftover spices and veggie korma as well as the lingering butternuts, he suggested that we make some of his authentic Indian calzones......huh? Yeah, Cousin Rohan! Give him a beer and he can make anything!
We made up a half whole wheat sourdough and let it rise once before shaping into calzones. The filling consisted of roasted butternut combined with mushrooms, onions, garam masala, cumin and mustard seed, and a can of coconut milk. This was all cooked together for a while and then the sauce was reduced slightly, leaving what you see here. It ended up being enough for 4 huge calzones, which is good because Rohan is a big kid who can really pack em' down, especially after working up an appetite kneading dough.



After baking them for near half an hour at 400 degrees, we pulled out the leftovers and got to plating up. Rohan poured the stout and procured the chocolate dipped, candied ginger cashew biscotti, while I heated the korma and chose two of the pretty calzones to eat. We discussed the latest book he's been reading, once again drifting toward the merits of vegan eating, and how our geography no longer dictates our eating habits (as it once righftully did, in the not too distant past). We talked how this may be a boon for veggie-headed lovers that comes with sometimes conflicting problems of transport that can seem to negate the good you are trying to propagate by going organic with your selections........we thought these things until we realized that the beer was from a town kinda close. This made us feel so good about supporting our local brewers that we finished it off, reasoning that the need for more would contribute to the local self-sustaining market right here in the bay area.