What Do I Do With This? Dry Grains Edition

Bulgar Groats

If you've ever wandered past the produce section of a Whole Foods, you've probably noticed a million canisters of dried stuff.

Lentils, bulgar, barley, split peas... what do you do with them?

I have three words for you, food adventurers: Electric. Crock. Pot.

Here's the thing about this sort of dried good. You have to cook if for a long time in hot water if you want to make it both edible and delicious. And you know what cooks things for a long time in hot water?

Oh, crock pot, how I love you.

That's right- an electric slow cooker.

Now, I have to confess- I'm in love my slow cooker. Someday, if my husband is in a tragic accident and I'm widowed, I'll probably abandon any ideas of romantic love and simply declare my eternal affection for my Hamilton Beach 3-1.

In the meantime, I'm still just playing the slow cooker field. Someday I'll be picking up a few extra appliances- a mini slow cooker is definitely in the future. But that's not what we're talking about now.

Let's get back to the initial question, What do I do with this random bag of dried grains?

If you feel like experimenting with some of these delicious dry goods, grab your crock pot, and start with a few basic steps.

Black buluga lentils

Step one: mince and saute an onion. Add some spices- depending on what you're choosing as your compliment flavor, you'll want to choose different spices.  For pairing with mushrooms, I recommend thyme or even Worschester sauce in this flavor base. Cook it all together briefly, and then put it into the slow cooker.

Step two: pick a universally complimenting flavor. When you're experimenting, I recommend going for either mushrooms or beans. A can of chick peas or 12 oz of dried shiitakes go with pretty much everything. Don't know what slow cooked barley tastes like? Don't worry- if you like what shiitakes taste like. I guarantee  you won't hate whatever they taste like WITH bulgar. At this point, you could add meat as well. Beef, chicken, chorizo, or even TVP or soy. Again, you know the flavor- let it dominate the dried grains.

Step three: add broth. Six to eight cups will do it. And now add your experimental dried goods. One cup is a fine place to start, but I don't recommend putting in more than two. Expect your dried goods to double in size while cooking.

Barley

Step four: slow cook for six to eight hours. 

Step five: add greens, lemon juice, or spicy sauce. Again, go with what you know works. If you chose a black bean compliment, go for a spicy salsa. If you chose a more mellow flavor, you could add fresh spinach or chard. With chick peas, you could add tahini or lemon juice.

Step six: Add salt/pepper to taste.




Congratulations! You've invented a slow cooker soup!

Now feel free to invent another. My personal favorites? Brown lentils with chick peas, mushrooms with barley, pearl onions with black caviar lentils.

Look at that- it's soup!

Get experimenting! And enjoy your delicious soup inventions.

Makin' with the Marinara

Once upon a time, I believed that a well stocked pantry contained at least one bottle of pasta sauce.  You know, for those emergency, make-a-quick-dinner nights.

Now, I know the truth.  Those nights still happen, but all you really need is a can of tomato paste.  Because marinara sauce?  It's embarrassingly easy to make.  In fact, it's so easy to make that all sorts of non-chef type people like to sneak hints at how awesome their marinara sauce is whenever they can.

Which is why I learned to make marinara sauce, not from a cookbook or my mother, but from movies.

The first thing you need to know about marinara sauce is the very basic ingredients.  Tomato paste, olive oil, wine, and sugar.

From there, it's a matter of taste, experimentation, and preference.

So what do I consider my most basic marinara sauce?

First, the godfather of all film marinara sauce scenes, The Godfather.  Yup, if you've never seen it, I highly recommend it.  And if you want to see a murderous, middle aged man teach you to make spaghetti sauce in less than a minute, behold (and feel free to skip to :40):



Now, being a vegetarian, I tend to omit the sausages, but I do add all sorts of other things there.  The things that make a marinara sauce special.

From Heathers, "Lots of oregano."  I use a TON of oregano.

Garlic.  Because everything is better with garlic, no?

And, thanks to a marvelous scene from a mediocre movie called Bandits starring Billy Bob Thornton and Bruce Willis (it's actually kind of hilarious), a little saffron.

I also frequently add basil during the summer, and I'll throw in rosemary pretty often too.  The thing is, depending on what else you're cooking, you can sort of borrow flavors.  Rosemary roasted vegetables? A little rosemary in the sauce brings the whole meal together.  Serving it with a nice fresh salad?  Toss in some lemon juice.  Pairing with an onion-y soup?  Onions are good in marinara sauce.  Hell, anything is good in marinara sauce.

How certain am I of that?

Let's put it this way.  Once you've done it half a dozen times, you can make marinara in the same amount of time it takes to boil the pasta.  And in one of those holy-cow-let's-all-eat-now moments, I was tossing together my batch of marinara just this week.  Without checking bottles, I grabbed garlic and wine and threw everything onto the stove.  My first taste of the marinara blew my mind.

It was, without a doubt, the best marinara I had ever made.  But why?

I kept eating by the spoonful- what was making it so delicious?  What was that extra flavor?  And as I heard my husband mention the heaps of Christmas candy adorning our living room table, it hit me.

That flavor?  It was chocolate.  I had opened a bottle of chocolate wine my parents had brought me for Channukah.

And you know what?

It was the best marinara sauce I ever tasted.

A Word on Dried Spices

My husband is from Minnesota, and he tells a joke about Minnesotan cooking.  He jokes that a REALLY exciting recipe in Minnesota uses both salt AND pepper.  Unfortunately, salt and pepper are the spices that most Americans, not just the friendly folk in the North Star State, know how to use on a regular basis.  And even then, only black pepper and so-called "table salt."

With the right spices, you can live forever on a limited diet.  Having a good spice rack is essential to cooking.  You don't need to start collecting every flavor in the spice world, but there are a small collection of spices that you probably don't realize are in just about every delicious food you love.

There are more spices than those listed below that you should consider keeping around, but they are certainly better fresh.  Stay tuned for a word of Fresh Spices!

Staple Dried Spices 
Oregano: This is one of those New World spices that changed European cooking forever.  Most people think of oregano as an Italian spice, but it is just as constant in Latin American cuisines.  It's a primary ingredient in chili blends, as is...

Cumin: Cumin comes from Middle East and northern Africa, and is one of the few spices that was brought to the New World and altered native cuisine here.  Cumin has a rich and warm flavor, and is used in an amazing variety of dishes.  I recommend having at least ground cumin, but you'd be surprised how often you'll use the whole seed variety as well.



Celery Seed: Much like fresh celery, you'll be amazed at how many dishes can be improved with the simple application of a little celery seed.  Celery Salt can also be very useful, as you add more flavor when you use it instead of regular table salt.  Any vegetable heavy dish can be made to taste somewhat heartier with a little celery seed.



Garlic Powder: You can use it in all sorts of situations where you could use fresh garlic, but it has additional flexibility.  I like using toasted garlic powder, you get a richer flavor as the garlic is already cooked when it's dried.  This makes it much better for adding to, say, a grilled cheese sandwich.



 Fenugreek Seeds: You can get both the leaves and the seeds of this spice, and both have an excellent flavor, but the seeds are definitely the bolder taste.  Fenugreek is the flavor that makes curry taste like curry, so if you like Indian food, Fenugreek is a must have.



Thyme:  This spice is one of the few that is pretty much as good dried as it is fresh.  What you may not know is that there are two major varieties of Thyme, French and Mediterranean.  French Thyme is the more common, but when you go out to get your spices, consider the Mediterranean Thyme.  It has a slightly spicier flavor, so if you substitute Mediterranean for French, you create a more unique flavor that stays just as familiar and delicious.

Curry Week!

It's finally here, curry week!

Curry is an interesting subject.  After all, it describes such a wide variety of dishes.  There are yellow, red, and green curries.  There are sweet curries and spicy curries.  The variety of countries boasting an array of delicious curries is staggering.

Wars, oh so many wars, have been fought over the spices that go into curry.  History has turned on the whims of those who love curry.  Curry is the culmination of the combined spice, and in the words of Frank Herbert, "He who controls it, controls our destiny."

This week, we will be making a variety of curries.  This, like every week's meal, has everything you need for a balanced diet.  Lean protein, green and orange vegetables, fruit, whole grains, and just a dash of dairy.  The bonus is, of course, that it even includes dessert and really, curry is EASY!

Curry is one of the simplest things you can throw together.  Got a few ingredients and don't know what to do with them?  Curry!  Want to impress you in-laws or your sister?  Curry!

Unlike most dishes, curry's success depends much less upon the quality of your fruits and vegetables and much more on the quality of your spices.  Curries developed in parts of the world where the weather is hot and wet, which meant that food tended to spoil faster.  However, those glorious spices could disguise the taste of even the most withered yam, and as a result we have the amazing, the spectacular, the splendiferous curries we enjoy today.  There are curry leaves, and they are in many curries, but the flavor that really makes curry taste like CURRY is fenugreek.  Why don't we call it a fenugreek instead of a curry?  I have no idea.  But however the confusion came about, thank goodness for the Indian subcontinent!  Thank goodness for the Carribean!  Thank goodness for Thailand!  THANK GOODNESS FOR CURRY!

This Week's Menu:

 Saffron Rice

Daal

Sweet Potato Carrot Curry

Not / Chicken Massaman Curry

Vanilla Raita

Sweet Lassi

 The Grocery List:

• 1/2 lb red lentils
• 5 carrots
• 1 sweet potato
• 1 lb boneless chicken OR 12 oz chicken substitute (I like Veet for this recipe!)
• 1 quart vanilla yogurt
• 1 cucumber
• 1 lemon
• 1 can thick coconut milk
• 1 can black eyed peas
• 1 small fresh ginger root
• 1 green bell pepper
• 4 shallots

Turnip Hash

You think it sounds awful, don't you?  And yet, it tastes amazing.  You see, back before we Americans decided that the potato was our go-to starch, turnips were much more popular.  French and Russian immigrants in particular were VERY fond of the hardy root.  When undercooked, they're mustardy and spicy.  However, a thorough cooking yields a vegetable with the same sort of texture as a new potato, a mild and fresh flavor, and a buttery finish that makes for a few perfect ingredient pairings.

One of those perfect pairings is the leek.  Leeks are a part of the onion family, they have a milder flavor than most onions, and they become creamy when cooked.  Leeks are notorious for being difficult to clean, but with a simple method one can clean them easily and quickly.  Leeks are one of those vegetables that people seem to consider super fancy, but they're a common garden vegetable that grow all over the United States, and are an excellent addition to any diet.


Turnip Hash

• 4-5 turnips, chopped to 1" or smaller pieces
• 1 leek, sliced and cleaned
• 3 c sliced white mushrooms
• 2 Tbs honey
• 1 Tbs dried French Thyme or two large sprigs fresh
• 3/4 tsp Coarse ground black pepper
  
• 1/4 tsp Pink Hawaiian sea salt*
• 1/4 c extra virgin olive oil

In a wok, heat the oil over med. high.  Add the turnips and cook for 5 minutes or so, and add the honey. Make sure you completely coat the turnips in the honey.  This is important, as the extra caramelization from the honey will eliminate a great deal of the turnips' extra spice.  Continue to stir regularly as you cook the turnips for another 8-10 minutes, or until the turnips are slightly brown.

Add the leeks, salt, and pepper, and continue to stir regularly for another 5 minutes, until the leeks are thoroughly wilty.

Add the thyme and mushrooms, and continue to cook for 5 minutes or until the mushrooms are thoroughly integrated.

Enjoy hot, paired with crusty bread or a croutette.

The Well Stocked Pantry - Top Five

This is an extremely important matter. Many of my recipes call for items that are NOT generally in the grocery lists- and these are what I like to think of as my kitchen staples. As someone just starting to cook, you might not think to keep them handy, but you'll be amazed how often you use them and shocked that you ever survived without having them around. Of course, there are a lot of other sorts of staples. Things like cheese, butter, and spices. I will be discussing these later, and dedicated whole entries to picking and choosing your ingredients. But for now, these are a few things that you can add to your pantry and make your life and your food a lot better.

• Spike: This is a spice blend that I use constantly. In fact, it is the ONLY conventional spice blend I ever use. It beats the hell out of Mrs. Dash and Lawrey's, and the salt-free variety is pretty good too.

Pre-minced garlic: At most grocery stores, you can find a plastic tub or jar of already minced garlic in water, and it keeps practically forever in the fridge. When you're in a rush- and who isn't frequently in a rush when they're making dinner?- it's MUCH easier than going to the trouble of peeling and mincing it yourself. Yes, the flavor is a little weaker, but there's a simple solution to that problem... just add more!

Miso: Again, a tub will stay in the fridge practically forever. And you'd be amazed how often you end up using it once you get the hang of it.

Broth Powder: I like to keep a few varieties around- chicken, beef, and vegetable.

Extra Virgin Olive Oil and Balsamic Vinegar: Quality matters in oils and vinegar- not all oil and vinegar is created equal. If you can, sample your oils and balsamics. A good extra virgin olive oil has an almost buttery flavor to it, and smells fragrant. A good balsamic is sweet and tangy, a VERY good balsamic has little enough of an acidic burn to it that you could drink a shot without even thinking to wince.

With these items on hand, you will be well prepared to whip up just about anything.