Lemon Cucumber Salad

One of the first new foods I tried after I moved out to northern California was a lemon cucumber. You usually buy them when they are a light greenish yellow. You do not have to peel or seed them when they are like that and they are a lot less bitter than the regular slender green types. They are also round and when they get a little bigger their skin turns a darker, more intense, yellow. When they are like this you do need to peel and seed them.

We planted two lemon cucumber starts in our bed this year and they have taken over. They nearly choked the peppers, and have now climbed up the chain-link into a tree. There are even a couple of blossoms up there, we may have our first ever cucumber tree in a few weeks. The point is, they have grown like mad; they grow too fast for us to only use the young fuss-less fruits (vegetables, fine).
The Whole Foods Market Cookbook (2002) had a recipe for Thai Cucumber Salad. The salad is made up of two pounds of cucumbers, a jalapeño, scallions and peanuts. We had a few handfuls of blistered peanuts from Trader Joe's (which are good, but not as good as you hope they will be, because that's how Trader Joe's does) that were waiting to be included in something.
The dressing was simply brown rice vinegar, sugar, garlic, salt, curry powder, and lemongrass. Luck had it that we had bought fresh lemongrass at the farmers market the week before which also needed to be used (you can see the leaves poking in the left side of the picture above). Fortune had it that I had made homemade curry powder about a month before, which is spicy and delicious. It was for a tofu scramble I made from the always perfect Ms. Swanson (whose book I referenced in a previous post).
I whisked together the dressing; peeled, seeded, and sliced nine of those golden veggies; prepped the remaining ingredients; mixed the salad and poured and stirred in the dressing. Nothing to it. (Nothing to it took forty minutes . . . that is how I do).
The cook worked on a Thai basil eggplant (slender Asian ones also from our garden). It included pine nuts, olive oil and chili peppers. I made the tofu with my new method which involves two cooking processes and corn starch; it is good, but not quite there yet. This was our dinner:
The eggplant was soft and creamy and the tofu was nearly crunchy with a soft center (like I said, it's not quite there yet, but it is good. I would say it's something I can cook, but not cook impressively). The salad was fresh tasting, but not that spectacular.
Here's the leftover salad looked like this evening:
The color was darker and the flavors much deeper. The salad needed a full day to marinate, the 20 minutes the recipe called for were clearly not enough. I should have known since the same can be said for the cabbage salad we practically live off of some weeks. The peanuts had gotten soggy but everything else had improved.
Speaking of improvement I am planning another attempt at zucchini bread. Wish me luck.

Jess Can't Breathe

We took a beautiful vacation to the state of Washington a few weeks ago. Good timing too. Because as you may have heard the entire state of California where we reside is on fire. It has been for almost a month. We had the good fortune to leave right when they started.
When we drove back in the mighty Flying Eggplant (Ford Ranger) we passed Mt. Shasta. Here is a picture of both the mountain ans the Flying Eggplant:


Yay. Isn't California a scenic beauty? Everything is so dramatic and breathtaking. Speaking of here's what awaited us on the other side of the mountain:

That was taken just off of the bridge across Mt. Shasta. We still had about a two hour drive down into the valley before we got home. As we drove the air got thicker and thicker with smoke. Looking to the west it looked like a regular light gray fog. To the east it looked like what it was, smoke. There was no sky. There had been not sky for about a week and a half (that was two weeks ago). There was only smoke. The air when we got home was acrid and choking. We were lucky to be gone.
Last week it looked like it was going to clear up. The 4th was gorgeous and the sky blue. Things were looking up. And then the fire it got worse. An overnight change of the winds lead to the fires in Butte County exploding in size. On Tuesday morning I went out side to feed the cats and it was raining ash.
Morning glory with ash replacing morning dew. Lovely.
And that orange hue? Not some photography trick but the natural light outside. The whole sky was orange all day and it still is three days later.
Now I am not complaining, just describing how it's been. A lot of people have lost homes and the worst thing I have is some ashy flowers (and some smoke particles that we have been told will never leave our bodies since there is no way to expectorate such particulate matter - that was complaining).

Every year at this time the cook goes down to LA for a conference. This annual trip is also eagerly anticipated by yours truly. It is a time I have the house to my lonesome, something I savor. I netflix selfishly, listen to the radio in the shower in the morning (a time the cook would be sleeping), lie around and read in the afternoons, and live by my own self-centered schedule.
Another thing I do is find recipes that I know the cook would be put off by, usually by the title, and that I would like to try. While buying gifts for others before christmas, I bought my self the wonderfully perfect Heidi Swanson's recent cookbook, Super Natural Cooking. To see just how wonderfully perfect Heidi Swanson is, I suggest her site: 101cookbooks.com. I had tagged her Millet Fried "Rice" and Golden -Crusted Brussels Sprouts.
I should preface this by saying I was getting over being quite sick, and my sense of taste was significantly diminished. I realized before I even started this project that the end result may be lost on me, and I would have no idea how this would actually taste, but I went ahead with it anyway. I made an evening out of it, which is required if something is going to turn out wonderfully perfect. So I set out on an evening of beer, the Office, my netflix, and being blissfully alone.
The brussels sprouts were quite easy: wash, cut in half, heat oil in skillet, put sprouts flat side down, salt, don't touch for a while, then flip them over. The only part that was going to mess me up was timing. Finesse and timing are two things I have a difficult time with, and the millet was going to test both. I cooked the millet as directed. I panicked a little when it was supposed to be done and looked kind of soupy, but I turned up the heat a touch and five minutes later the criss was averted.
I should mention that the ingredient list is not extensive, but it is by no means simple. You don't just add oil to the wok, you add clarified butter (recipe on page 199). You don't just slice carrots, you first peel slices with a vegetable peeler and then slice them into match sticks. You don't just use soy sauce, you use shoyu. Um . . . I am not quite cut out for this level of wonderful perfection. Though I admit I did do the carrot thing.
I also had to make a quick omelet in the wok, that would later be sliced and added to the millet. It wasn't the prettiest thing, but it was cooked and not burned. An accomplishment by my standards. I also had to pre-fry the tofu, one of the only things that I have become proficient at (yes, I know it's super easy).
Because it's a stir fry I made sure everything was ready before hand so I could do it all quick quick quick. So I followed the recipe, and viola! My arms got a definite workout when I added the millet, which was all sticky and made me think of the cook's assumed reaction to the recipe. Maybe he would have been right? Here's how my diner looked:
It was good! Granted, I wasn't quite sure it it was good or not due to my lack of smell. So just to be sure I had a friend, who can cook quite well by the way, over for lunch. And she even said it was good. She liked it so much she took some home with her. Good thing she liked it too, because I had a bit of left-overs:

Breaking a Blogging Fast for the New Year

For our first full day in our house in '08 I made a soup I found in the Vegetarian Times I bought in La Guardia Airport on our way home from our loooong holiday back east. According to the magazine Moroccan Harira is served during Ramadan to break the fast. Traditionally it has lamb, which of course was out, but the chickpeas (drained), green lentils (par boiled), onion (chopped), cilantro and parsley (chopped), ground ginger, cinnamon stick, tomatoes (separated from juice) and vermicelli. And look, every thing's all prepped and ready to go! What a fortuitous way to begin cooking in the new year.
I proceeded step by step and all went well. While the soup was simmering I began to make the tadouira, which sounds exciting and exotic but was only a little flour, chopped cilantro, lemon juice and tomato paste. This is how I realized that despite my newly acquired skill at preparation, I has screwed up. The little white spice packed that I assumed was full of ground ginger, was actually full of all purpose flour. Good thing the onions had sauteed in the rich aromatics of cinnamon and all-purpose flour. I'm sure the beans benefitedd from softening in the warming spice of all-purpose flour.
So I put the ginger, and waited five or so minutes before putting int he tadouira and vermicelli. It ended up tasting sweet and sour, especially with the lemon slices it was served with. I did tell the cook I screwed up. I also told him it was no big deal. The cook was not surprised that, despite the planned preparation, I had manged to mess it up somehow. I was surprised at how much the cook liked the soup. The only suggestion was more noodles. I can do that with out screwing it up (I think).