Parsnip wontons

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fire, recipe

3 parsnips
1/4-1/2″ of grated ginger
1 scallion
soy sauce to taste
1/2 package of wonton wrappers

-Peel the parsnips and cut them into approximately 1/4″ chunks. Steam or cook in the microwave.

-Mash the cooked parsnips with the grated fresh ginger, scallions, and soy sauce

-Fold a small dollop of the filling into wonton wrappers (most of the packages have folding instructions on the back)

-FRY!

This was my contribution to the Lunar New Year potluck my parents hosted over the weekend. I figured with all the pork products floating around I should make something vegetarian (and my dad considerately fried them before frying the pork wontons I also made).

Food, friends, festive music, and fire. What more could you ask of a party?

The Mayor of Bad News

But now the semester has started, Ithaca “spring” semester doldrums are on their way, and it’s back to work.

Vintage ‘Joy of Cooking’

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turtle soup

From the introductory paragraph to ‘Green Turtle Soup’ in my 1967 copy of Joy of Cooking (garage-saled, of course):

“It is a timesaver to buy canned or frozen turtle meat. But if you can turn turtles, feel energetic and want to prepare your own, see page 380″

And yes, page 380 does describe how to prepare turtles and terrapins (seemingly somewhat like crabs/lobsters). Can you even buy canned turtle meat anymore? I always think of the poor Mock Turtle from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland when I think of turtle soup (and additionally, the texture of turtle sounds entirely unappealing to me).

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list

1. Blood orange salad. Do it. (I made a much simpler version and was still eminently satisfied)

2. I’ve been on a vegetarian burrito kick, if two burritos in one week can be called a kick (debatable). The one from Viva! was good, but the one from Alto Cinco had chile rellenos in it (and came with cornbread). So.

3. Food goals: be more open to both whiskey and innovative uses for quinoa (straddling Simon Doonan’s food categories?). Not sure where to start with whiskey, but this recipe seems like a good place to start for quinoa (h/t H-J).

4. What’s the best filling for wontons? I’m making a pilgrimage home next weekend for the annual burning of the solstice tree and associated social gathering (who doesn’t enjoy watching flames shoot skyward?) and I hear there will be the opportunity for deep-frying. Flaming trees, wish lanterns, food, and The Mayor of Bad News–sounds like a good deal to me.

5. Supposedly it’s 9°F outside. This makes the extra blanket I wore, just so I could eat ice cream while reading on the couch, totally legitimate. Not even a question.

Briars

Happy New Year! May 2012 be non-apocalyptic!

I’ve been helping my mom with her usual holiday cookie baking, although we’re doing it somewhat belatedly this year. So far the list is: brownies, pecan bars, walnut bars, lemon bars, chocolate truffles, and what my family calls briars. I haven’t been able to find any other similarly named recipe on the internet (which means it must not exist, right?) so I figured I’d better keep it secret. They are adorable though, aren’t they?

The other thing I’ve finally had time to do is some proper reading. Floating Worlds: The Letters of Edward Gorey and Peter F. Neumeyer was wonderful and inspiring and made me think I need to be better about writing correspondance. It also made me feel better about my (often checked) love of parentheticals. If Edward Gorey can sound charming doing it, there’s hope for me yet. Next up: David Graeber’s new book, Debt: The First 5,000 Years. And at some point I hope to get around to 1Q84, although I’m afraid I might be a little disappointed.

Caught this little girl chewing on a rogue can of whipped cream this morning. Going back to Ithaca and living without dogs again will be much less eventful.

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list, recipe

After reading this article about the perfect midnight pasta. I started thinking about some of the best late-night “meals” I’ve eaten. I have a friend who always said that the best things happen at 3am and, although I sometimes have to revise that time estimate downward based on being in Ithaca instead of NYC, I’ve found the principle holds. So here’s a brief, disorganized list of best food things (which it’s fair to say often went hand-in-hand with other best things):

Era: Senior year of college
Time: 2:30am
Food: leftover slow-cooked pulled pork
Scenario: coming home late from a night out with some of my favorite people, having that need for a snack, ending up with everyone crowded in the tiny kitchen and disappearing the better part of a pork butt

Era: Holiday party-time
Time: 10:30pm (it’s the suburbs)
Food: various. One year it was turkey mole, sometimes it’s chili, sometimes mountains of potstickers
Scenario: After the majority of the party guests leave, it’s time to pull out the second round of food and  ”see people we actually want to see” (as my mom sometimes puts it). For me, the experience is usually linked to falling asleep on the couch, exhausted, surrounded by party wreckage.

Era: College
Time: any time after 2am
Food: a huge slice of Koronet’s pizza
Scenario: It always seemed at the time to be the perfect post-bar slice. I never risked going there without the late night ambiance; I suspect it might not have held up.

Other experiences have included: Bandwagon fries, Roti roll, Tom’s Diner, and always friends.

In other news, this Onion and Bacon Tart was so, so good and super easy. I brought it to a potluck and it almost completely disappeared. Luckily I had enough leftover to reheat for breakfast. Now it’s time to get to work, feet on radiator.

 

Late-night List

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list

This tumblr that asks people wearing headphones what they’re listening to addresses a question I often have while riding the bus in the morning. It would be even more interesting if they guessed first and then asked. I would love to find out that the outdoorsy-looking guy is listening to Josh Groban as he finagles his bike onto the bus rack and that the put-together woman at the front (who is definitely either law or business) is listening to Finnish black metal.

I totally used this piece on Rita Hayworth for procrastination purposes and then didn’t even feel bad because it seemed entirely worthwhile (the Paul Newman one is good too).

Dijon-braised brussel sprouts: could be good? But what about the lack of baaaaacon?

This time of year is always kind of oppressive; I feel like I’m on a zombie-march toward paper due-dates. My cousin Hannah wrote an excellent song, which makes me think there’s hope that a non-zombie-me can emerge on December 14th.

Non-zombie-me wants to be in the holiday spirit and make collage greetings cards from old National Geographic Magazines and Jcrew catalogs and remember how to socialize without resorting to a ceaseless stream of academic gripes. But she’ll have to wait two weeks.

Three bean mole chili

Tags

chili, recipe, slow cooker

This is what my life looks like right now: tons of chili, books, and crazy scribblings on legal pads in many different colors. And lists, lots of lists.

15 oz can pinto beans (drained and rinsed)
15 oz can black beans (drained and rinsed)
15 oz can chili beans (drained and rinsed)
14.5 oz can diced tomatoes, undrained
1 lb organic ground beef
1 large bell pepper, diced
1 onion, diced
1/2 c chicken broth
1/4 c mole paste
3 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp ground coriander
2 tsp chili powder
2 tsp minced garlic

-Sautée the onion, pepper, garlic, and ground beef until beef is mostly cooked through. Add 1 tsp ground cumin and cook about a minute longer.

-Add everything to a slow cooker, stir well, and cook on low for 5-6 hours or on high for 1-2 hours.

I always cook onions and garlic before they go in the slow cooker because I’ve found that if I don’t 1) my entire apartment smells like semi-raw onions and 2) they never end up tasting really fully cooked. With this, I figured I might as well get some added flavor with the beef and pepper if I was going to do the garlic and onions anyway. The recipe was originally meat-free, so it can definitely be made that way (and with veggie broth), but I want to give blood next week and there’s no way they’re going to let me if I don’t start with some iron-rich foods now.

Butternut Squash and Leek Risotto

Made it. Cheese/Rice induced food coma followed.

Best laid plans…

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recipe

Ok, the plans were not best laid: they were poorly laid. I was going to make this risotto (albeit without the clams) because it sounded so nice and cozy and risotto always feels sort of special. But I didn’t have any stock, either vegetable or chicken, and I kept putting off getting white wine. All I have is some two-year-old vermouth, which I’m hesitant to even open.  So while I was making some stock and prepping the butternut squash (and getting hungrier and hungrier) I decided to use some extra bits and bobs to make something different.

1/2 c butternut squash, diced
1 leek sliced very thin
1 clove of garlic, chopped fine
~1/2 tbsp butter
olive oil
salt
pepper
pecorino romano

-Heat butter in a heavy pan (I used cast iron) and then sautée butternut squash with the garlic and leeks. Add additional olive oil as needed. I like the combination of butter and leeks, but I was reluctant to use solely butter.

-Cook until the leeks are translucent and the squash is cooked through. Serve with pasta and top with some grated cheese and fresh pepper (Victory Hop Devil optional, but oh so good).

I didn’t get my risotto, but at least this isn’t as bad as Monday, when I in fact had oatmeal cookies and beer for dinner. You lose some, but sometimes you only kind of lose some others. Oh and hey, if someone wants to try this recipe for Autumn Veggie Patties and let me know if it’s terrible or not, go right ahead.

Life has gotten away from me (what life? HAH). Last Friday I headed down to NYC to volunteer at the Joy of Sake event . The way the event was set up bottles of sake, categorized by type, lined tables in the center of the rooms; food tables offering small bites were placed along the walls. I was actually working at the table for Kyo Ya, an East Village restaurant that specializes in kaiseki, helping them keep the table stocked. I don’t think the chef totally believed me when I said I didn’t need to take a break because I was having fun, but it was entirely true. Sadly, my work ethic caused me to miss some supposedly amazing pork belly. So it goes. If I come into some money I will definitely make a visit to Kyo Ya though.

Friday night was spent in Brooklyn at a friend’s birthday. I had an amaaaazing everything bagel Saturday morning at a coffee shop in Bushwick that I can’t remember the name of but that I can guarantee I wasn’t hipster enough for. It was part of my general pattern of weekend spontaneity (Look Ma! No bus schedules!). The bagel may not have lived up to an Absolute bagel (I will always have a soft spot for Absolute bagels) in terms of internal texture, but the mixture of toppings was top-notch. Sometimes it seems like people forget an everything bagel isn’t just poppy and sesame. It needs salt! And onion!

Aside than getting to taste some excellent food, another benefit of volunteering at this event is that the partial bottles are divvied up at the end of the night among volunteers. I came back to Ithaca with 9 bottles of varying levels. This presented its own issues. Luckily, plenty of people offer to help you with your issues when they consist of 9 bottles of sake that need to be consumed. Now I’m thinking of gently peeling all the beautiful labels off and making an art project of it. Maybe when I have a life again.