Touched by his Noodley Appendage

(So, my little trip is over, and I do have some glorious food stories, but need to dig out the photos and actually get around to writing things up.  What can I say: being home is distracting.  Until then, enjoy another guest post from The Husband—Asian noodle salad, served cold, which seems terribly appropriate given the recent multiple days of excessive heat warnings in the PHX.)

Here’s another one for y’all as you battle the frightening heat…

Once the summer hits here in Phoenix, it’s sometimes hard to convince oneself that turning on the stove or using the oven could possibly be a good idea. When you’re already living in an oven, turning up the heat is a recipe for sadness.

Yet your options at dinner can seem rather limited when you decide to completely eschew the stove/oven. Unless you’re a raw foodist, after all, finding true sustenance without cooking is a challenge. And while my Indian roots sometimes tell me I should go for hot (temperature) and hot (spiciness) food, in order to sweat and cool myself down, my better judgment sometimes jumps in and contradicts that logic, instead suggesting that consuming cold things can be cooling and refreshing. Well, it doesn’t have to be either/or. In these hyper-partisan, divisive times, you can instead choose to be a uniter, not a divider, to take the middle road between raw and cooked, and between hot and cold.

I speak, my friends, of salad. No, not a wimpy substance-free side salad. Rather, a salad with a variety of vegetables, with protein, with cooked elements, with fire and kick and oomph and pizzazz. And most importantly, the ability to cool you down on a hot day.

Wifey has written before on the gloriousness of salad, so there’s no need to repeat her wise words here. Instead, I give you a how-to guide to making a wonderfully delicious, (mostly southeast and east) Asian-inspired salad — a hybrid of sorts that achieves our two goals of minimizing use of heat-producing devices and also cools you upon eating it.

Now, before we continue, I must admit that I’m not so good with recipes — be it following them (Ravi Shankar never gets guff for improvising, so stop sippin’ on the Haterade, you recipe-obsessed fools; live it up a little) or providing others with instructions for making something I’ve put together in my own kitchen. This post falls a bit into the first category and a bit into the second. I think I probably pulled inspiration from three or four different Asian noodle salad recipes I perused at some point or another, and then I just decided to wing it from there and make some (many?) additions of my own. And now that it falls upon me to recount precisely what I did, I’m going to leave you instead with some generic instructions that pretty much ensure you’ll only get vaguely close to my original creation. Though that’s the fun of cooking, right? You get to experiment and do things your own way and come up with something that you want to eat.

With those caveats aside, let’s discuss making a delicious salad. Really, there are three crucial parts: some starchy noodle or carbohydrate-rich base accompanied by a protein to provide substance, a plethora of fresh vegetables to provide crunch and texture and a nice mélange of flavors, and finally a dressing which offers a way to tie everything together with a nice acidic bite and spicy finish.

For this salad, I started with some rice noodles — Trader Joe’s Thai rice sticks, to be specific, though really any Asian rice or bean thread noodles would suffice. Fortunately, cooking up noodles in boiling water doesn’t take too long, nor are you required to stand by the hot stove and observe as they cook, which is an important consideration if you’re trying to stay cool. Once the noodles have cooked, immediately run cold water over them as they drain, both to keep them from cooking further and also to get them to a cooler temperature. (I actually kept the cooked noodles in a bowl with ice, to make sure they were chilled and didn’t dry out.) While the noodles cook, sauté (in a small amount of grapeseed oil, along with a dash of teriyaki sauce, minced garlic, and some pepper flakes) some thinly sliced tofu. Again, not too much supervision required here — just flip the tofu over when it has browned. And once you’ve done that, you’re done with the cooking element. Set aside the tofu, and we’re ready to move on to the cooling and the crunching.

For the veggies, I went a bit crazy and threw together whatever we happened to have in the fridge; in this case, the list included: purslane, amaranth, cucumber, broccolini, a broccoli/cabbage/carrot slaw mix, and jalapeno.

The dressing was originally supposed to be a relatively simply mix of rice vinegar, sugar and lime juice, but quickly got out of control once I realized all the different bottles and jars we had in the pantry and on the fridge door. So I ended up trying to find a tasty balance between rice vinegar, brown sugar, and freshly squeezed lime juice, along with tamari soy sauce, mirin, sweet chili sauce, ground chili paste, teriyaki sauce, minced garlic, thinly-sliced shallots, and a nice bit of ginger. After some very precise kitchen science, I came up with the perfect ratio between those various items.

And finally, for garnish, I used a lot of basil and mint leaves, along with a couple slices of lime, and also a sprinkling of thinly sliced green onions and chives.

When all was said and done, it looked something like this.

A nice balance of cooling and spiciness, and some definite deliciousness was achieved.

Ice Ice Coffee

(It's guest post time here in the desert!  The Husband has decided to get into blogging, now [check out his music blogthing here if you're one of those snobby music types who makes fun of the musical choices of others—YES, I ENJOY RICK ASTLEY UN-IRONICALLY, WHAT OF IT?], and even though I still haven't been able to get him to write that chili post, he's deigned to share his thoughts on a few food-related adventures. First up: coffee, the consumption of which I don't personally understand, but hey—different strokes for different folks [or, for those of you lovely readers who are lizards: different drinks for different skinks].)

Hey, look at me: I’m stone-cold guest-blogging up in this joint. Thanks, Wifey, for letting me overtake your blog with a post about, yes, making coffee. Ok, enough dillydallying, let’s get on with it…

Life in the desert can be hot. Really hot.

But friends, I come here not to complain about 110+ degree days accompanied with dire warnings of dangerous heat indices. Rather, I come to help you.

When the temperature is halfway between boiling and spontaneous combustion, it takes a bit of a toll on anything bold enough to venture outdoors to face the elements. Your body heats up very quickly and you soon find yourself sapped of energy—all in all, not a particularly pleasant way to start the day.

However, you are not destined to suffer. For there is a way to partially combat the melting. A very simple way. A way that will not only save your body, but also your wallet.

What is this magical solution, you ask?

Coffee. Yes, coffee. Iced coffee.

Wow, you’re the greatest guest blogger ever. That was a really revolutionary idea there. It’s not like anyone’s ever thought of that before.

Hey, now. Let’s not get too snarky. Ok, sure, there’s nothing too special about what I’ve just told you. You can get iced coffee at any decent coffee shop come summertime. But that is not what I speak of. While your neighborhood coffee shop may indeed provide you with a beverage filled with caffeine, sugar, and coldness, you can do so much better.

Most coffee shops brew up hot coffee at something close to double-strength, chill it in the refrigerator, then pour it over ice when a customer comes in and asks for an iced coffee. Well, that’s bunk. Though that iced coffee may succeed in giving you your caffeine/sugar/coldness fix, why settle for that mediocre product? And why pay two dollars or more for a cup mostly filled with ice—ice that serves to continually dilute your beverage as it melts away?

Allow me to let you in on a little secret mathematical equation handed down to me on golden tablets by The Jeebus: cold-brewed coffee + ice cubes made of coffee = WIN. That’s just a stone-cold fact.

In addition to being delicious and refreshing, the advantage of cold-brewing your coffee is that it tastes less acidic, and the flavor profile is far more robust. You’ll notice fruity and floral notes that you didn’t even know were there.

Well then, time to get on with it and tell you how it’s done. Like with all fine foods, it’s all about the ingredients. In this case, some nice freshly roasted beans. (My Phoenician Phriends: if you get your coffee beans from anyone other than Cartel or Fair Trade, you’re doing it wrong.) Also, it’s about doing some advance planning; cold-brewing means you need to start the coffee-making the night before.

Take your beans and grind them as you would normally. Put them into your French Press at twice the amount you would use for hot coffee, add water, and give it all a swirl. Throw it in the fridge overnight, and then plunge your grounds the following morning. In the meantime, you’ve hopefully already made frozen coffee cubes, which now reside in the ice tray in your freezer. Pour your overnight-chilled coffee into a mug, and add your ice cubes made of coffee. Now here’s the final step, taking your very good iced coffee to the realm of Total Awesomeness: cream. No, not milk. Nope, not half-and-half. And sure as hell not that non-dairy creamer crap with carrageenan and corn syrup solids; that’s just nasty. Straight up cream is how we roll. (Cream rules everything around me. C.R.E.A.M. That’s recursion, y’all!) Heavy cream. Not the slightly de-fatted light whipping cream. I’m talking the full fat (i.e., full of deliciousness) stuff.

Voila, you’re done. And now you can laugh at those suckas paying for watered-down cold coffee at Starbucks.

(In addition to deliciousness that cures your lethargy and cools you down, there are ancillary benefits of making this delightful concoction. Since you’re making your coffee at home, you’re saving cash monies. And since you’re pretty much making this the night before, you’re saving valuable time in the morning — thereby allowing yourself to get a couple extra minutes of precious, precious beauty rest. These are two very important considerations for those of us who are: (a) cheap, and (b) unwilling to get out of bed in the morning.)

 

AW80D - Falafel

I ate my first falafel in college.  I know, it's a big shock that small-town Western New York wasn't rocking the crunch patties and flavor sauce back in the day, but it's true.  I was a sophomore, at an accepted student event (where you could frequently find me, considering that I was both an indentured servant to the Admissions Office and a fan of free food).  At the buffet, there were these little crispy things that a friend swore were delicious, so I tried one.  Sweet merciful kittens, it was terrible.  Dry and flavorless, I was concerned that I had somehow screwed up and was eating it incorrectly, because I couldn't fathom why my friend would steer me to try something this bad.

Fast forward several years.  By this point, I had gone vegetarian, and The Husband (then The Boyfriend) insisted that I try falafel again.  He offered to make me some, and we acquired a falafel mix.  While these weren't nearly as dry as I remembered, they still weren't good.  The Husband insisted that a well-made falafel was good, and that I would probably enjoy one, given how much I enjoy hummus and tzatziki.  I assumed he was lying, though I did agree to try falafel a few more times, even though I was consistently disappointed.  What can I say:  I'm an eternal optimist.  (Ha.)

Fast forward another couple of years.  We had moved to the desert and were leaving the farmers' market, when we noticed a stall selling Middle Eastern food.  We decided to get pita wraps for dinner, but to my horror, the only vegetarian option was falafel.  However, the falafels didn't look like the ones I was used to; they weren't deep-fried to the point of carbonization, but instead just lightly browned.  Plus, I was really hungry.  So I knuckled down and bought one.  It was a revelation.  I'm pretty sure we had each finished ours before we made it the four blocks home (and if you know The Husband and the speed at which he eats, that's saying something).

Having discovered that falafel need not be dry and boring, I decided that I should probably learn how to make them.  My method is a bit of an amalgam of various recipes, supplemented with my natural predilection for making things up as I go along.  I am a firm believer in using fava beans, as I think they provide a more complex flavor than the straight-chickpea route.  I also add bulgur, which according to my (very brief internet) research means they are Israeli, even though the addition the favas sort of negates that.  Consider this falafel as a food without a country.

While everything comes together relatively quickly once all the ingredients are present and accounted for, you will need to plan at least 24 hours ahead (to allow the beans time to soak).  You can also make the falafel mix in advance, but don't cook the patties until just before you plan to eat, as they tend to dry out.

To make your falafel, put a half-cup each of dried fava beans and dried chickpeas into separate medium bowls.  Fill the bowls with enough water to cover the beans by an inch or so, then leave to soak overnight.  The beans should roughly double in size.

Next is the most tedious part of falafeling:  shelling the favas.  Fava beans are shell beans.  When found in the wild (or at the store), they need to be removed from the pod (much like peas); unlike peas, the individual beans must also be shelled.  The same holds true for dried favas.

To the left:  unshelled.  On the right:  totally nude.

Some of the favas may have split during the soak, but for those that haven't, shelling is easy:  using a small, sharp knife, make a shallow cut along the end of the bean opposite the little black line (originally the point where the bean was attached to its pod), then peel off the shell.  If the beans are well soaked, the skin should come off without much fuss.  You can also purchase already-shelled dry fava beans, but they are more expensive and a bit tougher to find and where's the fun in that?

Once the favas are peeled, drain the chickpeas, give both sets of beans a good rinse, and add them to the bowl of your food processor.  Roughly chop half an onion and toss that in, along with a few cloves of garlic.  A pinch or two of cumin and some chili powder (I like Aleppo) won't go amiss, nor will a handful of raw coarse bulgur.  Tear up a handful each of parsley and cilantro, and add to the bowl.  Salt and pepper generously, then whiz the whole lovely mess until it's good and mixed.  Aim for a medium grind; if you find everything is a little dry, you can add a drizzle of olive oil or a tiny bit of water, but not too much — you don't want it to be too wet or turn into a puree — the liquid from the soaking should be enough.  The resulting batter should be sticky enough that you can easily form a patty, but dry enough to maintain its shape.

Once the mix is ready, heat a tablespoon or two of grapeseed (or similar) oil in a large pan over medium heat; I like one with sloping sides, to help with the flipping.  When the oil is hot, add the falafel patties one at the time, making sure not to crowd the pan.  Let them cook until brown on the bottom, maybe five minutes, then flip.  Cook until the other side is also browned and crispy, and serve.  This recipe should make a dozen or so small falafel patties.

Two competing schools of falafel construction:  the manageable (mine, below), and the chaos-in-a-pita (The Husband's)

We usually make our falafel pitas with homemade hummus, tzatziki, and cucumber-feta-tomato salad; last time, I added some broccoli slaw for a bit of crunch.  Any number of toppings could work:  baba ghanoush, tahini, harissa (for some kick), Greek dressing, a squeeze of lemon, spinach, plain yogurt, pickles, relishes...  You could also crumble the falafel into a salad, or make larger patties and grill them like a burger. 

THE POSSIBILITIES ARE  ENDLESS.

apparently all caps is not acceptable title behavior.

Faithful readers!*  I have been remiss in my blogging, but I have a reason!

So, remember when I went to New York and it was autumn and lovely, and I mentioned how Arizona decided to tone it down a bit when I returned so that I could go outside and not get too stabby?

Yeah, that's over now.

Since I've gotten back to PHX, the temperature has decided to hover perilously close to 100º, which is exactly the same thing that happened this time last year, when I first arrived in Arizona.^  I had all these grand designs for fall cooking and baking, but the heat broke my resolve.  Fortunately, The Husband stepped up his game, and we decided that maybe, just maybe, if we pretended like it was fall and we made fall foods, perhaps we could trick the weather into changing.  

And one of the great fall foods, of course, is chili with cornbread (with smuggled apple pie, oh yes!).  I had asked The Husband to write about it, because he made it, but he responded, "Blearghª, it's just chili."  So, herewith I am going to try to re-create the chili-making.

First, choose 10 or so varieties of bean from our almost nonsensical collection.‡  Next, because you are clearly anticipating a long, hard winter that will require sustenance, through several handfuls of each bean type into the pressure cooker.  Put pressure cooker on the stove, then check email and Google reader.  Once beans cook, start chopping tomatoes (or use canned tomatoes, whatever), and dig out the frozen corn and peppers.  Chop some (a lot of) garlic too, and some onions, and throw everything into a pot and let it simmer.  Go read a few blog posts and comment on Facebook.  Put in spices.  Taste, then add more.  Yell at NPR story.  Add some more pepper, because everyone has tastebuds of steel, right?∆  Spend 20 minutes sifting through prodigious music collection to find perfect album for chili.  Serve.  Go get more milk, since your wife drank both your and her glasses before finishing even half her dinner.

So, yeah, it was spicy.  But!  It was tasty, especially when you add some sour cream and avocado and cheese, all of which cuts the mouth-burnination quotient greatly.  There was also green sweet cornbread (made with honey and blue cornmeal) and fig-cranberry-apple-ginger pie.  I don't know much about the construction of these two delights, other than that the pie contained Jonagold and Pippin apples (Pippins are kind of my new favorite apple, by the way); if you want the details, you'll have to ask The Husband.  Or just raise a ruckus, and perhaps he'll cave to peer pressure and finally write the damn post himself.

Next up, pasties!  (Not those kinds, pervert - this is a family blog.)

*All five of you!
^Happy One-Year-and-One-Day anniversary, PHX!  Except that it's not happy, because you're a punk and like trotting out heat waves like show ponies.
ªAt least, I think that's what he said.  It is very hard to transliterate guttural mumblings.
‡Please note that this makes up less than half of our total bean hoard.  Like I've said before, we (I) have problems.
∆Wrong.