I love getting a hold of old-fashioned, not very utilised ingredients and then making something from them. In my mind, pearl barley fits the category. When was the last time you had barley? And how did you have it? I’ll wager that it was just a filler in a soup and that you ate said soup over a decade ago. Am I right? Barley is trying to make a quiet comeback but if you look in the dry soup goods area of your local supermarket, I’ll bet you’ll find that it’s still really cheap. The bag I bought was 500 grams and only $1.99!

Besides being full of goodness, grain salads provide an opportunity to have salad in the middle of winter. It’s been so cold here lately, that the last thing I want is icy cold crunchy veg in a bowl. Although this salad is room temperature, not hot, it’s still some sort of bridge between the winter comfort of warm food and the satisfying nutrition of a summer salad. It’s also very filling, which means you could really have just this for lunch and be more than full until afternoon tea. It’s got the bite of grain with the saltiness of the feta, rounded out by a tiny hit of sour sweetness from the dried cranberries, all the things you need to keep your puku happy.

Barley, Cranberry, Cashew and Feta Salad

You need:

1 Cup of uncooked pearl barley
3 Cups water or stock
1 handful of dried cranberries
1 handful of cashews
2 chopped spring onions
1 handful of chopped, flat-leaf parsley
black pepper
Olive oil
Balsamic vinegar
100 grams feta or other creamy, salty cheese-chopped or broken
salt

You do:

Pick through the barley and remove anything that looks yucky or is a stone. Place barley in the water and bring to a boil. Lower the heat to a good simmer and cook until the barley is tender. It does take some time so plan ahead. Once barley is the desired texture, drain off any excess water and place in a serving bowl. Add the cranberries, cashews, spring onions and parsley and give it a good stir. Now season with the olive oil, vinegar* and then pepper to taste. Add the feta and fold in gently. Taste for saltiness and add salt if the feta is not enough for you.

*A good standard mix for dressing is 3 parts oil to 1 part vinegar but you may need a bit more vinegar to liven up this much grain.

Just mention the word ‘tapioca’ and you strike fear into the hearts of many. It seems the cheap pudding has had a bad rap since its history as an economical dessert in difficult times and, worse, as served up on school lunch trays in a gelatinous lump. My grandfather used to refer to it as “frog’s eggs”, but then he also used to tell us that some of the raisins in the pack still had legs on them. It’s a wonder I eat anything with that kind of early input. Tapioca is really the name of the starch and some people also call the milk-based pudding sago. In case you weren’t paying attention in school, it comes from the cassava plant and little elves do some secret stuff to it in order to render it edible. I went to a special school. It also comes in a variety of sizes and you may have enjoyed the biggest ones in your boba or milk pearl tea.

The interesting thing about travelling is that you get to see what delights from your past, ones that you’d assumed long gone, have taken hold in different countries and continued through their own evolution. In South East Asia, tapioca is such a beast. In Asia, tapioca is not simply relegated to being a stodgy boarding school paste, it is celebrated with flavours such as pandan, ginger, lemon, sesame and tea! In South Asian countries such as Sri Lanka, India and Bangladesh it is even popular to use tapioca with chillies and spices to make a savoury dish. Oh yes, it’s very exciting. This recipe is not from any particular cuisine but takes the flavours of Asia, en generale, to make something sweet that even my grandfather might’ve approved of. Try it. Really.
 

Green Tea, Lemongrass and Ginger Tapioca Pudding

You need:

1 Cup Tapioca

2.5 Cups Green Tea (2.5 cups water and one tablespoon of green tea, I used everyday Chinese tea)

1 Stalk Lemongrass chopped into 4 or five pieces

1 Pinch of Salt

Ginger syrup

Condensed Milk (or you could substitute coconut cream which is less sweet but very delicious)

You do:

Cover 1 Cup of tapioca in warm or cool water (ie. not cold or hot) and set aside for 20 minutes. In the meantime, make up the green tea and leave to steep. It needs to be strong so, you can leave it until you are ready to cook the tapioca, about 10-15 minutes.

Drain all the water off the tapioca, strain the leaves from the tea and place both in a pot with a pinch of salt and the lemongrass. Bring the whole lot up to the boil and then turn immediately down to a simmer for about 5-10 minutes. It is quite gloopy and spitty so mind out. You will think you are in Rotorua.

You will start to see most of the beads turn clear and you will know it’s about ready when it no longer tastes chalky. At this point, turn off the heat and let it sit, covered, for another 5-10 minutes and most of the remaining white beads will go clear.

To serve:

Pull out the lemongrass to use as a garnish and put about 1/2 a cup of tapioca  in each serving vessel. Drizzle with about a tablespoon of condensed milk and then a teaspoon or so of the ginger syrup. Stick a piece of lemongrass and a spoon in a serve. The lucky recipients can stir to their heart’s content before tucking in.

Boiling Mud by SidPix on Flickr

Even as someone who spends much of my working day online, I have never actually viewed an e-book. True, I am still fully in love with the ink on paper variety of reading but, that is not why I haven’t purchased an e-book. I simply haven’t come across something that I’ve wanted to read AND have it coincide with a gap in my giant stack of ‘To read’ books. But I became interested in the idea of a cooking e-book when Yolanda and Lobsang of YoWangdu.com decided to produce a Tibetan cookbook. I’d been reading their website for some time and also their wonderful newsletters and I could tell that this would be a quality product. So, I told them that I’d really like to try out some of their recipes and write about the book. They very generously supplied me with a review copy and off I went.

The book is essentially in three parts, meat, no meat and “something for everyone”. Being that this is mainly a vegetarian blog and most Tibetans are not vegetarians, I promptly flipped to the veggies recipes to see how the conversion challenge had been met. Very nicely, I’d say! Within the text it is pointed out that some vegetarian recipes and ingredients (such as those in the salad) are not necesarily traditional, but that many Tibetans have built an interest in such dishes as the diaspora expands outside of Tibet and meets new influences. I really liked that they said this because I think too often we expect a food culture to be what we imagine or have seen in National Geographic as children and do not take kindly to things we feel are “inauthentic”. But who is to say what is “authentic” in this transient, multi-cultural world we live in? That being said, I’d hate for you to get the impression that the book is filled with dumpling burgers or tsampa spaghetti! Rather, the recipes are traditionally based with concessions made only due to a lack of access to traditional ingredients or to make the item vegetarian friendly. I’ll add that everything I made was also very tasty. Have a look!

I started by making sepen, a lovely chilli sauce with added emma (aka Sichuan peppercorn).

I also wanted to try the trang sel, fresh salad, which was perfect when made with a mandoline.

The shamey tsel was a nice gentle fry up of onions, cabbage and shiitake mushrooms. It included fresh tomatoes that broke down to become a sauce for the other veggies.

And the grande finale? Shamey balep (also pictured at the top of this page) which I ate with the fresh sepen. The interior of mine were a bit pink as I used yin tsai as my green. As with any kind of dough covered delight, these took a while to produce but I had loads of them and they were great cold in my lunchbox the next day.

Unfortunately I have not yet visited Tibet, but I have spent some time in parts of India where I was able to indulge in the wonderful Tibetan food traditions. Having a chance to cook up a few things from this book takes me back to those days. If you are keen to check out the book yourself, here is a link and, if you are interested in any cultural information about Tibet I’d also highly recommend their website.

Although I spent my childhood in the United States, it wasn’t until I lived in England that I learned to eat peanut butter and jam/jelly. It is OK to admit that my undergraduate days consisted of a wee bit of overindulgence in a certain amber nectar? And, is it OK to admit that those particular overindulgences occasionally left me feeling a bit worse for wear in the morning? Yes? Whew! I thought you might bail on me. So, on one particular morning in some student house or another where 50 people would end up crashing for the night rather than walk home in the drizzling, cold rain, I met a friend of a friend who was visiting from another university. Obviously she was from the Clever Clogs Academy, because she taught me that toast with just the right amount of peanut butter and just the right amount of jam was the perfect cure for a hangover. There, I’ve said the “H” word. But she was absolutely correct! A nutritionist might tell us that it is the combination of carbs, protein and purest sugar that does it…and she’d also tell 22 year old me not to drink so much. But before I descend any lower, I’ll just point out that that incident pretty much sealed the deal as far as my love for peanut butter and all its beneficial, ahem, properties.

Fast forward to the older, wiser (ha!), more health conscious me and imagine my delight when a few years ago I started seeing references to butters made with other nuts. As I am partial to stirring a bit of peanut butter into my porridge/oatmeal, my fantasies about all the variations I could have started to run riot in my head including *gasp* almonds! Dum de dum, down to the local health food shop I went (add cliche about record scratching noise here) to find out it was 10-15 dollars for a jar of these spreads! What the…!?

But look here, it doesn’t have to be like that. A 300 gram jar of almond butter was on sale for $11 in my local supermarket today…but the unsalted, roasted almonds in the scoopy bins at Pak ‘n’ Save (You know the ones. They always have people standing around them comtemplating the meaning of the universe while they decide what to scoop.) were on sale for $2.50 per 100 grams. I scooped out 300 grams and made my own for $7.50. Moral: Look for the sales. Make your own nut butter. Eat more yum stuff.

And here’s another thing about making your own almond butter. It’s stupid easy. Oh there are stages. And you will doubt your self and your almonds and your cheapo appliance you bought at Briscoes (like mine), but have faith. You can do it and so can your appliance. Hold your breath because here comes the complicated and secret recipe. I’m only sharing this with you, by the way. Don’t tell the nut butter people I told you.

Homemade Almond Butter

You need

300 grams roasted, unsalted almonds
a pinch or two of salt and/or cinnamon if you wish

You do

Put almonds in to food processor.
Turn on food processor.

Now, I know that is daunting so I’m going to walk you through the stages. In actual fact, it does take some time, up to about 10-15 minutes of blending and so remain patient and all will be well.

Stage One

This is the ridiculously noisy stage where you think the almonds are going to burst through the sides of the bowl.

Stage Two

The almonds are starting to become chopped and look like dry breadcrumbs. If you are using salt and/or cinnamon, add it now. This stage lasts for quite a while.

Stage Three

Now the almonds look more like wet sand.

Stage Four

The wet sand is starting to clump. Now it is important to stop every minute or so and scrape down the sides of the bowl. You will notice an amazing, warm scent emerging when you open the bowl to do this.

Stage Five

The “This is never going to happen my food processor can’t handle this I have just wasted $7.50 on almonds and Marie is a big fat liar” stage. Big breaths, in, out, in, out. Keep scraping down the sides. It will happen.

Stage Six

The “Holy cow it’s happening!” stage. Finally, slowly, you will see the almonds start to really turn to paste and glisten with oil. You still need to keep the blade going for a while longer in order to get that smooth nut butter consistency, but keep checking and eventually it will feel a bit looser.

Stage Seven

The “OMG, I have to eat this NOW!” stage where you get your Vogels in the toaster.

If you are looking for more British or American recipes, try making your own pickled onions or some moreish pumpkin bread.

I’d hate for you to miss out so I thought I’d better get these photos up quick smart before it all disappears. The season’s quite short, and you may have to go to an Asian shop to find it, but it’s called yin tsai* or amaranth or “edible amaranth” as some sources call it. Don’t worry. Everything on my blog is edible, I assure you. The flavour is not grassy like a lettuce or even a spinach, but more somehow deeper green without being green tasting. OK, I’m admitting defeat on the flavour descriptor because I know that makes no sense, but I can tell you that it is very delicious. It does have a slightly slippery mouthfeel once fried, but not nearly as slippery as okra, for example, so I do believe most people can handle it. I like to stirfry it with just a touch or fish sauce or soy sauce and perhaps throw in a bit of garlic if you are feeling cheeky. It really doesn’t need much.

The important thing to remember about this leaf is that it will wilt very quickly, so buy it on the day you plan to use it if at all possible. I usually chuck a wet paper towel in the bag near the stems before closing it up if I want it to last until the evening meal, but sometimes even that is not enough. It’s a very sensitive leaf! So, when it comes time to prepare and you find a wilted mess in your fridge, just pretend you don’t see that it is being naughty and nip all the leaves off the stems like nothing is wrong whatsoever. Then, before the plant can notice, stick all of these leaves, stem end down, into a large bowl of cold water as if you are making a beautiful bouquet. It won’t look like much, but when you come back after an hour or more, there they are! The leaves are all standing up and happy and ready for you to fry them. They never knew what hit them. Oh, and watch out for the red juice that gets on everything once you fry the greens.

Let me know if you try it for the first time. I’d love to know what you think. Or if it is something you regularly eat, how do you prepare yours?

*Also yen chai or xian cai and rau dên in Vietnamese or pak khom in Thai

Although they made a great many amazing foods at home that I feel regretful I didn’t ask about, I’m not sure if my Polish relatives ever made sauerkraut at home. They definitely ate a lot of it. Kielbasa, Polish sausages, simmering in sauerkraut is a childhood scent. My Dad, arriving home late from work, sat at the table tucking in to those sausages that snapped to the bite. He said to me recently that he is “not a foodie like you and your mother” but I know that he loves Polish food. And, of all the pierogies we ate made by my Mum or carried in a suitcase by my grandmother, the sauerkraut ones were the best. They had to be fried, not just boiled, and slathered in sour cream. People were given those plastic pierogie formers for Christmases and Mothers’ Days but really, only a tuck of the fingers and a smash with a fork can get sauerkraut juices sealed in to perfection.

But from growing up, even with self-unbeknownst “foodies” in the family, I really thought sauerkraut came in a jar or a bag from the supermarket. In fact, when I mentioned on Facebook that I was making sauerkraut, a childhood friend queried, “You can MAKE that? I thought it came in a bag.” I guess we all just thought it was an ingredient…like tuna*.

Given my love for all things fermented and the fact that the cabbages are in season and beautiful I decided to make up a batch of basic salt-based sauerkraut. You can use whey or wine if you don’t want all the salt, but whatever you do, do try and make it yourself even if it is only a one off. It’s almost as easy as finding your shoes, wallet and keys and heading out to the supermarket.

Sauerkraut

You need:

One cabbage, shredded (about a kilo)

2-3 Tablespoons of salt

A big crock or other container and something to weigh down the kraut with (I use a bottling  jar full of water). I also place a plate under the weight just to keep more of the cabbage in place, but it just depends on what kind of weight you have.

You do:

Sprinkle the cabbage with the salt until it tastes quite (and by ‘quite’ I mean ‘very’ for all those N. Americans who have a different interpretation of the word!) salty and squish it up a bit so that the leaves become bruised and the water starts to be released. You can just press and roll it on a chopping board for this. Smile while you do this because it is the fun part…wait, maybe eating it is the fun part. You decide.

Place it in the container you will ferment in.I use a ceramic Chinese hot pot.

Put the weight on and push down until there is water (ie. cabbage juice and salt) coming up the sides. There may not be a lot at the start, but you just keep pressing on it over the first day or so until enough water comes out to cover all the cabbage.

Once you get it good and juicy, be sure that all of the cabbage is submerged as this is how it both ferments and stays safe from other bacteria.

Depending on how hot your house is, it takes two to five days for the cabbage to start to sour. If you find any mould on top, just scoop it off. It’s perfectly normal even though we’ve all been trained to be afraid of mould. Just be sure your cabbage is submerged and you will be sweet.

When it is the desired sourness, eat. Kielbasa optional.

*I assumed tuna was just an ingredient for mixing with mayonaise to put on a sandwich. I remember when I found out that it was an actual fish! Nobody called it “tuna fish”, just “tuna”.

One of the staples that I keep in my cupboards is besan, or chick pea flour. It’s a high protein flour because it’s made from beans, but it is also really easy to use because you only need to mix it with water in order to have a starter batter for whatever you want. If you chuck it in a bowl with a little turmeric and and pinch of salt and chilli powder, you can use this as a base for any pakora you like. Have an onion? Slice it and toss it in the batter! Wondering what to do with that last courgette lurking in the veggie drawer? Chop or grate, dunk, scoop out and fry in spoonfuls! Big chillies? Oooooh, stuff them with seasoned, cooked lentils, dunk and fry. Serve with chutney or just carry in your tiffin box.

I am very lucky to have been a recipient of a set of American pancake forms, from my Mum, that are all animal shapes. Being inspired by my son’s recent learning, and perpetual performing, of “the rawr”, I decided to go with the lion form. So, I thought a besan and turmeric based batter would suit a yellow lion down to the ground and a hidden vegetable thrown into the mix would suit me, the Mummy, down to the ground as well. With a little luck, all of this would also suit “Sir”. What follows is the result and, might I add, it wasn’t just yummy to him, his father and I pretty much scoffed up the rest of the batter in pikelet-sized pancakes once the wee tyke was off for his nap.

I’m writing in recipe form here for the sake of giving you an idea, but you’ll need to use your judgement. Besan comes in different grinds and carrots come in different sizes (This is true. I checked on the internet.) but you are looking for a loose batter that is muchly filled with carrot.

Cumin and Carrot Savoury Pancakes

You need:
1/3 cup besan
1/2 tsp haldi/ turmeric
a pinch of salt
a pinch and a half of cumin seeds
5 Tbls water
1 small carrot, grated

Mix the first four ingredients in a bowl and press out any lumps with a fork. Add the water and mix gently. It should look fairly thin. Finally grate in the carrot and turn over a few times. As with any pancake batter, you don’t want to over mix it or the pancakes will be tough. Pan fry on medium heat in olive oil or lovely, lovely ghee.

Serve with chutney or on their own. This makes enough for a snack for two people or one really hungry one, about 9-10 small pancakes or one giant lion.

What does any of this have to do with quick lunches, I hear you ask? Well, because we were late getting back for naptime and the routine has been changed, I know that anything could happen and my son could wake up at any minute and I am hungry! Must… eat… and… blog…. So, I’m typing as fast as I can type and eating a lentil salad that is one of my favourite standbys. To the annoyance of my husband who loves them, I am not keen on sandwiches unless there is absolutely nothing else available. Because why eat a boring ol’ sarnie when you can have one of these lovely things in just about the same amount of prep time?  When I am in a hurry, some of my faves are:

Lentil Salad

1. Open and drain a tin of lentils and dump into your salad bowl. Yes, I said tin. This is a quick and easy ideas post so, deal with it.

2. Chop one tomato in your hand directly into the bowl. Do NOT use a chopping board or you will have to wash it up. Capiche?

3. Slice off a bit of onion into the bowl.

4. Search kitchen for those last bits of hydroponic herbs, whatever they are, that never get eaten and throw those into the bowl. Use dried if necessary, no biggie.

5. Add a pinch of salt and pepper.

6. Drizzle on some vinegar, preferably balsamic, and some olive oil. I like Chilli infused olive oil because I am addicted to chilli, but it’s your call.

7. Optional: If you have some blue cheese or feta chop this in as well.

8. Eat

Antoine’s Potatoes

This is just so easy since you don’t really have to watch the potatoes. Just let them boil until ready and voila! Click here for details

Scrambled Tofu

If you have any kind of tofu in your fridge, this is easy and tasty. I would take the time to do the onion and garlic as they make it that much more savoury and delicious. But, really the whole thing should take a matter of minutes. Click away!

Come on now. Tell me what you do for quick lunches. I love to get new ideas for this time of day.

“The U.N. recently announced that the number of people suffering from the problems of “overnutrition” has for the first time exceeded the number suffering from undernutrition” (Pollan 2008:xiv)

As the book sits here accruing library fines (Naughty blogger!) I am finally getting round to reading and reviewing In Defence of Food by Michael Pollan. Well, I loved it. It says all the things I have always believed about the food industry and how it affects what we, as normal consumers, eat. The difference is that it explains in more detail than I have ever had, the connections. For example, from reading Diet for a New America in the 1980s, I knew that the meat and dairy boards in the U.S. are the ones responsible for supplying schools with ‘educational’ materials about what to eat but this book goes on to explain how, why and by whom food has been “nutritionised” and “industrialized” in other ways. Where it used to be that humans were drawn to foods by taste and colour and instincts (remember those?), now we have been trained to think in terms of nutrients. That doesn’t sound so bad, does it? But the thing we have to think about is who has called for the nutrient-determining research and for what purpose? By reducing a food item to it’s nutrient parts (which, by the way, is a very inexact science as far as variable-laden food is concerned) industry can successfully market in terms of “low fat” “low GI” “high carb”, etc. His best example is that of margarine. Seriously, you would think that it was a super food in the way it can be manipulated to fit any deficiency. This month, it seems, magarine can lower your cholesterol. Cue eye roll.

He goes on to cite researchers such a Weston Price who have looked at the ills of the Western Diet through fieldwork in the past and how their findings, some of which need to be taken with a pinch of low-sodium salt, tend to lean toward the same idea, we need to eat real food, but we don’t eat real food, so we get sick.

Michael Pollan’s manifesto is this: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” Pretty straightforward if you ask me, but he does go on to define ‘food’ and clarify the other two points. Sadly, what should be obvious to us about food is often lost in these days of fake foods and “nutritionism” and I really like how Mr. Pollan has laid it all out here in black and white. While reading the book I often found myself thinking “I knew it!” when I’d come across things that I’d been doing and felt were right, but just didn’t really know why. It’s good to find someone who thinks that same as you, or is it just that instinct thing?

I’d recommend the book as an alternative to nutrient-based writings on food. The book doesn’t say that low carb/low fat/ high protein/high sugar/extreme fibre/veganism/meat eating is the way to go. Instead, it explains how we have been looking at it all from a managed perspective. And that perspective has been managed for us by others (scientists and educators led by industry, basically).

Have you read this book or any of this others? I’d love to hear your opinions.