Goodbye To All That

I am very clearly my father’s daughter. I’m my mother’s daughter, too, in a lot of ways, but if you ever see me and my dad next to each other, you’ll know exactly where I came from. Along with some obvious physical characteristics, I inherited an almost pathological love of cheese and a pretty serious cholesterol problem. (Love you, Dad!)

I’ve been ignoring my genetics for a little too long, or so my doctor informed me at my last check-up. But I’m solidly in my 30s now and have to face the proverbial music. What this means for the kitchen is that I can no longer rely on the formula of veggies + eggs = dinner. That is going to be the challenge for the year. Eggs are a good source of protein, they keep in the fridge for quite a while, and they cook up very quickly. That last point is especially useful when one arrives home from an evening at the dojo with low blood sugar and about 20 minutes to go until stomach implosion. But eggs, like cheese, butter, ice cream, and shellfish, have to feature a lot less in my meals going forward. Sigh.

Moving on.

Luckily for me, I enjoy eating vegetables (as you might have figured out by now). I don’t believe in veganism as a permanent way of life, but I do often wind up eating meals that include no animal products. This time, it was on purpose (the day after getting the results of my blood work).

Start with a big sweet potato and a bunch of asparagus, and maybe some garlic and ginger.

(The onion is a red herring.)

Oh, except really, you start with some couscous. Put a cup or so of dried couscous in a heatproof bowl, and stir in a little olive oil, salt, and chopped scallion. Boil a kettle of water and pour it over everything. Stick a plate on top of the bowl and then go about your business with the rest of the meal.

Now back to the veggies. Grate the sweet potato coarsely. Heat some peanut oil in a big skillet and stir fry with some ginger, garlic, and salt until it starts to get tender. You don’t want to overcook it, because it will get all mushy and then the texture won’t contrast with the couscous.

When the sweet potatoes have reached that sort of al dente stage, add in the asparagus, chopped into bite-sized pieces.

Stick a lid on the skillet to steam the asparagus, but again, watch the timing. Overcooked asparagus can be tragic.

Once the veggies are cooked to your liking, plate everything up. Big scoop of couscous (note that traditionally, couscous is served with a fork), couple big scoops of veg, and a few spoonfuls of harissa, or Tabasco, or sriracha, or vinaigrette…

This is a really fast dinner. Grating is a good technique to remember for root vegetables when you don’t have an hour to spare before you risk collapsing from hunger on the kitchen floor.

 

Sweet Potato and Asparagus Couscous

serves 3-4

1 cup couscous

1 Tbsp olive oil

2-3 scallions, finely chopped

1 large sweet potato

1 lb. asparagus, trimmed & cut into bite-sized pieces

1 inch fresh ginger, peeled & grated

2 cloves garlic, minced

1-2 Tbsp peanut oil

salt

Toppings: harissa; sriracha; Tabasco; etc.

 

Boil a kettle of water. Mix up the couscous with the olive oil, chopped scallions, and 1/2 tsp salt in a heatproof bowl. Pour about 1 1/2 cups of boiling water into the bowl, stir it up, and put a plate on top of it.

Heat the peanut oil over medium-high heat in a large skillet. Grate the sweet potato and add it to the pan with the ginger, garlic, and a little salt. Stir fry for a few minutes, until the potato is starting to soften. Add the asparagus pieces, stir, and put a lid on the pan until everything is just tender.

Scoop some of the couscous into a bowl, and put some of the cooked vegetables on top of it. Dress it with the sauce of your choice.

Memory Lapse

I am known in some circles for having a poor memory. I lose things, I forget things, I . . . there’s a third thing I do. 

I lose travel coffee mugs constantly. Once I went hunting for my phone and found it on a shelf in the linen closet. At least twice, I have paid for a pound of coffee beans and then walked away without my purchase. I’d like to say that I don’t lose important things, but my mom will set the record straight on that (*cough*a certain ring of hers*cough*). I can only remember the plots of the last 10 books I’ve read, give or take. I stopped being able to learn song lyrics sometime in college. And for some reason I can’t get it through my head that I don’t like mustard greens.

Strolling through the greenmarket the other morning, Bodhi Tree Farm had the most beautiful greens sitting out. It was a grey morning, cool and damp, and these greens were all . . . well, green! But so many shades, some with red veins, some with purplish tints, some almost blue they were so dark. So I found myself buying a bunch of mustard greens. I don’t even know what variety. They were just pretty.

And then I started looking up recipes. And I remembered, oh, right, I don’t really like mustard greens. I’ve eaten them every time they show up in my CSA (so, at least 3 times…) and they always seem too astringent. I had sort of given up on finding my go-to recipe for when the season comes around again each year. But luckily, I happened to have some sweet potatoes lying around, and when I googled those two ingredients together, I discovered this recipe for Coconut-Flavored Sweet Potato with Mustard Greens. And the happy ending of the story is that I think I have found what to do with mustard greens from now on.

Start with sliced onions, in vegetable oil. 

Cook until they’re starting to go translucent (probably over lower heat than recommended by the recipe, though I don’t think a little browning is a bad thing here), and then add some mustard seeds and minced garlic.

After another minute or two, add a can of coconut milk, coriander, cayenne, a cinnamon stick, and some cubed sweet potato. I used a Japanese variety, hence the white flesh, because I am a sucker for weird heirloom varieties of anything. I think I should investigate the difference in nutritional value between that and the regular orange kind, though. Usually vegetables that are more colorful are better for you, and that is also something for which I’m a sucker…

Cover the pot and let it cook while you wash & chop up your greens. 

(Can you blame me for being seduced by these? They are just so lovely and spring-like, I couldn’t resist.)

So cut out the stalks, chop them up into bite-sized pieces, and add them to the pot.

Keep cooking another 15 minutes, until the sweet potato is soft and the greens are tender.

Serve with rice and a squeeze of lemon or lime. For reasons that I cannot fathom, I had neither a lemon NOR a lime in the fridge when I made this, so I drizzled in a few drops of white wine vinegar, which was delicious but surely a very different flavor than the recipe’s author wanted. But I have no doubt that I will have a chance to try it again as originally intended.

Although the color in these photos is not the best, the rice in the above photo is actually reddish, something branded as Madagascar Pink Rice. See above re: sucker for heirloom varieties.

End of Days

J. is moving to Washington, DC, at the end of the month. Which means only a few more opportunities for giving her some tips in the realm of vegetarian cooking. And in all this time we haven’t even made it through season 1 of Alias. But it is too sad to think about New York without J., so instead I’ll focus on the food.

For this week, I suggested we find a recipe that featured carrots, because I am kind of overloaded with them in spite of making three (3) jars of pickled carrots and one jar of carrot-ginger dressing (which, admirably, I have refrained from drinking, as tempting as it might be). J. has kind of a magic touch with finding recipes on Epicurious, and sure enough, she found one for Quinoa with Moroccan Winter Squash and Carrot Stew. Subbing in sweet potatoes for the winter squash, I had almost all the ingredients on hand, which is pretty remarkable.

What is less remarkable is that I forgot to charge either of my camera batteries after the last photo-worthy dinner, and my phone needed charging, too, so partway through cooking I had to resign myself to the business of cooking, and not photo-blogging. Such is life.

Anyway, mise en place:

The quinoa gets cooked with finely diced carrot and onion, and minced garlic, while the stew has all those things in larger chunks, plus a lot of spices.

As much as I love winter squash, sweet potatoes have such a similar flavor and texture and they are SO much easier to peel/chop/prep that in the future I might find myself doing this substitution more often.

By the time dinner was ready, my phone at least had charged enough to take a shot of my plate (garnished with cilantro and mint).

And it would have made a lovely lunch the next day if I’d remembered to bring the tupperware to work with me…