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Posts Tagged ‘cooking’

a wonderful chaos

Posted in Inspiration, Kitchen Inspirations, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on April 12, 2016| 2 Comments »

pea tendrils

My indoor garden is in a bit of disarray. The nasturtium grew poorly in terms of foliage but continues to find strength to bloom. I’ve got peas in three little pots, their tendrils reaching for the sun. I need to decide soon if I will snip their tender tops to eat (the original intention) or let them grow tall and strong and possibly produce pods!

radish, nasturtium, and red kale greens

radish, nasturtium, and red kale greens

The radish are doing well … but I planted too many seeds and so now I have radish greens growing everywhere. Some of those little pots are designated as future salad greens, but I did find a few strong plants to put in one bigger pot. We’ll see if I can actually grow radishes indoors.  I was very successful growing potatoes indoors. They were marble-sized but that doesn’t really matter. 😉

sage

The herbs are so far doing well. I’m looking forward to the chef in my life roasting some baby potatoes on a bed of sage and maybe doing something with grilled cheese and fresh basil.

As wonderfully disorganized as everything is … I’ve got tarragon growing in a bathroom and rosemary in a bedroom … I cannot help but find joy in this garden and in the knowledge that the growing season has only just begun.

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soul food love, a review

Posted in Inspiration, Kitchen Inspirations, tagged , , , , , , , , , on December 17, 2015| Leave a Comment »

The recipes are good. They are simple, elegant and refined, like the family sharing its history through food.  The preface describes the book as telling the story of five kitchens and three generations of women. “Mother-daughter duo” Alice Randall and Caroline Randall Williams use the book to share stories from the kitchen, a place that could be both forboding and a place of great calm, depending upon one’s generation (e.g. slavery) and one’s location (e.g. north vs. south).  Traditional, mostly southern recipes, are reworked.  Flavoring agents like bacon dripping, ham hocks, and butter are replaced by olive oil, or no oil at all.  But fear not.  As I told my big brother, a traditional southern cook, flavors have been retained if not indeed heightened with the liberal use of spices. My favorite recipes were the simplest like the Warm Onion and Rosemary Salad, Herb-Roasted Salmon Fillet, Fiery Green Beans and Links Salad composed of green beans, green peas, cucumber and basil.

There’s a Homemade Peanut Butter recipe. The authors describe peanut butter “as a bass note that can carry a wide variety of top notes” and encourage users, once comfortable with the basic recipe, to add spices. Be creative. Set no limits.  It’s a sentiment that fits the family.

Many of the book’s recipes from Mama’s Tequila Ice to Eggplant Tower with Mashed White Beans open with brief headnotes that describe the family connection to the dish.  Whether its a variation on a meal served while hosting parties during the Harlem Renaissance or a reworking of a meal had as family members traveled overseas in Yugoslavia, each recipe clearly has meaning.

While its an eclectic mix of recipes, overall the book is quite a culinary inspiration.  The recipes don’t begin until page 80.  Those first seventy-nine pages are a poetic examination of five kitchens, and American history, beginning with Minnie Randall (1897-1976) through Caroline Randall Williams (b. 1987).  Reviewing the book has reawakened my desire to ask family members about their memories of food past and what they’d like to cook in the future.  You don’t need to be of African American heritage to enjoy this book.  It’s an American experience that can be shared, quite deliciously, by all.

I received this book from Blogging for Books for this honest review.

More Info …

Author Bios

SoulFoodLove

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raspberry black walnut sauce

Posted in Inspiration, Kitchen Inspirations, tagged , , , , , , , , on December 15, 2015| 1 Comment »

This is what happened when raspberries accidentally got crushed in my house. They’d bounced around a bit too much in their packaging on the way home.  Steve took a look at them, rubbed his chin and then with a faraway look in his eyes said, “I have an idea.”

The next morning there was a sweet scent in the air. I made my way into the kitchen, and there on the table next to the plate of hot buttered toast sat a small bowl of warm red sauce. His recipe, more or less: crushed berries cooked with a little butter and brandy, sweetened with a touch of sugar, and flavored with half a teaspoon of crushed black walnuts.

It’s a recipe that will continue to evolve. If we accidentally or on purpose crush anymore raspberries, he’d like to try maple syrup in place of the sugar. And maybe toss in a different nut like crushed hazelnuts. I’ll try any variation on the theme so long as there’s time to photograph the results.  Have a good day. 😉

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my house garden mapped

Posted in Inspiration, Kitchen Inspirations, tagged , , , , , , , , on April 27, 2015| 4 Comments »

I’ve been getting a few questions about my garden and how I can be growing everything from traditional herbs to potatoes all indoors.  Please keep in mind that some of my planting vessels are re-purposed espresso cups and cereal bowls and very few vessels are large.  Nevertheless, I am very lucky to live in an old Victorian with lots of nooks and crannies and windows all around.  Outside the kitchen, in the hallway, is a table tucked against a window.  And upon that table you will currently find …

Enter the kitchen and one of the very first things you will see is a small bookcase where cookbooks and old recipes are kept on the shelves.  On the narrow top, are the following edible parts …

And just ahead, not far, is a small table that receives plenty of light. And so upon its right-hand corner there are stacked the following herbs and sprouts …

Now to the right of the table is a sizeable floor speaker with a sturdy wooden case.  That’s right. I usurped a portion of the top and there you will find …

And, last but not least, in this kitchen there is a bay of windows.  The curvature is such that the area was just big enough for a certain person to tuck his handmade wooden carpenter’s workbench.  I held myself in check and only borrowed a left-hand corner where there now sits …

There are other plants around whose images I like to share with you, but these are the edible ones, close to and in the kitchen, always reaching for the light.  I made these guides for the resident chef so that he knows what he is snipping at but I also made them for myself as a calm way to end the day.  Enjoy. 😉

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more food images from the week

Posted in Inspiration, Kitchen Inspirations, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on July 6, 2014| 2 Comments »

An impromptu dinner salad:  two tomatoes sliced, topped with chopped red onion and fresh basil leaves, drizzled with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

Filling for a 3-egg omelet:  chopped smoked salmon, gruyere cheese, tiny bit of red onion, and an assortment of chopped herbs (parsley, chervil and whatever else caught the chef’s eyes).

A quick breakfast:  a few slices of bread, buttered and then toasted, served with a handful of fresh raspberries.  Coffee and cream on the side.  Overall, a yummy week, I must say.

p.s. Thanks to all for the potato recipes. In the end, they were cooked with some butter and garlic and sprinkled with herbs. You never know what the future holds, but if I do grow potatoes next year, I have my eyes on a bigger pot. 😉

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quail eggs

Posted in Inspiration, Kitchen Inspirations, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on March 3, 2014| 2 Comments »

An impulse buy at the grocery store for sure.  A package of eighteen little eggs with so many different patterns on their shells.

A half dozen can fit into my hand at once.  As for preparation …

… something simple.  Perhaps boil them, shell them and place on a bed of mixed lettuce greens.  Add a few sliced cherry tomatoes.  Maybe drizzle the ensemble with a salad dressing made from the aioli Steve made last night.  And yes, that aioli is infused with those mustard greens.  Some toasted bread rubbed with garlic, and I think that’ll do it. 😉

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mustard green dishes

Posted in Kitchen Inspirations, Nature Notes, tagged , , , , , , , , , on March 2, 2014| 3 Comments »

I mostly remember leafy greens on Sunday.  My mother, with a few helping hands on occasion, would pick the leaves, rinse them to remove any grit, and then place them in a big pot with some ham.  Much water would be added, along with salt and pepper.  The pot would simmer for what seemed like hours.  Once steaming green leaves were piled on dinner plates, sometimes chopped white onions would be tossed on top for a bit of crunch (that’s what my dad liked) and sometimes apple cider vinegar, depending on the type of green.  Of all the greens, kale was my favorite, especially curly kale. After finishing the pot of any type of greens, nothing was better than to drink the remaining flavor-filled pot liquor. Mustard had a peppery bite, the intensity of which I was reintroduced to this past weekend in several interesting dishes that both stirred up these childhood memories and made me reach for my camera.

Mustard Greens

Mustard Greens

Steve bought one small bunch of mustard greens and began to experiment immediately.  The first dish involved adding a small portion of chopped fresh mustard greens to a vegetable stir fry of broccoli, kale and red peppers. The second mustard-infused dish was a homemade hamburger made of finely chopped steak, hen of the woods mushrooms, parmesan cheese, mustard greens and one egg.  The tiny hamburgers were formed, fried and served up on toasted bread with sliced tomatoes and red onions on the side.

Hamburger with Cheese, Mushroom and Mustard Greens

Hamburger with Cheese, Mushroom and Mustard Greens

The third dish was inspired by a particular Japanese method of layering thin slices of seared tuna, white rice, wasabi and shiso.  A spicy mouthful to say the least.  This particular variation on a theme involved cooking white rice and mixing it with fresh chopped green onion and mustard greens.  The rice was served with thin slices of tuna on top and wasabi and soy sauce on the side.  While the tuna is now gone, there is still rice remaining.  I’ve encouraged the chef to turn these leftovers into golden fried cakes.  We’ll see what the new week holds.;)

White Rice with Mustard Green and Green Onions

White Rice with Mustard Green and Green Onions

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hot off the press: making pasta

Posted in Inspiration, Kitchen Inspirations, tagged , , , , , , , , on February 17, 2014| 4 Comments »

Foliate Oak is one of a growing number of quality online literary magazines.  Great content and visuals.  It is an honor to have a series of images, Making Pasta, selected to appear in the current issue.  When you have a chance, please take a look.  Just click on the image below.  Given that the chef who made the pasta told me he intends to make no more, well, that makes me especially glad I captured the moment.  And it was tasty too.

Making Pasta Series

Making Pasta Series

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steve’s cheese bread, revisited

Posted in Inspiration, Kitchen Inspirations, tagged , , , , , , , , , on December 26, 2013| 4 Comments »

I’ve written about this bread before (please see here).  This time I managed to photograph the end result before consuming all the crumbs.

I’ve been asked for his recipe.  He says that he simply plays with the basic Cheese Bread recipe found on page 749 of The Joy of Cooking (1997 ed.).  He never uses the same selection of cheese or herbs twice.  Mostly it all depends on what’s in the refrigerator or around the kitchen on a given day.  This particular holiday loaf had a lot of Parmesan, black pepper and rosemary.  Maybe some Cheddar and Gruyere?   Well, at least, he keeps track of his culinary revisions on an increasingly smudgy index card.

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“stroking lemons and lavender will not pay the bills”

Posted in Books I Love, Inspiration, Kitchen Inspirations, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on September 5, 2013| 3 Comments »

That thought crossed my mind this morning as I did everything except the one thing I needed to be doing — write, write, write.  But, eventually, I remembered that part of my creative process, especially when I am feeling stuck on a writing project, is to get up from the computer and to walk toward … something.  In this case it was toward a small table in Steve’s kitchen.

On the table is an eclectic mix of items:  an antique silver pitcher against which leans a postcard of Hiroshige’s Plum Garden, a small pot of basil, two pots of red peppers separated by a pot of Cuban oregano, lavender that needs to be replanted and some lemon verbena.

Nestled amidst all of these herbs are bits of pottery filled with fruits of the season, glass votives, an empty wooden basket, and another postcard, Romare Bearden’s Autumn Lamp (Guitar Player).

Deborah Madison’s Vegetable Literacy sits open upon the table, too.  I think I have it for two more weeks from the library before I have to return it. It’s a good book that I think I am going to add to my Christmas list. I flipped through the book for a bit, letting my eyes dance over her words and images.  And then guess what?

I closed the book (after marking what I intend to try for dinner tonight).  I sat back down at the computer and began to put fingers to the keyboard, feeling just a little bit less stuck.  😉

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