Kumquat Connection

Week 19: Cabbage

Hi Leigh,

It's been a while, hasn't it?

I have to admit, I put the KC on the back burner for what I thought was a few weeks, but as my lovely roommate, Kristen reminds me bitterly, it's been about 2 1/2 months since we last posted. I took a big test for work, you moved, I got some crazy "allergy", you applied to grad school - basically life got in the way. Geez, life. (Congrats on getting into school, by the way) In fact it's been so long, one of our regular readers asked if we had a falling out. That's a little extreme, but I get it, I get it - it's been a while.

Believe it or not, I actually prepared a recipe for our current ingredient in a timely manner. But "timely manner" was so long ago, I forgot exactly what went into it. Not a prob! I think I can get pretty close. So here goes...

Impromptu Coleslaw for Taco Night: this salad is light and refreshing, especially if you let it chill for a few hours. I made it for a Mexican themed Sunday night dinner and it was a great alternative to heavy rice and beans.

 

1/2 head cabbage, sliced thin
1 package grape tomatoes
1/2 red onion, sliced thin
1 jalepeno, diced
1/4 cup cilantro, chopped
1/3 cup lime juice
2 Tbsp olive oil
4 tsp dijon mustard
2 Tbsp water
s&p
1 avocado, sliced thin

Prepare a few hours before serving, if possible. Combine cabbage, tomatoes, onion, jalepeno and cilantro in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together lime juice, olive oil, mustard, water and s&p to taste. Pour viniagrette over cabbage mixture and toss to coat. Cover and refrigerate for several hours. Before serving top with sliced avocado.

If I recall, it's my turn to pick the ingredient. I originally chose our next ingredient when it was still a bit wintery out. I consider it a fall food, but I think it has real potential for spring fare as well, so I'm going to stick with it. I choose....cranberries. You can choose any form you like - fresh, frozen, dried, juiced.

I'm glad we're back on track!

Bonnie

Fire Breather

Hi Bon,

The recipe I've been working on for canned tomatoes is a fiery one.  I grew up with a chile-growing Dad who eats the hottest chiles he can find for sport.  Mom and Dad make all manner of things with the garden's bounty of chiles: chile rellenos with big, fresh, green anaheim chiles, chile wreaths for adorning the kitchen, jars of chiles with carrots and onions as Christmas gifts, green chile enchiladas...you name it.  Growing up, our kitchen was even decorated with two charts categorizing chile heat: one for chiles fresca and one for chiles seco.  

This winter (my first real winter ever), I've been drawn to the spiciest foods I can find.  We've jumped on the train in search of mysterious tastebud-tingling Szechuan hotpots deep in Chinatown despite negative-skin-freezing-temperatures outside.  We trudged through a white out blizzard and endured an hour-long bus ride to slurp up chile laden chutneys and soups in Devon's Indian restaurants.  When you were here we ventured out into the frozen night in search of injera and uber spicy Ethiopian food. 

Not surprisingly, my homemade soups have grown more and more fiery over the last several months.  As our buddy Chris--a fellow Californian transplanted in the Midwest--says: spicy soups "warm from within."   

Today I'm sharing a favorite soup that is laden with goodies.  The heat is adjustable--so no fear if you are not a fellow fire breather.   

Also, do you know about hominy?  A good friend of mine, who is an expert in Mexican cooking and eating, calls it "flowered" corn.  Imagine big, fat, yielding kernels.  They are neither tough nor mushy.  Their texture and taste is quite special and adds so much body to a soup. 

I could call this soup "vegetarian posole," but that title is perhaps a bit counter intuitive.  I replace the traditionally included chicken and chicken broth with beans and vegetable broth.  My friend informed me that traditional posole come in three varieties: verde, rojo, and blanco.  Each version includes either green chiles (mild version), red chiles like chipotles or anchos (spicy--the version I'm playing off of), or plain chicken broth (very mild).   I get my hominy in a big can either from a Mexican grocery or from the Mexican aisle of a non-Mexican grocery.  My friend tells me that the kernels of dried hominy contained in bags his family brings back from Mexico are significantly larger than the type sold in the US.  I'm crossing my fingers on getting my hands on some of this monster hominy.  

I hope you play with some new ingredients when making this soup; it is ripe for substitutions. 

And as for the news you have been waiting for: next week we've got cabbage cooking in the Kumquat Kitchen.

love leigh

 

Rojo Hominy Sopa con Frijoles  

2 chiles (I have used either dried ancho chiles or chipotles in adobo sauce from a can--or a combination of both)
2 tablespoons oil
1 onion, diced
5 cloves garlic, minced
7 cups vegetable broth or water
28 oz. can "fire roasted" crushed tomatoes
1 tablespoon oregano
1.5 or 2 cups beans (I have used garbanzo, black, and red nightfall beans.  Canned or dried beans both work...but slow cooking beans from their dried state makes for crazy tasty soup.)
28 oz. can hominy, drained and rinsed
Salt
Lime Juice

1.  If using dried chiles, soak them in hot water for 15-20 minutes, then remove the stems and puree in a food processor.  If using canned chipotles, remove the stems and puree.
2.  In a large pot, saute the onion in oil over medium heat until soft and translucent.  Add the garlic and saute 30 seconds before adding most of the pureed chile paste, tomatoes and their juices, oregano, and 7 cups of broth or water.  3.  Cover, lower flame, and simmer for 5 minutes.
4.  Add the beans and hominy and return to a simmer for 10-15 minutes.
5.  Before serving, taste the soup and add lime juice and salt to taste.  Add more chile paste too, if you require more fire.  I like enough of a bite of lime to counteract the chiles.

 

----------- 

P.S. After my mom read your previous note regarding reports that Kumquat is becoming a bastion of food snobbery, she called me immediately.  Mom reminded me of a recipe she made for almost every party (and definitely every kids party) growing up.  You asked for simple, and she suggested a recipe that doesn't get any simpler.  The recipe also couldn't be further from my mom's actual cooking philosophy, or that which we tout here on Kumquat...but it is ridiculously yummy.

   

Texas Kate's Queso Dip

1 Box Velveeta Cheese
1 Can Rotelle Tomatoes  

Put ingredients in crockpot.  When melty and delicious, start dipping in the tortilla chips.  Watch people flock to crockpot.

Week 18: Canned Tomatoes

Hey Leigh,

I'm just going to get to the point today...

It's recently come to my attention that the KC isn't giving off the easy-after a long day at work-no hassle cooking vibe that we'd like it to. It pains me to tell you, but I'm afraid we've been lumped into the "food snob" category.

Now don't get me wrong, I certainly can be a food snob at times. I spent 5 minutes in the condiment aisle over the weekend detailing my argument for the $4.00 BBQ sauce instead of my dad's usual $1.89 BBQ sauce and every Wednesday when I receive my local, organic produce box, I proudly pull out eat item, greet it and fawn over it as if I'm trying to make friends - not about it eat it. I'll happily admit, in the world of food snobs, I can throw down.

But most of the time, I'm no snob. I have a small apartment kitchen, 4 bosses at work, no car and no credit card. And for these reasons, the bulk of my made at home meals need to come from super easy, no stress, accessible (read: affordable), simple recipes. That's the way I cook.

Week 17: Citrus

Hi Leigh,

It's been a big two weeks of baking for me. I know! - I can hear you from here, "Bonnie's HAPPYabout baking?!?" ... Well yes, because none of my endeavors turned catastrophic this time around. I have no witty How-I-Blew-Up-The-Kitchen stories this week. Only successes. Woo! And I'm crazy excited to share them.

Three weekends ago, my friend, Christine and I trekked to Noe Valley for a cookbook signing. Christine's friend, Anita has a great lil cookbook out entitled "Field Guide to Cookies." A bit apprehensive at the thought of discussing baking with a trained pastry chef, I was sold on the excursion at the mention of cookie samples. (Yes, I will travel 45 minutes for samples of cookies. I'd probably even travel further.) Also, if nothing else, I thought might learn something and I'm all about that - so we went. And I was not disappointed...

Jewels of Winter

 

Hi Bon,

 

We had a tough week in Chicago two weeks ago.  It marked the first time C and I looked at each other and asked "did we make a mistake in moving here?  We haven't been outside for more than ten minutes per day in five days.  Our eyelashes are freezing together.  Our noses drip down our faces and we can't feel it.  Did we even wear closed-toe shoes in LA?  Didn't we play frisbee and wear shorts everyday there too?"

Cardamom, Queen of Spices

 

Hey Bon,

Your previous post helped me.  It made me smile.  It made me realize that we need to be better about not feeling guilty about not being better.  Can that be a resolution?  Maybe that's what I should think to myself when I'm standing in the elevator and wishing it would go faster because I'm late to wherever I was supposed to be 7 minutes prior. 

 

It is in this light that I'm sharing this cardamom recipe.  I made this recipe in December.  Just after you and I picked up the sweet, spicy, mystical smelling cardamom during your visit.  (As an aside, do you remember that night when we came home with our bounty of spices and my friend Bruce opened the baggie of cardamom, stuck his nose inside, and as he inhaled deeply an expression of pure joy--the one which comes from reliving a favorite lost memory--took hold of his face.  He looked up and exclaimed "It smells like India!")

Week 16: Cardamom

Hi Leigh,

Back into the swing of things and well on our way into the New Year, I decided to post on time this week. It's part of my New Years Resolution - to be better at things. Be better at getting up in the morning (yesss, I'm serious), be better at vacuuming regularly, be better at spending money, be better at taking walks around my neighborhood, be better at not procrastinating and be better at letting go when I don't live up to any of my New Years resolutions. Basically, I had a lot of candidates for my New Years resolution and being an over-ambitious thinker, I tried to bundle them into one maxim. "Be Better At Things" was the only umbrella term that fit them all. So I'm posting on Thursday of our dedicated Cardamom week instead of half a week into the next ingredient...and I'm purposefully sharing this with you in order to guilt trip myself from here on out (damn, already failed on the resolution!)

The maxim also includes be better at not eating white things. It's not that I'm culinarily racist, but eating white stuff isn't great for you. I don't need to tell you, Queen of Bulk Grains, but eating brown things (brown rice, whole wheat pasta, etc) is key to living long healthy lives and I'm all about that. BUT, I'm also all about dessert. You can only pretend fruit and yogurt is dessert for so long, so I've got to find a compromise...and I think cardamom offered me the perfect opportunity.

Week 15: Christmas!

Happy New Year Leigh!

I've been on a cooking tear in both my kitchen and my mom's kitchen this past month - some good and some ridiculously horrible - and with "Christmas" (or "holiday season", if you're aiming for political correctness) as the ingredient this month, I have an opportunity to share it all with you...or at least some of it.

Crab and Christmas

Hi Lovely,

 

Can you believe the holidays have passed?  I loved catching up over drinks with you at our home-town-watering hole!  Being back in California where the mountains and the sea meet--and there are houses filled with all of my favorite people--was heavenly.  It made my heart ache to leave. 

 

But, now I'm here to share my favorite parts of the whirlwind of cooking that went on for the last two weeks of the year.  Coming from a family serious about improv cooking, I am always stoked to get home and see what happens in the kitchen...and the backyard! 

 

If I had to pinpoint a theme for this year's holiday cooking it would be quintessentially seasonal and local: home is in the San Francisco Bay Area.  Christmas is in December.  Let's talk crab.

 

Week 14: Coconut

Hey Leigh,

I'm having writer's block. Luckily Matt took a rockin' picture of my coconut soup a couple weekends ago, so give that a stare while I think of something profound to write about coconuts:

Lately, I've been on a mad tear for Thai food. I claim not to have a favorite food (save for cheese, champagne and cake) but Thai food is definitely up there. I've shared my theory with you before, but I think the deal is this: whenever I've been cooking like mad (and I have been lately....Christmas baked goods, holiday party food, etc) I feel like eating something totally unrecognizable. Similar to the day after Thanksgiving...after having cooked for 10 hours, I needed something that I had no idea what was in it. Of course, you didn't disappoint and in ridiculously freezing weather we hiked to Chicago's unofficial "Little Ethiopia" for mysterious foods. I was close to gitty when said mysterious foods arrived sans utensils at our table. Sure, I saw a chicken leg and a few beans in there, but hell if I knew what any of it really was.