Main Ingredients:

4 Swordfish steaks, deep-frozen
12 ounces frozen blueberries (“wild Maine” variety)
1 red bell pepper, slightly past its prime (orange or yellow will work just as well)
1/2 large yellow onion (any onion will do)
2 lemons

Adjunct Ingredients

Olive oil
(optional) malt vinegar or balsamic vinegar
Salt, pepper
Paprika
Fresh or dried basil

Equipment

Enough oven-safe skillet or skillets to hold all of your fish
An oven (or, see alternate campfire method)

Method

Do not defrost the fish!

An hour or so before you plan to serve, prepare the salsa:

Dice red pepper and onion.  Juice the lemons  In a large bowl, mix blueberries, onion, red pepper, lemon juice, and an amount of oil equal to the amount of lemon juice.  Consider adding a splash of malt or balsamic vinegar, if that suits you.  Toss with salt, pepper, basil, and paprika to taste.  Set aside at room temperature.

Twenty minutes before you plan to serve, prepare the fish.

Preheat oven to 400º F.

In a skillet or skillets (depending on size and number of fishes), heat olive oil until very hot.  Use enough oil to coat pan.

Add the still-frozen swordfish.  Cook 90 seconds on each side, just until browned.  Sprinkle each side with salt and pepper.

Move skillets directly from stove to hot oven.  Set a timer for five minutes.

When your timer goes off, turn off the oven and notify your party that dinner is ready.  Leave the oven door closed.  Set another timer for three minutes.

If your dinner party is not assembled when the three-minute timer goes off, crack the oven door ajar to retard the cooking while still keeping the fish warm.

Serve piping hot under chilled salsa

Alternate campfire method for fish

Required equipment: campfire, foil, tongs

Method: prepare salsa as above.  Rub fish steaks with oil, salt, and pepper, then wrap in foil.  Place foil packets in hot coals for 15-20 minutes.  Retrieve with tongs; eat.

The recipe is very nearly vegan.  You’d have to omit the fish sauce, but it would still be tasty.  If you don’t have access to a thai grocery you may not find bird chiles or brown beech mushrooms, but that’s okay.  You  can use any other small hot pepper, and any other culinary mushroom.  I imagine shiitake would work well.

Tom Yum Soup:

Materials:

2 cans coconut milk
1 cup vegetable stock
2 thai bird chiles
a small hunk of fresh ginger, cut into ten discs
3 stalks lemongrass
A handful of thai (holy) basil
A handful of cilantro (optional)
1 lime
Some quantity of mushrooms that looks like enough
1 tbsp fish sauce
1 tbsp sugar

Method:

Begin by doing violence to the lemongrass.  Smash it with a meat mallet, or if you don’t have one of those, use the flat back of a chef’s knife.  This releases the aromatic oils that will flavor your food.  After smashing, slice into slices two to three inches long.

Mix the coconut milk and vegetable stock in a medium to large sauce pan.  Add the lemongrass, ginger, and whole bird chiles.  Bring to a boil, then remove from heat.  Add the mushrooms immediately (they will cook in the hot liquid even though you have turned off the flame), and squeeze the lime juice into the soup.  Mix in the fish sauce and sugar.  Add the basil.  Serve hot or cold; garnish with cilantro immediately before serving.

Thai Salad

Materials:

A handful of green beans, washed, trimmed, and broken into bits
A cup or two of mung bean sprouts.
Another handful of holy basil
1 cucumber, julienned
3 more bird chiles
1/2 cup unsalted peanuts, lightly chopped
3 cloves garlic
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp fish sauce
1 tbsp sugar
1 package tofu and oil for deep-frying, or buy fried tofu

Method

If frying your own tofu, do that first.  Immerse the tofu in 400 degree oil until it is brown and crispy on the outside.

While the tofu is frying you can make the dressing.   Begin by stemming and deveining the bird chiles.  Dice them and put them in a bowl.  Go wash your hands.  Right now.  Don’t touch your face.  That burning you feel all around your mouth and inside your nostrils?  It’s because you didn’t listen.  I told you not to touch your face!  Now go wash your face with lots of soap.

Once your face stops burning, return to the dressing prep.  Mince or press three garlic cloves into the same bowl as the chiles.  Now put a tablespoon of oil in a small skillet over medium-high heat.  Add the fish sauce, soy sauce, garlic and chiles.  Once everything is sizzling stir in the sugar.  When the sugar is dissolved, remove from heat and stir in the peanuts.

Toss the vegetables together in a salad bowl with the dressing you just made, then top with the tofu and garnish with holy basil.  Go eat it outside!

This may also be the meal that sealed the deal on my three-month vegan experiment. Recipe below the jump.

Total prep time: about an hour.

Materials:

1 package (12 oz) extra-firm tofu
1 can (or equivalent amount home-made) cranberry sauce. Whole-berry preferable.
Soy sauce, 2 tbsp
1 lime (juice and zest of)
1 stalk lemon grass (optional)
1 can coconut milk
1-2 tbsp Sambal Ulek (or genic asian hot chili pepper sauce)
2-3 leeks
1 onion
Asparagus, one bunch
Fresh ginger, 1 thumb’s worth, grated
basil, fresh or dried (copious)
Tarragon or cilantro
Whole-grain Fettuccine or udon noodles.
Olive oil for sautéing.

Method:

mix 1/4 cup cranberry sauce with 2 tbsp soy sauce, tbsp sambal ulek, and the zet and juice of one lime. Cut tofu into strips and marinate in this mixture from 30 minutes to overnight.

About an hour before you want to serve dinner, preheat your oven to 375 degrees. While oven is preheating, arrange the tofu strips in a single layer in an oven-safe baking dish with a cover. Or in a casserole dish, and cover with aluminium foil. Pour marinade on top of tofu. Bake for half an hour covered, then remove cover, bake for 15 minutes, and turn off heat until ready to serve.

Once tofu is in the oven, clean and dice the leeks and mince the onion. In a large skilled, heat a tablespoon or two of olive oil over high heat. On another burner, bring a medium saucepan full of water to a rolling boil. Add onion and leeks to hot oil, toss about, then cover and reduce heat to low for fifteen minutes, or until the alliums are well-steamed. Then add basil, tarragon, and ginger. Raise heat to high, and cook for one minute. Then add coconut milk and asparagus spears, and cover. Simultaneously add noodles to boiling water. When coconut milk is simmering, reduce heat to medium. After about ten minutes, asparagus should be well-steamed and tender. Remove from heat. Serve coconut cream vegetables over pasta, and top with baked tofu. Garnish with a bit more tarragon or a sprig of fresh basil, mint, or cilantro. Serve remaining cranberry sauce as a side.

I considered adding shiitake mushrooms, but forgot to put them in. If you do this (or make the chicken variant), post the results here?

Ingredients:
1 28-ounce can of plum (Italian) tomatoes or tomato puree, or 1.5 pounds fresh tomatoes.
1 can tomato paste (optional)
3 chipotles in adobo sauce
Salt
Ground Cumin
Garlic (4-6 cloves, smashed or minced)

Method:

If using whole tomatoes, put in blender with 1/2 can tomato paste and chipotles and blend until smooth. If using puree, consider pureeing the chipotles, or mince and skip to the next step.

Set tomato puree and paste to boil in an open pan. Be prepared to wipe down your range later. Do not cover–you need the evaporative thickening here!

After a while, whenever you feel like it, add the garlic.
Add a bit of salt, say 1/4 tsp. But really, don’t bother measuring.
Add cumin continuously until it tastes right.

Turns out, it’s easy.

Eqipment:

1 wide-mouth quart mason jar
1 pint mason jar
Spare change, pebbles, or something else heavy.

Ingredients:

Six limes
1 garlic bulb
1 hand of ginger
Lots of kosher or pickling salt
3 ounces of hot chili peppers (that’s a lot)
Methi (fenugreek) seeds (they’re not in the spice section of your local grocery; they’re in the ‘foreign’ or ‘ethnic’ section).
Mustard seeds
Ground turmeric

Method:

Cut limes into thin wedges over a bowl, catching the juice.  Put wedges in bowl and salt liberally. Cut tops off the hot peppers, slice down the side, throw in bowl with limes and salt liberally.  Slice garlic and ginger thin, put in bowl, and salt liberally.  Mix.  Violently.  The mixture should smell very limey.  Toss in methi and mustard seeds.

Pack the mixture into your quart mason jar.  I emphasize pack.  The items should not be loosely tossed in, but squished with all of your might, so as to remove any air pockets and thoroughly juice the limes.  Fill your pint jar with spare change and use it to really ram the vegetables down into the quart jar.  Then leave it in place to hold everything under the lime juice.  If the lime juice does not fully cover the vegetables, squish more.  If it still isn’t enough, go buy some lime juice and squirt it in until they’re covered.

Wait a week or three.  Refrigerate.  Eat.

Update: One of my two quarts is now done after ten days, and very tasty.  Could use some more fermenting, but I’m gonna call it good.  The other, which is wetter due to more added lime juice, still tastes fresher.  So I’m leaving it out longer.

The cranberry kombucha is all gone.  It was lovely, but it tasted so unlike tea that I tended to foget there was caffeine in it.  I think next time I will not use black tea for this.

Meanwhile, I have a new 3-quart batch of rose hips kombucha that’s looking close to ready!

Below the cut, Weinkraut and Sourdough

Weinkraut

My parents got me a Harsch Crock for Christmas, so Adrienne and I put it to work last week.  I bought 15 pounds of cabbage for 10 liters of kraut, that was about 2.5 times as much as I needed.  We packed about 6 pounds of shredded cabbage into the crock with a head of lightly-smashed garlic and a few caraway seeds.  The cabbage was apparently quite dry, it took about 3 litres of bugundy wine to fill all of the interstices and cover the weights.  It has been fermenting for four days now; the Gospel According to Katz suggests it should be done in about a week.

I have never had weinkraut before, but I hear it is a German tradition and I look forward to trying it.  Then again, all of the (non-fermented) recipes I’ve seen online use white sauerkraut and white wine; I’m using Rotkohl (red cabbage) and red wine.

Sourdough

I had about a cup of leftover cooked rice getting stale on my kitchen counter, so I took a suggestion from Katz and mixed it up with a cup of whole wheat flour and two cups of water to make a sourdough starter.  He quite correctly points out that the yeasties will eat the rice carbs just as happily as the flour carbs, and by the time I go to make a loaf out of it, the original grains that I put in the starter will be fermented beyond recognition.  What a fabulous way to recyle stale rice!

*This post is tagged “locavoracious” even though none of the food involved was locally-sourced, because next season I hope to be fermenting my very own home-grown cabbages.  Eventually I’d like to be gowing my own wheat, too.

Time: one hour.  Servings: 4

Ingredients:

1 Winter Squash–butternut, acorn, or hubbard
1/2 cup brown rice
1/2 cup wild rice
16 oz corn kernels (canned, frozen, or fresh–your call)
16 oz roasted tomatoes
1 tbsp garam masala, or to taste
Garlic (in whatever form), to taste

OPTIONAL pinch cayenne pepper

Method:

Preheat oven to 400 Fahrenheit

Slice squash in half (if using Butternut, slice it the long way), excavate seeds, and place squash halves face-up on a cookie sheet.  Consider saving the seeds and roasting them.  Smear butter or brush a neutral vegetable oil on the open faces of the squash (to preven them from drying out in the oven), and bake the squash for about an hour.  Do not wait for the oven to finish preheating before putting the squash in; this is a waste of energy.

After you get the squash in the oven, IMMEDIATELY put the rices in a pot with 2 cups water.  Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to lowest setting and simmer for 50 minutes.

After 50 minutes, add corn, tomatoes, garam masala, and garlic to the rice pot.   Mix well and continue to simmer ten minutes.

Now your hour is up, and your squash is done.  Remove the squash from the oven and scrape the meat from the shell.  Mash well, stir into rice mixture.  Serve in shells for extra decorative effect.

VARIANT: Stuff green peppers instead of squashes.

Ingredients:

Cranberry Kombucha!

1 bottle store-bought Kombucha, any flavor (buy it at whole foods or your local health-food store).
1 cup sugar (cane, beet, corn, maple, whatever)
4 tea bags (your choice) or equivalent amount of loose tea
1 gallon-size crock pot (or scale up)
5 fluid ounces cranberry cocktail concentrate (with real sugar, not HFCS.  You could use straight up cranberry juice to similar effect)

Protocol:

Brew tea.  Very strong.  In crock pot.
Add sugar
Cool to room temperature
Add half bottle of store-bought Kombucha.  Drink the rest.  If you drink too much, add whatever’s left.
Cover your crock pot with a towel (NOT the lid–this is supposed to be an aerobic fermentation!), and set aside in a place where it won’t be disturbed for a few weeks.

Let sit completely undisturbed for at least a month.  I mean don’t even move it across your counter.  If you do move it, it’s not the end of the world, but it will screw up the structural integrity of your Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and Yeast (SCOBY).

After your month is up there should be a mushroomy-looking film on top of your Kombucha.  This is the SCOBY.  It is good.  Take a teaspoon (well-washed) and taste the product.  If it is sour and tasty, you did it right.  If it smells repulsive or otherwise “off,” do not taste it–either throw it out or at least get a second opinion from somebody who knows Kombucha.  If there are bits of mold growing on top of the SCOBY your Kombucha may be fine, but you will not be able to use that SCOBY again.  If everything is shiny on top of the SCOBY, then gently lift it onto a plate, bottle your Kombucha (mason jars work fine), leaving a cup or two in the crockpot. This is where I add the cranberry.  I used a cranberry cocktail concentrate with added cane sugar to cut the tartness and make it fizzy.   Make a new batch of tea and start again, putting your new SCOBY on top.  Just be sure to cool the tea before you mix it with the old batch or put the SCOBY on, lest you kill your culture.

Solution: Put bits on sandwich.  Details below, along with suggested substitutions.

Bits:

1 Uglyripe Tomato
1/2 White Onion
1 bucket mixed weird salad greens
1/2 tub baby bellas
1 link Tofurkey brand Italian Sausage substitute.  Consider any German, Italian, or Polish sausage (cooked), or the veggie-sausage of your choice.  Breakfast sausages not recommended.
1 jar Irish Stout Mustard (consider any good honey mustard, brown mustard, or condiment-of-choice)

Garlic salt
Black pepper
Asiago cheese (consider parmesan, cheddar, or fresh mozzarella)
Slightly sweet kaiser-ish rolls
Made-from-food organic ketchup
Dill pickles

Protocol:

Toast roll over low heat on skillet until insides are lightly burnt and outside is soft and mushy.  While that’s going:

Slice sausage into bits (or crumbles).  Slice up appropriate amount of shrooms and onion for number of sandwiches (in my case: 1).  Mix in bowl and douse in garlic salt.  I then sauteed all of that and a heap of shredded asiago in a cast iron skillet over medium heat with canola oil.  I would not put the cheese in next time.  If you are using cheddar put the cheese on top of the rest at the very end when everything is cooked, then cover until the cheese melts.  With asiago, parma, or romano I would go ahead and shred the cheese right onto the sammich after hot veggies are added.  With mozzarella I would put a nice briney slice of fresh, raw mozz right on the sandwich without any use of heat on the cheese.

Put stuff on sammich.  Eat.  Drink pumpkin ale.  Be merry.

For a 5-gallon batch:

2 cans light Light Malt Extract
1/2 lb German Crystal dark malt
1/4 lb Chocolate Malt
1 lb flaked barley (looks like oatmeal)
1 can pumpkin
2 oz hallertau hops
Approx 2 tsp pumpkin pie spices
1 tsp Irish Moss
1 phial White Labs California Ale Yeast
5 gallons Poland Spring water (I use Poland Spring because it is neither chlorinated nor fluoridated, the publish extensive water quality data online, and the data show the water to be of very good quality)
Fermax yeast nutrient (I think it was 1 tsp/gallon)

In a three-gallon pot:

*Realize that grains should have been crushed in the homebrew shop; bash them a bit with one of the LME cans.

* Put grains in a muslin grain bag, tie shut, and steep in 2 gallons water between 150-170 degrees Fahrenheit, 30 minutes

* Remove bag, drain water out, and discard grains

* Add Liquid Malt Extract and hops to grain-tea, boil for 30 minutes

* Add pumpkin, boil another 15 minutes

* Add Irish Moss and spices, boil for another 15 minutes

* Watch in awe as the wort that boiled over combusts, foams, and mushrooms on the burner

* Remove from heat, add remaining three gallons of water to a food-grade plastic brewer’s bucket, then add hot wort. Chill with copper immersion chiller to 75 degrees Fahrenheit.

* Decant chilled wort into glass, 6.5 gal carboy, straining out hop leaves. Pitch yeast and add fermax.

* Affix airlock, move down to the shelf where it will ferment.

* OG not measured due to broken hydrometer; recipe indicates 1.042.

* Get up next morning, check carboy. No activity is apparent. Go to Local Homebrew Store and buy more yeast. They advise that I give it a vigorous shake, which may be all it needs. They say if I see some foam after I do that, it means the yeast is working and I do not need to repitch. I thank them for the advise, shake the thing up, and repitch anyway. I’m fairly certain I would see *some* foam even if I were just shaking water. I’d rather waste the $3.00 I spent on extra yeast than the $55 that I spent on ingredients!

Update Monday and Tuesday saw high Kräusen, vigorous roiling activity in the carboy, and a six-degree spike above ambient temperature (73F in the room, 79F in the carboy).  Wednesday, the Kräusen activity is lessened, and the solid matter is mostly settled at the bottom of the tank.  Will take hydrometer reading and possibly rack this weekend.

Update: Racked the beer on Wednesday night, September 24, and kegged it in 5L mini kegs on Thursday, September 25.  Served some up at the training graduation party on Friday 26.  It was still mostly flat, but scrumptious none the less–I even got a “better than most homebrew” review from a colleague!