Slip Me Some Spice

Blessings Darlings!

My Mother, bless her heart, was never an inspired cook.  She was constrained by the times she was born into (born during WWI, teen during the Depression, young adult during WWII rationing) and the challenges of kashrut.  Salt, pepper, onions, and garlic were about the only seasonings she used, and she insisted that "Jews don't use gravy."

So, shall we say, as a cook I am not my Mother's daughter.  While I started slow, by high school I was experimenting with foods from health food stores (Dannon yogurt! Exotic! Yeah, I'm OLD) and started making bread from scratch.  My husband, whose Mother had a similar generational if not religious upbringing, came into my life having already broken out into Chinese cooking and always trying new foods at ethnic restaurants.

So today I'm going to share with all y'all two spices that are important in my life.  They are cumin and ginger.

GINGER

Many folks only know ginger from its role in sweet foods.  From Red Hots to pumpkin pie to gingerbread, cooks first get to know ginger in powdered form.  Big, bulbous, fibrous spicy - these attributes of ginger root make working with it directly a bit intimidating at first. It's used a lot in Chinese cooking to kick things up. 

It's easy to start by peeling about a square inch of ginger root and chopping it finely. DO NOT START BY USING A MICROPLANE GRATER ON GINGER.  Recipes call for CHOPPED ginger for a reason - microplaned it's stronger than you will expect.  Saute' it lightly in some olive oil, then add a pound of green beans and saute' them until done.  Experiment from there in other dishes later.

My 'secret' ginger use?  I use those peels from the ginger root when I make chicken stock.  They add a wonderful depth to the flavor.

I also grow ginger, but .... I'm not good at it.  I can't stop it from going dormant in winter even tho' I bring it in, and it starts up LATE in spring.  I certainly don't get enough for me to use my own much of the time!

CUMIN

You might now know it, but you've probably already met cumin before.  It's one of the ingredients in some good chili, and in some tacos.  Which, when you think about it, makes it a pretty NEW addition to actual  Mexican food, since it's a native of the middle east and India! You'll use this spice ground, rather than in the whole seed.


To me it particularly shines in middle eastern food.  Tzatziki Sauce is one of the staple sauces of my kitchen.  A simple mix of yogurt (usually Greek yogurt, tho' 'regular' yogurt is fine if you want a thinner sauce), lemon, salt, garlic, cumin, and chopped cucumber, I use it as a sauce on sandwiches (felafel, gyros), as a salad dressing, as an accent to roast lamb, etc.  

I've been failing at growing this, too.  Le sigh.

So, go forth and play with your food!  It's fun, and alchemical.

Frondly, Fern


  

Monday LW - The Musical Fruit

Blessings, Darlings!

Sorry for disappearing for a month - was out of town, then business-busy, then I think I had a problem with gall stones. I'll be discussing that with my doctor later.

But now back to Monday's Wellness posts!

You can tell if I'm working on either my finances or my wellness by what I cook. Transforming dried beans into wonderful dishes is one trick that works on both.

Beans are full of fiber, both soluble and insoluble. These not only keep your bowels regular but the soluble fiber helps lower your cholesterol. Apparently bile and dietary cholesterol bind to insoluble fiber in the digestive track and you poop 'em out rather than absorb them. And the fiber makes them very filling.

Beans are low on the glycemic scale, and thus great for diabetics, prediabetics, and anyone who wants their blood sugar as steady as possible.

Beans are high in protein, so help fill that dietary notch, and they have an assortment of the B-complex vitamins in them (unless you cook them with baking soda, which breaks some of the b-vitamins down. Baking soda keeps the color strong in red and black beans).

And beans are cheap. I can buy a pound of dried pinto beans for a dollar, and split peas cost even less. One pound dry cooks up to about 3 pounds, quite a lot of food for one dollar!

So last week I was lazy and just grabbed a can of chickpeas/garbanzo beans off the shelf, tossed the beans into my blender, added garlic, tahini, lemon juice, hot sauce, and some olive oil then blended 'till smooth. Instant hummus. My husband even loved it! We had it with fresh broccoli florets and carrot slices as the main part of lunches.

Today I've got 2 gallons of chili on the stove. My chili is three parts tomatoes to two parts beans to one part meat and one part red peppers/onions. I also make it soupy rather than stew-like, because it's good and we can easily over eat it. This will be lunches this week.

I have a bit less than a cup of leftover pinto beans. I'm considering tossing them into the meat I'll be cooking for tacos for dinner tonight, altho' I know my husband will NOT be happy with that. Or maybe I'll make refritos out of them, which he and the spawn will more happily eat.


Frondly, Fern