Carol Goodman Kaufman

Vegetables

Ghee Whiz!

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I love Indian food, and when given the choice as to what kind of restaurant I’d like to visit, it is more often than not an Indian one — except with certain friends who shall remain nameless. They won’t go near the stuff.

I love the fact that there are so many vegetarian options. I love the music in the background. And most of all, I love the amazing flavors of the various dishes. Before the quarantine, J and I had even been making plans to travel to India next winter.

Needless to say, that probably won’t happen. Nor will visiting an Indian restaurant any time soon.

So, to Plan B. While trying to keep things interesting (in the kitchen) during this plague year and test as many recipes as possible for my cookbook-in-process, I decided to make carrot halwa. But even though my cabinets have many of the herbs and spices frequently used in Indian cuisine (e.g., ginger, garlic, turmeric, cardamom, even garam masala), I didn’t have ghee.

Frankly,  I’ve always been a little nervous about trying to make it, under the impression that it would be difficult to do. And the little jars of the stuff can fetch as much as $35 each. That was not going to be an option for this home cook.

But since we are at home and can’t get to our favorite restaurants, why not try making it myself? And guess what! It’s not hard at all. You just need patience. If for no other reason than the heavenly, buttery aroma that wafts through the house, I would recommend giving it a go. I used a bit on tuna steaks, and they were absolutely delicious.

Then, last night  (and the reason I actually started this little experiment, if you can remember that far back) I made the first of a series of recipes for carrot halwa. It was a fabulously flavorful pudding, and super easy to whip together with only a handful of ingredients.

Ghee whiz!

Hot Soup for a Cold New England Winter’s Night

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Come winter, I don’t really like to make salad. I like salads. Lots of them. But mostly I like them in the warmer months when both eating and clothing are lighter. It’s not as if I don’t prepare and eat vegetables during the season. I do. I make lots of soup, which requires almost as much touching of cold veggies as does salad, but the results can warm and soothe the frigid New England soul.

And, since the thermometer tells me that it is 21 degrees outside right now, with predictions for 0 tomorrow, it is absolutely critical to put up a pot of soup. Tonight’s choice? Moroccan Pumpkin Soup, a recipe adapted from the late, great Gil Marks. His original calls for leeks or onions, but since I hardly ever remember to buy leeks, I just use regular yellow onions. And for a little added pizazz, a few pumpkin seeds sprinkled over the top of every serving.

Try this really easy recipe to warm your soul!

Moroccan Pumpkin Soup

Post-Thanksgiving post

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Back in the day, I subscribed to the late, great Gourmet magazine. Every month I swooned over gorgeous photos of exotic places, dreamt of touring France in a hot air balloon, and of course tried many recipes. One dish in particular I resurrected this year: a rum-glazed sweet potato, apple and chestnut gratin.

I had first made this recipe ages ago, staying up until one a.m. to roast and peel each and every chestnut. But the results were so delicious that it was worth the labor, so I continued to make it. (I have since discovered ready-made chestnuts.)

Then my kids, being kids, declined even to touch the lovingly prepared dish, so I stopped making it.

Until this fall. At Rosh Hashanah, I made a double batch, expecting to bring the second half to my friend’s home the second day of the holiday. But the rather small group around my dining room table vacuumed up almost the entire casserole.

Hmm. Something was up. Perhaps now that they are all grown and with little ones of their own, I should try it on my kids?

So, I made a triple batch for Thanksgiving dinner and all but a few tablespoons disappeared.

Gourmet may be long gone, but it will remain for me a portal into a beautiful world of culinary and travel delights.

And, thank goodness for Google. The recipe is available online!

https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/rum-glazed-sweet-potato-apple-and-chestnut-gratin-1911086

One Potato, Two Potato, Three Potato, More!

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I find nothing quite as satisfying as preparing — and eating — a meal with vegetables from my own garden. An eggplant caponata, zucchini latkes, even just a simple sun-warmed tomato with a sprinkle of salt – all scrumptious.

But, as wonderful as all these things are, I like to add something new and different every year. After all, I have enough jalapeno and banana peppers in my freezer to last for the next decade, so there is available space in the garden.

So this year I planted potatoes. Fingerlings, to be precise, the small, stubby, finger-shaped type, because I adore those tiny potatoes oven-roasted with a bit of olive oil, garlic, salt, and pepper. (I’m salivating already, and it’s only 8:30 in the morning as I write this.)

Having no idea how to grow the tubers, I went online and found several different methods. Given the annual invasion by little critters that invade the backyard, taking one bite of everything on the vine (couldn’t they just finish one thing?), I chose to plant them in a tub. And by “tub,” I mean a pot that was big enough to bathe a baby.

As instructed, I dutifully added soil to the pot to build up the plants, and I watered “evenly” (or as evenly possible given the torrential downpours we’ve been seeing in New England this summer).

I even moved the pot around to follow the sun. In one tactical error, I didn’t take into account the weight involved in this project. Although the “Spud Tub” is made of plastic, adding the entire contents of a 25 pound bag of soil made it quite heavy. Luckily, I happen to have a wheeled plant stand from a previous attempt at growing citron trees from seed. (Note the word “previous.” After ten years, all I got was blossoms but no fruit.) So all I had to do (once loading the tub onto it. was to push it with my foot.

The plants grew tall and lanky, seemingly by the minute. And now the foliage is beginning to turn yellow, which means that it is time to dig them up. Hubby J did the honors this week, surprising me with a single, perfectly formed fingerling.

Should I save it for the rest of the harvest, or eat this one tiny spud?

Too Much Pepper in My Paprikash

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9f07b458fee72cec2641a72e8f9aaa68A long time ago I attended a Billy Joel concert with hubby and friends. Seated across the aisle from us was the artist’s then-wife, Christie Brinkley, and their toddler child. (I did say this was a long time ago). Both mother and child were wearing the type of ear protectors that one sees worn by airport workers out on the tarmac. They needed them because the music was almost-literally ear-splitting. I had to cover my ears the entire evening.

What does this have to do with my usual gig, writing about food? Hot pepper.

Hot peppers have become all the rage. The higher the Scoville rating a pepper has, the greater the bragging rights among its fans who eat them. With names like Carolina Reaper and Bhut Jolokia Ghost Pepper, I can practically see the smoke coming out of their ears.

While the high concentration of capsaicin found in hot peppers, when incorporated into an ointment or cream, can help people deal with pain, certain varieties of hot peppers can be dangerous when consumed. Capsaicin is actually a neurotoxin and in large enough doses can cause seizures, heart attacks, and even death.

Historically, the hot pepper had a purpose. In fact, anthropologists believe that it may have helped to ensure the survival of some cultures. Before refrigeration was common, people living in tropical and subtropical climates needed a way to preserve their food. Hot peppers can help protect against the growth of bacteria and fungi. In fact, researchers at Cornell University have found that capsaicin kill or inhibit up to 75% of bacteria in food.

But aside from those reasons, what is their purpose on our dinner plates? With apologies to Harry Burns of When Harry Met Sally fame, when there’s too much pepper in your paprikash, you can’t taste the food.

It’s like going to a concert and not being able to hear the music for all the noise.

Food Fight!

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imagesThe annual bonanza/surfeit/ridiculous overproduction (your choice) of the typical home gardener’s zucchini patch has begun. Zucchini bread, zucchini pudding, zucchini fritters: green squash is coming out of our ears.

I have laughed at the many silly ways proposed for getting rid of the cylindrical veggie, such as the one in which a gardener leaves a basket of zukes on a neighbor’s porch, rings the doorbell, and runs like hell.

On the other hand, I always got a sick feeling at the former local Zucchini Festival where, at one booth, fair-goers catapulted hundreds of the green squashes at a target — for fun.

Now, in a few weeks, thousands of people will make their way from the four corners of the globe to Spain to fight in this year’s “World’s Biggest Food Fight.” At the annual Tomatina tomato festival held in Bunel, participants hurl one hundred metric tons of tomatoes at one another. For fun.

And, modeled after La Tomatina — in seven cities in our own country, from Boston to Seattle, Dallas to Miami — is the Tomato Battle. At this also-annual event, “soldiers” don bathing suits, safety goggles, and shoes to immerse themselves in piles of overripe tomatoes and “set about pelting people with fruits like sentient apple trees avenging the initial-carving of amorous teenagers.”

According to Feeding America’s most recently published report, over 49 million Americans live in food insecure households, almost 16 million children. The organization’s network of 58,000 — 58,000! — food banks, parties, and meal service programs provides service to 46.5 million people in every community across the U.S.

Yet, people throw food at each other for fun.

Many of the people served by Feeding America live in what are known as “food deserts,” defined as a part of the country lacking access to “fresh fruit, vegetables, and other healthful whole foods.” In other words, no grocery stores, farmers’ markets, or other healthy food providers. 

And — surprise, surprise — food deserts are usually found in impoverished areas.

Battle organizers claim that the Tomato Battle is “an efficient and entertaining use of non-edible waste.”

Efficient? Non-edible? Has nobody figured out a way to process these fruits into soup, juice, or sauce to feed the hungry?