Putting some 'tude and some tunes in your soup

The Food: Spicy Sweet Potato Soup, Baked Salmon
The Tunes: Phish: “Sample in a Jar”

Master chef Noah came to visit me last weekend and of course, we spent 75+% of our time in the kitchen. We decided to explore some uncharted territory: fish (salmon) and soup, of the spicy sweet potato variety.

I traveled into South Philly/Italian market to obtain the fish and vegetables for the soup, which was an adventure in itself. Italian market is a fun neighborhood to explore. You’ve got cheap although slightly sketchy vegetables at your disposal as well as quality fish, cheese, meat, and of course, pasta. I went to Anastasi Seafood which if you can stand a little fishy smell, will get you some quality cuts at a more reasonable price than a supermarket.

First and foremost, we turned on Phish, “Sample in a Jar” for obvious reasons…. We were making fish. Also, I’ve been looking for an excuse to listen to Phish, as they provide some of the best jams you can find. I know of at least one, semi-reasonable individual that will travel the country just to hear this band for the 3948th time and any band that causes that kind of madness is worth a listen. As they are a jam band, its only appropriate to insert a live video. Here’s a concert in Germany from ’97.


Unlike the baked beans with spinach, this recipe required more than one song. So that we wouldn’t get tired of the song on repeat, we found an easy fix: a Phish Pandora station. As expected, this played an assortment of jam bands allowing for the errant air guitar when we were waiting for something.

We started with making the marinade for two ~7 oz filets. I modified the recipe to be +herbs and –oil.

• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tablespoons light olive oil
• 1 tablespoon melted Smart Balance
• 3 teaspoons dried basil
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1.5 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped


We marinated the fish for about an hour in the fridge, turning occasionally. This is a pretty strong marinade so I wouldn’t do it for much longer than that. While this was marinating we made the spicy sweet potato soup.

Ingredients
• 1/2 cup fat free sour cream
• 1 teaspoon grated lime zest
• 2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed
• 1 tablespoon Smart Balance
• 1 onion, sliced
• 2 cloves garlic, sliced
• 4 cups chicken or veggie stock
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin, but feel free to spill like I did, making it spicier
• 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
• 2 tablespoons grated fresh ginger root
• 1/4 cup smooth almond butter (you can use PB too)
• 1 lime, juiced
• salt to taste
• 1 tomato, seeded and diced

Directions
1. In a small bowl, stir together the sour cream and lime zest. Set aside in the refrigerator to allow the flavors to blend.
2. Melt butter in a large pot over medium heat. Add onion and garlic, and cook for about 5 minutes, until softened. Add sweet potatoes, and chicken stock. Season with cumin, chili flakes and ginger. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer for 15 minutes, until potatoes are tender.

3. Puree the soup using an immersion blender or regular blender (we used a food processor which worked just as well). If using a counter top blender, puree in small batches, filling the blender just a bit past half way to avoid spillage. Whisk almond butter into the soup, and heat through. Stir in lime juice, and salt.
4. Ladle into warm bowls, and top with a dollop of the reserved sour cream, a few pieces of diced tomato, and a sprinkle of cilantro.


We baked the fish at 375 for about 40 minutes, until it could be flaked with a fork.
This made a meal with two predominating tastes: the spiciness of the soup and the succulent salmon.

We left some of the sweet potato chunks in the soup, partially because it was spilling all over the place out of the food processor, but it also added a complexity to the texture which was enjoyable. The extra cumin gave it a kick to keep it interesting but was well balanced by the dollop of lime-infused sour cream. As for the fish, the herbs really brought out the flavor in the salmon, which is pretty mild.

By the end of the meal, we were so satisfied that we couldn’t eat the apple crisp we made until a few hours later. Next time, however, I might pick a more well-suited pairing. The spiciness of the soup might do better to complement a zesty chicken or if we’re going with fish, something that involves Old Bay. However, no regrets on the music-food pairing: I’ll jam out to Phish any time, especially when I’m making it.

“….But in your grasp the fears don’t last, though some of them have stayed,”
Julie, the happiest to have left overs

Vegetables and Immigration

I’m a little obsessed with vegetables. I was a vegetarian for about 9 years before I decided to engage in the occasional meaty meal, but I still retain my fondness for the plants. There are many naysayers to vegetables in the world (i.e. some boys in my college who tried to practice “Meat Week,” a week eating nothing but meat. No one’s GI tract was happy and I’m not sure they lasted more than a day). However, when done right, vegetables can be quick and delicious. The following is an easy veggie burrito including, of course, frozen spinach. You can pretty much put in whatever veggies you want or throw in some chicken if unlike me, you’re not too lazy to defrost.

Ingredients
• Oil (a couple tablespoons?)
• About half an onion
• A halfish can of beans
• All the frozen spinach you want (I used about ¾ cup)
• Salsa
• Mexican cheese
• Cajun seasoning
• Tortilla
Cut up onion and sauté in oil for a bit, until soft. Here you could put in some other fresh veggies like peppers or mushrooms. Add frozen spinach and let thaw. Add beans. Add salt, pepper, and Cajun seasoning. Let it mess around in there for a little while. Take your veggies out and put on a plate. Toast the burrito on the pan and flip over. Put veggies in burrito and top with salsa and cheese. You could also throw in avocado, sour cream, or guacamole, whatever you like!

Now comes the part where I failed: fold the burrito up like a burrito

…or submit to using a fork, your choice.

The tunes!

The burrito is a Mexican food (although it is made much differently from this in Mexico, usually containing just refritos, rice, and meat). Accordingly, I chose the class “Clandestino” by Manu Chao. It has a slow, methodical beat that will have your hips swaying ever so slightly. The tune is quite catchy, and when you look up and translate the lyrics, it can put certain things in perspective.

“…Solo voy con mi pena
Sola va mi condena
Correr es mi destino
Por no llevar papel
Perdido en el corazn
De la grande Babylon
Me dicen el clandestino
Yo soy el quiebra ley…”

Which translates to….

“Alone I go with my sorrow
Alone goes my sentence
To run is my destiny
For having no papers
Lost in the heart
Of the great Babylon
They call me clandestine
I’m the lawbreaker“

Here, Manu Chao is referencing illegal immigration and the struggle that people go through while trying to migrate to and stay in the US. I think this part of the immigration discussion is sometimes lost. I’m not exactly sure how more empathy will change the discourse, but certainly taking the perspective of these people is important when decisions need to be made about immigration issues. In terms of the current economic debate, many want to point fingers at immigrants as being those that are “stealing” our jobs when unemployment is so high. While I’m not of the persuasion that we should open up the border, if we do want change we have to look at employment practices instead of going after the illegal aliens here.

Anyhow, ¡Buenos noches!
Julie

Weekend Edition: Bavarian Breakfast

WARNING: Easy and simple and healthy is not necessarily the name of the game of this post, but fun certainly is.

This weekend, my friend Michael and I traveled to the other (slightly lesser) side of the PA turnpike for a reunion of sorts. We joined residents master-chef Noah and sarcastic-comment-master Jeff along with visiting master-moocher Shubham. Of course, cooking ensued, the highlight of which was one Bavarian breakfast, part of which was our Saturday morning project, soft pretzels. This is the recipe that we quadrupled (and holey schnikies, it was a lot of pretzels) while listening to some German rap. My suggestion to make an applesauce substitution for the two sticks of butter that this called for when quadrupled was swiftly rejected by all gentlemen present.

The music: "Die Fantastischen Vier - Einfach Sein"



The recipe: Homemade soft pretzels

Ingredients
• 1 1/2 cups warm (110 to 115 degrees F) water
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 1 package active dry yeast
• 22 ounces all-purpose flour, approximately 4 1/2 cups
• 2 ounces unsalted butter, melted
• Vegetable oil, for pan
• 10 cups water
• 2/3 cup baking soda
• Pretzel salt

Directions
Combine the water, sugar and kosher salt in the bowl of a stand mixer and sprinkle the yeast on top. Allow to sit for 5 minutes or until the mixture begins to foam. Add the flour and butt, mix until well-combined, and knead until the dough is smooth and pulls away from the side of the bowl, approximately 4 to 5 minutes. Remove the dough from the bowl, clean the bowl and then oil it well with vegetable oil. Return the dough to the bowl, cover with plastic wrap and sit in a warm place for approximately 50 to 55 minutes or until the dough has doubled in size.
Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. Line 2 half-sheet pans with parchment paper and lightly brush with the vegetable oil. Set aside.
Bring the 10 cups of water and the baking soda to a rolling boil in an 8-quart saucepan or roasting pan.

In the meantime, turn the dough out onto a slightly oiled work surface and divide into 8 equal pieces. Roll out each piece of dough into a 24-inch rope. Make a U-shape with the rope, holding the ends of the rope, cross them over each other and press onto the bottom of the U in order to form the shape of a pretzel.
(so this was done 32 times)

Place onto the parchment-lined half sheet pan.
Place the pretzels into the boiling water, 1 by 1, for 30 seconds. Remove them from the water using a large flat spatula.
Return to the half sheet pan and sprinkle with the pretzel salt (we just used kosher salt). Bake until dark golden brown in color, approximately 12 to 14 minutes. Transfer to a cooling rack for at least 5 minutes before serving.
________________________________

Glorious
Add a special sweet Bavarian mustard, sausage and in the German way, Hefeweitzen beer for the true Bavarian breakfast. Noah did some sort of magic for the homemade mustard and Jeff and Noah collaborated on the homebrew, which tasted fantastic. Luckily, they didn’t get the alcohol content as high as they wanted so anyone could go to lab afterwards and do some milling, which is a procedure that apparently may take a stray finger if you’re not careful.

The after effects of eating an average of 5 giant soft pretzels each.

Pretzel-rolling creativity gone severely awry.

We rocked out to some German rap by Die Fantastischen Vier while making the pretzels: songs entitled Ernten was wir säen and Einfach sein. At the beginning of the post is the very German video for Einfach sein which of course, includes singing olives and dancing on bars.

The music strays far from traditional Bavarian music, which involves a lot of accordion and lederhosen, but is more fun to rock out to (see video). Some sample lyrics:
Und sie fragt ?Echt?? und ich sag ?Ja, ja?
Und sie fragt ?Echt?? und ich sag ?Na klar!?
Und sie kommt mit auf die Bude und sieht ? top aus?
Und ich sag ?Ich bin der Smudo, zieh dein ? Top aus?

(????????????????????????????????????????????????????)
A heavy language barrier makes my lyrical analysis extremely superficial. The songs are in German, the breakfast is German: what more do you need?

Auf Wiedersehen!
Julie

Applesauce and drugs

Baking is the perfect way to procrastinate and easily show off your food skillz with others. Am I too lazy to get my clothes that have been sitting in my basement drier for about 10 hours? Yes. Can I still find the time/energy to bake and then blog about it? Absolutely.

I’ve been trying these past few months to venture into the healthyish baking front. My number 1 ally?

Applesauce

Do you ever feel weird about putting four sticks of butter into your mixers when baking? Am I asking you too many questions? Well, even if I am you should know that you can actually substitute part of the butter with unsweetened applesauce. For the following recipe I went about half and half but I’ve done up to 75% applesauce. It does change the texture of the product. My cookies have turned out more soft and muffiny. But I kind of like it that way and it works especially well for cakes.

The other day, I planned to clean my room and bathroom/study for the GREs/do laundry but instead Googled carrot ginger cookies. The most reasonable find was this (including some modifications):

Carrot Ginger Cookies
1 cup white sugar
¼ cup brown sugar
1/2 cup butter or margarine
½ cup applesauce
1 egg + 1 egg white (if you double recipe, just use three eggs)
1.4 tsp. vanilla (I spilled a little)
1 cup finely grated carrot (about 3 normal sized carrots)
1 1/2 tsp. freshly grated ginger root (about 1 small root)
3/4 cup all purpose flour
1 ¼ cup whole wheat flour
1 cup oat bran
3tsp. baking powder (I was supposed to do something with cream of tartar but who keeps that stuff around anyway?)
1 tsp. salt

Cream the butter, applesauce, and sugar until light and fluffy (Light and fluffy? Mmmmm….). Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Beat in vanilla. Stir in the carrots and ginger until well blended. Mix the soda and salt with the flour. Stir in the flour a cup or so at a time and mix well.
Roll the dough into 1 1/2 inch (or whatever) balls. If desired, roll balls in sugar before placing on baking sheet (didn’t find this necessary). Bake at 350 degrees for 12 – 14 minutes until slightly browned and top springs back if touched.
The dough is quite soft, it helps to refrigerate it before rolling into balls.

Why the strange proportions? I ran out of white sugar, then went to brown. Only had ¾ cup all purpose flour so threw in some whole wheat. Saw my oat bran in the pantry as I took out the whole wheat and thought it deserved a chance too.

End result was pretty rockin’. The fresh grated ginger gives them some real spunk. Another good way to cut out some of the not so healthy stuff in baking is to add spices. It makes it easier to get away with a more mild sweetness so I could have used a little less sugar.

For this one, turn on “Little Secrets” by Passion Pit. It’s another upbeat, rhythmic song that will make you find yourself doing all sorts of strange things in the kitchen, whisking to the beat, lip syncing into your wooden spoon (not singing because you can’t understand the words), and/or doing the shopping cart as you get out your ingredients. The vocalist/keyboardist Michael Angelakos has a tenor that grabs your attention and the beats are amazing. I never really listened/understood the lyrics of this one (except “Higher and higher”) but in keeping with the last post, I tried to find a lyrics/food connection and looked ‘em up.

“my face blew up at such a casual sight
this miracle is of ecstatic fright
theyll rush above me to oblivion
outlining white sidewalks with halogen

oh have you ever felt so goddamn strong
how come it takes some people so damn long
he tried to squeeze the lemon juice to rain
the citrus drawing out the seasons stains…

…let this be our little secret
no one needs to know were feeling
higher and higher and higher

but i feel alive and i feel it in me
up and up i keep on climbing
higher and higher and higher”

Uhhhh okay so this is definitely a song about drugs. He’s singing about the stigma that goes along with them and how they make him feel good anyway. I suppose that these cookies are pretty delicious/addicting and thereby exhibit somewhat drug-like properties. However, if we’re going to put cookies on the drug spectrum, these would definitely be of the softer variety. They’ve got a big applesauce substitute plus I snuck some whole grains in there. They’re also not drugs, which is good.

Passion Pit’s little secret? Recreational drugs. Mine comes from a man who goes by "Musselman"

Enjoy and be safe!
Julie

Eats and beats

Many a song has been inspired by food. After all, hasn’t everyone melodically asked to have some sugar poured onto themselves? My sister surprised my father yesterday with a visit and he immediately proclaimed that if he knew she were coming he sure would have baked her a cake. Even some artists have named band after foods (see Honey Honey). And who could forget 1985’s “All You Can Eat’” by the Fat Boys? Okay, I’ll admit that I found that one from Googling food songs.

BUT songs may also inspire you to cook. Since I don’t write music, this is the angle that I’m taking for the blog. I’ll go through some of my fave eats to make which will include some so very lazy foods (see below) and certain dishes that are a bit more complex. I’ll also suggest some tunes to go with.

So let’s examine last night’s dinner:

“Baked beans with Spinach on Whole Grain Toast”





Ingredients:
Store-brand vegetarian baked beans
Frozen spinach
Bread

Heat up beans with frozen spinach in it. Toast bread.


BAM. Delicious, cheap, sort of healthy dinner. In fact, I only had time for one track which was Postal Service’s “Nothing Better,” a song with an addictive, pulsing beat and synthesizers galore. The song is about a guy trying to get back with a girl after he screws up and her telling him to hit the road. How does the song and my dinner relate? Well, she’s saying “tough beans.”

The PS was collaboration from that guy that sings for Death Cab (Gibbard) and a music producer Jimmy Tamborello. Apparently Taborello sent Gibbard the instrumentals and Gibbard just kinda did his voice thing and sent them back. The beats on the album make you want to repeat the tracks, but beware because if you get tired of it, there is no more Postal Service for you. Wikipedia tells me that their album Give Up was a one-time deal and they’re done. And don’t think you can just up and move on to Death Cab because they’re not as good!

Send me an e-mail if you'd like to contribute. And just so you know, I don’t always cook like that and I’ll certainly have more interesting recipes up in the future.

Cheers,
Julie