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It’s summer in Utah. Which means it is really hot in Utah. It also means that FINALLY the farmers market is open for all of us to enjoy and we actually have many of them in various locations through out the Salt Lake valley which makes my little organic heart a happy heart.
Since it was still snowing in JUNE (what kind of place is this?!?) the first week of the farmers market was a challenge in finding actual vegetables one thinks of when you think of summer and I came home with lots of root vegetables and garlic.
This week, though, the farmers and their vegetables were both out in abundance (and we do a BUN DANCE for that?!) and I filled my canvas tote with all kinds of luscious things.
Two recipes to share. Both rather simple. Both thrown together off the top of my head. Neither with pictures because I will admit I wasn’t thinking of blogging either recipe while making the food, I was just really HUNGRY and this is what happened when a hungry girl goes searching for something to eat. You’re welcome.
BEET AND SAUERKRAUT SALAD
1 bunch of beets (about six or seven) greens still attached
3 or 4 green garlic bulbs
1 small jar of sauerkraut (I made some last year so I used that!)
salt/pepper
EVOO
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
Wash your beets and the greens. Cut off the greens and set aside. Cut the beets into quarters or eighths and put into a pot or pyrex dish (with lid) that can go into the oven. Leaving one of the green garlic bulbs for later, cut the green garlic into eighths and add to the pot with the beets. You can also add some of the green stems, too, if you’d like. Douse the garlic and beets with extra virgin olive oil (enough to coat) and sprinkle with some salt and pepper (not too much). Cover and put into the oven. Roast the beets and garlic for 20 – 25 minutes. The beets should be tender.
While roasting, you can sautee the beet greens. To do this, chop coarsely and also coarsely chop the remaining green garlic bulb (into even a finer chop). Sautee greens and garlic in a small amount of olive oil on medium/high heat in a heavy pan until just wilted. Set aside.
When the beets in the oven are ready, take them out. Allow to cool for about five minutes. Then mix the roasted beets and garlic with the sauerkraut in a large bowl. Add salt and pepper to taste. You can then serve this over the wilted beet greens. It can be served warm or even cold. It is, seriously, delicious.
RAW CASHEW AND OLIVE PATE
1.5 cups raw cashews (soaked in water over night)
1/2 cup variety of mixture of olives
3 – 4 raw garlic cloves
2 large sprigs of fresh basil
1 teaspoon white peppercorns
1 teaspoon pink peppercorns
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
Soak your cashews overnight in just enough water to cover.
Into your Cuisinart, fitted with the chopping blade, goes the following: The cashews along with whatever liquid is left. Pulse these until it resembles a crunchy peanut butter consistency. Then add the fresh garlic cloves. Pulse again until garlic is combined. Next add the all the rest of the ingredients. *Cook note: I get my olives from the olive bar at Whole Foods and just get a total mishmash variety of the ones that make me smile. For this mixture I got some Kalmata, some garlic stuffed (so more garlic!), some green with pimento and some capers, too. Use your imagination, this can NOT go wrong for you.
Mix on LOW until thick and smooth. Serve on toasted bread, crackers or do what I do and just slather it on your body and get some willing person to lick it off. Total yum!!
We have much to hope from the flowers. ~ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
There were no cut flowers at our wedding. No centerpieces comprised of dahlias and peonies and star gazer lilies. My bouquet was made from beaded flowers. It is now, even ten years later, hanging from my rear view mirror in my car.
I realize it is rather odd for me to be talking about the flower choices (or lack there of) for our wedding. Especially since I am no longer even married. It was a very deliberate choice, though, and one I would still make today.
I am a girl who does not appreciate cut flowers.
I am a girl who hears plants and flowers scream and faint when they are about to be cut. I know it sounds positively CRAZY, but it is absolutely true. I have always been this way. Since I was a child. I still hear it, I can’t ignore it. I always apologize and then thank my vegetables before I pull them from the vine or take them from the earth. Or even slice them in the kitchen. Just as we are living and breathing upon this earth, so are the very plants and trees and flowers and grasses which literally give us life.
Think about that for just one moment. What feeds all of us? If the grasses were to suddenly disappear would we survive? If all the trees were to vanish from the face of this planet, would we continue to live?
I live in gratitude every day for all the plants that truly give me life. I am not so naive to think that just because I eat a vegan diet I am not still guilty of taking life in order to live. The life I take may not have a “face”, but it still has energy, it still has LIFE, it still is critical to sustaining all life, including my own, here on this planet.
A vegetarian or vegan diet is not without its own contribution toward the destruction of the planet. Those of us who just shop at Whole Foods and purchase our cleanly plastic packaged organic mangoes and strawberries from far away lands are contributing massively to the carbon footprint of the planet. Not to mention the death of many animals. Yes, animals. Those mangoes leave a massive trail of jet fuel, carbon emissions, deforestation, and dead gophers, rabbits and squirrels and birds that are plowed in the fields by the farmers and killed along the roads by the trucks as the food is moved from farm to store to table. If you don’t want to believe me about this go have a chat with any farmer at your local farmers market. Ask him how many animals die in his fields as he grows the organic vegetables he’s bringing to market.
Look, I’m absolutely just as guilty. The only truly sustainable way to avoid all of this, to release us from the karmic debt of killing animals is to grow all of our vegetables and eat what we grow all year long. I’m not sure most of us are up for that challenge.
I just want to give all of us something to really think about when we’re digging into our next delicious salad. All the plants in your salad gave their life for you. We need to honor the plants, give thanks for the plants, remember that the plants are absolutely living and part of all life. Just like us.
A recipe created from glorious living things. From me to you. I was craving some hummus and realized I had raw cashews and chickpeas on hand. So I made this up. It’s obviously a variation on the traditional and a bit of kick with the mustard and cumin and tumeric. I really like things with a bit of a kick! It helps me to remember I am alive.
Cashew Garbanzo Hummus
1.5 Cups organic Raw Cashew pieces soaked in 1.5 cups water overnight
1 cup organic chickpeas soaked over night in 1 cup water.
2/3 cup organic extra virgin olive oil
4 -5 cloves raw organic garlic
3 – 4 leaves of fresh organic basil
1.5 teaspoons sea salt
1 teaspoon toasted cumin seeds
1/2 teaspoon toasted brown mustard seeds
1 teaspoon tumeric
1 teaspoon red chiles
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Juice of 1 large meyer lemon
In a medium heavy pot, place chickpeas in water they have been soaking in plus 2 more cups of water. Add 1/2 teaspoon sea salt, bring to boil, then lower heat to a simmer and cook for 45 minutes. Drain and rinse the chickpeas. You can rinse with cool water, if you’d like. Set aside.
Into a large Cuisinart, place the raw cashews and any liquid remaining from soaking overnight. Pulse until it is almost the consistency of peanut butter.
Add in the garlic cloves, cooked chickpeas, basil, and the rest of the spices. Pulse again until everything is chopped and again rather course.
Now with the Cuisinart running, drizzle in the olive oil. Process until just smooth. Add in the lemon juice, salt and pepper. Process again for just about 15 – 30 seconds more. Taste and add more salt, pepper or lemon juice if necessary.
Serve! I’ve been eating this slathered on large romaine lettuce leaves and then wrapped up with tomatoes and all kinds of sprouts. I feel like spring is exploding in my mouth. I’m sure it would be great with avocado (if I wasn’t really allergic to avocado). So give that a whirl if you like avocado!
cross posted from nakedjen
A long time ago, longer than even last Friday even, perhaps as long ago to include decades in the equation, I was a young girl with a desire to cook. To understand why this spice made a better choice than that spice, how butter made everything just taste better, and how to make a checkerboard cake.
As luck would have it, (is there luck or is it just life?), I was a student at a very small private school in Easton, Maryland. The same very small private school where E landed after her parents decided that a life in Easton may be better than their life in Philadelphia.
E and I became fast and furious best friends (and we are, honestly, still the very best of friends now, 35 years later) and it wasn’t long before I was invited, by written invitation, to spend the weekend with her family at their home. I learned quickly that E’s mother, C, was a truly fabulous cook. Of course she had taught cooking school, so there was that. But her generosity and love in the kitchen infused her food with a identifiable and delectable goodness.
It was C that taught me so very much about embracing whole foods, embracing the goodness of the very best and freshest of ingredients, of using all of my senses, not just my taste buds, to create memorable meals.
It was also C that taught me how to make the very best fried green tomatoes. It was standing next to her, at her restaurant worthy 8 burner stove, that I learned to make a proper egg wash for the tomatoes and to shake them carefully in the cornmeal and flour mixture. How to fry them in more butter than even Julia Child might find reasonable, checking carefully for just the right amount of pink tenderness before removing them to the ever growing pile of goodness kept warm in the oven.
But it was also C who taught me that no plate of Fried Green Tomatoes is truly complete without a proper creamy sauce created from a mixture of the droppings in the heavy frying pan, cream and, oh yes, a tad more butter.
This was the food of my childhood. I can not remember a summer where those green tomatoes and heavenly sauce did not grace my plate countless times along with fresh corn on the cob and dozens of hard shell crabs.
All of that, obviously, was long before I became a vegetarian and certainly before I became a vegan. It has since becoming a vegan that I’ve most missed the summer Fried Green Tomatoes in my life. It just did not seem plausible to me, truthfully, to be able to create a vegan version that would even come close to the memorable bites of my childhood.
Reading about others vegan versions of Fried Green tomatoes made my mouth water, however. Last week the farmers market happened to be overflowing with organic green tomatoes and though I could hear C, in my head, clucking about the lack of butter and cream, the ache for that particular deliciousness of summer from my early childhood meant that I just had to give it a go.
I’ve noticed other vegan recipes for Fried Green Tomatoes around the web, but some of them included using egg beaters (I personally just do not like egg beaters) for the egg wash or suggested using Earth Balance as the “butter”. Again, I have nothing against Earth Balance, I just don’t particularly like it.
So I set out, as I often do, to create my own vegan version of the taste of childhood summers.
Here it is:
Vegan Fried Green Tomatoes
- 6 large green tomatoes
- 1 cup flour
- 1 cup corn meal
- 1 ½ cups soy milk
- 1 ½ teaspoons sea salt
- 1 ½ teaspoons freshly ground pepper
- 2 -3 fresh garlic gloves finely chopped
- Extra Virgin Olive Oil
For the Sauce:
- ½ cup finely ground cashews
- ½ cup soy milk
- ½ cup water
- 4 tablespoons nutritional yeast.
- ½ cup white wine
- salt and pepper to taste
You’ll need a very heavy frying pan. I have always used a cast iron frying pan for this and I can’t imagine ever using anything else as it just absorbs flavors and conducts heat so very well, but that’s just me.
Slice your tomatoes very into rather thick even slices. Sift together into a flat pan or plate the flour, cornmeal, one teaspoon salt and one teaspoon pepper. In a bowl, mix the soy milk with the remaining ½ teaspoon of salt and pepper. This is your “wash”.
Over medium heat, add enough olive oil to your frying pan to coat the bottom. Do not have the heat so high that it starts to smoke, you don’t want that. Add a bit of the chopped garlic (not all as you’ll want to reserve some to continue to add) to flavour the oil.
Dip a tomato slice in the soy milk to completely coat and then coat with the flour mixture. Drop into the frying pan. Continue to do this until you have five or six slices in the pan (it will depend on the size of your tomatoes how many slices you can fit, but they should lay flat and not overlap). Fry on one side, then the other. One way to tell if they’re “done” is that they will feel tender to touch, rather than hard, when you poke a fork in the center. Both sides should be golden.
You may find that you need to add more olive oil as you go along. When you do, add more garlic to flavor it the oil.
Continue with this method until you’ve cooked all slices. I like to keep the cooked ones on a cookie tray in a 250 degree oven so they stay warm. Others like to just pile them on a plate. Do whatever works best for you.
Once they’re all cooked, it’s time to make the sauce.
Scrape the droppings in the pan to the center. You’re keeping these as they add a nice flavour to the sauce. Your heat should now be a tad lower than where you cooked the tomatoes. Perhaps at Medium/Low. Now add the soy milk and water and nutritional yeast. Things will get quite bubbly. Continue stirring, using a wooden spatula, and scraping the bottom as you do. Stir in the ground cashews. Continue to stir as it will now start to thicken rather quickly. Add in the white wine. Continue to stir. Taste for salt and pepper.
To serve, place four or five tomato slices on a plate and cover with the sauce.
Fasten your seat belt, take a bite, and blast yourself right back to your childhood. Or just eat them and enjoy. Every bite is a savory joy.
Music for cooking: Unrequited by Louden Wainwright, III. Just right for sparking those good old childhood memories of life on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.
I like to walk the talk that I talk, so it is for that reason that I get up early every Saturday morning and head to the Salt Lake City Farmers Market. I will be the first to tell you that last summer, my first summer spent living in Utah, I was quite dubious and skeptical about the Farmers Market. Moving here from Santa Cruz, the vegetable bowl of America, where I had a farmers market four days a week, where I was truly spoiled with my access to fresh organic vegetables 365 days a year, I just couldn’t even allow myself to hope that I would find vegetables I would even want to make friends with, let alone take home at a farmers market in the middle of the high desert in Utah. Sage and tumbleweeds, certainly. Juicy tomatoes, lemon cucumbers and arugula? Not so much.
I was wrong. I was very wrong.
I also want to say, right here and right now, that the farmers of Utah have taught me so very much about love in the year that I have lived here and shared the bounty of their farms. A love for humanity and a respect for farming that I just plain took for granted in those twenty years of living in the land of plenty.
I’m unsure if it is a Utah thing, or if it is something deep within me that truly changed when I left Santa Cruz, or perhaps it is a combination of the two, but the farmers here, the farmers of the Salt Lake City farmers market who come early every Saturday (and now on Tuesday afternoons too!) are very friendly. I have adopted them and they have adopted me. They know my stories and I know theirs. I know all about their farms. I know all about their families. I know all about the various soils at their farms and why the farm in Logan grows better radishes than the farm in Provo. They know all about my various beets and carrots and why my own attempt at basil and mint failed this year. I know which farmer sells the best basil, which one has the best garlic, who will be here this week, but not next because his son is getting married. These farmers, in turn, have blessed me with smiles, with boxes and boxes of beautiful, fresh, organic vegetables and, best of all, with community.
Yes, community.
It still astounds me each week that I always come home from the market with such a vast array and variety of beautiful vegetables. Most of which were a gift. That is the truly astounding thing to me. My farmers (I do call them my farmers because I feel like I’ve adopted them, too!) insist each week on sharing the bounty of their harvests with me, on giving me far more than I’ve purchased, on throwing in a few extras that I just have to try. I, in turn, feel compelled to absolutely use all their blessings and so I’ve been busy this summer, especially, creating new recipes and then sharing the bounty with the homeless men and women who actually live in Pioneer Park where the farmers market is held each week.
I know that may strike some of you as an odd thing to do. To spend my time cooking a large vegan organic meal and then splitting it evenly among recyclable containers and carting it to a park and passing it out to the men and women who might otherwise not ever eat a home-cooked vegan organic meal. The farmers, though, when I tell them that this is what I’m doing, seem to smile a little more broadly and give me even more vegetables. I realize I could be far more organized about all of this, that I could encourage the farmers to give their extra bounty to the homeless shelter that is just across the road from where the market is held each week, that I could organize and help with the cooking of meals at the shelter.
Somehow, though, doing it in this small, personal way just feels better. I volunteer at the shelter in other ways, already. This, for me, is just one more way I can give back to others. To my community.
The carrots were in abundance this week. Everywhere. My garden exploded with them, but obviously so did the gardens of my farmers. Including the very special farmers who are learning how to grow and cultivate organic vegetables for the community and their fellow prisoners at our Utah State Prison. Those men are some of the most amazingly loving farmers a naked girl from Santa Cruz could ever hope to befriend. I love that our State Prison is growing organic food and feeding their own inmates as well as our community. It is a program that is really working. I spend extra time each week with those farmers sharing a smile, a laugh, and “god bumps” as one of them is so fond of telling me.
I’ve made carrot cake for the masses this week. Not exactly a nutrtional meal, per se, but I’m going to take slices for breakfast tomorrow morning. It’s vegan, it’s organic and it is really, really delicious. I encourage you to make some and share it with your friends, with your neighbors, with the homeless men and women who inhabit your parks, with your community. Do it. It will make your heart smile.
COMMUNITY VEGAN CARROT CAKE
Ingredients (use vegan and organic versions):
- 2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 2 – 3 teaspoons all spice
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 cup black strap molasses
- many teaspoons vanilla
- 1 cup canola oil
- 2 cups finely grated carrots
- 1 cup crushed pineapple including juice
- 1 cup shredded coconut
- 2/3 cup chopped walnuts
VEGAN CREAM CHEESE FROSTING
- 1 8 oz package of vegan cream cheese
- 1/3 cup earth balance
- 1 teaspoon (or more) vanilla
- 2 cups vegan confectioners sugar
METHOD
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, all spice, and salt. Set aside.
In the bowl of an electric mixer, mix the molasses with the canola oil. Drizzle in the vanilla. I use smell to know just how much vanilla. I also use molasses because I can use less than other forms of sugar and still get the “sweetness” I desire. But if you want a sweeter, more traditional cake use brown sugar instead and use about 1 cup.
Fold in the dry ingredients. The mixture will be a tad dry and a bit crumbly. Don’t worry. Mix in the pineapple and its juice. Then add the carrots, coconut and nuts. Blend everything together.
I prefer a thick cake, so I used a 9 x 9 pan. But you could easily use a 13 x 9 pan. Grease and flour your pan (DO NOT USE PAM!) and pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake for 30 – 35 minutes if you’re in Utah (at another altitude our baking time may vary!). Let the cake cool completely before frosting.
Making the Frosting!
Using an electric mixer, beat the cream cheese and the earth balance. Add the vanilla and then gradually add the sugar. Spread on the cake.
Share with those you love, those who touch your heart, those who need some goodness. Share.
At this time of year, if you’re the kind of person who throws some seeds in the ground, the kind of person who might do a dance or two to the deities that shine kindly on sprouting vegetables, the kind of person that BELIEVES that a garden well tended will produce an abundance of vegetables, you may just find yourself thinking about leaving some zucchini squash the size of baseball bats on the porches of your unsuspecting neighbors.
Or not.
You could, instead, at least grab some of those zucchini, a few other really simple ingredients, and bake yourself some pretty darn tasty chocolate zucchini bread. That’s vegan, even. And doesn’t have added sugar! All for the low, low, price…Oh wait. No that’s a different post.
Sundays at ChezNaked are spent baking. Lately, because I have that job of mine where I’m toiling away in a building that is pretty much void of nutritional offerings if you’re a vegan girl who is fairly obsessed with organics (like me) I’ve dedicated Sundays to baking something that is breakfast worthy that can last for the coming work week. I’ve also started cooking twice as much as I really need to for dinners and taking the left overs with me for lunch the next day. Yes, you read that correctly. Anyone who knows me well and has known me for a long time knows I do not “do” left overs. That has all changed, though, with the job. Oh the change in perspective that comes when we are actually out and about and forced to survive in the real world. 
Given the abundance of zucchini in my garden this week I decided to make chocolate zucchini bread. I’m sure there’s a recipe out there on the Internet for this somewhere that involves sugar and applesauce, but I am really fairly adamant these days about not having extra sugar in my diet. So here’s my recipe. Feel free to adjust/alter as your taste buds require.
Chocolate Zucchini Bread
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. You will need one 9 x 4 loaf pan for this recipe. I never spray my pans with anything, but you’re welcome to use Earth Balance (or the equivalent) if you feel you need it to prepare the pan.
- 2 very ripe organic bananas
- 1 fairly large organic zucchini (I picked mine literally moments before baking)
- 1/4 cup organic canola oil
- 2 cups organic bread or regular flour
- 1 cup milled organic flax seeds
- 3 tablespoons organic chocolate powder
- 2 – 3 tablespoons organic vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup organic walnuts
- 2 cups organic/vegan chocolate chips
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
Using the shredding blade on your Cuisinart, shred the zucchini and set it aside. Peel the bananas and put them in the bowl of your mixer. Mash/blend on high until they’re a bit frothy. Add in the canola oil and continue to mix on a fairly high setting. (I used setting 8).
While the bananas and oil are mixing, sift together the flour, powdered chocolate, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Then add the vanilla to the banana/oil mixture and mix for another minute or so until it is all very well blended.
With the mixer on a very low setting (2), slowly add in the sifted flour and alternate with the milled flax seeds. Mix until it is well blended. Then add in the zucchini. Truthfully, you just want about 2 cups maximum of the shredded zucchini. Blend this in, but do not over mix. Then add in the nuts and chocolate chips. Again, do not over mix.
Spread the mixture evenly into the loaf pan. Place on the middle rack in the oven. Cook for 25 minutes and check. Every oven is different. I’ve found here in Utah that I need to bake this recipe for 32 minutes (yes 32!) for the perfect outcome. So check at 25 and go from there.
Allow to cool in the bread pan for another 10 – 15 minutes. And then remove from the bread pan. I wrap tightly in aluminum foil to keep for the week in my refrigerator. You can, of course, just eat it right away. It is rather delicious warm!
I had extra batter, so I also made some muffins. Just dropped the batter into the lined muffin tin. Cooked these for just 25 minutes. As you can see, they came out just right. I’m taking these for co-workers to enjoy tomorrow. I’ll let them share with you whether that “organic vegan stuff” that I eat actually tastes good.
Music for baking today: A “genuis” mix based upon Mushaboom by Feist. It included songs by Regina Spektor, Jason Webley, Kate Nash and Rufus Wainwright. Good stuff.
Detroit Dark Red. India Beet. Chioggia. Bastian’s Blood Turnip.
These are the varieties of beet seeds that I carefully planted in April as soon as the ground was no longer the frozen tundra that it so often resembles for much of the year here in Utah. I dug deep with my shovel, turned over the earth, and lovingly mixed in the compost that I had also gently crafted from the scraps of my organic lunches and dinners over the previous months. The compost was rich, black, and almost oily, and the earth, as I turned it, was already full of big, fat juicy earthworms.
I am not a farmer. I don’t even pretend to play one on the Internet. It’s been years and years since I had a vegetable garden of any kind. My last attempt at a garden happened while living in Bonny Doon, years and years ago and resulted in so much Russian Kale that nothing else we planted that year grew. We had enough Russian Kale to feel all of Russia, surely, but not a tomato or squash to be found.
With all my talk, though, of living a sustainable life, of eating food that is local and organic (if possible), of eating whole foods not processed, it only made sense that now that I live in a home with a yard that could actually host a garden that I should plant and cultivate one.
So I carefully planned it out. Six equal rows. I also carefully only planted the foods that I would actually eat. It is for this reason that I have a garden that has four different kinds of beets. Onions. Two different types of carrots. Three squashes. And multiple types of lettuce.
Back in April, when I mentioned in this blog that I was going to plant a garden, that I was going to try my hand at growing food in my own yard that I might actually be able to eat, one of the readers of this blog contacted me and shared that she had some heirloom tomato seeds and asked me if I’d like to have them for the garden?
How beautiful and kind is that gesture? I will share that her name is Jenny, that she is from Tennessee, and that her kindness and generosity actually knows no bounds. She has been a constant source of encouragement and love over the years that I have been writing and as I do with so many of you, I feel so very blessed that she continues to read the words that I manage to somehow scramble from my brain to this blog each week.
So I told Jenny that of course I would love to have her seeds. That I would plant them, that I would tend to them carefully, that I would call whatever tomatoes resulted, Jenny Tomatoes.
My sister, NeverNakedBeth, tried very hard to stifle her laughter in April when I was showing her my garden, with its neat little rows, and I told her the story of the tomato seeds and where I had planted them.
“Jennifer, those seeds will never grow.”
“Of course, they’ll grow, NeverNakedBeth. They’re heirloom seeds. They were saved from other organic tomotoes. She’s not sure what kind they are, but of course they’ll grow!”
“Jennifer, nope. They won’t. We don’t grow tomatoes from seed in Utah. You need to go get plants. Hearty plants. This is Utah. Not California!”
“NeverNakedBeth, is it because it’s too cold? I waited until after the frost. I waited until I could till the ground myself. I added in lots of rich, black compost. I can cover the ground…”
“It has nothing to do with that. The growing season is just too short. You’re not going to get a plant, much less a tomato. But don’t worry. I have lots of tomato plants already planted. I’ll share.”
I was disheartened. Jenny had entrusted those seeds to me. I felt almost like Jack, only I hadn’t even traded the seeds for a golden goose egg. I had just planted them in the soil with love and trust and hope, but without understanding that I was living in a barren desert, that I wasn’t in California anymore.
My garden grew. By the middle of May, Buddha and Stella and I were eating spinach, and kale and all kinds of lettuce nearly every night. And the beets and carrots and onions all sprung up as their roots grew down and deep with rich ruby reds and organges and sunburst yellows.
During the second week of June, I was weeding the garden when I noticed what looked like tiny tomato plant starts in the area where I had, in fact, planted Jenny’s seeds. I dismissed the possibility, as NeverNakedBeth, my authority on all things Utah, had insisted those seeds were never going to grow.
Instead of pulling them up, though, because I’m such an asute organic farmer, I leaned over and SMELLED THEM. Yes, Internet, there I was, butt high in the air, nose all the way in the dirt, smelling the tiny little plants. They smelled like a summer farm stand. They smelled like they needed a little dash of salt. They smelled like delicious tomatoes.
Har!
 Not only did they sprout, but my oh my they have grown and flourished. I have some of the most beautiful, juicy, delicious, drip down your chin Jenny Tomatoes a naked farm girl could ever hope to have. Especially in Utah.
Those seeds, the seeds of love that were sent to me from Tennessee, have forever changed me. I now know, undoubtedly, that with the right amount of love, a lot of faith, some fresh air, sunshine and rain, that anything, yes, aboslutely anything is possible.
Plant your seeds. Give them love. Believe.
You will have a bounty of awesome to share.
When I lived in London, a very long time ago, I joked that I lived on their amazing fat-laden chocolate (do you know that it has a higher fat content there…or did in the 1980’s) and tea. Oh, and plain chocolate McVities biscuits. Oh how I adored those biscuits. Sitting in my flat with a pot of tea and those biscuits writing dark and dreary and depressing poetry. I was so emo and I had no idea what emo even was!
One of the dinners that my flatmates and I used to make for one another was something that I later learned was a fairly basic family meal from many European cultures. I’m unsure who in the flat introduced this first, but we all perfected it over our time living together. We ate it at least once a week and it was, no doubt, because the bread in London? It’s also much better. And when you’ve got some left over crusty bits, those bits are just perfect for this particular dish.
Let’s call this dish Baker Street Stew. I know that’s not what it probably is really called, but I lived at the Baker Street Tube stop when I learned to make it and perfected it. It’s a hearty dish and can be served on its own or I had a flatmate who enjoyed frying an egg and plopping that right on top of his dish.
Herewith, exactly how I make it.
- 1 1/4 cups chickpeas
- 1/4 cup or so of really yummy olive oil
- 6 cloves garlic, peeled and whole
- 1/2 pound fresh spinach
- 4 slices or so of just stale bread (cut into cubes)
- 1 shallot minced (about 4 tablespoons)
- 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
- 1 teaspoon sweet paprika
- 2 tablespoons fresh pimento diced
- splash of sherry vinegar
Sort the chickpeas to remove any “rocks” and then soak covered in water over night. (You can cheat with this recipe and used canned garbanzo beans, and if you do, you just need to adjust the recipe for having already cooked chickpeas).
To cook the chickpeas, first drain and rinse them. Then combine in a large heavy pot with 2 1/2 quarts of water. Bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer and allow to simmer for about two hours. You want the beans to be tender. You will need to keep a casual eye on the beans and every once in a while you’ll want to add a 1/4 cup or so of cold water to the pot to slow down the simmer and to keep the beans “covered”. When the beans are cooked, the water should just be barely covering them. At this point, turn off the heat and just allow the beans to sit.
Gather a heavy frying pan and over medium heat (not too hot, honestly) brown the garlic cloves. You want to keep them whole, but it is okay to sort of “mash” them a bit as you brown them. This infuses the oil with the garlic flavor. Once browned, scoop out and put the garlic cloves into the mortar of your mortar and pestle. (I hope you have a mortar and pestle. If you do not, can I suggest that you might want to think about getting one? They’re really useful!). Next into the oil goes the bread cubes. Again, brown on all sides. Just brown. Don’t toast. When browned, put the cubes in your mortar, as well.
Remove the pan from the heat and allow it to cool slightly and then in goes the minced shallots. Saute these until just translucent and then add in the cumin seeds and paprika. Keep stirring and it will start to resemble a roux. Now add in the pimentos. Keep the heat quite low and do not overcook. End with the splash of vinegar.
Remove all of that from the heat and set aside.
Mash the bread cubes and garlic in your mortar and pestle into a thick paste. It does not have to be smooth. In fact, I usually leave a few of the bread cubes aside and just throw them into the stew whole.
Bring the chickpeas back to a low boil and add in the fresh spinach, the garlic/bread mash, and the pimento spice mix. Mix well to blend everything together as the spinach wilts. It will all blend together to form a thick, yummy, stew. You may wish to add a dash of salt and pepper to taste.
It’s now ready to serve.
Music to play while you’re cooking: Pet Shop Boys (It was London in the 80’s!)
As I mentioned, one of my flatmates was insistent upon eating this with a runny fried egg served on top. I don’t like eggs (and they’re certainly not vegan) so I have never had it that way.
This meal will easily serve four very hungry twenty-somethings living on the kindness of strangers in a shared flat in London. Often. I made it on Monday evening with items I had on hand in the kitchen. Also, it’s cheap! I used all organic ingredients (like always) but I am certain this meal even using all organics was under $10.
Total yum.
The first thing to know when attempting this dish is that eggplants left in ovens will explode. When they explode they sound like a bomb going off at the house next door. This frightens your dogs (if you happen to have dogs and if you don’t have dogs, why don’t you have dogs? They’re lovely animals!) and they will wander to the door wondering about the very LOUD BOOM that seems to have come from the house next door.
Only it did not come from the house next door. It came from right inside your very own oven and opening the oven door will reveal one exploded eggplant, the contents of which are now coating all the interior surfaces of your oven with eggplant bits hanging like mistletoe from the racks. It’s quite a site, believe me. I attempted a photo, but got only a blurry mess. Probably for the better.
So, now that we have that bit of advice about exploding eggplants out of the way, shall we move on to how to actually make this dish? You’re all prepared now and can not claim that I did not warn you about the lurking possible dangers!
Ingredients:
1 large eggplant
1 medium size onion
4 or 5 tomatoes
ghee or oil
1 tablespoon fresh ginger finely chopped
4 cloves garlic finely chopped
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 teaspoon mustard seeds (brown or black)
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon ground tumeric
1/4 teaspoon paprika
fresh cilantro and yogurt (vegan if you’re vegan and want yogurt) for garnish
Heat oven to 350F. Pierce the eggplant all around with a fork (lest you want an exploding eggplant) and then place on the middle rack of the heated oven. Let it bake for about 20 minutes. It’s “done” when it’s wrinkly! Take it out of the oven and set aside.
While the eggplant is cooking, you can prepare the other vegetables. Chop the garlic and ginger. Chop the onion into a small dice. Chop the tomatoes into a small dice, as well, saving the juice.
After the eggplant has been removed from the oven, take a large heavy frying pan. Over medium heat, use either ghee (if non-vegan) or canola oil to just coat the bottom, then add in the cumin and mustard seeds. Stir for about 30 seconds. Before they start to “pop” add in the onions, garlic and ginger and the other spices. Stir to coat everything well and then continue to stir until the onions are just browned.
Next you’re going to want to add in your eggplant. Cut open the eggplant and scrape out the insides. You don’t want the skin, just the cooked insides. All of it. It easily just slides right out and into the pan. Smash the eggplant around with the onion and other spices. You want to really mash it.
Now, once it is sufficiently mashed and blended with the onions and other spices, add in the tomatoes. Again, mix and mash. Keeping the heat at medium. Things will be bubbling. At this point some people like to throw in other vegetables like peas, but I don’t particularly like peas in this dish so I just stick with eggplant and tomatoes. However, feel free to experiment!
Now, some of you will be finished and ready to eat at this point. Totally okay if you are one of those people. However, for me, there’s one more step. The consistency is still a bit too “chunky” here for my liking, so I take 2/3 of the mixture and throw it in the Cuisinart (or blender) and puree it. Then it gets mixed back in with the original 1/3 and allowed to simmer on the stove top for a few more minutes so all the flavors blend.
This curry is especially nice over some toasted basmati rice. Garnished with a dollop of yogurt and some fresh cilantro. Of course it might also be nice with some chopped cashews, too, if you’ve got some on hand. Just for some crunch!
Of course, I used all organic ingredients when making this dish. Start to finish time including the baking of the exploding eggplant was 30 minutes. I could easily see preparing the eggplant ahead of time and having it “on hand” to throw this together in a quick 15 minutes. Especially if doing toasted basmati rice as that takes no time at all.
Music that was playing while I exploded eggplants and made this fabulous food? Imogen Heap’s Speak for Yourself. I can’t recommend that particular album enough. Totally fab.
Enjoy!! And please share your variations. I’m always interested to know what you discover.
1 lb Beets — soft cooked, peeled
– and cut into chunks
4 oz Soft tofu — drained
1 tb Apple cider vinegar
-(Or more, to taste)
2 tb Minced shallots
1/2 ts Dry mustard
1/2 ts Dried thyme
1/2 ts Dried tarragon
Puree ingredients (using 1 tablespoon vinegar) in a
food processor or blender until smooth. Adjust
seasonings, adding more vinegar and salt to taste.
Serve immediately or refrigerate in tightly sealed
container for up to 3 days. Makes about 2 cups.
Source: Lorna Sass, Cooking From An Ecological Kitchen
Notes from Nakedjen:
I used toasted mustard seeds instead of dried mustard (because I like
that better). I used fresh tarragon instead of dried and I skipped the
thyme. I also used about 1 teaspoon tumeric because for vegan things it
just adds some punch and real flavor. Finally, I splashed in some fresh
lemon juice at the end (to brighten the flavors) and a pinch of
himalayan pink salt. Someone sweet from London suggested freshly grated Horseradish as an addition. I added it in tonight before mixing this in with my raw falafel salad from Omar’s Raw Living Cuisine and it kicked ass! Definitely a perfect addition!
If you’re not strict about using vegan ingredients, you could easily
use yogurt and/or sour cream in this recipe. I’d still use the tofu,
but perhaps use half tofu, half yogurt? It would take some playing
around with it.
It really is quite fantastic and I spread it on romaine lettuce leaves
last night with chopped mushrooms and spinach and rolled it up.
DELICIOUS. Excited to have this for lunch this week.
So as I mentioned, I ate this tonight mixed in almost like a “dressing” with my Raw Falafel Salad from Omar’s Living Cuisine (one of my favourite restaurants here in Salt Lake and it’s walking distance from my little bungalow, so the dogs and I took a walk and picked up dinner!) and it was total perfection. The blend of the lovely beet flavour with the raw crunch falafel and all the other love and goodness in that salad left me completely and utterly BLISSED OUT. I’m not joking. I feel like I tasted nirvana.
Grab some beets and give this dip a go. Even if you’re not a fan of beets, I bet you’ll actually like it!
If any of my family members are looking at that bowl of pasta, they’re surely scratching their heads right now and wondering how on this earth I could possibly be calling that Nana’s Spaghetti. And if my Nana were still alive, she’d certainly take umbrage with my interpretation. However, I also know she’d eat it and love every bite.
Nana’s Spaghetti has been a comfort food and Sunday night tradition in our family since, well, since I was old enough to actually eat pasta and probably long before that. Her original recipe involved taking cooked spaghetti noodles, a stick of margerine (yes MARGERINE!) and a can of tomatoes (not sauce, tomatoes) and mixing it all together. Add some salt. Dinner is served.
We ate this often in our family, especially on Sunday nights. In fact, long after the Naked Sisters had grown up and left home, my sister HalfNakedRobin and I used to get together on Sunday evenings and have Nana’s Spaghetti for dinner while watching the television show, Life Goes On. It was our Sunday ritual when we both happened to find ourselves actually living in the same town.
I couldn’t really abide by the use of margerine, though. Nor could my adult taste buds really enjoy just noodles and canned tomatoes. So, over the years, left to my own devices, Nana’s Spaghetti has taken on some new ingredients…some flair!
I still am quite religious about calling it Nana’s Spaghetti, though. That part I will not give up. Ever.
Nana’s Spaghetti
16 oz. cooked pasta of your choice. Penne noodles work well.
1 8 oz. can organic tomatoes
2 – 3 cloves garlic finely chopped
2 -3 tablespoons fresh basil or tarragon or both
1/2 small red or yellow onion finely chopped
1 cup chopped mushrooms (I like using shitake)
some fresh spinach (i just throw it in, don’t ask me how much!)
2 – 3 tablespoons capers
butter and olive oil
After you’ve cooked the pasta, set it aside. Melt the butter (3 tablespoons ??? and an equal amount of olive oil) in the pot you’ve just cooked the noodles in. Saute 1/2 the garlic. Add in the onions and saute until translucent. Throw in the mushrooms. Saute until cooked and add the basil and tarragon, too. Add in the spinach. Cook until it is just wilted. Now, add in the tomatoes. The rest of the garlic. The capers. Cook over medium heat until it just starts to bubble. Add the pasta back in. Throw in some salt and pepper (to taste). Serve.
This serves about 4. I think. I don’t know. I just make it. And eat. And then have left overs for lunch.
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