Tag Archive: parsley

1. Notes For Summer

   June 27, 2012 10:30 am 46 Comments

   

   We have a backyard now, how cool is that? Shaun built me raised beds and I planted winter squash early last week, probably too many, but we’ll get there when we get there. Every morning I sit in the sun on an old red adirondack that the last tenant left behind and watch over blossoms and the beneficials as they do their good work. I’m bonding with the squash, seeing phases of my life in them. So eager, reaching their awkward arms to the sky. They want to grow up so fast. Every day I am astounded at their progress. So proud. Like a parent, I suppose. Worrying about the sun and the birds, trying not to smother them, let them just do their thing.

   Just like the plants, I am reminded, the power within (within me, within us all) grows stronger with each new day. Keep watering. Keep nurturing. That’s it. I’ll be patient, trust that good things will come to fruit in the near future. In the meantime I will celebrate the small triumphs, fend off the bad bugs, and just soak up the time given to me. It’s summer, folks, let’s try not over think things too much. Take the time (make the time) to ride bikes, call your mom, take a hike, figure out the grill, play dominos, sing in the shower, drink beer at the ball game, laugh at yourself, be nice, and eat lots and lots of stone fruit.

   

   Apricot Mint Couscous 

   serves 2-4

   • 2 cups Israeli cous cous
   • 1 lb ripe apricots
   • 1/4 cup minced shallot
   • 1/4 cup green onion
   • 1 large handful italian parsley, chopped
   • 20+ mint leaves, julienned
   • 1/4 tsp minced fresh jalepeno
   • Juice of 1 lemon
   • 1/4 cup olive oil
   • salt/pepper

   Save energy and spare your kitchen from extra heat in the summer by preparing your cous cous using this method. Bring 3 cups of water to a boil. Stir in dry cous cous. Cover and kill the flame. Let cook for 12-15 minutes. Strain, rinse with cold water, and let sit to dry while you prepare the rest.

   In a large bowl, combine minced shallot, finely sliced green onion (white and light green parts only), parsley, and mint. Carefully remove the seeds  from the jalepeno and mince as fine as you can. I used 1/4 tsp, but add as much as you like to amp up the heat. WASH HANDS and surfaces, immediately. It only takes one time rubbing your nose without a wash to remember this tip. Add pepper to the mixture. Slice the apricots in crescents with a paring knife over the bowl (8-10 wedges per fruit). Squeeze lemon juice over the fruit before stirring. Add olive oil, salt, and pepper.

   Finally, mix in the cous cous to completely coat. Serve at room temperature.

   

2. To Be Free

   June 20, 2012 11:43 am 45 Comments

   We’re here now. With roof, and kitchen. Community. Plans for a garden. It is a wonder to me now that we resisted the temptation to carry on as gypsies forever. The further we let ourselves drift away from the clutter and noise of reality, the more absurd the conventions of our lives always seem to appear. The open road and an empty agenda make few demands of a person – curiousity, patience, willingness, a sense of humor, maybe a toothbrush. Tall grasses, mountains, and the wind gently whisper permission to step out from the rigid set of ideas, requirements, expectations we’ve set for ourselves and make space for new truths and new understandings of what our purpose is on this planet.

   It’s easy to romanticize the freedom of it all – no sense of time, place, before, or after. And it’s important. To leave, to get away, to lose oneself to it all. But I think it’s also important to come back. There is an even more profound freedom to be experienced when we recognize that we have the power to create that same sense of adventure, inhibition, and joy in our daily lives. That is my intention. To let myself be free everyday. Wherever I am, wherever I go, wherever I don’t.

   Thank you for your love, kindness, and support over the past month as we’ve meandered to our new resting place here in Colorado. Cheers to the next chapter.

   * Open fire scramble technique borrowed from “Cooking in the Moment” by Andrea Reusing.

   * *  Video shot in our favorite parts of Alaska. For more behind the scenes action on our Alaska visit, see here. 

3. Jerusalem Artichokes & Orecchiette

   December 9, 2011 10:37 am 36 Comments

   

   Mostly just a quote today. There is a ping-pong match going on upstairs. Lots of thoughts. Ideas. Beginnings and endings always get me riled up. Maybe it’s all the coffee. I would recommend holding off on calling me anytime in the next ten days. I’ll probably bulldoze the conversation with things like how corporations should not be considered ‘persons’ with constitutional rights equal to real people, failed institutions in Guatemala, the movie 50/50, or how I almost ran out of gas again. I can’t always keep the crazy in check. And maybe that’s okay. I love this quote in all its affirmation. Get crazy. Get reckless.

   “I’m not telling you to make the world better, because I don’t think that progress is necessarily part of the package. I’m just telling you to live in it. Not just to endure it, not just to suffer it, not just to pass through it, but to live in it. To look at it. To try to get the picture. To live recklessly. To take chances. To make your own work and take pride in it. To seize the moment. And if you ask me why you should bother to do that, I could tell you that the grave’s a fine and private place, but none I think do there embrace. Nor do they sing there, or write, or argue, or see the tidal bore on the Amazon, or touch their children. And that’s what there is to do and get it while you can and good luck at it.” J. Didion (again, I know, what can I say, she’s amazing)

   Jerusalem Artichoke (Sunchoke) Orecchiette 
   Pairings suggested by Nigel Slater, Tender

   • 12 oz dried or fresh orecchiette (or other pasta of choice)
   • 1-2 lbs firm ‘chokes
   • 2-3 lemons
   • 1 head flat leaf parsley
   • pat of butter or ghee
   • olive oil
   • salt/pepper

   Jerusalem Artichokes, Sunchokes to some, are stubborn buggers to clean. If Nigel Slater hadn’t warned me otherwise, I would have been tempted to just be done with the caked on mud and peel the darn things. I’m glad I was patient — Cooking the ‘chokes with their skins helps preserve their crispness and earthiness. Just make sure you spend a good ten minutes scrubbing the tubers or else dinner is likely to be on the gritty side. I washed them, sliced them thin, then rinsed them again to dislodge the soil from the deep notches.

   Once you’ve sliced them thin, throw them in a steaming basket for about 5-10 minutes just to loosen up the fiber. While you wait, bring a large pot of water to a boil for the pasta. In a large sauce pan or dutch oven, bring a bit of olive oil and butter to a sizzle. Transfer steamed ‘chokes and sauté for about 10 minutes to absorb the fat and slightly brown. Kill the heat. By now the pasta water should be boiling. Cook per packaging instructions until just past al dente. Remove. Strain. Rinse. Let dry. Then toss with the ‘chokes.

   I LOVE parsley, so I used a whole head of leaves, chopped roughly. But a heaping cup or so would do. Toss into the pot of ‘chokes and pasta. Add juice of 2 or three lemons, a good shake of salt and pepper, and a few lugs of olive oil. Toss together to coat. For the omnivore, Slater suggets adding chopped bacon or seared bay scallops. Find another great recipe using ‘chokes here.

   

4. Seeking

   September 10, 2011 7:42 am 22 Comments

   

   I should start thinking up some creative responses to the question I’ve been getting lately, “what are your plans for the future?” It would be so liberating to ditch the glossy answer and say something unexpected  like “I want to be a good friend,” or “I’d like to learn to play the guitar.” Although a few years ago I would have had told you exactly what I’d be doing after I graduate, today the plans are looking a lot more fluid. And to be honest, I kinda like it.  I’m a seeker; a person who is in a constant state of inquiry and exploration of self and the world around me. My formal education will end soon but the search won’t stop when I have a fancy diploma to hang on the wall. I’ll find something good that may lead to something else that’s good, leaving myself open to new plans, places, and people. Maybe I should tell people my plans are “to keep seeking.” 

   Everyone is a seeker in his or her own way, I think. We are concerned about understanding people, place, time, experience and will exert at least some degree of effort trying to develop that understanding further. We seek truth, in many different forms – greater truth, simple truth, and other truths individual to our unique human experience. In the process, we are constantly absorbing ideas, information, and energy to process, accept, reject, or reconsider later. Seeking is both incredibly exciting and exhausting. Throughout the course of our lives, we will find ourselves confident in and frustrated with the vast amounts of input we try so hard to process.

   I’ll try and get to the point. For most seekers, the more we begin to see of the world and the more information and experiences we collect in the pursuit of truth, the more we realize just how little of a clue we have at all about what “it all” means. If this sounds cryptic, it’s not meant to be.  I guess I’m just trying to elaborate on that catchy chorus of that Michael Franti radio hit “it seems like everywhere I go / the more I see / the less I know.” We seek to seek. To learn, grow, change habits, try new things. We don’t shouldn’t seek just to find answers. There are no concrete answers. Unless you’re into math I guess. Insight comes in waves and the sets roll in larger at some points in our lives than others. The “answers” are glimmers, flashes, and wonderings that are arrive then disappear for us to find again later.

   We’re not supposed to get “it.” And this time I’m being deliberately vague. “It” is the different thing we each seek from our unique view of the world at a single moment. If there were an instructional manual to seeking, I would say this should be the first order of business to address. You won’t always understand, and that’s okay. Second order of business then is to not be afraid. Don’t be afraid of the things you don’t understand. This is true for all things, be they about the future, health, relationships, culture, religion, etc. It is our animal instinct to resist the things that we aren’t familiar with. Fight that. Fight it with every fiber of your being. I’m not talking about intuition. Keep that flame a’glowin’ but try hard to embrace those things you don’t understand, seek them more, for it is in these areas that we resist that we most likely still need to develop our purpose.

   Let’s keep seeking.

   

   Warm Green Millet Salad 

   Inspired by Yotam Ottolenghi’s Green Couscous in Plenty. (He is basically a genius)

   • 1 cup millet  (or couscous)
   • 3 cups vegetable stock
   • 1 large sweet onion, thinly sliced
   • 1 tbsp olive oil
   • 1/4 tsp salt
   • 1 tsp cumin
   • 1 cup shelled pistachios, chopped
   • 1 carton green figs
   • 4-5 cups baby arugula

   • 1 head italian parsley
   • 1 head cilantro
   • 1/4 cup tarragon
   • 1/4 cup mint
   • 1/4 + cup olive oil

   Place the millet in a saucepan with the vegetable stock and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover, and let simmer for about 30 minutes. Meanwhile, fry the onion in olive oil on medium heat until golden and soft. Add the salt and cumin, mix well, and move around the onions over high heat until just browned. Set aside.

   For the “green” part of this dish, prepare the herb paste by placing all four herb greens and the olive oil into a food processor and blitz until smooth. Add this to the cooked millet, and mix together well with a fork to fluff it up. Add the cooked onion, pistachios, figs, and arugula and mix until consistent. Add a little salt and pepper to taste. Serve slightly warm or at room temperature.

   

5. Good Ju Ju

   August 12, 2011 3:00 am 25 Comments

   

   Ju Ju means energy; the experience of positive and negative forces all around us that charge our lives and shape each unique day on this planet. You know Ju Ju. It’s that thing when you enter a space and get that “off” feeling in your gut telling you it’s time to leave, it’s the woman who smiled at you when you were crossing the street yesterday, the long, warm embrace of your loved ones, the sensation of sand between your toes walking on the shore. It’s the powerful stuff that we pick up on everywhere when we let our intuition take the reigns.

   

   We can give it, receive it, create it, share it, leave it behind, pass it on; you can even give Ju Ju a good kneading like homemade yeast bread. We need good Ju Ju. We need bad Ju Ju too though. The polar forces help guide our decisions, steer our relationships, and challenge us to think about life in new, interesting ways. It’s a balancing act; I think the potential for both kinds of ju ju live in us at once and can be used to direct people when we least expect it. Some people call it vibe, at yoga you’ve probably heard it referred to as Prana… but whatever name you give it, you know that it’s some powerful stuff.

   

   Despite the fact that each day I generally rise to the blessings of good health, supportive relationships, and an intentional purpose; my Ju Ju reserves can still get a little low from time to time. Life gets messy, our heads get fuzzy, and the spark within us can grow dim. When I need good Ju Ju, I call my Mom. She shares her wisdom and light and helps re-ignite my own to honor and pass on to others.

   This week my Mom was flanked with a host of givers. I received more good Ju Ju than I knew how to process all at once. Surprise coverage from The Kitchn, Food52, FoodieCrush Magazine, Food In Jars, an interview feature with Kaileen Elise, and the positive affirmations from readers and friends have been a needed nudge. Thank you. Thank you for sharing your energy with me this week. If I could bottle it, seal it with wax, and send it right back to each of you ten-fold I would.

   

   Too often we disregard the profound impact that our simple words, actions, and intentions can have on the world and one another. Don’t. Seriously. We carry each other; everyday we take turns by sharing our Ju Ju. Give it away and watch it grow.

   

    Chickpea Fritters with Tomato Jam 

   Slightly adapted from Whole Food by Jude Blearau

   Tomato Jam 

   • 2 tsp olive oil
   • 1/4 cup crushed ginger
   • 4 garlic cloves, minced
   • 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
   • 3 cinnamon sticks
   • 5-6 large heirloom tomatoes, chopped and most of the seeds removed
   • 1/3 cup brown sugar
   • 1 tsp cumin
   • 1/2 tsp ground cloves

   Heat olive oil in a saucepan over gentle heat. Add ginger and garlic and saute for 3-4 minutes. Add the vinegar and cinnamon sticks and cook until reduced by half. Add tomatoes, sugar, cumin, and cloves. Cover with a lid, and cook for 5 minutes over gentle heat. Remove lid, increase heat, and stir for 5-8 minutes to thicken. Reduce heat again and let simmer until thick.

    

   Chickpea Fritters 

   • 1 1/2 cup dried chickpeas, soaked for at least 8 hours
   • 1 small sweet onion, chopped
   • 2 cloves of garlic
   • 1 tsp ground coriander
   • 1 tsp cumin
   • pepper to taste
   • 2 eggs
   • 1 handful of parsley, chopped
   • 1 handful cilantro, chopped
   • 4 tbsp mint, chopped
   • 2 tbsp chickpea flour
   • olive oil, for frying

   Pour soaked chickpeas into a strainer, rinse and drain. Put soaked chickpeas in a food processor with minced garlic. Pulse for about a minute. Add the spices and pulse for another minute until finely ground, then place in a large mixing bowl. Add chopped onion, herbs, and flour and eggs and use your hands to combine. Form the mixture into small patties about 1/2″ thick. I started out thinking these would be chickpea burgers, but with half a loaf of bread on hand and no intention of running to the store, these became open faced sandwiches. Oops.

   Heat a little olive oil in a frying pan, just enough to cover the bottom well. Place patties in the pan and cook over medium heat (with a gentle sizzle) for 5-7 minutes on each side. Jude warns “don’t rush the process, the insides take a while to cook.” Serve with grilled olive oil bread and tomato jam.