Stir-Fried Chili Scallops with Baby Bok Choy for #WokWednesdays

This tasty explosion of color and flavor made me regret all the Wok Wednesdays I’ve been missing in the hurly-burly of the last few months. As always, focusing in on one recipe from Stir-Frying to the Sky’s Edge by the amazing and brilliant Grace Young gave me knowledge, pleasure, and a superb dinner for my family and me. It was a busy weeknight, but since this dazzling dish reels in protein and vegetables and was served with plenty of rice, it was an all-in-one which fit in just fine on a busy Tuesday in winter-deciding-whether-to-surrender-to-spring NC evening.

Here in the very-well-supplied region known as The Triangle (Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill and environs), I could have obtained every ingredient except for the chili bean paste at my nearest supermarket or at the not-too-distant Whole Foods here in town. But since I decided to head for Li Ming Asian Market in order to purchase this key ingredient, I decided to look for the baby bok choy there as well. I found not only baby, but also itty-bitty-baby bok-choy, and that is what I got. Beautiful, delicious, delightful to handle and see and taste.

For the bean sauce issue, I found the one pictured in @Grace Young’s marvellous book, our text, but decided to go with the blue can, because it’s a brand I used back when I first started cooking Asian food, and because I love the logo and old-school style of the packaging. Both seemed quite similar in ingredients listed, and both are products of Taiwan. I will transfer the remaining sauce to a glass jar and keep it in the fridge, I think. Hmmm—need to ask Grace! Preserved salted soybean products like this were created to be kept at room temperature for long periods of time, so actually, it may be fine to keep out on the counter. I prefer that when it’s safe to do so, because the further away something is, the less likely I am to think of it and use it.

Prep for this dish was a bit different, as I have never stir-fried scallops before; in fact I have very seldom cooked them in any form at all. I love them, but don’t tend to order them or buy them due to both expense and lack of knowledge as to how best to prepare them. Glad to be nudged into Scallop World here. For this recipe, they were rinsed, patted dry, and then halved crosswise. This made them ‘go further’, giving an abundant looking dish. They cooked quite evenly and quickly as well.

Next step for me was preparing the garlic and the fresh ginger (mmmmmm, so aromatic, so beautiful, so tasty — I got a big supply this time, which will live out on the counter in the basket with its friends, garlic, shallots, limes and lemons, onions and fresh hot chilies).

I stirred together the seasonings in a small bowl: chili bean sauce, chicken broth, soy sauce and cornstarch, and measured out all the other ingredients so I was ready for action.

My scallops released a good bit of liquid—I may not have patted them dry enough, or I may have had heat wrong. This caused them to stew more than to develop a bit of a browned crusty texture which I had imagined they would do. But looking at the photograph, I realized that is not the deal with this preparation, and in fact, the finished dish was both gorgeous in colors, texture, and aroma, but completely delicious and satisfying as well. I would move a bit faster next time — the more times I cook a given stir-fry, the better it gets, because the better I get at my timing of that dish’s particular deal. I think this would be excellent with bay scallops as well, which would eliminate the halving of the scallops, and also bring down the cost. This was a glorious splurge, which I could see making with shrimp or chicken or tofu and mushrooms, adjusting the timing to the particular ingredient.

Look for the recipe on page 154 – 155 of Grace’s must-have book, Stir-Frying to the Sky’s Edge: The Ultimate Guide to Mastery, with Authentic Recipes and Stories.

Join us in cooking from this book on WokWednesdays. Visit the blog, and check out the Facebook page as well. Happy cooking, happy eating!

Can-Do Cookies: “White Mice”

So the question immediately arises: “Why are these called ‘White Mice’?” The immediate bit of knowledge is that no mice were ever harmed or even present in the making of these cookies. That name was on them when I copied down the recipe from ….somewhere…. in pencil, on a piece of typing paper from Daddy’s IBM Selectric which he kept at home for preparing his Sunday School lessons and working on work from work. Credit? Well, no, I did not note the source. Just wanted to make them. And I still do.

Once grown I realized they are a lot like what are called “Mexican Wedding Cookies”,which I adore as well. The idea of making them red and green instead of white as in White Mice probably came from me, but again, lost in the sands and winds of time. These are extremely easy to make, and delightful to eat. Not extra sweet, just sweet enough, and a sandy texture. I usually use pecans because, well, I’m from around here, but walnuts are wonderful too. This morning I used walnuts cause that’s what I had.

You can use a hand mixer. You can use a big stand mixer. You can also mix them up using a big spoon. Kid helpers are a huge plus with these. I have done it both ways, and I always remember why this is my very favorite Go-To Cookie to go to for cookie-pleasures. Here’s what to do:

White Mice Cookies

Cookie Dough:

2 cups all purpose flour

1 cup finely chopped pecans or walnuts

1 cup butter, softened

1/3 cup sugar

1 tablespoon milk

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

 

Before-Baking Decoration

Do this before you bake the cookies. It can be before you make the dough, or after you make the dough; that doesn’t matter. The dough can wait in the fridge for a day or two. Dough gets rolled into cookie balls, and these rolled in sugar, whether plain granulated, or colorful granulated sugar, right before baking each batch.) 

About 1 ½ cups granulated sugar

Red food coloring

Green food coloring

Divide the sugar between two jars with lids. Add about 5 drops of red coloring to one, and green coloring to the other. Shake very well until the sugar is evenly colored. Transfer to a shallow bowl or pie plate and use to coat the cookies. Or use white granulated sugar.

Lightly grease one or two large cookie sheets and set aside. Heat the oven to 300 degrees F. In a medium bowl, combine flour and nuts and toss to mix well.

In a large bowl, combine butter and sugar. Using a mixer, beat at medium-high speed until they are evenly combined and well mixed. Add the milk and vanilla and beat them in well. Add the flour and nuts, and beat at low speed to combine everything evenly and well into a very firm dough. (You can use a big spoon, fork, and/or your hands to make this dough. Lots of jobs for helpers of any age).

Roll dough into 1-inch balls. Place sugar (either plain granulated sugar, or red and green colored sugar, see directions) in a pie pan or wide, shallow bowl, and roll to coat each one evenly and well with the sugar. Place 1 inch apart on cookie sheets. Bake at 300 degrees for 20 minutes. Carefully transfer to a wire rack and cool completely.

Makes 36 cookies (3 dozen)

Copyright Nancie McDermott 2012. All rights reserved.

Stir-Fried Cucumber and Pork with Golden Garlic #WokWednesdays

It’s been a few Wednesday’s since I got around to getting myself organized to join the Wok Wednesdays circle. Missed it, both the connections with fellow cooks and food-lovers, and the tasty and satisfying results that grace (Grace!) our table each time I stir-fry along with all y’all. I am determined to back-pedal to make sure I cook up the fried corn dish (loved the note on the Southern connection for that one) and I will absolutely make this dish again. We all loved it, and it made a generous supper for our family with enough left over for my husband’s lunch today.

This reminded me how amazed I was the first few times I had cucumbers cooked. I grew up in North Carolina and I don’t know if it was the heat of summer or monolithic culinary thinking, but cucumbers here are for salads, relishes, pickles, sandwiches if you are dining with people who know from elegant tea parties. But I never dreamed you could cook them, simply because we didn’t. Isn’t that astounding? But a perfect example of how There Are Rules, culinary ones, which we don’t think of as restrictions, but as Just How It Is. Tomatoes get to be raw and cooked, and so does cabbage (coleslaw!) . But cucumbers? Mercy! They are lovely, still minty green and still crunchy, but made velvety and tempting by their flash-in-the-pan treatment. I also loved the golden garlic. Smelled so good, and added subtle delight to the dish. Next time I will make a fistful of it. I think having Golden Garlic on hand would be the gift that gives on and on and on.

It was not my best photography night: I got no prep pictures, and the only in-the-process shot is, to my surprise on seeing it on computer screen this morning in full light, blurry. But I love the green-ness and the sense that the blur could be the stir-frying process action, and the steamy heat coming out of the work; so I am indulging myself to post it here it here, in all its flawed fuzziness.

I love Wok Wednesdays, and Grace’s glorious and generous cookbook, and I love cooking with my fellow WokWednesday fans. I’m all ready for what’s next as we cook our way through this excellent book .If you’d like to know more about Wok Wednesdays, visit our website by clicking HERE.  You can join the fun, and also join our Facebook Group; details on the website.

For information on the inspiring book, Stir-Frying to the Sky’s Edge, which keeps us wokking, and on our Goddess of Wokdom Grace Young,

click HERE and Here.

#Let’s Lunch: Thai Grilled Chicken Wings with Sweet Hot Garlic Sauce

On first hearing that our Let’s Lunch theme for July was ‘Barbecue’, I felt concerned, because I do not have a massive brick chimney with a big ol’ pit to hold massive portions of pork (either whole hog or pork shoulders) in proximity to glowing hickory wood coals for many hours, with a vinegar-kissed sauce of one persuasion or another anointing the meat throughout the process. My good friend Fred Thompson has written out everything I need to know to do a great home-version of this art and craft in his must-have book, Barbecue Nation: 350 Hot-Off-The-Grill, Tried-and-True Recipes from America’s Backyard. (page 120) But this is a very busy week, as I am leaving come Monday on a very special journey, about which I will tell you in a post later today. Suffice to say for now that major new cooking projects were not in the picture due to a travel-preparation to-do list that stretches from here to the Blue Ridge Mountains. I was concerned.

Then the invisible light-blub over my head glowed and made a little happy “pop”. That word ‘barbecue‘ can be a verb! It can mean ‘to cook something wonderful on a grill over low-and-slow or hot-and-wild heat of many and varied descriptions, for assorted amounts of time using an array of marinades, rubs and seasonings’. It can mean Thai-style grilled garlic chicken. It need not be pork, and it need not take a long (worthwhile but long) time.

To my delight, about the time I was focusing in on my post here, wonderful and generous friends invited us to come for a great big cookout on July 4th. Lots of folks were coming and lots of great food was in the offing. Barbecued ribs were already on the menu, and I offered to contribute chicken wings. My host made it even easier by buying and preparing the wings so that my task came down to making the marinade (see Recipe below) and the traditional dipping sauce with the perfect tangy heat for grilled dishes. (It’s in fact a dynamite good sauce, great with way more than grilled meats). Here are the two recipes I used. I’d love to hear what ‘barbecue’ means to you, so do weigh in on the comments form. In case you’d like to see the entire menu (I can’t stop looking at it and grinning with happy memories and gratitude to our hosts and fellow cooks), I’ll share photos at the end of this post, after the recipes.  AND I’ll be back shortly to add a round-up of LET’S LUNCH ! posts by my fellow food-bloggers around the web…

Nancie’s Grilled Garlic Chicken, Thai-Style

2 teaspoons whole white or black peppercorns

1/4 cup coarsely chopped fresh cilantro roots (or roots & stems)

1/4 cup coarsely chopped fresh garlic

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon sugar

3 tablespoons soy sauce

About 3 pounds chicken thighs and legs

Old-School: Using a mortar and pestle, crush the peppercorns to a fine powder. Add the cilantro roots and pound and grind well. Add the garlic, salt, and sugar and continue pounding, grinding, and scraping, until you have a fairly smooth paste. Stir in the soy sauce to make a fairly smooth paste. Add a little water if needed to soften the mixture.

New School: Grind peppercorns, or use ground pepper (yes, that is just fine; no worries.)  In a blender or a small food processor, combine the pepper, cilantro roots or stems, garlic, salt, sugar, and soy sauce.  Grind it all up into a fairly smooth paste. Pulse to grind it evenly and stop to scrape the sides down as you go. Add water if needed to move the blades.

Combine the seasoning paste with chicken in a large bowl, and toss to combine everything well. Cover and refrigerate for 1 to 2 hours, turning several times to season evenly. (Keeps well up to 12 hours, covered and refrigerated.)

To cook, prepare a grill. When hot enough to cook chicken, arrange chicken pieces over coals or heat and cook, turning often, until browned handsomely and cooked through. When chicken is done, transfer to a serving platter and serve hot or warm with Sweet-Hot Garlic Sauce and sticky rice

Copyright: Nancie McDermott, 2012. All rights reserved.

Nancie’s Sweet Hot Garlic Sauce

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup white vinegar

2 tablespoons finely chopped garlic

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon chili-garlic sauce (tuong ot toi)

In a small, heavy saucepan, combine the sugar, water, vinegar, garlic, and salt. Bring to a rolling boil over medium heat Stir to dissolve the sugar and salt and reduce the heat to low. Simmer until the liquid reduces slightly and thickens to a light syrup, 15 to 20 minutes.

Remove from heat and stir in the chili-garlic sauce. Set aside to cool.  Transfer to a jar, seal, and refrigerate for 2 to 3 days. Serve at room temperature. Makes about 1 1/4 cups.

Copyright: Nancie McDermott, 2012. All rights reserved.

I’m part of a monthly Twitter-party called #LetsLunch. To see posts by some of my fellow food bloggers from many kitchens near and far, check the hashtag on twitter, or start here, with posts already up for savoring:

My Kitchen and I: Steamed Buns with BBQ Pork

http://saucyskillet.blogspot.com/2012/07/steamed-buns-best-summer-bread-recipe.html?spref=tw

A Cook and Her Books: Barbecue Sauce and the Pig Hill of Fame

http://acookandherbooks.blogspot.com/2012/07/barbecue.html?spref=tw

Eat. My. Blog. : Homemade ketchup, relish, and mustard! BBQ Friendly Condiments for #letslunch

http://frybabyfry.blogspot.ca/2012/07/homemade-ketchup-relish-and-mustard-bbq.html

And now, a quick little tour of my July Fourth celebration, starting in the grocery store and ending with pound cake and ice cream. Sweet and good!

I knew this would be a stellar gathering when I found cilantro with roots attached at Whole Foods. You can make a great tasty version using chopped stems and leaves, but chopped up roots are the original ingredient and they make the quintessential version.

Asparagus spears wrapped in prosciutto, ready for roasting and then a sprinkling of lemon zest . Divine.

Summer rolls, Vietnamese-style. We got a production line going and turned out a slew of these. Perfect summertime party-picnic-quick supper food. One guest brought the asparagus and fantastic deviled eggs, and stepped up to rock the summer rolls-assembly line with skill and grace. Gold star cook!

Our wonderful host provided not just one version of pork ribs, but two versions. Hoisin on left, Dr. Pepper on right. Both were divine. I wish I had me a big ol’ mess of them right now.

Another guest brought this Asian-flavored slaw which was fantastic. I will be pursuing this recipe with dedication. Perfect barbecue companion and summer-go-to for keeping in the fridge.

Ditto for these two salads. Great fresh and ideal ‘keepers’: tomato watermelon with basil on the right; sweet potato with red onion to the back.

Perfect cookout companion by my lights: Not one but two kinds of rice! Calrose short-grain rice on the left; black sticky rice on the right.

Lemon ice cream (ethereally bright and fantastically pleasing) and pound cake. First pound cake this guest had ever made. Look at that texture! She nailed it. Made everybody happy.

That was our July Fourth celebration cookout. I hope you had a good mid-week holiday, and that summer brings you lots of good food and good times with good people.

Rhubarb Pie

When I came across an armload of fresh ruby-red rhubarb at my local supermarket this spring, my mind went right into pie-making mode. Rhubarb pie is as easy as apple pie, calling only for chunks of fruit and a generous addition of sugar, flour and butter to transform this stolid vegetable/fruit into a luscious pink pie.

Pairing rhubarb with strawberries is a popular preference, and it’s one I adore both for its flavor notes and the brilliant upswing in color provided by the berries. While working on Southern Pies, I encountered both of them as beloved versions, but I found myself cherishing the simple rhubarb-only pie.

In many parts of the South, folks refer to rhubarb simply as “pie plant”. Traditionally, a generous patch was planted out by the summer garden, or near a fence.

A true harbinger of spring, its reappearance in the form of gigantic, outer-space movie leaves atop sturdy-looking but actually delicate stalks signaled that winter was losing its grip and that the sun was taking charge for the foreseeable future. More than once I encountered references to the pleasures of breaking off a stalk and dipping it in sugar for a spur of the moment hand-held snack. So far I haven’t tried this out, perhaps out of a feeling that one earns this privilege by having a proper rhubarb patch out back. But it’s 2012, and I’m alone in the kitchen: next pie, I’ll go rogue and see what that is all about. I also mean to have a rhubarb patch in by autumn. Back with the scoop. Meanwhile, I recommend that you give rhubarb pie a try.

Nancie’s Rhubarb Pie

Two sheets of pastry, for a double-crust pie

1 1/2 cups sugar

6 tablespoons flour

6 cups chopped rhubarb (1/2 inch to 1 inch pieces)

2 tablespoons butter

Heat the oven to 425 degrees F. Fit one of the piecrust sheets into a pie pan. Leave about an inch of pastry extending out beyond the top edge of the pie pan.

In a large bowl, combine the sugar and the flour. Using a fork or a whisk, stir to mix them together well. Add the rhubarb and toss until the sugar mixture coats the rhubarb evenly.  Tumble the rhubarb into the piecrust-lined pie pan. Mound it up so that it peaks in the middle, since it cooks down quite a bit.

Carefully place the top crust over the rhubarb, and trim the edges to extend beyond the edge of the bottom crust by about an inch. Tuck the top crust under the bottom crust and press them together. Using a fork, work your away around the piecrust, pressing the tines in firmly to seal and adorn the edges. You could also pinch the sealed crust up into a pretty edge, using your knuckles, thumbs, and imagination. You cannot do this wrong. For a video of this process, check Real Simple magazine’s website HERE. Using a butter knife or paring knife, cut vertical slits around the edges on the top crust of the pie. Make slits in the center area too, so the juices can flow forth as the pie bakes.

Place the pie in the center of the 425 degree F oven. Bake for 10 minutes, and then reduce the heat to 350 degrees F. Bake until the piecrust is evenly and handsomely browned, and the lovely pink juices bubble up and decorate the top crust of your pie, 40 to 50 minutes. If the top crust browns before the pie is done, cover it loosely with a sheet of foil and continue baking.  When the pie is done, remove from the oven and let it cool on a wire rack or a folded kitchen towel. Serve warm or at room temperature. Vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, or heavy cream alone: any of these would each enhance the pleasures of rhubarb pie.

Note: For an old-time North Carolina-style cobbler, use a 9-inch square pan instead of a pie pan.

Here are links for rhubarb basics, and an abundance of recipes for making rhubarb a regular–no, a thing, in your kitchen, ending up with two of mine.

http://www.rhubarbinfo.com/

http://hungryrabbitnyc.com/2010/05/spring-celebration/

http://leitesculinaria.com/74779/recipes-easy-rhubarb-jam.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/19/dining/19mini.html

http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/strawberry_rhubarb_cobbler/

http://nanciemcdermott.wordpress.com/2011/05/14/nancies-strawberry-rhubarb-pie/

http://www.cookingclub.com/Recipes/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/5659/Strawberry-Rhubarb-Upside-Down-Cake

Stir-Fried Garlic Spinach: My #WokWednesdays Debut

As a longtime fan of author and teacher Grace Young’s extraordinary cookbooks , I was delighted when my friend and fellow-blogger Matt Lardie decided to create #WokWednesdays (Click this link for the scoop, and sign up if you’d like to join us!) , a cook-along project whereby fellow fans of Grace’s lastest book could gather in a virtual kitchen to cook our way through Stir-Frying to the Sky’s Edge: The Ultimate Guide to Mastery, with Authentic Recipes and Stories.

First recipe is a simple, vivid-green dish, Stir-Fried Garlic Spinach, a lovely example of the genre called ‘clear stir-fry’/ching chau. No cornstarch, no mixing up of seasoning sauces, no meat, no hoopla: just the essence of one good green vegetable, brought from raw to wonderfully minimally cooked in a miniscule amount of time. Lots of spinach (a true wokful) cooks on down in a New York minute, into a pleasing, satisfying small mountain of good food, perfect accompaniment for boiled shrimp, grilled chicken, an omelet, or a pleasing soup, and for traditional meals, a generous serving of rice.

Fresh raw spinach, filling up my gigantic stainless steel bowl

Simplest seasonings at the ready….

My wok was filled to the brim with spinach leaves.

‘

 To see posts by my fellow #WokWednesday bloggers and cooks,

click HERE.

For this keeper-recipe, check out our hero-host, Matt Lardie’s, excellent Green Eats Blog, where he includes that very recipe.

Never too late to cook this great dish. Make it part of your basic weeknight supper rotation. Keep it in mind for parties as well, as it quickly wins friends and disappears. (I’m posting in a poky manner this time, as anyone who has looked at the calendar since Wednesday will duly note. But there’s a Better Late Than Never clause here, so I feel relieved and welcome. You should, too.

A List of #WokWednesdays Blogposts for Stir-Fried Garlic Spinach

Whom did I forget?

Tell me in my comments section and I’ll update this list:

http://livelaughloveandfire.blogspot.com/2012/05/wokwednesday-stir-fryed-garlic-spinach.html

https://myculinarymission.blogspot.com

http://thedoubletroublekitchen.com/2012/05/16/ww-garlic-spinach/

http://whatthreefoods.wordpress.com/2012/05/16/15/

http://sarah.thepuddle.com/?p=96

http://gcharlson.blogspot.com/.

http://paperattics.blogspot.com/

http://motherwouldknow.com/journal/wok-education-stir-fried-garlic-spinach.html

http://countrysidefoodrides.blogspot.com/p/wok-wednesdays.html

http://mamashomemade.wordpress.com/

http://creativekidneycooking.blogspot.com/

http://thefoodcrawl.blogspot.com/2012/05/wok-wednesdays.html

http://eatingmywords-jwl.blogspot.com/2012/05/stir-fried-kale.html

http://musingsofbev.blogspot.com/2012/05/wok-wed-stir-fried-spinach.html

Hope to meet up with all these bloggers and many more of you

for next week’s

WokWednesday challenge!

“Big Vegan” Potluck with Korean Miso-Tofu Soup

When my good friend Robin Asbell asked me to be part of an online potluck celebrating her brand new book, Big Vegan, I said “Yes!” real fast. Robin is an accomplished and prolific food writer and brilliant cooking teacher. She knows food and cooking, and her inspired recipes remind me how much pleasure there is in eating good-for-me food. Though Robin lives up in Minnesota and I’m way down here in North Carolina, she got me in on today’s potluck feast, along with fellow bloggers around the country. Our various posts make up a meal from her book, giving you the flavor of its wide-ranging recipes, from scones and smoothies to soups, stews, pastas, sweet and savory pies, and more. Robin ends this volume with a luscious round-up of dessert recipes, including Pistachio Thumbprints, Lemon Cake with Pomegranate Filling and Orange Glaze, Pumpkin-Cherry Bundt Cake, and Ginger-Mango Rice Pudding. My potluck contribution is a rustic and satisfying Korean-style soup,  made with a hearty miso-powered stock and boasting a beautiful bowlful of textures and flavors: daikon radish, fresh shiitake mushrooms, tofu, potato, zucchini, and red peppers.

By the way, Robin is providing me a copy of Big Vegan to give away to one of you wonderful readers. Leave a comment after this post, and I will draw a name to see who wins that treasury of great eating. Comment by November 10 to be included in the drawing.

Here are the ingredients for the soup stock. At 12:00 o’clock, you’ll see squares of dark green kombu, a sturdy and intensely flavored seaweed with a feisty little pile of coarsely ground chiles on top. To the right are garlic cloves and onion, dried shiitake mushrooms at 6:00 o’clock, slices of daikon radish and fresh ginger at 9:00 and 10:00 o’clock respectively. In the center is the engine that drives this soup to flavorful heights: Miso, a fermented soybean paste beloved in Asian kitchens for centuries and an essential ingredient in the traditional cooking of Korea and Japan.

After simmering these ingredients together to make an excellent stock, I strained out all the taste-makers, keeping their mighty flavors and composting their remaining elements. Then I returned the soup pot of great stock to the stove and added the tasty items pictured below. At the top are green onions thinly sliced on the diagonal along with small strips of red Fresno chile. Had I not found red Fresno chile, I think red bell pepper would have worked just fine. Next are chunks of zucchini, slices of fresh shiitakes, and cubes of both potato and soft tofu.

Once the stock was ready, I could have set it aside for later, or even frozen it for future soups. It would be a marvelous frozen-pantry item to have ready, definitely one to consider making in quantity to keep on hand. Big Vegan includes several recipes for making a quantity of vegan stock with various flavor profiles. The soup stock was rich and fragrant, and we were hungry, so I quickly forgot all thoughts of putting it aside and instead finished up the recipe, in the time it took the potatoes to cook. Then in went the zucchini and tofu, and supper was ready; fast, fresh, and fine. I wanted to make the soup with whatever I could find at my local Whole Foods. This meant using a dark miso with rich, very deep flavor. With red or white miso from an Asian market, this soup would be a little more delicate, a good choice for springtime meals.  All in all, the recipe gave us a hearty, gorgeously-hued bowl of soup/stew, perfect for the rainy fall evening on which we ate it for supper. The true test of its deliciousness was when my high-school aged daughter (who had eaten dinner) wanted a bowl of Korean Miso-Tofu Soup with rice as an 11:13 p.m. homework snack. This Big Vegan soup would work well as one of several dishes in a rice-centered meal, or paired up with a salad and Quick Indian Flatbreads (page 106), or Sweet Potato Drop Biscuits (page 103), or your favorite sandwiches.   For the recipe, scroll down to the end of this post. To learn more about Robin Asbell, and to check out all the bloggers and recipes in this Big Vegan Potluck, look at these links below. A baker’s dozen of recipes by food bloggers who love Big Vegan:  Here we go!

This is Robin’s website and blog:

http://www.robinasbell.com

You can find Big Vegan wherever books are sold, as they say. For a link to independent booksellers around the country, click here:

http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780811874670

To find Big Vegan  on Amazon, click here:

http://budurl.com/bigvegan

My recipe from Big Vegan is but one of a baker’s dozen of recipes, cooked and shared with pix by bloggers around the country, on three consecutive Tuesdays. Here they are and you will love checking them out.

DAY ONE:

Baguette French Toast Stuffed with “Cream Cheese” and Topped with Apples 

Leinana Two Moons

Matcha Scones with Golden Raisins 

Caron Golden

Maple Barley Granola with Pecans

Robin Asbell

DAY TWO:

Mango-Jícama Salad with Lime Dressing and Pepitas    

Susan Russo

http://foodblogga.blogspot.com/2011/10/cookbook-review-big-vegan-by-robin.html

Armenian Red Lentil Stew with Sesame Brown Rice

Bryanna Clark Grogan

http://veganfeastkitchen.blogspot.com/2011/10/big-vegan-potluck-day-2-armenian-lentil.html

Korean Miso-Tofu Soup

Nancie McDermott

http://nanciemcdermott.wordpress.com/2011/10/25/big-vegan-potluck-with-korean-miso-tofu-soup/

Squash Quesadillas with Cranberry-Jícama Salsa 

Jill Nussinow

http://www.theveggiequeen.com/blog/

DAY 3:

Green and Red Spaghetti

Sandra Gutierrez

http://www.sandraskitchenstudio.com/

Bengali Curry of Cauliflower and Kidney Beans

Robin Robertson

http://veganplanet.blogspot.com/2011/11/big-vegan-virtual-potluck.html

Spanish Chickpea Fritters

Julie Hasson

http://www.juliehasson.com/2011/11/big-vegan/

New Potato Rendang with Green Beans

Pat Tanumihardja

http://theasiangrandmotherscookbook.wordpress.com/2011/10/31/rendang-recipe/

Sundried Tomato-Kale Calzones AND

Pumpkin Cherry Bundt Cake

Leinana Two Moons

http://vegangoodthings.blogspot.com/2011/11/double-big-vegan-whammy-calzones-cake.html

Peanut Butter Tart with “Ganache”

Tara Desmond

http://crumbsonmykeyboard.com/2011/11/01/call-it-what-it-is-peanut-butter-tart-with-ganache-recipe/

To see Big Vegan author Robin Asbell cooking some of her Big Vegan creations in her own kitchen, click here;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=6Bh1a-5Q2r4

To enter my drawing for a copy of Big Vegan: leave a comment on this blogpost, and do so before November 10th. Many thanks to Robin Asbell and Chronicle Books for providing a big, gorgeous copy of this excellent, gorgeous and worthwhile book to share with one of my readers.

Korean Miso-Tofu Soup 

(doenjang jigae)

4 large dried shiitake or black mushrooms

3 oz/85 g daikon, peeled and sliced

1/2 medium onion, sliced

1 6-in/15-cm piece dried kombu

7 tbsp/90 ml dark miso

4 slices/11 g fresh ginger

4 garlic cloves, halved

1 tsp red pepper flakes

2 cups/360 g cubed zucchini/courgette

8 oz/225 g cubed red potato

4 ox/115 g fresh shiitake mushrooms, stemmed

12 oz/3400 g silken tofu, cubed

1 large red Fresno chile, slivered, for garnish

2 large scallions/spring onions, diagonally sliced, for garnish

1. Put 2 qt/2 L water in a large pot and add the dried mushrooms, daikon, onion, kombu, miso, ginger, garlic, and pepper flakes. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer for 20 minutes. (I let mine simmer 45, since I wasn’t in a hurry and wanted its flavors to have more time to blossom). Line a colander with a sturdy paper towel/absorbent paper and set it over a bowl. Strain the liquid through the paper, carefully shifting the vegetables to the sides to help it drain completely. Discard the solids.

2. Add the broth to a large pot and bring it to a simmer. Add the zucchini/courgette, potato, and shiitakes and cook for about 10 minutes, until the potatoes are cooked all the way through.

3. Add the tofu and simmmer for about 5 minutes to heat through. Serve the soup in bowls garnished with the chile and scallions/spring onions.

Serves 4

Virginia Willis Does It Again: “Basic to Brilliant, Y’all”

My good friend Virginia Willis is a lot like the title of her brand new book: Basic to Brilliant, Y’all: 150 Refined Southern Recipes and Ways to Dress Them Up for Company. Virginia is basic, as in down-to-earth, real, practical and good; and she is also brilliant, as in creative, intelligent, accomplished, and inspiring. In this book, her second, she provides us with an extraordinary repertoire of recipes for snacks, feasts, picnics, beach trips, romantic suppers, family reunions — each and every excuse for a food-graced gathering can be deliciously handled by anyone in possession of this superb cookbook. Virginia sets us up with a library of knowledge about cooking, both for everyday and for company, drawn from  the hearty and gracious Georgia cooking of her childhood, and the classic French culinary expertise she gained during her years studying and then working in France at Ecole de Cuisine La Varenne. Particularly interesting are her chapter introductions, ranging from a thoughtful discourse on the economics, ethics, and people behind the meat we put on our tables, to a meditation on rice culture and the goodness of grits, and a valentine to vegetables, the latter with delicious detours into life on the set in the many television studios where Virginia worked as Kitchen Director for folks like Martha Stewart, Bobby Flay, and Nathalie Dupree. Her introductions fascinate, educate and captivate me, but they never take me too far away from the food. Don’t you want to get in the kitchen and make Mama’s Sausage Swirls; Chicken Breasts with Tarragon Veloute; Beef Daube Provencal; Pinto Beans with Side Meat; Chateau du Fey Cherry Clafoutis; and Dede’s Burnt Caramel Cake? I know I do, and with Virginia’s clear, inviting voice flowing off the page, I know I can do so, even the ones for dishes I’ve never tried to cook, and thought could only come from the hands of bona fide chefs. You need to invite Virginia Willis into your kitchen, and this book allows you to do just that. You can learn more about her at her website:

http://www.virginiawillis.com/

I broke in my brand new copy, which I was thrilled to receive from Virginia’s publisher, Ten Speed Press, with a dish my father adored, and one I had to come around to as a grown up: Brussels sprouts. “Of course you don’t like them if the only way you’ve ever had them was cooked to stinky mush!” Virginia notes on page 195 of the Vegetable chapter in Basic to Brilliant, Y’all. She cooks them with bacon, onions, and apples, a dandy little chorus for the beautiful tiny cabbages I’ve learned to adore. Virginia calls for Granny Smith apple, but I like a sweeter apple such as a gala or a fuji myself.

Virginia Willis’s Sautéed Brussels Sprouts With Apples and Bacon

1 pound Brussels sprouts, cut in half (or peeled according to directions below)

2 slices thick-cut bacon, cut into lardons

1 onion, preferably Vidalia, chopped

1 Granny Smith apple, peeled, cored, and cut into ¼-inch dice

Leaves from 2 sprigs thyme, chopped

1 tablespoon chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

Coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add Brussels sprouts and cook until bright green and just tender, about 5 minutes; drain and set aside.

In a skillet, cook the bacon over medium heat until crisp, 5 to 7 minutes. Decrease the heat to medium, add the onion, and sauté until translucent, 3 to 5 minutes. Add the apple and thyme and cook, stirring occasionally, until the apple is golden brown, about 3 minutes. Add the Brussels sprouts and toss to combine. Cook, stirring occasionally, until tender, about 5 minutes. Add the parsley and toss to coat. Taste and adjust for seasoning with salt and pepper. Transfer to a warmed serving platter and serve immediately.

To make it brilliant: Cut about ¼ inch off the stem end of each sprout and begin peeling off the leaves. When difficult to peel further, trim off another ¼ inch and continue removing leaves. Repeat to peel all leaves from the sprouts; discard the tiny cores. Follow the basic recipe above, but no need to blanch the sprouts. Add the leaves to the onion and apple. Sauté until the leaves are bright green and slightly wilted but still crunchy, about 3 minutes. Taste and adjust for seasoning with coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper. Serve immediately.

Serves 4 to 6

Copyright Virginia Willis @2011. Published by Ten Speed Press. All rights reserved.

Sunday Snapshot:

Seen from my 'satellite office' in Chapel Hill, NC. Cup a Joe serves up perfect coffee with a perfect autumn view on the side.

Troy Davis, the Golden Rule, and #toomuchdoubt

Troy Davis at his high school graduation.

I took an interest in the case of Troy Davis several years ago, when I read of his appeals and pending execution on the website of the NAACP, of which I am a proud and grateful member. What struck me at once is the fact that this man is facing execution for murder, in a case for which the prosecution presented no physical evidence. There is and never has been any actual or circumstantial evidence linking Mr. Davis to the murder for which a Savannah, Georgia, jury convicted him more than 20 years ago. The prosecution’s case consisted of testimony from nine witnesses, one of whom first reported to the police the day after the murder, that Mr. Davis was guilty of this terrible crime. In the years since his conviction, seven of the nine witnesses have recanted their testimony, citing pressure from law enforcement and the prosecution team, in their original testimony. This stunned me, and does to this day: We can send a fellow human being to his death in a conviction which is without physical evidence, and rests entirely on witness testimony, the majority of which has been recanted and withdrawn? That pair of factors in the case of Troy Davis stopped me cold, and have troubled me deeply, ever since.

Let me say outright, that I do not believe in the death penalty, period. My sole reason for this, is that we can never go back and undo the punishment, when we make mistakes. Mistakes aren’t made: we, as human being,s make them, in every area of our lives. So perhaps I’m just using a side argument to push my agenda of wanting capital punishment to end. Such is not the case. I know that capital punishment is legal, and that we are using it in the USA today. But it is one piece of our system of justice, and that system requires that before we exact that ultimate penalty, before we end a human life, we must find them guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

My area of expertise is not capital punishment or legal precedent or the judicial system; my area of expertise, as a food writer and cooking teacher, is cooking and eating, and the stories, people, and meaning behind food. But I consider myself an expert on capital punishment; I think we are all experts on capital punishment, because we are the ones who made it up. The folks who take the actions, who perform the actual deeds of execution, are doing so on my behalf, and yours, and hers and his. It’s “The People vs. whomever-it-is”, and “We the people…more perfect union….etc.” So it’s not like building suspension bridges or performing knee surgery where there is a body of knowledge and expertise that we rely on others to learn and handle. This is the justice system and it is yours and mine, and our only hope of its being just and right and righteous, is for it to make sense, and to follow its own rules (which came from us).

Big rule we all know from civics and television (Perry Mason! Hill Street Blues! LA Law! Law & Order!) is that people accused of crimes must be found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. What jumped out at me the first time I came across Mr. Davis’s case (I believe by following NAACP and Color of Change on the web) is that indelible fact that he was convicted and sentenced to die even though there was no physical evidence linking him to the crime. None.

So Troy Davis was convicted based solely on eyewitness testimony. Nine eyewitnesses. Despite powerful research showing how unreliable eyewitness testimony is, we continue to believe that eyewitness testimony is just about the best durn thing a jury could have to go on! In fact it is notoriously and verifiably unreliable, both in terms of people remembering accurately and well, and in the good possibility of getting someone to say something which is not in fact true, by either rewarding them or threatening to punish them if they don’t do so. So without any physical evidence, we the people had nine witnesses, who testified that Mr. Davis committed this crime. Some said they saw it; others said that he confessed to him soon afterward that he had committed the crim. Seven of them have since recanted, saying that their testimony was coerced, forced, or tainted, by the law enforcement officers who interviewed them and by the prosecutorial team who directed their testimony at trial.

Now we come to race. It is very difficult, uncomfortable, even repugnant, for the majority of my fellow white people to believe (to even think the thought!) that officers of the law would ever stoop so low as to coerce or solicit false testimony from a witness. That would just not be right! Where would we be if that were true!!!? We have never ever seen such a thing! And if that were happening commonly, we would know about it because we know stuff. Otherwise, how could we run stuff, the way we do? We, the people of privilege, cannot imagine a world where that would be the case.

I personally believe that it is not uncommon for some small percentage of  law enforcement people to abuse their power. Why would we deny the possibility of this being true?  Everybody else does: teachers, preachers, priests, members of congress, judges, casting directors, parents, bankers; It simply happens. Everybody is not nice, and and everyone does not do right all the time. Especially when we look back decades, to this particular case, when a fellow law officer had just been murdered in cold blood, while off duty and coming to the aid of a homeless man who was being beaten: the possibility that some law enforcement officers and later prosecutors used coercion and reward in order to get witnesses to testify in a certain way for a certain outcome, is very strong.

Do I know this personally? No. I’ve never been questioned by the police in a private place with no way for the world to know exactly what took place. If I were to be, I think my status in this world (white middle class educated woman of a certain age) makes it unlikely that I personally would be mistreated by law enforcement officers. Same goes for everyone in my family. And in terms of what I know from personal experience about coercion and wrong-doing by law enforcement? Not much.

But personal experience is usually not required for us as citizens, in order to have a valid, respected opinion. I’ve never been raped either, or molested, or carjacked, or sexually harassed, or home-invaded, or kidnapped, and yet I believe that all these things are possible and that they happen to people, and I have an opinion as to what we should do about those things because they are crimes and they are wrong.

So now we have a man accused by nine other people, with no physical evidence; and seven of the nine officially recanting their testimony and reporting that their testimony was coerced; and we have a murder victim who was white, and a man accused of committing the murder who is black. And we have documented clearly and forcefully that institutional racism thrives in our justice system. Juries apply punishment differently depending on the race of the victim and the accused, with crimes against white people by black people punished much more harshly.

Now I get personal. I think: if my brother or son or dear friend from college were about to be put to death, and there was no physical evidence, and 7 of nine witnesses had recanted and testified to coercion in that original testimony (we believe them when they say he did it, but we don’t believe them now when they recant?), would I shrug and say, “The jury made its decision.”? Would I stand by and let that happen? Can we as human beings really allow our fellow human being to be killed with no evidence and 7 of 9 witnesses recanting? Could that possibly be called “…beyond a reasonable doubt”?  Not to me.

If Troy Davis were white, would this be happening? I do not think so. Can I prove that? No, I can’t. I do wonder among death penalty cases, how many times a white person has been executed with no physical evidence and dramatic reversal in the witness tesimony over time. It is never ever acceptable. I wonder how things stand on this question.

Here is what is clear.  Nobody, no living human being, should be put to death with no physical evidence and no case outside eyewitness testimony. Period. White, black, any ethinicity. It is just wrong. It is not possible to meet the standard of proof that we set up in our justice system: Beyond a reasonable doubt. I am horrified to think that we are closing in on doing just that. Troy Davis and his legal team do not have to prove that he is innocent: How could anyone possibly do that? Innocence is seldom proved. The legal system is about proving guilt, beyond a reasonable doubt. The prosecution must prove its case. In the case of the people vs. Troy Davis, they did not do so. The enduring power of white supremacy is that we who are white don’t have to see it. We can enjoy its benefits, without having to acknolwedge it, while taking personal credit for its privileges, without having to sign off on it, and how it arranges, processes and decorates our lives. Amazing, powerful 400-year-old machine.

If somebody you know, and care about, were accused of murder, and convicted, and there were no physical evidence and 7 of 9 witnesses recanted under oath, citing pressure to make a case that prosecutors longed to make, would you shrug your shoulders and say, “The jury has spoken.”?  Would you say that the system is the system and we don’t really know how these things work? I don’t think we would. And when people say “I am Troy Davis”, they are applying that standard to themselves and to the facts of this case, to what we absolutely know about where we are right now. It’s actually an old-school guide for listening to your conscience, and it’s called the Golden Rule. If we think about and follow the Golden Rule, while applying our very own standard of justice (proven guilty by the prosecution, beyond a reasonable doubt), Troy Davis would not be facing execution this Wednesday, September 21st, 2011.

Troy Davis and his family