Recipes; Imagine
Baking with Fooey this morning. Listening to the radio. Turning my back on cynicism and doubt for at least a few hours, because even though the man cannot possibly, even if assisted by miracles, live up to the hype, these moments are rare and can only be celebrated in the moment. That’s why rituals actually matter: punctuation marks in the run-on sentences of life. Change. Hope. Imagine the best.
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Now. Two recipes. Both are very good and worth posting. First, the banana muffin recipe that Fooey and I are making this morning; this is a dairy-free recipe, and my guess is it could be made quite successfully with any flour. Second, the hugely successful chickpea recipe which EVERYONE ate and enjoyed last night (the meal made out of the recipe, not the actual recipe, for those of you literal-minded seven-year-olds questioning your mother’s every grammatical slip-up).
Banana Muffins (adapted from Annabel Karmel’s The Toddler CookBook)
Makes 20 large muffins, more or less. Line muffins pans with muffin liners (or grease tins, if you prefer). Preheat oven to 350. Have child squash two ripe bananas in a bowl. In another bowl, have child mix two eggs with 2/3 cup brown sugar, and 1 tsp. vanilla extract. Add mashed bananas and 1/2 cup vegetable oil and mix thoroughly. In another bowl, have child sift 1 and 1/3 cups whole wheat flour, 1 tsp. baking powder, 1 tsp. baking soda, 1/8 tsp. salt, 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon, and (optional) 1 tbls. unsweetened cocoa powder. Mix dry with wet, and (optional) 1/2 cup or more chocolate chips. Spoon into prepared pans and bake 18 minutes.
Baby CJ just ate and destroyed one of these, and I will post a pic on the blog opposite.
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Chickpeas with Pork (adapted from Madhur Jaffrey’s Indian Cooking)
Soak several cups of dried chickpeas overnight. Boil up the next morning, adding salt once the chickpeas have softened (could be hours). In another large cooking pot, fry up 2 lbs pork sausage (or other meat), adding oil if needed. Add and saute: 1 chopped onion, five minced cloves garlic, 2 inches (or so) minced ginger root, 1/2 tsp. ground cardamon, 1 cinnamon stick, 2 bay leaves, 1 tsp. cumin seeds, 1 tbsp ground cumin, 1 tbsp ground coriander, 1 tsp. turmeric. When everything’s nicely sauteed, add 2 cups (or more) canned or fresh or pureed tomatoes; add the chickpeas (the amount can really vary, to taste), and some of their cooking water; add six finely chopped potatoes. Season with 1 tbsp salt, or to taste. Add more chickpea water if needed. Cover and cook till potatoes are soft and flavours combined (25-40 mins). Add 1 cup of frozen peas and cook a couple more minutes. Optional: add 1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper. Serve over rice.
Note: The recipe could easily be made meat-free. Other veggies could be added, too. I apologize for not giving exact measurements for the chickpeas, but I cooked up about five cups (dry), and eyeballed the amount added to the stew.
Seriously, this recipe got unanimously rave reviews. It looks like a lot of spices, but don’t be afraid of the amounts.
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And, now, to turn on the tele for a dose of collective joy.
Local Food Round-Up
This week’s theme: Indian spices; curries.
Goal: To use some of those less-popular legumes and pulses now languishing in our pantry. These strange small hard dark chickpeas that never seem to soften, no matter how long I boil them, for example. Kevin purchased several pounds awhile back on the advice of a taxi driver in Thunder Bay (no kidding). And that bag of black-eyed beans.
Meat to be thawed: 2 lbs pork sausage; 4 lbs turkey parts.
To kick off the week, I’m planning red-lentil dahl and rice with peas for supper tonight. Admittedly, that will not diminish our supply of peculiar chickpeas and black-eyed beans … but it’s all about inspiration. I’ve discovered in my Indian Cookbook, by Madhur Jaffrey, some recipes that should fit the bill.
Pork with Chickpeas. Chicken (Turkey) with Tomatoes and Garam Masala. Black-Eyed Beans with Mushrooms. All recipes also call for fresh or canned tomatoes, with which our shelves are laden. In Extending the Table there’s also a cabbage (local) with lentils recipes I’m keen to try. Further recipes making me drool this afternoon are Kusherie, an Egyptian meal of lentils and rice cooked together, served with a cumin-spiced tomato sauce, macaroni, and fried onions. But we’ve run plum out of onions, and must replenish next market trip, so that will have to wait. Another nice plain meal whetting my appetite is Khichri, rice and lentils cooked together with potatoes and some milder spices: cinnamon, cloves.
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One final (promise!) Big Thought arising out of last night’s walk: There’s something about being in motion that frees the mind to think reflectively; and, if the motion is shared, to connect. Maybe that’s why road trips on highways seem to have a mythical quality, everyone in the vehicle sharing that forward motion, that journey. Same with walking. Not so with city driving, in which forward motion is constantly thwarted by street lights, stop signs, other cars, pedestrians, et cetera. Being stuck inside a motionless vehicle is frustrating precisely because it feels like we should be moving. It doesn’t matter if we’re wasting mere precious seconds of time; the sensation is of a much larger waste, that sensation of being stalled in perpetuity, in the midst of the journey. Walking somewhere might take more actual time, but because we rarely have to pause for long, and aren’t moving that fast in the first place, we don’t have the same deeply irritating feeling of interruption.
Walk in the Snow
That photo of CJ looks so old now; well, he looks so young. Yet when I started this blog it wasn’t so far out of date. Time, time. I’m just back from a walk in the snow. Last winter I walked virtually every evening during the final three months of my pregnancy, and tonight was very reminscent. The snow falling, the pull to go outside, but not quite wanting to go to the bother, feeling tired, couch and snack calling. And yet. Trusting it would be worth the effort.
I often start my walks feeling resistant to the work, to the same old boring route; and without exception that sensation disappears by the top of the first hill. Without exception. Which prompted me to reflect, tonight, on that peculiar human truth– that so often our most rewarding activities are also the hardest to begin, to keep as routines, to follow through on. How much easier to pick up a magazine or newspaper than a book, for example.
And, also, how much easier to drive than to walk. Having spent part of this afternoon running errands in the family vehicle, crouched behind the wheel, muttering softly, I’m firmly in walking’s camp. Not to say the car isn’t occasionally my friend, and not to malign the wonders of a good old-fashioned road-trip; but happiness doesn’t come in car-form. Feet upon ground. Exposed to the surroundings. So, yah, it’s colder, damper, sometimes. Sometimes I choose not to go somewhere just because I can’t bear to bundle up my kids one more time for one more trip. But, then, I’m never in quite the same panicked hurry; probably because it’s impossible to panic and hurry, to floor the gas and cut people off, and therefore I usually leave myself enough time for error and last-minute bathroom emergencies. Usually, I said.
That Feels Better
Just took advantage of CJ’s nap, and put the telesitter to use for the others, and edited a couple of stories/chapters in this Nicaragua book. Feel infinitely better. It’s what I’d fantasized doing last night.
Now to prep supper, do snack, and get really really bundled up for the walk to school. That should solve the stir-crazy feeling for today.
Burn After Reading
This is a January primal scream of self-pity and I apologize in advance, with an extra sorry to my little son who deserves to be picked up, rather than stuck clutching my pant leg and fussing with boredom–okay, he wins. Really, where are my priorities? I’m now typing one-handed.
I’ve been outdoors twice since Saturday–once to pick the kids up from school, and once to entertain those well enough to go outside and play in the snow. Otherwise I’ve been in here, tending to children throwing up and cooking elaborate local meals from our stores (cutting up a chicken is harder than it looks; though that might have been in part because said bird hadn’t fully thawed).
But the biggest primal scream relates to a serious lack of writing time. I’ve had SIX HOURS to write since before Christmas. That’s going on a month. It’s not for lack of trying to schedule time, either; it’s circumstances conspiring against opportunity, the unforeseeables of germs, of sleep deprivation, of dental and medical appointments. Last night, Kevin had a soccer thing and then a hockey game, so I put the kids to bed alone; in the fantasy version of that scenario, I laid CJ down in the crib in our room, and stayed up late writing in the office/baby room. In the actual version of events, I laid CJ down “for the night,” and he woke screaming fifteen minutes later–though in the interim I’d carried Fooey off to a happy sleep; thank you, sweet Fooey–at which point I sat nursing a twitchy CJ for another hour, till finally, finally, he’d fallen into what approximated a deep sleep, at which point, I was glassy-eyed and hungry and resigned, and laid him to sleep in his own bed in the office/baby room.
I admire every parent who works after his or her children are asleep. No matter how hopeful my plans, by the time this blessed state arrives, four times over, my brain has ceased firing on all neurons. So instead, I went looking for a fatty cheese to spread on some crackers, then read in bed (Unaccustomed Earth, by Jhumpa Lahiri; oh read her, read her, her stories are quietly amazing; she is also the mother of two young children and said in an interview that she’d never write anything were someone else not regularly caring for them).
Okay, we get the life we choose, and I’ve chosen four children, and no nanny. For the record, I get this grim feeling every January. I’m in need of some naturally sourced vitamin D. Or some exercise-induced endorphins. Our bodies crave nutrients. But I’m starting to think–or to be reminded, more accurately–that my fingers crave these keys, and my mind craves a quiet space carved out of the day’s responsible hours.
And, no, CJ is not in my arms anymore. He jumped down and went off to chew on a few crayons, accompanied by the companionable noises of Albus, home from school for one final recuperative day, exploding imaginary ships, and Fooey munching crackers and chatting to herself.