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Knitting update

It’s ages since I posted about my knitting. And my WIPs have kind of multiplied. Oops.

Recently finished:

Dreamwidth dishcloth

Two dishcloths in this vile pinky red colour. I like them because they’re the same colour as Dreamwidth’s “Tropospherical red” site theme.

Simple ribbed socks

A shawl, from Cheryl Oberle’s “Folk Shawls”. It’s the lacy prairie shawl. A simple triangular pattern, knit point-upwards, like a dishcloth. The lace is a very easy repeat. This was a great stash-buster as it got rid of 10 balls of grey wool that weren’t quite enough for a sweater.

Prairie shawl closeup

Socks. My basic pattern, with a broken rib. I love this yarn. It’s Rio de la Plata’s “Multi-solid” and it’s three plies in burgundy, mustard, and olive green, making an speckly brown overall.

And now, some new WIPs…

Feather and fan shawl

Feather and fan shawl from Oberle’s “Folk Shawls”. I’m using the aran-weight Lanark Mills wool that was left over from my striped cardigan of last year.

Bottom-up birch

Bottom-up birch shawl using this awesome woolly wool that I picked up in Austin when I was there for SXSW. (Um, yes, I have developed a thing for triangular shawls.)

Sideways scarf

Sideways eyelet scarf, which is curling pretty badly and which I really hope will flatten out with blocking. I wanted something sideways with nice long stretches of not having to think about anything. This is 300 stitches or so, and 7 of the 12 rows in the repeat are plain knitting.

Spicy asian greens with tofu

One of the things that’s been driving me crazy since I left home is that I miss the Asian groceries and Asian food I was surrounded by there. Australia’s really close to south-east Asia, especially Indonesia, and Indonesian and Malaysian food are as readily available where I come from as Central American food is where I am now.

I’ve been in SF over a year now, and FINALLY today I made it to a decent Asian grocery (it was a bit of a trek), bought a wok, and a bunch of ingredients. Tonight’s dinner was just a quick stir-fry, the sort of thing I used to make when I got home late and didn’t want to spend any longer cooking than it took for the rice to be done. This is a “pantry” dish, using things that I’d usually have on hand, apart from a bunch of fresh greens. If you live near a Chinatown or any kind of Asian grocery, you can grab a bunch of greens on the way home and make this very easily from staple ingredients.

This isn’t 100% authentic to any particular cuisine; it’s kind of white-girl-cooks-Malaysian. Tasty, anyway!

Equipment:

  • Wok or large skillet
  • Wok-flippy-thing (that’s the technical term!) or spatula
  • Gas stove (you need a fast, hot stove; electric will probably disappoint)

Ingredients:

  • A slosh cooking oil (see notes)
  • 4 cloves garlic, moderately finely chopped
  • 1 tsp chilli paste, or fresh chilli chopped (see notes)
  • 1 bunch Asian greens, chopped (see notes)
  • enough tofu (see notes)
  • light soy sauce (see notes)

Ingredient notes:

Oil should be a clear, mostly-flavourless oil with a high smoke point. Peanut, canola, grapeseed, etc are all fine. I tend to use something other than peanut, as I have peanut-allergic friends, but peanut is the canonical choice for this cuisine.

I like a kind of chilli paste which is dark red, kind of toasted/cooked(?), and comes in a jar with oil. It’s often used as a table condiment in Asian restaurants, and you can get all kinds of variants on it in Asian grocery stores. Many varieties have dried shrimp in them, and this is fine and very tasty, though I go for the shrimp-free kind because I often entertain vegetarians. The ingredients of mine read: “chilli, bean oil, salt, spices”. Fresh chilli is an alternative here: use 1-2 small red chillis, finely chopped. Or use fresh crushed chilli from a jar; again, your Asian grocery will help you out here. In Australia, we call this sambal oelek which is the Indonesian term for it, but basically it’s just crushed red chillis in a jar.

For greens, go with whatever’s fresh and tender. My absolute favourite is kangkung, usually labelled “Water spinach” if they translate it to English. That’s a Malaysian/Indonesian ingredient and not so easy to find in the US; it may be seasonal here, I think. Another alternative would be gai lan (chinese broccoli) or choy sum (sorry, Wiki fails me here.) I don’t think that bok choy or other “heart” style cabbage-family vegetables work well for this dish — you want the kind with separate stalks. If you don’t have access to an Asian grocery or other source of Asian greens, you could use any sturdy western green in the brassica family, such as broccolini, rapini, or kale. Use your greens the same day you buy them, if you possibly can. Rinse them, shake them dry, and chop into bite-sized 5cm (2″) lengths.

For tofu: in the refrigerated section of Asian groceries, there are usually various kinds of fried tofu packed in plastic. Better groceries may also have them loose, sold by weight. One is “tofu puffs” or “sponge tofu” which are deep fried puffs of tofu about 3-5cm (1″-2″) across that have a sponge-like texture inside. You can use them whole or cut them in halves or quarters depending on size, and they’re great in soups especially. A second kind is a firmer square of fried tofu, with a smoother texture inside, usually about 5cm (2″) square and 2cm (just under 1″) tall. They come in packets of 4, 6, or 9. Both kinds keep very well in the freezer, and you can just pop out a couple of pieces as needed. For this dish, I’d recommend about 3-4 squares of the non-sponge fried tofu to go with one bunch of greens, sliced in thin 1/2cm (1/4″) slices.

Chinese soy sauce comes in two main varieties, light and dark. You want the light kind, which is watery, and is what you usually see on the table in restaurants. I like “Pearl River Bridge” brand, but there are many options available. If you have tamari (Japanese soy sauce) this is not a bad substitute.

Technique:

Heat the oil in the wok.

Add the chilli and garlic and stir-fry vigorously until the garlic starts to soften, but not brown.

Add the tofu and stir-fry another minute or two. You only need to heat it through and get it coated in the oil/garlic/chilli.

Add the greens and a shake of soy sauce and stir-fry until the greens are wilted/cooked. Timing for this will vary depending on the sturdiness of the greens.

Serve over rice.

Total cooking time: 5 minutes, for the actual stir-frying. The prep work can be done while the rice is cooking.

The amount above, I consider to be enough to serve two. Usually I eat half of it on the spot (tonight’s was wolfed down in about ten seconds flat, no joke) and take the rest to work for lunch the next day. Asian greens don’t reheat brilliantly, but my standards for my work lunches are not high ;) You could also use the amount described to serve 4, if you had another dish like a curry to go with it.

Why I love linen

I guess you could say I collect vintage household linens. I have a big basket of linen tea-towels and another of napkins in my kitchen, and somewhere in storage I have a number of table cloths too. (The table cloths don’t get much use when I’m living in a small space with just the kitchen table, but I look forward to the day when I have a table just for eating off, so sometimes I buy the table cloths when I see them.)

I love them for two sets of reasons. The first set are reasons that would apply to any household linens, and the second apply to linen in particular.

Using cloth napkins and tea-towels are, to me, a way of living simply and using fewer resources. They replace all kinds of disposable, higher-tech, or space-hogging items. Napkins, of course, are used to wipe your hands and maybe face when eating, especially messy food, and when you’re done you throw them in the wash and use them again. But they have other uses too. You can use them to strain yoghurt, or spread them on a flat surface to dry pumpkin seeds, or wipe up spills with them. You can use them for light housework like dusting. After a meal, I like to wipe up crumbs with the napkins already used for their intended purpose.

Tea-towels, in addition to their intended purpose, make an excellent way to store bread, cakes, and similar: just wrap the bread or cake in a towel, and leave it on the counter. I’m assuming you don’t have mice or other pests, of course, but it will stop the loaf from gathering dust or kitchen spatters, while letting it breathe exactly the right amount to stay optimally fresh. If you put the cloth over the cooling rack when you take your baked good out of the oven, it’s right there ready to fold over the top when the stuff is cool. And if you like giving baked goods to other people, you can make an attractive arrangement by nestling them in a tea-towel inside a basket. Ask for it back when they’re done, or include it in the gift as you see fit.

One of the best ways to store salad greens is to rinse them and dry them in a salad spinner, lay them out on a towel, roll it up, then pop the whole thing in a plastic bag in the fridge. I first heard this suggested with paper kitchen towel, but of course I prefer a cloth one.

Sometimes, after I’ve mopped, I throw two tea-towels on the floor, bunch them up, put one foot on each, and shuffle round the room til the floor is relatively dry.

A tea-towel can also make a makeshift apron by tucking it into the waistband of your pants. But then, I already have aprons.

As for why I like linen in particular: linen is one of the hardest-wearing and most stain resistant fabrics in the universe. One year at Rowany Festival, we washed a bunch of dirty linens — covered in grime and dust and smoke and grease and candlewax and sweat and God knows what else — using old-fashioned handmade soap (from pig fat and lye, if you must know) and nothing but elbow grease. It was done much more quickly than we expected, and the linens came out looking like this:

Laundry 5

On other occasions I’ve bled on linen and had the stains come right out. In fact, of all my kitchen textiles, which I’ve used for all the purposes described above, the only one that’s looking a bit nasty is one that an ex-housemate used to clean his motorcycle. And that particular one is a cotton/linen blend, so I’m not sure whether to blame the cotton or the oil.

Apart from that, linen just feels lovely. It’s crisp when new, soft and
drapy when older, and has a distinctive kind of wrinkling that, although it annoys people who can’t come to terms with its inherent nature, I think is beautiful. I can spot someone wearing linen from a distance just by the texture and the way the fabric hangs, and I immediately think of that person as someone with good taste.

Linen is the long fibrous stalk of the flax plant, beaten and spun and woven. Cotton, of course, is the fluffy seed boll of the cotton plant. Linen is fundamentally a better fibre for most uses (harder wearing, more absorbent, more stain resistant), but it’s also more expensive. Cotton became popular in the 18th century when slave labour made it cheap, and it remains cheap due to industrialised, subsidised, and environmentally damaging agricultural practices, but it’s not inherently a great fibre.

Most of my napkins and tea-towels are vintage, some of them second-hand, dating back to the mid 20th century or thereabouts. I expect to be using them for decades, maybe even the rest of my life.

If you want to buy linen home textiles, I recommend looking in antique stores in small towns, or on eBay. Or, if you’re a sewing type person, you can just buy a bolt of appropriate linen and cut and hem it to suit.

Striped cardigan

First hummus bi tahina and now a cardigan based on Sesame (Rav link). I see a theme to tonight’s posting.

Cardigan/OOTD Jan 20

Melissa Wehrle’s “Sesame” pattern didn’t come in my size, and apart from that, it’s for DK weight and I had some aran weight yarn I wanted to use. So I used her stripes as an inspiration and made an Elizabeth Zimmerman percentage-system raglan cardi.

Cardigan back/OOTD Jan 20

This is my first ever cardigan, so the button bands were new to me. I even learnt a one-row buttonhole technique, which was kind of cool. Finding buttons to fit the buttonholes was very hard, though. I found some I loved but they were $10.95 PER BUTTON. They were real horn. The ones I ended up with were much more affordable. Alas, I think they are just a smidgen too small for the buttonholes. They don’t really slip out, but I feel like they might if given half a chance.

Hummus bi tahina

What we call “hummus” is generally the tahini-enhanced kind; in the middle east, apparently, all chickpea purees are called that, and they name them more specifically based on the additional ingredients. Anyway, as part of my resolution to cook from every one of my cookbooks this year, I made the “Hummus bi tahina” recipe from “The New Book of Middle Eastern Food” by Claudia Roden.

I adapted her recipe a bit, so here’s how mine ended up:

    2 cups chickpeas, cooked from dry (keep the cooking liquid!)
    Juice of 2 lemons
    3 cloves garlic
    6 tablespoons tahini
    generous slurp of olive oil
    salt
    sumac

Throw the chickpeas and garlic in a food processor and set it spinning. Add the lemon juice and tahini, a slurp of olive oil, and then add the chickpea cooking liquid until it’s smooth and dippable. Add salt to taste — I found it needed a couple of good-sized pinches. I also like to add a sprinkle of sumac and blend it in, and then sprinkle a little more on top to serve. Sumac is a middle-eastern spice made from the dried berries of the sumac plant (which is not the same as the North American sumac, btw). It has a lemony-peppery flavour.

My cookbook collection, part 1

One of my New Year’s Resolutions is to cook something from every (serious) cookbook I own. I figure if I can’t cook from a cookbook at least once a year, it doesn’t deserve to be on the shelf.

Here’s the list of cookbooks I need to cover, and some ideas of things I might like to cook from them.

(This is part 1; I’m probably about halfway through the cookbook shelf now.)

Lorna Sass, “Whole grains: Every day, every way”

I’ve actually already cooked from this one, but there are still plenty of recipes I would like to try if I get the chance.

  • Farro soup with kale and cannelini (p. 124)
  • Chinese black rice, orange, and avocado salad (p. 131)
  • Wild rice and turkey salad with pear dressing (p. 141) — sounds like Thanksgiving leftovers to me!
  • Farro risotto with butternut squash, ham, sage, and toasted walnuts (p. 146) — I’d probably do this without the ham
  • Corn grits with collard greens and andouille (p. 170)
  • Farro with fresh tomato sauce and basil (p. 173)
  • Kamut, broccoli rabe, and sausage medley (p. 175)
  • Brown rice pilaf with walnuts and dried cranberries (p. 203)
  • Farro with portobellos and thyme (p. 217)
  • Rolled grain porridge with currants, apple, and walnuts (p. 252)

God damn, why don’t I cook from this book more often?

David Ansel, “The Soup Peddler’s Book of Slow and Difficult Soups”

He has veg and non-veg soups, but all the ones that jumped out at me were vegie.

  • Posole Sonora (p 75) – a vegetarian posole
  • Shorbat Rumman (p 78) – Iraqi pea soup with pomegranate and mint
  • Ash-e-joh (p 137) – Persian barley soup with herbs

Johanne Killeen and George Germon, “On Top of Spaghetti”

I only had to go through the first chapter here to find four that I loved the sound of.

  • Rigatoni with zucchini sauce (p 32)
  • Linguine with spicy lentil sauce (p 35)
  • Pappardelle with Olives, thyme, and lemon (p 40)
  • Linguine with bitter greens and pancetta (p 41) (uses watercress!)

Madhur Jaffrey’s “World of the East Vegetarian Cooking”

Honestly, I’m not very impressed with this cookbook. I think the author tries to spread herself too thin covering all of Asian cuisine, from the Caucasus to the Philippines. She’s strongest (not surprisingly) when she’s talking about Indian food. Also, lots of her dishes are annoyingly simple, and named in English even when the original name is commonly known (eg. hummus). I think this book is a bit marginal, but still managed to find a few things I’d like to cook.

  • “Dry” potatoes cooked with mustard seeds (p. 51)
  • Indian chickpea salad (p. 83)
  • Besan (p. 88)
  • Bean curd with a deliciously spicy sauce (p. 172)

Steve Sando and Vanessa Barrington, “Heirloom Beans

  • Bruschetta with cranberry beans and garlicky kale (p. 36)
  • Cellinis and martinis (p. 49)
  • Roasted salsa verde (p. 55)
  • Italian marrow beans with tuna (p. 93)
  • Cuban black beans sofrito (p. 113)
  • Huevos Rancho Gordo (p. 135)
  • Borlotti beans in tomato sauce with creamy polenta (p. 147)
  • Pasta with beans, broccoli rabe, and bacon (p. 151)
  • Spring lamb with flageolets (p. 165)

Jamie Oliver, “Jamie’s Italy”

  • Caponata (p. 8 )
  • Crostini with squashed cannelini beans with garlic (p. 25)
  • Sliced mushrooms with melted mozzarella and thyme (p. 29)
  • Pasta con acciughe e pomodoro (with anchovies, raisins, and pinenuts) (p. 118)
  • Panzanella (p. 154)
  • Tomato, fennel, and squid salad (p. 166)
  • Eggplant parmagiana (p. 266)

Ian Hemphill, “Spice notes and recipes”

  • Chakchouka (eggs cooked in a spicy North African sauce) (p. 149)
  • Chilli chocolate black beans (p. 151)
  • Cinnamon and pumpkin wholemeal bread (p. 162)
  • Coriander, apple, and rhubarb crumble (p. 174)
  • Beetroot, feta, and toasted cumin salad (p. 181)
  • Nutmeg cake (p. 275)
  • Sage shortbread with goat’s curd (p. 357)
  • Slow roasted tomatoes with sumac (p. 383)

Claudia Roden, “The New Book of Middle Eastern Food”

You’ll notice here that a lot of the recipes I picked are standards. I’m interested in trying this fairly authoritative source and seeing how the traditional recipes work out. And maybe I’m a bit homesick for Australian-Mediterranean food.

  • Cevisli Biber (roasted pepper and walnut paste) (p. 59)
  • Baba Ghanouj (p. 65)
  • Batrik (bulgur salad with nuts) (p. 77)
  • Zucchini salad with raisins and pine nuts (p. 87)
  • Megadarra (rice and lentils with caramelised onions) (p. 97)
  • Fasulye Piyazi (haricot bean salad) (p. 98)
  • Spinach pies with raisins and pine nuts (p. 123)
  • Spinach with garlic and preserved lemon (p. 286)
  • Borlotti beans with onions and tomatoes in olive oil (p. 327)
  • Pilaf with currants and pine nuts (p. 340)

Rejects

Along the way, I decided that the following cookbooks just weren’t calling to me, and should probably be disposed of:

  • Brother Victor-Antoine d’Avila Latourrette, “Twelve Months of Monastery Salads”. I have no trouble inventing salad recipes myself, even if I didn’t already have 95 salad bookmarks on del.icio.us; plus, Brother Victor is way more into Belgian endives and tinned tuna than I am.

Still to go…

  • Cradle of Flavor: Home cooking from the spice islands of Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore
  • 50 great curries of India
  • Moosewood Restaurant: New Classics
  • The Joy of Cooking
  • How to cook everything vegetarian
  • Women’s Weekly COOK
  • The CWA Cookery Book and Household Hints
  • The PMWU Centenary Cookbook
  • From a Monastery Kitchen
  • The Low GI Diet Cookbook
  • Healthy eating for Diabetes

Skipped on the grounds of “non-seriousness”

A kitschy set of “Woman’s Day Encyclopedia of Cookery” from about the 70s, picked up off the street (with pictures rather like these — sorry if you were eating), and a magazine holder full of thin paperback cookbooks mostly from Australian Women’s Weekly, the good bits of which are somewhat duplicated in the “COOK” book.

Cracked wheat for breakfast

Here’s some bulgur and some cracked wheat on a plate together:

Bulgur and cracked wheat

They’re different. Bob’s Red Mill, I’m looking at you. Your so-called Whole grain bulgur is no such thing.

Bulgur is wheat which has been steamed, dried, and then cracked. Cracked wheat skips the steaming and drying process. Bulgur can be prepared just by pouring boiling water over it and leaving it sit a few minutes, on account of having been pre-cooked much as instant rice is. Cracked wheat needs to actually be cooked from scratch. Bulgur has a consistent, al dente texture. Cracked wheat turns kind of mushy, and the wheat grain’s endosperm kind of puffs out from the skin that is left on the bits.

Bulgur is perfect for making tabbouleh and related salads. Bob’s Red Mill “bulgur”, aka cracked wheat, is not.

So, what is one to do with a jar full of it? Lorna Sass’s Whole Grains Every Day, Every Way had an answer I was prepared to try, despite my dislike of oatmeal/porridge, in the form of a hot breakfast cereal with dried fruit, nuts, and orange zest.

Cracked wheat for breakfast

Lorna Sass’s cracked wheat with cherries, almonds, and orange zest

The original recipe uses a mixture of cracked grains, dried cranberries, and slivered almonds. Here’s my version with substitutions.

  • 1 cup cracked wheat
  • pinch salt
  • 2 1/2 cups water
  • 1/2 cup dried cherries
  • zest of 1 orange
  • 1/4 cup flaked almonds, plus extra as garnish
  • 2 tblsp honey
  • 1 tblsp butter
  • plain yoghurt (to serve)

Bring the water to the boil and then throw in the wheat and salt. Cover and simmer for 10 mins, stirring occasionally.

Add cherries and cook until all the water is absorbed and the cereal’s how you like it. Add all the other ingredients (except the yoghurt) and stir through. Serve with yoghurt and some extra almonds on top.

Cracked wheat for breakfast

This is a good start to my New Year’s resolution of cooking something from every cookbook I own. Only 20 or so to go!

Questions

1) What are some good uses for pesto that are less carby than pasta? I have bucketloads of pesto in the freezer (well, small container loads) but the idea of that much pasta is making me bloat at the very thought.

2) Chickpeas are called garbanzos round here, and I presume that’s because they’re used in Latin American cooking and that’s what they’re called in that part of the world. So, what are some good Latin American recipes for garbanzos/chickpeas?

3) I bought some stuff which claimed to be some kind of whole wheat bulgur, but in fact is mislabelled; it’s just cracked wheat. Anyone know good recipes for cracked wheat that play to its strengths rather than just subbing for bulgur?

Pantry clearing: Lentils with chorizo and kale

I’m trying to clear out a few jars from the pantry for the new year. Things I don’t eat so often, and should probably stop buying. This finishes the brown lentils (which I seldom eat), and makes the jar available for dried figs (which I use all the time in my muesli).

  • olive oil
  • 1 onion, diced
  • 4-6″ length of spanish chorizo, diced
  • 1 to 1.5 cups brown lentils
  • water
  • 2 tablespoons tomato paste
  • 1/2 bunch kale, chopped (I used dinosaur kale/cavalo nero)
  • 2 tsp paprika

Saute onions and sausage in a little olive oil. Add the lentils and water to cover. Simmer until lentils are nearly done. Add remaining ingredients and cook further until lentils are done and kale is soft. Adjust flavours if desired.

I ate this with baked potatoes (Amy left some here at Christmas and they need using before they sprout). They’re not the kind of potatoes I usually buy, but wow, they make great baked spuds.

This entire dish was made with pantry staples and odds and ends of stuff in my fridge that needed using. Hurrah!

2008 knitting round-up

Here’s what I knitted in 2008:

2008fo.jpg

1. Monochrome afghan, 2. Finished, Yoda is, 3. Scrubby, 4. Gah!, 5. Hot water bottle cover for Erica, 6. Baby socks, 7. Big green cowl action shot, 8. Submarine cable socks, 9. Sock in progress, 10. Cowl, 11. Green hat, 12. Vest – complete, 13. Noro striped scarf, 14. Simple mitts, 15. Green sweater – almost done, 16. Nolan in hat, 17. Girlboyperson hat, 18. Scrubby, 19. Amy in her new hat, 20. Dishcloths

Additionally, not in the pictures above but soon-to-be-blogged, a striped cardigan.

Or, to put it another way:

  • three sweaters/cardigans/vests
  • two adult pairs of socks
  • three baby garments (counting a pair of socks as a single)
  • a hot water bottle cover
  • a scarf
  • two cowls
  • three hats
  • a pair of mittens
  • half a dozen dishcloths (not all are shown)
  • one blanket (technically crocheted, not knitted, but whatever)
  • a shopping bag

According to Ravelry I finished 20 projects, of which five were gifts. This year’s resolutions commit me to at least meeting those two figures again this year.

Things I learnt:

  • I don’t really like variegated yarns; semi-solids are OK, and self-stripings, but the normal hand-paint variety just don’t float my boat. Not even in butch colours.
  • Yarn heavier than aran weight is just Not For Me, at least not as a general thing.
  • Don’t put your hat in your back pocket or you’ll lose it (I lost two this way, this year.)