Odds an' Ends

Because I have no car, and it is winter, I am more than usually averse to shlepping myself to and from the grocery store. I hate dragging my ass home with a load of heavy soggy bags at the end of a day. This leaves me with some strange combinatons sometimes. The good ones end up here, the other stuff I pretend never happened.

Delicata Squash with Tofu and Spinach Stuffing
(served with some other stuff to make it interesting, like.)

On the right there is the cous-wa again, that's old hat. The raddiccio is mostly for color, although the bitter crunchyness goes well with the rest of the stuff.

The tofu stuffing came about because I have these enthusiasms for an ingredient, and have to go and get some to see what its like. The peedan was one I actually knew what to do with; those blessed tomatillos were another story... This time it was bacon salt.  Somebody (Dawn) mentioned it and I thought, wow, bacony goodness without having to cook any bacon! Yep, I am that lazy.

Well, I found one thing to do with it: I put it in my do chang. But then what? Attempt to make fake bacon out of tofu, obviously. Not a success, obviously. But I did get a curiously satisfying marinated tofu good for sandwiches. Then I ran out of bread, and besides, I was bored of sandwiches. Some time ago, Cynthia gave me a dinky little squash, and there was pretty much nothing else left in the kitchen when I got home today. This gave me a reason to have the oven on for an extra hour, which is a good thing around the solstice.

1 block super-firm tofu
bacon salt
nutritional yeast
olive oil
some ground toasted flax seeds
bear with me.

Cut the tofu into strips about 1 inch wide and at most 1/2 inch thick. Coat them generously with a mix of the dry ingredients. You can go moderately heavy with the bacon salt, it seems to be mostly composed of garlic powder and paprika. Put it in a tupperware thing and add a slosh of olive oil and shake it around to get the oil distributed. Then leave it in the fridge until you feel guilty about not eating it, which was about 5 days for me. Maybe longer. Then decide that you might as well combine it with that other thing you feel guilty about not eating, and locate your squash.

Mine was a particularly small squash, definitely a one-person size. To fill it, I used:

2 strips marinated tofu
2/3 cups frozen chopped spinach
a toasted heel of bread, torn up very small
salt and pepper

To assemble the squash, cut the squash in half to form 2 little cups, and scoop out the seeds. Put the tofu and spinach in a bowl and microwave it just until it's all hot, then smash up the tofu with a fork. Stir in the bread bits, taste for salt and pepper, and if it is very dry add a spoon of water. Mine had all the leftover olive oil from the bottom of the tofu batch, so it was pretty moist. Cram the stuffing into the squash cups, put them in a pan with a little water in the bottom to keep them from utterly drying out, and bake them for about an hour. The time will vary depending on how big your squash is, and if it's very large, you may want to cover it for the first half of the baking or it will burn on the outside before it gets done through.

Tomatillo Tagine and Cous-Wa

An unexpected crop of tomatillos + a jar of preserved limes made during the enthusiasm of summer = north african with south american ingredients.

The Tagine part:

2 onions, sliced
6 tomatillos, chopped
1 clove crushed garlic
2 frozen chicken tenders, cut up
1 large russet potato, in 1 inch cubes
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp coriander seed, ground
a generous shake each paprika and turmeric-it adds color
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice
the fleshy part of 1/4 of a preserved lime plus about 1/4 tsp of the skin, minced very fine
hot pepper flakes optional
broth concentrate & water
kalamata olives or some olive mix you like.
olive oil for browning the onions

Brown the onions, tomatillos and garlic in a heavy saucepan. If it has a heatproof lid, you can do the traditional thing and finish the recipe in the oven, but I just did mine on the stovetop, so that's how my directions will go. When the onions are browned and the tomatillos are mush, add the chicken and the spices and lime. Cook until the chicken is almost done, then add the broth concentrate and potato, and add enough water to almost cover everything. Cook until the potatoes are done and you start to get some browning in the bottom of the pan. If it looks too watery, leave the lid off so it can cook down into a nice thick gravy. When you're about 5 minutes from done, add a handful of olives.

the Cous-Wa part:

And what is cous-wa? Another of Pete's recipes. His originally had basil and yellow peppers, I had no basil left, but tarragon and thyme make a good substitute.

1/2 c couscous
1/2 c quinoa
1/4 c diced bell pepper
1/4 c green beans -I used frozen
2 or 3 scallions, chopped
a dab of broth concentrate
olive oil
1 tsp mixed tarragon & thyme, minced finely
pine nuts-damn these are expensive these days! How long does it take to grow a frikkin' pine tree?!?!?

Brown the scallions and bell peppers in a bit of oil in a saucepan big enough to cook the grains in. When the onions are brown, add about 1 1/2 cups of water and a bit of broth concentrate. Bring to a boil, add the quinoa and cover. When the quinoa is almost done (it'll take about 10 minutes) check to make sure there's still about a half cup of liquid. Add a bit if necessary, put in the couscous & herbs, stir well and cover. Turn the heat off. The couscous will steam up in about 5 minutes and you can toss it up with a handful of pine nuts just before serving.

Garnish with mint for authenticity -hah- or parsley if that's what you got.

I am not a big fan of either couscous of quinoa by themselves. Too many dumbell college hippy recipes, I think. Curiously enough, combining the two made a very appealing dish. The quinoa makes up for the lack of textural character in the couscous, and the couscous ameliorates the peculiar musty flavor of the quinoa to a level that is piquant rather than obnoxious. Sometimes I remember that food like this has only been possible in the last 1/2 century, and then only for a very few of us. I feel lucky indeed.