food

scoop on soup

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Even though Sweden still isn’t on lockdown, I am not keen to exit my self-imposed isolation. This means I end up cooking with what I have, and right now, soup is the only thing I feel like eating anyway.

Yet I’m out of many of the ingredients I most love in soup… so it’s been experimentation time. I wanted something tomato-based – maybe just a pure tomato or tomato garlic soup. But I also felt like having something more substantial. I couldn’t find any recipes online that gave me quite what I wanted. But here we are… an experimental, slightly spicy tomato chickpea coconut soup.

Experimental tomato chickpea coconut soup
1 medium onion, chopped and sauteed
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
a pinch of sugar
1 tin (15 ounces or so) of crushed tomatoes or equivalent chopped, peeled fresh tomatoes
1 tin (15 ounces or so) of drained, rinsed chickpeas
1 cup coconut milk
1 1/2 cups water (here you could add bouillon of some sort if you want more flavor; I used a half teaspoon of some browned shallot flavored liquid base/bouillon)
salt and pepper to taste

Saute onion; add garlic once onions are translucent. After 20 or 30 seconds of stirring, add cayenne, then vinegar, tomatoes and sugar. Stir.

Add chickpeas and coconut milk. Stir. Bring to simmer. Add water.

Cover and simmer about 30 minutes. Remove from heat and allow to cool down before blending with an immersion blender.

Once finished, taste it to see if it’s spiced and seasoned properly. Add salt, pepper, more coconut milk, whole chickpeas (or whatever you want). Drizzle with high quality olive oil when serving.

In the photo I was just going to serve the plain soup but added some wilted spinach on top at the end. That wasn’t too bad.

I suspect this will taste better, as do many things, on the second day.

soup for the win

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In a post-tooth extraction/infection world, operating with ingredients on hand, the diet becomes overwhelmed by soup. Smooth soups. Good thing soup is a favorite – and easy. For a few days running, I’ve been on a semi-spicy black bean soup (a variation of this recipe) kick, but blended everything so as not to disturb the sensitive mouth. But today I had a bit of pumpkin leftover from something else, some must-use coconut milk and, most of all, hunger.

Hunger led me to the latest soup experiment, which is a take-off on my old go-to pumpkin curry soup recipe. In my updated version, I have guessed at the ratios – you can spice it to suit your own tastes, of course. I am not sure about the measurements. This is a super inexact recipe.

I added white beans to this because I wanted to thicken the soup a bit, add a bit of protein and a bit of texture. White beans don’t add much flavor, so this won’t ruin the flavor profiles of anything else you have going on.

New, improved (?), improvised pumpkin curry soup (vegan)
1 tablespoon (or so) olive oil
1 cup finely chopped onion
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1 teaspoon curry
¼ teaspoon ground coriander
1/8 teaspoon cayenne

On medium heat, saute the onion until golden. Add garlic and spices, stir and cook for about two minutes. Remove from heat until other parts of the soup are ready.

Liquid step
1 cup water
1/4 cup (or so) coconut milk
2 teaspoons vegan bouillon cube or powder (or equivalent)
15 (or so) ounce white beans (I used rinsed, tinned beans)

Mix all the liquid ingredients together with white beans in container or pan you can use for blending. Blend together with an immersion blender. When smooth, add to the spice mixture and return to medium heat.

15 ounce can pumpkin (or the “meat” of a baked butternut squash)

I only had about half this amount of pumpkin, and you adjust to your taste. Obviously. Mix this pumpkin into the simmering soup base. Let simmer about 10 or 20 minutes.

Remove from heat and blend with the immersion blender.

1 cup coconut milk
Coriander garnish if desired

Return the blended soup to low heat, mix in coconut milk until warm enough to serve.

Japanorama & penis power

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Back in the early part of the year I was contemplating an April return to Japan. Mostly because I thought I would like to see The Stone Roses again but also because April is the best time of year to go to Japan. I didn’t go for a handful of reasons but now I wish I had: I just found out there is a penis festival in April, which … seriously, who wouldn’t go to Japan just for that? (Well, and a side of ほうとう.)

I had been doing a lot of research into different things in Japan that might not have registered with me before – side trips and tours one could make to focus in on more niche things like Japan’s amazing pens, paper and denim obsession rather than just tourist traps, noodles and whatever.

In the end, I talked to my brother about going together, but it ended up being bad timing. I went on shorter trips – stuff like the PoPos and Czechia – will anyone ever get used to calling it that? And (little licks of – a term used just for London-based friend Karly!) London, which is never a delight, but sometimes necessary.

Mind clouded by Japan and penises now, I always forget that they have these strange fixations. Forgot checking out the VHS of In the Realm of the Senses from the public library as a teenager – probably not something they should have let a teenager have, but I don’t think the library staff was particularly familiar with the foreign language films. If I am not mistaken, the maniacal main character of the film cuts off the other main character’s penis; this is considerably more artful than, say, the made-for-tabloid-TV saga of John and Lorena Bobbitt.

Soup is good food

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A friend asks a general question on Facebook: What is the key to a life well lived?

I could give a million thoughts or guesses, new-agey epithets or even something like “a satisfying sex life” but in reality it comes down to soup, and possibly stew. Soup is the key to a life well lived.

It’s not what we thought…

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Everything turns out, in time, not to be what we thought it was.

Women’s fertility, thought to hit a precipitous slide downward from the age of 27 – or 35 – or some other number conjured up by dubious science, may decline in general/on average. But then it turns out fertility is not quite that simple.

“But it’s no wonder we’re so easily panicked. The fearful narrative around women’s fertility fits with a broader theme that’s become all too common as women have gained economic independence over the last several decades: we’re going to pay for our equality. Mothers going to work in the 1980’s were told they were subjecting their kids to an epidemic of sexual abuse at daycare centers. In 1986, Newsweek reported that 40-year-old single women were “more likely to be killed by a terrorist” than find a husband. These stories and many more like them, of course, are completely false. Perhaps the best way to fight the panic is to question those who’ve made a business of selling it.”

Pregnancy after 40 is becoming quite common. In fact, in the UK at least, the number of over-40 pregnancies outnumbers the under-30 pregnancies for the first time in 70 years.

I lived for years in Iceland, where it is quite common to have children (many, in fact) when you’re quite young (late teens/early 20s). This is seen as the norm. When a non-Icelandic friend lived in Iceland, everyone around her hounded her about having a baby before she was an “old hag” (meaning mid-20s, I guess???). She did not have a child until she moved to Denmark, and by then she was in her late 20s. The Danes, though, insisted that she was “so young” to be having a child, and all the other women in her maternity ward had at least ten years on her.

And this very pressing issue – fertility – reminds me not only that life goes on but also that, as it does, there are so many other things we don’t know shit about but pretend to (or to trust experts about them): Addiction, aging, the brain, radiation, education, the powerhouse Japan was supposed to be… or even pasta. Nothing is definitive – it keeps changing as the environment around it changes. We really don’t know anything – even what consciousness means.

The same can be said of people, but that’s another and different challenge.

Homemade paneer – experimental dinner

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Ready to eat

Ready to eat

When I hosted a guest at my place recently, I made my own paneer hoping to make this experimental pseudo-Indian dish. I always overestimate how much food I will need when people visit. I plan for breakfasts, lunches and dinners but prepare such elaborate breakfasts (a nice way of saying that I overdo it in a big way usually – even though I get better all the time), no one wants lunch.

Finally I got around to making this potato-paneer filling for red peppers, cooked in a tomato-curry sauce, accompanied by basmati rice and fried onions. Oh, how I love onion rice.

How did I do this? Well, I started a few days ago by making paneer. How do you make paneer? It’s pretty easy.

You need:
1 liter milk
1/8 cup lemon juice
Cheesecloth for straining

Put the liter of milk in a heavy saucepan, stirring every couple of minutes while you wait for the milk to come to a boil. Once it reaches boiling point, remove from heat and add the lemon juice in slowly until the milk completely curdles.

Line a strainer with the cheesecloth and drain the milk-lemon mixture. The liquid will drain away and you will be left with the thick curdled milk. Twist the cloth tightly and squeeze repeatedly from different angles to ensure that the liquid completely drains.

Turn the cloth over and place about one kilo of weight on top of it and leave for several hours to really make sure the liquid drains. This will create a solid paneer block, which you can use immediately or refrigerate for a few days – be sure to cover with water in a container if you are keeping it to ensure it does not dry out.

Now you can cut it into cubes, as many recipes call for, or use it the way I used it in my potato-paneer experiment.

potato paneer spice filling mixture

potato paneer spice filling mixture

Boil four small, peeled potatoes until soft. Mash them together with one cup of crumbled paneer. Mash in the following mixture of spices:

¼ teaspoon red chili powder
½ teaspoon cumin powder
¼ teaspoon garam masala
1 tablespoon of chopped cilantro
salt and pepper, to taste

Mash all of this together and then hollow out a couple of red peppers, discarding the insides and seeds and slice rings you can fill with the potato-paneer filling.

Pepper rings, ready to fill

Pepper rings, ready to fill

Filled pepper rings, ready to grill

Filled pepper rings, ready to grill

Set aside the filled pepper rings while you prepare the easy curry sauce and sauté the onions for the rice. (Prepare the rice at the same time in a separate pot.)

Nothing like onions the spice up rice

Nothing like onions the spice up rice

For the curry sauce… there is no exact recipe here, and you can adjust spices and heat levels to your own taste buds. I erred on the side of too spicy this time, but it was still quite tasty.

Sauce:
2 tablespoons oil
1.5 chopped onions
1 tablespoon garlic-ginger paste
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon coriander
1/8 teaspoon chili powder or cayenne pepper (I accidentally added far more than this)
1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder
about 20 cherry tomatoes, cut in half
about 1/2 cup of tomato passata
salt and pepper to taste

How?
Sauté the onion for about 20 minutes on low heat, add the ginger-garlic paste and heat through. Add the spices. After a minute or two, add the tomatoes and passata. Let cook for about five minutes on low to medium heat. Add a tablespoon or two of cream or coconut milk. Puree in a small food processor and return to oven-safe cast iron skillet to keep warm.

Saucy!

Saucy!

Now put the stuffed pepper rings under the grill and brown them and warm them.

Add the pepper rings to the sauce and heat on the stove or the oven.

Fluff the rice and add the fried onions on top.

The finished products

The finished products

Having completed this experiment once, I know where I went wrong and where I can improve. My next guest will benefit from my learning…

Cheese, glorious cheese: “A nice amount of cheese”

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Check out this hideous 80s commercial about cheese – glorious cheese. The song came to mind, but the commercial eluded me. Dear heavens… the discussion of “real cheese” (versus what? Cheez Whiz and other non-real cheese alternatives?) makes me laugh. Painful.

Recently I came into a lot of cheese. I found some extra mature cheddar, found some stuff like Swiss Emmental and French Comté, made some homemade paneer… and then my friend came to visit (an Italian woman who lives in Iceland) and brought Italian stuff – Grana Padano, Asiago and some others. My goodness the Asiago was amazing. I do not normally have such an insane abundance of cheese at home.

Never enough, never too much. Always a “nice amount of cheese”.

chicken cauliflower chili

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I like beans so don’t necessarily advocate chili without beans, but I saw a recipe that used a diced head of cauliflower instead. And a slow cooker. The miraculous slow cooker.

I made it as follows:
1/2 head of cauliflower, diced into pieces
1 diced yellow onion
1 diced red bell pepper
2 minced garlic cloves
28 ounces tomato puree
1/2 cup chicken stock
2 tablespoons chili powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
chunks of chicken breast or thigh
a tablespoon or two of some Macedonian pepper relish

Add all ingredients to the slow cooker. Cook on low for eight hours. And you are done.