An Introduction to Maltese Cuisine: Minestra Tal-Haxix

Besides saving the world as an intern at the NGO I’m working for, one of my goals during my stay in Malta is to cook traditional Maltese foods. And, if the need came up, make them gluten free. It’s a way to further integrate into the culture I’ve thrown myself into, and also a motivation to be more active on Meals with Morri.

It is very apparent that Malta’s cuisine is directly affected by its history and geography, particularly showing strong English and Sicilian influence, as well as representations of Mediterranean (also including Spanish and French) and Arabic (North African, mostly) influence based on the residents on the island. The majority of the country’s foodstuffs has been and is imported, but since it is positioned along important trade routes between Europe and Africa, it had opened Maltese cuisine to outside influences very early on. The food is also heavily season-based and faith-based, two things I look forward to learning about during my yearlong stay.

Since awakening the foodie aspect of myself, I have developed a philosophy about culture: you know a people by the bread they eat. Think about it. It’s absolutely fascinating to observe what sort of bread a culture eats and why, and what flours were used in place of wheat due to geography and access. The bakeries here give off intoxicating aromas of yeast, rising dough, and sweet treats that are said to be wonderful accompaniments to any meal. The Maltese are famous for their baked goods, and sometimes I wish I could say “food sensitivities and health issues be d*mned” and take a bite of their amazing breads. There are days I feel cheated somehow, not being able to know this vibrant culture more because of this minor detail. Sometimes I wish I didn’t have to worry about it.

But that’s a post for some other time. This post is about soup, and a recipe that almost overflowed onto the stovetop.

For inspiration in what I wanted to make, I went onto a community website for Maltese recipes. The beauty of this national cuisine is how family-oriented it is and its incorporation of the many ethnicities and cultures that helped make Malta the vivacious country it is today. In other words, it is hard to find a recipe for two, but you can definitely find a meal for eight… or days of leftovers for a Morri living on her own for the first time ever.

The soup I chose was Ministra Tal-Haxix, which literally translates to ‘minestrone with vegetables’. It is the Maltese version similar to the famous Italian Minestrone, a vegetable soup with noodles, a wide variety of veggies, and in this case, favetta. It’s extremely nourishing and filling, and I could imagine families warming themselves up on a rainy winter day (and believe me, it does get rainy) with a hearty bowl as a starter to the main meal.

When I examined the recipe I found online, I also looked at a comment someone posted and included their suggestions into the final product. Instead of turnips, I incorporated the kohlrabi and favetta (split fava beans). And instead of using one pot, I ended up using three. Why? Because vegetables such as pumpkin, cauliflower, cabbage, and kohlrabi add up in bulk, and my soup pot was completely filled to the top with vegetable goodness. That, and I thought the pot I had would be adequate, considering it’s only me in the apartment. But alas, it wasn’t tall enough. So the favetta and noodles were boiled separately to insure a balanced serving for each bowl, and the cabbage was put through the pressure cooker and mixed in when the other vegetables had cooked down. And for the love of soup, people, do not add more water than instructed. I did to cover the vegetables (i.e., perhaps half an inch or a little over a centimeter from the top), and I am still amazed I didn’t make more of a mess than I had.

Regardless, it turned out deliciously, and it freezes well as individual servings. (It’s also great for those wonderful vegetarian partners currently residing in Rome and who is visiting in a couple of weeks [*hint hint*].) You may need to add more water when reheating, because the beans and noodles may absorb more water after the initial cooking process. Warm it up and top it with cracked black pepper, fresh garlic (finely chopped or crushed), and freshly grated Parmesan cheese.

 

Minestra Tal-Haxix (Maltese Minestrone Soup)

200 g Gluten free rotini pasta (or a small pasta type equivalent)
250 g Dried favetta*
2 Zucchini, finely diced
4 Medium potatoes, finely diced**
2 Onions, finely diced***
475 g Pumpkin, finely diced****
1 Small cabbage, finely chopped
1 Small cauliflower, finely chopped
2 Celery stalks, finely diced
2 Tomatoes, finely diced
2 Carrots, finely diced
1 Kohlrabi bulb, finely diced
1 tsp. Tomato puree
750 ml Water
2 tsp. Sea salt
Olive oil

Parmesan cheese, finely grated (optional)
Garlic cloves, finely chopped (optional)

Soak the favetta over night and cook in the pressure cooker before putting the soup together.
Boil the noodles as instructed on the package al dente and also set aside.
Chop all the vegetables and place them in a tall pot.
Add the water, tomato puree and salt.
Bring to boil and let simmer until vegetables are tender, and add a spoonful of olive oil. Add the pasta and favetta and keep simmering until the pasta is fully cooked.
Serve hot with the grated Parmesan cheese and fresh garlic. 

Makes 6 - 8 servings

* As I said, favetta are split fava beans. You can soak them the night before and add them with the veggies, or do as I have instructed for the recipe.
** Along with their amazing bread, the Maltese Derby Potato is famous for it’s silky texture, buttery overtones, and usage over a variety of dishes in Maltese cuisine.
*** Preferably red onions (I don’t know the species of the Maltese red onion, only that they are strong and sold locally)
**** Fresh pumpkin is sold by the slice here, which I’m sure will further encourage my pumpkin addiction and put it in everything I eat.

The Bento Box Snapshot: Another Week of Pareve (and a recipe!)

Making pareve (parve, parv, or whatever you call it) Bento Box Snapshots have been quite exciting to eat. I have enjoyed thinking outside the box (heh.) with my creations, and the combination of flavors I created every day.

As I’m rather behind in posts, I’m simply going to post the photos with their descriptions below, along with a dried fruit and seed bar recipe I think you will enjoy as much as I did.

 

BBS 1: Sliced veggies (not shown) with ricotta cheese and hummus, and short-grain brown rice with sun-dried tomato slivers, toasted sesame seeds, and a dash of Living Intention's Salad Booster.

 

BBS 2: Cucumber sushi, raw veggies, and refried beans.

 

BBS 3: Vegan quinoa salad (not shown), baby zucchini and sugar snap peas drizzled with tahini, Parmesan cheese wedges, and homemade dried fruit-seed bites (recipe below). 

BBS 4: Cold noodle salad dressed in coconut oil and lemon juice, more raw veggies, and my  homemade dried fruit-seed bites (yes, it's that good).

Many of the kids at the camp are allergic to nuts, so I thought I’d give “nut-free” a go. It’s definitely a pareve sort of food, and it’s vegan and grain-free too! 

From this...

... to bite-sized delicious energy!

Nut-free Cinnamon Raisin Sesame Bites

30 g Pepitas, raw and unsalted
66 g Sunflower seeds, raw and unsalted
27 g Hulled sesame seeds
40 g (5) Dried Black Mission figs
75 g (6) Medjool dates, pits removed
45 g (6) Prunes
50 g Thompson raisins
1/2 tsp. Cinnamon
Pinch of Sea salt

Place all of the ingredients in the food processor and pulse until it starts forming into a ball (it should be fairly combined, but clumps of individual ingredients are encouraged).
Lay the mixture in a small, square baking pan lined with parchment paper, and lay another sheet of parchment paper on top.
With another pan of the same size, press down into the mixture to flatten it out.
Continue folding and pressing until you have reached the desired size and thickness of the bar.
Remove the large “bar” from the pan and place it onto a cutting board, where you will cut it into the desired number of bars (or bites, as I did).

 
It makes 5 – 10 servings, depending on if you want a bite-sized snack or a meal great for on the go.

The Bento Box Snapshot: A Week of Pareve

Much like my summer internship last year, I really have had to focus on what I am able to eat for my job as the camp’s art specialist. As I mentioned before, the community center I work at is Jewish-oriented, as is the camp, so that meant following their dietary laws as well. In the beginning it was impossible to tell which meats the kids brought to camp were kosher, so all lunches are now required to be either dairy or pareve.

BBS 1: Carrot risotto, fresh veggies, mozzarella, and daily apple

Since I’m not Jewish, I was worried about offending people with the food I brought. Regardless of my food intolerances, I took on the challenge to make a week of bento lunches that:

1. Observed the dairy and/or pareve rule as written in Judaic law
2. Consisted of things I could and would eat
3. Were nutritionally balanced
4. Kept me full until dinner

Let’s just say that all my lunches were total successes.

BBS 2: Homemade hummus, rice, and dipping veggies (not shown)

For one thing, I learned that size does matter for a bento box. The one Daddy-O gave me last Saturday on our way back from the National Harbor is just perfect for my active lifestyle and appetite. It is two-tiered, which gave me the ability to either make two small meals, or one lunch with a variety of ingredients.

Much of what I packed were leftovers from dinners the night before, tons of veggies, and freshly made spreads like guacamole and hummus. Beans and rice were common, though I did enjoy tuna salad spring rolls and salmon cakes immensely. Cottage cheese and blueberries showed up twice on the top tier (the one that is split into two separate compartments) upon finding that I loved the combination.

BBS3: Salmon cakes, quinoa salad, cottage cheese & blueberries

I hope to have another week of Bento Box Snapshots this time next Sunday, along with: other recipes that may or may not end up in my lunch box, food from my family’s July 4th festivities (i.e., a Grill day), and the camp’s field trip picking blueberries.

Goodness, I love summer.

BBS 4: Tuna salad spring rolls, and cottage cheese with blueberries (not shown)

Fitness Progression & Bread Rising

This has been quite an interesting albeit exhausting day, and I’d thought I’d share a few things before I went to bed. Besides successfully baking a "dark" version of Irish Soda Bread, I have also modified my fitness regimen. Running and rock climbing each three times a week has really brought a positive change in my physique. When the boyfriend visited over the weekend, he (and others) couldn’t help but notice my legs getting firmer. When we went rock climbing with his brother at the SportRock in Sterling, I successfully completed trails higher up and harder than the ones in Alexandria, trails I’d never climbed before.

At some point, however, I felt that something was missing in my routine, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. I mean, I had the upper-body workout with the bouldering and the aerobic/lower-body work out with running, so what else was there? For many months, Cheryl had been asking whether or not I’d considered yoga, mostly for stress relief but also for days I didn’t feel like running or rock climbing. Mama Dazz was also flabbergasted by my hesitation, because I took Kundalini Yoga in college and loved it. After four days of yoga at least once a day (each only being a couple of minutes long), I’ve noticed significant change in my arm strength, my balance, my breathing, and my focus. Even better, my dear readers, is that I’m sleeping and sleeping well.

(source)

After adding yoga, my stress level has decreased and I’m not randomly hungry throughout the day. And when I do eat, I don’t have the desire to continue eating after I am full. I can now look at remnants on a plate and save it for a later time. It’s only been four days, but I’m rather happy with the progress I am making.

Now, about the recipe.

On Saturday I attempted to make Irish soda bread for that night’s family hullabaloo, but impatience and uncertainty got the better of me and I took it out too soon. Part of it had not finished baking and it fell apart. This is one of the few recipes I actually used a mix (part of it was King Arthur’s all-purpose gf flour mix and another was a various combinations of flours I pre-made), but I thought the taste was that of soda bread. And a note to all of you if you don’t have buttermilk or yogurt on hand, goat milk works very well for it.

Determined, I decided to try a different recipe for Irish soda bread from Williams-Sonoma's Cooking at Home (2010, p. 430), one of my go-to cookbooks these days. I was inspired to make the “dark” or brown version of Irish soda bread, something with a molasses color and flavor. Naturally, I looked to teff and I was ecstatic of its success.

This bread can be made the night before, but if you are going from fridge to the oven, you need to add ten minutes on your cooking time (I found it easier to mold it in the desired shape, plus lightly carve a small cross on top for ultimate leavening… and to let “little people” out). If not, simply baking it at 425ºF for 30 - 35 minutes as the cookbook recommends. Also, this is the halved version of the recipe, and it still turned out wonderfully. To double, add an additional gram to the oats (45 g), flaxseed meal (15 g), and yogurt (375 g).

Brown Irish Soda Bread

180 g Teff flour
22 g CGF rolled oats
7 g Flaxseed meal
3/4 tsp. Baking soda
1/2 tsp. Sea salt
30 g Unsalted butter, chilled
187 g Greek yogurt, full fat

Preheat the oven to 425ºF.
In a food processor, pulse the teff flour, oats, flaxseed meal, baking soda, and salt until just combine.
Cut the butter into eight pieces and scatter throughout the dry ingredients.
Press the “pulse” button again ten consecutive times until the mixture resembles a coarse meal.
Add the yogurt and blend the ingredients as evenly as possible, until it forms a ball.
Chill covered up to thirty minutes or overnight, and then turn out the dough with your floured hands onto the baking sheet lined with parchment paper you intend on using. (The dough should be soft to the touch).
Flatten the ball into a 7-inch dome and, using a sharp knife, cut a shallow “X” from one side of the loaf to the other.
Bake 25 – 30 minutes, or until there is no give on the crust in the center.
Transfer the loaf to a wire rack to cool slightly, then serve warm.

Makes 1 loaf. Serves 4.

The New St. Paddy Tradition

The day of and following St. Paddy’s had greener than green flora and overcast skies. There was leftover corned beef and cabbage from Friday (we started early this year), and a trial run of gluten free soda bread sliced on the counter. There were good conversations and rock climbing. There was family and good food and laughter around the table. Oh, and naturally there was green everywhere.

Since I was a wee lass, St. Paddy’s Day was celebrated with corned beef and cabbage, talk of leprechauns, and wearing green. Sometimes leprechauns left little trinkets in my shoddy shoebox trap, in place of the potato I’d left beneath it. There was a year green Ken doll footprints were found all over the furniture in the classrooms of my school. This isn’t the religious holiday my Irish cousins observe overseas, but for one day out of the year the U.S. is enthusiastically Irish.

Contrary to popular belief, the corned beef tradition on St. Paddy's doesn’t come from Ireland, as beef was considered a luxury at the time. In the 19th century, with the potato famine sending many Irish families to the United States, many say it was because beef being more readily available and the close cultural interactions with Jewish butchers that made corned beef a staple in Irish American cuisine. Thus, the corned beef and cabbage, the beef replacing the bacon for the traditional dish, became associated with St. Patrick’s Day.

Corned beef and I have had our rocky years. At one point, I wasn’t all too fond of the dish, though I did enjoy corned beef hash (oh yes, the canned kind) immensely. Though I started to develop a taste for it, only to realize that the store-bought corned beef in brine wasn’t as Morri friendly as it could be. Sugar is the basis for many types of brine, and I was determined to have corned beef and cabbage this weekend.

The answer was to make it from scratch, homemade brine and all.

I should have let it marinate longer than five days (the bare minimum amount of time for a decent corned beef), but it was a wonderful experiment and I consider it a success regardless. Since we bought a rather large brisket and only used half (the other half was then halved again and frozen), I’m going to make it again when I have a craving for corned beef hash. Another difference is that I will use whole spices instead of ground, because it was all I had at the time and we just restocked from Penzeys this afternoon.

The recipe for the brine comes from The Caveman Bistro’s post “The Brining of the Beef – a Paleo Experiment”. Most, if not all the brines I looked at for inspiration were in fact gluten free. But refined sugar free was harder, and this paleo brine saved the day. 

Corned Beef Brisket Brine

2 qt. Water
30 ml Unrefined apple cider vinegar
8 Garlic cloves, crushed
1 tbsp. Sea salt
6 Dried whole bay leaves
1 tbsp. Whole peppercorns
1 tbsp. Mustard seed powder
1 tbsp. Allspice powder
1 tbsp. Ground cloves
5 -7 lbs. Beef brisket, trimmed of heavy fat (though some fat can be left on for flavor and texture)
   
In a large pot on the stovetop, combine water, vinegar, garlic, salt, bay, pepper, mustard, all spice and cloves and heat to a boil. 
Reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes, and then remove from heat and allow to cool until room temperature. 
Place brisket in the large pot with the cooled brine mixture and push the brisket down so that it is completely submerged in the brine. 
Place pot in fridge and marinate for minimum 5-7 days and up to 3 weeks.
When ready, prepare as you would a commercially prepared corned beef brisket…

Now that you have a delicious corned beef recipe waiting to happen, let’s make it even more amazing with a few additional ingredients!

The following recipe was the inspiration of the cookbook Irish Pub Cooking (2009), something I picked up at the GMU bookstore two years ago.

Corned Beef and Cabbage

Corned beef, after the desired period of marinating
1 tsp. Sea salt
1 Large white onion, sliced
6 Carrots, cut into chunks
1 Turnip, thickly sliced
6 Red skinned potatoes, cut into chunks
1 Green cabbage, cored and cut into wedges
9 g Parsley (or 1 oz stemmed), coarsely chopped
Mustard, as garnish

… Drain the meat, discarding the soaking liquid, then rinse (I discarded the garlic cloves, but held onto the bay leaves and peppercorns).
Put the meat and spices (including the salt) back into the pot, and pour enough water to cover.
Bring to a boil and then reduce the heat to a simmer and cover the meat to cook for 1 hour and 45 minutes or longer (I recommend using the pressure cooker to cut the time).
At the one-hour mark, add the onion, carrots, turnip, and potatoes to the pot, re-cover, and simmer for the remaining 45 minutes.
Add the cabbage and parsley on top of the broth and let it cook for another 25 – 30 minutes, or until the meat is tender.
Remove the beef, cover with aluminum foil, and let stand for 10 minutes to firm up.
Strain the vegetables (but keep the broth!) and put them into a warmed serving dish, discarding the stray bay leaves.
Carve the meat into slices and serve immediately with the vegetables, accompanied by the mustard.

Makes 8 – 10 servings.

Russian Blini for Two

I am being perfectly honest with you all when I say that this month’s GFRR was hard. I’m not sure it had to do with my mindset, or if it truly was the multiple crepe recipes that weren’t working out. Now, with the final recipe written and posted, I’ve learned a few valuable lessons I’d like to share.

I try really hard not to use this blog as my place to rant about whatever grievance may come my way, as I did my first few months of blogging. And whenever I do talk about things that are less than rays of sunshine, I do what I can to not come off as some whiny, self-centered princess. Every time I do the GFRR with the other amazing participants, I am always humbled by the journey I took to get to that winning (or not so winning) recipe, and also by the recipes the others made.

For this particular challenge, I focused too much in the beginning of what kind of crepe I wanted to make and not at all on making a simple batch successfully. And I do this outside the kitchen all the time: daydreaming the details, doing what I can to making it exotic and outlandish, and not even thinking about mastering the basics first.

As I said, I’ve made crepes before. And yes, this implies I did so successfully. I've made them in a (gasp!) non-stick skillet and recently in a cast iron griddle pan. I expected victory, demanded triumph. What I got was a smack of humility and the Universe telling me to chill the crepe out. If you want to make something as temperamental as crepes, you have to have a cool head, patience, and remain optimistic even when you mess up a crepe (or, you know, half the batch… twice in a row).

Michael Ruhlman called crepes a “vehicle” (Ratio p. 81). I know he meant literally, as in “a vehicle for foods and flavors.” But for me, food is just as figurative as it is literal. Figuratively, the crepe is a vehicle for introspection and perspective. You know where you are in life when you make crepes. If all goes well, and you have a batch of freshly made crepes on a plate just waiting to be devoured, you start thinking how wonderful your life is and how wonderful you are. And if it doesn’t, if the crepes stick to the pan, break apart when you’re getting ready to flip them, are too thick or too thin or too something else, a storm cloud forms above your parade and you start grumbling “Oh, crepe!” like it was an expletive.

To be fair, even the not so pretty crepes in the batch tasted just fine, so I don’t think it had anything to do with the ingredients. It was the execution of making said crepes: not a hot enough pan, not a thin enough spatula, not a balanced enough stovetop, not patient enough, not a positive enough mentality… the list could go on if I let it.

While making crepes, I struggled to remain optimistic as my spatula pierced through yet another one in my flipping attempts. I started thinking of the uncontrollables and uncertainties I tried to keep from surfacing. As I said before, I don’t like to talk about myself when I’m feeling less than awesome. When things are less than kosher, I become introverted and do what I can to fix it myself so I don’t worry people.

The truth of the matter, my dear friends, is this: health isn’t always a sunny pasture with organic fruits and veggies on rolling hills as far as the eyes can see. While making crepes, I was upset, though upon asking I wouldn’t know what to say. I don’t really talk about my hypothyroidism very much on this blog (as of yet), nor about my adrenals or my internal health. I talk about disordered eating and fitness and my trials with both. I philosophize about food and life and love. The things I don’t talk about are only mentioned in passing, simply because I don’t know much about them except by how they make me feel. And throughout the entire month of February, I was frustrated and upset. Frustrated and upset, because I didn’t know why I was frustrated and upset. Was it a hormonal imbalance? Am I taking too much or too little Armour Thyroid? Why do my hands still have that slight yellowish hue from time to time, and what do my nails say about my overall health? Have I developed hyperthyroidism in my attempts to remedy my hypothyroidism? (These are ask-the-doctor questions, I know.)

I can always tell something’s wrong whenever I begin nitpicking at myself. It usually comes in the form of criticizing my body, and then wondering why my exercising and my eating habits weren’t transforming me into a shorter version of Wonder Woman in a matter of twenty-four hours.

Sometimes the conditions for making amazing crepes don’t happen. Sometimes you don’t understand what’s going on with your body or why your day was laced with moments where all you could say was “Oh, crepe!” Sometimes less than pleasant things happen, like crepes looking like badly formed discs of dough or falling twenty feet from a rock climbing wall and your chin painfully colliding with your chest.

These things happen, and the best thing you can do is brush off the hand chalk on your shorts after climbing or the splatter of crepe batter on your apron.

February and the start of March was a challenge in every right, and T.R. from No One Likes Crumbly Cookies picked the ratio that embodied it perfectly.

The concept for the crepe ratio is simple enough: 1-1-1/2, or one part egg, one part liquid, and half parts flour. (I focused on how much the eggs weighed and went from there.) But when it comes to the science of bringing them ingredients together… that’s where it gets iffy.

Some say to make sure the ingredients are at room temperature before blending, while others don’t even mention it. Some say refrigerate to let the batter “bloom” up to an hour or overnight, while others use it immediately. They vary in the use of a crepe pan, a non-stick skillet, or a cast iron griddle pan. And on what heat I ask you, medium or medium-high?

I tried different liquids, the most notable being the batches I made with sparkling water and goat milk. I tried different fillings for different kinds of crepe dishes, like the ricotta-cream cheese combination for a blueberry blintz recipe. The recipe that I am using for this month’s GFRR was originally going to be little fluffy canapés with random toppings, both sweet and savory. But as time went on, it ended up a little different than I expected. They have a taste of Russia in them complete with sour cream, a cornichon pickle, and chia “caviar”.

So, without further ado
I give you Russian blini… for two.

Russian Blini

2 (119 g) Large eggs
60 ml Goat milk
59 ml Lukewarm water (about 110ºF)
5 g Active dry yeast
3 g Creamed honey
30 g Buckwheat flour
30 g Garbanzo bean flour
1/4 – 1/3 tsp. Sea salt

Coconut oil or butter, for greasing the pan

Pour the eggs and goat milk into the blender and set aside to get to room temperature (at least an hour).
Combine the flours and salt into a bowl to be used later.
In another bowl, bloom the yeast with the water, honey, and at least 10 g of the dry ingredients for twenty minutes.
Add the flour and yeast mixture in the blender and pulse on low until just combined, and allow it to rest on the counter for another hour (you can then make the crepes or put it in the fridge overnight).
Heat your pan over medium heat.
Pour just enough batter to coat the bottom as you tip and tilt the pan.
Allow it to cook untouched until it’s set, at least a minute or so, and then gently turn the crepe and briefly cook the other side.
Remove the crepes to a rack as you make more to be used immediately or allowed to cool.

Makes 6 – 8 crepes. Serves 2.

Want to see what the others of the GFRR made this month? Well, scroll on down and click on their links!

Thank you, T.R. We couldn’t have had a better host for crepes.

Adina | Gluten Free Travelette     Breakfast Crepes Three Ways

Angela | Angela's Kitchen     Savory Buckwheat Crepes with Sweet Potato, Mushroom and Kale Filling

Caitlin | {Gluten-Free} Nom Nom Nom     Buckwheat Crepes

Caleigh | Gluten Free[k]      Banana Cinnamon Crepes

Caneel | Mama Me Gluten Free     Slightly Sweet Crepes with Caramelized Bananas and Nutella Sauce

Charissa | Zest Bakery     Black Pepper Crepes with Chicken Tikka Masala

Erin | The Sensitive Epicure     Socca with Za'atar & Sumac (Garbanzo Flour Crepes)

Ginger | Fresh Ginger     Sweet 'n Savory

gretchen | kumquat     nutella crepe cake

Heather | Discovering the Extraordinary     "Southwestern" Crepes

Jenn | Jenn Cuisine     Braised Duck, Fennel and Chestnut Crêpes

Karen | Cooking Gluten-Free!     Gluten Free Crepes Savory or Sweet

Mary Fran | FrannyCakes     Gluten-free Peanut Butter Crepe Cake

Mary Fran | FrannyCakes     Gluten-Free Vanilla Bean Crêpes Sucrées

Monika | Chew on This!     Dessert crepes with caramelized plantains, toasted coconut and chocolate sauce

Morri (me!) | Meals with Morri     Russian Blini for Two

Pete and Kelli | No Gluten, No Problem     Key Lime Crepes

Shauna | gluten-free girl     Gluten Free Buckwheat Crepes

*T.R. | No One Likes Crumbley Cookies     Brownie Crepes with Strawberry Wine sauce

*T.R. | No One Likes Crumbley Cookies     Basil Tomato and Feta Crepes

*T.R. | No One Likes Crumbley Cookies     Fresh Fruit Crepe

Tara | A Baking Life     Breakfast Crepes with Eggs and Kale

Jonathan | The Canary Files     Vegan Crepes for Filipino Spring Rolls

Rachel | The Crispy Cook     Raspberries and Cream Crepes

Mrs. R | Honey From Flinty Rocks     Crepes - Spinach & Dessert

To Be Cool as a Cucumber

I’ve been rather flaky with things in my life: missing appointments, missing hang out opportunities with people I care about, and simply not feeling as awesome as I could be. Love Your Body Week gave me perspective, but there were times where I was feeling “blah” about myself. My new fitness regimen, or possibly a stress I’ve yet to identify, has me craving fats like crazy. Peanut butter, almond butter, coconut oil, cheese… I can’t get enough. That, and I was waking up ridiculously early this week, one day as early as 3:20 a.m., and that’s thrown my appetite out of order. 

But it’s Sunday now. It’s the end of the old week, or the start of the new week. Whichever the case, I’m moving on to new experiences and a better tomorrow. For now, I want to share a new way of eating one of my favorite foods.

Regardless if you call it a fruit or a vegetable, the cucumber is an amazing food. There are quite a few varieties, but the English cucumber is the species I most enjoy. The have a thinner skin and are nearly seedless, and it is said that they are easy to digest. Unlike some other popular varieties, you don’t need to remove the skin to enjoy it.

I have had it sliced on top of salads and dipped into sauces. I’ve had it juiced and blended into gazpacho. I’ve never baked them into “chips”, and I’ve never pickled them myself. 

Seeking new ways to eat one of my daily foods, I looked in my Mama Dazz’s cookbook collection for a new recipe to try for my beloved cucumber. I found Jeff Smith’s (1990) The Frugal Gourmet on Our Immigrant Ancestors: Recipes You Should Have Gotten from Your Grandmother. It lists the different immigrant groups that came to the United States over the years, providing a brief history of their culture, the people, and most importantly, the food. I reveled in the amazing stories of the Basques and the Swedes. I rejoiced in the recipes of my ancestors, the Irish and the Dutch. He talked about the beauty of the American Indian and South American cuisines, whose food was soon traded and seen all over the world.  But living in such a diverse neighborhood where I grew up with families from Bangladesh and El Salvador as close neighbors, things like papusas and curry were normal to me. But the recipe I found I wasn’t used to, and of course I had to make it for myself.

So I made cucumber namasu (p. 239, Smith), from Japan. It’s the kind of recipe I tweaked slightly to fit my needs. And like most pickled foods, its flavor enhances the longer it marinates. Since I used sea salt, I do not recommend using as much as the book recommends, i.e., one tablespoon. Even two teaspoons was a bit much, so I used stevia to balance it out. It worked beautifully. And since it was the first recipe I photographed with my new lens earlier this week, I was ecstatic with its success.

Cucumber Namasu

518 g English (seedless cucumber), quartered and thinly sliced
1 – 2 tsp Sea salt (I used 2 tsp. and thought it was a bit much, so taste as you go)
60 ml Unrefined apple cider vinegar or Rice wine vinegar
2 ml Coconut aminos (or CGF Tamari for those who aren't soy free)
1 tsp. Ground ginger
1 tsp. White sesame seeds
1 tsp. Black sesame seeds
Stevia, to taste (optional)

Place the cucumber slices in a large mesh strainer over a bowl and sprinkle the salt on top.
Lightly toss and let it sit up to an hour for all of the liquid to drain.
In another bowl, combine the remaining ingredients except for the sesame seeds.
When the liquid from the cucumbers is gone, drain the bowl and use it to toss the dressing with cucumbers.
Sprinkle and mix the sesame seeds throughout the salad, then chill for another hour before serving.

Makes 4 servings.

A Taste of Adventure

Maybe it’s my delirious state that has given me the audacity to be something I don’t encourage on this blog: a Doubtful Darcy. (This in no way judges the ladies of the world named Darcy, nor do I believe they are more or less likely to be more doubtful than a David, say, or a Dolores… or a Dan.)

My getting sick started out as a wave of nausea on Saturday morning, and completely took the winds from my sails by the early afternoon. Then the coughing started, followed by the rise and fall of body temperature, a raw throat, and a Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer mouth. I’m better today, though I’m rather unsettled with the whole thing, partially because I was in bed most of the day, thinking. And when your heart rate is going at a runner’s pace simply because you’re standing or lying down, your thoughts become anxious and fragmented.

Now, I’m a Doubtful Darcy (or a David, a Dolores, or a Dan) because of this blog. I believe in it with all my heart, and I know I’m making progress with my recipe making, my fitness, and my photography, but I want to go the next level.

Since I haven’t been able to focus my attention more than a few minutes before getting lightheaded, I’ve just been looking over my old blog posts and old blog posts of foodies and health enthusiasts I respect. These people have beautiful photos from the very get-go of their blogging careers, have amazing recipes that are well thought out and restaurant-worthy, and beautiful site layouts. I have a yearning to have something just as perfect in my neck of the woods in cyber space.

In short, I want to be taken seriously.

Delirium and sickness has made me a deep thinker, I know. I’ve been looking into various organizations on idealist.org that are doing what I want to do for the world. And believe me, there are many. I feel stagnated, because I know what my potential is, and I’m not certain how to go about it. Do I want to apply for a Masters program for 2013? Am I willing to move away from Virginia in order to follow my dreams? Do I need to get some sort of Culinary Degree to open a community-oriented place to begin a movement of food security? How do I change the world for the better?

All of this Doubtful Darcy stuff came about from my old photos, when I was (and still am) getting used to using a DSLR. Part of me wants to delete the old photos, the ones that are grainy because of the ISO I used, or the ones that are out of focus, have a low shutter speed and a small aperture setting, or were taken in awful lighting. I’ve learned quite a bit since April 2011, and the other half wants me to hold on to the physical evidence that shows my progress. My other idea is to recreate my early works, edit the recipes, and take new photos this April but keep the old posts the way they were written. Somehow, I am uncertain how I would feel about it – maybe even feel a little hypocritical – though I’m sure none of my readers would mind very much.  

It occurs to me that the bloggers I respect so highly, the ones with phenomenal photos, stories, recipes, and sites, worked their butts off for it. They paid for quality and received the fruits of their labor with the same eminence. If I’m going to get to their level, I’m going to have to work hard, be patient, and follow my heart.

My heart has led me down many paths in the past. It is a lot more spontaneous and daring than it used to be. Besides rock climbing, I want to take a class that works on digital photography techniques, maybe buy one or two lenses to really enhance the images (especially for low/no light, moving subjects, outdoor, and non-food) I post. Perhaps I can go into a culinary program at a community college, look into molecular gastronomy or focus on a kind of cuisine (gluten free and holistic, naturally).

The details are unknown, but I do know what I want as far as the big picture is concerned: I know that I want to work with/for the community, the word ranging from a group of people to every single sentient being on this planet; I know that I want to work with food, empowering the relationship of what comes from the ground and what goes into our mouths; I know that I want to end food insecurity, world hunger, and I want to be part of a nonprofit or movement that is just as passionate about it as I am; and lastly, I want to make a place for people from all over the world to share their stories, eat great food, and take that happiness back home with them.

Over the next for days/weeks/months, certain changes will be happening, both to the blog as well as the blogger. In the meantime, to all you fellow bloggers and readers out there, I’d love to hear from you:

• What are your thoughts of me editing old posts, particularly recipes and photos?
• Where did following your dreams in the culinary arts (or whatever it is you are passionate about) take you?
• Would you continue to follow Meals with Morri if: it changed its blog host, its domain name, or if less than satisfactory food photos disappeared from old posts?
• How can Meals with Morri be taken more seriously?

Feel free to email me or to comment on this post directly.

As always, I want to thank you so much for being part of my life. 

To stop myself from getting too mopey, I thought I’d share with you a recipe. It’s one that a Morri, in sickness and in health, can make in less than forty-five minutes, is dense in nutrients as it is with flavor, and is easier to make than you know. Tom yum is a clear spicy soup that hails from Laos and Thailand. Along with the Peruvian pollo a la brasa restaurants that are popular in northern Virginia, Thai food is another cuisine that’s trendy in the area and also very near and dear to my heart. I can remember drinking Thai iced tea until my mouth was coated in the sweetened condensed milk and sugar and getting brain freezes while I waited for my order.

Mama Dazz, the Burt-man, and I usually shared an entrée such as the Pad Thai or the drunken noodles, and we each had an appetizer of soup of some kind. Depending if the Pad Thai was made with chicken, I ordered tom (soup) yum (spicy/sour salad) goong, or tom yum with shrimp. And if the entrée had shrimp, I had tom yum gai, or tom yum with chicken. Chili infused sesame seed oil droplets scattered along the surface, and the spices were perfectly balanced. The spicier it was, thought Mama Dazz and the younger me, the better. Then I had tom yam nam khon, similar to the previous soups only the broth is opaque from the coconut milk, and it became on of my favorite soups of all time.

This particular recipe is similar to my beloved tom yum nam khon, though it should not be confused with tom khai gai, or chicken galangal soup, simply because it has chicken as the main protein. Looking back, I’m surprised I didn’t use galangal for this recipe. We still have a vial of the powdered stuff we purchased from Penzeys Spices way back when and I think it would have brought a nice peppery fragrance to the broth.

What I love most about this soup is how simple and forgiving it is if you don’t have all of the ingredients. Since we frequent the international market every week, we typically have ingredients on hand for Asian, Hispanic, and Indian dishes that is typical in our household (concentrated fish extract or “fish sauce”, curry leaves, organ meats and pork belly, and more spices than you would believe). So if you don’t have particular ingredients on hand, that’s okay. The only thing you really need to consider is balancing hot with sour. If you don’t have kaffir lime leaves or tamarind paste, you can substitute it with lime juice, curry leaves, and apple cider vinegar, as I did. Any kind of dark and fleshy mushroom will work, but I’d recommend a species that has a meaty cap, minimal gills, and a slender stalk.

The only ingredient I was unsure about was how to prepare the lemongrass. I simply removed the outer layer of two stalks and thinly sliced the yellow bulbs, thinking it would soften. It added remarkable flavor… but I wouldn’t recommend trying to eat it unless you know how to cook it correctly. I didn't; and let me tell you, it’s extremely fibrous if you don’t.

All in all, it’s a taste-as-you-go kind of soup, and goes well with sticky rice, cellophane noodles, and a spicy marinated salad. Next time I'll make it just as any respectable lover of Thai food would, and I'll post the results.  

Tom Yum Nam Khan with Chicken

1 qt./946 ml Veggie stock or water
240 ml Coconut milk
5 ml Sand lance fish extract
15 ml Unrefined apple cider vinegar
Juice of 1/2 lime (save the remaining half for later)
2 Stalks Lemongrass, washed with outer layer and lower part of bulbs removed, then halved vertically
1 White onion, finely chopped
6 Curry leaves (or kaffir lime leaves)
82 g Maitake mushrooms, gently pulled apart and left whole
1 Jalapeño, seeded and finely chopped
1 lb Boneless and skinless chicken breast, cut into small slivers
16 Frozen shrimp, thawed
1 tsp. Red chili pepper flakes
1/4 tsp. Galangal, optional (but suggested)

Combine all of the ingredients into a large pot (except for the shrimp) and cook on medium heat until the chicken is fully cooked.
Remove the lemongrass stocks from the soup and discard.
Even pour out four servings into bowls and top with four shrimp, a quarter wedge from the remaining lime half, and carefully sprinkle the chili-infused sesame oil onto the surface. (The curry leaves are edible, but you can set them aside on the edges of the bowl if you wish.)

 Makes 4 servings.

The New Year so far

Nine days. That’s how long my hiatus has been from this blog. A little over a week, but it has felt like an eternity. After we came back from Timberline, I finally caught the bug everyone had in the last week of the old year, so I’ve spent the first two weeks of the new year with a terrible cough, a persistent off again and on again fever, a weird eating and sleeping pattern, and napping throughout the day in between enthusiastically reading Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes mysteries via my Kindle Touch.

Even with my borderline delirium – because lack of decent REM sleep and persistent fevers can do that to a person – I was often in the kitchen, cooking up new breakfast bakes and thinking of innovative recipes I would like to make when I’m feeling better. With my new oven-safe soup bowls and my consistent socca breakfast bake success while at Timberline, I’ve been trying out different flours and gluten free grains, fruits, and spreads. Most of them have been delicious, though I think I would have preferred using a tad more stevia for sweetness. I would like to experiment with savory ingredients, so for those who are big on savory breakfasts, feel free to give me some ideas.

One of my new oven-safe soup bowls: perfect for breakfast bakes!

As for my 6-Week fitness plan, it could’ve been better. It’s clear that I started at the wrong time to get any benefit out of it. Three of the six weeks I was either dealing with school or sick, though I did enjoy having a plan and trying something new. At Timberline I felt so calm and at peace with myself. Even after the injury (which is doing A-Okay at present, thank you for asking) and lazing around the cabin, I was sleeping until nine or ten in the morning, never before eight, feeling well rested and enjoying the quietness of the surrounding mountains. Even if I couldn’t ski for the remainder of my stay in Davis, West Virginia, I can’t remember a time I was so relaxed. Not only was I not hungry at odd hours, I was content after every meal, and I learned the deliciousness that is Russian cuisine. 

After a few days, I decided to throw caution to the wind and try out the dinner laid out for the others. I was told what was gluten free (as well as sugar and soy free) and what wasn’t (essentially, the bread, beer, and crackers), and I gobbled it down with gusto. Russian cuisine varies from family to family, but I knew I had a new favorite type of food. Each dinner was balanced in flavor and nourishment, and there was a satisfying tang of vinegar in many of the dishes that brought out a new depth entirely new to my taste buds.

Yours Truly with the boyfriend's brother, the adorable Mr. "Button".

Besides making amazing food, the Russian family I spent the last week of 2011 with opened my eyes to a culture that the boyfriend still holds onto in very particular ways. Like the Swedes I met the year before, they were reserved but open, shy until they get to know you, and can converse until the early morning. They are competitive, enjoy philosophical and logical forms of debate, and love the complexities, the beauty, and the sheer largeness of nature, various sciences, the universe, etc. They warmed up to my larger than life affectionate ways, my bear hugs, and my willingness to listen to their opinions, whether it was in English or not. Personally, I find Russian to be a soothing language, one I’d like to learn by next year’s ski trip. I learned quite a different way of celebrating this time of year, and we drove home on New Years in time for another traditional meal. By Tuesday the 3nd, I traded my limp for a cough, and have been trying to stay afloat ever since.

Kale, Hearty Beef Stew, & Green Beans with Black-Eyed Peas

It is clear that I have to reconsider New Year resolutions. In the past I’d write pages of resolutions, varying from the very detailed to the very vague. Truthfully I focused on my health in a very vain fashion, and I had rather unreasonable goals pertaining to my weight and the things I wanted to do in life. If I wasn’t a certain way, no matter how hard I tried, I would feel like a complete failure. In reality, I just wasn’t aiming for the right goals and, thankfully, I think 2012 is going to be an amazing year.

So what are my “resolutions”? Stress management, mostly, and going where life takes me. I’m a young, recently graduated BA student, with a fairly successful food blog and have plenty of things to keep me mentally and physically busy. It is very likely I’ll do another fitness plan after I recover, but I’d really like to do atypical things outside the gym. I want to hike, boulder, swim, kayak, ski, and learn some form of martial arts. I also want to write, continue cooking and working towards the evolution of this blog for the better, hang out with the people I’ve sorely neglected, volunteer, and simply enjoy every moment that I experience. And this isn’t just for 2012. These are resolutions for life.

My grain-free, one fruit a day, and stevia-only diet has come to an end, though it shines through for days at a time. As you may recall, it was to help the healing process of my tummy after simultaneously getting glutened and fluey. Now that my stomach has clearly healed itself, I’m integrating root veggies and gluten free grains back into meals (though buckwheat, groats and flour, has become a Morri favorite), and am not afraid to have an additional serving of fruit or one to two teaspoons of honey in my afternoon tea. Oh, and I've finally perfected a recipe that has been the bane of Morri's everywhere, and it's a perfect side dish to chili...

... can you guess what it is? :)

   

Even though it is clearly belated, I wish you a Happy New Year all the same, with plenty of recipes ahead.

The Mediterranean Table: Hummus

It’s my first official week as a free woman. Free from studying and papers and campus life. Free from exams and classrooms and PowerPoint slides. Summer vacation is here, and everyone I know and love has gone back to their lives outside of school, where family and internships and summer jobs await them.

Last week was a medley of deep thoughts and philosophies. I kept thinking how I seemed so detached and isolated from my life back in the states since Sweden. I was invited to parties and other fun activities, but for some reason I didn’t end up going. I spent my weekends at home with the family instead of on campus. As awesome as my roommates were, they had their own lives to attend to and were rarely at the townhouse. The off campus housing community wasn’t as close-knit or as lively as I remember it being my first and second semesters at Mason. I spent the majority of this semester either at home, in the classroom, or alone with my thoughts.

As mentioned before, I was accepted to be part of a wonderful program this summer. The meeting held on Monday was quite intimidating, but a learning experience. For one, I am the youngest member of the team, and the only undergraduate among them. The rest are either entering the S/CAR Masters program, are in the Masters program, or on the road to earning a PhD. These people knew what they wanted to do with their degree, knew exactly their point of focus. And here I was, one semester shy of graduating, and life has so many options to choose from I’m getting lightheaded just thinking about it. But from this meeting I learned something about myself, something I didn’t realize to be a true-blue term for what I’ve been going through.

The term, my friends, is reverse culture shock.

There are two elements to defining reverse culture shock: one, an idealized view of home and two, the expectation of total familiarity (that nothing at home has changed while you have been away). Typically students coming home from being abroad are able to pick up from where they left off. Only when their reality is not meeting their expectations is there a problem. The four stages of RCS are disengagement, initial euphoria, irritability and frustration, then readjustment and adaptation. In a matter of nine months I had to move in and out of places seven times, so I don’t think I’ve felt settled since last summer. Much is changing, and friends are off in their own realities that seem farther away then they were a year ago. My outlet for my isolation and estrangement has been making meals for others. In the kitchen, as I prepare a bowl of this or a plate of that, I know that I’m important, that I matter. Cooking has been my way of feeling stable in a world that kept going after I left and came back.

Being abroad really shifted my priorities. I love traveling, and I still do, but I’m done with packing and unpacking every few months into another place. I want stability, a place that I (and a select few of my extended family) can call our own for as long as we wish. I’m done with my life being in boxes, of feeling like a part of me has been put on hold in my attempt to get back into the groove this side of the states grooves to.

This weekend I overexerted myself to feeling like a valuable part of the household by cooking, after three exams and moving out of the townhouse in a matter of hours. We had a close family friend stay with us, and I was determined to do my part to make her feel welcome. Since she is from the Mediterranean, we typically go to a bakery that supplies Mediterranean favorites: pita bread, hummus, baklava, and various teas. But I wanted to make some of the things we bought from scratch, just to see how it would turn out.

And let me tell you, homemade is always better than store-bought, especially when you make it gluten free.

These next few posts will give you a taste of what was on the dinner table on Friday, what was made fresh on Saturday, and what was still enjoyed on Sunday. The beauty about Mediterranean cuisine is how easy, refreshing, and filling meals can be.

Hummus

2 15 oz cans Garbanzo beans, drained of excess water
2 Lemons, juiced
2 tbsp. Olive oil
5 tbsp. Tahini
3 tbsp. Filtered water
1/4 tsp. Cumin
2 dashes Sumac
2 dashes Garlic powder
1/4 tsp. Pepper
Paprika and sesame seeds, for garnish

In a food processor (or blender), combine all the ingredients until thoroughly combined.
If you want it smoother, add more water or tahini.

Makes a heaping bowl of the stuff.