It’s been a couple years now since I resolved to start keeping some of my journal on-line as a blog, and I really haven’t done too well with that, but like cooking, gardening, and keeping house, writing has wormed its way back into my daily routines this summer as I have unwound a little bit. \u00a0One of the things I have started to notice as I unwind is a desire for more complex flavors in my food. \u00a0When I’m really on a roll during the school year, I (mostly) cheerfully consider a Clif bar or a Snickers and a diet Coke to be a meal. \u00a0\u00a0Then in the summer I typically don’t much feel like heating up the kitchen up by really cooking. \u00a0Last night the hankering for complexity\u00a0won out.<\/p>\n
The result: a dahl with radish and a Bengali-inspired curry of eggplant and greens over short-grain brown rice followed by a modification of Cardinal Peaches. \u00a0It really hit the spot. \u00a0Easy and simple are good, but I was no longer in the mood for salads, grilled meat and vegetable, and other minimally-prepared stuff. \u00a0I was seeking food that takes more time, trouble, and ingredients. \u00a0Last night’s meal wasn’t a huge, trash-the-kitchen affair, but it took on-and-off effort much of the day, and was worth the effort.<\/p>\n
The day before I had made custard the “look, Ma, no hands” way (without cornstarch) from my grandmother’s 1920 Fannie Farmer cookbook. \u00a0I had let it go just a couple of seconds too long so\u00a0it was ever so slightly grainy and not quite firmly-enough set. \u00a0Nevertheless, I had persevered and made Peach Pudding\u00a0with it, substituting almond macaroons for cake and using\u00a0almond flavoring instead of\u00a0vanilla. \u00a0For last night’s dessert, I made Cardinal Peaches just as Delia Smith says\u00a0to, but then\u00a0pureed\u00a0a left-over serving of the peach pudding, complete with peaches, macaroons, and custard to use as pouring custard over the peaches. \u00a0That was really good.<\/p>\n
Because I’m not allowed spicy foods at the moment, I had to tinker a bit with the Baigan Sak recipe. \u00a0In the end all I did to reduce the heat was to use orange bell pepper in place of the chile peppers. \u00a0Instead of a package of frozen spinach, I tossed in a big box of baby cooking greens, which gave the whole thing more variety. \u00a0It was attractive, and still complex and tasty. \u00a0Even with a reduced heat-quotient, the dahl was a excellent complement.<\/p>\n
If only I could keep this momentum up during the school year…<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It’s been a couple years now since I resolved to start keeping some of my journal on-line as a blog, and I really haven’t done too well with that, but like cooking, gardening, and keeping house, writing has wormed its way back into my daily routines this summer as I have unwound a little bit. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food-and-cooking"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/toulmin.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/toulmin.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/toulmin.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toulmin.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toulmin.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3324"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/toulmin.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3324\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3326,"href":"https:\/\/toulmin.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3324\/revisions\/3326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/toulmin.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toulmin.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toulmin.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}