It's okay to eat your feelings as long as what you're frying is vegetables: Spiced Vegetable Fritters

If I needed a reminder of how much our lives have changed now that our kids are nearly adults, tonight’s swim meet was a great one. In the not-too-distant past, any swim meet – even the home ones – included camp chairs, a Sportbrella, a cooler of food, a blue Ikea bag packed with extra towels and hoodies, copious snacks, extra sunscreen, at least one book, and a partridge in a pear tree. Tonight we walked down the block to the pool without even bringing a house key.

All packed for a swim meet

I won’t deny that there are positive aspects to the end of my Sherpa days, but there’s a twinge of sadness too. I spend a lot of time looking back and thinking about how hard I tried to be the Best Parent Ever. Since I’m still myself, things definitely didn’t go according to plan fairly often, but I can see that I’ve raised excellent human beings and I’ve been able to let go of the need to seem perfect. I don’t know what Imaginary Mom is making of all of this, but Actual Mom is eating her feelings.

You know that means the deep fryer is coming out.

Imaginary Mom would probably be scrapbooking about this and taking a lot of pictures, but Actual Mom is shaking the fryer basket and burning her mouth doing quality control on the first batch of pakoras. My children assure me that they love it when I eat my feelings, because we get delightful things like apple fritters and fried chicken and these crispy lovelies, which are full of nice virtuous vegetables so you can pretend you’re serving A Healthy Thing.

If you’re living a gluten-free life you’re already aware that you need to have at least 37,000 different kinds of flour on hand, so one more shouldn’t be a problem. The side notes for this recipe assure the reader that regular easy-to-find chickpea flour from Kroger is definitely not the same thing as Indian besan flour from Subzi Mandi and you can’t just go substituting willy-nilly. Since I firmly believe that Cook’s Illustrated is edited by a whole team of Imaginary Moms (bless their hearts), I used the chickpea flour that I had on hand. (I mean, they’re right. Besan flour is ground brown chickpeas and chickpea flour is ground white chickpeas and I know they’re not the same thing but it’s been a busy week and I haven’t made it to any specialty grocery stores in a bit and I really, really, really needed something fried for dinner. Do with that knowledge what you will, but be sure to pick up some chutney at Subzi Mandi in case you were making a batch and burned it because you fell asleep on the couch because it really has been a very busy week.)

If you have random amounts of vegetables in your house this is a great way to use them up, since it’s more of an idea than a recipe. If you can shred it or mince it, it can go in the batter; between this and okonomiyaki and my weird obsession with salads, I’m not going to throw out a single vegetable between now and Labor Day. 

My only concession to the notes in the original recipe is to point out that white chickpea flour needs more water to rehydrate than besan flour, so add at least 2 extra tablespoons of water. I followed the instructions and think it wasn’t quite enough; the pakoras were excellent when they came out of the oil but after they sat for a few minutes, the texture in the middle said they wanted a little more water. This means your batter will probably be a little soupier than you would expect. The original recipe instructs you to stir the batter after removing each portion; I skipped that because it seemed excessive but it turns out that’s exactly what you need to do if your batter is liquidy enough, because otherwise you’ll end up with a vegetable-less sludge at the bottom of the bowl when you’re done. All the sludge should end up deep-fried instead, slathered with chutney and tasting like the last high school summer.

Adapted for what I had on hand from Cook’s Illustrated #177, July & August 2022.

Pakoras (South Asian Spiced Vegetable Fritters)

1 ½ cups thinly sliced onion (any kind – the recipe uses red, I used white)
1 ½ cups shredded potato
1 cup shredded cabbage
1 jalapeno, minced
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp thyme (or ajwain, if you’re already going to the Indian grocery)
½ tsp table salt
½ tsp Aleppo pepper (or Kashmiri chile powder, see above, yada yada)
¼ tsp ground fenugreek (yes, I had it on hand. Skip it if you don’t)
¾ cup besan or chickpea flour
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp ground turmeric
¼ cup water

Mix all the vegetables and spices (except the turmeric) in a large bowl; you should have about 4 cups of vegetables in all. In a separate bowl, combine the besan, baking powder, and turmeric.

Sprinkle the flour mixture over the vegetables and stir until the flour is completely absorbed (save yourself some hassle and do this with your hands). Add the water and stir well (also with your hands).

Heat your oil to 375 (if you don’t have a deep fryer, use 1 ½ inches of oil in a Dutch oven). Drop the batter by tablespoons and cook for 2 minutes, until the pakora are a deep golden brown and you have little crispy craggy bits all over. Only fry a few at a time so the temperature of the oil stays constant. If you’re not eating them as they come out of the fryer, hold them in a 200-degree oven while you finish the frying.

 

Slaw for Slaw Haters, or, Learning to Love Things Without Mayonnaise So We Don’t All Die

Let me start by saying that we probably wouldn’t actually die of food poisoning even if I loaded everything we ate all summer with homemade mayonnaise. We have multiple people under this roof who are ServSafe certified and I’m confident that the accumulated amount of knowledge would keep us all safe from preventable food-borne illnesses. And even though I’ve discovered the myriad delights of garlic aioli, I can and will control myself and make nice virtuous salads with vinegary dressings, especially since I treated myself to this gorgeous julienne slicer. I basically want to shred carrots into everything these days.

How lucky for me that the Lee Brothers have a recipe for a carrot slaw that will satisfy even the most ardent cabbage hater (looking at you, Pam!). This is because it doesn’t actually contain cabbage but rather, crunchy water – er, iceberg lettuce, which serves a cabbage-y function without the distinctive (or any) flavor that CERTAIN PEOPLE find off-putting even though I’ve explained a hundred times that my coleslaw is Actually Famous in some circles and they may find it delicious. This was super tasty on its own; I’d put it on the side of any Asian meal, particularly something fried or having a rich sauce, so the crunchy veg and acidity of the dressing offset the heaviness. It was also delicious tucked into bundles of lettuce with our rip-off version of PF Chang’s Chicken Lettuce Wraps. I’d put it on any kind of wrap sandwich, a burger, next to ribs – anywhere you want a light side that allows you to justify whatever excesses are contained in the rest of the meal.

My only complaint about this salad is that as written, the dressing is a colossal pain in the ass to make. Even I don’t want to peel and grate fresh ginger and squeeze the pulp in a cheesecloth to extract a ludicrously tiny amount of ginger juice. I mean, I did, but I’m not going to do it that way again and I recommend you don’t either. Option 1: buy one of those little thimbles of ginger juice at your local bougie grocery store. Option 2: use pre-grated ginger paste, which won’t mess with the texture but still adds the required pow. Pro Tip #2: Don’t use your small food processor, because this is just a little bit too much and it could (potentially) make a large and annoying mess when it oozes out from under the lid while your back is theoretically turned for literally 15 seconds.

Adapted slightly from Simple Fresh Southern: Knock-OutDishes with Down-Home Flavor by Matt Lee and Ted Lee, my go-to inspiration for bougie hot-weather cooking.

Snow Pea and Carrot Salad with Ginger Dressing

2 large handfuls of snow peas, blanched and roughly chopped
4-5 medium carrots (about 8 oz.), julienned with your excellent new julienne peeler or shredded on a box grater
1 head iceberg lettuce, sliced into very thin ribbons (Napa cabbage would be good here too, Pam)
1 tsp kosher salt
2-3 Tbsp ginger paste, or 2 Tbsp ginger juice (if you’re feeling hardcore, see Pro Tip #2 for the hard way to do this. It takes roughly 4-6 inches of ginger root to get this much liquid)
1 large cucumber, peeled, seeded, and chopped into chunks
3 Tbsp vegetable oil
2 Tbsp white wine vinegar

Combine all the vegetables in a large bowl and toss with ½ teaspoon of the salt.

To make the dressing, put all the other ingredients into the bowl of a food processor (you could use a blender) and process until the dressing is smooth. Pour the dressing over the vegetables, toss thoroughly, and salt to taste.

Enchiladas a Deux for Easy White Girls, None of Whom Are In This Picture

The Rogues Gallery from the enchilada era

Back in the day, I made a mean enchilada. I’m not sure what I was cooking for dinner those days – it was the Gourmet magazine phase so it was probably fucking complicated – but the enchiladas would always make an appearance at our summer lake weekend. I liked them because they were easy to assemble in somebody else's kitchen and required minimal effort, even with a “homemade” sauce. Homemade sauce, you say? Well, yes, in a manner of speaking. It’s what happens when nobody can drive to the store and you’re working with what you have on hard. My go-to recipe is from the whitest Mexican cookbook of all time, the hallowed home of Corn Thing.

If you know me at all, you know that I'm likely to up my game, given sufficient time and enough new cookbooks. Hence the latest iteration of enchilada sauce, salsa roja, which really doesn't take all that much longer and is so infinitely superior in flavor as to more than compensate for the extra steps (and dishes).

As for fillings, take your pick: shredded chicken or ground beef with a little melty cheese mixed in is fantastic, and refried beans are also a favorite (I've been known to make those from scratch as well)(at least I'm consistent). If you can't summon refried beans from the depths of Guadalajara, store-bought is fine. I’d venture to suggest there are many delicious vegetarian options as well, which goes to show that I'm expanding my horizons. Sweet potatoes? Black beans? Zucchini? Corn? Any and all combinations of these things, loaded up with your favorite spices, is also fantastic, especially if you bind it all together with – you guessed it – melty cheese. (No, I haven't gotten to the point of making my own cheese yet, ha ha ha, COVID cheese making hobby notwithstanding).

OK, so now that I reflect upon it, I could make the sauce and the tortillas and the cheese for the filling and be extra, extra deluxe. but that would really be contrary to the spirit of this dish, which can be assembled and someone else’s wackadoo cottage kitchen when one is at least two sheets to the wind. I'll give you both versions of the sauce. I will not, however, give you the recipe for the actual enchiladas – if I can figure it out drunk, you most assuredly can too.

The first recipe is from Quick Mexican Cooking by Cyndi Douglas and Georgia Patrick. The second is Salsa rojo from SparkRecipes,.com. 

Easy white girl enchilada sauce

(the sauce is easy, not the girl)

2 heaping tablespoon shortening ( yes, you can use lard) or 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 heaping tablespoons all purpose flour or gluten free blend
2 heaping tablespoons chili powder
½ tsp garlic salt
2 cups of water

Melt the shortening over low heat. add flour, chili powder garlic salt, stirring constantly until it's just a little bit browned. continue to stir while adding the water. it will thicken quickly so add more water if you need to fit it.

This recipe makes 2 cups of sauce. As you can see, the whole thing is based on proportions so you could easily scale it up for however many people made it to the cottage that weekend. 

 

Easy but slightly more complicated enchilada sauce that you could clearly use for other dishes as well

6 guajillo chiles
4 large ancho chiles
2 teaspoons vegetable oil
½ medium onion, chopped
2 medium garlic cloves, chopped
1 teaspoon dried oregano, crumbled
½ teaspoon ground cumin
2 medium tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and chopped. I’ve used canned it’s been just fine.
¾ teaspoon salt, or to taste

(If you’re thinking to yourself, “What the hell with these chiles? I’m a Kroger person,” there’s an excellent teeny little Mexican grocery right next to Taco Tienda on John R, across the street from Red Robin and Target. You could go to Whole Foods or some fancy-ass grocery store and pay a fortune, or you can get these for roughly $2/bag. Which sounds better?)

With scissors, cut off the tops and cut each chile lengthwise in half. Remove the seeds and veins. On a dry skillet (or the griddle on your new gas stove, because dishes), toast the chiles about 3 seconds on each side, holding them down with a wide spatula until barely blistered and aromatic. Do not burn or they will become bitter. Submerge the chiles in a bowl of hot water and soak about 20 minutes.

Heat the oil in a medium skillet and cook the onion and garlic slowly until they start to brown, 5 to 6 minutes. Stir in the oregano and cumin and immediately transfer to a blender. Add the tomatoes to the blender. With tongs, lift the chiles from the soaking water and put them in the blender. Taste the chile water (yeah, for real). If it has a pleasant taste and is not bitter, add ½ cup chile water to the blender, along with ¼ cup of water. Otherwise, just go with 3/4 cup of water. Blend the mixture until the sauce is as smooth as possible, at least 1 minute, scraping down the sides of the blender jar as needed. Pour the sauce through a strainer into a bowl.

I swear to you this is worth it.

Simmer the sauce 15 minutes over low heat, stirring occasionally. This recipe makes about 2 cups of sauce and is so superior to the other one, you could make a big batch and freeze it for up to 3 months for those days when you don’t really feel like cooking. Bonus: it will use up the rest of those bags of chiles. 

Accidentally Healthy: Another main dish salad (because I still have A Quinoa Problem)

I’ve been struggling with my weight for most of the last 20 years, for better or worse; ironically, I was at my healthiest weight during the 5-year stretch in which I was growing babies. For many years there was no pop, no snack foods, no fried foods, and plenty of vegetables in the house, since I was trying very hard to raise my kids to make healthy choices. Thanks to the gluten issues we’ve never really been about packaged foods or restaurants/fast food. I’ve joined various gyms and tried various “eating plans” (we don’t say “diet” anymore, LOL). Nonetheless, age and Cabernet have inevitably crept up on me.

The biggest legacy from my efforts at healthification is that I really love main dish salads. I’ve totally caved on pop and snacks and fried stuff (the almond boneless chicken last night was excellent); mostly now I concentrate on drinking lots of water and eating enough vegetables. Imagine my delight in finding a WHOLE ENTIRE COOKBOOK about this! Possibly it’ll be the first cookbook from which I cook every single recipe.

What’s not to love in a main dish salad? It’s a great way to pack in lots of veg and feel virtuous enough to justify ice cream later on. It’s almost impossible to over-eat and feel stuffed afterwards. They’re infinitely customizable for the picky eaters in the family. They even look pretty. BONUS: If you are in charge of providing dinner to a group that includes vegetarians and the gluten-free, you’ll have plenty of options that taste good and look pretty (in the event that you want to be a teeny bit impressive)(these are very impressive vegetarians/gluten-free people)(and yes, I’m a bit of a show-off when it comes to food).

Adapted for the actual contents of my fridge from SeriouslyGood Salads by Nicky Corbishley.

Squash, Kale, and Quinoa Salad 

1 butternut squash, or the equivalent amount of sweet potatoes
1 large onion, sliced vertically
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 cup quinoa
2 ¼ cups vegetable stock
3 apricots, pitted and cut into bite-size pieces. The original recipe calls for small plums.
2 cups kale
3-4 cups chopped mixed lettuce (this is a great place for pre-made salad bags if that’s more convenient)
1 log goat cheese – 6 oz., I think? – cut into small cubes. I used garlic and herb goat cheese but plain would obviously be just as good because goat cheese. Keep it in the fridge until the last minute or the chopping process will result in gloppy irregular hunks (also delicious, because goat cheese).
1 cup mixed herbs; I used parsley, cilantro, mint, and dill

For the dressing:
2 Tbsp fresh lime juice (fresh makes a difference here)
1 tsp white wine vinegar
1 clove garlic, minced
1 Tbsp honey
3 Tbsp olive oil
1/3 cup chopped cilantro

Preheat the oven to 375 (sorry about the oven part if you’re making this in the summer). Toss the squash or sweet potatoes and onions with the olive oil and salt and pepper to taste. Roast for 25-30 minutes or until tender.

Meanwhile, combine the quinoa, stock, and a pinch of salt in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil, then turn the heat to low and simmer, covered, for about 20 minutes. Fluff the quinoa with a fork while it’s hot so it doesn’t turn into an unpleasant block.

Whisk all the dressing ingredients together.

Combine all the ingredients in a large bowl. I did all the leafy stuff and tossed it, then the quinoa and tossed it, then the heavier things. This kept everything more evenly distributed. Just before serving, drizzle with the dressing and toss once more.

Ideally you’ll add the dressing while the quinoa is still hot so that it absorbs the dressing more readily, but it did just fine sitting for an hour in the car and getting the dressing while it was closer to room temperature. The heat from the vegetables and quinoa will wilt the kale enough to make the texture closer to that of the lettuce, which also gets a little wilty but in a good way; super-crunchy greens would be a little jarring with the other textures in this salad.

The Chicken or the Egg? The Brunch Princess Says “Both”

Possibly Brunch Princess
has had too much coffee

Once upon a time, I was playing an RPG with my family in which we got to choose what kind of princess we wanted to be. I chose the Brunch Princess, because brunch is tied with linner as the best meal of the day. What’s not to love? You’ve already had some coffee and time to relax, plus it sets the tone for a lounge-y, vaguely self-indulgent day. The fact that empty nesting is in the foreseeable future means that we might actually do some morning-ish entertaining (though if I’m honest, I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you). Brunch is also a good time for me to pretend I’m living out my dream of running a bed-and-breakfast, albeit with considerably less housecleaning and laundry.

While David is a committed hash brown/sausage patty/over easy eggs kind of guy, I like to venture further afield. I may or may not be embarrassed to admit how many cookbooks I have that are entirely dedicated to breakfast (thanks to a recent post-garage sale find, we have….considerably more cookbooks overall). And because I have all these single-subject cookbooks plus a ridiculous number of general cookbooks with breakfast sections, I found my new favorite recipe online.

Despite my raging, out-of-control sweet tooth, I’m really all about savory breakfasts. My actual favorite breakfast in the world is cold leftover Chinese egg rolls eaten straight from the refrigerator, but those aren’t brunch. (If you would say that they’re not breakfast either I’ll fight you.) This latest discovery, however, most definitely is brunch, or weekday breakfast or lunch or even, arguably, dinner if you paired it with a couple of sides. It’s good hot, cold, or room temperature; it scales up easily for future weekday grab-and-go breakfasts; and it’s got me experimenting with new spice mixes that I’ll probably be sharing sometime soon.

Properly it’s called Tajin Sibnekh, but I don’t speak Derja so at our house it’s That Chicken and Egg Thing, You Know, That Tunisian One. That’s a bit of a mouthful so possibly I should revisit the Derja thing. It’s inspired me to make harissa and ras el hanout, both of which are turning out to be very useful spices to have in my kitchen; while harissa in a tube is certainly easier to use, I like the flavor of the homemade version much better.

There are many versions of this dish including ones with liver (eeew) but the main ingredients seem to stay more of less the same. The hardest part is dicing the potatoes and the only trick is to spoon the chicken into the eggs a little at a time so your eggs don’t start cooking in the bowl. If I ever master a flatbread recipe it’s definitely going to be paired with this; but it really doesn’t need anything playing second fiddle. Happy brunching!

This particular version was found at allrecipes.com.

Tajin Sibnekh, or Tunisian Chicken and Eggs

1/3 cup vegetable oil
2 potatoes, peeled and cubed
8 oz diced chicken breast
1 large onion, diced
1 Tbsp harissa
1 ½ tsp ras el hanout
½ cup water
1 ½ tablespoons tomato sauce (this is super annoying, so I use half that amount of tomato paste and thin it with water)
1 Tbsp butter
1 bunch fresh spinach, chopped
8 eggs (I often end up using 1 or 2 more – you should be able to see and taste egg in the final product)
1 cup frozen peas
1/3 cup Parmesan cheese (if someone is being fussy about not liking cheese you can either omit this or sneak it in when they’re not looking)
Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 400 and grease a 9x13 baking dish. I personally like thicker slices of this so I use an 8 ½ x 11 Pyrex dish that I found at a garage sale years ago. It’s a weird size and I’ve never seen another one (granted, I haven’t really looked) but it’s great for recipes in which the standard size is just a little bit too big.

Heat the vegetable oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Fry the potatoes in the hot oil until golden brown and tender, about 7 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon and drain on a paper towel-lined plate. Stir the chicken into the remaining oil, and cook until white on the outside, but still pink on the inside, about 2 minutes. Add the onion and continue cooking until the onion has softened and turned translucent, about 5 minutes. Stir in the harissa, ras el hanout, water, tomato sauce, and butter. Bring to a simmer, then stir in the spinach until wilted. Remove from the heat and set aside.

Beat the eggs in a large mixing bowl until smooth. Stir in the peas, Parmesan cheese, and fried potatoes. Stir in the chicken mixture a spoonful at a time, season to taste with salt and pepper, and pour into the prepared baking dish.

Bake in preheated oven until the mixture is firm and golden brown. Check it after 15-20 minutes; it will definitely need a little more time if you’ve used a smaller pan.