Elotes Corn Salad – lazy way

I know, I never post anything anymore. See what having a kid will do to you? But I wanted to get this written down because I keep making it!

Based heavily on Elotes Corn Salad by fiveandspice.com, but with some lazy person’s changes. Mainly, buying “fire roasted” corn, which is apparently a thing, and is SO good. (I have seen it at Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s.) It is like you grilled corn on the cob, cut it off, and then froze it. Which maybe someone did, but that someone wasn’t me.

Elotes Salad (serves 4)

• One bag of “fire roasted” frozen corn
• 1 lime (juiced)
• 2 tbsp mayonnaise
• 3/4 tsp chili powder
• a pinch of cayenne pepper
• 1/2 cup of crumbled Cotija cheese
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro (make sure it’s not parsley… not that this has ever happened to me…)
• salt and pepper
• 1 ripe avocado, pitted, peeled and cut into chunks

1. Microwave the corn per bag instructions.
2. Add salt, pepper, mayo, lime juice, chili, and cayenne.
3. Fold in cheese and cilantro.
4. Salt and pepper to taste.
   (If you’re preparing ahead of time, like, say, for your coworker’s babyshower the next day, pause here. If not, march onward.)
5. Stir in the avocado chunks.

Serve warm, cold, over tortillas, over the bowl with a spoon after your kid is asleep… I love this stuff.

Sesame Noodles… guidelines

To say this is a recipe is pushing it. It’s mostly just a bunch of guidelines…

Sauté a bunch of finely sliced onions in sesame oil. Add a few cloves of crushed garlic and a hunk of grated ginger. Season with salt and pepper. Toast some sesame seeds and throw those in. Add a bunch of soy sauce and see how that tastes. If it doesn’t taste exciting yet or isn’t enough sauce, add some or all of the following: Rice wine vinegar, more garlic/ginger, red pepper flakes, fish sauce, sautéed scallions, etc. This last time, I even heated some brown sugar up with the rice wine vinegar and added that, too. The flavors you’re going for are a little sweet (onions and sugar and fish sauce), a little sour (garlic and ginger and fish sauce and rice wine vinegar), and a little salty (soy sauce and fish sauce). I also like a little kick (red pepper flakes). Once you get a good sauce, toss it with cooked noodles of your choice (rice works fine, I’ve also used regular spaghetti noodles and that’s been good too). If you’re being fancy, garnish with toasted sesame seeds and chopped scallions. You could probably also add in some green veggies to this and it would taste good, but I’ve never gone that far!

Easy Cucumber Salad

Ingredients:

• 4 cucumbers
• 1/2 or 1 whole white or sweet onion
• 1.5 cups white vinegar
• 1 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup water
• 1 tablespoon dried dill (or more, to taste)
• kosher salt

1. Prep the cucumbers and onion: Wash and peel the cucumbers (I like to be lazy and leave strips of cucumber skin, also because I think it’s prettier at the end). Slice thinly, using a mandolin if you want to be a perfectionist about it (just watch your fingers!). Ditto the onion. Set the cucumbers and onion in a colander, sprinkle liberally with salt, toss, add more salt, toss, etc. Put the colander in a bowl and set that in the fridge for about an hour to take some of the water out of the cucumbers and reduce the bite of the onion.

Wait one hour.

2. Prep the pickling. In a pot on the stove, combine the white vinegar, water, and sugar. Bring to a bowl and stir to ensure all the sugar has dissolved. Dump the cucumber and onions into a pyrex bowl (or similar — I like to discard the cucumber water run off and just use that same bowl for this next step) and pour the boiling pickling mixture on top of it. Add dill and stir to combine.

3. Let sit at least 3 (and up to 24 hours). Serve.

In summary: Easy, plus very refreshing and light — a nice thing to bring to a potluck or party where there will be a lot of heavy food. Theoretically you could even quarter the cucumber slices to make it even easier to eat, but that doesn’t bother me!

Stop donating food. (Donate time or money instead.)

‘Tis the season of seasonal giving. When many folks are busy buying gifts, the social narrative of capitalism says that we must think of those “less fortunate than ourselves” and work to “make a difference” in their lives. Often this manifests itself into food drives.

Note: I have strong thoughts about food drives. They are informed mostly by my work at a wonderful, fantastically-run food pantry in Western Mass and an internship at the also excellent Greater Boston Food Bank. While much of what I learned in those places informs this post, of course my opinions aren’t those of either organization.

Here’s the gist of it all: Stop donating food. If you really want to help your local food pantry, donate money or time.

 Here’s why:

1. If you’re giving random stuff out of your pantry… chances are it is old, unhealthy, or unwanted. That diet cereal you bought last January? Yeah, it’s way past its best-by-date. And while food pantries and banks are good at knowing what foods can usually be safely eaten past their marked dates, chances are what’s in the back of your cupboard has seen the end of its shelf life.

Also: Fun news flash: Most of the people who shop at food pantries are not there to get whatever calories are available simply so that they don’t starve. Most of them have preferences and tastes just like you and me. So… that gross cereal that tastes like cardboard? It’s not going to get eaten.

2. They do more good for the givers than the receivers. Everyone loves a good cause, and food drives are no exception. You feel so useful! You can see the effects of your labors! You can quantify it in pounds! So much goodwill! Look, I understand this. I have felt the incredibly surge of community goodwill that comes from unloading thousands of pounds of food generated by the USPS’ Annual Food Drive. It’s intoxicating. But when you do a food drive, you get a mishmash of product; very rarely do you get the things that most food pantries really need — basic canned goods with a good shelf life (proteins like tuna and beans, soups, tomato products, fruit, boxed pasta, etc).

And see #1 — you often get stuff that is old, unhealthy, or unwanted. So what makes you feel good isn’t really the best for the people that you’re trying to help. Don’t fool yourself; the food drive you’re giving to is really about alleviating your own guilt that you’re “not doing enough.” If you really want to help people eat, there are better actions to take. Which leads me to…

3. The food pantry can do SO much more with $5 than the $5 worth of food that you bought at the grocery store. To combat #1 above, lots of people go above and beyond. They ask their food pantries what they need. They do *specific* food drives, asking for newly purchased cans of tuna, for example.

And you know what? These are the very best kinds of food drives. They do real good — the food is new, healthy, and wanted. If you’re going to do a food drive, a specific one like this is the best. Especially if we’re talking about a school-based food drive, where part of the point is to teach kids about issues like hunger and sharing, this is a great way to go.

Another exception to this is fresh produce: If you run a farm and have a glutton of zucchini, there’s probably no better home for it than your local food pantry. (Again, remember that most people at food pantries are like you and me — think about what it would be like to get all of your food from a can or box. Try shopping like that for a week. It sucks. Produce starts looking like manna.) One of the happiest days of my time at the Northampton Survival Center was when a farmer drove in with 600 pounds of root vegetables. Our clients were thrilled to have access to fresh, local produce!

But most of the time, the very best way to help your local food pantry is to give money. And here’s why: Most of the food that food pantries and soup kitchens have on their shelves is not from a food drive. It’s from a food bank. That food bank is getting food from the food industry at much cheaper prices.

For example, let’s say that you’re looking to help a food pantry fill up its supply of canned tuna:

What you can do: You go to your local store and buy tuna on sale for $.50 cents a can. A normal can is about 12 ounces, so with $5, you get 10 cans, worth 120 oz, or 7.5 pounds. Cost is $.66/lb. Seems like a pretty good deal.

What a food bank can do: A regional food bank gets a donation of, say, StarKist tuna. Maybe it’s just one pallet of food. Or maybe it’s a whole bunch because they’re changing their branding and they don’t want the old stuff on the shelves. So the food bank gets all that tuna for free. (Companies like doing this because they can take the donation as a tax write-off. Very good for them!) Then the food bank sells that tuna to a food pantry, charging a moderate fee that covers operational cost, usually around $.19/lb. So for $5, the food pantry can buy over 26 pounds of tuna! More importantly, they can buy it when it’s truly needed! (For instance, in the summer when the tide of food and monetary donations is lower.)

And if you can’t give money, give time. Donating your time to a local food pantry or soup kitchen is an all-around fantastic thing to do. Here’s why:

1. It helps the organization. Your labor literally ensures that people can eat. Whether it’s helping people shop during pantry hours, stocking shelves, or picking up produce/bread donations, the role that volunteers play for food panties cannot be overstated. For even a small organization, volunteers provide the equivalent of millions of dollars of free labor annually.

2. It helps you. Remember that warm and fuzzy feeling that you get by helping out with a food drive? It’s so much better when you’re at the organization, working to help ensure people get what they need.

But most importantly…

3. It helps the people who need the food. And I don’t mean because they walk away with food and you helped with that. I mean that if you really, truly want to understand what people who live in food insecurity need, then you need to meet them. You need to have conversations with them and listen to their stories (when they want to share them). You need to understand that the people who come to get food at your local food pantry are your neighbors and community members — there is not some separate species called “the hungry.” You need to see that food insecurity is like cancer — it can have obvious causes (some of which have simple solutions), or it can seem to strike out of nowhere, infesting all corners of your life and becoming intractable. That’s when you’ll truly be able to make a difference.

Donate or Volunteer — year-round!

find a food bank  — find a food pantry — donate your produce

My lunch was delicious and so can you.

Last night I decided that I wanted something delicious for dinner and then lunch today. And my friends, I succeeded.

Mediterranean Veggie Bowl with Quinoa (a soul-satisfying lunch!)

(If you want chicken, either start cooking the chicken first or buy some pre-cooked chicken.)

1. SET UP QUINOA: Measure out one cup of quinoa. Rinse under water in a strainer, then add to a pot with a glug of olive oil. Cook for a couple minutes until the water evaporates and the quinoa starts toasting. Then add two cups of veggie broth, or water if you are lame. Bring to a boil, reduce to low, and cover. Set your kitchen timer for 15 minutes.

2. MAKE HOUSE SMELL TASTY: Chop an onion. Add to a pan with a glug of olive oil. Add salt & pepper. Add some dried oregano that you once bought to put on pizza but otherwise forget to use. Add some red chili pepper flakes because, like cheese (more on that in a minute), they make everything better.

3. ACTUALLY MAKE THE FOOD: Saute your onions periodically while you chop up one zucchini. (Even though zucchini is boring and gets excessive in the summertime, I had a weird craving for it last night.) Once the onions are glassy, add the zucchini. Saute periodically while you also chop up a small container of pitted kalamata olives (a small container by which I mean when you go to the deli they have two sizes, small and large — you want the small). Add the kalamata olives to the pan. Keep sauteeing while you also chop up a bunch of feta cheese. (If you are more lazy, the pre-crumbled stuff works well.) I got about a fist-sized block and used about half. Each to their own.

4. PUT THE FOOD IN TOGETHERNESS: Once the zucchinis are soft, the dish should be done. Make sure your quinoa has no more water, and then mix it all together in tastiness. Show it off to your wife when she gets home. Eat it for lunch the next day and revel in your culinary success.

Thanksgiving Leftovers Salad

I couldn’t eat another plate of leftovers, but when I transformed the leftovers into a salad, I suddenly had my appetite back. Mixed one of my standard salad dressing bases of lemon juice, olive oil, and salt & pepper with a hefty dose of cranberry sauce. (If I hadn’t been lazy/anti-making more dishes, I would’ve added garlic, too.)

Then added several generous handfuls of arugula, topped with shredded turkey meat and some delicious stuffing (heated up first). Made for a fantastic salad! I served it to myself with a glass of apple cider mixed with seltzer.

Yum!

Banana Avocado Dip

We were hosting a banana-themed dinner party recently, and I was in search of an appetizer. (What, doesn’t everyone host banana-themed parties? No? Well, that does explain some of the looks I got at the grocery store checkout line!)

For the meal itself, we were contributing an Indian plantain curry and banana-stuffed french toast. However, I’d recently acquired some banana chips, and I was sure that with the right banana-based dip, they would be a big hit.

Martha, of course, had the answer. A banana-avocado dip. (Of course, she assumes that one would make one’s own plantain chips. Naturally. Because who doesn’t have a deep-fry thermometer? And obviously everyone loves that great, post-fry feeling of oil all over everything.)

Right, so I had the chips already. What complex, insane thing could Martha make me do for the dip?

Ripe avocado + ripe banana + fresh juice of a lemon + dash of salt. Mash everything together and serve.

It sounds weird, but I kid you not, this dip (which I literally made as guests were arriving) was a huge hit. Kids would love it. Tastes kind of like something that’s bad for you. Sweet, light, and perfect with the chips.

ps. Oh and hey look, it’s vegan, too. How about that!

What to do with your leftover keg of beer

Look, obviously if you have a keg at a party and the party ends and there’s still beer left — OBVIOUSLY you are going to try and drink it. This is reasonable. But there is a limit to one’s individual beer consumption, even if you invite all your neighbors and friends over. So the natural question is: Now that the keg’s no longer ice cold, what do you do with the beer?

Enter: Beer chicken!

Beer Chicken: Take however many filets of chicken you want. (I took three out of the freezer, but fresh would work as well. You could also use drumsticks, wings, whatever.) Marinate the chicken in beer. The meat should be fully covered. I just threw the frozen fillets into the beer and stuck it all in the fridge. Let sit at least overnight. Then, preheat the oven to 375. Coat all sides of the chicken with spices (I used a Cajun seasoning mix.) Pour some of the beer marinade into the roasting dish to keep it all moist. Cover with aluminum foil. Bake for 25-30 minutes until cooked through.

Then eat, and delight in not having let that delicious beer go to waste.

Farm share time!

Our delicious haul last week, which included lettuce and garlic scapes!

Early summer means one thing—farm share time! There seem to be lots of people in my life every year who have never heard of it, despite my continued evangelizing.

Here’s how it works:

In early spring, you pick a farm and pay them some money that entitles you to a share of their crops that season. In our case, we picked World PEAS, which is a farming cooperative of many immigrant farmers, and we paid them about $450 for a small share (2-3 people’s worth).

• The best place to find a farm near you is Local Harvest’s website.
• When picking a farm, think about exactly what you want — just veggies? Fruits and veggies? Coffee? Eggs? Dairy? Meat?
• But for the truly lazy at heart, the most important factor is pick up location (and time). Read on…

Once the season starts (usually about mid-June), you will get a weekly delivery* of fresh produce. Delivery with an asterisk. Farmers don’t live in cities. Something about needing dirt and land and whatnot. So they trek the shares into the city. Yay farmers! However, to make things more efficient, they pick a centralized drop point (sometimes a couple) for people to come get their shares. Our CSA has pickup points all over Boston on different weeknights. We picked one that was close to our home and also went fairly late into the evening—because there is nothing worse than running home from work in a panicked frenzy to make sure you get to the pickup site before it closes. Trust me. It is not fun.

The good and the bad. CSAs bring lots of good: Farmers get needed influxes of cash before the season starts, you get lots of delish fresh things. It’s pretty much the freshest and local-est stuff possible.We get kale, chard, strawberries, spinach, arugula, snap peas, carrots, parsnips, radishes, potatoes, watermelon, corn, tomatoes, etc. SO MUCH TASTINESS!

But… you also assume some of the farmer’s risk. If Hurricane Voldemort comes and ravages your farm’s crops, then… you don’t get crops. It it doesn’t rain enough and all the tomatoes get sad and die, then… no tomatoes for you.

Reasons to love it. I love the farm share. I love that it challenges me to cook food in season. (Currently we are drowning in a sea of greens—the share this week had kale AND chard AND spinach AND arugula AND lettuce. Salad, anyone?) I love that I am more connected to where my food comes from and how it’s grown. I love that our weekly grocery shopping dwindles down to the basics (cereal, soy milk, bananas, and various proteins). I love snacking on whatever’s fresh as I walk home with that week’s share (even if that sometimes means I’m a terrible partner because OMG STRAWBERRIES I EAT YOU ALL! Uh-oh… ).

 

Energy Balls (Vegan Hiking Snack)

I have been reading the blog Oh She Glows by Angela Liddon for a while now. She showcases vegan recipes that are tasty, nutritious, and show that vegan food does not consist solely of salads. I’m always fascinated by her recipes—I’m not vegan, but I like thinking about cooking vegan.

To me, any food/dietary restriction is like a challenge, whether it is being kosher, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, etc (and it’s especially challenging if it is more than one of those!). When I was in college, I lived in an 18-person co-op that had several vegans, many vegetarians, and many meat lovers. We all took turns cooking meals, and while we could make almost anything we wanted, the rules were that it had to be food everyone could eat. So we became experts at making side-by-side foods, like spaghetti with meat sauce and a vegan sauce. Or easily convertible foods, like mashed potatoes (vegan margarine instead of butter/milk—it’s nearly impossible to tell the difference).

I also like that vegan foods often challenge me to eat healthier, by focusing a lot on fruits/veggies/grains. (Don’t get me wrong, though, there are a lot of unhealthy vegan recipes out there! Chocolate chip cookies are still dessert, even if you make them with Earth Balance instead of butter.) So periodically I try out a vegan recipe to see if it will work in my life. Today I tried a great one!

This morning, in preparation for a hike in the Blue Hills, I whipped up a modified version of Angela’s recipe for dark chocolate energy bites. It took around ten minutes total, used ingredients I had on hand, and involved no baking or cooking. The combination of fruit and nuts and chocolate was perfect for the midpoint of our hike—there was sugar to jump start our engines, and protein to keep us going until our late, very non-vegan lunch at Miami Restaurant.

Recipe: The real beauty of this recipe is that you can vary the basic ingredients based on what you have on hand. The essential elements are sticky dried fruits, nuts, and chocolate. If you don’t get the consistency right, just add more of whatever you need until you do! I put one cup of almonds into a hand-held food processor and finely ground them. Setting aside 1/4th of a cup of the almonds, I put the rest in a bowl. Then I blended a generous handful of apricots with about a third of a cup of dried cranberries and a quarter of a bar of dark chocolate. Once that was all finely chopped, I threw it into the bowl with the almonds and stirred until it was well-mixed. It was a little dry (probably because my apricots weren’t as moist as they could’ve been), so I added some non-vegan moisture with a bit of honey. You could also use agave syrup or maple syrup. Then I picked up about a tablespoon or so of the mix in my hand and squeezed and rolled it into a ball. My balls were about the size of Lindt truffle balls. (This is a well-known comparative measurement in my life!) I rolled each one in the reserved ground almonds, and then set aside.

You can freeze or refrigerate the balls if you’re not going to eat them right away. I found that after a few hours in the freezer, they became much more like a solid mass rather than a bunch of ingredients stuck together. But either way they were delicious! This batch made about 14 balls—two per person on the hike was a great little snack. (Honestly, I would’ve had a third if I’d brought more!) I will definitely be making them again.