Monthly Archives: May 2018

How I saved my greens.

food and cooking, homemaking, , , , , , , , , ,

I’m ashamed to think of how much cilantro has gone bad in my fridge over the years. I love it, and so I buy a fresh bunch from time to time, which isn’t usually that pricey, but still, when it goes into the trash slimy and blackening, it’s a sad waste. 😦

Today I was busying myself cooking up vegetables that came in my CSA (community supported agriculture) box, and I came to the bunch of cilantro… Hmm… Maybe I had planned to combine that with tomatoes and peppers to make more Indian Egg Bhurji. But — No tomatoes were in the house, and I didn’t want to spend time de-stemming cilantro anyway. (I must need a special prayer to pray while I am doing that perfectly lovely job that seems so tedious. That’s what Kate told me to do about my boring floor exercises.)

An idea came to me when I saw the bag of arugula I’d bought yesterday — also something that I love, which I probably thought I’d put in a green salad, if I could get around to washing the lettuce… When I was a child, the task of preparing the large, leafy-green salad that without fail was part of our evening meal always fell to us children. I always wonder if I am harboring a childish rebelliousness deep in my psyche, that makes me resist salad-making, too.

The thought that occurred was, Could I make a sauce or pesto by combining arugula and cilantro? I’m not confident enough as a chef to go right at it, so I looked online and found that many people had done just that, with great variations. I customized mine to be fast-friendly (vegan) and not too lemony, and to use more arugula than cilantro, because I had a lot more of that leaf on hand. I kept the ingredients list short, and didn’t add garlic or pepper because the greens are both pretty flavorful already.

Here is what I came up with. All the amounts below are approximate. Many people like their pesto less thick, and will add more oil. Before washing the cilantro, I cut off the longest stems while they were still tied together in a bunch, but left the rest of the stems for the food processor to deal with. No de-stemming by hand!

SAVE the GREENS PESTO

3 cups packed cilantro
4 1/2 cups packed arugula
1/3 cup sunflower oil
3/4 teaspoon salt
juice of 1/2 lemon
1 cup toasted walnut pieces

Grind the walnuts in the food processor and then add the other ingredients to make a paste, adding more oil or salt or lemon to taste.

Until today I never paid much attention to all those “pestos” made from everything but the classic basil-olive oil-Parmesan combination, but recently I learned how to make Tarragon Salsa Verde from Jo, and found it very adaptable and always delicious. (I have planned to share my results with you but this recipe pushed ahead in line.)

I think its versatility gave me the hope that other green things could work together the same way. And they did indeed form something easy that saved us, greens and human, from possible shame, and added another tasty and healthy item to my menu options. Now I can spread my salad on crackers!

My discussion with the bumper stickers.

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As I was pulling into a parking lot yesterday morning I was behind another car long enough to read three bumper stickers in slow succession, in this order:

I began to debate the first point and wonder if it were satire, when I saw the second, and concluded, No, it was a believer in Christ who stuck on the quote from the Bible…. Then I saw the last, and couldn’t figure out how it followed from the first extra-Biblical idea.

I went on to spend my afternoon with a friend whom I love dearly, and was thankful not to spend much time discussing with a phantom mind these points which, no matter how you arrange them, don’t make a very logical or appealing systematic theology. But I don’t want to leave you with this disheartening bit of slogan-and-sound-bite “communication.” I reread an old article by Romanos, who fell asleep in death in 2016, titled merely: “Salvation,“ in which he points out that,

“Loving God will always bring you to Him, but thinking about God at best brings you to the threshold of love, at worst locks you into a mental prison. The invisible God becomes visible through love, but the visible God, our brother and sister, can become invisible through doctrine.”

And he quotes Archimandrite Vasileios in several paragraphs of which I’m giving you only the last:

…while the Jews of Christ’s day were so eager for theological discussions, He let them go unanswered; ‘But He was silent.’ For He did not come to discuss, He came to seek out and save the one that had gone astray (Matthew 18:11). He came and took on our whole nature. He entered into us, into the shadow of death where we are, and drew us to the light.

Christ is risen! In truth He is risen!

Update: A reader just pointed out to me that Father Thomas Hopko actually recorded a series of podcasts about the mistaken ideas in the statement “Relax – God is in Control.” The last one is here.

Walking with aromatics.

nature, Psalms, quotes, smells, , , ,

The first scent I noticed on my walk this morning was from the mown weeds, drying up and exuding the remembrance of new-mown hay, which I rarely encounter in my life these days.

There were conifers whose oils were being drawn by the warm sun into the air I breathed… and I forgot for a moment that I wasn’t camping in the redwoods with my family, walking on a duff-y path with gigantic trees towering on either side.

Just on the other side of the creek from the “hay,” was the soccer field with its green and rich scent I used to get once or twice a week, as I stood on the sidelines watching my children run kicking down that lush lawn.

And there were flowers hanging over from the back yards, honeysuckle and potato vine, and other flowering vines, all heady-sweet and making me wonder why I should ever think dessert was anything to satisfy.

I’m leaving this honeysuckle photo large because there seems to be a tiny long-winged fly hanging on to one yellow part right in the middle. Do you see it, too?

The most familiar aromatic of my walk must be the oaks, because they are ubiquitous in all the places in California that I have ever lived. I think these are live oaks, with their thorny leaves that cling to any concrete patio, etc. that you are trying to sweep them from.

I think those two pictures above, taken of two different trees, are both live oaks, but one has much more concave leaves than the other.

The last classic aromatic plant I passed before I left the path was roses, the little climbing pink and white ones that spill over the fence and pull me off the path to sniff them or take their pictures again and again. This morning I resolved to come back later with my shears — it’s only three blocks — to cut a few for the house.

“Let the field be joyful, and all that is therein: then shall all the trees of the wood rejoice…”

Middlemarch has me laughing so soon.

books,

Today is May 1st, so it’s the official date of the Read-Along of Middlemarch that Arti is hosting for the next two months. She wrote a new post about the project for today, which you can read by clicking on the book cover image in my sidebar. It includes some ungracious things that Henry James said about how George Eliot’s mind made him fall in love with her even though she was not pretty – but he did not put it so euphemistically.

I did start reading the book about ten days ago but I haven’t read every day, so I am only three days’ worth of pages jump-started. I was surprised at how quickly the author makes  her characters’ personalities known to the reader, through the most natural and revealing dialogue, as when Dorothea and her sister discuss Mr. Casaubon’s looks, only a few pages in. The two girls had already endeared themselves to me, charming opposites to one another but both sympathetic, and their conversation about their differing perspectives made me laugh out loud in spite of myself as I sat in the corner of my garden.

Because I’m not traveling so much in the coming months, it seems I should have time available to enjoy this big and wonderful book, though it’s been a very long time since I have used my leisure for deep reading of such a long novel. It will be good.