Category Archives: food and cooking

Sticky Rice

food and cooking, ,

Ten years ago we had a Laotian neighbor who invited us to her wedding, where we experienced our first Thai sticky rice. Moist and chewy, but at the same time clean and dry enough to pick up with our hands out of a giant basket on the buffet table. It was aromatic, but different from jasmine rice.

Some years after getting the recipe from our friend I produced a good batch; she had moved away by then. The first several times it scorched cooking in a regular pot, but eventually I read online that what I needed for success was a certain type of basket steamer, which I bought at a Southeast Asian store for under $10.

It’s so easy now to make this kind of rice. Start with a bag labeled Sweet Rice that is found at the same kind of store. The typical Japanese/Chinese/Korean Asian market near here doesn’t even have it.  I don’t have to measure, but I put three or four cups of sweet rice into a bowl for soaking, and then rinse it several times until the water is almost clear. Tonight I used four cups.

You have to soak it most of the day if you are using cold water, but I read somewhere that I could use hot water for soaking and it would only require an hour or two. So I almost always do it that way.

After soaking, heat some water in the steamer pot, drain the rice into the basket over the sink, and set the basket of rice over the steaming water. Put a sizable lid from some other pot over it to keep the steam in.It takes about 20 minutes to cook; sometimes I turn the lump of rice over midway.

When it is tender, dump it out on to a board or mat big enough that you can spread it out with a fork to cool it down, to keep it from overcooking into a soggy lump. At this point you can form it into balls, as I did for my grandchildren last week–balls that can be dipped in a coconut sauce. I often put a pile into a bowl and ladle Thai stew over it.

But tonight I mixed the cooked and still warm rice with sweetened coconut milk to which lime juice had been added, to make a platform for chunks of mango. Those are not ants, but black sesame seeds sprinkled on top, as I assured my husband.

A can of coconut milk, 1/3 cup sugar, 1/2 teaspoon salt and 2 tablespoons lime juice boiled together made the sauce that I poured over the rice that was still warm, then pressed it into a shallow pie plate and a pasta bowl. Within ten minutes it was firm enough to cut into wedges with a knife. It got even firmer when cold. This dish is called, naturally, Sticky Rice with Mango.

Spices and Summer

family, food and cooking, home, travel

This summer is very busy:

1) We are pretty much finished with the actual remodel work on the kitchen and downstairs, so now we have to move everything back into place.  We knew there were some young men in a family down the street, so B. and I went to see about hiring one to help move furniture, and they invited us in for a visit. Their house has the same floor plan as ours, and their kitchen still has the old dark brown laminated particle board cabinets! Coming back home to the light and cheery changes here made me very thankful.

My newly revised kitchen has some pull-out trays in one cabinet, perfect for storing my undisciplined collection of spices and other seasonings. Now I can see clearly what I have, without having to stoop or kneel on the floor to look in the back of a low cabinet. Just in time for old age! Many of my odds and ends of containers of spices and herbs already had labels on the top, so I only had to add a few more to complete that convenient aspect of the display. It seems to be the only thing all the bottles have in common. You know you can click on the photo and make it larger if you want to see my weird library of flavors.

The upper tray is shallower so I put the shorter containers there, alongside my box of teabags that I bring out for guests to choose from. On both trays I tried to have the spices on the left and the herbs on the right, but I wasn’t very strict about it. Since I don’t make gallons of soup every week anymore, the large containers of seasonings aren’t necessary, and I will convert to smaller ones gradually as I use them up. It was buying these ingredients in one-pound packages through our food co-op that led to keeping generous quantities. Two or three times kind friends have given me collections of spices as gifts, which only encourages happy expansion.

2) We are going on the second extended-family vacation of the summer, leaving this weekend, this time to an area near Bend, Oregon called Sunriver, where daughter Pearl’s family from the East are renting a house for as many of us as can make it. We’ll stay most of a week, and have plans for visiting Crater Lake, hiking, river rafting, swimming and fishing–though not all of us want to do all those things.

3) After the Oregon fun, Pearl and some of those grandchildren are staying at our house for a few more days. Just in time we are getting boxes and downstairs furniture out of the bedrooms upstairs so they won’t have to camp midst the chaos. They won’t care if the pictures aren’t back on the walls; the swimming pool is still in its place.

4) I have been reading a lot, since I discovered that some books actually do stay open on the treadmill shelf at the gym, and do not fall off. The Cairo Trilogy was like that, all three volumes just the right size and shape, and old enough that the binding wasn’t too tight. If only I could write reviews while walking fast uphill, but just underlining passages is risky enough. If I’m lucky I just end up with very wiggly lines all through the book, but occasionally I drop the pencil or the book and make an embarrassing ruckus.

There is so much I want to muse about while writing blogs on these books. I hope the summer isn’t too busy for that.

5) Son P. is getting married this summer! He is the 4th child, and the 4th to get married. I started to say they have gone down in order, but I should say that they have gone up to the altar in order. I think this couple won’t have an altar, though, as their wedding will be outdoors. We are as thrilled as can be about our soon-to-be daughter-in-law, whom we have known since she was a darling baby. Glory to God!

Snow and Birds

food and cooking, nature, travel, , , ,

 

 

On the way up to Pippin’s place this week I stopped in to see my friend Myriah. She lives in a low mountain region where the street names are Quail, Pine, and Towhee. Tall conifers fill all the yards in her neighborhood.

But I didn’t spend any time outdoors that afternoon, because of drenching rain. We stayed inside and I got to meet her miniature parrots that I think are called parrotlets.

She gave me bags full of fabric from a gift that an elderly friend had made to her. I don’t know how I will manage to make use of it–yet. But I got ideas, looking at her inspiring quilts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Driving down to the valley again, I came into sunshine, and the air was warmer. Then at Lake Shasta, fuller than I have ever seen it, buckets of rain made driving hard at any speed. It was awfully cold here at my destination, but it didn’t snow, until this afternoon. Light slushy snow, then what Pippin calls popcorn snow, a sort of cross between hail and snow. This is a view from across the street; it’s only dark because of the clouds.

The snow paused for a spell, and birds came to the feeder! I didn’t see them, of course, until Pippin pointed them out to me, just a few feet on the other side of the window above my sinkful of dishes. We took pictures of the Black-Headed Grosbeak and the Mountain Chickadee. The Grosbeak was a bird she hadn’t seen before this spring.

My daughter and husband haven’t lived here a full year, so every time something comes into bloom or loses its leaves it is an event.

 

 

Everything was so different at my first two visits especially.

The crabapple trees in front are covered in flowers now.
And one of the birches uprooted in the very rough winter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m wondering if this is a quince brightening up the roadside.

 

 

I built a fire in the stove this morning, as it was colder than yesterday. And the cats seemed to enjoy it. They slept in nooks and crannies all around the warm room.

Pippin made us some kale chips tonight. I’m not sure I’d ever have tried them if she hadn’t demonstrated how easy they are:

 

 

Take a bunch of kale, wash it and tear approximately 2″ pieces off the stalk. Dry them in a towel or salad spinner, and put them in a bowl. Toss with 2 tablespoons of olive oil, 2 tablespoons of lemon juice, and 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon salt. Bake in a 350° oven for about 12 minutes, stirring a couple of times.

She thinks you should try to cook the kale on parchment paper as her original recipe directs, but she hasn’t always done this. The kale comes out looking brownish-green, but it is crispy and light and flavorful. One person could easily eat a whole bunch this way. We don’t know how much of the nutrient value is retained, and I haven’t researched what anyone else says about that.

When I get home again I will be in the midst of the disarray that seeps into my mind and makes me incapable of writing more than one coherent sentence per day. It’s been nice to relax away from the home that is not homey, and play with Little Scout, who’s seven months old now and lots of fun. While he napped I read and wrote, and even laid away a draft for a little blog I can post later if I feel like it.

Not the camp cooking I love.

food and cooking, home, housework,

For a few weeks now I have been cooking with a microwave, electric skillet and toaster, set up in a corner of my living room. Sometimes I wash up in the little bathroom sink, and lately I’ve had my old sink set up on plywood, without counters on the sides.

When I got all organized and ready for the demolition of my old kitchen I thought positively about what I might accomplish with minimal equipment, and was undaunted. After all, I have cooked on a camp stove year after year, and washed up tin plates without any kitchen at all. We often needed to hide our food from bears between meals, but the dishes we ate around picnic tables were tasty and I enjoyed putting them together.

It hasn’t been at all the same here. The most obvious difference is that we must cook and eat in a dimly-lit corner of the living room. No trees, no fresh air that whets the appetite. The scenery is also blighted by over-crowding–extra furniture in disarray close by, all the dishes and condiments and dishtowels stacked around instead of stowed away in camping boxes.

But another kind of space is lacking, the mental and emotional refreshment that comes from being away from home and with greatly reduced responsibilities. Some years ago I discovered that when I’m camping outdoors or even in a cabin somewhere, after a few days of rest and relaxation, the creative urges surface and want to be expressed. I learned to bring along some ingredients that might take extra inventiveness or work to make a meal out of.

The ability to focus my mind on cooking at this time is completely lacking. There are too many decisions to muddle over, walls to wash, important papers to hunt around for. A storm has hit my artist’s studio, as it were, and the tangible and intangible tools aren’t where they need to be; the artist is disabled. If I get through this without getting depressed it will be enough to show for my work.

It’s a good thing we are coming to the end of the worst period of remodeling. In the next few days the stove will be hooked up, and the sink. The counters are in, so there will be a place for rolling out pie dough! Next month we’ll be kicked out for a few days so that floors can be put in, but I have already started stowing some clutter away in the new drawers.