Tag Archives: beans

Cooking and commemorating.

church, family, food and cooking, , , , , , ,

Because of the convenient timing of their visit, I was able to conscript my daughter-in-law (definitely Daughter-in-Love) Joy and my grandchildren into my cooking crew, to prepare an agape meal at church in memory of my late husband, “passed from death into life” ten years ago. Memory eternal †

One day two of the boys shopped with me for 45 pounds of potatoes, 20 pounds of carrots, eight cabbages, a big box of cocoa, and many other good ingredients. That day I also put 22 pounds of Great Northern beans to soak, and we squeezed the lemons (from my tree!) for the juice to put in the Greek Beans.

I boiled the wheat and started to assemble the koliva, which Laddie decorated on Sunday morning. On Saturday Clara helped me to dry the soaked beans, and we carried them to church along with all the other ingredients.

The children were incredibly cheerful and hardworking slaves. We all worked for more than six hours on Saturday, with ample breaks as needed for younger conscripts.

They did laugh at me afterward when I apologized for enslaving them, and said they didn’t feel like slaves at all, and that in spite of their sore feet it had been fun. That’s how we all felt.

Liam singlehandedly assembled the chocolate carrot cake brownies (picture at top). This whole menu is the same one I made twice before as a memorial meal. Every time the brownies have turned out a little different, and this time they were quite compact, but still tasty and popular. It’s always hard for people to believe that they contain no eggs or butter; they are completely vegan.

All of the beans, roasted potatoes and brownies were eaten at Sunday’s lunch or taken home by parishioners, and the leftover cabbage salad will be enjoyed after this week’s Presanctified Liturgy.

It really was a great meal, but at this point I can’t imagine making it again — I’m still thoroughly wiped out from being chef for a weekend. And happy, so very happy, to have been able to do it, with family helping this time. These children are too young to remember their grandfather, but they were able to contribute to a big project done in his honor, and that was very special.

Sunday afternoon I took three of the children to the beach! I know, it seems crazy that I would have the energy to do that, but the fatigue hadn’t yet hit me. It was supposed to be sunny out there, but just as we drove over the last hill the fog descended on us, and stayed with us the whole time. We flew kites and chased the waves and Brodie built a sand castle. One kite flew so high up into the fog that it disappeared from sight, and took 20 minutes to reel in. We came home with wet leggings and shorts and shoes, but glad hearts. After all that kitchen work, it was great to be out in the wide open weather.

Laddie’s birthday was this week, and we celebrated with his other grandparents and cousins in a nearby town. Spring has fully sprung, bringing 80 degrees worth of sunshine yesterday and today, then a 20-degree temperature drop and rainy week up ahead. I’m sure I’ll have more springy pictures to share soon. And April is coming on fast!

Winter food and flowers.

books, food and cooking, Psalms, , , , ,

Last night the women’s book group of my parish met at my house to discuss Summer Lightning by Wodehouse, and The Holy Angels by Mother Alexandra. I cooked up two pots of soup, and the other women brought rustic loaves of bread and salad and dessert.

Long ago I had got the idea of Cuban Black Beans from the Laurel’s Kitchen cookbook, and devised a soup with the same name to eat in winter, when the fresh and raw veggies the book’s authors suggested for a topping weren’t available from the garden out back. Now in the era of internet recipes, I discovered several recipes for the soup, and they used a sofrito, added in the last stage of cooking, made up of the peppers, garlic and onion sauteed with olive oil and bacon, topped off with vinegar and spices. This is what my sofrito looked like:

The beans in this case are cooked with ham hocks at the beginning, so it ends up a meaty and flavorful bowl for a winter’s evening. Mine was just the amount of spicy I wanted, but I’m not sure I could replicate that next time, if there is a next time. I had printed out three recipes from online, and concocted a unique stew, using parts of all of them and my old recipe, too. It took two pounds of beans, and I had plenty to send home with a few guests, as well as to put in the freezer. Because we also had Florentine Spinach Soup, which I have posted about before. Overall the women liked the soups very much.

Thanks to our member who enjoys coming up with appropriately themed foods for our meetings, we ate angel food cake last night as well! I hadn’t read the Jeeves book that was discussed, but I did read The Holy Angels, and I plan to share a bit about that soon. We all thought it was a treasure.

This morning I actually took my walk before breakfast — that mostly because I ate breakfast so late. Now that I’m putting a high priority on walking, I need to keep re-setting it at the top of my mental list, so I don’t forget. One of these days I’m sure I will forget, and then (note to self) I’ll need to take a quick spin around the block in the dark, just before bed. I wonder if this is one of those behaviors that becomes a habit if you do it every day for three weeks?

I worked some more on Psalm 89 as I walked, and the beauty of its poetry did not distract me from the startling sights along the way, whose images I have shared here. One line from the Psalm:

So make Thy right hand known to me,
And to them that in their heart
Are instructed in wisdom.

Amen.

Garlicky Chard with Cannellinis

food and cooking, my garden, ,

GARLICKY SWISS CHARD WITH CANNELLINI BEANS

Probably I saw a recipe online that inspired this creation, which was prompted by great quantities of Swiss chard growing in my garden a year ago. I never wrote down amounts of ingredients, but at the request of a commenter yesterday, I can tell you how I made the dish.

In a 6-quart pot sauté several (5-15) chopped garlic cloves in a generous amount (several tablespoons) of olive or other oil. Just before it is turning brown, stuff as much washed, chopped chard as you can (or as much as you have on hand — I think at least 3-4 commercial bunches) into the pot, with salt sprinkled between the layers, and about a cup of water. Cover the pot and simmer this mixture, stirring occasionally to distribute the garlic, until the chard is tender. Uncover at the end if it is soupy, to let some of the liquid cook off. Drain and rinse one or two cans of cannellini beans and add them, generous grindings of black pepper — and bits of dried tomato if you like. Adjust for salt.

I didn’t take a picture before I put my last batch into the freezer, but I will try to remember to take one when I defrost it, and come back here to add it in.

Update later the same day: For some reason, I love this dish the most when it is made with Italian Silver Rib Heirloom Chard, which features very meaty, thick and wide white ribs. Maybe the “Italian” in the name prompted me to add the cannellinis. I can’t find a picture of it in real life, but this seed packet shows it very accurately. I’ll be planting new seeds this week.

Communing in the gardens.

my garden, nature, other gardens, , , , , , ,
Scaly Rustgills under my fig tree.

Late this morning the sun came out again, and shined on all the droplets of dew and fog. I had a date to keep in town, but I noticed through the window that the fountain was dripping instead of flowing, so I went out to put the hose in there for a few minutes. Of course I saw many glowing leaves and caught the scent of decay. How can decomposition smell so fresh, and how does the earth’s breathing wake up my whole body?

Lavender under a net.

I took a few pictures and then I was happy to be on my way, on to the community garden to meet my friend Bella where we have been together a few times before.  Strolling through other people’s gardens is thoroughly relaxing and nourishing; lots of interest and no responsibility. A garden comprised of dozens of gardens, each with its special personality, is even better.

Often we get to take home some treats, for immediate food or for seeds. Bella found ears of corn lying in the path, and she showed me where a few beans hung from a trellis, the seeds somehow still dry and clean inside the mildewed pods. How could I not bring a few home to try? The way those beans offered themselves suggested a small planting, which is not intimidating. And they are intriguing Mystery Beans to me as yet; does anyone here know what kind they are? Such a dreamy-creamy color…  (below).

After my first big greenhouse planting project last winter, and the way so many of my starts did not take off, or for various reasons never bore fruit in my own garden, I am ready this spring to try just a few things, a few seeds…. a more minimalist garden.

What if my pumpkins had been successful, and I’d ended up with half a dozen of those gorgeous French cucurbits such as I roasted yesterday? They would have been too heavy for me to lug around the neighborhood as gifts.

I picked a bagful of meaty, rainwashed collard leaves from Bella’s plot, and the sweetest parsley ever from the free-for-all borders. The calendulas I gave my friend last spring are still blooming there under the collard canopy, and looking wintery — the sun may be bright on days like today, but its rays are sharply slanted, and every image is darkened by shadows.

Another plot owner was there with his teenage daughter, whose name I didn’t learn, but I will call her Maria. They gave me cilantro from their bed, a generous bunch of it, which I’m sure was the most fragrant I’ve ever got a whiff of, just picked after being hydrated for weeks. Maria came to talk to me while I was bent over the parsley, and we chatted about cooking. She filled me in on the hearty ham-and-eggs meal she had helped to make for breakfast this Saturday morning, and agreed that cooking for only oneself the way I do would be difficult.

Her father José talked about how his children don’t like to come to the garden with him. Maria explained, “We never want to bother getting out of bed and going outside unless something is happening that day, if we are going somewhere or people are coming over….” She smiled when I said, “Oh, but things are happening here: the plants are busy growing!”

Today, of course, was unlike any other, and I felt the restfulness of January, and cautioned how it would not even be a good idea to pull weeds when the soil was so wet. Maria and her father seemed quite contented. She may have had the same unconscious rejuvenating response in her body and psyche that Bella and I were having, being in the open air surrounded by trees and grass, fava bean plants and every kind of brassica exhaling oxygen. And Maria did get to be with people.

After our new friends left, Bella and I wandered up and down the rows, admiring every leftover bit of life, such as two tiny bright red peppers clinging to dead stick stems. We examined a banana tree that appeared to have been stricken by frost, but we hoped not killed. And we sat at a picnic table listening to the tinkle of the wind chimes, as hummingbirds swooped back and forth over our heads. It was a simple gift of a day.