Iron Chef Challenge... In My Apartment

The gauntlet has been thrown! The challenge made, cookbooks checked out from the local library, websites searched, taste buds are armed and ready. What am I talking about? This month has been declared "Learn to Cook Mexican" month.

In January, Hiking Buddy and I did this with Indian food. We spent a month cooking our way through cookbooks and online recipes, learning methods commonly used, spice combinations and flavor profiles we liked. We based Indian month mostly off of Suvir Saran and Stephanie Lyness' excellent Indian Home Cooking. That's currently my favorite cookbook. After all that cooking we had to show off our skills, so we had a party! Hours of planning, two full days of cooking, thirty guests, and more food than I thought possible for us to eat.

Indian Food Party Menu -- we made everything from scratch except the mango chutney and ice cream!

It was really great food and a fun time. The guests must have come hungry, because leftovers were scarce! The best part of that party was finding out how well we'd mastered the recipes, and how in sync we were with getting the cooking done seamlessly with two chefs in a small kitchen. That month of cooking made me much more confident in the kitchen, and, I think, a better cook.

After having Indian month and such a big (for me, at least) party, we needed a break from cooking. I spent a month of cooler weather learning to bake bread and perfecting my pizza-making skills, but not attempting anything revolutionary. Ok, so the bread was pretty revolutionary to me. I used Jim Lahey's no-knead bread making method, from his cookbook, My Bread: The Revolutionary No-Work, No-Knead Method.

mmm... pizza

Home-made olive bread

Home-made bread using Jim Lahey's no-knead method

But now, without air conditioning in the apartment, it's too hot to use the oven. The time is here for lighter fare -- salads, sandwiches, fresh veggies, and grilling outdoors.

Since Indian food month was such a success, I began to think about other styles of food I'd like to learn. I love Italian food -- but that seemed more appropriate for cooler months, when I can bake lasagna, manicotti, and stuff myself silly with warm, cheesy pasta. Thai would be good, but not it. Mexican, though. Mexican sounds just right. Lots of fresh tomatoes and cilantro, lots of spicy, and a healthy serving of cheesiness. Oh, and cooking Mexican all month gives me an excuse to hone my Margarita-making skills, right?

Just as we used Indian Home Cooking as the cornerstone for Indian month, it appears as though Rick Bayless' "Mexican Everyday" will serve to anchor Mexican month. It has streamlined recipes designed to be cookable everyday of the week. Yum.  The local librarians (am I so much of a nerd that they not only know my name, will check me out books without my card, but they even order me things they think I'll like without asking? fine by me!) have ordered me a book on "Mexican Ice Pops" as well, and I can only imagine what that entails.

Well, I better get cooking!

Being a Hunter-Gatherer -- Lesson 3

Even hunter-gatherers can use their finds for fun. 

My yard is full of dandelions.  A friend recently showed me a recipe for dandelion wine, so I decided to try it out myself.  Filling the colander with blossoms was a quick process.

 Freshly picked dandelion blossoms.

Pulling the yellow petals out of the green parts took forever! I think next time I'll try a batch without separating the greens, even though I've read it makes for a more bitter drink.  The steeped dandelion petals smelled really good, even better with the added oranges.

Dandelion petals in the soup pot for steeping.

My recipe only makes a gallon, so I'm fermenting it in my Mr. Beer keg. Now I just have to wait for the yeast to do its thing. It will take six months to a year, so I guess I'll be drinking some homebrewed beer while I wait!

Making beer.

Camping at Beartown

This weekend was my inaugural camping trip of the season. I was so excited, especially since this time last year I had been in camping mode for months out in Nevada. 

I had signed up for a wild edible plants walk for Sunday afternoon, so I wanted to camp nearby, or at least so that I could hit the walk on the way home.  I ended up in Massachusetts at Beartown State Forest.  The name sounded a bit ominous for my first Northeastern camping experience, so I took the excuse to try out my new bear canister.  Here it is, with my water bottle for scale.

Planning meals when everything has to fit in a bear canister (and no cooler!) is tricky!  Because one of my goals for the year is to go backpacking, I tried to plan meals for this trip as if I were backpacking. Not all the meals we ate were backpacking, but I thought I did a pretty good job keeping us from being hungry.  While camping, Hiking Buddy and I ate:

Friday Dinner:
hotdogs and potato salad (OK, this wasn't "backpacking food," but we had leftovers we needed to eat) 

Saturday Breakfast:
oatmeal and instant coffee

Saturday Lunch:
Bean, cheese, and salsa burritos (I froze a container with everything in it, and it had thawed perfectly for lunch)

Saturday Dinner:
Pine Valley Couscous, a backpacking recipe from "The Lip Smackin' Vegetarian Backpackin' Cookbook"
hot cocoa for dessert

Sunday Breakfast:
oatmeal and instant coffee

The Pine Valley Couscous was really good!  We might even eat the extra serving as a side dish one night this week. On Sunday, we ended up going to a diner in the nearby town for eggs and hashbrowns... I have a hard time resisting fried potatoes!

The campground at Beartown was pretty nice, and I would definitely consider going back there.  It did have a bit of a weird set up. Our campsite was really big, and on the edge of some woods with only one neighbor.  I wanted to show it off with pictures, but my camera battery mysteriously decided to die as soon as we pulled in!  Anyway, we had a nice campsite, the campground over all was nice, and they had really nice composting toilets, which is something to appreciate when camping. 

The first night, I laid awake listening for sounds of bears searching for food in the campground.  After a while, I fell asleep, only to be woken by a soft snorting. I was instantly wide awake. What was that? Certainly not the rummaging of the ubiquitous chipmunks at our site. There it goes again! That sounded closer. Silence. Again! Wear is it? By the picnic table? By the car? By the tent?! SNORRRRT! HOLY COW PLEASE DON'T EAT ME, BEAR!


Oh, wait, Hiking Buddy is snoring.

I really freaked myself out good. Ha! The next night, I wore earplugs, and slept through the night. The first morning, I did enjoy listening to the morning symphony of birds.  During my trip to Beartown, I heard and/or saw:

1. Pileated Woodpecker
2. Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker
3. Red-bellied Woodpecker
4. Black and White Warbler
5. Blackburnian Warbler
6. Great Blue Heron
7. Barred Owl
8. Cedar Waxwing
9. Robin
10. Catbird

I think there were more, but I forgot to write them down right away. It was a good feeling to be able to lay there, half-awake and cozy warm in my sleeping bag, and identify birds by sound.  I definitely couldn't do that a year ago, or even a few months ago!

On Saturday we had a nice time hiking some of the trails at Beartown.  I tried to find a geocache up a muddy ATV trail, but no success.  All in all, it was a relaxing and fun camping trip!

On Sunday, we went on a wild edibles plant hike sponsored by the Columbia Land Conservancy.  It was led by wild food guru Russ Cohen.  Again, no camera, or I'd show you lots of pictures!  It was a really great walk, and I learned a lot.  Did you know you can use wild grape leaves like the non-wild ones? I had never thought of that before.  I'm not a huge fan of stuffed grape leaves, but I might just have to try WILD stuffed grape leaves.  He also showed us what parts of cattails you can eat.  Yum! 

Being a Hunter-Gatherer -- Lesson 2

A couple of months ago, local foodie friends were excited about two wild edibles: morels and ramps.  Morels are wild mushrooms that pop up here in the spring.  I went on a mushroom walk with a mycologist, and saw lots of fun fungi, but no morels. Subsequent walks yielded no prize, so I will just have to wait.  Ramps are early spring garlicky greens that grow in patches.  They are notorious for the pungent odor and taste.  I DID manage to find a patch of wild ramps, and harvested just enough for a taste. OH EM GEEZ what garlicky goodness!

Freshly harvested wild ramps

I used these to make a ramp and mushroom pizza. Yum!  This weekend I'll be going on another wild edible plants walk, with an entirely different group in a different place.  Want me to save you some weeds?