Sunday, September 24, 2006

bora bora vs ravioli and smut???

In the quest to recreate the foods I like that are no longer readily available or available at all, I decided to try making my own ravioli today. I was successful, but chose to not eat more than one or two. This effort definitely needs perfecting. Creating a dough without wheat flour that can be turned in to long wide noodles with a pasta maker, not so easy. Creating the delicious filling that goes inside, much easier.

So, I decided to make some Bangledeshi bora instead. This I have now perfected after watching my neighbor make them twice. Lacking spinach, I used swiss chard, finely diced eggplant, onion and garlic and created a batter and fried them. They are a lot like Indian Pakora. I used Gram, corn and coconut flour for the batter. Once fried, I had a delicious mint/cilantro chutney to dip them in. In fact, I like the chutney so much, that I cooked the bora just so I could dunk.

I am by nature a dunker, a dipper, simply, a sauce girl. Why eat dry food when you could dunk and add more flavor and texture?

The garden is still producing produce, despite the cold snap. Well I thought it was a cold snap, as it turns out, it is just fall. What to do with 40 leeks?? I will be searching to find the best way to preserve what was originally labeled "scallions" (which I thought I could use all summer). I love leeks and am hoping that blanching and freezing the stalks might work. How to remove the tasty soil between the layers, well, I need something to do this winter.

My favorite thing about going over to my community garden plot is running into my Mexican gardening neighbor. He is always pushing off his hot peppers on me as he planted too many. Me, I tried to explain in spanglish how to cook swiss chard for beginning swiss chard eaters. I think he won the contest. Everyone knows what to do with hot peppers. He might be making swiss chard with chicken water and onion. That was the best I could do to say chicken broth in Spanish. I will see next time I am there if he liked the chard. I really should study up on the linguistics prior to heading down there. My other gardening neighbor is from Nigeria (and speaks more English) and she has some really interesting veggies growing in her plot that is surrounded by corn stalks. It is kind of like walking through a forest and then suddenly you are in veg heaven. Her corn has lots of smut (huitchocotli??) and I would love to know more about how to use that Mexican delicacy, ie, when to harvest it.

I made some hot pepper jelly yesterday, a nice, heat filled batch. This stuff is great with aged hard cheeses and crackers or even over a log of cream cheese. Also great stocking stuffers, at least I think so. Mead was made yesterday also. I would like to say that I made it, but really I just supplied the honey and estrogen. Tomatoes and hot peppers are in the food dehydrator and green chiles have been roasted and peeled.

Time for a movie.........

i'm out