Chole palak

The quest for making good Indian food at home is well and certainly on. This week we made Manjula's chole palak, aka chickpeas and spinach, and it was good.

The recipe itself is fairly simple, and follows a pattern I've started to see as I learn to actually cook Indian food instead of relying on restaurants all the time. (Not that we've stopped frequenting the buffet up the street from our house. NOPE.) The secret appears to be frying the spice mixture in oil, so the flavors all leap out dramatically in the finished dish. Sounds good to me.

My only problem was that I hadn't thought ahead and made a yogurt sauce, so I just spooned some straight plain yogurt over my plate to give it some extra creamy dairy action. This worked well, but some additional cucumber and cilantro would have worked even better.

This was filling enough that John and I couldn't eat it all, even with no supplementary sides. Isn't that always how Indian food works out, though? You go to a restaurant, notice that your entree looks pretty tiny, and then can't eat more than half of it without feeling like you're going to burst. Well, that's what happened here as well. So we had leftovers! Hooray!

For my leftover breakfast, I quickly sauteed my chole palak with basmati rice and yogurt, then slid a fried egg on top. This worked amazingly well. I just broke up the egg and stirred everything together, so the yolk melded in almost invisibly and the bits of white provided a nice texture contrast. Who wouldn't want to boost the richness of a fairly austere bean-and-veg dish with a beautiful runny yolk? I ask you.

What new cuisines are you guys taking on?

ZOMG MOAR BAGELS

Evidently bagels and bagel sandwiches are the main thing I want to eat lately. I used up an entire brick of cream cheese making different schmears, especially after I went to the farmer's market and acquired a box packed tightly with fancy sprouts. And not just the typical alfalfa sprouts, but a mix of alfalfa, arugula, red clover, and fennel. The result is especially cool, crisp, and refreshing, with just a touch of bitterness from the arugula. The anise flavor is really surprising, but perfect; I want to try it on egg salad pretty much immediately. It's so good.

So I promptly made a cream cheese schmear with sprouts, finely chopped yellow bell pepper, and shredded spinach, only to realize I was out of cream cheese when I went to make my bagel a couple days later. But that's ok! Fortunately, bagels can take anything you want to throw at them. This time I spread a sesame bagel with a thick layer of dijon mustard, some chopped roast beef, and a bit of parmesan cheese, and threw the whole shebang into the toaster oven until hot and delightful. Then I covered it with all the sprouts in the land, added a couple clementines, and was ready for lunch.

With my bagel, I had the new thing I want to drink all the time.

Grapefruit soda! And not just grapefruit--yellow grapefruit, which seems to have fallen out of the supermarket almost entirely. This stuff tastes very much like the local grapefruits that people grow in their backyards. How have I never had it before?

If you ever get your hands on a homegrown California yellow grapefruit, be very happy. Then make a drink of some sort out of it. Fresh-squeezed juice, either alone or cut with sparkling water, is amazing; cocktails with juice or grapefruit supremes are even better. Otherwise, this soda is an excellent option.

Bagel, sprouts, clementines, soda: yes please.

Of course, when you have a seed-encrusted bagel crammed with all the sprouts in the land, the detritus is going to fly everywhere. That's ok.

What have you guys been eating for lunch lately?

Veg fried rice is so nice

Today I was ready to sit down and write a blog post when I discovered that Blogger is having issues with their editor in Chrome. After several hours of frustration, I discovered that hey, if you use your problem-solving skills and try things in a different browser like a competent user, sometimes they work! ZOMG EXCITE. Ahem. Yes. How was your afternoon?

So! Who wants to hear about fried rice?

This is a dinner for the nights when you want nearly instant food and have some leftover rice (or whatever grain), as assortment of veg, and a few eggs in the fridge. It can take nearly any vegetable you throw at it and remain delicious. In this case, I had carrots, onions, broccoli, and cabbage: perfect.

Needless to say, this isn't authentic. It's just good and easy and fast. You will also notice that it looks like a giant mess, and not just because I took the pictures well after dark. That's ok, though; the worst-looking food usually tastes the best, and this is no exception.

Vegetable fried rice

peanut oil/flavorless oil of your choice
onion
green onion
ginger if you have any
a optional hot pepper
assorted veg: carrots, broccoli, cabbage, peppers, bean sprouts, mushrooms, etc.
eggs
leftover cooked rice or other appropriate grain
soy sauce, sriracha, sesame oil

Chop up all your vegetables and have all your other ingredients out and ready before you start cooking. Fried rice can go very quickly over high heat.

Okay. Start by warming a slug of peanut oil on medium-high heat in a wide saute pan or wok.

Throw in your chopped onion, the whites of green onion, ginger, and hot pepper. (If you don't have any fresh ginger, add a bit of ground ginger with the eggs later.) Fry quickly and vigorously, stirring or tossing frequently, for two to three minutes.

Add any vegetables that need longer cooking time. In my case, this meant broccoli and carrots. Continue to stir-fry for a few minutes, and then add the more tender vegetables. I was using a massive amount of shredded cabbage: RECOMMENDED. I love cabbage, and it's so underused. More cabbage for everyone. Continue cooking until your tender veg is mostly wilted.

Add the rice, season with a bit of soy sauce and sriracha, and stir to combine. Give it a minute to warm up and mingle with the veg. While you're waiting, crack your eggs into a separate bowl, add ground ginger if needed, and whip with a fork until combined.

Turn the heat down to medium and add the eggs to the pan. Stir immediately and thoroughly, so the egg is distributed well throughout the veg and rice. Keep stirring as the egg cooks.

When the egg is done to your liking, turn off the heat and stir in a few drops of sesame oil. Serve your fried rice as instantly as possible, with a garnish of green onion greens. I added some more sriracha and gomasio, because I like heat and the sesame seeds add a nice toasty crunch.

Hooray! Dinner!

You wouldn't think fried rice would be great left over, but it turns out to be pretty good if you warm it up on the stovetop. Who knew?

What are you guys conjuring up from leftovers?

3-ingredient DIY deodorant

Yep, homemade deodorant.

I've been using Soapwalla's natural deodorant for the past 11 months (the time it took me to go through one jar), and it is exceptional. If I were a less make-y sort of person, I would probably be ordering another jar right this second, and if you don't want to take on making your own deodorant, I encourage you to get over there and order some. However, I do like to make things, so I've been thinking about making my own for quite awhile. Running out of deodorant was an excellent opportunity to do just that.

There are numerous deodorant-making how-tos out there. The first one I remember seeing is Amy Karol's classic recipe. The problem was that earlier recipes like this usually called for ingredients I don't normally have in the house, like shea butter and beeswax. But more recently I've started to come across simpler recipes like this one from Crunchy Betty. Three-ingredient deodorant? Sign me up.

The three main ingredients are simple: cornstarch, baking soda, and coconut oil. The first two are easily available and very cheap; the third is less easily available, and can get pretty expensive. I had some in my cupboard, fortunately, but if you don't, I would recommend looking for it either at Trader Joe's or in the food aisle at TJ Maxx/Marshalls. This way you can get a standard 1-lb jar for about six bucks instead of fifteen. You're welcome.

DIY deodorant

1/4 cup cornstarch
1/4 cup baking soda
5 tbsp coconut oil
optional: ~5-10 drops essential oils of your choice

To make your deodorant, simply mix all of your ingredients together with a fork and pack the result into a jar of your choice. I added 6 drops of lavender essential oil, because that's what I had. Otherwise, that's it. Voila!

Wait, wait. This sounds simple, but is it? Coconut oil is solid at room temperature; its melting point is 76F. We generally keep our house at 64F in the winter, so my coconut oil was basically a big rock. Rocks are not very easy to mix with anything at all.

The solution: stick the jar of oil in a bowl of very warm water for a few minutes. The oil will liquefy in short order. At that point you can easily measure it out and mix it in with the cornstarch, baking soda, and essential oil. As the mixture cools, the oil will return to its normal solid state, forming a mostly solid balm. You're welcome.

It's also a good idea to use the pastry chef trick of adding only half the liquid to the powders, whipping everything together well, and then mixing in the remaining liquid. This will eliminate lumps and produce a beautifully smooth final concoction.

While the result was disconcertingly liquid at first, it started to harden to a frosting consistency almost immediately. I didn't have any big problem with it hardening too much to put into containers, though. You'll just want to make sure you have your containers and a spatula ready and waiting.

After hardening, my resulting deodorant is almost entirely solid, with a strong coconut aroma. The lavender scent is there, especially when the essential oil comes into contact with warm skin, but it's not particularly strong. You could increase the amount to eight or ten drops pretty easily, depending on the strength of your chosen oils.

To use, just dig a bit of deodorant out of the container, quickly warm it by rubbing your fingers together, and apply. It feels slightly gritty at first, but softens right up as your skin warms the oil. And the most important part? It definitely works. If you're switching over from a store-bought deodorant to natural, you'll probably need to let your body adjust for a couple days. Since I was coming from the land of natural deodorant already, everything was already fine. I smell just delightful.

This recipe made about double what I needed to fill my little jar, so I dug out one of my tiny condiment containers and filled that up too. I'm thinking a 1/4 pint mason jar would hold one full recipe. You could also try putting it into an old empty deodorant stick; it's definitely solid enough to hold up as long as your house temperature is under 76F. I could see melting being an issue in summer, however.

This also leads me to my next thought: if my first jar lasted 11 months, did I just make nearly two years' worth of homemade deodorant? Signs point to yes. I mean, we'll see, but essentially: yes. Hooray!

Have you ever made your own deodorant, lotion, balm, or what-have-you? How did it turn out? Should I make some too?

The anti-bagel: sourdough, cream cheese, avocado

I love bagels. I love going to the bagel shop for a spontaneous lunch. I love how low-pressure, inexpensive, and easy the whole experience is. I love picking out the exact combination I want--one day sun-dried tomato with basil schmear, and the next pumpernickel with copious dill. I love how it never gets old.

However, I am also a big cheapo, and I often want a higher vegetable content in my cream cheese. Thus the anti-bagel was born.

I've been making my own cream cheese schmears for quite some time. It's super easy. All you need is cream cheese, vegetables and herbs of your choice, a spoonful or two of yogurt, and some pepper.

In this case, I wanted a super-green and herbal cream cheese, so I grabbed several sprigs of parsley, some green onion greens, and a couple handfuls of arugula. A few minutes with my trusty knife produced this:

Then I just mixed my mass of finely chopped green with a chunk of cream cheese, a little plain yogurt, and a sprinkle of pepper. The yogurt makes the mixture a lot more workable, not to mention a bit more tangy and complex. You could use a splash of milk instead.

Cream cheese can take much more vegetable content than you might think. I actually used about a third again more greens than cheese, and I could have added even more. You can absolutely just keep mixing in more chopped veg until your schmear is bursting with all the chlorophyll in the land.

Then just toast your bread of choice, spread on your cream cheese, and add whatever else you'd like. I had an avocado in need of use, so I sliced it up and layered it on. I also added a bit more pepper and a pinch of salt, because what avocado doesn't benefit from a bit of seasoning?

Voila! Now you have your very own customized anti-bagel. Eat it in good health and good conscience.

Other options for amazing schmears:

- green olives and lemon zest
- sun-dried tomato, basil, and a little crumble of feta
- chard, beet greens, and toasted almonds
- cilantro, hot pepper, and a couple cubes of cooked sweet potato
- all the sprouts in the land!
- herb spectacular: parsley, sage, rosemary & thyme
- dill, capers, and red onion
- dried cranberries, orange zest, and toasted sesame seeds
- dried apricots, pistachios, and lots of black pepper

The possibilities are endless. GO FORTH.

How do you guys customize your bagels and bagel-like sandwich concoctions at home?