Because it’s Summer, of course! And even if it isn’t, whatever, they’re good. Here’s how I make em.

Pluck mint from garden.
Pluck basil from garden.
Bask in the glory of my green thumb!

Summer rolls are like egg rolls that you don’t need to fry or do any heat cooking whatsoever. I’ve only made vegetarian versions of it because when you take out the meat, cooking and the clean-up which follows, is just so much easier. Once you have it down, you can fill it with anything.

So to make these wraps, I buy rice paper from an Asian grocer. I prefer the larger size without sesame seeds. Just round plain rice paper.
I like a thick peanut sauce too though I’ve tried it with fish sauce as well. For the peanut sauce:

• 1/2 cup peanut butter
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 2 tablespoons hoisin sauce
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 1 small garlic clove mashed to a paste
• 1 teaspoon chili-garlic paste
• 1 tablespoon sesame oil
• Juice of 1 lime
• 1/4 cup water

For variations, I’ve added a dash of fish sauce before, a tablespoonful of vinegar, more hot chili-garlic paste than the recipe calls for, and held the mashed garlic clove, in different combinations.

To make the wraps:

1. Grease a large flat pan where you will lay the finished rolls.  They stick together so you have to have enough room to lay them flat and not touch each other.
2. Lay out your fillings in an assembly-line fashion. Or however you want it. (I’ve used grated carrots, cucumber, jicama, mint, basil, cilantro, purple cabbage)
3. Fill a flat pie dish with water.
4. Dip one sheet of rice paper in the water until it’s wet (5 seconds or so) then lay it atop a cutting board or other non-smooth or greased surface.  This stuff is sticky so you have to work quickly.
5. Put a row of the filling in the bottom center of the rice paper leaving room at the bottom and two sides.  I try to make it about the size of 2 rolls of quarters. By now the paper has softened.
6. Fold the bottom flap up to cover the filling, then the two sides towards the middle, then roll it right up!  You don’t need any binder or glue because the rice paper sticks to itself.  Don’t worry about tears or whatnot.

I started the balcony garden 4 months ago (has it been that long already?!). Since then, I’ve enjoyed fresh basil and mint on a regular basis because it’s so easy to use. The other herbs, I just let it grow and grow into a tangled mess. Then, I trimmed it back a bit. Like the lemongrass, I’ve had to mow that once already and it needs to be mowed again. (Really I just take scissors to the overgrown leaves. It grows like crabgrass and smells so divine!

This weekend, I finally put the herbs to use. Not the lemongrass, but the Greek oregano, sage, and rosemary. I chopped them up with garlic, salt, sugar, and pepper and made a rub. It sat in the fridge for two days and then I roasted it in the oven. Mmm…

And tadaa!

This doohickey that needed to be plugged in to the computer came out so that’s why I was Internet-less for almost 2 weeks. It was okay though, I played a lot of Sims2. I figured it out just now, it dawned on me randomly. So here I am, back to talk about more food.

Weeks ago, I raved about the best grilled cheese I ever had at Northside Social, and a couple of people told me to just go make my own! So I took the advice and got three different kinds of cheeses and slapped it all together. It tasted great but I committed a very common grilled-cheese mistake – burnt bread.

Here’s what I learned from the Internet:

• Butter your bread, not the pan so the butter is evenly distributed on the bread.
• Grate the cheese for optimal melting rate.  The faster the cheese melts, the less your bread burns.
• Flip the sandwich!
• Basil is a nice addition, as well as tomato, sauteed onions, or even a fried egg.  I haven’t tried the onions or egg but it sounds tasty.

Here are the cheeses I used:

The Port Salut is a soft spreading cheese. It goes on like peanut butter. Aside from the burnt bread, it was very delicious and fantastic with tomato soup! I won’t need to go out for this anymore!

Two weekends ago, I made chicken curry. For the rest of the week, our place had the wonderful aroma of delicious curry even after it was all eaten. We’d become the bad neighbors who cooked pungent foods for our selfish taste bud pleasure! Definitely a negative externality. So every night after work, we’d open the windows to air out the place. I even boiled a bar of soap in water. Then this past weekend, I went to Costco for an industrial-sized bag of baking soda. I’ve placed glasses of it all around the place. The curry scent should be gone now, though I’m not sure because I have a cold and my nose is stuffed.

I love curry anything. This chicken curry dish was wonderful and even better the next day and the day after that. But given that whole episode, I might take a break from it, at least until the neighbors have forgotten about that incident. So you’ve been warned. Make this on a nice day where you can keep the windows open. Incidentally, I did have the windows open as I made this, but curry is all powerful.

• Chicken pieces (whatever you like)
• 1 Tomato
• 1 onion
• black pepper
• 3 Tablespoons curry powder
• 5 cloves of garlic
• 1 lemongrass stalk
• 10 sprigs of cilantro
• 1 teaspoon mustard powder
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon cayenne powder
• 4 tablespoons cooking oil

In a food processor, blend the garlic, lemongrass, tomato, half an onion, mustard powder, salt, pepper, cilantro, 2 tablespoons curry powder into a fine sauce.  Pour it into a bowl and marinade the chicken pieces in there for at least 2 hours.

When you’re ready to cook the chicken, use the 1 or 2 tablespoons of reserved curry powder, mix it with a little bit of water. Heat oil in a pan and pour in the curry slurry. Stir it around until the curry flavors get all over your walls and you can’t get the smell out for a week!

Slice up the other half of the onion and add it to the pan. Then add the marinaded chicken, sauce and all. If you need, add some water and let the chicken cook.

In a separate pot, add whatever vegetables you want. I had leftover celery so I tossed that in. I also added bamboo and carrots. Start cooking it for a few minutes. Don’t add water yet, the vegetables will sweat.

Pour in the pan cooked chicken over the vegetables. Cover it and let it simmer. If there’s not enough water at this point, go ahead and add it, but keep in mind it’s not supposed to be too soupy.

And tadaa!! So delicious.

I’ve never cooked lamb shanks before but we had one for the Seder and I wasn’t about to throw a piece of perfectly good shank away even if I had no idea what to do with it. It was mostly 2 big bones and when I see bone, I think stew and when I think stew, I think beans. Granted, it’s not exactly stew weather, now that we’re getting 80 degrees in the afternoons but what else was I going to do with the bones eh? I started this stew on Friday. Dried beans require a day in advance to cook thoroughly, and I don’t think you can overcook beans. They just get good and tender. This time, I used a mix of red beans, black beans, and garbanzos. Black and red beans always make my stews brown and dark. Next time, I might use garbanzos and navy beans (which are white, I don’t know where they got the name navy). Can you tell I stockpile beans in the pantry? I love beans because they don’t go bad, they’re versatile, and they are good for you. And it helps with the eating less meat thing. So I did one of those deals where I went hunting on the Internet for a recipe based on items I have on hand and found something close to what was a shank slow cooker recipe and modified it to fit my ingredients.

• 2 Cups of dried beans cooked a day in advance
• 2 Bay leaves
• Rosemary, thyme, oregano (about a teaspoon or so of each)
• Garlic powder
• 1 Cup of wine
• 1 Cup of orange juice
• Salt/pepper
• Parsley (1 bunch chopped)
• Carrots (get the baby ones and you don’t have to chop them)
• 1 Yellow onion diced coarsely
• 3 Stalks of celery chopped
• Lamb shanks

Start by washing the dried beans and cooking them for a day in the slow cooker in plain water.  The next day, put in the lamb shanks with the dried herbs.  Add some water so it mostly covers the meat.  Let it stew for another day so the meat falls off the bone.  Take it off the slow-cooker and let it cool a bit before putting it in the fridge.  After it’s chilled in the fridge for a few hours, you can easily scoop out the fat on the top.  Put it back on the slow cooker and add all the chopped vegetables and parsley along with the salt, pepper, orange juice, and wine.   Don’t add any water until your vegetables have cooked down because they’ll release a lot of water as they cook.  You might want to add more wine or salt/pepper or water or juice depending on the consistency and flavor you prefer.  I added a little more than a cup of wine and OJ each.  It’s a very hearty soup.  And delicious, even for this weather!

I got this recipe from the Internet. I can’t remember the URL, but the original recipe came from a guy named Arthur Schwartz.  Again, I only followed the ingredients and didn’t use the same quantities as the recipe called.  It came out delicious.  The slow-cooker really breaks down the meat so it’s fork tender.

• 4 lb brisket (second cut).
• 1 carrot
• 2 stalks of celery
• 4 cloves of finely grated garlic
• 3 sage leaves
• 2 tablespoons of kosher salt
• pepper
• 1 yellow onion, chopped.

Rub both sides of the brisket with salt, pepper and garlic. Throw everything into the slow cooker.  Juices will come out of the meat and vegetables and create its own sauce.  I made it one night before the meal.  Refrigerated it until the fat hardened.  Then I scooped out the fat.  Before serving, cut the meat perpendicular to the grain and put it in a dish.  Pour some of the liquids over it and put it in the oven at 350 F for about 15-20 minutes or until its hot.  Like anything else you can make in the slow cooker, it was easy.

About the hardest part of making baba ganoush is finding tahini. That’s to say, this dish is very simple to make.

• 2 big globe eggplants
• 3 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 3 Tbsp tahini
• 3 or 4 cloves of finely grated garlic paste
• Juice of 1 lemon (I didn’t have any and used 2 limes instead)
• 1 teaspoon of (Kosher) salt
• cayenne pepper
• 1/2 cup cilantro
• 1 teaspoon of ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon

Prick the surface of the eggplants all around with a fork.  Under the broiler, char the eggplant for 20 minutes on each side.  You want it to be shriveled and mushy.

In a vessel big enough to mix the baba ganoush,  (I love saying that, baba ganoush), throw together all the dry ingredients: salt, cayenne (to taste), cumin, cinnamon.

Then scoop in the tahini, add the chopped cilantro, garlic paste, and olive oil.  I forgot the olive oil this time but it tasted delicious anyway.  To make up for it, I poured it over the top to keep it from drying out.

Mix it all together and there you go!

It’s great with pita bread, crackers, by itself.

I got this recipe from Pioneerwoman.com and Simplyrecipes.com and just changed it a bit combining both of their ideas.

So in making this dish, I learned something new.  Pyrex glass, though heat proof, isn’t broiler proof.  I laid two eggplants in a Pyrex dish and the broiler shattered it.  Luckily, the eggplants were unscathed.  It just made cleaning the broiler a big pain in the butt.  I think at least once a month, I’m cleaning up glass in the kitchen.  I’ve broken so many dishes, jars, whatever left and right I’m kinda’ getting good at cleaning up glass now.  That’s how I make more space in the cabinets and fridge.  I break shit.

Left the house today at 9:30 AM and returned at 7:30 PM. It’s now close to 12:30 and I am plumb worn out. Started the day with brunch at a friend’s house to meet her family and have lunch with them. We had bagels and cream cheese, something she made called “Christmas Bake” (bacon, eggs, cheese… need I continue?) and spinach kugel. They have a mean cat, a super affectionate dog, and 2 cute little boys, 4 and 1. The 1 year old is a cuddlebug and couldn’t care less if you were a stranger or not, he’ll come up and cuddle or hug you. After that, it was shopping from one store to another. Balducci’s. Costco. An Asian market. Dinner at Cava (delicious!). Home Depot. Office Depot. Then after I returned it was Olympics and cooking. I have to shorten the description of my shopping because reliving it is tiring. As much as I enjoy cooking and shopping most of the time, doing these marathon shopping trips can be tiring. Especially the part about Costco on Saturday.

I wanted to make a few dishes tonight so they could marinade in the sauce over night. I’m hoping the flavors will have a chance to absorb and blend better.

The first was a bean salad. Canned beans (any kinds you like), chopped red onion, lime juice, salt & pepper, Adobo (optional), cilantro, olive oil. The recipe had called for edamame but all the ones sold at the Asian market were from China and you know I’m not gonna eat that.

The next dish was this curry which started out small and wound up being a potful as most of my dishes generally turn out. This came from desultory thoughts.
In a blender: ginger, onion, coconut milk, garlic, lime juice, salt, and curry powder. Or food processor. Add cayenne too if you want a bit of spicy.
Cook the chicken until it’s just done, set it aside, saute some onions, add curry sauce and more curry powder, then add carrots and peas, any other vegetables then chicken. Simmer.

Being the lazy cook that I am, I didn’t set aside the meat. I just pan fried it in oil. Then added onions, then the vegetables, then poured in the food processor sauce.*

Oh, look. From Home Depot. Them chinchillas are chewing on the wood around their room! But it was either the painter’s tape or …
This! Do I hear a collective “Awww…”? The wooden house chew toy has cut down on the chewing a bit but Marco is unstoppable, as shown here.

*Update on the curry: Veggies in the curry will add a natural sweetness to the sauce. Add some cayenne to balance it out. I like a bit of spicyness to my curries anyway. If you like a thicker sauce like I do, use some corn starch. Also, next time I might add lemongrass. And go ahead and make a ton of curry for extra leftovers. It seems to get better the next day, and the next day, and the day after that. The flavors just meld and absorb more.

Just kidding. Too much food is more like it. Busted open a huge hulking leg of ham yesterday. Already I’ve eaten too much of it and feel ill. I’ve OD’d on ham!   It’s so tasty though.  The hardest part about planning a menu while being trapped indoors is trying to keep fresh produce on hand. Fresh fruits and vegetables ripen or rot. So I had to eat all of that first. I’m down to a few apples, half a cut up pineapple, frozen vegetables and onions. Hence, fried rice for dinner yesterday. Besides, there’s no way I’m going to finish an entire ham without changing it up a bit. Today, ham and bean soup. I can tell I’m going to be hammed out. Oh wait, I already said I already ham. Ahh-hahaha!  This is going to be like Iron Chef, the secret ingredient is: HAM!

Recipe for the Slow-cooker ham and beans:

• The bone of the ham with most of the meat carved off and some chopped pieces of the meat.
• Soaked beans (you can pre-boil them) – any dried beans will work
• Black and white pepper
• Ground mustard
• Garlic – fresh or dried.  I used dried because my garlic press broke and I’m too lazy to chop.
• One chopped sweet onion
• A drizzle of maple syrup or brown sugar (whatever you have on hand)
• Broth or water or a combo

I soaked the beans for about 5 hours and I put in all the ingredients except for the onion and chopped ham pieces into the slow-cooker last night.  This morning, I added the ham and onions and I plan to let it cook until dinner time.  I may or may not add salt once it’s done cooking.  I mean, ham is salty enough isn’t it?

Update: Don’t add any salt.  The ham and ham bone makes the soup plenty salty enough.

For anybody who just crawled out from under a rock, this year’s Superbowl (XLIV) will be played in Miami, Florida. The teams competing are the Phoenix, AZ Colts and the New Orleans, LA Saints. That is all I know. I hope the commercials are good.

Oh and the breakage continues. This time it was the garlic press. Darned Made in PRC again! It was for a good cause though. Beef ribs. One rack, dry rubbed overnight, in the oven. One rack also dry rubbed overnight, in the slow cooker with vinegar, sugar, garlic, beer, chili peppers, and cocoa powder.

The dry rub, courtesy of texascooking.com (this will yield a ton of dry rub, save the rest in the freezer or make less):
1 Tablespoon of:

• Black pepper
• White pepper
• Sugar
• Brown sugar
• Cumin
• Garlic powder
• Oregano
• Salt

2 Tablespoons of chili powder

4 Tablespoons of paprika (sweet)

1 Teaspoon of dry mustard

2 Teaspoons of cayenne