March 20, 2018

Citrus Ginger Tea

I feel like this looks like one of those cheap
"disguise glasses" you'd get at joke shops.
People like tea. I mean, empires have clashed and wars have been waged over it. I don't see it myself. I mean, tea is pretty good, I'm just not prepared to die for it. Then again, I've never been a colonial American or a 17th century Portuguese sailor. Both of those things sound kind of horrible, so maybe tea was all they really had going for them. Fortunately, these days we all have pretty easy access to tea, and hardly anybody has to die at all. Which is one of the many reasons I never even contemplated the idea of making it myself until a demon plague which knows no end infested my body and caused me to start coughing with disconcerting frequency and never ever stop unless I can find someone else to transfer the curse to. The point is, with the level of tea consumption I've got going on, mitigating costs and maximizing flavor becomes more of a concern. The fact that it forces ginger, citrus, and other important internet health fads into my system is just a...bonus I guess?

Ingredients:

1 Orange
1 Lemon
1 Ginger (Ginger grows in weird misshapen clumps that easily break off into smaller clumps. People at grocery stores often take advantage of this. Just get a clump that's roughly the size of a travel shampoo bottle)
1 Star Anise Pod
Water
Honey

The first thing you may have noticed about this tea is that it lacks some of the main ingredients people associate with tea, such as tea. Personally, I don't actually consume caffeine because I'm what medical professionals refer to as "crazypants," so this doesn't have any tea leaves in it. But if you want to add some jolt to it, green tea should go pretty well with these flavors. So the first thing you're going to do is cut the peels off of your orange and lemon in large strips. Next, cut your ginger in slices, about a 1/4 of an inch thick. Now, if you want tea once, this is the vast majority of the work you need to do. If you want reasonably shelf-stable tea for the foreseeable future, there are a couple of extra steps. If you want to dry your citrus and ginger for later, throw them on a sheet pan and put them in a 200 degree oven for about an hour and a half. Feel free to double or triple the amount so that you've got more dried goodness in the end. Chop them up, throw them in a sealable jar, and break out your mix every time that your throat starts to feel a little rough, or you start coughing. So every couple minutes if you're me, assuming I haven't sacrificed a fatted calf on a hilltop to get rid of this curse yet.
No one has ever been able to adequately explain to me why
honey comes out of a plastic bear. But as you can see, I'm
having none of that nonsense.

Regardless of whether you're using your ginger and citrus fresh or dried, when it's time for you to make your tea you've got the option of wrapping everything in cheesecloth so that it stays together and is easy to take out, or just tossing it all in there and straining it out later. If you're using the dried stuff then toss in about a tablespoon of it. If you're using the fresh stuff, about 3 slices of ginger, and the peel from half of an orange and lemon. Either way you're adding in your anise, and tossing it into a pot with 2.5 cups of water in it. Bring that all to a boil, then cover it and reduce the heat down to low. Let it cook for about 5 minutes, then turn the heat off and let it steep for another 5. Now all that's left is for you to pour that nonsense in to a cup, add in honey and juice from your naked lemon to your liking, consume, and tax the crap out of it until somebody revolts.

March 13, 2018

Red Lentil Stew

"Yes!"
Some tragedies in life are inescapable. Illness. War. Being forced to listen to some idiot droning on about their political opinions at a party that you didn't even want to come to in the first place. This comes to mind because I've been mildly sick for a while now. And sure, I'm glad that I'm not deathly ill. But there's something awful about being just a little bit sick. Sick enough that you feel like crap and don't want to go do anything, but not sick enough that you feel justified in canceling plans or calling in sick. So you slog through your life, make something hot and delicious to make yourself feel better, and keep on praying for the sweet release of, I don't know, a snow day or maybe a land war in one of the less populous states like Montana. But those lazy Canadians never deliver, and you're left to force a smile and pretend like you don't hate everyone around you. So pretty much like normal.

Ingredients:

1.25 cups Red Lentils
1/4 cup of Water
1 standard-issue Onion
5 Tomatoes
1 Jalapeño Pepper
5 cloves Garlic
1/2 of a Lemon
1 TBSP Grated Ginger
1 TBSP Olive Oil
1 tsp Ground Cumin
1 tsp Smoked Paprika
1/2 tsp Turmeric
1/4 tsp Cayenne Pepper 
5 Cardamom Pods
1 Cinnamon Stick
Salt


The first thing you're gonna need to do is wash your lentils. Like, a lot. More than you'd think you should have to. See, lentils are essentially just an uppity kind of split pea, and much like their split pea cousins, lentils have a love affair with dirt. They cling to dirt like their little lives depend on it, and it takes some effort to get them (the lentils) to just move on with their lives already. Once you've got that taken care of, choppity chop your onion up and then toss it in a pan along with your cinnamon, cardamom, your oil and a gentleman's pinch of salt over medium heat. Let that cook for a couple minutes, stirring occasionally, until the onion starts to color a bit. Now it's time to add in your ginger and your jalapeño which you've hypothetically diced by now and, depending on how spicy you like things, either removed the seeds and membranes from the inside of or not. Add in another pinch of salt, and let it cook for another 2 minutes or so, when the jalapeño begins to soften and the entire kitchen starts to smell kind of incredible. Mince your garlic and add it in to the party along with your cumin, paprika, turmeric, and cayenne. This is the point in the recipe where everything starts to smell so good that your neighbors come try and hunt down the source of the deliciousness to guilt you in to giving them some. If any of them make it to your home, just sneeze and cough on them until they go away, or until you begrudgingly develop enough respect for their sneeze resistance to agree and feed them. 

The turmeric in this thing stained the crap out of my hands.
I had turmeric stigmata for days.
 Dice up your tomatoes into little bits in anticipation of their joining the gang. But before you toss them in, now is a fairly good time to fish out your cinnamon stick and cardamom pods. You could leave them in there and they'd impart a little extra flavor to the dish, but they've really given up a fair amount of flavor already, and once everything is goopy and stew-like it'll be a lot harder to fish them out. Which essentially just means you run the risk of crunching down on some uncomfortable bites while you contemplate how this stew, the one thing that's supposed to make you feel better, has betrayed you. But really it was you who betrayed yourself. Anyhow, follow your heart. Regardless of what you choose, it's time to toss in your tomatoes along with your lentils, water, and a final pinch of salt. Bring your fledgling stew up to a boil before covering it and reducing the heat down to low. Let it cook down for about 25 minutes. Once the tomatoes lose their structural integrity and the lentils are cooked to your liking, you're pretty much good to go. Now it's time to eat, enjoy, feel better, wake up feeling like hot garbage spread on a cracker, and hope that you have some leftovers in the fridge. See you next week, assuming I haven't gone to Montana to start this thing on my own.


March 6, 2018

Shakshuka

From these humble beginnings, great stains will be made
Everybody loves breakfast for dinner. Sure, the only person that I interviewed about this was myself, but if the internet has taught me anything (and I'm fairly sure it hasn't) it's that it only matters that a study was done. Not who performed it, who funded it, or whether it was done competently. The point is that I want to eat french toast while I sit on my couch and watch Netflix. But I can't, because I'll get sugar and syrup on my couch, and then when I have company I'll need to make up some excuse about how a friend brought their kid over, and he wrecked my couch. It's too much effort. Fortunately, Shakshuka exists. It's got poached eggs, which gives it that breakfasty feeling, but it's super savory and delicious which makes it socially acceptable as a dinner. So when I have friends over who ask me about the stains on the couch, I won't have to make up a fictional child to cover for it.

Ingredients

6 Eggs
3 large Tomatoes
2 Red Peppers
1 Jalapeño Pepper
1 standard-issue Onion
4 cloves Garlic
1 tsp Cumin
1 tsp Smoked Paprika
1/4 tsp Black Pepper
1/4 tsp Cayenne Pepper
Olive Oil
Salt

Shakshuka is essentially eggs poached in a spicy tomato and red pepper sauce. The key is to let the peppers and tomatoes cook down until they kind of start disintegrating into each other. The first step is to dice up your onion and toss it in a pan with some oil and an average-sized human's pinch of salt over medium-low heat. Let it cook for about 2 minutes, and just when it starts getting a little bit of color toss in your diced peppers, red and jalapeño, along with another pinch of salt. Now it's time to dice up your tomatoes. It's worth mentioning that with a super sharp knife, dicing up tomatoes is easy. With whatever blunt object you're likely calling a knife these days, not so much. Tomatoes have a fairly thick skin, and soft goopy insides, kind of like people. So if you're pushing down with a dull knife, you've got a good chance of just crushing everything. Possible fixes for this are to sharpen your stupid knives, peel your tomatoes, or not worry too much about it because who cares when we're making a sauce with them anyway? Whatever you decide, dice up your tomatoes, and choppity chop up your garlic. You're adding in the garlic first, but once it's in the pan you'll be moving a little quicker, so it's best to have your tomatoes ready ahead of time.

That's one messy hot plate of deliciousness
Once your peppers start going soft, add in your garlic along with your cumin, paprika, black pepper, and cayenne. Stir that mess together and let the flavors get to know each other for about a minute before dumping in your tomatoes along with another pinch of salt. Tomatoes are a little more shy, so they'll need some time to come out of their shells and get to know everybody at the party. So bring your mix up to a boil before covering it and turning the heat down to low. Let that all cook down for 20-30 minutes, until everything starts to look saucy and delicious, and your tomatoes have really broken down. If they're weeping in a corner somewhere, you're probably ready. Don't worry, it's for their own good. Now, like dollar-store philosophers, it's time for us to contemplate eggs. Take a spoon and make small divots in the surface of your sauce. Crack an egg in to each depression and then, if you like things more delicious and flavorful, add a little bit of salt and black pepper on top of each egg. Cover your mixture again, and let it all cook for about 12 minutes, depending on how well done you like your eggs. Remember that they're sitting in a hot sauce, so turn it off when they're still a little underdone, because they'll keep cooking. If you take them off when they're actually ready, they may end up totally overcooked by the time you, I don't know, take pictures of them for your blog. You know, hypothetically. Then just grab a fork, spoon, flatbread or other implement of destruction and go to town on it. Enjoy!