Sunday Salon - Another Week in Review

 

A Sunday Salon, hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz,  Recap of my week, wherein I try to remember what all went on.  Some Gardening, collecting produce, reading, and cooking.  Oh and a bit of working at our office.  It does help to pay the bills.

The Week of New Stuff

Well, hello all you folks out there in the Sunday Salon, Foodies Read, and elsewhere in the cosmos!  It's been an interesting week!  Wanting to get over various skin issues, I got into a bit of fasting, beginning with  a few intermittent ones and then a 3 day water fast.  This book, Eat, Fast, Feast, was an excellent guide, and very helpful.  Skin things are a bit better and a few more fasts may even finish the job!

A Super Pesto - With Moringa!

Okay, all right, I do realize that most of you won't be harvesting Moringa any time soon.  However, (should be in caps) it was such a thrill making this pesto that I'm posting it anyway, especially since it turned out so darned good! The moringa itself has a lovely nutty flavor, just a hint of bitter, with the basil adding it's sharp herbal notes and citrus offsetting the unctuousness of toasted walnuts, Parmesan and olive oil. 

YOU CAN ALSO make it with moringa powder.  Add 1 Tablespoon of the powder to your pesto recipe, and increase the amount of basil and parsley if you wish. As shown on the Dr. Oz show apparently.  I started a project some time ago, determined to find more ways of incorporating this very healthful plant into our diets.  And, pesto is a great addition for sure.  See above post link.

                                     Moringa Basil Pesto

                                                         A Variation of Pesto Genovese

Ingredients

1 cup fresh basil, divided
1/3 cup toasted walnuts
2/3 cup finely grated parmesan
2 large cloves raw garlic, chopped
1/3 cup fresh parsley, chopped
2 cups fresh Moringa leaves
4 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil  (adjust to desired consistency)
1/2 lemon or lime, juiced
Salt to taste

Place half the basil leaves along with the garlic cloves, cheese, and walnuts into a high speed blender. Blend continuously until finely chopped and evenly dispersed.

Add lemon juice, remaining basil, parsley leaves and the fresh Moringa leaves. Blend, scraping down sides of the blender jar intermittently until adequately chopped and incorporated.

Drizzle in oil while blending. Adjust to desired consistency. (Note: More oil will produce a thinner pesto that works well for sauces. Less oil will produce pesto better equipped for spreading.)

Spritz in extra lemon or lime juice as needed. Sprinkle in salt. Add/adjust ingredients (garlic, walnuts, cheese, lime, salt) to taste.

If keeping, coat the top with a bit of olive oil and store in a small air tight container.



For our Valentine's Dinner we had Tagliatelle with Pesto Genovese and Tenderloin steaks.  Blueberry Upside down Cake to follow.

We really enjoyed this mixture of pasta and potatoes with the pesto sauce. From a favorite cookbook of mine, Great Italian Cooking, edited by Michael Sonino.

Another useful moringa discovery was the trick of putting a good sized bunch of leaves into a big paper bag for drying.  A few days in a sunny spot or in the oven with just a pilot light.  Then you can easily pull out the bigger stems and keep your dried herb in a mason jar for tea.  Especially good with ginger and lemon grass.

All will be shared over at Beth Fish Reads for her Weekend Cooking event.  Check out some good suggestions, both for cooking and reading.

Jubilee and a Cajun Catfish Etoufee

I was recently invited to be part of a review event for Jubilee, Recipes from Two Centuries of African American Cooking, a just published, new cookbook by Toni Tipton-Martin.  Thanks Camilla for extending the invite. 

About the book, from the Publishers:

"More than 100 recipes that paint a rich, varied picture of the true history of African American cooking—from a James Beard Award–winning food writer

NAMED ONE OF FALL’S BEST COOKBOOKS BY The New York Times • Bon Appétit • Eater • Food & Wine • Kitchn • Chowhound

Throughout her career, Toni Tipton-Martin has shed new light on the history, breadth, and depth of African American cuisine. She’s introduced us to black cooks, some long forgotten, who established much of what’s considered to be our national cuisine. After all, if Thomas Jefferson introduced French haute cuisine to this country, who do you think actually cooked it?

Cajun Cooking for Letters from Paris

If you've read The Paris Key, by Juliet Blackwell, here is another of her stunning, romantic novels, definitely not to be missed.  There is a love story, a bit of mystery to resolve and a fascinating new job.  Letters from Paris, tells the story of an orphan girl in Cajun country, Louisiana, who finally escapes small town life, then makes her way back home, finally ending up in Paris, tracing the origins of a funeral mask.  I especially enjoyed Claire's search for the woman behind the mask, the fascinating details of mask making, and all the delicious food mentions, from her home in the South to the wonderful food she encounters in France.  And, from the Publishers:

"After surviving the accident that took her mother’s life, Claire Broussard has worked hard to escape her small Louisiana hometown. But these days she feels something is lacking. Abruptly leaving her lucrative job in Chicago, Claire returns home to care for her ailing grandmother. There, she unearths a beautiful piece of artwork that her great-grandfather sent home from Paris after World War II.

At her grandmother’s urging, Claire travels to Paris to track down the century-old mask-making atelier where the object, known only as “L’Inconnue”—or The Unknown Woman—was created. Under the watchful eye of a surly mask-maker, Claire discovers a cache of letters that offers insight into the life of the Belle Epoque woman immortalized in the work of art. As Claire explores the unknown woman’s tragic fate, she begins to unravel deeply buried secrets in her own life."

Collard Greens and Ribs for The Cooking Gene

Our latest Cook the Books Club selection, The Cooking Gene, by Michael W. Twitty, was quite a ride, "A journey through African Culinary History in the Old South," as the sub-title states. Though it is much more than that, being also personal history, a memoir of the author and his family, from the time of their arrival as slaves to the present day.  From the Publishers:

"A renowned culinary historian offers a fresh perspective on our most divisive cultural issue, race, in this illuminating memoir of Southern cuisine and food culture that traces his ancestry—both black and white—through food, from Africa to America and slavery to freedom....

From the tobacco and rice farms of colonial times to plantation kitchens and backbreaking cotton fields, Twitty tells his family story through the foods that enabled his ancestors’ survival across three centuries. He sifts through stories, recipes, genetic tests, and historical documents, and travels from Civil War battlefields in Virginia to synagogues in Alabama to Black-owned organic farms in Georgia."

Warm Leek and White Bean Salad from River Cottage

 I've been enjoying dipping in and out of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's  River Cottage Every Day, though really, it's only a "cottage" in the sense of those lovely, big estates of a bygone era, on the East Coast, humbly referred to as cottages by their owners.  He at least is out in the vegetable patch occasionally, (judging from photos in the book) working at his gardening as well as cooking.

This recipe for warm leek and white bean salad with mustard dressing was delicious and a perfect first course along with some fresh baked bread.  We must give some credit here as well to Tamar Adler's section on beans in An Everlasting Meal.  She was such an encouragement to me about something so basic.  After a run of bad experiences, due to the keeping ability of dried beans in Hawaii.  I tossed all of mine and have begun again, with small amounts of a select few, meant to be used rather soon.  They don't keep long in the tropics, and refuse to soften.  She takes such care with the preparation, and suggests making a big pot of them, enough  for several meals during the week.