Fiddle Head Ferns and Fennel Salad, With a Mystery

Sheila Connolly has several "cozy mystery" series out and I've enjoyed her writing thus far.  This newest series, the Victorian Village Mysteries, is outstanding already.  A real winner, judging from the debut, Murder at the Mansion.  I especially loved her blend of history, including little known background on Clara Barton, a bit of romance, an interesting premise - can a dying town be saved, and an unusual solve. It's the girl grows up, leaves town in a hurry and unwillingly comes back to help someone scenario, with a few fun twists. Connolly is an entertaining and witty writer.

Kate has a great job, managing day-to-day operations for a high-end boutique hotel on the Baltimore waterfront, when her high school best friend comes seeking help for their hometown.

Here's what the Publishers and a few Reviewers have to say:

"Welcome to Asheboro, Maryland, where the homes are to die for. . .

Katherine Hamilton never wanted to return to her dead-end hometown. But when she is called in to help save Asheboro from going bankrupt, Kate can’t refuse. The town has issued its last available funds to buy a local Victorian mansion. It’s a plan that Kate would be happy to help get off the ground. . .if only she didn’t have such bad memories associated with that mansion. Is Kate ready to do business―or is this job too personal for her own good?

Kuku Sabzi - and I Don't Mean Crazy

We are currently reading Pomegranate Soup for our Cook the Books Club, hosted this round by Simona of Briciole fame. This novel by Marsha Mehran is the tale of three young women who made their escape from the revolution in Iran, and have come to live and open a cafe in a small village in Ireland. A bit of culture shock going on here.  More so on the part of some unsympathetic Irish villagers.  However enough of the residents are willing to try the strange food on offer, and come back for more.

I did enjoy the story as a whole, though I thought Mehran's tale got off to a bad start with her prologue. All about the evil villain of the piece, Thomas McGuire.  He is so over-the-top nasty that it strains credibility.  This negativity continues through her first 5 or so chapters, carried into descriptions of  Irish villagers, police, the town, even the country side. Such as, on a remote mountain road: "the big man puffed his way along the rocky mile and a half to the cottage on foot, coughing on vapors of cow dung and pig fat that hung in the air." Truly?  Doesn't mesh with the remoteness of the spot, or "beauty of the surrounding verdant valleys."

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.

Escapism Cooking, In One Sense

When I got The Art of Escapism Cooking by Mandy Lee, from our library (this is not a book you want to buy without checking it out first) I thought, my word, what amazing looking recipes!  What wonderful photography!

Then, I realized that these recipes were for very involved, not to mention strange, concoctions.  Pages of instruction and hard to come by ingredients, many incorporating unique sauces, which needed to be created first, before using, in meals entitled for instance, Spelt Jianbing with Kettle Cooked Potato Chips, Clams Over Oatmeal, Chewy Layered Paratha, Korean Pork Belly Tacos with Pear on Sticky Rice Tortillas, and Semi-Instant Risotto with Pork Fat Crispy Rice Cereal.

This is not merely fusion cooking people, but more like Double Extreme Fusion!  And Lee gives her readers a few tirades on that subject, for example her rant on pizza: 

"Pizza has the potential to be Italy's ramen, a democratic arena of creativity, progressivism, and tolerance, if only the Italians could just chill the fuck out about it.  Is it really pizza?  Who says so, and who cares?  Neither the tomato itself nor baking stuff on top of a fermented dough was an original Italian idea, and if the Italians from a few hundred years ago were dumb enough to give a shit about that, then there wouldn't even be such a thing as pizza today.  All the dishes we eat today were fusion at some point in history.  And to say that this progression should stop and freeze at an arbitrary point for the sake of national pride is both dangerous and dumb-sounding."

Pistachio Dusted Cream of Cauliflower Soup from The Knowledge

Many of you may be familiar with Martha Grimes' series featuring Scotland Yard Detective Superintendent, Richard Jury, and her clever pub name titles.  The Knowledge  is one of those, her latest effort in the series.. Jury and his occasionally strange cohorts/friends are always fun.  I'd recommend starting at the beginning however, unless you already have.

From the Publishers:
"With their signature wit, sly plotting, and gloriously offbeat characters, Martha Grimes’s New York Times bestselling Richard Jury mysteries are “utterly unlike anyone else’s detective novels” (Washington Post). In the latest series outing, The Knowledge, the Scotland Yard detective nearly meets his match in a Baker Street Irregulars-like gang of kids and a homicide case that reaches into east Africa.

Robbie Parsons is one of London’s finest, a black cab driver who knows every street, every theater, every landmark in the city by heart. In his backseat is a man with a gun in his hand—a man who brazenly committed a crime in front of the Artemis Club, a rarefied art gallery-cum-casino, then jumped in and ordered Parsons to drive. As the criminal eventually escapes to Nairobi, Detective Superintendent Richard Jury comes across the case in the Saturday paper.

Two days previously, Jury had met and instantly connected with one of the victims of the crime, a professor of astrophysics at Columbia and an expert gambler. Feeling personally affronted, Jury soon enlists Melrose Plant, Marshall Trueblood, and his whole gang of merry characters to contend with a case that takes unexpected turns into Tanzanian gem mines, a closed casino in Reno, Nevada, and a pub that only London’s black cabbies, those who have “the knowledge,” can find. The Knowledge is prime fare from “one of the most fascinating mystery writers today” (Houston Chronicle)."

Happy New Year's Jook

The downside to embarking upon a terrific new mystery series, when you've just finished the debut novel, is the wait for a follow up!  Singapore Sapphire, by .A. M. Stuart, has it all - an intrepid heroine, in an exotic locale, fascinating history and really splendid writing. I want to read her next one now!

I would only take exception to the cover.  Who is supposed to be represented here?  Certainly not our brave heroine, Harriet Gordon, an Englishwoman, raised in India.  More from the Publishers:

"Early twentieth-century Singapore is a place where a person can disappear, and Harriet Gordon hopes to make a new life for herself there, leaving her tragic memories behind her--but murder gets in the way.

Singapore, 1910--Desperate for a fresh start, Harriet Gordon finds herself living with her brother, a reverend and headmaster of a school for boys, in Singapore at the height of colonial rule. Hoping to gain some financial independence, she advertises her services as a personal secretary. It is unfortunate that she should discover her first client, Sir Oswald Newbold--explorer, mine magnate and president of the exclusive Explorers and Geographers Club--dead with a knife in his throat.

When Inspector Robert Curran is put on the case, he realizes that he has an unusual witness in Harriet. Harriet's keen eye for detail and strong sense of duty interests him, as does her distrust of the police and her traumatic past, which she is at pains to keep secret from the gossips of Singapore society.

When another body is dragged from the canal, Harriet feels compelled to help with the case. She and Curran are soon drawn into a murderous web of treachery and deceit and find themselves face-to-face with a ruthless cabal that has no qualms about killing again to protect its secrets."

Party Guacamole Speaks with the Language of Flowers

Our latest bimonthly Cook the Books Club entry is The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh, and hosted this time by Debra of Eliot's Eats.  If you'd like to join us, the party is open for your contribution until January 31st.  Everyone is welcome! Be sure to check out our Guidelines page if you have any questions.

From the Publishers:
"The Victorian language of flowers was used to convey romantic expressions: honeysuckle for devotion, asters for patience, and red roses for love. But for Victoria Jones, it’s been more useful in communicating mistrust and solitude. After a childhood spent in the foster-care system, she is unable to get close to anybody, and her only connection to the world is through flowers and their meanings. Now eighteen and emancipated from the system with nowhere to go, Victoria realizes she has a gift for helping others through the flowers she chooses for them. But an unexpected encounter with a mysterious stranger has her questioning what’s been missing in her life. And when she’s forced to confront a painful secret from her past, she must decide whether it’s worth risking everything for a second chance at happiness."

All About Roasted Roots Soup

This soup came about after my last batch of pressure cooked broth was nicely cooled and waiting in the fridge, with caps of fat to be removed.  I was thinking what sort of soup shall we make?  There was a bit of broccoli from the market, but more would be needed for a cream of broccoli soup.  Then, back at the market, next day, no broccoli was left.  However there were some nice parsnips, and that spurred me on to the thought of other roots; carrots, shallots, sweet potato and garlic.  Yes, and the idea of a cream of roots soup was hatched.

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?