Panang Napa Slaw

A friend of mine very kindly sent me a couple of tubs of Panang curry paste (my favorite!), which arrived a couple of days ago. I just had to use some right away. It's been hot and dry the last few days, and what I was really craving was a salad, so instead of making a Thai-style curry, I decided to use the paste in the dressing.

I'd had a large head of Napa cabbage for a few days, so rather than let it age to the point of self-composting, the way vegetables lost in the back of the refrigerator are known to do, I decided on a slaw, with this as the star protagonist. In supporting roles, I cast celery, carrots, scallions, Japanese cucumbers, and fresh mint. I cut everything thinly, on a sharp diagonal, as I often like to do, especially for dishes that lean in an Asian direction.

The dressing took mere seconds to make. Well, more like a couple of minutes (a mere 120 seconds). I simply threw lime peel, lime juice, the Panang curry paste, some Udo's DHA Oil, hemp seeds, mellow white miso, and a little water into the Vitamix and whipped it to a smooth, pale cream--surprisingly pale, considering the rich dark color of the curry paste. I poured it over the vegetables in a large bowl and tossed it with my fingers, to ensure thorough blending. Yes, I washed my hands first.

I served the salad in bowls, garnished generously with sesame seeds. The curry paste's signature heat, oddly enough, presented more of a backnote than its usual in-your-face posture, which was fine because all of its subtle aromatics came through beautifully. It was just spicy enough to qualify for a curry-based dressing, and creamy enough to hold a slaw together. Perfect, really.

A few fun fact about spicy food in hot weather: because it raises your body temperature slightly, spicy foods make you sweat. As the sweat dries, it cools you down. Somewhat counter-intuitive that chiles would do that, but scientifically logical. Also, the oils in chiles are hostile to microbes, which proliferate in hot climates, making chiles an ideal anti-bacterial food. And did you know that chiles are the most anti-inflammatory thing you can eat? Weird, but true!

And now, as I prepare to hit "Publish Post," it's starting to rain! Am I lucky or what?

Roasted Red Pepper Soup with Grilled Corn

Ah, a day without some kind of pepper would be so...well, spiceless! I hadn't really thought about this before, but I'm pretty sure it's true--at least for me. I could have a meal without it, but, a whole day? Maybe it's because where I grew up, it was everywhere-- that ubiquitous aroma of roasting peppers in the air, that fierce bite in all the salsas. 

When I was three or four years old, the maids used to punish me for my various forms of mischief by rubbing a cut green serrano chile on my tongue. If I had been especially naughty, they would rub it on the rim of a glass of water, and hand it to me when I screamed for relief. I really hated chile then, and it's a wonder I ever came to love it, but love it I do.

Not long ago, I discovered two chiles I hadn't seen or tasted before: ají amarillo and ají panca, from South America. What may be difficult for people who don't like spicy food to grasp is the wide variety of flavors among different chiles. Some dried ones are dark, like chocolate; others are smoky, or sweet; nearly all the fresh ones are vibrant, piercingly pungent, with a long-lasting burn. 

This soup I made last night had a roasted sweet red pepper base, with no heat to it at all--which would have been fine (a pepper is a pepper). But I tend to look for ways to broaden the flavor profile in dishes, so I added a healthy dose of these two newly discovered chiles, in ground form. I also put in a bit of Spanish smoked paprika, with which I've become especially enamored over the last few years, for the amazing dimension it adds to just about anything it's permitted to touch.

It all began innocently enough. I sautéed some onion and garlic in a little EVOO until soft, and then added quite a bit of roasted red peppers, coarsely chopped. As soon as the peppers began to bleed their luscious juices into the pot, I added the chiles, smoked paprika, Celtic salt, and freshly ground Balinese shade-grown Lampung black pepper (not trying to show off, really, I had just run out of the nondescript peppercorns I normally fill the mill with, and these were all I had).

When the liquid was nearly all absorbed, I added vegetable broth and a couple of bay leaves. I simmered the soup for about 20 minutes, until the vegetables were tender. While this was happening, I grilled a few ears of white corn. I cheated, actually, by placing them directly over the gas flame on my stove. This method works brilliantly, charring just the tips of the kernels and heating the rest. When they were nicely blackened, I took them off and wrapped them in foil to finish cooking in their own heat.

Once the soup was done, I let it cool a bit and then puréed it all (minus the bay leaves, of course) in the Vitamix, and returned it to the pot. As it reheated, I cut the corn kernels off the cobs, directly into the pot. I didn't have any cilantro, which would have been ideal for this, so I went out onto the deck and cut a few chives. When the soup was hot, I took it off the heat and stirred in a splash of lime juice. Then I ladled it into bowls, set a few avocado dice in the center, and snipped the chives around.

It was pretty spicy, I'll admit--a little too spicy for my wife (she's from central Illinois, after all). She didn't miss a beat. I had some water boiling at the time, so she quickly cooked up a few brown rice ziti and put these into her soup, spreading the spice around and making it just right for her. She even did this with the leftovers and took it to work today, for lunch. 

I was already thinking about the next spicy thing I would make.

Beyond Bathtub Gardening

In an earlier post, I described a project we initiated at my house in which a bathtub we never used became an indoor garden for the cold months. It worked very well, too. Now it's summer, and another project we had dreamed about has finally taken shape. We get some fierce winds up on the mountain, and every time my wife has tried to grow tomatoes or herbs, they've gotten whipped to smithereens. Then there are the sudden hailstorms, like the one last summer, that left a dozen flourishing basil plants looking like someone had blasted them with a shotgun.

We have what might pass for a side yard, if you ignore the steepness of the slope--which could be a dangerous mistake. It has been a bit of an eyesore since we bought the house, although greatly improved by some valiant efforts on my wife's part to plant some things at the sunniest end. The one redeeming feature of that yard is a fence surrounding it with excellent wind protection. It was decided that we would build a few terraces and convert this wasted space into a garden. Here is how that unfolded:

One Saturday morning, I heard the unmistakable sound of a pick kachunking and thwacking outside. I went out onto the deck and looked down into the scruffy yard, and there was my lovely wife, flailing away at the roots of a dry bush. This was just days before she was due to have surgery, so...

I went around to the back of the house, entered the yard and said, "Hey, baby! Let me do that!" She was good enough to let me take over. So many projects begin this way--which is a good thing, because if she didn't start them, they'd never happen. And that's the truth.

It's amazing how extensive a little shrub's root system can be. I had figured this would be a matter of a few solid blows, but it ended up taking the better part of an hour.

Gertie really wanted to help.

After a while, I took a break to go out and buy a pile of cinder blocks and 3-foot lengths of rebar. Marcia had already made a run to the rockyard for about 35 pots of premium topsoil.

After excavating and flattening out a section of the slope, I began to build the retaining wall. I think Gertie had realized her skill set wasn't required, but she insisted on providing moral support.

Once the blocks were in place, I hammered the rebar stakes into the holes to anchor them and provide extra stability (well, any stability, actually).

My gorgeous farmer wasted no time. As soon as the soil was in place, she planted seedlings of zucchini, burgess, delicata, and yellow squashes.

We have plans to add two more terraces next year, but Marcia didn't want to wait. So she embedded a bunch of plastic pots to form a makeshift cascading terrace. Very organic-looking, it reminded me of Mexico--the way people make creative use of whatever materials they can get their hands on. These pots got cucumbers and peppers.

A couple of weeks later, I built a second bed, where three tiny kabocha squash plants went in right away. There are shallots rooting under that pile of protective hay, and marigolds surround the bed, as a deterrent to aphids (I hear they don't get along).

Not finished by any means, but there it is: our new wind-protected terraced garden!

After I took over the pick action, Marcia (no slacker, she) set about creating a wind-shielding greenhouse for tomato plants, herbs and other fragile items. We used to have a 15-foot peace sign on the front of our house, made out of PVC, with rope lights on it. It lasted about three years before it finally fell and broke. This new structure was 100% recycled from that peace sign.

This is a lot of work, but she made a fun project out of it...

...sort of a Frank Gehry greenhouse.

A little heavy duty plastic and white duct tape made a more than adequate wind shield, and steel mesh on top will keep hail from laying waste to the tender greens.

I can't wait until the heirloom tomatoes start popping out!

Next to the door to the greenhouse, the tarragon is already going wild.

The Swiss chard, parsley and mint like it better in the shade of the table.