roasted root veggies
- olive oil
- sea salt
in various amounts depending on availability and preference. Four medium sized specimens of each veggie fill a medium sized roasting pan and serve two people as part of a meal with generous leftovers.
Shorthand recipe:
Peel and chop all the veggies
Toss ‘em into a pan and drizzle olive oil generously over
Cook at 400°
Turn every 15 minutes or so and cook for about an hour or until tender and yummy
Sprinkle with salt
These root veggies – little underground storehouses of yummy, sugary goodness – love to be roasted. When you roast (to cook slowly at high heat), the sugars in foods caramelize. For veggies like these, the process adds a depth and richness to their sweetness, like they’ve come to understand themselves better.
The key to roasting is in the chopping. Cutting everything into matchsticks ensures quick, uniform cooking. No need for teeny, perfectly rectangular rods; that just makes the dish look up-tight. Long, skinny, imperfect and scattered looks less mechanical and closer to the nature of the roots.
I pick out smallish beets and slice them into wedges. I peel the beets, but the parsnips and carrots I leave skinned. They’re organic so I am not worried about pesticides or chemicals – scrub clean and slice into circles. You can use the first few inches of the parsnips and carrots and save the thicker butt ends for stock.
Coat your pan with olive oil. Add your veggies. Drizzle with more olive oil and toss to coat. Slide into the hot oven. Keep an eye on them, turning occasionally. They should be done in just under an hour.
This is a simple, winter root veggie ensemble. It can be dolled up with thyme, rosemary, bay leaves, balsamic vinegar or all of these. Let the carrots and parsnips cozy up with onions, pumpkin, potatoes, or fennel. And one last suggestion, no, an imperative: roast brussel sprouts.
roe v. wade
Today, 34 years ago, the US Supreme Court agreed to put the force of the State behind a woman’s right to choose to end a pregnancy and not – at that time or perhaps ever – become a mother. Of course, in our current political and cultural climate, Roe and all the rights and freedoms it has come to represent are withering .
But I am thinking of the women whose stories were the current carrying Roe through the courts. When the case first entered the Texas legal system in 1973, women came to the hearings and spoke out about how criminalizing abortion hurt them. They lined the backs of the courtrooms; they held signs. They were dead serious. It was their reality that swayed the lower court judges to tackle one of the most taboo yet politicized subjects in our sad, strained little country.
It’s inspiration to share our own complicated realities.
Check out some of the other blogs on choice today, visit www.bushvchoice.com to see all the bloggers who participated in Blog for Choice day.
The poem below isn’t about abortion per se, but it is about a woman’s silence and the entrapment of faux choices. My friend Katie gave me the stories so love to her and all of us who are timid but rushing beyond narrow and fighting hard anyway.
- the revelation -
the young woman at the counter of the corner deli near her office
lives in new york and advocates for reproductive rights, but she’s from a small town
her friend from high school
(i remember she had that thick, long, dark hair; i remember she was smarter than me in history, smarter than anyone in that class (maybe i loved her))
she got married
to this man who spends hours on the internet buying plastic star wars figurines that he will not allow his two young sons to touch, spiraling them into debt
and it’s mcdonalds most nights
and the kids are getting fatter
she says she is tired all the time; she had wanted to go back to school
she has never had an orgasm
her mother told her, “it is your duty to lie down with your husband even if it sickens you”
she is a good christian woman
she had saved herself for marriage
her husband bought his 24th yoda yesterday and put it on the shelf, wiped the plastic cover with his sleeve
(i saw her over the holidays, you know – they both still believe that he is entitled to make unilaterally all major household decisions, that the natural structure of things gives him all the power and that this system is in all participants’ best interest.)
the young woman at the counter cups her espresso & inhales the daily morning survivor’s guilt
bites into her bagel like redemption
and she savors her own choices & happenstance opportunities with bitter gratitude
dried beans, dried beans!
When they’re just in their little slack bag on the shelf or heaped up in the dusty bins in the bulk section, dried beans look like they require serious work. While they do take time, they actually hardly need your help or attention at all. Less work than a Chia Pet and infinitely tastier (though I am wondering if anyone has grown anything edible off a Chia Pet. A little Chia Pet herb garden marching across my window sill would be cute).
If you are not already a dried bean devotee, allow me to list some of their finer qualities:
- Cheap – we’re talking under a dollar for a pound.
- Convenience – you can keep a wide array of dried legumes (the family name for all beanies & their kin) around. I store them in old juice jars, and they keep practically forever. Cooking beans can be a lovely sort of ritual when you have a lot of time, or you can cook them in about an hour when you get home from work if you think to put them in to soak before turning in the night before. You ignore them for an hour – time to peel off your pantyhose (if you have been so miserably constricted all day) or put your pantyhose on (if that’s what you do in your private time).
- They are not suspended in the mystery goo of canned beans. Canned beans are serviceable. I usually have a few cans around. Canned beans are handy, speedy dinner/snacker helpers: hummus, black bean dip, baked beans, beans & rice and any other number of things. Just rinse them off really well, and maybe avoid using them in salad. But at the end of the day, the texture of canned beans is rather unfortunate. Might as well cook dried and freeze ‘em. Fast as a can. Less suspect. Less industrial processing.
The canellini bean & roasted garlic soup is more of a weekend recipe. Start Saturday evening by soaking the beans and finish Sunday evening with a lovely soup. The soup is divine re-heated, makes a good vehicle for leftover green veggies later in the week (mmmmmmmmmmm kale) and you get bonus beans to toss into pasta, salad or tofu scramble.
Sets up some kitchen luvin’ for yourself all week long, you know?
Plus, it is inexpensive! Especially when you get that $2 bottle of white wine though I don’t recommend drinking it while you cook. And if you make/have your own stock (stock blog forthcoming).
cannellini bean & roasted garlic soup
- cannellini beans
- dried rosemary
- dried oregano
- 2 bulbs of garlic
- water
- veggie stock
- white wine
- sage
- rosemary
to cook the beans
Pick over the dried cannellini beans: run your fingers over and through them in a colander, bowl or on a cookie sheet, looking for & tossing beans that are shriveled or darkened. You can be more or less meticulous about this based on time & personality. At minimum, make sure there are no pebbles or grit.
Rinse the beans in cold water a few times then soak them, covered generously with cold water, overnight. The following day, dump the beans into a colander and rinse them a few times.
Transfer to a large, sturdy pot and add water. Cannellinis, like most beans, take 3 cups of water per cup of dried beans. Bring to a low boil, angle the lid to only partially cover the pot, and let simmer away. Toss in a small handful of dried rosemary and oregano. Cook the cannellinis for about 45 minutes. The beans should be just about tender but not quite as done as you’d like them if you were going to eat them right away.
Reserve 2 cups or so of the broth; pour it into a measuring cup or other container. Drain the beans. Let cool and toss with olive oil. Stash any beans you aren’t using immediately in the fridge until you are ready to use them.
to make the soup
Roast one bulb of garlic. Rub off the top layers of papery skin, slice the top and bottom flat, set it in a square of foil, drizzle with your best olive oil. Seal the foil and roast in a 375 degree oven for about an hour, until it is soft and carmelly.
If you are cooking beans and making soup all in one go then start the garlic before you start the beans. This creates time for it to cool for handling.
Peel and mince 4 cloves of garlic. Mince about 2 tablespoons worth of rosemary and sage.
Now it gets tricky – put everything in the pot and simmer for hours.
In a big, heavy pot, combine about 4 cups of the beans with 2 cups of veg broth, 2 cups of wine and 2 cups of water. Add the minced garlic. Over medium-high heat and covered, bring the soup to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer.
Reserve some of the oil from the roasted garlic to drizzle over the soup later then squeeze the roasted garlic cloves into the pot. Cook for at least an hour; you want the level of the soup to drop a few inches. Add more liquid if you like. Stir lazily but frequently with a wooden spoon, squishing some of the beans against the side of the pot to mush them. Mashing the beans thickens your soup, so mush more or less depending on your personal tastes. If it is a fancy sort of occasion and you have the equipment – you could run the whole lot through a blender for a beautiful, velvety white soup. You might want to keep out the fresh herbs and stir them in after you’ve reheated the puree.
To serve as they would in Tuscany, ladle over a slab of toasted Italian bread and drizzle with the garlic oil. I humbly recommend a rosemary loaf or sourdough.
garlick bread
my friend matthew (we have the same birthday but he’s 5 years older)
he used to cut my hair in the late afternoon kitchen, gringy yellow like those 70s men’s dress slacks (flat fly, low waist) from the village thrift
he would say soooo, what you’re telling me is
(purring)
what you want is
ooo, looky a hot boy from the back
but!
ooo, looky, a hot girly dyke from the front,
plus audrey hepburn
he would say—you can either cut hair or you cannot
the only reason to go to beauty school is to learn how to hold the damn scissors and comb in one hand
this is his recipe for garlic bread, or rather here’s the email he sent me when i asked for it:
hello slishalicious:
i am not sure this is in time as i have not checked my email lately, but i hope it helps “pave the way” for tastier things…here’s my recipe for garlic bread…….
1 nice loaf of French bread (i prefer a good combination of length and width as opposed to the traditional long and thin) and 1 loaf is not always enough for 2 people
garlic chopped to taste (the more the better i say) chopped/pressed/diced/or beaten into submission
1 stick of real butter per loaf (nothing faaat-free about this decadent treat) put out ahead of time to soften
4 or 5 pinches of paprika
bottle of wine that goes w/the planned meal
the tasty boi or gurl (depending on preference or both if you wish) perched on a stool
pre-heat oven to 350 degrees’ pour glass of wine and swirl the bouquet on your tongue w/the gurl on the stool
whip the butter ‘til creamy
add garlic
more wine
stir in paprika
taste butter and add more garlic or paprika- to taste
more wine and kisses, mild fondling is not inappropriate here
slice bread into desired size pieces but do not cut all the way through,
leave a little crust to hold it all together
butter both sides of the pieces (very important for that dripping with goodness taste)
wrap in foil and put in oven for 10 minutes
use the 10 minutes to open another bottle of wine for dinner (as surely you will need another by now) and “stir” up some pleasant sensations in the boi
after 10 minutes open the foil and bake for another 3 minutes to ensure a crispy crust and a moist center….
remove from oven and enjoy…
let me know how dinner went.
love always….matthew
serve with puttenaio, duh.
imploding all distance
Yesterday morning, when I twisted out of my dreams and looked up & outward over my own eyebrows through the window, it was snowing for the first time this winter. I live in the High Femme House for Wayward Women- somewhere between poverty, art and gentrification in Brooklyn. I sleep on 1,000 thread count sheets (bought for a song on-line and DIY dyed sunset orange) stretched over a duvet, sleeping bag, egg crate foam thing, and an inflatable mattress that I top-up with air every night. The troves of bedding have been mocked on many a move.
I only watched the snow for 5-minutes of dream intermission, but hope melted through me and I slid back relieved that winter has not yet been totally stolen by our manufacturing stupidity. Some of the polar bear swim clubs did not take their traditional swims last weekend in protest of how global warming is harming real polar bears. Since November, it had felt like the world was holding her atmospheric breathe with me, rolling through the crazy-making Holidays on fumes. Emotionally dehydrated, and the kitchen was empty.
So I did not bike to the Coop later, I walked. Then I took the car service across the street to get my carefully packed, big ol’ box of groceries home (the big bottle of Dr. Bronner’s lavender soap, the harlequin can of olive oil, Epsom salts, the heaviness of root vegetables). I’m a sturdy girl, and my arms hurt after just a few storefronts.
I told the driver it was heavy. He was in his late 40s (twice my age seven years ago), wearing a careful suit. He said he was strong.
Lift the heavy thing; roll the rock away from the front of your cave door. Let me in. Who are you?
He is from Egypt but lived in Switzerland where his luck was good. His luck has not been good in here, where he has lived for seventeen years. He was a lawyer in Egypt. Mohammed.
He married, he said, “a bad woman.” He wandered through the story, in de-contextualized, intimate mythology. She cheated on him.
I asked questions, missed streets to let the story flow and asked for a turn towards home when it fit in. Though his old world, hazel eyes were scanning the streets and storefronts, he wasn’t paying attention to the external landscape anymore, and I, for once, was not in a hurry.
He divorced her and sued for custody of his two sons, now 12 and 10. They fought with him about going to school this morning when I was watching the short-film of snow. With grim hands on the wheel and his voice cracking just once in frustration, he replayed the lecture to his sons in exclamation- go to school! there will be no one to care for you!
Startled by how alone he has become, he warns them not to blame him for their fate.
I ask him if he thinks he will fall in love again. Yes, he believes in love.
“I have not become
closed or complicated.”
His brother is in Qatar; writes him to send cash. It is all tangled up with the American war on Iraq. His family cannot travel. I wonder what role this Egyptian man in Qatar… I just don’t know, and suddenly I feel so helpless.
We rolled up my street; he insisted on stopping precisely before the building. Lifted my groceries out of the deep trunk and carried them up the front steps. Set them down.
Imploding all distance, he kissed my cheek.
Black Radish and Spinach Salad
- black radish (one, maybe two if you are spicy; they’re beautiful, kinda witchy)
- spinach (one bunch)
- pear (bosc pears are particularly nice, and if it is earlier in fall, apples)
- lemon
- garlic
- fresh sage
- dijon mustard
- olive oil
- balsamic
- a big salad bowl
for dressing
Roast one head of garlic. Mince two cloves of garlic and one tablespoon of fresh sage. whisk together 1 teaspoon dijon mustard, 4 bulbs of roasted garlic, minced raw garlic, sage with about ½ cup olive oil and ¼ cup of balsamic.
for salad
Cut the pear in half, then in quarters and slice off the remainder of the core. Cut into thin slices (leave peeled). Squeeze half a lemon over the pear.
Peel the radish. Then shave patches of radish into the salad bowl. A veggie peeler or paring knife will work as a tool.
Rinse the sand off the spinach. (If you do not have sand and grit in your spinach, then it is from a bag or some other such garbage. While I utterly appreciate the feeling of liberation at not having to clean or cut your own veggies, it is just not worth the risk of E. coli (Escherichia coli) for your self and the destruction of the environment for everyone else.) Use icy cold water so the greens stay crisp and gently but thoroughly pat dry. I lay out salad greens on a clean kitchen towel or paper towels or some combination of absorbent materials and lightly roll it all up like a sleeping bag.
Rip spinach into slightly larger than bite sized pieces.
Toss everything with the dressing in the salad bowl. I use my hands.
