Celery Week

I'll give celery one thing: it certainly lends itself well to cheap puns. Beyond that though, I honestly was looking forward to celery week. When I was younger, I was always jealous of the ants on a log crowd because it seemed like such a good snack (who doesn't want to eat something compared to insects crawling on wood?) but I could never really enjoy it. Thus ants on a log was the first thing I excitedly tried. Turns out though, celery with peanut butter and raisins on it tastes a whole lot like celery and not so much like peanut butter or raisins. This would not necessarily be a bad thing (though it would sort of defeat the purpose) if I didn't also realize I'm not that enthusiastic about celery. I see it as a much less offensive carrot. Oddly, I can't figure out what exactly bothers me about it--the taste is sort of refreshing. I think it might be the slight stringiness which accompanies the crunch.

As another vain hope of recapturing a celery-centric childhood, I wanted to do that thing where you put a stalk of celery in water with food coloring and watch it change color. I like to think this was a staple of elementary school education or at the very least the sister experiment where you use white carnations instead of celery (the color is better, but the vascular tissue is less pronounced). Its a good experiment because it combines the wonder of plant water absorption with the fact that kids love when things turn unnatural colors (something the Koolaid industry has capitalized on). Sadly, this whole last paragraph was something of a nostalgic digression because I didn't actually do the food coloring experiment. Apparently "having a constant supply of food coloring in my cabinet" is another vestiage of childhood I've left behind. As is "remembering to buy some when I'm actually at the store."

I tried celery with ranch dip which at first brought back more painful memories of carrot week, but then it really wasn't too bad. Celery lends itself far more to ranch dipping because it lacks carrot's officious density. A couple of bites and the celery is appropriately chewed without ever losing the ranch dip. I also tried celery with the cream cheese orange juice mixture mentioned in the comments. That seemed to work better still because its thicker than ranch dip. Also it offers a sweet option to vegetable consumption, something which is always appreciated.

I had intended to try a celery soup (my cure-all for texture problems) but found it more difficult a recipe to find than you would think. Apparently the Joy of Cooking does not consider such a thing worthy of publication. They do however, have a juice drink that combines watermelon and celery. It sounded rather good until I read the directions which instructed me matter-of-factly to put the watermelon and celery into my juice extractor. I am unfortunately one of those shortcut-taking modern women who doesn't own a juice extractor. So much for enjoying a delicious watermelon celery breeze on a warm summer's day.

So yes, no soup this week. I did make some dressing with celery in it to be served along side some roast chicken. It wasn't bad at all. I'm a true believer in box stuffing. Its so simple and yet always delicious. Perhaps not a summer food as much, but I enjoyed it thoroughly nevertheless. I think dicing the celery up and cooking away a little of the crunch really went a long way in this instance.

Now onto next week! I've finally been worn down...

Next week: artichoke!

Eggplant Week

Post is a little later today (and will be a little shorter) because I'm out of town right now and my internet's a little spotty. Also, I think blogger was down this morning. However, I'm making up for it with something special and never-before-seen on vegetables are friends, but I'll get to that in a moment.

I'm going to skip the usual vegetable/fruit debate because I feel like we've covered that many a vegetable/fruit ago. That aside, its interesting to note that the eggplant is botanically classified as a berry. I had a lot of fun with eggplants this week. These pendulous, purple friends are so easy to make in a variety of fun and unhealthy ways.

I found that frying eggplants allowed too great a margin of error (if the oil is not the perfect temperature, they absorb too much oil and become inedible); however, baking them in a pan of oil gave a similar effect minus the guess work! I made very thin slices of eggplant and breaded them and baked them on a pan of olive oil for about 25 minutes and ended up with delicious slices of eggplant heaven. As an added tip, I salted them and towel dried them prior to breading. I tried the baking-not-frying method both with these eggplant chips (accompanied by a blue cheese sauce) and then again with thicker slices for some eggplant parmasean. I tried this both with a Chinese eggplant and a regular eggplant and while I couldn't really tell the difference, many friends seemed to prefer the Chinese eggplant.

That's actually all the eggplant cooking I did for myself--as I mentioned, I'm out of town at present--but luckily where I am is chock full of delicious eggplant eating options. The other day I tried eggplant pizza. I'd never even seen that before! I thought it was quite serendipitous. Also, just tonight I stopped by a nearby Greek restaurant and got some moussaka. Its a layered casserole with eggplant, lamb or beef, and bechemal on top. Its impossible not to like anything with bechemal on top, but the eggplants certainly pulled their weight in this delicious dish. Had I not previously liked eggplants this week, moussaka would be reason enough to friend them.

Now for the surprise promised four paragraphs hence. I have always (since the onset of spinach week oh those many posts ago) sought to maintain my anonymity here in the blogosphere. Mostly just for a lark since almost everyone who reads this knows me and/or shares a bloodline with me (with the notable exception of the wonderful susan t!). However, I feel it is difficult to get through eggplant week without posting a picture of myself from last Halloween when I went as an eggplant. Why would I go as an eggplant when I didn't even like them or any vegetables last October, you may wonder. Mostly it was because I had purple tights and no where to wear them. So without further ado:
I wish you could get a better shot of my felt leaf cap with pipe cleaner accent--I really was quite proud of that. Also, apologies to the bear that's with me (who I know reads this faithfully) for an unauthorized picture posting.

Next week: celery!

Cauliflower Week

Much like the photo from mushroom week, this one is more a tribute to the fascinating world of vegetable diversity then, say, something I actually ate. This is actually a fractalish cauliflower, where as the kind I ate were the somewhat less mesmerizing non-fractalish kind. Still, vegetablesarefriends is nothing if not a showcase for our leafy comrades at their most beautiful.

I was a little surprised when talking to people about cauliflower to find a certain degree of anathema for them. On more than one occasion, friends told me they absolutely can't stand the stuff. Where does this latent hatred come from? After actually trying cauliflower, I can't really figure it out. It doesn't seem to have a strong enough taste to really cause a big reaction. In fact, it reminds me of a less obtrusive broccoli, and broccoli seems to receive a much less virulent reception. The only thing I can think of must be an aversion to the texture--it can be almost gritty at times, and really who wants to eat something that offers the sensation that it should be washed again and not stored in a sand box.

I tried it roasted and steamed with cheese sauce and always ran into this texture problem. It wasn't completely off putting, but I never found myself eagerly reaching for a second serving. The cheese sauce did help the most though, as cheese sauce often will. Also, when I had it roasted, I dipped it in a blend of blue cheese, sour cream, and some kind of Greek cheese, and that made it a little better. I hate to say what I'm about to, as I feel I'm like a broken record, but the obvious solution to the texture problem is to turn to souping.

I used my mother's recipe which is essentially the same as for the curry carrot soup you may remember from carrot week. For a refresher, you saute some onions with butter in a pan. When those are cooked you add a head of chopped cauliflower and cover with chicken broth (or vegetable broth). Cook until the cauliflower is soft and add curry paste. Then you pop it in a blender until you get a delicious soup without any grittiness! Easiest way to eat cauliflower, that I found.

I also made some Indian food with tomatoes and cauliflower that turned out nicely. I'll just add the link to the recipe because it came off a blog which deserves credit and because I'm too lazy to write it out: http://indiacuisine.blogspot.com/2006/01/arf-5-cauliflower-tomato-curry.html.
I haven't looked at too much one the site, but it seems to have some good stuff! I wanted to make an aloo gobi, but apparently that is traditionally a combination of cauliflower and potatoes. Those of you who know me, know that I hate potatoes above most things. It seemed a little early to cure that one, so I opted for a less dry curry. Interestingly, cauliflower is apparently often used as a substitute for potatoes in low-carb diets because it has a similar consistency (a gross one) but without the starch. In fact (and this is why I'm telling you this), according to Wikipedia, cauliflower is used to produce a potato substitute known as fauxtato. Isn't that great? I could scarce think of a more enchanting name for a fake spud.

On that note, the end of cauliflower week. Thanks for reading and have a happy Memorial Day!

Next week: eggplant!

Cucumber Week

I'm not really sure who Arthur Cucumber is, but apparently you can buy this "mouse mat" for the only somewhat exorbitant price of £6.50. Of course, this entails going to a website called "Violent Veg" which normally this site would not support, but which seems to be much less about vegetable scare-mongering than the name would suggest. Well now that I've appropriately advertised and assuaged all guilt about swiping this pic, I can move on to the real substance of cucumber week!

I'm certainly glad I saved cucumbers for summer (believe me, where I live May is full on summer), for they're quite a refreshing vegetable. I no longer wonder (not that I really previously did) about the phrase "cool as a cucumber." Well except as regards the switching of meanings of "cool" from the obvious temperature definition "somewhat cold" to the more abstract "calm and collected." Otherwise, its a perfectly apt simile. On the subject, this particular cliche is actually one of the more international ones, as I and a few of my friends will remember learning the phrase "koel soos 'n komkommer" in our Afrikaans class. Where was I? Oh right, the real substance of cucumber week.

I started off with some sweet and sour tuna with a blend of cucumbers and orange bell peppers on top. The tuna wasn't really sweet or sour, proving some recipes to be misleading, but the cucumbers added a refreshing crunch. Once I realized the orange bell peppers weren't carrots (which took a surprisingly long time actually), they weren't bad either.

In order to feature cucumbers more prominently I tried a mix of fresh cucumbers with some soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, and garlic. I was not a fan of this combination, but it may be well worth trying for those of you who like rice wine vinegar on things. I wanted to try the chili powder, lemon combination, mentioned last week, on some cucumber as well, but so far I have not gotten around to it. I still have half a cucumber left though, so I may try it today.

I tried not one but two of my old friends, the soups. Nothing says summer like a cold cucumber soup. One of the soups was mostly cucumber with some garlic and dill. The other was a bit fancier and included nuts and possibly raisins. Actually I'm not even really sure what I was eating, but it was tasty. Cucumbers are now approved the join the long list of vegetables that are so nicely souped.

Beyond soup, my two favorite cucumber experiments of the week involved the making of cucumber limeade and the purchasing of tzatziki sauce. I got the idea for cucumber limeade offline, and found it surprisingly enjoyable. The cucumber cuts the sourness of the lime nicely and makes it all the more refreshing for it. Of course, cucumber is also nice just floated in water which has the added bonus of making you feel like you're at a ritzy spa (or is that just me?). As for the tzatziki, I imagine its supposed to go on some delicious shawarma or gyros, but I found it could be just fine as a dipping sauce for plain pitas. Thank you, random Middle Eastern market near my house.

That about wraps up cucumber week. As for next week, I've been getting a lot of outside pressure to tackle artichokes, but I'm resisting it for now. Do I really need to develop a taste for something so extravagant? And what's with only being able to eat part of the leaves? Anyway, I'm going a different way instead.

Next week: cauliflower!

Announcement of Cucumber Week

This is the much ballyhooed (well okay, barely ballyhooed) interim post that I promised a few weeks ago. Its been a hectic few weeks, but I should be back up and running soon. I haven't tried too much crazy vegetable goodness, but I have been keeping up with previously friended vegetables. I've been souping veggies like mad trying to get them out of my refrigerator.

In the world of fried vegetables, I discovered that ordering vegetable tempura is a good idea but only in small amounts. How soon one becomes over tempura-ed! It does make for a fun game of "try to guess what vegetable is under the fried bit." Broccoli flowerlets are pretty easy to guess, but yams and squashes require biting into and, in some cases, chewing for a bit before identity can really be verified. At the festival last weekend I was able to tried some fried green tomatoes which were delicious. There's something I'll miss about living in the South. Unfortunately, they didn't have fried okra at the festival as I'd assumed, but I did have some this morning at brunch. (Apparently fried okra is a brunch food?) Not bad, though I feel I'd be wary of okra in other contexts.

Now for the excitement of the coming week. I had some cucumber in a salad at a dinner party last week, and it seemed innocuous enough. Thus I thought I'd go ahead and make the announcement that cucumber week cometh in case anyone has any good recipes. Hopefully, I didn't lose too many readers with the hiatus!

Pea Week

Welcome, friends of vegetables, to pea week. Not so challenging a challenge really as these are fairly innocuous little buggers. While I can't say I would ever sit down for a nice bowl of straight peas--they do add a nice complement to many a dish. And there's something comforting about these friendly little orbicular greens, especially when paired with carrots (which I still find kind of gross, but we're mostly talking aesthetics here).

Pea week was something of a wash in terms of actual cooking. I'm growing lazy and preoccupied with other things lately, so many of my pea purchases were ready made. Case in point, I had fully planned to make a chicken pot pie. I grew up making chicken pot pies for my family; however, I would always make myself a mini personal pot pie minus the mixed vegetables. I know, I know, was I ever so young? Making a chicken pot pie with peas, carrots, and green beans (the typical Birds Eye blend), seemed like a symbol of my changing habits. But then instead, I just bought a Marie Calendars individual pie. Marie does a decent job, and the vegetables suit the dish well. Not only was this much easier, but I wasn't saddled with my usual slew of left overs. No one wants to eat chicken pot pie for five days straight.

The same can be said for making an entire pot of soup. So instead I again copped out and went the root of Campbell's split pea soup. I can definitely recommend this product; its a good hearty soup with chunks of ham in it and plenty of peas. There was also a nice smoky flavor! Well souped, Campbell's, well souped. Peas certainly do speak to a certain level of comfort--or at least they appear in a lot of foods I would consider "comforting". While I may always prefer frozen waffles or tomato soup as my comfort foods of choice, I see the appeal of peas in that respect. I think it might be because they're so small. It would be nigh impossible (once your esophagus is larger than an infant's) to choke on a pea, and how comforting is that?

I tried some snow peas though unfortunately I never got around to a proper stir fry. I ate them raw and dipped in things I found in my refrigerator. I realize that sentence makes me sound a little more intrepid and disgusting than I had intended it to. To rephrase: I ate them raw and dipped in leftover salad dressings that I needed to get rid of. Overall, not bad.

As this last paragraph my suggest, I'm currently in the process of trying to clean out my fridge. To that end, my last pea encounter was a mostly just my combining things I'm trying to get rid of. I steamed some peas (actually they steamed themselves in the bag in my microwave--isn't technology swell?) and threw in a sauce made from the blue cheese crumbles that I've been meaning to eat for a week now and then mixed that with the bow tie pasta that I can't even remember buying. Surprisingly yummy.

I'm afraid vegetables are friends may be going on a short hiatus for the next two weeks. I'm in the process of moving out of my apartment, and I'm trying not to buy more food, especially perishables. If there's one thing I've learned in these last few months, its that buying vegetables seems to necessitate buying all sorts of other things to eat them with. Thus, I'm not interested in starting a new vegetable which wouldn't really get the attention it deserves right now. I'd considered doing okra because at the end of this week because I'm going to a local festival at which I know there will be fried okra; however, I'm not planning to eat okra the rest of the week or in any other fashion ever, so I'm pretty sure that won't count. I may post next week on all fried vegetables I encounter this weekend--fried green tomatoes, fried okra, etc.--but I'll wait and see if I can actually make that interesting.

Another option is to enlist the advice of my readers on how to dispose of the vegetables I currently have in creative ways. I still have steamed peas, a few snow peas, a can of corn, carrots, and an onion. I also have a surplus of most staples, a large quantity of apple cider vinegar, many salad dressings, and a collection of cheeses. Any thoughts?

Next week: who knows?

Asparagus Week

Artful, no? I think I remember reading somewhere that white asparagus is just regular asparagus that was kept from sunlight. Thinking over it though, I'm not sure how that could be true because then how would the plant grow at all? I guess it could just be artificial light which for some reason inhibits the chlorophyll while still providing the asparagus much needed nutrients. But if that's true, does that mean we could make anything white by keeping it from sunlight? Could albino broccoli happen? Any alert science minded readers are invited to join this debate. Then again, if that first "fact" is wrong, then I guess its all a moot point.

Moving on...asparagus week had its ups and downs with a bit more emphasis on the downs. I think I'll include more (as in more than none) recipes this week because it has come to my attention I am not alone in not liking asparagus and perhaps I'll seek to change that. Of course, these recipe recommendations would be more compelling if I could in good conscience endorse their output, but I encourage non-asparagus likers to give it a go nevertheless. My family has always been a fan of the tomato asparagus salad which my mother mentioned in the comments. The actual list of ingredients for that is as follows:

• 1 bunch asparagus
• 1 tomato, chopped
• 2 tablespoons thinly sliced green onion
• 3 tablespoons nonfat plain yogurt
• 1 tablespoon grated Parmesan cheese
• 1 teaspoon prepared mustard

Mix that together and you have what everyone in my family will tell you is a tasty salad. I thought then that I might enjoy it as well, but I had forgotten that my family members are unabashed asparagus likers all. They even eat it straight! Boiled, no less! So yes, my consensus on the asparagus salad is that you may like it, but I fear that liking asparagus already may be a prerequisite.

I wanted to experiment with different methods of cooking asparagus, but was limited by not having a grill. I did learn that broiling in the oven with some olive oil and salt is superior to boiling. Actually, I still wasn't too fond of it even after broiling, but my friend ate the stalks like candy. In a perfect world, I would try my hand at frying asparagus, but I feel this may be one of those things that only works well in restaurants.

The only truly successful venture was some cream of asparagus soup I made which was actually pretty delicious. So far it seems soups are the only mode of vegetable consumption to never let me down. This gives me hope that should I ever lose all my teeth, I will be able to take it in stride. I'll try to recreate the recipe, but as I have a tendency when cooking to just throw things in without measuring, it may be a little coarse. The short hand for this recipe would be: take asparagus and add copious amounts of butter and cream until a soup is formed. But to break it down further: First, I cut up the some fresh asparagus into 1 inch pieces and boiled them in enough vegetable broth to cover them, but not really that much. In another pan, I melted some butter and then added some flour as a thickener, followed by some (maybe a quarter cup?) of cream and some (a cup?--wow, this is the most useless recipe ever) more broth and cooked that until thickened. Once the asparagus was soft, I combined the two mixtures and let it cook a little longer with a little salt (I also may have added pepper, but its all a little hazy now). Then, because, I don't like chunks of gross things in my soup, I pureed the whole mixture. I garnished with a little Parmesan cheese. So yeah, if anyone is feeling intrepid and wants to try this based on my shakey description--I can say that I fully recommend this. Coming from a general disliker of asparagus, I feel this endorsement should carry some weight.

I'm sorry I can't offer more/better recipes. My readers are so good about offering reliably good fare, but I seldom give back to the vegetable liking community. Next week, I shall endeavor to write something down if I feel like it may turn out to be delicious.

Next week: peas!