Berries. Better than Chocolate.

Berries.  Beautiful, glamorous, sweet-tart, soft, fragile gems.  These were unusual varieties- alpine strawberries and pineberries.   

No recipe.  They were too good as nature made them.  After a quick rinse we ate them out of hand, savoring each one like it was the last.

Rhubarb Chutney

I am still happily embracing the bounty of rhubarb that comes my way.  It was interesting to watch it trickle down:  at the first hint of spring, it could only be had at upscale specialty vendors for way too much money.  By now with it being near-summer they are practically giving it away at Tesco and Lidl and every other chain grocery in the land.  I've taken advantage and stocked up.  

One of the things I've made recently with this glut of 'barb has been a chutney.  The Brits do love their chutneys, and I've come to embrace this (with relish!).  They are usually sweet-tart, quite chunky, and they pair them on all sorts of savory dishes.  Not that I eat a lot of meat, but a spicy tart rhubarb chutney pairs fabulously with any fatty piece you throw at it- pork tenderloin, ham, lamb, roast beef.  It would even do well smothered over a grilled chicken thigh.  Pairing fruit with savory is one of my favorite tricks.  If you don't eat meat?  This is lovely on fish, or added to a vegetable stir fry for a nice sour kick.  I don't normally advocate cooked cheese, but I would be all over this with a baked brie or Camembert.  You get the gist: anything fatty enough to feel guilty about, this will elevate.  

Plus, it's easy to throw together and it will freeze nicely.  You can put it in pretty jars and gift it if you are feeling generous.  

Recipe:  Rhubarb Chutney
Makes about 4 cups

200 g (1 cup) sugar
6 oz (1/2 cup) red wine vinegar
1 cinnamon stick
an inch-long piece of fresh ginger root, minced
1 1/2 teaspoons orange zest
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom

1060 ml (41/2 cups) coarsely chopped rhubarb  
180 ml (3/4 cup) dried currants (or raisins or sultanas)
4 green onions, chopped

Stir the first 6 ingredients together in a large pot over medium heat until the sugar dissolves and it begins to boil (and smell wonderful).  Add the last three ingredients and reduce to simmer and stir occasionally for about 4 or 5 minutes- the rhubarb should start to get soft but not so mushy to lose all texture.  

Let cool to room temperature before serving.  Keep covered in the fridge or freeze in small batches.   

Kale Curry

I don't know what exactly triggered my vegetarianism.  Honestly, I think it was me trying to be a willful teenager and cause a scene at the dinner table without resorting to doing anything really bad, like drugs of attending back-woods keg parties that end in teen pregnancy.  Refusing animal flesh seemed to be a reasobale and polite alternative to piercings and back-alley stick-and-poke tattos of an angry unicorn or the logo of a terrible band that I liked for five minutes.  It was enough of a disturbance to cuase parental units strife at dinner time, and that was vicotry enough for me.

Once I committed to tofu dogs and soysage, I stuck with it for a good ten years.  At which point, I started to travel and decided that I'd be missing out on life if I didn't indulge in local specialties- Parma ham in Italy, Brauts in Germany, Schnitzel in Austria, Coq a Vin at a farmhouse in France.  Plus, I was getting tired of not being invited out to dinner parties at non-vegetarian's houses.  Bringing your own leftovers to microwave while everyone else eats a beef tenderloin gets old fast, and I got tired of rolling my eyes at every snide carnivorous comment being sent my way.    

I do eat meat on occasion, but I really still prefer vegetables and usually go weeks on a vege diet without even really thinking about it.  I always feel much better on a vege diet- healthier and lighter and more energetic.  It just works for me.

I do get a little help- I get a weekly vege box delivered from a farm in Devon.  It's packed with whatever is seasonal and organic that grows locally.  I love getting this and it motivates me to cook and use up every last onion and purple sprouting broccoli in there in time for the next delivery.  True, in winter time, this means cabbage and spuds and leeks and little else, but if you are going to preach about saving local agriculture and small farms, you better learn to put these veggies to good use.   

A couple weeks ago, my box contained a huge mound of sweet potatoes, bunches of kale and onions.  Sweet potato and kale is one of my favorite combinations.  I got to work and soon had a dashingly good curry on my plate.  True, the final dish won't win any beauty contest, but it's packed with so much vegetable goodness that you feel virtuous and saintly at the end of dinner time.  It's that good for you.  

Thank goodness I got over lousy rubbery meat substitutes in a hurry.  Although, I do love a good homemade veggie burger.  I'll share one with you soon.

The beauty of this health-giving and tasty dish is that it makes a lot, and that lot can be slopped into tuppys at the end of dinner and stacked in the freezer for when you are too busy or lazy to throw something together.  

Recipe: Kale Curry

Serves 4 with leftovers

Adapted from The America's Test Kitchen Complete Vegetarian Cookbook, with some bright ideas from the Cookie and Kate blog.

1½ cups brown rice, rinsed

3 T olive oil, divided
1 onion, chopped, 
32oz (2lbs) sweet potato, peeled and cubed
5 garlic cloves (or more if you you are bold!), minced
2 t fresh ginger, grated
1 t curry power (I went the Indian route, Thai would work as well)
32 oz (2 lbs) kale, stemmed and chopped
8oz (1 c) vegetable broth or stock 
14 oz coconut milk
Lime, for squeezing and garnish
30 g (1/3c) pepitas or other raw seeds
salt and black pepper
red pepper flakes

Cook the rice as whatever the instructions say to on the bag. This usually takes about a  half hour, so you can easily multitask your way into everything being done at the same time.

Heat 2 T of olive oil in a large pot wit a fitted lid over medium heat.  Add the onion and cook, stirring frequently until it is soft and translucent.  Add the sweet potato, cover and cook for about 5 minutes.  Transfer to a large bowl.  Return the pot to the stove.

Heat another T of oil in the pot.  Add the garlic, ginger and curry powder.  Stir constantly for less than a minute, until your nose tells you it's good, and then add half the kale.  Stir, and when the kale wilts down, add the rest of the greens.  Add the broth and coconut milk.  Season with salt and pepper.  Reduce the heat and cover.  Cook for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the kale is wilted and tender.  Add the sweet potatoes, throw the lid on, and continue to cook for another 10-20 minutes (this kind of depends on the size of your sweet potato cubes, but you want them tender).    

While you are waiting for the sweet potatoes to soften, heat a fry pan over medium low-heat and add the pepitas and seeds.  Keep them moving constantly until they toast up, emit a nutty odor and, in the case of the pepitas anyway, begin to puff up and pop.  This should only take a few minutes.  Set aside.    

Once the sweet potatoes are cooked through, remove the lid and turn the heat up until the sauce is a consistency to your liking, about 2-5 minutes. Stir occasionally to keep the bottom from burning.   

By now, your rice should be done.  Spoon rice into bowls, top with the sweet potato and kale.  Squeeze a bit of lime on top and sprinkle some chili flakes on top, then top the whole mess with the pepitas.  Serve, enjoy, and feel like the virtuous god(dess) you are.

Rhubarb Ginger Crumble

It's springtime!  Time for ludicrously priced precious early gems to start appearing at the farmer's markets.  The best of which might be the lovely pale pink stalks of rhubarb.  

I'm fairly unaccustomed to paying for this stuff.  Growing up, it's one of the few vegetables that "take" to Maine soil and climate.  Like zucchinis, by mid-summer, you are paying people to haul this away from you.  We would walk down to the end of the road where a nice couple with a large patch of it would indulge us and send us back up the hill with an armful of ruby-pink stalks, me impatiently nibbling on the end much like I would later do with the baguettes in Paris.  Getting home, we would be allowed to have a small bowl with sugar in it, dip the chewed end to coat, and then chew as much of the ultra-tart rhubarb as bearable before returning to mash the chewed end into sugar once again.  Why yes,  I did buy my dentist a boat, why do you ask?

Most of the rhizomes would get chopped up and frozen as there was usually just too much to handle all at once.  The obvious choice for it was to be paired with strawberries into tarts and pies.  This is still just classic and a favorite.

I started experimenting with this tart vegetable that we treat as a fruit in recent years.  It works well in savory dishes- stir-fried with pork belly, made into a chutney and spooned onto roasted duck breast.  The tartness complements fatty and rich dishes like no other, the flash of pink gives dishes a cheerful boost.

I found a new favorite courtesy of Ginger Pig.  This is a fantastic (and fantastically expensive) high-end butcher over in Borough Market.  They raise all the animals free-range on their farm in Yorkshire and are famous for almost everything they produce (I find their homemade pies irresistible).  They have a nice (although much more meat-heavy than what I usually go for) series of cookbooks that focuses on charming farmhouse-rustic-chic cooking where I found a recipe for a rhubarb ginger crisp.  This was a dashingly good combination.  The rhubarb cooked down to be submerged in a deeply caramelized syrup of spice and sweet-tart that I couldn't get enough of, especially when you have a half-melted scoop of vanilla ice cream to lovingly mop away at with the topping.  We licked the dishes clean- a perfectly wicked preview of good things to come from the garden.

Added bonus: this would work nicely with lots of fruit combinations, so feel free to add some frozen berries that you might have lying around.  It also freezes quite well, so it wouldn't be inhuman of you to make a double batch and save some for a lazier day.

I share it with you here.  

Recipe:  Rhubarb Ginger Crumble
from the Ginger Pig Farmhouse Cookbook
Serves 4-6.  Takes about 15 minutes active time, 1 hour total.

125g (41/2oz) chilled butter, cut into dice
125g (41/2oz) plain flour
50g (2oz) ground almonds, or almond flour
50g (2oz) rolled oats
700g (1lb 9oz) rhubarb, cleaned and chopped into inch-long pieces with the tough strings peeled off
20g (3/4oz) fresh ginger root: peeled and grated with a microplane or diced finely
50g (2oz) unrefined caster sugar

Preheat the oven to 180c/350f

Combine the butter and flour together in a bowl with a pastry cutter or your fingers until coarse crumbs form.  Add the almonds, sugar and oats and mix to combine.

Place the chopped rhubarb into an oven proof dish.  I am a bit poor in the baking dish department and used two, and then froze the smaller one for later.  You could use a pie or tart dish, whatever!  As long as all the rhubarb fits and you have a bit of clearance for the topping.

Add the ginger and the sugar to the rhubarb and mix the whole mess together.  Spoon the crumble mixture over the top.

Place the dish(es) on a baking sheet (this is pretty important if you don't want a smoky sugary syrup mess on the bottom of your oven).  Bake for 40 minutes, until golden brown and bubbly.

Let cool for a minute, if you can wait.  Molten sugar is not pleasant to be slinging around your kitchen!  Serve with ice cream (strawberry comes to mind, but vanilla was just grand) and a sprig of mint.