Saturday's Spice: Mustard

Mustard Fields Bloom In Napa.

The mustard that grows in Napa is a wild flower (Brassica rapa). It is closely related to green cabbage-like vegetables such as bok choy, napa cabbage, and turnips. Wild blooming mustard signals the beginning of spring in California, and is celebrated in the Napa Valley with the Mustard Festival.

The wider Brassica family is one of the world's agricultural work horses, and is said to include the greatest number of useful edibles. These vegetables go by the name cruciferous and we eat its roots (rutabagas, turnips), stems (kohlrabi), leaves (cabbage, brussels sprouts, kale, collard greens), flowers (cauliflower, broccoli), and seeds (mustards, condiments). Rapeseed oil, and canola oil are also products of Brassica seeds. And maybe sooner rather than latter, we will all be driving cars filled with such biodiesel .

Various mustards sit in my fridge. I'm partial to Dijon in my salad dressings, and my egg casserole. I use honey mustard as a quick and easy rub for grilled pork tenderloin, and nothing says childhood like the spicy brown mustard we used on brats, and ham and rye sandwiches. This site provides a nice listing of the many different kinds of mustards and then there's the Mustard museum.
With just a touch of tang from the Dijon mustard this cheese and egg casserole makes a great entree for brunch.

Touch of Tang Cheese and Egg Casserole

• 1/2# grated Swiss cheese (Gruyer is a nice alternative)
  4 TBS butter (Less does not hurt the dish)
  1 cup milk (Over the years I've used many different milk combinations, from 2% with half and half, to all half and half--basically the richer the milk the richer the dish).

1/2 tsp salt
Dash of pepper
1-2 TBS prepared Dijon mustard

• 12 slightly beaten eggs (I use a fork to break the yolks and swirl with the whites--do not beat).
• Butter 13x9 casserole dish ( I think glass works best)
• Spread cheese on bottom of dish
• Dot with butter
  
• Mix Milk/Cream with seasoning + mustard
  Pour 1/2 of liquid mix over cheese
  Pour beaten eggs over cheese/milk mixture
• Pour rest of milk mix over eggs (The milk mixture will not completely cover the eggs, and I usually pour it on in a zigzag fashion)
  
• Bake at 325 for 35 mins. or until eggs set (no longer than another 10 mins.).
  Serve immediately.
  

• Champagne is always a good choice with brunch and reminds many in my family of the great Easter A'la Carte Breakfast of the early 80's. The restaurant seated us in a remote part of the restaurant, setting several bottles of champagne on the table, and them promptly forgot about us. We managed to snag the champagne server several more times before a waiter ever showed up.....can I say that by then food was simply an afterthought .

Mike

My father-in-law died yesterday. He was 90 years old. The man was known for planting potatoes in the spring in his suburban backyard. As an Irishman, (really only 1/2 because his mother was 100% German), growing potatoes was Mike's way of participating in ancestral traditions. I've often wondered if the love of potatoes is in part genetic. Mike died with 12 of his 13 children around him. How lucky is that! I married son #4. I salute Mike's passing with a shot of brandy (because that's what he drank)...and will always remember his light polka steps on the dance floor.

The Pulse of Spring

Spring now more warm sun
teases tulips daffodils
still hints frost ice snow
(rla)

Well the sun showed up today, but not the spring temperatures you would expect. Complaints about the spring season are numerous. But here in the midwest, what others call spring doesn't show up till May. British author Frances Trollope expresses our human impatience with this season in the yearly cycle:

The American spring is by no means so agreeable as the American autumn; both move with faltering step, and slow; but this lingering pace, which is delicious in autumn, is most tormenting in the spring. (Domestic Manners of the Americans 1832)

Thoreau, who lived in a candle-light age, suggests a different rhythm to our interaction with the natural world.

Measure your health by your sympathy with morning and spring.
If there is no response in you to the awakening of nature—
If the prospect of an early morning walk does not banish sleep,
If the warble of the first bluebird does not thrill you—
Know that the morning and spring of your life are past.
Thus may you feel your pulse.
(Henry David Thoreau, Journal entry February 25, 1859).

I wonder how difficult it was to be an insomniac before electricity, TV, and now the instant internet. More recently, lack of sleep was viewed as an element of individual prowess and stamina. Now its just plain unhealthy, and linked to obesity, increasing glucose intolerance, and blood pressure problems. This all makes me think its time to open a bottle of evening antioxidents and toast the arrival of Spring...

A Salute To All Things Green

SpicyPapa's paternal family left the Emerald Isle during the famine times, and somehow found their way to Wisconsin. In the summer, Wisconsin does have much in common with the greenness of Ireland, and the scene below from our own trip to Eire in 2001 shows what could easily pass for the shores of Lake Michigan. The winter months are quite dissimilar!


When the Spicy Sidekicks were young their SpicyPapa served up hot green cereal and milk for breakfast. Now days they can toast each other by phone as they down the real mother's milk of Ireland.

Why do Americans need to celebrate St. Paddy's Day? Well, its the middle of gray gloomy March here in the midwest, and usually there's nothing going on--this year excepted with an earlier Easter than usual. Its no wonder that the biggest St. Paddy's celebration belongs to Chicago. The last real national party was January 1st. They say in Ireland that St Patrick's Day tends to be a little more sedate and linked to the curious notion of Bank Holidays. We Americans do suffer when banks have off--case in point Bear Stearns, but we don't call them Bank Holidays.

In honor of the American trait for some kind of universal syncretism I dedicate this song to any St. Paddy's Day celebration....

Need to know more about bagpipes? See here and here.

Saturday's Spice: Green and Gold Coriander

Coriander (Coriandrum Sativum) is what we call the ground seeds of the green herb Cilantro. I didn't know this till I fell in love with the flavor of cilantro on a vacation trip with a college-aged sister.

Imagine a sunny California afternoon in 1980--we stopped at some fresh food vegetarian outdoor cafe...she was the vegetarian. It might have been somewhere in Sonoma, but I don't really remember. What I still recall with sunlight clarity is the taste of the finely chopped carrot, onion, and tomato salsa generously flecked with the greenness of cilantro. It was the very first time I thought I have to make this at home. The Food Lover's Companion suggests that cilantro is the world's most used herb.

Poor 1st cousin coriander, I generally consigned it to Christmas cooking until I discovered its role in Indian food. Even Wikipedia notes that coriander is underused in European cooking traditions except for flavoring sausages and sometimes rye bread--both part of my food heritage. In an attempt to use more of what's in the spice drawer, I now sprinkle ground coriander on peeled, cubed, and olive oiled butternut squash. Roasted at 350º for 45-60 mins. It's an easy side dish for roasted meats of any persuasion.



Sunny Cilantro Salsa
1 Medium Carrot
1 Medium Red or White Onion
Fresh Garden Tomatoes
Cilantro to Taste (I start with 1/2 bunch)

Use the food processor, or finely chop with a knife
Thin with tomato juice, or pure tomato sauce

Sometimes a squeeze of lemon or lime
SpicyBBQ would probably add a jalapeno

Serve With Chips while humming....

Tea Time With Teacups

Tea Time 4:00 pm

Boil pour steep enjoy

sit sip nibble Chocolate

snacks with evening chats.

SaucyMama's Mom, the SpiceQueen, informed her way back in 1990 that tea was the healthful beverage of choice for her and the PepperPrince. Yes, they would still do coffee in the morning, but the 4:00 o'clock hour would now be called Tea Time. This coincided with the SpiceQueen informing SaucyMama that at their age, the SpiceQueen and the PepperPrince would now be eating their main dinner at lunch time--another healthful choice. Amazingly, I don't know what she read, or how she came to this, but the SpiceQueen was prescient in the extreme about the healthfulness of tea. Let me say that the SpiceQueen was an early adopter of yogurt as a healthful breakfast alternative to cold cereal. SpiceQueen even made her own yogurt in those early days before Dannon and Yoplait. The healthfulness of tea is now being researched and documented.

The PepperPrince is partial to the Classic Lipton, while the SpiceQueen is a bit more adventuresome. While not an endorsement, this site has a fun little virtual tea leaf reader. I myself consider tea the daytime wine.

Is it still good to eat? Because its been in my fridge a long time!

Well, if you're a bachelor like me, you have a wide variety of things in your fridge. And no idea when they arrived there!

A quick glance inside my fridge shows things like:

• Strawberry Jam (certainly old)
  
• Sriracha (likely old)
  
• Worcestershire sauce (don't know where this came from)
  
• Butter (from last thanksgiving)
• Tobasco Chipotle sauce (this stuff is good!)
• Several Mustards (Newish)
  
• Maple Syrup (I know I didn't buy this...!)
  

Ever wonder how long this stuff lasts? I sure do! All these little condiments get picked up gradually over time and never seem to get finished.

If you are interested, this link to the North Dakota Ag Department has some guidelines. Be sure to click on the [[MORE]] on the bottom to see all the pages.

I've never had any problem using these old condiments. Most are oil and vinegar based, which lasts a long time without going bad. No doubt the preservatives put in there by the Big Food Companies keep it fresher longer!

According to the logic of the esteemed North Dakota Agricultural Department, which I assume is a good once since what else happens in North Dakota, I should stock my fridge with these:

• Lemon/Lime juice (12 months in fridge)
• Eggs (3 weeks)
• Parmesan Cheese (2 months, yuck, I hate this stuff! Isn't cheese already rotten?)
• Salad Dressings (3 months)
• Cabbage, carrots, celery (2 weeks)
• Mustard (6-8 month)
• Tabasco (2 years, guess I'm OK there!)
• Pickles/Olives (2 months once opened)
  

And get rid of these things that I once thought were invincible (ie, don't ever go bad)

• Asparagus (2 days! I keep this stuff for 2 weeks and it seems ok...)
• Ketchup (1 month!)
• Tomato/Pasta Sauce (5 days, I've started freezing leftover pasta sauce recently, works well. Reserve an ice cube tray for freezing leftover liquids, then put in ziplok's for use whenver you need some sauce or broth or whatever!)
• Potatoes and Onions (Only 2-4 weeks! I keep these around forever, oh no!)
• Ground Meat or Stew meat (1-2 days. More and more, I avoid any ground meat, except for my beloved sausages...)
• Lunch Meat (3-5 days once opened)

One thing I've never understood is the aging of meat. First, you read that you shouldn't keep meat for more than 5 days in your fridge. Then you wonder, was it really shipped to you in no time? And they also talk about "Aging". You can Dry and Wet age meat, and some fancy places do it for up to 28 days. I just don't get how this differs from the 5 day max in my fridge.

It seems beef aging is a big focus of the Ag departments., no surprise. The University of Minnesota has a good link on it. Sounds like another "not recommended for home use" activity - I'll have to give it a try! :)

Happy and Healthy Eating