“Oh!” I say. “Right. Isn’t it pretty?”

It’s wonderful what old baby food jars and your co-op’s bulk spice department can do.

When I started cooking with any intention, I rigorously measured my spices. I think that when you’re trying to get your feet under you in the kitchen, this is a good idea – follow the recipe to the letter the first time you make it, then open yourself up to variations. I remember the first time I made a curry without a recipe. It was lousy. The second time I made a curry without a recipe, it was better. The third time, I nailed it. Since then I pull out my teaspoon set only occasionally, just to check up on myself and my estimating eye.

Chili for me is a very loose recipe. There are a few important things: scallions, lots of garlic, beer, and cumin. After that, it can take a million directions. I’m going to point out what may be obvious and say that I didn’t actually measure the spices I put in here. If you want to, please do, but really, it’s a dash of this and a bit of that, plus a whole lot of cans from my pantry. Don’t have white beans? Use chickpeas. The only constant I’d keep from that list of legumes is the black beans. But I love black beans.

I’ve fancied it up by making polenta cakes. This is a fun way to impress people and takes only a little finesse. This chili will be delicious by itself in a bowl, but if you’ve got an extra minute, make it special with this fun touch. The cakes aren’t vegan, but the chili is – and it’s all gluten free.

1 cup coarse-ground cornmeal
4 cups water
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
3 oz grated sharp cheddar
1 tablespoon butter

3 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1/8 teaspoon ground cayenne or to taste
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 1/2 teaspoons sea salt
1 small onion, diced (about 1 1/2 cups)
5-6 scallions, white and green parts, sliced
at least 3 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
1 chipotle, roughly chopped
1/2 teaspoon unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 cup beer
1 15-oz can diced tomatoes
1 15-oz can black beans
1 15-oz can kidney beans, drained
1 15-oz can white beans, drained
1 15-oz can corn kernels, drained
1 small can diced green chilies
1 12-oz package Mexican-spiced soy crumbles

Grits first. Put cornmeal, water, olive oil, salt and pepper in a medium saucepan over high heat. Bring water to a boil, then turn down to simmer, whisking often, until liquid is fully absorbed, about 15 minutes. (The thing with polenta is that it looks like it’s taken up all the water quite quickly, but keep cooking and stirring it for awhile longer and you’ll be rewarded with a much silkier texture.) Stir in cheese and butter; taste for seasoning. Spoon polenta out onto a plate and spread it about 1/2″ thick. Refrigerate while you start your chili.

In your favorite soup pot heat olive oil, cumin, coriander, cayenne, cinnamon, and pepper. When spices are fragrant, add salt, onion, scallion, garlic, chipotle, oregano, and cocoa powder. Cook on low heat, stirring occasionally, 5 minutes or until onions are softened and just barely starting to leave brown bits in the bottom of the pan. Turn up the heat and as soon as things start to sizzle but not burn, add beer and scrape up all those lovely brown bits. Cook until you no longer get a big whiff of alcohol when you stick your nose in the steam, then add remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil, then lower heat and simmer at least 30 minutes.

About ten minutes before you’re ready to serve, take the grits out of the fridge. Turn out onto a board and cut into desired shapes. The key here is to use a metal spatula, not plastic or silicone – you’ll need something a bit sharper to really dig under your grits cake, otherwise you’ll get reheated mush instead of nicely browned cakes. (I learned this the hard way.) Heat a good layer of olive oil – better too much oil than too little, in this case – in a skillet over medium-high heat until it’s almost smoking. Gently lay 2-3 cakes in the pan and fry 2-3 minutes, then decisively get your (metal!) spatula under and flip. 2-3 minutes more on the other side, then pull them out to rest on a roasting rack set over a plate. This is better than setting them on paper towels, because air will be circulating all the way around them.

Plate it up! Garnish with cilantro and some diced avocado. Queso fresco? Yum.

“I have cauliflower, tomatoes, and three dried figs. What should I cook?”

I enjoy these challenges. It’s not dissimilar to my job, where I find ways to use up 10 extra pounds of flank steak or a case of eggplant. At home I like shopping my pantry to see what I can pull together, and that gets more fun the barer the shelves become. Every once in awhile, though, I’ll get an idea that burrows itself into my head, and when it comes out again, the results are spot-on.

I kept thinking about quinces and sheep’s-milk cheese. I wanted to involve the two in a dessert, but manchego wasn’t going to work. I wondered if I could find a fresh sheep cheese, so I e-mailed some of the cheese shops in town, and some wrote back (way to go, Foster & Dobbs!) and some didn’t (what’s up, Cheese Bar?), but the gist was that spring is the time to get such happiness, not January. Not having that much patience, I settled on some goat fromage frais from New Seasons. It would be a tart: shortbread crust with crushed walnuts in it, a layer of cheese, a layer of quince jam, and sage to top it off.

I don’t make shortbread crusts that often, so I turned to my cookbooks to find what I was looking for. Lynne Rossetto Kasper and Sally Swift had a shortbread and jam tart. Perfect! I thought. It even had almond meal in it. So I substituted walnut meal and put everything in the food processor and prebaked and came up with… a useless, airy crumble of butter.

I remembered making an orange and date tart from Milk and Cookies a couple of years ago to end a fabulous Middle Eastern meal, and the crust was just what I’d had in mind. So I added lemon zest, substituted 200g flour and 50g crushed walnuts, and tossed that lot in the food processor again. Much better results.

What really pulls this whole thing together is the sage. I might even put some in the crust next time. It perfectly balances the sweet jam and tangy cheese. Without it, the dish is almost candy-like, but the sage really brings it back down to earth and gives all the other ingredients a reason for being included.

Make your own quince jam for this. You’ll feel even more accomplished.

Quince Tart with Walnuts and Sage
makes an 8″ tart

crust
200g all purpose flour
50g toasted ground walnuts
110g confectioners’ sugar
zest of 1 lemon
110g unsalted butter, chilled
1 egg

Place flour, walnuts, and confectioners’ sugar in a food processor and process to combine. Add butter and zest and process until mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add egg and process until a smooth ball. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 400F.

Roll out pastry on a floured surface and use to line an 8″ tart pan with removable base. Line pastry with parchment paper and fill with rice or pastry weights. Bake for 10 minutes, then remove paper and weights and return to oven for 10 minutes until crisp and golden.

(Thanks, Milk and Cookies!)

filling
500g fresh sheep or goat cheese, softened
500g quince jam, heated with 1-2 tablespoons water to soften
whole sage leaves

When tart shell has cooled enough that it won’t fall apart when handled, carefully spread the cheese. Cover with jam and return to the oven for 15 minutes, just to get the components to melt together a bit. Remove from oven and serve with sage leaves.

“Oh look,” I would say by the time I was 14, swatting sweat bees in front of yet another headstone, on the way to summer camp. “It’s my fifth cousin twice removed by marriage.” And then I would roll my eyes.

Luckily, my mother has a sense of humor about adolescent impatience. She eventually started dropping me off at summer camp and visiting distant cousins on her way back home. This worked better for both of us, since her interest in slave rebellions and my interest in the mall each made the other want to poke herself in the eye.

A few weeks ago I was invited to a party where guests were asked to bring a dish to share based on a family recipe. I realized that, in all my foodie curiosity, I hadn’t done much plumbing of Grandmom’s recipe books, so I e-mailed my mother and asked for some notes. She immediately sent me 6 recipes and asked if I wanted the Christmas cookies too. (Way to go, Mom.) The recipes came from family and from friends who might as well be.

She introduced the rutabaga apple casserole with, “I am also putting in a recipe you used to like a bit when you were little until you decided you didn’t like it anymore, ha.” A little light went off in my head when I saw it, as I’d completely forgotten about it. I updated it a little, made an excuse to use up some mascarpone in the fridge, and I added some caramelized onions – because if you can’t improve something with caramelized onions, it’s time to order takeout. As I pulled the ingredients together, old remembered smells came out and I was suddenly very young, in the cabin I grew up in with my little outpost of family, gathering for dinner. It was nice to be home again.

Rutabaga and Apple Casserole
serves 6-8 as a side dish

2 tablespoons butter
3 yellow onions, cut into 1/4″ slices
2 sprigs thyme
1/4 cup sherry

2 large rutabagas, peeled and thinly sliced
1 tablespoon butter
1/2 cup mascarpone or cream cheese
1 tablespoon neutral oil

2 tart apples, peeled and thinly sliced (I like to use a mandoline)
handful brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon allspice

1/3 cup flour
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons butter

Preheat to 350F and grease a 2-quart casserole dish.

Caramelize onions: In a pan over high heat, melt butter. Just as the solids start to brown, add onions, stir to coat with butter, and turn the heat down to medium. Add a teaspoon or so of kosher salt, half a teaspoon of black pepper, and cook, stirring occasionally, until very soft and very brown, about 20 minutes. Add thyme and sherry and let cook until liquid is almost gone. Taste for seasoning and set aside.

While onions are cooking, bring a pot of salted water to a boil and add rutabaga. Cook until soft, about 10 minutes. Drain and put in the food processor with butter, mascarpone or cream cheese, and oil. Add salt and pepper to taste. Set aside.

Toss apple slices in a bowl with brown sugar and allspice. In a separate bowl combine flour, brown sugar, and butter. (This will be the topping.)

Spread half of the rutabaga puree in the bottom of the casserole dish. Apples go on top of that, then onions, then the second half of the rutabaga. Top with the flour mixture and bake for an hour. Let rest for 10 minutes before cutting.

This is best served with something green and sharp that will cut through all the richness. I steamed some kale and tossed it in a tangy vinaigrette, and it worked very well.

What does this have to do with food? Well, I’m making this lasagna for a potluck today. And there will still be enough for me to have for dinner on Wednesday. Half an hour of cooking (and an hour in the oven) is going to set me up with wonderful leftovers for the next few days. This is by far my favorite nontraditional lasagna, easily adored with the matchup of sweet squash and hearty mushrooms, set off by the tang of ricotta salata. The next time you’re thinking about making a wintery baked dish that will last you for three days, I excitedly recommend this wonderful Moosewood recipe.

Pumpkin Mushroom Lasagna
very closely based on a recipe from the Moosewood Collective
makes a 9″x13″ pan

2 yellow onions, diced
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 lb sliced cremini or other mushrooms
1/4 cup chopped fresh sage leaves
1 tablespoon salt
1 cup sherry, vegetable stock, or a combination
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2 15-ounce cans pumpkin
3 cups ricotta
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg
3/4 pound uncooked lasagna noodles
1 1/2 cups crumbled ricotta salata
1/2 cup grated romano or parmesan

In a large pot, saute onions in oil for 5 minutes. Add mushrooms and saute another 5 minutes, until mushrooms are somewhat wilted. Add sage, salt, and sherry or stock and simmer on low heat for 5 minutes. Set aside.

In a large bowl stir together eggs, pumpkin, ricotta, pepper, and nutmeg. Set aside.

Preheat to 375F and lightly oil a 9″x13″ baking dish.

Dip out about 1/2 cup liquid from the sauteed mushrooms and pour into the prepared baking dish. Cover bottom with a layer of lasagna noodles arranged close together. Evenly spread on half of the pumpkin mixture. Spoon on about a third of the mushrooms and sprinkle with a third of the ricotta salata. Add a second layer of noodles followed by the remaining pumpkin mixture, another third of the sauteed mushrooms, and another third of the ricotta salata. Finish with a layer of noodles thoroughly moistened by the last third of the sauteed mushrooms. Evenly sprinkle on the last third of the ricotta salata and top with the grated romano.

Cover and bake 50 minutes. Uncover and bake for an additional 10 minutes, until lasagna is bubbly, noodles are tender, and the top is browned. Remove from oven and let stand 10 minutes before serving.

Did you know, for example, that people actually use their cars every day? And that styrofoam is still being manufactured? I had forgotten this. Fortunately, I slipped into a sweet-tea-induced haze of tranquility that kept me from being too snobby, and a drive through the mountains the day before I got back on the plane helped remind me of many fond memories I had growing up there. It was also wonderful to see so many family friends who blissfully call Asheville home.

I was homesick for Portland all week, though. I got back late last night, and when I woke up this morning, I walked down the street to my favorite breakfast spot, where I think I’m becoming a regular, and had my usual oatmeal, biscuit, and crossword puzzle. Then I strolled over to the co-op and got some veggies to make a pot pie. A red bell pepper and some maitake mushrooms were on the use-it-up-today shelf, so I threw those in the basket (never turn down a half-priced maitake, is my motto) with a bit of broccoli, an onion, some unfancy mushrooms, and a pack’o'seitan. A little fridge rummaging later, I had a wonderful dinner on its way.

Pot pie looks a little complicated to make, but that’s because this is an ideal way to use up little bits of leftovers. The veggies I used went really well together, but you don’t need to follow this recipe to the letter. What I do recommend heartily, though, is a splash of pear liqueur in the gravy. I had a bottle of some, made by Clear Creek Distillery, on the counter, and when I took a look at all the winter veggies I was pouring into this thing, tipping a few drops in was inevitable. White wine, sherry, or an apple brandy would be welcome, too. Or you could leave it without alcohol, and you’d do just fine. I’m going to categorize this as vegan, too, because it’s very easily made so – just use Earth Balance for the butter.

I started thinking about pot pie on the plane yesterday, as I was mentally waxing poetic about everything Portlandy I would be shortly returning to. I wanted some homey comfort food. Because this is home.

Seitan Pot Pie
serves 6-8

1 1/4 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon kosher or sea salt
8 tablespoons cold butter, cut in pieces
1/4 cup cold water

2 fist-sized potatoes, scrubbed or peeled, diced
1/2 medium-sized carrot, scrubbed or peeled, diced (about 1 cup)
1 cup peeled and diced winter squash

2 tablespoons butter
1 smallish white onion, diced (about 1 cup)
1 teaspoon kosher or sea salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
leaves from 1 sprig rosemary
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 cups sliced mushrooms
2 tablespoons flour
2 cups warm vegetable broth
2 tablespoons pear liqueur (optional)

1 red bell pepper, seeded and diced
1 small head broccoli, roughly chopped
1 8-oz package seitan, drained and rinsed, diced

Make crust: in a bowl, combine flour and salt and cut in butter with a pastry cutter (or rub it in with your fingertips) until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add water and mix until dough just comes together. Form into a disc, wrap, and put in the fridge while you make the filling. (If you’ve prepped the filling ingredients ahead of time, put it in for at least an hour.)

Preheat to 375F.

Cook veg: bring a few cups of water or vegetable broth to a boil. Add potatoes, carrot, and squash and let simmer until a little soft but not quite cooked through. Drain and set aside.

Make gravy: While the potatoes are simmering, melt butter in a frying pan over medium heat. Add onion, salt, pepper, and rosemary and cook, stirring occasionally, until onions are softened and browned, 10 minutes. (If they’re going too fast, turn the heat down. You want a nice caramelization.) Add garlic and cook until fragrant, 1-2 minutes. Add mushrooms and cook another 3-4 minutes. Sprinkle in flour, stirring constantly, and cook 1-2 minutes. Add vegetable broth, stir, and let it come to a boil. Add pear liqueur, if using, and simmer 5 minutes. Taste for seasoning. It’s okay to add enough salt that it tastes on the salty side, because you’ll be adding more vegetables later that will take that salt.

Combine drained potato mixture, mushroom gravy, bell pepper, broccoli, and seitan in a 4-quart baking dish. Stir so that gravy coats everything. Remove pastry dough from fridge, roll out, and lay on top of filling, pinching the edges against the edge of the baking dish so gravy doesn’t spill over the sides. Cut a couple of slits in the top to let steam escape so that the whole thing doesn’t blow up in your oven. Put it in the oven so it will cook and be delicious. This will take about 45 minutes. Take it out and let it sit for about 10 minutes so it won’t be too runny when you first cut into it. Eat it so you’ll be happy.

You open the freezer to find the sour cherries you picked and put away last summer! And then you make a cake.

I made this last February, when a bunch of other volunteers crammed into my little apartment for a weekend of winter food lovin’. Then we rolled back the Turkish rug and initiated a hoe-down. Bonus: it’s vegan. But don’t say that too loudly.

Chocolate Cherry Upside Down Cake
adapted from a recipe from allrecipes.com

2 cups frozen pitted sour cherries, thawed and drained
3 tablespoons butter or Earth Balance
3 tablespoons sugar

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups white sugar
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups water
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup distilled white vinegar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350F. In an 8″ metal cake pan, combine cherries, butter, and sugar and put over medium-high heat, stirring until butter and sugar have melted. Set aside.

In a large bowl sift together flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt. In another bowl combine water, oil, vinegar, and vanilla. Pour wet into dry and mix until just barely combined. Pour over cherry mixture in cake pan. Bake 30-35 minutes and let cool for 10 minutes in pan before turning out.

So on the first day of college, I went to the cafeteria, grabbed a tray, looked at the chicken fingers on the hot bar, and said, “Well, I’m in college, so I might as well be a vegetarian.”

It was not so simple, of course. I was never a huge fan of meat, but I still weaned myself off of it slowly. I’ve done enough traveling, though, to know that most of the world is vegetarian only for reasons of economics. I’m very aware that for me to say that I choose not to eat meat is an ability that comes only with a great deal of privilege, so when someone goes out of their way to go to the butcher for my visit, I’m going to eat what they serve me and be grateful for every bite. People ask me why I’m vegetarian, and I say, “really, every reason.” It’s better for my cholesterol, my wallet, my environment, my friendly neighborhood cows. I’m one of those pissy ranting liberals who goes on about American overconsumption, and I’m thankful daily that I don’t live in a place that expects me to drive my large belching car to a strip-mall supermarket so I can stock up on my weekly supply of Jimmy Dean.

Sometimes I think I should take things to the next level and go vegan. This thought usually lasts until the spoonful of yogurt in my hand makes it to my mouth. I’ve never asked a vegan, “So… what do you eat, anyway?” but I have always been secretly impressed by cooks who can give vegan food that rich-and-creamy mouthfeel that we all crave from time to time. It’s a very particular aesthetic of mastication*, to me, a way of looking at food that is hearty, satisfying, and – most importantly – not just full of weirdo substitutes. (For example, Coconut Bliss is good. Tofurkey is frightening.)

Enter rice milk. You can make soup with it! Who knew? I got a lovely bunch of kale in my produce box last week, and I had a ton of tiny potatoes that were all about to get sprouty, and I really wanted to make a good soup with them. I was thinking about making a nice wintery, creamy soup, but I get bites of super rich food at work all day, so when I come home, I do not want to go into a dairy coma. I also do not want my cream soup to taste like soy. So rice milk it is! This is the vegan potage I’ve been craving – deeply-flavored, savory, but not a cream bomb. My friend ET and I had this for lunch today with a nice carrot salad, bread, and a little plate of Bulgarian sheep’s-milk cheese. (Oops, that’s not vegan.)

Kale-Potato Soup with Balsamic-Roasted Garlic
serves 4-6

2 heads garlic
salt and pepper
olive oil
good balsamic vinegar. The thick stuff.

1 small yellow onion, diced
1 stalk celery, finely diced
1/2 teaspoon chopped dried rosemary
1 bunch kale, center stems removed, roughly chopped
1 1/2 pounds potatoes, skins on, roughly chopped
1 quart + 1 cup vegetable broth
2 cups rice milk

Roast garlic: preheat oven to 375F. Chop off the top of each head of garlic, exposing the cloves. Put the heads down on a piece of aluminum foil and sprinkle with salt and pepper, then drizzle with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Wrap them up in the foil to make a little packet, and put in the oven for 30 minutes or until the garlic is soft and drop-dead-gorgeous brown.

Meanwhile, make soup: In a pot over medium heat, cook onions, celery, rosemary, and 1/2 teaspoon salt in a couple of tablespoons of olive oil until softened, about 5 minutes. Add kale, potatoes, and vegetable broth, cover, and turn the heat up to high. When soup comes to a boil, turn heat to medium low and simmer, uncovered, until potatoes are soft and kale is cooked, about 30 minutes.

By this point, the garlic should be done. When it’s cool enough to handle, squeeze out the cloves into the soup. Give it a stir, and get out your blender. Use a slotted spoon to put the veggies in the blender – a little broth is OK, but don’t overdo it. Puree it in batches, adding enough rice milk to get it to a cream-soup consistency. Discard vegetable broth (or save it to make another soup!) and put your pureed mixture in the pot; heat until warm and serve.

Note The red garnish in the picture is just some red pepper puree. Empty a jar of roasted red peppers into the blender, add a little rosemary and a drizzle of olive oil. Buzz. Done.

*Yes, I just said, “aesthetic of mastication.”

We spent eighty-four dollars. To make one pot of curry. And you know why? Because we bought a jar of every spice on that list. All of which were, of course, organic. And at least five bucks a pop. I have learned since that the most wonderful thing about health food stores is the bulk section, specifically the bulk herbs and spices. Heed this!: Never buy a jar of spices, because you can buy them by the teaspoon (or tablespoon, or whatever) at your local co-op for fifty cents, which saves you tons of money – and, since you’re not buying a whole jarful at a time, you don’t have to worry about it going stale. I think this is one of the biggest mistakes we make when stocking our pantry: spices, especially pre-ground spices, lose their potency quickly, and when you leave a jar of curry powder in the cabinet for a year before you finally get around to making that great vindaloo recipe you’ve been hanging on to, I can promise you it will hardly taste like anything except the twenty chilies you had to put in.

So there’s tip number one for the day. Tip number two, which I try to emphasize often in this blog: substitute whenever and wherever you can. When I was first getting the hang of cooking for myself, I made sure to follow new recipes to the letter the first time I made them, and then allowed myself to adapt them as needed. I think this is important for a beginning cook, but now that I’ve got a better sense of things, I do it less often, and have become more of a recipe-as-guide person, as opposed to a recipe-as-law. I love reading a recipe that has notes for variation, because it means that whoever developed it played around with it a lot before releasing it to the wind, and it also gives more of a springboard for ideas of different directions that I can take with it.

This second tip is the main reason I’ve never made spaghetti squash – well, at least not until this afternoon. It feels like such a… unitasker. If I’m going to make something with winter squash, I grab one arbitrarily from the pile at the grocery store. (Or farmers’ market. Of course.) Spaghetti squash seemed almost gimmicky to me – it’s squash, and it can be made into ribbons? Who cares?

I picked one up last week. I caved.

Okay, okay, the pastasquash is fun. I admit it. You can wrap it around your fork, suck a piece down like a noodle, and pile it up into a lovely orange tower of angel hair. But it’s squash, which everyone in their right mind loves, and so it goes terrifically with simple, earthy flavors. I’m using only two – sarsaparilla and sage. One trendy, one classic, both delicious.

You know how you make broth with a bundle of aromatic herbs? I followed the same idea here. When I split the squash down the middle to bake, I put sarsaparilla in the pan, underneath the cavity of the squash. This helped the flavor really permeate, without that annoying texture of, well, wood. No one likes eating bits of wood.

Spaghetti Squash with Sarsaparilla and Sage
serves 2-3

1 spaghetti squash
olive oil
2 teaspoons sarsaparilla
2 dried sage leaves, crushed
salt to taste

Preheat to 350. Halve spaghetti squash lengthwise, and scrape out seeds and goop. Put 1/4″ of water in the bottom of a pan large enough to hold both squash halves, and put a teaspoon of sarsaparilla in the place of where you’ll put each half. Drizzle a bit of olive oil in there, too, then put each squash half over the little piles of sarsaparilla. Cover tightly with aluminum foil or a good lid, then put in the oven and bake until soft, 30-45 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool for a few minutes.

Take a look at which way the strands are going. You meat-eaters will know that it’s best to cut meat to make the fibers as short as possible – the opposite is true here. With a fork, gently loosen the strands of squash – with the grain, not against it. Pile onto a plate and top with sage and some good salt.

“This city shuts down under an inch of snow,” warned native midwesterners, suppressing groans.

I understood – both the fact of the matter, and the annoyance with it.  Asheville does the same thing, since it’s full of tiny mountain roads that turn to ice faster than a moonshine hangover, but as soon as a flake of snow hits the air, everyone runs over to the supermarket to stock up on milk, water, and toilet paper, since they’re expecting a return of the Blizzard of ’93.  (You still see t-shirts at the Goodwill announcing “I survived the Blizzard of ’93!”)  I had a handful of days off from school when my northeastern-born parents looked out the window, said, “You’ve got to be kidding,” and took me out for breakfast.

Portland got a couple of inches of snow on Sunday, which all melted on Tuesday, and I’ve barely been able to get anything done.  Except go to work, that is – no snow days for me, since I live 20 blocks away.  Heaven forbid I try to make any doctor or massage appointments, though – I’ve been getting answering machines all week.

Today, though, is the start of a 3-day weekend for me, and I was excited to wake up to giant snowflakes falling outside my window.  This, I thought, is a day for tea and some good greens.

Deborah Madison taught me about bok choy.  Her recipe for stir-fried bok choy with peanuts, from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, is the one that I apply to just about everything I feel like coating in soy sauce.  Having grown up in the south, I can’t help but feel that every green thicker than spinach should be cooked to within an inch of its life, and I think that this new business of stir-frying collard greens is just about the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.  Bok choy, however, does really well in this application, and is very well-rounded by peanuts, cooked in a rich-tasting roasted peanut oil, with a bit of heat at the end from ginger and red pepper flakes.  This time, I used some baked tofu instead of peanuts, but I’ll post the original recipe and let you find your own variations.  It’s an excellent introduction to throwing some veggies in a pan.

Stir-Fried Bok Choy with Roasted Peanuts
serves 2-4
recipe by Deborah Madison

3 tablespooons raw peanuts
2 teaspoons roasted peanut oil
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
salt
1 1/2 pounds bok choy
2 tablespoons peanut oil
4 garlic cloves, minced
4 teaspoons minced ginger
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon cornstarch stirred with 3 tablespoons water or vegetable stock

Fry peanuts in 2 teaspoons roasted peanut oil until they’re golden. Chop with red pepper flakes and a few pinches salt and set aside.

Slice off bok choy stems and cut them into 1″ pieces. Leave the leaves whole. Set a wok over high heat. Add 2 tablespoons peanut oil and roll it around the wok. When hot, add garlic and ginger and stir-fry for 1 minute. Add bok choy and a few pinches salt and stir-fry until wilted and glossy. Add soy sauce and cornstarch mixture and stir-fry 1-2 minutes more until leaves are shiny and glazed. Add crushed peanuts, toss, and serve.

1. Above all, do as little as possible.
2.  Spend many happy minutes looking at Mt St Helens and Mt Adams from my window, as it’s often too cloudy to see them.
3.  Listen to NPR in live form, not podcast.
4.  Make the rutabaga bisque whose recipe has been sitting in my inbox for weeks.
5.  Change out of my bathrobe only when absolutely necessary.

I’d like to report that I have done all of these with great aplomb.

This bisque is perfect.  Just perfect.  I don’t like anything that tastes like a radish, and rutabaga falls in that category, but smoked paprika takes that bitter sourness and turns it into something pristine and hearty all at once.  The original recipe called for celery, as so many soup recipes do, but I can’t stand celery, plus I didn’t have any, so I left it out.  If you want to keep it in, it’s 2 stalks, diced.  But if you ask me, Enemy Extraordinaire of Celery, it doesn’t need it.

I could go on about this soup, but that would take too much time away from your marching to the kitchen to make it.  And I’ve really got to get back to working on goal #1.

Smoked Paprika and Rutabaga Bisque
adapted from a recipe by Kate Ramos for chow.com
serves 6-8

3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 medium onion, diced
1 1/2 pounds rutabaga, peeled and cubed (about 4 1/4 cups)
4 cups (1 quart) low-sodium vegetable broth
2 cups half-and-half
2 1/2 teaspoons good quality smoked paprika
1 teaspoon ground black or white pepper

Melt butter in a large pot over medium heat. Once butter foams, add onion, and season generously with salt. Cook, stirring occasionally, until onion is tender but not browned, about 5 minutes.

Add rutabaga and broth, bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and simmer until rutabaga is tender when pierced with a fork, about 30 minutes. Add half-and-half, paprika, and pepper and stir to combine. Allow soup to cool slightly, then purée in a blender until smooth. (You will have to do this in batches.) Taste and season with more salt and pepper as needed.