Totally bizarre but unexpectedly outstanding Friday night improvisation....

You probably have noticed that my recipes go in phases. I try to use up my on-hand ingredients before moving on to a new set of ideas and grocery-lists, and my brain gets into a sort of culinary riff, where I try to work out all the different variations on a theme I can, until I can't stand it any more. So, this week I was determined to find a new use for tupper-wared remains of last week's Chipotle peppers in Adobo sauce.

Being a Friday night, I had seriously low energy and motivation to cook, so it took some will power and a good half hour of browsing my cookbooks and files for inspiration before I started getting excited about dinner again.

I still had a small butternut squash I picked up from the market several weeks ago, as well as some small Yukon Gold potatoes, and when I was perusing Martha Rose Shulman's taco recipes (tacos are great for low-key, tired nights) from her NY Times column, I hit upon her "Soft Tacos with Sauteed Winter Squash and Chipotles," which seemed like an ideal solution for dinner. I had to go to the store to pick up some things for tomorrow night, so I resolved to get tortillas for the tacos.

Well, lo and behold, my exhaustion level led to quite a cluster-failure: I didn't read the original recipe carefully enough, and so I didn't think to buy the requisite yogurt, and I completely spaced out the tortillas, none of which I realized till I got home.

One thing I find though, time and again, with cooking, writing, and living, is that there's a curious freedom in constraint, and I get much more creative with externally imposed limitations on my options. So, my failure at the grocery store only served to motivate me to figure out what I could create from the remnants of my plan.

First, I had to think about a replacement for the tortilla. This one was obvious: rice! I started some jasmine rice (it's all I had on hand) to cook on the stove. Even if the rest of dinner falls apart, you can salvage good quality fragrant thai rice, so at least now I was cooking with a safety net.

Rice and chipotles started me thinking in the obvious direction: rice and beans. I had a can of black beans in the cupboard, but I was resistant at first. Once I realized the original recipe called for a chipotle-yogurt mixture to dress the squash in, I started thinking about curry. Why not Mexican curry? I had some leftover chicken stock in the fridge that needed using, so I tinkered with the idea of baking the squash in a mixture of pulverized chipotle and stock. Sadly, the stock was past its prime (I really need to come up with a better solution for keeping and using stock), but a plan was starting to form.

Right about this moment, Sean was busy cleaning up the remains of last night's dishes, and getting quite vocal about the number of pots that needed washing. I took this information under advisement, and resolved to be as one-pot about this as possible, which means I ended up using three.

As the rice was cooking, I committed to the idea of baking the squash in small chunks, along with a single small diced potato, in the nice red ceramic baking dish I received for Christmas (thanks Sean, even though it just adds to your washing up!).

The path cleared as I got to work. I preheated the oven to 400 degrees, chopped and peeled the squash (fortunately a small one), cleaned and chopped the potato, and put them in the baking dish with a couple of tablespoons of olive oil, ground salt and pepper, dried thyme and dried oregano, coating it all nicely, and put the whole thing in the oven while I worked out the next steps.

I finely diced an onion and crushed a couple cloves of garlic and pulled the baking dish out to add them in, again giving it all a good stir to evenly coat everything with olive oil. After returning the squash and potato to the oven, I rinsed and chopped a bunch of broccoli raab, and heated some olive oil, garlic, thyme, oregano, and finely diced cilantro stems in a medium sauce pan on medium heat. Once the garlic had just begun to crackle in the oil, after just a minute, I added the chopped, rinsed raab with a couple of tablespoons of water, and put a lid on it.

Then I started to chop up the chipotles quite finely in their sauce (about half of what was remaining, so maybe 3 chilis and a couple of spoonfulls of sauce. We like it really spicy, so you will probably want to use quite a bit less unless you are a hot chili fiend). At the 20 minute mark, the rice needed to be turned off and left to steam, which I think happened at about this point.

It was time to check the squash and potatoes again, and I decided to turn the heat up to 450 degrees. Perhaps a rookie sort of move, but that's how things go in my kitchen. I added a few tablespoon-fulls of water and the chopped chipotles with sauce to the baking dish and gave it all a good stir, and put it back in the oven.

This was a good point to check on the broccoli raab, which was just on the verge of starting to stick to the bottom of the pot, so I added another 2 tablespoons of water before stirring and covering again. Medium seemed a good temperature for the raab, as the stems can be quite tough and fibrous, and they generally need a good hot steam bath to make them pleasant to eat (they have a lovely verdant flavor, slightly bitter but not overwhelmingly so, somewhere between broccoli and spinach).

At this point, I worked on chopping my remaining cilantro, lime wedges, and avocado, and finally gave in to the idea of making this a rice and beans dish. I opened the can of black beans, gave them a good rinse, pulled the baking dish out AGAIN, and threw in the beans. I gave them another good stir to evenly mix all the elements, added a splash more water, and then returned the dish to the oven.

At this point, I set the timer to 7 minutes because I didn't want to lose track of time, at such high heat. I grated about an ounce and half (roughly, maybe it was an ounce, maybe it was three...oh I don't know, it was enough--that's all that matters) of Mexican cotija cheese. I don't see why you couldn't use parmesan, pecorino, feta, or a hard french or US American goat's cheese instead. At this point, I got Sean to set the table so all would be ready.

I pulled out the dish again, raised the heat on the oven to the broiler setting, sprinkled the cheese all over the top of the squash and the potatoes, and broiled it for about 2 minutes, just till the cheese started to brown lightly.

After 2-3 minutes, the--I guess I can call it a casserole or a gratin now, can't I?--casserole was more than ready, so I turned the oven and stove off and pulled it out.

At the dinner table, we filled our bowls with rice and sauteed broccoli raab first, and then dished up the squash, potato, black bean and chipotle casserole on top, garnished with an extra helping of cilantro, avocado, and fresh lime juice.

Holy moly you guys. This was SO GOOD. I had very low expectations of this bizarre improvisation, but it was just fantastic and I'm definitely going to make it again. This, or something very like it, may exist out there somewhere already, but I kind of feel like I invented something completely coherent and intelligible that really works. You could make it vegan, without the cheese topping, and it would still be delicious and deeply, completely satisfying. I am pretty proud of myself!

More thoughts on the politics of food and public health

National Treasure Mark Bittman's weekly Opinionator post is up on the New York Times website, and this week he offers an incisive analysis of the USDA's new food guidelines.

The gist of his argument is that the guidelines are pretty anemic, and downplay their most potent recommendations (what to eat less of) in deference to the food industry. He feels the US Department of Agriculture is debilitated by a conflict of interest, in that it is responsible for promoting the health of the national populace, as well as promoting the economic interests of the national food industry. Given the current structure of food subsidies and manufacturing practices, public health takes a back seat to economics.

The comments responding to his post are thought-provoking. I think there are two significant questions of political and moral philosophy at stake: 1) What is and what should be the state's role in protecting and promoting public and individual health? 2) What is and what should be the state's role in protecting and promoting national industry?

These are two giant, thorny issues that tend to provoke violent emotions. There is a longer tradition in the political culture of the modern nation-state of designating the state government responsible for national prosperity. For some reason though, the people who take this to be self-evident don't think the same logic should apply to the health of the nation. Suddenly the individual (and his or her family, and community) is solely responsible for their health and eating habits, despite the aggregate effects on the national economy (health care costs etc.). There is equal indifference to the effects of broader social and economic conditions on the health of individuals and communities. Why the disconnect? I think it ties in with larger ideological debates in US political life about the relationship between the individual and the state, but it seems to me that food is a way to intervene in this ancient ideological battle and perhaps write a new script and envision a new kind of society and political culture.

My ideas on this subject are still embryonic, but I'd like to think there are as yet un-envisioned political and cultural possibilities.

I attended a fascinating workshop for a professor from my department yesterday, who has an interesting book out on food and medicine. The workshop prompted me to start asking myself some more challenging questions about some of my own taken-for-granted assumptions about the relationships among food, individual health, and public health. I'm going to try to pick up her book and read it in all my (not copious) spare time. Hopefully I'll have some more thoughts on this subject and can start thinking more systematically about this question of food policy as an intervention into political culture.

On making your legumes more digestible...

I received some feedback recently on my Red Lentil, Bulgur and Chipotle stew (which I'm SO grateful for, because it is really helpful to know how things work for other people) from someone who felt the legumes were a bit hard on her system.

This made me realize I left something really important out of the recipe, and indeed had forgotten to include it in this most recent attempt at cooking. But, it's all for the best, because it gives me the opportunity to discuss two important points related to legumes.

The first point is that legumes are really high in fiber and complex sugars that can be hard to digest if you are not used to eating beans very often. The first, most simple solution, is to eat beans more often, so your internal flora can grow accustomed to processing them. Your insides need this kind of exercise. The second solution is to add one of the traditional seasonings used to aid digestion to the soaking and/or cooking process.

Different regions have different traditions of making legumes more digestible. In Mexico, Central America and South America, the spice epazote is used. Cooks in central and south Asia use the spice asafoetida. In east Asia, kombu, a variety of kelp, is used to soften the beans and make the sugars more digestible. A lot of the nicer organic canned beans include kombu in their ingredient list. I usually try to buy the cheaper kinds of canned beans, so I just take a stick or two of my own dried seaweed and crumble it to the pot as I begin the cooking process (and by crumble I mean take a knife to it and try to force it into smaller pieces, not necessarily all that successfully. Hmm. Maybe 10 seconds in the food processor would help. I'll give it a try.). It doesn't mess with the flavor in any noticeable way, except maybe to add a touch more umami and salty flavor. You certainly would not need to add salt when you cook with it.

There are a number of good reasons to eat seaweed regularly, beyond making your beans easier to digest. Kombu in particular is a good source of iodine (though you don't want to overconsume either, a little goes a long way), and sea vegetables in general are nutritional powerhouses, full of all sorts of valuable minerals and vitamins. They are also reputed to eliminate toxins from the body.

Other kinds of sea vegetables worth playing around with are arame, wakame, dulse, hiziki, and nori. They have specific benefits and strengths, but they are all good for you and something to eat regularly. I picked up a bag from the health food store in Santa Cruz, but I will take a look at my local Safeway and some of the other groceries around town to see who carries it and how much they charge for it. I think my bag was a couple of dollars, and lasts a long time, as you need only a little for whatever you're making.

I will work on gathering some recipes to experiment with soon to demonstrate the tasty things you can make with seaweed.

Personal Responsibility and Food Politics

I'm going to try hard not to let this blog devolve into simply reposting everything Mark Bittman says. But I'm busy, and I think people should read what he writes about food policy and food justice, so here's his first bit of meta-commentary on his food manifesto. You should read both and then we should discuss.

He articulates an important point that I think gets lost in the debate about structural forces vs. personal responsibility:

"To those of you who argue that it’s a matter of personal responsibility, to some extent you’re right. However, it’s not only personal responsibility about what we put in our mouths but about determining how things are produced, marketed and sold. That’s our responsibility also."

The personal responsibility thing just kills conversation, in my experience, and ignores the fact that the choices we make individually for ourselves also impacts everyone and everything around us.

I have a long way to go before I've really figured out what I can and need to do to improve the food supply chain in this country, so I'll probably be linking to Bittman's column's and reflecting on them frequently in the future. I won't always have time to get into as much depth as I'd like, but hopefully they will be conversation starters.