• About Sri Lalita

    Community Quilting

    by  • September 27, 2011 • Community, Quilting, Sewing • 0 Comments

    Heart BlockMy friend came over for a “Stitch and Bitch.” All that gossiping? It was for a good cause.

    Our friend Hri just had a baby. In her honor, a bunch of us contributed a 10×10 block for her quilt. I invited a friend over, pulled out piles of scraps and we got to work. We stayed up ridiculously late. It turned out to be quite a collaboration.

    I really *get* the whole quilting bee thing. I used to think it was kinda corny, but now I see it as a tangible expression of community.

    Maybe it calls to something ancestral in me. Some of my people are Pennsylvania Dutch. When I visited Lancaster County as a girl, some old Amish granny I didn’t really know happened to invite me to the basement below her farmhouse. It was loaded with half a dozen or more wooden quilting frames for the women’s weekly gathering. Beauty on so many fronts.

    It must be more than ancestry for me. After all, I was the recipient of a community quilt once, so I know firsthand: community presence is tangible in the final product.

    Bird Block Stitchers for a Cause is a group that sews quilts for children who have been placed foster care and knit wheelchair bags. They’ve donated almost 2,000 items. I’ve heard stories about kids who have received Stitchers quilts. In some cases, those quilts are the first and only possessions these children call their own. It is the one physical item that goes with them from home to home, that they don’t grow out of. What an inspiring team of men and women. I got to volunteer for them for a few months last year.

    Then, earlier this year when we lost our baby, the Stitchers group stopped everything and collaborated to make a quilt for our family. I was stunned: thinking of all of those people working together across the country out of love for (little old) me whom they hardly knew? It has meant so much to us. In the first months after our loss, there were times my husband and I would just lie there on the couch under that quilt even when it was warm out.

    That’s the kind of nourishment a community quilt can give. It is as if the whole Stitchers gang is giving me a hug whenever I wrap that quilt around myself.

    There is power in a group. When individuals turn their energy on a project together, it is a beautiful thing.

    If you haven’t yet, try it. Invite friends. Plop scraps in the middle of the table. Open a bottle of wine. See what happens. You don’t need a sewing machine. You don’t need to know how. Just try. If you find your community and tap into it…if you give something back, you’ll receive more in return than you can possibly imagine.

    Handcut Nettle Noodles

    by  • September 5, 2011 • Gardening, Herbs, Parenting, Recipes, Wildcrafting • 4 Comments

    Ordinarily, I have a therapeutic, lofty or otherwise brainy reason for a food choice. This time, however, I just wanted some carby goodness.

    Blah blah blah about how stinging nettles are a mineral-rich herbal delight growing freely as a weed which cure a myriad of complaints. Yeah, its diuretic, astringent and a blood building hormone balancer. Just check Wikipedia. Whatever.

    Honestly, this time I was just thinking about how good stinging nettles would be cooked with garlic and onions and rolled into handcut noodles, then slathered in the precious sour cream I knew we had in the cabin and sprinkled with the Three Stone walnuts which had been originally ferreted away as an emergency snack for the kid.

    Everyone else seemed to have their own response to the concept.

    This is Dad: “You’re eating WHAT?! Doesn’t that stuff sting? Honestly, Sri. There are grocery stores.”

    Dad, its like sauteed spinach, only way tastier. Dad, it is my husband’s favorite pizza topper. Dad, I read that this lady suggests topping it with eggs and I can’t even deal with how good that sounds. This is a veggie-that’s-an-herb-that’s-a-veggie; its ridic, Dad.

    This is Lil’ Huck: “Let’s go sting ourselves AGAIN!”

    Yes, of course I egged my kid on until he would touch the stinging hairs on the undersides of the leaves. I urged him to do it until he overcame his fear. Then, we quickly chewed up plantain leaves and spat the hasty poultice onto our sores. The pain subsided. Magic which involves parentally-condoned spitting? Win and win.

    Have you tried this before? Are you too chicken? Or, maybe you don’t have nettles around? Sure you do. I’ve personally seen it on three continents and I wasn’t even trying. Look by the creekside or in the forest. Failing those places, check the web. Once some lady on craigstlist.com offering her roadside nettle bounty for free to whomever had gloves and a free Saturday to collect it.

    Here’s how you do it. The recipe is easy and forgiving. I’ve provided an easy sauce using what I had in the cabin. Its not gourmet or anything, but it was yummy and no one would know better. That said, don’t feel compelled to make a trip to the store to make this cheater cream sauce. Butter and salt and maybe some sauteed garlic and you’re done, if you want.

    Rachel from Clean’s Beet Ravioli Recipe provided the template for the dough. I took it from there, improvising with what I had.

    Harvesting and Cooking Stinging Nettles

    Look near rivers and creeks, roadsides and forests. Use only the freshest, brighter green tips, the top cluster of leaves or so. Below that can be fibrous. (Wear gloves or cover hands with a dish towel. Sometimes I just let myself get stung. It isn’t all that bad. In fact, the presence of formic acid can be medicinal for arthritic conditions.)

    Rinse in cool water. Steam-stirfry with a clove of smashed garlic in a tiny bit of water (no oil) over medium heat, covered. It will cook down like spinach. Discard garlic or reserve for sauce and chop nettle finely.

    (P.S. Optionally, stop here. This alone makes a delicious side dish.)

    Stinging Nettle Pasta

    Combine 1 cup of chopped cooked nettles, drained, with 2 eggs.

    Mix 2 1/2 C flour with 1 tsp salt. Make a well in the center of the flour and add nettle mixture. Stir and knead (adding extra flour as needed) until well combined and no longer sticky. Cover with a damp towel and allow to rest for 1/2 hour.

    Roll out and cut into desired shape. Sprinkle well with flour if you don’t intend to use it right away.

    Cook until tender in boiling water. Drain, reserving some liquid for the sauce.

    Easy Sauce:
    Saute diced onion in a nonstick frying pan. Add minced garlic reserved from cooking the nettle. Add cooked pasta and stir in approximately 1 cup sour cream. Thin the sauce as desired with starchy pasta water. Salt and pepper to taste and sprinkle with walnuts. Serve immediately.

     

    Winter Planting: Its Time.

    by  • August 23, 2011 • Gardening • 0 Comments

    Winter GardenSummer gardens are easy, but can we eat out of the garden all winter, too?

    Maybe, but only if we start now.

    August 1st would have been ideal. We got ours started a week late. I’m  only just getting around to tell you folks about it now. There is still a bit of time.

    Now is the time to establish winter vegetables from seed. Sowing seeds are cheaper than starts and doing it now allows the plants to utilize the summer sun before the light changes.

    When I start seeds indoors, I usually reuse little trays leftover from the starts we bought at the nursery. I’m also reusing little 4-inch pots which will give me more leeway to transplant a little later and let the plants get a little bigger inside.

    I’m trying to get the hang of succession planting so that I have more than one harvest. I’ll start a second batch in early September and a third in the middle of next month to keep the veggie love rolling in through winter…fingers crossed.

    Start brassica beds: broccoli, cauliflower, kale, cabbage, chard. The seeds that go in now will be ready in October or November. Get them in too late and they might bolt.

    Things like beets and carrots and turnips and daikon and burdock can be sown directly in the ground. Try alternating carrots and radishes in a row. Radishes come up faster and indicate where the row is for watering purposes.

    I’m fond of companion planting as natural pest control. This means the brassicas are going in the bed with the rhubarb and the sage and the dill. The beets and radishes and carrots are going in the bed where the cucumbers are still rocking from the summer. They can also go near the tomatoes. In a month we’ll put more potatoes down with horseradish and marigold and burdock and carrot. Learn more about companion planting here on Wikipedia’s resource page and here at GH Organics.

    Hot Summer Fun for Kids

    by  • August 17, 2011 • Parenting • 0 Comments

    It’s hot. They are bored.

    Oh, those kids.

    “No, child. You cannot watch tv.”

    Think fast. They need something to do. Something low tech, cuz you’re not in the mood to have a big messy ordeal.

    Painting with water.

    Thanks to mom for this idea. I have fond memories sitting on the patio out back when it was sweltering-hot back in Virginia. Out there with a plate of water and the paintbrushes. It was so hot, I remember watching the line I was drawing literally evaporate before I had finished drawing it. The fade was fascinating and I know now that it gave mom 20 minutes. It’s not so hot out here, but it’s keeping lil Huck occupied for sure.

    Spiced Preserved Lemons

    by  • August 15, 2011 • Recipes • 2 Comments

    Since we will be the custodians of Glen’s garden next door for about a month or so while he travels, we couldn’t help but notice the overabundance of delicious Meyer lemons just sitting there on the tree with no one to eat them and love them.

    Now we are having lemon everything. It’s juice is the acid balance for my salad dressings. It’s zest gets sprinkled on the summer squash/mint/coppa/tapenade/goat cheese pizza right after a drizzle of olive oil before it hits the oven. It’s the squeeze to refresh and brighten the leftover whatever I concocted in haste the other day. It’s even the centerpiece on the table in a pretty white, rectangular bowl.

    All this and they are still spilling over onto the counter.

    Time for preserved lemons. Traditionally, this Moroccan preparation uses simply lemons and salt. I like it with spices as below. Try it on a plain, roasted chicken. Try it on a baked fatty fish with fresh mint. Chop it and toss it into a salad. Stir it into coriander and cumin and pepper-spiced brown rice (or Haiga, if you can find it). Go crazy: make it with limes instead.

    Spiced Preserved Lemons:

    6-12 juicy lemons (especially Meyers)
    kosher or sea salt
    3 cloves
    1 in. fresh ginger, chopped
    2 in. fresh turmeric, chopped
    1 cinnamon stick

    1. Wash lemons and dry them thoroughly. Slice or quarter the lemons. (Slicing speeds the curing process.)

    2. Layer about 1 tablespoon of salt in the bottom of a 1-quart mason jar with a tightly fitting lid (or use a vegetable fermenting jar). Layer the lemons on top, alternating with salt and spices. Add approximately 1 tablespoon of salt for each whole lemon. Tightly pack the jar by gently pressing down on the lemons. If the level of the juice has not risen to cover the fruit. If it is not, squeeze in some additional juice. Seal the jar and shake gently.

    3. Let sit in a cool, shady place, shaking occasionally. The lemons are ready when they are soft and the juice has become syrupy, approximately 3 weeks. When you are ready to use your lemons, transfer from fermenting jar into a mason jar. Store in the refrigerator. Keeps for several months or longer, especially if lemons stay submerged in the brine.

    Reading: 100 Hungry Ants

    by  • August 10, 2011 • Parenting • 0 Comments

    There’s more than just cooking going on in the kitchen. We’re reading, too.

    This is what lil’ Huck was up to while I was getting breakfast on the table: One Hundred Hungry Ants by Elinor J. Pinczes.

    We pretended the beans were ants. Get it? The dish towel with the banana and peach? That’s the picnic blanket. That’s where the ants are headed, first in one row of 100, then two rows of 50, etc.

    Of course, we started with 10 to get the concept going before we went for it with the full 100.

    Huck is way into numbers. He is always asking me to count to 1000 with him, sometimes to infinity. We usually count to 100 instead.

    I know: slacker mom.

    Tapenade with Home-Roasted Red Pepper

    by  • August 8, 2011 • Recipes • 0 Comments

    First, a story about why I bought the one-trick-pony in the first place:

    Back when we went cherry-picking, Hubs dutifully made a homemade pitter by banging a nail through a block of wood. I sat outside and pitted about half of the 18 lbs of bounty, but then I started to go insane.

    It wasn’t just that it was messy and difficult. Or that my fingers were wrinkled from the wet work. Or that my cuticles were stained from the juice. It was because more than once, I caught lil’ Huck with a cherry properly positioned on the “pitter,” poised to push his little palm right through the point of the nail.

    Enough.

    I was ready to abandon the project altogether. I considered dividing the remaining cherries into three equal portions and declare to Huck and Hubs that it was their responsibility to consume their fresh allotment before spoilage.

    It was that or pie with pits.

    Luckily, neighbor Glen arrived just in time from next door with his cherry pitter.

    What a difference.

    I  wanted to get one, but I couldn’t justify top-quality kitchen drawer real-estate for an item that only has one application.

    Neighbor Glen chimed in: you can pit olives with a cherry-pitter, too.

    Duh. Why didn’t I think of that before?

    His instructions? Go to the Halal market and get their freshly brined, high-quality olives for cheap from the barrel. They’ve probably even been prayed over.

    Awesome.

    I’m serious.

    Ok. The recipe:

    Tapenade with Home-Roasted Red Pepper
    3 cups olives, pitted (the softer and/or medium-sized kinds are the easiest to pit)
    1 red pepper (brush with oil, place directly over gas flame on stove until slightly blackened, turning with tongs; remove from heat and let sit in a bowl covered with plastic wrap until soft, remove peel)
    2 tablespoons of capers
    a handful of curly parsley
    a handful of basil
    2ish Tablespoons olive oil
    pepper

    Pulse till lookin’ good. The freshest damned tapenade you will ever taste. Keeps well in the fridge for a few weeks.

    Fig & Romaine Salad

    by  • August 1, 2011 • Recipes • 0 Comments

    Zola CornIt’s summer. The sunflowers are opening their tight fists to reveal a sunny display.

    Cue an overabundance of cucumbers and squash and mint. Luckily, they are still early enough that we haven’t gotten tired of eating them…yet.

    The tomatoes aren’t ready. At least, they are not ready here.

    The radishes that were coming out of our ears–cutie little red French Breakfast ones, giantSunflower white diakon ones–they have all been eaten. The hidden ones we missed harvesting earlier are now too fibrous.

    Did you know that when you plant the Three Sisters–corn, squash and beans together as the Native Americans did long before us–that yes, those bean tendrils wind their way beautifully up the stalk? It is comforting: what they taught us in preschool is indeed true.

    The garden gives its gifts in waves. Sometimes those waves rush up over you andCorn you have more than you can eat, more than you can pickle, more than you can manage. That’s when your friends get lucky.

    But, if you get it wrong and it starts to go a little bit past, but not really rotting? That’s when the chickens get lucky.

    Some more experience would be nice in terms of timing the garden or planting in phases. If I only had Pop around. (He was my granddad.)Fig & Romaine Salad 1

    Anyway, the heads of romaine are hanging on, but they are going to have to come out soon. We’ve been picking away enough leaves for impromptu salads a few times a week. By now, I’ve kinda already made every salad I can think of. How to make the last few salads amazing?

    The farmer’s market feels silly to me now that we have so much growing at home. But, we left the Saturday market with a very pregnant container of black mission figs which turned around my salad boredom. It is the easiest thing in the world and I didn’t even mix my usual dressing for it. I just threw on the oil and vinegar.

    Here it is:

    Fig & Romaine Salad 2Fig & Romaine Salad
    Romaine lettuce, chopped
    Figs, diced
    (really good) Balsamic
    (really good) Olive Oil
    Pepper

    Variations? Many. Goat cheese would be genius. The ones in the picture have cucumber. Meh. I liked it better plain as in the recipe. The walnuts went in as an afterthought and that was successful.

     

    Rosemary-Scented Blackberry Trifle

    by  • July 27, 2011 • Herbs, Recipes • 0 Comments

    The boys are demanding sweets.

    They bring me a big bowl of blackberries they picked from the backyard.

    I think they want me to do something with it.

    This is not the first bowl of blackberries I have seen this year. It will not be the last.

    The begging starts. I cut it off: No.

    No pie. No cobbler. No crisp. It’s hot; I’m not turning on the oven. Uh-uh.

    More begging.

    Ok, there’s gotta be a way to make everybody happy, but I’m so not baking today.

    This is what I invent: Rosemary-Scented Blackberry Trifle

    Sadly, there is no good picture to document it’s success because we could not eat it fast enough. Really, it tasted ridiculous, store-bought angel food cake notwithstanding.

    It took me maybe 5 minutes to make. You can thank me after you bring this to some summer picnic potluck and everybody raves about your kitchen prowess while you privately smirk at how effortless it was.

    Rosemary-Scented Blackberry Trifle
    Blackberries, a big bowl of them
    Rosemary, fresh.
    Sugar (I use palm sugar because it is less refined and doesn’t make me as crazy.)
    Greek Yogurt (no, lowfat is never recommended)
    Mascarpone Cheese, optional and awesome
    Angel Food Cake (Sure, I guess you could make it at home. But, I’m not turning on the oven, thankyouverymuch. Hubs turned up his nose at the storebought stuff when he saw it on the counter, but he remembered and rescinded his derogatory comments within the first few bites of the finished product the next day.)

    Sprinkle palm sugar to taste over blackberries and stir in rosemary sprigs. Let sit a few hours. Or, cook them. (See note below.)

    Stir mascarpone until smooth and slowly add greek yogurt to incorporate. (One time, I  used plain yogurt but the times I sweetened it was way better, softer and overall, more juicy. You could even cheat and buy vanilla flavored Greek yogurt. This from a gal who *always* chooses plain yogurt when given the choice.) Tear angel food cake into fist-sized pieces.

    To assemble, form a layer of cake pieces on bottom of trifle pan (use a large mixing bowl in a pinch), cover with a layer of berries and a layer of yogurt mixture. Repeat until complete, finishing with yogurt mixture on top. Refrigerate for at least 24 hours. The longer the better. It really makes a difference.

    P.S. If your blackberries are coming from the backyard and there might be creepy crawlies living deep inside, you might want to cook and cool them before using. I’ve made this recipe several times and always wash and pick over my berries well, but I had an unfortunate batch where some little bugs started to proliferate in the 24 hours or so that the trifle mellowed in the fridge. It really bummed me out to have to toss the batch.

     

    Homemade Cherry Bounce! (It’s like Kirsch.)

    by  • July 25, 2011 • Recipes • 8 Comments

    Cherries. They were on sale. It seemed to be too good to be true.

    It was.

    And it wasn’t.

    I got my dark red bounty home and washed it off in the colander, shook off the excess and wandered out into the garden for my favorite early summer treat: fresh cherries.

    Except it isn’t early summer. It is midsummer, for reals people, and those cherries were more battered and bruised than I could see through the plastic. Another reason to use the farmer’s market, I guess. Oh well.

    Luckily, the good people over at FarmCurious gave me a hint as to what to do with the overabundance of cherries that were not too bad to toss, yet not good enough to snack on.

    And since I’m not really ever going to make this (though it looks fun), Cherry Bounce works for me.

    It is sorta like Kirsch. You need 4 things: cherries, vodka, sugar, mason jar. Then, you’ll have a party in about 6 months.

    FarmCurious used sour cherries which sounds delightful. I used what I had: Bing.

    I also substituted palm sugar; its a little less refined and makes me less crazy and tastes every bit as good as cane.

    Lastly, I pitted my cherries in the name of maximizing space in the jar for more sweet, boozy, red fun.