Orzo in Creamy Kabocha Squash Sauce

The fresh harvest, the nippy weather, the pageantry of trees... it must be Autumn!

This Orzo in Creamy Kabocha Squash Sauce captures the mood of Autumn for me, for Autumn is not Autumn unless I indulge in the gourds and squashes and pumpkins.

Orzo is pasta, shaped like rice, only slightly bigger. Kabocha squash soup is a favorite fall meal at home. I wanted to add some body, pump it up a bit for the kids. This almost feels like pumpkin risotto in texture, very creamy, thick and wholesome.

Cook orzo per package directions. I take the short cut - I usually start it in the rice cooker in the morning, before I leave for work. So, when I get home, I just need to make the sauce and finish the dish.

Now, after a bit of trial and error, I have managed to cook macaroni, rotini, penne even spaghetti in rice cooker, al dente, with proper amount of water. This way, I am not waiting for pasta to get cooked in the tight weeknights when all I have energy for is to throw together something simple yet sumptuous for the kids.

Kabocha, a Japanese winter squash is chockful of nutrients - beta carotene, with iron, vitamin C, potassium - rich in fiber, low in fat... all the good stuff.

Ingredients
3-4 cups of peeled, diced kabocha squash
1 small yellow onion, diced
4-6 garlic cloves, crushed
salt to taste
1-2 Tbsp olive oil
2-3 cups water or vegetable stock
1 cup evaporated milk or half-and-half

Spices for flavoring:
1 Tbsp dry basil
1 Tbsp dry marjoram
1 tsp dry oregano
1 tsp dry sage
1 tsp dry thyme
1 tsp turmeric powder

Preparation

1. Heat oil in a pan, add the onions, garlic, spices and sauté a bit; then add the kabocha squash, water/stock, cover and allow to simmer
2. When squash is cooked through, either mash with potato-masher or purée in a food processor, return to pan, add the cooked orzo and allow to simmer together
3. Stir in the evaporated milk, heavy cream or half-and-half, off heat
4. Garnish with chopped spring onions, fresh basil if handy and Serve warm

Tareko Alu

Alu, aka potatoes, have become such a universal and versatile vegetable that almost every cuisine features its own special styles of cooking them.

Tareko Alu, Delicately spiced fried potatoes is another simple recipe from Nepalese Kitchen by Loke Rajye Laxmi Devi. I cut down on the oil a bit as the recipe called for a cup of mustard oil and all I had was about 4 Tablespoons. It still turned out fine.

Stirring in the spice paste towards the end and cooking it just enough till rawness went away made this quite aromatic and delicious, almost like an appetizer or snack to be eaten as-is.

Ingredients
4-5 medium white wax potatoes, cut into wedges
1-2 chilies slit lengthwise (optional)
3-4 Tablespoon mustard oil
1 tsp fenugreek seeds
1 tsp turmeric powder
salt to taste

spices to grind:
4-6 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger
3-4 green chilies
1 teaspoon black peppercorns

Preparation

1. Soak the potatoes while getting the ground paste ready
2. Combine the spice and grind to a fine paste, keep aside
3. Par-cook the potatoes in the mcirowave, if preferred - I like it as it cuts down on cooking time and I don't have to deep fry
4. Heat oil in a cast iron pan which can hold all the potatoes in a single layer; when smoking, add the fenugreek seeds
5. Once the fenugreek crackles, add the potatoes, turmeric and salt and stir a bit to coat well and allow to sit over medium high heat to brown on one side
6. Add the spice paste and stir to caot well, and flip the potato wedges to the other side without breaking up
7. Allow to get lightly browned, off heat and serve hot with roti or rice

Palunga Ko Saag

The recipes from Nepalese Kitchen by Loke Rajye Laxmi Devi, my newest addition thanks to D, has many simple recipes that are pretty close to Indian cooking. North Indian, I should specify. South Indian cooking is quite a different experience altogether.

This Palunga Ko Saag (Lightly spiced spinach) is one of the simplest recipes from the Nepalese Kitchen, which is quite close to a saag recipe I make pretty often. Primary difference being, the use of mustard oil and ajwain (caraway), whereas I use gingelly oil and jeera (cumin).

Ingredients
1 pkt frozen whole leaf spinach (fresh is good, adjust cooking time)
½ teaspoon caraway seeds
salt to taste
3-5 whole dry red chillies, slit and broken
2 Tablespoon mustard oil

Preparation

1. Heat the oil in a cast iron pan
2. When smoking, add the caraway seeds and chilies
3. Add the frozen spinach, as-is, unthawed, some salt, toss well to coat the spinach with the oil
4. Cover and cook till spinach is just done
5. Serve with roti, or plain Jasmine or Basmati rice

Ema Datsi from Druk Yul

D managed to sneak in a short break from his work in India and take a cultural tour of Druk Yul: Land of the Thunder Dragon aka Bhutan.

While he has offered to do a guest post about his experiences there one of these days, I am not holding my breath, considering the 10,000 things he has lined up that are much higher priority for him, so I took the liberty of summarizing his trip just so I can experience everything as I narrate, albeit second-hand :)

Knowing my eagerness for experimenting and my unbridled passion for World Cuisine, he usually comes back from trips with cookbooks loaded with local flavors.



The Bhutan trip was no exception: A Nepalese cookbook, plus a Traditional Bhutanese cookbook with samples from the various regions were the best souvenirs he could have brought back for me. I am excited to try out a few of the recipes, now that he has actually tasted them and can tell me if it gets close to what he had.



Ema Datsi was his first suggestion. Ema Datsi is a national dish in Bhutan usually served with red rice.

Simply put, Ema Datsi is boiled chilies in cheese sauce.

D can handle insanely hot foods so I could easily believe that he relished it. Since neither the Bhutanese home-style cottage cheese nor the the meaty hot chillies is easily available here, I approximated the taste drawing from suggestions found on the web.

D's resounding "Pretty darn close to what I had" between mouthfuls seemed like this is going on the Make-Often-for-D list, as it was too hot for me to handle :)



Ingredients
Ema:
8-10 jalapeño peppers, red and green, sliced lengthwise
4-6 wax peppers sliced lengthwise (optional)
¼ medium yellow onion sliced thin
1 cup water

Cheese sauce:
Equal parts of the following to make 2 cups of grated cheese:
Queso Quesadilla Jalapeño
Colby Monterey Jack
Part-skim Mozzarella
Plus:
¼ cup crumbled feta
2-4 Tbsp grated Parmesan
4 Tbsp whole milk

Preparation

1. Seed the chilies if preferred to cut back on the heat, or use Anaheim or other varieties that are large and meaty but not as hot
2. Combine the cheeses and milk stir well and keep handy
3. Combine the chillies, onion and water and bring to a boil till chillies are cooked, but not mushy, and the water is reduced to about a quarter cup
4. Add the cheese mixture, stir well, reduce the heat and allow the cheese to melt in the heat and mingle well with the chillies, turn off heat
5. Add salt to taste if preferred - the salt from the cheeses, especially feta was just perfect for us
6. Add a bit more crumbled feta if preferred for texture/flavor
7. Serve with jasmine rice, if red rice is not available

Strawberry Pie glacé

Just had to throw in the glacé as this turned out so smooth and shiny, thanks to the sugar.

This is a very rustic pie, nothing fancy about it. Single pie-crust, per usual recipe. Made a thickish sauce with some strawberries and sugar, and combined it with whole fresh strawberries we had picked. We had enough filling to make two pies out of this.

Ingredients
single-pie crust as in this recipe

for the glacé:
1 pint fresh whole strawberries, hulled, mashed
1½ cups sugar
2-3 Tablespoon cornstarch
½ - 2/3rd cup water

1 pint fresh whole strawberries
whipped cream (optional)
Preparation

1. Combine the glacé ingredients and bring to a boil, allow to simmer for about 10 minutes, stirring constantly till well-combined and thick
2. Allow to cool a bit, then pour some at the bottom of the pie crust, arrange some whole strawberries, and pour the rest of the glaze, chill in the fridge for about 4 hours
3. Serve with some whipped cream on top

Simple pan-fried gyoza packets

I was sifting through my photos and remembered this crisp and hot snack we had a few months back, before my summer trip to India.

Nothing extraordinary about it except the memory associated with it - it was an overcast weekend and I wanted something quick and fried, but fairly "healthy", so this was just pan-fried, not deep-fried.

I wasn't in the mood for pot-stickers, although that was the intention when I bought these wrappers. Spring rolls or samosa was on my mind that day but spring roll wrappers weren't handy...

Anyway, at some point, I wanted to teach myself how to make gyoza wrappers at home, but, store-bought wrappers are what make this snack appealing to me - easy to make and they have a slightly different texture compared to deep-fried spring roll wrappers.

Ingredients
Gyoza wrappers
some veggies for filling
some oil for pan frying

Preparation

1. Shred cabbage, carrots, onions; grate some ginger, crush some cloves of garlic
2. Sauté them with a touch of salt, keep this filling handy
3. Prepare the gyoza: add just enough filling to the wrappers (I tend to overfill and create a mess), fold as preferred - I just make a packet, nothing fancy, just like a gift-wrap, then, seal with some water
4. Heat about 1 Tbsp of oil in a pan, place the packets carefully, allow to brown on both sides evenly
5. Serve warm with dipping sauces, as appetizers or an afternoon snack

Plums, plums, plums

The art of Putting Food By has always been a secret indulgence of mine. Despite dirt-cheap jams and sauces flooding the supermarket, there is something extremely fulfilling about gathering the pesticide-free fresh produce from the backyard home-garden and putting it by for the colder months when the yield would be down to nil...

The only initial fear for me was inadvertent poisoning due to botulism if the canning is not done right. I stick to acidic foods which are hard to spoil and usually follow the directions and times for processing. There is nothing like hearing the "pop" as the jar cools after undergoing the boiling water bath canning, when the lid gets sucked in by the contracting air and the jar seals tight. All that's left is labeling with the date and storing it away in the pantry :)

We came back from a long and lovely vacation to find the little patch of Earth on our backyard yielding plentiful sustenance. The plum tree especially was overloaded with ripe purple prune plums. Sweet and juicy as-is, but, I was itching to make good plum jam and Chinese-style plum sauce and can them away...

Plum jam wasn't anything new - just followed the recipe that comes with the Fruit Pectin packet. Except I reduced the sugar, which is not a smart thing usually as the jam won't set well. But, I like the loose spreadable consistency anyway :)

Pit and coarsely chop the plums. Simmer in a little bit of water (about ¼ cup for 6 cups of chopped plums) for about 5 minutes. Crush it or process it in a blender, draining excess water. Return to pot, stir in a packet of fruit pectin allow to come to rolling boil. Skim foam if preferred. Stir in about 6-8 cups of sugar (makes it cloyingly sweet, but jam doesn't set well otherwise) and allow to come back to a boil. Stir well, and can in boiling water bath canner for 25-30 minutes.

I have always loved Chinese Plum Sauce mixed with Sambal Olelek - just the plum sauce by itself that I get at the stores is almost like honey, too sweet. So, I wanted to make some Plum Sauce that was close to my liking and ready to use on busy weekdays.

Ingredients
4 cups pitted chopped plums
½ medium onion, roughly chopped
2 Tbsp freshly grated ginger
4-6 cloves of garlic, maybe more
2 Tbsp Sambal Oelek
----
¼ cup cider vinegar
¼ cup rice wine vinegar
½ tsp Chinese Five Spice
¼ tsp cinnamon powder
1 tsp coriander powder (optional)
1 Tbsp Agave nectar or brown sugar

Combine the first five ingredients and allow to simmer for 10-15 minuted till onions and garlic are tender. Mash or process in a blender. Strain. Return to pot and add the rest of the ingredients to taste. Allow to simmer for another 20 minutes or so. Can in boiling water bath for about 30 minutes.

In addition to luscious sweet plum flavor, the sauce has all the spiciness I enjoy. This is almost like Hot-and-Sweet sauce and can be used as a dip for spring rolls and gyoza.

Just for fun, to serve as simple winter dessert, I decided to can some plums whole. Rather than raw pack, I decided to process them hot in very light syrup (½ cup sugar for 8 cups of water). Despite pricking the skin with fork, some plums were too ripe and the skin split, but that's okay... I boiled them for about 35 minutes for canning.

The plums are all put by for now. I am looking forward to dealing with all the pears this weekend... maybe make some pear sauce (like applesauce), maybe pack them in light syrup...