Ode to the Paw Paw

It's paw paw season! For those of you who haven't had the pleasure, the paw paw (or Indiana banana as we call them here) is the Single Greatest Fruit Of All Time. I'm sure I wouldn't say that if we could have them year-round or find them in the grocery store, but they're only available at the farmer's market for about a month and they don't keep well enough to carry in grocery stores, so I spend most of the summer kind of itching for them, peering around for the one guy at the market who sells them. I was in Chapel Hill last weekend for a conference, and Suz heroically volunteered to go early and stand in line to buy me some. Thanks Suz!

More paw paw facts: These are native fruits and are apparently only recently gaining in popularity because they can be grown organically pretty easily, they're pest resistant and all that good stuff. Unfortunately, they flowers smell like rotting meat, they're pollinated by blowflies and carrion beetles, and they can't self pollinate, so you need at least two of these trees that smell like death. Apparently farmers either pollinate by hand or hang chicken necks to attract the beetles and flies. Yum.

What do they taste like? Sort of like a banana mashed together with a mango and turned into a custard. I think you can use them in recipes, but I like eating the flesh with a spoon. It's luxurious.

For all you election junkies out there, I found some more election maps. I think I've already mentioned the one on Washingtonpost.com, but there's also one on NPR and the New York Times website, all easily found by googling election map NPR or New York Times, or what have you. I admit, grudgingly, that the New York Times is my favorite of this lot (it's a hard pill to swallow to admit the NYT does something better than the Washington Post, especially related to politics). All three are interactive, so you can click on states and see recent polling results, etc.

I also discovered http://www.270towin.com/ (referring of course to the number of electoral votes needed). It's got a hypnotizing simulation feature where it'll run through all the possible results based on probabilities determined by the latest polls. So, for a state like Arizona that's definitely voting McCain, it'll always predict that it'll be red, but if he's 55% likely to win Nevada, he'll win Nevada in 55% of the simulations. You can press the "run again" button under the map over and over to see how it'll all play out. This has a very similar feel to that scene at the end of War Games when Joshua is learning about global thermonuclear war and runs thousands of scenarios, all of which end in a stalemate. Feels like that. Especially when, disturbingly, the scenario occasionally plays out to each candidate getting 269.

It also has a view of the electoral college all the way back to 1789. Nancy and I were lamenting about how torturously close this election has been, and it's really interesting to go back and see that, before 2000 the races were more or less fairly one sided (or, the results turned out that way, I'm sure in the thick of it it didn't feel one-sided). I mean, George McGovern got 17 electoral votes! Truman and Dewey wasn't even that close, as far as the numbers, Truman getting 303 and Dewey with 189. There was another squeaky close election like the 2000 election in 1876, Hayes 185 v. Tilden 184. If I'm being honest I'll admit I didn't know there had ever been a President Hayes. In 1800 Aaron Burr v. TJ was exactly tied. Anyone know how they decided who would be pres? Was it because Burr had killed Hamilton, or was that ok back then? I'm asking because that 269 v. 269 result on the simulator has me a little spooked, I'd like to know what the back-up plan is.

Bethie's book list

PS, I just read Turn of the Screw by Henry James...pretty good ghost story if you can get around his run-on sentances. I'm in the middle of Great Expectations, which is really good (Katie didn't think it was as good as East of Eden...which for those keeping track, was an EXCELLENT book), and am leafing through Germs, Guns, and Steel by Jared Diamond (good history, socioeconomics, evolution book).

Lemon Chicken Soup

Hi all! It's true, KV got tired of me emailing her recipes. I also tend to like the quick and easy ones better because most days, I only have less then 1/2 hour. As far as cookbooks go, I love Sandra Lee's Semi-Homemade (I have her 20-minute meal book). Although she does like to, um, taste-test the cocktails a little too much on her show, her recipes have been big winners so far. The only problem that I've had is that with some of them, the ingredients are really grocery-store dependent because of the short cuts. For example, for one recipe, I was supposed to get a can of Hunt's diced tomatoes with pepper and onion. But they didn't have that, so I had to get the toms with pepper and garlic. Big deal? The world may never know. For the prepackaged stuff, she also offers the brand name that she uses, which is occasionally helpful.

This is one of my favorites, perfect now that it's starting to get chilly and the flu and cold season is starting soon:

Lemon Chicken Soup (4 servings)

3 cans (10.75 oz each) condensed chicken and rice (or chicken noodle) soup, Campbell's (I used the reduced sodium kind...you really won't miss the extra sodium)
3 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth, Swanson
1/3 cup lemon juice, RealLemon
3 large yolks (This one comes straight from the ol' clucker herself)
1 precooked chicken breast, shredded (see above)
1 tablespoon finely chopped parsley (optional)

1) In large saucepan, combine soup, broth, and lemon juice. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat; reduce heat to simmer

2) In a small bowl, lightly whisk the egg yolks. Gradually whisk in 1/4 cup of the hot broth mixture into egg yolks to prevent curdling. Slowly pour into the egg yolk mixture, stirring constantly. (Alton Brown cal led this "tempering" I think)

3) Stir in chicken and heat through. Stir in parsely. Serve with pita bread, hummus.

So, like I said this is one of my favorites. Couldn't be easier, and the ingredients are fool-proof. Last time, I used chicken and noodle, then added extra egg noodles in step one to make the soup hardier. When you have a cold, the lemon clears sinuses, and the creamy yolk and salty broth soothe sore throats. Hmm...almost makes me want to get a cold just so I can have some to feel better...

Another variation includes substituting condensed cream of chicken soup for the yolks and the broth with 6 3/4 cups water to make it even creamier.

Cheers!

Bethie occasionally sends me recipies that I'll never make, like fried califlower (not a huge califlower fan), so I thought I'd just ask her to post her recipes here, cut out the middleman. And, my friend Suz, who is a terrific chef, has some ideas she wants to share, too, so you might be seeing some entries from them soon.

Does anyone work with Google Earth? I spent literally all day on Friday putting together this great project for my literature workshop participants and for some reason it decided it didn't want to save. Actually, what it really did was revert back to some random earlier save. I had been saving it all along and it just picked one of the early ones and held on to that, disregarding everything else. Any ideas? It was a really cool presentation, I had map overlays and everything. :( I can redo it, but I don't want to if that means it won't save anything again!

Podcasts I like

If you're not tired of my book reviews, I thought I'd also give some podcast reviews. I listen to podcasts on the way to and from work, and that tends to add up to more time than I spend reading, usually. Anyway, it's hard to know what's good, so I thought I'd just say what I like, at least.

My favorite podcasts are the Agatha Presents Mysteries, radio shows from back based on Agatha Christie's books. I just stumbled upon these in itunes, and I haven't been able to find them again, but they're great if you find them. I love the guy who does Poirot's voice, it's perfect. These don't update very frequently, but whenever I have a new one I gobble it up.

I also like This American Life. These are hour-long programs, with a few stories centered around a theme. They can be hit or miss, though, and when they're a miss it's often a really really weird and scary miss. But, some are awesome. There was one episode about supers, which I highly recommend. That was on last year sometime, but it might be in the archives. More recently, I really enjoyed an episode called "leaving the fold," especially the first act that looked into the life of Jerry Springer, who was apparently by all accounts the most promising politician to come around since Kennedy. I'm in the middle of one called "nice work if you can get it." The "preface" part was an interview with various astronauts about the minutae of their daily grind, which actually sounds pretty boring. The first act is a recording of a speech by John Hodgeman (he's a PC to that other guy's Mac in those commericals) that had me laughing so hard on my way home from work I was worried the neighbors would look at me funny, laughing at myself.

You can also download Prairie Home companions from NPR, including the News from Lake Woebegon, which is always nice after a hard day. :)

we're experiencing fall-like symptoms...

I saw my breath this morning! It's 47 degrees right now, although it's expected to get up near 80 or beyond by the weekend, so Bloomington hasn't quite committed to the idea of fall. However, there is a beautiful harvest moon still out at 7:40 am. Off to work!

Book Review time!

We lost power today with all the wind, so I had lots of reading time , since it was too scary to go outside and too boring to look at a blank TV. I started, and finished, a detective novel Suz gave me to read called Oblivion. It's about a private eye who starts a case, but then halfway through the book has a brain leak or something because of a tumor, and has to spend the rest of the novel trying to figure out what case he was working on. It was pretty good, I'd recommend it, and the idea was neat.

In order to read that, I decided to give up on one of two other books that I've been reading for a couple months. Coincidentally, I've been reading two very thought provoking, but very sad (auto)biographies (unusual for me since I normally stick to fiction). One is called Wild Swans, and it's by the first modern Chinese woman to earn a doctorate from the UK. It's the story of her family, first of her grandmother getting her feet bound when she was two, sold off to be a concubine and then widowed, then married (as a proper wife) to a Manchurian doctor, who's family then disowns him and his son commits suicide because he wants to marry a former concubine for love, instead of thinking of his family's honor. It just sort of spirals down from there, as the family then has to deal with the communist revolution tearing everything apart. Right now I'm at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, and it is really truly awful. I only knew a little about the communist revolution before reading this book (which is banned in China, by the way), but it is really shocking what went on.

Zookeeper's wife is about the owners of a zoo in Warsaw hiding Jews during WWII, although I think that's sort of a misleading title because 1) yes it was a zoo, but not for most of the book after all the animals got shipped away by the Germans and 2) the most interesting character is the actual zookeeper, who does all this cloak and dagger resistance stuff. The wife is merely the one who kept the journal that the biographer found, and the book is, I think, a disjointed collection of anecdotes and happenings, and it's hard for me to stick with it. The anecdotes will start and end in the middle of chapters, and I never know what's the "main idea" of a chapter or a paragraph because it's all over the place. Just when something starts to get interesting, the narration veers off to something totally different and I get lost. For example, she'll spend two chapters introducing a new person, and then nothing happens with that person again except that they move into the zoo and fit in very well with the family life. I don't know, I found it hard to read, despite my interest in the topic.

Wild Swans is really good and very well written. Zookeeper's Wife, not as much, so when the combination of the two really started getting to me, I realized I had to give up on one of them. So, Zookeeper's Wife is going back to the library. Maybe I'll reread Harry Potter next, but not the last one, that was pretty depressing, too.

Springfield Chilli

From Cooking Light, another chili recipe (they had an article on chili):

The Illinois version of chili is typically spelled with an extra "l" and features coarse-grind beef, which we augment here with ground turkey breast. Regular ground meat will work just fine. In 1993, the state legislature proclaimed Springfield the "Chilli Capital of the Civilized World."

Yield

6 servings

Ingredients

• 1 bacon slice, finely chopped
• 2 1/4 cups finely chopped onion, divided (about 2 medium)
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 pound coarsely ground turkey breast
• 1/2 pound coarsely ground sirloin
• 1 (12-ounce) can beer (such as Budweiser)
• 3 tablespoons chili powder
• 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 (14 1/2-ounce) can diced tomatoes, undrained
• 1 (8-ounce) can no-salt-added tomato sauce
• 1 (15-ounce) can pinto beans, rinsed and drained
• 1/2 cup (2 ounces) reduced-fat shredded cheddar cheese
• Oyster crackers (optional)

Preparation

1. Cook bacon in a large Dutch oven over medium heat 5 minutes or until browned. Stir in 2 cups onion; cover and cook until onion is tender (about 5 minutes). Uncover and stir in garlic; cook for 1 minute.

2. Increase heat to medium-high; add turkey and sirloin to pan. Cook 5 minutes or until browned, stirring to crumble. Add beer; cook until liquid is reduced to 1/3 cup (about 7 minutes). Stir in chili powder and next 5 ingredients (through tomato sauce). Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 30 minutes or until mixture thickens. Stir in beans; cook 10 minutes or until thoroughly heated. Ladle 1 cup chili into each of 6 bowls. Top each serving with 4 teaspoons cheese and 2 teaspoons onion. Serve with crackers, if desired.

RESULTS: Although not exotic like the white chili, this was a good basic chili. I overcooked the beef (I haven't really taken to ground turkey, so we just used all beef), so the meat was a bit tough, but the flavor was sort of what I (as a non-native Cincinnatian) think of when I think of chili.

Yahoo has sort of a neat widget thing to track and predict the election polls: http://news.yahoo.com/election/2008/dashboard. It's got some N/A results for some states where I guess polling hasn't been done (is that possible?), but some are pretty easy to guess like, for example, Hawaii and DC, which have gone blue in every recent election, and Wyoming, SD and Idaho, which have consistently gone red. I sort of wish the polls weren't as close as they are. It's exciting and all, and I'm glad people who haven't really been into politics are considering voting, but it's too much for my nerves that every election I can remember has been so close.

Another word about polling: apparently fewer and fewer people have been responding to the pollsters or answering their phones or whatnot, so the polls results that we do have might be completely wrong. I'd like to compare the predictions and the results after the election to see how close they were.

White Chili

From Cooking Light: This dish uses hot pepper sauce made from jalapeños; it's milder than the red hot pepper varieties. Stirring frequently toward the end of cooking time prevents the bean-thickened broth from sticking to the bottom and scorching. Serve with Spicy Jalapeño Corn Bread.

2 teaspoons canola oil
1 1/2 cups chopped onion (about 1 large)
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 cups fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
5 teaspoons green hot pepper sauce (such as Tabasco)
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 1/4 pounds skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
2 tablespoons stone-ground cornmeal
1 (19-ounce) can cannellini beans or other white beans, rinsed and drained
1/2 cup plain fat-free yogurt
2 tablespoons thinly sliced green onions (about 1)
Lime wedges (optional)

1. Heat oil in a Dutch oven over medium heat. Add chopped onion and garlic to pan; cook 5 minutes or until onion is tender, stirring occasionally. Add broth, hot pepper sauce, salt, and chicken to pan; bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat to low, and simmer 15 minutes. Remove chicken from broth mixture; cool.

2. Add cornmeal and beans to broth mixture, stirring with a whisk; simmer 15 minutes. Mash about 1/4 cup beans against side of pan. Cut chicken into bite-sized pieces. Add chicken to pan; simmer 5 minutes or until mixture thickens, stirring frequently. Top each serving with yogurt; sprinkle with green onions. Serve with lime wedges, if desired.

Yield: 6 servings (serving size: about 3/4 cup chili, 4 teaspoons yogurt, and 1 teaspoon green onions)

RESULTS: Well, it was salty, but I'm not sure if that's because I accidentally over-salted it, or because I accidentally used regular-sodium chicken broth, or because there was a typo in the magazine. Regardless, I would go easy on the salt initially, you can always add some more later. I used only 1/4 of a large onion (to appease certain husbands) and instead of mincing 3 cloves of garlic, I only used one clove, and that went in whole, and then I took it out when I took the chicken out. I just couldn't imagine all that garlic. I really liked this, other than the salty. It had a really nice smell. It was nice with the yogurt, and it wasn't really spicy at all. Chris wasn't too keen on it, but he did say that it tasted better than it looks (we agreed that it looks like cafeteria Thanksgiving dinner slop).

For me, it was good comfort food on what is proving to be a disappointing football weekend for all members of the household (Harper was heartbroken by the Browns' loss to the Cowboys, as was I by the Cowboys' win). The one bright spot was Wake beating Ole Miss last night. IU won, but the score was 45 to 3, and every time IU scores they set off cannons or something which really spook Harper if she's outside, so even that was traumatizing.

Still, the chili was a lot of work if not all members of the household like it. Mom and Beth, you might want to give this one a shot. By the way, I served this with some of the angel biscuits that I had made earlier and frozen.

Roasted Okra

Roasted Okra

From another blog, I just found this on a web search for okra recipes during my search last weekend for what to do with the okra I picked up at the market. This one caught my eye, and since I liked last week's okra recipe so much, I wanted to try it this weekend.

about 1/2 pound of small, whole okra per person
salt to taste
pepper to taste
olive oil spray

First, start with the smallest okra you can find. Larger okra tends to be woody, which wouldn't work in this recipe.

Preheat the oven to 450 F. Spray a shallow baking dish with olive oil, add okra, and season to taste. Give the okra one quick (1/2 second) spray with olive oil, and put them into the oven. Bake, stirring every 5 minutes, until okra is browned on all sides, about 15 minutes. Serve hot out of the oven.

You can also jazz these up with spice blends such as garam masala, curry powder, chili powder, Creole seasonings, or jerk seasonings--whatever your taste demands. But simple salt and pepper is amazingly good and allows the fresh flavor of the okra to shine through.

RESULTS: This was fairly gross. It reminded me of why I never took to okra in North Carolina. All the slime and ooze that was dissolved into the stew last week came shining through when you leave the darn things whole and roast them. Seriously, unless you've had okra and know that you like to actually eat the slime, I would suggest only having okra in stew form, like in gumbo or something. Yech!

Fancy-Pants Macaroni and Cheese

Three Cheese Macaroni and Cheese:
From Cooking Light Magazine

1 teaspoon olive oil
1 cup finely chopped onion (about 1 medium)
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 garlic clove, minced
1 1/2 cups 1% low-fat milk
1 bay leaf
1/2 cup (2 ounces) crumbled Gorgonzola cheese
3/4 cup (3 ounces) grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, divided
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups uncooked elbow macaroni (about 8 ounces)
Cooking spray
2/3 cup (about 2 1/2 ounces) shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese
2/3 cup panko (Japanese breadcrumbs)
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1. Heat oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add onion to pan; cook 8 minutes or until tender, stirring occasionally. Add flour and garlic; cook 1 minute, stirring constantly. Stir in milk and bay leaf; bring to a boil. Cook 2 minutes or until thick, stirring constantly with a whisk. Add Gorgonzola, 1/2 cup Parmigiano-Reggiano, and salt; stir until cheeses melt. Discard bay leaf.

2. Preheat oven to 375°.

3. Cook pasta in boiling water 5 minutes or until almost tender, omitting salt and fat; drain well. Add pasta to cheese mixture, stirring well. Place about 1/2 cup pasta mixture into each of 6 (1-cup) ramekins coated with cooking spray. Sprinkle evenly with mozzarella. Top evenly with remaining pasta mixture. Combine remaining 1/4 cup Parmigiano-Reggiano and panko; sprinkle evenly over pasta mixture. Spray lightly with cooking spray; sprinkle with black pepper. Bake at 375° for 25 minutes or until heated.

Yield: 6 servings (serving size: about 1 ramekin)

RESULTS: Chris wasn't too thrilled about the onions, to put it mildly, and I have to say, really not as good as the much easier version that's in my Spoon cookbook (although they of course call it Macaroni Au Gratin, because it's Italian). I'm posting that recipe below. One thing I was sort of shocked at is that the Spoon version might be healthier, or at least almost as good, as the Cooking Light. There's more butter in the Spoon one, but much much less cheese, especially considering CL calls for 2 cups of pasta and Spoon calls for 3 cups (meaning, the pasta:cheese ratio is higher for The Spoon, but it tastes better). I've even cut the butter from the Spoon version to little or no taste difference, and sometimes I leave in the egg yolks, but generally I'll take them out. I'll give you the cookbook version, and then my edits in parenthesis. It starts with a basic bechamel sauce and then you add the cheese and pasta.

Bechamel Sauce

Ingredients:
1/4 c butter (I want to try this with a combo of butter and oil, either canola or olive, but haven't gotten around to it yet. It's important in a bechamel sauce for the fat and the flour to be the same amount. Thickness is altered by changing the amount of milk/water/cream)
1/4 c all purpose flour
2 1/4 c milk
pinch of freshly grated nutmeg (optional)
salt and pepper

Melt the butter in a pan over medium heat. Whisk in the flour. Pour in all the milk, whisking constantly until it starts to boil. Season with sale, lower the heat, cover and simmer gently, stirring occasionally, for at least 20 minutes. The sauce should not taste floury (which is why you simmer for so long). Remove from heat and season with salt if necessary, pepper, and/or nutmeg. If sauce is too thick, add a little more milk. If too runny, add a pat of butter mixed with an equal amount of flour. For a lighter bechamel sauce, replace some of the milk with water.


Macaroni Au Gratin

Ingredients
2 Tbls butter, plus extra for greasing (I do grease the pan with butter or olive oil, but I tend to leave out the 2 Tbls)
Bechamel sauce made above
2/3 cup cheese (the cookbook recommends Parmesan, but whatever you want)
2 egg yolks (I tend to leave these out)
3 cups macaroni
salt

Preheat oven to 475 degrees. Grease an ovenproof dish with butter (the top of the dish gets really nice and lovely brown, and it tastes really good, so I try to go with the widest pan possible). Combine the bechamel sauce, cheese, butter and egg yolks. Boil pasta until just al dente, then drain and tip into a bowl. Gently stir in half of the bechamel sauce mixture and put in the prepared dish, then spoon the remaining bechamel sauce mixture on top. Bake for 15-20 minutes until golden brown.

RESULTS: This may be one of my favorite dishes, it's very delicious. Chris likes it too, and it has no onions.

So, I forgot to really explain what's so cool about that bigfoot thing. You can upload a bigfoot layer onto google earth, which is cool. You can also read about the sightings and some bigfoot expert guy calls these people to see if they're legit. There have been 2 sightings in my county here in Indiana, two sightings in Montgomery County in Maryland (one at Little Bennett, Beth and Mom!!) 196!!! sightings in Ohio, although none in Hamilton County. I think that's in the top 5. Anyway, it's fun. My friend is looking at houses, one of which was actually right by one of the Monroe County sightings. He had already decided against it, but says that his 3-year-old has already volunteered to protect the house with his lightsaber.

Creole Okra

Don't know what to do with okra?

INGREDIENTS:

2 tablespoons olive oil 1/2 large onion, chopped 2 cloves garlic, minced 1/2 green bell pepper, chopped 1 (16 ounce) can diced tomatoes in juice

3/8 teaspoon dried thyme 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper salt and pepper to taste 1 (16 ounce) package frozen cut okra

DIRECTIONS:

1.	Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Saute the onion and garlic until limp. Add the green pepper; cook and stir until tender. Drain the tomatoes, reserving juice, and pour them into the skillet. Season with thyme, parsley, cayenne, salt, and pepper. Simmer for 5 minutes over medium heat.
2.	Add the frozen okra, and pour in enough of the reserved juice from the tomatoes to cover the bottom of the pan. Cover, and cook for 15 minutes, or until okra is tender.

RESULTS: You can also use fresh okra! The slime sort of reminds me of the special effects in Alien, but otherwise this was pretty tasty, and if you serve it with rice it'll cut the heat a little. It was a little spicy, but nothing I couldn't handle (so, nothing almost anyone else couldn't handle). Beware leaving it on the heat too long in the last step, lest it burn to the bottom of the pan! I should have stirred it more.

I was walking with Harper the other day in the woods. The woods are right next to a golf course. We saw, playing right at the edge of the golf course (while we were under trees) a weird little fox-like animal. It seemed to be pretty young because it was chasing its tail (and didn't know we were there despite being only about 10 yards away and not terribly quiet), but not so young that there were other family members around. It looked like a very pale fox with very short fur, huge ears like a Sphnix cat, and a long, very skinny tail. Everyone's first suggestion when I tell them is that it was a possum, but it was definitely some sort of canine. Any ideas?

By the way, this comes mere hours after learning that there have been 52 bigfoot sightings in Indiana: www.bfro.net.