virtuous

So everyone I hang out with now is frighteningly un wasteful (Steve got rid of his trash can. You are not allowed to throw things away in his apartment. He saves plastic bags, cuts them up, and stuffs pillows with them).

I am not that far, but I am wicked virtuous about not wasting food. It is too delicious.

We begin with broccoli stems (and a few old mushrooms).

I was trying to recapture an awesome curry I ate at Sunflower this summer. They used Japanese curry which tastes… better. Somehow. Well not better, but different, in a way that is complementary to broccoli.

So I used my curry powder I stole from my dad which he got in Hong Kong, figuring Hong Kong was closer to Japan than India is (liking my logic?)

Also it has “whacky” (or wah kee) in its name, so there’s that.

Gave the veggies a sautee in peanut oil with ginger and garlic, tossed in some water and let them steam, took out the brothiness and mixed it with a bit of corn starch to make a sauce, and put it on top of a wee bit of brown rice.

So good!

Next up: vair old and brown bananas.

Vair ugly.

But I forget how ugly they are because I remember all the goodness they bring to my life in the form of OATS!

I’ve taken to making a big batch of oats for the week and then reheating individual bowls in the morning to save time but still have a flavor vastly preferable to microwave oats (ew.)

How it’s did:

1. Chunk up bananas and toss them in a medium heated pot. They won’t caramelize, as would a single banana, but they form this awesome fluffy sugary… thing.

2. Add oats and liquid to your liking (I added 2 cups each of oats, milk, and water). Cook until it’s hot and sort of burping (it’s too thick to really bubble!) but don’t cook til the liquid is absorbed, since one it is unnecessary and two it can result in burnage.

Once you’ve gotten to the burpy stage and the oats are starting to stick to the bottom, turn off the stove!

3. Wait.

Like magic, the oats will absorb the liquid and the oatmeal will become beautifully thick. As an added bonus, it will be cooler, so you can put it in individual tupperwares and be less skeeved out about the hot plastic giving you cancer (just me?)

Next thing to use up: old basil!

Made pesto. OBVIOUSLY.

Flavah. Garlic, hunk of parm, and roasted walnuts (cheaper than pine nuts and, in my opinion, deliciouser).

 

Grind to grittiness!

 

Then the actual basil, or as my people call it, Vasilikos! (βασιλικός) The royal herb.

Grindedy grind.

 

Stream in olive oil, adjust for seasoning (more cheese and nuts, OBVI) and there you have it.

Into the freezer for a taste of summer when it’s February and gross and I want to kill myself.

     

More green: one really cannot buy a small quantity of kale. They don’t seem to exist.

Here’s about half of the farmer’s market stash (for two dollah!)

The obvious choice, just to make it smaller, was soup. Virtuous: taking prehomemade stock out of the freezer! As far as I know they are both chicken… I think the one on the bottom my mom didn’t have white wine (which she usually adds to her stock) and just… tossed in some red!

   

For the oomph factor? Some farmer’s market sausage!

I read this:

And think this:

(Please, please, love Arrested Development and the short-lived but glorious character of Mrs. Featherbottom as much as I do)

The result:

This is a recipe-ish, not a recipe, but a brief synopsis:

Over medium heat, I browned two pork sausages cut into bite-sized chunks, then set the sausages aside. In their fat, I cooked up one small onion, chopped.

Then I added my stock (3 cups or so?) and brought it to a boil. Then I added my kale (half a bunch?) and a generous amount of salt and pepper. At this point I realized my kale was massive and I’d have to reduce its size. Thus, a bunch of boiling water from my kettle dumped on top (enough to cover the kale- this took a LOT, and basically filled my Dutch oven).

Then I just cooked the kale. For a long time. Probably 45 minutes. Then I returned my sausages. And some brown rice (why not?). And I cooked it for another long time. Probably another 45 minutes. This part probably wasn’t necessary, but yknow, Erin sent me a dramatic text message and obvi we had to talk about it.

The ensuing soup was sooooooooooooo beautifully flavored and sooooooooooo tender. Slow cooking is the way to go. Hurray for Sundays!

A final note: this was the day following the day I accidentally walked 11.6 miles and kayaked for an hour. I ate way, WAY more than in this blog. These were the things that involved *preparation*, rather than the things that involved *going to coffee hour at church and inhaling a donut* prior to the wholesome curry you see.