Blondies

There are many recipes out there for blondies, but this one, from Garrett McCord at Simply Recipes, is without a doubt my favorite. These are super chewy and delicious.

Blondies (by Garrett McCord from Simply Recipes)

• 1/2 cup of butter, melted
• 1 cup of tightly packed dark brown sugar
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/8 teaspoon of baking soda
• Pinch of salt
• 1 cup of all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup of butterscotch chips (this was not enough for me. I used about 1/2 cup milk chocolate chips and 1/2 cup white chocolate chips instead)

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F.
2. Lightly butter and flour an 8X8 pan.
3. Whisk together the melted butter and sugar in a bowl.
4. Add the egg and vanilla extract and whisk.
5. Add the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt, mix it all together.
6. Add the butterscotch chips or other mix-ins.
7. Pour into the pan and spread evenly.
8. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
9. Allow to cool.
10. Cut into squares and serve.

Curried Vegetable Chowder of Epic Proportions

Live for them. Love them. I have been a customer of theirs on-and-off for years. When I can afford it, I get shipments of organic vegetables DELIVERED to my house and then life is GOOD, people! Now, due to financial constraints, I am on the every-other-week delivery cycle with Boston Organics. Life is still good...BUT sometimes you have to figure out what to do with a bunch of organic vegetables QUICK before they go bad. This is what I did the other night and it was a thing to rejoice!

Curried Vegetable Chowder
(of epic proportions!)

In fridge/freezer/pantry I found:

• 2 carrots
• 1/4 head of cabbage
• 2 red potatoes
• 1 sweet potato
• broccoli (yuck)
• collard greens (yum)
• 2 onions
• 1 red chili pepper (not sure what kind, but i think it was this)
• a few cloves of garlic
• spices: curry powder, cinammon, cumin, salt, pepper
• olive oil

I also found a large portion of frozen veggie stock I had the foresight to make earlier that week. For a detailed description of how to make your vegetable ends into usable stock, read the play-by-play here.

A quick thing I will add to that epic is leave the skins of your garlic and onions on and also when you take the skins off in your regular cooking, throw em in your stock bag. EVERYTHING goes in except for lemon rind because that will make your stock bitter and inedible. Everything else, fair game. Im talking potato peels here, folks. Also an addendum to Tony's post is - add a shit ton of salt (Can I say shit on the internet? I dunno. I'm sure Dave will bleep me out if need be). (Ed. note: You sure can say shit on the internet. -dave) Like more than you think you need. Just TRUST me on this.

Anyway, now that you have an awesome veggie stock at your disposal, you can move on with your life and make better career choices :). Also, it cures acne.

Things I bought at the store for the curried chowder: Fresh ginger and organic half and half. Amazing! Let's start cooking.

So...take a massive pot and heat up some olive oil. I made a huge pot of soup which I have been eating for days and let me tell you, it gets better every day. So, I probably added about 4 tablespoons of oil to the pot, 2 tablespoons of curry powder, two teaspoons of cinnamon, a teaspoon of cumin, 2 teaspoons of kosher salt and a couple of fierce grinds of black pepper and then turn the heat on low. After the oil spice mixture begins to warm (you can tell by the smell), add the onions, sliced and let them sweat on low while other things happen. I grabbed the ginger, broke off about a half inch, peeled it, minced it, threw it in the pot. Sliced the chili pepper, seeds and all, into the pot and give it a stir. Peeled and minced the garlic, about three cloves, into the pot. At this point in time, your house should be smelling so good that you just cant function.

OK, so stir your aromatics that are in the pot and add the 2 red potatoes diced (don't need to peel, just take out any eyes) and the sweet potato, peeled and diced. Turn the heat up to medium, cover and get those potatoes cooking. Peel your carrots and chop them. I sliced them and found the rounds to be a little imposing, you may want to dice them to the same size as your potatoes. Add them to the pot, stir, make sure nothing's burning, move on. Next, grab that quarter of a head of cabbage, take off the outer leaves if the look suspect and cut off any areas that are starting to brown, shreddddd the cabbage by slicing it thin and throw into the pot, stir. Take your broccoli (yuck), about two big stalks, and start slicing at the top of the florets so the little nibs separate individually and make this heinous vegetable palatable. NO bias here. Once all your florets are macerated, chop a little of the soft, upper part of the stem and save the rest to put into the stock bag. Into the pot, stir.

Okay, folks, we're almost ready. Can you feel the excitement building? Grab your collards and slice about a cup's worth (2 inches, how does one measure collards?), into the pot, big stir, life is good, go grab your stock. Add about a quart of the veggie stock into the pot until the vegetables are covered, but just showing underneath the surface. Add another 2 teaspoons of curry powder (yes, really) another dash of cinnamon, a teaspoon of salt a few more fierce grinds of black pepper an cover. Bring up to a boil and let this mixture boil, covered for about 15-20 minutes until potatoes and carrots are tender. Once this happens, turn off heat and add your half-and-half slowly until you achieve the desired creaminess. I didn't use much-maybe about a cup in total. Stir and taste. Mixture should be just creamy, slightly curried, spicy, delicious and totally like whoa. If this is not the case, add more salt and pepper, maybe another shot of the half-and-half and try again. If it's not amazing at this point then I just don't know. Maybe it's karma from a past life...shake your first at the sky, discard and order pizza.

But anyway, our soup was incredible, spicy, organic, delicious, dinner, lunch, lunch, dinner. So good. Also, google the health benefits of turmeric, found in curry powder, and feel pleased with your meal choice and morally superior to others. I kid. Seriously though, this soup is amazing and life is good.

Until next time,
A

Homemade fish sandwiches

They have frozen fish fillets, unbreaded and inexpensive in the frozen seafood section at your regular grocer now. The standard price is $3 - 5 for four whole fillets, indvidually wrapped, of tilapia, catfish or cod, which is a great deal. I've found a great use for these to feel like you are eating out a cafe at home:

- Take a fillet out of the bag and put it on a plate / bowl in the sink - run cold water over it for ~5 min until defrosted.

- Meanwhile, prep your slaw: shredded cabbage, carrots and onions, mixed with a few tablespoons of vinegar, oil, salt and pepper. Add fresh ginger for an asian flare.

- Make your aioli: a tbl of mayo, minced garlic, tsp of lemon juice and some diced parsley (i've used dried and its been just fine)

- Dry off the fillet well with paper towels, then sprinkle both sides with Cajun Spice and flash fry on both sides in a tbl of oil

- Slice a baguette (or any other heary bread) and slather with aioli, then top with the fish fillet and the slaw.

Love that dirty water!

In case you didn't hear, much of Greater Boston lost clean water for several days this past week. A catastrophic water main leak in Weston Saturday forced a boil-water order for about 2 million residents in 30 Eastern Massachusetts communities. The boil order was lifted early Tuesday morning after a fix to the leak was made and tests showed clean water flowing to the communities.

As horrible as it was to deal with this problem, it could have been a million times worse and last a whole lot longer. I think this crisis truly made some of the locals think long and hard about how precious water is and hope that this problem will at least help people be more conscious about conserving water.

So take a moment today, let's raise our glasses, or water bottles, to good old H2O! Without water, we could probably not keep this blog going. Or much else going.