food

Asparagus Soup

| naomiwhitmore

Gotta make this one. Today I acquired local asparagus. Side rant: it’s bizarre and sad, to me, that I live in a valley full of agriculture, and I can buy tomatoes from Chile, or asparagus from Mexico. When it’s growing all around here, right now! Anyway… local or not, asparagus makes delicious soup, and I’ll tell you the secret. (I’ve made it before, but not Emeril’s recipe).

1) Cut the asparagus into thirds. Use the bottom third, the woody part, to flavor your soup base (stock preferably, although water would work too). Then you can toss it (by “toss” I of course mean “compost”… right?) or throw it in vegetable or chicken stock (even better).

2) Cook the middle third in your soup, which if you blend it, will make a delicious creamy asparagus soup.

3) Use the top third, the tender tips, as a garnish. Steam them first, or just add to the hot soup for a couple minutes right at the end.

That’s the secret! Doesn’t this sound amazing? I need cream and leeks and then I’ll make it…

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/emeril-lagasse/asparagus-soup-recipe.html

Thai Chicken Curry

Link | | naomiwhitmore

I’m trying this recipe tonight… modified, because I don’t have all the ingredients. I have leftover salmon, lamb, some rice noodles, no coconut milk (bummer) but regular milk will work, and most of the spices. No lime, but I do have a lemon. I can do it! I enjoy cooking like this because it gives me an opportunity to be creative. I love learning how to cook something new, or building my skills by trying things in new ways, and cooking often gives me the chance to do that.

For example, I’m getting good at making various kinds of cream sauces because I have different ingredients on hand from day to day. When you look up substitutions, try to figure out “how can I make this with what I have,” you learn more about the principles behind the recipe you’re trying to make, and the basics that all recipes of a certain type have in common. You’re not just making a recipe, you’re teaching yourself how to cook. But I digress… on to tonight’s challenge!

What’s your cooking style? Do you like to modify recipes? What part of cooking do you enjoy the most?

http://www.cooks.com/recipe/y17gl1gy/proper-thai-chicken-curry.html

Women Ecowarriors

| naomiwhitmore

Wow!! Vandana Shiva does it again…

“The patriarchal model of the economy is dominated by one figure, the gross domestic product, which is measured on the basis of an artificially created production boundary (if you produce what you consume, you do not produce).

“When the ecological crisis created by an ecologically blind economic paradigm leads to the disappearance of forests and water, spread of diseases because of toxics and poisons, and the consequent threat to life and survival, it is women who rise to wake up the society to the crisis, and to defend the Earth and lives. Women are leading the paradigm shift to align the economy with ecology. After all, both are rooted in the word “oikos” — our home.

“Not only are women experts in the sustenance economy. They are experts in ecological science through their daily participation in processes that provide sustenance. Their expertise is rooted in lived experience and not in abstract and fragmented knowledge, which cannot see through the connectedness of the web of life.

“When it comes to real solutions to real problems faced by the planet and people, it is the subjugated knowledge and invisible work of women based on co-creation and co-production with nature that will show the way to human survival and well being in the future.”

Full article here:

http://www.runningthecountry.com/women-ecowarriors-by-vandana-shiva/#.VRog0fnF9u5