day 52: i knew you were comin' so i baked a pie

Like yoga, baking is rather zen. While calculating recipes, kneading dough, and mixing crap in bowls in hopes it will come to resemble something edible, it’s possible to tune out all of the bullshit and focus only on the task at hand.

And as with everything (except maybe riding a bike), wine also helps.

Among my many not-so-fine qualities, I tend to learn things the hard way. When common logic determines something to be a really bad idea, odds are I'll go ahead with it anyway. It's how I learned what type of men not to date, that you shouldn't hassle traffic cops, and that I shouldn't go bar-hopping alone on St. Patrick's Day.

It's also how I decided at 10 p.m. on the day before Thanksgiving that I absolutely had to bake a pie for the first time ever.

While wandering the aisles of Sunfresh with countless other last-minute shoppers, Jason and I looked up "blackberry sour cream pie" on his i-phone and began hunting down the ingredients. We quickly discovered that buying enough fresh blackberries for two pies would cost upwards of $20 (an unreasonable investment for a culinary experiment that may end up in the trash), so we subbed half the berries with canned tart cherries. We also found an empty shelf where the frozen pre-made pie crusts should be, so our next google search was to find out how to make our own.

Among the cooking supplies I discovered I don't have: a flour sifter, a pizza cutter, a rolling pin (we used a water glass, pictured above right), and an oven that doesn't draw its power directly from the pits of hell. Seriously - it has burned the crap out of 95 percent of the food it has touched. Fortunately casualties to our pies were minor, and though I was an hour late to my parents' Thanksgiving lunch I think they were shocked and somewhat pleasantly surprised to discover I had allegedly edible baked goods in tow.

And everyone who tried it - about nine people total - said it was good. So when it comes to pies, Jason and I are batting 1.000.

And one other thing: Crisco. What the fuck is it, because it is revolting.

Among mung

The recipe

Spicy mung bean soup

1 cup dried mung beans, washed and rinsed
5 cups cold water or vegetable stock
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon curry powder
1 teaspoon garam masala
4 teaspoons canola oil
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
4 garlic cloves, minced
2 or 3 large tomatoes, chopped
a 2 inch piece of ginger, peeled and minced
2 or 3 serrano peppers, very thinly sliced (do not remove the seeds)
1 cup coconut milk
2 medium or 1 large chicken breast (optional)
1/2 cup minced fresh cilantro
salt to taste
juice of 1 lemon

The process

I’m not gonna lie – spicy mung bean soup sounds wholly unappealing, because what does it rhyme with? A name my dad might give cow manure before laughing and saying, “Smells like money!” In fact, when I was about 12 I was playing “golf” with my cousins on my grandma’s farm, and we were teeing off from dung piles in the pasture (I know, I know). The game ended abruptly when the front of my shirt got splattered after a cousin’s errant swing.

Unfortunate word associations aside, everything else in the recipe sounds delightful, and it came highly recommended from a friend. I make the pilgrimage to Whole Foods in Overland Park to hunt down the exotic Indian spices I’ll need, as well as the mung beans themselves. When a stocker at the store tells me they don’t have my mung, I begin to panic and wonder what would make an acceptable substitute – lentils, perhaps? Surely not kidney beans – but luckily he locates them in the bulk foods section, and moments later I am among mung.

When I get home, I sit all the ingredients out on the counter, and they’re just nice to look at, like I am a legit cook who knows exactly what she’s doing. Even Phoenix jumps up to inspect my loot.

For cooking music, I start with “If I Should Fall from Grace with God” by the Pogues, and the inherent booziness of “Fairytale of New York” triggers my subconscious desire to get hammered, so I pour myself a nice, sloshing-over-the-rim glass of Yellow Tail cabernet sauvignon. Then, because this recipe requires a fuckload of veggies, I start chopping. When I see the immensity of the pile of chopped tomatoes alone, I am reminded yet again that I need to invest in a larger soup pot.

The recipe tells me to mix the spices ahead of time, so I put them in a bowl and set them aside. As I look at the yellow, brown and red pile sitting there like a granulated desert sunset, I can’t help but think: what if I sneezed on it?

As it simmers, the soup smells increasingly delightful, and when I’m momentarily interrupted by my neighbor who forgot his keys, I’m disappointed that he doesn’t mention the warm, wonderful smells wafting into the hallway.

The verdict

Holy fucking cats, the soup is delicious. The serrano peppers provide a biting but not overpowering spiciness, the ginger provides an unexpected but pleasant tang, and the coconut milk complements the Indian spices nicely. If I had included the optional chicken breast, it would have been off any of the following: the chart, the chain, the hook, etc.

Next up

I’m leaving the world of soup and attempting eggplant parmesan.

curried lentil gloop

I can has basil leaf?

The recipe

Curried lentil soup
1 cup finely chopped onion
1 1/4 teaspoons curry powder
7 cups water
3/4 cup lentils
2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons sugar
1 14.5 ounce can diced tomatoes, un-drained

1. Sauté onions until soft. Add curry, sauté 1 minute. Add water and lentils; bring to a boil. Cover; reduce heat. Simmer 40 minutes or until lentils are tender.
   
2. Place 4 cups lentil mixture in a blender; process until smooth. Return mixture to pan. Add chopped basil, vinegar, salt, sugar and tomatoes; cook until thoroughly heated. Garnish with basil, if desired.

The process

After a particularly difficult zumba class, my confidence is low. I’m beginning to question my ability to build this soup, especially because, when I think about it, I’m not 100 percent sure I know what a lentil is. When I locate them at Sunfresh, I realize they are basically tiny peas. Really, pea soup? But I have committed to making it, so I toss the damn lentils in my basket.

At home I turn on Regina Spektor and drink a glass of cheap cabernet sauvignon, and I feel slightly restored. I am ready to cook.

Chopping the onion, as usual, makes my entire face drip and burn, and I am relieved to get it cooking in the frying pan. The sautéed onion mixed with curry powder smells sweetly dirty and spicy, like what you’d get if you parked a hot dog cart inside a perfume shop in the Shire. And then had sex on it.

While preparing to cook the lentils, I almost immediately suspect “7 cups of water” is a type-o, especially since it wants me to put the “lentil mixture” in the blender; I imagine seven cups of boiling hot lentils and curried onions will destroy the nearly ten-year-old blender I purchased on sale at Wal-Mart when I wanted to make margaritas one night. I text my boyfriend and tell him to come over later than planned so he won’t see me wading in the lentil lake after my blender explodes.

I switch my cooking music from Spektor to Chopin. Feeling immediately smarter, I improvise and add only five cups of water. I also decide to drain the mixture before blending. I am a genius.

While the lentils simmer, I seek the opinions of my colleagues. When presented with a basil leaf, Bubba Kinsey turns up his nose and stalks away. Phoenix, however, tries to snatch it out of my hand. I assume she's jealous because I offered it to Bubba first, but then SHE FUCKING EATS IT. I am reminded of when she stole my fresh cayenne peppers over the summer (and possibly ate them; several are still at large). She is a strange creature, but I’m glad she approves.

After draining the lentils and onions, I pour them in the blender and choose the “blend” option, pausing briefly to consider whether “puree” would work better but outright rejecting “liquefy” and “frappe.” The resulting mixture is green and resembles baby vomit.















Instead of dwelling on its appearance, I dump the green goo back in the pot and add the tomatoes, balsamic vinegar, salt, sugar and basil. It begins to take on a more soup-like appearance, and I suspect it might be edible. I lean over to inspect it more closely, and a bubble of boiling hot sludge explodes IN MY EYE. Fuck, it burns.

I turn down the heat and plunge a spoon into the mess. Surprisingly it is kind of good.

Still, it’s not fucking spicy enough for me, so I brazenly add a hefty squirt of Sriracha sauce, as well as another sprinkle of curry and a pinch of sugar.

The verdict















The end result is almost too thick to be called soup; it’s more like something you would scoop up with naan at an Indian restaurant. Still, it's rather savory and filling – my boyfriend calls it “hearty” – even though it is allegedly low-fat, and neither the curry nor the spice is overwhelming. It could have used a bit more water, and next time I would sweeten it with honey instead of sugar, but my boyfriend totally went back for seconds.

The score

This time, I made the food; the food did not make me (as in pissed off, dejected, nauseous, etc.).
Angela: 1
Food: 0

Next up:
Spicy mung bean soup