Vegetarian: Clarissa's Vegetable Ragout

Recently, I felt a craving for a good, colorful vegetable ragout. However, a long Internet search didn't result in a single recipe that didn't look boring or monochromatic and didn't include either meat or canned vegetables. So I had to invent my own recipe. Some of the ingredients of this vegetarian ragout were things that I'd never tried before, like eggplants. (Yes, I'd never eaten eggplant in any form in my life.) I really loved the result and decided to share it with my readers.

Here is what my Vegetable Ragout ended looking like:

I'm folding the detailed description of how to make it under the jump break to spare those who aren't interested the trouble of scrolling through endless photos of diced vegetables.

These are the main ingredients I chose for my ragout but you can, of course, change any of them. I selected three kinds of baby potatoes (yellow, red and black) because it's very important to have a colorful ragout, juicy heirloom tomatoes, zucchini, yellow squash, baby turnips, baby eggplant, young carrots, garlic, ginger, and a bunch of cilantro.

Peel several cloves of garlic and crush them. Heat some olive oil in a large pan and place the garlic in the oil. In the meanwhile, cut your baby potatoes in half and place them in the pan, too.

Every step of this recipe looks colorful
and delicious. And it smells fantastic, too

Dice the turnips and the young carrots making sure that the chunks are not too small. If you cut them too small, they might become mushy, which is something we are trying to avoid. Vegetables in a ragout should be cooked but still preserve some firmness. Otherwise, we can just make a puree and be done with it. Then, add a bay leaf and some coriander seeds, if you like them. Dice ginger in very small cubes and add them to the pan.

The white chunks are pieces of baby turnip

Cut baby eggplant and add it to the pan. You don't have to spread it around the way I did, of course. I just did it to make sure the photo is pretty, that's all. During this entire time, the pan has been on medium-high.

In the same manner, cut the zucchini and the squash and throw them into the pan. Now it's time to add herbs and spices (the choice is really up to you) and start making the sauce. Put 1 tablespoon of coarse-grained Dijon mustard and 1 tablespoon of tomato paste into the pan. Mix everything up. Add as much or as little salt as you want. (I'm trying to avoid salt altogether, so I added none and the ragout still tasted heavenly.) This is how your ragout will look after you complete this step:

Dissolve a tablespoon of flour in a cup of cold water and add the mix to the ragout. This will thicken the sauce. Close the pan with a tight-fitting lid and let the ragout simmer until the vegetables are almost ready. Then, dice the tomatoes and add them to the ragout. Also, add fresh cilantro. This is how the ragout will look at this point:

Mix everything up, close the lid, and leave the ragout on slow for another 10 minutes. And here we have it:

Research and Sprats

When I was a kid, I hated food. All and any kinds of food. The mere smell of food would make me gag. I spent more time dry heaving when I was a child than doing pretty much anything else. You wouldn't guess this if you met me today, but that's how it was. The only kind of food that I loved were these Baltic sprats that you can see on the picture. So whenever I was served a plate of food that included the sprats, I would think to myself, "OK, so I will first force myself to eat all this nasty stuff so that it doesn't cloud my enjoyment of the lovely sprats. When I'm finally done with the food I hate, I will be able to dedicate myself fully to the delightful food that I like."

Of course, after I managed to force down the food that I hated, all I felt like doing was throwing up and couldn't eat the sprats. "This is very strange," my mother would say. "I gave you the sprats because I know you love them but you ate everything else and left them behind."

The reason why I'm telling you this otherwise boring story is that I still have a severe case of sprats when it comes to doing research. To give an example, this week I had some writing planned that I've been dying to do. Thinking about how I would finally sit down and dedicate myself to this truly enjoyable piece of work was the highlight of my week. I simply couldn't wait to get started. Of course, I decided that first I needed to get all the other, boring stuff out of the way so that I would be able to proceed to do my research undisturbed by the unpleasant tasks I needed to perform. So I started on the unpleasant tasks, hating them passionately for keeping me from the enjoyable research. A lot of time was spent on complaining and moaning to everybody in and out of sight about how these nasty tasks were getting in the way of me doing what I really wanted to do. In the meanwhile, more of these little unpleasant assignments kept cropping up. 

When I finally finished the unpleasant assignments and sat down to my writing, I discovered that I was so drained that I could make no sense of what my own text was saying. 

I blame the sprats.

This post was inspired by a great article at Thomas Basbøll's blog that you can find here.

Seafood Risotto

This is the seafood risotto I just made. Making risotto is extremely hard. The first time I made it, it stuck to the plate like cement and, I couldn't get it to budge in any direction. I still ate it all just to punish myself for wasting great ingredients. Of course, I had to use a steak knife to saw through that sad plate of risotto-based Crazy Glue.

Restaurants almost never know how to make risotto either. More often than not, you just get a plate of rise smothered in cheese. Even expensive, famous restaurants frequently mess it up. There was an absolutely perfect mushroom risotto that was served at a restaurant on McGill College in Montreal. Sadly, that restaurant has closed. Even at The Modern restaurant in New York the risotto was the weakest dish of all.

The good news is that with every risotto I make, I get a little better. This seafood risotto I made today looks great and doesn't stick to the plate at all. This particular version of risotto contains clams, scallops, shrimp and oysters. Even if the risotto itself were bad, the beautiful seafood would go a long way to redeeming it.

P.S. By huge popular demand of one reader, here is the recipe:

1. Pour some olive oil into a pan. Add some crushed garlic and fry it for not more than a couple of minutes. Add 1 cup of arborio rice. Make sure that every grain of rice is covered in olive oil. 

2. When the rice starts acquiring a slightly golden hue, slowly add one glass of dry white wine to the pan. (Feel free to skip the wine and add fish stock instead.) Keep mixing the rice the entire time. It should be prevented from sticking to the bottom of the pan.

3. When the wine reduces, add some fish stock. Keep adding the stock in little portions as it keeps reducing. Remember that you will need to stop adding liquids when the rice is al dente. Nothing is worse than a risotto whose cook didn't stop on time.

4. In the meanwhile, peel and devein shrimp. Place clams in a pan of boiling water. In a bout two minutes, the clams will open. When that happens, take them out of the pan. If there are clams that failed to open, throw them out.

5. When the rice is about 5  minutes away from being al dente, add the shrimp, the oysters, and the scallops to the pan. (This seafood can be substituted with any other kind.) Add some grated Parmesan. I also add cilantro because I love it and add it to everything. 

6. When the risotto is about two minutes away from getting done, place the clams strategically all over the surface of the risotto. Make sure you serve it while it's hot. Leftovers are not bad either but nothing beats freshly made risotto.

Ukrainians and Food

Once I invited some friends over to my parents' place. After a huge meal with many different dishes, the sated friends started getting up. "Where are they going?" asked my mother who doesn't speak English. "Tell them all to sit back down. These were just the appetizers. I also have hot sandwiches, entrées, and a dessert to serve." 

At the end of the meal people had to crawl away from the table because they were so full. "Ask them if they want a snack," my mother said. "I have a lot of snacks to offer. It isn't like I'd allow your friends to leave the house hungry."

Rabbits and Civilization

Civilization is making small inroads into the area where I live. Yesterday I discovered that our grocery store now sells farm-raised frozen rabbits. Rabbit is the first thing I ever learned how to cook and over the years I have honed my rabbit cooking skills to achieve amazing results. In the Midwest, though, people are terrified when I mention that rabbits can be used as food. People around here are decidedly unadventurous in terms of food. I asked my students, and they unanimously agreed that chicken is the best meat ever. Which is kind of sad.

So, of course, I bought the rabbit and I will share my rabbit recipe with my readers over the weekend.

Fake Caviar Versus Real Caviar

I was walking around our local supermarket recently and was very surprised to discover that it sold something that was called caviar. This is how it looked.

Make sure you pay attention to the
brand name and to the packaging.

The price of a two ounce jar of this supermarket caviar was $9.99, which, of course, is completely ridiculous. As a true journalist I absolutely had to buy it and try it out. You would truly appreciate my dedication to blogging if you tried this vile fake caviar. Which I don't recommend because it might damage your health.

This is what the 2 ounce
jar of this monstrosity looks like 

The fake caviar tastes extremely salty. Just looking at it is enough to make one's blood pressure rise. It also has a bunch of weird ingredients that have no place in caviar.

Just look at its color. See how ridiculously black it looks? It actually drips artificial coloring substances. It kills me to think that people will buy this fake caviar, decide that all caviar sucks and will never buy it again. 

Now this is what real caviar should look like:

Do you see how the color is completely different? The taste has nothing in common with the fake kind either. The size, of course, varies, so you can't go by the size you see in this picture. However, there is one thing that all kinds of real caviar have in common: they only have two ingredients, roe and salt. If there is a list of artificial colors and weird chemicals attached to it, it means that you are being swindled. 

The best places to buy caviar are Russian grocery stores. You will not believe how much cheaper it is there than anywhere else on this continent. Obviously, you'll need a Russian speaking friend to take you there to make sure that you get the right caviar and the right price.

Happy Thanksgiving

I think Thanksgiving could be my favorite holiday. My Dad makes the best food ever! He's already been cooking for hours. Yesterday, he baked a bunch of pies too. My Grandma and I even made a pumpkin roll. That was so fun! I can't wait to try it. Because I've never tasted one before.

We're having a lot of friends over today. I'm super excited about that. Baby Jelly Bean still isn't here yet. Jelly keeps telling us that she just wants to get through Thanksgiving before her baby is born. :)

Now I'm going to go have breakfast with my Dad and my grandmas. Then we have to get ready for mass. But I wanted to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving! :) C

Dia de los Muertos

Today is Dia de los Muertos. I always think about Sarita on this day. She really likes it. She told me that this is her favorite holiday. :)

The reason for today is to celebrate our family and friends who have died. We make alters and offer food, gifts, and music to them. A really special day.

Tonight we're going to mass. And having a celebration at our house. It's important to remember all of our family. Even if they have died. It's really important. I like this day. Because we get to remember them, and celebrate their lives. :) C

Jalapenos

My Dad and I have a garden. We've been growing lots of food! But our favorites are the jalapenos. We've got 10 plants! And we eat some almost every day. I like them in scrambled eggs for breakfast. Delicioso! My Dad told me that we're going to have to start making salsa because we have so many. Our tomato plants aren't growing as quick. But it's OK. Do you have a garden? What do you grow? :) C

Cupcakes in a Jar

These look extra yummy! My Nana and I were talking about cupcakes. We found these ones. I like everything on Ruby's blog. But these cupcakes are my favorite! I hope I get to make them soon! :) C

Birthday Party

Yesterday we had a big birthday party at our house. It was for Maribel, Lauren, my Nana, and me. All of our birthdays are close together. And Lauren and Maribel's moms just had babies. Their birthday parties were supposed to be last weekend. But my Nana and my Tio Berto asked us if we could make them all at the same time. Since that is when the babies started to come. I was really excited! And my Dad said it was OK to have all the parties together.

Maribel and Lauren turned 3. I turned 12. I'm not sure how old my Nana is. But she is 20 something. Tio Berto asked me to keep the secret. We surprised my Nana. She thought the party was just for us 3 girls. But Tio Berto bought my Nana a big birthday cake, her own pinata, and lots of presents. :)

Our birthday parties are always Matanzas too. That's when you kill a pig and cook it. Early yesterday morning, all my tios and my Dad killed 3 pigs. And then they started to cook. They're really good at it. 2 of the pigs had been at my Tio Berto's house. And 1 had been here. We fatten them up until the day they kill them. My favorite part, are the chicharrones. It's pretty much fried pork fat. But it tastes good in fresh tortillas. :)

Everyone had a lot of fun! My tios played too! They're mariachis. And my Nana sang with them. They even got Maribel to sing a song. She's getting really good! There was a lot of dancing and eating. And we got to see both sets of twins. They came for a little while on their way home.

This was my best birthday ever! I got to spend it with a lot of people I love. And I got to share my birthday party with my 2 friends and my Nana! :) C

Super Bowl

Today we had a busy day. We went to church. My Nono took us all out for brunch. My Dad had to go to his concert. I got to go see it last night. It was really amazing! While my Dad was at the concert, my Nono put together our Super Bowl party. Lots of people came over!

By the time my Dad got home, everything was cooked and ready to go. We don't watch too many sports things. My Dad likes soccer. But we all enjoyed the game. There are still some people here. But Sarita went to bed a little while ago. I think I'm going to go to sleep too!

It was a fun weekend. We did a lot. Mostly, we ate. But it was really good! My favorite part of the weekend was making cupcakes with my Nono and Sarita. And my Dad's concert. :) C

Yummy Comida!

Dad made some yummy green chili stew and tortillas tonight for dinner. It was so good. And it warmed us all up. It's so cold outside! I ate 2 bowls of stew and 3 tortillas. 1 of them with butter. Fresh off the placa. It was the best one!

I also made a chocolate cake. Mi abuelita helped me with the frosting. We make our own. It is so yummy! I baked 2 cakes and we stacked them. Mi abuelita make some chocolate and raspberry filling to put between them. And then we frosted the cake with chocolate icing. After dinner, we each had a big piece with a glass of milk. My belly is all full now!

Tonight, I need to work on dad's Christmas present. I only have a few days left to finish it! But it's almost done. I'm not too worried about it yet. I think I can finish it tonight. Maybe in the morning. I'm not sure. But that is what I'm working on tonight. :) C