Monster Mash: proteins with lentils, azuki flakes, quinoa
>> Sunday, January 31, 2010
I’m not sure of all the details, but as best as I can remember, the naming of Monster Mash went like this.Juliette one day (this was a while back, a couple of months, in fact) said she wanted to design a dish for us that would be easy to prepare and give us the maximum punch in terms of proteins relative to mass. “The most bang for your buck,” I suggested, and Juliette nodded yes (but did not make the obvious joke).
With a little trial and practically no error, she did just what she set out to do and we were soon enjoying a tasty preparation which could be adapted in many ways. Basic stuff. “Simply mash,” said Juliette. And so it was for many weeks. What to have as a hot dish for evening tapas? How about a bowl of The Mash heated up? Good idea. How about some of The Mash to go with the steamed broccoli? Excellent!
Then one day I think both of us had had it with calling it The Mash. This concoction, which had become a staple of our diet, needed a its own name, an appellation worthy of its role in our nourishment. We mulled it for a minute and then, I swear, we both hit on the same name.
What else? Monster Mash.
We laughed, of course, at our memories of the old comedy song by one-time hit maker Bobby “Boris” Pickett. “How old you think it is?” asked Juliette, winking slyly. “Don’t ask,” said I. But Monster Mash it remains to this day.
How you do it.
In a three liter sauce pan (the same one you use to boil quinoa or rice) with a good snug cover, measure about equal portions of coral lentils, azuki flakes, and quinoa (less than a cup each) to make a layer about a half-inch thick. Add add enough water to cover twice and set on high heat to begin warming while you add:
- a dollop of olive oil (use almost as much as you like, it's good for you)
- a good soup spoon of miso
- a good half a soup spoon of garlic paste
- about a teaspoon (more or less to your taste) of: curry, curcumin, dry ginger powder, and cinnamon. Cayenne to taste.
- Sesame seeds (toasted), two or three soup spoons.
- A good half cup or so of raisins marinated in red wine.
The trick, Juliette tells me, is keeping an eye on the pot. As the dried goods soak up water, more needs to be added and the mixture stirred often to keep everything mixed. Once the mixture is soft, it’s done.
Juliette likes to add some tamari at the end, to complement the woodsy flavor of the beans and grains and the tickle your tongue with the picante tang of the cayenne. I’m glad that she does this. In fact, I’m glad and thankful every time she says “Time for a pot of Monster Mash.” Glad and thankful that she thought it up and is patient enough to scoot back to the kitchen now and then to check on it.
Monster Mash keeps well in the frigo for several days, but it probably won’t last that long.
This week's pannier: eggs, lettuce, sprouted lentils, chou Romanesco, broccoli, jerusalem artichoke, potatoes, onions, bananas, oranges, grapefruit.
Here is 
There's a pannier this week -- and a good one it is -- but no photo. We had a social engagement Saturday and Sunday had a Sleep In and Take the Day Off kind of day. Once the routine was interrupted and the food was either eaten forthwith or dispersed, getting a photo of the whole thing became an impossible task. Nothing looked different from normal, so I'll leave it to the imagination to fill iln the images: eggs, beets, leeks, kohlrabi, Jerusalem artichoke (topinambour), lettuce, apples, kiwis, broccoli. We continue to be grateful to Fortuna for spinning these baskets of organic food our way.
A couple of days ago we decided to give that butternut we’ve been saving a chance to do its stuff -- and with no frills. We have been enjoying a return to more normal January weather: chilly but not freezing, cloudy but not overcast all day. In fact, we’ve even become connoisseurs of midday sun and take advantage of the brief appearance of few hours of sun every day. Even the village dogs were let out for an afternoon of dogging around, so why not us?
This is one of our favorite ways to prepare sweet potatoes: cubed and roasted with a glaze of olive oil mixed with strong herbs and spices, in this case ginger and garlic.
Briaise: kohlrabi, carrot, black radish, topinambour, chou. Amazingly enough, this combination has magical qualities, including a mellow aroma and smooth texture. Is it the kohlrabi that gives it this gentle touch on the palate?
(I realized when I sat down to enter this week's pannier that I had not posted in over a week, in spite of having written a couple of entries on my writing program. I simply forgot to make blogs out of these thrilling adventures. This is the first one, another and maybe more will follow.)
This week's pannier offered only one new item, the sauerkraut (choucroute) but many opportunities to try some new recipes. Having the fresh greens is always a bonus, so we were glad to see the head of lettuce and the bag of spinach. The presence of so many oranges and pears also brings a smile, as does the reappearance of old standbys, potatoes, carrots, fennel.
It is almost too cold to type these words, but not quite. Juliette agreed to let me go out last evening to get this week's pannier, to plunge into the driving sleet and icy rain. Out on the street, I'm alone. It's usually a busy scene on the main street at the old city gate where we usually pass on our way to the vigneron's house and cave: smokers talking in front of the PMU bar, last minute customers rushing to the pharmacy, the librarian beginning to close up the town's storefront bibliotheque for the night, the women at the dress shop heading home to family. But tonight, it's just me and, when I arrive chez J., another cold-nosed soul clutching his black box full of provisions. I imagine we are like characters in The Gold Rush, only slightly less bemused as we pass at the door saying nothing beyond bon soir and bonne année.
On a gray, cold, and rainy January day, this is a good soup for giving the house an aroma soft yet stimulating. We started out to do a lentil soup with céleri rave, carrots, and potatoes, which is a good standby that will nourish and warm you right up, but when Juliette saw the creamy broth with the white and orange bits floating around, she said, “Let’s try something different. Keep it simple. Leave out the lintels and potatoes and just make a soup of this. Really focus on these two main ingredients and what goes into the broth.”
Two hours later.
The good thing about the braise method is that you can cook up a damn good pot of food with almost anything you have on hand. Take today, for instance. We’re well into January already, but we still have days to go until we receive our next pannier of fruits and legumes, which means that we have an odd assortment of ingredients. What we came up with is this, which will give your system a winter jolt of vitamins and minerals, plus a little protein.
Waiting for everyone else to catch up. We have been operating on the assumption that the new year began on or about the twenty-first of December. The interval between then and the official date is when the body and mind adjust to brighter light and more of it, increasing day by day. The dark days of the soul are over, but it takes a few days for the everyday consciousness to get past the somber, claustrophobic crabbiness that comes upon you those last few days when it seems that the end of time is arriving faster than you had expected and you panic. Then one afternoon you walk out and find a bench in the open air where you let the sun do its wonders.
