French Crullers and Date Night

After a week of reheated soup dinners, an emergency room visit due to a migraine, and my truck staying in the shop for two days, we ended the week by making a lovely dinner.  While My Pirate chopped up a green papaya salad, I whipped up my very first batch of French Crullers to serve alongside Thai coconut custard.  This combination was inspired by our recent breakfast at Sen Yai Noodle House.

Sen Yai, Andy Ricker’s new(ish) noodle house in S.E Portland is just up the road from his famous Pok Pok.  I was fascinated with my savory rice porridge complete with a poached egg that My Pirate kept ‘sampling’.  Mmm-hmmm.   But I fell in love with the fried savory crullers (Patangko) that you dip into rich coconut custard called Sanghkaya.  I made a mental note to figure out my own version. 

I was happy to discover that French Crullers are simply fried or baked choux pastry dough that you use to make cream puffs.  I’ve been baking cream puffs since I was in middle school, and know the recipe by heart.  So, while I mixed up my choux pastry dough, I heated up two inches of vegetable oil in my cast iron skillet until it reached 370 degrees.  Then I fried my crullers for two to three minutes on each side.  It was so much easier than I expected. 

And the results!  These French Crullers were simply the best donut that I’ve ever eaten.  Seriously.  Hands down.  But, pairing the warm crisp cruller with the cold rich custard was simply brilliant.  Well played, Sen Yai, well played!

Recipes

Epicurious's French Cruller Recipe link

Serious Eat's Thai Coconut Custard Recipe link

Wordless Wednesday: Our Winter Weekend

Planning My Soup Garden

This morning, after we thawed out from our cold blustery walk, I simmered up a pot of vegetable broth on the stovetop, curled up with my Territorial Seed catalogue, and allowed myself to dream about my soup garden.  Soup is my favorite food and ever since I read about Margaret Roach’s soup garden, I’ve wanted to give it a try.  

My Pirate gave me his list of suggestions that are inspired by his current obsession with cooking Thai food.  Lemongrass.  Check.  Thai basil. Check.  Then he relaxed on the couch with Barnaby while I marked up my seed catalogue.  

I’m imagining The Victory Garden filled with beautiful leeks, onions, greens, kale, carrots, and beans.  The kind of garden that Anna Thomas, my favorite vegetarian cookbook writer would love.  I’ve cooked out of all of her books, but Love Soup is my favorite.  Her recipe for simple vegetable broth is easy and delicious.  And it isn’t just for making soup; I also freeze the vegetable broth in an ice cube tray and toss the broth cubes into a dish for an added dimension of flavor.  

I paused occasionally, with seed catalogue clutched in hand to sample the simmering vegetable broth as it progressed. I felt warm and happy.  Bring on Spring!

What soup vegetables do you recommend?

Super-Simple Vegetable Broth
Recipe by Anna Thomas 

4 quarts of water
8 carrots
2 large onions
6 celery stalks
2 leeks
4 small potatoes, unpeeled
1 cup parsley, coarsely chopped
4 teaspoons of fresh thyme
2 bay leaves
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons whole black peppercorns

Wash the vegetables and chop into two-inch chunks.  Add all the ingredients into the pot of water.  Bring to a boil then reduce heat to a simmer.  Simmer for one hour.  Strain.  Enjoy.  

It's hard to believe that Barnaby was this small last June!  

Poetry Post Poem: How to Uproot a Tree

How to Uproot a Tree
By Jennifer K. Sweeney

Stupidity helps.
Naiveté that your hands will undo 
what does perfectly without you. 
My husband and I made the decision 
not to stop until the task was done, 
the small anemic tree made room 
for something prettier. 
We’d pulled before, pale hand over wide hand, 
a marriage of pulling toward us what we wanted, 
pushing away what we did not. 
We had a shovel which was mostly for show. 
It was mostly our fingers tunneling the dirt 
toward a tangle of false beginnings. 
The roots were branched and bearded, 
some had spurs 
and one of them was wholly reptilian. 
They had been where we had not 
and held a knit gravity 
that was not in their will to let go. 
We bent the trunk to the ground and sat on it, 
twisted from all angles. 
How like ropes it was, 
the sickly thing asserting its will 
only now at the end, 
blind but beyond 
the idea of leaving the earth.

In the Morning Light

In the morning, right after I feed my dogs, I go outside with my camera and under the watchful eye of the Crony Brothers and Barnaby, I take pictures of my garden in the morning light.  So much for solitude at dawn.

This winter has been foggy and mysterious.  

The sunrises through a light fog shroud me in gauzy pink light that remind me of Monet's impressionistic paintings.  

And I forget myself as I click away with my camera hoping to merely capture a glimpse of the beauty surrounding me.  As the pastel colors fade, I hear The Crony Brothers' garage door close.  Show over.  And I smile to myself.