2010 Trek: 1 Month and Counting

In exactly one month, Jeff and I will start hiking South from the Canadian border of Glacier National Park.  Our apartment is a wreck of towering cans of dehydrated food, boxes full of Clif bars and hundreds of ziploc bags--nearly all the calories we will be consuming for the next five months.

Some, knowing that they are soon leaving the city would spend their time visiting with friends.  I took a different tack and have been taking advantage of the last few weeks with access to health care.  That's right, I am spending my final weeks in the world's best city sitting in beige waiting rooms with dusty pink and teal accents.  This week I've gone to the dermatologist and the oral surgeon to have troublesome pieces of myself removed. 

tomatillo with husk unfurled

I hadn't planned out what to do about food after my wisdom teeth came out.  I got home at four in the afternoon, having hardly eaten breakfast or lunch so I could work off a little bit of the lost afternoon.  My mouth wouldn't open more than a half inch, I couldn't chew, the right side of my head had a gentle throbbing--and I was starving.  I stared around at the abundance of food littering my living room and knew that I couldn't eat any of it.  

Today, after eating nauseating quantities of applesauce cups and a yogurt parfait, I racked my brain for a savory food to save me from the drudgery of mush.  I realized that there was a perfectly delicious soft food waiting at home for me to assemble it.  I had cooked sweet potatoes and a bag of tomatillos in the fridge.  I knew just the trick for my disabled mouth: mashed sweet potato with sour cream and tomatillo-jalapeno salsa.

an accidental photo that captures the feel of this meal quite well:

quick, simple, colorful, and vibrant

Tomatillo-Jalapeno Salsa

Tomatillos are a member of the nightshade family.  Tomatoes and eggplants--some of my favorite plants to eat--are also nightshades.  Today as I cooked up this salsa, I realized that the tomatillo falls somewhere between these two on the family continuum.  It looks like a green tomato, but with a funny papery husk not unlike an overgrown version of the eggplant's topper.  Because the name is so similar to tomato, most comparisons tend that way.  However, the internal structure is much more akin to a round eggplant.  It has those funny little seeds and the same semi-spongey texture that becomes meltingly smooth with a quick roast. Also like eggplant, the tomatillo's composition lends body to sauces.  I love adding eggplant cubes to a vegetarian pasta sauce for a meaty mouthfeel.  In the same way, the tomatillo features prominently in Mexican salsas, assuaging some of the heat from the ubiquitous chiles and giving the sauces structure.  Tomatillos also lend a brilliant flavor. They have a distinct vegetal note, but are also quite tart when raw or barely cooked.  Here, their flavor shines through, augmented by the peppers' piquancy and the gentle smoky flavor of pan-roasted garlic.

pan-roasting tomatillo slices

• 9 medium tomatillos, about the size of small clementines
• 8 cloves garlic, skin on
• 2 jalapeno peppers, roughly chopped--I seeded one and left the other with seeds.  If you want to eat this salsa with chips rather than drizzled over some starchy potatoes, I recommend seeding both peppers.  The capsaicin will otherwise overwhelm most palates.
• 1/4 tsp salt or to taste

1. Cut tomatillos crosswise into 1/2 inch thick slices.  Cook in batches in a dry skillet over medium heat until slightly browned and a little wilty but not disintegrating.  Remove to a bowl to cool. 
2. Add garlic cloves in their skins to the hot pan with some of the later tomatillos.  The skins prevent the garlic from sticking to the pan.  The pan-roasted cloves virtually peel themselves.
3. Transfer the roasted tomatillos, garlic, chopped peppers and salt in a food processor or blender.  Process until roughly combined and there are no shockingly large chunks of jalapeno visible. 
4. Serve with hearty food to moderate heat or mix into store-bought salsa to make it tasty.

The Next Step: 2010 Trek

I've obviously been distracted from this space, which is unfortunate.  Even though I have a teensy tiny audience (thanks for reading you two!), I really do enjoy recording my thoughts here.  The bizarre word blog comes from web+log, and that's precisely what I need to keep my musings coherent and orderly. 

In any case, I have been wanting to share the next big step in my and Jeff's lives, but was waiting to do so until after I explained to my bosses.  Now that I got that out of the way, I can state here that Jeff and I are leaving New York in about a month to take advantage of the fact that we are still young and able to pursue our backpacking passion.  We will be hiking for five months from the Canadian-Montana border all the way down to Arizona, through some of the most beautiful places in America.  Winter will be spent in Hawaii, where we will scheme something else for 2011.

We started dreaming up trip ideas while we were still out on the trail two years ago and knew that we wanted to do something big at this point in our lives, we just weren't quite sure what that would be.   After months of rigorous research, planning, training, food preparation and dehydration, I'm excited to say that this trip is really coming together.  The process has been intense and sucked up most of the free time and energy I would have liked to spend fleshing out thoughts here.  Suffice it to say that I will share more about the coming months before I fly out in a few weeks.

Springing forward, but not too fast

The snow from my last post is long, long gone.  I'm quite happy that spring is here.  The full, riotous plant growth and showy display of fertility* hasn't quite hit the city, but the season's harbingers are all here.  The magnolia tree is heavy with buds, the daffodils and crocuses are unfurling, and Jeff and I started craving cold-brewed ice tea.

* not limited to plants.  We'll soon see shirtless men consciously flexing as they casually toss their frisbees, and miniskirts are just around the corner.

Paperwhite daffodils on our fire escape

I guess bulbs and succulents are the plants for us because they thrive with minimal attention.

I think these are crocuses.  

Feel free to correct me, I'm only familiar with plants in Hawaii.

Cold-brewing iced tea in our fridge.  

Cold-brewed tea is a great way to enjoy iced tea since there is no heat to turn flavors bitter.  We've been making a great deal of iced oolong and Twinings Gunpowder Green tea.  In the large jug, formerly some apple juice, you can see some oolong hanging in a bag that I sewed from some scrap muslin and a little twine.*  I drape the bag string over the lip of the jar and tuck it into a rubber band to hold it in place.  In the other jars, we just dumped loose leaf tea into the jars, filled them with filtered water and left them to sit in the fridge for a minimum of four hours.  Ideally, the tea will steep and infuse overnight and be ready in the morning for a small spoonful of agave nectar--just enough to highlight the floral qualities of your tea.  It's a terrific start to a spring morning.

* The tea bag pattern is available here.  I would recommend making your rectangles wider than called for here.  It makes inverting the bag and removing the used tea leaves much easier.

Snowpocalypse

The view from our living room 20 minutes ago

Yesterday, New York City residents were alerted that the snowfall today would be severe enough to merit closing the public schools for a snow day.  Since NYC schools are virtually never closed, our office decided the snowstorm was serious and also decided to close.  

After weeks of crazy, exhausting hours doing the work of three people, I've been feeling pretty burnt out.  Today's snow day is a great day for me to recharge (weekends have essentially ceased that function).  I slept about 20 minutes later than usual, but then bounded out of bed, ready to tackle a bunch of dormant projects.

On today's docket:

- Make Meyer Lemon Curd

- Yoga with YouTube videos

- General apartment cleaning

- Finish crunchy berry yogurt leather, a tasty new backpacking snack from this book

- Start proofing a loaf of sourdough

- Watch BBC's Yellowstone documentary

- Possibly put up 6 week late post on our winter backpacking trip to the Adirondacks

Beat the Back to Work Blues: Bake Squash Lasagna

Rocky Mountain National Park

I spent a delightful Christmas in Colorado with Jeff's family, observing how their traditions differed from those of my own family:  they're big into stocking stuffers, they open presents earlier than my family, they don't get up on Christmas morning and immediately start brewing a massive pot of coffee and baking breakfast pastries, they don't have Christmas dinner/3PM meal on the beach...  Our families do share the key aspect of holiday overeating, though.

New tradition: stuffing stockings so full they need sweet potato counterbalances

Also, you know you're in Colorado when your rental house has posters of elk battles.

We had a lot of fun snowshoeing in Rocky Mountain National Park, learning how to use our new ice axes with Jeff's more-skilled sister and brother-in-law, playing with remote-controlled helicopters, and stuffing ourselves silly with fresh cookies, toffee and fudge.  It made going back to work on Monday, December 28th to an eerily silent office where I was the out of office contact for my entire department nearly impossible.  

I managed to make it through the week by making a big batch--two 8x8 pans--of roasted squash lasagna to take for lunch as little pick-me-ups and by planning a backpacking trip with our good friend Matt for the New Year weekend.  I think either of these approaches alone would have sufficed, but together they made the work week fly by without sacrificing too much productivity.  I'll share more about our backpacking trip later, but for those of you more inclined to cook your way out of the doldrums, I've included my lasagna recipe below.

After this, who wants to go back to fluorescent lights and Outlook?

I highly suggest making this when you think that you're tired of squash but still have 5 more sitting on your counter.  It is absolutely delicious and will reignite your curcurbitaceous love.  While the lasagna recipe below is by no means a 30-minute meal, it comes together surprisingly easily and store-bought lasagna sheets can certainly be substituted.

Roasted Squash Lasagna

Salt more than you think prudent; baking mellows the flavors, and a little salt will perk them up right quick.  If you have a health concern that limits your sodium intake, zest half a lemon into your squash mix to take the flavor a slightly different direction.  Lemon, like salt, is a flavor augmenter. 

As far as ricotta goes, I've made some myself and it was incredible.  Making your own ricotta and your own squash filling and your own fresh pasta consumes more time than most of us are willing to give.  If you have access to fresh, local ricotta--go for it.  If not, Polly-O whole milk or part skim ricotta is a decent substitute.  Do not, I repeat, do not get fat-free ricotta. 

• 3 medium squash or 2 medium, 4 tiny
• 1 pound fresh egg pasta - I use this recipe, roll as thin as you can
• 12 oz ricotta
• 3 cups parmesan or pecorino, grated
• 2 T sage or thyme or both or your favorite herb for squash, roughly chopped
• salt and pepper to taste, and then a little bit more
• 1 c vegetable stock, optional

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  Cover two cookie sheets with foil.  

Cut your squashes lengthwise, scoop out the seeds and reserve for toasty snacks later.  Place the squashes cut side down on the foil-covered sheets and roast for about an hour.  When you forget that there are squash in the oven and the whole apartment smells delicious, they should be just right: mushy-tender, slightly caramelized on the cut side, and the skin can be pierced with a fork.

Let them cool until you can scoop out the flesh without burning yourself.  Put the flesh into a medium bowl and roughly squish with a fork.  Salt and pepper generously.  If your mixture seems too thick to spread across lasagna noodles, thin with the optional vegetable stock.  Taste the mix.  It should be saltier than you would prefer to eat plain, but not inedible.

In a separate medium bowl, combine the ricotta, chopped herbs, 2 cups of the grated cheese, and more salt and pepper.

Prepare either two 8x8" baking dishes or one 9x13" pan with a generous butter rub-down, focusing especially on the corners.  Put a very thin layer of squash mix on the bottom of the pan.

Working in batches of two noodles, boil your pasta sheets in well salted water.  Fresh pasta par-cooks in about 2 minutes.  Check the package instructions if you are using dried noodles.  As each batch finishes cooking, remove gingerly and place into the prepared baking dish. 

Start the next batch of noodles.  Layer ricotta and squash on top of the pasta in the baking pan.  Continue this dance until the pan is full, then cover tightly with foil and bake 40 minutes.

After the first 40 minutes, check on your lasagna.  Remove the foil and dust with the remaining cup of grated cheese.  Return to the oven and let bake another 15 to 20 minutes, until the top is lightly browned and bubbles are coming up the sides of the pan through the squash-cheese filling.

Let cool and firm up for five minutes before cutting and serving.

Hike Sneak Preview: East Rift Zone

Jeff and I are doing some trip planning, and I just put together a 10 day trip on the Big Island of Hawai'i.  I'm not sure exactly when we'll get there, but when we do, we'll be ready with an epic itinerary!

If Pu'u O'o Vent isn't going absolutely insane and spewing tons of lava every which way (note black section at bottom right of map with glowing orange), we'll start from Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park headquarters (near where it says Volcano--a cute little town--on the map) and venture into the East Rift Zone along a chain of craters where we'll see a variety of different volcanic features. After that, we will hitch up Chain of Craters Road and descend into an older flow that is now somewhere between savanna and desert, down to a secluded beach.  We will hike southwest along the coast and then back up through the desert all the way up to HVNP headquarters again and take a little break in the misty cool air. 

The second leg of the trip is a summit of 13,679 foot tall Mauna Loa--the largest volcano in the world by volume, and back down via the historic Hawaiian Ainapo trail.  The Big Island of Hawai'i has 11 of the roughly 13 climate zones*, and though this trip isn't a particularly long one, we'll pass through most of them.  I am pretty excited.

* Deciding how many climate zones there are is a vociferous debate among academics
 

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Happy Solstice!

windswept snow on the open soccer field at Van Cortlandt Park

With holiday-shopping (or in our case holiday-crafting) mayhem on top of a relentless work schedule, it's easy to lose track of the bigger things happening outside ourselves. As I try to speed up and fit more tasks into my day, the world has been telling me to slow down, obey the sun's pattern, sleep a lot, drink vats of hot chocolate, and eat slow-braised root vegetables.  The winter solstice today is the shortest day of the year, and is a welcome reminder to take a deep breath and enjoy the short wintry day we have been given.  As the official start of winter, today is a great day to remember the delightful aspects of the season before the gray snow numbs us to any nearby joy.

The Northeast got slammed with a bunch of snow on Saturday.  This had the unfortunate effect of cancelling the flight Jeff and I were to take Sunday morning to Colorado.  (We're flying out tomorrow instead.)  However, we weren't about to let the FAA take all the fun out of our day.  Rather, we took the subway up to Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx decked out in our boots, fleeces and shells to tromp around in the snow.

We summited the two highest peaks in the park, a whopping 320 feet tall, and meandered throughout  the beautiful woodland trails.  While we never felt crowded, we certainly didn't have the park to ourselves.  Dozens of other outdoor enthusiasts were out tobogganing, snowshoeing, and cross-country skiing.  They all looked so happy to have their hobbies so accessible.

It's slated to snow again in New York next Wednesday, December 30.  Get some gaiters* to keep snow out of your boots and get outside!

* I have these ones in black.  They're awesome and nicely tailored so you don't look like you have trashbags on your calves.