A few months ago, I got some coupons for Endangered Species chocolate. Today I was at the local grocery store which carries the biggest variety of their bars, so I bought a couple (the eco-rounds, and the black rhino bar). Cybele is busy reviewing her haul from the All Candy Expo, so I decided to write up these myself. (Besides, I’m hoping it will help me remember which varieties I do and do not like! On the do not like side: their ‘black panther’ extreme dark (88%).)

First up is eco-rounds: “Caramelized cocoa nibs in exquisite chocolate”. I bought this because it was on sale, and because lately I’ve been intrigued with the whole cocoa nibs trend, but I’ve been unable to find the Endangered Species bat bar with cocoa nibs.
The package is not very appealing - I prefer the gorgeous animal artwork on the others. And the name is just goofy. What exactly is an “eco-round”? How does it convey “chocolate”?? Granted, the animal names for their other bars are rarely related to the candy contained within, but once you have a theme you should stick to it in my opinion!

The pieces are pretty, though – slightly glossy and round, with lines radiating out from a center circle and a fluted edge. (Our camera is on the blink, so I’ve borrowed this image from their web site.) The package is just over 1 ounce and has three rounds.
The packaging doesn’t state the chocolate content, but the product web page reveals it to be 60%. Despite the claims on the package, I’m not sure I would call it exquisite chocolate, but it is very good - not too bitter or dry. The nibs are ground much more finely than the previous bar-with-nibs I’d eaten. They give it a gritty texture, but it’s gritty in a nice way, similar to toffee or nuts. I did end up with some nibs in my teeth – nib residue has a darkness to it, not the nuttiness it contributes to the bar. It wasn’t too bad, until I encountered one that felt more like a tough bit of pecan ‘divider’ (not the other shell, but the layer between pecan halves).

Endangered Species Chocolate is kind of pricey, but it’s ethically traded chocolate and generally quite delicious. From great responsibility comes great chocolate, and I like supporting that in a company!

On the way home from school the other day, we saw a truck from Ductz outside a house. We also saw a Ductz employee outside the house, smoking a cigarette.

“Well that’s strange” C-boy commented. “The truck says that they make your air cleaner, but that man’s polluting the air by smoking cigarettes! And they’re polluting it by leaving the truck running.”

Maybe he needs to get a job in the Attorney General’s office, in the “false advertising claims” division.

I really enjoyed my historical linguistics class in college. It was so fascinating to learn the methods by which words have changed through history - and are still changing today! One of the methods is called “back formation.” The example I always remember is pease. You know that nursery rhyme,

Pease porridge hot,
Pease porridge cold,
Pease porridge in the pot,
Nine days old.

You probably always wondered how “pease” was related to “peas” or even “pea.” As it turns out, “pease” used to be the singular formation of the word, but because so many words that end with the /z/ sound are plural, people started viewing “pease” as a plural, and eventually started using “pea” as the singular. That’s an example of back formation.

Come to think of it, that’s the only example I remember… ( “An other” going to “another” is - um, another! - example of historical change, but I forget the name of that method.)

And here’s why I bring it up. The other day at dinner, Z-boy asked: “What does appointed mean?” Jonski Papa gave an example along the lines of “when you pick someone to represent you”.

“Oh” Z-boy replied. “Because I thought it was the opposite of disappointed.”

Back formation at work!

The boys brought home a lot of their school work today. As I was looking through Z-boy’s work, I came across something that seemed to be a poem. Here’s a transcription (minus the backwards letters, since I don’t know the unicode - or appropriate font - to convey those :^)

SORM

BRAIT SCIS DAR
C CADS LAT N E
N F A H E O A R
A D

And the translation, for those not used to “kid spelling”:

STORM
Bright skies
dark clouds
lightning flashes
all around.

That’s pretty cool in and of itself, if you ask me (and my purely unbiased opinion). But what was even more amazing to me was his explanation, which went along these lines:

“Mom, it’s about the flag, do you see?”

At first I thought he was remembering our Star-Spangled Banner book by Peter Spier, with all the smoke from the battle drifting around the flag. But that wasn’t what he had in mind:

“Bright skies, that’s the blue part. Or are the stars blue? Yeah yeah, the blue part. And the lightning, that’s the stripes. Do you see?”

And then here’s the kicker:

“It’s about the flag. Because a poem is when you want to show people something in a different way.”

(I do see now that he originally titled this “FLAG” but erased that and changed it to “SORM”). I realize he’s probably just quoting back what his teacher said, but even so, I was blown away by that last sentence, and by how he was able to actually write a poem that shows the flag in a different way! I don’t think I’ve ever had that particular insight into poetry, and yet I somehow managed to place out of freshman comp…

As Larry-Boy proclaims in the trailer for his upcoming release: “with great chocolate comes great responsibility.” As I was browsing through the Project for Public Spaces web site today, doing research for a project proposal, I came across this intriguing combination of Caffarel chocolate and tourism. My question is: would this use of chocolate be considered great responsibility? Tourism promotion, sure, but just think of all the caramels you could dip in there instead…

Aaahhh June - our CSA starts weekly deliveries, and we have fresh local produce to experiment with!

Two simple treatments I tried this week:

Baby Turnips (not white radishes!)

We received what I thought were white radishes, but I see now (upon re-reading the newsletter) must have been baby turnips. Last year when we had a mishap with black radishes being mistaken for something else, I learned that radishes can be roasted. Since I was roasting some chicken, I put the radishes, errrr, baby turnips in a small tin pan, tossed with just enough olive oil to coat, and a splash of pear vinegar. They roasted somewhere between 40 and 60 minutes - primarily on 350, but I had to crank the oven up to 425 for 15 minutes to cook some appetizers. The result was superb - very sweet and tender. I’ll definitely try this again.

Parsnips

Our share also contained frost-sweetened parsnips that had overwintered in the ground. For those, I turned to Vegetables by James Peterson. He writes that “when properly cooked, parsnips are a plasant surprise” and “Parsnips are like a cross between carrots and potatoes; they are sweet like carrots and have a satisfying starchiness like potatoes.” I tried his recipe for glazed parsnips (see below). I only had 1 (rather large) parsnip, so scaled his recipe down, but otherwise followed the directions. It was simple enough to cook while simultaneously tending more fussy dishes (like erstwhile curried lentil patties). I’m not sure how ‘thick’ my glaze was, but the result was fabulous. The parsnips were tender, sweet, and slightly browned - stunningly delicious.

3 to 7 parsnips (2 lbs total)
1 tsp sugar (optional; I used a fat pinch)
2 Tab butter (I used 1)
1/2 cup broth or water (I used 1/4 cup water)
salt and freshly ground black pepper (optional)

Peel the parsnips and cut them crosswise into sections about 1.5 inches long. Cut the larger section sinto smaller sections so all are about the same size. (My parsnip was fat, since I only read “how to choose parsnips” after picking up the share. As a result, I cut out the core.)

Spread the parsnips in a skillet or sauté pan just large enough to hold them in a single layer. Sprinkle over the sugar, add the butter, pour on the broth or water, and add salt (I overlooked the salt!).

Bring to a simmer over medium heat, partially cover the pan. Turn down the heat to low, to maintain a slow simmer, and cook for 10 minutes. Remove the lid, toss or stir the parsnips to get them to turn over in the pan and cook evenly, and cook partially covered for 10 minutes more. Check for doneness by poking them with a paring knife - they should be easy to penetrate but still offer some resistance. If there’s still liquid in the bottom of the pan, remove the lid and turn the heat up to high. Boil down the liquid until it forms a thick glaze that coats the parsnips.

I tried making “lentil patties” (lentil cakes, lentil croquettes - pick a name, any name!) using the leftovers from the curried lentils. I’m sure I’ve seen such a treatment for leftover lentil dishes, but couldn’t find it in the cookbooks I flipped through. I did find other recipes, starting with raw lentils, but none that started with leftovers. Most of them use some kind of breading or an egg for binder - as Crescent Dragonwagon writes in Passionate Vegetarian (which has an entire chapter on “Savory Cakes, Burgers, and Patties”):

“Eggs serve a valuable function as binders because they start out liquid, turn solid during cooking, and add a kind of rich, satisfying neutral flavor that nothing else quite matches.”

But did I pay attention to what I read? No! I reasoned that the cooked lentils were sort of batter like to begin with, and should be fine. I was wrong. They didn’t really stick together, and were hard to turn over. On the plus side, cooking this way did dry them out somewhat, which I think I preferred. But next time, I’ll pay attention to the recipes I consult!

Spiraling clockwise from top left: sliced sweet potato, Chimayo powdered red chile, diced rhubarb, yellow and red lentils, curry powder, and fresh ginger.

Recently I described my first experience with rhubarb. After such an auspicious start, I planned to keep buying rhubarb as long as the season lasted. But I also wanted to try something different, something unique, something … edgy. So when Brendon announced his Great Lentil Challenge!, I knew I had to return to a recipe I came across a couple of weeks ago: Lentils Curried with Rhubarb and Sweet Potatoes.

According to this version at recipesource, the recipe originally appeared in the July/August 1994 issue of the Vegetarian Journal. I was missing a few ingredients - such as an entire cup of red lentils! - so I modified it somewhat. My rendition appears below.

The dish was very tasty and worth the effort (and abundance of pans :^). The other adults at dinner all praised it, and had fun identifying the mystery ingredients (I’d just told them it was a “lentil dish”). The sweet potato was very present, but not overwhelming - same with the fresh ginger. Unfortunately, the rhubarb didn’t play as much of a starring role as I had hoped. I would occasionally taste it above the lentils, but not often enough. If I make this again, I would use a higher proportion of rhubarb (maybe as much as 2 cups, or just cut the lentils so the spicing remains the same).

We had lots of leftovers since I served this as a side dish, so I might make lentil patties (lentil cakes?) with what remains. They’ll certainly be tasty! And I’m certainly inspired to try some other non-dessert rhubarb recipes!

Lentils Curried with Sweet Potato and Rhubarb

1 cup red lentils (I used 1/2 cup red, 1/2 cup yellow)
1 large sweet potato, peeled and sliced
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 cup rhubarb, diced
1.5 Tab honey
2 tsp curry powder
1 tsp powdered red chiles (not chili powder)
finely diced ginger root (2 tsp? I didn’t measure!)
salt and pepper to taste

Cover lentils with water in a deep pot. Bring to a boil, then add raw sweet potato slices. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer until soft (30 to 40 minutes).

While lentils are cooking, heat oil in a skillet. Once hot, add rhubarb. Reduce heat and cook until tender (about 5 to 10 minutes). Remove from heat. Stir in honey and seasonings. If this is finished before the lentils, set aside.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. When lentils are done, remove from heat and drain if necessary. Mash potatoes into lentils with a fork. Mix together with the spiced rhubarb mixture. Pour into an oven-proof dish and bake at 400 degrees until piping hot (about 20 minutes).

The dish before going into the oven. With all those red and orange ingredients, I expected something a little less drab - at least it wasn’t drab tasting. The original recipe says to garnish with 1/4 cup shredded coconut, but I didn’t have any. I did serve with chutney and brown rice, but nobody used the chutney (maybe I should have made rhubarb chutney!)

Technorati Tags: Great Lentil Challenge