Easy Recipes

When I was little, I used to come down with strep throat fairly regularly. But I almost looked forward to it. Id get a box of chocolate candies, a few days off from school, and some attention. And in some ways, I still dont mind getting sick. Its a chance to slow down, to watch trashy television without judgment, and to be taken care of. It can actually be kind of fun. Except for the whole being sick part.

Whenever I come down with a full-blown fever or flu — the sort where I feel truly awful, like I barely fit into my own skin — well, then I can be kind of insufferable. I tend towards the overdramatic, the nobody has ever been as sick as me or this is why people used to die from the flu sentiments. I know, Im awful. But the upside is that it makes me fairly sympathetic to the illnesses of others. And so, when my neighbor was feeling lousy this past weekend, I made her a fresh glass of this tonic.

Ive never paid much mind to juicing or raw foods. But when youre sick, theres nothing like clean, fresh-squeezed juice to cut through the fog of illness. In this version, the fresh-squeezed lemon and orange give you a tart burst of vitamin C, the ginger clears a path right through to your sinuses, and the parsley just feels healthy. It may just be the placebo effect, or the basic goodness of rehydration going on. Or just that sometimes, when youre feeling lousy, its nice to sit back and be taken care of.


Green Tonic

makes 1 fairly large serving (but hey, youre supposed to drink a lot of fluids)

1-inch ginger, roughly chopped
juice of 1 meyer lemon
juice of 1 orange
large handful parsley, roughly chopped
1 tablespoon maple syrup
carbonated water

Place the ginger, citrus juice, parsley and maple syrup in a blender, and puree until smooth. Pour through a cheesecloth-lined strainer, squeezing to extract all the possible juice from the pulp. Pour into a glass with ice, and top off with seltzer. Drink and be healed!

Spring is all about green shoots and new growth. We tilt towards the sun, the ground warms, and the first spring crops come peeking through. Last week I helped transplant tomato starts outside, my hands full of that green-spring tomato-leaf smell. It sort of makes you heady with thoughts of whats to come.

But amidst all of this potential, theres a bit of destruction as well. I refer to the inevitable springtime thinning of the garden. For those who dont grow, heres how it works: when you plant seeds directly into the garden soil, youve got to hedge your bets against the inevitable non-starters, and sprinkle in a few extra. Or sometimes theyre just so darned tiny its hard to keep track. But often the seeds prove you wrong, and sprout up in a thicket. In order to give your plants enough room to grow, youve got to pull up a bunch of these little green babies.

Sometimes you can find a friend whose garden needs some extra seedlings, or sometimes you set a box of uprooted plants on the curb to seek a new home. Sometimes youre so weary from crouching in the dirt that you just toss them on the compost pile. And sometimes, in the case of green garlic, you can eat them.

Green garlic, which is available at farmers markets now (at least in the Pacific Northwest), looks a bit like scallions:


In fact, its just your standard garlic plant, but uprooted before the cloves have had a chance to fully form and swell (the ones youll see in the markets are generally a bit thicker than the home-harvested examples above). Theyre a bit too nippy to eat like scallions, but are lovely when pounded into a pesto, or incorporated into a saute. Cooked, they mellow and soften, yielding a flavor that has both a garlicky depth and a springtime green freshness.

This particularly recipe, adapted from the lovely Chez Pim, is like green garlic itself: both springtime-light and full of flavor. Shrimp and green garlic are sauteed with a simple sauce of curry powder and fish sauce. In my limited Southeast Asian seasoning pantheon, fish sauce is always bff with lime juice, and seldom ventures out alone. And certainly not with curry powder. But they work shockingly well together, forming a sauce whose flavor seems to be much greater than the sum of its simple parts. Pulling up green shoots before their full prime can be a bit sad. But with green garlic, and dishes like this one, its a fairly delicious sacrifice.


Shrimp with Green Garlic

adapted from Chez Pim, but simplified and tweaked a bit
serves 2-3

1 Tbsp neutral oil, like canola
1/2 cup (or more, if you have it) green garlic, julienned into 2" matchsticks
1 lb shrimp, shelled (I like to sit mine in a saltwater brine for about 15 minutes before draining and cooking to add flavor and moisture, but thats optional)
1 tsp curry powder
1 Tbsp fish sauce
splash water (1-2 Tbsp)
cooked jasmine rice for serving

Heat the oil in a heavy skillet over a medium-high heat. When hot, add the green garlic, and saute, stirring often, until it softens but doesnt color (~3-5 minutes). When the green garlic is soft, add the shrimp, cooking a few minutes until just shy of done (time will vary depending on the size of your shrimp and how well-done you like them, but it shouldnt take long). Sprinkle on the curry powder, stir to combine and toast the powder, then add the fish sauce and water to form a bit of sauce. Let cook a moment to remove the harsh edge, then remove from heat. Serve with the rice.

I was going to open this post with a picture of my tomato plants themselves. But really, its just sad. The stalks and leaves are yellow-brown, wilted, hanging off of their wire cage exoskeletons. And the tomatoes themselves? Green, green, green. Its been a slim harvest this year.

But luckily, green tomatoes can be the source of some truly delicious recipes. With their firm flesh, punchy astringency, and juiciness, they bake up surprisingly well. Over on NPRs Kitchen Window, I turn the harvests forlorn remainders into some lovely early fall recipes: green tomato pesto, cheesy green tomato and pimento cheese biscuits, and my favorite of all, this South Indian-style green tomato pickle. You can check out the recipes, and my paean to the thrifty waste-not-want-not ethos, over here.