Hawt Bowled P-Nuts

Sometimes my well-meaning friends take me aside to try and gently let me know that my 'Southern' is showing.  Many times it is when I rhapsodize on the qualities of boiled peanuts.  In the South as you drive almost anywhere in the fall you will pass by what looks like cardboard shanties along the roadside advertising the delicacies.  For the uninitiated, there is an inverse relationship of the sloppy grammar signs and the quality of the product.  There is your standard variety boiled in essentially brine and occasionally you may find a spicy set or jumbo sized.  All are welcome as far as I am concerned.  I have attempted on a few occasions to replicate this treat for family and friends and did so again this past weekend for a cookout.  To complete the red-neck ensemble I cooked them in my turkey deep-fryer.  

For some guests who had also grown up in the south, saying I was boiling peanuts was like saying that Christmas had arrived a few months early.  To my other friends who hadn't tried it yet, this was to become the opportunity of their lives to sample happiness in life distilled into a small burst of flavor.  Maybe I'm a bit biased but I do love some boiled peanuts.

Bowl of goober peas

Properly opened shell and the p-nutty goodness inside

The best I can approximate these here in the 'North' is to first get Raw peanuts.  Roasted peanuts are already cooked and do not boil well.  As it is, the raw peanuts are dehydrated and need to be soaked at least overnight.  'Green' peanuts are best but since these are fresh from the field, it is unlikely to be able to get them here.  I add in a generous amount of kosher salt.  I use kosher because I use enough salt to make the water taste like the sea and I avoid the extra iodine.  Then boil.  This takes a long time even after hydration.  Give yourself four to six hours.  The heat doesn't have to be high but should maintain a rolling boil.  Given the time, you may also need to add water but this of -course slows the process.  I haven't attempted it yet but on a smaller scale, I believe a slow cooker approach may work.  However, with the lower temperatures, the cook may take significantly longer.

To eat a boiled peanut, first make sure it is hot since they can seem slimy when cold.  I like to fit the peanut in my front teeth and crack the seam on the shell just a tiny bit and slurp out the juice.  Sucking air past the shell also can cool it rapidly just enough to eat.  I take the cracked shell and split it the rest of the way and either pop out the peanuts with my fingers or slurp them as well.

Squashed

Last year's harvest from the garden included a number of acorn squash.  I had picked them up at the nursery on a whim really and set them in a part of the garden that hadn't been given the same care and preparation as the raised beds but they thrived.  The resulting crop of squash looked like little green pumpkins and I set them in a paper bag in the house at the end of the season waiting to figure out what to do with them.  Fast forward about 5 months and you would think that they had reduced to a pudding in the bag but other than a single fatality and a small blemish on another, the rest where as stiff as the day they had been picked.  The time in the bag had sapped the green into orange but apparently they are a type of 'winter' squash which have harder skins and are expected to last through the winter in root cellars which I can say they would appear to be able to do. 

I decided that before the rest where to go bad I was going to cook them.  I decided on a standby preparation I had learned to love while on a mission in the Philippines.  Ginataan more or less means to cook something in coconut milk.  For a savory dish like this one I started with diced onions, tiny diced garlic and since I didn't have fresh ginger, a very healthy dose of ginger powder sauteed in a wok to turn the garlic gold and the onions clear.  I made a big change to the normal dish by dumping in some raw sunflower seeds for added protein and some crunch.  Two cans of coconut milk were added which is the only thing that I could say was measured in this whole shebang.  When using the canned stuff it is important to make sure you get all of the solids and liquids in the can.  For authenticity I added fish sauce and bagoong but for the less adventurous salt and pepper would do fine.  To this 'sauce' I added the cubed sqaush and let it simmer for awhile.  I like to let it cook until the squash is soft enough to cut through with a wooden spoon and little effort.  The flesh of the squash also starts to turn translucent at this stage so you can tell either way.

While best served on rice, bread of any kind can serve as a counterpoint.  I would only change two things.  I find I don't like the process of getting the skin off of acorn squash and would probably plant/use butternut in the future.  I also found that the sunflowers seeds, while tasty in the dish, did not result in the added flavor and texture I was hoping for perhaps because of their small size.  I might try peanuts or cashews next time.

Alas for Humanity

We have a local organization called Unity Gardens whose primary focus is planting and tending garden patches in the city through donation and volunteerism.  The produce from these gardens is free for the picking with the hope that with the availability of fresh produce, the diet of many impoverished or underemployed families will improve.  As a side project they also hold gardening classes or clinics for the public in coordination with Purdue (the Indiana land grant college) extension office's Master Gardener program.  Over the winter, they have held these classes in office space set aside for them in the local food bank.  My daughter and I have been attending the Jr. Master Gardener classes on Saturdays and have really enjoyed the experience.  The younger kiddies have been coming for the last couple of sessions and seem to also enjoy it.  We have learned about how plants grow, bees and other pollinators, herbs and most recently voted for our favorite vegetable in a vigorous democratic process in which candidate representatives vied for our vote with delectable treats featuring their vegetable of choice.  It ended up in a tie between corn and carrots. 
This recent experience was, however, marred for me.  As the class is open to the public, one would think that a vast cross section of the populace would be in attendance.  This is not what I have observed to be the case.  The class is generally attended by the children of people already interested and experienced in gardening.  This is not all bad really as the kids are engaged and feel a connection to the topics as they relate to home experiences in their own gardens.  This is put into sharp contrast when the occasional more 'urban' youth are in class.  As a example, in the great vegetable debate a young man was brought to class sucking on a ring-pop like an oversize pacifier by what I am guessing was an assigned big-brother or mentor of some kind.  Hope of sparking a love of gardening and good nutrition where quickly dashed as the boy loudly pronounced all vegetable candidates set before him as 'Nasty' and just as loudly demanded more of the sweeter dishes (Carrot cake and Carmel popcorn).  Aside from displaying the disappointing problems with an instant-gratification / entitlement society, it makes me lament for the future of young men like this one who have come to expect that at least once a week a 'buddy' will come by to take him on a trip somewhere and give him ring-pops and other treats he wants so long as he makes his needs clear.  Assuredly it is asking to much to expect a life change from a single two hour class, but is it asking to much for a healthy amount of respect or at least attentiveness when seeing something new.  It must be a struggle to find that fine line between developing a trusting mentor-ship in which the kid feels safe and cared for and enabling destructive behaviors.
In comparison, I recall struggling with my own kids over trying new things.  We were taking a cruise in the Caribbean and as is usual on a cruise, the evening meals were part dinner show and part unending avalanche of food.  One could order to their hearts content from selections of choice cuts of beef, tender pork, lobster and so on.  I placed a requirement on my kids that they try one new thing every night on the cruise.  While this was meet with some grumbling, they did all comply.  This did not always end in a sudden realization of how tasty buttered lobster is, at least they can say they tried it.  The biggest difference between them and the ring-pop sucker was that even in my kids complaints there was an expectation and understanding that they would eventually do as asked.  This is not a ringing endorsement of the superiority of my kids or parenting style because, frankly, they don't always mind or immediately comply without complaint.  Over the years however, they have been given boundaries and held to task even amidst complaint and this, I think, has made all the difference.

Food Abstraction

Sometimes I like to experiment.  My lovely wife asked if I could take on the preparation of diner this evening and without a specific mandate I was left to ponder what to do while staring at the pantry.  My eyes fell on a half used bag of egg noodles and some dried tomatoes from our garden and the game was on.  I pulled out about 6 cloves of garlic and diced them to be sauteed in oil and when browned added in some fresh sweet peppers and the aforementioned tomatoes.  The plan was to approach this as a sort of pasta and I cooked the noodles while the 'sauce' was going.  Turns out some of what I thought was dried tomatoes turned out to be dried peppers which added some surprise heat.  Because of all the dried goods the sauce was looking a bit stiff so I added some of the pasta water (the additional starch in the water adds texture and flavor).  I added in some cubed acorn squash and caned diced tomatoes to round it off and put the drained noodles in the sauce pan to allow the flavor to cook in.  On the side I warmed up some green beans canned by my mother and added some dill.  I am pretty sure that these combinations had not yet been done and was pleasantly pleased with the results.  I just need a name for it now.

Superfads

Fads come and go and as foods go there are recent fads for certain so-called super foods that purport to provide this and that special enzyme or fatty acid that will make all your dreams come true.  Broccoli, Goji Berry and grass feed beef have all been called super at various times for various reasons.  While a food can have a huge amount of interesting chemicals, these are only of use if you are lacking in that mineral or vitamin.  Prunes and potatoes can be a super food for the potassium deficient.  As fads go though, if it makes a person more cognizant of what they eat then it can't be all that bad.

Ambrosia

The taste of the holidays is the taste of home.  My mom pulled out a stack of recipes inches thick that we prepared for the big Christmas dinner (from which we are only now waking up from).  In addition to ham and turkey we had casseroles, stuffing, rolls, mashed potatoes, spinach salad and green beans to name just a few.  The desserts and treats table were there own feast including cheesecake, date nut balls, strawberry confections, peanut brittle, fudge, cookies, candied popcorn, orange fruit cake and cranberry mold. 
The familiar tastes were augmented with some local flavors on a trip to Ralph's Burgers.  In high school I worked for Ralph along with many of my peers and it is hard to beat a DPCAW. (Double Patty Cheese all the way)  My son was impressed as he fell victim to its awesome power.  We also went to a local Bar-B-Que place operated by a guy I knew in high school.  It's called Bubbaques and in addition to being able to sit in a boat in the restaurant they hand out 'bubba' teeth at the end of the meal so you can have the full Bubba experience.

You got your X in my peanut butter.

There was a series of old Reece's peanut butter cup commercials in which some calamity would occur and two individuals would find their favorite snacks (chocolate and peanut butter) mixed and would be very near to blows until they tried them together and realized that the world could sing in harmony if only we had a Coke and a smile.  OK, so I'm mixing commercials there but the idea was that these seemingly different food products made a great combination.

Peanuts are originally from South America and for versatility may be one of the greatest treasures to make it back across the pond.  What we think of as peanut butter (crunchy or smooth) may better be described as peanut flavored vegetable shortening.  So called 'old-style' peanut butters tend to be much thicker and don't spread like the soft stuff.  From a flavor and health standpoint the choice is obvious but it is hard to argue with the convenience of the stuff off the shelf.  Many devices are sold that try to make the 'real' peanut butter easier to use and I have also used a nut butter mill.  These are fantastic for trying out things like Cashew or Pistachio butter but in some cases you may need to add a little extra moisture in the form of oil or honey to keep things moving with dry nuts.

We all know the ubiquitous PBJ and in a previous post I mentioned one of my favorite snacks of peanut butter cheese and banana.  Many Thai dishes are known for peanut sauce and peanuts in the sauce.  I'm not sure what the original flavor was for these dishes but the peanuts add a nice dimension.  Some other non-standard peanut uses include on a hamburger or part of my stepfathers peanut butter and gherkin pickle sandwiches.  What do you like on your peanut butter?