Couscous with Eggplant-Harissa Sauce

Posted on October 2, 2011 by Anita!
(This is Anita, switching with Ari this week for Rosh Hashanah)

I know what you jerks are thinking, so I’m just going to come out and say it:  it looks like someone left a tiny little misdeed on top of my pile of couscous.

It’s supposed to be the sauce.  When picking a picture for this post, I frantically tried to find one that did not incorporate this terrible addition.  Somewhere between denial and grief, I decided to embrace the inevitable.  This is Part 1 in a series all about the opposite of food.
Should you be unfortunate enough to end up in the hospital as an inpatient, be prepared to talk about your movements.  All the time.  Doctors, nurses, and medical students will obsess over it and want to know about its frequency, color, size, and consistency. They’ll mark the time with a triumphant “1” in the electronic medical record.  They’ll point it out to each other on x-ray films of the intestines and nod academically.  They may even need to take a look at it once in a while.  Think of it like reading tea leaves.
Every morning when I check in on patients, I ask about movements as if I’m asking about the weather forecast.  And in a way, it is a forecast–angry or immobile bowels can portend undesirable events.  In 3.5 months it’s become almost natural for me to inquire.  So next time you meet me, you’ll have to wonder if I’m asking about your day but really, deep down, reflecting on your flux.

Ingredients

All joking aside, this recipe is pretty good.  The meat of the eggplant becomes part of the sauce, hand-in-hand with my favorite tomato paste, Harissa.
  • 1 eggplant, split in half and rubbed with olive oil
  • 1 cup couscous
  • 1 cup broth or water
  • 1 red pepper, chopped
  • 1/2 can harissa
  • a little milk
  • salt to taste
Heat the oven to 375 and place the eggplant halves face down on some foil on a cookie sheet.  Cook for 30-40 minutes until the eggplant meat is soft and the body is looking charred.  Take out the halves and cut a bowl out of the eggplant halves with a knife.  Scoop the meat into a food processor, and blend with the harissa.  Add some salt to taste, and some milk for a thinner consistency.  Heat the broth in a small pot over medium-high flame.  As soon as it comes to a boil, turn off the heat, add the couscous, stir, and cover for 5 minutes.  Uncover and fluff with a fork, stir in the pepper, then toss with the sauce.  Serve warm in the eggplant bowls.
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Posted in Vegetarian | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Apples and Honey Cake – for a sweet new year

Posted on September 28, 2011 by Ari
(Anita and I are switching posts this week so I can share this recipe for Rosh Hashanah)
There’s nothing quite like the holidays to make you miss your family.
Growing up, Rosh Hashanah meant not only a day off school, but a day spent with family. You wake up early. Put on your “nice” clothes. Spend the first few hours of the day in services (during which I lose focus on what the rabbi is saying and undoubtedly start braiding the fringe on my dad’s tallit). Finally you head home and spend the day goofing off with your siblings while mom and dad put together a delicious dinner. During dinner you talk about the things you are grateful for and what kind of mitzvah’s you want to accomplish over the next year. In many ways, it’s the perfect kind of day – one filled with family and lots of good food.
That’s not really how things work out while you’re away at school. Thankfully I almost always have a friend’s house I can visit for Rosh Hashanah dinner, but other than that, it feels like a holiday that I celebrate half hazardly. I do my best to make it to services, but I somehow end up going to a different synagogue every year. I try not to work, but quite honestly, it’s hard to take a day off from school when you’ve got tests, projects, and abstract deadlines coming up (in fact, I have an abstract due this Friday). One thing I do always manage to do is contemplate the last year and how I will try to improve myself for this year. More importantly, I think about what I’m grateful for – my family, my friends and my health. What more can I really ask for?
L’shana tova umetukah – For a good and sweet (and healthy, and productive, and fruitful, and…you get my point) year.
(Adapted from a combination of this Apple Cake recipe and this Honey Cake recipe)

What you need:

  • 3 cups flour
  • 1 cup vegetable oil (I want to try subbing in applesauce for the oil, but didn’t have any applesauce)
  • 1 tbs baking powder
  • 3/4 cup honey
  • 3/4 cup brown sugar
  • 4 eggs
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 3 apples, cored and thinly sliced
  • 2 tsp cinnamon (1 tsp for batter and 1 tsp for apples)
  • 2 1/2 tsp vanilla
  • 1/4 cup orange juice

What you need to do:

  1. Preheat your oven to 325 degrees F.
  2. Core and slice your apples into thin pieces.
  3. In a large bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, salt and 1 tsp of cinnamon.
  4. In a separate bowl whisk together your eggs, oil, honey, brown sugar, vanilla and orange juice.
  5. Add the liquids to the bowl with the flour and stir until everything is combined.
  6. In a greased 9X9 in baking pan, pour in about 1/3 of the batter then make an even layer of apple slices. Pour in the next third of batter. Make your next layer of apple slices. Top off with the last of the batter, but before adding you apple layer, sprinkle the apple slices with the remaining tsp of cinnamon. Finally, add your last layer of apples.
  7. Bake for about 1.5 to 2 hours (use a toothpick test to see if the cake is cooked all the way through). If you’re making a half batch, you only need to cook for 1 to 1.5 hours.
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Posted in Dessert | 2 Comments

Homemade Wontons

Posted on September 25, 2011 by Ari
It’s almost as if my stomach knows when fall is coming even before the temperature starts to drop. The minute I start to crave hot soups, lots of starch, and salt, glorious salt, I know it’s time to pull the winter coat out of the closet. I eat as if I’m getting ready for hibernation. In fact, I need to be getting ready for quite the opposite. One month to go till my eating, sleeping and fun having habits go down the drain as I begin my surgery rotation. Actually, that’s a lie. Well, not the sleeping and eating part, but I’m really excited to begin my surgery rotation. It’s finally time for me to figure out my future. I’ve mentioned before that I’m 98% sure surgery is the field for me, but there’s still that 2% of my brain (my rational side) that makes me question whether or not I’m ready for that lifestyle. Am I ready to spend the vast majority of my time under the florescent hospital lights? Will I mind forgoing weekends? Is it worth waking up at 4am every morning? My heart says yes, but my brain insists that I wait and see how I respond to 2 months of pretending to be a surgeon. I’ll admit I’m incredibly nervous. Of course I’m nervous about how I’ll do, if they’ll like me, if they’ll find me useful to have around…but more importantly, I’m nervous to find out whether or not I like it. Along with trying to calm my nerves in preparation for surgery, I’ve been working on recipes that will keep me full, but more or less out of the kitchen during those 2 months. I’m trying to put the time in now creating freezer meals and crock pot recipes so that my eating habits don’t suffer quite as much as they have the potential to.
This particular recipes definitely involves a lot of prep work, but if you make a large enough batch you can enjoy the efforts for quite some time. Cutting all the vegetables and shrimp took about 2.5 hours…the wrapping the wontons took another 1.5 hours. To be honest, these aren’t actually wontons. They’re dumplings in wonton wrappers…either way, they’re delicious and make a quick meal when there’s no time to do more than boil a pot of water. The pork and shrimp wontons are more traditional, but it just wouldn’t be a Braised Anatomy post if we didn’t offer a vegetarian option.

Pork and Shrimp Dumplings/Wontons (adapted from Use Real Butter)

What you need (makes about 100 wontons):

  • 1 lb ground pork
  • 1 lb raw shrimp, shelled and deveined
  • 8 nappa cabbage leaves, minced
  • 6 green onions, minced
  • 1/2 cup bamboo shoot, minced
  • 1/2 cup ginger root, minced
  • 6 tbs sesame oil
  • 2 tsp salt
  • 4 tbs corn starch
  • About 100 wonton wrappers

Vegetarian Dumplings/Wontons (adapted from Good Eats)

What you need (makes about 40 wontons):

  • 1/2 lb firm tofu
  • 1/2 cup grated carrots
  • 1/2 cup minced napa cabbage (about 2-3 leaves)
  • 2 tbs finely chopped red pepper
  • 2 tbs finely chopped green onion
  • 2 tbs finely chopped ginger
  • 1 tbs minced fresh cilantro
  • 1 egg, lightly beaten
  • 1 tbs soy sauce
  • 1 tbs hoisin sauce
  • 2 tsp sesame oil
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1/4 tsp black pepper
  • About 40 wonton wrappers

What you need do to:

  1. Spend a ridiculous amount of time chopping up all of the vegetables into miniscule pieces (this takes about 2 hours), and add the veggies to a bowl (obviously two different bowls if you’re making both types of wontons).
  2. If you’re making the shrimp and pork dumplings, you can just add the ground pork straight to the bowl, but you’ll need to chop up the shrimp so it resembles all the vegetables.
  3. Add the sauces, eggs, etc. to the bowl and mix to combine.
  4. Wrap the wontons (I was gonna take pictures of each step, but I was too impatient…). I highly recommend inviting some friends/enemies over for a wonton wrapping party. You can promise them a delicious meal of wontons once they’re done.
  5. Once the wontons are wrapped, you can either freeze them on large trays, then transfer them to gallon ziplock bags, or you can go right ahead and cook them. To cook them, bring water to a boil in a medium sized pot, drop the dumplings in and let them cook. They’re done cooking when they’ve risen to the top (then I usually let them cook a little longer just to make sure the meat is cooked through).
  6. Serve with dumpling sauce or a broth (normally I just add a little soy sauce and dumpling sauce to the cooking water).
  7. Enjoy!
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Posted in Freezer, Seafood, Vegetarian | 3 Comments

Apple Butter

Posted on September 20, 2011 by Anita!

On Saturday I had the day off and went apple picking with our friend Hannah at Patterson Fruit Farms.  When I came back to work the next morning at UH, I had an odd sensation of not knowing what had been going on with the patients I’ve been following.  Tests had been ordered, decisions made, patients had gotten better or developed new problems, all while I had spent the day frolicking in the sunshine and eating apple cider donuts.
Third year of medical school is a strange time.  Technically, we are accountable for patient well being.  if We’re good students if we know everything about our patients and can make a good plan for their diagnosis and treatment.  We can consult other teams and outside hospitals to gather information.  However, we can’t submit orders for labs to be drawn or medications to be given, and never have final say.  So in reality we walk a limbo between Internship and Advanced Shadowing.  This means that we’re allowed to learn as much as we can without true responsibility.
The only difference between the day before I graduate and the day after I graduate are the letters that will appear behind my name.  But suddenly the responsibilities will be real.  So what of my intern year, less than two years from now?  I’ll be in charge of a list of patients and expected to make some clinical decisions on my own.  When I get a day off, will I spend it worrying about what’s happening to people I otherwise tend to every day?

On a lighter note, clinical hour restrictions did not apply to the making of this apple butter.  I was on 24-hour call for the process, and it involved schlepping the crock pot to the resident’s lounge at the hospital and stirring every couple of hours while I was working.  Totally worth it — this butter is thick, creamy, and deeply flavored.  Hope you can try it!

Ingredients

  • 11 small to medium apples, peeled and coarsely chopped (I used Gala, picked from Patterson’s fruit farms)
  • Brown sugar (I used 1/2 cup, you might have to use more if you use apples that are less sweet.
  • 2 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 tsp ground cloves
  • 1 tsp cumin
  • 1/2 tsp coriander
  • 1/2 tsp garam masala
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
Place all of the ingredients in a crock pot set to low.  Every few hours (except when you’re sleeping), give the contents a stir.  I let this cook for 24 hours but this is completely based on personal taste.  When you feel that the mixture is cooked down and looks brown and soft, blend the lot in a blender until it is smooth.  Place in a medium pot, cover loosely with a lid (leave a little space for steam to escape), and simmer to reduce the mixture down a little.  Store in a jar with a tight fitting lid and consume within a couple of weeks.
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Posted in Breakfast, Dessert, Dip, Sauce, Slow Cooker, Snacks, Vegetarian | Leave a comment