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By feral, on February 20th, 2012%
 I concocted this dish yesterday — following a sudden, unambitious inspiration — but people liked it and said I should transcribe the recipe. So, here you go, people:
Step 1: Boil some chickpeas. They’ll taste so much better than the canned ones. You will probably need less than 1 cup of dry chickpeas for this but since cooking them is a bit of a commitment, why not make more and use the rest to whip up some delicious homemade hummus?
To cook the chickpeas:
soak overnight rinse add new water (1:4), bring to a boil add 1 small peeled onion and 1-2 garlic cloves (and an herb of choice — I like bay leaf and oregano) simmer covered for 2 hours (I add salt to the water after 1.5 hours of simmering) drain (reserve some of that liquid if you’re also making hummus)
If you are not convinced this would make any difference, go ahead, use canned chickpeas (15 oz).
While chickpeas are simmering (or sitting in a can):
Wash 1 head cauliflower, dry, and cut into florets Pre-heat oven to 400F . . . CONTINUE READING → cauliflower & chickpeas salad
By feral, on February 19th, 2012%
 I took down our Christmas lights yesterday — just got tired of waiting for the winter to come… Seriously, I don’t think it’s coming this year. I got seedlings to start and don’t want them to be confused. This weather has confused enough plants already. I’ve seen foot-tall daffodils and tulips around the city yesterday. To me, this absence of cold and snow in February feels a little bit like the morning of a sleepless party night: even though it was fun to be able to run around in lighter clothes, to avoid gloomy and slushy days, and not to freeze my ears off, I’m a little worried — what if my garden didn’t get enough rest for the new season?
You know me, I worry about things like that… Especially after hearing that the canals in Venice froze… Yesterday I learned that the rest of the world is a big climactic mess too, according to this map (which I stole from this Huff Post article).
 Except for Brazil, Tibet, and Kazakhstan… Those seem to be the only 3 places . . . CONTINUE READING → winter blues and greens
By feral, on January 17th, 2012%
 Here’s a new format I’d like to try out: a week’s worth of ferally noteworthy finds, forwards, shares, and recommendations, all dumped into one random post. Let’s see if I can keep up with it…
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First of all, I created a Facebook page for this blog! Please click here to like it! All the future FG updates will be linked there from now on, instead of my personal FB page. Hooray!
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Recipe of the year, so far: Cara Cara Orange Prosecco Sabayon. Made it in El Granada with Murzik, having successfully conquered our shared fear of double boilers. We literally licked everything it touched. Instant enlightenment. We’re both still raving about it.
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The next recipe I haven’t tried yet but would really love to. Doesn’t it look like an amazing idea for a dinner party? Momofuku Bo Ssam – “a slow-roasted shoulder of pig, a meal that can be picked apart by a table of friends armed only with chopsticks and lettuce. A tight and salty caramel crust sits on top of the moist, . . . CONTINUE READING → Monday digest
By feral, on January 16th, 2012%
From a recent aprés-ski conversation in Aspen with a lady from Iowa who thought I looked like Edward Scissorhands:
– Are you from a different country? – Yes, I’m Russian. – Oh, really? I’m drinking a “White Russian.” – I’m actually from Belarus, which means “White Russia,” but the cocktail has nothing to do with the country… – [blank] [pause] Do you own a private jet? – No, not yet. – But are you working on it? Because if so, I’d like to be friends with you!
Aspen might be the only place in America where if you say you’re Russian, people assume you rake in the dough. Sadly, I had to disappoint the gregarious Iowa lady — the only kind of dough I’m good at making involves flour and yeast. And that’s what this post is about.
This dough recipe happens to be the answer to the last photo quiz. If you ever want to bake a Russian-style pie (пирог = pirog) — like these two I made with cabbage filling for the Russian “Old” New Year party 2 days ago — it is simple, quick, easy, and really, really tasty.
![]( "Russian-Cabbage-Pies - <span style=") . . . CONTINUE READING → How to make Russian dough
By feral, on January 13th, 2012%
What am I up to?
 And why?
By feral, on January 5th, 2012%
Two months ago Murzik emailed me this recipe for sardine rillettes with the following comment: “made these a few times, total hit with everybody, especially served on some bread with a side of salad – perfect lunch! or makes pretty good little appetizers.” Even though I had no clue what the word rillettes meant, the recipe looked so appetizing that I bought a can of sardines, a pack of cream cheese and all other ingredients — but never got to mash them together.
Yesterday Murzik made them for lunch. The preparation took about 3 minutes, and I immediately regretted my procrastination. It was a love at first bite and an instant addition to my impress-in-5-minutes-or-less recipe list.
 Snooping around Murzik & Husband’s kitchen (and its garage extension) in El Granada, always results in new inspirations and useful culinary discoveries. To demonstrate, here’s the first thing I saw upon arrival:
 This is probably only about a quarter of their home-canned bounty and certainly puts my own feeble canning attempts to shame. These shelves deserve their own reality TV show: “Extreme Canning . . . CONTINUE READING → Sardine Rillettes and 5 more tips from El Granada
By feral, on December 24th, 2011%
Obviously, I still need to work on a few things, e.g. smiling and speaking. But I do believe this new and exciting medium has a bright feral future. Please enjoy this video tour of my garden and keep in mind that it was really freezing this morning — normally, it looks much bigger. Although I didn’t harvest anything from the garden other than the above footage, today was overall a terrific day for me. I slept until 10, then located and successfully disposed of a little dead mouse that had been filling the house with anti-holiday spirit, and finally cooked a trio of Russian/Hanukkah comfort foods for dinner: borscht, roasted apricot chicken and, my absolute favorite, potato latkes.
I was very happy with myself about this dinner. Especially because I managed to eat somewhere between 10 and 15 latkes. For the record, these potato pancakes are my most favorite food in the world. Ever since I was very little, they never failed to make me happy. Needless to say, back in Belarus they were a regular food, not a once-a-year Hanukkah treat — but nonetheless, always a . . . CONTINUE READING → For the first time ever, a video tour of the garden
By feral, on November 3rd, 2011%
Let them eat kale!
Is that what Marie Antoinette’s real programme was for fixing the world? And an unfortunate hiccup made it sound like “cake” leading to all sorts of misunderstandings?
Alright, alright I make joke… But seriously, how many times have you heard lately that kale is a new miracle-food? It has been a staple of German cuisine for ages, braised with bacon, onions and/or ham (see Grünkohlessen) – delicious! — but now it has become ubiquitous. There are even kale smoothies… Is there literally no wrong way to eat it? I can think of at least 2 such ways, both found at your local WholeFoods. One is the tasteless and unchewable version presented in the prepared foods section as “steamed” or “wilted” kale, and the other manifests itself in the magnificent assortment of kale chips which are, I’m sure, delicious but for some reason all cost $8.99 a pack… Unless kale is subject to the New York City cigarette tax, I cannot find a good explanation for this price!
Alright, now I joked and I ranted — and am finally ready to move on to the essence of this post.
My latest favorite way to eat . . . CONTINUE READING → Raw Kale, Carrot & Kohlrabi Salad
By feral, on October 23rd, 2011%
On Friday we were due for our bi-weekly garden visitation. However, James had to travel to California; so, I drove upstate by myself. With several How Stuff Works podcasts entertaining my curious mind and with the Taconic wowing my weary eyes with foliage landscapes at every turn, it turned out to be a lovely drive.
With green rapidly fading from the scene, the garden still had a couple of green surprises for me: the last batch of green tomatoes, string beans, the relentless shishito peppers, 2 radishes and even 3 cucumbers! (Which brings the total number of cucumbers I harvested this year to 5. Ok, maybe to 10…)
 I spent some time on Friday afternoon cleaning up in the garden. It gets dark around 6 now, so I didn’t have that much time. The dusk’s sudden advance interrupted my activities; I raised my eyes from wilted tomato plants I was pulling out of the ground and suddenly saw a gleaming beam of red light shooting out from the woods. It looked almost like the tail of a meteor — but, in fact, it was the tail of a rainbow. . . . CONTINUE READING → Out with the green!
By feral, on October 10th, 2011%
Generally, I don’t allow myself to feel proud that often – but yesterday I did. And here is the reason:
 In the morning I thought to myself: Wait, I forgot to include carrots in my previous Orange post! What a scandal! But then I unearthed this specimen and was happy about this oversight. In my opinion, this carrot fully deserves its own post.
This is what you might call a perfect carrot — I immediately thought of Rabbit from Winnie-the-Pooh and his garden — long, straight, thick, and totally blemish-free. Full of excitement, I ran to James to ask him to take a photo of me with my new best friend.
 Which turned into an entire photo shoot. Have I missed my calling as a carrot model?
James was just as fascinated by the giant orange tuber as I was and insisted that Carrot and I pose for a whole series of silhouettes.
![]( "big <span style=") . . . CONTINUE READING → Carrot Pride
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