#I FINALLY GOT ALL THOSE FREAKIN' CRAFTING RECIPES DONE

[rainbowbarnacle]

[thevintagebluebird]

Unpinned - Winter Squash and Wild Mushroom Curry

Tumblr tells me it’s been six months since my last post. That seems pretty on-brand for me and this blog. Valentine’s day is coming up, and I could offer you all flowers, chocolates, and promises I don’t intend to keep: or I can just try to cook new recipes and take photos of them more often. 

Let’s see, what’s new...well, we left the nightmare world of 2020 behind and are now firmly in the nightmare world of 2021. Still in lockdown. Still hanging out on Zoom. Oh! But the fella and I did the unthinkable: we MOVED! Yes, after eight long happy years together in a two-room apartment, the pandemic finally broke us. Working from home gets really cramped when you can’t walk behind your partner’s conference call to get to the bathroom. With everyone fleeing the cities for the space of the suburbs, apartment rents in our little commuter city plummeted! So we finally, FINALLY found our unicorn apartment. Same city, same rent, AND THREE BEDROOMS BABY. And that means no more plastic blue countertops here! So allow me to present my first vegan recipe AND my first post from the new digs: 

Winter Squash and Wild Mushroom Curry! Straight off the never-fail pages of the New York Times cooking section, I printed this recipe sans images and left it hanging on my fridge for weeks, waiting for the right moment. Apparently at 4:45pm driving home during a snowstorm I realized it was THE right moment, because I stopped at the grocery store, loaded up my cart with a concerning amount of mushrooms, and got to work.

Verdict: Is the Pintrest photo complete bullshit? I need to hit up my local Indian grocery stores because I have no idea where you find a branch of curry leaves in Shaws, but other than that not really!

Is it crazy expensive/time consuming/confusing? No! It came together shockingly fast! The mushrooms can start to add up a bit but 100% worth it.

Does it taste good? So good I’m considering making it again TOMORROW.

Winter Squash and Wild Mushroom Curry

INGREDIENTS

3 tablespoons vegetable oil

10 ounces butternut or other winter squash, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch pieces

Kosher salt and black pepper

1 or 2 small green chiles, such as jalapeño or serrano

3 medium shallots or 1 small onion, finely diced

½ teaspoon black mustard seeds

½ teaspoon cumin seeds

Handful of fresh or frozen curry leaves (optional)

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 teaspoon ground coriander

Pinch of ground cayenne

½ teaspoon ground turmeric

1 pound mushrooms, preferably a mix of cultivated and wild, trimmed and sliced 1/8-inch thick

¾ cup coconut milk

2 tablespoons lime juice

Cilantro sprigs, for garnish

In a wide skillet, heat oil over medium-high. When hot, add squash cubes in one layer. Season with salt and pepper. Cook for about 2 minutes, letting cubes brown slightly, then flip and cook for 2 minutes more. Use a slotted spoon to lift squash out, and set aside.

Cut a lengthwise slit in each chile to open it, but leave whole. (This helps the chiles heat the sauce without making it too spicy.)

Add shallots, salt lightly and cook, stirring, 1 minute. Add mustard seeds, cumin seeds and curry leaves, if using, and let sizzle for 30 seconds, then add garlic, coriander, cayenne, turmeric and chiles. Stir well and cook for 30 seconds more.

Add mushrooms, season with salt and toss to coat. Cook, stirring, until mushrooms begin to soften, about 5 minutes.

Return squash cubes to skillet, stir in coconut milk and bring to a simmer. Lower heat to medium and simmer for another 5 minutes. If mixture looks dry, thin with a little water. Taste and season with salt.

Before serving, stir in lime juice. Transfer to a warm serving dish and garnish with cilantro.

Look at that spread. And LOOK AT THOSE NON-70S-BLUE COUNTERS! I may have gone a tad overboard with the mushrooms but they are nature’s meat, after all.

My sous chef for the evening. Pretty dang excited to marry that cutie in the aftertimes.

Ah yes, my favorite part of any recipe: trying to do shoddy math in my head. It calls for 10oz of butternut squash which, due to packing/shipping small boxes almost every day for the last ten years, I can eyeball fairly well, but this was a 1lb 12oz box. I have no idea why they didn’t pack a pound, a pound and a half, or 2lbs, but there ya go. I hate cutting butternut squash so I really shouldn’t complain.

Stop what you are doing to feed the cat because she is a cruel mistress and demands a sacrifice NOW.

Ask your partner if the 3″ cubes look close enough to 1/2″ cubes and admit that they probably need chopping. Oh well. Chop ‘em.

Does he look fly as hell? Yes. But these are our snazzy utility sunglasses. Not only do they make you the coolest person in any room, they also a) reduce overstimulation in a pounding nightclub b) keep the oils from onions from burning your eyes during chopping c) I guess block the sun sometimes.

Get those now-tiny cubes into a hot pan! Perfect! ...for now. Foreshadowing.

Wash your fungus. Now, I’m not fancy and don’t have wild mushrooms or foraged mushrooms (I haven’t gotten to see my mushroom guy at the Somerville Winter Farmer’s Market in a while). I got some shiitake, baby portabella, and plain ol’ white mushrooms. Store brand baby.

Snazzy sous chef grillin’ the onions.

So it’s about time I admit: I did not have some (read: many) of the spices this recipe called for. I have never seen curry leaves. I don’t know what black mustard seed looks like. I don’t own coriander. We turn into weeping piles of burned sand whenever there’s a pepper in the house. So I did a lot of substitutions: entirely left out the chiles (sorry flavor fans) and skipped step 2, swapped ground cumin for the seeds, used curry powder in place of leaves, and threw in a dash of cardamom instead of coriander (it smelled like something that would be happy in a curry dish plus they’re close alphabetically). I added a good dose of black pepper to make up for the lack of mustard seeds (?!) and, anyway, my meals are often struggle meals. 

Ah yes, the other inevitable moment of the evening: when I realize there’s no way the rest of the ingredients will fit into my pan. Tall Allan to the rescue, pulling down our dutch oven gifted by the lovely Ann and Joe when we helped them move a million years ago! It doesn’t get nearly enough use. Maybe I should store it somewhere I can actually reach.

WHOO NOW TWO DIRTY HAND-WASH-ONLY PANS!

Ok now we’re getting somewhere, starting to smell pretty damn good...

If you are not a cilantro-is-soap person, chop up your fresh leaves. I did splurge on these because I also have salsa and can make next-level nachos next time I need a snack. Or put it in a salad or whatever. Mainly nachos.

This is the moment you realize that despite crafting this blog for a few years and being both a person who cooks food sometimes AND a professional pantry chef in years past, you STILL don’t ever closely read the recipe all the way through first. The curry needs rice. What are you even doing with your life. How could you forget to start the rice. Now everything will be done in minutes and you’re starving and the rice is RAW. Concede defeat, promise to make rice FIRST next time, and pull out some tiny bit of starch: these mini whole grain naan breads. They are my new obsession. They’re $3.50 for four slices but holy heck I love them so much.

Done! The whole thing came together in under a half hour, and looks nice on a plate!

We’re skeptical that sans rice this vegan meal will be filling enough, but moments after this photo was taken and before a single bite was had, our doorbell rang and who was it but THE KENTS with GIRL SCOUT COOKIES!  Delivered to our door in a snow storm no less! Desert safely secured, we sat down to discover our fates: it was GOOD!! Filling! Tasty! 

Final final verdict: I’ve yet to try a NY Times recipe I didn’t end up loving (the one and only salad recipe I have is their orange/radish/pistachio dish I was shown a few years ago - amazing) and this was no exception. We’re trying to eat less meat (and have already virtually cut beef and pork from our normal rotation) so finding easy vegan meals is really exciting. We freakin’ love mushrooms and I can’t wait to make this again. Probably later this week.