Peas in a Pod
One of the last questions the oral surgeon asked, after delivering the news of my impending wires, was, “is this a good time of year for you?” To which I could not help but respond, “is there ever a good time for this?”
The only thing I can imagine a broken jaw conveniently coinciding with is a phase in life when one is responsible for feeding another person with no teeth, like a baby, or an elderly person, who has no choice but to join in the eating of blender food (and really, it would only be convenient if feeding were one’s sole responsibility for that toothless person). Alas, my regular dining companion has a full set of teeth and a healthy appetite, too. He has been gracious in tasting my purees and running out to get me milkshakes, but a boy’s gotta eat. We’ve managed thus far by mostly preparing entirely different foods for ourselves, often eating at different times. But tonight it was comforting to eat the same ingredients, prepared different ways, while we sat on the couch and watched three episodes in a row of “The Wire” (fitting, I know).
I’m not superwoman, so no, I did not start with one batch of fresh peas and come up with two separate dishes. As this adventure wears on we’ll see whether I can reach that level. Yesterday my dear friend Shiami brought me pea-mint soup, made from a recipe on Savour Fare, which I ate chilled — it was perfect that way — and so nicely pureed that I saved a little for tomorrow when it will have to go down through the straw. It’s a lovely liquid taste of summer.
Since she cooked for me, I was free to cook for Dan a simple stir fry, in which all of the greens — pea shoots, snow peas, garlic scapes, and baby bok choy — came from our CSA. The tofu marinade and sauce recipes came from Fresh at Home, one of the cookbooks from Fresh, a vegetarian restaurant where I usually eat at least once on every trip to Toronto. The tofu is simple: press to get the water out, cut 4x4x4 into cubes, and marinade in tamari (3/4 cup), water (1/4 cup), cider vinegar (1/2 cup), and sunflower oil (1 tbsp). The New Buddha Sauce is the real secret here - spicy, full of flavor, and actually pretty good for you, with foundational ingredients like peanut butter, ginger, curry powder, and carrot juice. It requires a long list of ingredients, but is fairly easy. The recipe makes a LOT, so I usually half the recipe and still have more than I know what to do with. Also, a warning: even the halved recipe overflows my food processor; I’ve finally learned, after multiple countertop tamari waterfalls, to make this in a big pot and mix with the immersion blender.
I wasn’t up for putting the entire stir fry in the blender, but the tofu and sauce, mashed up with a fork, is quite good as a way to get some protein (just don’t look at it) and would be an easy puree that’s high in flavor.
