Gluten/Dairy Free Cilantro Lime Sauce

Tomorrow we are leaving for the cabin for a few days. Some of our family will be joining us and we are really looking forward to seeing them. Since the cabin is about 30 miles from town we plan food ahead and hope we don’t have to resort to eating bony little crappies and burdock roots. So I am doing some make-ahead recipes. Denis wants to do an antipasto plate and asked me make this cool sauce to go with it.

Seems like more and more people, well at least ones I know, (our family included) have food issues, like needing to be gluten-free or dairy-free. Two reasons to like this sauce. Plus it goes well with grilled chicken or fish or fresh vegetable sticks or even chips. Gasp.

I was surprised to find it in Food & Wine Magazine (May Issue) in a column about chefs’ favorite off-the-path cafes. One of them mentioned Brasa in St. Paul and I recognized it, more surprise, surprise. That’s a big no-no for me. That I would not only recognize, but have eaten at a place they recommend? I love to hate that publication because they can make an idolatry out of pig bellies, and of course wouldn’t allow me to enter their precious establishments because I wear Land’s End sandals. Anyway, Brasa’s is a place we’ve often eaten at because it’s affordable, and we like their faux Caribbean menu and rotisserie chicken that comes with a sauce accompaniment. So what do you know, they publish the recipe for the sauce! And now I have to temper my judgment. Sorry. Sorry.

Creamy Cilantro Lime Sauce is quick and easy to make. You can cut back on the heat by getting milder peppers or reducing the amount. Last time I made it, it was so hot we had to cut the heat by adding more mayonnaise. And what is weird? Denis LIKES it even though he HATES cilantro. 

Creamy Cilantro Lime Sauce

2 large jalapenos, seeded and chopped (I cut back on this. Too many Scandinavians around here.)

2 large garlic cloves, smashed

2 T minced fresh ginger

2 T minced onion

1 T fresh lime juice

¼ c. water

1 c. mayonnaise

1.4 c. finely chopped cilantro

Salt

In a blender, puree the peppers, garlic, ginger, onion, lime juice and water until smooth.Add the moy and cilantro and pulse a few times. Season with salt. Serve. Will keep in refrigerator for several days. I can’t say how long. Mine has kept a week. It also makes a good salad dressing.

Smoke your pipes

Last Sunday Denis and I spent a lazy afternoon sitting outside a coffee shop reading and people watching. I enjoy imagining their lives and wondering if I’d make it in life if I were them. At a small table directly across from us just a few feet away on the sidewalk a hip young couple, whose eccentricities were obvious, sat down – a feast for the eyes. I especially liked the guy’s shiny leather huraches and her black leotards and spiky heels. He got out a pipe, filled it, tamped it down and lit it with a vintage lighter. Then he surprised me by leaning toward her cupping his  hand over hers to light her pipe. As they sat smoking, she pulled out a small chess board and they became engrossed in a game.

 It was a busy street, lots of pedestrians and traffic, many stopping at Izzy’s Ice Cream shop a few doors up. The pace was slow and peaceful. Then, the parking spot opened right in front of us and four Harley hogs growled into the space and backed in at an angle so their rear wheels touched the curb. Although I can put a story on a person, I don’t like to think of people tightly woven into stereo types simply because they ride Harleys or wear huraches. Perhaps I kid myself. These four looked like aging gang members. The one who bumped the edge of the sidewalk about two feet from where the couple sat nearly flattened them as he revved his engine so it backfired and coughed a stinking black cloud over all of us. As he swung his leg off  we heard him say, “There, that’ll teach you to respect me.”

All I did was raise my eyebrows, but my imagined response was far more violent. Such small incidents help me understand why people go to war. I can’t help but think of so many places in the world that desperately need peace and justice and it’s not coming as far as I can see. But there will come a day, please, God. “The Lord will cause men to ehar his majestic voice and will make them see his arm coming down with raging anger and consuming fire.” (Isaiah 30:30)

Chickadees leave the nest

Eight babies hatched. You can't see them all here.

Peeping in through the hole.

This week the baby chickadees flew the nest. Although we watched closely, we missed the launch. Yesterday morning they were gone. Eight babies seems like a huge family for two little birds. By the end, the parents were looking very haggard. All day long they played tag team coming with bugs and wiggly, green worms and dee-dee-deeing one another.  Every other day we climbed the ladder, lifted the lid and looked inside to see their progress. We tried to do it when the adults weren’t around, but sometimes they caught us and by the sound of their scoldings they would've liked to thrash us to death.

They are fledged out. Note the bits of green moss at the edges.

From inside our screened in porch we could watch the parents flit in and out.

After they left, I took the house down to clean out the nest. It was clearly the work of artisans and professionals. It had at least three inches of green moss padding the bottom and a finely woven nest on top. Wool snatched from the clothesline, hair, downy feathers and bits of shredded bark were some of the materials that made up their cunning little home.

My mother once told me that the Ojibway Indians, who lived on an island near her parents when she was growing up, used to line their babies’ cradle boards with moss. Later, I learned that moss is very absorbent and has antiseptic qualities. I’m guessing our baby chickadees did not get diaper rash. There is so much knowledge like this that we’ve lost to modernity. I miss them. It’s possible another pair will raise another family yet this summer.

If rabbits ran your farm

Becca of Heartbeet Farm brings the tractor in from the field.

Greenhouse shared by Heartbeet and Easy Yoke Farm.

      Last night we saw a local showing of Greenhorns – a documentary about young farmers around the country who are trying in unusual places and ways to bring nutritious, pesticide-free food to the table and earn a living at the same time. I’d recommend viewing it. These young people are energetic, innovative, educated and very thoughtful about what they’re trying to do. (Is that a little excessive, Margie?)  They are building greenhouses on empty lots in the middle of urban mission districts, reclaiming broken farms, and setting up small shops to sell true artisan foods in the midst of cities. They face enormous financial hurdles, relentless labor, and discouraging government policies. We admire them because we’ve witnessed how they love what they do and we’ve eaten their crops as fast as we could shove shitake mushrooms and potatoes into our mouths.

This was a full-grown rosebush complete with yellow roses sitting on top of the stand

Eaten down to nubbins.

She looks slightly evil as she ignores the radish tops.

     While we were busy watching the film and listening to the discussion that followed, Honeysuckle was busy at home. We had a small rosebush sitting on a stand on the porch. She decided to harvest it before we could transplant it. We never imagined she’d pull it down and eat the whole thing, thorns, yellow blossoms and canes right down to nubbins. On a tiny scale this is proof of what animals can do to your investments if you allow them to run the business. Turn your back for a second, leave the gate unlatched...  just another hazard to factor in if you farm animals.

The way of poppies

      It is the nature of poppies to be fleeting. Here for a few hours, day or two perhaps, then, gone.
For that reason I didn't used to like them. Wasteful, I thought. Now perhaps I'm wiser? Last year we allowed three poppies. This year, so far, I counted seventeen. When you see a miniature orange volcano pressing through the swelling green bud, it's about to burst.

                     Two days ago there were two, now there are five. The weather has been perfect for them, but still, they will not last long. So I go out to look at them several times a day to watch their blazing careers. They nest among the black iris - which is only called black. It is more a very dark purple.

 

Their petals are so delicate the slightest rain or windy weather carries them away.

     When the sun is directly on them, they are almost too bright to look at. But I do. I am filled with both joy and sadness. Our lives - on a stem.

Simply Water

These days, nothing tastes better than this water. (I’ve been drinking heavily during my absence from this blog.) I think it really could be called artisan water. Artisan –  meaning hand-made in small batches – another word hi-jacked by marketeers and ad-people.

It’s simple enough, and maybe everyone else already knows to do this or isn’t interested. Our niece, Mary Blount Lapp, served it from large glass jars at her beautiful outdoor wedding reception in Lancaster County, PA. In one hour I drank twice the recommended daily amount. Couldn’t stop. Still can’t. The combined flavors are so refreshing they stir memories of cold, sweet water drank from a spring near a lake on a hot day years ago.  

Mary’s Water

1 gallon filtered water

3-4  thin slices lime

5 thin slices cucumber

2 small sprigs of mint

Refrigerate til icy cold.

Obviously, adjust to taste. 

      Mary & Ernie's outdoor wedding reception on the hillside of their friends' farm.

Ticks are edible

     This year with spring arriving about a month early we’ve wondered if the population of ticks sneaking around our yard are silently exploding, those creepy little killers. Sure enough just a few days ago, Anita pulled a full-bellied deer tick off Blackberry’s ear.  (He is Honeysuckle’s remaining son, a messy teenage boy, finally ready to leave next week for his new home as a surprise birthday gift to a seven-year-old.)

     Just today the Huffington Post published a warning I take to heart. It is enough for any situational hypochondriac to repeatedly Google Lyme disease and be certain you’ve had it at least  twenty times in the past year. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/04/global-warming-lyme-disease-west-nile_n_1400692.html?ref=email_share

     You can’t be smugly indifferent just because you don’t live in the forest. No. Even we urban dwellers are targets for lyme disease and other tick borne plagues. (If you don’t believe me just go ahead and Google ticks.) I hope the following helps you: it turns out that guinea fowl love ticks! Some reports claim a single hen can clear a two acre area clean of any tick that dares crawl through her territory. But you can’t think in “ones.” These animals thrive as flocks, in communities, not as singles. So if you take my advice get at least two. Three. Perhaps ten. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/04/global-warming-lyme-disease-west-nile_n_1400692.html?ref=email_share

We would love to own guinea fowl, but I doubt our neighbors would tolerate them. Maybe we couldn’t either, when it gets down to it. They have one tiny little unfavorable characteristic.

  

      We have grandchildren who live on ten wooded acres surrounded by hundreds more, who lie on the ground and play in the dirt.... Perhaps it is our duty to protect them from tick-borne illness? Perhaps we should gift them with a little flock. Perhaps Guinea fowl cries could be considered musical if you thought of them as tick-eaters rather than something that makes you scream SHUT-UP OR I WILL KILL YOU THIS INSTANT.

     What do you think, Micah? Jerem?