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Spice Up Your Life with Slow Cooking

November 3, 2015 •

slow-cooking-cookbooksWhen the rains return and clouds build up, North­west­ern­ers talk about feel­ing cozy. The locals smile about the lumi­nous skies. It’s time to plunge into juicy nov­els, go on a Net­flix binge, or get back to last win­ter’s knit­ting project. Haul out the fleece and the down sweaters. Go for long walks in the rain.

For me the fall weather also sig­nals the sea­son for slow cook­ing.

On rainy week­ends like the one we’ve just had, I take the time for slow-paced foodie projects that will reward us with mouth-water­ing fla­vors:

  • Slow-cooked lentil stews brim­ming with root veg­eta­bles
  • Savory lentil soups à la Française
  • Roasted veg­eta­bles: car­rots, pota­toes, sugar pump­kin, sweet pota­toes, onions and leeks
  • Lamb cur­ries, North African style
  • Pot roasts and boeuf bour­guignon

When you embrace slow cook­ing, you learn to accept delayed grat­i­fi­ca­tion, wel­com­ing the tan­ta­liz­ing aro­mas that per­me­ate your home as things sim­mer. From a yoga per­spec­tive it’s a prac­tice of “mind­ful­ness for the nose.”

Not Just for Vegetarians

Ours is not a veg­e­tar­ian house­hold. We love poul­try and tasty cuts of meat.

That said, we’ve begun a delib­er­ate quest to cut back on meat con­sump­tion, espe­cially red meats. Despite the self-pro­mo­tional denials by the meat pack­ing indus­try, we’re con­cerned by the lat­est sci­en­tific reports that link increased risk of can­cer to the con­sump­tion of red meats and processed meats.

As a health­ier alter­na­tive to red meats, we’ve begun exper­i­ment­ing with savory veg­e­tar­ian-inspired dishes. This in turn has dri­ven us to go look­ing for exotic spices, nutri­tious grains and fresher ingre­di­ents that will punch up the fla­vors and aro­mas.

Slow cook­ing is a great way to get the tasti­est results from dishes that rely on grains or dried beans. It’s also a very effec­tive way to be sat­is­fied with poorer cuts of meat, or smaller pro­por­tions of meat, rel­a­tive to the veg­etable com­po­nent.

New Discoveries

Star anise

Star anise

My inspi­ra­tion for this sea­son’s slow cook­ing comes from some cook­books that go well beyond the sim­ple plea­sures of Joy of Cook­ing (listed below.)

Another cat­a­lyst was last year’s quirky Christ­mas gift for my hus­band, a spice dis­cov­ery kit that has brought us year­long joy. (He loves cook­ing too.)

I’ve also been moti­vated by the ease of sourc­ing ultra fresh spices and herbs thanks to local and online mer­chants, includ­ing Ama­zon for hard-to-find ingre­di­ents from other coun­tries.

I’ve exper­i­mented with Le Puy lentils and red rice from Camar­gue, and have quickly used up my trial orders of these tra­di­tional French grains. So much bet­ter than dried out and bor­ing lentils or boxed rice from the gro­cery store chains! Now it’s time to find local stores with bulk sup­plies of these upscale ingre­di­ents.

My new fave source for dried herbs and freshly ground spice blends: Seat­tle’s World Spice Mer­chants (avail­able at Pike Place Mar­ket or online.) Thanks to Pen­zeys and World Spice Mer­chants I’ve been refresh­ing our spice stocks, throw­ing away jars with dubi­ous ingre­di­ents that are too old or faded. I’ve finally learned to ignore my moth­er’s voice whis­per­ing in my ear, “Hold on to your spices until the jars are empty…”

As a result our kitchen is redo­lent with pun­gent aro­mas from star anise, bay leaves, kaf­fir lime leaves, car­damom pods, freshly ground cur­ries, Ras el Hanout and other exotic ingre­di­ents.

These spices and ingre­di­ents lend them­selves to North and East African stews, North Indian style cur­ries, world fusion soups, and France-meets-Morocco dishes.

Some have even spiced up my bak­ing projects. Yes­ter­day’s dessert fea­tured Comice pears poached in a spicy honey syrup with star anise, vanilla beans, car­damom pods and cin­na­mon sticks. The syrup included freshly squeezed orange and lemon juice, along with a gen­er­ous quan­tity of cit­rus zests.

Next on my list of cook­ing exper­i­ments: Curry Bread Pud­ding with Car­damom Cream.

My adven­tur­ous hus­band is delighted to join me for the fun of explor­ing new spices and slow-cooked foods from dis­tant coun­tries.

Food for Thought

To learn how to com­bine these new-to-us ingre­di­ents in pleas­ing ways, I’ve relied on cook­books, sup­ple­mented by online research:

  • Splen­did Soups by James Peter­son (fea­tures recipes from around the world)
  • Around my French Table by Dorie Greenspan
  • Patri­cia Wells at Home in Provence by Patri­cia Wells and Robert Fré­son
  • Euro­pean Peas­ant Cook­ery by Elis­a­beth Luard
  • Love Soup by Anna Thomas
  • Mourad New Moroc­can by Mourad Lahlou

The Inter­net has been a great source of authen­tic recipes from coastal African coun­tries, Afghani and Mid­dle East­ern-inspired dishes. We’re still enjoy­ing Thai cui­sine, thanks to my hus­band’s child­hood there, but we’re rel­ish­ing this oppor­tu­nity to broaden our reper­toire.

We wish you the savory joys of new dis­cov­er­ies. Happy cook­ing!

About This Blog

Reflec­tions on life, travel, books, and yoga. Think­ing out loud about the pur­suit of mind­ful­ness and well-being.

Learn­ing how to recover from the loss of a beloved spouse, and then to find a trans­for­ma­tive path for­ward.

About Me

Semi-retired marketing exec, transitioning from a career in high tech. Now "managed" by two Tonkinese cats. Missing travel and friends on the West Coast. Avid reader and foodie. Staying active with long walks, biking, kayaking and yoga.

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