WIAW 100 – a Milestone!

Wow – this is really my hundredth What I Ate Wednesday post?

OK, it took me more than 2 years, I did not post every week. Pretty close, though. And I do want to get this going earlier in the day, for more people to see it. And… this is really my hundredth WIAW post??

The Big Event this week, of course, was the Blizzard – Second deepest snowfall recorded in NYC. But I didn’t have to go out in it. And it is being followed by warm, very sunny days – so what we really have now is the Big Melt. All this means that, though ’96 has now officially been passed twice, it’s still really the biggy in terms on impact on the city – that didn’t melt for 2 weeks, and it was the time *after* the snowfall that was hard on everyone. Now, everything is just icy slush… (and I still don’t have to go out much – so I’m not!)

For breakfast I’ve gone back to the hot cereal and protein shake – easy, stays with me, tastes good… Right now, this shake is just kefir, orange juice, and sometimes a pinch of ginger, with protein powder. I may vary it a bit, as he gets used to it – I was playing last year with shakes based on salt lassi – seasoned with spices, instead of fruit.I don’t eat a lot of fruit in winter, though, so I don’t want to move completely away.

Having developed a cereal mix that was Just Right, I am (of course) tinkering with it. Well, see, I really do like it. But I can’t always get my hands on polenta or grits. I’d read some time ago about someone using masa harina for porridge, tried it, and didn’t like it. But a little of that with a lot of millet… and still some teff, for flavor…  Also, making it for Rich is interesting. He wants a more assertive flavor. He’ll sometimes use fruit, or some jam a friend gave us, but he’s also nudging me towards more savory flavor. We may end up with a new category of Porridge Seasoning – like all the condiments used in rice in Asia. Well – why not?

For lunch, I ate leftovers. Garam Masala chick peas, sauteed with cabbage and served over millet – made extra the other night and then packed it all together. I was able to get some beans – chick peas, white beans, and lentils – in bulk, so you’ll be seeing a lot of them… but I chose them because there are so many things I can do with them!

It’s funny – if you look back over the previous 99 posts, you’ll see that we really eat beans a lot. I haven’t written about them half as often as we eat them, though. Partly, a lot of that has been the food I don’t think of as a Recipe – but I should… Partly, much of the emphasis on beans in this country has been in vegetarian eating, and many of my dishes do use some meat. But that’s really the traditional use in most of the world – a little meat to flavor the beans, a lot of beans to stretch the meat, and it all evolves into classic dishes – and so my Cuban friend is always the one who Makes the Beans for Christmas Eve when four generations gather… it wouldn’t taste like a Cuban Christmas without The Beans!

So I had already decided that we, personally, would increase the beans we were eating, and that I’d write about them more – and then I discovered that this is the International Year of Pulses – as declared by the United Nations! Chickpeas, lentils, peas and beans – all wonderful foods that have been too often ignored. Well – they won’t be passed over here anymore.

Which doesn’t mean that I will routinely do this… It looks as if I ate lunch leftovers for dinner, or cooked the same thing twice in a row, or something… I have to tell you, I didn’t even realize how alike they were until I went to edit the pictures! Lunch was the leftover from a couple of days earlier, so I wasn’t even thinking about that when I planned dinner… And despite chickpeas and cabbage in both, they were quite different! I had half a baked acorn squash to finish up – and squash goes beautifully with any beans I’ve ever cooked…  And then, yes, I finished the cabbage that’s been kicking around all week – and added some chicken, and seasoned the whole with ginger. The squash and ginger gave it all a warm, slightly sweet flavor quite different from the garam masala at lunch. (And after all – no one would blink an eye at chicken twice a day…)

One Hundred posts about Beans on the Blog, one hundred posts about beans, you take one down and pass it around… well, maybe I’m getting punchy. We’d better sprint over to Laura’s for Jenn’s party – she’s just talking about octopus, not beans!