Gardening: if you know how to grow food, you know how to feed your family

Today, I wanted to share a link about local farming. Basically, back yard gardening. If you know how to grow food, you know how to feed your family when money/work/lack there of won't. Russians are doing this  on large scale and feeding their country in excess. If you think about the amount of land we as Americans have individually (those who owns houses, of course) and how much of it is used on growing lawns that don't provide us anything, it becomes interesting. What if all that land were used to grow vegetables? Really, why are there starving people when we have land we've cleared out and is just sitting there growing vegetation we can't eat that we keep cutting away at for fear it will become unrully?

It's bizarre when you think about it really.

But that topic can go pretty deep. On the surface though it makes sense, and I personally think when I have a lawn of my own or land of my own, I will maximize it to grow all kinds of fruits and vegtables. Hell, I may even get to growing barley and hops to brew my own beer as fresh and natural as possible.

Second is a link talking about mixed cropping, or growing multiple plants in the same area to aid each other in growth and maximize the utilization of land for better yeild. An interesting idea I plan to look further into.

Finally is a interesting little video I found here about making an African style raised bed garden. I think the idea is pretty interesting and could make an interesting focal piece, as well as growing more veggies. Another thing I plan to try out

Shared Recipe: Doenjang jjigae (Korean miso stew)

So I've occasionally been going to Waba, a local Korean restaurant on Hillsborough st here in Raleigh. From time to time they add new items that aren't on their normal menu. Yesterday, I was informed of one such new item that hadn't been posted or anything, a Miso stew. It had a load of vegetables including cabbage, potatoes, onions, garlic, zucchini, and tofu, as well as beef. So I figured I'd give it a shot. When it came out it had a really weird smell to it.

But when I ate it, it was absolutely delicious.

Apparently the staff was worried that Americans wouldn't like it because of the smell. I guess, knowing how finicky other Americans are, that would make sense. But to me, if it's supposed to taste good I can get past the weird smells or looks. And this didn't disappoint.

So the above video is the closest aproximation to the one done at Waba. obviously there's some differences, like shrimp instead of beef and no cabbage from what I can tell, but for those willing to try out a weird smelling food that tastes great, this should be worth it.

I'll go soft with the beer recommendations here and say it would go well with a pale ale or a IPA because it's a bit of a spicy stew. In fact, might not be bad to try with a Rye PA like Sierra Nevada Ruthless Rye.

The lessons of a ton of rice in Thailand

http://thediplomat.com/2012/11/10/rice-piles-how-thailand-lost-its-spot-as-worlds-top-rice-exporter/

This I figure is an interesting read. It deals with a government's attempts at price fixing, and how it has horribly went wrong.

I mean, there are many comments that can be made about this, mostly in the political field of view. My purpose here is not to make political posts, but perhaps bring a current event to the forefront of people's minds, and perhaps to ask "How could this have been avoided?" or "how could this have been done better?"

For my own input, I would like to say that this is a lesson that there are many facets that need to be taken into consideration in politics, and the nature of economics is one of the most important that is most sorely overlooked.

Beyond that, I think one should look at this very objectively. Not from their own perspective or beliefs, but rather very analytically to try and understand why this didn't work and how this could have been done better to ensure the desired results while also not harming others in the process.

What is a "luftbaloon"?

So when I showed the Psy video "Gangnam Style" and theorized about how it, being an international song not in English, managed to do so well here in America when many others do not, I knew there were other songs that have done remarkably well in American charts that were not in English. Most notably German songs.

The first song that came to my mind was Rammstein's "Fuer Frie". It was featured in the opening of Vin Diesel's xXx and became a huge success, making them one of the biggest international industrial metal bands.

I don't listen to the radio that much, but as recent as a few years back I remember the rock radio still playing "Du Hast". I still listen to their albums from time to time.

What surprised me, though, was another song, also in German, beat it to the punch by somewhere around 20 years. It's a song most people have heard, but probably few people know what it's about.

99 luftbaloons

Apparently, the German version of this song was a chart topper in the 80's and was more popular than the English version in America. Mind you, this is according to Wikipedia so take it as you will.

I never really thought much about this song until I heard a punk cover of the song in English

Given the time period, if you know anything about the cold war this song makes alot more sense in English. It just goes to show how tense the cold war was, how close to nuclear war we all were, and how popular the anti-war sentiment was.

Shared recipe: Chicken Chhoyla (Nepal)

I intend to make another few blog posts (food review and some music), however studying is getting in the way. So until then I decided to look up a recipe from Nepal to share.

This one I cannot comment on as I haven't had it this way, however I will make this recipe one day. When I do so I will make a modified version of this which excludes alot of the hot spices (some members of my family have health problems with hot spices) and share that version with you.

Beer recommendations will follow with that recipe.

Shared Recipe: Pollo a la brasa (Peruvian Grilled Chicken)

Today's shared recipe is Pollo a la brasa, or Peruvian style grilled chicken. Now, my father is from Peru, and he grills some tasty chicken. It took a while for us to coax him into cooking more, and it's still a bit of a rare treat to get him to do so, but when he cooks his home specialties, it's rare to have leftovers.

Pollo a La Brasa, pictured from food.com

This style of cooking, he explains, is common in Peru. Rotisserie chicken in this style is served fast food style there. Interestingly enough here in my local city a few places serving this kind of rotisserie chicken have popped up over the years and become quite popular. 

The key is marinading the chicken overnight, cutting it into pieces so it's easier to pack together into the marinade. Marinading it overnight allows for all the meat to absorb the flavor, and even the chicken breasts tend to be amongst the most flavorful parts of the meat at that point. Then you either grill or bake the chicken (I recommend charcoal grilling myself) until done. It is absolutely some of the most flavorful chicken you will have. I guarantee. 

 My family uses a store bought marinade called "Inca's Food", found at a local Hispanic market. However, this recipe provides a home made marinade alternative I intend to try for myself. I also, when I have made a homemade tandoor oven, intend to try skewering the meat and cooking it tandoor style to see how it turns out.

When I do (this recipe that is), I will provide a followup post with a review and any changes I would suggest making to the initial recipe. Until then, follow the links at the beginning of the post for the recipe. Give hits where hits are due.

As for beer recommendations, this is a meat rich in spices and flavor, but is not in and of itself spicy. therefore my first recommendations would be a rich, malty beer that doesn't push the pallet too hard, something in the category of a rich amber, a red or imperial red, or a mild porter. Lagunitas Imperial red and New Belgiums Red Hoptober are both great seasonal reds rich in malt character, but with both being seasonal are not guaranteed to be found when you're looking for them. So for all year New Belgium Fat Tire or especially an Oscar Blues G'knight Imperial Red ale. A Sierra Nevada Porter would also be a good choice, having a smokier flavor but still mild and smoother than a stout.

#recipes #peru #chicken #beerrecommendation #cooking

Shared Recipe: Tandoori Chicken

Regularly on this blog I want to share recipes with people. Usually I want to really share recipes I've tried and created myself, but I also want to share recipes I find too because, well, I enjoy cooking and love the food that gets made in the end.

I figure I'll sure the titles and tags "Recipe Time" for my own recipes and demonstrations of the recipe and "Shared Recipe" whenever I just want to share one. So for today are going to be two takes on the Indian recipe "Tandoori Chicken".

First is an oven baked take on it. Let's be honest, most of us don't have a tandoori, and getting one is impractical. An actual one at least. So this is an alternative. I figure when I make this I'll put it on a foreman grill get get that nice charring at the end he describes. Most likely this will be how I will try it.

I also wanted to show a video of how to make a tandoor oven as featured on Alton Brown's "Good Eats", but well copyrights and all appears to keep it off of Youtube. So instead is a link on making one of your own. Something I'd love to do one day. The main difference here would be instead of baking it you'd just skewer the chicken legs and place them in the tandoor to cook.

And with these recipes and food review I like to include a beer recommendation. Wine would be nice as well but I'll be first to admit I'm not aficionado with wine.

So for beer, alot of Indian foods and other similarly spiced foods do well with hoppier beers, and this is one of them. I'd recommend at minimum a nice pale beer such as Sierra Nevada Pale Ale or New Belgium's Shift Pale Lager. IPAs and Belgian IPAs also do well (IPA of course standing for India Pale Ale. That history well tied to the East Indian Trading Company), so I'd recommend Heavy Seas Loose Cannon IPA, Dogfish Head 90 minute Imperial IPA, or New Belgium's Belgo Belgian IPA.

#cooking #recipes #food #indian #tandoor #beerrecommendation

EDIT 10/20/12: Changed the link for the tandoor oven to show all instructions to give you an idea of what to do.