A Take on Indian- Stuffed Okra

Things are moving along, I have been interviewing with families in my area, because my other mommy's helper job will begin to tapper off, I'll still help her and my Indian family client from time to time, but I want a few more hours a week to keep me busy. It's important for the weight loss maintenance, for my bariatric surgery. See an interview I just did on a local VA television station, WINlifetv.com

http://livestream.com/WINLIfeTV/events/5461983/videos/131775792

But moving on. I've begun playing with food again, healthier options. I cooked for some friends who so graciously let me stay when I'm on book tours with my publishing company. And we share a love for Indian cuisine, but she doesn't have access to the seasonings in her area, a rural farm, so I bring them to her.

Stuffed Okra with squash and onions
Haddock and shrimp with mangos
Boiled potatoes (in veggie stock) and heirloom tomatoes

Okra stuffed with a finely minced ingredients of onion, fresh tomatoes (remove skin and seeds), avocado oil, and a box Indian spice called Tava Fry, something I use for making Bhindi, a chopped Indian Okra dish, sometimes pan sauteed dry with added onion and tomato bits. But this time I wanted to go elaborate. I sliced a portion of the okra, cleaned out half of the seed (slimy part), saved the pieces to cook with bigger sections, and stuffed them by hand, messy but worth it! Your level of spice will depend on how much of the Tava Fry you use. Granite you don't need that box stuff you find in Indian grocers, you can simply use mustard seeds, corriander seeds, or powders, with paprika or chili powder. Make a paste and stuff them, I encourage you to play with the flavors!

Saute in a pan with a bit more avocado oil, or oil of choice, remove onto a plate (drain oil if desired with paper towel), and then saute squash in pan; eventually adding okra back in and adding a bit of stock to steam after you place a lid onto the pan. I used a cast iron skillet.

Fresh Wild Caught Haddock and shrimp:

Season one side of fish and shrimp (after cleaning and drying on plate in fridge for a few hours, maybe afternoon, then seasoning; it helps the fish and shrimp, scallops work well, absorb the seasoning). Lightly add avocado oil and pan saute, once you flip them, add mango, turn off heat, because moisture will collect and continue cooking. Don't over cook this fish or shrimp, fish falls apart, shrimp becomes tough, there is a balance, and if you feel more secure cooking them separately do so. Cilantro for garnish.

Seasoning used was called 'Kitchen King,' Same as Tava Fry, a box seasoning I bring Brenda. No brainer way of making curry flavors.

I won't go into the potatoes too much, just boil till soft, add chopped (seeded and no skin) tomatoes, salt, pepper, and garlic. Something my daughter-in-law makes, and I love a bite or two. It calms the heat from the spices.

All I heard through dinner were these noises, "Ummm, ahhh, wow." I guess it equals to a burp in Asia, which in some of the countries is a compliment! Ha!

Till next time, cook up a storm. Go healthy, organic, local, and homegrown if you can. Practice portion control as I do, if you feel your eating has gotten out of control. I no longer have diabetes or high blood pressure. But follow your doctors orders, I do. I also work with a nutritionist and counselor.

Orange Blossom Hummus

I'm the traveling chef again since surgery, well, really the traveling poet now, but believe me when they find out I work as a chef (still as a personal chef), I get hooked into things, but love it! One of the Greensboro, NC ladies I hung out with for a few days, stayed in her beautiful home built in the 1920's, she invited another poet over for breakfast and tea, and Tracey brought me this lovely jar of hummus made with orange blossom water.

It is the traditional recipe for hummus, not too lemony, but had a flower sort of flavor, not overwhelming. Her husband is from Egypt, and it is a common ingredient in things. I loved it, and at first thought it was cauliflower addition, then lavender, but not perfume like at all. It made sense when Tracey told me what it was.

My tastes buds are off right now due to WLS, but things are coming back. With our world becoming smaller, ingredients like orange blossom water are more readily available, so give it a try! I want to thank Tracey Parker Nafekh (she's going to kill me for this photo hijack!) thank you for my gift!

I can imagine what a hoot it would be to really cook with these gals! They already hooked me into helping with an event in March, a real southern luncheon to boot!

I headed this way a few weeks ago to attend the North Carolina Poet Laureate, 2015 induction ceremony for one of our book authors, Shelby Stephenson, and to visit with him on his historic farm outside of Raleigh. That was another wonderful post on my personal poet website, Elizabeth Akin Stelling.com

A North Carolina Gem- Shub's Cooking by Shelby Stephenson

This is not just a poetry book, it is a viable cookbook. Shelby Stephenson is a North Carolina Poetry Hall of Fame writer. He has put his memory to good use here and recorded many of his mother's recipes from his youth. If you are a cookbook collector and love to read this is a must have!

Everyone of us she put our mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother's recipes into a book like this. When Shelby sent me the manuscript via Red Dashboard LLC Publishing, I had to have it. As a Chef and foodie, fellow southerner, and country farm girl I knew it was a valuable addition to our catalog.

"Poems do not need forms, they need recipes, and Shelby Stephenson’s poems cook. They inter-weave ingredients with metaphors to create delicious poems that entice our palates and our imaginations. Stephenson uses ingredients such as flour, sugar, butter, and eggs to bake enormous poetry cakes, cakes packed with memories and sensual flavors for all."

~ Andrew Jarvis, editor, poet, and author of Choreography, Sound Points, The Ascent, and The Strait

Here are just a few of the things you will find inside...

Banana Split Cake
Bullace
Collard Culture
Croaker
Holiday Cake
Mama Maytle's Fried Chicken 
Southern Chess Pie
Tar Heel Barbeque

Some of the titles bring back memories from my own childhood. If you remember something your own Aunt made, your grandmother, and even a neighbor then you are likely to find it in Shelby's book.

"Shelby "Shub" Stephenson's collection of Poetry, Shub's Cooking, presents what seems like a series of recipes for Southern cooking in alphabetic order; however, like a Faulkner novel, these poems morph into far more than recipes and become hymns and memorials to a way of life long gone. Shub recalls the fried chicken and corn bread we would expect.  But there is coconut pie and the celebration of the bullace grape. He recalls the hunting of squirrel with the single shotgun he purchased and the fish he caught in the creek. He includes a sauce for dove even though he never seems to have shot one.  He leaves one with the sense of life drawn from the land through his mother's efforts and his own, then reshaped into love by his mother's hand in her kitchen."

~ Tyson West, author of Home-canned Fruit

You can purchase Shub's Cooking via Amazon.com

Shelby Stephenson grew up on a small farm near Benson, in the Coastal Plain of North Carolina. “Most of my poems come out of that background,” he says, “where memory and imagination play on one another.  My early teachers were the thirty-five foxhounds my father hunted.  The trees and streams, fields – childhood – those are my subjects.”  After leaving the farm for college, he was graduated from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, University of Pittsburgh, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  He has worked as a radio and television announcer, salesman, right-of-way agent, and farmer. He retired as professor emeritus from the University of North Carolina-Pembroke, where he edited Pembroke Magazine from 1979 to 2010.  The state of North Carolina presented him with the 2001 North Carolina Award in Literature. In 2014 he was inducted into the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame.  He has received the Zoe Kincaid Brockman Memorial Award, the Oscar Arnold Young Poetry Prize, Playwright's Fund of North Carolina Chapbook Prize, Bright Hill Press Chapbook Award, and the Brockman-Campbell Poetry Prize.  

Recipe Request & Contest Goods

If you think you are seeing double blog posts, sorry, but nope! I received a few recipe request (Alexis AKA Mom and others) for that casserole we had on Saturday; that my friend Anna Cmil had made, and she gladly sent it my way, so here it is guys and girls...

Biscuit Topped Italian Casserole

1 pound ground beef, 85% lean
1 can (8oz) tomato sauce
3/4 cup water
1/4 tsp pepper
1 package (10oz) frozen mixed vegetables
2 cups (8oz) shredded cheddar cheese
1 tube (12oz) refrigerated buttermilk biscuits
1 tablespoon butter, melted
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano

1) in a large skillet, cook beef over medium heat until no longer pink; drain. stir in tomato sauce, water and pepper. bring to a boil. reduce heat; cover and simmer for 15 minutes. remove from the heat. stir in vegetables and 1 1/2 cups cheese. transfer to a greased 13-in x 9-in x 2-in baking dish

2) split each biscuit in half. arrange biscuits around edge of dish, overlapping slightly; brush with butter and sprinkle with oregano. sprinkle remaining cheese over the meat mixture. bake, uncovered, at 375 degrees for 25-30 minutes or until the biscuits are golden brown.

(feel free to sprinkle the cheese on the biscuits as well, just adds a little more look to it. also, this dish can be prepared ahead of time and refrigerated before baking.)

Chef E could see this with fresh veggies and a nice vodka sauce!














Girlichef (Heather) had a contest, and I guess I commented that my sister would like the 'purple' salt since that is her favorite color, and they did not have orange! I won a sample, so I am going to take it to her when I go down to Texas in a month and we will cook something together using this lovely 'Merlot' Sea Salt. She is always complaining her kitchen is small, but I bet not as small as my condo kitchen is!



















Kitchen Rap & The Gourmet Girl Magazine was also having a contest, and I go over there to check out her info about other events and contest stuff, and was lucky enough to get this cookbook. Looking through it I have decided to make at least three things in the future. Once I make the dishes from this fabulous book it will go into the donations for my culinary students library (I will still have access). Who would think- Chef m'E, the non-sports fanatic would love this cookbook? The recipes range from comfort familiar to freaking fantastic, and is full of NFL player information all around. I actually could think of a few friends I might have to watch out for when they come over! Purses and pockets will be checked when leaving...



















Last but not least, because he is funny, cooks great food, and is an all around great guy...Buffalodick @ Opinions & Rectums, We All Got One! He donated a t-shirt for my students. He is going to help me devise a contest of sorts...hmmm maybe a chili cook off? The winning (chili) recipe recipient will receive this shirt and a new cookbook as a prize! Thanks Buff- we love ya!