torley manor

A couple years back, someone in the Big Burrito Restaurant Group was kind enough to release the recipe for their Mad Mex Chickpea Chili to one of Pgh’s fine media outlets for their food section (forgive me for not remembering exactly who that was). And this was a good thing – as this Chickpea Chili rules.

This recipe is a tomatillo based. Tomatillos can be difficult to find. When we first found this recipe and attempted to try it, we were forced into the arms of the evil, heartless bastards at Whole Foods. Luckily last year we were part of a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program through Grow Pgh and were offered tomatillos throughout the summer. This year we are even luckier in that we have a garden in our yard with 5 tomatillo plants loaded with fruit. In the last week the crop has just begun ready to harvest. With the first handful we made a salsa verde – with the second, we decided to make this chickpea chili.

So here is what you’ll need…

2 pounds fresh tomatillos
2 jalepeno peppers
1/2 cup roughly chopped (spanish) onion (1/2″ chunks)
4 cloves garlic
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/4 cup olive oil
1 32 oz or 2 15 oz cans of chickpeas
1 tablespoon freshly ground pepper
2 tablespoons chopped cilantro

In case you aren’t familiar with tomatillos, here is what they look like…

a whole bunch of them still in their husks


and a closer up look with the husks peeled back

First step is to de-husk and rinse the tomatillos. They will be a bit sticky under the husk. This is normal. Do not freak out. Simply rinse in hot water and most of the stickiness will disappear (tho’ this kinda makes the skin feel a bit slimey – once again, not out of the ordinary). Chop the tomatillos in halves or quarters and toss in an ovenproof pan with the chopped up onions, garlic and jalapenos. Pour in the olive oil and salt and stir around. Toss into the oven at 500 degrees for about 20-25 minutes until the tomatillos are soft and lightly browned.

Remove the tomatillo mixture from the pan and put into a blender/food processor. Puree until smooth. Depending on the size of your machinery, you may need to do this in a couple batches. The Mad Mex recipe now tells you to strain this mixture through a fine-mesh strainer. Theoretically this is to remove the tomatillo seeds and any portions of tomatillo skin that don’t puree properly. We did this the first time that we did this recipe and it was a real pain in the ass. We have skipped it in subsequent cookings and the result is fine. You decide what you like.

At this point take the puree’d mixture in a saucepan, adding the chickpeas, cilantro and black pepper and simmer over medium heat. Do this long enough to cook and soften the chickpeas (maybe 15-20 minutes?)

Supposedly this recipe makes 6 1/2 cups. Ours made enough for us each to have a small bowl for dinner and a small container to take with us for lunch the next day. The corn in our garden is ready for harvest now too, so we cooked up a handful of ears of corn and rocked that with the chili.

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On a side note relating to Mad Mex. On Sunday night after going to see the Simpson’s Movie (which was a good time. recommended), Emma and I were feeling the need for something salty and some drinks (having forgone popcorn and soda at the movie this time around). As such we decided to hit up the Oakland Mad Mex at around 9:30 on a sunday night to get chips and salsa/guac and some bevvies. It had been a few years since we’d been to that location as the excessive noise and college boneheads and the general lack of personal space there makes it generally unappealing to our sensibilities and we’ll normally go to the McKnight Road location if we are feeling in the mood. However, I must say that on a sunday evening in the summer, Oakland Mad Mex was a pleasant experience. Our waiter Eric kinda had this weird bobblehead thing going on where he bounced his head from side to side as he talked to us, but he was super quick on the refills. A+ job!!!

subtitled: “On the nature of living in Bloomfield”

We spend a lot of our spring, summer, and fall evenings eating dinners and drinking tea at The Cafe Torley, which is just a little table and two chairs that barely fit on the concrete pad in the backyard. We are usually pretty quiet while we’re out there, either reading, or just being our general quiet selves. This results in other people not realizing we are there …… and our neighbors do enjoy having somewhat private conversations via telephone while standing on their front porch. Tonight’s entertainment was the teen next door describing her vacation-acquired sunburn, which was currently in blister form all over her stomach.

Oh, Bloomfield Free State! I never chose this neighborhood for privacy, that’s for sure!

In other news, I’ve finally gotten around to doing the research about maintaining the strawberry bed that I’ve been meaning to do since spring. Turns out I was “supposed” to mow the plants totally (down to the root crown almost) right after they finished bearing ….. a month ago! If they’ve made it this far with as little maintenance as they’ve received, I think they can withstand another day or two of slowpoking on my part. Here’s a really informative article about taking care of your strawberry beds, if anyone else’s bed has kind of developed mange.

Our humble cucumber plants have been producing beautifully in their little corner of our yard. I’ve neglected taking pictures of them, so here at long last is a cucumber boner for you.

A brief comment on the name of this type of pan: I always thought that some clever inventor named a pan after their bad self but it turns out that it’s less clever and kind of stupid. The German word Bund means any number of things, but can mean collar or waistband or ring, essentially. The story according to wikipedia is just that the inventor put a “t” in the name …. just because. Kind of dumb.

Anyway, I really enjoy cakes made in the Bundt form — partly because they seem kind of more elegant and classy than other cake forms, and partly because my mom made a lot of Bundt cakes when I was growing up. The one she always made was a poppyseed cake, which featured 4 eggs if I recall correctly. I did successfully make a vegan version of that cake and was really proud of myself, but I almost never write down what I did to change a recipe and if I do write it down ….. I never note whether it was successful. A remarkably inefficient system.

I’m not sure where I found this cake recipe, because I pulled the hand-written ingredient list out of a pile of other hand-written recipes copied from all over the place with no notes on them beyond how hot and how long to bake them. If this is your recipe, my apologies for taking all the badass credit this cake deserves. It is perfect!

Ingredients:

• 1.25 c canned coconut milk (I you only have a 6oz can, use that and then add soymilk till you reach 1.25 cups)
• 1 c flaked coconut (I think unsweetened coconut is FAR superior in this recipe but if it’s 9:52pm and the Bloomfield Shur-Save only has sweetened coconut, make it happen.)
• 2/3 c yogurt (If you buy a small carton of soy yogurt, don’t bother measuring it. Just dump it in. It’s fine.)
• 2/3 c canola oil
• Zest of one lemon (or, see above Shur-Save scenario, you can use a hefty splash of lemon juice from a bottle. The zest actually does taste notably better though.)
• 4 c flour
• 2.5 c sugar
• 2 T baking powder (I usually do scant tablespoons because I’m paranoid about tasting the baking powder.)

1. Preheat the oven to 350 and grease the fuck out of your Bundt pan. I don’t care if it’s nonstick. Seriously gross yourself out by greasing it so thoroughly, especially the center column. That’s where it always sticks. I’m telling you.
2. Mix together the dry ingredients in a large (LARGE) bowl: flour, sugar, baking powder, and shredded coconut.
3. In a smaller bowl, mix the coconut milk, yogurt, oil, and lemon juice if you’re using it.
4. Gently mix the liquids into the dry ingredients. It won’t be quite as wet as you’re expecting it to be and that is okay.
5. Carefully spoon the batter into the prepared Bundt pan, avoiding drips.
6. Bake for about 60 minutes (test after 50 minutes) and remove from oven. Let cool in pan for 15 minutes before carefully loosening the cake from the pan and dumping it out on a rack to cool the rest of the way.

I made this batter into cupcakes once and made an insane frosting featuring coconut milk, and put shredded coconut and slivers of mango on top. Because I am crazy, I took one with me to the airport to welcome my sister home from an international flight. I think she liked it and simultaneously it made her want to barf. The lesson here is that this cake is good with just a dusting of powdered sugar on top. No frosting is necessary, unless you want to make your weary traveler friends feel gross.

My new bag arrived today…

Custom made for me by the fine folks at Reload Bags in Philadelphia. I’m really stoked with how this came out. I agonized over the color choices for months and although the bag color is a bit subdued, i think it lets the design stand out nicely.

As for the design – it is from a traditional Pennsylvania Dutch hex sign – in this case it is part of a “Bless This House” design by Jacob Zook. The bird is called a Distlefink and is commonly used in PA Dutch designs as a symbol of good luck and happiness. As many of you know, Emma and I have a double distlefink design tattoo as our wedding tattoo. I’ve been pretty heavily into using image from PA Dutch culture over the last few years (He Taught Me Lies LP cover, wedding tattoos, now this bag), but I think this marks the end of such use for awhile.

Now I just need to find a nice non-leather replacement for my beatup wallet – any suggestions??

Lentils are one of my favorite foods. Red lentils win over all other kinds though, because they are tiny and cook very very quickly. When I was camping in Nebraska and South Dakota a few summers ago, I cooked all my meals and ate a lot of red lentils (and oatmeal, but that’s for another recipe post!).

One of my favorite meals is a recipe from a great cookbook called Vegan Planet. We make it pretty frequently, and it’s a great one to keep in the back of your mind because the ingredients are all things you’ll just have around and don’t go bad quickly. I like recipes that you don’t have to buy anything special for.

1. Chop up 2-3 carrots and 1-2 ribs of celery into fairly small chunks. Put ‘em in a pot with 3/4 cup of red lentils and enough water to cover the contents of the pot. Bring it to a boil and then cover and let simmer till everything is pretty soft, maybe 20 minutes. Usually I turn it on high till it boils like a mofo and then turn it down. Evidence: lentil residue all over the inside of the pan.

2. Meanwhile in a big skillet (or a saucepan), brown 1-2 minced garlic cloves in a few tablespoons of olive oil. Add one small can of tomato paste and cook it gently for a few minutes to mellow the flavor a bit.

3. Drain the cooking liquid off of the lentils. This is a little bit scary because there’s no really good way to do it. I just hold the lid on the pan (with pot holders because it’s still hot and there will be a lot of steam unless you are a lot more patient than I am) at a slight angle and pour out the liquid into a measuring cup while trapping the solid stuff inside. The amount of liquid you get at this point varies of course on how much water you put in to start and how hard you cooked things. Usually I wind up with a little over 2 cups:

4. Slowly add the lentil liquid to the skillet, just a bit at a time, dissolving the tomato paste into it. This part is just like making gravy.

5. Then add the lentils and vegetables, a hefty shake of salt, and some freshly ground black pepper. Let it simmer on low while you cook a pound of whatever pasta you’re feelin’.

6. Top each bowl of pasta & sauce with some chopped fresh parsley. From your garden. Because you are awesome.

What more do you need from a meal?

There was sadness in the Torley Manor garden today, for today was the day when I decided to rip up the string bean plants. Production was down. Cuts had to be made. Witness the devastation…

But the good news is that we had a handful of yellow bean seeds left, so we are planting another batch. This will be our first attempt to plant a late string bean harvest. As I stated in an earlier post, in previous years we’ve gotten more beans than we’ve known what to do with. This year, the main harvest was much more modest, so it’ll be nice to get a second coming of beans in the late summer/early fall. We’ll keep you posted on their progress.

Also today we harvested the first of several crops.

Here we have our first ear of corn. I’ve been keeping a close eye on it. The ears have still looked a little thin, but on sunday i pealed back the husk on this one ear and it looked about ready. After taking another look at it today, the kernals seemed of a proper size, so i yanked this guy off the stalk. We didn’t eat it yet – but it looks beautiful!!! Will probably harvest some more ears in the next couple days. I can’t adequately describe to you how excited it makes me to get corn from my own backyard.

And here is the first plucked tomatillo!!! Even tho’ I suggested that they weren’t ready yet, Emma just couldn’t help herself. Look at this lil’ fucker. So cute!! Not sure what we will do with one tomatillo, but others should also be ready in the coming days, so perhaps a small batch of salsa verde??? We’ll keep you posted.

This is not a household with a lot of traditions, but we have fallen into a (beautiful) pattern of sleeping in just a little bit on Sundays and then making a much-bigger-than-needed breakfast to eat while reading the newspaper. It is probably my favorite segment of the week, and I especially relish it when, like this week, the preceding days have been hectic and I haven’t eaten or slept well. Sunday mornings are a little oasis.

This morning we made “the usual” – a tofu scrambler, potatoes, and waffles. It’s extra wonderful right now because we are in the peak of summer bounty. The scrambler had chard and herbs from our garden, the lovely little new potatoes were a gift from a friend with a too-big CSA share, the peaches were just a few days old from the farmer’s market, and best of all: my mom picked the raspberries not 24 hours earlier.

Behold the summer bounty.

Here is a small tip if you have never peeled peaches before: It is the easiest thing and you’ll be so glad not to feel the peachy fuzzy fuzz on your tongue. Put a pot of water on to boil, toss in a whole peach and let it bounce around for not even a full minute. Take it out, let it cool a bit, and the skin practically falls off.

Upon finishing the newspaper and my coffee, I began puttering around the garden — cutting off flower heads past blooming, picking a cucumber or two, pulling a few weeds. I heard a shuffling in the alley behind the garden and peered out through the hole in the fence:

(That’s from the alley looking inward toward our garden.)

I noticed somebody in the alley, felt freaked out for a second because they were being really quiet, and then realized it’s the old man who lives three houses down and has never said one single word to me in the three years we’ve lived here. I say hello to him every time I see him — he stands in the living room of their house, parts the curtains when we are parking the car or walking down the street and stares. He has not even nodded his head at me. I have no idea if he exists on the same plane we do. Maybe he is deaf? I have no idea.

So I say, very very loudly, through the fence “window”:

“HELLO! HOW ARE YOU DOING?”

And he keeps doing what he’s doing for another minute before shuffling off. Q and I went out to see what he was doing back there and lo, he has been “weeding”…..

Oh those? Those weeds our neighbor kindly pulled for us?

Yeah, those are nasturtiums that we planted so we could have flowers in the alley.

My mind was so thoroughly blown that I couldn’t stop laughing for about 45 minutes afterwards. What the fuck.

Recently it was asked on the NTMTO messageboard about the concept of “building stuff from scratch” and whether it was worth it or not. In this case, the person was interested in building some shelves. In my mind, there is always value in attempting to try something and learning new things. Of course, that value needs to be weighed against the value of your time, the money spent doing the project and anything else you need to set aside in order to build stuff from scratch. Most will determine that attempting to build your own couch from scratch probably is not worth your time (however – here at Torley Manor – we continue to ponder the thought, as all the couches/sofas we fine are just slightly too large for where we want to put it. Are DIY couches possible??? More news soon!!!) , but building your own shelving unit is probably a project worth dabbling in, especially if you own your house and are looking to build units to fit into specific spaces. I’ve built several shelves for around Torley Manor at this point – the first being a CD shelving unit, the 2nd being a cassette shelving unit, and most recently a multi-use unit in our bedroom. Let’s take a closer look at that last project.

Here is a photo of the area in question from when we first moved into our home.

As you can see, the previous owners left us a nice assortment of knic-knacs, bric-a-brac and other such crap, as well as a ghastly fireplace screen – all of which was quickly shuttled off to the local Goodwill. What we were left with was this kinda plain, kinda ugly, blocked-off, non-functioning fireplace and for the first few years we didn’t know what to do with that area. Putting a table or something there seemed weird, but also leaving it open didn’t really work either. Thus entered the idea of building shelves under the mantle in front of the blocked off fireplace.

Here is the final product…

Here’s how I went about this project…

1. I measured the area under the mantle – both the height, width and depth. I determined that using standard 1x pine boards, the deepest I could make the shelves without sticking out past the existing mantle would be 6 inches, which we assumed would work out fine since we only planned to put CD’s, zines and smaller books on these shelves. So the main construction would be from 1×6 boards.

2. Using the measurements, I put together a cardboard template of the area (for this I used extra LP covers I had from The Sea Like Lead/Belegost split LP taped together. Use whatever ya got – cardboard boxes, butcher paper, whatever). We wanted to do something a little more interesting than just straight across shelves, so making a template helped out a lot. I measured the things I wanted to put on the shelves (zines, cds, books) and planned the shelves for maximum efficiency. Using all this info, I was able to draw out a full-size 2D replica of what I was planning and could determine if it looked right or not.

When making a shelf that will sit on the floor, it is advisable to plan on a kickplate against the floor. I just used a piece of 1×4 to raise the first shelf off the floor so that stuff was less likely to get kicked or full of dustbunnies. For symmetry’s sake and also to make things on the top shelf more visible, I opted to put a 1×4 along the top as well.

“Pro” tip for laying stuff out that will be build with lumber — lumber is not actually the size that they call it. A 1×6 piece of lumber is actually 3/4″ thick and 5 3/4″ wide. Keep this in mind or your layout will totally not work upon buying the actual wood. Lengths are usually pretty much correct (an 8 foot section is actually 8 foot).

3. Speaking of which, once you have stuff laid out, you figure out your wood needs. Make a list of the sizes of all the individually cut pieces and calculate the best way to make it happen. If you’re using 1x planks of lumber, realize they usually come in a wide range of sizes. The price differential between an 8 ft piece and a 12 ft piece for example would be pretty minimal and thus makes getting bigger pieces more frugal if you can transport it, but please, don’t be one of those people with 8 ft of wood hanging out your passenger side window. It’s dangerous!!

4. Ok – now you’ve got your lumber and you’re ready to start building. Triple check those measurements and cut the pieces for the main frame of the shelving unit. If you’re not trying to get fancy and are just doing a simple shelve, screwing it all together with drywall screws is the easiest way to do it. I think I used 1 1/4″ drywall screws. It is recommended that you drill pilot holes in the wood before screwing it together to prevent the wood from splitting. Choose a drill bit a little bit thinner than the shaft of the screws you are using. This releases the tension of the screw entering the wood but still leaves enough wood there for the screw threads to dig into. Once I had my outside frame screwed together, I took it up to the mantle to make sure it fit before I started adding any of the other shelves. All was good, so I moved forward.

5. When beginning to cut any shelves or uprights or anything for inside the frame, use your template measurements just as a guideline and make actual measurements from the frame itself. Slight variations in your wood or your cuts can add up and its better to measure off the actual product rather than your template.

6. Once all the shelves are together, it’s time to do some finishing work. I try to sink my screws just enough that I can cover them up. Take a little wood puddy or even joint compound and fill in above the screw. Let it dry and then use a fine grit sandpaper to smooth it out. This may take several applications. Then it’s time to paint. Spraypainting my project probably would’ve gone a bit faster, but being without an area with really good ventilation, I opted to paint it by brush. I first laid down a couple layers of primer and then just used a plain interior white paint, nothing fancy.

7. Since the shelves wouldn’t be against a flat wall, I opted to put a backing board behind the shelves. This I just cut from a piece of panelling that we had lying around. I painted the reverse side of the panelling (the non-panelled side) the blue color of our walls to offer some contrast to the white shelving. This I then screwed to the back of the shelves.

8. Finally I put the shelves in place, screwing down thru the mantle to secure it from the top, then toe-nailing finishing nails (How-to toenail!) through the side uprights of the shelves into the wood frame of the fireplace. Where the shelves met the fireplace frame was slightly uneven, so I used some joint compound to smooth out the transition and to cover up any screw/nail holes.

Overall not the most professional looking thing in the world, but it certainly made a world of difference in what that section of our bedroom looks like and offered some needed storage space.

This is not actually a stew per se (the original recipe calls it a bisque; I would just call it a soup.) but it’s delicious and pretty multi-seasonal.

By the way, if you are wondering what the difference is between a soup, stew, or bisque, this page has a handy chart.

1. Chop up an onion (yellow or white) and maybe 2 pounds of carrots. I don’t bother peeling the carrots unless the skins look old or really dry, or thick, or otherwise unworthy. Chuck ‘em in a pot with some vegetable oil to cook for tennish minutes, till the onions start to brown.

2. Once the onions are browned, chuck in a few cloves of minced garlic, some turmeric, cardamom (just a wee bit), cumin (a ton), coriander if you have some laying around, some freshly ground black pepper, and more salt than you think you should add. The reason for the more-salt-than-you-think is that carrots can be overwhelmingly sweet, especially in a soup. Taste your carrots raw and see if they are really sweet or only a little sweet. Maybe this soup would be gross if you have bitter carrots, I don’t know!

3. Let that cook together for only a minute or two more, and then add two generous cups of vegetable broth. Enough to come up to the top of the vegetables in the pot. Bring it to a boil and then turn it down and simmer it till the carrots are soft.

4. When it’s done, stir in a half can or so of coconut milk. I put in a lot less coconut milk this time around than the previous time and I think it’s much improved; it tasted kind of too rich for dinner last time.

5. Blend that shit up. You have a couple options here:

a) puree the whole mess

b) puree half the mess and pour it back into the pot so you’ve got chunks and thick soup together in one glorious sloppy bowl

c) mash some of the carrots while the soup is still in the pot, with a potato masher.

6. Taste-test that soup and realize you should have put in more salt. Fortunately it is not too late. At this stage, I added a bit more water and a bit of soymilk to get the consistency where I wanted it. I like having part coconut milk and part soymilk — the soup still tastes pretty rich and not just like a bowl full of babyfood, but isn’t so heavy.

7. Serve hot and enjoy!

Behold, smashed Japanese beetle corpse. They are evil leaf eaters and will kill your plants if there are very many of them. We’ve only got a few — probably not enough to cause real damage but I am vindictive. I think we would have had more, except that I chopped the pupae in half with a trowel in the early spring. I held one up to Q’s momma and said “uh, are these good or bad?” and she said “Emma! Those are Japanese beetles!” (as in “duh.”). So I dug up as many as I could find and chopped them in half. Disgusting. But not half as disgusting as having to smash one of these glittering beasts. They are large and make a crunching sound.

As a quick aside: Before anyone makes any “but I thought you were vegan!” comments about my bug-killing ways, let me assure you: I am not vegan for animal (or insect) rights reasons primarily. Those reasons are far far down the list compared to environmental sustainability and human rights reasons.

At any rate, aside from the occasional Japanese and cucumber beetle, our garden is doing very well. I don’t think we’ll get any broccoli, which is a sad thing – It hasn’t flowered yet and I don’t think it will. Could it be not enough bees? Could it be the harried sprout-hood our poor broccoli had? Was it just too hot when we transplanted them? There’s always next year.

The corn is amazing and grew another foot or so since the last rain:

And the tomatillos are filling out their little paper lantern husks and looking more magnificent every day:

Our pumpkins are insane. Have I mentioned that I’ve never grown pumpkins before? We are growing a small variety, Jack-O-Lites, that can be used for carving and for pies (hooray!). We have them trellised up the back fence, and they’ve climbed up over the top of the fence and are halfway down the back again.

When you trellis a pumpkin (or melon, or any heavy vine fruit), you can’t rely on the vine to support the weight of the fruit. Once it swells up, it will get too heavy and snap the entire vine. So you’ve got to support it in some way. My mom’s suggestion was to stick a lawn chair under each pumpkin (she thought we were growing huge suckers) but what we wound up doing is making little slings for each one, out of a knee high stocking.

yup.

The stocking is like a little hammock underneath the pumpkin, and is stapled (ok staple-gunned) to the trellis. As the fruit grows, the stocking will stretch; I’m hoping that it’ll stretch enough since the pumpkins won’t get too big. I’ll report back, of course.

They are the cutest fucking things. I tell you what.