Photo courtesy of MarthaStewart.com

On Monday, November 9 at 3 pm, I’ll be on the Martha Stewart Radio Show called “Living Today,” with host Mario Bosquez.  We’ll be talking about–guess what?–COOKING UNDER PRESSURE.

I’m hoping that Mario will give me a few of his favorite Mexican recipes to try in the “pc.”

There is a lively group on Facebook discussing pressure cooking.  I am honored by the name they’ve given it:

Lorna Sass is my Homegirl–Pressure Cooker Users Unite.

Years ago, after I did a “pc” demo in Seattle, a man came up and told me that he’d named his pressure cooker Lorna.  He said that he’d come home at night and say to his partner:  “What’s Lorna going to cook for us tonight?”  I was delighted!

The 20th Anniversary revised edition of COOKING UNDER PRESSURE is being released today!

Can you believe two decades have gone by since it first appeared?  I can’t.

While there are pressure cookers in kitchens all over the world, it’s sad that so many Americans are still afraid of using them. Will all of you “pc”enthusiasts please spread the word about how great they are–on Facebook, Twitter, and any place else? As you already know, the “pc” makes it possible to get healthy food on the table fast–not to mention the fuel efficiency aspect. OK, I’ll get off my box…

Let’s celebrate with one of my favorite recipes from the book.

RISOTTO WITH SUN-DRIED TOMATOES AND SMOKED MOZZARELLA

Risotto in under 10 minutes with only a little stirring at the end?

Enjoy this 4-minute risotto from COOKING UNDER PRESSURE. It has become one of my standard company dishes because it’s made with ingredients easily kept on hand and everybody loves it. Serve it with a tri-colored arugula, radicchio, and endive salad for a complete meal.

SERVES 6 AS AN APPETIZER, 4 AS A MAIN COURSE

• 4 MINUTES UNDER HIGH PRESSURE

1 tablespoon sweet butter

1 tablespoon oil from sun-dried tomatoes

1/2 cup finely minced onion

1 1/2 cups Arborio rice

3 1/2 to 4 cups vegetable broth

1/3 cup sun-dried tomatoes packed in oil, drained and coarsely chopped

1 cup tightly packed, grated smoked mozzarella (5 ounces)

Salt to taste, if desired

1/4 cup chopped fresh basil or 2 tablespoons minced Italian parsley (optional but pretty and delicious)

Heat the butter and oil in the cooker. Sauté the onion until soft but not browned, about 2 minutes. Stir in the rice, making sure to coat it thoroughly with the fat. Stir in 3 1/2 cups of the broth (watch for sputtering oil).

Lock the lid in place and over high heat bring to high pressure. Adjust the heat to maintain high pressure and cook for 4 minutes. Reduce pressure with a quick-release method. Remove the lid, tilting it away from you to allow any excess steam to escape.

The risotto will be fairly soupy at this point. Set the cooker over medium-high heat and boil uncovered, stirring vigorously every minute, until the mixture thickens and the rice is tender but still chewy, 3 to 5 minutes. Add a bit more broth if the mixture becomes dry before the rice reaches the desired consistency. When the rice is ready, turn off the heat. Stir in the tomatoes and mozzarella, and add salt to taste and basil, if you wish. Serve immediately.

Yes, that’s me on www.cookstr.com! Click and you’ll see me smiling at you.

Take a peek.  It’s a nice site for finding some terrific recipes. Happy cooking!

The mosaic eyes that line the white tiled walls of the Chambers Street Station have always seemed strange, but since the fall of the twin towers, they seem downright weird.

It’s difficult enough to get off at this stop and experience the inevitable torrent of sadness.  Why do we have to deal with these eyes?

At first glance, the eyes appear quite alike.  But these close-up photographs reveal that each is casting a unique glance, some kindly, some questioning, others petulant.  What are they doing here?  What do they see?

Any day I visit the Conservatory Garden on Fifth Avenue and 105th Street is a good day.  Since the garden changes with the seasons and every season sports different plantings, I never know what I’m going to find there.

Yesterday the north garden was a riot of mums, but not your ordinary hardy mums that show up in every florist shop and window box.  These were Korean mums, kinda like daisies with an attitude.

When I was a kid growing up in suburban Long Island, grass was that short green stuff covering everyone’s front lawn, and most dads spend their weekends pulling out crabgrass instead of playing with their kids.

I presume we got this idea of lawn grass from the great houses of England, whose sprawling fronts yards swooped downhill for acres–but the whole notion should have stayed there.  It was and still is a bad idea to have little squares of short grass in front of suburban houses :  it’s ugly and stupid, requiring lots of time and nasty chemicals to keep it looking decent.  (In case you haven’t noticed, I hate lawn grass.)

But there’s another kind of grass that has me very excited–the native grasses cropping up in home and public gardens everywhere, and boy is it eloquent to behold.

All these grassy thoughts came to me yesterday.  After enjoying an elegant (but uneven) lunch at Bouley to celebrate my birthday, The Sweetie and I strolled south along the Hudson to Battery Park.  It was perfect weather for a Libra:  not too hot and not too cold–the kind of clear day whose perfection can bring tears to your eyes.

The Sweetie was his usual sweet and patient self as I oood and ahhhd over the plantings and took 150 pictures.

We walked west on Chambers street and crossed over the westside highway on the Tribeca Bridge (who knew there was one?) and found ourselves in Rockefeller Park where Tom Otterness’ little people and funny animals live above ground (parted from their relatives who frolic on the 14th Street subway platform of the C train; see my blog on those delightful creatures).

Then the magical grasses began to appear, swaying in the wind and glistening in the light.  I couldn’t get over how tall the grasses has grown since the spring.  Their plumes were cotton candy for eyes, accompanying us all the way down to Battery Park:

I always thought hydrangeas were big, round, and dopey–the ultimate suburban shrub.  Indeed, they were a front-yard cliche in the Long Island suburb of my youth.  Last month the sweetie took me to a jazz festival in Chatauqua, way upstate in western New York.

Everyone in the community vies to have the most beautiful garden. From a distance, some of the bushes reminded me of how dull hydrangeas can be.  In all fairness, it was the end of the season and most blooms were not in their prime:

But some bushes forced me to drop my distain and take a closer look.

I was amply rewarded by the subtle gradations in color.

So my advice to all is this:  Next time you pass a hydrangea in bloom, zoom in on it.

What is the reflection?

What is real?

Since I live on the West Side of Manhattan, I’m not as familiar with east side subway stops, so when I went downstairs at the Wall Street station (I can’t remember whether it was the Lexington Ave. or N/R line), I was shocked to see that so many of the original details had been restored.  Oh, how I wish this approach had been taken with other stations!

Fava Bean Soup with Wild Mushrooms and a Dollop of Pesto

I know it’s fall when I start dreaming of soup.

I make all of my soups in the pressure cooker because when I want soup, I want it fast.  To put it another way, I’m not one who enjoys hovering over the stove.

No, when I’m hungry, I’m good for about 5 minutes of prep.  Then, after 10 minutes under pressure and the natural release (another 10 minutes or so), I have a delicious coarsely pureed soup.  30 minutes MAX from start to finish–that’s my style.

I use the following recipe as the base for various meals during the week and usually freeze some for a meal or two down the road.

Small, split fava beans make a nice alternative to split peas and lentils, but you can substitute the latter if you have a hard time locating split favas.

FAVA BEAN SOUP

2 T. olive oil

1 large onion, coarsely chopped

1 t. whole cumin seeds

1 t. whole fennel seeds

8 cups water (if it’s boiling, the pressure will come up faster)

2 cups split, peeled fava beans

3/4 oz. dried wild mushrooms (or omit the mushrooms and use chicken broth instead of water)

1 tsp. salt, plus more to taste

To serve, add one of more of the following:

Sliced, fried chicken or turkey sausage (spicy andouille is nice)

Frozen green peas and/or corn

Frozen leaf spinach

Chopped fresh cilantro, basil, or parsley

Salsa

Tapenade or pesto

Diced avocado

Heat 1 T. oil in a 6-quart or larger pressure cooker.  Add onions, fennel, and cumin seeds, and cook over medium-high heat until onions are lightly browned.  Stir in 8 cups water and salt.

Lock lid in place and bring up to high heat over high pressure.  Reduce heat to maintain high pressure and cook for 10 minutes (lentils and split peas) or 12 minutes (split fava beans).

All pressure to come down naturally, about 10 minutes.  Stir well, adding salt to taste, additional tablespoon oil, plus other ingredients suggested above.

I know exactly why so many people have trouble cooking brown rice:  they have lousy pots.

It’s so easy to cook brown rice if you own a heavy, 2-quart enameled pot. I wish Le Creuset pots weren’t so expensive, but keep in mind that they last a lifetime.  Mine is bright red and it cheers me up every time I take it out of the cupboard.

So if you want to cook great brown rice, make the investment and you’ll be guaranteed success.

Here’s what you do.  I like to throw in a little Colusari red rice for color, but you can use all brown.

1 cup brown rice (I prefer short-grain for its chewier texture)

1/2 cup Colusari red rice or Chinese black rice, or additional brown rice

Pinch salt (optional)

Bring 2 3/4 cups water to a boil in a 2-quart Le Creuset pot.  Stir in the rice and salt, if using.  Cover and reduce heat.  Simmer for 45 minutes.  Let stand 10 minutes.  Fluff up and enjoy!

Or do what I’ve done for the picture:  press a portion of rice into a ramekin and unmold it onto a plate.  Easy and so elegant.

p.s. Freeze any extra rice.  Defrost in the microwave–tastes as good as freshly made!

I haven’t had much luck with the irresistible bonsai plants I’ve picked up at street fairs, but when I saw a bonsai ficus at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden shop I decided to give the category another chance. The store manager assured me that ficus bonsai are easier to grow successfully than other types.

I didn’t take a picture of the new plant, but it was bursting with leaves, planted in a deeper pot than one normally expects with bonsai, and looked something like this image I found on the net (no photographer to credit, alas):

When I returned home on August 30th after two months away, the ficus had lost all its leaves.  I like to think that it missed me, but more likely it was either over-watered or under-watered by the person taking care of my plants.  Wish I’d remembered to take a picture, but both the ficus and I were in shock.  I googled around and couldn’t find anything about this type of ficus going into dormancy.

I decided to do something drastic:  I pruned it down mercilessly–bare bones.  I then placed it in the “plant hospital,” a spot behind my sofa that gets southern light but is out of sight.  (I can’t stand looking at a sick plant.)  I watered it regularly but sparingly.

One day, I peeked down behind the sofa and saw a few green leaves poking out of the base.  I was ecstatic:

A few weeks later, there were so many leaves, I released it from the hospital and set it on the window sill.  How interesting that the leaves are growing from the base, where originally there were none.   How gratifying that the bonsai and I co-operated in what appears to be a complete recovery.

Often when I’m visiting a garden, I’m so focused on  the flowers that I forget to pay attention to the leaves.  In Central Park’s Conservatory Garden last Saturday, the leaves had such astonishing shapes and colors that I was drawn to photograph them.  I’m realizing more and more that memorable gardens have a perfect balance of flowers and foliage plants.

It must be twenty years since I last visited the Cloisters.

I have no idea why I’ve let so much time pass between visits to this extraordinary place.

In the early seventies, when I was writing my medieval cookbook, To the King’s Taste, I used to go up there often to study the spits and cooking pots and eventually to teach children medieval cookery at an afternoon program there.

Even on a somewhat crowded Sunday afternoon, the three cloistered gardens retain an aura of tranquility:

There’s a quince tree growing in one of the cloisters:

The stained glass is remarkable, especially when the late afteroon sun is shining through it:

There are people and animals with funny faces staring at you from every nook and cranny:

The views of the Hudson are magestic:

The Cloisters is only about five miles from where I live, but to go there is to climb into another world:

Get thee to the Cloisters now!

Sometimes when I’m feeling blue, I’m lucky enough to remember to head to a garden.  Living as I do in New York City, this aim usually involves a walk–a good thing, since getting my body moving is a good way to start feeling better.

Since I lost my beloved 19-year-old Siamese cat last Wednesday, my frame of mind was far from cheerful on Saturday–and since it was already October 10, I went to the Conservatory Garden not expecting to see anything in bloom.  Boy, was I surprised!

Once there, I got involved in photographing the beauty and had a salutary respite from mourning my cat’s death.

I want to express gratitude for gardens and say special thanks to the brilliant landscape architects and gardeners who know about late blooming flowers and remember to include them in the garden planting scheme.

Harvesting Quinoa. Photo complements of truRoots.com

I didn’t make it to the Natural Foods Expo in Boston this year, but the folks from the Whole Grains Council were scouting the convention center for all sorts of interesting new products made from whole grains.  Among them were Popgum, which is organic popped sorghum, and Inca Corn, a crunchy snack made of large kernel corn grown in the highland Andes.

I was enchanted by this photo on the Whole Grains Council blog and grew very nostalgic about my trip to Ecuador with Inca Organics a few years ago.  There I saw organic quinoa growing in all of these magnificent colors.  La Yapa Organics showed a variety of products made from fair-trade quinoa grown in Bolivia, including flakes, puffs, and pasta. Among other products, Nature’s Path showcased their latest gluten-free wholegrain, organic cereals:  Crunchy Vanilla Sunrise and Crunchy Maple Sunrise.  (I am currently in the process of developing some tasty GF recipes using these cereals “beyond the bowl” in cookies, pies, and cakes.

Click here for a more complete report and to sign on to the Whole Grain Council’s lively blog.