There is wind, drying brown leaves blowing, that kind of bright yellow sunshine that only comes on the chilly perfect days of autumn.  I could and should be outside for hours every day.  Instead we are all on Facebook and Huffington Post and 538.com.  Last days.  For the moment, reality-based democracy seems to have it in the bag, but we are looking for constant confirmation.  And what about the Senate?  And the House?  I found myself calmed somewhat yesterday-- oddly-- by politely conversing a while with someone who holds diametrically-opposed opinions to mine.  We were civil.  The world did not come to an end.  Let's not let this Trump campaign be the end of civility.

Emotionally, too, I've been blown by gusty winds this week: full of grievances and questioning the motives of everyone.  Food, as always, is my touchstone.  This week in recipes:

Mridula Baljekar:

• Spicy Grilled Chicken, served with Saffron Rice and salad.  As always, I am having trouble finding links to Baljekar's dishes online.  "Spicy Grilled Chicken" is a terribly generic name and there are a million kinds of saffron rice and Baljekar seems to have published several different versions of all her dishes in various cookbooks which all bear similar names.  The one I own (Best-Ever Curry Cookbook) seems to be one of the less common ones.  So, I shall describe these dishes to you.  The Spicy Grilled Chicken consisted of chicken thighs marinated in lemon, ginger, garlic, chilis, sugar and honey, treated with cilantro and more chilis, and then broiled, or in my case baked at a high temperature, because my broiler is unusable.  It was perfectly fine-- flavorful enough chicken pieces, without sauce, but that was OK because a) the chicken was thighs and wouldn't dry out, and b) the saffron rice had its own flavor.  The saffron rice, which was simple basmati rice cooked with cardamom, cloves, and saffron, and a little milk, was also fine.  I felt that it had more saffron than it needed (1/2 tsp.), and would have been fine with less, which is an important point given that saffron is sometimes said to be more expensive than gold (my research suggests that this is not currently true.  But still).  I am a much bigger fan of Baljekar's cookbook now than I was a month ago, but-- while both of these dishes were solid enough-- neither one was anything special.

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Madhur Jaffrey:

• Peas with Ginger and Sesame Oil, served with bulgogi-and-sweet-potato omelets and toast.  Because it is October, and because it is difficult to find shelled fresh peas in any season, I used frozen peas for this recipe and the next.  These peas were extremely simple: basically stir-fried with ginger, sugar, sesame oil, and toasted sesame seeds.  I felt that the result, given recipe instructions, was too heavy: too much salt, too much ginger, too much sesame.  You don't normally hear me complain about "too much ginger."  An easy but not particularly well-balanced recipe.

The week in cooking featured a series of uninspiring vegetable dishes, one utilitarian but oh-so-necessary french chocolate cake, and a kick-ass delicious Indian meal from Mridula Baljekar, who is swiftly redeeming herself.

​Mridula Baljekar:

​Chicken in Green Masala Sauce, with Nut Pulao (also from the same cookbook, but no link available).  Gradually I am becoming sold on Mridula Baljekar.  These were both amazing recipes, and I'd be happy to make them again and again.  (In fact, I have already made a pared-down version of the Nut Pulao again this week.)  The sauce for the chicken, made from blended yogurt, ricotta, spring onions, coriander, mint, green chilis, garlic, ginger, and (surprisingly) green apple, was both easy and incredibly flavorful.  Then the chicken was basically just cooked in the sauce, no weird parboiling necessary.  The rice for the pulao was fried with onion, carrot, and garlic, and then cooked with vegetable broth and spices.  Walnuts and cashews were added at the end.  It was sweet and fragrant and delicious, although I felt it stood on its own so well that it did not need to be swamped in green masala sauce.  In the future I'd make the chicken with plain white rice, and the pulao with something simpler.  I'd make both for company, happily.

​The Internet:​

Valerie's French Chocolate Cake, from Smitten Kitchen.  I made this on Wednesday night, so that we could eat it while we watched the third presidential debate.  The idea is to ward off evil influences per Lupin's wise advice.  To this end, while I only made a single layer of this rather simple cake-- full of butter and chocolate but with a mere 1/3 c. flour-- I also made a great deal of chocolate whipped cream (who knew you could make chocolate whipped cream?  A revelation) and dolloped it heavily on top of our plain bittersweet cake slices.  The dementors certainly did their best, but we and Hillary Clinton prevailed.  How was the cake?  Fine.  Nothing special.  My kid, who had bizarrely decided to drink a double espresso at 5:30 that evening, was not able to fall asleep after the debate until 1 am, and so spent the next day shoveling slices of chocolate cake into their mouth to try and keep their energy up.  So it served its medicinal purpose twice.
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Bon Appetit:

• Cauliflower with Pumpkin Seeds, Brown Butter, and Lime, served with marinated grilled tofu, plain quinoa, and cooked turnips.  I like roasted cauliflower, as I like most roasted vegetables.  Did I find roasted cauliflower to be markedly superior when dressed with pumpkin seeds, red pepper flakes, cilantro, and lime juice?  Not really.  Enough said.  The turnips were better and I just cooked them with salt, pepper, and butter.

Like everybody else, I need wholesome distractions from the fascinating, disgusting, outrageous, wanton nonstop train wreck that is Donald Trump.  Cooking is one of them.  Others include mystery novels and going to my day job.  Also, like Hillary Clinton, I spend a lot of time watching cats (in my case, I have one in the house who does very well).  This week in cooking:

The Internet

• Sunken Apple and Honey Cake (Smitten Kitchen).  When I find a really simple, delicious, visually-amazing dessert that comes out perfectly, I immediately begin to fantasize about making it for company.  Deb Perelman's Sunken Apple and Honey Cake is company cake.  (Or, it could be company breakfast cake, served with brunch.)  The crumb is somehow dense and light at the same time, while the apples and honey syrup give it a beautiful moistness.  I found some tiny Lady apples at the Whole Foods, and these were ideal to quarter (the apples were too small to core whole and then halve, as per the recipe instructions) and slice thin into the decorative apple fans you see in the photos.  They also had great flavor.  We ate two slices of cake each upon its debut, leaving only a quarter of the cake for lunchboxes the next day.  It was so, so good.  If you want to dress it up for company, I bet a bit of whipped cream wouldn't go amiss.

​Bon Appetit

• Classic Potato Gratin (Nov. 2015).  This was a time-consuming recipe-- between making the garlicky sauce, slicing 4 lbs. of potatoes very thinly, and a long baking time-- that was not really worth the result.  (I did not use a mandolin to slice the potatoes, as history suggests I will merely slice the end of my finger off and any time "saved" will be squandered in bandaging.)  The flavor of the potatoes was good-- garlic, butter, thyme, cream, cheese!-- but, even with a longer browning time than called for, they were only barely crispy on top, and quite mushy on the inside.  I could make creamy garlic potatoes a lot more easily by, say, mashing them.  If you do make this recipe, I would recommend removing the foil from the pan earlier in the baking process, in order to let the potatoes dry out and crisp better.  We ate them with brussels sprouts and salmon filet (my kid) or sausages (my husband) or both (me).

​Madhur Jaffrey:

• Fried Okra with Fresh Curry or Basil Leaves, served on the side with slices of parmesan-covered toast, pears and raspberries.  A strange recipe: the okra (I bought fresh this time) was sliced very thin, fried without breading in a lot of oil along with basil leaves, and then blotted, spiced and salted.  It did not become crunchy, although it seemed to me that would have been the only point of such a procedure.  Instead, the okra darkened, shrunk to a tiny wizened size, and tasted salty/spicy.  Once it had shrunk, there was not a lot of it left, rather like cooking a bunch of spinach.  It was not bad, neither was it good.  As a treatment of okra, it left me somewhat mystified.
• Okra with Tomatoes, served over toast with scrambled eggs on top (my kid had cooked mustard and turnip greens in place of okra).  This was basically cooked okra with some tomatoes, garlic and spices added.  A good shot of lime juice gave it a pleasant bite as well.  While not earth-shattering, this was a more logical way to serve okra than the above method.  I would skip the eggs and toast next time and simply serve it as a regular vegetable side dish.

​Mridula Baljekar:

• Chicken Saag, served with packaged naan and topped with plain yogurt and chili powder.  A mixed review for the Chicken Saag.  It tasted wonderful and my husband loved it.  But, as may be seen from the photos, my sauce ended up as thin as a soup, not the thick spinachy paste pictured in the cookbook or familiar from Indian restaurants.  Now, in retrospect, this is not surprising, since 8 oz. of spinach, 4 tomatoes, and 1 cup of water (plus seasonings and chicken), cooked with the cover on as directed for about 30 minutes, are unlikely to produce a thick sauce.  Why all that water?  Is that an error?  But we ate it anyway, enthusiastically, with spoons to consume all the tasty broth and naan for dipping.  The leftovers were even better the next day.  Even now that all the chicken is gone, I still have about 2 cups of leftover sauce in the refrigerator.  I guess we'll just have it as a soup.

Maybe it's something about fall.  There is so much pleasure in stocking one pantry and refrigerator, looking over the stores of apples and onions and sweet potatoes and jars of grain, the cheeses and eggs in their dozens.  I want abundance and then I want to use those things so neatly and sparingly, feeding us delicious food now but yet also preserving that sense of abundance for the colder weeks ahead.  Such a squirrel instinct.  

​Madhur Jaffrey:

• Okra with Potatoes, served with whole urad beans and white rice.  I am the only person in my household who likes okra, and we have three weeks' worth of okra recipes from Jaffrey ahead.  More for me!  But it turned out my husband consented to try this dish, a heavily-spiced Indian stewed version of okra which was highly flavorful, except that I forgot to add the salt until the last minute and so it did not have a chance to infiltrate the potatoes.  I also used frozen okra, but, surprisingly, this seemed to work out fine.  Recommended-- if you like okra.
• Okra Cooked in an Australian Manner (how's that for a recipe title?), served atop quinoa in a bowl which also included cooked sweet potato, with a dish of Sweet-and-Spicy Mixed Nuts (see below) on the side.  This okra is basically stir-fried with chile, garlic, soy sauce and sesame oil; my handwritten cookbook note reads "Okra cooked in a boring manner."  I mean, who needs a recipe for that, right?  All the same, as I single-handedly consumed the rest of this okra over the next few days, it grew on me each time.  The slices of gently-cooked garlic that still retained lots of garlic flavor were the best part.  Once again, I used frozen okra, and once again it was fine.  Easy, albeit intuitive, preparation.

Bon Appetit:

• Sweet-and-Spicy Mixed Nuts, served with the meal described above.  I kept having to stop myself from referring to the flavor combinations in this recipe as "nuts."  Maple syrup, rosemary, red pepper flakes, and smoked paprika?  Really?  And you know what?  The first nut or two struck me as "weird."  After that I was totally hooked.  These are so, so addictive, sweet and savory and spicy and beautifully glazed so that sometimes they even form delicious  crunchy clusters (!).  You should make these for your family, or maybe for holiday gifts.  Wait, I should make these for holiday gifts.

​Mridula Baljekar:

• Chicken Tikka (this recipe is almost but not quite identical), served with lettuce, raw rings of onion, lime, cilantro, and white rice.  Next time I would serve it with naan instead, as the chunks of chicken are flavorful enough to make an excellent sort of sandwich, but not very saucy.  This recipe is obviously a cousin to last week's Chicken Tikka Masala, but did not call for a "boughten" (as my Midwest relatives say) spice packet.  It still came out good.  That's two winners in a row for this cookbook, after several initial failures.  I am heartened, though in a way also disappointed that I can't just write it off and move on-- I have so many cookbooks and my life is, optimistically-speaking, about half over!  I won't get to them all!