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close your eyes.

what does childhood smell like?

can you travel there, in a blink of the eye?

take a deep breath, can you smell the past, can a scent take you home?

can you say, CARDAMOM?

When I smell cardamom, at heart I am still a little girl. My grandmother is still alive,

everything feels…….warm……..safe……free

can you  smell  hope and possibilities?

NO?!?!?!?!

Hmmm, you clearly need some cardamom in your life!

And so we dove into cardamom, by grinding our seeds in a coffee grinder, and discarding the green pod shell.

And no, ready ground will not do.

At all.

If you don’t have a coffee grinder, you can just cut up and discard the shell and take the seeds out.

A little goes a long way.

Cardamom can be put into a jar of salt and sugar and it will get cardamom infused.

Cardamom salted shrimp with cilantro sauce

Cardamom salt is a great way to spice up your roast chicken, but today we were tossing the shrimp in it.

Shrimp

salt with a few cardamom seeds

oil or butter

First please do devein your shrimp, cause nobody really wants to look at the black string of goo hanging from the shrimps rear end….

Then season generously with cardamom salt, and grill or saute on high heat until just done.

cilantro sauce

1 small bunch of cilantro, stems and all

1 inch piece of ginger

1 small garlic clove

1 tablespoon onion (red or yellow)

juice from 2 limes

green chili pepper, to taste

3 tablespoons canola oil

cardamom salt

Into the food processor we go, we go, whirl, whirl, taste, smell, is it too spicy?

Add more cilantro.

Cilantro, sorry Krishna (our class participant with a cilantro allergy), is a great heat reducer,

as in, if you have made something tooooo spicy, adding cilantro will make it less hot.

Does it need more salt?

It is done, when it taste just right.

You can use the sauce as a dipping sauce or pour it over your shrimp.

Cardamom potatoes

2 medium size potatoes, roughly cut up, boiled in salted water until just done

1/2 yellow onion sauteed in butter and oil, until just beginning to soften

then stir in:

1 tablespoon finely chopped ginger

1 clove garlic grated

2 teaspoons turmeric, or enough to turn your mixture yellow

turmeric salt

finely chopped chili pepper, to taste, optional

1/2 bunch of chopped spinach

juice from 2 limes

Saute the whole shebang until the spinach is wilted and it is all a yummy half smashed potato mixture. Season with more salt if needed.

Cardamom lentils

In a pan with a little oil add:

cinnamon (stick or ground), cardamom seeds (take it easy just a few) fennel seeds (a sprinkle), cumin seeds (a sprinkle) let me simmer for a few until I am fragrant, pour in some

red lentils, cover with water by 2 inches (or so).

let it boil until soft, about 20 minutes, and most of the water is absorbed.

While the lentils are cooking: saute together onion (let’s say 1/2) a knob of ginger, some garlic, some chilies, season with salt and pepper, add in cilantro or parsley (if your name is Krishna) and loads of lime juice.

Add to the lentils and blend with an immersion blender until it is semi incorporated.

SEMI.

not fully.

Half.

Season with salt, and drizzle with some good oil.

Cauliflower with sun chokes

Cause sun chokes, aka jerusalem artichokes, are all over the farmer market right now. Knobbly, and inconvenient to peel, not a potato, not an artichoke, not super interesting but interesting enough. For a change.

I prefer to eat them raw, thinly sliced into a salad, but we did that last year….so now we will roast them with some cauliflower.

1 head cauliflower, broken into small florets

3 sun chokes, peeled and chopped into medium chunks

a good squeeze of olive oil

Please roast us (cauliflower and sunchokes) in high heat (ok 400 or above) tossing every now and then, until we are browned and just beginning to soften then toss with some good salt and some lemon and olive oil tossed arugula.

Say what?

While your cauliflower and sun chokes are roasting. Squeeze one good lemon into a bowl with a drizzle of olive oil. If you got some extra time on your hands, grate in a clove of garlic. Toss in some arugula, season with salt, and toss into the roasted cauliflower sun choke mix.

Artichoke

1 large head of artichoke

Ok, an artichoke will turn brown when exposed to air, which is unappetizing, so once cut open you need to drop it into something acidic, such as water with a few drops of lemon juice, but hey, if you got $1 each organic meyer lemon, that is a waste of good product.

Then give the water a splash of cheap white balsamic or white distilled vinegar instead.

Acid = acid= green artichoke. Doesn’t matter which acidic product you are using.

So trim your artichoke. I like to cut off the top, then go around and trim off all the spiky angry bits of the leaves. Then split into half, then depending on the size of your artichoke, leave it in half, or cut into wedges.

Now boil them right into your acidified water with some salt until just done.

Drain and dry, then grill them on a BBQ or stove top on a grill pan.

Season with salt and pepper, and pour over some seriously lemon dressing.

?

You know, lot’s of lemon, some grated garlic and a splash of olive oil.

Serve with some aioli dipping sauce. Lemon. Or saffron. Or black olive.

Or anything you like to dip them in.

You could also do some melted butter. But that’s a little 1963.

Crunchy chewy rice

I seldom eat plain rice, I am a total fan of rice blends.

Brown rice + wild rice, white rice+black rice, the possibilities are endless.

Today are items are highly seasoned so a mellow non flavored rice blend works well with the cardamom dishes.

Here we are simply blending:

brown rice, cooked

quinoa, cooked

garbanzo beans, canned

Mix all together and serve.

Curly Cranberry Kale

No meal complete without some raw kale.

you know it.

So here we have curly kale, lightly massaged with olive oil, kosher salt, a tiny sprinkle of sugar. Once the leaves begin to soften, taste for seasoning. Add more salt if needed. Sprinkle with some good balsamic and toss in a bunch of dried cranberries, clementine slices, and toasted pine nuts.

Or any dried fruit, and any dried nut.

Cardamom banana clafoutis

Cardamom can be added to any baked dessert dish.

Yummy.

But as always when it comes to cardamom a little goes a long way.

Bananas

agave

1 tablespoon butter

1/3 cup of nuts

Melt the butter with the agave in a small oven proof skillet, add bananas and let them slightly brown. Scatter nuts around and pour clautofis batter, recipe below, over the bananas.

clafoutis mixture

3 eggs

1/2 cup sugar, any (brown, white, agave is ok too)

a few cardamom seeds steeped in 1 cup milk

3/4 cup flour

Place in a preheated 375 degree oven and bake until risen and baked through, about 35 minutes. Serve warm

Tequila sauce