Apres Cleanse Dreams: What to Cook (from my favorite food blogs) when the Cleanse is finally over

I'm extremely jealous of all of you. You with your pasta dishes, cheeses and your pies. Just who do you think you are, tempting me this way?! Oughta be ashamed, that's what.

But seriously, I have to say that the fall season seems to have brought out the very best in the food blogs. Here is a round-up of sorts of the foods I am dying to try once I'm off this infernal cleanse:

I, like so many of you out there, have a hard-core pumpkin fetish bordering on the kinky. I'll try anything as long as it involves pumpkin. It's sick. The blogger at Cashews and Hummus writes cleverly about the pumpkin love that dare not speak it's name. She tempts me with a simple jar of pumpkin butter. See here.

Also, from Cucina Panzano, I am tempted by a new twist on an old Italian favorite, a Pumpkin Cannoli. Cucina also writes about the Stonewall Kitchen headquarters and store inYork, Maine, a place that is very familiar to me and reminds me of the summer . . . sniff.

Close in flavor and versatility to the pumpkin is the sweet potato. And there are many, many recipes to choose from. Here, I'll choose a savory and a sweet dish. First, the savory: an unusual take on a favorite Arabic vegetarian food, Sweet Potato Falafel, sounds very intriguing to me. Recipe by ARUGULOVE.

For the sweet dish, I'll go for a pie. But not just any old, sickeningly sweet, marshmallow-infected sweet potato pie, but a Sweet Potato Pecan Pie from Closet Cooking. Sweet potatoes and pecan pie filling? HOW can this go wrong? It can't, I say.

One more from the orange vegetable group: a Spicy Carrot Soup from Simply Life. This one I could probably tweek to make it cleanse-friendly and eat it now!

Umami. It's the "earthy" flavor that you either love or hate. The word comes from the Japanese and basically means "tasty," or "meaty" or "savory." Put me down for a "yes" on all three.

One of my favorite sources for this flavor is the mushroom. Now, Japanese mushrooms are encouraged on the cleanse, but I'm having a hard time finding them, except for shitakes. Anyway, when the cleanse is over, I'll be sure to try Wild Mushroom Soup from Chocolate and Croissants (this is a really cool, French-themed blog. Check it out.).

Recently, I published one of my poems, "The Changeling Maid," in Goblin Fruit, an online poetry journal. In the bio section, all the contributors are asked to tell what is their favorite fruit. Well, who can really choose . . . my own tastes seem to change with the seasons. Anyway, I chose "figs" from which one of the best cookies on the planet are derived. Ciao Chow Linda tells us how to make Fig Jam, a staple for making all sorts of fillings and sauces with figs.

In addition, I picked up some sweet Italian sausage at the farmer's market this Saturday. Their meat is local, humanely raised and sustainable. I'll be enjoying the savory-sweet taste of sausage in about a week or so, and when I do, you can be sure I'll be posting about it.

Food of the Wild Soup

I’ve wanted to make something like this for a long time: collect several wild edibles and put them together into a great-tasting dish.  Here, I’ve combined fiddleheads, stinging nettles, shitakes (yeah, well, they’re wild somewhere; I don’t know my wild mushrooms well enough to be safe) and arame (Japanese sea vegetable) for a soup in honor of the wild foods of both land and sea.

Food of the Wild Soup

First, soak about ½ cup of arame in cool water for 10-15 minutes. If you do this first, by the time you finish the other steps, the arame should have plumped up to twice its original size, which means it’s ready.

While that’s happening, please heed the warnings and follow the directions for preparing nettles seen here.

After you’re done blanching the nettles, you’ll need to do the same for the fiddleheads (but a minute or two, once, is long enough).

Next, you need a dashi, which is a Japanese broth flavored with sea vegetable (usually kombu) and bonito flakes. If you don’t have these weird ingredients – I never do – use a vegetable stock and improvise with some dried nori (the seaweed they wrap sushi in) and some fish sauce (or fish stock). Put 4 cups of dashi/stock on the back burner, add some grated ginger if you like (I like) and a teaspoon of soy sauce, and just let it start simmering.

Meanwhile, heat a small amount of oil (not olive oil, here. Safflower, grapeseed, peanut would work) in a skillet. Add 5 or 6 chopped shitake caps and 1 small leek, sliced (white part only). Add a pinch of salt and a dash of sake (optional).

Add the fiddleheads and nettles, season with salt and black pepper and stir to incorporate.

When the shitakes are slightly browned, add mixture to the dashi. Keep heat low. Add the arame.

Before serving, take about ¼ cup of the broth and add to 2-3 tablespoons of red miso to dissolve. Add the dissolved miso back to the pot, stir and serve.

I serve this with udon noodles, which I prepare separately to prevent them from sucking up all the liquid in the soup.

Here are some other articles and comments about nettles:

"The Common Stinging Nettle" by Euell Gibbons, writing for Vermont Weathervane

"Stinging nettles -- I cooked them and lived!" at Chowhound

"Stinging Nettles Need a New Name!" at OrganicMania

"Mini Specialist| Food Found: Stinging Nettles" by William Snyder, writing for WSJ

Check out these recipes:

Nettles pasta with fava beans, from No Recipes

Spring Tonic Nettles Soup, from Wild Food Ways