Farro with Tempeh Meatballs with Slow Cooked Marinara Crisped Capers & Cashew Dust – THIS SITE HAS MOVED

THIS SITE HAS MOVED TO WWW.ISLANDLOVEGOURMET.COM

 

 

This is yet another filler post featuring a photo I will probably regret putting on my blog in the very near future. You see today my subject was a little difficult the shoot I even waited till 4 pm to start my photo shoot but alas this vibrant plate  I put together was in no mood for a photo shoot. After fiddling around with the trusty photo shop I came up with almost an artist’s impression of my dish beaming in on the dish itself so you could see the wonderful components it has been made up with.

Farro with Tempeh Meatballs with Slow Cooked Marinara Crisped Capers & Cashew Dust

This is how the dish wanted to be potrayed……yawn

 

 

 

 

Today I wanted to speak about cooking. Don’t I always, but mainly about the art of cooking a term that people these days are tossing around. For me cooking is art, there is passion and there is skill and when those things food comes out at the other end. There are days I don’t cook and these are the days when I just get a ready made product add it to some pasta or rice and add a salad to it and move and those days I personally do not feel satisfied.

We all hold personal definitions and I stand by cooking from scratch and using fresh ingredients when making  “food”. I know I know what about people that do not have a lot of money. Did I say I had a lot of money? I am a food hoarder basically and I buy ingredients every time I go to the supermarket until I get a home food bank then I grow fresh herbs and buy fresh vegetables for when I really want to “cook”. Sometimes we read blogs and some of the views sound like if they are coming from privileged individuals that can buy inaccessible ingredients and this is where my definition stops.

Today still being quite ill I wanted to “cook” for rehabilitation and did not want to lay in bed to let my illness consume me and this is what I came up with.

I wanted something extra nourishing and I went for farro which is pretty “inexpensive” where I live about 3-4 usd for a bag that would serve 10 people. I love tempeh meatballs and I have been using the Vegan Dad’s recipe for a long time now for my personal use adding in Bajan seasoning and smoked Caribbean Pimentos to his recipe. So where are we…farro and meatballs. I started to cook a marinara sauce on the stove and I slow cooked that for 3 or so hours( because I wanted to) as I slowly made my dish and tended to other matters at home. Now for the kicker. I wanted my hard work with making this sauce and this meatball to pay off so I added some crisped capers which when you fry them up turn into these little nuggets of flavor and I made a cashew dust to substitute for parmesan cheese. I then went outside to my garden and got some fresh basil and topped off the dish and dotted it with balsamic vinegar. Sounds like a lot of work right?…maybe it was but I felt self satisfied with my “work”.

With this new demand for quick and easy dishes as many of us including myself move away from long hours in the kitchen where does this leave food? Will my palate ever adjust to someone giving me some canned tomatoes and adding some  dried spices and calling it a sauce or will I too succumb to giving up “cooking” and my personal definition of “food”.

For now, as time permits and I have the will I will continue “cooking” and watching the trends moving forward.

 

Connect with me on Facebook