Roast Beef & Caramelized Onion Sandwich with Cranberry Salsa & Cilantro Yogurt Sauce

The pictures for this sandwich post and its recipe have been sitting on my computer for weeks, waiting for words to accompany them. But every time I tried to write, my heart sank. The ambivalence I felt about food media in the wake of the election has grown into a deep discomfort as, in an unexpectedly short period of time, one by one, we have seen some of the most outrageous campaign promises become realities. At a time when the civil liberties, human rights and lives of so many people are at risk; as we take giant leaps backwards on decades of hard won progress towards equality, it is tempting to think - how can anyone write about sandwiches right now?

But this uneasy coexistence of suffering and frivolity is not really new. Westerners are used to carrying on with the trivialities of daily life in the midst of the distant suffering of others. We have become so desensitized to images and news of global violence, poverty and inequality that we tend to perceive certain areas of the world as inherently or unavoidably tragic. This tragedy is the normal background to our everyday lives. We know it is there, but it isn’t ours. Given the role of Western economic and political policies in producing or exacerbating much of the poverty and violence around the world, this is not okay. However, to an extent, it is a necessity. While those of us who can make efforts to help, should, we cannot take on all of the suffering of the world constantly. The human brain and body cannot withstand the volume of suffering that mass media has given it access to. We need to engage positively with the pleasures of the everyday to maintain balance and sanity – even as we also engage with far more important issues.

This speaks to a struggle that I have encountered as a student and teacher of sociology and one that I suspect affects many otherwise informed people: the more we understand about how the world works, about how power produces inequality and injustice, the greater the potential for despair in our daily lives. How do we continue, under the weight of this knowledge, without dissolving into anger, sadness, fear and negativity? It can be enough to make us disengage, to make those of us with privilege rationalize away our responsibility and complicity, to make us escape into the everyday – including, for many, the pleasures of food and cooking.

What is new is that what was once primarily distant suffering is creeping into our backyards. And it warns of a danger that we have purportedly prepared ourselves for. A man whose campaign was fuelled by racism, sexism, bigotry and xenophobia was elected president of the United States a mere two days before Canadian remembrance day. His executive order on immigration was signed on international Holocaust remembrance day. For decades these days have served as reminders to us - not to forget. Not to forget what can happen when we allow our hearts and governments to be guided by hatred and intolerance. Let us also not forget that this situation was made possible by the unwillingness of so many, including myself, to act sooner, when the distant suffering of others appeared, from our privileged vantage points, like less of a moral emergency. But we cannot allow that awareness to prevent us from acting now. Yes, we should have shown up to the fight earlier, but we must show up now. The mass demonstrations of the last few weeks are evidence that more people are doing just this.

I have also seen an increased willingness to be political in many of the food and lifestyle blogs that I follow. I find this comforting and hope that it is indicative of a shift in food media towards allowing both the positive and the negative aspects of how and what we eat to be a part of the conversation. Food is not just about flavours, creativity, pleasure and beauty; it is also about politics, class, culture, gender and race. It is always both. You cannot “politicize” something that is inherently political; you can only either acknowledge its politics or ignore them. Sadly, there is a tendency in the food media world – particularly in its most aestheticized corners - toward the latter. That is not what I intend to do here on The Maker Makes.

Ideas for taking action 

An excellent resource for making sense of what is happening in the world

A great idea for combining politics and everyday food practices in a positive way

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This roast beef sandwich recipe came about as a way to use up leftovers from a slow cooker beef roast M made. We didn’t have much else in the house, so I decided to dress up whatever pantry staples I could find and make sandwiches. I usually have cranberries in the freezer this time of year. They are one of my favourite winter ingredients and I commonly use them to make this salsa as a topping for tacos. Onions are, of course, a basic pantry staple in most homes that are easily elevated through caramelization. The cilantro for the yogurt sauce came out of my garden, and was the last batch to be used before the plants were killed by frost. The sweetness of the caramelized onions, the herby cool freshness of the cilantro yogurt, the tart and spicy kick of the cranberry salsa, and the heartiness of the beef and bread make this a well-balanced substantial meal for lunch or dinner the day after you’ve made a roast. I had none on hand, but some fresh or sautéed greens would make a great addition to these sandwiches.

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Ingredients

Sandwich Buns
Leftover roast beef
2-3 onions, sliced into very thin strips

For the Cranberry Salsa (Adapted from Half Baked Harvest):
12 ounces fresh or frozen cranberries
1 jalapeno, chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice½ - ¾ cup brown sugar*

For the Cilantro Yogurt Sauce:
1 cup Greek yogurt (If very thick, dilute with a bit of milk, 1 teaspoon at a time until it reaches your desired saucy consistency)
2 garlic cloves, minced
Large handful of cilantro, chopped
Salt & pepper, to taste

*start with ½ cup, add more after roasting if salsa is too tart for your tastes 

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350F

Caramelize the onions: heat oil in a small pan over medium-low heat. Choose a pan large enough to accommodate the onions without crowding them. Add the onions, toss to coat with the oil. Watch the onions carefully, tossing them with a spatula at increasingly close intervals as they brown. This should take anywhere from 20-40 minutes, depending on how deep of a caramelization (and how much flavour) you want.

While onions are caramelizing, make the cranberry sauce. Pile the cranberries, jalapeno, garlic, and brown sugar onto a baking sheet, squeeze the lemon juice over the top, mix everything together and spread the mixture out evenly over the baking sheet. Bake for 15-20 minutes until the cranberries begin to burst and break down.

Make the yogurt sauce: in a small bowl mix together the yogurt, garlic and cilantro. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Assemble the sandwiches: place beef slices on the bun, top with the caramelized onions, cranberry salsa and cilantro yogurt. Serve.

Spicy Pumpkin Noodle Soup

I doubt I am alone in my feelings of ambivalence over writing about food given the current cultural and political climate. The disheartening results of last month’s American election* came, for me, in the midst of a particularly trying fall term as a graduate student. I have been spending most of my energy struggling either to keep afloat in a rising sea of academic expectations or to maintain my resolve of confronting the world’s injustices, if only in some small way, through my work, in the face of circumstances that make burying my head in the sand seem a far more attractive option. Ignorance is bliss, as they say. And sometimes indulging in the food media world can feel too much like giving in to ignorance’s blissful temptation. And yet, we all must eat. And the comfort and inspiration that good food can provide, perhaps even in the form of aestheticized media representations, is needed even in times like these.

In the kitchen I have largely stuck with what I know. I am still in the throes of an Asian noodle obsession that has left me kicking myself, wondering where noodles have been my whole life. They are a revelation. I have been whipping up noodles in various forms for dinner several times a week. The other project that has consumed my kitchen time has been a quest to use up an overabundance of overripe bananas. We generally have two or three of these kicking around the freezer, but one day I opened the freezer only to be confronted with an obscene pile of them. Many variations of banana bread have exited my kitchen – including one yeast banana bread with a cinnamon swirl that I am particularly excited about. Did you know yeast bread could be made with bananas? I did not.

In the midst of this comforting repetition of favourite recipes, this pumpkin soup came as a surprise. I whipped it up one night with the intention of using up bits of this and that left over from the previous week's cooking: a bit of leftover pumpkin puree from a batch of pumpkin banana muffins, the scraps of miscellaneous vegetables that had been garnishing Thai noodles, and the very first butternut squash I brought home this fall.

The soup was meant to be quick, easy, and practical but, surprisingly, it also turned out to be one of the best things that I have made in months. It immediately made it onto our meal rotation and I’ve since made it a number of times. It is spicy, vegan, filling, due to the squash and noodles, and the broth has a wonderful creamy texture from the addition of the coconut milk.

* I have been working on a piece about my feelings following the election that I may or may not post. 

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Ingredients:

2tb Olive oil
1 medium-large onion, chopped
1 inch ginger, minced
4 cloves garlic, minced
4 birds eye chilies*, minced
1 red bell pepper, diced
½ package firm tofu, cubed
2 cups butternut squash, cubed
4 cups low sodium vegetable broth
1 can coconut milk
¾ cup pumpkin puree
3 oz Chinese style dried farkay noodles**
2 cups greens***, washed and chopped

To Garnish:
Peanuts, chopped
Green onions, chopped

Instructions:

In a large stock pot, heat olive oil over medium heat.

Add onion to pot, cook until translucent. Add the ginger, garlic and chilies, cooking for another 2-3 minutes. Add the red pepper, tofu and squash. Add the vegetable broth, coconut milk, and pumpkin puree, stirring to combine. Bring soup to a boil, reduce to medium and simmer until the squash is cooked through, about 20 minutes. 

Meanwhile, fill a medium sized pot with water and bring it to a boil. Add noodles to pot and cook according to package instructions. Drain noodles and set them aside.****

In the last 5 minutes of cooking, add the chopped kale and continue cooking until it begins to wilt. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Ladle soup into bowls, add the noodles and garnish with peanuts and green onions if desired.

*This makes a very spicy soup. Use 1-2 if you want a mildly spicy soup, or leave out entirely.
**Spaghetti noodles would be a good substitute.
***I used collard greens, but any type will do.  
***Any leftover noodles should be stored separately from the soup, to avoid them soaking up the broth and becoming mushy.

Drunken Noodles (Pad Kee Mao)

Noodles, particularly rice udon and egg, have taken over my kitchen, and my diet, as of late. It began with an attempt to re-create some of the dishes from our favourite Thai place, mainly Pad Thai and these Drunken Noodles; then I moved on to cold sesame Sichuan skinny egg noodles inspired by the memory of a fantastic trip to an authentic Sichuan restaurant in Montreal over a decade ago, at least, it seemed authentic to me at the time, given that, up until that point in my life, my frame of reference for Chinese food was a chicken ball combo plate; and finally, for times when I was not in the mood for spicy, Japanese inspired miso udon noodle dishes. The evenings that I have found myself lying on the couch watching a good show with a bowl of saucy noodles perched on my chest have been many.

Just as a side note, there is something about mentioning TV watching in the context of food writing that strikes me as amusingly, if not somewhat embarrassingly, unsophisticated. If the daily activities described in much popular food writing were any indication, I should be spending my afternoons stepping outside onto cobblestone streets to explore some medieval European city, or driving a pastel bicycle along a dirt road flanked by fields of wildflowers with a basket of fresh produce flung over the handlebars, or reminiscing about that summer I spent in some seaside town in the mediterranean, soaking in the foodways of the locals. But no, in my real-life downtime I am lying on the couch slurping noodles while watching prison break on Netflix. I'm just going to own it. It is the “golden age” of television, as they say, and saucy spicy noodles are everything.

At the risk of putting a damper on the excitement that should surround these drunken noodles, I want to segue into a few thoughts related to their sodium content*. On the one hand, this is a relatively healthy dish. Thai food, like many Asian cuisines, is primarily plant-based. The ingredients are whole-foods or minimally processed and contain none of the "bad fats". On the other hand, anything that contains even the smallest amount of soy sauce and/or fish sauce is relatively high in sodium. 

As a general rule, I try not to focus too much on individual nutrients, or "good" and "bad" foods (you know, like I am doing right now). However, a recent post from Marion Nestle's blog about the sodium content of restaurant food has stuck with me and left me more vigilant about my sodium intake than I otherwise am. The infographic she references from a VOX article really needs to be seen to be believed. It features a number of commonly ordered selections from popular (American) restaurant chains, and measures their sodium content against a McDonalds small fry. For instance, they claim that TGI Friday's pecan-crusted chicken salad contains an amount of sodium equivalent to 12 1/2 orders of small McDonalds fries. Twelve and a half! 

This must be a deliberately deceptive move on the part of the restaurant industry. That sodium is in there because it is an easy, and cheap, way to make food taste better so that people will buy more of it. But surely those in the restaurant industry, and those who regulate it, know that the average customer probably has no idea that it is even possible for a salad to contain so much salt; that if they are choosing to eat at a restaurant, and not a fast food joint, they expect the food to be relatively healthier; that if they are choosing a salad, they believe they are making a healthy choice. This hidden salt (to say nothing of added sugars) is just one of many examples of how our food environment works against people's best efforts to make good food choices - a topic I intend to write about at length elsewhere.

In any case, the takeaway here should be to proceed with caution when eating at restaurants, not to cut salt out of your diet entirely - especially if that would mean missing out on these drunken noodles. Most of the salt that we consume comes from processed and ultra-processed foods, fast food, and restaurant meals, not our salt shakers. Brazil's recent groundbreaking food guide contains some of the best advice, in my opinion, for eating a healthy diet. Among other things it suggests that we cook as much as we can, from scratch, at home. If we do that, sodium intake should take care of itself.

*Although nutritional science is relevant to my work on the cultural politics of food, I am not a nutritionist. My knowledge of what is healthy, nutritionally, is partial and approached and interpreted through a social science perspective and skill set.

Serves 2-3. This is a meatless version (sprinkling 1/4 cup of peanuts over each bowl gives them one serving of protein), but the noodles taste great with chicken, beef, or shrimp. Add and stir-fry any meat or fish before adding the noodles.

Ingredients:

For the Sauce:
¼ cup low sodium soy sauce
¼ cup fish sauce
1/3 cup white sugar
1 tablespoon sesame oil

For the Noodles:
4 birds-eye chilies, very finely chopped
6 cloves garlic, finely diced
½ red bell pepper, cut into strips
¼ large eggplant, cubed
2 baby bok choy, sliced into strips, washed and dried
1 small roma tomato
2 servings thin Thai rice noodles (approximately 150 grams)
½ cup holy basil*, torn

To Garnish:
2 scallions, finely chopped1/3 cup peanuts, roughly chopped

Instructions:

To prepare the noodles, fill a large bowl with very hot water, soak the noodles until they begin to soften, but are still too hard to eat, they will continue to cook in the wok or skillet**

Heat oil in large wok or skillet over medium heat 

Add garlic and thai chilies and sauté until they begin to brown

Add tomato, bell pepper and eggplant and sauté, stirring frequently, until the eggplant softens and browns, about 5 minutes (add a bit of the sauce if the vegetables begin to burn before they cook).

Add the noodles, pour enough sauce over the noodles to coat. Cook until noodles are just about at your desired texture, stirring constantly 

Add the bok choy and basil, stirring for another minute, until they begin to wilt

Remove skillet from the heat, transfer the noodles into bowls, and top with chopped peanuts and scallions

* Italian Basil will work too, but won't taste the same. Holy basil is worth tracking down, if at all possible. 

** This may be obvious to some, but for the uninitiated (as I was a few months ago) cooking rice noodles can be tricky, and I have found that the best technique for getting the right texture -soft but not mushy- tends to vary by the size and brand of the noodle, and the package instructions don't always seem to produce the right consistency. I've found trial and error to be the best way to figure it out.