The Harmonious Kitchen

Changes

2010-09-18T07:12:00.000-07:00

I'm moving this blog. Don't get me wrong, Blogspot has been great. There are lots of wonderful blogs on Blogspot and a it has a really easy interface. There was no great reason to switch. That is, until we decided to move to WordPress at work. Also I just like WordPress a bit better. So I moved all the content yesterday and will post the first Share post there today. Find it at www.harmoniouskitchen.wordpress.com.

Please re-direct your bookmarks, RSS feeds, etc. Those of you fabulous bloggers who used to be to the left on my blogroll will soon be restored (as soon as I get some time!). Thanks for your patience, and I hope to see you over there!

Chakchouka

2010-09-17T17:00:00.000-07:00

I never really meant to make this recipe. I found it in that great CSA-friendly cookbook The New Mediterranean Diet Cookbook: A Delicious Alternative for Lifelong Health, and posted it to the farm blog because it uses up a lot of the stuff that we are getting. Then Sam told me that he had to make a potluck dish (S has had a lot of potlucks lately), and this was literally the only thing that I could come up with that didn't require a trip to the store.

To be frank, when reading the recipe, I admired the dish for its efficiency, but wasn't really expecting much from it. I was shocked by just how good it was. I think you will be too. I've already written it once, so just click here to connect to the recipe. Or buy the book. It is a CSA lifesaver.

We had some furry visitors in our garage last night. Somehow they found the granola bars from our emergency kit and had a little raccoon feast.

What to do with Jalapenos?

2010-09-16T17:00:00.000-07:00

Pawn them off on someone else. At least that's my approach. I just don't have enough of a spicy-food repertoire to do much better, I'm afraid. And the jalapenos that we've been getting are a super variable, so you never know if the bite you are about to take will taste delicious and subtly hot or if it will send you screaming to the fridge for a glass of milk. So I made this, and sent it with Sam to a potluck:

Do you need a recipe for this? No, you do not. Yes, it's cream cheese. Bake at 375 for 25 mins on a rack over a pan. Done. I ate two, which is probably one more than the legal limit ought to be.

Pizza Bomba

2010-09-15T17:00:00.000-07:00

Pizza Bomba is basically fried pizza balls. It's nothing that it would have ever occurred to me to try at home, had Jamie Oliver not suggested it. Pizza Bomba was also the occasion for a real come to Jesus talk between me and my daughter when she started complaining about dinner. It ran something like this:

"Do you know what liver is? Of course you don't because I've never served it to you. Liver is like beef, but drier, and greyer, and served with a pile of onions on top. I can assure you that you would hate to eat it. When I was your age, I ate liver and onions probably twice a month, because that was what was for dinner. Sometimes it was even served with Brussels Sprouts. Now what I have served you tonight is nothing like liver. It is fried pizza balls. Complaining about it is absolutely beyond the pale. If you cannot find some way to sit there and enjoy your fried pizza, then we're going to start having some real problems, because frankly, it's not going to ever get much better than this."

She wisely chose to eat the bombas.

Bombas are a recipe in Jamie at Home, but are really more like a technique. Cut up pizza dough into rounds, let rest, and then flatten to about a 4 inch circle. Fill them (with mostly dry filling), close them up into a ball, and fry for about 5 mins. Mine had mozzarella, tomato and basil in them along with a bit of sauce.

I cut the dough, and rolled it by hand into little boules. Let it rest for 20 mins or so, and you are ready to take a pin and roll it out. If you don't know how to make a proper roll, the best way to learn is as follows - quit your job and get hired to work the bench at a real bakery. After three months or so of waking up for your shift at 2am and making 400 rolls per morning, you will probably have the technique down, and be able to churn out rolls using both hands faster than you ever imagined could be. If this seems unreasonable, you can also make do by just sort of squishing the dough into a circle and calling it good enough. And unless you are trying to take professional-grade pictures of the balls, or trying out for the Next Food Network Star, it will be fine.

When done frying, the bombas will be as hot as molten lava, so wait a bit before serving them to anyone you care about. Resist the urge to bite into one straight away. You will only be sorry. After ten minutes or so, they will happily go to the table in a puddle of marinara. Yum.

Fun with Preschoolers

2010-09-14T17:00:00.000-07:00

I have mixed feelings about the preschool show Yo Gabba Gabba. It's deeply weird, slightly awesome, slightly off-putting. There's a recurring segment called "Biz's Beat of the Day" in which Biz Markee beatboxes for the kids. "Let's all do it together with Biz."

I can honestly say that I never understood the point of that bit until today. Wow, this was hilarious...

Gingered Carrot Soup

2010-09-13T17:00:00.000-07:00

This recipe is not some sort of fruit forward California wine that smacks you in the face. Rather, it's a refined French Pinot - subtle and balanced. It is sweet and perfect, and every member of the family will happily eat it along with a good-sized chunk of hearty bread.

Have I posted this recipe before? Probably. I can't help but be amazed by how much I love it every time I make it though. Carrot soup makes me happy in a very basic way. Many carrot soups ask you to add other flavors. I was surprised at how delicious this stripped-down version was.

2.5 lbs carrots, chopped
1 large clove garlic
1.5 Tbs ginger, chopped
3 Tbs butter
Salt and pepper

If I had an onion hanging around, I almost certainly would have put it in as well. No onion, no matter. It was still delicious.

Melt butter in a large soup pan. Add garlic and ginger and cook over medium heat for a minute or two. Add carrots and let them get slightly brown in the butter, about another 5 minutes or so. Cover with water and bring to a boil. When the carrots are falling apart easily, blend the soup to smoothness.

The Terrible Twos

2010-09-12T17:00:00.000-07:00

I'm posting this just because it really is quite funny. My daughter is starting dance class, and so we went to the local dance store to buy shoes. I had to bring Cosmo too as there was no one home to watch him. The store was a zoo - lots of little girls trying on leotards and getting ready for the next season of class. Cosmo was a wreck - overtired and generally uncooperative. While Nellie was trying on shoes, he thought it would be funny to go running into the dressing rooms and make all the little girls scream. When I held him to stop that behavior, he would kick and scream like mad himself. The sales person helpfully got us out of the store quickly. Of course.

It's like he turned into a caricature of a 2 year old overnight.

The Share

2010-09-11T17:00:00.000-07:00

I've been getting shares, but not blogging them - travel and such got in the way of really making full use of them. But now we're back! It was a lighter than usual share this week, with all items filling into the crisper nicely.

While on hiatus, I grabbed a bunch of extra b-grade tomatoes from the farm and made a pretty huge pot of sauce - at least 4 meals worth. I did the whole boiling peeling crushing thing, which is so unlike me. Usually I can't be bothered, but with so many tomatoes and a bit of spare time, I decided to give it a go. I added three heads of roasted garlic to give it lots of earthy richness, and it was good.

The Haul
Carrots
Leek
Lettuce
Collards
Chard (will it ever end?)
Basil
Tomatoes
Squash
Avocados
Eggplants
Peppers (all varieties)

The Plan
Gingered Carrot Soup
Fried Eggplant maybe also with some Pizza Bomba from Jamie Oliver's Jamie at Home - mix it all up with some homemade marinara, and I think the kids will be glad for it
Something with roasted peppers
I've been wondering if it would work to do my favorite cabbage treatment with collards - white wine and bacon. This is the week to try.

Rabbit!

2010-09-09T18:42:00.000-07:00

On the list of exotic things to eat, rabbit rates pretty low, I know. I can practically feel Anthony Bourdain laughing at me as I write. No matter. It was exotic enough to me, and worth talking about for some of the issues it raises.

Rabbit is not terribly hard to prepare, from what I understand, but I wasn't about to experiment with it at home. For my first taste, I thought it best to trust the professionals, so I ordered it at a fancy restaurant, specifically the Artisan in Paso Robles. It was rabbit three ways - loin, shredded over pasta, and sausage. All three were meltingly delicious. It doesn't taste like chicken, no matter what you have heard.

Also? It was intense. There's this thing that happens with food when you are eating something really unfamiliar. You become present to the experience in a new way. I can honestly say that I never think about chickens at all when I'm eating one, but I could not get the rabbit off my mind. And it's not so much that it bothers me to consider eating animals, just that it changes the experience of eating somewhat to do so simultaneously.

Before any of you vegetarians number all the great reasons to be vegetarian in the comments, consider this: to bring you good fresh organic vegetables, your farmer almost certainly has to kill a fair number of animals just to keep the crop from being eaten. For our CSA this includes gophers (which, I gather are legion), but also rabbits and other small critters. You could reasonably leave these dead animals out to feed the coyotes and never touch them yourself, but you can't reasonably imagine that an all-vegetarian diet is bloodless.

I'm relatively certain that my rabbit was farmed, and not picked off in a field where it was threatening a tender lettuce crop. That said, rabbit is still an animal that we can use all of, like the pig or the cow. And I'd advocate for reintroducing it to the mainstream. It is delicious and abundant and well worth trying.

On Cooking Things Slowly

2010-09-07T17:00:00.000-07:00

The Lost Art of Real Cooking: Rediscovering the Pleasures of Traditional Food One Recipe at a Time is an odd book. It is a cookbook sans any real measurements, not even for the bread recipes. And although I rarely cook with any measuring cups, when contemplating how I might do something totally foreign to me like (for example) roast a whole suckling pig over a spit, I find it helpful to have a bit more hand-holding than one gets in this book.

It is written by two authors - Ken Alba, who is a food historian, and Rosanna Nafziger, who is a slow-food enthusiast. Their writing styles are complimentary but distinct, and one quickly becomes accustomed to guessing correctly who has penned each section. Alba's recipes and techniques come largely from centuries-old cookbooks, and are therefore easier to dismiss. I am about as likely to try to make my own almond milk as I am to quit my job and raise goats, which is to say, not very. Nafziger draws on techniques that your mother or grandmother were almost certainly using in their kitchens, and the proximity through time makes her recipes seem more manageable, though by a slight margin.

I'm completely with Nafziger when she encourages me to make highly alcoholic bourbon balls to sedate myself with at PTA meetings. I'm significantly less with her when she encourages me to make whipped cream by hand using a whisk (my dishwasher is big enough to accommodate two beaters sans problem). And we're just on completely different planets when she describes how her unhomogonized milk forms butter disks while she bikes home with it. You could easily cook your way through this book if you had nothing more to accomplish each day than cooking, and possibly writing a book about the experience of doing so.

This cookbook holds few techniques that a working mother could use to get more whole foods into the family diet. What is does provide in abundance, however, is tremendous practical advice for how to make homemade everything. And although little of that will make its way into my daily routine, it almost certainly will make its way into my life. As Nell grows, she will increasingly be interested in helping in the kitchen. I can see happy weekends of canning, or making yogurt, or even pasta as a sort of fun special project for us to tackle together. And The Lost Art of Real Cooking: Rediscovering the Pleasures of Traditional Food One Recipe at a Time will be a precious resource for those days.

*****ADDENDUM******
I added Rosanna Nafziger's blog to my blog roll. See Paprika Head off to the right there. By looking at it, I learned that she is TWENTY FIVE. Holy crap. I don't think I had accomplished a single life goal at 25 let alone written a whole book. Kudos to her. Also? It explains a lot. I absolutely got romantic about food a decade ago in a way that is just totally impossible today, what with the job and the kids and all. But check her out. She is the path to yogurt success and more.

My Life Lately

2010-09-06T21:27:00.000-07:00

The routine has been upturned lately. My kids flew up to San Jose with my sister-in-law for a stay with the cousins, and for the first time in over two year, Sam and I were kid-free for 5 whole days. Although that would seem to mean that I could spend all day cooking and all night blogging, what it meant, in fact, was something quite other. Loosed from the normal time/space constraints, I spent a fair portion of the week simply cleaning things out. Old clothes went to friends, baby toys went to a new mother, old files went to the shredder, and old food went to the composter. For dinner, I ate whatever was quick and easy. Mostly, it wouldn't look good on the blog.

I also managed to get some reading in, and took down the better part of The Lost Art of Real Cooking: Rediscovering the Pleasures of Traditional Food One Recipe at a Time. More on that in a future post. We decided to go wine tasting, and I ate rabbit for the first time at a fancy restaurant. Also more on that later. Finally, I ordered a book for myself that I have wanted for a while, On Food and Cooking, a title so eminently forgettable that despite having the book in the house, and even being a fair way into the chapter on dairy, I still had to get up and look at the book to remember the name. Fortunately, the content is as dazzling as the title is boring. I believe this will prove to be a very useful book.

As I type, I am remembering my life two years ago, five days overdue with my son, and finally starting to believe that the contractions I was having would in fact turn into serious labor. Five hours later, he was born. It still feels so precious and magical. I hope that feeling never goes away.

Roasted Tomato Soup

2010-09-03T15:47:00.000-07:00

The tomato abundance is amazing. Our farmer has literally harvested over a ton of tomatoes so far this season, and it still has two months to go. So I get a good sized bag of tomatoes every week. Mostly this delights me. Occasionally, it is hard to deal with, and I find myself throwing a hail Mary at the end of their life. That's how I got to making this soup.

This soup is as easy as it gets. Most of the time while it's cooking you don't have to do anything but be kind-of nearby your kitchen. I put it together on a day that I was working from home, and ate it the next day at work. It's only four ingredients, but tastes like much more.

Tomatoes, maybe 10 for 2 servings
1/2 onion
basil
veggie stock

Preheat oven to 425. Cut tomatoes in half and set cut side up on a roasting pan. Cut onion into large pieces. Toss onion with EVO and a little salt and pepper and place on another baking sheet. Drizzle some EVOO over the tomatoes, and give them a few good shakes of salt and pepper too.

Roast veggies for 30 minutes. Add all veggies to a blender along with a good handful of basil, and blend. Slowly add in some veggie stock until your soup is the desired consistency. Serves 2.

I'm not proud of this...

2010-09-01T17:00:00.000-07:00

I was invited to a block party, and instructed to bring something to grill, something to drink, and something to share. No problem with the first two, but that last one always trips me up. My style of cooking is not terribly pot-luck friendly, and I don't have a cache of recipes that I can turn to when it's time to share a dish.

I decided on a dip, just because that seemed like the least-stressful route, and made something called BLT dip. I'm not sure where the "L" comes in exactly, but the "B" was there in abundance. So was the mayo.

The recipe basically goes like this: cook a pound of bacon (the oven is probably the easiest method here), and crumble it into a bowl with 1 C mayo and 1 C sour cream. Seed and dice 1 tomato, and stir it all together. I added fresh green onion too.

No joke, it was the first thing to get eaten up. It was SICK, it was so good.

There was a guy there who makes his own cotton candy. The kids were in love with him and the incredible whirring machine. This is perfect. If you can bring your own cotton candy to the party, you never have to worry about bringing anything else again. I may invest. I'm not sure my arteries can take another round of BLT dip.

Stuffed Peppers

2010-08-26T17:00:00.000-07:00

One of the fun parts of blogging about food is that when people write to me, in addition to whatever else they want to share, they usually tell me what they are cooking, which often inspires my own experimentation.

Such was the case with this recipe. A friend from grad school had told me about some quinoa stuffed tomatoes he had made recently, which made me want to do some stuffing of my own. We had just gotten some pretty lovely peppers in the share, so I decided to make my favorite sort of CSA meal - One CSA vegetable stuffed with other CSA vegetables, with a side of CSA vegetables. Because that's how you get through the share.

I think I preferred the idea of this recipe to the actual recipe, but Sam couldn't say enough good things about it. When it comes right down to it, I find green pepper to be a hard flavor to work with, I guess. I think this would have been better with an oily sausage and cheese stuffing, but it certainly is healthier and fresher as written.

1/2 medium onion, diced
2 medium carrots, diced
1 garlic clove
8 - 10 cherry tomatoes, cut in half
handful of pine nuts
1Tbs chopped parsley
1/2 C uncooked quinoa
healthy 1/2 C grated parm
salt and pepper
2 bell peppers

Preheat oven to 350. Rinse quinoa under cool water, and add to pot with 1 C water. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer, and cook about 15 minutes covered.

Add carrot and onion to a saute pan with some EVOO and cook until vegetables are soft and starting to brown. Add tomatoes, and cook until saucy. Add garlic (pressed), and cook one minute more.

Mix vegetables with quinoa, parsley, pinenuts, most of the parm, and salt and pepper. Cut the tops off two peppers and clean out the insides. Stuff the peppers with the quinoa mixture, and top with a little more parmesan. Bake peppers for 25 - 30 minutes or until tough-tender.

Serves 2.

Pickled Melon

2010-08-24T17:00:00.000-07:00

I had just cut up the watermelon for the kids and had all the rind in a pile waiting to go out to the compost when it dawned on me that I had been wanting to try David Chang's pickled watermelon rind. I grabbed Momofuku only to discover that I didn't have two key ingredients on hand - ginger and star anise - which it didn't seem as though I could really do without. Not if I wanted to do justice to the recipe anyway.

Instead, I decided to make another Chang pickle recipe that I had been wondering about. The process to pickle watermelon and cantaloupe is exactly the same as it is to pickle beets, and since I had all those ingredients on hand, I decided to try it out.

Pickled melon is as beautiful as it is delicious. This couldn't be simpler, and the flavor is wonderful. That said, I have NO CLUE what I am going to do with it. A pre-dinner pickle plate is all I can come up with. Maybe I can serve it alongside some take-out sushi?

The quick-pick process is super simple -

1 C hot water
1/2 C rice vinegar
6 Tbs sugar
2.5 tsp kosher salt.

Stir sugar and salt in hot water until dissolved. Add vinegar. Add veggies. Let sit for a while. Eat!

Rancho Chile Verde Salsa

2010-08-22T17:00:00.000-07:00

I'm told that in some parts of the world parents feed their kids chiles at a young age to get them used to the heat. Once you develop a tolerance, apparently you can really enjoy very spicy foods. Both my folks are Italian, and so when I was growing up, their main concern was getting me used to garlic. I can tell you now that it's not at all the same. These days, when I find a recipe with a lot of chile flavor, I usually have to tone it down somewhat so that I can still taste the other ingredients.

When I traded my friend tomatos for his tomatillos, I knew that I wanted to make salsa, but I didn't know how. Fortunately, my friend J came to the rescue with a fabulous recipe from Gourmet (RIP), plus a comal for me to borrow, plus a bag of dried chiles de arbol for me to use.

BTW, a comal is a cast iron pan that you can pick up at my local ACE Hardware for about $4. Once you use it for chiles, however, you have dedicated it for use only as a salsa maker, forever and ever, amen.

The recipe is deceptive. It seems simple, but it requires a few tricks. First, you have to be able to toast the chiles, which go from "nothing seems to be happening" to "GET THEM OFF THE STOVE NOW NOW NOW" is the blink of an eye. If you get this critical step wrong and overcook the chiles, they will release fumes so noxious that you won't be able to take a deep breath in your house for a week. Then you have to toast the tomatillos, which will sputter at you angrily from about minute 5 on. As J pointed out, it helps to remind yourself that millions and millions of women have toasted tomatillos for centuries - no matter how alarming it may seem to the novice, it really is no big deal. Really.

Of course, I had to modify the chile content. The recipe calls for one ounce (about 60) dried chiles for a pound of tomatillos, which is just effing insane. You can get away with this amount if you and everyone else who will be eating it has been raised on very spicy foods, and you don't mind it so much if your mouth goes numb. J usually cuts the chile content in half when she makes it for a crowd, and even then some people find it too hot. She recommended that I cut it back to a quarter. She was totally right. It is still quite hot for me, but can taste all the smoky and toasty flavors in addition to the heat, which is just about perfect as far as I am concerned.

1/4 oz dried chiles de arbol (about 15), wiped clean and stemmed
1 lb fresh tomatillos, husked, rinsed well, and patted dry
2 garlic cloves

Heat a comal over medium heat until hot. Add chiles and cook, tossing with tongs until blackened in spots, 30 seconde to one minute). Transfer to a blender. Add tomatillos to comal and cook, turning occasionally, until blackened and soft, 18 - 20 minutes. Add to blender with 1tbs salt and garlic. Puree until smooth.

This is not even in the same world as store-bought salsa. I can't get enough of it. It tastes so rich and wonderful. I may have to invest in my own comal...

The Share

2010-08-21T17:00:00.000-07:00

We got a good variety this week, which is thoroughly exciting. Peppers made their debut, and carrots made a comeback. Harvest is a great time to belong to a CSA!

The Haul
Onion
Garlic
Turnips
Beets
Potatoes
Carrots
Lettuce
Basil
Parsley
Collards
An edible flower that I can't name
Summer Squash
Cukes
Eggplant
Tomatoes

Plus I have the tomatillos that I got on exchange...

The Plan
Salsa
Some pureed soup
Bobby Flay's potato salad, maybe with turnips thrown in?
Pesto
Make some of the raviolis from the freezer

Beekmania

2010-08-19T17:00:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading this wonderful book, which is funny, because I don't generally read books anymore. Between the demands of kids, career, and household management, I find that I have less time than ever for pleasure reading beyond the occasional New Yorker length article. But my neighbor (she of the wonderful pasta party) asked if I had heard about the Beekman Boys (I had), and absolutely insisted that I read Josh Kilmer-Purcell's book, The Bucolic Plague. It's possibly the best title for a book ever, and it came with a ringing endorsement, so how could I resist?

It is a really fun book. Josh has a witty and charming voice, and certainly does a good job of selling folks on his first book, I Am Not Myself These Days: A Memoir, which I now also need to read. He's from Wisconsin (not far from where I graduated high school), and somehow managed to launch himself into the worlds of drag shows, advertising, and farming in rather quick succession. The Bucolic Plague introduces you to Josh's farming life with his partner Brent, while I Am Not Myself is about Josh's drag days. One presumes that the advertising career in the middle would make a less compelling narrative.

After reading the book, I am now officially have a bad case of Beekmania. (Do not be surprised if those of you on my Christmas list get soaps from me this year.) I am in love with the farm and their extraordinary efforts to breathe life into it. I also adore the goats, which entertained my son via live cam for a good quarter hour Sunday morning. Their site makes me long for seasons, canning, and fireplaces again.

The book made me think a lot about freedom. As Josh ticked off the list of events and activities that he and Brent partook in, I couldn't help but feel bound more than ever by the requirements of the two young ones. Sure, we could take the train every weekend, and arrive at our destination well past any reasonable bedtimes, but we would do so at our own peril. There is no quick stop in at the local restaurant for a drink, no holiday parties that end in hangovers, no working as late as you please (or have to), and certainly no unattended time near fires, stoves, or animals with the very wee ones unless you are unusually tolerant of exhaustion and pain. Kids tie you down.

That said, almost nothing ties you down more than a farm, particularly one with a big mortgage attached. The ritual is seasonal rather than daily, but no less demanding in its need for attention and care. And the book reads a bit like the adjustment to parenthood. Josh and Brent birthed a business and a working farm, and their struggle to keep it all together through challenges is universal.

My only complaint about the book is that when Dr. Brent M.D. loses his job at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia he is just jobless. I would imagine that being a M.D. (and moreover, a geriatric specialist) means that one can dig up some paying work almost anywhere. One wonders why he doesn't try to take a few shifts at the local hospital in between canning sessions? Presumably there is some reason, but we never learn what it might be.

I do have another complaint, actually - their pictures, their website, their design aesthetic is perfect. I confess that I am a wee bit jealous! I struggle to get halfway decent pictures for my site, while theirs could have been staged by Martha herself. As much as I would like to resist the internal desire to perfect absolutely everything, I can't help but be seduced by the idyllic images.

Also? I note that they wholesale to Anthropologie, proving yet again that the buyers at Anthro know exactly my taste, better than even I do.

Eggplant Spread

2010-08-18T17:00:00.000-07:00

Oh, the eggplant. I wish I felt more creative about eggplant. I've spent the last several weeks either foisting the little guys off on friends, or ignoring them in the crisper until it was far too late. I resolved to make this week different.

This is the right kind of eggplant recipe for people who don't love eggplant. I think it would make a great sandwich or crostini spread, but it works nicely as a pizza base too. I added fresh tomatoes, squash and mozzarella and it was just about perfect.

4 small eggplant
1 head garlic
1/4 C walnuts
2 Tbs olive oil
1 Tbs fresh parsley
salt and pepper

Heat oven to 450. Wash eggplant and pat dry. Cut the tops off the eggplant. Cut the top off the garlic and wrap it in tin foil. Put garlic and eggplant in the oven for 15 - 20 minutes, or until the eggplant is nice and mushy and the skin has started to char. Turn off the oven at this point, but leave the garlic in for another 30 minutes or so.

When eggplant is cool enough to handle, scoop the insides into a food processor, and add the roasted garlic, and everything else too. Grind until the mix is a nice smooth texture. Add more oil if needed. Serve on bread.

Friendly Reminder

2010-08-17T17:00:00.000-07:00

I had never even heard of potato pancakes until high school. My first boyfriend was Jewish, and his mom graciously invited me to participate in what, if memory serves, was her Rosh Hashanah celebration. I'm pretty sure I made a fool of myself diving head first into the plate of amazing pancakes smeared with a healthy dollop of sour cream and (who knew?) applesauce. For me, those first beautiful cakes are still the potato pancakes against which all others will forever be judged.

It took me years to decide to make my own, and when I first did, they turned out badly. I made them too big, I was fidgety about turning them, and as a result always tried to turn them too soon or too much. Potato pancakes became something that I would only make on very special occasions.

Today, I know better. I whipped up a small batch for the kids for lunch this past weekend, and the whole deal took me a total of fifteen minutes from washing the potatoes to serving the kids. Of course, what I threw together doesn't hold a candle to the holiday cakes that I remember from high school, but it's nice to have a simpler option that doesn't have to be a whole production, and makes a nice change from the usual sandwich routine. Cosmo was gleeful to finally have permission to dip something in his cup of applesauce.

Everyday Potato Pancakes

1 C grated potato, water squeezed out
1 egg
1 heaping Tbs flour
salt and pepper - a healthy amount
1/4 C peanut oil

In a large skillet, heat oil over medium high heat. Stir together potato, egg, flour, and salt and pepper. Working in 2 batches, scoop little circles of batter into the pan - this recipe will make exactly 8 small cakes (perfect for two small kids to eat two each, and their parents to snack on some as well). Cook for 2 - 3 minutes per side. Serve with applesauce.

Homemade Ice Cream

2010-08-16T17:00:00.000-07:00

I am not crafty. I do not sew, paste things, scrapbook, make gift baskets, or otherwise affix cute hand-written labels to anything. Everything I try to make looks like it was created by a 7 year old, and not in a cute-sloppy way. Whatever gene that Martha has that enables her to make perfect hand-made goods completely skipped me.

So it surprised even me that I was willing to try a very girl scout type task of homemade ice cream in a bag with the kids. I was pretty sure it would fail.

Fortunately, it's dead simple. Put 1/2 c dairy (half and half or milk) in a small ziplock with 1 Tbs sugar, and the tiniest little drop of vanilla you can imagine. Dump that into a gallon bag half filled with ice and 6 Tbs rock salt. Have the kids shake for 5 minutes.

Of course, you know who did most of the shaking...

It tasted pretty wonderful.

Finally Eating my Greens

2010-08-15T17:00:00.000-07:00

We had plans for the evening the day that I picked up my share, so it sat and waited for me to clean and put it away for most of the night. By the time we got home, I was too tired to do much, and I left the chard and collards on my counter overnight. This meant that I had to do something with them the next day or else they would have been beyond wilted. So I whipped out my friend's recipe and went to work.

This recipe is adapted from The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook: Stories and Recipes for Southerners and Would-be Southerners. It's a vegetarian approach to cooking greens that is supposed to make up for the lack of porky yumminess with other flavors. Funny then, that the first thing I thought upon tasting it was, "this would be better with some bacon."

Also, the recipe is somewhat fussy for my taste. I made it work because I was working from home that day and had more time to tend the stove, but if I make this again, it will be with some major modifications to reduce the steps.

Sneaky Greens

1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
1 Tbs plus 1 tsp kosher salt
3 - 4 lbs greens, washed and cut into strips
1 large onion, diced
2 large tomatoes, seeded, peeled and chopped
2 Tbs olive oil
2 Tbs balsamic vinegar
1 tsp paprika
5 cloves garlic, sliced (!)
1 tsp black pepper

In a large pot boil 8 C water. Add dried chilies and 1 Tbsp of salt. Simmer 5 mins, then add greens. Turn heat down to simmer and note time.

In a large saute pan, place onion, garlic, tomatoes, oil, vinegar, paprika, peper, and salt, and stir. Put the pan over med high heat, and let the mixture cook down for about 10 minutes. Stirring occasionally, cook until the mixture is gooey and darkened. The Lee brothers now want you to blend this in a food processor, a step that I just skipped. No doubt that it would have returned a better result, but I didn't have the energy for one more step.

With a ladle, remove 6 C cooking liquid from the greens pot and reserve for vegetable stock. Add the onion tomato mix to the greens, and cook, uncovered, until they have been simmered for a total of one hour from the time you noted in the first step. The greens should be completely soft and bathed in pale red gravy.

Serve with parmesan, or a poached egg.

The Share

2010-08-14T17:00:00.000-07:00

I feel like I've fallen off the wagon a bit w/r/t the CSA. Either that or I've lost some of the usually attendant guilt at not getting through everything. I'm trying, really I am, but the number of vegetables that I have given to friends, or (worse) just trucked out to the composter has been growing in recent weeks.

My main issue is that it's hard to want to buy any more veggies than what comes in the share because we can barely get through what we have, and yet we're getting very little right now that my kids actually want to eat. Almost nothing I can do will make my kids want to eat squash or tomatoes, and if I'm honest with myself, I struggled with those veggies too until I got a little older than they are now. So I'm reluctant to force the issue. I just keep on the lookout for time and kid friendly recipes to keep on trying!

It turns out that I'm lucky to be in an Ojai CSA, because our friends in Camarillo farm programs are not getting any tomatoes! It has been unseasonably cool and cloudy, and the tomatoes are not in yet. So I think I'm going to effect a trade or two because I'm running out of good tomato ideas.

The Share
Onion
Lettuce x2
Basil
Chard
Collards
Squash
Tomatoes
Eggplant
Cucumbers (one is a lemon cucumber!)
Oranges
Zinnias

The Plan
Try out the new recipe my friend gave me for greens
Squash Carbonara
Trade the tomatoes for some tomatillos from a friend
Actually finally do right by the eggplant and make something with it

Pasta Party

2010-08-12T17:00:00.000-07:00

My neighbor and I had our pasta party this weekend. We made dozens of raviolis in three flavors - butternut, pesto, and beet. It took us about 2.5 hours to make raviolis for two families for about 2 months.

I let her find the dough recipe, because she had made them before, and she pulled together one from Bon Appetite. I really liked it because it was a bit sticky, which meant that I could pretty easily seal the raviolis without resorting to running water around the rims. As the operator of the fancy Kitchen Aid pasta rolling attachment, she was slightly less thrilled with the stickiness.

Sam stopped by and checked out the progress. When he saw how well the Kitchen Aid dealio worked, he asked me if I would ever be interested in such a gadget. Frankly, making pasta is a pretty painstaking task. I don't see myself wanting to do it alone anytime soon. With a partner to pass the time, it is totally fun. By yourself, it is considerably less so.

I see us getting together again soon to make more though. My neighbor had a great idea to make a dessert ravioli with a nutella filling. This is super interesting, and I'm dying to try it!

My next big plan is to make beet raviolis with a mint-butter sauce. Yum!

A Day at the Fair

2010-08-10T17:00:00.000-07:00

I wasn't really planning to go to the Ventura County Fair. It's a little too grown up for my kids at this point, and if S and I hire a sitter, it will probably be to do something more romantic than visit the 4H exhibit.

But then I learned that Ventura chef Tim Kilcoyne was using Rio Gozo veggies (my CSA) to participate in the Bounty of the County competition and I figured I had to at least check it out and represent for team Sidecar. Also, I was hoping to snag a shortrib.

Tim is really wonderful. And if I could get my hands on his creamed chard recipe, I swear I would never complain about eating chard ever again.

Tim in prep mode

The salad - this is simplicity itself, and yet totally perfect

I did get a bite of shortrib - heaven!

Dessert

What you can't see from these pictures was the screaming boat ride that was going past the window of the kitchen at about a zillion mph every three minutes. The ride operators were absolutely blasting the perfect fair mix of Michael Jackson, Eminem, and Hotel California so loud that you could barely talk in the kitchen.

At the fair I learned that it is now technologically possible to deep fry oreos. So of course I had to get some. Really the only way I can describe how wonderful they were resorts to expletives.

Also? I love sheep. LOVE. Some day I'm going to harvest my own wool and spin it and make lovely sweaters. Some day. Doesn't this guy look like he's make a very fine set of sweaters?

Zucchini Bread

2010-08-08T17:00:00.000-07:00

I sort of hate to admit this, but I don't actually like zucchini bread. It doesn't make me think of childhood, or warm memories, or harvest. To me zucchini bread just tastes like desperation with cinnamon-sugar.

This week, I was desperate. But I also wasn't far enough into getting ready for fall mode that cinnamon and nutmeg sounded like a good idea. So I decided to take the base zucchini recipe and see if I could modify it to be something that I feel like eating right now.

I added ginger and lemon zest, and it was pretty good. A good fistful of poppy seeds would have made it better. Funny thing is that zucchini bread isn't a perfectly neutral base. You can almost taste how it wants the warm flavors of the fall to augment it. That said, warm flavors of fall are not happening right now. Instead, this little treasure is.

Lemon - Ginger Zucchini Bread

2 eggs
1/2 C oil
2 C grated squash
2 C flour
1.5 C sugar
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
salt
zest of one lemon
1/4 tsp ginger.

Just whiz it all together and bake in a greased 9x5 loaf pan at 350 for 60 - 70 minutes.

The Share

2010-08-07T17:00:00.000-07:00

After I posted that nobody would take my collards, one of my loyal readers (and a neighbor) offered to take them off my hands for me! Also, she has promised me a recipe for them in return. I can't wait to see what she comes up with.

The Haul:
Beets
Potatoes
Onion
Basil
Collards
Cilantro
Chard
Squash
Cucumbers
Tomatoes
Eggplant

The Plan:
None. This is ravioli making week, so the beets and basil will go into those. Other than that, I am at a loss. I'm going to have to do some quick work to figure out a plan!

Fries

2010-08-06T14:25:00.000-07:00

When I was traveling in Belguim, I stayed with a family who was extremely proud of their homemade french fries. At the time, I didn't get it - french fries are french fries, right? Throw some potatoes in oil, and call it good.

Today I know better. I tried to make some fries for the kids for the last day of vacation. We had no activities planned, so I figured that making up some fries would be a special treat. My fries were nothing to be proud of, however. Apparently there is more to the process than throwing some potatoes in oil.

Rather than figure out what I was doing wrong, however, I went a different route. I cut some more potatoes and breaded them, because I knew it would work. And, oh my, they were delicious!

Breaded French Fries:

2 medium potatoes, cut into fries
1/2 C flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
healthy dash of paprika

Mix the flour, salt, pepper, and paprika in a bowl, and then gradually add water until you have a runny batter. Heat oil (in a deep frier, if you have one). Dip fries in batter and then drop one by one into the frier. Fries are done when they float and are a nice golden brown, about 5 - 7 minutes.

Tomato Consomme

2010-08-04T17:00:00.000-07:00

I'm back to writing about food!

Tomato consomme is not the sort of thing I would normally make. It's not that it is hard, exactly, and it's not even that it takes too long. The problem for me is that it takes a healthy amount of food and reduces it to almost nothing. Usually, I like my recipes to return larger, heartier portions than this one does.

With S gone for a while though, a recipe that takes tons of food and turns it into rose-colored water seemed to be just the thing. I spent three days of S's absence eating Zucchini Bread, Tomato Consomme, and cucumber salads. Let's just say that this is a big step up from what I normally do when I'm on my own.

That said, I think it's an open question whether or not consomme should even count as food. There's something deeply unsettling about eating water for dinner, even fantastically delicious water. When you are feeling a bit peckish at 9pm, I can promise you that you will not be reaching for the consomme.

Also, for anyone keeping track, the toddler absolutely will eat half my consomme, though only through a straw.

This recipe is from the absolutely essential book, Jamie at Home: Cook Your Way to the Good Life. Buy it. You won't be sorry. The recipe calls for horseradish, the only ingredient I didn't have on hand. Jamie says in the intro that he based the flavors off a bloody mary recipe though, so I freely substituted a dash of tabasco for horseradish. I have no doubt that it would have been better with the horseradish, but it was pretty amazingly fantastic with the tabasco too. Here is the recipe as written:

Tomato Consomme

Large bunch basil

4.5 lbs tomatoes

1x2 in piece of fresh horseradish peeled and roughly chopped

1/2 clove of garlic, peeled

1 - 2 Tbs red wine vinegar

1 - 2 shots of vodka

1 slice of beet (for color)

salt and pepper

Jamie's instructions are much more detailed and complicated, but here is the gist - blend everything in a blender (stalks of basil included). Pour the resulting mush into a double layer of cheesecloth and suspend the cloth over a bowl. After 5 - 7 hours you will have gorgeous consomme.

Off-Topic Rant

2010-08-03T17:00:00.000-07:00

Our local library has this great resource - a book store where they sell pre-owned children's books that have been donated. Books sell for around $2 each, and the funds they raise go into maintaining the library. The other morning, my husband took the kids there for some library time and some book hunting. The family came home with a pretty pile of books.

In the pile was a book I fondly remembered from my own childhood, Bread and Jam for Francis, some other silliness involving a toboggan, one about a little band, and the requisite Elmo book. By far my daughter's favorite book, however, was a handsomely illustrated book of Hans Christian Anderson fairy tales. Nell was instantly in love with the beautiful pictures.

Of course she wanted me to read her some fairy tales right away. She has some concept of the little mermaid, so she wanted to start there, and I did. I warned her that it wasn't a very pretty or happy story - certainly not like the Disney version - but she insisted. Nell is only four and a half, and I believe that the Anderson version of the story just confused her more than anything, as it was so far removed from what she knew the tale to be. So we continued next with Thumbelina. No problem. The moral of that tale seems to be don't marry outside of your species, which is a perfectly fine message for children as far as I am concerned. Last, she asked for The Little Match Girl.

I guess my mother spared me this story when I was young, because the truth was that when I first started reading it to Nell, I had NO IDEA what I was in for. In case you haven't taken the time to familiarize yourselves with this tale, the broad strokes are as follows - Poverty stricken little girl tries to sell matches on New Year's Eve and can't sell any, rather than go home to her abusive father, she curls up in a nook, where she has several beautiful holiday-themed hallucinations before finally dying in the cold while having a vision of going to heaven with her late grandmother.

Nevermind that my daughter's birthday is New Year's Eve, even if it weren't I don't believe that there is any way I could have gotten through that story without crying. It's just horrible. Poking around a bit on the 'tubes, I find that many folks consider it to be a classic Christmas tale. I can't figure this one out. Apparently there's some subset of the population that just doesn't feel like it's really Christmas time unless they have some great tragic literary catharsis to remind the kids that someday too, they will die.

Some other subset of the population sees it as essentially a Christian passion tale, though still claiming it as a Christmas story. This move is sort of theologically confusing to me, but I've long ago given up trying to understand how people develop their own theologies.

The majority of the folks out there who love this story though are people who simply believe that it is a childhood classic, and as such should continue to be read to children and passed down from one generation to the next. New literary editions of the Andersen tales come out every several years or so. Movie interpretations are made, compositions are written, coloring books are published. On-line laments are made about current parents' unwillingness to expose their children to the dark and the sad, and the tales are heralded as essential reading.

My question is why bother? One hundred and fifty years ago, it may have seemed fine to tell stories in which beauty bought you everything you ever wanted whereas ugliness was a sign of evil. In the days before c-sections and antibiotics, it may have seemed normal to never have a mother in a story, but today, thankfully, we can pretty well expect the moms to be around. And when life spans were quite a bit shorter, I suppose that love at first sight, and dying for love seemed less thoroughly outlandish than they do today. But this is not Nell's world. Why should the harsh realities endured by children in the 1850's be part of the cannon today?

By contrast, Bread and Jam for Francis is about a little girl who only wants to eat bread and jam, and what her mother does to encourage her to experiment more - a circumstance quite familiar to my own daughter. It lacks magic and drama, but is loaded with humor and whimsy and love, and it speaks to the challenges that Nell deals with every day.

For my part, I've stopped reading the Anderson tales to Nell, largely because I don't want to dwell with her in a place of darkness and sadness. And I think that on some level, she gets it. She has also stopped asking for them, preferring instead the new pile of books we nabbed from the library, which includes such tales as The Berenstein Bears go to the Dentist, and Jake Baked the Cake. What we give up in magic and drama, we more than make up for in joy and humor. And that seems like a fair trade to me.

Vacation

2010-08-02T17:00:00.000-07:00

This week we are on vacation, basically. No trip is planned for most of the family. S had to be gone for work, and our work/preschool logistics are too complex for one person to run. So I took the week off. Also, frankly, I was tired and ready for a break.

We have no real plans. I figure that if you cannot entertain two kids in Southern Californa for a week, that's a real poverty of imagination.

Our vacation took us to the tide pools at Leo Carillo. See how dark and cold it looks? Not like what you would expect for the last weekend in July!

Isn't the world amazing upside-down?

Do not try to help the boy. He will do it himself.

We found and poked at a little crab for a while. Magic.

Also, I tried to give away some of the CSA to neighbors. NB that nobody wants collard greens. Not even for free.

Banana Bread

2010-08-01T17:00:00.000-07:00

Please forgive the terrible picture. I assure you this tastes better than it seems like it should based on the picture alone.

That said, can you believe how good this looks? When I had my bakery, our banana bread was delicious, but looked like hell. It was all flat and heavy and dark, with no hint of the loft that this bread has. The sad thing is that reading through the recipe, I have no clue what makes this one so far superior to what I used to proudly sell. Rombauer says that it is the mixing technique, and I have to believe her, because I can't imagine what else it could be.

NB that the recipe calls for you to bake the loaf in an 8.5 in pan and I used a 9.5 in pan. Imagine how much lovelier it would have been in the right pan!

Best-ever Banana Bread from Joy of Cooking

In a large bowl, beat at high speed for 2 minutes:
1/3 C butter, softened
2/3 C sugar

Beat in:
1 1/3 C All Purpose Flour
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
until blended and the consistency of brown sugar.

Gradually add
2 Large eggs

Add 2 overripe bananas, and mix until everything is smooth. Add walnuts, if desired.

Pour mix into a greased 8.5 by 4.5 inch pan and bake 50 - 60 minutes (reduce by 10 minutes for the larger pan like I used).

The Share

2010-07-31T17:00:00.000-07:00

In the world of CSA life, there is a certain amount of pride in getting through your entire share in a week with no leftovers and no waste. Unfortunately, the bounty is so great that if anything unexpected knocks you off your game, it's nearly impossible to recover. All this by way of saying that last week was not great for me, food-wise.

The share this week was lovely and plentiful. Definitely have to bring my A-game to get all the way through this one! The cucurbits are overflowing in my crisper.

The Haul:
Onion
Garlic
Beets
Cucumbers (6)
Squash (12)
Eggplant (1)
Oranges (2)
Grapefruit (1)
Tomatoes (about a zillion)
Lettuce (1)
Collards (smallish baby ones)
Chard
Mint
Basil
Cilantro

The Plan:
Zucchini Bread is a must-make
Another fresh tomato sauce
Cucumber salad w/mint
Some sort of gratin?

As I look at the list, it's feeling less like a the sort of week where I make it all work together, and more like a week where I make a zillion different types of salads and serve three at every meal. Not terribly coherent as far as a menu goes, but with all that fresh food, it's hard to go too far wrong!

Also, Amazon keeps suggesting that I link you all to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo I have no idea if this is even a good book, but it has shown up in my "suggestions" queue so many times, that I'm starting to think that Amazon knows something about you all that I don't. Let me know if you buy the book.

Beet Soup

2010-07-27T05:00:00.000-07:00

I had gotten a bit behind with the beets. When we got this share's bunch, I still had last week's bunch in the fridge, plus another week's bunch in the freezer, already roasted. Even though it is the screaming hot middle of summer, it seemed inevitable that I would make beet soup.

This recipe is as easy as they come, but adds up to way more than the sum of its parts. Three of the four family members ate it eagerly, and one ate it grudgingly (which is much better than not at all). The baby liked it best of all, and went after my bowl when his was gone. When mine was gone, he went after his sister's.

FWIW, I decided to change clothes before we ate this, which was one of the better decisions I made that day.

Beet Soup

1 Large onion, diced
2 lbs roasted beets, chopped
1 lb potatoes, peeled and diced
1 clove garlic
4 Tbs butter
Vegetable stock
Sour cream, to garnish

Put onion and butter in your soup pot and saute onion until tender and sweet, about 15 minutes. Either chop garlic fine, or run through a garlic press and add to onion. Saute one minute more. Add beets and potatoes, and just enough stock to cover, simmer until potatoes are very soft, about 20 minutes.

Blend soup. If needed, add more stock. Garnish with sour cream. I had some aji on hand and threw that in too, which added a nice summery note.

Insert Your Own Name Here

2010-07-25T17:00:00.000-07:00

I made this thing, I don't know what to call it. I had originally been calling it a tarte tatin, until I was informed that by definition tarte tatin is made with apples. So I guess that you could call what I made Savory Tomato Upside Down Tart. Or you could probably invent something even less felicitous than that, if you put your mind to it.

I made this because it seemed very easy and CSA-friendly. I went through most of the onions from my garden, plus some from the CSA, and half the week's tomatoes in one dish. Of course, we served a salad alongside.

Sam liked it way better than I did - I feel like it got too soggy with the tomatoes. I'm not sure how to fix this, or even really if doing so is necessary. It was certainly fine as is.

CSA Tart
1 pint small tomatoes
about 1 C onions, sliced
2 Tbs butter
1 tsp brown sugar
1 Tbs balsamic
salt and pepper
1/8 tsp fresh Thyme
Basil
1 sheet puff pastry, thawed

Preheat oven to 400. In a 7 or 8 inch skillet, cook onions in butter until soft and sweet. Stir in sugar, balsamic, salt and pepper, and thyme. Turn off heat and add tomatoes. Place pastry dough over the skillet and tuck in the edges, sort of under the tomato filling. Bake for 30 minutes.

Here's the only dicey part - when the tart is cooked, invert the tart onto a serving plate. I found this step to be near impossible, what with the screaming hot pan, and the sloppy tomato filling. I'm sure there's a way to make this step easy, I just don't know it yet. Top with basil and serve.

I was extra clever, and used the dough I had trimmed from the edges to make little squash, sausage, and brie tartlets for the kiddies. They devoured their little tarts!

The Share

2010-07-24T17:00:00.000-07:00

This week looks a lot like the last, which is good. I still have plenty of good ideas for what to do! Also, I stacked the odds in my favor by giving away a couple of my squash to a coworker, and half the basil to a neighbor. That should make it easier to get through it all in one week!

The Haul:
Beets
Onions
Potatoes
Eggplant
Squash
Tomatoes
Lemon
Grapefruit
Lettuce
Collards (I'm pretty sure)
Basil
Cilantro

The Plan:
Beet soup
Some sort of tomato/onion tart with Basil
Squash bread
Aji sauce
No clue what to do with the collards. I'm taking suggestions there!

Half the Things I Want Don't Even Exist

2010-07-23T17:00:00.000-07:00

I don't get to do much shopping, what with the wee ones and all. When I do, it's usually in super-rush mode to fit everything in before the next meal or nap. Needless to say, it's not much fun.

This leaves me in the curious position of having all sorts of ideas about what I'd like to get, and no ability to find them. See, I understand that most people are out shopping, they see something they want and/or need and/or like for their house and then they buy it. I, on the other hand, see a need in the house, imagine the perfect thing to fill it, and then can never find the thing I have imagined. Not even on the internet.

For example - I make a quick bread almost every week. Invariably, it sits on the counter in a plastic bag, where it is something of an eyesore until it is finally eaten up. Ideally, I would have something sort of like a giant butter dish that I could put the bread in to keep it fresh and easily accessible without having the kitchen look trashy. I've looked at bread boxes, but I don't think any of them would really work.

So I'm taking suggestions - what do you do to store quickbreads that looks pretty? All reasonable ideas are much appreciated!

Fun with Frying

2010-07-21T17:00:00.000-07:00

When I first bought the deep fryer, Sam inquired, "What are you going to do with it?"

"Funnel Cake" was my tart reply, and I was shocked when Sam seemed to actually like the idea. Who knew?

Apparently some of that deep fried dough excitement wore off after the eggplant parm though, because the beer-battered chard stems that I made were not terribly well received. Don't get me wrong, they were delicious. Really really delicious. They were also perfectly fried battered vegetables, and there's only so much of that you can take.

This recipe is from the do-everything-you-can-to-hide-the-flavor-because-you-are-so-totally-over-it school of cooking. But what can I say? Chard grows pretty much year-round here, and after months of seeing it every week, you have to start getting creative.

Stems from one bunch chard, cleaned and edges trimmed
1/2 C flour
1 Tbs cornstarch
1/2 C + 1 Tbs beer
salt and pepper

Loosely combine the flour, cornstarch, beer and salt and pepper. Lumps are ok. Dip each stem in the batter until well coated and then fry until golden brown. Drain and serve immediately.

Aloe

2010-07-19T17:00:00.000-07:00

We all know that plants convert CO2 to breathable oxygen, which is a fine reason to keep a few in the house. What I never knew until reading The New Whole Foods Encyclopedia, is that while most plants are active during the day, there are several that are active only at night. Aloe is among them.

This makes aloe a perfect plant to keep in the bedroom, which I started doing a few weeks ago. I can't say for sure that I've noticed a big difference in the quality of the air, but I do love the idea of cleaning the air in the kids rooms while they sleep. I'm also adding a few succulents to the decor in our family room. I'm generally terrible with plants, but things that need little attention should be manageable.

Squash Butter

2010-07-18T17:00:00.000-07:00

When I first read in The Kitchn that it was possible to make squash butter, I knew that I would be trying it out. The idea that you could cook squash down to nothingness then spread it on toast seemed like the perfect solution for the 6 or so squash that show up in each CSA share.

The recipe is painfully vague though. Having made apple butter in the past, I always cooked it for hours in a crock pot. This one tells you to cook until jammy - a consistency that my squash got to after about 45 minutes. I kept cooking it anyway, about 90 minutes total, and it is still a little chunky. I do wonder if perhaps grinding it up in a food processor and then simmering it until reduced by half isn't a better way to go.

Also? I have a whole quart of it, which is not a bad thing, but I find that it is hard to use more than a tablespoon or so at a time, at least as a sandwich or toast spread. To get through it all, I will need to either start using it as a base for pizzas, or get creative about dumping it into omelets etc for breakfast.

That said, it tastes great. My normal breakfast now is English muffin with a bit of cream cheese and squash jam.

2 lbs squash, grated
1/4 c butter
salt and pepper

Simmer, uncovered, over low heat about 90 minutes.

The Share

2010-07-17T21:00:00.000-07:00

It has been a busy week, work-wise, which means that cooking has taken a second place to just getting through the mounds of stuff that had to be gotten through. Needless to say, this is not the most conducive circumstance for fabulous cooking, though I am managing a few experiments that I hope I can share here soon.

I did really cook my way through the share this week, largely by making a desperate use-up-the-basil-and-other-stuff pesto at the last possible moment. It is in the freezer, which is more like differing the share than using it.

The Haul:
Peaches
Tomatoes
Yellow squash x2
Pattypan squash x4
Potatoes
Beets
Lettuce
Bok Choi
Chard
Basil
Cilantro
Snapdragons

The Plan:
Zucchini Butter
Deep frying something, maybe battered chard stems, maybe squash
Squash pasta dish
Jack Bishop's Chard pasta dish
Burger night w/friends to use up some of the luscious pickles in my fridge
Shrimp and tomatoes over pasta

It's a pretty pasta-heavy plan, but that also means that it is fast and easy, which is exactly what it needed.

Eggplant Parmigiana

2010-07-15T17:00:00.000-07:00

No joke, I actually went to Target for the express purpose of buying the Presto 05471 1000-Watt 1-Liter Stainless-Steel Electric Deep Fryer. My friend J assures me that a deep fryer is a totally unnecessary item - that a pan and a thermometer will do the trick just as well, and I am sure she is right. Seriously, the Amazon reviews for the friers, no matter how cheap, are uniformly great. This can only mean that heating oil is not a terribly difficult thing to do.

Frying is such uncharted territory for me though that I really liked the idea of having a dedicated piece of equipment. It comes with instructions (which I need), and stores the oil when I am not using it. Also, it fits nicely in the very top of my cabinet, the perfect symbolic spot for how often I should be using it.

For my first deep-fry experiment, I made eggplant parmigiana, kind-of. Really, I just fried eggplant and served it with marinara and basil. It was ridiculously good. The kids loved it. There is no recipe here: dredge slices of eggplant on flour, dip in egg, and coat with panko. Then fry until nicely brown, preferably with the Presto 05471 1000-Watt 1-Liter Stainless-Steel Electric Deep Fryer, which I highly recommend.

Also? Despite my extreme caution, I managed to spill a fair amount of oil on my skirt. I can attest that some combination of baking soda, very hot water, dish detergent, and panic can take even quite large oil stains out of organic cotton.

Zucchini Crumble

2010-07-13T17:00:00.000-07:00

Since I spilled the beans about my bafflement with summer squash, many friends have directed me to helpful recipes (thank you all - keep them coming!). I decided to start with one from the fabulous French blogger Chocolate and Zucchini. She has a savory zucchini crumble that seemed not only like a great squash recipe, but also a truly endlessly adaptable technique for getting through the CSA share. Because the author, Clotilde, is French, it's pretty easy to ignore the fact that the recipe reads a lot like something that would have been topped with Bisquick and called "hot dish" where I grew up.

This recipe called for julienned vegetables, and although that's not strictly necessary (do half moons really taste any worse?), I found it to be a great opportunity to break out my Matfer Mandoline, which I love love love. Do as you please with the slicing. I'm certain that it will taste roughly the same. As long as the vegetables are cut into relatively small pieces, I am certain that it will work.

The whole thing can be prepared up to a day in advance and baked just prior to serving.

Zucchini Crumble

1/2 medium onion, diced
1 8oz package mushrooms, sliced
1 lb sliced zucchini (cut in some pleasing fashion)
thyme
1 tbs + 1/2 C flour
2 tbs + 1/4 C salted butter
1/2 C quick cook rolled oats
1/4 C walnuts
1/2 C emmentaler, shredded

Preheat oven to 425.

In a large pan, cook the onion in 2 Tbs butter over medium until soft, about 5 mins. Add mushrooms and continue cooking 3 minutes more. Add squash, and cook until softened. Stir in 1 Tbs flour and remove from heat. Stir in cheese. Put vegetables into a 9" pie pan.

In a food processor, pulse flour, oats, and walnuts until fine. Pour into a mixing bowl and add butter. Using a pastry blender, blend in 1/4 C butter until the mix forms lumps when you squeeze it. Top the veggies with the streusel, and bake for 15 mins.

Basil Pesto Raviolis

2010-07-11T17:00:00.000-07:00

I've been wanting to make ravioli with my share for several months. The idea of filling pasta with veggies, and topping it with more veggies appeals both to my sense of CSA economy and to my love for Italian foods. And yet, I have no pasta maker, and also I have little time or patience for making my own dough, and so it never happens. This week though, I finally took everyone's suggestion and made wonton wrappers into little raviolis.

The results were good, but not perfect. I love wontons intensely, but they just are not ravioli. They are insanely delicate, and not half as toothsome as the real thing. I would make it again - it is a good way to use up extra ricotta and pretty much anything else - but I would much rather have a pasta party with a few friends where we all work together for a morning and just make a zillion ravioli and freeze them.

I had pesto already made up from a prior share, so I just combined it 50/50 with some ricotta. One quarter cup of each will make enough filling for two servings. I filled the wontons then folded into triangles, and pressed a fork into the edges to ensure the seal would hold. Boil for a few minutes at most.

My tomatoes were exceptional this week, so my sauce was literally just cut up tomatoes, EVOO and a little garlic heated through until some of the liquid cooks off.

This is CSA bliss.

The Share

2010-07-10T17:00:00.000-07:00

I have nothing to put on my head today! This feels good. When I picked up my share and found neat little bags of lettuce ready to go, I nearly started dancing, I was so grateful. There is a bizarre guilt involved with CSA life - when you personally know and care about your farmer, you want to honor their hard work by eating all the great stuff they give you. And sometimes you just can't. I had been failing on the lettuce front for several weeks already, and getting just the right amount in the last share made my whole week better.

The share made a radical shift towards summer this week, with lots of new items.

The Haul:
Lettuce
Chard
Arugula
Basil
Cilantro returns!
Eggplant makes its first appearance!
Yellow Squash x2
Pattypan squash x3
Onions
Potatoes
Tomatoes (gorgeous, sweet and amazing)
Apricots
Green Plums
Snapdragons

The Plan:
Squash and mushroom crumble
Pesto ravioli with fresh tomato sauce
Most of the rest will probably go into sides, except the eggplant...

I'm hunting for ideas for eggplant, which I am not naturally as drawn to as I am other vegetables. I've been wanting a FryDaddy Electric Deep Fryer for some time, and eggplant might be the reason I finally get one. All I can think to do with it is bread it, fry it, and dump some marinara over it - which is a condition of my upbringing in an Italian-American household, I'm sure. Recipe suggestions are most welcome!

Ad Hoc Leek Bread Pudding

2010-07-09T17:00:00.000-07:00

I feel like a cheat even saying that I made this recipe, as I did not follow the directions exactly. This seems to be the way with CSA life though - you find a recipe and think something along the lines of, "If I substituted out three ingredients, I could make something pretty much like this and use up my share." With that said, bread pudding is bread pudding, and Keller's employs (mostly) known tricks for making it excellent. The only really new angle is a parchment lid, and I basically ignored his instructions there. I figured that any time you are intending to cook a vegetable for 2 hours, a little parchment in the beginning isn't going to make much of a difference.

I didn't have enough leek, or enough guests to warrant a giant bread pudding, so I halved the recipe, and threw in some finely chopped chard (because I had to use it up) to make up the remaining difference. Also, with no brioche on hand, I used egg bread and added an extra few tablespoons butter. Otherwise, I followed it pretty closely (for me). That said, I feel like this recipe is both fabulous and endlessly adaptable, and if I could find a way to make it in less than two hours, it would be a part of the regular CSA rotation.

This recipe is already on the 'tubes. Check it out here.

Facebooking

2010-07-08T17:00:00.000-07:00

I finally got around to catching up with the 21st century, and added my blog to Facebook. For those of you who prefer to do all your blog-reading-business via Facebook (instead of Google reader, or RSS or some such), now you can find the same riveting content here. I've discovered that the FB RSS auto feed is a bit wonky - it seems like they run it at random intervals, rather than once every two hours, as advertised. Eventually it all goes through though, so you are unlikely to miss anything by choosing the FB route. I will also be posting food-related content that interests me. I hope you'll find me there!

Chocolate Pattypan Bread

2010-07-07T17:00:00.000-07:00

I confess to getting a bit lost when I saw those giant pattypan squash. Very big squash are largely flavorless, and since squash itself isn't particularly nutritious, I seriously considered not even dealing with the squash at all. I figured I could cut one in half and serve dip out of it, or maybe roast it with some other yummy filling. But then I remembered zucchini bread, and figured that I would give some version of that a try.

Also - I got myself in trouble last week by claiming that a post on Almost Bourdai n was bogus, when in fact it just didn't work for me. Now, I used to run a bakery, so I know my way around baking pretty well, and the thing was still a major FAIL for me.

This got me thinking. Back in my bakery days, we did everything by weights rather than by measures, because weights are about a zillion times more accurate. I feel certain that if the whole recipe had been in weights, I would have gotten reliably excellent results. So for my own recipes for baked goods, from now on, I will be showing both weights and measures. I hope it helps!

Chocolate Pattypan Bread

Note: do not use summer squash other than pattypan for this recipe. Pattypan is significantly less wet than other squash, and a substitution will drastically change your results.

2 C (325 g) grated squash
1 C (770 g) oil
3 eggs (165 g)
3/4 C (159 g) white sugar
1/2 C (105 g) brown sugar
1 1/2 C (245 g) flour
1/2 C (51 g) cocoa
1/4 C (65 g) sour cream
2 T (12 g) baking powder
1 C (155 g) chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350. Grease and flour a 9x5 loaf pan. Mix oil, eggs, and both sugars until well incorporated. Blend in flour, cocoa powder, sour cream, and baking powder. Stir in squash and chips.

Bake for 60 - 70 minutes.

NB: I feel absolutely certain that you could make this into a cake too. Just grease and flour two 9" cake rounds, divide the batter, and bake 25 - 30 minutes.

Fourth of July

2010-07-05T17:00:00.000-07:00

We've never really made a big deal out of the Fourth of July holiday. Maybe some pool time, if Nell can stay up, she can see some fireworks, but we've never really gotten too into the holiday aspect of it. So I knew, when we packed up to see J & M and to have the kids share in the bike parade in their neighborhood, that we would be under-prepared. I had no idea how massively under-prepared we were:

Thank goodness J's mom had taken the trouble to actually *purchase* outfits for my kids to wear, or we would probably have been ridden out of the neighborhood for our lack of patriotic show.

We decorated the bikes with goods scavenged from other kids. There was an awful lot of patriotic detritus on the streets.

Sam and I were walking the parade route with the kids. Having not also gotten new outfits from J's mom, we were just dressed as ourselves. Some older dude along the route called out to me, "Hey, what are you two supposed to be?" "Parents," I replied, not knowing what else to say.

Then came the fire truck for the kids to explore. Apparently it's a local law out here that all firefighters must be strapping and young? This picture doesn't really do him justice.

Also? There was food. I love eating with J because she invariably makes recipes that I would never ever make. If it is time consuming or complicated, J takes it as a personal challenge, and proves that complexity is no barrier to culinary success. To that end, she made this yumminess.

J made more luscious items than I can recall here, but among them was Bobby Flay's potato salad (which we decided was completely as advertised - all his recipes work out well), and a hamburger made with ground chuck, andouille sausage and toasted pecans. To this we added blue cheese, caramelized onions, and pickled beets (my sole sad contribution to the fest). We decided not to eat dinner that night.

Squash Galette

2010-07-04T17:00:00.000-07:00

I feel very uncreative when it comes to summer squash, which is my own hang-up, I know. We're only about three weeks into the squash deluge, and I'm already running low on ideas. So I was especially happy to see that Smitten Kitchen just posted a GORGEOUS Squash Galette, and decided to try it this week.

I made the recipe basically as written with only one change - I added shredded arugula to the top after baking for a little extra something and also (really) because I had some hanging around.

The crust is perfection. It is a bit labor intensive relative to what I usually make, but perfectly possible for a weekend. I did not roll mine out quite thin enough, and so it looks less full around the edges than the Smitten Kitchen version, but was still well beyond adequate for the purposes of eating. This recipe is special, and I know I will pull it out again.

The Share

2010-07-03T17:00:00.000-07:00

Today was one of those truly "one-step-forward-two-steps-back" parenting days. I got drawer organizers and managed to make my bathroom look like this:

And during the span of time that it took me to accomplish this remarkable feat of organization, my kids made my kitchen look like this:

"It's snowing!"

Yes, that's styrofoam. Makes me wish that we still had a shop vac. Notice how the static electricity ensures that the little beads stick to the cabinets? Nice.

In other food-related news, we continue to get ginormous vegetables. Honestly, I can't even figure this one out. Back in Indiana at the farmer's market, we used to get pattypan squash in strawberry baskets, like 5 or 6 to a basket. They were delicious, and I used to batter them and fry them up. This week, we all got at least one of these:

I'm continuing with the very popular food-on-my-head theme, just to demonstrate the jaw-droppingly giant size of this guy. This is the larger of the two.

The Haul:
Lettuce x3 (I immediately gave one of my lettuces away, as three giant heads of lettuce is two more than I really need)
Chard
Arugula (a smallish bunch)
Basil
Parsley
Beets
Turnips
Leek
Squash (2 pattypan and two yellow)
A bag of assorted tomatoes and a few apricots
Snapdragons

The Plan:
Grill the romaine
Chocolate zucchini bread
Squash Galette
Leek Bread Pudding (al la Ad Hoc at home)
Pesto
Some sort of enchilada lasagna dealio with the chard and turnips

Pickled Beets

2010-07-02T17:00:00.000-07:00

I'm running out of ideas for the beets. I was backed up with a couple of shares worth already in my refrigerator, then my husband picked all the beets out of our garden. So in addition to roasting some for salads this week, and roasting then freezing some for unknown future applications, I pickled a bunch.

Pickled beets are VERY midwestern. We never had them in my own house (in fact I never remember having beets in my home at all growing up), but I do remember them being around - at summer picnics, at potlucks, at block parties. I'm told that they are a southern food staple as well.

My interest in pickled beets was largely pragmatic at this point - I had to come up with something to do with them so that they would keep for a while, and this fit the bill. I haven't done much of this pickling business, but I suspect that this recipe is really very flexible. You need the right ratio of sugar to vinegar to pickling spice, and you can pretty well invent your own pickle from there. I'd recommend adding in any of the following flavors in the form of spice or solids:

Lemon
Dill
Mustard Seed
Onion
Hot Pepper
Cinnamon Stick
Rosemary
Garlic

How to do it:
Start with a bunch of beets. I have a mandolin, so I like to peel and slice my beets first for that nice even thin slice, but you could easily reverse the order here. Peel and slice beets. Boil until desired softness. Obviously, if you boil first, expect it to take 40 minutes or so, whereas the sliced beets only take 15.

In a saucepan, mix 1/2 C sugar, 1/2 C water, 1 C cider vinegar, and some pickling spice. You can use anywhere from 1/2 tsp to 2 Tbs depending on how much you like the taste of standard pickles. Bring to a boil. Add in any additional flavors that you are going for. Mix beets and sauce in a jar and put into the fridge. Pickled beets taste best after a couple of days and last for over a month. I'll be adding mine to burgers and salads, and will be serving pickle platters at every get together for the next little while.

Swiss Chard with a side of Swiss Chard

2010-07-01T17:00:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine recently turned me on to a couple of swiss chard recipes that were in cookbooks I already own. One is called Chard Utopia, which I immediately snarkily renamed Chard Dystopia, because it was asking for it, and that's basically how I feel about chard these days. The recipe is a simple spanakopita re-engineered to accommodate chard (and found in Simply in Season).

The other recipe was from The Silver Spoon, and calls for only the chard stems. I found this to be genius, but nobody else I shared it with understood why you would ever have left over stems, when it's so easy just to throw them in with the leaves. In my cooking, I find a lot of recipes that call for only the leaves because, I believe, I am pulling a lot of vegetarian recipes where the chard appears as the main dish. If you're just dealing with a simple chard side, sure throw in the stems, who cares. But if you are crafting a main, textures matter a lot more, and the stems don't always match what the recipe is trying to do. My point is that I always have the stems hanging around, and frequently they get dumped in the compost for want of a better plan.

Now I no longer have to feel guilty about my compost, because the stem recipe incorporates two of my favorite things - hidden anchovies (yum!), and parmesan. The results are bizarrely wonderful - rich and deeply flavorful, and eminently repeatable.

Stems from 2 bunches Chard, sliced into 2" lengths
2 anchovy fillets
EVOO
1/2 C grated Parmesan

Bring a pot of salted water to a boil, and add the stems. Cook for 10 minutes or until soft. In a large saute pan, heat the evoo, and dissolve the anchovies in the oil. Add the stems and saute until nicely browned about 5 minutes more. Top with Parmesan and serve.

For Chard Dystopia, visit here.

Zucchini and Blossom Frittata

2010-06-29T17:00:00.000-07:00

When we got our squash blossoms this week, it occurred to me to do a little reading up on them, since they are such a rarity in our shares. Here's what I learned: the squash plant is self-pollinating and as such has two types of blossoms, male and female. The blossoms can easily be identified because the male has a stamen whereas the female has a bulge at the base which is the nascent fruit. Usually, when the farmer sells you blossoms, they are male, so always look for and remove the stamen before cooking with the flower, as the stamens are unpleasantly bitter.

Knowing that I had male and female fruits in the same share made me want to have a yin-yang zucchini dinner, which is how it occurred to me to make a double squash frittata. This recipe is easy, but it happens fast, so be sure you have all the elements ready to go before you begin.

1 medium squash, grated
3 - 4 zucchini blossoms
1/2 tsp sliced fresh mint
1/2 C grated Parmesan
7 eggs
1/4 C cream
salt and pepper
unsalted butter

Set a rack to the center of the oven, and heat your oven as hot as it will go without putting it on the self-clean setting. Meanwhile, shred zucchini and Parmesan, cut your mint into ribbons, and halve the blossoms. Beat the eggs with the cream and add some salt and pepper.

Wrap the zucchini in a paper towel, and squeeze as much water out of it as you possibly can. Brown the zucchini in some butter, and then set aside. In a medium (7 - 8") stainless saute pan, heat some butter over high heat until the whole mess is screaming hot. Quickly add in the squash and mint, and spread evenly around the pan. Top with eggs and then the cheese. As it cooks, press the blossoms into the top in a pleasing pattern.

After about 5 minutes, check that the bottom of the frittata is nicely brown. If it is, throw it into the oven. Once in the oven, switch the heat to the broil setting. Check after five minutes, and every two minutes thereafter. Once the top is set and the frittata is nicely brown, remove from the oven and serve!

Beet and Potato Salad with Parsley Oil

2010-06-27T14:30:00.000-07:00

This week I couldn't get excited about receiving our first shares of parsley. I don't love parsley. It's fine and all, but really, it's parsley. There's not much there to love.

Since I had no plans to make pasta this week (no tomatoes), I decided to throw the parsley into my favorite go-to greens application - blended in a food processor with some other stuff, and served as a sauce. I looked at several sauce recipes, and all wanted you to cook the parsley before blending, but this sounded too cumbersome to me. I think my application is easier, and also allows greater flexibility for flavoring the sauce.

I served this over roasted beets and potatoes, and it was surprisingly excellent. The parsley really added a subtle complexity to the dish. I will definitely make it again!

1 C parsley
1/4 C olive oil
2 T butter
1 tsp dijon
salt and pepper to taste

(NB: Had I been thinking, I would have added some of my green garlic to this list. I think it would be better with a bit, but don't know. Also, I chose to make this sauce fairly loose and add butter because it was going over potatoes. To use it for a salad, stick with oil only, just add a bit extra when it hits the sauce pan.)

In a food processor, blend parsley and oil. Add mix to a small sauce pan and heat over medium. Melt in butter and dijon, then season with salt and pepper. Sauce is done when the parsley has lost some of its crunchy raw-ness.

Serve with potatoes, over fish, over roast vegetables, or on salads.

The Share

2010-06-26T17:00:00.000-07:00

Last week was not a great one for me for cooking. I had a brilliant idea to roast all my garlic and blend it with butter and make giant grilled zucchini sandwiches using the garlic butter as a spread. Then I forgot to take pictures of any of it, and felt considerably less like a genius. Most of the rest of the week was me using up the veggies either raw in salads, or as very basic side dishes. Not much to report.

This week will be different.

The Haul:
Lettuce x 2
Kale
Chard
Basil
Parsley
Beets
Fennel
Zucchini
Oranges
Squash Blossoms
Nasturtium
Sunflowers

I confess that I left my sunflowers behind this week. They are lovely, but when they can no longer sit at the table nicely, I compost them, and our composter is getting rather full thanks to these mammoth flowers. Meanwhile, the lettuce is killing me. It's so much, and I need a break from salads. I may decide to wear it.

The Plan:
Zucchini and Squash Blossom Frittata with grilled romaine
Chard Utopia
Chard stems with anchovies
Beet and Potato salad - maybe parsley oil as a dressing?
Pickled Beets
Caramelized Fennel
And probably about a zillion more salads

Fun New Book

2010-06-24T20:55:00.000-07:00

One of my dear friends is the national marketing director for Penguin, and is forever turning up excellent books for me that I never knew existed. Last week, he showed me a copy of The New Whole Foods Encyclopedia: A Comprehensive Resource for Healthy Eating, and I was hooked.

Set up like an encyclopedia of vegetables, this book tells you exactly why you should love all the great fruits and veggies that you are eating. Wood specifies proper preparation and storage of each item, and also details the nutrient value. For anyone into traditional medicine, you can discover what parts of the body each food is traditionally used to treat, and for those into Auyerveda, she offers those details as well.

Although I have never been much into traditional medicine, I find the book delightful. In part, this is because Wood is so positive about the health benefits of eating widely from the plant kingdom, that you can't help but feel virtuous after every meal. Also, I'm finding that learning about which plants are related to one another is useful information when planning diverse meals. In short, I thoroughly enjoy it, and believe that you will too!

Disappointment

2010-06-23T17:00:00.000-07:00

***UPDATE***
Please note in the comments that apparently the failure here is mine alone. Though I can't really work out how, I'm prepared to accept that I screwed this up. Perhaps things bake better in Australia? :)

It's rare that I come across a recipe and have an immediate urge to make the recipe RIGHT AWAY, but that's what happened when I saw this post on Almost Bourdain. I mean, how amazing does that look? What could be more of a comfort food than a Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip cookie-cake? Really?

So I was terribly excited to make it for a dinner party last weekend. I has Eleanor's help with assembly, and at some point in the process, it occurred to me to wonder, "what makes this any different from a chocolate chip cookie bar?" You know, the ones that get brought to church-basement potlucks, because some overworked mom has no time to shape actual cookies? Nonetheless, I continued precisely as directed, and came up with this:

basically a round chocolate chip cookie bar. And not even the best chocolate chip cookie recipe I've ever made.

Now I know that lots of the folks writing food blogs are food stylists first and cooks second, but come on. Somehow, someone mixed up all the same ingredients I did in basically the same ratio I did and came up with something that looks like a real cake? Seems unlikely. I wish they had posted the recipe that they used to make the cake in the photos though, because that one looks good.

Anniversary Dinner

2010-06-21T20:34:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, Sam and I celebrated 12 years of marriage. Unfortunately, we couldn't really celebrate much because I was working all day and into the night of our actual anniversary day. So we settled for a nice meal at home the following Monday. Of course there is no food adequately wonderful enough to celebrate the joys that I have enjoyed with Sam over the last 12 years, but I thought scallops would come close.

For years I avoided eating scallops because it was impossible to find ones I liked. Today however, every time I drive home from work, I pass a little shop where I can nab dry bay and diver scallops pretty much every day. So I shelled out the $20 for a pound of GORGEOUS diver scallops and took them home, terrified that I would ruin them. Fortunately, there is a dead simple recipe for perfect scallops, courtesy of Ad Hoc at Home by Thomas Keller. It goes like this: Cook scallops with a bit of clarified butter in a screaming hot pan for 3 minutes per side. I served them with butter and lemon, and nothing else. The meat is so wonderfully delicate that nothing else was needed.

I also finally made kale chips, which are also dead simple. With their slightly briny flavor, they were the perfect accompaniment to the scallops. You can make them a number of ways, but I went for low and slow - roast kale for 30 minutes at 250. Sam made some carrots with rosemary and garlic, and the whole meal was exactly right.

The Share

2010-06-19T17:00:00.000-07:00

The Festival was wonderful. I've often said that our Festival weekend is like summer camp for serious modern music lovers - there are so many people I get to see year after year, and they are always delightful. Of course the music was delicious too.

One of the highlights of the weekend was a fabulous picnic coordinated by my friend J with the assistance of our farmer and his mentor. Easily the best picnic EVER. J made fried chicken from Ad Hoc at Home, which is just superlative. Since then, I made Thomas Keller's recipe for diver scallops (anniversary dinner), and I am now thoroughly convinced that I need his books in my library.

I barely remembered to pick up the share this week, but thankfully managed to jog my own memory by wondering what the hell I would make for dinner that night...

The Haul:

Lettuce x2

Chard

Kale

Basil

Fennel x2

Beets
Garlic

Zucchini

Sunflowers

The Plan:
I'm feeling especially uninspired, and really ridiculously tired, so planning isn't so hot right now. Some friends are coming to dinner Sunday, so I plan to make a big CSA pie, and not much else. I may pickle the beets, if I don't just give up and throw them into a salad. Maybe we'll grill the zucchini and fennel. And I'm considering making a roast garlic spread for sandwiches. Regardless, this one doesn't seem especially hard to work with. Perhaps I'll get some challenges next week.

In the Mornings we have a Lovely View of the Poison

2010-06-17T21:33:00.000-07:00

About a mile from our house are several large farms. On the face of it this would seem to be a good thing, but in fact much of the farmland surrounding us is used for conventional growing. Before buying in the area, we talked to several environmental scientists that we knew to determine whether or not the health risk from pesticide exposure would be especially troublesome. What we heard was basically reassuring.

Then, about a week ago, plastic sheeting went down over the land. Next we started seeing guys in hazmat suits working trucks with hoses, which was a pretty clear indication that they were applying methyl bromide underground. No matter how reassuring our friends in the chemistry department had been, seeing the workers in full-body protective suiting was terrifying.

Methyl bromide is a powerful toxin. It kills all life it comes in contact with - plant, animal, and insect. It also knocks out all fungus, which is typically why it is used. Extremely strict regulations govern its usage, making it generally much safer for the people living and working around it than it is for the environment as a whole. This is to say that humans seem to tolerate it in small quantities about as well as they tolerate other pesticides - inconclusively poorly.

Meanwhile, the ecosystem hates methyl bromide. The stuff reduces ozone at such a fast clip that it has now been banned from all use and is slowly being phased out. Methyl bromide, which would otherwise be carefully guarded and prohibited from entering the environment at all, has been allowed to sterilize the land in order to bring the people strawberries.

Strawberries, in their natural state, are almost ridiculously delicate. We used to get organic heirloom varieties at our former CSA, and they would deteriorate painfully fast. I would try to feed my kids as many berries as I could the day we got them, because they rarely lasted more than a few days, and never for a full week. To make strawberries more resilient (and marketable), they have been bred for toughness and size, and an application of methyl bromide ensures that the berries can travel long distances and sit on shelves without growing a fungus picked up in the field. If you live in Indiana and are buying strawberries in March, almost surely, you are supporting the industry that relies on poisoning the ecosystem for its income.

This is to say nothing of the poison you ingest with non-organic strawberries. Strawberries first came to my attention back in 2003, thanks to The Healthy Kitchen, in which Dr. Weil carefully articulates why one should never purchase conventionally grown strawberries as a health concern. Since then, strawberries have long been at the top of the Dirty Dozen lists, containing residue from 59 pesticides. Ingestion of this pesticide residue has been linked to myriad health issues ranging from ADHD to cancer.

Of course, it gets worse. Now that methyl bromide has been outlawed, the California assembly is considering approval of methyl iodide. There has been rather a large outcry against the measure, as many biologists consider methyl iodide to be more dangerous to humans than the current toxins. The environmental scientist I asked about the situation thought the outcry was faintly ridiculous, since it is all outrageously toxic. The only way to be sure that you are not buying into the economy that makes this sort of action acceptable is to refuse to purchase ANY inorganic strawberries.

So for any of you who are out there keeping track, I now have two campaigns going:

1) Pro-rutabaga
2) Anti-strawberry

I will continue to post about the outcome of the methyl iodide debate. In the meantime, I simply beg any of you non-Californians reading this to stop purchasing California strawberries. The surest way to eliminate the destruction of the environment and human health through methyl iodide is to remove the economic incentive for people to do so.

Read the NPR report here.
Sign the Credo petition here.

Very Simple Carrots

2010-06-16T17:00:00.000-07:00

Sometimes easiest is best. I did the carrots on my mandolin, for speed and uniformity. Aren't they lovely?

This is lifted pretty directly from The New Mediterranean Diet Cookbook: A Delicious Alternative for Lifelong Health.

1 bunch carrots
1/4 C yogurt
1 garlic clove, crushed
salt and pepper
juice of 1/2 lemon
2 Tbs olive oil

Cut then blanch carrots. Run carrots under cool water to stop cooking. Skip the grating called for in the cookbook, as they are just as lovely cut into rounds.

In a separate bowl mix the rest of the ingredients. Add to the carrots and serve.

My New Favorite Thing

2010-06-14T17:00:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, I had a fabulous Indian lunch with Indian cooking teacher and all-around amazing person Nimita Dhirailal where she served this:

and I was in LOVE.

I think this is the feeling that other people have for the Momofuku miso butter recipe, which I confess that I didn't really like much. Miso + fat + sweet = good. Miso + fat + hot spice = good. Miso + fat only = something that seems lacking to me. The miso flavor is so extreme that it needs a balance. Miso mayo is it.

You can find this in Whole Foods in the refrigerated section. So far, I've had it with artichokes (Nimita) and asparagus (Chang). But I'll have to get creative with it soon. I think it could be ridiculously good on deep fried shrimp, or a roast beef sandwich with sprouts.

The Share

2010-06-12T13:00:00.000-07:00

So while this is automatically posting, I am running the Ojai Festival Box Office. Friends in So Cal, come see me. We still have great programs that you can get into featuring some of the most fascinating contemporary avant garde music written today. Also, I run the friendliest and most efficient Box Office you can imagine, which is worth a visit in and of itself.

OK, back to food.

I know that I often say that things "defy description," largely because I'm too lazy to describe them. In this case, it's really true though. We got the biggest chard ever this week. Imagine the biggest piece of chard you have ever seen, and triple that. That's what we got. State-fair-prize-winning gigantic leaf chard. Here's a picture, with an egg for perspective. I thought of holding it up in front of my face, but those pictures didn't turn out well.

The Haul:
Lettuce 2
Chard
Kale makes a resurgence
Radicchio returns too!
Rutabaga - more hoorays!
Beets
Carrots
Leeks
Green Garlic
Zucchini (3)
2 tiny inexplicable broccoli (perhaps they are compensating for the overwhelming chard?)
Basil
Sunflowers

The Plan:
Gosh, I wish I had one. My best idea is to see what Sam uses while I'm staying up in Ojai working at the Festival, and to host a big dinner party next week to work through whatever is left. Maybe we'll give a few things away. Most of it will keep for a while, so we might just have a very full next week!

Simple Cabbage Salad

2010-06-11T17:00:00.000-07:00

In addition to our fabulous CSA share, we also grow a few of our own vegetables. My daughter loves spinach (!), so we grow that as well as several other items, cabbage among them. Here's what I did with our first home-grown cabbage.

Cabbage, sliced thin
1/2 C buttermilk
2 T mayo
2 T yogurt or sour cream
2 T cider vinegar
1 t sugar
1/2 C crumbled blue cheese
1 scallion, green and light green parts

Mix buttermilk, vinegar, mayo, yogurt, and sugar. Toss with cabbage. Add scallions and cheese and toss gently to combine.

My Husband Makes Pizza

2010-06-09T17:00:00.000-07:00

Friends, I was never so surprised as when I went to pull pictures off my fabulous new camera only to discover that Sam had taken pictures of the meal that he cooked too! We had friends over for dinner recently, and S did all the cooking. He made one of his specialties, grilled pizza, and it was really excellent.

2 Pizzas - one squash and basil, the other chard and onion. No photos of the final product, but these are pretty sweet.

Nantes Carrots with Harissa and Other Things

2010-06-07T17:00:00.000-07:00

Truth is that I made this last week. My husband and a friend were going to a potluck at a place called the Abundant Table, and rather than wait and let him ask me for something complicated to bring, I made this preemptively. The recipe was given to me from my friend J, who invariably sends me excellent recipes.

When I started, I really thought that I had enough food to make it work for a crowd. But then when I looked in the pantry, I was out of the requisite black olives. And also the cooked carrots seemed a bit small. So I added roasted beets, and it was better, but still not quite abundant enough. So then I spread it over lettuce. And added pine nuts. And finally, the dish I sent with Sam was only minimally like the recipe I started with. This happens regularly in my kitchen.

Here's what I actually made:

Carrot Harissa Salad

1 medium bunch carrots - if you have Nantes, good for you, otherwise pretty much any carrot will do
4 medium beets, roasted and cut into dice
1/4 lb feta
about 1 tsp harissa - Mahjoub if you can find it
2 tsp olive oil
1/4 C water
salt to taste
lettuce
pine nuts

Cut carrots into thin circles and cook in boiling water for 3 - 5 minutes. Run under cold water to stop the cooking. In a bowl, mix carrots, beets, and crumbled feta. Set aside.

In a small bowl, mix harissa, oil, and water, and start to pour over the veggies. Be a little careful here. The harissa is hot, and you will want to gauge your tolerance for heat as you go. I ended up using less than the total mix I had made, because I'm not as deeply into spicy foods as some. You may love it as written though.

Chop lettuce and place in a large flat bowl. Spoon carrot mix over the lettuce and top with a handful of pine nuts.

And here is the original recipe.

The Share

2010-06-05T17:00:00.000-07:00

Before I get too far into this, here's a quick note about my life outside of the kitchen. I work at the Ojai Music Festival, which has its big annual event next weekend. So things may slow down here a wee bit for the next week or two. Please hang in there. Not only will I soon have more free time, we are getting closer and closer to the summer boxes, and new veggies to be creative with!

The Haul:
Lettuce x2
Chard
Basil
Zucchini
Onions
Garlic
Carrots
Beets
Oranges (the most outrageously delicious ones I've ever had)
Fennel

The Plan:
The plan is pretty loose this week. I'm thinking about some pizzas, a main dish salad, and some fun carroty experiments. The last three listed items would go together into a big salad nicely, without any fancy recipes required. I don't even have to think to use onions and garlic. All in all, an easy week.

Also, apropos of nothing, I discovered that I am the first hit you get when you google "collard bolts." Same when you type "rutabaga campaign." Pretty cool!

More Octo-Vinaigrette Deliciousness

2010-06-03T17:00:00.000-07:00

After falling in love with David Chang's Octo-Vinaigrette at J's house, I had a stroke of genius - this was the way to get the chard down! The strong chard could easily stand up the the vin, and with some shrimp and noodles, it would make a perfect whole meal.

I had gotten a quick lesson on knife skills when eating with J, who spent several years as a line chef in some pretty happening restaurants while in college, and had plenty to teach me about how to chop things. Sadly, I'm still abysmal, a problem I blame mostly on my poor depth perception. I figure that chopping things too big prevents injury. Despite this, I did decide to follow the recipe exactly and chop the ginger. I loved the vin so much the first time that I couldn't see my way clear to mucking around with it.

Apparently I'm incapable of not mucking around with recipes though, because I only had green garlic, and none of the chiles he called for. For the chile, I added a dash of chile garlic sauce, and didn't notice much difference. Also, it was garlic-y enough for my taste with the green garlic.

There's nothing fancy in this concept - it totally works for a weeknight meal.

Boil Chinese noodles according to package directions. Blanch chard. Heat shrimp until pink. Serve in a big pile with plenty of Octo-Vinaigrette (see below).

Octo Vinaigrette

2 Tbs finely chopped ginger
2 Tbs chopped garlic
1/4 C rice vinegar
1/4 C light soy sauce
2 Tbs neutral oil
1/4 tsb sesame oil
1 1/2 Tbs sugar
some sort of chile (I heartily recommend a pinch of that ubiquitous Vietnamese red chile-garlic sauce)

Mix vigorously.

Rutabaga Fiesta

2010-06-01T17:00:00.000-07:00

People, I'm bringing rutabaga back. Have you had a rutabaga lately? Ok, have you ever had a rutabaga? I love them, and have entirely too few in my diet. This is clearly because not enough people are writing recipes for the lovely, lonely rutabaga. This has to change. I'm mounting a rutabaga awareness campaign, starting today.

If you've never had rutabaga before, the flesh is somewhere between a potato and he most delicious thing you have ever eaten in your life. Yes, they are that good. The following recipe introduces you slowly, with lots of spice and fat and starchy yumminess.

Foodie friends, please try to ignore the midwest casserole feel of this dish. It tastes way better than it seems like it should.

This was made for me by my awesome neighbor Eric. The following recipe is replicated exactly as he sent it to me. FWIW, it translates nicely to a 9x9 inch pan if you decide to halve it.

peel, then halve, then par-cook two large rutabagas like you would potatoes for an au gratin — boil, then just before they get mushy, take out, cool, and cut into 1/8” slices.
halve then slice then caramelize two large yellow onions
get some roasted red peppers, like 1.5-2.0 cups worth, or those canned roasted green chilies, then cut in half lengthwise so you can layer them as filets later
sauté up a big bunch of some greens (chard, beet greens, kale, spinach, Ralph Nader acolytes, etc.) in olive oil
grate about a pound of sharp cheddar queso
get about 15-18 good corn tortillas, taco-size
grab some enchilada sauce (2 cans worth? Or one big can, I think)
grease a lasagna pan with butter (olive oil works too)
pour and spread a thin layer of enchilada sauce in bottom of pan
drape tortillas in enchilada sauce on both sides, layer in pan, cutting some in halves and quarters to fill in gaps between rounds
layer rutabaga slices and carmelized onions over tortillas & sauce, top with a thin layer of cheddar, then drizzle enchilada sauce over the layer
repeat with an additional layer of draped/sauced tortillas, then put the chilies and cheese down, then drizzle with enchilada sauce
repeat with an additional layer of draped/sauced tortillas, then put the greens and cheese down, then drizzle with enchilada sauce
then top with one additional layer of tortillas, then cheese, then drizzle; maybe put sliced black olives all over the top if you dig those
bake at 350 for like, I dunno, 30-40 mins, until it’s all baked and bubbly and the edges are browning
serve with a nice neighbor’s homebrew or margaritas, lime wedges, spanish rice, refried beans, while wearing a tutu, faux moose horns, and elf shoes with the curly toes; the dish will taste like shit if you don’t follow this last part of the recipe

Arugula Flowers

2010-05-30T17:00:00.000-07:00

Up until this week, I had no idea that edible flowers had any place in the vegetable world as things that someone might actually want. Today I know better. Arugula flowers, but more especially arugula pods, are lovely morsels indeed. I love them almost as much as I love arugula, which is very very much.

(Oh, and anyone wanting to challenge me on the whole edible flowers deal by bringing up broccoli or cauliflower should feel free to just keep it to themselves. I know that they are technically flowers, but they aren't really in the edible flower category IMO. I'm standing firm on this one.)

I wanted to do something that would showcase the arugula in all its weird deliciousness. So I used it in two ways - as a salad topper with fennel and lettuce, and on an open faced goat cheese sandwich. Both recipes defy description. For the sandwich, put some turkey on bread, and top with goat cheese and flowers. Serve. For the salad, mix fennel, arugula blossoms and pods, and serve with a drizzle of oil.

I expected to love the sandwich and like the salad, because what could be wrong with goat cheese and arugula? However, the combo of fennel with pods was especially surprising and wonderful. I'm planning to do it again. Alternately, I might make big sandwiches with roasted fennel and loads of flowers and pods and goat cheese, and pair it with a simple green salad.

The Share

2010-05-29T17:00:00.000-07:00

To be honest, I always took a pretty dim view of flowers in the share. That changed today. We got Arugula flowers in our boxes, and they are incredible. The flowers are a lovely soft and nutty flavor, and the pods have this sharp pepper bite. I am already so excited to use them! We got some other stuff too...

The Haul:
Lettuce (God help me)
Swiss Chard
Basil
Arugula flowers
Turnips + greens
Beets
Carrots
Fennel
Green garlic
Spring onions

The Plan:
Salad with fennel and arugula flowers + open faced goat cheese sandwiches with same
Shrimp and chard with Octo-vin over Chinese noodles
Carrot bread (maybe finally I'll find the time to do this)
Some sort of Italian casserole to use up the onion and basil
Turnip side dish - can't decide exactly what yet
Beets get roasted and frozen in preparation for beet cake
Giant salad for Memorial Day BBQ with the neighbors

Only Slightly Less Revolting Carrot Soup

2010-05-28T17:00:00.000-07:00

This week has been a great big FAIL for me with the improvised soup. Of course, this is the danger of cooking from a share. If your main motivation in planning any recipe is to use up every last bit of some vegetable or another, occasionally your dishes will get out of balance.

The real issue was that I had too many carrots, and no juicer. Seriously, with a juicer (and a taste for juiced vegetables) the share would be almost laughable. Without one, the carrots can back up pretty significantly. Maybe Carrot Cheesecake is in my near future?

A side issue, but related, was that the carrots were gnarly, making them less than ideal in simple roasted or glazed forms. Check these guys out.

Don't they look rough?

Of course then there's this gorgeousness...

My recipe could have been improved by adding less than two shares' worth of carrots. Other than that, it wouldn't need much more help.

Onion
Leek
Carrots
Ginger
Stock
Coconut milk

Saute the onion and leek in a little oil until starting to brown. Add chopped carrots and anywhere from 1 tsp to 1 Tbs of grated ginger. Cover with stock and boil until carrots are soft. Add can of coconut milk and blend.

Fixing Revolting Lettuce Soup

2010-05-26T17:00:00.000-07:00

OK, it wasn't really that bad. And frankly, it must have been some sort of ridiculous cooking hubris that made me even attempt recipe-less lettuce soup in the first place. Lettuce soup sounds sick and wrong, and although I have had some friends report success with the concept, they were all following well defined recipes.

I decided to make my lettuce soup a garbage soup. I had a potato, an apple, and most of a fennel hanging around, and I threw them all in with the lettuce to see what happened. I can assure you it was not good. So really, my recipe was everything listed above, plus broth, cook, blend and done. When I tasted it for seasoning, it was just shy of being a disaster. It was bitter and swampy, with a distinct lemony pucker.

Things that could have made it better would have been a good deal of onion, nicely caramelized as the base. Also helpful would have been some basil or cups of mint. As I was totally out of onion at that point, and didn't feel like blending it again with herbs, I opted for my standard approach - fat, salt, sugar, and white wine in various combinations have never let me down.

I knew that I wanted to mix it with plain yogurt, so I skipped heaping on the butter. I dumped in 1 Tbs sugar and a good deal of salt and pepper and it improved instantly. Back in the pot with some white wine, and it was almost good. Even after I added the yogurt though, it still had a distinctly lemony aftertaste. Not bad, and Sam liked it well enough, but I had already thoroughly grossed myself out with the soup.

Finally, I resorted to my ultimate fix-it strategy: serve it as a side dish rather than the main. I served the soup as an accompaniment to grilled sandwiches.

Clams Cooked in Bacon Dashi in the Dark

2010-05-24T17:00:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in the previous post, Sam took the kids and headed up to San Jose to see his family for the weekend. This meant that I had a unique opportunity to have dinner with friends. I planned a whole food-centered day with J, culminating with two Momofuku recipes that I would probably never make if there weren't a special occasion (though J most certainly would) - Clams Cooked in Bacon Dashi, and Octo-Vinaigrette.

About 15 minutes after we got back to J's place, the power went out. J informed me that this happened fairly regularly where she lived, and that it usually came right back on. This time, however, it stayed out for hours. We made it work with a headlamp and some candles.

This is J, cooking bacon dashi by headlamp.

J, helpfully illuminating the clams for my photo.

There are few things I love eating as much as clams, so I truly expected to adore the Clams above all else and think that the grilled meat with octo-vin was excellent. In fact, the reverse happened. The clams were incredible, no doubt. The ocean-y, fatty, salty, sweet flavors combining were sublime. However, the octo-vinaigrette changed my life. I want it every day. I want to eat more meat so that I have more things to put it on. It is AMAZING, and relatively simple for a Chang recipe.

Verdict? Buy the book and make them both!

The Share

2010-05-22T17:00:00.000-07:00

This week's share was less exciting than last week, which proves nothing except that even truly amazing farmers have unexpected variables to contend with.

My whole family is going away for a long weekend to visit cousins, so I have four fewer dinners to prepare than usual. I had originally planned to give much of the share away, but given what came, I'm not sure that's even necessary.

The Haul:
Lettuce (a truly overwhelming amount)
Carrots (also tons)
Chard (which I am totally giving away)
Fennel (1 huge bulb)
Beets
Spring Onions
Leeks
Basil (probs also a giveaway)
Dill
Sunflower (not so much for eating, I'm guessing)

The Plan:
Lettuce Soup (I've been avoiding this because it sounds like it should be truly revolting, but holy crap have we got lettuce, and some sauteed fennel will probably make it even better)
Carrot Soup (maybe with coconut milk, because the last one was so good)
Beets will get roasted and ground up and frozen to wait for when they will go into beet cake

Crack Pie

2010-05-20T17:00:00.000-07:00

I am fascinated by rock star chef David Chang. I can't help it. His mix of experimentation and utter orthodoxy makes his recipes, and the projects that have spun off from his recipes continual sources of delight. So when I discovered a recipe for Crack Pie on the tubes, I knew that I would have to make it at some point.

Why at some point? In the interest of better health, I have sworn off sugar for a couple of months. Generally, I'm doing pretty well with this resolution, with a few exceptions like going out to eat for Mother's Day. In part my success is due to the looseness of my restrictions - I've only sworn off things that can be categorized as dessert. Sugar in peanut butter or breakfast bread I don't worry about so much. But Crack Pie was definitely off the list.

And then the other night Sam asked me to make a dessert to bring to friends the next day. The only think I could think of to make that we actually had all the ingredients for was Crack Pie.

The recipe as written makes 2 pies, which is one pie more than you really need, IMO. I think it's written like this because trying to half it means that you have instructions like 2 Tbs + 1 1/2 tsp milk powder, and 1/16 tsp baking soda, which is just too much of a pain to write into a recipe, let alone actually figure out how to accomplish. (I'm sure that at Milk Bar, they do these all by weights, which is a bazillion times more accurate, and I kinda wish they had just written the recipe that way.) Still, I would take the time to convert this to a single pie, because wow it is a lot of sweet to have hanging around. A single pie serves six.

The recipe calls for you to bake a cookie, then crush the cookie into a crust, then fill the pie with a sort of a chess. So, like all good Chang recipes, it's a bit involved. Despite this, it comes together rather quickly, and having a dishwasher makes it pretty painless.

Reviews from the web have been amazingly euphoric. When I served it, it was a bit more mixed. M raved about it, ate two full pieces in about 1.5 seconds, and I'm pretty sure could have kept going. My toddler (who eats EVERYTHING) put it in his mouth, spit it out, then scraped off his tongue. I thought it was great, but nothing I'm going to crave. I'd make beet cake instead.

My only tip? Use good salt.

Find the recipe here
And with lovely pictures here

Curried Parsnip Soup

2010-05-19T17:00:00.000-07:00

This soup satisfies something deep in my soul in a way that I can't quite explain. I couldn't get enough of it. Also, it was extremely popular with at least half the people I have given birth to.

Of course, when you are starting out with ingredients like these, it's hard to go too far wrong.

As written, this recipe serves 2 adults and 2 children under 5 with enough left over for the baby to have another meal. The recipe is a bit loose, but this is pretty indicative of how I typically cook from the share - I try to use all of a vegetable in any recipe, so I end up modifying on the fly.

Curried Parsnip Soup

1 bunch parsnips
equal amount carrots
3 spring onions, white and light green parts only (save the greens for a pizza or some such)
veggie stock
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 C yoghurt

In a stock pot, saute onion in EVOO until soft and sweet. Meanwhile, clean and cut up the carrots and parsnips. Add veggies to the pot and enough stock to cover. Add cumin. Simmer all until veggies are soft. Blend soup. Let cool. When cool, stir in yoghurt. Serve at room temperature.

Podcast About CSA Life

2010-05-18T17:00:00.000-07:00

The really wonderful farmer who runs the CSA that we belong to was interviewed by Lisa Snider for her Radio Ojai podcast. It's a great interview that gives excellent insight into what it's like to be a member of a CSA. Also, I am mentioned briefly. Check it out!

Technicolored Lasagna

2010-05-17T17:27:00.000-07:00

When I was looking for beet recipes for the farm blog, I unearthed one that uses roasted beets as filling for ravioli. If I could easily get my hands on fresh sheets of pasta, I would make this recipe every week. But unlike the fellow in the original link, I don't have a source for pre-made ravioli sheets all perfectly thin and rectangular, and ready for my most ambitious fillings.

Then my friend J scored some fresh pasta, but it was rolled out for lasagna thickness. So rather than trying to flatten the noodles further (sans dedicated equipment), I opted to work with the noodles as they were. The results are a bit more messy-looking, but it really tasted fantastic.

This makes me wish I could get my hands on fresh pasta sheets more often though. CSA share as ravioli would be an excellent addition to the recipe rotation. I like the idea so much that I may just have to try it with wonton wrappers.

Beet and Chard Lasagna

For Ricotta
5 small to medium beets, roasted
1/2 C ricotta
1/8 preserved lemon or zest of 1/2 lemon
salt and pepper

For the rest
1 bunch swiss chard
6 - 8 lasagna noodles
1/2 C grated Parmesan

Pulse beets, ricotta, lemon and salt and pepper in a food processor until smooth. Saute chard in a little oil until soft. Boil noodles until soft. Layer lasagna into a 9x9 pan, starting with noodles and topping with ricotta and then chard, and ending with a layer of ricotta. Top with grated Parmesan. Add 2 Tbs water to the lasagna to keep moist. When ready to eat, bake for 15 mins at 400, just to heat through.

Local Author Wins James Beard Award

2010-05-16T17:00:00.000-07:00

Anna Thomas, the great author of that foundational vegetarian cooking tome the Vegetarian Epicure has just won a James Beard award for her newest book, Love Soup. Her recipes feature ingredients we are likely to find in our own shares - in part because Anna lives here in Ventura County. It is a great book for CSA members and veggie lovers alike. Congratulations Anna!

The Share

2010-05-15T20:40:00.000-07:00

I was too efficient last week, and actually finished the share before the end of the week. In part this was because my vegetable-loving mom was visiting and was all too eager to help us eat our way through the share, and in part it was because of the meat pie. I'm not sure why I'm still calling it meat pie, because it could more accurately be called CSA pie. I used all the chard, carrots, fennel, and leeks in the pie, and only two sausages for 8 servings. So I think I'll be switching the name.

I was given a heavenly tub of burrata, and couldn't eat it all in my first go, so I had a plan to put the remainder on a pizza with leeks and radicchio. In observance of the CSA rule that all advance plans will be thwarted, here's what I got:

The Haul:
Lettuce (3)
Swiss Chard (lovely elegant stuff)
Leeks
Spring Onions
Carrots
Parsnips
Turnips (1 lonely one)
Rutabagas (and I am excited about these!)
Beets
Broccoli
Dill
Cilantro

The Plan:
Leek and Kale pizza (the kale was from the farmer's market)
Beet and Chard Lasagna
Curried Parsnip (and carrot) Soup (topped w/Cilantro)
Rutabaga mash and some grilled meat
Carrot bread (or muffins)

I still have nothing to do with the dill. Broccoli will become a side dish. Onions probably flavor the soup. No clue for the turnips yet...

Beet Bread

2010-05-14T18:08:00.000-07:00

I struggle a bit with what to serve the kids for breakfast. Pretty much everything packaged is loaded with sugar, and there are few things that are not packaged that I can find the time to serve. My solution to this dilemma is to make my own quick breads. I make them with whole wheat flour, nuts, and fresh vegetables or fruits, and the results are healthy and delicious.

This week, I decided to try breakfast bread with beets. I had a couple of turnips left too, so I threw those in as well. The results are lovely - earthy, slightly sweet, and crunchy. Also, it's one of the few breakfasts I've had that truly holds me through to lunch. Convincing the kids to eat it was easy-peasy, or would have been if the other moms at the daycare did not send their kids to school with cheese puffs for breakfast. Took some coaxing, but the boy ate it gamely.

It looks like this because I tried to do something fancy with whipped egg whites, but you should not do that, and instead follow the recipe as written.

Beet Bread
3 eggs
1 1/2 C sugar
1 C oil
1 C flour
1 C whole wheat flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 C shredded beets
1/3 C chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350. Grease a 9x5 loaf pan. In a large bowl, beat eggs, oil and sugar. Mix in flours, salt and baking powder. Add beets and walnuts and mix. Pour batter into loaf pan, and bake for 60 - 70 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Broccoli Pasta

2010-05-12T18:51:00.000-07:00

It's a noodle-intensive week. My heritage is Italian, and dumping veggies on noodles is about the easiest way to get through the share for me. I love this recipe because it is fast and the whole family will eat it without complaining.

8 oz pasta shapes
1 C sliced ham
2 medium heads broccoli, florets cut off
1 clove garlic, crushed
Juice of one lemon
1 C grated Parmesan

Boil water for pasta. Add pasta. When the pasta has only 4 minutes left to cook, add broccoli to the pasta. In a large pot, pour a little EVOO, and cook garlic over medium heat for one minute. Add ham and heat through. Add lemon juice, and then turn off heat. Add pasta and broccoli to the ham mix. Top with Parmesan and stir until slightly melted.

Happy Mother's Day

2010-05-11T17:47:00.000-07:00

For Mother's Day this year, my lovely husband got me a new kitchen scale. It's red and shiny, and weighs items up to 11 lbs, so it's a vast improvement over what I formerly used. This by itself is very exciting, but even more exciting is the gift I got near Mother's Day - a Nikon D 3000 camera.

Witness my overwhelming excitement. (Also, look at the dust on my glasses! Such detail!)

Unfortunately, it looks like I'm going to have to learn something about how to use to camera to really maximize it's awesomeness. Taking close-ups in low light is a bugger for most cameras, and early results suggest I have some more to learn about how to do it.

In the meantime, I get amazing outdoor shots.

Lavender and carrots from McGrath Farms at the Farmer's market.

The kids dancing to the live music at the market. Unbelievably, it wasn't some guy with a guitar playing Johnny Cash tunes, but a group of high school kids doing a pretty decent job with some Modest Mouse and MGMT.

Miso Cilantro Pesto

2010-05-10T18:29:00.000-07:00

I'm told that white miso comes in two varieties - the funky kind sold by my oriental grocer, and the westernized kind available at your neighborhood Whole Foods. Before I learned of this dichotomy, I was convinced that my Asian grocer was sadistic and having a good laugh at my expense. I bought the miso with the intention of making Momofuku Miso Butter, which just seemed like all kinds of deliciousness. Once home, I discovered that the miso was outrageously strong.

I popped it in the freezer with the intention of saving it and finding a way to work with it, only to find that you practically have to suspend miso in liquid nitrogen to get it to solidify. This discovery was made quite by accident, when I found my toddler in the freezer, having gotten into the miso, and eating it like it was candy. He screamed like mad when I took his miso away.

Going into this week's share, I had leftover cilantro plus two new bunches. It was clearly time for a main-dish cilantro deal, and Miso Cilantro Pesto seemed like just the thing. My husband and toddler loved it. I struggled with it a bit, only because the miso flavor is so prominent. In the future, I'd just give in and buy the Americanized miso from Whole Foods.

Miso Cilantro Pesto
(adapted from A Year in a Vegetarian Kitchen)

1 C packed cilantro (or more)
1/4 C white miso
1 1 in piece of gingerroot, thinly sliced
1 clove garlic
1/4 tsp Asian chile sauce
2 Tbs rice vinegar
8 oz Noodles (soba or Chineese work well, but Western pasta works too)
sliced scallions for the garnish

Cook pasta according to package directions. In a food processor, blend all other ingredients except scallion until smooth. Serve pesto over noodles topped with scallions.

The Share

2010-05-08T20:42:00.000-07:00

The one unalterable rule of CSA cooking is that if one week you suddenly get a great idea about how to use a vegetable, and you are hoping it will show up in the next week's share, you will never see that vegetable in your share again. Ever. Last week, late, I had a really brilliant idea to grind bok choi up into a Chinese noodle pesto. So of course, here's what I got.

The Haul:
Lettuce
Chard
Cabbage
Broccoli
Radicchio
Carrots
Beets
Turnips
Leeks
Fennel
Cilantro (2 huge bunches)

The Plan:
Cilantro Miso Pesto (I will find a way to grind up veggies this week!)
Spicy Broccoli Pasta
Meat Pie
Breakfast Crepes with Sweet Carrot Sauce
Beet Ravioli, or maybe Beet Bread

My mom is coming into town at the end of this week, so I'm thinking the meat pie will be what I serve her. I'm also planning to use it as the dumping grounds for everything not obviously used up in the short plan above. It will have the leeks, fennel, chard, and some carrot, and I will probably serve it with steamed cabbage on the side.

Also, I found a beet ravioli recipe that I'm dying to try, but I absolutely refuse to make my own pasta dough, so my making this recipe depends entirely on whether or not my girlfriend goes to the markets in Santa Barbara this weekend. If not, the bread will be an excellent breakfast for me and the kids.

Turnip Flan

2010-05-07T19:59:00.000-07:00

When I told my husband that we were having turnip flan for dinner, he seemed genuinely intrigued. Sitting down to eat, he remarked that I appeared to be doing whatever I could do to get rid of turnips. I wonder what gave him that idea.

In fact, there are many eminently reasonable and well-tested recipes for turnips. But instead of making any of them, I've been experimenting with several more arcane uses. Compared to turnip cake, turnip flan is much more accessible to the average eater. It has all the right elements to mellow out the turnip flavor, and is a light savory addition to a main dish. We both really liked it.

I wish I could say that I came up with this, but it's really just a minor modification of a great recipe from Eggs on Sunday. But now that I have made it, I'm dying to see what else I can turn into a flan! This recipe makes enough for 4 large ramekins. It is really light, so serve it with a large salad.

Turnip Flan

12 oz turnips, cubed

4 eggs

1/2 C cream

salt and pepper

Boil the turnips until very soft. Transfer to a food processor and blend until smooth. Add all remaining ingredients to the food processor and mix well. Preheat oven to 325.

Butter 4 large ramekins. Divide the flan batter evenly among the ramekins, and place the ramekins in a bain marie. Bake for 40 - 45 minutes or until a tester comes out clean. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Bok Choi Pizza with Ginger Scallion Sauce

2010-05-05T17:00:00.000-07:00

Up until this week, pretty much the only thing I had done with my bok choi was a simple stir-fry. It was mindless, and tasty, and the perfect accompaniment for some miso- or ginger-glazed meat. This week I decided that it was time to try something new.

I had been looking at the Momofuku recipe for Ginger Scallion sauce since Christmas thinking, "Gosh, that's super easy," and "I could totally make that." This is as opposed to most of the recipes in the book, which make me think borderline-expletive-laced things like, "Holy crap that's involved," and "there's no way in hell that I would cook that," and "this dude is effing nuts." Anyway, I lent my copy of the book to a girlfriend, who immediately make the Ginger Scallion sauce, and was waxing rhapsodic about it for days. I decided I had to give it a go.

I made the sauce well in advance of making the pizza to let the flavors marry a bit. I tasted it from time to time as it sat there, and was sorry to admit that I didn't love it. Chang has you all set up to believe that this sauce will definitively shift the way you look at food, and as I sampled it, that just wasn't happening for me. It was a bit too aggressively raw for my taste. Served as an actual condiment though, it mellows somewhat, and looses its edge. It wasn't life-changing, but I will almost certainly be making it again.

I'm not going to reprint the Momofuku recipe here: either order the book or google it. You will definitely want it for this pizza though, which otherwise would be pretty bland. I served my pizza with a spicy cabbage salad side, also topped with the sauce.

Bok Choi Pizza

1 pizza dough, rolled thin
Hoisin
1 head bok choi, cut into strips and lightly sauteed
1 C cooked chicken
Cilantro

Preheat oven to 425. Spread a thin layer of hoisin over the dough. Top with bok choi and chicken and bake for 20 minutes. Sprinkle fresh cilantro and Ginger scallion sauce over the top.

****UPDATE
As it happens, the sauce did become life changing, but not until it was three days old, and much of the hot rawness had burned off. Then it was AMAZING. Either I will have to think far ahead the next time I want some, or I will have to try this.

****UPDATE UPDATE
My friend informs me that my problem with this sauce is that I cut the ginger too big. She spent three years as a line cook, and so I'm inclined to trust her on this one. With that said, I'm not sure I have the knife skills to do much better. If your knife skills are professional grade, make the recipe as written. Otherwise consider slight modifications as listed above.

Time for a Contest

2010-05-04T20:38:00.000-07:00

Inspired by other blogger's technique of bribing people to follow them with fun giveaways, I am announcing the first ever Harmonious Kitchen contest! When we get to 50 followers, I will randomly select one to win a cookbook - your choice of one of three of my favorite titles. So closet readers (I see you through the stat counter), now is the time to make your blog fellowship official. Invite your friends, and we will all get to the exciting cookbook giveaway sooner. Thanks for playing along!

****Update****
I've gotten a number of messages from friends and fans who believe that they are following, but don't show up on the followers list. Here's how you officially follow:
1) Scroll down to the followers section
2) Click on the follow link
3) From there, you can choose to follow using Google, Yahoo, or Twitter. If you don't have an account with one of these orgs, I don't know what to tell you (except that wow, I can't believe that you have made it this long without signing up for one of these!). I've seen some blogs that manage to have a Facebook following, and if anyone out there wants to help me figure out how to do this, I would be most appreciative.

Swiss Chard Pasta and Grilled Radicchio

2010-05-02T20:17:00.000-07:00

I have mentioned before how I love Jack Bishop and his semi-miraculous cookbook A Year in a Vegetarian Kitchen: Easy Seasonal Dishes for Family and Friends. This book has done more to change the way I cook than any other, mostly because Bishop proves beyond a doubt that vegetarian fare can be various, simple, and delicious all at the same time.

Because Bishop is in a CSA, he has a healthy number of chard recipes in the book, which is why I cracked it open again. After seven straight weeks of chard, I was running out of steam, and needed inspiration. I found the pasta recipe, which was just the thing. The only flaw is that in the recipe, he says to discard the chard stems, which feels like a cheat to me. As a rule, I would prefer to use the whole vegetable. With that said, I have to find a way to make the CSA work somehow, and hanging on to unreasonably high goals for myself undermines my efforts to put it all together.

As a side, we grilled the radicchio. It was pretty spectacular.

1 bunch chard, stems removed (and discarded), leaves chopped
1/4 C walnuts, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 C olive oil
1/2 C dried cherries, chopped
salt and pepper

pasta (I had some excellent Farro pasta on hand which I used)

Prepare the pasta according to package directions.

Add walnuts to a dutch oven over medium heat, and toast for 4-5 minutes, shaking the pan occasionally. Remove walnuts to a plate.

Add oil and garlic to the pan and cook for one minute. Add chard, stir, and cover the pan. Saute the chard for five minutes. Return walnuts to the pan and add cherries. Season with salt and pepper. Remove from heat and cover to keep warm. Serve over pasta.

The Share

2010-05-01T21:11:00.000-07:00

The Haul:
Lettuce
Bok Choi
Cabbage (some monster head that looks like it could star in Little Shop of Horrors - I'm sure it tastes great, but it looks dangerous)
Broccoli
Radicchio
Chard
Spring Onions
Carrots
Beets
Turnips
Dill
Cilantro

The Plan:
Spaghetti with Chard and Walnuts, grilled Radiccio
Bok Choi pizza with Momofuku Ginger Scallion Sauce, maybe a side of spicy cabbage (or just dump Ginger Scallion sauce over the whole thing?)
Turnip flan (main dish - despite the failure of the turnip cake, I can't resist the opportunity to puree turnip into something new), with gargantuan salad, dill dressing
Roast broccoli, spring onions, and carrots as a side dish (x2)
Mashed turnips and potatoes also as a side dish

Probably this will leave some beets and carrots left over at the end of the week. Also cabbage, if I don't manage to work it into another side for some unidentified potential main dish. If I'm going to have something left at the end though, these are pretty good choices, as they are easy to work into muffins or something if I get creative on the baking side of things (except the cabbage, obvs). If not, they will easily keep until next week.

In other news, my toddler fell asleep on me today, for the first time since he started walking, almost half his lifetime ago. It would have been sweeter were it not for the cause - a terrible fever which left him extra tired, but otherwise fairly normal. I couldn't stop kissing his hot little neck. With this illness, he's lost his appetite, which is too bad, because I would have loved to see how he took to the scallion sauce.

Turnip Cake

2010-04-30T18:03:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite things to experiment with is turning vegetables into dessert (see here, here, and especially here). So when I got some gargantuan turnips in the weekly share, I knew it was time to try baking with them. As an added bonus, the students from one of my husband's college classes were all having dinner at our place, and there is no better way to get rid of a cake than to feed it to college kids.

Probably most of the kids who were here couldn't identify a turnip if asked to do so, and many of them admitted to having never eaten one before. (Apparently torturing your children with a side of turnip slaw has fallen out of favor as a parenting technique.) Many of them ate the cake gamely, though in truth, it was a bit challenging. It came out very earthy, and peppery and custard-y, and while it wasn't bad, it wasn't overwhelmingly awesome either. Truly, you haven't lived until you've fed experimental turnip cake to a dozen college kids. Guaranteed they will not forget dinner at our place.

So this cake is good, but not quite good enough. I can see where if you are a dessert-everyday-type person, then this would be a lovely change from chocolate and cookies, and you could feel good about all the vitamin A and K in your children's dessert. However, if you eat dessert only rarely, this probably isn't going to be something you choose to make. It just doesn't have the tremendous lusciousness of a molten chocolate cake or some such. Regardless, here is the recipe. I would love to hear back about any suggestions you might have for how this could be done better.

Turnip Cake

2 C grated Turnip
1 C Sugar
1/2 C oil
1/2 C milk
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 C flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp clove

for frosting:
1 brick cream cheese
1/2 stick butter
1 C powdered sugar
dash of vanilla

Preheat oven to 350. Butter and flour a 13x9 pan. Mix the cake by mixing all the wet ingredients (except the turnips) then adding the dry ingredients and mixing some more. Bake about 35 minutes, or until a tester comes out clean. Let cool

Mix the frosting by letting all the ingredients come to room temp, then beating the cheese and butter together, and mixing in the sugar.

Cilantro Grilled Shrimp

2010-04-29T17:50:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I post things that are so simple, they hardly merit a recipe. Such is the case with this item. Still, it's a great way to use up green onions and cilantro, both of which are showing up regularly in the shares. Also, I even worked some of the edible flowers into the salad. Not enough to really notice much, but at least I could feel good about using them. I suppose that if I were more inclined to be fussy about these things, I could have used the flowers as a garnish and taken lovely pictures of each dish this week with them in it, probably with a better camera, and a modicum of technique, and then this would not be my blog, but the blog of someone else who cares more about making food pretty.

OK, enough about that.

Cilantro Grilled Shrimp

1 good size bunch cilantro
1 green onion
oil
1 lime
1 lb frozen uncooked shrimp

In a food processor, blend cilantro, lime, oil, and onion (reserve a few stems of cilantro for garnish). Your ratio should be about 2/3 cilantro to 1/3 onion, because the onion is really strong. Add the shrimp and marinate for an hour. Grill - about 3 mins per side.

Serve over salad greens, with avocado, and edible flowers, if you have them.

Meat Pie

2010-04-28T09:29:00.000-07:00

I had the idea to make a meat pie this week, inspired by one that my husband makes with chicken and leeks and feta, and another amazing one that some friends brought over for a special occasion. Meat pie seemed like a perfect and creative way to use up greens etc from the CSA.

My original idea was to use some dark greens, chicken, onion, cheese, dried fruit, and nuts. When I mentioned it to the friend who had brought the special occasion pie over, she offered to send me the recipe, which I was sad to find was painfully close to what I was already planning. With that said, I do think that this recipe can be pretty modular. What you need is to end up with about 8 C finely chopped cooked filling, and that can be accomplished in a number of ways. Below is what I did, but you should feel free to experiment. It's hard to go too far wrong with this concept. In the future, I may experiment with doing this in individual serving sizes, or making it vegetarian. I think there's a lot that can be done with the fruit/nut/cheese/veggie combo.

Meat Pie

2 C cooked chicken
2 onions, chopped small
3 - 4 medium carrots, chopped small
1 large bunch kale, chopped
1/4 C white wine or stock
3 Tsp butter
2 cloves garlic
1/4 C raisins
1/4 C pine nuts
1/2 C rice
1 C feta cheese, chopped
2 eggs
salt and pepper

pate brisee for a covered pie (or use puff pastry)

Preheat oven to 375. In a large dutch oven, carmelize the onions and carrots. Add kale along with butter and wine, cover and cook until very soft. Add garlic.

Meanwhile, add rice and 1 C water to a separate pan and cook according to package directions.

Mix rice, chicken, cheese, raisins, and pine nuts to the kale pot, and season. Let cool. Butter a 9" springform pan. Roll out pate brisee until it can fill the pan and come all the way up the sides. Beat the two eggs and pour over the kale mix. Add the mix to the springform pan, and top with the other sheet of dough. Pinch the edges together very well (see photo). Bake for 45 minutes.

Roast Beets with Chard

2010-04-26T18:00:00.000-07:00

Thanks to the CSA, we find that we get our fill of beets. In southern California, beets grow basically year-round, with only a 2-month window in the summer where it's just too hot to grow them. This is true of all chenopods (family chenopodae), so we also tend to see lots of spinach and chard. As an added bonus, I'm learning new words from my farmer! Beets and chard go together in this recipe for a really satisfying and easy main-dish salad.

My husband made this meal via verbal instruction from me while I was comforting an insanely tired toddler who would not stop screaming. This is not altogether my favorite way to cook, but didn't it turn out pretty?

3 medium beets, roasted
1 large onion, sliced
1 bunch swiss chard cut into thick strips
1/4 C goat cheese crumbles
handful pine nuts

Add onion to a pan with a little EVOO and saute until soft and sweet. Add chard and cook until soft. Remove to a serving platter. Top chard with slices of roasted beet, goat cheese and pine nuts. Serve with bread.

The Share

2010-04-25T18:00:00.000-07:00

OK, back to the regularly scheduled CSA postings:

The Haul:
Red Lettuce
2 Bok Choi
Swiss Chard (an enormous bunch with leaves the size of elephant ears)
Kale
Turnips
Carrots
Beets
Garlic
Cilantro
Dill
Edible flowers

The Plan:
Sticky Chicken with Stir-fried Bok Choi
Roast Beets with Chard
Some sort of meat pie w/Kale and Carrots
Main Dish Salad with Cilantro-Grilled Shrimp
Turnip Cake!

This is a super-manageable weekly share, excluding the edible flowers. Really, I have no idea how people use those things? I probably will even be able to use up some leftover greens from the previous week, no sweat. I recycled a few dish ideas as well, since I had the ingredients on hand, and hadn't gotten to actually using them. If I was a better CSA member I would work out ways to eat the beet and turnip greens too, but in this regard, I am comfortable with my own failings. Therefore, this week is easy-peasy.

Asian Soup

2010-04-23T18:00:00.000-07:00

We've been getting plenty of brassicas in our shares every week, and last week I got hit with the double Asian brassica whammy - 2 bok choi and a gargantuan Chinese cabbage. I couldn't face more than one day of stir-fried cabbage in soy sauce, so I decided that the second dish would be soup.

I've read Momofuku (see below), so I know how to make a fine Asian stock. But 8 hours and two animals is a lot of work for broth, so I opted for my own quick and dirty method. Make up a 2/3 stock to 1/3 water mix. Dump in some soy sauce, minced ginger and garlic, and a smidge of hot chile sauce (preferably one of those red Asian-style condiments available at pretty much every grocery store these days). Done.

To this add shredded cabbage and sliced mushrooms, and cook until soft.

I boiled some rice noodles, and defrosted some shredded pork. I assembled the bowls by adding broth, noodles, meat, pickled carrots and beets, and fresh cilantro as the garnish. It was so delicious that it was life-changing. Even the toddler ate it happily.

Pickled Carrots and Beets

2010-04-22T18:00:00.000-07:00

I got the fabulous David Chang cookbook Momofuku for Christmas last year, and immediately read it cover to cover. It's a fascinating book - part memoir, part cooking philosophy, and part astonishingly complex recipes, all doused in a healthy dose of profanity and blog-post style writing. If Adam Gopnik is right when he asserts that all recipes are (at essence) directives to "be like me," nowhere is this more true than in Momofuku. Some of the recipes read like a dare. Like Chang is saying, "You really want to learn to cook like me? Prove it. I have an awesome recipe for pig's head (complete with detailed photos). You'll love it."

One of the things that Chang emphasizes in his book is how clever a good kitchen economy can be. Chang explains straightaway how to use the detritus from one recipe to make something delicious in another, so that by the time you've read a few recipes, you can't really imagine making only one. With that said, sometimes it's impossible to imagine making even one, with so many unusual ingredients as the stars. Delicious though they may be, I am no more likely to incorporate roasted chicken backs into my routine than I am pigs' heads. And a stock that takes 8 hours to make will probably be made only rarely and in giant batches, if it ever gets made at all.

But finally last week, I decided that I was going to make an Asian soup, and figured that this was the time to try his pickle recipe. By Momofuku standards, the recipe is as easy as it gets, which didn't prevent me from messing it up. Here's the recipe:

1 C piping hot water
1/2 C rice vinegar
6 Tbs sugar
2 1/4 tsp salt

To that mix, you add very thinly sliced vegetables. I chose to try it with carrots and beets and used my mandolin to get the veggies down to less than 1/8 inch, which was pretty good for the carrots, but still far too thick for the beets. The beets need to be shaved, if you can manage to find some way to do that, or heat needs to be applied so that they can soften up a bit. Also, as with so many recipes, it is a bad idea to mix beets with anything else unless you are comfortable with everything you are making taking on a rosy hue. I ought to have separated the two veggies.

Other than having pink carrots and too-hard beets, I actually liked the recipe, and will definitely make it again. I like the concept of pickle garnished for dishes, and this is a quick and relatively simple way to use up the CSA share.

Overnight Preserved Lemons

2010-04-21T18:00:00.000-07:00

Over the years I've had at least three of my foodie friends wax poetic about preserved lemons.

"But what do you DO with them?" I would always ask.

Invariably, the reply was "Oh, you can put them in EVERYTHING."

This is silly, because if you've never used preserved lemons, not only do you not put them in everything, as far as you're concerned, they go into exactly nothing. And just because I can come up with a few ideas of what might go well with brined lemons, that doesn't mean I know HOW to use them.

But eventually, my friends wore me down. Also, one of them lent me Diane Rossen Worthington's Seriously Simple, which has a recipe for preserved lemons that you can make overnight. Typically, preserving lemons is a month-long process, where you pack lemons in salt, and over time, they lose some of their juice and the rinds go soft. Worthington has worked out that if you add some extra lemon juice, and freeze then thaw the lemons, you accomplish very much the same rind-softening effects without having to have prepared a month ahead. Genius!

(A quick aside on Seriously Simple: Easy Recipes for Creative Cooks. Usually, when I first read a recipe, I mentally eliminate ingredients and processes that make the recipe take longer than absolutely necessary. With Seriously Simple, it is truly impossible to make the recipes any easier. The recipes rely on excellent ingredients and flawless execution, but come together ridiculously quickly. This makes this book a must-have in my kitchen. Yours too.)

I served my preserved lemons minced and sprinkled over baked fish.

Overnight Preserved Lemons (from Seriously Simple)

Scrub and quarter three lemons. Juice three more.
Add the quartered lemons to a large plastic bag, and fill the bag with kosher salt to cover the lemons. Pour in the juice.
Freeze overnight. Thaw before use. Pack any unused lemons into a jar and keep in the refrigerator. They will keep for 6 months.