The Foodie Social Worker

Southern Snapshot

2011-11-29T17:10:00.000-08:00

There's something magical about the fact that it took this very meal to bring me out of blog hibernation. It's unmistakable, it's extraordinary, it's just exactly right. It's perfect that a truly Southern meal - the truest, the Southernest of meals - has inspired me enough to tell you about it.

Collard greens.
Pinto beans.
Cornbread.

Nothing fancy. You've heard it before. But for real. For. Real. So good.

Last weekend at the market, I had a bit of extra cash despite being close to the end of the month, so I went all out, buying whatever I felt like. The first winter carrots from David Heeks, beautiful orange sweet potatoes, daikon radishes, broccoli, a stray head of cabbage, and best of all, four glorious bunches of collard greens. FOUR. This is a lot.

Jamie and I ate some as Marie's famous collard wraps with tahini and sauerkraut. Half of one bunch went into an African peanut and pineapple stew over the weekend. Some turned into a breakfast sautee with garlic and fried eggs. One bunch is still waiting to be eaten (but now I have an idea where it might go...)

But tonight, oh tonight. I finally took a dear friend's advice and decided to cook collards the old Southern way, with meat. But still somewhat averse to the traditional bacon-and-grease method, I took a more subdued approach, using a hearty beef bouillon in large quantity to flavor the stock for the collards along with my favorite spice, smoked paprika. And since I was making collards, I figured I'd make some barbecue baked pinto beans. And then, since I was cooking collards and greens and the oven was already on and I had a box of Jiffy mix, I decided to make some cornbread.

What a perfect array.

I'm so thankful that we're still early into collard season. This is the first of many nights of this exact, perfect dinner. Yes.

Fall Garden, here again...

2011-09-11T06:57:00.000-07:00

It finally rained in early August after a dry, dry summer, and I mustered up the energy to rip out all the monstrously large tomato vines and other vestiges of summer plants. What a project! I filled up the massive yard waste bin in no time. But it's always so exciting to see the garden empty, full of dirt and possibility for another season.

This fall, for the first time, I started some plants from seed. I chose lettuce, kale, collards, and Brussels sprouts to begin. Here's how they looked just after starting to sprout, back in mid-August:

After they got bigger and stronger for about two weeks, I started a second planting of lettuce, kale, and collards. I also started some green cabbage and red cabbage, and there's beets in the separate containers. They're all really thriving now! You can see the first planting in the lefthand four rows and the second planting in all the other spots.

The benefit of starting them in increments is that they won't all ripen at the same time. Tomorrow I'm planning to transplant the oldest seedlings, the ones there on the far left, the ones I started first. They'll go into the garden and get bigger and stronger and ready to harvest in a month or so. In two weeks I'll begin to transplant the rest of the seedlings into the garden, and they'll grow too, but they won't be ready to harvest until after I've started harvesting the first batch. So it should allow me to have more to eat over a longer period of time.

I'm looking forward to seeing how these little seedlings do once they get transplanted to the garden. It's really amazing to see these tiny green leaves sprout right up out of the ground when I know all that's gone in there is a little seed in a pile of dirt with some water and sun mixed in. The idea that these little green stalks will ultimately feed me and many friends through the winter is just unreal. Watching growth happen - I love it.

I'm also hoping to over-winter the collards, kale, beets, and Brussels sprouts. That means I'll harvest some from them this fall/early winter, and then, instead of taking them out of the ground and planting new ones in the spring, I'll cover up these plants in the garden to protect them from frost, and uncover then again in the spring for another round of harvesting. Some folks even say that the frost helps improve flavor! In fact, there's a farmer I heard about on NPR once who has a special variety of spinach he calls "ice spinach" that gets such lovely flavor from frosting and defrosting over and over, and getting sweeter and sweeter in the process.

There are also some vegetable seeds you can start by planting them directly in the garden, and in fact it is recommended to do this as they do not transplant well. (In fact, you can start most things in the garden this time of year since the ground is nice and warm - it's better to start some plants indoor for spring plantings because the ground is still cold from the winter frosts and low temperatures.) Jamie and I planted a row of French breakfast radishes, the long thin variety with pink tops and white bottoms. The sprouts started coming up just a few days after sprinkling the seeds into the ground! And they only take a few weeks to fully ripen. In a few days we'll need to go through and thin these out so there's only one plant every inch.

Since the seeds take a while to start, and I wanted to be able to start harvesting something sooner, as well as have a guarantee that I'd have something growing in the garden in case the seeds didn't work out, I purchased a few starter plants from the farmer's market. They look so huge next to the tiny radish seedlings! There's four arugula and then a few different Asian green varieties, including mizuna and tatsoi.

I also got some truly wonderful treats at this week's market. First winter squash of the season! I can't believe it's time already. Also, some beets from David Heeks of Heeks Farm - he only does winter vegetables, and I'm so glad he's back at market. Some garlic, and also exciting, fresh ginger from Alex Hitt at Peregrine Farms! I'd never seen fresh ginger at the market here before. It looks so different from the dark brown stuff in the grocery store, doesn't it?

I also bought a ton of Keenan McDonald's oh-so-unbelievably-tasty pork sausage, as well as some delicious rosemary bread, string beans, and a bag of unreal watercress. This stuff starts out tasting like an apple or something really fruity, and after a few bites turns into the pepperiest, herbiest arugula you've ever eaten. Amazing stuff. Thanks, Hickory Mountain Farm!

Tomatoes.

2011-07-23T13:16:00.000-07:00

Generally, these days, there's a pile on the counter that looks a little something like this:

This is due to the tomato plants in the garden looking a little something like this:

It's a full time job to keep the garden and the kitchen tomato pile manageable. I've mostly given up on the garden, but I'm wholeheartedly trying to keep the number of countertop-tomatoes-to-be-eaten-as-soon-as-possible down. I've been trying variety of techniques - one is eating a lot of dinners that look like this:

I've also been regularly roasting sungolds on big baking sheets, cut in half with olive oil and salt and pepper and salt and sugar, and throwing them in everything from grits to salad to pasta:

Last week, I made a Tomato Tarte Tatin from Bon Appetit. I'd been told it was incredible; the recipe describes it as "a revelation."

First, you blanch, peel, seed, and slice a bunch of tomatoes. I used a mix of Romas and an heirloom called Jaune Flame, purchased from Rob at the market.

Then you cook the tomatoes in a mix of butter and sugar (secrets of deliciousness revealed) in a skillet.

Then you top the skillet with puff pastry and put it in the oven.

Then you turn it upside-down onto a plate and swoon at how beautiful it is.

Then you put ice cream on top and drool and take a bite and then take another and then cut yourself another piece and put ice cream on that and eat it all up because how could anyone ever stop eating caramelized tomatoes cooked as a dessert item?

Ingredients

1 3/4 pounds plum tomatoes (8 large)

3 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature

3/4 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 sheet frozen puff pastry (half of 17.3-ounce package), thawed, corners cut off to make very rough 9- to 10-inch round

Preheat oven to 425°F. Bring large saucepan of water to boil. Cut shallow X in bottom of each tomato. Add 4 tomatoes to boiling water. Blanch tomatoes just until skins at X begin to peel back, 15 to 30 seconds. Using slotted spoon, transfer blanched tomatoes to bowl of ice water to cool quickly. Repeat with remaining tomatoes. Peel tomatoes. Cut out cores, halve lengthwise, and remove seeds.

Spread butter over bottom of 91/2-inch-diameter, 2- to 3-inch-deep ovenproof skillet (preferably cast-iron). Sprinkle 3/4 cup sugar over butter. Arrange tomato halves, rounded side down and close together, in concentric circles in skillet to fill completely.

Place skillet over medium heat. Cook until sugar and butter are reduced to thickly bubbling, deep amber syrup (about 1/4 inch deep in bottom of skillet), moving tomatoes occasionally to prevent burning, about 25 minutes. Remove skillet from heat. Immediately drizzle vanilla over tomatoes. Top with pastry round. Using knife, tuck in edges of pastry. Cut 2 or 3 small slits in pastry. Place skillet in oven and bake tart until pastry is deep golden brown, about 24 minutes.

Cool tart in skillet 10 minutes. Cut around sides of skillet to loosen pastry. Place large platter over skillet. Using oven mitts as aid, hold skillet and platter firmly together and invert, allowing tart to settle onto platter. Carefully lift off skillet. Rearrange any tomato halves that may have become dislodged.

I've also been keeping busy with plenty of other kitchen projects. Today I baked oatmeal sandwhich bread out of Baker's Illustrated:

We had a ton of peaches sitting on the counter and threatening to go bad, as well as pitted cherries from my birthday present to myself in the freezer. Since the oven was already on for the bread and to roast tomatoes, I threw together a peach-cherry crumble based on my favorite strawberry rhubarb recipe:

Last weekend I spent one day experimenting with various bread recipes in the cobb oven out at Duck Run Farm with Keenan and Elizabeth. We made soft pretzels, two kinds of focaccia, and some incredible cinnamon rolls. Keenan also made us a beer can chicken. It was all real damn good.

Life is just a chair of bowlies.

2011-07-08T08:00:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, Ruby and Marie came to visit me from Brooklyn. We made a vegan, gluten-free feast! They were super excited about fried green tomatoes, and they were here right in time to pick some off of the tomato plants that had yet to ripen but were falling over from their own weight.

We coated them in a mix of cornmeal and our collective favorite spice, smoked paprika. Marie and I went to a cooking demo once at the famous Park Slope Food Coop where smoked paprika was introduced to both of us, and we've been hooked since.

We also made some potato hash and a raw kale salad with tahini dressing.

Marie and Ruby were impressed with the kale plants, as I have been too, since they've lasted so much longer than I expected them too. I planted them way back in April! Friends, you saw them in person just in time. Over the past week, what with all the rain and humidity, the kale has been totally taken over by a friendly but hungry little bug.

Oh well! More kale in the fall. I'll pull the plants out of the garden as soon as it stops being almost too hot and sticky to breathe outside.

And speaking of the garden! The tomatoes are out of control! As much as I tried to prune them this year, at a certain point they just get so huge and wild that it feels almost useless to cut them back. Though I'll admit that every time it rains, the plants fall down a little bit more, and I have to use reinforcements like twine and rocks and bricks to hold them upright.

There are tons and tons of sungolds, and the plants just keep getting bigger.

The celebrity tomatoes have started to ripen too! This week starts tomatosplosion. I'm planning for gazpacho, salsa, maybe some chutney, and hopefully a dessert tomato tart coming soon, since these bad boys are going to all ripen within a very short window of time.

Sadly, a few of the tomatos are getting dive-bombed by birds. I love my backyard, in part because there's tons and tons of beautiful birds that fly back there, but they also do annoying things like poop everywhere, eat my beet seedlings (next time I'll cover them with chicken wire or buy bigger transplants or start them inside), and take bite-sized chunks out of my tomatoes.
Silly birds! Tomatoes are for humans! The second planting of tomatoes are growing strong too, the pink girls, but none have ripened yet. Hopefully it'll be a while before they do, since I'm inundated with celebrities and sungolds now anyway! One of the four plants is mostly dead - I'm not sure why, but the leaves are all dead and crispy - but the other three plants seem to be thriving reasonably well.

The bell peppers continue to grow as well - I wish they would turn red as they're supposed to, but I may need to go ahead and harvest them anyway since they're definitely the right size to take off the plant, if not even a bit on the big side at this point.

My container plant project took a turn for the better, too! For a while there the Italian basil transplant was dying - I had it inside, and moved it outdoors a few weeks ago, and since then it's looked much better. New leaves have grown in around the ones that were dying. And check out the two purple basils in the middle! I love those huge green leaves with purple stripes coming out of the righthand one - I can't figure out how those leaves look so different than the other purple leaves, since they all came from the same seed packet, but they're pretty cool looking! And the cilantro is growing too, especially after I added some more seeds.

Whole Foods is having a super duper one-day-only cherry sale today. They have these sometimes at the peak of certain produce seasons; during strawberry season, they had a one-day-super-duper-discount type deal as well. As a mini-pre-birthday present to myself, I indulged in fruit. Cherries! And, my all time favorite fruit, figs.

Thank you, West Coast, for producing beautiful tasty fruit for my birthday week. It's hard for me to explain just how much I enjoy biting into a ripe fig, so let me express my sincere gratitude for having some of my very own as I wait for my own fig tree to (hopefully, someday soon) ripen. California, I look forward to meeting you in person for the first time in a few weeks and eating some of our produce straight from your trees!

Local Pizza and First Sungolds

2011-06-26T16:26:00.000-07:00

Harvested the first full pint of sungolds of the season!

For these next summer weeks, there will be sungolds to harvest most every day. After I harvested almost a full pint this morning, I picked another half-pint or so this evening. You can sit and watch the tomatoes ripen if you're really dedicated!

Kate and I made a stellar local pizza last night. I threw together some sauce by mixing a can of tomato paste, some extra virgin olive oil, a bit more water than the amount of olive oil, some salt and pepper and minced garlic and whatever Italian dried herbs I had on hand, which in this case was oregano and thyme.

I used my standard Barbara Kingsolver pizza dough recipe and chopped up some mozzarella from last week's CSA, and Kate cooked up the spicy pork sausage from this week's CSA.

We picked some fresh basil from the garden and tossed it on at the end.

So fresh, so easy, so good, so local!
I'm really excited to have leftovers of this for lunch this week alongside my fresh sungolds. Coworkers, try not to be jealous.

Lunch today

2011-06-25T11:21:00.000-07:00

For lunch today, as on many weekend days, a hash: potatoes from Hickory Mountain Farm, sauteed with oil, kale from the backyard garden, and garlic from Whitted Bowers Farm; topped with sungolds from the backyard garden, and dressed with soy sauce from Lord knows where.

Market Morning

2011-06-25T08:34:00.000-07:00

Just home from picking up the season's last CSA box. It's been so wonderful getting these weekly treasures from Keenan at Hickory Mountain Farm. I'm looking forward to continuing to buy produce and other farm items from Keenan over the rest of the summer and fall. This week we got another motherlode of potatoes, cured onions, and cucumbers, as well as some yellow squash, hot pork sausage, and yummy salty feta cheese.

I also got some goodies from the Carrboro market. On my first circle around the market I picked up four green bell peppers and a lovely little watermelon from Rob at Whitted Bowers Farm, and on my second go-around I couldn't resist picking up another melon. Rob had samples out, and they're just so tasty! Plus Sara got a beautiful sunflower from Rob as well, and I chose some string beans from another farmer.
The kitchen counter is looking mighty tasty these days! Gotta get to cookin'....

An Unbeatable Bargain

2011-06-24T16:41:00.000-07:00

I know. This is not quite in the spirit of gardens and farmer's markets and vegetables and fresh food. I am fully aware. But I have to share this with you anyway.

Yes, it's true. This is a picture of eleven (eleven!!) pints of Ben and Jerry's ice cream on my kitchen counter. It is not my birthday. I did not get my wisdom teeth out. No, nothing like that. This beautiful sight is the result of an extraordinary good deal that I stumbled upon at Food Lion today.

Normally I don't go to Food Lion, but I stopped by briefly today with the intent of buying orange juice (for margaritas, and Vitamin C) and tonic water (for gin, and, well, for gin). As I turned the corner down the freezer aisle on my way to check out, I was confronted with a most amazing sight: Ben and Jerry's ice cream on sale. And this was no ordinary sale, oh no. Ben and Jerry's costs at least $4 in most stores, and admittedly, it is regularly $3.50 at Food Lion, already a decent discount. But today, oh today, each pint was on sale for $1.67. I truly could not believe my eyes. An entire pint of glorious Ben and Jerry's ice cream for less than two smackeroos! It could not be! I immediately went to the front of the store to get a basket, which of course I had not picked up at the start of my grocery shopping venture as I had planned on only getting my two items. I skipped and hopped my way back to the freezer aisle. I called my roommate to tell her the wonderful news and solicit flavor requests. I called my friend Kate who was stuck in an interminably long Friday at work with words of encouragement and promises of ice cream. And I began to fill my basket with lovely pints.

And that is not all! Oh no. I selected my pints and entered the check-yourself-out line. As I was ringing up my items, cheerfully watching the discounts ring up on the screen, I noticed a coupon spit out of the register behind the check out screen...for $2 off three pints of Ben and Jerry's! I was already getting an incredible deal, and now Food Lion wanted to give me more of a discount. Unreal! I had to do one sneaky move, as there was a limit of four pints per transaction, which was to purchase my ice creams in three separate swipes of the credit card - but this was suggested by a friendly and helpful cashier, so I think I'm in the clear in terms of grocery store fraud. The grand total for ice cream came to under $14 for eleven pints. My freezer has never looked finer, or more inexpensively filled. My dad and I like to compete for who can get the most savings in a single grocery store trip - this might take the cake.

In more produce-oriented news, check out this beautiful cabbage, recently harvested from the garden. They're so elegant with all those protective leaves, almost like a multi-layered skirt of sorts.
I chopped the cabbage up, shredded some carrots, sliced some cucumber, and ripped up some Thai basil, Italian basil, mint, parsley, and cilantro. Tossed it all together, mixed up a bit of white miso and lime and sesame oil, and threw it all together in a tupperware. Simple, refreshing lunch today.
Not all of the cabbages looked so nice coming out of the ground. This one was befriended by a cute but destructive little worm - you can see him there on the left if you look real close. Little wormy took some big chunks out of this cabbage, and didn't leave me enough worth saving. Can't win 'em all! It was pretty cool taking a good long look at how the little worm demolished the cabbage, though.

I did a mini art project this morning, painting this little plant holder a nice shade of red. I discovered that paint can be very inexpensive, and made a splurge purchase of a tiny one dollar bottle of ruby red at my last trip to the craft store, along with a small paintbrush, thinking I could paint some of my tin cans or other improvised home plant holders. I was a bit scared of how this would turn out, but I like how it matches my other red kitchen items from its new spot on the kitchen windowsill. Soon I'll find a nice green friend to fill it.

Remember I had thrown some purple basil and cilantro seeds into some containers a few weeks ago? They're sprouting! Looking cute.

The sungolds are starting to ripen! They look so colorful on the vine.

Here's the fruits of the first harvest. Soon there will be handfuls of sungolds ripening every day!

Also, remember the lettuce seeds I tossed on the ground underneath the tomato plants? They're started to sprout up as well! Hopefully the tomatoes continue to provide enough shade that they can grow in this heat.

Even more exciting, the beet seeds have sprouted too! I think the mulch helped keep them cool, and the ones with the most shade have come up the strongest, so it's possible the heat is still too much for the others.

And last but certainly not least, last weekend's CSA. I got some meat and eggs as we've been so overloaded with vegetables recently. Squash blossoms, chicken eggs, cucumbers, pork sausage, spicy radishes, and mozzarella cheese.

Next week is the last CSA! I'll still be buying plenty of vegetables from the markets, though I'll be sad not to walk down the road with my big box full of grub after next weekend.

CSA Week 5 and Pompano

2011-06-12T07:22:00.000-07:00

Lots of exciting treats in this week's CSA pickup! A bunch of leeks, various kinds of cucumbers (including two yellow ones!), a huge bag of beets, three turnips, a pile of cured onions (meaning they can be stored on the counter for a long time, as opposed to spring onions, which are right out of the ground and need to be refrigerated and used quickly), and a batch of potatoes, mostly blue ones (my favorites!), as well as mozzarella cheese. Mozzarella! Perfect for the many, many pizzas being made around here these days as a vehicle for eating all the great early summer veggies. Just wait until the tomatoes ripen, it'll be pizza day every day here in Carrboro...

I made it to the Carrboro farmer's market bright and early this week, and lucky I did! The most wonderful and exciting treat was waiting there for me, a treat I missed out on two years ago because it only made a two-day appearance at the market and I waited to purchase it, and in my waiting I lost my opportunity because it sold out entirely. What is it?

Honey from Whitted Bowers Farm! And this is no ordinary honey, no sirree. This is Rob's amazing, raw, biodynamic honey, complete with giraffe cartoon on the jar designed by his six year old daughter, Téa. This Saturday was Rob's first day bringing honey to the market, and given my lost chance to have it two years ago, I jumped on it quickly this go around. I also bought a clove of perfect, perfect garlic from him ("Rob, how do you get your garlic to look this beautiful? It's perfect!" "Well, Rachel, it takes a lot of love."), as well as carrots from Ken at Maple Spring Gardens, and cilantro from Bill at Ayrshire Farm.

I also talked to Bill about my desire to plant cilantro from seed. The cilantro I planted in the garden this spring bolted really quickly, so quickly that I barely got a chance to use any of it. I bought a packet of Santo variety cilantro (coriandrum sativum) which is labeled as a slow bolting, container-compatible variety. I started some seeds in a pot this weekend, and also planted some containers of Purple Petra basil (ocimum basilicum) from seed, a beautiful ornamental and edible basil that I thought would look cute growing in tin cans. This is my first time planting from seeds - I've always used seedlings before - so I'm hopeful that they grow.

In other planting news, I transplanted my first rooting project! I snipped this cutting off the basil plant in the garden a few weeks ago, and after a week or ten days, just when I thought I might need to toss it and start over, I noticed that it had started growing some roots. After a week or two more, the roots were almost two inches long! Time to transplant.

I've had this blue pot for years, but have never successfully used it because it lacks drainage holes. (Why anyone makes pots without drainage holes I cannot understand, but anyway.) I took a hammer and a nail to it yesterday and managed to bust a hole in the bottom without shattering the whole thing. Add some potting soil, water, and the rooted basil plant, and I've got a lovely new addition to my room!

I'm not sure how big this guy will get - basil plants I've grown outdoors get big, fast - but I imagine that given the limits of the container, the plant will naturally restrict itself to growing only to a manageable size.

After gathering advice from a number of farmers and garden store employees, I also decided to take the plunge and throw some beet seeds into the garden. I chose Detroit Dark Red (beta vulgaris) seeds, though I hesitated to purchase them at first because it is so darn hot out, and technically beets are a cooler season plant. But I read online somewhere that it is possible to succession plant beets all summer long, meaning that you plant a row every week or so and then harvest continuously once they ripen. I was advised to try to find a shadier spot for the beets (not going to happen in my full-sun garden - the only shady spot available now is under the tomato plants, where I did in fact throw in a few lettuce seeds a few days ago as an experiment!) and to make sure they stay really wet. I took out the remaining lettuce plants, which had bolted up to heaven, and added a bit of compost to one of the empty rows. I put in about eight beet seeds, and covered it up with mulch. Hopefully the combination of lots of rain last night, the mulching, and my promise to keep the seeds well watered will lead to some success. We'll see!

Remember the whole fish that came with last week's CSA? I promised lots of photos. Here they are!

First we rinsed off the fish and took a good, long look at them.

Then came they part I was the most nervous about: the gutting. It wasn't too bad! I am sparing you readers the Discovery Health style images of the fish guts, in part because it seems too graphic for this blog and in part because my hands were too messy in the midst of gutting the fish to take photos. But here we have a nice picture of the gutted and scored pompano.

Then we stuffed the inside of the fish with rosemary and lemon.

Then we nested the fish on a bed of onions, sprinkled them with some olive oil, salt, and pepper, and briefly broiled and then baked them.

They were delicious! And easy! And had barely any bones! We ate them with rice and some cooked green veggies. So, so good. A good lesson in going ahead and taking the plunge on somewhat intimidating food adventures. Often, like with these pompano, they turn out great!

It also gave me a silly opportunity to call Sara's dog Maggie "Pompano" for a few days. She hasn't started responding to the new name. Shucks. But I did recently teach her to lie down! I take my successes where I can.

Japanese pizza, CSA week 4, and garden update

2011-06-04T12:34:00.000-07:00

Inspired by our overflow of cabbage and leeks in last week's CSA box, I found a recipe using plenty of both in the "leek" index of one of my favorite natural cooking sites, 101 Cookbooks. The author, Heidi Swanson, takes beautiful photos and creates mostly vegetarian recipes using natural, whole ingredients.

Japanese Pizza from 101 Cookbooks

2 cups cabbage, finely shredded
1 cup leeks, well washed and chopped
2/3 cup whole wheat pastry flour (or apf flour)
a couple pinches of fine grain sea salt
2 eggs, beaten
1+ tablespoon olive oil
Garnish: toasted slivered almonds, chives/ herbs (I used cilantro)

Combine the cabbage, leeks, flour, and salt in a bowl. Toss until everything is coated with a dusting of flour. Stir in the eggs and mix until everything is evenly coated.

Heat a large skillet over medium heat and add a generous splash of olive oil. Scoop the cabbage mixture into the pan, and using a metal spatula press it into a round pancake shape, flat as you can get it. Cook for 4-5 minutes, or until the bottom is golden.

To flip the okonomiyaki, slide it out of the skillet onto a plate. Place another plate on top and flip both (together) over. If you need a bit more oil in your skillet, add it now, before sliding the okonomiyaki back into the skillet. Again press down a bit with a spatula and cook until golden on this side - another 3 -5 minutes.

When you are finished cooking, sprinkle with toasted almonds and chives, and slide it onto a cutting board to cut into wedges. Enjoy immediately.

Serves 1 - 2.

My flip was nowhere near as elegant as Heidi's. Instead, it involved putting a dinner plate on top of the cast-iron skillet, wrapping my hands in a towel apiece, and dangerously flipping the skillet and plate combo, then returning the flipped pizza into the skillet. Tricky! But tasty, for sure.

This week's CSA box included lots of wonderful veggies and two special surprises! First, a bag of beautiful and colorful potatoes, two spring onions, one fennel, some Italian broccoli rabe, a bunch of cucumbers, and a handful of beets. Since we still had an overbalance from missing a delivery a few weeks ago, and we're overloaded with veggies from the CSA and the garden, Keenan hooked us up with some cinnamon raisin walnut bread.

And, best of all, Keenan also suggested we take some fish as part of our weekly share! Our fridge is now home to two whole pompano.

I was skeptical at first about preparing whole fish, but we got to chat with the fisherman himself about how to gut and cook these guys, and I think it'll be a manageable yet adventurous project. There will most certainly be plenty of photographing this event! Look out!

The tomato plants continue to grow and grow. There's even the first signs of ripening sungolds!

The celebrity tomatoes are getting sizable too, though there's still only a tomato or two on each plant. I pruned and weeded the tomato area a ton this weekend, so the plants should all be in good shape to really start fruiting over the next few weeks.

There's also the pink girl plants that went in the ground a few weeks after the sungolds and celebrities. They're growing strong, as are the summer cabbages! Two of the pink girls have tomato cages around them, and two have wooden stakes, as an experiment in using twine to hold up the plants. They're not big enough to need the extra support of twine ties yet, but soon I'll tie big branches to the wooden stakes so the plant doesn't fall over from the weight of the tomatoes.

Also, the first tiny little peppers are blossoming. They'll stay green until they get almost to size, when they'll start turning red. Last year I planted yellow peppers, which are apparently the most disease-resistant, and they grew just fine, so hopefully this red variety will make it through the season.

The thai basil sprouted all these beautiful purple flowers, which I promptly cut off after taking this photo, as the flowers inhibit leaf growth. But aren't they lovely?

One important lesson from the garden that I want to keep in mind in upcoming seasons is to harvest early, rather than waiting for the plants to get the size one might see them in the grocery store. I waited quite a while to start harvesting the lettuce and the greens, and in hindsight it would have been better to go ahead and start using them earlier. I read in one of Gayla Trail's books recently that the plants are made to produce their fruits, whether that's the flowers on the basil plants and the greens, or the tomatoes and peppers on plants where the flower itself is what we eat. By harvesting early, you encourage the plant to grow more, so it can flower more and therefore reproduce. It always feels a bit scary to harvest early, as if by taking leaves or vegetables too soon, the plant will get all used up, which is the silly and flawed logic behind my harvesting inhibitions. In actuality, the reverse is true: by harvesting early, the plant will grow more and more. Good gardening lessons to remember.

CSA Week 3 and Memorial Day cooking projects

2011-05-30T11:41:00.000-07:00

This week's CSA bounty was extra-large as we missed last Saturday's pick-up. We got an enormous head of broccoli, two kinds of beets, two heads of kohlrabi, two heads of napa cabbage, three turnips, and a hefty bag of baby potatoes.

The cute, colorful potatoes quickly were turned into a breakfast hash with eggs, avocado, tomato, and tons of mustard greens from the garden. But look how lovely they are just cut in half before being cooked!

Potato hash with toppings. Yum.

I couldn't resist picking up a big bunch of cucumbers from Rob at Whitted Bowers Farm at the Carrboro market on Saturday. First cukes of the season!

I also decided to take the leap and purchase a single eggplant starter for the garden. Last year, all the cucumber and summer squash plants had very short lives due to invasive vine borer bugs that killed the whole crop. The bugs are difficult to manage and crawl inside the vine near the root of the plant, making it impossible for the rest of the plant to get any nutrients. Jerks! I avoided planting any vining plants so far this summer, and since eggplant is also a vine-growing veggie, it's very likely that the beetles will come back and attach this plant as well. But I really love eggplant, and I figure with just one plant, it'll be a grand experiment, and if it fails, no major harm done. I'm keeping my expectations low.

This variety of eggplant is called Ichiban and it grows longer, thinner purple fruits than the traditional, gourd-shaped eggplants. Hopefully the lighter weight will keep more of the vine off the ground and perhaps make it slightly less vulnerable to vine-borer pests.

This morning I woke up and began a frenzy of cooking projects. First I chopped up one of the heads of cabbage, one kohlrabi, a bunch of carrots from market a few weeks ago, and some cilantro from the garden, and threw it together to make a slaw. I'll add this to salad greens this week with some spicy peanut dressing thrown on it.

The carrots still had their green tops, which I usually just toss in the compost. However, this week I found some inspiration from this video and threw the tops into the food processor along with some garlic, salt, a few hunks of parmesan, a handful of basil and parsley from the garden, and some chopped walnuts. Tada! Carrot top pesto! Surprisingly tasty, especially since it's a part of the vegetable that doesn't usually get used at all.

Next, I baked a loaf of my usual wheat almost no-knead bread with dough I started yesterday afternoon.

While the bread was baking, I roasted the beets from the CSA in the oven with some olive oil and salt. They'll get chopped up and added to salads this week as well.

In backyard news, a whole family of birds has recently moved into the red birdhouse. The babies chirp and chirp and the parents fly back and forth with sticks and grubs and goodies all day long. I wish I could see the babies! Anyone know what kind of bird this is? It's very, very tiny.

As it's been consistently hot over the last few days, the garden lettuce is starting to protest by growing very, very tall, a clear sign that it won't grow for much longer.

I spotted a rogue tomato plant today peeking out from under the mustard greens! Last summer the tomatoes were on the side of the garden where the greens are growing this year, so I imagine some seeds from a fallen tomato took root and started growing. I don't know how long it'll last, but it was quite a surprise to see it poking out of the ground today!

Garden Update

2011-05-27T11:43:00.000-07:00

It's been in the nineties this week, and accordingly, the summer tomatoes and bell peppers are growing strong while the spring lettuces and greens are on their way out. Remember the tiny tomato plants that went in the ground on May 1st? They're getting HUGE!

And there's more and more tiny tomato buds showing up every day. They're so cute!

The mysterious Chinese broccoli is actually starting to look like something edible now. For a while it was just a strange lanky stalk, but now its true broccoli nature is showing through. It still needs a few weeks to fully mature. And check out the huge lacinato kale in the background! I love this plant - it's easy to clean since the leaves are large and mostly flat, the stem is simple to remove, and it keeps some heft during cooking, unlike spinach and other greens that lose most of their weight under the heat.

Here's another view of the kale, as well as the purple lettuce and one of the newer Pink Girl tomato plants that went in the ground two or so weeks ago. Almost time to put tomato cages on them, too!

The arugula is seriously bolting, and despite my efforts to cut back the flowers over the last week or so, the heat is making it impossible to keep up. The buttercrunch lettuce is still growing strong though some of the outside leaves are getting a bit crispy. Eating salad every day isn't enough to keep these plants in check! The bell peppers are getting bigger, as you can see towards the right of the photo, with tiny blossoms in the center of the plant that turn into new leaves.

The basil is getting really big. I transplanted a bit to a glass jar inside a few days ago to see if it will root. The cabbages have gotten massive, too, but they've been getting attacked by some sort of bug. The ones all the way on the left side of this photo are mostly eaten through, and will probably be removed from the garden soon as I don't think they can recover. But the ones on the right side are still growing, though I'm not sure how long they'll outlast the bugs. They were an experiment anyway from seedlings our neighbor Elizabeth had leftover, so if they don't make it, I won't be heartbroken.

The fig tree was looking rough a few weeks ago, and also seemed to be fighting off some sort of buggy or fungal predator. I brought a hole-ridden leaf to the market to show Rob of Whitted Bowers Farm, who diagnosed the tree with thrips, a difficult to control bug. He recommended that I power-wash the undersides of the leaves with water, and prune any branches that were done for. I did both, and the tree seems to have recovered pretty well. It's continuing to grow and the new leaves seem hearty and strong.

Best of all, you can start to see some fig buds on the branches. I cannot WAIT for the figs to ripen, though I've still got to figure out a way to protect them from hungry animals.

CSA Weeks 1 and 2

2011-05-15T18:10:00.000-07:00

Our CSA from Hickory Mountain Farm started last weekend. We pick up each Saturday at Johnny's in Carrboro, and we get to choose our items! Last Saturday we got spring onions, two kinds of beets, sorrel (a very lemony green that I got to eat for the first time), kohlrabi (also a first for me - it's the purple alien creature in the photo and tastes like the stalk of broccoli), bok choy, and very spicy and delicious mustard greens. So much food! There was also goat cheese from Celebrity Dairy.

We made lots of goodies, including the roasted beet, mozzarella, arugula, and caramelized onion pizza below. I love Barbara Kingsolver's pizza dough recipe. The beets were from the CSA, and the arugula from the garden.

Yesterday's CSA pickup included two sets of beets again, which I roasted while baking bread this morning and plan to put in salads this week. Also a lovely bunch of carrots, eggs, sugar snap peas, and broccoli rabe. Also goat cheese! I plan to try a carrot top pesto with the carrot greens, walnuts/pine nuts, olive oil, garlic, and parmesan cheese. Hopefully it'll be tasty, and a good way to use the greens.

Sara is out of town all week and I'm headed to NYC and my 5th college reunion (Go Wes!) in a few days, so I'm trying to quickly eat as much as I can! I prepped a bunch of lettuce from the garden for salads, roasted the beets, ate half the sugar snap peas raw, and cooked the broccoli rabe tonight for Kate and I using an easy Deborah Madison recipe. Just blanched the whole plant, then chopped it up and sauteed it with garlic, crushed red pepper flakes, and salt, then squeezed some lemon on it. And Kate had the brilliant idea of throwing some soy sauce on at the end. Great stuff! And went perfectly alongside our salad of garden greens, carrots, sunflower seeds, goat cheese, and dried cranberries.

In other exciting news, the first tiny tomatoes are here! They're tiny now, and it's so exciting to watch them grow and know in a few short weeks they'll be huge and tasty and it'll be really really summer.

After realizing that Celebrity tomatoes are determinates, meaning the tomatoes ripen all around the same time, we purchased some Pink Girl plants for the garden as well. They are indeterminates, which means tomatoes will grow at different times over the course of the season. Having a lot of tomatoes at once in a few weeks will be an exciting adventure - get ready for salsa, gazpacho, and if we're really ambitious, maybe even some canning.

Harvesting for Breakfast

2011-05-01T09:27:00.001-07:00

Welcome to the completed spring & summer garden!

Today we planted the red bell peppers (see them in the front row) and eight tomato plants, a mix of Sungold, little orange delicious cherry tomatoes, and Celebrity, a larger red tomato with break-resistant skin.

They'll be growing strong over the next few weeks, with a first harvest probably in early July.

Speaking of first harvests, today we ate our first garden greens for breakfast! The mustard greens are enormous, and this morning we finally cut off some of the outside leaves and sauteed them up with some eggs.

I'd started some bread dough last night and baked it up this morning as well, so we had mustard greens from the garden, eggs from the chickens next door, and bread baked in our own oven.

Spring Garden - 1 month update

2011-04-29T11:57:00.000-07:00

On April 2nd we planted our spring seedlings, and now, 4 weeks later, we're almost ready for our first harvest! The veggies have especially loved the intermittent rain and sun over the last few days.

Parsley, Cilantro, Sage

Spinach "Gigante"

Summer Cabbage

Red Leaf Lettuce

Buttercrunch Lettuce

Lacinato Kale

Mustard Greens

"Favio" the Fava Bean Plant

It's soon-to-be veggie heaven around here as we start to harvest from the garden as well as start our 8-week spring CSA from Hickory Mountain Farm next Wednesday. All veggies, all the time!

We also expanded the garden to make room for some summer vegetables. See all the extra room on the right?

The new batch will include tomatoes for sure, and maybe also some bell peppers and eggplants. We hope to get seedlings at the market tomorrow and will get them in the ground ASAP. Summertime approaches!

The Best Thing I Know How To Make

2011-04-27T15:13:00.000-07:00

I've written about this before, but it's finally the time of year to celebrate it again. It's the cornerstone of my dessert-making expertise. The best use of strawberries possible. The reason I became obsessed with Smitten Kitchen. The clearest explanation of why strawberries and rhubarb grow from the ground at the same time of year.

Strawberry. Rhubarb. Crumble.

Deb's secret ingredient is lemon: juice in with the fruit, and zest in the crumble. Using lemon brightens it all up, sharpens the flavors, unifies the soft fragrant inside with the crispy buttery topping.

My secret ingredient is all in the berries. Red red red strawberries, from Rob at Whitted Bowers farm. Beautiful.

I'd purchased two quarts from Rob on Saturday morning at the market. Then saw rhubarb for the first time on Sunday afternoon at Weaver Street. I nearly jumped for joy, knew in my heart that the ruby stalks would soon be chopped and mixed in with the berries to become this, my favorite fruity treat of all time.

Strawberry-Rhubarb Crumble from Smitten Kitchen

Yields 6 to 8 servings.

For the topping:
1 1/3 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons Demerara sugar (I use brown sugar)
Zest of one lemon
1/4 pound (1 stick or 4 ounces) unsalted butter, melted

For the filling:
1 1/2 cups rhubarb, chopped into 1-inch pieces
1 quart strawberries plus a few extras, hulled, quartered
Juice of one lemon
1/2 cup sugar
3 to 4 tablespoons cornstarch
Pinch of salt

1. Heat oven to 375°F. Prepare topping: In a mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder, sugars and lemon zest and add the melted butter. Mix until small and large clumps form. Refrigerate until needed. (I put all the dry ingredients in a tupperware with a steady lid, then add the melted butter and mix it in with a fork, and then, with the top securely fastened, shake! Clumps will magically form in small and large sizes.)

2. Prepare filling: Toss rhubarb, strawberries, lemon juice, sugar, cornstarch and a pinch of salt in a 9-inch deep-dish pie plate. (I use a 9x9 brownie pan.)

3. Remove topping from refrigerator and cover fruit thickly and evenly with topping. Place pie plate on a (foil-lined, if you really want to think ahead) baking sheet, and bake until crumble topping is golden brown in places and fruit is bubbling beneath, about 40 to 50 minutes.

Yes. This crumble is wonderful. I've eaten it with many people I love in years past, and this summer's first crumble was no different. I had three of my most favorite people, my Carrboro support system, waiting in my living room when this beauty came out of the oven.

The timing was perfect: I'd put the crumble in the oven at the start of a difficult phone conversation, and as it cooled on the stovetop less than an hour later, my heart was in need of a reassuring treat. The crumble, in combination with my beautiful friends, provided a sweet end to an emotional evening. Strawberries and rhubarb (and butter, and don't forget sugar) will bring a girl back to the beauty of the present moment better than any other springtime dessert I can imagine.

Spring is here.

2011-04-16T10:56:00.000-07:00

Welcome back.

The spring garden is planted, the soil as black and beautiful as ever. We've got tuscan kale, arugula, buttercrunch lettuce, mustard green, a purple lettuce, and some herbs going.

Sara and Kate both turned 28. We celebrated. I baked Deb's chocolate stout cake. It was real good, and easy, and had beer in it. Clearly a winner.

A friend brought zinnias for Kate and Sara's birthdays. Today I planted them in an old pair of crocs, inspired by this repurposing project.

The market is full of springtime goodness, including asparagus (!!) and the very first strawberries. The flowers came from the market too, for birthday celebrating.

Asian Slaw and Peanut Dressing

2010-11-28T11:57:00.000-08:00

Recent obsession: thinly sliced, highly crunchy, very veggie slaws.

Add peanuty, tangy dressing in the style of Trader Joe's Spicy Peanut Vinaigrette, but made at home and put back in the TJ's bottle.

Peanut Dressing recipe, approximately. Feel free to throw in some cilantro or other goodies.

6 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
6 tablespoons vegetable oil
5 tablespoons creamy peanut butter
3 tablespoons soy sauce
3 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons minced fresh ginger root
1 1/2 tablespoons minced garlic

Mix it all up in the food processor or blender. Try not to eat it all at once, on every salad, all the time.

Slaw recipe, very approximate. The key is slicing everything very, very thin.

1/2 head of green cabbage (Savoy is nice), sliced by hand

1/2 head of purple cabbage, sliced by hand

A couple of carrots, shredded in the food processor or by hand

A bunch of cilantro, chopped up

Add some green onions if you like

Throw it all together and top with peanut dressing. Yum.

Salad Days of Fall

2010-10-24T06:01:00.000-07:00

The fall garden is treating us very well.

There's been more salad eating in the last few weeks than there was most of the summer, thanks to our abundance of arugula and Santa Fe lettuce. Check out the green waves of arugula leaves.

We're letting the buttercrunch lettuce grow a bit more before we start eating it, but the time is coming soon.

No sign of broccoli crowns yet, but the leaves are getting huge. The stems are very strong.

Grow, broccoli, grow! We want to eat you!

Along with the fall salads, we've been eating plenty of greens. Our chard and kale are enormous. It's so convenient (and delicious) to just go out and pick some greens and eat them right up, straight out of the ground and into the frying pan.

Even the ursa kale, which got planted in the second round with the buttercrunch lettuce, is getting massive. We'll eat you soon, too!

In other domestic news, I made a throw pillow! It was my first sewing project in many years.

I used this very easy envelope pattern and sewed it all by hand. The original blogger said it would take 10 minutes, but she was using a sewing machine. It took me about an hour to do it all by hand, and the hardest part was cutting the fabric. And look, a great little throw pillow for the guest bedroom! I have plans to make several more so the bed looks extra cozy and comfy.

Recent Cooking Adventures

2010-09-26T18:37:00.001-07:00

Mini-roundup style...

My biggest recent accomplishment: baking Challah for Shabbat dinner with friends this past Friday night.

My first challah ever, and it came out beautiful and delicious. I followed a recipe from Enchanted Broccoli Forest by Mollie Katzen (of Moosewood fame) because I was making quiche out of the same cookbook for dinner. I was very, very proud.

It was a long process, with lots of kneading and separating the dough and waiting. But it was fun nonetheless; the process felt meditative and the dough was lovely to touch.

I also had a cooking adventure day recently with a friend, creating a few recipes from the book Jam It, Pickle It, Cure It: And Other Cooking Projects.

I'd seen the book mentioned on various food blogs (including Food In Jars) and waited for weeks for it to arrive in my request pile at the local library.

We made crackers.

We made black bean dip.

We made chai.

I had to return the book, but next I'd like to make marshmallows from scratch. Or maybe peanut butter cups?

Fall Garden

2010-09-26T18:16:00.000-07:00

We planted our new fall garden a few weeks ago! The tomatoes finally kicked the bucket. We ripped them out of the ground, added tons of new dirt, and purchased new starter plants from the market.

We started out with tuscan kale (also known as black kale or dinosaur kale), swiss chard, arugula, broccoli, and a lettuce called Santa Fe.

They looked so tiny in the garden after having the monstrous tomato plants in for these last few months.

But in just a few short weeks, they've grown and grown!

See the leaves on that kale? Check out the height on that chard on the right!

As with the spring-summer garden, this fall one is lovely to look at and hopefully will be yummy to eat. It significantly less work this time around, since we already had our fence built, most of the soil in, and a better sense of what we were doing. We added some buttercrunch lettuce and another variety of kale today. Photos to come. Luckily, we got it in right before a huge rainstorm all afternoon, the first rain we've had in weeks. Excellent timing.

Tomato Summer

2010-08-20T08:07:00.000-07:00

With thirteen bountiful tomato plants in the garden, all growing ferociously for the past nine or ten weeks, it's been a very tomatoey summer.

Several nights a week, there's been a plate of tomatoes, mozzarella, and basil drizzled with balsamic vinegar and olive oil.

There's been fish with tomatoes.

There was gazpacho, seen here in its pre-blended state.

I canned whole Cherokee Purple tomatoes.

I canned tomato sauce with fresh basil.

I baked loaves and loaves of almost-no-knead bread to sop up tomato juice left on the plate.

I admired bowls of tomatoes on the countertop all summer long.

And now, somehow, August is turning into September, the plants are slowing down production, and we're digging up the grass next to the garden to expand it for the fall. Soon we'll pull out all the tomato plants and replace them with kale, or maybe spinach, or broccoli. It's been a pleasure to watch the tomato stalks grow, and grow, and grow, and blossom into these beautiful fruits, and finally land in the kitchen, all of thirty feet from where they started out.

Garden Growth & Fish Firsts

2010-06-21T15:21:00.001-07:00

Here's some photos of the garden over the last few weeks. It's grown a ton since we first got our plants in the ground a little over a month ago. The tomato plants are about four feet high, the cucumber vines are flowering and curling, and the peppers are starting to show themselves.

We've gotten a dozen or so yellow squash, some basil, a handful of sungold tomatoes, and a single cucumber in our first week of harvesting. The tomatoes have a few more weeks until they fully ripen, but the big guys (Cherokee Purple and Better Boy) have a few fruits on each plant. We're proud of how it's going so far!

Of course, a first vegetable garden for gardeners with limited experience has its moments of sadness as well. Three of our four yellow squash plants have completely died, even after giving us a few squash each. Our neighbor Sammy came over today as I was digging up the most recent plant. He showed me the shriveled stem and explained that the cause of death is vine borer worm, which wriggles its way into the stem and kills the plant in the process. Like a parasite, the only way to save the plant is risky surgery involving cutting a slit in the stem and pulling out the worm. Blech. Our last squash plant is in the opposite corner of the garden and is still growing strong. I'm worried about the cucumbers, which grow right next to the former yellow squash, but its too early to do exploratory vine borer surgery yet.

Despite the loss of these plants, the squash we've grown is the sweetest I've had. Our other neighbor, Charlie, recommended we harvest them while they're still small. I fried some slices up last night with basil and some salt and pepper, and they were sweet, crunchy, and delicious.

In other exciting foodie news, I joined a fish CSA with my friend Sara. We get weekly deliveries of 2-3 pounds of freshly caught fish and seafood, all cleaned up and delivered to Carrboro from Beaufort County NC via the Core Sound Seafood Community Supported Fishery. It's Sara's first venture back into eating fish after 14 years as a vegetarian, so we went all out our first week. We got a delivery of flounder and shrimp.

Thursday night Sara and I made Flounder Poached in Coconut, Ginger, and Basil Broth. It smelled incredible simmering on the stove and tasted like restaurant-worthy Thai food.

Friday night Erin and I cooked Stir-Fried Ginger Shrimp using a recipe from The Splendid Table. Easy and fresh and messy and tasty.

Granola and Asparagus Mushroom Bread Pudding

2010-06-13T13:52:00.000-07:00

As a head's up, the garden is looking incredible, and we've harvested our first bounty! Photos and details to come. For now, onto crunchier topics: granola.

I've made several batches of granola recently, based on the Cook's Illustrated recipe. Making this hippie goodness from scratch brings into perspective how incredibly overpriced the premade stuff is. Really, the ingredients are pretty cheap: a bunch of oats, some nuts, some seeds, some dried fruit. Once you've invested in one jar of good maple syrup and one of honey, the rest is really inexpensive, and the cooking process is terribly easy - to call it cooking might even be an overstatement. In reality it's just throwing a few items on a pan and stirring it up every few minutes. I made a half recipe the second go-around - the first batch got a bit stale (which, in granola terms, means soggy and uncrunchy) after two weeks or so.

Cook's Illustrated Classic Granola

1	cup walnuts , broken into 1/4-1/2-inch pieces
3	cups rolled oats
1/2	cup unsweetened shredded coconut
1/2	cup blanched almonds , halved
1/4	cup sesame seeds (I had none, so I upped the sunflower and nut content a bit to make up)
1/4	cup sunflower seeds
1/4	cup maple syrup
1/4	cup honey
1/3	cup canola oil
1	cup raisins

1. Adjust oven rack to center position and heat oven to 325 degrees. Mix first 6 ingredients together in large bowl.

2. Heat maple syrup and honey together with oil in small saucepan, whisking occasionally until warm. Pour mixture over dry ingredients; stir with spatula until mixture is thoroughly coated. Turn mixture onto an 11-by-7-inch jelly roll pan, spreading mixture in an even layer.
3. Bake, stirring and respreading mixture into an even layer every 5 minutes, until granola is light golden brown, about 15 minutes. Immediately turn granola onto another jelly roll pan to stop cooking process. Stir in raisins, then spread granola evely in pan; set on a wire rack and cool to room temperature. Loosen dried granola with a spatula; store in airtight container.

Several scoopfuls on vanilla yogurt in the morning before work? Yes please.

I receive almost daily emails from Vegetarian Times with recipe suggestions, and though I tend not to make them, I enjoy the food inspiration. I decided to try this one out as a way to appropriately use my stash of frozen asparagus. I figured the frozen stuff would need something that requries a fair amount of cooking as the defrosting process would leave them a bit soggy, and no good for grilling or other methods that would normally make raw asparagus shine.

Asparagus-Mushroom Bread Pudding

1 leek, white part finely chopped (1 cup)
3 cloves garlic, minced (1 Tbs.)
2 lb. fresh asparagus (36 to 40 medium spears),
cut into 1-inch pieces
12 oz. white mushrooms, sliced (2 cups)
4 cups skim milk
4 large eggs
2 tsp. Dijon mustard
2 Tbs. chopped fresh basil
1 1-lb. loaf crusty bread, cut into cubes
16 oz. soft goat cheese log, sliced

1. Coat skillet with nonstick cooking spray; heat over medium heat. Add leek and garlic, and sauté 8 minutes, or until soft. Add asparagus and mushrooms, and cook 4 minutes more, or until asparagus is tender. Set aside.

2. Whisk together milk, eggs, mustard, and basil in bowl. Set aside.

3. Coat 13- x 9-inch baking dish with cooking spray. Spread half of bread cubes in single layer in baking dish. Spoon asparagus mixture over top, and cover with remaining bread cubes.

Arrange goat cheese rounds over top. Pour egg mixture over all, pressing down with spoon to submerge bread. Cover, and chill 2 hours, or overnight.

4. Preheat oven to 350°F. Bake bread pudding 45 minutes, or until center is set. Let stand 10 minutes before serving.

This meal came out pretty good, and in fact was better the second day, though I should know to be wary of recipes that don't call for salt. It definitely needed some. It's flavorful, though nowhere near as incredible as the butternut squash and kale bread pudding of last fall, but this was admittedly easier to prepare.

Alright, look out for garden updates soon. Squash! Tomatoes! Beautiful sprawling cucumber vines!

Banana Bread Success

2010-05-19T08:03:00.000-07:00

This post is about how Anna is always right about most things, and especially when it comes to baking. Or, as Anna says, just trust Cook's Illustrated. After living with Anna in Brooklyn for almost a year and tasting many a delicious baked good that she whipped up, I was lucky enough to be given a copy of her secret handbook: Baking Illustrated, a cookbook published by the gastronomical science geniuses at Cook's Illustrated.

Seriously, these people know what's up -- because of science! They experiment with recipes, starting with a few different versions and then varying them to figure out just how many eggs you need , or whether sour cream, yogurt, or milk will lend the best flavor and texture. The scientific method at its best.

For example, with their banana bread recipe, they experimented with just how mashed the bananas need to be to keep the batter thick and smooth. Mashed just a bit by hand? Mashed very well? Pureed? They varied mixing the different ingredients in several ways to figure out how to create the best texture and rise in the bread. And, not only do they do all this work for you so you can make awesome food on the first try, they also tell you why it works! Food science is cool!

I chose the banana bread recipe because it's the first recipe in the book - a very good place to start, I figured. But I also have had a hankering for the chocolate chip banana bread made by Blue Sky Bakery, my favorite one in Brooklyn (they sell their baked goods at Grumpy Coffee as well as at their store on 5th Ave and Bergen in Park Slope) and wondered if the Baking Illustrated variation of Banana-Chocolate Bread could measure up.

Of course, despite starting the bread immediately after returing from the grocery store to buy a bittersweet chocolate bar, I realized as I was pouring the batter into the loaf pan that I had forgotten to follow the variation recipe and instead had made plain old banana bread. Fail! I was disappointed for a few minutes and pouted my way around the kitchen, eventually taking a little walk outside to admire the garden, but my spirits were lifted when I came back inside and smelled this delight baking in the oven.

Banana Bread from Baking Illustrated

Greasing and flouring only the bottom of a regular loaf pan causes the bread to cling to the sides and rise higher. If using a nonstick loaf pan, on which the sides are very slick, grease and flour sides as well as the bottom.

2	cups unbleached all-purpose flour
3/4	cup granulated sugar
3/4	teaspoon baking soda
1/2	teaspoon table salt
1 1/4	cups toasted walnuts , chopped coarse
3	very ripe bananas , soft, darkly speckled, mashed well (about 1 1/2 cups)
1/4	cup plain yogurt
2	large eggs , beaten lightly
6	tablespoons unsalted butter , melted and cooled
1	teaspoon vanilla extract

(As Baking Illustrated suggests, I had frozen some very ripe bananas and let them thaw on the counter a few hours before baking. They slipped right out of their skins. The fruit seemed a bit juicy, so I removed a bit of the liquid from the bowl before mashing in the other ingredients.)

Adjust oven rack to lower middle position and heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease bottom only of regular loaf pan, or grease and flour bottom and sides of nonstick 9-by-5-by-3-inch loaf pan; set aside.

Combine first five ingredients together in large bowl; set aside. Mix mashed bananas, yogurt, eggs, butter, and vanilla with wooden spoon in medium bowl.

Lightly fold banana mixture into dry ingredients with rubber spatula until just combined and batter looks thick and chunky.

Scrape batter into prepared loaf pan; bake until loaf is golden brown and toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, about 55 minutes.

Cool in pan for 5 minutes, then transfer to wire rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Um, yeah. This banana bread is good. Really, really good. Moist as can be, strong banana flavor, nutty without being crunchy. So tremendously good. I baked it less than 24 hours ago and there is less than a third of the bread left, after eating a hunk with Erin straight out of the oven and bringing another hunk to American Idol last night. At first I hoped I wouldn't be too sick of banana bread to try the chocolate variation in a couple of weeks; now I'm counting on folks to help me finish the remaining bit of bread as soon as possible so I can whip the chocolate version up, say, later today. Quick! Come over and eat some banana bread! And a big thanks to Anna for showing me the light of Cook's Illustrated - I am now a paying member of their website and plan to subscribe for the magazine as soon as my Bon Appetit subscription ends. As the banana bread shows, tried and tested food science wins out over shiny photos on magazine pages.

Plants in the ground, plants in the ground

2010-05-18T06:18:00.000-07:00

Looking real cool with your plants in the ground! Finally.

Our wonderful neighbors consult on the garden regularly, and as they are remodeling their house, suggested that we use their unneeded rocks to hold down the bottom of the deer netting. Perfect solution!
We also stuck some bamboo stalks into the fencing so the deer could notice that there's a fence there at all. Once the stalks dry out, we'll try to make them into stakes for the tomatoes so we don't have to buy wire cages for them. There's a house in a neighborhood nearby that has their entire garden structured with bamboo - the external fence and all the internal stakes and structures.

The plants finally got planted last Wednesday afternoon. We made some elevated rows and watered and dug and got those plant roots right in. The plants were delighted to be in their permanent home after 10 days of hanging out inside the house and on the lawn in their plastic planter boxes. As we put each plant in its row, I wished it good luck and asked it to bring us lots of nice vegetables. Hopefully the words of encouragement help them grow up big and strong. Along with, you know, water and sun and all that.

So that we can monitor their progress, here's some "before" shots of all the veggies just after putting them in the ground.

Yellow Bell Peppers

Burpless Cucumbers

Yellow Squash

Sungold Tomatoes

Cherokee Purple Tomatoes

Better Boy Tomatoes (they refused to rotate for the photo!)

I spent a lot of time Thursday and Friday admiring the garden. After all our hard work , it looks so nice!

Also snuck in a quick trip to the Wednesday farmer's market last week to get eggs, a tomato, and some red leaf lettuce.
I said hi to Rob from Whitted Bowers Farm, who was almost sold out of zucchini and gave me the last few he had. He said it's hard to sell the last bit of something. He's so nice! We went out to his beautiful farm on Thursday morning to pick strawberries, which I forgot to photograph, but I assure you that they are the loveliest and most tasty strawberries around.

Celebrating Mother's Day with Falafel Burgers

2010-05-11T12:50:00.000-07:00

On Sunday evening, a gaggle of friends came over to celebrate Jay's first Mother's Day -- she's due in the fall, but we like to get things started early when it comes to babies. We ate straight from the Moosewood Restaurant New Classics cookbook again. I hope to make every recipe in this book over time. This week: Falafel Burgers with Lemon Tahini Dressing, and a very modified Three Peppers Cabbage Slaw.

Falafel Burgers

1 cup diced onion
2-3 garlic cloves, minced or pressed
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 cup diced red bell peppers
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp ground coriander
pinch of cayenne, or to taste
12 oz firm tofu, pressed and crumbled
1.5 cups cooked chick peas (15-oz can, drained)
3 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 Tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp dark sesame oil
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
1/2 tsp salt, or to taste
1/2 cup breadcrumbs

Preheat the oven to 350. Oil a baking sheet. Sauté onions and garlic in olive oil on medium heat for 5 minutes. Add peppers, turmeric, coriander and cayenne and sauté for 5 minutes more.

While the veggies cook, combine tofu, chick peas, lemon juice, soy sauce and sesame oil in food processor until well combined but not a paste.

Transfer tofu mixture to a large bowl. Stir in veggie mixture, parsley, tahini, bread crumbs and salt, until uniform.

Shape into 8 patties, using about 1/2 cup mixture per patty.

Bake for 30 minutes until golden, juicy and firm. Top with Yogurt Tahini Dressing.

Yogurt Tahini Dressing

1 cup plain yogurt
2 Tbsp tahini
1-2 garlic cloves, minced or pressed
1 Tbsp lemon juice
2 tsp chopped fresh dill
salt and pepper to taste

Combine all ingredients and let sit for 15 minutes before serving. Serve cold.

Three Peppers Cabbage Slaw

Salad:
4 cups finely shredded green cabbage
1/2 cup red bell pepper, cut into 1 inch matchsticks
1/2 cup green bell pepper, cut into 1 inch matchsticks
1/2 cup yellow bell pepper, cut into 1 inch matchsticks
1/2 cup finely sliced scallions
3 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
1 seeded and minced jalapeno pepper (optional - I skipped it)

Dressing:
2 teaspoons freshly grated lemon peel
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 garlic clove, minced or pressed
2 to 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 tablespoons white balsamic or cider vinegar
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt

Place the salad ingredients in a serving bowl. In another bowl, whisk together all of the dressing ingredients. Pour the dressing on the vegetables and toss thoroughly. Add more vinegar, salt, or sugar to taste. Serve immediately or refrigerate for up to 3 days.

This dinner came out splendidly. The burgers are pretty easy to prepare and were a big hit. If you used soy yogurt in the dressing, it would have been a vegan meal as well, which is handy to have in your back pocket. The dressing and burgers taste great together, and all of it kept well for lunch leftovers the next day. I left out all the peppers for the slaw -- red and yellows are terribly expensive, and green just taste like crap. Instead I grated up some carrot for color, and the dressing still worked out just fine. The food was light but filling, and enjoyable to eat outside in the backyard.

The ulterior motive to inviting all these friends for dinner was to get help finally installing the posts and fencing for the garden. After much holding of ladders, banging on posts with the side of a pickaxe, twist-tying, and hilarity, the fence was finally installed! One step closer to getting those plants in the ground.

The next problem-solving issue is how to secure the fence to the ground between the posts so critters don't crawl underneath. After that is figured out, the plants should be safe and ready to move to their new home.

Curried Lentil Dip for Erin's 30th

2010-05-08T12:56:00.000-07:00

Last night we celebrated Erin's 30th birthday at the new house. We grilled veggie burgers and hot dogs, drank beer, sat in the breezy backyard and mingled with the folks at the kegger next door. I finally got the chance to make this dip from perhaps my favorite cookbook of all time, Moosewood Restaurant New Classics. I've been intrigued by the ingredient list, as well as the headnote for the recipe:

Looking for something unusual for a party or a potluck dinner? When this dip is one of the choices, it’s almost always gone long before the cheese dips are even half eaten.

How can I resist that? And it proved true! People really enjoyed the dip, and were into the exotic, not-quite-hummus flavor.

Curried Lentil Dip from Moosewood Restaurant New Classics

Ingredients:

1 cup red lentils
2 1/2 cups water
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 cup diced onions
1 1/2 cups peeled, cored, and diced apples
3 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 cup raisins
1 teaspoon curry powder
1 teaspoon garam masala
1/4 cup coconut milk
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon salt

In a medium saucepan, bring the lentils and water to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer until the lentils are soft and most of the water is absorbed, about 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, heat the oil in a skillet and sauté the onions, apples, and garlic with a dash of salt for about 5 minutes on medium heat. Add the raisins, curry powder, and the garam masala, if using, and continue to sauté for 10 minutes, until tender.

In a food processor or blender, pureé the cooked lentils and sautéed onion mix with the coconut milk and lemon juice.

Add the salt and adjust to taste. Serve at room temp or chilled.

Back in Carrboro

2010-05-04T13:01:00.000-07:00

So, I've finally made it back to Carrboro. There's been plenty of excitement from the moment I arrived! As I pulled into the driveway on Tuesday morning last week, I had an adorable gift waiting for me on my front step.

Yes, it's a lovely poster. It made me feel very loved upon my return to town, and I now have it displayed above my oven. But most importantly, the cookie cake! Perhaps my favorite dessert -- at least the store-bought kind -- of all time.

Lucky for me, the Wednesday afternoon farmer's market started just a few weeks before I arrived, so I was able to get to my first one on only my second day back in town. I needed to stock up my new fridge of course, so I picked up a whole variety of lovely items: a bunch of lacinato kale, a quart of strawberries, three shortbread cookies from Box Turtle Bakery, a newcomer to the market a dozen eggs, a head of lettuce (I can't remember the exact variety name, but it had "Boston" in it -- it turned out to be somewhat bitter for my taste),

Later that evening, the strawberries and the shortcake turned into dessert with the help of some vanilla ice cream from Trader Joe's.

Aside from the gourmet excitement at the farmer's market, I've been keeping myself busy unpacking the house, enjoying my spacious kitchen complete with island and bar stools, and doing exciting pieces of business like getting a North Carolina driver's license and spending a few hours attempting to get the wireless internet to function. But so far, the real excitement has been taking place in the backyard.

Excitement #1: Setting Up the Compost Bin!

After being part of a community compost in Brooklyn, the idea of throwing away my food scraps is really unappealing. I love the concept of using the ends of my carrots, the scraps of my potatoes, and the stems of my leafy greens to create rich, dark soil instead of creating more trash. We decided to go with the trash can bin, as this is portable, cheap, easy to set up, and easier to "turn" than a wooden bin, the more traditional compost holder.

All it takes is a trash can with a secure lid and a drill to create some air holes in the can. I ripped up the newspaper I used to protect my breakables during the move and added them to the bottom of the can. Then the food scraps can go right in!

The trash can makes it easy to turn the compost so the "green" and "brown" elements get mixed -- just roll it around on the ground for a while. No pitchforks! No shovels! No turning at all! Just a little watering now and then to make sure the newspaper is good and damp.

Excitement #2: Purchasing Plants

One thing I've been very excited about regarding my life in Carrboro is finally starting a vegetable garden. I've never had one before, but my landlord told me that in the past there was a huge community garden in the backyard of this house, meaning that the soil is rich. Plus, all my neighbors have gardens, and it seems like the thing to do after work and on the weekends is work on your garden and help your neighbors out with theirs. Can't beat that!

On Saturday morning at the farmer's market we picked out what we wanted to plant. We had a pretty clear idea of what we wanted, but seeing the plants and talking to the farmers really helped.

We decided on yellow squash, burpless cucumbers, yellow peppers, and three varieties of tomatoes: sungolds, better boys, and cherokee purples.

They are enthusiastically awaiting their new home in the backyard! Until then, they have to sunbathe on the table in the back. Which brings us to...

Excitement #3: Setting Up the Garden

After much advice from neighbors, input from the farmers, both discouragement and support from the local garden supply store, as well as our own independent research, we decided to create a 10x10 foot plot in the ground. The first step was picking out a nice sunny spot, and we chose one adjacent to one of our neighbor's gardens, though ours is a bit smaller. Then we measured out our plot and started digging! We've got to get the grass up first, which proved a difficult task at first. We were using shovels and digging hard to get the roots out. But after several hours of work getting us about 2/3 of the way though, our neighbor with the adjacent garden came out of his house after watching us and gave us a miraculous tool that got the rest of the grass our lickety-split! It's a very sharp hoe that he used in Guatemala, and it hacks right through the thick grass roots. After using the hoe to get the roots out, our plot was done in no time!

Now, of course, we need to fortify the ground soil with nice, black potting soil and compost or manure. Buying it in bags can be pricey, so I found us a deal on the internet. Caleb, a full-time local fireman and part-time soil delivery man, dropped off an enormous truckload of fragrant (read: smelly) soil and compost right in the backyard for a pretty reasonable price.

Our elementary school age neighbors came out and watched the truck dump all this dirt out. It was pretty exciting.

Next up, we've got to get the dirt in the ground and get our veggies in the dirt! Soon the hardest parts will be done and we'll be getting closet to eating our bounty.

Asparagus from North to South

2010-04-24T14:31:00.000-07:00

I know, I know, it's been a while. Did you miss me? Well I certainly missed you. Let's never be apart again.

My bags are packed here in my Park Slope apartment and I'm headed back down south on Monday morning. I'm delighted, of course, but my timing is dicey, as I'm arriving the day after the farm tour and at the tail end of asparagus season! Disastrous!

Luckily, I've done some advance planning. During my last trip to Carrboro, I asked Rob of Whitted Bowers Farm, home of the most beautiful asparagus on the planet, to save me a few bunches of his harvest. And it's a good thing I placed my order in advance! By the time I arrived at the Carrboro Farmer's Market at 10am, Rob had sold clean out of his 80 pound harvest, and had in fact sold the whole bunch before 8am! You know it must be good.

I spent a few hours trimming, blanching, and individually freezing my asparagus bounty and I'll be happy eating away for the next few weeks, or as long as I can make them last. By the time my first Saturday in Carrboro rolls around next weekend, asparagus season will likely be over and done with.

I managed to catch the start of the season here in New York last weekend and treated myself to a bunch of the Northern stuff. Nowhere near as good as Rob's, but it'll do for now.

Next time you hear from me, I'll be pleasantly ensconced in my new Carrboro abode, cooking up a whole new set of treats in my sunny kitchen. With an island! Stay tuned.

Butternut Squash and White Bean Soup

2009-11-22T18:41:00.000-08:00

Purchases from the market this week: butternut squash, sweet potatoes, shallots, a huge bunch of sage, several sprigs of rosemary, and a bag of broccoli florets.

I thumbed through my binder of collected recipes and found, sitting right near the top, a loose piece of paper from the farmer's market with this soup recipe. Given the big old bag of dry white beans sitting in my legume drawer just waiting to be cooked, it was a perfect fit.

Butternut Squash and White Bean Soup

1 1/2 cups chopped onion
6 garlic cloves, minced
3 cups low-salt chicken broth (I used veggie broth from boullion cubes)
2 1/2 lbs of beans (I guesstimated here using beans I'd made in the slow cooker - I put in about 6 cups all together)
1 cup diced tomatoes (I used some crushed tomatoes I had leftover)
1 teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary

Saute chopped onion and garlic in olive oil until golden, about 10 minutes.

Add broth; bring to boil. Stir in butternut squash, 1 lb beans with liquid, tomatoes, and fresh rosemary.

Puree (or mash) remaining beans with liquid in processor until smooth. Add to soup. Cover and simmer until butternut squash is tender and flavors blend, about 15 minutes.

Season soup with salt and pepper.

Really good soup. Fresh herbs make all the difference.

Morning Glory Muffins

2009-11-22T18:21:00.000-08:00

I've had muffins on the mind over the last week or so. I finally decided to give in to the craving and got one very disappointing, stale muffin Dunkin' Donuts (remember never to do that again). The next day, craving still in high gear, I had a mediocre pumpkin muffin from a deli near my office. Finally, I had a pretty satisfying morning glory muffin from Connecticut Muffins in Park Slope this past Saturday morning while on my way to the market. This ultimate purchase inspired me to make some of my own.

I found this recipe just from Googling it, but it's most definitely a winner. There's absolutely tons of fruit and veggie action in this muffin, even more than the standard carrot and raisin combo I expect in a morning glory muffin, and it bakes up beautifully.

The Original Morning Glory Muffins from Earthbound Farm

1 1/4 cups sugar
2 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup shredded, sweetened coconut
3/4 cup raisins
1 large apple, peeled and grated
1 cup (8 oz) crushed pineapple, drained
2 cups grated carrots
1/2 cup coarsely chopped pecans or walnuts (I used pecans)
3 large eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Position a rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees F.

Sift or whisk together the sugar, flour, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt into a large bowl.

Add the coconut, raisins, apple, pineapple, carrots, and nuts, and stir to combine.

In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs with the oil and vanilla. Pour into the bowl with the dry ingredients and blend well.

Spoon the batter into muffin tins lined with muffin cups, filling each to the brim. Bake for 35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean. Cool muffins in the pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a rack to finish cooling.

I brought a batch to my grandma when I visited her this afternoon, and she gave them a big thumbs up too. And we all know that when it comes to baked goods, Grandma's tend to know best.

Butternut Squash and Cheddar Bread Pudding. Possibly the best thing ever.

2009-11-03T16:12:00.000-08:00

This dish is, quite possibly, the best thing ever. Or maybe it's the best thing I've ever made. Either way, it's damn good.

I saw the recipe for this butternut squash and cheddar bread pudding in the Thanksgiving issue of Bon Appetit magazine. The accompanying article (written by Orangette's Molly Wizenberg) describes how the dish can replace the turkey at a vegetarian Thanksgiving. Count me in! Still too early for a true Thanksgiving meal, I made this delightful main course for a dinner party held at my apartment last weekend. It has quite a few steps (seeing as the dish itself is composed of four layered parts) and though a bit time consuming, nothing was particularly difficult about it. Plus, whisking seven (7!) eggs in a big metal bowl really made me feel like a chef!

Butternut Squash and Cheddar Bread Pudding from Bon Appetit, November 2009

2 pounds peeled seeded butternut squash, cut into 1-inch cubes (about 6 cups)
3 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1 1/2 teaspoons coarse kosher salt plus additional for sprinkling

7 large eggs
2 1/4 cups half and half (I used whole milk here.)
6 tablespoons dry white wine
1 1/2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
1 day-old baguette (do not remove crust), torn into 1-inch pieces (about 10 cups)
1 cup chopped shallots (about 4 large)
2 bunches Tuscan kale (about 1 pound), ribs removed, kale coarsely chopped
8 ounces extra-sharp cheddar cheese, coarsely grated

Preheat oven to 400°F. Toss squash with 1 tablespoon oil on rimmed baking sheet. Sprinkle with coarse salt; bake until squash is tender, turning with spatula occasionally, 20 to 25 minutes.

Whisk eggs in large bowl. Add half and half, wine, mustard, and 1 1/2 teaspoons coarse salt; whisk to blend. Add baguette pieces; fold gently into egg mixture. Let soak 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Meanwhile, heat 2 tablespoons oil in large pot over medium-high heat. Add shallots and sauté until soft, stirring frequently, about 5 minutes. Add kale; cover and cook 2 minutes. Uncover and stir until kale is wilted but still bright green, about 5 minutes (kale will be a bit crunchy).

Reduce oven temperature to 350°F. Generously butter 13x9x2-inch baking dish. Using slotted spoon, transfer half of bread from egg mixture to prepared baking dish, arranging to cover most of dish. Spoon half of kale over bread. Spoon half of squash over bread and kale; sprinkle with half of cheese. Repeat with remaining bread, kale, squash, and cheese. Pour remaining egg mixture over bread pudding.

Cover bread pudding with foil. Bake 20 minutes. Remove foil; bake uncovered until custard is set and bread feels springy to touch, about 20 minutes longer.

Preheat broiler; broil pudding until cheese browns slightly, about 2 minutes. Cool 5 minutes and serve.

This dish is beautiful and extraordinarily good. All the elements just melt into each other.

It tastes soft but also crisp, full of veggies and still completely substantive. Undoubtedly better than most Thanksgiving turkeys I've had.

And look how nicely it fit in with the rest of our dinner party fare!

Despite the time involved in making this dish, I'm already planning several upcoming occasions worthy of making it again.

Catching Up: Granola Bars, Fig Cookies, and Acorn Squash

2009-10-22T19:00:00.000-07:00

While I slacked off on updating this blog over the last few weeks, I must admit that my intentions were good. So good, in fact, that I have plenty of photo documentation of my food projects of late that I'd like to share. Check out a quick run-through of recipes and photos from October thus far:

Granola Bars from The Kitchn

Fruit and Nut Bars
Makes 8 bars

1/2 cup whole nuts - almonds, peanuts, walnuts, etc.
1/2 cup dried fruit, coarsely chopped - cranberries, cherries, figs, etc.
1 cup high-fiber cereal (like Kashi GoLean)
1 cup puffed rice cereal
1 Tablespoon butter
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup honey
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 Tablespoons wheat bran (Didn't have this so I used a bit of wheat flour instead)
pinch of salt

Preheat the oven to 350-degrees Fahrenheit. Prepare an 8x8-inch pan with oil or non-stick cooking spray.

Arrange the nuts on a sheet pan and toast for 10 minutes or until fragrant. Allow them to cool and then give them a rough chop. Combine the chopped nuts, dried fruit, and cereals in a heat-proof bowl. Use your fingers to separate the fruit if it clumps together.

Reduce oven temperature to 300-degrees Fahrenheit.

Combine butter, brown sugar, and honey in a medium sauce pan and stir to moisten the brown sugar. Set over medium heat and bring to a boil, swirling the pan once or twice to make sure all the ingredients combine. As soon as the sugar mixture comes to a full boil and the sugar is completely dissolved, remove from heat. This should take about 5 minutes.

Off the heat, stir in the vanilla, wheat bran, and salt. Be careful because the sugar will bubble up. Immediately pour sugar syrup over the cereal mixture and use a heat-proof spatula to stir everything together. Make sure the nuts, fruits, and cereals are evenly coated. Pour the cereal mixture into the pan and use the spatula or wet fingers to press the mixture into the pan as firmly as possible.

Bake 20 minutes for chewy bars or up to 30 minutes for crispier bars. Allow the bars to cool completely in the pan. Turn out onto a cutting board and use a sharp knife to divide into 8 bars.

Fig Cookies
(Makes about 4 dozen)

1 cup chopped figs (about 1/2 lb)
1/3 cup water
1 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups sifted flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

Cook figs with water, stirring frequently, until thickened (about 5 minutes). Set aside to cool.

Beat butter with sugar and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla. Blend well. Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt. Mix into the creamed mixture. Stir in the cooled figs. Drop by teaspoons onto lightly greased cookie sheets.

Bake 375 degrees F. for 10 to 12 minutes, until lightly browned. Remove cookies and cool on wire racks.

Acorn Squash with Chile-Lime Vinagrette from Smitten Kitchen

Makes 4 servings.

2 (1 1/2 – to 1 3/4-lb) acorn squash
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons olive oil
1 garlic clove
1 1/2 tablespoons fresh lime juice, or to taste
1 to 2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh hot red chile, including seeds
2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro

Put oven racks in upper and lower thirds of oven and preheat oven to 450°F. Halve squash lengthwise, then cut off and discard stem ends. Scoop out seeds and cut squash lengthwise into 3/4-inch-wide wedges. Toss squash with black pepper, 3/4 teaspoon salt, and 2 tablespoons oil in a bowl, then arrange, cut sides down, in 2 large shallow baking pans. Roast squash, switching position of pans halfway through roasting, until squash is tender and undersides of wedges are golden brown, 25 to 35 minutes.

While squash roasts, mince garlic and mash to a paste with remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt. Transfer paste to a small bowl and whisk in lime juice, chile (to taste), cilantro, and remaining 1/4 cup oil until combined.

Transfer squash, browned sides up, to a platter and drizzle with vinaigrette.

Roasted sungolds and apple kugel

2009-09-28T17:11:00.000-07:00

Note: Oh man, I am a slacker. I meant to post this weeks ago. Apologies. Please enjoy now!

From the week of September 28th:

Plenty of cooking adventures to report for the past week. But first! Saturday goodies from the market: a pint of sungolds, one of the last of the season; two gala apples (good for lunches) and four golden delicious apples (for the kugel); broccoli; a yellow bell pepper; and my first winter squash of the season, a hardy small butternut. Did you know that the less green lines at the top of the squash, the sweeter it'll be? I think I learned that from the Brinkleys, at the Carrboro Farmer's Market.

I love roasting tomatoes - it brings out their flavor without having to do much to them - and at the end of tomato season, it's a good way to make sure that slightly sub-par tomatoes still taste great. I used a Smitten Kitchen recipe to roast these sungolds. Usually I roast tomatoes at a slightly higher temp for a much shorter period of time, but I wanted to see what would happen with her truly slow roast method.

Slow-Roasted Tomatoes

Cherry, grape or small Roma tomatoes
Whole gloves of garlic, unpeeled
Olive oil
Herbs such as thyme or rosemary (optional)

Preheat oven to 225°F. Halve each cherry or grape tomato crosswise, or Roma tomato lengthwise and arrange on a parchment-lined baking sheet along with the cloves of garlic. Drizzle with olive oil, just enough to make the tomatoes glisten. Sprinkle herbs on, if you are using them, and salt and pepper, though go easily on these because the finished product will be so flavorful you’ll need very little to help it along.

Bake the tomatoes in the oven for about three hours. You want the tomatoes to be shriveled and dry, but with a little juice left inside–this could take more or less time depending on the size of your tomatoes.

I didn't realize we had no garlic until I'd already started cutting tomatoes, so I just decided to go with it. I sprinkled some dried thyme on top. They came out great! I'll definitely pop them onto sandwiches, in with pasta, and on top of salads over the next week or two.

Now that we're mostly finished setting up the new apartment, Katey and Anna and I hosted a small brunch potluck this weekend to celebrate. I get daily emails from VegetarianTimes.com with recipes, and one of this week's was for a Caramelized Apple Kugel. I love my grandma's kugels - thick, creamy, cheesy, dessert that you can pretend is a side dish or breakfast - and figured this would be worth a try.

Vegetarian Times Noodle Kugel with Caramelized Apples and Raisins

6 oz. wide egg noodles
2 cups low-fat cottage cheese
1 cup low-fat plain yogurt
2 eggs plus 2 egg whites
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup raisins (I left these out)
4 Golden Delicious apples, peeled and cored (1 1/2 lb.)
2 Tbs. unsalted butter
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup breadcrumbs

Preheat oven to 350°F. Coat 9- x 13-inch baking dish with cooking spray.

Cook egg noodles in large pot of boiling salted water 4 to 5 minutes, or until tender. Drain.

Whisk together cottage cheese, yogurt, eggs, egg whites, cinnamon, and salt in bowl. Fold in egg noodles and raisins.

Quarter each apple. Slice each quarter into thirds. Set aside.

Melt butter in large skillet over medium-high heat. Add apples, sprinkle with sugar, and cook 4 minutes without stirring. Gently flip apples and cook 4 minutes more, or until softened and golden on both sides, turning once or twice. Carefully transfer apples to noodle mixture.

Spoon noodle mixture into prepared baking dish and sprinkle with breadcrumbs. Bake 40 minutes, or until breadcrumbs are golden brown. Cool 15 minutes before slicing. Serve hot or at room temperature.

Sadly, this recipe came out quite a bit dryer and looser than I was hoping. My memories of kugel involve thick, creamy squares of moist goodness. This was more falling apart noodlieness with fruit and spices mixed in. Next time I'll find a recipe heavier on the cheese. What could be wrong with that plan?

I promise more regular updates from now on! In addition, my apartment is hosting quite a few food-related events this weekend, and surely there will be more to come. I'll do my best to keep you fully posted.

Coconut Barley Pilaf with Corn, Chicken, and Cashews

2009-09-25T18:03:00.000-07:00

Apologies, dear readers, for my absence. Consider this my triumphant return.

And we begin again with one of this week's featured recipes from the New York Times, prefaced by an adorable and appealing article about this homemade takeout-style dish to cuddle up with on the couch. Living in New York, resisting takeout can be difficult, as walking home from the subway requires peeking through the windows of all the local restaurants, watching folks consume delicious-looking food with smells wafting towards the street. But it's expensive, for one, and often feels so extravagant when I could just go home and make something simple and good. This dish is a great compromise.

Now before you get all hyped up that I'm leaving my mostly vegetarian roots, fear not! I've substituted the chicken in this recipe for one of the single best ingredients of all time: Delight Soy Nuggets. Imported from Taiwan directly to North Carolina, they're impossible to get in New York. I was lucky enough to have mine specially delivered to me. They're so good, so juicy, so much like real meat, and so incredibly addictive, that they've come to be known in my circle as "soy crack." Once you start, you'll be hooked for life. In a good way.

Coconut Barley Pilaf with Corn, Chicken, and Cashews

1 large boneless, skinless chicken breast (about 10 ounces), rinsed and patted dry
1/2 teaspoon salt, plus more to taste
Freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup salted roasted cashews, roughly chopped
1/2 medium onion, diced small (about 1 cup)
1 jalapeño pepper, diced
2 cups pearled barley
1 can (15-ounce) coconut milk
2 ears corn, kernels sliced off the cob (about 1 1/2 cups)
2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint, cilantro or parsley (I used cilantro)

Cut chicken into 1-inch chunks; season with salt and pepper.

Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a medium pot over medium-high heat. Add chicken and cook, stirring occasionally, until light golden and almost cooked through, about 4 minutes. Stir in cashews and cook 1 minute more. Transfer mixture to a plate.

Add remaining tablespoon oil to pot. Stir in onions and jalapeño and a pinch of salt. Cook, stirring, until onions are slightly softened, 2 to 3 minutes. Stir in barley and 1/2 teaspoon salt; cook 1 minute more.

Add enough water to coconut milk to yield 2 cups liquid and add to pot. Bring liquid to a simmer, then cook, covered, over low heat until the barley is almost tender, about 40 minutes.

Stir in corn. If mixture looks dry, stir in 1 1/4 cups more water; cover and cook until barley and corn are tender, 10 to 15 minutes more. Return chicken mixture to pot and stir well. Fold in herbs and more salt to taste.

This dish is really, really good. The grain is hearty, the flavors are really full, the coconut milk and corn combo makes it a touch sweet. It reheats really well and doesn't take too long or much effort. The soy crack, of course, is fab. Definitely will be making this one again.

Bittmanspiration and Beet caviar

2009-08-10T15:57:00.000-07:00

The Mark Bittman 101 summer salads article I mentioned recently has already created some big hits, especially with the recent influx of sungold tomatoes in my kitchen. One of his recommendations:

"19. Mix cooked cannellini or other white beans, chopped cherry or grape tomatoes and arugula or baby spinach. Lightly toast sliced garlic in olive oil with rosemary and red pepper flakes; cool slightly, add lemon zest or juice or both, then pour over beans."

Very good. The beans gives the dish some substance, the dressing is easy, all in all a filling meal. But even Mark Bittman knows it's not as good as this:

"15. Cut cherry or grape tomatoes in half; toss with soy sauce, a bit of dark sesame oil and basil or cilantro. I love this — the tomato juice-soy thing is incredible."

Yes, sir, the tomato-soy thing is indeed incredible. This week it was paired with marinated tempeh one night and a corn/black bean combo another.

It's so good I forgot to take a photo until it was almost gone!

Another treat from this week came from Deborah Madison's cookbook "Local Flavors." She suggests using three colors of beets in the same dish to make a "caviar" along with endive and goat cheese.

Three-Beet Caviar with Endive and Goat Cheese

6 beets: 2 golden, 2 Chioggia, 2 red
1 very small red onion, finely diced (used shallot instead)
3 tablespoons white wine vinegar (used apple cider instead)
sea salt and pepper
2 tablespoons chopped parsley or chervil (went without it)
2 Belgian endives, red or white (skipped this too!)
4 ounces fresh goat cheese
olive oil

Leaving an inch of the stem and all of the roots, steam the beets until they're tender-firm when pierced with a knife, 25-45 minutes. Cool, then slip off the skins. (I find it much easier to scrub them to death, then cut them into reasonable pieces, rather than have to wait for them to cook all the way through. And slipping of the skins is the worst.)

Cut them into chunks, then pulse 6 to 8 times in a food processor until finely chopped, taking care not to turn the beets into mush. Alternatively, dice them by hand. Chop each color of beet separately.

While the beets are cooking, toss the onion in the binegar with 1/4 teaspoon salt and set aside. Toss each of the three types of beets with a third of the onion and vinegar. Taste for salt and season with pepper. Toss again with the parsley and chill.

Slice the endives crosswise into rounds and separate the pieces. Arrange mounds of the beets, a mound of the endive, and a smaller one of goat cheese on the place. Drizzle a little olive oil over the endive and cheese. Add pepper and serve. Toss everything together into a pile of confetti before eating.

So pretty! So good!

And, finally, this weekend's trip to the market:

Replenished the sungolds, of course! I found the best deal at the Grand Army Plaza market: $2/pint at Maxwell's Farm, the first stand on the left when you ender from Prospect Park West. Also a bag of corn and a bag on onions for $2 each, some nectarines, Lacinato kale, green beans, and a cabbage.

In other big food news this week: this blog is now a member of the Park Slope Food Coop! This means lots of inexpensive, delicious, Socialist fruits and veggies. The weekly grocery bill has already been sliced. Next up: slicing and dicing the new assortment of soy products and other goodies from the Coop.

Pesto and More

2009-08-02T07:48:00.000-07:00

It's been another adventureful week of food here in Brooklyn! We started off the week with a roommate beer share from our local fancy food store, Grab. They sell really nice cheese, meats, expensive chocolates, and high-quality beers, including a bunch on draft every week that you can take home in a growler. Fun!

We were all in the mood for a beer one night so I ran across the street and picked us up a growler of Allagash White. By putting down $5 or so for a growler deposit, you can hang onto the container itself and bring it back for different refills. Hopefully this will be the start of a frequent growler tradition. Plus, as if we needed more incentive to drink beers, once you fill your growler twelve times, you can get the thirteenth one for $1. What a deal!

I adapted my favorite strawberry rhubarb crumble recipe to incorporate new fruits this week. Our apartment had an abundance of peaches and blueberries, as well as some quickly disintegrating rhubarb, so a peach-blueberry-rhubarb crumble was in order.

More peaches were purchased to replace those in the crumble, which quickly became Mark Bittman's famous tomato and peach salad. Remember this, Katey and Nicole? We made it a few years back at one of our picnic potlucks in the park and it was a big old hit. Mark Bittman says:

Toss together sliced seeded tomatoes and peaches, along with thinly sliced red onion and chopped cilantro or rosemary. Dress at the last minute with olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper.

This made a great lunch on top of some salad greens, though I wished I had waited to dress it until the last minute. Got a tiny bit soggy. But delicious as always.

This week also held pesto adventures aplenty. Remember the garlic scapes I purchased last week at the farmer's market?

These became a delicious, bright, super-garlicky scape pesto. I found the recipe on the blog of fellow Park Slopers (Park Slopians? Park Slopettes?) Thirty Bucks a Week, but dug up their original recipe from Dorie Greenspan.

Garlic Scape and Almond Pesto

Makes about 1 cup

10 garlic scapes, finely chopped

1/3 to 1/2 cup finely grated Parmesan (to taste and texture)

1/3 cup slivered almonds (you could toast them lightly, if you'd like)

About 1/2 cup olive oil

Sea salt

Put the scapes, 1/3 cup of the cheese, almonds and half the olive oil in the bowl of a food processor (or use a blender or a mortar and pestle).

Whir to chop and blend all the ingredients and then add the remainder of the oil and, if you want, more cheese. If you like the texture, stop; if you'd like it a little thinner, add some more oil. Season with salt.

I, however, prefer pine nuts to almonds. so used pine nuts instead. Maybe almonds next time. The garlic scapes were so cheap ($1.50 for the whole bunch, I think?), making this a great way to stock up on pesto. The fresh pesto was combined with some artichoke ravioli and fresh portobello mushrooms for dinner.

The rest went into the freezer. Score.

Yesterday I attended the Grand Army Plaza market at the bright and early hour of 8:30am, which was completely wonderful. The market opens at 8, so only a few dozen folks had arrived by that time, and the sun wasn't so blazing hot yet, allowing me a leisurely early morning of walking through the market. I brought home a bunch of beets, some garlic, a big old bag full of carrots (only $2!) two glorious pints of sungolds, and an enormous bunch of basil.

I quickly turned the basil into pesto, which is now in the freezer alongside the garlic scape pesto. Fresh pasta sauce all winter long!

At this point I've made basil pesto often enough that I don't really follow a strict recipe, just mix up my basil, garlic, olive oil, pine nuts and parmesan (and salt and pepper) in the food processor until it looks right and tastes great.

One of the farmstands at the market, I believe it's Evolutionary Organics, sells absolutely stunning-smelling cinnamon basil pesto, which I would love to replicate. They also sell the cinnamon basil itself, which is a bit pricey, and I'm debating whether it would make more financial sense to buy the ready-made stuff, done by the experts, or splurge on the herbs and make my own. Perhaps a project for next weekend...

I've got a few of those Mark Bittman summer salad recipes on my radar for this week, one to use the carrots and one or two for all those sungolds (if they last long enough! I've been known to eat them raw mighty quick...). Stay tuned!

All hail Mark Bittman.

2009-07-25T11:14:00.000-07:00

A special treat this week from my hero Mark Bittman, food writer for the New York Times. Mark Bittman's moniker is "The Minimalist" -- he gives limited instructions for recipes, inexact measurements, mere suggestions for proportions, plenty of room for improvisation. In this article, published earlier this week, he writes 101 suggestions for summer salads. I love his style of writing, both in being concise and in letting the cook take control of the meal, rather than giving strict prescriptions of how to prepare food. He wrote a similar article last year giving 101 ideas for summer picnics. I refer to both of these often for inspiration, and recommend them highly.

This past week's cooking adventures included another pizza, this time using pizza sauce from Trader Joe's and mozzarella cheese instead of last week's goat cheese base.

On top is caramelized red onion, thinly sliced and sauteed veggie sausage from Trader Joe's, and a sprinkle of parsley. Great stuff.

Today's trip to the market included a few summer staples: sourdough bread, blueberries, peaches, corn, red onion and tomato. Finally, the tomatos at the market up here are starting to look decent, and all come from the field rather than the greenhouse. By next week, I expect the baby tomatoes (and hopefully the sungolds!) will be out in full force. As a treat, I picked out two portobello mushrooms from one of the specialized mushroom vendors. These mushrooms were pricey, but I think they'll be delicious either in a chipotle sandwich or in a parmesan portobello recipe from a recent copy of Bon Appetit. In addition, a new pick: garlic scapes, the tops of the garlic plant that grows up from the ground when garlic matures as the root. This will become a spicy, garlicy pesto this week. Look out for photos. Also, a few okra! Gotta keep my southern roots in check.

I loved laying all this produce out on the counter after coming back from the market. Summer purchases just look so colorful and appealing and absolutely natural. Truly a rainbow of food.

Goat Cheese Heaven. Also beets, beans, and pizza.

2009-07-19T13:58:00.000-07:00

This weekend's adventures at the farmer's markets involved more rhubarb, more beets (I ended up buying a few loose beets at a farmer's market near my work mid-week; see below for the delicious results!), parsley (will become Israeli couscous salad), cabbage (will become crunchy peanut slaw), and some more blueberries and green beans that hopped into the fridge before their photo was taken.

While at the market this morning, I went to check in with the goat cheese vendors who I got cheese from last week to make last week's squash pizza. I told them how well it turned out, and one of the guys mentioned his wish to see a photo of the pizza. Of course, I had a picture on the iPhone! I showed it to him and explained how I had made the goat cheese sauce by adding lemon juice. He asked me to email the photo to him, along with my blog address, so he can pass on the recipe to other customers. He said people always wonder what to do with goat cheese and hoped that this recipe would inspire them. I'm tickled that he liked the pizza idea (though I must give credit to Smitten Kitchen for the recipe) and that I'm getting to know the local farmers.

After the success of the squash pizza, the second half of the pizza dough became a roasted tomato, caramelized onion, goat cheese and lemon combo.

The dough held up pretty well after a few days in the fridge, though it needed some more kneading and was a bit more difficult to work with. However, this combo of toppings was definitely a winner. The tomatoes were roasted a bit with balsamic vinegar, olive oil, sugar, salt, and pepper before going on the pizza and into the oven.

I brought Win to the farmer's market later this afternoon as he wanted to buy some goat cheese to bring to his sister's house for dinner. We chatted with the goat cheese farmers again and they ended up giving us a great deal on some additional cheeses: now we've got a veritable goat cheese heaven in our fridge!

This week I followed a few recipes but mostly improvised on a few noteworthy meals. First, using some extra veggies I had on hand post-pizza, I experimented with a tempeh black bean salad.

I marinated and sauteed the tempeh using a Lemon Garlic Tempeh marinade from VegWeb.

1 block Tempeh
1 lemon squeezed
2-4 cloves garlic chopped
1/3 cup olive oil
1/2 teaspoon dried basil (had fresh chives, so used those instead)
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Slice tempeh into thin slices. Whisk lemon, oil, garlic, basil, and S & P. Marinate Tempeh for about 10 minutes. Brown tempeh in a hot skillet for about 5 minutes on each side, adding the marinade until all is gone. The garlic should be browned too.

Easy! I added it to a mix of cut up zucchini, yellow squash, red onion, tomato, and escarole inspired by Smitten Kitchen's black bean confetti salad.

Great for lunch at work!

Also a big hit this week was an experiment with steaming beets rather than roasting them in the oven. I scrubbed the beets, sliced them up, and steamed them in my steamer basket.

This is waaaay easier than roasting them in the oven.

Then I cooked and quickly pan-fried some portobello mushroom ravioli from Trader Joe's along with some pine nuts.

Add some goat cheese and the beets with a drizzle of olive oil and you've got a fantastic looking and tasting dinner.

Weekend Market + Lemony Zucchini Goat Cheese Pizza

2009-07-13T17:52:00.000-07:00

Another great weekend purchasing veggies and other goodies at the markets of Brooklyn.

First, from Saturday: another pint of blueberries, more amazing sugar snap peas from Evolutionary Organics, rhubarb (!!), summer squash, kirby cucumbers, and assorted green and yellow beans.

And from Sunday: an enormous head of lettuce, a bunch of cilantro, assorted apples, a small sourdough from Amy's Breads, and the most delicious goat cheese of all time from Coach Farm. For real. It's amazing. Next time there will be aged goat cheese, which I tried at the market stand -- oh my Lord. The triple cream aged goat cheese, obviously, is incredible. It will be a splurge purchase one of these weeks, no doubt.

Doesn't this photo look so Parisian? As if it should all be tied up in a basket for a picnic on the Seine. Yes?

Onto the new projects. How could Smitten Kitchen's post about this pizza not make you drool? I'd invited my roommates from my junior year of college (Dance Party Junior Senior No Pants LoRise, holler back!) over for a late brunch on Sunday, and clearly needed to impress them by making this pizza from scratch, dough and all.

I chose Barbara Kingsolver's recipe for pizza dough over the one from Smitten Kitchen, mostly because it makes two batches and because it uses a mixture of wheat and white flours, which seemed like a better bet than an all-white dough. I love Barbara Kingsolver, and her book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle definitely inspired me to start purchasing more at farmer's markets. She writes of tales and recipes from her family's year of eating locally, including their Friday night homemade pizza tradition.

Barbara Kingsolver's Friday Night Pizza Dough (makes two twelve inch pizzas):

3 tsp. yeast
1½ cups WARM water
3 tbs. olive oil
1 tsp. salt
2½ cups white flour
2 cups whole wheat flour

To make crust, dissolve the yeast into the warm water and add oil and salt to that mixture.

Mix the flours and knead them into the liquid mixture.

Let dough rise for 30 to 40 minutes.

Once the dough has risen, divide it in half and roll out two round 12 inch pizza crusts on a clean, floured countertop, using your fingers to roll the perimeter into on outer crust as thick as you like. Using spatulas, slide the crusts onto well floured pans or baking stones and spread toppings. Bake pizzas at 425° for about 15-20 minutes, until crust is brown and crisp.

And now for the Lemony Zucchini Goat Cheese pizza itself:

1 batch Simplest Pizza Dough or a store-bought pizza dough that will yield one small (approx. 11 to 12 inches across), thin pizza
1 lemon
4 ounces goat cheese, at room temperature
Few leaves of fresh basil, cut into thin slivers (had chives, so used those instead)
1/2 medium yellow zucchini, sliced as thinly as you can pull off
1/2 medium green zucchini, sliced as the same as above
Drizzle of olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat your oven to 450 degrees. Roll your pizza dough into a thin 12-inch circle and lay it on a tray or stone that has been dusted lightly with cornmeal. (I just used parchment paper instead.)

In a small bowl, stir together the goat cheese with the juice of half your lemon.

Season it with salt and freshly ground pepper, and spread it over your pizza dough.

Scatter fresh basil slivers over the cheese. Arrange your zucchini coins in concentric circles over the goat cheese spread, overlapping them slightly. You can alternate their colors, if you’re feeling fancy.

Squeeze the juice of the second half of your lemon on top of you zucchini, then drizzle with olive oil and finish with more salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Bake in preheated oven for 10 to 15 minutes (your baking time will vary, so please watch carefully), or until the edges of your pizza are golden brown and the zucchini looks roasted and a little curled up at the edges.

Having never really made a dough from scratch before, this recipe felt like quite the endeavor. It ended up being relatively easy, and enjoyable to boot. Who doesn't like squishing dough between their fingers and watching it magically double in size?

The pizza came out great. The lemony goat cheese combo is awesome, and the dough is puffy but hearty. Great stuff, and I'll definitely use the dough recipe again with other toppings.

Horseradish Potato Salad

2009-07-06T18:40:00.001-07:00

Today I ventured out to the Trader Joe's of Brooklyn, a good two mile walk from my apartment. It is lovely, large, free of the miniscule cramped aisles of the Union Square location. In fact, it is more akin to the suburban Trader Joe's I frequented in Chapel Hill than its Manhattan cousin. After purchasing my groceries, tucked safely in the purple confines of my Weaver Street tote bags, I boarded the B75 bus back to Park Slope. An older woman with a thick Brooklyn accent got on the bus and started chatting with me.

"Where did you get those bags?"
"Oh, I just moved here from North Carolina. The bags are from there."
"What? You got them at a hotel?"
"Uh, no. They're from North Carolina."
"What?"
"North Carolina?"
"Well they're a lovely color."

Hilarious.

And on to the recipe: Smitten Kitchen's Horseradish Potato Salad

Just as I promised yesterday, this recipe uses the red onion, small potatoes, and dill I purchased over the weekend at the market.

3 pounds small (2-inch) potatoes, your choice of variety
1/4 cup red onion, chopped
1 tablespoon white-wine vinegar (used apple cider vinegar, what I found in the kitchen)
1 cup sour cream (I probably used just a touch less -- this seemed like a ton!)
2 tablespoons fresh dill, finely chopped
1/4 cup chopped fresh chives
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
3 tablespoons prepared horseradish
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper (none in our kitchen yet -- left it out)

Boil the potatoes until fork tender, cool them to room temperature and quarter them.

In a large bowl, mix the remaining ingredients and fold over the potatoes. Adjust seasoning to taste.

Clearly this was delicious. Zingy but also creamy. We ate them for dinner alongside Morningstar barbeque veggie nuggets, a great combo of hot and spicy with cool and tangy.

Welcome to Brooklyn

2009-07-05T17:11:00.000-07:00

Big changes: I've moved to Park Slope, Brooklyn! Apologies for my absence over the last few weeks. I was spending a glorious last month in Carrboro, full of farmer's markets and fun and friends and fabulous times. Though the local veggies remained close to my heart (saying goodbye to my favorite Carrboro farmer, Rob, was actually almost tearful), this blog fell by the wayside. However, I'm newly invigorated by fresh landscape and Yankee seasonal foods, and starting next week I'll be a full-fledged, honest-to-God employed social worker, so I hope to live up to my Foodie Social Worker aspirations.

Though I miss Carrboro desperately, Park Slope certainly has its charms. One item of note is the abundance of farmer's markets: I can go to one of the biggest farmer's markets in the city every Saturday at Grand Army Plaza, and most months of the year on Sundays go to another sizeable market at 5th Avenue and 4th Street, each within a fifteen minute walk of my apartment. This weekend, of course, I attended both.

The goods from Saturday's market: blueberries, a sourdough baguette, one tomato (still from the greenhouse; not quite the season here yet!), sugar snap peas (rated the best in the market six years in a row), kirby cukes, and some fresh, fragrant garlic.

And from Sunday's market: baby potatoes, a huge amount of fresh dill, and one red onion -- I'm planning to make Smitten Kitchen's horseradish potato salad this week, so keep your eyes peeled -- and as a special New York treat, pickles! Doc Pickle, run out of New Jersey, had a stand with many a persuasive free sample. We ended up with half-sours and sweet chips, both really excellent pickles. The chips were truly New York aside my pastrami sandwich at lunch.

So much dill came in the one bunch, much more than I'll use for my potato salad, so I chopped it all up and food processed it with a bit of water and oil to make a light paste. I stuck it in the freezer so next time I need some dill in a recipe I can break off a bit. Thanks for the idea, Mark Bittman!

In other update news, when I left Carrboro, I left my baby tomato plant (recently given the moniker "Beulah") in the caring hands of my dearest friends. As I left, Beulah's fruits were reaching an amazing size, but sadly none were ripe at all, and despite all my weeks of hard work, I wasn't able to try a tomato before hitting the UHaul. However, Hilary and Erin have been keeping me up to date with Beulah's progress: she's started to show her sultry side! Enjoy those tomatoes, my dears.

Wednesday Market, 6/17

2009-06-18T08:22:00.000-07:00

From this week's market: two types of tomatoes from Rob at Whitted Bowers Farm, a big bunch of string beans, a head of lettuce, and lemon cucumbers from Elysian Fields Farm.

I sat and ate some of the tomatoes and string beans as well as an heirloom melon (which tasted more like a pear and less like a melon) from Rob out in the grass next to the market while chatting with my friend Sarah. Buying treats from the market with the sole objective of eating them right there and then? Yes.

Wednesday 6/10 Market and Blueberry Muffins with Streusel Topping

2009-06-10T15:15:00.000-07:00

From today's farmer's market adventure (attended with Hilary and Stella the dog): cauliflower, broccoli, basil, blueberries (first of the season!), 3 adorable tomatoes (one early girl, one purple cherokee, one yellow variety I can't remember the name of), and two zucchini.

I'm headed to my mom's house tonight for dinner. My dad is out of town, so I promised my mom a dinner full of items he dislikes. We'll make pasta with roasted broccoli, cauliflower, and zucchini. I'll make little crostini or a salad with the tomatoes, basil, and some goat cheese I purchased a few days ago.

I'm headed to the beach tomorrow for two days, and I'll be staying with Erin's family in Duck. Since I'm crashing family beach week, I figured I ought to bring along some baked goods. Always a good way to prove one's worth. For some reason I was inspired to make lemon poppyseed muffins, but Weaver Street was out of poppy seeds, so I changed plans to include the blueberries I purchased from the market today. Mollie Katzen and Deborah Madison to the rescue, as always! The muffins are from Mollie, and the streusel topping is from Deborah. (I like to think of them as old pals. We're on a first name basis.)

Blueberry Muffins from Mollie Katzen's The Enchanted Broccoli Forest
Makes 12 muffins.

1 1/2 cups fresh blueberries, clean and set aside
1 1/2 cups unbleached white flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp fresh lemon or lime rind (I had lime, so I used lime)
1/3 cup light honey
1/4 cup butter [melt the honey and butter together]
1/3 cup milk
1 large egg
2 Tbs fresh lemon or lime juice (lime again here for me)

Sift together the 4 dry ingredients into a mixing bowl. Make a well in the center. Beat together the remaining ingredients (except the berries). Pour this into the well and stir gently until just-blender, gradually adding the berries.

Fill the greased muffin cups 2/3 full.

Bake 30-35 minutes at 350F. Cool in pans 5-10 minutes before removing and devouring.

Deborah Madison's Basic Streusel Topping for Muffins from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone
Makes enough streusel for 12 muffins (though I had plenty extra, probably enough for 4 more)

1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup flour or 1/4 cup each flour and rolled oats
1/2 tsp grated nutmeg or cinnamon
4 Tbsp cold butter

Mix the ingredients together in a small bowl with your fingers or in a food processor until crumbly. Sprinkle over the batter, pressing them lightly into it, just before they go into the oven.

Yum! Check out the blueberry goodness.

Zucchini Bread from CookShop

2009-06-03T09:17:00.000-07:00

Hilary and Erin moved into their delightfully mini and adorable new house this week, so of course I wanted to present them with a homemade baked good to welcome them. Summer squash just showed up at the market last Saturday, so it's finally time for zucchini bread! This is my go-to recipe, gleaned from the CookShop program I ran a few years ago at CASES in New York. Easy, quick, makes two loaves at once (I usually halve the recipe and do a single loaf at a time). This page in my CookShop recipe binder is splattered and dripped on and wrinkled more than any other page. Good stuff for a housewarming treat.

CookShop Zucchini Bread

3 eggs
1 3/4 cups sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups shredded raw zucchini
3 cups flour
1/4 tsp baking poweder
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp nutmeg
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt

Beat together the eggs, sugar, oil, and vanilla. Add the zucchini and set aside.

In another bowl mix the flour, baking powder, soda, nutmeg, cinnamon, and salt. Add the flour mixture to the zucchini mixture and mix well.

Pour into 2 greased loaf pans. Bake for 1 hour at 350F. Remove the breads from the oven. Cool for 10 minutes before serving.

Also, to make muffins:: Spoon 1/3 cup of batter into each cup of a 12 count greased muffin tin. Bake 20 minutes, or until muffins are risen and golden, and a tester inserted into center comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes before serving.

Everyday Yellow Dal

2009-06-03T09:04:00.000-07:00

Another Smitten Kitchen delight: yellow dal. I'd already made the black eyed pea curry on this page, and went back for more with this recipe. I also made the quick cabbage slaw on this page, but neglected to photograph it. Also good stuff, though I hate working with hot peppers -- as hard as I try, I always get it on my fingers and eventually in my eyes. Grrr. I need special cooking gloves, perhaps?

Everyday Yellow Dal

Serves 4

1 cup yellow split peas, soaked in cold water for 1 hour
1 large tomato (about 8 ounces), cut into 8 wedges
1/4 cup canola oil
1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 medium red onion, finely chopped (about 1 1/2 cups)
5 large garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 teaspoon coriander seeds, finely ground
3/4 teaspoon ground turmeric
1/2 teaspoon cayenne
1/4 cup minced cilantro leaves
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 teaspoon salt

Instructions: Drain the dal (split peas) and place in a large saucepan. Add the tomato and 3 cups of water and bring to a boil.

Reduce the heat to a simmer, cover and cook until peas are tender, 45 minutes to 1 hour. Pick out any tomato skins (this was tedious and I chose not to do it -- not a problem) and whisk dal to emulsify it. Keep warm over very low heat.

Heat the oil in a medium skillet over high heat. When the oil begins to smoke, add the cumin seeds, covering the pan with a lid or splatter screen. After the seeds have stopped sputtering, add the onion and saute over medium heat. About 3 minutes later, add the garlic and saute until most of the onion has turned dark brown, about 5 minutes altogether.

Add the coriander, turmeric and cayenne, stir and pour mixture over the dal. Add the cilantro, butter and salt to the dal and simmer for another 5 minutes. Serve hot.

It turned out soupier than I expected -- maybe I cooked my peas too long? -- but delicious nonetheless, served with some brown rice to help sop up the liquidy broth.

Cabbage with Rice and Currants

2009-06-03T08:43:00.000-07:00

Since there's been so much cabbage at the market recently, and it always looks so cute and healthy and appealing, I've gone on a bit of a cabbage kick. This recipe seemed like quite the adventure (layering ingredients! inverted dishes! dried fruit in a main course! dill, which usually I don't like, but decided to give a try!) and a good way to use a bunch of cabbage up. I also want to cook more out of this cookbook, World Vegetarian by Madhur Jaffrey.

Cabbage with Rice and Currants

salt
1/2 large head of fresh cabbage (1 pound in all), cored and shredded
3 Tbsp canola or peanut oil
1 medium onion, peeled and cut into fine half rings
2 Tbsp pine nuts
1 1/2 cups long-grain rice (I used jasmine rice, which the author recommends)
2 Tbsp dried red currants (Weaver Street didn't have any in stock; I used chopped craisins instead)
1/2 well-packed cup finely chopped fresh dill
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
freshly ground black pepper
1 Tbsp sugar

Bring 2 1/2 quarts of water to a rolling boil over high heat. Add 1 Tbsp salt and stir. Now put in the cabbage and bring to a boil again. Boil for 1 minute, or just until cabbage wilts. Drain immediately and run under cold water. Drain again and leave in a strainer.

Put the oil in a large frying pan and set over medium-high heat. When hot, put in the onion. Stir and fry for about four minutes, or until the onion has browned a bit. Put in the pine nuts. Stir and fry for 30 seconds. Turn the heat to medium low and put in the rice, currants, dill, cinnamon, black pepper to taste, and 1 1/2 tsp salt. Stir and saute for 2 minutes. Turn off the heat.

Divide the cabbage into 3 portions and the rice into 2. Put one portion of the cabbage in the bottom of a heavy, medium pan, spreading it out evenly. Cover with a layer of seasoned rice. Cover the rice with a second layer of cabbage, then another layer of rice, and a final layer of cabbage. Add 3 cups of water and the sugar. Find a plate that you can fit upturned on top of the cabbage. Turn the heat to medium-high and bring the pot to a boil. Cover tightly, turn the heat down to low, and cook for 30 minutes. Turn off the heat. Leave the pot undisturbed ina warm place for another 30 minutes or a bit longer.

Just before eating, remove the lid and the plate inside the pan. take a knife and go around the edges of the pan. Now upturn a large serving plate and place it on top of the pan. Invert the pan so that the plate is now under it. The rice should just slide out. Serve hot.

At first these instructions confused me -- did I put the plate inside the pan for the whole time? (Yes, you're supposed to, though I got freaked out and took my plate out part of the way through, reread the instructions, and put it back in a few minutes later). The dish came out great though -- it's a ton of food! Jen and Hilary and I each had a big portion, and each of them took some for lunch the next day as I was getting ready to go out of town. It is pretty cool to invert the dish, and the spices mix together really well. Even though I don't love dill, as I suspected, it worked out really well in this combination.

Garlic, Chickpea and Spinach Soup

2009-05-19T08:00:00.000-07:00

Hilary was in West Virginia over the weekend and had a long drive back in the rain. Clearly she needed some delicious soup upon her arrival back in town. As she was driving home, I started making the veggie stock for this soup. I started taking Mark Bittman's advice and freezing leftover bits of carrots, celery, onion, good stock veggies in the freezer and pulling them out when it is time to go ahead and make a stock. I also added some fresh items, including the stems from my recent beet purchase.

I ended up with tons of stock, enough for the 5 cups needed in this recipe plus 4 cups or so to put in the freezer.

This recipe comes from a cookbook (Vegetarian: the Best Ever Recipe Collection) I love but rarely use. I love it because it has photos with every recipe, both of the final product and of intermediate steps. Sometimes it's hard to envision what a recipe will turn out looking like, and its difficult to tell what will be appealing just based on ingredients and description. Looking through this cookbook, the photos make it all look especially appealing.

2 Tbsp olive oil
4 garlic cloves, crushed
1 onion, roughly chopped
2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp ground coriander
5 cups vegetable stock
12 ounces potatoes, peeled and finely chopped (I used two medium baking potatoes)
15 ounce can chickpeas, drained
1 Tbsp cornstarch
2/3 cup heavy cream (I used half and half)
2 Tbsp tahini
7 oz spinach, shredded (I used baby spinach, whole leaves)
cayenne pepper
salt + pepper

Heat the oil in a large saucepan and cook the garlic and onion for 5 minutes, or until they are softened and golden brown. Stir in the cumin and coriander and cook for another minute.

Pour in the stock and add the chopped potatoes to the pan. Bring to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes. Add the chickpeas and simmer for 5 minutes more, or until the potatoes and chickpeas are just tender.

Blend together the cornstarch, cream, tahini, and plenty of seasoning. Stir into the soup with the spinach. Bring to a boil, stirring, for another 2 minutes. Season with cayenne pepper, salt, and pepper.

Serve immediately, sprinkled with a little cayenne pepper.

When I started making the soup, Hilary commented that it smelled just like chili. Yes! It does start out much like chili, with a similar group of spices. But it turns out nothing like chili at all. I tend not to make soups with much cream in them, perhaps because my signature "rainy day soup" uses shredded potatoes instead of dairy, so I always feel that is an acceptable substitute. But in this soup, the creaminess is perfect, offsetting the chili-esque spices and really making it a warming meal, good for a return home after a long rainy drive.

Lettuce leaves and roasted beets

2009-05-17T05:51:00.001-07:00

I find it soothing, perhaps nurturing, to wash and dry lettuce leaves. It's an intimate relationship with food: rinsing each bunch in the cold water; spinning it through the colander; setting every leaf out on the counter to dry.

And there's a similar sense of caring (though it is admittedly more tedious) when preparing roasted beets: scrubbing each beet, setting them collectively in the oven, holding each one to rub and peel off each bit of skin, finally getting to cut them open and the wonder of finding their hidden stripes.

Then, finally, putting it all together in salad form, sitting down to eat, enjoying simple and good food.

Stonyfield Yogurt Strawberry Muffins

2009-05-16T14:46:00.000-07:00

Given my overabundance of strawberries and my serendipitous discovery of a strawberry muffin recipe under the lid of my recently opened quart of Stonyfield yogurt, I bring you:

Melt in your mouth Strawberry Muffins
from Stonyfield Yogurt

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
2 eggs
1 cup Stonyfield Farm yogurt
1/4 cup butter, melted
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup chopped strawberries, fresh or frozen

Preheat over to 375F. In a bowl, mix together flour, sugar, and baking soda. In another bowl, mix eggs, yogurt, butter and vanilla. Toss strawberries into the flour mixture. Then pour yogurt mixture into flour mixture and stir. Spoon batter into greased muffin tin. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until tops are golden brown. Yields 12 muffins.

I meant to make only half a recipe, and successfully halved each of the ingredients... except the butter. Whoops. My mistake.

Obviously, these muffins are awesome, perhaps due to the high butter content. But I also like the mix of all-purpose and whole wheat flours; it gives the muffin a nice brown color and a feeling that you're getting something a little heartier than the usual cake-like muffin.

Saturday market 5/16

2009-05-16T06:17:00.000-07:00

In today's purchases: the weekly cinnamon bun; a quart of strawberries (I can't resist) and a bag of salad mix from Eco Farm (I decided to try their strawberries today just to give it a whirl -- I had the feeling they might be a tiny bit better than the ones I'd bought the last few Saturdays, even though they're a dollar more -- these farmers are also very connected with their customers in a way I really appreciate); a few sprigs of peppermint and spearmint from Ayrshire Farm (I'm hoping to make some minty lemonade, or maybe some strawberry mint popsicles); and another batch of Chioggia beets, this time from Perrywinkle Farm as the ones from Elysian Farm were already sold out when I arrived at 8:30!

Immersion Blender & Strawberry Love

2009-05-15T05:28:00.000-07:00

Last night, Spinning Ninny and I had a cooking adventure involving my chioggia beets from the farmer's market. I neglected to bring my camera to her house, so I'll let you read about our dinner debauchery at her post, but I did take a few photos of the cute and striped beets at my house when I roasted them.

As we consumed some berries for dessert, I explained to her how I can't help but buy a quart of strawberries every time I go to the market, and that I'm overloaded with berries. We started exploring some strawberry cooking options, quickly disregarding a great deal of them (I'm so over balsamic vinegar and strawberries, and Lord knows I'm not about to put strawberries alongside my pork or chicken) and finding maybe a winner or two for a future project (strawberry dumplings, anyone?).

But this morning, I've realized that all my worries about how to use these berries are gone, thanks to my immersion blender. As I have a few stray blackberries in the fridge along with the standard heaps of strawberries, I decided this morning was the right time to make a smoothie. I sliced up my berries, pulled out the yogurt, and walked towards the pantry to pull out the old stand-up blender, which inevitably would end up soaking in the sink for a few hours and then take up space in the dishwasher, all for one lonesome smoothie...

But wait! Now I have a magical immersion blender, which comes with its own blending beaker! (Yes, that is what the plastic jar/tub that comes with the blender is called. Amazing.) I can blend things, like smoothies, in a quiet and quick fashion, and be left with only the end of the little blender stick to rinse off and lay in the drying rack! No soaking! No washing! No loud annoying blending sounds to wake up my roommate and disturb the nearby birds!

Just a simple combo of a handful of blackberries, eight or nine strawberries, a scoop or two of yogurt, and a swizzle of honey. Best berry breakfast ever.

Also, in funny strawberry moments of the morning, I opened my new quart of Stonyfield yogurt to find a "melt-in-your-mouth strawberry muffin" recipe on the inside label. Clearly a project just calling out to be made.

Things to Make

2009-05-14T19:34:00.000-07:00

I'm constantly running across recipes I hope to someday make, keeping lists of new projects to try. Part of my inspiration in starting this blog was to use it as a way to catalogue the cooking projects I accomplish. I'd also like to be able to keep tabs on the projects I'm still waiting for the right moment to begin.

I've added a "Things to Make" list on the right side of the blog to keep better track of future potential projects. A few to start: making seitan (I've got the box of vital wheat gluten in my pantry, just gotta get to it); making yogurt (I need to get over my fear of leaving milk out of the fridge for longer than ten seconds at some point); baking biscuits (once I leave the South, how else will I satisfy my Sunrise cravings?).

Wednesday Market 5/13 and White Beans with Lacinato Kale

2009-05-14T06:04:00.000-07:00

This week's market: strawberries from Rob at Whitted Bowers Farm, as always! Rob told me that the heavy rain this past week wiped out about a quarter of his melon crop -- 12 acres! Can you believe that? It's unreal, the amount of work that our farmers put out to bring us our food, and how it can all be washed away in a few days of heavy rain. Also, Chioggia beets (they're striped on the inside!) from Elysian Farm, and two baby heads of cabbage and three little heads of cauliflower from Eco Farm.

Onto last night's dinner, using the kale I purchased last Saturday. (I need to work on using my market items within a day or two of purchasing them -- the kale held up well, but it probably would have been especially delicious a few days ago right after being picked and sold.)

In addition to tasting great, Lacinato (or black or Tuscan or several other monikers) kale makes kale-lovers happy because it is so easy to clean. Unlike our friend the traditional curly kale, which has lots of tiny hooks and corners and places for dirt to hang on, Lacinato kale has a nice, long, flat leaf that makes it easy to wash off. Also simplifies the process of cutting out the stem!

Kale and white beans are often paired up in recipes (especially soup), and I had a cup or so of dried white beans stocked away in the pantry. I set them to soak yesterday morning in preparation for putting the two together for dinner. I found a recipe after searching online for just a few minutes. This recipe looked appealing mostly because I already had all the ingredients, but also because it requires cooking the white beans with a bunch of aromatics tied up in cheesecloth -- a cool idea that I've never tried. Even better, you cook the beans with several whole cloves of unpeeled garlic; then, when the kale is cooking, you add this cooked garlic to the saute pan. Hilary said, "it's like recycling!" So true.

Sauteed Tuscan Kale with Garlicky White Beans from Paula Wolfert

First, the beans:

1 cup dried white beans
4-5 cloves garlic, unpeeled

Aromatics tied in cheesecloth:
1 sprig thyme (I put in a sprinkle of dried thyme)
2 slices onion
1 carrot
1 small celery sprig
3 sprigs parsley (left this out)
1 bay leaf
12 peppercorns
1/2 tsp salt

Pick over the beans and discard any foreign matter. Soak in water to cover overnight. Drain; place in a deep pan or clay pot with the garlic, and cover with at least 3 inches of water. Bring to a boil, skim carefully, and add the bag of aromatics, pushing it into the beans. If you are sure the beans are fresh, add the salt now. Simmer, partially covered, for 30 minutes, then add the salt and continue cooking until the beans are tender. (The time needed will vary, depending on the age of the beans. You can tell when they are almost done by removing one or two beans with a spoon and blowing gently on them--the skin will burst). Simmer another 2 to 3 minutes, then remove from the heat. Allow beans to cool in the cooking liquid. Discard aromatics but not the garlic.

Then, the kale and beans:

12 small to medium leaves Tuscan kale (I used the whole bunch)
2 Tbs. olive oil
1 clove garlic, thinly sliced
1 1/2 cups cooked white beans
1/2 cup cooking liquor from the beans
3 cloves cooked garlic from the beans, peeled and halved
salt & pepper

Remove the center rib from each leaf and if the leaves are long, tear each into 4- or 5-inch lengths. Wash and pat dry. In a 10-inch straight-sided skillet heat the 2 tbs. olive oil, gradually add the leaves, and cook, stirring, until they wilt and sizzle in the hot oil, 2 minutes. Reduce the heat. Add the sliced garlic, cover, and cook the leaves until tender, about 10 minutes. Add the bean broth by the tablespoon, as needed, to keep the leaves from drying out.

Push the leaves to one side in the skillet; add the beans, salt, pepper, cooked garlic halves, and enough bean liquor to keep the dish juicy; cover, and simmer for 5 minutes. Serve warm with a drizzle of olive oil and freshly ground black pepper.

This definitely needed a hit of salt at the end to bring out the taste, and I wonder if some Parmesan would have really made it awesome. But a good recipe nonetheless, and as Hilary said, great in the "recycling" of ingredients (both the garlic and the bean liquor) from part one to part two.

Hilary and I had stopped by Trader Joe's after she got off work. Remembering that I now have a constant overflow of strawberries, I purchased a mango and a package of blackberries (not quite the season, I know, but they were a good price and smelled fragrant despite travelling all the way from Cali to get to us). We rocked a fruit salad after dinner.

Saag Paneer...with new immersion blender

2009-05-11T19:18:00.000-07:00

Karen's parents gave me a red Kitchenaid immersion blender for graduation. Amazing! I hadn't asked for one, and didn't even exactly know that I wanted one, but now that I've used it, I'm pretty delighted to have it.

I purchased paneer from the Chapel Hill Creamery lesbian cheese farmers on Wednesday, and Karen requested saag paneer. A perfect chance to test out the new blender! Last time I made a paneer dish and wanted a smooth sauce, I scooped it all out of a hot pan and into the food processor -- a decent method, but the immersion blender makes blending up hot foods mid-cooking process a breeze.

First, frying up the paneer:

Saag Paneer

Ingredients

1 large onion
6 cloves garlic
1 oz fresh ginger
1 lb frozen spinach, thawed (we used a bit more, about 20 oz)
1 cup plain yogurt (we used sour cream)
4 oz buttermilk
2 teaspoon red chili powder
2 teaspoon garam masala
1 cup half and half (we used 2% milk)
6 oz paneer, a homemade cheese
1 salt to taste

Grind the onion, garlic, and ginger into a fine paste.

Look how beautifully the immersion blender made a paste of the onion, ginger, and garlic!

In a medium saucepan, combine the paste, spinach, yogurt, buttermilk, chili powder, and garam masala. Simmer at medium heat for 20 to 30 minutes. Mash the ingredients with a potato masher.

Using the blender (potato masher? pshaw!) to combine and smooth out all the ingredients.

Add the half and half. Simmer until the mixture has a creamy consistency, 10 to 15 minutes. Add the cheese, simmer 5 minutes. Season with salt. Makes 4 to 6 servings.

Paneer is always delicious. And the immersion blender made the sauce a great, smooth consistency. The recipe wasn't a spicy as I'd hoped -- I suppose I could have doused it with a splash of hot sauce or some cayenne -- perhaps this is the downside to using spice blends (like chili powder and garam masala) rather than making the blend from scratch. Nonetheless, a solid dish. Next time maybe I'll try Madhur Jaffrey's recipe in my Vegetarian Cooking from Around the World cookbook...

Graduation!

2009-05-11T16:36:00.000-07:00

I graduated this weekend with my master's in social work. Very, very exciting. As graduation is a family and friend-filled event, but a very busy weekend in town and thus a difficult time to eat out, my roommate and I decided to host a post-graduation luncheon at our house.

On the menu:

Sweet Potato Salad with Honey Mustard Dressing

Israeli Couscous with Roasted Cherry Tomatoes, Asparagus, Green Pepper and Pine Nuts

Broccoli Slaw (not this exact recipe, but very similar)

Fresh Strawberry Lemonade (We may have spiked ours with Bombay Sapphire gin.)

Also: Mikki's family's famous meatballs! Karen's delightful deviled eggs! Mimosas! Challah from Boston! Fresh flowers from Hannah and Hilary's gardens! Family! Friends! Fun had by all!

Quick Hit: Crunchy Salad with Buttermilk Dressing

2009-05-11T16:29:00.000-07:00

I'd been meaning to make this salad and dressing from Smitten Kitchen for a while. The dressing just looks so creamy and good, the salad so crunchy, and Deb is so emphatic about her love for this salad combo, I bought radishes at the market, and we had tons of extra celery around the house as Mikki and I had each bought a bunch at the same time, and I bought iceberg lettuce from the grocery store instead of cabbage -- I know, it lacks any nutritional value, but the crunchiness of that iceberg just drove me to do it! -- and off I went.

Napa Cabbage Salad with Buttermilk Dressing

1/2 cup well-shaken buttermilk
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
2 tablespoons cider vinegar
2 tablespoons minced shallot
1 tablespoon sugar
3 tablespoons finely chopped chives
1 pound Napa cabbage, cored and thinly sliced crosswise (4 cups)
6 radishes, diced
2 celery ribs, thinly sliced diagonally

Whisk together buttermilk, mayonnaise, vinegar, shallot, sugar, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper in a large bowl until sugar has dissolved, then whisk in chives.

Toss cabbage, radishes, and celery with dressing.

Crunchy. Creamy. Totally awesome. The radishes give it a peppery zing, the dressing cools it right down, the iceberg lettuce and celery just crunch right up. Love it.

Strawberry Sour Cream Bread

2009-05-11T16:09:00.000-07:00

The strawberries at the market each week are so beautiful, I simply cannot stop myself from buying a pint each time I go to the market. Given that I head down the street to the farmer's market twice a week these days, I'm revelling in an overabundance of the berries and enjoying the challenge of what to do with them (aside from consume them all raw in a single sitting) each week.

This week's adventure? A baking project: strawberry sour cream bread. Yes.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup unsalted butter
3/4 cup granulated white sugar
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup toasted pecans (coarsely chopped)
2 cups strawberries (fresh or frozen)

Directions:
1. Cream the butter and sugar in a bowl.
2. Beat in the eggs one at a time.
3. Beat in the vanilla.
4. Mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon in another bowl.
5. Mix 1/3 of the dry ingredients into the wet.
6. Mix 1/2 of the sour cream into the wet ingredients.
7. Mix 1/3 of the dry ingredients into the wet.
8. Mix the remaining sour cream into the wet ingredients.
9. Mix the remaining dry ingredients into the wet.
10. Mix in the strawberries.

11. Pour the batter into a greased 9x5 inch loaf pan.
12. Bake in a preheated 350F oven until golden brown and a toothpick poked into the center comes out clean, about 60 minutes.

This bread came out moist and yummy. Definitely a good way to bake up some of my strawberry bundles.

Wednesday market 4/29 and Thai cabbage salad

2009-04-30T04:51:00.000-07:00

Market purchases from this Wednesday: strawberries from Whitted Bowers Farm; asparagus from Lyon Farms; rainbow chard and sugar snap peas (first of the season!) from Brinkley Farms.

I zoomed over to the Whitted Bowers farmstand first thing this week. Rob Bowers was there, strawberries spread out on the table in front of him. "Hey!" I said. "Hey!" he said back. "I visited your farm last weekend and had a great time!" I said. "Yes, I remember!" he said. We are friends now. I love it.

Sadly, though, as I predicted, no more asparagus from them this year. They have planted two more acres of asparagus for future harvests, but for the most beautiful asparagus of all time, it'll be another year of waiting. So goes seasonal eating. I'm glad I bought my two bunches last week after all. I happily bought my quart of strawberries. Rob recommended I try the asparagus next door at Lyons Farms.

For some reason, I just don't like this farmstand very much. Nothing against the produce, nothing really against the farm. I just don't find the farmers very friendly. Nonetheless, I suppose if they're a friend of Rob's, they could be a friend of mine. I stepped over to the Lyons Farm stand to check things out.

They have asparagus, alright. Yes, it's the same green stalk that grows on Whitted Bowers farm. But really? How can you compare the loveliness of Rob's biodynamic, long and slender stalks, with the uneven, mostly green stalks of other farms? I happened to still have a few stalks from my previous asparagus purchase from Whitted Bowers, so I took a side-by-side photo for comparison.

Now of course, both of these bunches are far more tasty than any asparagus shipped to the US from Peru in December, or even from Mexico in April, and bought at the grocery store. Of course, buying from the local farmer's market will garner the best and most delicious asparagus one can get. But just look at the difference! Same region of the country, same plant. But obviously the biodynamic TLC given to Rob's asparagus pay off. My few remaining stalks of his mighty asparagus look better a whole week after I purchased them than the bunch I picked up from another farm.

Sigh. There's always next year.

I still had the head of Savoy cabbage I bought last week, and it took me a while to find a recipe that I really wanted to try. Most of what I found involved cooking the cabbage, and I just wasn't feeling like making a hot meal in this weather. Finally I looked in my CookShop manual, and found a great cabbage recipe in the "January - cabbage" section that would also use my almost-wilted cilantro from Saturday's market.

CookShop is a program I utilized at CASES when I was serving in AmeriCorps. Basically, it is a curriculum that teaches low-income food stamps recipients how to cook using vegetarian, local products and easy recipes. The program was created by an organization called FoodChange, which I believe no longer exists and was taken over the the FoodBank of NY. Either way, I have a copy of the curriculum we used to teach these recipes to our mentally ill ex-offenders at CASES, and I often go back to the recipes. They are easy, tasty, and generally reliable. (And isn't it funny that in New York, cabbage is the vegetable for January? Again, seasonal eating changes so much based on where you live... my New York buddies inform me regularly that this blog makes them jealous of our Southern markets, as they're still wading in apples and potatoes!)

Thai Cabbage Salad from CookShop

1 small green cabbage, core removed and sliced very thin
5 green onions, both green and white parts, sliced
1 red bell pepper, sliced in thin matchsticks
2 carrots, shredded or cut in matchsticks (as I'm typing this up, I realized I forgot to put carrots in my salad! Whoops!)
1 cucumber, seeds removed and cut into matchsticks
1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
1 red chili pepper, sliced (optional -- I didn't go for it this time but might next time)

3 limes, juiced
1 Tbsp honoey
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
3 Tbsp olive oil

1. Combine all salad ingredients in a bowl.
2. To make the dressing, combine the lime juice, honey, salt and pepper in a small bowl. Add the olive oil slowly while whisking.
3. Pour the dressing over the salad and toss to combine.
4. The longer it sits the better it will taste!

Isn't this a great recipe! Simple language, easy-to-follow directions, delightful results. CookShop is a fantastic program, and bringing it to CASES was a big accomplishment for me during my AmeriCorps year.

Farm Tour

2009-04-28T19:39:00.001-07:00

My buddy Sarah and I went on the Piedmont Farm Tour this past weekend. We chose three farms to visit, and each was delightful in its own way.

We started at the Chapel Hill Creamery, home of the lesbian cheese farmers Flo and Portia, from whom I have bought many a block of paneer at the Carrboro farmer's market. We visited with many of their cows in the pastures, saw the milking area, and got a view of the cheese-making process. We also each had a delish fruit + yogurt smoothie.

(Sometimes even cows get itches. They scratch them on trees.)

Next we went to the farm where I bought the miraculously beautiful asparagus of last week's Wednesday market, Whitted Bowers Biodynamic Farm in Cedar Grove, NC.

When we arrived, we met Cheri Bowers, one of the farm-owners. I complimented her asparagus. She poured us strawberry lemonade. We ogled the most beautiful strawberries I have ever seen.

Her husband, Rob Bowers, the same gent who sold me the asparagus last week, showed us around his farm, explaining the biodynamic principles they follow. They plant according to the planetary and lunar alignment with the Earth, given our knowledge of the pull of the moon on the Earth's water systems. Since fruit are mostly made of water, they feel paying attention to these gravitational pulls has a strong impact on the plants. They also view the farm as it's own entity, it's own little ecosystem, and do things like only use rainwater to feed their crops, and make tincture-like composts with various herb mixtures to nourish the plants. Pretty amazing stuff, and it seems to have a huge impact on their produce: it is all so, so beautiful.

The family house, which collects many gallons of rainwater each month off the sloping roof.

Basil in the greenhouse. Huge and fragrant.

Asparagus, growing out of the ground! I'd never seen it in its full plant form before.

It takes three years for asparagus to really become a full crop. They planted two years ago, so they cannot harvest each stalk; some must stay in the ground to help maintain the roots.

The beautiful lake near the family house. On the other side are the farm's fig trees.

On our way out of the farm, we stopped at the u-pick strawberry fields and I gathered a pint.

These became yesterday's strawberry rhubarb crumble. The most beautiful strawberries, and some of the biggest, I have ever seen.

Last on our tour, we stopped at Captain John S. Pope lamb farm. I had purchased their ground lamb at the market before, and they always give out lots of recipes and free samples, so I was intrigued. They are also located right down the road from Whitted Bowers Farm.

A nice young man, perhaps twelve years of age, gave us a tractor-ride tour around the farm. He explained that around Easter they get a lot of orders. Also around another holiday -- maybe you've heard of it? -- called Passover. I asked him lots of social work type questions about what it is like to grow up on a farm. He explained that his favorite part is when they give the lambs their vaccinations, because they get to "manhandle 'em." There you have it.

Sarah and I ate lamb burgers at the end of our tractor tour. They were delightful.

The farm tour was fantastic! It is really amazing to see how unbelievaby hard our local farmers work to produce our food. It makes the sometimes steep cost of these fruits and veggies and meats feel absolutely worth it, and I feel very connected with these three farms in a different way than before, though I see them each at the market every week. Also, I really appreciate knowing what these plants look like growing out of the earth. Sometimes we forget when we are at the grocery store, or even at the farmers market, that everything we eat starts out in the dirt, a plant, growing.

Strawberry Rhubarb Crumble

2009-04-28T19:12:00.000-07:00

This weekend, I picked (yes! myself!) the most incredible strawberries ever on the farm tour (I'll try to post the pictures tomorrow!) from my new favorite biodynamic farm, home also to the most incredible asparagus of all time. I looked to my favorite food blog for inspiration: strawberry rhubarb crumble, of course. The rhubarb came from Wellspring (also known as Whole Foods to those of you who have moved to Chapel Hill only in the last twelve years or so) but a produce employee told me it was shipped in from who knows where just this morning.

Strawberry-Rhubarb Crumble

Yields 6 to 8 servings.

For the topping:
1 1/3 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons Demerara sugar (I used brown sugar)
Zest of one lemon
1 stick unsalted butter, melted

For the filling:
1 1/2 cups rhubarb, chopped into 1-inch pieces
1 quart strawberries plus a few extras, hulled, quartered
Juice of one lemon
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup flour
Pinch of salt

1. Heat oven to 375 degrees. Prepare topping: In a mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder, sugars and lemon zest and add the melted butter. Mix until small and large clumps form. Refrigerate until needed.

2. Prepare filling: Toss rhubarb, strawberries, lemon juice, sugar, flour and pinch of salt in a 9-inch deep-dish pie plate.

Oh yes. This is very, very good.

Hilary and I made the topping and filling at my house this afternoon after my last day at my field placement (I'm now unofficially a master of social work!) and put it all together tonight at Erica's house for American Idol. I'm only slightly interested in the show, but love to be around my friends who do care about it, so I like to bring a food project with me to Idol-watching events to keep myself entertained.

The friends were very pleased with these results. Tart and fruity and definitely dessert, this is some pretty incredible stuff.

Saturday market bounty, 4/25

2009-04-27T09:41:00.001-07:00

Goodies from this week's market:

Savoy cabbage, red sweet potatoes, a bunch of cilantro, two bunches of basil, a pint of strawberries, and the weekly cinnamon bun.

I try to get something new, exciting, perhaps a bit of a splurge, each week at the market. This week's treat? Chapel Hill Creamery yogurt.

Plain yogurt from happy cows. Oh so good. I had it for breakfast this week with the strawberries, cut up, and a squeeze of honey.