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1 tsp balsamic vinegar

Unfortunately, my aversion to the oven has meant that we've not been eating at home as much lately - it just seems to easy to go grab lunch or pick up dinner on the way home. As a result, I've kind of lost track of where we are in the seasonal selections. I can't remember exactly when the tomatoes are tops, or when the summer squashes arrive. (Peaches - I will never forget - are always best mid-July, so I know I have something to look forward to.) 

Tonight I finally broke my no-cooking streak, and threw together a salad worthy of the first day of summer. It's a modern take on a succotash, which is simply a combination of seasonal vegetables, cooked separately but tossed together. For this combination, I tied it together with the Saffron Basil Vinaigrette from Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, and it really worked to introduce some bold and colorful ingredients to the otherwise modest combination.

You could dress up the salad a bit with feta cheese, but I avoided it this time since I seem to put feta cheese on everything, and it was time to let the lima beans & almonds shine.

1/2 c. quinoa, rinsed well

1 cup water

20 stalks asparagus

1 red bell pepper

1/2 cup corn kernels (frozen or fresh off the cob)

1/2 cup lima beans, frozen

1/4 cup slivered almonds, toasted

(vinaigrette ingredients below)

1. Preheat the oven to 450.

2. In a small saucepan, combine the quinoa with twice as much water, add a dash of salt, and bring to a boil. Lower the heat to a simmer, cover, and let steam for 15 minutes or until absorbed. Remove the cover, fluff, and let the quinoa cool off.

3. Cut the red bell pepper in half lengthwise, and set cut-side down on a cookie sheet. Roast in the oven for 20 minutes (alternatively, you could buy pre-roasted peppers, or roast these outside on the grill). Toward the end of the cooking, you can add the almonds to the pan for toasting. Remove, let cool, and then peel the skin and seeds away from the peppers. Slice into thin strips.

2. Bring a large pot of salted water to boil. Throw in the asparagus and boil for 2 minutes, then remove to an ice bath (just a big bowl of cold water with ice in it). Keep the water boiling for the next ingredients. Drain the asparagus on a kitchen towel so they're nice and dry.

3. Bring the water to a boil again, and add the corn. Remove to an ice bath after 1 minute. Repeat with the lima beans. Dry both of these on the kitchen towel.

4. Arrange all the ingredients on a serving platter, and dress with the Saffron Basil Vinaigrette (recipe below).

3 tbsp fresh lemon juice

2 tsp snipped chives

1/2 tsp grated or minced orange zest

salt & freshly milled pepper

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

Pinch saffron threads

2 tbsp snipped or torn basil leaves

In a bowl, combine the lemon juice, chives, orange zest, 3/4 tsp salt, and a few grinds of pepper. Warm 2 tbsp of the oil right over the heat in a small measuring cup, crumble the saffron threads into it, and let stand for a few minutes. Add the oil to the dressing and whisk in the remaining oil. Add the basil just before serving.

This dish also works well for leftovers - perfect for lunch the next day!

To appropriately send off this occasion, I have a very special meal in mind. It comes in the form of a delicate fish in my favorite French preparation: Sole Meuniere. I love the subtle hints of fennel (used in the dusting powder) and the decadent butter sauce spiked with capers. I seem to always pair it with various sauteed greens - spinach, kale, or chard - since it would seem a shame for another vegetable to try to compete with this amazing crunchy texture. The meal rounds out with some healthy and delicious braised radishes from the garden.

Sole Meuniere (adapted from Food & Wine October 2003)

2 tsp ground fennel

1/2 c. white flour

2 tsp kosher salt

1/2 tsp fresh ground white pepper

1/4 c. heavy cream

1/4 c. dry white wine

Six 2 oz. sole fillets (they're usually really tiny - just shoot for 6 oz. per person)

1 tbsp canola oil

1 tbsp olive oil

1 tsp fresh thyme

2 tbsp unsalted butter

1 tbsp drained capers

1 tsp red wine vinegar

1. On a plate, combine the fennel, flour, salt, and pepper. In a shallow bowl combine the heavy cream and white wine. Dip each sole piece in the wine mixture, then dredge through the flour and set aside.

2. In a stainless steel skillet, heat the olive oil and canola oils until they are shimmering. Throw in a pinch of flour; if it immediately sizzles, then you're ready. Place the fish in the pan but do not crowd. Brown on each side for 2-3 minutes, working in two batches if necessary. Remove the fish to serving plates.

3. Wipe out the skillet, return to heat and add the butter; when it stops foaming add the thyme & capers. Fry those for a bit, turn off the heat, and add the vinegar. Spoon mixture over fish and serve.

Braised Radishes (from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison)

10 plump radishes 

1 tbsp butter

1 shallot, diced

1 tsp chopped fresh thyme

salt & fresh ground pepper

1. Trim the leaves from the radishes, leaving a bit of the green stems, and scrub them. Leave smaller radishes whole and halve or quarter the larger ones.

2. Melt 2 tsp butter in a small saute pan. Add the shallot and thyme and cook for 1 minute over medium heat. Add the radishes, a little salt & pepper, and water just to cover. Simmer until the radishes are tender, 3-5 minutes. Remove radishes to a serving dish. Boil the liquid, adding a tsp or two more butter if you like, until 1/4 cup remains. Pour over the radishes and serve.

Enjoy!

Last weekend Rick and I took a trip (sans child) to New Orleans for a little R&R. It's by far one of my favorite cities in the US: the scale of the streets, and how the places are so closely tied to their inhabitants, make it a most enjoyable place to walk around. And walk, we did. I think we must have covered at least 15 miles on foot! Of course, at the end of every journey was some completely amazing, blow-you-away meal... and that brings me to the main subject of this entry.

Before we even booked the plane tickets, we had a number of cafes in mind to visit... places we have been thinking about ever since our first trip to New Orleans in 2003. Cafe Du Monde probably made the biggest impression on us first (and second) time around... with all of three choices on the menu (cafe, cafe au lait, order of three beignets) you can't go wrong. I tried to circumvent this simplicity by ordering 'coffee with half & half on the side, and only one beignet', to which our server nodded, smiled, and then brought out cafe au lait and three beignets. Behold:

Of course we ate them all; I don't know what I was thinking ordering 'only one.' 

Next morning we trekked 14 blocks from our hotel at 8am to get the mandatory croissant and coffee at the wonderful Croissant D'Or. Such a charming little bakery, with stained glass panels, retro-lighting, and madeleine baking molds and other vintage bakeware in the shop window. We sat in the courtyard in the perfect temperate morning and enjoyed the buttery goodness.

We had walked circles around the French Quarter by this point (12 hours in) so our next destination was Magazine Street for a little shopping and more food. I think Magazine must be 3 miles long, at least. We hopped off the streetcar at (what we thought was) the half-way point to our lunch destination. Fifteen blocks later (remember, this is shortly after the 14 block walk to breakfast), we arrive at Casamento's, which was so full that one could not open the door to enter. Determined, we waited the 35 minutes or so for a table and a taste of the amazing oyster po-boys and gumbo. Rick had raw oysters with all the fixin's; I do not partake.

Heading out of the land of shopping, we hailed a cab and headed north to the new mixology empire, Cure. I read about this place in Food & Wine and figured it was worth the journey to see this fire station-turned-bar, and it totally was. Clean modern interiors mixed with an apothecary-like feel, and ornamented with oversized posters of insect anatomy. We settled right in and ordered William Wisecracker (Evan Williams bourbon, Cynar, Maraschino liqueur, Lemon, Demerrara, Mint). For snacks we had the most amazing shredded Brussels sprouts that must have been simmered in olive oil for 2 hours. 

Finally, we finished off the vacation with a little southern cookin': Mother's, home of the World's Best Baked Ham. Another line streamed out the door, but luckily it went quickly (they have quite a system) and we were in ordering eggs-over-medium, grits, ham, and turnip greens before we knew it. Oh, and biscuits on the side. The restaurant itself is absolutely saturated - it's like it's been coated in brown sugar and roasted for 82 years. 

Very hard to leave such a city, but our dogs were barkin' and we were ready to get home and see the boy again. I definitely satisfied my foodie urges and am now encouraged to carry on with more blogging about recipes. Oh, and I do have some projects heading into construction which I need to post soon! Stay tuned, and enjoy the springtime bounty!

I hope to update soon with some upcoming kitchen projects, but until then, the focus is on food! 

The stew is more Italian than anything else, with rosemary, bay leaves, garlic & tomatoes as the base. I used Cooks' Illustrated method of substituting tomatoes for wine, which work to deglaze the pan in a similar manner and tenderize the meat with their acidic quality.


Lamb Stew with Cauliflower

1 1/2 lb boneless lean lamb meat, cut into 1 1/2 inch chunks
1/2 cup white flour
kosher salt & pepper
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 white onion, chopped
2 sprigs rosemary
2 bay leaves
1 tbsp tomato paste
1 cup canned whole peeled tomatoes (I like Cento)
1/2 head cauliflower, separated into small florets

So I wanted to share our method of cooking scrambled eggs in an untreated, stainless steel pan... one of those kinds that every cook needs in her kitchen. It doesn't require nearly as much fat as you think, and it gets us away from those mysterious products like Calphalon and Teflon (what is that stuff anyway? and why does it need to come between my food and my heat?)

1. The first step is to heat the skillet. Set your stainless skillet over high heat while you do the prep work (including getting eggs out of the fridge). The surface needs to be very hot; otherwise, the eggs will end up sticking to the pan. While the pan is heating, crack 4 eggs into a small bowl and whisk together, making sure to emulsify the yolks with the whites.

2. Dice goat cheese - about 4 oz of Montchevre honey goat cheese, in our case, and set aside.

3. Add 1 tbsp butter to the pan and move it around to coat. Wait until the butter bubbles, sizzles, and then starts to turn very light brown. At that moment, pour in the eggs. Add the goat cheese into the pan, and kosher salt to taste.

4. Wait about 20 seconds until the eggs have start to set in the pan. Then using a large, flat wooden spatula, push the eggs around in the pan, chopping into bits as you go. They should move away from the pan easily and not stick.

5. After about 1 minute, the eggs are done! Tilt pan over a serving plate, taste and correct for salt, and enjoy!

My cooking practices have been confused a bit over the past month, since we've been experimenting with different resources for meat & poultry. Rick and I are trying to buy locally raised, organic meat from the Farmer's Market vendors, which means that 1) I only get to buy meat on Saturday, 2) some of it is frozen, which means planning 24 hours in advance for thawing, and 3) I don't know what will be available until Saturday morning (actually, I can probably look this up online in advance, but I haven't been that organized yet).

Our first experiment was with Fredericksburg Grass-Fed Beef, from which I purchased 1 lb of ground beef for JR's weekly meatballs, and 1 lb of stew meat. Both were frozen, which meant that I moved them to the refrigerator the morning before cooking them (Monday morning if I wanted to cook them Tuesday night). This worked perfectly, and really wasn't as much of a hassle as I imagined. And the quality and taste was most definitely an improvement over the store-bought variety.

My recent purchase was slightly more adventurous: I walked away with a small guinea hen from Sebastian Bonneau's Countryside Farm. I had absolutely no plans to buy a guinea hen when I arrived that morning, but after getting some eggs from Countryside (chicken eggs rather than duck - but they have both), I was intrigued by the guinea offering. I waffled a little, said 'I'll think about it and look for a recipe this week,' to which Sebastian replied: 'here's a recipe right here' and handed me a slip of paper titled 'Pintade with Whole Wheat Bigoli.' Ahh, how convenient.

I still hadn't processed how exactly I was going to cook this bird, or fit it into the weekly schedule, but I'm really glad I went for it. I mean, I've never cooked guinea hen before, and I didn't know the definition of 'pintade' or 'bigoli'. But that's part of the fun of it. I imagine my meat-buying skills will become more acute as I experiment with different vendors at the Farmer's Market. 

The recipe translates roughly to 'shredded guinea with butternut squash & fennel, over whole wheat pasta.' I'm really glad I picked up the recipe, because I was initially thinking that I would roast the guinea like a chicken, but the guinea is quite small and wouldn't have worked as well that way. So shredding the meat and combining it with some substantial vegetables was a smart move.

(adapted from Chef Todd Duplechan of Trio / Four Seasons Hotel)

2 guinea hen legs, bone in, skin on

2 qt. pintade stock (see below)

1 cup diced butternut squash

1/2 cup sliced shallots

1 bulb fennel, diced

1/2 package whole wheat fettucine

1/4 cup chopped parsley, thyme & mint

salt & pepper

parmesan reggiano

For stock:

Roasted bones of one pintade (head, neck, wings, and back)

1 cup white wine

6 stems fennel (fronds removed)

1 apple, cored & quartered

salt & pepper

Stock directions:

Place all ingredients in a stock pot. Simmer, skimming fat and froth that rises to the top for 4 hours. Strain. Cool. Set aside for recipe below.

1. Saute fennel & shallot in oil until shallots are translucent. Add legs and cover with stock. Simmer on stovetop for 1 1/2 hours. Take out legs and cool to room temperature. Continue cooking stock until it reduces by half. Add squash and simmer for 12 min. 

2. While the squash is simmering, boil water for pasta and cook according to the instructions, until al dente.

3. Remove the pintade meat from the bone and shred with two forks. Return meat to the butternut squash stew and season with salt, pepper & herbs.

4. To serve, place 1 serving of pasta in each bowl. Top with the butternut squash pintade stew, sprinkle with a few more herbs and parmesan reggiano.

Enjoy!

Probably the world's most popular food, the pizza takes on a proprietary characteristic to everyone who partakes. No matter how distant we may be from Napoli (pizza's hometown), we all have our favorite take on crust, toppings, and tomato sauce. And somehow, we all truly believe, deep down, that we have found the holy grail of pizzas, right in our own hometown. Whether it's a humble joint in a strip mall in Kalamazoo or the real deal in New Haven, we all believe we've found the best. 

I am no exception to this rule. I truly believe that I make the best pizza, hands down. Really - it's magical. Anyone who's had it will attest to this. Now, sometimes my results vary - the crust burns, or the dough gets too chewy from the humidity. Or my experimental potato pizza is adorned with not-quite-cooked potatoes. Or, in the final, harrowing step of removing the pizza from the stone in the oven, the super-thin dough develops a fissure, and the whole operation begins to quickly melt to the surface. But, generally, the final results are excellent. Even if they are in pieces.

To illustrate this example: about a month ago, I decided at the last minute to make pizza, so I mixed together the yeast, water, & oil to the usual proportions and got ready to add the flour. Only then did I discover that I had about 1/2 the flour I needed - so I guesstimated the underage, threw out half of the yeast water, and started mixing the dough. Of course, the ratio of water to flour was still to high, and I ended up with a sticky mess of a dough. Oh well, I thought, and put it in the bowl to rise anyway. One hour later the dough had barely risen, and the process of flattening it out was akin to shaping peanut butter into a ball with your bare hands - it just wasn't happening.

So I called Rick for an emergency pizza solution, and he picked one up from a local pizzeria on the way home from work. My mess of a pizza came off the stone right about the same time, so we had the opportunity to taste test... and much to my surprise, mine had more amplitude in all directions - crispy, salty, sweet, juicy, acidic. The failure was a triumph, after all.

Last night I had much more success - a solid arsenal of ingredients, some excellent topping options, and the right head-space to construct. I've made plenty of variations on this pizza theme over the last 10 years or so, but this particular blend of toppings packed a lot of punch. And, befitting of winter-time, the recipe is not dependent on farm-fresh ingredients. Roma tomatoes and the chosen herbs are generally available year-round, and the sausage and olives are cured and readily available. 

So (drumroll)... behold, the recipe for the best pizza of all time!! (results may vary due to affects of humidity, quality of ingredients, air temperature, dough-handler hand-temperature, hotness of oven, and individual taste buds). Enjoy!

for dough: (adapted from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison)

1-pkg active dry yeast (about 2 tsp)

3/4 c. warm water

1 tbsp olive oil

1 tsp kosher salt

1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour

1 1/2 cups unbleached flour

cornmeal (to keep dough from sticking - picture them as tiny ball-bearings)

for topping:

3 large roma tomatoes, sliced crosswise into 1/4" slices

1 tsp kosher salt

1 tsp olive oil

1 small cured chorizo sausage, thinly sliced

10 nicoise olives, pitted

5 picholine or green olives, pitted

1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

2 tbsp grated parmesan reggiano

1 tsp chopped fresh rosemary

1 tsp chopped fresh thyme
dash of crush red pepper flakes
kosher salt to taste

Equipment:

rimless cookie sheet

pizza stone

wooden cutting board with a handle (pizza board)

1. To make dough, pour water into a mixing bowl, stir in the yeast, and set aside until foamy, about 10 minutes. Add the olive oil and salt, and beat in the whole wheat flour followed by enough white flour to form a shaggy dough. Turn it out onto the counter and kneed until smooth, adding more flour as needed to keep it from sticking. For a crisp, light crust, pizza dough should be on the moist side, which means it will be slightly tacky.

2. Put dough into an oiled bowl, turn it once to coat, then cover with a towel and set aside to rise until doubled in size, 40 to 60 minutes. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured counter, shape in to a ball, cover with a towel, and let rise for another 20 to 30 minutes.

3. Salt the tomatoes: layer three paper towels onto a counter or cutting board and lay the sliced tomatoes on the towels. Sprinkle with 1 tsp kosher salt and let sit for 30 minutes, while the dough is rising. 

4. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Sprinkle about 1 tbsp cornmeal on the cookie sheet where you will be rolling the pizza. Flatten the dough into a disk, and begin spreading it out over the cookie sheet. Use a rolling pin to shape a large pizza about 16" x 14", and push up or fold the sides to make a rim.

5. Add the toppings: brush 1 tbsp olive oil over the dough. Blot the top of the tomatoes dry with a paper towel, and arrange them on the pizza. Add the chorizo slices, olives, and cover with mozzarella and then parmesan cheese. Sprinkle herbs on top, and season with salt & red pepper flakes.

6. Bake the pizza first on the cookie sheet for 7 minutes. Carefully loosen the pizza from the sheet, and transfer to the stone. Bake for another 7 minutes, but check after 6 minutes: lift the edge of the pizza with a wide spatula - if the whole pizza lifts up, it's done. If the pizza bends in the middle, keep it in another minute, but make sure it doesn't burn!

7. Remove pizza from the oven with the pizza board. Cut slices directly on the board, distribute and eat! The first piece is usually in my mouth 45 seconds after leaving the oven!