Saturday, November 15, 2008
wine-braised lentils with parsley root & potato puree
eating local for Thanksgiving
Sometimes I write stories about cooking and eating local food that also get posted on the Green Fork Blog, which is an arm of the Eat Well Guide. The Eat Well Guide is a spiffy website that helps you find wholesome, fresh, sustainable food wherever you are in the U.S. or Canada! Anyway, my friend Leslie, at the Eat Well Guide, emailed me to let me know that they are presenting a Thanksgiving Local and Organic Food Challenge. They want everyone to visit the Eat Well Guide, find a local farm or market, and serve up at least one dish with local ingredients for their Thanksgiving feast. Then, we’re invited to post our recipes and experiences.
I wrote back to Leslie, “Right! I guess lots of farmers’ markets farther south will still be open!” Here in Alaska, it’s easy to forget that not everyone’s farm fields are covered in a nice thick blanket of snow, hibernating until spring in sub-freezing temperatures. The last couple of markets at our South Anchorage Farmers’ Market in October are punishing enough—there’s no way the produce or the farmers would last in an outdoor market in late November!
And likewise, Leslie had forgotten that our Alaskan markets are closed already! She wrote back, “To be honest, it slipped my mind how difficult this challenge would be in Alaska. Or is it even possible?”
Well, that definitely sounds like a challenge to Alaskans, doesn’t it? What Leslie might not know is how many nourishing and savory staples we can store all winter long! Potatoes, carrots, beets, parsnips, red and green cabbages, onions, turnips, and parsley root, to name some! If we’d had a warmer summer, we’d even have hard winter squash!
But Leslie is right. Since the farmers’ markets are closed now, it’s not as easy to find local food. But there are still ways to get Alaskan vegetables! You can find Alaskan carrots and potatoes at our local grocery stores if you look carefully. You can order produce boxes from the new Glacier Valley Farm CSA (Community-Supported Agriculture). And if you want to go to the farm yourself, many farmers in the Valley have produce like cabbages, parsnips, beets, carrots and potatoes in cold storage, just waiting for you! Contact Mark Rempel (745-5554, ) or Alex Davis (746-0338, ) to arrange pickup of their veggies. And if you’re looking for a local turkey, you can call Triple-D Farm at 376-3338 to order one!
Come on, Alaskans—let’s show our stuff! Whether you log in and share your experiences with the rest of the web-world, or just share your stories with your friends and family over your holiday meal, let’s take the challenge, and be conscious of the local food we can procure, cook, and enjoy together.
These wine-braised lentils would be a fantastic vegetarian option for Thanksgiving, especially accompanied by the mashed potatoes and parsley root!
parsley root & potato puree (or, for the less adventuresome, call it mashed potatoes with parsley root)
I had never tried parsley root until last fall at the farmers’ market, when I bought some from Rempel Family Farms. Mashing the parsley root with russet potatoes made the richest, most delectable and delicious mashed potatoes I’ve EVER eaten—and all that without a smidgen of butter, milk, or cream! Just using the stock from cooking the vegetables works really well instead of milk or cream, because it’s so flavorful from the parsley root! Just season to taste with salt and pepper—the vegetables have lots of flavor all on their own. But of course, you can gild the lily if you like, and add butter, milk, or cream. As you wish! This recipe is based on one in Deborah Madison’s Local Flavors
½ pound or so Alaskan parsley root (or substitute celery root or turnips)
1-2 pounds Alaskan russet potatoes (you can use Yukon Golds if you like, though)
sea salt and freshly-ground pepper
butter, milk, half-and-half, or cream (optional)
1. Peel the parsley roots. Scrub the potatoes, and decide whether you want skins in your mash or not. I like to leave the potato skins on, but if you want a perfectly smooth puree, definitely peel them first. Coarsely chop the vegetables and put them in a saucepan, cover with water, and add 1 teaspoon salt. Bring to a boil, then simmer until the vegetables are tender (15 to 20 minutes). Scoop the potatoes and parsley roots out (or strain them in a colander), but MAKE SURE TO RESERVE THE COOKING LIQUID!
2. Return the vegetables to the pan and mash them, using the reserved cooking liquid to thin and loosen the mixture as needed. When smooth, add salt and pepper to taste.
3. Serve right away with your favorite stew or gravy… I’d suggest the wine-braised lentils!
wine-braised lentils
This recipe is one of my favorites… I love it over toast with sautéed spinach, but best of all is alongside a puree of parsley root and potatoes. These lentils are rich, flavorful, and wonderful, and they are beautiful, too, with the carrots and celery. They’ll taste even better the next day, and you can freeze them for later if you like. This recipe is based on one in Vegetarian Suppers from Deborah Madison’s Kitchen
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1 ½ cup French green lentils
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 cups diced Alaskan onions
2 cups diced celery
2 cups diced Alaskan carrots
4 garlic cloves, minced
2 tablespoons tomato paste
3 cups dry red wine
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
sea salt or kosher salt
freshly-ground pepper
for garnish: chopped Italian parley
1. Parboil the lentils for 5 minutes in abundant water, then drain.
2. Heat olive oil in a large saucepan or soup pot. Add the diced vegetables and cook over medium-high heat for several minutes, browning them a bit. Add the garlic, mash the tomato paste into the vegetables, then pour in the wine and stir in the mustard. Add 3 cups water, the drained lentils, and 2 teaspoons salt. Simmer, covered, until the lentils are tender, 30 to 40 minutes. Add more water, to your taste, depending on how soupy you’d like them to be.
3. Serve with mashed potatoes (or mashed potatoes with parsley root), and sprinkle the parsley over all.
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Sunday, November 09, 2008
warm red cabbage salad
my wonderful customers
Seems like it’s been ages since I’ve had any spare time to write a blog post. My latest big adventure: I’ve just launched a new business with my farmer friend, Arthur! It’s called Glacier Valley Farm CSA, and it’s a year-round Community-Supported Agriculture program based here in Alaska! While the last few weeks have been incredibly busy and stressful, I’m digging out from my mountain of tasks with a new appreciation for the kindness of people.
So, about the new business: Arthur and I decided we needed to step up to the plate and provide a local alternative to the wildly popular produce boxes shipped up from Washington State. We’re using Alaskan produce, grown by several farmers in the Matanuska Valley, just north of Anchorage, as the foundation of our box contents, but in the wintertime, we’re adding certified organic produce from Outside to add variety to our nourishing Alaskan staples: cabbage, potatoes, carrots, beets, turnips, and onions.
So, Arthur grows vegetables and fruit, procures all the other produce, fills the boxes, and delivers them all around town. I get to help plan what goes in the boxes, write the recipes and the weekly newsletter that goes into the box, maintain the website, and answer customer service questions as people order and pay for their boxes online. And my husband Dan does the paperwork and book-keeping! Starting all this up has kept us pretty busy!
For the last couple of months, we were taking orders for boxes by email, and tracking them all manually. But last week we launched our Glacier Valley Farm CSA website, which allows people to order and pay online for their produce boxes! But, as happens with any website launch, there were some glitches. And, because we didn’t have a lot of time to test the site before the launch and try and “break” the system, there were more than a few hiccups… So last week was a bit of a challenge for all of us! But you know what? It all worked out just fine in the end because of two things:
1. My fabulous programmer, Steve, and extraordinary designer, Taughnee, were working around the clock to make it right, and working as a team, we eventually recovered our data and eradicated all the bugs. *knocks on wood*
2. Our customers are so wonderful! They are tolerant, forgiving, friendly, and patient. When I had to call them to ask questions about their orders that had accidentally gotten eaten, they were good-natured and understanding. When the website suddenly started sending all the confirmation emails to one unsuspecting customer, she was confused at first, but was good-humored and kind when we discovered the error and were working to fix it. Not one person gave me a hard time, or wondered (at least out loud) “What kind of a fly-by-night operation is this, anyway, losing track of my order?”
And here’s another thing—using the internet to order anything, let alone paying with a credit card via PayPal, is something that a lot of my customers aren’t familiar with. But they gamely gave it a try, and if they had troubles, patiently followed along with my step-by-step instructions over the phone.
I’m so grateful for my customers’ patience, understanding and support through these first bumpy weeks. It has made all the difference, and makes all our hard work worthwhile. I guess I always thought that people were basically good, but now I know it to be true.
And thank goodness, too, that this week, our website is running like a well-oiled machine! So smoothly, in fact, that I’ve had a little time to cook something! A nice change from thawing out frozen soups that I made from last summer’s bounty, or for counting on Dan to cook our meals! So I made an old favorite: my warm red cabbage salad. It’s comforting, tried-and-true, easy to make, and I didn’t have to go to the store for any ingredients. Need more reasons to make it? It’s beautiful and colorful on your plate, and the combination of savory flavors from the cabbage and balsamic vinegar, richness from the salted walnuts, and sweetness from the apples are really wonderful. It was one of the recipes in last week’s Glacier Grist (the weekly newsletter that goes into the produce boxes).
warm red cabbage salad
This dish is fabulous—I make it all the time through the fall and winter, and I never get tired of it. The recipe is based on one in Deborah Madison’s The Greens Cookbook
The cabbage can be as soft or as tender-crisp as you like—I usually cook it until it’s fairly tender, but make it to your liking. I have been known to make a huge vat of this for parties—you can make it in the afternoon, before dinner, and warm it up in the microwave and then sprinkle on the nuts, parsley, and optional cheese at the last minute.
¾ cup shelled walnuts
2 teaspoons toasted walnut oil (I use Loriva oil. Don’t bother with refined walnut oil—it won’t have the flavor you’re looking for.)
sea salt or kosher salt and freshly-ground pepper
1 small red cabbage (about 18 ounces)
1 crisp red apple
1 clove garlic, minced
3-4 tablespoons balsamic vinegar, plus extra to taste
1-2 tablespoons olive oil
1 red onion, quartered and thinly sliced
3 ounces soft goat cheese, broken into large pieces [optional]
1 tablespoon parsley, chopped
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Toss the walnuts with the walnut oil and some salt and pepper and toast in the oven for 7-10 minutes, until the nuts are toasted and fragrant. Remove them from the oven and let them cool.
2. Quarter the cabbage, remove the core, and slice it thinly.
3. Core the apple and slice it thinly.
4. Put the garlic, vinegar, and oil in a wide sauté pan over medium-high heat. As soon as the mixture is bubbling, add the onion and sauté for a couple of minutes. Add the cabbage and continue to cook until wilted, and as tender as you like it.
5. Season with plenty of salt and pepper, and definitely add more vinegar to sharpen the flavors. Don’t be shy with the vinegar and salt—it’s what makes the salad yummy.
6. Add the apple slices and stir for another minute, then remove from the heat. Just before serving, add goat cheese (if using), parsley, and walnuts.
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Sunday, October 26, 2008
pumpkin cupcakes with walnut streusel topping
I can’t help it. I’m going to admit that I own another fun kitchen gadget… a FOOD PORTIONER for criminy’s sake. What is with me these days? Two posts ago I’m talking you into buying a mandoline, then I’m giving you excuses for collecting more cookie cutters… Maybe I should change the name of my blog to Alison’s Infomercial? “Doing my best to keep the American economy afloat… one kitchen gadget at a time.”
Before I dig myself in any deeper, let me just explain what a food portioner is. It looks like an ice cream scooper, you know, with the little lever thing on the side that you push to scrape the food out? When you were in elementary school, the lucky lunch line cafeteria workers got to serve mashed potatoes with it. Each flawlessly smooth alabaster mound of reconstituted potatoes, plopped unceremoniously into its perfectly sized compartment in the divided tray… Did you want to be one of those food servers or WHAT?
I love to use a food portioner to scoop batter into muffin cups! It’s what the pros use, and let me tell you, it’s so much easier than doling the batter out with a spoon or spatula. The little push-button scraper thingie cleans the cup out each time, so you don’t drip between muffin cups. Which means that you don’t have to scrub baked-on batter drops off the tin afterwards! (Big bonus in my book.) And, you get the perfect amount of batter in each cup, so you don’t overfill them, which you know results in converging muffin-tops cemented to your pan.
You’ll find food portioners of every size imaginable at your local restaurant supply store. (Beware: if you like to bake or cook in large batches, restaurant supply stores are filled with oh-so-tempting items.) You want a size 16 scoop for regular-sized cupcakes or muffins. (That number means you can get 16 scoops per quart, or something like that. The smaller the number, the bigger the scoop.)
Go ahead, live a little! Get a food portioner—it’s a pretty affordable way to live a childhood fantasy! And just think—if you let your kids use it, they might even aspire to a different career than a cafeteria line server. (OK, so Meredith still just wants to be a scooper-outer when she grows up—but come on! She’s only four!)
pumpkin cupcakes with walnut streusel topping
This recipe is a modification of a combination of two recipes from different cookbooks by the same person. (How’s that for complicated?) Isa Chandra Moscowitz wrote both Veganomicon
The roasted walnut oil I’m referring to here really makes the flavor nutty and rich and wonderful—I like to use Loriva brand, which I can find in my grocery store. But this recipe will still be yummy with canola oil.
walnut streusel
¼ cup all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons brown sugar
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground allspice
2 tablespoons roasted walnut oil (or canola oil)
1 cup chopped walnuts (medium-fine)
cupcakes
1 (15-ounce) can of pureed pumpkin, or 2 cups fresh pumpkin puree (don’t use pumpkin pie mix)
¾ cups soy milk or regular milk
½ cup canola oil (I like to use about ¼ cup roasted walnut oil and ¼ cup canola oil, but all canola is fine, too)
1 cup granulated sugar
3 tablespoons light molasses (not blackstrap)
2 teaspoons vanilla
-------------------------------
2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 ½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
¾ teaspoon ground nutmeg
¾ teaspoon ground ginger
½ teaspoon ground allspice
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line two muffin tins with 16 to 18 paper cupcake liners. If you like, spray the liners lightly with cooking spray, just to make sure they come out of their papers easily.
2. In a small bowl, mix the streusel ingredients together with a fork until all is moistened with the oil.
3. In a large mixing bowl, combine the pumpkin, milk, oil, granulated sugar, molasses, and vanilla. Mix well.
4. In a medium bowl, combine the dry ingredients with a dry whisk, to mix all the spices thoroughly into the flour.
5. Dump the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and fold together gently with a rubber spatula. Don’t overmix here, but keep folding until no more streaks of flour show up.
6. Scoop the batter into the cupcake cups, about 2/3 full. Don’t overfill them, because they do rise quite a bit. Sprinkle a spoonful of the streusel topping over each cupcake.
7. Bake for about 20 minutes, until the walnut topping is golden brown, and more importantly, a toothpick inserted in the center of a cupcake comes out clean.
8. Remove from the oven and let cool for 5 minutes in the muffin tin. Then remove each cupcake to a cooling rack until completely cool. If you eat these while they are still warm, they are too moist and gooey, but they are perfect when they cool completely.
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Monday, October 20, 2008
graham cracker cut-outs
I inherited a lot of cookie cutters from my mom. I have shapes for Halloween, shapes for Valentine’s Day and Christmas and Easter and St. Patrick’s Day, animal shapes, geometric shapes, and even shapes for Election Day (elephants and donkeys). I have A LOT of cookie cutters. I also inherited my mom’s desire to collect more cookie cutters, which is a little strange, because I rarely make cut-out sugar cookies.
But when my daughter Meredith turned two years old and began participating in some cooking projects, I got really nostalgic about making those roll-out sugar cookies with my mom. Of course, I also remembered how much cookie dough I ate during those sessions. I decided to try and develop a healthier recipe that I wouldn’t mind making often, and that I didn’t care if Meredith ate by the handful. This whole-wheat graham cracker recipe was born! It uses oil instead of butter, 100% whole wheat flour, and doesn’t call for eggs.
Your kids can help you measure the ingredients, mix the dough, and practice rolling out a small piece of dough while you roll out the rest. Then they can help cut out the crackers and decorate them with all kinds of toppings—nuts, seeds, dried fruit, chocolate chips… anything you like!
These crackers are fun to make, are pretty darn healthy, and have a nice, slightly sweet and whole-wheaty flavor. They definitely aren’t as sweet as cookies, though. Which makes them nice with tea, and great for s’mores. (When we’re making them for s’mores, I cut them into squares with a pizza cutter and then make fork-pricks in them to look like the store-bought kind.)
Meredith loves making these, so now I have an excuse to collect even more cookie cutters! My most recent acquisitions? Letter shapes! We especially love to make initials of our friends, and then march around the neighborhood to deliver them.
I was inspired to write this post by my friend Cate, who writes a fabulous blog about cooking delicious, nutritious food with her kids--and other people’s kids! She asked if I wanted to be a guest blogger on her website, Tribeca Yummy Mummy, and I jumped at the chance! Check us out on her site (more photos there)--and then browse the rest of her fantastic ideas and recipes!
graham cracker cut-outs
These crackers aren’t very sweet, so if you want them sweeter, you could substitute more maple syrup or honey for part of the milk. I love the combination of roasted walnut oil (Loriva brand is pretty easy to find) and maple syrup, or roasted peanut oil with honey. The nut oil adds a really nice richness to the crackers, but you can just use canola oil if that’s all you have.
You can use all whole-wheat pastry flour for this recipe, which makes a nice, tender cracker, but makes the rolling out a little bit hard, since there isn’t much gluten in pastry flour. It works fine, though, if you’re patient and don’t expect the same consistency as regular sugar cookie dough. I have had better luck using half whole-wheat pastry flour and half whole wheat bread flour (or just use regular all-purpose whole wheat flour).
After I roll out the dough once, the dough scraps get a little tougher to work with, so I generally just roll them out and cut the remains up with a pizza cutter into square-ish shapes.
We make them often with cookie cutters and decorate them, but if you cut them out in squares and make fork-pricks in them, they are fantastic for s’mores!
crackers
¼ cup milk or soy milk
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice or vinegar
¼ cup roasted nut oil (such as toasted peanut or walnut oil), or canola oil
1/3 cup honey or maple syrup
2 ½ cups sifted whole wheat flour [you can use ½ pastry flour and ½ bread flour], plus more as needed
½ tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. sea salt
decoration ideas
black and/or golden raisins (you can soak them in water to plump them up)
dried cherries
dried cranberries
nuts (peanuts, almonds)
seeds (green pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds)
chocolate chips
crystallized ginger pieces
1. Combine milk and lemon juice, set aside for a few minutes to curdle. In a small bowl, whisk the oil and sweetener together, and whisk in the curdled milk.
2. In a medium-sized bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Make a well in the center and pour in the liquid mixture. Stir gently until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl and balls up in the center. You might have to add extra flour, or if you’re using whole wheat bread flour, you might need to add a little more milk.
3. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease baking sheets if they are not non-stick. Using a rolling pin on a floured surface, and using more flour as necessary on top of the dough, and on the rolling pin, roll the dough out about 1/8-inch thick. Cut out shapes with cookie cutters. Re-roll the scraps and cut more shapes out (the second time around, I just cut them into square-ish shapes with a pizza cutter). Arrange them on sheets.
4. If you want to decorate them, spray lightly with water with a sprayer bottle (this helps the nuts to stick) and go crazy with the toppings.
5. Bake for 10-15 minutes, until lightly browned and crisp. Transfer crackers to racks and cool them before storing in a tightly closed tin.
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Saturday, October 18, 2008
cabbage and fennel salad with apples and raisins
haven’t you always wanted a mandoline?
What tools do I use most in my kitchen? Well, I have a small arsenal of sharp knives, a variety of big and small metal and glass bowls, and a stack of heavy, non-stick baking sheets. I also own an array of heavy pots and pans from small to absolutely gigantic. Add a couple of spatulas, a wooden spoon, a cutting board, and a knife sharpener, and that’s really all I need, right?
Well, you understand that NEEDING and WANTING are altogether different. And I have to admit, I have some kitchen equipment that doesn’t exactly get used every day. I try to keep the gadgets and kitchen clutter to a minimum—in fact, I go through my kitchen drawers way more often than, say, my sock drawer, or the junk drawer with all the pens and pencils. But I have are few tools that, while not absolutely necessary, are a joy to use, and I love them!
A few examples of these fun things: an old-fashioned citrus juicer, my immersion blender, a coffee grinder that I use for spices, and best of all: a mandoline. Do you know what I mean by a mandoline? It’s a vegetable slicer with an adjustable blade in a frame; I have a nice, heavy version in stainless steel. While I’m pretty speedy with a sharp chef’s knife, the mandoline makes a couple of things really easy that I have never mastered on my own. First, I can cut paper-thin slivers of fennel for salads. (Raw fennel is only edible when sliced very thinly—and then it’s absolutely delicious!) Second, I can slice thick, even slabs of zucchini for grilling. And if I needed a third reason? The mandoline makes slicing a huge heap of onions really FUN… How often have you felt that way dismantling onions? Haven’t you always wanted a mandoline?
I pined for a mandoline for several years before finally buying one (the good ones are pretty spendy), and I’ve never regretted the investment. Other gadgets I’ve bought over the years end up gathering dust on my basement shelves, but the mandoline is here to stay.
The following recipe is one that you can use to justify the purchase of a brand-new mandoline (whether you need to rationalize it to yourself, or to your sweetie). You can use the mandolin for the fennel AND the cabbage! And just one last note—a good mandolin is really, really sharp. And although it’s fun to use, it’s also kind of dangerous, so don’t slice with reckless abandon…
cabbage & fennel salad with apples & raisins
This salad is SO tasty—the savory toasted fennel seeds are so yummy with the licoricey raw fennel, and sweetened with apples and raisins, it’s crunchy and delicious! It’s based on a similar salad in Peter Berley’s Fresh Food Fast
Because of the lemon juice in the salad, the apples don’t brown, and this salad tastes great the next day--so don’t worry if it makes more than you think you can eat all at once. Serve this salad with the barley & beet risotto, in the previous post--it’s a fantastic match.
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 teaspoon fennel seeds, toasted in a small skillet, then ground
½ to 1 teaspoon sea salt or kosher salt
freshly ground black pepper
1 large bulb fennel, root end trimmed and sliced paper thin, some fronds chopped
½ small head green cabbage, thinly sliced (about 3 cups)
1 sweet red apple, unpeeled, cored and cut into matchsticks
generous ¼ cup raisins (or more to taste)
1. In a salad bowl, whisk together the oil, lemon juice, ground fennel seeds, and salt. Season with pepper.
2. Add the fennel, cabbage, apple, and raisins and toss to combine. Refrigerate for 15 minutes. Season with additional salt and pepper as needed, and serve.
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Thursday, October 16, 2008
barley risotto with golden beets & greens
new season, new schedule
We’ve had a little break from baking our whole-grain sourdough bread after we ended our farmers’ market sales. Now we’re re-tooling to our wintertime bakery routine, and will begin baking again early next week. Our customers pre-order their bread every week (now through our brand-new website, riseandshinebread.com!), then pick up their loaves from me at a couple of locations around Anchorage.
The neat thing about selling at the farmers’ market during the summer, then switching to a different wintertime routine, is that our year truly feels seasonal. We never get tired of one venue or the other! By the time the Saturday farmers’ market is over, I’m ready to stop standing around in the cold and I’m looking forward to my slower-paced sales in warm coffee shops on Wednesdays. And conversely, as June approaches, I am itching for the farmers’ market to begin!
The other nice thing about the seasonal switches is that each changeover gives us a chance to make a fresh start. It’s become an important time for us to reassess our weekly schedule and the daily rhythms (or lack thereof) that we’ve set up with Meredith, our four-year-old. With fresh eyes, we look at the habits we’ve gotten into (bad or good) in terms of exercise, sharing household chores, cooking, socializing with friends, and most of all, spending quality time with each other. It’s easier to make a change when our whole schedule is shaking up, anyway!
So this week has been a good one for catching up on things, deciding what we’d like to change, and strategizing about how to do it. One of our new tactics is for Dan to make dinner on Wednesdays, since I will get home late after selling the bread all day. Last night was our first Wednesday together since we ended our farmers’ market bread sales, and even though we didn’t bake this week, Dan started his new routine, and it was wonderful. Perched at the bar facing the stove while he prepared a lovely meal, I typed desultorily on our bakery newsletter. I’ll admit, I was mainly just soaking in the sights, sounds, and smells of someone else cooking my dinner! Listening to him chop onions, rosemary, and ginger… Watching him slice beets and excavate kale from our snow-covered vegetable patch… Smelling the rich, savory aromas emanating from his cooking pots… What a treat, and a wonderful break for me. Yes, I love cooking our meals every day, lunch AND dinner, but Dan’s a good cook, too, and just hasn’t taken the opportunity to cook much, lately. Now I’ll be looking forward to Wednesdays every week!
barley risotto with golden beets & greens
This recipe is such a warming, wonderful one for the fall and winter. It’s gorgeous with golden beets, but I’ve made it with red beets, too—it’s VERY pink, but that’s also fun! The combination of ginger and rosemary is a surprising one, but the flavor is just amazing. This recipe is based on one in Peter Berley’s fantastic book, Fresh Food Fast
For the beets, you can either cook them with the barley, as directed below, or you can use beets that you’ve already roasted and peeled, just adding them at the end, after the barley is completely cooked. (See my beet salad recipe for instructions on roasting beets.)
I like to make the recipe a little bit ahead of time, so there’s about an hour before eating it for the barley to soak up even more of the cooking liquid, and the flavors to meld. As long as you salt this dish to your taste, I think there is plenty of flavor without adding cheese, but you can sprinkle Parmesan cheese on at the table if you like! The cabbage & fennel salad with apples & raisins is a great match with this risotto.
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 medium onions, diced
1 teaspoon sea salt or kosher salt, plus more to taste
1 cup pearl barley, rinsed
2 tablespoons peeled and minced fresh ginger
1 tablespoon minced fresh rosemary
3 medium golden beets, peeled and cut into ½-inch dice
1 to 2 bunches chard, beet greens, or kale
black pepper
1. In a large, heavy pot over high heat, warm the oil. Add the onion and 1 teaspoon of salt and sauté until the onion is starting to brown lightly—5 minutes or so. Add the barley, ginger, and rosemary and sauté, stirring, for 1 minute. Add the beets (unless they are already roasted—see note, above) and 4 cups of water and bring to a boil.
2. Cover the pot and simmer the barley over low heat, stirring fairly often (but you don’t need to be stirring it obsessively). You’ll need to add more water periodically to keep the barley from sticking to the bottom of the pot. Cook until the barley is tender and the beets are completely cooked. This will take something like 40 minutes, but just keep tasting to see how it’s coming along. The barley releases starches as it cooks, so at the end, you’ll have a beautiful creamy porridge-like risotto.
3. While the barley cooks, prepare the greens. Remove their stems and chop the leaves into ½-inch slices. If you’re using kale (I recommend it!), you’ll need to blanch it, first. Boil it in a pot of salted water until tender (5-8 minutes—just keep tasting it).
4. When the barley is tender and creamy, add the greens to the pot, and if they were raw when you added them, cook, uncovered, stirring often, until the greens are tender (3 to 5 minutes). If the beets were already roasted, add them now. Taste for salt. Make sure to add enough to really bring the flavors up. Season with pepper to taste.
5. If you have time to cover it and let it rest for a 30 minutes to an hour before serving, do so. Reheat just before serving.
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Sunday, October 12, 2008
Savoy cabbage and potatoes with pesto
I just returned from a trip to Montreal, where I was visiting my friend Wendy. She has moved to Montreal from Maine for a year with her three young children, and they are all learning to speak la francais in earnest! Her youngest is just a little older than my four-year-old, Meredith—who has almost as much fun playing with Wendy’s kids as I do talking and catching up with Wendy!
When we visit Wendy, I always insist on cooking the dinners. As altruistic as this may sound, I have a selfish motive for playing chef de cuisine. I dote on my farmers’ market here in Anchorage, but I love nothing more than exploring other markets. And if I’m cooking the meals, I get to bring home whatever I want: loads of local vegetables and fruits—especially celebrating things we can’t grow here in Anchorage! In Montreal, I bought satchels-full of beautiful ears of corn, sweet Delicata squash, long braids of garlic, softball-sized celeriac (celery root), and of course reveled in basket after basket of tart, delicious apples and flavorful local pears.
So, what to cook? Here’s the design brief for my menus du jour.
1. We stayed for a week in Wendy’s beautiful, light-filled and cozy apartment. The one slight drawback to this delightful living space is that the kitchen is a bit, shall we say, petite. There’s almost no counter space, and Wendy has wisely excluded kitchen equipment like her blender. So I wanted the meals to be pretty simple in terms of vegetable prep. Delicata squash, halved lengthwise, seeded, rubbed with olive oil and sprinkled with salt, then baked until tender and spiked with a touch of maple syrup? Nothing much easier (or more magnifique) than that!
2. We did lots of fun, mellow things with the kids while we were there (like walking to the neighborhood playgrounds, swimming in their apartment building’s pool, and going to the library), which meant there wasn’t a lot of time to be cooking, either. Add to that a nice early bedtime for all the kids, and there’s just not a good opportunity for a long-simmered vegetable potage or bean stew. So another criteria was speed. Corn on the cob in three minutes? Mais oui!
3. And last, I tried to make the meals kid-friendly, to offer everyone a bon appétit! I was so happy when Wendy’s kids loved the garlic-roasted broccoli, and cheered when they were willing to try something new, like the oven-roasted turnip and celeraic slices!
I also wanted to teach Wendy the best of my easy recipes from cooking this summer’s Alaskan produce. And she just happened to have a little box of waxy potatoes (some purple, some white) dug by her husband Mike from their Maine garden! Tres bon! And the Savoy cabbages at the Montreal market were so big and beautiful, I just had to show her one of my new favorite recipes: Savoy cabbage and potatoes with pesto. Since we could buy prepared pesto at the shop near the farmers’ market, the dish definitely met the first two criteria for simple prep and speedy cooking… Voila! It was ready! But did it meet the last condition for family-friendliness? I really have no idea, because I was too busy scarfing down three plates-full after a long run through the beautiful Parc Mont-Royale. I guess I’d say that the dish has a certain je ne sais quoi…
Savoy cabbage and potatoes with pesto
I was inspired to invent this recipe when reading a letter from my friend Andi, who recommended a recipe from Lynne Rossetto Kasper’s The Italian Country Table
You can use commercially prepared pesto if you like—that does save a lot of time and effort. But I’ve included a couple of my pesto recipes, in case you have the time and desire to make your own. I use both the basil version and the parsley version—both are very nice. You’ll need to be more heavy-handed with the parsley pesto than the basil pesto, because it’s not quite as pungent and flavorful as the basil. The parsley pesto is still delicious, though, in its own right! And it’s quite a bit more economical, too, since parsley is generally a lot more affordable than basil.
Please note that the pesto recipes are for making big batches and then freezing flat in ziplock bags. If you’re just making pesto for this recipe, just make about one-third of a batch.
3 to 4 medium waxy potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced (Butterballs, for example, or purple potatoes for a fun color contrast)
1 tablespoon olive oil
6 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced thinly
1 medium Savoy cabbage, halved, cored, and cut into ¼-inch slices
sea salt or kosher salt
Freshly-ground pepper
Pesto (make one of the following recipes, or use prepared pesto)
1. Drop the potatoes into boiling, lightly salted water. Cook until tender, 5-7 minutes. Drain the potatoes, but reserve the cooking water.
2. Meanwhile, sauté the garlic for a minute in the olive oil over medium-high heat, until fragrant, then add the cabbage strands. Add ½ teaspoon salt and saute until wilted and just tender. You may have to add a little water to keep the cabbage and garlic from sticking. Taste for more salt and add more as needed, plus some pepper.
3. Scoop about ½ cup of the basil pesto (or ¾ cup of parsley pesto) into the bottom of a big pasta bowl. If the pesto is stiff, add a little hot potato water to thin the sauce to the consistency of heavy cream. Toss the cabbage with the pesto, then add the potato and toss again. Taste to see if you want to add more pesto. Add salt as needed, and serve, topped with freshly-ground pepper.
Basil Pesto
This makes a lot—about three times more than you need, so you can freeze the rest, if you like.
6 large cloves garlic
½ teaspoon salt
6 packed cups fresh basil leaves
10 tablespoons pine nuts
12-14 tablespoons best quality extra-virgin olive oil
1. In a food processor, chop the garlic with the salt.
2. Add the basil leaves and puree them.
3. Then add the pine nuts and process into a rough paste.
4. Add half of the olive oil, process again until as smooth as you can get it. Even if it’s not terribly smooth, it’ll still taste great!
5. Taste for salt, and add more as needed.
6. Scoop into 3 freezer ziploc bags and freeze them flat on a baking sheet.
Parsley Pesto
This recipe also makes more than you’ll need for the cabbage and potatoes, but you can very easily freeze the extra!
2 cloves garlic
½ teaspoon sea salt or kosher salt
4 cups packed parsley leaves
½ cup pine nuts
¾ cup extra virgin olive oil
1. In a food processor, chop the garlic with the salt.
2. Add the parsley leaves and pine nuts, and turn on the motor, beginning to grind the parsley. It’s OK if all the leaves aren’t incorporated yet.
3. While the motor is running, pour in the olive oil gradually. Let the blade run for a while to puree the mixture. It won’t be very smooth, but it’s hard to get the parsley pesto smooth, anyway—the leaves are kind of tough.
4. Taste for salt, and add more as needed.
5. Use what you’d like for tonight’s dinner, then scoop the rest into a freezer ziploc bag and freeze flat.
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Saturday, October 04, 2008
beets and their greens with a lemony dill vinaigrette
Today was my last day of the year selling bread at the South Anchorage Farmers’ Market. When I woke up this morning, it was 33 degrees, but I was pleased that it wasn’t actually snowing. (It was doing that last night.) It’s getting a bit too chilly to be standing outside for five hours, so I’ll admit, I’m looking forward to my indoor, wintertime venues. Even though 33 degrees might not seem all that frigid, I don’t move around enough at my bakery stand to generate much body heat. So this morning I rummaged out my down pants and wool felt boots. Usually I don’t deploy these weapons until mid-January, when the mercury doesn’t rise above 10 degrees and I’m sledding with my 4-year old!
Many of my customers were shivering when they came to my stand, and I was appreciative of their patience while I slowly counted their change with fingers stiffened from the cold. But while my fingers were chilled, the rest of me remained warm, thanks to my arsenal of Arctic apparel. When people asked me, “Aren’t you freezing?” I would step out from behind my table to show them my lower half. Blanketed in my trusty down and wool, I was equally prepared to sell you a loaf of sourdough bread, or mush your dog to Nome.
I swapped a sourdough loaf for a couple of bunches of beautiful beets with their greens, and invented a new recipe for our dinner tonight, using the entire beet!
beets and their greens with a lemony dill vinaigrette
I made this recipe up tonight, and I was so excited about the glorious colors that I had to post it immediately!! The bright magenta of the beets contrasted with the beautiful light green of the dressing, and the dark green leaves of the beet greens… SO beautiful! And so delicious, too! Not to mention thrifty, since it uses the entire beet—even the stems!
The tart dressing cuts the sweetness of the beets, and the dill and sunflower seeds are a classic Eastern European beet accompaniment , but this dish is definitely a new twist! The vinaigrette is loosely based on one for a kasha & beet salad in rebar modern food
vinaigrette
3 garlic cloves
zest of a lemon
juice of a lemon
¼ cup apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon dried dill (or 2 tablespoons fresh)
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon honey
¼ teaspoon freshly-ground pepper
½ cup olive oil
salad
2 bunches beets with their greens and stems
¼ cup sunflower seeds, toasted
1. First, roast the beets. (You can do this a day or two ahead of time if you’re baking something else in the oven and have room for a pot of beets alongside.) Preheat your oven to 400 (or if you’re baking something else, just do it at that temperature). Cut the beets from their stems, wash them, and put the whole, unpeeled beets in a baking dish or Dutch oven. Put about ½-inch of water in the dish. Cover tightly with foil or the lid of the Dutch oven and bake them until tender when stabbed with a paring knife. Usually they take 40 minutes or longer, but young beets might be quicker, depending on their size.
2. While the beets are roasting, make the vinaigrette. Toss the garlic cloves in a blender jar, and buzz them briefly to chop them a bit. Add the lemon zest, juice, vinegar, mustard, dill, salt, honey, and pepper. Puree until smooth, scraping down the blender jar as necessary. While the motor is running, pour in the olive oil and puree until everything is nicely emulsified. The color will be a beautiful light green! Taste the dressing—it will be quite tart, to cut the sweetness of the beets, but add more salt, honey, and olive oil as necessary to get a nice balance.
3. When the beets are tender, remove them from the oven. If you have a variety of sizes, you’ll have to pull the smaller ones out first and let the larger ones cook a little longer. Let the beets cool just a bit, or if you’re in a hurry, run them under cold water. Don’t let them dry out, though, because the skins will be a lot harder to peel off. When the beets are cool enough to handle, slip their skins off. Cut the beets into ½-inch pieces and toss with a few tablespoons of the vinaigrette. Set them aside to marinate.
4. While the beets are roasting, toast the sunflower seeds on a baking sheet in the oven for about 10 minutes, until lightly browned and fragrant.
5. Pull the green leaves from their stems—but reserve the stems, too! Wash the leaves in a pan of water, and set them aside. Wash the stems, too, and then cut them into ½-inch slices. Set aside in a bowl.
6. Put about an inch of water in the bottom of a steamer. Steam the beet greens for 5-7 minutes, until nicely tender. Set aside to cool in their bowl. Steam the beets stems for 10 minutes or so, until they are nice and tender, as well. Set aside. Chop the beet greens coarsely.
7. To assemble the salad, toss the beet greens with some of the vinaigrette, and then toss the stems with some vinaigrette (keep them in separate bowls). Make a little tower: first the greens, then the stems, and finally the cubes of beets. Drizzle with a little of the green vinaigrette (what a color combination!) and then sprinkle with sunflower seeds. Enjoy!
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