A Winner

A winner. I found myself saying that phrase at least four times tonight in regards to this sandwich. We've had a bit of an eggplant explosion lately in our CSA. Unfortunately the boy isn't a fan of the eggplant. I've tried eggplant ragu with smoked mozzarella, disguising it on pizza with peppers and onions and he can still always pick it out. But this, this is a winner. Zeb said it's a 'wonderful combination of flavors' as he gobbled it down, my sister kept groaning which I know is a good thing. I want to eat it for breakfast. It's a winner.

Eggplant, Mozzarella, Prosciutto Sandwich

Not much to direct here.

Just slice the eggplant thin and grill it first (so that it's not mushy). Spread butter on pieces of bread and layer mozzarella, a slice and a half of proscuitto (not to overwhelm the other flavors) and the eggplant slices on the bread, top it with another buttered piece of bread and grill the whole thing.

Lists

Last night I turned in a whopper of a Hegel paper which means my first year of graduate school is almost over (one more week of some easy readings). I still woke up at 4 this morning panicked about typos, but I'm hoping that soon and very soon that pesky stress will begin to wear off. I am so looking forward to this summer. In preparation I'm making myself lists:

To Read:
The Lost Ravioli Recipes of Hoboken by Laura Schenone
The Original of Laura by Nabakov (I must admit I started this a few weeks ago, I was too curious)

Gourmet Rhapsody by Muriel Barbery
Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes

A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh

The Line by Olga Grushin
The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
Gravity and Grace by Simone Weil
Food Rules by Michael Pollan
I Know This Much is True by Wally Lamb
The Mind of the Maker by Dorothy Sayers
In the Beauty of the Lilies by John Updike

Nocturnes by Kazuo Ishiguro

To Cook:

(The boy's been a doll for cooking all year but our deal was if he cooked real food it could be plain jane. I've been filing recipes away all year for the day I take back the kitchen.)
Whole Fried Mushrooms on Toasts
Celery Root Risotto (I will make this up based on a dish we had at Cinghiale last week)
Straw Potatoes with Lemon Salt (put to use all the flavored salt I made for Christmas gifts last year)

Morning Couscous with Almonds and Coconut
Rosemary Potato and Chicken Pizza
Polenta with a Leek and Mushroom Ragu
Hashed Sprouts with Hazelnuts and Fried Capers
Kale Salad
Red Pepper Mousse with Garlic Toasts
Creamed Chard and Spring Onions (with steak on the side?)

Chickpea of the Sea Sandwich


To Do:

Picnics, picnics, picnics

Spa day at the Aveda School

Attempt Shakespeare in the Park again (Al Pacino's playing Shylock!)

Learn to drive a stick shift

Start herbal medicine course again

Learn to sail

Reorganize every room in the house

Keep doing yoga

Purge my wardrobe then restock it

Have lots of people over for cocktails on the porch

Sew pillows for the couch

Catch up on baby and wedding gifts

Take a second honeymoon

Make lotion

Make a big fancy dinner that includes the use of antique napkins, decanters, mother of pearl caviar spoons and port sippers

Sew pompoms on the curtains

That should keep me busy for a while.

Fried Eggs on Greens on Bread (Or Lunch, All Week)

Our CSA restarted last week and I've never been so happy to see Kale. I remember when we first started getting local greens a few years ago it was an adjustment, they were too flavorful. We joked that they just went out to a field and picked wild grass for our salad mixes, it tasted so potent and earthy. Now when we buy a bag of spinach and arugula from TJ's it just tastes like nothing to us. This winter break was hard, we dutifully bought vegetables from the grocery store but they were not fun to eat - all bland and kinda wilty. So yaaay for Maryland beet tops, and swiss chard and radishes! I am thankful for them.

Here's what we did with them all week - the greens (including the stems) are sauteed, or stewed, or braised somehow, then heaped over a slice of spongy bread, with parmesan sprinkled somewhere in there, and topped with eggs lightly fried in olive oil. I like the eggs over medium so that the runny yolk contributes to the whole delicious mess. We've fixed the greens several ways before but this recipe is my current favorite. The original idea came from, of course, Orangette. I don't love her boiled kale recipe as much as some others, but it's still great. If I don't have much time I just sautee cubed pancetta for 30 seconds, then throw in the greens and wilt them down with the fat and some salt, southern style. Any way you cook it the basic idea is a winner and now I can't wait for lunch today.

Lentil Loaf

Not that it's gourmet in the slightest, but it is good, I posted the recipe for our favorite Lentil Loaf over at The Gutenberg Gourmet.

Wednesday

Breakfast this morning: a fresh chocolate croissant straight from Paris flown in late last night by Mr. and Mrs. London-Gray.

Bean Griddle Cakes

Kristen started a great collaborative cooking blog and I totally crashed it and begged her to let me talk about beans. She said yes. Read my bean and cookbook rave here.

Zeb Was Right: Salsa Edition

I love it when Zeb turns out to be right in the end. After I fight him tooth and nail over some trifle, to be finally proved wrong has just a touch of bitterness, for sure, but mostly just strengthens my admiration for the superior being I married. Such was the case with salsa.

When I'm gone for an evening Zeb tends to eat chips and salsa for dinner and I used to feel guilty about it and pester him to eat something 'real.' I'd always thought of it as boy/junk food. 'Boy' because I've known quite a few who think salsa is its own food group, and 'junk' I suppose because of the slimy version that comes with Mexican fast food. Z kept insisting that salsa was good for you and I kept scoffing when he said it. Then one day he broke it down for me - fresh tomatoes, fresh garlic, fresh onions, fresh herbs, maybe some black beans - and a light went on! I believe in all those things. Salsa is good for you!

The remaining issue for me was taste - slimy fast food salsa had left a bad one. But one day the CSA was brimming with tomatoes and peppers and Zeb found a recipe that changed my mind about salsa forever.

Salsa
(Feeds a boy and his wife for several hours)

3 large tomatoes, seeded and chopped

1/2 - 1 tsp salt

1 medium mild or sweet onion, chopped

2 fresh jalapeno peppers, chopped

Juice from 1 lime

3 T fresh cilantro, chopped

Mix.

This salsa knocked my socks off. Not too spicy, amazingly flavorful, highly addictive.

I know, I know, I'm probably the last person in the world to discover the joy that is a good simple salsa. Zeb was so right on this one. And he didn't even rub it in, he just welcomed me to the salsa club and asked if I'd prefer plain or Hint of Lime Tostitos. Now, if he knows what's good for him he'll rest content in this victory and lay off the campaign for the frozen mini tacos.

The Last Weekend of Summer

Last weekend felt like a last hurrah of sorts as the Julians came down for their summer visit before school starts for some of us (more on that later). So we went peach picking.

We had in mind jam made in our bread machines, and the peaches in wine that's on the menu at Delancey, and mascarpone stuffed french toast with peach syrup, and learning to can. Such summery things.

The boys did much more than stand around holding baskets and bags, but this picture was too cute with all their goofy, deadpan and quizzical expressions.

After two baskets of peaches, a not very glamorous amount of sweat, some peach cider and farm-made ice cream, we headed to Naylor Winery in Pensylvania for an expansive tasting and a picnic by the vineyard.
The next day, after our requisite tour of Baltimore, especially the ghetto, we opened some apple wine and set to canning. Melanie was the experienced teacher and she assured us Botulism isn't nearly the threat Zeb fears it is.

While we canned the boys did this:
Brian was busy taking pictures of us.
Rowan begins to perfect Zeb's carefully taught 'Mad Face.'

I tried not to think too much about things like 'last free weekend' and 'summer's almost over' because that would make me panic and forget to enjoy myself. I, of course, feel like summer just got started even though it has been rather full and wonderful. The only thing that consoles me is remembering how much I like fall, and that there will be another summer before we know it.

Bread

Some people amaze me. They seem to be calm, stylish, and able to do every interesting thing in the world at once. You know, the mom who has 2 babies, helps her husband with his business, is writing a book, keeping up two blogs one of which chronicles her efforts to read 200 books a year, cooks from scratch, writes for local magazines, and will be starting graduate school in the fall. Seriously, she's real, her name's Amanda, she's my twitter friend though not real life friend yet, and she talks about life here and here. There are many such people in my life. Yours truly, of meagre margins, attempts to not quite keep up because that would imply a fair race, I grab a coattail and hope I get dragged into neat things. Which is what happened with the bread. Women and men I admire bake bread and they got me all intrigued. So I now bake my own bread. I have 6 different types of flour and two different types of gluten. I'm really into it.
Bread is such an impressive tool - you offer to bring homemade bread to a gathering and you get an appreciative ahhhh. It's quite gratifying for moi whose sink is full of dirty dishes and who still has to finish wedding thank you's two years late BUT I HAVE FRESH BAKED BREAD!

No one needs to know that it is actually made with a bread machine, except now everyone will know because everyone I hang out with reads this blog. Unfounded or not I feel that making my own bread is a feat and I'm going to stick to that, no matter how it happens.

I've got this wonderful huge cookbook and from it I've made Brioche (pictured) Proscuitto Mozzarella Bread, Black Olive Bread, Halepeno Bread with Longhorn Cheese, Beer Bread with Cheddar, Roquefort Cheese Bread with Walnuts, Ricotta and Fresh Chive Bread, Italian Lemon-Ricotta Bread, Chickpea Flour Bread as well as numerous others.

Marianne over at Prepare to Eat challenged readers to make their own bread in May. Marianne's method is a distant dream for me at the moment. She soaks her flour, she hand kneads everything, she doesn't use much white flour or any sugar. Sigh. I like to think that someday when I'm home for more hours of the day than I'm at work I, too, will do bread the ideal way. But really, won't I just find other excuses (kiddos, the sink of dirty dishes, Arrested Development on Hulu?) I'll probably still use the bread machine. But I'm OK with that. I don't think it's cheating, it's just a different way and I'm still coming out ahead. Those fancy loaves that I mentioned above would have cost approximately $6 per loaf here in the DC area, and I make them for half that or less. A cheap loaf of bread makes a meal of lentils actually filling. And all the ingredients in my bread I chose and I can pronounce.
One of the best parts is that I now have a perfect and designated use for one of my favorite wedding gifts - the bread/cutting board handmade by Aunt Mimi and Uncle Gary who are, themselves, die hard every day Zojirushi bread bakers. Also I finally got to buy the little butter dish I've been wanting.

Cooking and Menu Stuff

I wrote out my first menu plan on April 29, 2008. I filled in the categories of Lunch and Dinner and Extras (we're nibblers for breakfast) and I wrote the sources for my recipes and I wrote the cost of each week's groceries. The menu plan was an attempt to be more thoughtful and frugal about the food we bought and then tried to consume before it turned bad. It has since then turned into a sort of record of our lives (thank you Ax for the idea). I can flip pages and see my cooking style evolve and streamline. At some point I began to write in meal events such as 'Parents and in-laws all for dinner for Zebulin's graduation' or 'Goodbye dinner for Mel and Everett, and goodbye picnic for Billi and Daniel' (both in one week - it was cruel), or 'Val's first meal back in the U.S!' I've been able to track the cost of menus and as I've found my rhythm that bill has thankfully gone down (though it's still staggering compared to other parts of the country!). 

Subscribing to a CSA just reinforced menu planning even more. Perhaps it's possible but I can't imagine how I would make sure to use up all those random items in a week without being very deliberate about it. Our CSA joined Twitter (thus finally convincing me to join) and they post our share the day before so that I can start planning before we pick it up. We also have a Yahoo group where members share their ideas and recipes for the produce each week.  It's a challenge, for sure. I've said before it's like a puzzle - figuring out what to do with all these pieces you've been handed and stick within a budget and the time frame of a week. I love it. I still get excited when I find out what's in our bag for the week. And I'm still proud when I manage to use it all up efficiently and deliciously before the next batch comes in. Every time I have to throw a languishing bok choy away I vow to plan better for next week. In short, a lot of effort goes into this. One of my organizing tools has been this blog - a little sidebar section that links to most of what I'm cooking each week. I just added a list of what we actually get in our CSA each week above the recipes I use it all in. In a glance I have a summary and online catalog of recipes for all the planning I've scribbled in my notebook. But a disclaimer: if you ever peruse that section beware that not all recipes are tried and true. Often times I get a repeat in my CSA (lately it's Basil!) but there is always some new thing and its recipe is a shot in the dark. If a recipe/link stays up more than a week it was a winner. That sidebar is my way of letting you know what I'm attempting, as well as keeping me straight when I look at a fridge full of pieces. 

On a side note - Axon and I went to see Michael Pollan (author of The Omnivore's Dilemma and the mover and shaker of the Slow Food Movement) speak at the BCPL a few weeks ago. The evening was informative and inspiring and sobering and we agreed with most of the things he said. But one thing in particular struck me. In a question/answer session someone asked him what his favorite part of the 'success' of The Omnivore's Dilemma was. He seems a humble and sensible man and he stumbled over what to say to that question. I don't remember his answer. Later a farmer got a hold of the mic - he introduced himself as the owner of Springfield Farms - the farm that Zebulin and I order all of our pork, beef, eggs,  and chicken from. He said 'I just want to speak on behalf of farmers, I want to say thank you, thank you for your book and for what you've done, you've brought people back to our farms and it has made all the difference.'  I started kind of tearing up and then Michael Pollan said 'That is my favorite part of the success of 'The Omnivore's Dilemma', hearing people say things like that.' Gee, I'm kind of crying again just typing it out. All that extra menu planning - it's so worth it. 

Strawberry Tomato Gazpacho

For Dinner Tonight:

1 # Fresh Strawberries

1 # Fresh Tomatoes

4 oz. Olive Oil

4 T Balsamic Vinegar

A Handfull of Basil Leaves.

Puree. Chill. Serve. 

( For variations add raw garlic, a few slivers of onion, some salt, substitute sherry vinegar, add a cucumber). 

This is delicious and rich, perhaps serve as an appetizer. It's perfect with a dry rosé.

The Busyness...

...of the weekend includes:

A (free!) lecture by Michael Pollan at the Baltimore Library

The annual Thrift Store Marathon to fight Summer Wardrobe Panic.

Listening to a few missed episodes of This American Life while folding cranes and cherry blossoms for a project.

Another batch of this soup (amazing!) with salad on the side of course. 

St. John's College graduation - congrats to Tadd and Stephen!

The fifth season of The Wire.

(Free!) Mini - facials at Origins.

Oi! It's a lot! Better start. Bye.

The Trouble With Salads

The following post is the result of me being a very spoiled brat. No one should complain about the things I'm about to complain about. Keep in mind that I am every day thankful and I have nothing bad to say, really, about the wonderful fresh bounty of the earth that comes from my CSA. But I'm a whiner by nature, so here goes: what the freakin frak do I do with all the greens?

Every CSA I've heard of is a little lopsided somehow - bushels of tomatoes or pounds of potatoes; mine shells out bags and bags and bags of salad greens (in Ziploc just to be contradictory I think). They're delicious and there is no end to the variety (Mizuna, Totsoi, Red Romaine, Baby Spinach, Arugula, Micro Greens, Pea Shoots, Corn Shoots, Flowering Chervil, Red Lola Lettuce, Mustard Greens, Bok Choy Blossoms), but seriously, how many different ways can you combine leaves and grass? For what makes up dinner 3 nights a week I need some new ideas. I feel like I've tried everything:

Here with radishes and an unidentified greenery (we're pretty sure it's just clover picked from some meadow).

Here with Nasturtium Blossoms.

Here with Pomegranate Seeds and Prosciutto

Here with tomatoes and hard boiled eggs (and a flop of a dill and salmon soup, blech).

I've added avocados, feta, goat cheese, parmesan, blue cheese, pears, nutritional yeast, chicken, olives, pine nuts, almonds.

I know, I know, it's a pretty good problem to have. But...new ideas for salad greens, please? Anyone? Help?

Croquet Day 1 - Annapolis Johnnies vs. Santa Fe Johnnies

The day began with Caramel Baked French Toast and Mimosas.

We stuffed fifteen friends into our little place - the record so far. 

Rowan let Valerie hold him for about 5 seconds, another record. 

Then we went to St. John's.

This is what I wore. 

I loved this feathery thing. 

Ro frolics among the wickets and beer cans.

Pickled Cinnamon Grapes with Mustard Seeds and Black Pepper (recipe coming soon).

Our picnic basket. 

Rowan explores the campus. 

Val watches the match. 

And the day ends, as many good days do, with poker night. 

P.S. Annapolis beat Santa Fe.

It's been a doozy of a week, or two, or three. Some pleasant things like parties and visitors happened, then there were unpleasant things like more business trips (plural) and stressful deadlines and big decisions. I have pictures of the pleasant things. They might get edited and posted tomorrow. Tonight we're curling up with Sushi and The Wire and just each other. See ya later.

(Illustration by Kerri Smith)

Love Your Liver

A Portrait: Liver and My Sister

Over at Prepare to Eat it is Love Your Liver Month. The challenge is three -tiered depending on your liver aversion/acceptance level and I highly suggest you check out her program.  Marianne gives reasons for eating liver that I support, but only vaguely remember. There are vitamins A-Z, antioxidants, copper and iron and etc. (remember in My Side of the Mountain where the boy living in the wild gets malnourished and he has the good sense to eat a rabbit liver and it saves his life? That might, deep down, be where it all started for me). But all ideology and nutrition aside, I just like the taste. If you have a strong aversion to the word 'liver' please stop reading. I understand; my dearly beloved and my co-worker Sarah both really do throw up a little in their mouths when I mention that I'm making it for dinner, so I get that there are physical reactions that trump reason. Maybe someday we can talk, when you're ready, but the following is really just for people who are game to try.

As a kid I had this uncanny knack for singling out both the most expensive and the most exotic thing on the menu without realizing it. Ostrich burger simply sounded better than Hamburger. I could be wrong (Mom, correct me) but I vividly remember my first encounter with liver at The Grand Canyon Lodge at the age of 8 or so.  The usual fare of chicken tenders and chicken pot pie was all running together before my eyes and then I saw Liver and Onions. I didn't know it was something only grandparents ate and everyone else thought was weird/disgusting, it just caught my attention so I ordered it, and I loved it. And I've loved it ever since. I have a recipe that I kind of swear by. It has converted a few agnostics (Reeds, Wierengas, Parkers, and you, hopefully, if you're still reading and you try it).  It comes from a fantastic cookbook that Melanie gave me for my wedding called The Ultimate 30 Minute Cookbook. I've made it with both calves and chicken livers. It's called Liver With Honey (though it's not sweet, there's plenty of vinegar bite). It goes like this:

1# Chicken or Calves Liver (I do recommend as natural/organic as you can get, we get ours through our CSA and since for some reason it's not in high demand and it's only $3.75 a pound.)

2 Tablespoons Butter

2 Tablespoons Olive Oil

2 Tablespoons Sherry Vinegar or Red Wine Vinegar

2-3 Tablespoons Chicken Stock

1 Tablespoon Honey

Salt and Ground Black Pepper

Preheat the oven to a very low temp, 200 degrees or so. Rinse the livers and pat dry.  Season with salt and pepper.  Dust with flour.  Melt 1 T butter and all the olive oil in a skillet over high heat. When heated through add the liver  and cook for 1-2 minutes for the first side, until lightly browned, then turn over and cook for another 1 minute.  Transfer to an oven proof dish and put the liver in the oven just to keep warm. Stir the vinegar, stock, and honey into the same skillet.  Boil for about a minute stirring constantly then add the remaining 1 T butter and stir until it melts. Spoon over the liver slices and serve warm!

Do let me know if you try it and like it. Or if you don't like. I wanna know that too.  

CSA Time

I haven't talked as much about my CSA as I expected, and that is too bad because it is the best thing that has happened to my kitchen since wedding gifts. I really could go on an on about it, so I will. I bring it up because CSA's are taking new members right now, and the best ones will be full soon. We just renewed for this summer and I would hate to be the only one geekily gushing about gorgeous tomatoes for the next six months.

The most obvious reason to join is the quality of the produce. You might or might not care about the ethics of buying local, or believe that pesticides are any worse for you than the chlorine in the tap water, but when it comes down to taste (the only thing that might convince my father), this stuff is the real deal. Those carrots above taste more carroty than a carrot. And they are really really orange. They are gorgeous. I still can't believe I'm using words like that for vegetables. But really, they are striking, and because I hope you think so too, I will share a good number of the thirty pictures I took of them throughout this post.

Common objections to joining a CSA - you have to pay upfront, and all at once it's a big chunk of change. I maintain that the CSA is cheaper in the long run than going to the Farmer's Market every week and picking things out individually. In fact, for some reason, the $18 a week that the cost of the CSA breaks down to has somehow ended up dropping our grocery bill by about $30-$40 a week. We're eating much better for less. Of course there is no getting around the fact that organic and local will always be a bit more expensive than produce at Wal-Mart. I am encouraged though, that by cutting costs in other ways (less meat, more lentils) we can still afford the higher-quality, more nutrient dense produce (do I sound like Marianne or what? I basically just stole that from her blog). Another complaint leveled against CSA's is the lack of choice and variety. You get a bag of whatever the farmer has ready that week. I, for one, get easily overwhelmed if I have too many choices so this actually works out better for me. I love having a place to start when I begin menu planning each week. It's kind of like putting together a puzzle (I rely heavily on Epicurious.com for this) trying to figure out what you can make with cauliflower, nasturtium blossoms, and the half tub of creme fraiche sitting in the fridge. You might get turnips three weeks in a row, but really there are a hundred different ways to fix them. I think we were stuck in a deeper rut pre-CSA, now we've tried vegetables we never even knew existed, much less would have picked out if we had a choice. We discovered we love rutabagas, a funny little root that we had never heard of six months ago!I glossed over it above, but to me the most significant reasons to join a CSA are political/ethical ones that I am very ill equipped to summarize. They have to do with the true cost of food vs. government subsidized food, it has to do with community and the commitment you make to the farmer who is (loosely) your neighbor. You're in it together - if his crop fails you don't get your food. You share the burden. But now my dad has stopped reading because he just wants to know where he can get the tastiest, cheapest steak. Which, actually, is probably through some kind of local buying club. And buying clubs are often attached to CSA's so...

If I sold you but you don't know where to sign up punch in your zip code here.

Tuesday

Rowan and his parents and Val came for Mardi Gras. We had liver. It was all so good.

Sunday

Sorting lentils yesterday I was reminded of the landscape outside right now, beige and dry yellows colored with just the faintest shadow of minty green starting to show.

Tonight Pt. 2: Desperate Measures

When a writer's block absolutely must be gotten through sometimes we revert to cheap white wine and homemade pate (yes! I made that pate! For about 5 hours last night!). I really mean business now.  I better think of nice things to say about the cacophony coming from my speakers before that whole Tupperware container of delicious fattening goodness is gone.