@ Home with Real Food

Donuts for Peace

2012-01-08T09:10:00.000-08:00

The favorite mornings at my mother's house are those she makes donuts. Little bits of fried dough, shaken in a bag of cinnamon sugar, seem to make everyone's day. Grandad walks by and snags the holes, not so subtly.

Doughnuts have been around since the dawn of time, and have always brought such joy. When my son learned from a friend they served doughnuts at Hannukah, he requested to be Jewish.

Let's be clear, these are neither healthy nor gluten-free, but as they bring so much happiness there has to be room for them at the table. In reading up on donuts -- also known as doughnuts -- I found a reference to the Civil War, an incident where the Ladies Auxilliary of Augusta, Me., literally smothered their troops in donuts of every ilk. "Never before was seen such an aggregate of doughnuts since the world began," reported the Baltimore American of the "doughnation". "It was emphatically a feast of doughnuts, if not a flow of soul."

That is what it is like on doughnut morning, a flow of soul, on a river of cinnamon sugar. Try it.

Gram's Donuts

I package Pillsbury Buttermilk Biscuits
Oil for frying, about 4 cups (I like vegetable oil, or grapeseed oil. I do not recommend canola.)
Sugar and cinnamon, for dusting

Heat oil in a deep frying pan. Take a melon baller and take the hole out of the biscuit, making a donut. Reserve holes. Fry donuts and holes in the hot oil, turning once, until golden, about 3 minutes a side when oil is hot.

Put sugar and cinnamon in a plastic bag or a bowl. Coat hot donuts with sugar and serve.

Enjoy!

Artichokes, Baby

2011-12-12T11:25:00.000-08:00

Our honeymoon was the most organized I have ever been. I read guidebooks, picked people's brains, even read classics set in Italy to decide where to visit. From afar, I booked hotels and restaurants.

Once there, the day's sightseeing was plotted based on where our eating was occurring. In Amalfi, we hung out at the hotel on the water all day, sightseeing in the early evening, when the heat of the day was easing and -- did you guess? -- we traveled into town or nearby villages for dinner.

We had a lot of fabulous meals, though perhaps predictably the most memorable were the unscripted. A late supper on arrival in Umbria, so steeped in truffles -- neither of us had had them in that magnitude before -- that we looked at each other wondering what that delicious aura was. For the rest of our time in the region we hunted foods containing them -- truffle oil, truffle cheese, even truffle gelato -- like junkies. The picnic we bought on the way back from Pompeii, at a little store on the side of a mountain so steep one of stayed in the car with his foot on the pedal while the other dashed in and bought fresh red tomatoes, mozzarella and wine in jars, vintage yesterday, to eat on the balcony of our cottage overlooking the Mediterranean. Our last night in Rome, when we left a mediocre restaurant after the appetizers and wandered the cobblestone streets from wine bar to wine bar, ending up at a pizzaria with the locals with my high heels kicked off under the table, so far from our intended path I could probably not find it again.

We slept in, drank wine with lunch and had coffee late in the day. We ate fried foods willy-nilly. I even ate bread and pasta, without worry or even retribution.

One lunch we stopped in the shadow of the coliseum, in an ordinary-looking restaurant, Da Giggetto, in the Jewish ghetto near the ruins of the palace built by Augustus for his sister, Ottavia. It was unassuming enough, but the carciofi alla giudia -- literally artichokes smushed by a brick and deep-fried, were like bits of heaven. The earthy artichokes, in a light batter, fried in oil so hot it didn't even get to the artichoke. Zucchini blossoms, stuffed with ricotta and garlic and fried. Squid, fresh from the sea, with a batter so light it might have been tempura. We polished off everything on our plates, licking grease from our fingers and washing it down with fruity white wine.

I've never forgotten that meal. One summer, with visions of this lunch in my head, I grew zucchini just to stuff the blossoms. But I've never attempted the artichokes, though I've been hankering for them these ten years. After all, but the one time, my husband not only will not taste them but visibly recoils in their presence. Then I saw baby artichokes in the grocery store, shopping for a small dinner with a friend who also loves artichokes. Dare I?

I did. I didn't smush them (no clean bricks), and I didn't deep fry them (not enough oil), but I did saute them in an inch of good olive oil, and finished with pressed garlic, mint, parsley and a pinch of coarse salt.

And we ate them all up.

Ghetto Artichokes

1 flat of baby artichokes, 3 lbs.
1/2 cup olive oil
2 Tablespoons minced parsley
2 Tablespoons minced mint
3 cloves garlic, minced

Peel off the tough outer leaves of each artichoke, until you get to the tender greenish yellow leaves inside, and cut about 1/2 inch from the top. Half the artichokes. They will brown if you do not put them in a bowl with water into which you have squeezed lemon juice, but it doesn't matter in the end -- I wasn't particular about it.

Mince herbs and garlic, set aside. Heat oil in medium skillet over medium heat and melt 1 teaspoon coarse salt. Add artichokes and saute, turning once to brown on both sides.

Remove from oil with slotted spatula to a bowl. Toss with herbs and garlic, a little lemon zest would rock too. Serve warm with drinks and olives. Would be divine with roast red peppers as well.

Enjoy!

Rice Krispy Fun

2011-12-10T11:51:00.000-08:00

It all started because one of the boys in my son's class can't eat eggs. I don't know what happens to him, but as one who avoids a major food group, I knew it couldn't be fun to be vigilant at every unsuspecting snack time.

I first tried substituting apple sauce for the eggs, but the cake was more a muffin, though delicious with cream cheese icing.

Then I remembered the humble rice krispy treat. So versatile!

I bought several boxes of cereal (one large box makes two batches), along with bags of marshmallows, and prepared to bake. Then the snow came, postponing the party and bringing some opportune friends instead for a little impromptu celebration. I cracked open the boxes and made some monster treats.

The next weekend, when the sun shone, the party was on. Starting Friday, I made 7 more batches of rice krispy treats, and left them to harden slightly in the pan. We cut them into bricks and assembled, using marshmallow fluff as the mortar, marshmallows for the turrets, fruit leather cut into flags for the decor. Small knights fought on the ramparts. Swedish fish swam in a blue icing moat, around gumdrop stepping stones.

When the time came for cake, the kids crowded around as I broke bits off and put them on plates. It was gone in a jiffy, and not one kid had to worry whether they could eat it. Seconds were had, even thirds, by big and small alike.

Rice Crispy Treats

6 cups rice crispies
1 bag of marshmallows
3 T butter
1 teaspoon vanilla

Melt butter in a pan on the stove and add the marshmallows, stirring until they are all melted. Pour over rice crispies in a large bowl and add vanilla. Stir to combine.

Pat out in lasagna pans and let harden. Cut with knife.

For the monsters, make one batch. Decorate with icing and M&Ms.

For the cake, make 7 or 8 batches. Decorate with icing, marshmallows, gumdrpos and fruit leathers.

Enjoy.

Kitchen Reform tip 18/College cooking 101: Crack Protein

2011-10-06T09:54:00.000-07:00

I haven't done anything to reform my kitchen all summer. After all, who needs it, just open the windows and let in the sunshine and fresh air -- grill a simple steak, serve up some local produce.

But now we're back in the swing, days end earlier, littles must be in bed sooner. And that means dinner on the table, before pronto. Here's a little trick: eggs. (Also great -- see below for effects on memory and learning -- for cash-strapped college students, who I hope are reading this blog!)


Eggs from the happy chickens at Hummingbird Hill are divine, but studies show even experts can't tell the difference in taste between free range and store bought eggs.

There's many ways to cook an egg. My favorite: over easy, yolks so runny they will sauce whatever else is on your plate (salmon hash, if you have a can of good wild salmon). But they are versatile for the whole family -- my 6-year-old will always eat a cheesy omelet, which does double duty by using up the leftover cheese ends too small to be useful for anything else in the cheese drawer.

Protein contains amino acids, the essential building blocks of the body. And get this: we lose protein every day when we shed skin, hair and nails. So re-upping our supply is crucial, especially if active. Animal proteins -- lean poultry, meat and fish, and low-fat dairy -- contain a complete array of amino acids, but those more inclined to a plant-based diet needn't worry. Plants too contain amino acids, though not the entire spectrum, making them suppliers of incomplete protein.

There's much to be said for protein, especially in highly bioavailable forms like protein powders and shakes, which go directly to the muscle rather than being digested and disseminated via the stomach. A recent study from Brescia University in Milan showed that protein powders containing three amino acids that we are unable to make on our own -- in particular leucine, which is the only amino acid capable of synthesizing protein in muscle -- can lengthen lifespan by up to 12% by activating the mitochondria in cells, which then slow the aging process. That's ten years for the average adult.

And egg yolks also contain choline, essential for regulating metabolic pathways and maintaining cell membranes that allow cells to get rid of toxins, as well as development of cells in the hippocampus crucial for mental acuity and development. Pregnant women, in particular, can benefit from increased choline as it can aid in developing these brain functions in the fetus and, according to research published in the journal Brain Research, can have aftereffects on brain development leaving an afterglow that helps resist age-related memory decline.

So go ahead, eat your eggs.

Easy Anytime Crepes

1 cup milk

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons flour

2 tablespoons sugar

2 extra large eggs

4 tablespoons butter

Melt 2 Tablespoons of butter and cool. Put milk, flour, eggs, sugar and pinch of salt in blender and whiz together. Add butter and blend.

In an 8-inch nonstick skillet, melt 1 teaspoon butter. Pour a thin layer of batter into skillet and swirl to coat the bottom. Cook over medium heat until little air bubbles appear then turn over and cook 30 seconds more.

Remove crepe from skillet and hold on a warm plate with a dish towel to cover, or in the oven. Serve filled with anything -- we like brown sugar, or thick preserves.

Enjoy!

College Cooking 101: Salmon Appetizers

2011-09-26T18:29:00.000-07:00

Going to a party? Of course you are. Turn up a notch from nachos.

Top a cucumber slice with smoked salmon and a schmear of cream whipped with horseradish and fresh pepper.

Seriously good.

Smoked Salmon Apps

1 cucumber -- the long ones if you can, or 2 regular
1 package smoked salmon
1 cup whipped cream
2 T grated horseradish (usually in the deli section or by produce)
pepper

Cut cucumber in 1/4-inch rounds and top with shred of salmon just matching its size.

Whip cream until it forms heavy peaks. Fold in horseradish and pepper. Dollop each app with cream.

Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy.

Ramen? Rather Not. College Cooking 101

2011-09-21T19:49:00.000-07:00

I've been asked by my step-daughter and her roommates to pay particular attention to the cash-strapped, health conscious, college student -- the ones who just raided their homes for outdated colanders, cutting boards and cook pots to outfit apartment kitchens. Who would eat Ramen, but rather not. Who need recipes that are cheap, easy and good. I am assuming that although these are not vain women, food that will not necessitate buying another wardrobe or wearing a tent would be another key feature.

Here goes.

First we stocked her spice cabinet --- good salt, fresh pepper, cinnamon, curry, cumin and ground thyme a must -- and bought good knives and real wine glasses (don't worry, they're 21. And you can never learn too early that cheap wine tastes better out of a glass that sits in your hand in a satisfying manner.) She purchased penne and canned vodka sauce, Nutella, olive oil, Balsamic vinegar and good tea (another treat that doesn't break the bank).

And now she wants to cook. And she's ready.

Rock this recipe, Boo.

Chicken Balsamic

Chicken thighs, 2 per person

balsamic vinegar

salt

garlic, peeled and sliced thin, or mushrooms if desired

spray oil

Spray a skillet large enough to fit in all your chicken thighs. Spray generously with oil, or use about a tablespoon of olive oil and swirl to coat pan.

If using garlic, sprinkle in bottom of pan with a pinch of sea salt (the thick one) and let cook for a few minutes, or until golden. Flip and add chicken thighs. Cook 5 minutes more, until chicken thigh is browned, then flip chicken.

Have the top of the pan at the ready. Sprinkle with balsamic (I use about 1/3 cup for 8 thighs for 3 people and plenty of leftovers.) If using mushrooms, sprinkle over the top and cover fast. Steam will rise when the balsamic hits the pan and you want to capture it to steam the chicken -- this accounts for the moistness of the dish.

Cook until the chicken reaches at least 160 degrees, turning again to coat the chicken. The vinegar will form a nice thick glaze. (This will be about 5-10 more minutes, depending on how many thighs you've got in there. ( We didn't buy you a meat thermometer? Rats. Sorry. Christmas.)

In this picture it looks pretty brown. I assure you it is food alchemy to turn thighs to prize. I love to serve it on a chilly night with cauliflower puree and cranberry sauce. Those are not included in College Cooking 101, but go for it if you want to rock Riverside.

Astound your friends. Befuddle your enemies. Above all, eat good food.

Sante.

Plenty

2011-09-12T11:22:00.000-07:00

July has been a month of plenty. Plenty of sunshine. Plenty of swimming. Plenty of children, relatives, friends and fireworks. Plenty of berries -- first strawberries, in a season short and sweet, later black raspberries, coaxed by the heat, and now blueberries, bigger than your eye.

And, in the garden, plenty of herbs. Mint reaching to the sky, just the right height for snapping into a glass of sweet tea. Basil, bushy and fragrant in the breeze that breaks the longest heatwave these parts have seen in 15 years. Leggy cilantro, its feathery plumes heavy with coriander seed that bows its head nearly to the ground.

I fell in love with cilantro at an impressionable age, when it wheeled up on the table side guacamole cart at Rosa Mexicano. We lived about an hour out of Manhattan, and on special occasions my parents would dress up and take us into the city: Rosa Mexicano, with its (then to me) exotic, colorful decor, and Mamma Leone's, with its red sauce and strolling minstrels, were two of our favorites for dinner. Lunch was hands down the Automat, with its booths fashioned like old cars and cafeteria-style comfort food.

I was all of 8. The gimmicks worked like a charm. But it was the tastes, so unlike the kid-friendly fare my mother turned out -- meatloaf, tuna noodle casserole and hot dog soup (don't ask what was in it. It was delicious) that were the real magic.

Cilantro, of course, has been around loads longer than that. I have read that Pliny named it, for a bedbug whose stench resembled that of the bitter green smell of crushed cilantro leaves. Its dried seeds are the coriander, found in the burial tombs of ancient Chinese and Egyptians to insure immortality. Hippocrates used it in his medical concoctions, and it got a reputation in the Thousand and One Arabian Nights as an aphrodisiac. Some recommend it for detox and anti-inflammatory properties.

We can prove little of this, as with most herbal remedies. But all one has to do is compare the before and after of a fish taco complemented with cilantro to make that of little consequence. Cilantro kicks a dish from humdrum to whoohooo in the time it takes to sprinkle it on.

Take, for instance, this curry chicken. Good enough for a luncheon, its sharp yogurt dressing rounded out with cumin and spiked with scallion. But add cilantro, and presto, with a fresh baguette and a cold rose, its a company meal.

Curried Chicken Salad

One whole roasted chicken
bunch scallions
red pepper
one cup Greek yogurt (I use fat free but no matter)
Two tablespoons curry powder
One teaspoon ground cumin
one cup chopped cilantro
one tablespoon coconut vinegar or soy sauce

Shred chicken meat in a bowl and add scallions and red pepper, diced small.

In a small bowl, mix yogurt, spices and vinegar until combined. Toss with chicken mixture and cilantro.

Enjoy.

Tip 17: See red

2011-06-14T13:45:00.000-07:00

We had a very cherry Sunday. The trees are laden with the little red bombs, and we pitted three flats in an evening, with lots of talk and tea. Our fruit is sweet enough to eat off the tree, but definitely needs sugar to create dessert fare.

Problem was, I had no sugar. No refined sugar that is, which every recipe called for. So I improvised, using raw sugar to make flavored simple syrups that sweetened our goods just enough to eliminate pucker. They also added a subtle flavoring that infused the cherries, taking them to dimensions which previously I hadn't prodded them to ascending. I used mint to infuse one simple syrup, from the patch that grows wild in our yard, and lemongrass frozen from last year's monster plant to flavor the other. Any herbs will do; I particularly have a hankering to try a cherry-thyme thingy. That is a technical term.

Anyway, the more cherries the better. If you know any good recipes, share. Cherries are being touted as the new American superfood, claiming to help arthritis and gout, lower weight and reduce factors for heart disease and diabetes. And cherries supposedly contain melatonin, which helps regulate sleep, prevent memory loss and delay the aging process. My mom and aunt both quaff cherry juice daily, and say it helps their joints.

And the number one reason to ingest cherries: they taste good.

Cherry Mint compote

2 cups cherries, pitted
handful of mint leaves, shredded
1/2 cup mint simple syrup, below
2 teaspoons cornsyrup

for the simple syrup:
1 cup water
1/2 cup raw sugar

2 stalks mint, quartered

Make the simple syrup: combine ingredients in saucepan and bring to a boil. Simmer 15 minutes very slightly. Let cool on stove. Strain mint out and bottle.

In a separate pan, combine cherries, simple syrup and mint. Cook until cherries are soft and syrupy, about 20 minutes on low. Take some syrup and stir in 1 teaspoon of cornstarch until smooth. Add back to cherry sauce and let simmer. Repeat if not thick enough.

Serve with lamb or salmon. Or both.

Cherry Lemongrass Gelato

2 cups frozen cherries, pitted
3 cups whole milk
1/2 cup lemongrass syrup

2 cups water
1 cup sugar
1 stalk of lemongrass

for the lemongrass syrup: combine ingredients in saucepan and boil. Off heat and simmer 15 minutes very slightly. Let cool on stove. Strain off lemongrass.

In the Vitamix, combine frozen cherries and lemongrass syrup and blend until smooth. Add milk and blend. Freeze in ice cream freezer according to manufacturer's directions. The mixture made more than the freezer held, so we served it as a smoothie. Also a good choice.

Enjoy!

Kitchen reform tip 16: Grow Some

2011-06-02T13:27:00.000-07:00

So yesterday, on the hottest day of the year thus far, I visited the sun-scorched organic gardens at Airlie conference center, and talked to their creator.

Pablo Elliot (who majored in African Studies at Vassar) walked me through the organic garden project, which was started 10 years ago to provide food for the center.

"All the veggies we grow are sissies," he declared, after confiding his plan to build 5 raised beds a day for the next week, for a total of 30. "Tomatoes have to be held up and staked, lettuce hopes for a cooler breeze -- the clay soils here can get very compact, but the raised bed aerates it. It's luxury living for vegetables."

Elliot's breezy demeanor serves him well as he imparts information to local farmers, amateurs and guests to the sustainable center interested in organic gardening. The garden supplies about 8 percent of the center's food -- he works closely with chefs to grow what they need -- and the rest they source, preferably from other local growers.

The premise of organic gardening is to create a chemical free environment that is biodiverse enough to keep pests at bay by making the soil as fertile as possible with compost, and planting crops that will complement each other, cutting down on loss. Bugs are encouraged; garden supply chains even sell them.

To that end, Elliot recommends 3' x 30' beds, small enough to walk around and commune with your plants. "The best fertilizer is the footprint of the farmer," he says. His favorite tool is the broadfork, which pushes about a foot into the soil, then lifts up without turning to aerate the bottom, while leaving the best soil on top. Compost, at a rate of a wheelbarrow full per 100 square feet of bed, is added each season.

"Nothing we do here is rocket science," says Elliot. "I am into simple methods. A farmer once told me, 'Tickle the soil and it laughs with a harvest.' It stimulates soil in a way that microbes feed the plants. Keeping the habitat diverse encourages beneficial insects and birds and pollinators. That's how organic gardening works. You feed the soil, and the soil feeds the plants."

He does test the soil about once a year; Virginia's clay soils have a low pH and often have to be amended with calcidic lime. But the end result is a thriving garden, full of lettuces, which he staggers in small plantings so the chefs have a constant supply, herbs, potatoes, tomatoes, the summer crops of eggplants, squash and melons, not to mention a fall corn maze. They have a hoop house that allows starting seeds sooner, and extends the growing season for fall greens into cold weather months.

"We try to transplant as much as possible -- they aren't as delicate as when you start from seeds. The chefs like the little greens but it is a lot of work," he says. One hurdle for organic farmers, he says is getting chefs to recognize that organic produce might have a hole here, a blemish here, that they have to make pretty on the plate."They are into the challenge."

Mesclun salad with chevre dressing

4 - 6 cups mesclun or any salad greens
any vegetables, nuts or dried fruits

1/2 cup chevre or cottage cheese
1/2 cup dill
2 T skim milk
salt and pepper to taste

Clean greens and shred into bowl. Whiz cheese and dill in small food chopper. Add milk to thin, salt and pepper to taste.

Enjoy!

Kitchen Reform Tip 15: Power saver

2011-05-27T09:52:00.000-07:00

When I turned 30, my boyfriend bought me a palm sander. Friends of ours told him that was not romantic enough, so he bought me something lacy and black as well.

He needn't have bothered. I have no aversion to practical gifts. (To any gifts at all, just an aside.) And in fact, while I no longer have that boyfriend or said lacy garment, all these years later, I still have that palm sander. And believe me, I cannot fathom life without it.

Sometimes, you don't know what you're missing until it knocks on your door.

There will be people who, upon reading this, will feel the need, however subconscious, to say I told you so. Their urge is well-founded. Last summer, when our whole neighborhood went on a Vitamix spree, I turned up my nose. I wasn't here, and it was easy from afar to tar emails of their ravings over a -- dare I now say it - a blender, as the musings of lunatics. It was so expensive, and how could it possibly be that much better? What could it do that my Ninja couldn't?

My Ninja gave up the ghost soon after, but still I resisted. We had two other blenders, for some reason, and I darn well wasn't going to add to the general clutter of my pantry or the earth by purchasing another single function appliance. Especially not for $500.

Then, for Mother's Day, I received a Vitamix. And let me tell you, I put it right up there on my list of life changers. My husband. My son. Glee. Actually maybe higher than Glee.

I needn't have worried about it being a one-trick pony: in the week since I have had it, I have made soup, sauce, smoothies, pancakes, slushies, milkshakes -- and we were even gone half of the week. It was particularly good timing, as my son is losing his first tooth, as he will tell you often, and can't eat.

For those uninitiated, the Vitamix, well, here's what they say about themselves, which as a journalist is lazy but I would just like to get on with the recipe: "The Vitamix machine is not a blender or a juice extractor. It's so much more. The surgical stainless steel blades rotate at 240 miles per hour, pulverizing whole foods down to the cellular level. Valuable nutrients locked inside the pulp, skins and seeds of fruits and vegetables cannot be absorbed because the phytonutrients are trapped within plant cells which need to be ruptured. The Vitamix machine ruptures the cell walls of fresh, whole foods to make these phytonutrients more bio-available."

More bio-available? Can't argue with that.

Raw Thai Ginger "Noodles"

4 medium zucchini

1/2 cup chopped cilantro

1 cup chopped mint

1/2 bunch of spring onion

For dressing:

1/2 cup coconut, rice or cider vinegar

1 teaspoon sesame oil

2 Tablespoons Tamari or soy sauce

1 knob Thai ginger, or galangal, peeled

3 stalks lemongrass, bulbs and 2 inches of stalk

3 cloves garlic, peeled

1/2 lemon

salt to taste

Galangal, or as I found it, Thai ginger, is not the same as actual ginger, though it does come in a root similarly. It has a pleasant, pine aroma and its aftertaste is far hotter than ginger, though its actual flavor is more mild. I can't imagine how I would have dealt with it without the Vitamix, but am nearly sure it would have drawn blood.

Julienne the zucchini into "noodles" and combine with chopped spring onion and herbs. Put dressing ingredients into Vitamix and pulverize. If the sauce is too thick, thin with more vinegar. Toss together.

Garnish with sesame seeds, if desired.

Enjoy!

Kitchen Reform tip 14: OZ

2011-05-16T12:19:00.000-07:00

The weather is as fickle as an old Dutchess, fragile and foggy one morning, cheerful and sunny another, blowing 100 knots the next. You never know what you'll find in the backyard. Easter Eggs! Iris!
Fox cubs!

there are five!

But it is colorful. The spirea, digging the warmth, is so drenched in white blossoms it is in a perpetual sun salutation. The dogwood have shed their ivory canopy all over the front walk, making coming home a celebration.

I am having third spring today. My first was in London in March, where we came from dingy grey Virginia to an explosion of daffodils, green pastures and cherry trees so vivid I felt like Dorothy waking in the land of OZ. The second, in Virginia, came in fits and bits, the crabapples reminding us to open up the windows with its strong, pink scent, the asparagus growing three feet over night, so fast we couldn't eat them all.

And now here I am up north, the daffodils just coming up for the show, the sun becoming more confident, the wind still whipping waves and flags. It has been so wet everywhere there are whole roads washed out, as if the gravel had a race to the lake.

You are like the spring fairy, said a friend last night, when I told him this was my third spring in as many months. Why didn't you come sooner? quipped another.

And it is true; we crave color. Our lives were not meant to be lived in black and white. When we look at old photos, we somehow think of a drabber time, not as much fun as we have now. It can't possibly be true -- I knew my grandparents long enough to know their lives were plenty lively. But black and white makes everything austere, serious.

Even food.

Beet Salad with coriander dressing and roast pine nuts

Boil beets. Sprinkle with cheese, toasted nuts and dressing.

Enjoy!

Morels!

2011-05-09T05:47:00.000-07:00

Again, the lure of the hunt. It's a bit like a mystery, piecing together the why of where you find them. How sunny? Which side of the tree? Under leaf cover, or bare ground? It's an addictive game, with the treasure being edible gold.

This time, a mountain road, a friend's new property. They haven't even built their house yet, but now we know that every year, around this time, we can wander up into the woods and, in the leaves rustling at the bottom of the tall poplars, sprouting from the lush ferment of the dead elms, we will find them.

It's just possible the season is over, and that is a mixed blessing. I won't spend my time foraging in the wood, and will get back to my house, and my desk, and the laundry that is threatening to over take the bathroom.

In the minus column, I won't spend time foraging in the wood. Losing my self in the zen of their trail, wandering from tree to tree my eyes on the ground, until one leaf looks like another, until the sun dappled forest floor dizzies me like a kaleidoscope. I won't keep my child up to all hours as we cook up the morels and eat them over pasta, over asparagus, drenched in ghee and olive oil.

Until next year.

Spring Suprise

2011-04-27T19:27:00.000-07:00

"You have to be humble. Confident, but not cocky. You cannot expect to find them or they will not reveal themselves," says my friend Amy, as we plow up a hillside of thicket, after sliding through a muddy creek, slipping through a barbed wire fence, and climbing over fallen trees wider than we could straddle. Our pants are tucked in our socks against ticks and poison ivy, we grasp knives and paper lunch bags.

She is talking about mushrooms. We are mothers, writers, gardeners and daughters. But today, we are singing to the morels, hoping for a glimpse.

I cannot tell you where we were. We swore each other to secrecy. I can only tell you, there was a stand of poplar, and fragrant spicebush in the under story. Poison ivy, spring beauty, dead elms, may apple and fiddle heads are other clues. Oh, and an east facing slope, with a good shade canopy. Too rocky, or too much dead wood is a non-starter. As we climbed Amy sang -- "Morels, reveal your selves...."

It was a labor of love for two of us, and for me, a journalistic opportunity. But it didn't stay that way for long. As we trudged through the mud, spotting one morel, then another (they appear in twos, as if finding one makes you worthy to find another. Boy, was I drinking the Kool Aid). I began to crave sighting the small, fragile, brainlike fungus. We left reluctantly that day, hoping that the mother lode was just coming in. Plus, the mother in us was needed -- it was school pick up time.

Can you see it?

So we went home with our mushrooms. I cooked them, with asparagus from my garden, salt and fresh butter. I was positively besotted. I don't use that word lightly.

When we were on our honeymoon, we drove from the Amalfi Coast, in Italy, to Umbria, arriving at our hotel just before midnight. (One cannot, after all, drive by the sea without climbing into it). They served us dinner in a marble courtyard lined with olive trees, and despite the fact that it was Italy, we were all alone due to the time. In the candlelight we ordered dinner, and when it came there was a predominant taste I struggled to identify.

Over the next few days I found out it was truffle. In the vegetables, on the meat, in eggs, cheese, even gelato. Everything that said tartufi, I ordered. On our last weekend, we dined at Taverna del Lupo, in Gubbio, because we had heard everything was infused with truffle. When we came back, I was desperate for it. So desperate we flew to the restaurant Sistina, in New York, near my parents apartment, because I knew they had the whole truffle to shave over my pasta.

But nothing quite measured up to those local truffles. Until these morels.

the bigfoot morel

After that dinner I started thinking about the hillside. About the delicate mushrooms poking themselves through the leaf blanket. Later that night it rained, and I wondered if they enjoyed it or not. I dreamt about their earthy taste, sauteed in butter.

Morels sauteed in butter

one tablespoon butter
one dozen small morels
one garlic, peeled and sliced
slivered parmesan cheese
sea salt

Heat butter in skillet. add salt to sizzle. toast garlic until softening and golden. Add morels and stir two minutes -- then off the heat.

Boil the asparagus until tender, about ten minutes depending on the thickness of it -- test doneness by poking with a knife -- it should give softly.

Pour morels and butter over asparagus.

Prepare to swoon.

Sante.

Tip 13: Drink your veggies, part 2

2011-04-26T09:46:00.000-07:00

Maybe green drinks aren't your thing, or you just can't give up eggs -- it's all good. But if you like the idea of pre-pulverized veggies down the hatch, there's another way.

Soup.

Soup is good food. Whether you heard it from Campbell's or the Dead Kennedy's first, you heard it here. Cooking vegetables into soup retains more nutrients than baking or sauteeing, and if you puree them, you're helping your body to digest more of them as well.

There is something about drinking soup that is healing. And there is something about making soup that is calming too -- first, you can use all the odds and ends in your fridge up; second, you can make it while you are doing other things; third, it makes your house smell like a home; fourth, it is just plain tasty. Satisfying but not weighty. Healthy, but not austere.

There is a soup for all seasons, and this one is perfect for warm days that turn cool at night, for the time of year you want to shed the hibernating ways but still crave an extra dose of comfort. Carrots provide an of the charts dose of vitamin A, night vision enhancing beta-carotene and help regulate blood sugar. Tests show that a diet containing as little as one carrot a day can cut the rate of lung cancer in half.

Combine them with curry, celeriac for an anchoring smoothness and ginger for kick, and this is a spring palate in a bowl. Ginger gives it an anti-inflammatory benefit, while aiding digestion. Garlic is a natural antibiotic. Top the whole thing with mint -- another tummy soother -- and you've got a dish beautiful enough for a black tie luncheon date with Bugs Bunny.

Sound too good to be true?

Wait until you taste it.

Curried Carrot Soup

2 Tablespoons grapeseed oil or olive oil
1 lb carrots, preferably organic
1 head of garlic, peeled
1 small onion, peeled and rough chopped
1/2 celeriac root, peeled and rough chopped
1 2-inch knob of ginger, peeled
4 cups vegetable broth
1 tablespoon curry powder
1 teaspoon cornstarch
coarse salt

Heat oil in heavy stock pan over medium high heat. Add garlic and onions and saute until translucent and beginning to soften. Add a pinch of salt and the curry powder (my favorite is Dean and Deluca blend, I buy it by the tub full). Stir to combine then add ginger, celeriac and carrots, cornstarch and stir again. Roast about 4 minutes to sweat the vegetables and ignite the curry. Add vegetable broth and water if needed to cover vegetables.

Simmer gently until vegetables are soft, then use an immersion blender or food processor to puree. Season to taste with salt and pepper, if you wish, and top with chopped mint.

Enjoy!

Kitchen Reform Week 12: Drink Your Veggies

2011-04-20T09:37:00.000-07:00

We are a nation of carnivores. And corn-ivores -- being that much of the diet we exist on (snack foods, colas, sweets) is derived somehow from corn.

I have news for you, however: corn that has been smashed into syrup doesn't count as a vegetable. Besides, there's more than corn in High Fructose Corn Syrup (so ubiquitous we've given it a monogram, HFCS): Yellow Dent #2, a corn that yields a lot of starch, sulphuric acid (a corrosive whose principle uses are lead-acid batteries for cars, mineral and wastewater processing), and three ingredients that end in -ase and come in bottles with large Xs on them. I found this out by watching a couple of dudes try to make it at home: check it out.

HFCS is not our BFF.

The statistics on consumption of fruits and vegetables in this country are astounding. Less than a third of us are eating fruit daily, and that has actually decreased in this century. And only about a quarter of us eat vegetables daily. New England, Florida, the West Coast and Colorado top the list -- but that means that upwards of 15 % of the population consume fruits and veg. In Oklahoma, Mississippi, Alabama and South Carolina less than 5 % of people consume fruits and veg daily. The rest fall somewhere in the middle. That means 10-14% of people are eating F&V daily. This can only end poorly, with a crushing health care crisis our children will have to clean up -- that is, if they aren't too sick themselves.

So if there is one thing you can do today to up your health quotient, it is eat more vegetables. Better yet, drink them.

Green drinks are simply the best way to get the nutrients without the work of digestion, the calories used to prepare them, and the time it takes to eat them. Zip 'em in a blender, down them and go. You can tailor them to your energy needs, your mood, the weather -- your options are endless.

The basic recipe for a smoothie includes protein, fruit (for sweetness), vegetable, nutrient additives, liquid and ice, if you wish -- just a handful of cubes can really thicken it up. Here are a few of my favorite ingredients for smoothies:

Vegetables: Ginger, spinach, cucumber, fennel, kale (not too much, it can be stringy) (about two cups)

Nutrient additives: maca powder (no more than 1 Tablespoon a day), ginseng (a few drops), hemp seed, (about a teaspoon), cinnamon, chia seeds, raw cocoa powder, nutmeg, honey, agave.

Liquids: almond milk, coconut water, tap water. (about a cup total)

Fruits: Whole if you have a blender that can take it, like a Vita-Mix; I do not so I chunk and freeze fruit to make the smoothie thick and creamy. Frozen banana chunks, frozen pear chunks, frozen pineapple chunks, any berries or melon. Anything goes. (about a 1/2 cup serving)

Fats: Avocado, almond butter, hemp -- and the last two also add protein.

I also sometimes cheat and use prepared powders to add protein and vegetables, my favorite for protein is Wegmans vanilla whey powder, and the green powder I like now is Amazing Grass.

So do anything you like with it -- here's what I do in the mornings, more or less.

Green Breakfast Smoothie

1 cup almond milk
2 handfuls baby spinach
1 knob ginger root, peeled
squirt of ginseng
fennel, about 1/3 of a bulb
cucumber, a few inches
scoop green powder
scoop whey powder
1 teaspoon hemp seed
1/2 banana frozen
1 cup water
6 ice cubes

Blend until smooth. Serves two.

If you don't want green, skip the powder and the spinach, add a frozen mango and go with the vanilla shake. Or a chocolate (which is my lunch, so excuse me while I go make it.)

Sante!

Poached Cauliflower

2011-04-19T06:11:00.000-07:00

So halfway through this mini-cleanse and I have to say, it's really a breeze. Lots of water with lemon, miso and fruit when desperate; brown rice cooked with vegetable broth for body and veggies. Mounds of veggies. Steamed, for the most part, but tonight I got out a cauliflower, and it was just lovely. White as the caps of waves, and with just as much lovely texture.

Its beauty seduced me. I decided to cheat, just a little bit. After all, today I went to a luncheon and sat for two hours eating only a glass of water, two slices of steamed zucchini, and a leaf of lettuce. That is to say, all the food in three courses that was not either breaded or sauced. (Disclaimer: it was fun. Had it been a snoozer I would have been eating my own arm. Or the pound cake.)

It just reminds me how utterly hard it is to eat completely clean, unless you are at home with total control of your own menu destiny. A bit of oil for sauteeing, a pinch of sugar to mask tartness, a smidge of butter for finishing -- these add up. Mostly on our hearts, and our hips.

Anyway, when I got home I was ravenous. So I set to making a feast that would stay within my bounds -- a clean feast. I cooked brown rice (I love the Lundberg Farms short grain organic brown rice) in vegetable broth, adding water when the pot dried up before the rice was done. The result was a nutty, fat kernel that stuck close to its buddies for a dense spoonful. And for the cauliflower, well, steaming seemed a little boring. Granted, the cauliflower is a complacent vegetable. Which is not to say it can't be coaxed, dressed up into a silky swirl. But it is also happy to sit plainly on the couch. It doesn't mind a bit what people think of it -- I guess it's the years of being underrated and misunderstood. I, however, wasn't brooking boring. Not today.

I know, I know. It's supposed to be austere. I stink at this. But listen. It's not so bad as you think.

I didn't saute. I didn't even reach for the spray oil. Instead, I poached the cauliflower in vegetable broth and a wee pinch of curry. I added a handful of peeled garlic cloves, which I mashed when soft to bind the cauliflower. For salt I substituted lemon zest.

So I live to notch another day CLEAN -- though I will totally make this when not. And the whole family ate it, which means it gets bonus points.

Poached Cauliflower

One head of cauliflower, separated
1 cup vegetable broth
dash of curry
dash of lemon zest
handful of peeled garlic cloves

In a small stock pan, combine broth and curry; whisk to mix well. Add cauliflower and garlic. Simmer over low heat until cauliflower falls apart, about 30 minutes. Garlic will be smooth enough to smash with the back of a spoon; do so. Stir lemon zest into smashed garlic and cauliflower, which should cause it to fall to bits.

Serve over brown rice with bits of fresh pineapple, making your plate oddly yellow in its entirety. For taste as well as zip, if you like, a spoonful of plain yogurt and a sprinkle of cilantro wouldn't be amiss. Nor would a few cashews, though I can't put as much as a toe on that slippery slope.

Sante.

Tip Eleven: Go with your Gut

2011-04-13T07:03:00.000-07:00

This week, my child's school is having "No TV Week." Each child that eschews the electronic monster, writes a statement to that effect and turns it into the powers that be will get an ice cream cone.
My child doesn't watch TV during the week anyway (he has boundary issues, so we just don't deal with it), so for him this is a no-brainer. I'd love it if it the reward were something more healthy, but I guess carrots might not incite the same level of participation.

But it got me thinking. We've been concentrating here on adding -- fish, water, vegetables, what have you -- and yet being virtuous nearly always means you have to give something up. And generally something you care deeply about.

For me this would be cashews. I've admitted that before. And lately I've taken to roasting them with Macadamia nuts and walnuts, which makes them three times as addictive. But cashews aren't technically bad for you -- just not so easy to digest. Then I thought -- a whole week of easy on the tummy. How would that look? So I am going to give up meat this week. And sugar, which I am stretching to involve dairy, and wine.

This will be a week of whole foods, water and rest. Green smoothies for breakfast. Salads and soups for later. And at the end, I will get an ice cream cone. Just kidding. (Though I am going to a camp out and steak dinner this weekend. By then, I either shouldn't care too much about meat, or I will eat a whole cow solo. I'll let you know.)

For now, though, this tasted good. I substituted thick, juicy chunks of pineapple for meat over a base of watercress and arugula, chip chopped vegetables (asparagus, cucumber, tomato) and herbs (mint, cilantro), and squirted it with tangerine-fig balsamic, which was syrupy smooth without the added sugar of dressing. Vinegar also has the benefit of aiding in digestion -- its acid binds to toxins and help eliminate them more efficiently.

Happy Monday, gut.

Salmon and Socca

2011-04-11T08:42:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, just as I was thinking that I was totally uninspired to make dinner, I got a call from a friend asking for chickpea flour.

I just happened to have some.

Socca, she said. Have you made it?

And why else would I have chickpea flour?

Socca is a pancake, nutty, thicker than a crepe and yet somehow more delicate. Gluten free, egg free, dairy free, it is an allergists dream. It's also easy, once you have the chickpea flour, and quick. The batter is more forgiving than crepe batter, and the pancake -- it's traditional street food in Southern France and Italy -- meant to be cut in triangles and eaten scattered with pepper.

As someone who rarely gets pasta, or bread, or a pizza, however, I tend to use food of this nature as a conveyance. It's highly personal. When I first read a recipe for it, by Mark Bittman, I topped it with everything. Shrimp, rosemary, a drizzle of walnut oil...my tastebuds remembered.

I just happened to have some leftover salmon, and made a bit of saag with broccoli rabe and spinach. It all married quite well. In fact, it marched down the aisle on its own.

Socca

1 cup chickpea flour
1 cup water
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper

Mix ingredients and let sit at least 30 minutes. Heat a griddle or medium skillet until hot and swipe with ghee or butter. Pour in a half cup of batter and swirl until it covers the bottom, pouring out the excess. Cook over medium high heat until light gold, about 3 minutes, then flip and brown the other side. Keep warm until done. Load with salmon, tomato and asparagus, drizzle with sea salt and asparagus and broil for five minutes, until warm.

Or, cut in triangles and dip into green saag, below.

Green Saag

4 cloves of garlic, peeled
2 inch knob of ginger. peeled
1 bunch broccoli rabe
2 handfuls of spinach
sea salt
olive oil

Finely chop garlic and ginger in a food processor and set aside. Boil water with salt sprinkled in, add broccoli rabe and boil two minutes. Add spinach and wilt an additional 30 seconds. Drain in a colander and then process in food processor. Heat a tablespoon of oil and saute ginger and garlic until limp. Add the processed broccoli rabe and spinach and stir until heated through. Serve warm.

Enjoy!

Tip Ten: Go Fish

2011-04-05T08:06:00.000-07:00

As the fields green up, there's an accompanying feeling of lightening. Moods, attitudes, and schedules stretch out their kinks and flex to accommodate a smile, or a bike ride instead of a nap.

For me, that has somewhat mystifyingly left me at odds with my usual diet. I eschew meat in favor of an orange, or asparagus. I load up on apples and cashews for snacks. I reach for Vino Verde, or Pellegrino, instead of Cabernet.

Fish jumps into this gap nicely. While it may be lighter it is a solid healthy choice, for fish is also loaded with omega-3 fatty acids, now the poster child for good fats.

According to a study from the Mayo Clinic: "Omega-3 fatty acids may decrease triglycerides, lower blood pressure, reduce blood clotting, boost immunity and improve arthritis symptoms, and in children may improve learning ability. Eating one to two servings a week of fish, particularly fish that's rich in omega-3 fatty acids, appears to reduce the risk of heart disease, particularly sudden cardiac death."

Fatty fish, such as salmon, tuna and herring, seem to have the highest amounts of omega-3s. Saltwater fish in general have higher levels than freshwater fish, but some varieties of trout have relatively high levels as well. Wild fish have been shown to have higher levels of healthy Omega-3s than farmed fish, which have been shown to have higher levels of pro-inflammatory omega-6 fats.

It's not just heart health that benefits. By strengthening insulin sensitivity, omega 3 fatty acids can decrease belly fat and build muscle, which in turn burns more calories. The US Army is currently studying whether supplementing soldiers' diets with fish oil capsules will improve their health, cognitive function and mood.

Of course, there is a downside to eating fish: industrial pollution in oceans, lakes and streams can infiltrate their food, causing toxins such as mercury, dioxins and PCBs to build up in the fish. The toxins are heat-stable, which means that no amount of cooking can decrease levels of toxicity. In fact, some preparations, such as frying, can make fish unhealthy.

To reap the benefits without the troubles, choose wild fish, when you can. And if you can't get fresh, well, don't fret. My friend Sharon, a writer, motorcycle mama and one of the most holistic people I know, once opened a can of salmon when a bunch of us were at her apartment talking writing. She mashed it with lemon and a dollop of mayonnaise, then hit it with salt and pepper. We ate it with forks. I recently opened a can of Whole Foods brand wild red Alaskan salmon, and it was delicious -- rich, oily and not at all fishy. It was a great counterpoint to a citrusy salad, an easy lunch.

Canned salmon with arugula and red pepper

1/2 can wild salmon
1 T rice vinegar
wasabi (if you can't get fresh, load up on packets that come with sushi -- just one is generally enough to spice a dressing)
2 T orange juice
two handfuls of arugula
1/2 a red pepper
sea salt

Thinly slice red pepper and put over arugula on a plate. Toss OJ, wasabi and vinegar, add a sprinkle of brown sugar if you prefer sweet to tart. Add salmon to plate and douse all with dressing, season with salt to taste.

Enjoy!

Tip Nine: Try Something New

2011-03-29T17:28:00.000-07:00

We have been on Spring Break, which is laughable. Spring my eye. It's Almost Spring, a condition akin to unbearable. Bones are still cold, though days are not so much. It is supposed to snow tomorrow. One more dreary day, you think, and I'll lose it.

Don't.

This week, do something different. Try a new cuisine, a new ingredient, go a different way home from work. Stop at that exotic shop you've been wanting to check out, but always find an excuse not to. If your brain says "I've got to get home, to feed the kids, to go to the grocery" -- well, take them with you.

Let them eat sushi.

For the next few weeks, I'll be offering up a few out-of-the-ordinary tidbits, like this raw veggie Pad Thai that really gives a taste of spring. I had this in London, at Daylesford Organic in Notting Hill, a temple for real foodies if ever there was (more on the British Farm-to-Fork movement in future). They would not share the recipe so I've devised this one, and I think it's pretty good. I did, however, make it a night when my husband was away, lest it bombed, but now I am glad, for I ate most of the bowl.

Please let me know what you discover.

Vegetable Pad Thai

Inspired by Daylesford Organic

Noodles
2 zucchini
3 carrots, peeled

Sauce
1 knob ginger
1 tablespoon tamari
1 tablespoon chili garlic
1 teaspoon fish sauce
1 tablespoon tahini
juice of half lime

To assemble
1 bunch green onions, sliced
1/2 cup fresh chopped cilantro
1/4 cup fresh chopped mint
1 Tablespoon sesame seeds
optional: red pepper, roasted cashews

Using a carrot peeler or a grater or a mandoline, make the zucchini into "noodles."

In a small chopper, mince ginger, add rest of ingredients and whiz. Pour over "noodles," add minced herbs and sesame seeds. Refrigerate until ready to serve; a few hours will meld the flavors and wilt the "noodles" so they are more noodly, but you can only do what you can do.

Garnish with cashews and slivered red pepper, plus additional cilantro and sesame seeds, if you wish, to serve.

Enjoy!

Tip Eight: Eat Your Fat

2011-03-10T06:52:00.000-08:00

The news on fat is confusing. We're supposed to cut down on "unhealthy" fats, but "healthy" fats are ok.

In the "fat is good" category we hear that fat is necessary as a source of energy, crucial in the absorption of vitamins and body and brain development. (National Institutes of Health) In the "fat is bad" category, we hear that fat can make you fat, and saturated fat in particular can increase cancer and provoke heart disease. There has been stunningly little actual scientific backup to this, and in fact, historically, reducing fat in the American diet via prior Dietary Guidelines has correlated with Americans becoming fatter and more unhealthy. Studies such as the long-running Framingham Heart Study find no correlation between dietary fat and heart disease, similarly between dietary cholesterol and higher cholesterol.

To further complicate the matter, all fat is not created equal (except in calories -- a tablespoon of fat equals about 100 calories, be it butter or olive oil). Saturated fat, from meat and dairy products, solidifies when cold and is tainted with artery-clogging charges: the new US Dietary Guidelines recommend limiting intake to 7 percent of daily fat allowance. A 2010 Harvard study shows that by 19 percent, one of the few.replacing saturated fat with mono- or polyunsaturated fat decreased risk of coronary heart disease. Monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, from olive oil, avocados, nuts, seeds such as flaxseed and fatty fishes, are liquid even at low temperatures.

The really bad boy of fat is the Trans Fat, man-manipulated partially hydrogenated fatty acids that are estimated to be 70 percent of the fats that America eats -- mostly in fast food. Studies in the New England Journal of Medicine, among others, show trans fat consumption to increase risk of coronary heart disease; a recent Spanish study linked increased trans fat consumption (the average Spaniard partakes of .04 percent trans fats in a daily diet, the average in America is 2.5 percent) to depression. Trans fats do occur sparingly in red meat and dairy, but don't seem to be harmful like the engineered variety.

The bottom line: eat fat. Not too much. Make it from natural sources. But not too little; reducing fat intake can lead to lethargy, dull skin and weight gain.

Everyone has their own threshold -- you alone can gauge yours. I eat cashews by the handful, and add toasted walnuts and pine nuts to salads and wilted greens. I fry eggs in a little butter or coconut oil (1/2 teaspoon), add avocados to salads and smoothies, try to make fish twice a week. While I don't use olive oil to saute (I'll get into smoke points and healthy cooking with oils in the future) -- I do use it to thicken salad dressings, and coat vegetables to be braised or roasted at low temps. I love to add flax seed oil to cilantro and walnuts for a dressing. We eat full fat local dairy products, but not to excess. Find your balance.

Just make sure it's real food.

Roasted Cashews

1/2 lb. raw cashews
spray can of grapeseed oil
sea salt
rosemary or other dried herb, optional

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Spray a baking sheet with oil, spread cashews out and mist again with the grapeseed oil. Roast at 350 degrees for 12 minutes. Cashews will be golden brown, darker where they lay on the baking sheet. Pull from oven and sprinkle with sea salt and herb, if desired. Toss on baking sheet and allow to cool before eating to regain their crunch.


Healthy Addiction? My jar of cashews, mostly gone...

Enjoy!

Tip Seven: Go Green with Cleaners

2011-03-01T05:32:00.000-08:00

It doesn't do any good to buy superlative organic produce, or grow your own, if you're going to bring them into the kitchen and dose them with toxins from your cleaning supplies. Which of course you would not do on purpose, but can occur when food and utensils and countertops are co-existing in a kitchen.

When we eat food dosed with toxins, you know what happens.

You are what you eat.

And it's not just our food, but our air that can be contaminated by household cleaners. EPA studies show we spend 90 percent of our time indoors, yet concentrations of many volatile organic compounds are up to ten times higher indoors than out -- and even low levels of toxins in common household products can contribute to health conditions from allergies and asthma to birth defects and learning disorders.

Green cleaning solutions are easy and -- unlike many sustainable practices -- much, much cheaper than the conventional products. Baking soda, which is alkaline, is a cheap and versatile cleaner, as is vinegar, an acid that can dissolve dirt and gummy buildup to be wiped away.

Here are some ideas to get you started:

- a friend in New Zealand advises using hot water, half cup vinegar and dash of commercial detergent for bubbles to clean the floors. She recommends the book Just Add Vinegar for more green clean solutions, which is not available here, but I did find Vinegar, 400 Uses You Never Thought Of, by Vicki Lansky, who also penned Baking Soda, 500 Uses You Never Thought Of.

- stick your sponge in a pan of boiling water or run it through a dishwasing cycle every now and again. This zaps germs, so you're not just smearing them back on your food.

- clean your countertops with a 1:3 solution of vinegar and water; for buildup try sprinkling a little baking soda first to remove grit. Try adding 20-30 drops of an antibacterial essential oil, such as lemon, peppermint or eucalyptus, to cut the vinegar tang. Also does windows, though my Latino friend says they use newspapers to shine glass, backed up by a 1:1 solution of vinegar and water for tough grime.

- pour baking soda down a clogged drain, followed by boiling water, to clear.

- sprinkle baking soda on carpet and vacuum up to deodorize.

- make a thick paste of baking soda and water and spread in the bottom of the oven. Keep damp with a spray bottle of water, let sit over night. The next day, scrape up the baking soda crust and the oven grime comes with it.

-take your shoes off when you come into your home. Stop the dirt, germs, chemicals and grime before they are carried around your house. [PS -- this one is FREE!]

-soak vegetables and fruits in water then scrub with a vegetable brush to remove any chemicals used in packaging or transport. [Also FREE!]

If you're not into do-it-yourself cleaners, there are a lot of products claiming to be environmentally friendly on the shelves now. My friends and I love Mrs. Meyer's countertop spray -- and there's a fragrance for every mood. Method is a brand that is easy to find, though it is not as subtly scented,

The EPA has a program called Design for the Environment which is working to remove chemicals of concern, succeeding in reducing hundreds of millions of pounds of chemicals of concern each year. Their label, below, certifies a reviewed product.

Jaime's salad

2011-02-21T10:57:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine recently lent me Jaime Oliver's "Jaime's Dinners," and I am pretty sure I could have dinner with him every night. His sensibility is much like mine, in that healthy, fresh ingredients are the centerpiece, but as to what you do with them: anything goes. He follows a heady spinach cannelloni with an exotic laska, or coconut milk stew. He creates dinners in five minutes, for those who just have a jiff, or luxuriates in the hours it takes to braise tender chicken. He campaigns for healthy, delicious school lunches.

And he treats vegetables like individual primadonnas, accentuating their positives, masking their negatives and extolling their originality and overall worthiness. Take for instance, a dish he calls Keralan salad, though he acknowledges monkeying with it so considerably one might never actually find in in Kerala (which is in India). I further monkeyed with it considerably (I swear I bought the coconut, but couldn't for the life of me get it to shred properly, so ended up tossing on some frozen, and much less than he), though I hope he would still like it. I know we did.

Monkey Salad on Sesame Pan Fried Salmon
Serves 2-3
adapted from Jaime's Dinners

salad
2 red peppers
1 ripe mango
bunch cress, about 2 cups
1/4 cup shredded unsweetened coconut
1/2 cup fresh cilantro leaves

Cut the pepper into quarters, seed and slice thinly. Slice the mango into like thin slices. arrange on cress and top with coconut and cilantro.

dressing

ginger, about 2 tablespoons grated
zest and juice of 2 limes
3 teaspoons olive oil
pinch of sea salt
1 teaspoon rice vinegar

Chop the ginger and zest in a small mini-chopper, add rest of the ingredients and whiz to creamy.

salmon
about 1 pound of salmon filets
sea salt
sesame oil

Heat a half inch of sesame oil in a non-reactive skillet and sprinkle in a pinch of salt. When salt sputters, put the salmon in the pan, skin side down. Saute for two minutes, flip and remove skin. When salmon is desired doneness (about 7 minutes for pink), remove from pan.

To serve:

Toss salad with dressing. Put a salmon filet on each plate and top with salad.

Sante.

Blood Orange salad with Pistachios and Pomegranate

2011-02-18T17:46:00.000-08:00

Pomegranates are good for the soul. An iconic fruit, they flourished in the garden of Eden and symbolized fruitfulness to Greek and Turkish cultures, and are traditional at Rosh Hashanah.

The ancients thought pomegranate to have healthful properties, and small scale studies have backed that up in the areas of heart disease (the enzymes in the fruit are thought to protect LDL, the bad cholesterol, from breaking down, a process accelerating the formation of the plaque blocking the arteries and leading to heart disease)and prostate cancer. A half cup serving of pomegranate has just 80 calories and is high in vitamin C. Eating the seeds whole provides valuable dietary fiber.

Whether or not this is true, the pomegranate is delicious. In season, which in the Northeern hemisphere is from November to February, I hoard them for decorations, and keep a jar of the peeled seeds in the fridge to sprinkle on salads and yogurt. Out of season, the juice is good for spritzers and champagne cocktails; grenadine syrup, a component of the infamous children's libation Shirley Temple, is sweetened reduced pomegranate juice. Researching this article I came across a recommendation to freeze them for easier peeling; I wonder about keeping a few in the freezer to see if I can extend the season.

In this recipe, the sweet juice is reduced into a syrup with balsamic vinegar, a sweet tart that firmly anchors crunchy fennel, fresh arugula and tangy blood orange, with a sprinkle of pistachio as a bonus crunch.

Its one of those win-win dishes your grandmother used to tout: good and good for you, but definitely not your grandmother's salad. Try it with a heavy meat dish, like the lamb stew I served it with, short ribs or an Osso bucco.

Blood Orange Salad with Pistachios and Pomegranate Reduction

Serves 4-6

4 cups frissee, torn
1 fennel bulb sliced thin
2 blood or naval oranges, peel cut off and cut into thin slices across the pith
1 avocado, peeled and sliced thin
1/2 cup shelled pistachios
1 cup pomegranate juice
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar

Simmer pomegranate juice until reduced to 1/2 cup; add balsamic and reduce further, to half cup. Let cool.

Mound a cup of arugula on a salad plate and arrange sliced fennel, oranges and avocados. Drizzle with the reduction. Sprinkle with pistachios.

Sante.

Kitchen Reform, Tip six: Vegetable Matters

2011-02-16T08:12:00.000-08:00

In my experience, it is far easier to add than subtract. The simple act of withholding makes the forbidden instantly sexy: your mind focuses in, building it into a thing far greater than it ever was.

So instead of less as a nutritional strategy, focus on more. This week? At the risk of equating Johnny Depp (or Julianne Moore, depending on how you swing) to produce -- vegetables.

Better educated people than me have advised you to eat more vegetables. Your MD. Michael Pollan. Your mother.

And they are right. Researchers have linked increased vegetable consumption with decreased rates of high blood pressure, cardiovascular and coronary heart disease. Specific components of vegetables are thought to protect against certain kinds of cancers, vision, and even boost gastrointestinal health. [Source: Harvard School of Public Health]

But did they add that they should be the best quality you can manage? Local, organic, at the very least fresh, or frozen fresh -- that is the hierarchy to follow. And if you want to keep that cost-efficient, look at what is currently in season. Some vegetables, like mushrooms, are cultivated year-round and can be a good way to bust the winter rut. Luckily, the vegetables researchers advocate as most healthy (though with the exception of the unlucky potato, the consensus is pretty much all of them are beneficial), green leafies such as spinach and Swiss chard, and cruciferous veggies like broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage and Brussels sprouts, are now widely available year-round.

The 2010 dietary guidelines suggest 2-3 servings of vegetables a day; Harvard's School of Public Health agrees, counting a serving equal to one cup, the exception being leafy greens, which generally take 2 cups to get the nutritional value of a serving. Don't raise your hand to order French fries just yet; potatoes are an exception. Due to their high starch content they should be used sparingly. And try not to add too much to your vegetables when you prepare them; the closer they are to their real state the more healthy they are.

There are lots of strategies for fitting in more vegetables. I have one friend who has had many health challenges thrown at her, and she likes to pre-load the plate with vegetables, treating meat and or starch as sides. Another pal, who grew up in Panama, creates salads with nary a leafy green in sight from lovely combinations of colors, and tops them sparingly with cheese. We add a salad to most meals, and when it is left over I put it in a bowl in the fridge to pull out for lunch or snack the next day.

We've added a lot of really simple vegetable recipes here in the past you can revisit: like cauliflower puree, roasted toasted Brussels sprouts, and frissee salad with lardons. I'll post a few ideas to get you started this week, and we'll spotlight them in months to come.

Sante!

Apple Puzzle

2011-02-12T07:42:00.000-08:00

There's no puzzle about what is the best treat for your sweet tooth: real fruit!

But getting kids to choose fruit over the myriad other sweet temptations can be tricky. Here's a sneaky way to make an apple fun, and keep it fresh in a lunch box to boot!

Apples turn brown when they are cut because the enzymes and iron phenols in the fruit oxidize when exposed to air, basically causing the surface of the fruit to "rust." It's a protective mechanism against pests and pathogens, but doesn't really change the taste of the fruit. It's not very pleasing however, and while immersing the fruit (potatoes, bananas and pears, to name a few, are also prone to this "enzymatic bruising") in water or lemon will retard the effect, they can also make the fruit less pleasant to eat.

Try this at home!

take a clean apple

make a cut straight across, next to the core

make the same cut

on each side

of the apple

the pieces will look like this

gather them back up to reform the apple

secure with a rubber band

Voila! No oxidation!

Sante.

House-made Cherry Yogurt: TEN TIMES less added sugar!! *

2011-02-08T08:22:00.000-08:00

*Disclaimer: This recipe makes grown women smack their lips and run their fingers around the lip of the jar for the last slurp. Kids can down an enitre jar before breakfast.

After dissing the national brands' cherry yogurt, I felt I had to offer a palatable alternative. I had some frozen cherries from our spring harvest in the freezer and raw milk from the cow down the road. Pie cherries are tough without adding sugar -- they're tart right from the tree, yet ours are rather a hybrid. They have a pleasant tartness to them, without being downright sour. As for the milk, the dairyman breeds both Jersey (for their exemplary sweet cream) and Holstein (who are high producers) and mixes the milk to a quite satisfactory end. Add a little local honey, and I was in business.

Let's be clear, I have no idea the sugar and fat content of this yogurt -- those Jersey's blow the fat content out of the park -- I can attest, however, that there is little added sugar. I added Erythritol, a sugar naturally occurring in plants, that has no calories and no bitter aftertaste, to the cherries while cooking, and just two tablespoons of honey to the milk to sweeten the plain yogurt base. I cannot, however, claim it is organic, because I just don't know. With the exception of the plain yogurt, I can however tell you that the ingredients are from a 5-mile radius. Next time, when I have some of my yogurt to add as culture, it will be truly local.

You can make this, though, with frozen store-bought cherries and organic milk. Or any fruit you like. You don't even need organic milk. The point is, this is great tasting yogurt with VERY LITTLE added sugar. Two tablespoons, for 48 ounces of yogurt, or 1.5 grams per six ounces of yogurt. That is ten times less added sugar than the store-bought brands.

You also do not need a yogurt maker for this recipe, there are plenty of websites online with oven methods. I happen to like mine, a EuroCusine model which I paid roughly $20 for. The yogurt comes out thick and creamy, like the new Greek style yogurts we are happily seeing in stores. If you choose to use a yogurt maker, follow the instructions for plain yogurt; my quantities are based on the jars that come with the EuroCusine model. I find full fat milk works best; if you use less fatted varieties, lengthen the cooking time according to the manual.

Cherry Yogurt

For the cherries
4 cups tart cherries
4 teaspoons Z Sweet, or granulated erythritol

For the yogurt
42 ounces whole milk
6 ounces plain yogurt, I like Greek-style
2 tablespoons honey

Cook the cherries and sweetener over medium heat until the cherries have softened and a thick syrup forms, about 10 minutes.

Heat the milk in a large, non-reactive pot over medium heat until the milk begins to boil. When it begins to swell up the walls of the pan, off the heat and add the honey and the yogurt, whisking fully to incorporate. Cool in an ice bath or just on the counter until the mixture is 130 degrees.

Put a tablespoon or two of cherries in each jar. Pour milk mixture over and set yogurt maker to 10 hours. In the morning, you will have yogurt. You will also have cherry sauce left over for your pancakes and ice cream.

Sante!

Tip Five: No Sugar Added

2011-02-07T11:25:00.000-08:00

Kitchen Reform: A weekly plan to help your kitchen get a healthy groove on.

We've heard about the evils of sugar. But it's not until you see it, or feel it, that it's real. Take, for instance, an innocent trip to Dunkin' Donuts. A bonding moment for grandparents and children, until the second iced chocolate doughnut (with rainbow sprinkles) hits the bloodstream, and suddenly a little blond bomb goes off, jumping from the back of the couch yelling "Why do we always have to do what you want to do first?" (I'll just say here, that the answer is cheese. A big block of it, some fat and protein to temper the blood sugar high.)

Maybe this is just my kid: many deny sugar has this revving effect and science hasn't proven it. Some systems may just be more sensitive than others. But behavior aside, let's review what science has shown about sugar. Excess sugar contributes to cavities, weight gain, and diabetes, but also is linked to suppression of the immune system, autoimmune diseases, Alzheimers, arthritis, asthma, heart disease and migraines. Cancer has a big sweet tooth as well, and has been linked to breast, ovarian, prostate and rectal cancer. It can weaken eyesight and lead to premature skin aging.

Yes that's right. Wrinkles. Sugar really is evil.

The average American living at the turn of the century -- when heart disease and cancer were rare -- ate just five pounds per year of added sugar: today, that number is 130 pounds, meaning an additional two to three pounds per person per week. [Source: USDA] When you consider that the American Heart Association recommends that men limit added sugars to 150 calories a day, or nine teaspoons, and women to 100 calories a day, or six teaspoons, it seems a big undertaking.

How do you know how much added sugar you're eating anyway? A tablespoon of sugar equals four grams of sugar and about 16 calories, which sounds pretty innocuous. But take that further: An 8-ounce can of Coke has 27 grams of sugar, 100 calories (and seriously, who ever drinks just 8 ounces of soda? The American daily average is 28 ounces!).

We expect that soda has sugar. But look further -- a 6-ounce Whole Foods organic cherry yogurt has 29 grams of sugar, and 150 calories. Dairy has naturally occurring sugar, you say, and you would be right. But the same amount of plain yogurt has just 12 grams of sugar. So is the organic yogurt real food? Or a sugary treat? The line blurs.

Not to pick on this little container of yogurt, but it is a fine example of the conundrum shoppers face. (And it is in my fridge.) It's a reputably healthy brand, one of the top marketers of "healthy" foods in the country. It's "organic." And nowhere in the label does it say "sugar." The second ingredient, however is "organic evaporated cane juice," which is sugar. The label tells us that its fat calories are 0, but not what the sugar load is. But if you do the math, it is extraordinarily high: 77 percent of the calories in this healthy treat are sugar calories, and 56 percent are sugars added to the sugar naturally occurring in yogurt.

Experts from Harvard say a good rule of thumb is to read the label, and if sugar is at or near the top of the list, or several sources of added sugar are sprinkled throughout, take a pass. They also have a list on their website of the names for added sugar that can trick us on food labels.

Here are a few, from the U.S,. Health and Human Services Dietary Guidelines for Americans:

Agave nectar
Brown sugar
Cane crystals
Cane sugar
Corn sweetener
Corn syrup
Crystalline fructose
Dextrose
Evaporated cane juice
Fructose
Fruit juice concentrates
Glucose
High-fructose corn syrup
Honey
Invert sugar
Lactose
Maltose
Malt syrup
Molasses
Raw sugar
Sucrose
Sugar
Syrup

There are sugars that are better than others, however. Less refined sugars, like molasses, have nutritional value and help the body handle the rise in glucose and subsequent rise in insulin. Refined sugar, on the other hand, has no nutritional value at all, needs no digestion to go straight into the bloodstream. Think of it like injecting the cupcake directly.

The sugar high, quite simplified, goes something like this: You eat sugar, getting an initial burst of energy your body scrambles to process by producing insulin, which transports the sugar from the bloodstream to the cells and your blood sugar level drops -- the proverbial "crash." So your adrenal glands kick in with some cortisol to help you back up. Over time, the adrenals become overworked, and the whole process makes you exhausted -- plus the excess cortisol, besides weight gain, can trigger chronic disease. The sugar our cells cannot use may also be converted to triglycerides and stored as fat, bad news not just for our waistlines but a host of other ailments, including high cholesterol.

There really is no good news here, other than the fact that so much of nature's own food is tasty, sweet and satisfying on its own that, over time spent without sugar, your taste buds will appreciate more and more. Stevia is a no-calorie sweetener that works for coffee and tea; more on sugar substitutes in future. Try boiling down blueberries, peaches or other sweet foods to use in place of syrup.

For cooking, molasses, honey, raw sugar, in small quantities, will suffice. Make it a challenge to see how much you can cut back. Share recipes here, and we'll post them in the future.

After all this talk about yogurt, I made my own Cherry Yogurt with TEN TIMES LESS added sugar -- check it out!! Also check out Holli Thompson's Halloween post for some great ideas, or try her Goddess Shake.

Your children will thank you.

Sante.

Winter Fruit

2011-02-05T05:32:00.000-08:00

Easy, quick idea to make any meal a party and sneak in some health benefits too!

Cranberry Pomegranate Sauce

1 bag cranberries
1 pomegranate, seeded
2/3 cup raw sugar
1 cup pomegranate juice

Combine in pan. Wimmer over medium-low heat for 15 -20 minutes, or until cranberries pop and a thick sauce forms. Cool and serve.

Sante!

Got Game?

2011-01-27T09:11:00.000-08:00

We have so many deer here that it is possible to sit on your back stoop with a gun and a coffee and shoot five before breakfast. Well, not possible for us as we do not hunt, but as you might imagine it is quite easy to score fresh venison. I have two friends who have volunteered to drop off carcasses on the front stoop, and another who brings it already ground, in small plastic rolls, for ready consumption. You can guess whose game I take.

So when I got two nice fat rolls of ground venison last month, I started imagining. Venison chili -- done that. Venison burgers -- a little dry. Venison pie -- ah, now we're going somewhere. I googled venison pie, and came up with all kinds of recipes, none of which inspired me. Venison is so lean, it can be dry and crumbly, so a marinade is crucial, says a friend of mine (girl friend of the hunter, so she's got experience). But I didn't want a tomato and red wine- based pie, as most are, but rather a lighter, herbier base, so experimented with white wine and olive oil, with lighter herbs instead.

This is a mammoth pie, best for a crowd but oh. so. good. left over as well. Make it a day ahead, it gets better with age, and it's beautiful to pull something out of the oven for company instead of chefing at the last minute. I think you'll like it.

Huntsman's Pie

Marinade
5 juniper berries, crushed
4 garlic cloves, minced
5 peppercorns, crushed
2 teaspoons thyme
.5 cup marsala
.5 cup white wine vinegar
.5 cup olive oil

For meat
1 T butter
2 shallots, diced, or about 2/3 cup
1 fennel, diced small
1 bunch of carrots, peeled and diced
2 stalks celery, diced, or about 1/2 cup
1 tablespoon sea salt
1 bunch tarragon, chopped fine
1 teaspoon cornstarch
3 lbs. ground venison
1 lb. ground pork

For topping
1 bulb celeriac
4 butter potatoes
12 parsnips
1.5 cups milk
2 Tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon salt
nutmeg

Marinade the meat a day ahead. If you've got frozen meat, put it in the refrigerator a day early and let thaw. Put the meat in the marinade and run through a cycle in the marinator or knead vigorously to make sure marinade and meat meld. Let sit in marinade 24 hours.

Make the meat pie. Melt the butter and then saute shallots until soft, about 2 minutes. Add carrots, fennel and celery, sprinkle with sea salt and let cook over medium heat, until soft. The vegetables will soften and shrink, becoming golden. Stir in the tarragon and cornstarch. Add the ground meat and stir to combine. Let the meat cook, stirring occasionally to incorporate all ingredients, until the meat is brown and cooked through.

Make the topping. Dice the vegetables roughly, cover with boiling water and boil until soft. Strain the vegetables. Heat the milk with butter lightly until butter is melted, do not boil milk. Put the vegetables in a food processor and puree with the hot milk mixture, salt to taste and a pinch of grated nutmeg. This might take several batches, depending on your equipment.

Assemble the pie. In the bottom of a large oven-going casserole or Dutch oven, spread the meat mixture. Top with the vegetable puree.

The pie may now be refrigerated until just before baking. Allow to come to room temperature by taking out a few hours before hand. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Bake one hour.

I made a peach mint gravy to accompany it in case it was dry -- which was not the case. But it was in the tradition of a minty gravy, which was lovely, and my friend brought a lovely red cabbage which I will try to blog in no time. Try a light salad with citrus and pomegranate, as well.

Peach Mint Gravy

2 Tablespoons chicken bouillon base, (I like Better Than Bouillon)
3 cups chicken broth
2 cups fresh mint
2 cups peaches
salt and pepper to taste

Warm boullion base in the chicken stock in a medium saucepan. Puree the peaches and the mint and stir into the broth. Bring to a simmer and let condense for 10 minutes. Salt and pepper to taste.

Sante!

Tip Four: What's in your pantry?

2011-01-26T06:54:00.000-08:00

If you cleaned out the pantry, you now have room to restock. (Though I sometimes find I have enough once I have truly uncovered what's there.) While there are a number of good lists for stocking an organic pantry, I find Alice Waters' to be one of the best, from The Art of Simple Food, you can peruse it at Google Books but it is one of the best for your shelf. The Cleveland Clinic, too, has a stocking list for a heart-healthy pantry.

At the risk of repeating these, I'll tell you what I consider relevant in my pantry. I keep mostly items that aid in cooking in the pantry, not wholesale dinners themselves, as I prefer to cook from fresh ingredients. That said, it does come in handy to have a box of noodles and jar of good tomato sauce in there, especially if the tomato sauce is from your own garden. I also keep some items like canned organic pumpkin around, for a fast easy dessert.

If you live near any sort of good store, you probably don't have to keep as much as I do; though we do have a few specialty food shops locally, our nearest town is a half-hour commitment in the car. And so it goes that I tend to over stock when there's a sale or I see something, like coconut milk, that I know I can't get at a store anywhere in a 15-mile radius and can't remember if I have one at home or not.

So here, in no particular order, is my go-to pantry:

Oils and vinegars: I have a good quality olive oil for drizzling fresh and also a lesser one for bulk cooking. If it says "cold-pressed" or "extra virgin" it's less refined and has a lower smoke point, which indicates at what temperature the oil will break down. These oils, and other unrefined oils such as flaxseed oil, are best used fresh. Avocado oil has one of the highest smoke points, Ghee, or clarified butter, is another good one for cooking. I have walnut oil and basil oil for salad dressings, but it is easy to flavor your own.
I also love vinegars for cooking, I have rice vinegar, balsamic vinegar, a good white wine vinegar and apple cider vinegar (I like Bragg's). In addition, I admit an addiction to fig balsamic, which is so thick it can stand alone as a salad dressing. Lulu's makes one so luscious we use it over plain arugula with just a little shaved Parmesan.

Salt and peppercorn: I love Celtic sea salt for finishing dishes or cooking in butter. I also have refined salt for baking and cooking en masse. In addition to black pepper, white pepper is handy if you don't want to have specks of pepper hanging out in your food, and is not as spicy as black pepper.

Herbs and Spices: I have a whole drawer of spices, and rarely purge them, which I understand is unestimably bad form. The good news is, they just lose strength, and likely won't kill you. Spices keep longer than you'd think, but herbs really do lose their punch after a year or two. Some I can't live without: cinnamon, nutmeg, cumin, curry. Herbs I generally dry and keep overhead for crumbling into dishes.

herbs overhead

Pasta and rice: As mentioned, having a good pasta onhand is worth it -- I like to have a gluten-free alternative, such as soba, buckwheat noodles, available too. In the rice category, a good basmati or jasmine rice is a good go to filler; I am partial to purple rice so tend to have that around too. Quinoa is a good bet, or couscous if you can eat wheat.

Flours and cereals: I have a plethora of flour for use in gluten-free baking that are not essential. A grainy polenta is a great backup, and I always have oatmeal as well. Cornstarch I keep onhand to thicken sauces in place of flour. Baking powder and baking soda are also handy for baking.

Sweetners: I have raw sugar, brown sugar, honey, agave and maple syrup around at all times. For no calorie sweetening, I prefer Z sweet, which is made from erythritol, a natural sugar found in plants.

Condiments: The door of my fridge is packed with groovy condiments but these are the essentials: Organic ketchup, whole grain mustard, horseradish, capers, Tamari (gluten-free soy sauce), mayo (try making your own!), apple butter, peanut butter.

Tea and coffee: Again, I have way more of these than I actually need, but we could get by on a good black tea and decaf coffee. I drink Teavana's rooibus blend every morning, and have a selection of delights from Harney's as well.

Stocks and boullion: I generally lay in chicken, beef and vegetable bases for quickly stirring up a sauce.

Nuts, dried fruit and seeds: I always have cashews, which I eat by the handful, as well as pecans and almonds and walnuts for sprinkling in salads or cereal. I use dried cranberries for salads and raisins in cereals, and keep sesame seeds on hand for sprinkling as well.

Miscellaneous: In the interest of a quick meal, or something to pull out of the cupboard when the neighbors pop in: canned tuna, salmon, and anchovies (wonderful in salads, too); tomato sauce, rice crackers (I always have a pesto in the freezer for a quick topping, but also have been known to stock tapenade, or tahini). I also keep some coconut water and almond milk for cooking or smoothies on the hoof. And a big can of San Marzano tomatoes is something I also stock, more because I sometimes can't find them, but they are also awesome to dude up for a quick sauce for chicken or pasta. A good soup is also a good call -- we love the Pacifica brand Roasted Red Pepper and Tomato.

Now it's your turn. What's in your pantry? Leave me a comment!

Hope yours is bigger!

Lemongrass Gelato

2011-01-23T13:35:00.000-08:00

We are behind on our milk. Every week we get a gallon, in two big jars, cream three inches deep on top, from a cow down the road. This month, we came back from holiday mid-week, and we've been running a jar behind since. I've made puddings, hot chocolate, eggnog -- but this week I had a revelation.

Gelato. Lighter than ice cream, its the perfect light creamy midweek dessert. Just happened to have a little lemongrass vanilla simple syrup left, to give it a twist. The result? Lighter than air, subtly sweet, with a smooth consistency that soothes the palate. Perfect after a spicy meal, or to top a baked dessert.

See for yourself.

Lemongrasss Vanilla Gelato

Adapted from Elizabeth Faulkner's Demolition Desserts

2 large egg yolks
2 teaspoons cornstarch
3 cups fresh whole milk, cream top preferable
1/4 cup fine cane sugar
1/4 cup simple syrup (I used lemongrass, any will do, honey might just be sublime)
1/2 vanilla bean, split
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon sea salt

Set up an ice bath by setting cold water and ice in a large bowl and nesting a smaller heatproof bowl into it.

In small bowl whisk egg yolk and cornstarch.

In a saucepan combine milk, sugar and syrup. Split the vanilla bean length wise and scrape the seeds into the milk with the top of your knife, tossing the pods in after. Place over medium heat, stirring occasionally. When milk begins to simmer around the edges, about 7 minutes, take pan from heat and remove pods.

Whisk a few drops of hot milk into egg mix. Whisking steadily, slowly add the rest. Return to pan over medium heat, cook, whisking gently, a few more minutes until mixture starts to thicken.

Pour through a strainer into bowl in ice bath. Add one more cup of milk and salt to taste (Elizabeth recommends tasting to be sure the salt is noticeable, it provides a good counterpoint to the sweet cream, and she is so right.)

When the mix is cool refrigerate for an hour or up to overnight. Pour into an ice cream maker and freeze.

You can keep this in the freezer, covered, but it is best within a few days. It won't make it a week, anyway, unless you tell no one of its existence and leave town.

Sante!

Eggplant, I said

2011-01-19T07:36:00.000-08:00

When I met my husband and his children, then 6 and 9, they a lot of pizza. He'd pick them up on Friday, swing by the local pie joint and then home.

This, as far as I know, was the only night of the week they ate pizza, so I am not condemning him. I, however, don't like pizza as much as the next guy, and am pretty picky about what I eat. (Ok, really picky.) Not neurotically picky, but after a few months of pizza fallback, I needed a plan. I gradually augmented with a salad, then began with home-cooked kid friendly items like hamburgers, spaghetti and fish.

I needn't have been so cautious. A crusty loaf of bread didn't last more than a day -- we topped it with Vermont Sharp Cheddar for grilled cheese or marinated it in egg, milk and cinnamon for French toast. Turns out, these people love real food. They'd come home from school and sit on the counters while I cooked, jabbering away. (Our next house had a kitchen island with stools, and they still perch on the counters.) They downed sea bass like most kids do hot dogs. Breakfast at the Locke Store (a local culinary standout) got everyone out of bed.

Jessica Seinfeld hadn't yet published her theories about sneaking pureed veggies into every spoonful, but we made do. For starters, they all love peas, which I buy frozen, and carrots, which I boil until soft, drain and top with a flourish of butter and maple syrup. Broccoli was another winner, even without cheese sauce. Or green beans, fresh and steamed plain. Sauteed leek and zucchini pancakes? They ate them (I almost wrote that they loved them, but at that time our relationship might have been such that they were only being polite. Now, I would definitely get the real review.) By the time we married, they expected a full blown salad, with mixed greens, herbs, walnuts, dried cranberries, grated Parmesan and a tomato vinaigrette, with dinner.

No, vegetables weren't really a problem with the kids. But my husband wouldn't touch 'em. That's actually not fair: Let me rephrase. For most of my adult life, I have been in the camp that makes vegetables the main part of the plate, meat or seafood the side. He definitely puts the steak first, and thinks creamed spinach counts as a vegetable. So with him, it's been a slow, steady slog through the annals of produce, trying one recipe after another to increase produce possibilities. I've succeeded in general, one by one introducing mushrooms, Brussels sprouts and eggplant. Beets, asparagus and artichoke may never happen, but even after 9 years of marriage I still, occasionally, apply pressure.

When I really feel the love, though, is when he actually cooks me a vegetarian dish. He's always one to add a salad to dinner, and sometimes even some crispy roasted Brussels sprouts. (Once he even made Spaghetti Squash with Tomato, Olive Oil and Basil from Pino Luongo's La Mia Cucina Toscana, a fabulous cookbook which he, not coincidentally, was responsible for bringing home.) But last week, when he asked what I wanted for dinner, I pushed my luck.

"Eggplant," I said. I kid you not.

And then I left, for several hours. When I came home, eggplant is was. With a side of steak, but hey, progress. Thanks, honey.

Roasted Eggplant with Basil

adapted from Healthy Kitchen.com

2 eggplants, about 2 lbs.
1 yellow onion, medium, peeled and chopped fine
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 14.5-oz can chopped tomatoes
12 basil leaves, cut into strips

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Wash the eggplant and cut off the cap and stem. Spritz a cooking sheet with olive oil spray. Cut into 1/2-inch slices and place on the baking sheet. Season with salt and pepper, lightly coat with olive oil and cooking spray and roast for 30 minutes until the eggplant is soft.

Use spray or a teaspoon of olive oil to coat a medium skillet. Saute onions and garlic over moderately-high heat for 3-4 minutes, until soft. Add tomatoes and continue to cook while stirring until most of the liquid evaporates, about 10 minutes. (If you don't have fresh basil, add a teaspoon of dried right now, and it will flavor the sauce.)

Coat a 12-inch baking dish with cooking spray. Arrange half the roast eggplant in the bottom of the baking dish. Smooth half of the tomato mixture over the eggplant and sprinkle with half the basil and Parmesan. Repeat with the rest of the eggplant, tomato and Parm.

Bake at 374 degrees for 35 minutes until golden.

6 servings.

Sante.

Tip Three: Get organized

2011-01-17T18:04:00.000-08:00

I can't get excited about a whole day of cleaning and organizing, though I know that's how this step really should be attacked. Let's just agree to outline the basic steps, without any prescribed timeline, and any tips or comments can be added below. It can take you a morning (in which case I salute you, and will definitely be talking behind your back), a week, a month or more. Or, as my uber-organized uncle does, you can schedule little kitchen tasks to repeat routinely (obviously retired, borderline obsessive). I personally have been getting to it one drawer at a time; I accomplished the pantry on a snow day with a two-hour school delay.

The pantry goes back to medieval times, taking its name from "paneterie" meaning, in French, from bread. The butler's pantry is home to china and silver, and is so named because the butler used to sleep there guarding the silver.

First: Declutter
Pantry: Since moving so far from civilization, I've become somewhat of a hoarder, and with my little pantry (I'm in good company -- an American Institute of Architects study shows 50 percent of us yearn for a larger larder) this can be hazardous. I shove jars into the deep shelves never to be seen again, or until they all fall out on my head when pulling out the pickles. To try to combat this, I cleared out each shelf and wiped it down. While you're there, check expiration dates and pitch anything that might have gone bad. Make a box for anything you haven't used that is still good, and take it to the local food pantry (our bank is also a drop for food donations). My neighbor makes a game of it by lining up her pantry goods and creating menus from them, to use them up and gain space.

When I replaced, I organized by shelf, one shelf for pasta and flours, one for jarred and canned goods, one for lunch box items, etc. Only you can determine what works for you. (More on restocking to follow.)

Pots and pans: When my parents got an induction stovetop, they brought me their collection of pots and pans -- a windfall, except that I had just shoved them in the cupboard with the ragtag collection I had collected over the years, augmented by those my husband had when we married. My first All-Clad copper stockpot (from the '80s and still cooking!), and my wok, and a bamboo steamer we picked up in a small shop in Chinatown, were buried beneath an onslaught of skillets and a few heavy Le Crusets. I pared down to three sizes of skillets, two sauce pans, the wok, small stockpot and a larger pot for broth and lobster, and stored the lids on a shelf beneath. The rest are in a box waiting for someone to move out and need them.

Utensils: Again, like the pots, we had a regular army of plastic spatulas and wooden spoons. I cleared the drawers and wiped them down, and put any utensils with obvious goop in the dishwasher. Then I sorted the utensils, parsed the redundancies and replaced them neatly. We will see how that lasts.

Serveware/silverware: Total disclaimer here, I love dishes. I've admired beautiful functional ware since I can remember -- I still have a few pieces from Greece, where I lived in high school. I have a set of my grandmother's everyday ware, the set from our first summer cottage, and two dessert sets from my husband's family. And I don't just wait to inherit, I'm a proliferate buyer: I've carted home soy sauce dishes and teacups from Japan, shipped trays and salad bowls from Italy even, on one extreme occasion, carried six hand blown crystal champagne flutes from Berlin. On a train trip around Japan, I found myself staring into the dusty windows of a pottery shop which was closed that day. Perhaps I was salivating, anyway, an old man opened the door and invited me in, gave me a tour of his kiln and studio. He spoke no English and I no Japanese, but I understood him perfectly. As I left he gave me a teacup, which I still have. At the time, I showed it to a friend back in Tokyo, who recognized it as the potter was quite locally famous, and a recluse. I just remember thinking he was really small.

Passion is everything.

But I digress. Once again, clear the cabinets and drawers, wipe them and clean any obvious goop. Sort and replace, putting aside duplicates and unneeded items for later or the thrift. Organize for the way you use the space. We, for instance, use a lot of bowls and spoons, so the bowls are in the front of the dish cupboard, and I have separated out the spoons in the front of the silverware drawer.

For health, this bit of kitchen cleaning regularly needs to be done. Think of it like this -- if it's easier to find and appealing to use, you're more apt to.

Next week: restocking!!

Rabbit Food

2011-01-15T06:29:00.000-08:00

After publishing that factoid about rabbits not needing to find additional water, it made me think of how to stay hydrated by EATING -- instead of ingesting all this blasted water (though I'm doing well, Seymour, thank you very much, by adding one large Thermos in the morning and one in the afternoon).

Fruit, of course works, and salads. Grapefruit (90% water) added to breakfast and a side salad of cucumber (97% water) and tomato (95%) at lunch definitely contribute to your daily total. (Meat, by contrast, is just 15% water.) But it's a little chill for salads all day; so if you're craving comfort food check out this spinach creation -- at 92% water, totally qualifying for rabbit food.

Spinach is a fairly recent vegetable in Western cooking; brought to Spain by the Moors in the 11th century, spinach's popularity rapidly spread. (Though the English for a while called it that "Spanish vegetable".) One fan was Catherine de Medici, who is said to have brought her own cooks with her from Florence, Italy, when she wed the King of France, to make her fave spinach dishes. Hence, anything on a bed of spinach is said to be a la Florentine....

not beautiful, tastes great!!

Spinach a la Rebecca

named for my mom, who made this up

32 ounces of frozen spinach or large clamshell organic baby spinach*
1 teaspoon butter
1 large shallot
2 cloves garlic
1 cup cottage cheese
2 eggs
1/2 cup shredded Gruyere or other hard cheese
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
optional: small can of water chestnuts, diced

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Defrost spinach or blanch baby spinach by adding to a large pot of boiling water until wilted. Discard the water, as spinach has a high acid content and it will leech into the liquid.

Chop the shallot and garlic finely. Melt butter in a skillet and saute the garlic and shallot until golden. Add spinach to combine.

Add cottage cheese, egg, salt and nutmeg to a food processor and whiz until cottage cheese is smooth.

Fold cottage cheese and shredded cheese into the spinach, along with water chestnuts if you like a bit of crunch. Bake for half hour, or until tawny on top.

*Environmental Working Group has named spinach is one of the top six vegetables most likely to carry pesticide residue in their "dirty dozen". So beware your source.

Sante!

Coffee Toffee Brilliant

2011-01-13T06:50:00.000-08:00

There comes a time in every New Year's restraint that one must get some comfort. Here's a recipe that won't break your resolutions, much. Think of meringues as little bits of cloud -- a little sugar, little egg white, little cream. No harm, no foul.

I am so blessed to have friends that do not mind if I peruse their cookbooks when I am in their kitchen. (I am always listening, however.) This particular pal is a fellow traveler in many ways, and I love to pull in to their long trestle table, kids on the floor strewn 'round with toys, sip whatever concoction she's brewed.

And jack recipes from her cookbooks.

This recipe is from another woman who I am positive I would love to have a chat with over tea, one of the one-name wonders of the cooking kingdom just now: Nigella. She has that broad range of dishes, from functional to fantasy, and that great wit. And of course, it all tastes good.

I dared this one for a houseful of hungries, even though I haven't had much luck with meringues of late. In my childhood, one of our favorite Christmas cookies was the Chocolate Chip Meringue, which I tried to recreate a few years back to total embarrassment. They looked a bit like white cow patties, and stuck your teeth together (handy when you have toddlers, so we ate some anyway). These, however, were completely easy, and baked up like I was a pro. I made the meringues and the sauce hours ahead, and after dinner merely whipped the cream and assembled.

These are little packets of crusty meringue with a soft center, stuffed with whipped cream and topped with just a drizzle of toffee sauce and crunchy hazelnut. Voila. Even after a big meal there were none of these left. From ages 6-76, everyone loved them; the kids vied for seconds. Can't say that about too many recipes. Bravo, N.

Coffee Toffee Meringues

jacked wholecloth from Nigella Lawson's "Kitchen"

Meringues:
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup light brown sugar
2 teaspoons instant espresso powder
pinch of cream of tartar
4 egg whites
1/2 cup toasted crushed hazelnuts, for topping (Nigella says "optional" but I note "awesome")

For Toffee sauce:
1 Tablespoon butter
1/3 cup golden syrup
1/4 cup heavy cream
2 teaspoons Frangelico hazelnut liqueur (optional)

For filling:
2 cups heavy cream, whipped

Make meringues: Preheat oven to 285 degrees.Combine white sugar, brown sugar, coffee powder and cream of tartar in a bowl, and set aside. Beat egg whites in a clean bowl until soft peaks start to form. Begin to sprinkle in the sugar mix 1 tbs at a time while still beating, until you have a glossy thick batter. This process is much easier with an electric beater, or better still, a freestanding mixer. Allow adequate time between each addition for the sugar to dissolve, the batter will be smooth, not grainy.
Line a baking sheet with a silpat or wax paper. Spoon out dollops of meringue (about 2 big dessert spoonfuls) to give roughly 3-inch rounds. If you use 2 spoons, you can scoop the batter, then slip it off the spoon onto the tray, and give the top a little spike. Sprinkle each with 1/2 tsp of chopped hazelnuts, saving the rest for serving.
Bake in preheated oven for about 45 minutes; meringues should be crusty outside but still gooey in the middle, and fragile to touch. Take them out of the oven and don't touch -- let cool on baking sheet.

Make toffee sauce: Melt butter, golden syrup and light brown sugar in a pan over low heat, occasionally swirling gently, then bring to a boil and let bubble for 2 minutes. Take pan off heat and whisk in 1/4 cup cream and liqueur if you like. Pour into a small heatproof pitcher and leave to cool.

To serve:
Whip the cream until firm but not stiff. Crush a dent into the top of each meringue with the back of a spoon (the shells will splinter a bit), then split it a little and fill with a dollop of cream. Drizzle on ssauce and sprinkle with reserved chopped hazelnuts.

Meringues can be made 1 day ahead and kept in an airtight container. Sauce can be made a day ahead and kept in the fridge covered. Remove from the fridge 1-2 hours before needed to allow it to come to room temperature.

Sante!

Tip Two: Drink Up

2011-01-11T08:15:00.000-08:00

Kitchen Reform: help your kitchen get healthy.

It's a good sign in a New Year's resolution kind of blog when the second week hooks in drinking, I always say. So here goes. Drink up.

Water, I mean -- you knew there was a catch, didn't you?

So here goes, the top 5 reasons for increased H2O consumption:
        *Regulates body temperature
        *Lubricates joints
        *Helps dissolve and carry nutrients to the body
        *Lessens the burden on kidney and liver by flushing toxins
        *Helps prevent constipation

This might sound a little boring, but makes sense: the body is 60% water, and we excrete it constantly through breathing, perspiration and urination. We need to continually replenish to lubricate our muscles and joints as well as flush the system. If you work out or are pregnant or breastfeeding, your body is using even more. (Breast milk is 88% water. You have to get to give, I guess).

In just a few days of increased water, nutritionista Holli Thompson notes, you can lose a pound or two and your skin will look gorgeous. Why? "Your body holds onto water if it needs it, like a camel," she says. Once properly hydrated, the body will release the water it's holding onto, along with toxins that can dull our skin and cramp our style. Some even grant water wrinkle-reducing powers.

But how much is enough? That 8 glasses a day rule is generally correct, according to Thompson. Sounds like a lot, but consider, for starters, that the average adult produces 6.3 cups of urine a day. Plus, "a lot of food is loaded with salt, and caffeine and alcohol dehydrate us even further," says Thompson. Seems the typical American diet is setting us up for dehydration. (Rabbits, by contrast, hardly need to drink extra water at all, as the greens they nibble all day are 85% water.) As a rule of thumb, one should be drinking enough so that urine runs nearly clear, though that is just for you to know, ok?

How in heck does one begin to drink that much? I charted my own progress, and let's just remember I am kind of a newbie at this. Extremely bad. I drink tea in the morning, which is good, but don't generally drink again until water with lunch, which is apparently not optimal. "Try to hydrate prior to eating, but 1 to 2 hours during and after eating, let the digestive enzymes work," advises Thompson.

Luckily, augmenting water with essences and herbs doesn't detract from its magic; dairy and caffeine, it seems, do. These chilly days, I like a squeeze of lemon, or mint, in warm water. Others can only chug cold H2O. The water drinking forum online has all kinds of tips for getting it down (Jello, anyone? Please. the sugar in that alone makes it not worth the work): and Thompson has a great tip sheet on her website as well.

What helps me is just to keep it handy. In fact, I used to be much better at drinking water when I kept bottles in our garage fridge and grabbed them each car trip. (I stopped doing that because the bottles themselves contain toxins, and the extreme fluctuation in temperatures while water is shipping can cause those carcinogens to leech into the water, creating far worse problems than dehydration. And of course, because I read about the big patches of plastic that are spiraling about in our oceans, breaking down and infiltrating our marine life, and eventually, probably our own selves.) If you haven't seen it, check out Plastiki, David de Rothschild's boat made entirely of plastic, which he built and sailed from San Francisco to Sydney to draw attention to plastic pollution.

So we stopped buying water bottles and got an under sink filter for our drinking water, as we are on a well. Much municipal water, however, is held to tighter standards than bottled water, so either way, get yours tested before leaping for the filter, which must be maintained monthly.

Here's the deal: just keep it handy. You'll drink it unconsciously. Get a water instead of a cocktail every once in a while, and I bet that goes down the hatch too. Get a great water bottle, fill it from your own trusty water source at home, and take it in the car. (Try for a wide mouth, though; Thompson says many women are getting smoker's cracks along the top of the mouth from pursing their lips all day drinking from the tiny openings in water bottles. Which you'll have to drink even more water to get rid of.)


Cup love: porcelain, so it's nice to hold, and a lid for going.

Cheers!

How Eating at Home Can Save Your Life

2011-01-11T08:11:00.000-08:00

Augmenting last week's Kitchen Reform tip, check out Dan Hyman's column on Huffington Post: How Eating at Home Can Save Your Life.

One Pan Salmon

2011-01-10T06:09:00.000-08:00

Here's one more easy frying pan and salt kind of dish you can make that tastes like a million bucks. I adapted this from the king of fast and good, Mark Bittman, who roasts chicken this way.

Roast Salmon

Feeds 3, or 1 for several meals

Fillet of Salmon, about 1 lb.
sea salt
olive oil

Rub a cast iron frying pan with olive oil and put it in the oven, shelf at least 8-10 inches under the flame. When the oven is to temperature, put salmon, skin side down, in pan and sprinkle with sea salt. Roast 5-7 minutes, depending on thickness. I like salmon dark pink in the middle, but not rare; I test it when it starts to flake by inserting a knife into a thick area, add two minutes at a time until desired.

Spritz with lime, if you like. I served it with spinach souffle and root veg mash topped with glazed mushrooms, all easy, healthy recipes that only taste rich! f leftover, warm and top with arugula or any salad greens, chopped veg, dried fruit or nuts and vinaigrette for a hasty tasty lunch.

Tip One: Get out your Frying Pan

2011-01-05T09:56:00.000-08:00

This is the first in the Kitchen Reform series, meant to help make your kitchen heatlhy.

I hate coming back from vacation, even if I haven't gone anywhere. And coming back after the winter holiday seems especially cruel. After weeks where every dinner is a celebration, days of sleeping in, sledding and long walks and fires, here I am with my steaming tea mug and bone cold fingers.

At least I have a mission. Which today, week one of kitchen reform, is only intellectually onerous. What I want to do this week is think about cooking, the preparing of food, "from scratch," as it is sometimes called. The term "scratch" initially meant the line scratched into the dirt as the start of a boxing or cricket match, but has evolved to mean start with nothing, with no advantage. But as Carl Sagan said, "if you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you first have to invent the universe."

So if you think about it, the hard part has already been done. Advantage, us.

Cooking itself has been done since man made fire, and some say cooking made man. It is responsible for social structure and community bonds, commerce, the centerpiece of celebration from family birthdays to the beginning of dynasties and empires. If we are what we eat, then cooking has made us.

But many bemoan the death of cooking. The influx of cheap fast food, prepared food, convenience food, take-away, even the previously chopped vegetables in supermarkets has slashed the need for "scratch" cooking. It's not a new concern: back in 1882 food writer Baron von Romohr charged that "not inheriting a traditional cookery based upon the sensible preparation of local products and so resorting to soul destroying books, the respectable, virtuous wife no longer knows how to prepare meals." And it's not solely an American concern, either, just last year French chef Alain Ducasse said French mothers are no longer passing their skill with a frying pan to their daughters, relegating cooking to a weekend hobby. And just last week, my brother-in-law, who has worked in the food service industry his entire career, told me he didn't have time to make breakfast.

He's not alone: as a country, we spend less than half the time in the kitchen our grandmothers did. But many equate cooking's fall with the rise of a host of individual and social ills. The easier it is to get food, the more we eat, Harvard's Dr. David Cutler has shown. Fast food portions are 2-5 times as big as they were in the 1970s, and our propensity to snack has increased 50%, with another 19% expected over the next five years. Not surprisingly, we are twice as fat: Nearly 30 percent of Americans are obese and twice that overweight.

The reality is, fast food might take less time, but it also might give you less time -- on the planet. Health economist Randall Strum discovered that in terms of chronic conditions, being obese is akin to aging from 30 to 50. Which solves the problem of what to do with the money you might save buying cheap fast food: We're spending it curing our hearts and our diabetes, not to mention replacing our hips and knees. The obese spend at least $10,000 extra in health care over their lives, our country billions a year.

This is not to say that all fast food innovations are necessarily bad. But it is important to know what their true cost is -- unintended consequences, if you will.

Preparing your own food gives you back control. If you don't want to be tricked into eating too much industrially engineered crap, just say no. And say it now. Cooking will allow you to choose your ingredients, and their proportions. It saves you money, and, in the long run, gives you time -- with your family, and with you. Not with fat slug on the couch you, but with healthy, energy-filled you, with great skin and clear eyes (can't promise green, though).

Just chew on this a while. Then get out your frying pan. It's the weapon of choice in the newest Disney flick, "Tangled," and it is yours, too.

Egg, over easy
This is a simple meal for any time, and a good a place as any to begin. Start to finish, circa five minutes. The egg is the perfect package, protein and fat and even cysteine, suspected to relieve hangover symptoms. Throw in some toast, or an apple, or even drape it over leftover spinach casserole or potato gratin, and you have a meal, pronto. Use organic, free-range eggs if you can, and if not, please cook the yolk.

1 egg
sea salt
olive oil, coconut oil or butter

Turn burner onto high under small skillet and melt about a half a teaspoon of the oil or butter, enought to swirl to coat the pan. Add a pinch of salt, to sizzle. Break an egg into pan and turn heat down to medium.

When egg white is set on the bottom (about 2-3 minutes depending on the heat; pictured below), insert a spatula under the entire thing and flip. Off the heat and let sit 1 minute for runny. Or continue cooking until your desired doneness.

Bon Sante!

Kitchen Revolution

2010-12-15T11:15:00.000-08:00

The other night we were in the ER: A little too aggressive on the Christmas wrapping was my boy. The gash was not too serious, but bad enough to not want to wait until morning to follow up.

We waited for three hours to see a nurse. So did many others. People with emergencies brought on by cold, alcohol, neglect -- but many of them, it appeared, had illness caused by not eating well. Folks carrying pounds they needn't. With sallow skin, missing teeth and bowed spines. In this, the richest country in the world.

Shame on us.

People want to feel good. And it should be an inalienable right. But here and now, it is really hard. Just that night, we were trying to find something good to eat. Not a burger, not fries. We were in a relatively large town, for this part of the world. The closest we could come was Panera, and even they didn't have any plain bagels, just something called a "French toast" bagel -- the counter girl couldn't even tell me what was in it. The "vegetable" soup, which she told me was gluten free, was loaded with pasta. At least it was soup. Sugar and refined carbs are cheap -- and you can't even find a take-out joint that doesn't serve them if you don't mind the cost.

But the food industry's skimping on food costs is only creating a bigger bill for us down the road. And sadly, if we keep eating what they serve, we run the risk of sabotaging our genetic metabolism so drastically that even if future generations want to nutritionally manage their health, they won't be able to.

Scary, isn't it?

It doesn't have to be.

In the New Year, right here, I am going to research and give you a weekly tip to make your kitchen and the food you eat more healthy. Designed so that if you follow week by week, you'll have made a serious effect in a few months. And if you follow to the end of the year, imagine.

Let me know what you think. Argue with me. But above all, think about it. And take back control.

Kitchen Reform. Coming in Janurary. Right here.

Make change happen. No one will do it for you.

Cranberry conundrum

2010-12-06T06:34:00.000-08:00

Every year about this time I go into Cranberry stashing mode. For as much as the small red berry is touted for its health benefits (face brightening! cholesterol lowering! gum protecting!) it is one of the few truly seasonal fruits, available in its whole form only in winter.

This is because the cranberry -- also known as the bounceberry because bouncing machines are used to test the veracity of the fruit -- needs cold weather to grow, and so is unlikely to be supplied by Mexico, though small quantities are grown in Chile. If you associate the bogs where cranberries grow up with New England, (as I do), be surprised: over half of all cranberries actually hail from Wisconsin, which is apparently why Cranberry Cheddar is such a good idea.

And as good as cranberry juice is (I'll definitely share my husband's rum cosmo this winter), I have to admit that a small dollop of cranberry sauce is the perfect foil for most winter meals. A venison roast, a herbed leg of lamb, even a butternut squash stew, is complimented by the sweet savory, like Bogie brightened by Bacall.

And this is where our dilema perennially occurs. What to do with the superfruit -- which on its own is not only sour, but bitter as well -- to enhance its star qualities and still let it take center stage? For the cranberry is not really a team player until it gets to the plate.

In my childhood home, this always meant three things: cranberry relish, cranberry sauce, and, of course, cranberry log. In order to appease the different cranberry appetites in the household, namely, her own, my mother's table generally hosted more than one form of the berry. Thanksgiving dinner was likely garnished by not only the ubiquitous Ocean Spray cranberry log, complete with the striped indents from the side of the can, but a cooked cranberry port sauce and a raw orange cranberry relish.

I don't generally have time for this. Friday night, when kids are coming in from lacrosse, filtering down from their rooms, hungry, to drag me from work for food, the last thing on my mind is preparing three cranberry dishes (even the log is a bit time consuming, as I must get it out whole). So I have taken the tastes of all and come up with one dish to suffice for everyday cranberry imbibing -- not, of course, to question the reign of those other dishes on the holiday table. (Though you should try this, Mom, it's really good! and quick!) And, with the addition of the orange juice, I can cut down on the amount of sugar in those other recipes, which is necessary to combat the sour fruit.)

Everyday Cranberry Sauce

One bag of cranberries
juice of two oranges
1/2 cup raw sugar (any sugar you have will do, brown sugar makes it really special and honey takes it to a whole 'nother level.)
cinnamon stick

Combine ingredients in a pan over medium heat and simmer, covered (cranberries are wicked messy when they pop, especially on an electric stovetop), for 15 minutes, or until fruits have popped sauce is of a uniform consistency. It will be shiny and thick, but berries will not totally disintegrate. Makes about 2 cups.

Can be stored in the fridge for up to a while, and doled out with each meal for a superfruit punch. If you hoard them, as I do, just throw the bag in the freezer -- industry sources say it will keep 9 months but I have used them after a year to no ill effects.

Enjoy! And Bon Sante!

Happy Salmon

2010-11-29T07:04:00.000-08:00

Our salmon arrived from Alaska, a shipment of pink, plump, vacuum-packed fillets that put our freezer to the test. It is so over-stuffed, with cherries and peaches from our orchard, beef from our favorite butcher up north, and now the fish, that we have to lock it to make sure the door stays sealed.

To allay the problem, I decided to cook salmon for 14 to celebrate a friend's birthday. Problem was, I didn't want to be cooking at the last minute, nor did I want my husband to be at the grill during the soup course (though truth be told that is probably his preference). So the week before, when he was traveling, I cooked salmon every night, to perfect a preparation.

I roasted it, pan seared it, sauteed it, broiled it -- everything short of poaching it in oil, which Mario Batali touts. In the process, I unwittingly followed the anti-wrinkle diet highly touted by Dr. Nicholas Perricone -- by the end of the week, my skin was glowing like a bulb, no lie. I was luminous as Cate Blanchett's Galadriel in Lord of the Rings -- and in fact, used to my ruddy, puffy complexion, a trifle embarrassed by the attention it brought.

Salmon, rich in omega-3s, which provide lubrication and anti-inflammatory powers to not just your skin but heart, brain and joints, really is a power food. In addition, it possesses DMAE, or Dimethylaminoethanol, a nutrient which protects the integrity of cell membranes, deterioration of which leads to aging, and prevents the formation of arachidonic acid, which causes wrinkling. It also reportedly elevates mood -- a study of cranky teens showed those eating higher levels of fish rich in omega-3s were less hostile, important not just to beleaguered parents, but because hostility is an early indicator of heart disease.

At the end of the week, I had perfected the recipe and my complexion, and now as I learn more about omega-3s, think it was not just the party but the dish that made everyone so happy. I roasted the salmon and topped it with a cilantro-walnut sauce made with flax oil (both walnuts and flaxseed are also high in omega-3s, cilantro removes heavy metals, lowers cholesterol and helps kick stubborn viruses).

So go ahead, eat your salmon.

Roasted Salmon with Cilantro-Walnut sauce

serves 8

8 salmon fillets, approximately 2" wide by 5" long and 1.5"thick
sea salt

for the sauce
1 bunch cilantro
1 clove of garlic
1/2 cup walnuts, roasted
1/2 cup flax oil or walnut oil
sea salt
pepper

Roast the walnuts ( I do it in the toaster oven at 350 degrees for 10 minutes, or until golden brown) and whiz them in the barrel of a small food processor with the garlic clove until pulverized. Add the oil and cilantro, with the stems cut off. Process until a thick sauce forms, if you would like the sauce thinner use more oil. Salt and pepper to taste.

Preheat broiler. Lay salmon fillets on an oiled cookie sheet, skin down, and broil for 5 minutes. Rotate and broil 5 minutes more.

Serve the sauce drizzled over the fillets.

Try with Mint and Cashew Green Beans -- easy!

Green Beans tossed with Mint and Cashew
serves 8

1 lb. green beans, cleaned boiled to the texture your family likes (we like them crunchy)
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup mint leaves, shredded
2 T cashews, pounded to small pieces
sea salt

Melt butter in a large saute pan over medium heat. Add mint, cashews and a pinch of salt. Toss with beans. May be served at room temperature -- but not too appetizing cold, as butter will harden.

Enjoy!

Box of Summer

2010-11-04T05:19:00.000-07:00

End of season at the Farmer's Market is sad. Gone are the Sundays of sampling fresh cantaloupe(July), peaches (August), then apples(September) from a table where you compete with bees. Gone the little last minute impulse buys that make your weekday routine a little happier, like a fresh-picked herbal tea or lemony soap. Gone the chance for a weekend morning social (maybe even accompanied by a few stragglers playing bluegrass) before heading back to the day's chores.

But for those of us who like to buy tomatoes in bulk, the future looks bright.

This past Sunday, I got a box of tomatoes that my 6-year-old could have fit in for $8. Not just the end of the crop, mind you, though there were a few rotten ones in there, especially since I waited until Wednesday night to make sauce. No, these were thick, juicy beefsteak tomatoes, smaller Romas and some rusty pink heirloom tomatoes, jumbled like one big happy family in their cardboard container, smelling like the last box of summer.

These ..

Roasted Tomato Sauce

Adapted from my mom

1/4 bushel of tomatoes, any variety
1 onion
3 heads garlic

Preheat oven to 500 degrees.

Chunk tomatoes into quarters, layer with slab chopped onion and slivered garlic on a roasting sheet.

Check every 20 minutes and stir in anything on top that is browning. Cook 1 1/2 hours total. Let cool 10 minutes. Mash with a potato masher until desired consistency -- I like it a little thicker but kids seem to not like chunks of tomato.


become this. yum.

Enjoy!

Curry this

2010-10-26T19:03:00.000-07:00

Healthy is a progression, at least it was for me. I learned to be concerned about my weight in 10th grade, when a friend convinced me we needed to go on a "diet." (We lived in London, and I am fairly certain we discussed this over bags of Maltesers, milk chocolate covered malt balls which are conducive to eating by the handful.) I am not sure what our "diet" was, except that it made the sweets all the more tasty -- her mother made a pistachio pudding cake with ginger ale (really!) that still rocks my mind.

In college, "dieting" was a two-day cleanse consisting solely of very large chocolate chip cookies heisted by the stack from the dining hall. In my first years of working, I would go to the gym before work, and to happy hour after, eating free appetizers and drinking wine spritzers to save calories (and money). Clearly I was learning balance.

Of course I learned to eat salads, asking for dressing on the side. I made soups, leaving out the pasta. One of the first "healthy" cookbooks I got -- from my mother, I believe -- was Jane Brody's Good Food Book. While the high carbo style didn't do much for my body -- instead of the promised high kicks, I got what felt like a rock in the gut, diagnosed much later as gluten intolerance -- there are some of her recipes that I return to time and again.

It is only in the last ten years that I have kicked up eating healthy to eating locally, and this is the step that has truly made the difference. When I found this huge cauliflower (at the Farmer's market, not in my own garden as this photo might suggest), such a far cry from the cellophane-wrapped waxy white florets usually found in the grocery, I immediately thought of Jane. She makes an easy vegetable curry that will jolt your world. Try it.

Cauliflower Curry

adapted from Jane Brody

1 large cauliflower, cut into 1 inch cubes
2 teaspoons olive oil
2 Tablespoons curry powder
1 teaspoon cumin
2 large cloves of garlic, minced
1/2 cup broth
1/2 cup coconut water, or more broth
chopped cilantro and Greek yogurt, to garnish

Heat 1 teaspoon of oil in a large skillet. Add the garlic and stir until translucent. Add the spices and roast one minute.

Add the cauliflower and stir to coat with spice. Roast, stirring so doesn't burn, a few minutes then add broth and coconut water. Let simmer until cauliflower is done and sauce has thickened, about 20 minutes, depending on how big your cauliflower is. Add more broth or coconut water if you want more sauce or if it begins to dry up (again, depends on how big your cauliflower is).

***Spoiler alert!!!!!
Cauliflower is way healthy: high in fiber, antioxidants and vitamin K, it provides digestive support via an enzyme that provides protection to the stomach lining plus -- get this -- possesses the ability to prevent, and perhaps even reverse, blood vessel damage. By the way, the French like it too -- and have you ever met a French chef who chooses a food solely due to its health benefits? -- the chouxfleur shows up in François Pierre La Varenne's Le cuisinier françois, the original French cooking, though it was not common until Louis XIV introduced it to the table.

And so we are introducing it to ours. This is how we get our 5-year-old to eat healthy items: "No, don't eat that, I don't want you to grow up and be bigger than me!" (totally untrue, but totally works, by the way.) It occurs to me that might work with adults as well, so here goes ..... don't try this at home ...

Enjoy!

Healthista

2010-10-11T08:28:00.000-07:00

Saturday night I was at a rocking party, thrown by friends of the Middleburg Polo Academy. It was a night in Casablanca, replete with tented outdoor banquets, henna tatoos and tarot readers. We met the polo ponies, sipped champagne, and ate lamb merguez. The men wore tuxedos and dinner jackets, the women gowns and heels, and we lounged on banquets tented in silks.

Everyone looked gorgeous, dancing under the stars until way too late. We are in general, perhaps, a healthy bunch out here, living outdoors, many working with animals or land daily. One neighbor in particular, though, just radiates health -- her name is Holli Thompson, a nutritionista working hard to get the news out about a healthy lifestyle. And it's clear she practices what she preaches: It's hard not to come away from an encounter with her wanting to emulate her glow, and her lovely calm.

So yesterday, a bit drained from lack of sleep and champagne, and inspired by the fresh spring onions at the Farmer's Market, I made her Pineapple-Cucumber Gazpacho for a pick-me-up. My husband loved it. The zest of the pineapple combined with the smoothness of the cucumber, crunch of ground almonds and zip of cilantro is perfect, on its own or as a precursor to curry, which is how we approached it. It is loaded with vitamin C, healthy fat and antioxidants; the addition of the almonds makes it not only yummy but cholesterol-lowering. Cucumbers are a great way to add fiber, as they come packaged with the water extra fiber intake requires. Try to buy organic, or at least the baby ones without wax on them, as the skin contains nutrients best consumed without any chemicals that might be trapped in the wax.

Cucumbers are an ancient food, going back some 3,000 years in Western Asia. The Roman Emperor Tiberius was said to have cucumbers on his table every day no matter the season. Roman gardeners invented greenhouse methods to grow them year round, such as a raised bed in a frame on wheels that moved to optimize the sun. Can you imagine being the one guy solely responsibility for making sure the Emperor's cucumbers were in full sun? Time to move the cucumbers...

Thanks Holli!

Pineapple-Cucumber Gazpacho

adapted from Nutritional Style

4 cups fresh pineapple, cut into pieces

4 cups cucumber, cut into pieces

5 scallions

2 tbsp lime juice

2 inches ginger root, peeled

1 tsp celtic salt

1 handful cilantro

2 tbsp avocado oil

1 1/2 cup raw almonds-ground

1 Tbsp organic apple cider vinegar

Add all above ingredients to high speed blender and blend.

(Be sure to grind the almonds first.)

Garnish with cilantro, and drizzle with avocado oil to serve.

Enjoy!

Plays well with whipped cream

2010-10-11T05:54:00.000-07:00

We have a new toy. Once again breaking my vow of no one-trick ponies, I bought an apple peeler. We love it. It makes processing apples like playing for my 5-year-old, who loves the neat spirals that come off the apple. It peels, cores and slices in about a minute, and you don't even have to wash the apple.

So I guess that makes it not a one trick pony.

Our apples, and again I have to admit that I do not have any idea what variety they are, have just the right sweetness for me. Pan-fried in butter with gobs of cinnamon, I can them for later use in pies and crisps, or just solo. This is so easy, I have started to do it in the slow-cooker (in about half the time as applesauce) and can in 1 quart jars, thinking I'll get a pie a jar. This recipe fills a slow cooker, which makes about 3 quarts. Which is all I can can at a time (yes, I meant that), so it works out. The apples are just cooked, soft without falling apart, crusted with cinnamon but not soupy.

Pan-fried apples with cinnamon

basket of apples, perhaps 2 dozen, or to fit your pan or slow cooker
cinnamon
butter

Peel, core and section apples. Melt about two tablespoons of butter in a large skillet, or in the slow cooker. Pile in the apples. Sprinkle with cinnamon. Cover and let cook for about 30 minutes at low, stirring to incorporate the cinnamon and keep from sticking to the pan, but not too often; I like the sections to stay firm and together. In the slow cooker, I leave for three hours on low, stirring just once after about an hour to distribute cinnamon.

May be canned in jars the size you wish, or just consumed, in a pie or just with a spoon.

Plays well with whipped cream.

Enjoy!

Presto Pesto

2010-10-04T07:29:00.000-07:00

Each spring, I have been lucky enough to get beautiful 10-inch pots of basil from our local IGA grocer, who gets them from local growers. They each have roughly 6 stems of basil, and when I put them in the ground are already substantial plants, reaching in excess of 8 inches in height. I have an area of my garden that is bare year 'round, except for basil season, and I plant them 3 feet apart, as they bush out like mad if you give them space.

And then I leave. I go off for ten weeks and they are occasionally watered by a loyal friend if there is drought -- although they seem to like it dry. When I come back, they have expanded to fill their half of the garden, reaching for the sun in all directions, contorted around each other like a big game of herb Twister, the leafy stalks more than two feet tall. If I leave them too long, the ends can go to seed fast, the leaves nearest the stalk brown, or, as this year, become bug snack.

But it almost never matters, because there is so much basil that I generally cannot get it all in before the frost. Green basil, purple basil, Thai basil -- each with its distinctive leaf and smell -- to grind into pesto or chop on tomatoes that are also clamoring to get off the vine.

When I do cut, I cut back from the bottom, half the plant at a time. Luxuriously, I am able to pick only the finest leaves from the stalks, the leaves that are whole and healthy, not marred by blight or bugs. I nip them off just at the bottom of the leaf, leaving the stem and unworthy leaves for the compost. They collect in the barrel of the salad spinner until it's full, rinsing occasionally, and then I spin the water off, as dry leaves make better pesto.

This is a recipe for a very dry pesto, with about the same spreadability as peanut butter, which I freeze in 4-ounce canning jars. For a few reasons: I like to have the pesto spreading texture for sandwiches, paninis and rubs. It is easy to thin down if necessary: with water from the cooked pasta to make a sauce, with vinegar and or oil for dressings and marinades.

There are a lot of theories on how to keep pesto green. From the chef at Sistina in NY, I learned that mixing a small amount of parsley in will keep the pesto from turning. Others swear by a few drops of lemon juice. Nothing ever works for me. The pesto does turn where it is exposed to air -- but stick in a knife and there is fresh green pesto beneath. I find the turning does not affect the taste one bit.

Like most of my standards, this recipe is one that I adjust each time I make it. I don't measure, I ballpark, and then I taste. Sometimes it needs salt, sometimes pepper, sometimes nothing. When you like it, it is ready for your kitchen. The recipe below makes about 2 cups; I generally double it in the same food processor and just keep feeding in the leaves.

Basil Pesto

1 cup Parmegiano, Reggiano or sheep's milk Pecorina-romana if you are lactose intolerant, grated
1 cup pine nuts
10 cups basil leaves, rinsed and dried
4 cloves of garlic
juice of 1/2 lemon
olive oil
salt and pepper

Toast the pine nuts until they are golden brown. In a food processor, process peeled garlic cloves until smooth, then add pine nuts, process until smooth. Add parm, process again. You may grate the cheese in the food processor as well, but do in a separate step or they all clunk together in a lumpy mess. Been there.

When your base is as smooth as smooth peanut butter, start adding basil. Pack the barrel with leaves and start grinding. I generally add about a Tablespoon of olive oil and the lemon juice to keep the leaves processing.

Now taste. If it is bitter, that generally indicates you need salt, despite the massive amount of salty cheese. Go slow, a pinch at a time, and process in completely before making another decision. Freeze in small batches for later use, but be sure to leave one in the fridge for current use. We always have a jar open, just next to the butter. And we probably use it just as much!

Enjoy!

Beef Satay

2010-09-27T08:36:00.000-07:00

This summer, even into fall here in Virginia, has been hot and muggy day after day, ending in the kind of evenings meant to be spent in wet bathing suits. I have said too many times that we've had more summer this past two months than the past six seasons combined, but it is true.

And so it is that our tastes have strayed towards Asia, over and over. The kind of meals you can cook in the morning when it is still cool, and eat at room temperature when it suits. The kind of crisp, clean tastes that take well to seasonal produce, and local meats. The New York Times dining section, which we peruse each Wednesday for ideas, is similarly inclined towards Tamari and ginger this summer, giving us credence.

This recipe, though, is one we love from Mr. Steven Raichlen, a man among men, according to my men friends, who has elevated BBQ to an actual art. Combine his marinade with the marinating machine (though, as usual, I assure you that a plastic bag will work just as handily) and you have perfection.

Singapore Beef Satay

adapted from Steven Raichlen

1.5 lbs rib-eye steak, 1/2 inch thick, cut into 1/2 inch cubes, including the fat
3 Tablespoons light brown sugar
2 Tablespoons ground coriander
1 Tablespoon tumeric
1-1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 1/2 teaspoons fresh ground pepper
3 Tablespoons fish sauce or tamari
3 Tablespoons vegetable oil

Place meat in a mixing bowl and stir in the sugar, coriander, tumeric, cumin, pepper, fish sauce and oil. Marinate the beef for 20 minutes in marinator or 2 to 12 hours in the fridge.

Drain the cubes of beef and discard marinade. Thread the beef onto bamboo skewers that have been soaked in water for 10 minutes. Leave the bottom half of each skewer bare for a handle and 1/4 inch exposed at the pointed end. Alternate between one piece of lean beef and one piece of fatty beef for the best flavor.

Prepare a gas or charcoal grill. Over high heat, brush the grates with oil. Fold aluminum foil by thirds like a letter and place over the grill as a rest for the exposed skewer ends, so they do not burn. Grill the sates until cooked to taste, about 2 minutes a side for medium.

Serve with cucumber relish, and rice dotted with toasted coconut. Enjoy!

Chicken with Fennel

2010-09-21T08:53:00.000-07:00

Last spring I planted two rows of fennel, and as usually happens in that circumstance, all of the sudden there is plenty to go around. Fennel is easy to grow, stores well, and is versatile and original, with its soft anise undertones.

This is an easy, fast comfort food fix, that is easily timed to arrive from the oven hot for dinner. The fennel caramelizes under the fennel, which is a soft counterpoint to the moist chicken. When you stab the chicken the clear juice melds the dish.

A crusty baguette, chutney and a salad with green goddess does the trick. Dress it up with a nice bottle of soft Pinot Noir and it can easily carry a weeknight dinner party.

Roast Chicken with Fennel

adapted from the NY Times

1/2 cup olive oil, or as needed
2 bulbs fennel, trimmed and sliced 1/4 inch thick
2 lbs chicken thighs, skin on
chopped fresh parsley

Preheat over to 450 degrees. Drizzle bottom of a shallow roasting pan or baking sheet with a tablespoon or so of oil and cover it with a layer of fennel. Drizzle another tablespoon or so over fennel and sprinkle with sea salt and pepper. Roast about 10 minutes.

Sprinkle chicken with salt and pepper. Add to casserole skin side up, covering the fennel. Spoon some juices up from bottom of pan over the chicken. Roast 15 minutes then baste chicken with pan drippings and rotate the pan. If necessary, adjust heat so chicken browns without burning.

The chicken will be done in about 30 minutes. Serve each piece with some fennel and pan juices; garnish with parsley.

Serves 8

Enjoy!

Apples everywhere

2010-09-10T08:50:00.000-07:00

My apple trees are like those in the Wizard of Oz, fairly throwing fruits at me as I pass ("It was a drive-by fruiting!")

My 5-year-old brings them in by the box and wants to make goods for a bake sale. I am concentrating on getting them put up before the bees get them.

SO here's the easiest recipe ever, except that you do have to invest the time to peel and core them. (And if anyone knows what kind they are, please let me know as we inherited the trees. They are sweet and just a little soft, but perfect to eat and need no sugar in baking. I toss them with butter and cinnamon for breakfast. We dice them with raisins for lunch. And yesterday, I canned applesauce that needed not a single thing but water. It was rosy pink and sweet-tart, a little chunky. Going to the store for more jars.....

Slow cooker applesauce

20 apples, or however many you need to fill the cooker
1 cup water

Peel and core apples, put them in the slow cooker and cook on low for 6 hours.

To can: fill clean Mason jars, leaving half-inch of headspace. Put in a large pot and cover with water, making sure to cover by at least an inch. Boil 20 minutes.

Enjoy!

Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme

2010-09-07T05:47:00.000-07:00

A few years ago, my husband ordered a new grill. He researched the purchase for months before deciding on the B.A.G. (Big Ass Grill, a technical term coined by his buddy Dan). With this huge appliance came another box, decidedly small compared with the BAG, but large none the less.

Now, I am one who likes small appliances, or at least those that multi-task, and machine in the box did only one thing, marinate -- a task for which I had previously used a plastic bag and gravity. And it was a large machine at that. The following weekend was Father's Day, and when my father came to visit he promptly was presented with the large marinator.

The Reveo Marivac Food Tumbler, as it is called, is rather like a vacuum-sealed rock polisher. Meat and marinade are placed in a large plastic cylinder, and a reverse vacuum sucks out the air. It is then placed on a rolling carriage and tumbled until the marinade becomes one with the meat.

The good people at Reveo obviously subscribe to the theory: If you only do one thing, do it well.

With the gift of the Reveo, my mother has become the queen of marinating. If there's a last minute supper, for maybe 10, she pulls out the marinator and heads out to the herb garden. On this day, a pork tenderloin; the Amish farmers also had a fresh picked romaine, and Wegman's a tub of new figs. And she, obviously, had been listening to Simon and Garfunkel.

The pork, grilled on a hot BAG, becomes juicy on the inside, and crispy out. The marinate, not confined to the outside of the meat, subtly infiltrates the entirety, making it fresh and rich and buttery soft from the soft pummeling of the machine.

Herbed Pork Tenderloin

Marinade
2-3 cloves garlic
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup white wine
1/4 cup chopped parsley
1/4 cup chopped sage
1/4 cup chopped rosemary
1/4 cup chopped thyme

2 pork tenderloins

Chop herbs and garlic in food process, add oil and wine. Pour marinade into marinator (or use a plastic bag!) and marinate for 20 minutes if using machine. If using a bag, massage marinade into meat through the bag and put in fridge as long as you like, from overnight to 2 hours. Bring meat to room temperature and grill on a hot grill, to 160 degrees.

Fig Salad

Romaine
Figs
Shaved parmesean
Olive oil

Balsamic vinegar

Half the figs and place on a cookie sheet. Place under a heated broiler and roast until soft, about 5 - 7 minutes.

Using your hands, tear lettuce into small (2") bits and place on separate plates. Top with shaved parmesean and drizzle with balsamic and olive oil. Put the figs on each salad.

Needless to say, I am now wanting my own marinator. As large as it is, when you do one thing as well as this does, you earn your place in the kitchen.

Enjoy!

Tomato Wars

2010-09-01T05:42:00.000-07:00

Every July my uncle John comes to visit. He brings coolers of produce: beets, peppers and beans in abundance. And, if we are lucky, one tomato. This tomato is to represent all the tomatoes grown in Indiana that my father (who grew up in Indiana) will not be eating come August. This tomato is not yet as red as poppies, nor as sweet as summer rain, but it signals potential.

We wait for the lunch that we will slice up the tomato and taste it, (my father generally does this without announcement, and later adds that we should try a slice when just the end is left).

But these past two years this has not had to be our only chance -- my uncle wraps the tomatoes, nearly ripe, up in tissue and careful cardboard packaging and sends them via FedEx. This year he marked them with numbers and sent along a small menu with the varieties: 1. Keepsake, 2. Goliath, 3. Sun King, 4. German Pink, 5. Raad Red. And they are very good.

Of course, the tomatoes here aren't bad either. Fresh from the farm stand they are a sweet and yielding fruit, juicy and yearning for sea salt. Good with just a hint of fresh basil.

The point is, this is a family that cares deeply about tomatoes. I am not going to say that Indiana tomatoes are better, or New York State tomatoes. In fact, I am pretty sure that when I finally return to my garden, there will be some lovely Virginia tomatoes that have ripened in my absence. I am not that discerning -- though I guess I am picky enough, because when tomatoes are not in season, I will not eat them at all. (Though I do cook with them out of a can, I am very picky about that also.)

At the top of the season, I just cut a tomato and salt it. I do this every night and sometimes for lunch. My mother does things with them: delicious things that make us smack our lips when we are walking through the kitchen. Things that make my stepdaughter jump up and down when she finds they are for dinner. This for instance, from the cookbook Lost Recipes, by Marion Cunningham, who revised the Fannie Farmer cookbook and works with James Beard. Lost Recipes is an ode to cooking, a lament to a generation of cooks lost because they have not the time or the inclination to cook. Lost because immigrants wanted to blend in, to taste the commercial foods of their new land, to buy foods at the market that said they were part of this society.

I think my generation does a little of both, making the food we eat uniquely ours. We've hopped over boundaries and embraced many technologies and products which allow us to stick to our food philosophies without spending so much time in the kitchen.

That said, this is an easy recipe you will never get anywhere but in the kitchen. Even if you had a market that would make this, it is the just out of the oven melding of the tomatoes, butter and breadcrumbs that is irresistible. It is very forgiving and no time will be the same -- depending on the tomatoes -- it may be soupy or thick.

Just like real life. You'll find it all good.

Tomato Gratin

adapted from Lost Recipes

3-4 lbs. tomatoes, sliced 1/2 inch thick
Coarse sea salt
Black pepper
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons butter
1 1/2 cups gluten-free breadcrumbs

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Layer the tomatoes in a 11" casserole or oval baking dish. Salt and pepper after each layer.
Melt butter in a skillet and mix in breadcrumbs. (Ms, Cunningham recommends adding 2 t of chopped thyme at this stage. I am sure this would be fabulous; we like the simple flavor of the tomatoes. Your choice.) Spread evenly over tomatoes. Season with salt and pepper. Bake for an hour, or until nicely browned.

Enjoy!

Basil, Brown Sugar and Peaches

2010-08-30T06:59:00.000-07:00

So just writing that makes my mouth water. Two things we have in abundance just now, that I might not have thought to put together only I was looking for a recipe to adopt for the Adopt a GF blogger event and saw this on Shauna's site, Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef. Seems she loves the Wednesday NYT almost as much as we do around here: this one originated there. I think it is a beautiful thing that these recipes get new life and sometimes new tricks when they are spun up for another time around on the web, though this one needs no spinning at all to be absolutely fabulous. Just look!

Peaches Roasted with Brown Sugar and Basil

3 Tablespoons of unsalted butter, softened
3 Tablespoons dark brown sugar
2 teaspoons chopped fresh basil
pinch of cinnamon
pinch of salt
4 ripe peaches, halved and pitted

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
In a small bowl, mash together butter, sugar, basil, cinnamon and salt. Spoon mixture into cavities of peaches.
Bake until the peaches are soft and butter is bubbling, about 15 minutes.

Thanks Shauna.

Enjoy!

Corn Sweet Corn

2010-08-26T14:24:00.000-07:00

We are inundated by corn. Every 1/2 mile down the road there is a hand-lettered sign, on plywood and painted in red spray paint: "FRESH CORN". Four dollars buys a baker's dozen, and the locals know to select the smallest ears, as they are the most tender. The real picky peel back the husk of each ear before it goes in the bag, to make sure it is light in color, with small, crisp kernels.

Around these parts, the stars are heirloom varieties, Butter and Sugar, and, later in the season, Silver Queen. In line at the Post Office folks compare corn stand notes. Some farmers sell from bushel baskets on the side of the road, some are pre-fab log fancies (these usually also feature pies and jellies, and sometimes even fresh flowers), others are shacks hastily thrown together with boards and nails. The man down the road just completed a large, well-crafted shed for his corn stand, and decorated it with pumpkins. But everyone knows it is not the shack that determines the corn, it is the field. And, the variable from year to year: the weather.

Now that's fresh from the field!

I am not kidding about this. Sometimes, we buy a half dozen from different corn stands, to compare.

Corn is serious business.

(This corn color is just about perfect, but the kernels are a little too big and puffy.)

We also eat our corn down the row, not around. Once, when I had just met my husband, we were at a party and I was saying, incredulously, that he ate corn not in a row but a -- "you mean like a mo-ron?" interjected a very Southern friend. I neither confirmed nor denied.

Of course, all this corn snobbery earns us a lot of uneaten ears. We freeze it, fry it, put it in chowders, relishes and salads. But the star turn for the unused corn is the pudding.

We've tried many, and this is the recipe we always come back to, one of Ina's, tweaked to our own taste. But we've also collected many more, and one day will knock them off, one by one, with tasting notes. Until then ..

Corn Pudding

Adapted from Ina Garten

1/4 lb. (1 stick) unsalted butter
5 cups fresh corn kernels off the cob (6-8 ears)
1 cup chopped yellow onion (1 onion)
4 extra-large eggs
1 cup milk
1 cup half and half
1 cup cottage cheese, pureed in a food processor
3 tablespoons chopped chives and garlic
1 tablespoon kosher salt
3/4 teaspoon fresh ground pepper
1/2 cup cornmeal
3/4 cup grated extra-sharp Cheddar, plus extra to sprinkle on top

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease the inside of an 8- to 10- cup baking dish.

Melt the butter in a very large saute pan and saute the corn and onion over medium-high heat for 4 minutes. Cool slightly.

Whisk together the eggs, milk, and half-and-half in a large bowl. Slowly whisk in the cottage cheese. Add herbs, salt and pepper. Add cooked corn mix, cornmeal and grated cheddar, pour into the baking dish and sprinkle the top with more grated cheddar.

Place dish in larger pan and fill bottom pan halfway up the sides of the dish with water. Bake pudding for 45 minutes until top browns and knife inserted into center comes out clean. Serve warm. Serves 8.

Enjoy!

Peaches and Cream

2010-08-23T12:18:00.000-07:00

When the peaches came in in July (early for this far North NYS) we'd buy a basket and savor it for days. Now, though, they are ripe on the shelf, and need to be separated and consumed as fast as we can. We take them outside, stripping the shirts off the small ones so that the peach juice doesn't stain their clothing (if anyone knows an antidote for peach juice, please share) and holding our chins away from our chests as we bite in.

Still we can't stop eating them. Whole, cut and peeled, in cereal, pancakes, ice cream, or topped with Greek yogurt and coconut. They are so good fresh we haven't bothered baking with them -- until now, as they ripen by the tens on the counter.

So as a parting gift to my step-daughter, who reads this blog from her food-challenged University with her stomach growling, I made a peach pie, her request. The addition of the cream and cornstarch make a smooth base for the peaches, and the crust is infused with creamy almond flavor as well. Make ahead long enough to cool most of the way, and the crust can harden up like a crumbly cookie.

Peaches and Cream Pie

crust
1 package Mi-Del pecan shortbread
1/4 cup browned butter

filling
8 ripe peaches
1 teaspoon almond extract
3 Tablespoons rice flour
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/4 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup sugar
pinch of salt

In a small metal pan, melt the butter and cook until brown foam forms on top; off the heat if any solids begin to separate. Whiz cookies in a food processor and add butter. Pack into 9-inch pie pan.

Bring a large pot of water to boil and drop the peaches in for 1 minute each, this will make the skins slip off as easy as Hugh Hefner's panties. Working over a large mixing bowl to catch the juice, slice peaches in 1" wedges to the pit and discard the pits. Add the rest of the ingredients and bake at 400 degrees for 55 minutes. Check the pie towards the end of the cooking time and if the crust is browning too fast make a small rim of aluminum foil to protect it from direct heat.

Enjoy!

Lighthouse Steakhouse

2010-08-20T07:07:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, in summer, if you have a good butcher, all you need is a steak.

Luckily, we do. Just down the road is a little market called the Lighthouse. It is legend around here, for its fresh meat, home-baked breads -- banana or zucchini bread that crisps up when toasted and hit with butter -- and the piles of fresh produce that farmers deliver each morning. Corn in the bushel by the door, baskets of ripe peaches on a makeshift well-weathered shelf that has, by some miracle, been bearing its sweet load as long as I can remember.

The market is pervaded by the smoky smell of roasting chickens, for the Lighthouse had a rotisserie long before Whole Foods and Harris Teeter decided it was trendy, and they occasionally throw on a brisket, or a turkey, for good measure. At lunch the line for fresh-made subs is a community sounding board. And if, when you are paying, there is a bunch of asparagus, or a basket of yellow plums, by the checkout, grab them.

But the star here is meat. People from places far closer to "civilization" (ie bigger and more plentiful markets) come here with coolers when their summer stay comes to an end, to load up on Norm's flank steaks and NY strips, perfectly trimmed filets and tender ground beef, not too fat nor too lean.

All you need is salt, and a grill, and you've got a meal.

Grilled Filet Mignon

The filet is the most tender cut of meat, as it is taken from a non-weight bearing muscle in the cow that is rarely exercised. It is also the most expensive, as there are only 4-6 pounds in the average beef; you can use this basic method for any cut of steak.

Choose steaks that are 1-1/2 inches in thickness. Bring them to room temperature by taking them from fridge 45 minutes before cooking.

Fire the grill up to hottest possible temperature. Using tongs, put meat on the grill and leave it at least two minutes to sear in the juices. After about 5 minutes, flip; longer for medium or well. Test the steak after a couple more minutes; purists hate to pierce or poke meat so use the thumb test instead. A thumb in a rare steak will leave an indentation; if medium will give but leave no mark, and if well will be firm. If you use a thermometer (we do) grill to 130 degrees for rare, 130-140 for medium-rare, 140-155 for medium, 155 to 165 for medium-well, 170 plus for well.

Purists also extol the virtues of salt at the end of the process, saying it bleeds the juices if applied before grilling. Let the meat sit at least 5 minutes to let the flavors develop.

Try this easy mushroom to ground the plate, and you've got a steakhouse at home. The Portobello is the filet mignon of mushrooms, a grown up crimini, dense and meaty.

Portobello Stuffed with Spinach

serves 4

4 Portobello mushrooms
1.5 lbs spinach, fresh
3 cloves garlic, slivered
salt and pepper
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1/4 cup pine nuts, toasted (I use a toaster oven: spread on the sheet and spray with olive oil, toast until golden, about 5 minutes.)

Heat olive oil in a heavy skillet and add garlic. Cook until golden. Add spinach in handfuls -- it will wilt and as it does, stir up the garlic to combine.

When spinach is completely wilted, take a slotted spoon and fill tops of cleaned Portobello mushrooms.

Sprinkle pine nuts on top and bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes, or until mushroom is tender.

Enjoy!

Pickles, sweet and sour

2010-08-18T07:12:00.000-07:00

This summer has been wonderful for produce: the warm, rainy New York State spring made everything pop early, the flavors rich and pure. From the Amish families that trot their offerings to the farmers' market, we procure crisp Romaine, corn still warm from the field, and this year, small pickling cucumbers, which my mother has been pickling every which way.

My mother has not always made pickles. Growing up in Indiana, there were always homemade pickles in her Mother's refrigerator, gifts from neighbors or bought at the fair. Corn, onions, radishes, cucumbers, cauliflower, anything from the garden was fair game. Here, pickles sold at the summer farmer's market were mostly canned. About five years ago, she saw a recipe in the paper for dill pickles, and it looked easy. That first batch attracted kids in our house like her canister of M 'n M's (ok, not quite, but still, for a small, sour, crunchy vegetable, they go well here).

Homemade Garlic Pickles

5 lbs. pickling cucumbers
1/2 gallon and 5 cups cold water
1 1/3 cups kosher salt
2 T mixed pickling spices (available in the spice section of your supermarket)
4 cloves garlic, unpeeled
2 large sprigs fresh dill
2 cups apple cider vinegar
2 T sugar

Wash cukes well. Put in glass or stainless bowl. Combine 1/2 gallow water and 1 cup salt. Stir until dissolved. Pour over cukes, cover and let stand overnight.

Drain and rinse cukes and discard brine water. Pack into clean gallon glass jar along with spices, garlic and dill.

Combine remaining 5 cups water, 2 cups vinegar and 2 T sugar. Bring to a boil and pour over the cukes.

Cool, cover jar and refrigerated. Pickles are ready to eat as soon as they cool, but better if left overnight. Will keep in fridge to 2 weeks.

Traditionally, our summer fridge contains a tall canister of dills, but this summer, with the cukes so plentiful, she's been experimenting with varying degrees of sweetness. We weigh in as they ripen, spooning them out of the jar into dishes for lunch, snacks and dinner.

This summer, the sweet pickle recipe is the winner, large praise from my mother, whose motto is: "I never met a pickle that I didn't like."

Sweet Refrigerator Pickles

7-8 cups thin sliced pickling cucumbers (3 lbs.)
1 sliced onion, big
2 sliced peppers, red green or yellow
1/8 cup salt
1 cup vinegar
1 cup sugar
1 tsp celery seed
1 tsp mustard seed

Place vegetables in a bowl and sprinkle with 1/8 cup salt and cover with ice water -- leave for 2 hours.

Drain and place in jars. Boil vinegar and rest of ingredients and pour over pickles. Store in fridge for up to two weeks.

If you can keep them around that long!

Enjoy!

How to Roast a Lamb

2010-08-14T06:48:00.000-07:00

I have a friend who loves cookbooks the way other women love new clothes. She falls for one fast, bringing the conquest into her kitchen and making it at home, fawning over its pictures and marking promising recipes with Post-Its. She brings it to tea and boasts of its merits, even leaving it for a while if she is not cooking something from it that very night.

So needless to say, when she champions a book it is very hard not to fall for it too. Such was the case with Michael Psilakis' How to Roast a Lamb, which I had to buy myself as the first week she owned it, as she brought it over to share what she was currently cooking, then left with it as there were too many tempting dishes to try to leave it even for an hour. After two minutes with it, I was hooked.

Psilakis is Greek, a culture for which I have a tremendous penchant. His father, when they left their native land, brought seeds from the family garden which he perpetuates year after year. When a food is fresh and growing, that is the best time to eat it, seems his philosophy, and so finds simple yet enchanting new ways to keep the food central. He doesn't obscure with too much technique, lengthy ingredient lists or precious spices. Yet to survive in the Manhattan restaurant scene, he must spin tradition into his own generation. These are all foods we know of and love, prepared as his mother taught him, and beyond.

I started with the eponymous recipe; there will be more in these pages as time goes on. The night I made this we had a dozen for dinner, a common summer occurrence, so I doubled the size of his lamb leg, but had plenty of stuffing. We still had left overs, which made killer panninis when pressed with melted sharp cheddar.

Roasted Leg of Lamb
adapted from "How to Roast a Lamb"

Stuffing
1.5 cups large, sun-dried tomatoes, roughly chopped
1/4 cup oil-cured black olives, pitted
1 teaspoon minced rosemary
leaves from 3 small sprigs thyme
1 teaspoon dry oregano
1 Tablespoon Dijon mustard
15 cloves Garlic Confit (recipe follows)
3 Tablespoons olive oil
1 1/2 Tablespoons red wine vinegar
cracked black pepper

Lamb
5 lbs boneless leg of lamb, butterflied and some fat trimmed off
kosher salt and black pepper
olive oil
1 1/2 cup water
1 Tablespoon Dijon mustard
2-3 cloves Garlic Confit
3 large sprigs rosemary
3 tablespoons olive oil

Combine all stuffing ingredients in a food processor and puree to a smooth paste, about 1 minute. Reserve about two Tablespoons of the mixture.

Lay the lamb out with fat side down. Season with salt and pepper and spread stuffing mixture over it, pressing it down in all the cracks and crevices of the lamb. Drizzle with olive oil and roll the lamb up, seasoning with salt and pepper as you go. Wrap a string around the lamb several times and tie off, or tie in 3-4 spots crosswise and 1-2 lengthwise. Ideally allow the meat to sit on a rack in the refrigerator over night, to allow the flavors to develop.

Bring lamb to room temperature while preheating oven to 375 degrees. In a small roasting pan, whisk reserved stuffing, water, mustard, garlic and rosemary. Place a rack in pan over the liquid. Season lamb with salt and pepper on all sides. In a large heavy skillet heat oil to very hot, then sear lamb well on all sides.

Roast seam side up over pan liquid, basting every 15 minutes. When the meat is medium rare, a thermometer inserted at the thickest point will register 140 degrees. Let meat rest for 15 minutes. Use pan juices for saucing, or peel and half some roasting potatoes in the pan and roast while meat rests.

Garlic Confit

3 cups garlic cloves, peeled
2 bay leafs
8-10 sprigs fresh thyme
salt and pepper
2 cups oil

Put cloves in a heavy, covered braising pan, add bay leaves, thyme and a scant tablespoon sea salt, 15-20 black peppercorns. Barely cover with the oil. Cover and braise in 300 degree oven until pale golden and tender, about an hour. Cool to room temperature. Keep in jar in fridge and use liberally in sauces, vinaigrettes, on vegetables and sandwiches.

Enjoy!

The Beautiful South

2010-08-10T11:18:00.000-07:00

I have heard that some people dispute that Virginia is really the "South," but I, who have lived everywhere but before moving here, beg to differ.

Case in point, a dinner party we went to recently. Some friends had gone down to Mississippi to hunt, and brought back a mess of quail to cook up. (208, to be exact.) These guys have been shooting together since boyhood; they join another friend who's moved further south for a weekend hunt each year. The quail are dressed and frozen and toted home in bags for a party.

This summer, they set up a skeet shoot down at a pond on their farm, far enough from the house to be safe, but within audible range. It was 100 degrees that day, but merely a precursor to summer. Those not shooting gabbed on the veranda sipping ginger margaritas and cranberry refreshers to the sound of gunfire, while the others went back and forth in pickups and mules to shoot.

Seemed pretty Southern to me.

At the end of the day, all 208 quail, plus the odd steak, were put on the grill, having been marinated with olive oil, whole garlic and jalapenos. Salad, tomato pie and Silver Queen corn, the first of the season, straight from a Delaware field.

We sat at the long table, sucking juicy meat off bones best picked up with fingers made tangy from the garlic and jalapeno, washing it down with red wine, jabbering long into night. When we were full, trays of dark chocolate, dried apricots and walnuts appeared, along with cherry and peach pie.

One of the longest nights of the year, well spent.

Grilled Quail

Olive oil
Jalapenos, cleaned and sliced
whole peeled garlic cloves
salt and pepper
Quail, 2-3 per person, dressed

Marinate quail in the other ingredients, preferably over night. Grill on a medium grill until skin is golden and internal temperature reaches 160 degrees, 5-7 minutes a side.

Enjoy!

Big Fish

2010-07-27T06:16:00.000-07:00

Salmon was this year's whipping boy in the health food wars, taking the heat off caffeine, eggs and hooch.

Scientists tantalized us with findings -- the omega-3 fatty acids swimming around in fish's vibrant flesh can protect against cancer, amp up brain power and protect against its decline, make hair shine and skin glow, fight depression and lube aching joints. They may even, as one study of prisoners who became less aggressive when feasting on the pink fish might be spun to suggest, have a role in world peace. To reap these benefits, diners were encouraged to imbibe in fatty fish such as salmon, halibut or tuna twice weekly.

But other studies show levels of PCBs, dieldrin and toxaphene (fire-retarding chemicals and pesticides now banned but still residual in our marine environment) are higher in farmed salmon, which last year was 69 percent of market, due to their diet of fish meal and fish oil. Scientists concluded that eating farmed salmon more than once a month potentially increased risk of cancer along with other risks (to the neurological and immune systems). Groceries hastened to label their fish "farmed" or "wild" -- but many still do not know the fishes chain of custody, or who actually caught the fish.

Good fad gone bad?

A 110-lb halibut caught by a sport fisherman from Virginia Beach, Va

Pelican harbor

Enter small fishermen and entrepreneurs like Deb Spencer, who has built a traveling fish processing plant hubbed in the tiny fishing village of Pelican, Alaska, population 80. The main drag of Pelican is a boardwalk built on a cliff above the tide line, which rises and falls up to 24 feet twice a day.

salmonberries

Eli and Kimber pick

Kids wear life jackets when they leave the house for school or play; they readily show visitors how to find the tasty wild salmonberry. The town's only automated vehicles are mules. The dock that hosts their fishing fleet and the occasional visiting vessel is also the airport, from which visitors (many sport fishermen who charter from the port) and the mail fly to Juneau.

Spencer and her husband, Keith, spend the summer fishing with a small crew (all women!) in the Gulf of Alaska. They process their fish and that which they purchase from others in Pelican, cleaning and flash-freezing for shipping right on their barge.

In an e-mail from Deb, she details how to order from them:

"I don’t really have an order form – something to do… Basically we have king and coho salmon, fresh and frozen. Fresh fish come dressed (whole and gutted) with or without heads. Frozen fish are vacuum sealed and can be custom packaged from 6 to 8 oz. portions to whole fillets. My standard package is 1 to 1.5 pounds and is perfect for 2-3 people with leftovers for lunch the next day. It is most cost-effective to order a minimum of 40 pounds to get a better freight rate.

King salmon is fattier and the biggest of the 5 types of Pacific salmon; they range in color from white (marketed as Ivory) to deep red. Coho is the second largest and is a deep reddish orange; it is milder in flavor than king salmon.
Prices vary with the dock price (amount paid to fishermen). We only have king available now and they are a bit pricier than normal. Coho fishing will open in July.

Here’s a ballpark price list:

Fresh king: $15/lb for head off/delivered/40-lb minimum
Fresh coho: $9/50/lb for head on/delivered/40-lb minimum
Frozen king fillets or portions: $19/lb/delivered/40-lb minimum
Frozen coho fillets or portions: $13/lb/delivered/40-lb minimum"

Contact Deb Spencer at crosssoundseafoods@hughes.net. We'll have a package coming to Virginia soon and will report...

Enjoy!

Cross Sound Fisheries barge

Shagged

2010-07-15T08:40:00.000-07:00

After a night in Shag Cove, we (or, rather, the Captain and my husband, while the rest of us dozed to the white noise of the engine) pulled anchor early and used the tide that previously postponed our entry into Glacier Bay to coast out, doubling our speed with the current's push.

We reached Inian Cove, where the natives had put up a welcome sign. and my husband immediately set about catching supper. But after about an hour, our resident 5-year-old called it as it was, chanting "No fish, no crabs, no luck."

The day was gray, and the fishing was unimpressive. My husband's determination did attract one odd creature, which we suspect was a rosy-lipped sculpin. He earned his freedom immediately.

The snacks, however, were to die for. I found this recipe in an old Sunset magazine recipe booklet, which was brought aboard for its sheer minuteness. With a small tweak, these macaroons were ready for prime time. That is to say, the otters were interested.

Chocolate Macaroons

adapted from Sunset

1 cup whole almonds
1 cup semi sweet chocolate
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1 egg white
1/4 teaspoon almond extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Grind chocolate and set aside. Grind almonds, sugar, cinnamon and salt in food processor. Add egg, egg white and almond extract, process then stir in cinnamon. Moisten hands and roll into 1 inch balls, place on buttered cookie sheets and flatten with the back of a spatula. Sprinkle with chili powder.

Bake until the tops are puffy and the centers are chewy, about 12 minutes.

Enjoy!

Glacier Quiche

2010-07-08T09:50:00.000-07:00

Sleeping on a boat can be heaven. The slow rocking motion seems to slow down your blood and focus your breathing, while the incessant rhythm of waves hitting the steel hull lulls your brain. It is loud enough to occupy your mind, pushing out all unwanted minutia, but soft and even enough to become part of the night.

And so in Fingers Bay we all slept, late late late, oblivious to the eagles' shrieking overhead like demented fishwives. When I woke, the first mate had taken over breakfast duty, creating a quiche with such fluffy insides and crispy outsides I had to share the recipe.

Crustless Quiche

5 eggs
1/8 cup melted butter
1 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese
1/2 cup cottage cheese
1 chopped jalapeno (optional but recommended)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine ingredients in a bowl. Pour into a greased pie plate and sprinkle with paprika. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.

Fortified for what must be one of the most unique and beautiful sights in all the world we motored up Reid Inlet to the glacier, which hovered over the bay in the sunlight. It was so immense a trawler next to it looked like an ant on a watermelon. (Way down in the lower right corner...)

We shed layers and bask in the sun, as if we are the glacier's court, though its dirty, melting exterior and lack of icebergs in the water concern us, as King Henry's gout must have troubled his subjects. Is it something that we do to our world that causes these weary glaciers to recede? Can we stop it? In this vast landscape, one feels so unimportant, and yet so potent, at the same time. It is why we travel, to take us out of our lives and illuminate our essence. To remind us we are not our trappings, which are, for the most part, small and unremarkable. It is for our families, and our environment, our world, that we endeavor; those alone will endure.

Guess Who is Coming to Dinner?

2010-07-06T09:54:00.000-07:00

My husband makes lovely anniversary plans -- usually at the bucolic local Ashby Inn, in Paris, Virginia, and once, even, in Paris, France. This year trumped: an evening in Glacier Bay National Park, anchored in the South arm of Fingers Bay. We had gotten to the park rather later than we hoped, as the tide flowing out of the strait was so strong we would have used more fuel to putt against the current than prudent. So we hung out on the south side of Lesmeseurier Island, where some humpbacks graced us with a little show, and the otters watched too.

After a brief stop at the ranger station, where we availed ourselves of a fine lunch (salmon cakes, halibut chowder and sweet potato fries, yummmmm) at the beautiful cedar lodge, hiking through the rich, moist forest under the tall hemlock canopy.

Back aboard, we charted a course up to a safe anchorage from which to make our way further into the park, in hopes of making it to a glacier in the morning. The park is vast, and with only 25 pleasure boats given permits to be in at a time, rather empty. We see the occasional tour boat, or research vessel, but mostly, intrepid kayakers, as we sit in our cozy pilot house with cameras and binoculars and charts.

After anchoring, we crack champagne for the occasion -- both getting to Glacier Bay and another year of marriage -- in a bay rimmed with snow-frosted peaks. On shore an adolescent grizzly bear, oblivious to our fete, poked around on the beach looking for an easy meal. For our dinner, I gave a couple of exhausted looking eggplants a curry bath, and they perked up rather nicely.

Eggplant Curry

2 large eggplants, peeled and sliced into 1" rounds. layer in colander, salting each layer, and set aside
1/2 red onion, minced
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 rib celery
1 teaspoon ginger
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup chicken broth
1 cup water
2 Roma tomatos
2 teaspoons curry powder (McCormick's is fine, a mellow spice is perfect for this dish)
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon cumin

Peel slice and salt eggplants, and set aside.

Mince onion, garlic, celery, ginger and tomatos, assemble ingredients.

Rinse and pat dry eggplant, then cube to 1 inch cubes. Sautee onion and garlic in 1 tablespoon oil, cook until soft but not browning, add celery, ginger and stir to combine. Add spices and cook 3 inutes more so spices release their flavor.

Add eggplant and stir to coat with spice mixture, cook five minutes more. Combine tomatoes then add water and chicken broth. Simmer 40 minutes until eggplant is soft.

Serve over rice with chopped cilantro. (We only had frozen cubes of cilantro, which I stirred in at the last minute, still perfect. Sprinkle with feta if you like. Choose a light red or a rose if you care for wine, not too chilled.

Enjoy.

Humpback sighting

2010-07-01T09:28:00.000-07:00

The first sign of a pod of whales is generally spouts of water, shooting from the sea. Expelled forcefully, they punctuate the landscape, one here, another there, maybe three, or four, a tell-tale count of the number of whales swimming below the surface. If you are close enough you can hear them, a breathy, expectant whoosh.

If you watch closely, you may see the rounded back and smooth fin turning over in the water, a dark tale, or fluke, as the whale dives down again. They are playful acrobats, light in the water, diving, slapping their tail, or fluke, repeatedly and even breaching, or throwing their entire body above the water and back in again.

It is possible to watch them for hours at a time, waiting for one to show himself again, scanning the landscape to see where they may pop up next. Their flukes are like fingerprints; each whale's is different, be it white markings, the shaping of the pectoral fins, or gauges made by the bangs and bonks which are unavoidable if you are a migrating 79,000 pound whale.

The sea creatures in Alaska were quite obliging with entertainment for most meals -- otters floating by on their backs, cracking clams in their paws and looking to see what we were eating, porpoises dancing across the bow after lunch, daring us to go faster, whales cavorting at anchorage, just when we were enjoying a new cocktail. And so we named it in their honor.

The Humpback

Simple syrup

1/2 part citrus juice (lemon and/or lime)
1/2 part water
1 part sugar
3 inch knob of ginger root, peeled and thinly sliced

For each drink:

1 shot simple syrup
1/2 shot Drambuie
3 shot Mount Gay rum
1 shot lime juice
mint for garnish
ground ginger
sea salt

For the simple syrup: mix ingredients in a sauce pan over medium heat. Bring to a boil and boil for 15 minutes; off the heat and let cool. Puree in a blender then strain through cheesecloth; cool until use.

For the drink: Put ice in a cocktail shaker and pour liquid ingredients in. Take a tumbler and wet the rim with a slice of lime. Mix ground ginger and salt in a saucer, dip tumbler in to rim with the salt and ginger. Pour drink over ice and garnish with mint.

Enjoy!

Breakfast with the eagles

2010-06-29T09:36:00.000-07:00

We were lazily watching a tiny, transparent jellyfish float aimlessly through the water. Anyone for breakfast? I asked, even though I was not particularly hungry. It was, however, time for breakfast, having already had coffee/tea, read books and observed jellyfish this morning. The mountains rose from the bay wreathed in snow and bathed in sun. An eagle circled once, twice, then perched and watched us from a tall hemlock.

Hash browns, made from scratch, challenged the Captain, eggs and bacon. Well, I had seen a box of redskins below deck, and the remains of a packet of bacon in the fridge. Eggs and yogurt we kept on the back deck; it was cool enough out there, and saved room in the fridge.

I can do that, I retorted, heading for the galley.

I far prefer grated hash browns, and this is because they stay more moist than cubes of potato. I like the runny yolk to soak the golden potato chards, creating a sumptuous mess. We pinched a bit of rosemary from the on-deck herb window box as an afterthought, a glorious one at that.

Rosemary Hash Browns

4 redskin potatoes, grated
1 shallot, minced
bacon fat or butter
2 sprigs of rosemary, minced
coarse salt and pepper

If you are cooking bacon, do so, and pour off all but 2 Tablespoons of fat. Or, melt two tablespoons of butter in a stovetop skillet.

Saute the shallot in the butter until golden; add half a teaspoon of coarse salt and lightly toss to combine. The salt may sizzle, melting and coating the skillet and shallots.

Add the potatoes and cook, turning occasionally, until golden and fried through. I like to let them cook for a while -- they clump and turn golden almost like patties. When the potatoes are nearly done, add the rosemary and cook through.

Serve with runny eggs and bacon.

The Captain pronounced them excellent. Perhaps you'll concur.

Enjoy!

Alaska, unplugged

2010-06-25T19:33:00.000-07:00

We've just returned from Alaska, which is a greater undertaking than I thought it would be. First, there is the sheer distance between here and there, and (which I also underestimated) the effect of the time change, especially on a five-year-old boy. I seriously considered Benadryl.

Second, of which I also had no idea, there is an unbelievable mind space between here and there. I thought the big deal would be living on a boat that long, having an active boy on the water so far from civilization that one small mistake could turn fatal. And that was a constant thought.

But it wasn't the big deal at all. I'm still sorting it, but the soaring eagles, the space between the water and the mountains, the smallness of you -- it makes your heart change. The absence of connected-ness to the outside world, with no cell coverage, no WiFi, no Internet, takes away a level of busyness I wasn't even aware had crept in. As when you all the sudden notice your hair has grown, when they were unavailable I realized how increasingly tied I've become to my electronic devices. Constantly checking these external benchmarks becomes a part of life which hugely detracts from the business of really living. It is so liberating not to have to worry about reading the news, having an opinion about it, making an appointment or keeping one. I realized how much thought time I squander on petty annoyances, even just wondering why someone hasn't yet called me back. Instead, I read books, looked for whales for hours on end, took the time to really mince the garlic, not just chop it. We sat at table for hours, no one having to go home, check their e-mail or the Yankee score.

And we ate. Boy did we. Salmon the color of Easter tulips. Halibut as thick as a brick. Crab we drew up by the line. The first night at anchor, in a cove called Coot (yes, really), a day's cruise from Juneau, we dropped a "two-beer" crab trap, so called because when my friend bought the trap, the fisherman told her to leave it in, drink two beers, and pull it out. An indeterminate time really, as everyone drinks their beer at a different pace. But after anchoring, we dropped the trap (with a few salmon heads for bait) into the water. The men popped beers; the ladies poured wine (my son now calls it a "half-a-glass-of-wine" crab trap, which would probably make that salty old fisherman roll his eyes).

On the first pull, up came a fine male Dungeness crab, and a baby halibut. We tossed the halibut back after admiring his eyes (both on one side of his head, as they are bottom feeders) and dipped the trap in again. Four pulls, two crab and two halibut later (probably the same halibut, guess he liked salmon), and we had a wonderful addition to our planned dinner. The chicken with lemon-caper sauce got stuffed with crab. And so did we.

Crabby Chicken with Lemon Caper Sauce

1 shallot, finely minced
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1Tablespoon capers
1 Tablespoon lemon juice
zest of one lemon
coarse salt and pepper
1/4 cup sherry
1 cup Pinot Grigio
2 Tablespoons thyme, chopped
1 teaspoon cornstarch
4 chicken breasts
1 lb. crab meat

Saute shallot in oilve oil. Add rest of ingredients and simmer until reduced, about 10 minutes. Take out a few Tablespoons and mix into cornstarch; return to pan and simmer 5 minutes more, until thick and glossy.

Make two diagonal cuts in the chicken breasts to create a small cavity in the top of the meat. Saute crab picked fresh from a shell, or use canned, in butter until opaque. Saute the chicken breasts in olive oil until golden; make sure the internal temperature is adequate for your tastes, at least 165 degrees.

Place chicken on a plate and fill top cavities with crabmeat. Dress with sauce.

Enjoy!

Trifecta Tomato Pie

2010-06-13T11:29:00.000-07:00

This should have made it into the last post about the REDCOATS, as the coming of summer tomatoes is as Momentous as cherries, perhaps even more so to me as I do not have to pick them, yet -- mine are still green on the vine. But I go to the farmer's market and buy them from the far more advanced growers who have them in glass houses. In this case, I did not even do that. A friend of mine got up and got the early tomatoes (which you have to do this time of year, as tomatoes are not so plentiful as in August, when the farmers give away flats for sauce rather than trucking them home, but that is getting way ahead of myself).

Back to the pie. This recipe is not gluten-free, though I am going to work on a crust that looks this beautiful and is gluten-free. I ate it anyway, out of the crust, and didn't miss it the crust at all.

This recipe, a thing of beauty, hits the trifecta. First, the obvious:

Second, it is easy. If you do not have home-made pesto call me, as I still have jars of it in the freezer from last summer, which I want to consume before this year's batch so I can reuse the jars. Or, buy the Buitoni brand at the Safeway, which is what my friend did and it was gorgeous.

Third: it is quick. I turned away to listen to the chef's husband tell a funny story about getting old, (even though he is not very old, he is very funny), turned around and she was done. That is one good party trick they've got going on.

Trifecta Tomato Pie

One pie crust
three or four ripe tomatos
2 balls fresh mozzerella
1 cup pesto
olive oil to drizzle

Put the crust in a 8 inch cake pan, pushing it into the corners and up the sides with your fingers. It does not need to be even, in fact, it is lovely if it is not. Bake at 400 degrees for 4 minutes. Let it cool and then take it out of the pan and set on a tray.

Slice the tomatoes and the mozzarella into 1/2 inch slices. Layer into the shell, brushing with pesto each layer. Spoon pesto on top and drizzle with olive oil. Serve.

Enjoy!

The Redcoats are here!

2010-06-09T08:05:00.000-07:00

Memorial day holds different connotations for everyone. Servicemen and their families think about fallen soldiers. If you live in the DC area, it's hard not to miss Rolling Thunder, 400,000 motorcyclists converging on the Pentagon to demonstrate support for POWs. My extended family in Indiana is consumed by the Indianapolis 500, and several high school graduations. Stores stock shelves with charcoal and franks for summer's first cookouts. Pools open, and America dives in.

Since we bought this place, Memorial Day has become labor day, because in come the cherries. When you see them, flush and red on the tree, it is time to get out the ladder before the birds notice. This year, there were so many that I drove the pickup under the laden boughs and we stood on its roof with bowls like ants at a picnic.

It is like this with live charges. When they call, or ripen, or fall sick, you must answer. I have been trying to talk to a farmer friend, and between her breeding pig, my sick child and picking the cherries, we missed each other for a whole week.

But it is worth it. We sit and talk and pit the cherries, some of us using actual metal cherry pitters, others using tent stakes or lobster scrapers. My 5-year-old counts the pits as they plop into the bowl, proving that he actually can count into the thousands (he quit at 1,229). We eat them until our tummies are sore, then we freeze them on cookie sheets overnight before their final freezer storage in plastic bags.

But first we make dessert. For me that means clafoutis, an eggy, gluten-free, cherry studded flan. Cherry pie, cherry jam, cherry almond sauce on vanilla ice cream. For my husband, it means marinating them in Luxardo for plopping into his perfect Manhattans.

Cherry Clafoutis

adapted from Nigella Lawson

2 teaspoons oil (I use avocado or grapeseed oil, both of which hold up well in high heat, but if you can tolerate vegetable it is a less expensive option)
2 cups cherries, pitted
4 eggs
1/2 cup rice flour
3 Tablespoons sugar
1 1/4 cup milk or sub 1/4 cup cherry juice or kirsch for 1/4 cup milk

Heat oven to 450 degrees. Put oil in a pie plate or copper tarte tatin dish and pop it in while the oven heats. Meanwhile, mix flour and sugar, then whisk in the eggs, one by one, then the milk and other liquid, if using. When the oven reaches 450 degrees, stir the drained cherries into the batter and pour into the hot pan. Return to oven and bake about 20 minutes, or until puffy and golden.

Make this at the last minute and bring it piping hot to the table with some fresh whip cream -- depending on how well you know your dinner guests, you may just need forks. Bet you won't have any leftovers.

Home Made Maraschino Cherries

from the New York Times

1 cup maraschino liqueur
1 pint sour cherries, stemmed and pitted (or substitute one 24-ounce jar sour cherries in light syrup, drained).
Bring maraschino liqueur to a simmer in a small pot. Turn off heat and add cherries. Let mixture cool, then store in a jar in refrigerator for at least 2 days before using, and up to several months, if you can keep them around that long.
Yield: About 1 pint.

Cherry Almond Sauce

3 Tablespoons brown sugar
4 teaspoons cornstarch
1 teaspoon almond extract
1 cup water
1 quart pitted cherries

Stir together in a saucepan over medium heat. Cook and stir until the cherries break down into a sauce, about 30 minutes. Spoon over ice cream, or serve as a side to ham or pork.

Got Parsley?

2010-06-07T07:06:00.000-07:00

Only just June, and I am already swimming in parsley. Also in kale, Swiss chard, arugula and lemon balm (the last was a total mistake). Knowing I needed to cut it back lest it totally take over the garden in a month -- it's already lording over the spindly shoots of cilantro trying to reclaim their turf -- I race to my cookbooks, pouring over pages of recipes for wilted greens, mixed greens, green gratin. Done that.

Problem, is, I really hate to toss anything that might be remotely edible. A guilt thing, perhaps, left over from a childhood babysitter who castigated us for not being in the "clean plate club." How many therapists are rich from that chestnut?

She was probably referring to choking down a few peas before moving on to Jello, but I have a worse problem that that now. When I first moved to this town, I noticed that the local grocer (we have a privately held IGA in town that, while it is not fancy, stocks local meats and produce in season, procures organic items as well as Matchbox cars and Elmer's glue, has a pharmacy and an incredible wine selection, the keeper of which shares the same oenophilosophy as me, which is: find good stuff for cheap) offered a box in the produce aisle of "free parsley." I wondered about this "free parsley." I mean, anything free in a retail establishment is pretty suspect.

Now I know EXACTLY why people are giving away parsley. It grows like a weed no matter what. Without love, or water. It tenaciously bushes out, reaching for the heavens when it gets too wide for it's space, like parking lots in Manhattan.

I don't know if you have ever looked for a recipe for parsley the size of a Labrador retriever, but I am telling you, most cooks view parsley as a few sprigs on a lamb chop. Some go nuts and add a half cup to pesto (a chef at my mother's favorite Italian restaurant once told her that kept it green, but I am fairly certain he did not mean a bale of it). I am here to tell you that if one garnished hot dogs, my parsley could handle every frank sold at Yankee field this summer.

Out of desperation, I tried this recipe, mostly because it used the most parsley of any recipe I could find. But now, my parsley has become my friend. This recipe is so delicious, so nutritious, and so easy that I am going to use every last bit of this seemingly steroidal parsley plant, and make peace offerings to the gods to keep it growing. There won't even be a sprig left over for lamb chops. Sorry if I offered any to you, because it's not up for grabs anymore.

Parsley Saute

olive oil or butter
8-10 cups parsley, from 2 or three bunches
3/4 cup mint
2 shallots, minced, about 1/2 cup
1 tablespoon walnut oil
1/2 cup toasted walnuts, pounded
2 Tablespoons lemon peel

Heat butter or olive oil in a medium sized skillet. Add shallots and saute over medium heat until soft. Add parsley and saute for three minutes, until wilted. Add lemon peel and mint and cook until mixture is wilted togther, about 5 minutes more. Off the heat and toss with walnuts and walnut oil. Serve hot.

If you find yourself in need of a couple of bunches of parsley, try the Marshall IGA.

And if you know what to do with lemon balm, please let me know.

Enjoy!

Neighborly fish tacos

2010-06-04T15:28:00.000-07:00

My friend John tells the story of how he decided to name his daughter Lucianna. It seems that he had a television for sale, and posted it on Craigslist. A woman with a lovely accent called to inquire, and they arranged to meet. When she came to see the TV not only was she Italian, but smoking hot and surrounded by a posse of like-bodied women, who toted the television right off in their pick-up.

Her name, as you might have guessed it by now, was Lucianna.

So when it came time to name his daughter, he thought of the beautiful Italian with the cool friends who had come, obviously, as backup in case he was some kind of Craigslist creep. His wife was conveniently out that afternoon, so it's no good to doubt the veracity of this account, but it is a fine story, albeit an unusual way to come up with a baby name. (Though I'm thinking it would make a fabulous advertisement for Craigslist, or maybe for Budweiser.)

Beautiful, though, and decisive, both admirable traits. Much like the night that their neighbors in Seattle brought over some fish tacos to try; John wrangled the recipe out of them on the spot. You'll see why. The batter is crunchy yet light, fried in oil heated on a grill that is so hot it hasn't time to get oily. It also makes clean up easier than frying in the kitchen, though I suppose it could be done that way. Likewise the sauce, mayo mixed with jalepenos, thinned with water. Use a fish that will hang together, like halibut -- the night they cooked it for me, he used some flounder, too, which didn't please the chef. I thought it was all good. Simple, and decisive.

John's Fish Tacos

Batter
1 egg
2-3 Tablespoons yellow mustard
2/3 cup cornmeal
1 teaspoon salt

Mix egg, mustard and salt, add cornmeal slowly and beat to the consistency of pancake batter.

Heat about 2 cups of oil in a dutch oven on a hot grill. Cut fish into strips or squares, batter and fry until golden.

Sauce
2 cups mayonaise
3 jalapenos
water to thin

chop jalapenos and add to mayo.

Perch the fish, sauce and whatever else you want, (we had shredded cabbage) on a corn tortilla, or flour if you can and wish. They also made a sauce of avocado and tomatillo, which was just "a ton of avocados, in a blender, with tomatillos."

Wrap and roll.

Enjoy!

Peaches and Kites

2010-06-01T08:36:00.000-07:00

It has been a million years since I windsurfed, so long that windsurfing is nearly obsolete. The new craze (at least from where I am sitting right now, which is on a porch overlooking the sound in Waves, NC) is kiteboarding, a sport that involves flying a kite bigger than my bathroom while riding a board the size of a bathmat. When the riders turn, at times, they cause the kite to launch them into the air so high that were there a house in the sound, they would jump it. This is handy if you find an old-school windsurfer, such as my husband, in your path -- one dude easily cleared him.

It is a beautiful site.

So was this cake, made with the last of our canned peaches from last year, though the first of South Carolina's summer peaches are already available here. All are gathered to celebrate a birthday, which I cannot do without cake, so I imported my own gluten free creation. The filling and the cake were made just days ahead and traveled perfectly; the frosting I whipped just before assembly.

I inadvertently grabbed coffee extract when making the peach filling (I initially intended vanilla) and will not ever do otherwise now. The confluence of it all was fabulous, the peaches just touched by coffee, melding into the softness of the Angel Food, making it dusky as twilight, with a light breeze of whipped cream. It was gone before the traditional cakes were even out of the refrigerator; no one seemingly the wiser.

Gluten Free Angel Food Cake

1 cup gluten free flour ( I used 1/4 cup millet flour, 1/4 cup tapioca starch and 1/2 cup white rice flour)
1 teaspoon xanthan gum
12 eggs at room temperature
1 1/2 teaspoons cream of tartar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 Tablespoon vanilla
3/4 cups granulated sugar

Separate eggs and reserve yolks for another use (I made chocolate mousse, which was completely delicious but which I cannot blog as I used up all the leftover chocolate bits and bobs left from Christmas and Easter, which I hide and hoard so my son won't eat it all at once.) Put cream of tartar and 1/4 cup sugar in mixing bowl with whites and whip until stiff peaks form.

In another bowl, sift flour, xanthan gum, salt and sugar. Fold into whites with vanilla. Pour into angel food cake pan and bake for 50 minutes at 350 degrees.

Invert on a glass bottle and let cool before untinning.

Peach filling

4 cups peaches, sliced
1 Tablespoon brown sugar
1 Tablespoon coffee extract

Simmer over low heat until peaches break down and filling is the consistency of jam.

Whipped cream frosting

1 1/4 cup whipping cream, preferably organic
1/2 cup confectioner's sugar

Whip in a bowl until stiff peaks form.

To assemble: Cut cake in half lengthwise and fill with peach jam. Replace top of cake and frost. Serve with a Tiki God, if you wish.

Enjoy!

Big Shrimp

2010-05-22T13:52:00.000-07:00

Onward blazing through our fridge of fish. I have to say, I rarely cook shrimp. I don't quite know why - it's easy and good and can really swing any way.

Take that back -- I kind of do know why. First off, I really don't love to peel it. The little shrimp legs get stuck under your fingernails. And then there's the procurement of the stuff. When we lived in Georgetown, bC, I used to walk down the canal to Cannon's Seafood, on 31th Street, where the shrimp tastes like it just jumped the net. All those shrimp needed was a swirl of melted butter in the skillet, toss in and cook until they turned pink. Now those were some shrimp.

But these shrimp, even though they were and plump and moist looking, were from the grocery. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.) The sign read "wild caught" but didn't specify when. Good enough for a stir-fry, my 5-year-old declared, "Chinese!"

This is a clean out the fridge kind of dish, that can be personalized with whatever you have lying around. It's generally good to put in garlic and onion, but as I was trying to appeal to kids I left them out (I put them in the greens, which I ate with the stir fry instead of rice). You can also add those cute mini corns -- kids love them -- or bamboo shoots or water chestnuts, but I had none in the larder.

Shrimp Stir Fry

1 lb. shrimp, peeled
1 teaspoon minced ginger
1 tablespoon peanut oil
1 red pepper, cut into strips
1 cup baby carrots, cut into quarters lengthwise
1 head of broccoli, cut up
Soy sauce (if gluten is an issue, choose wheat-free)

Heat large skillet or wok. Add oil, then saute ginger and garlic if desired. Add vegetables and stir, adding soy sauce to thin sauce to desired consistency. Cook about five minutes, until vegetables are tender or soft. depending on your taste. Add shrimp last, toss and cover. Steam until shrimp are pink and opaque.

Serve over rice (Basmati or Jasmine are especially nice). If you are catering to little ones (or big folks with food phobias), put whatever they won't love in a separate skillet. That way the veggie-vores (like me) can toss it all together.

Wilted Mixed Greens with Garlic

8 cups kale, shredded
8 cups swiss chard, shredded
1 head of garlic, separated and slivered
olive oil

Heat oil in a large heavy skillet. Add slivered garlic and stir. Cook until garlic is browned, about 3 minutes. Turn down heat and add greens, cover. Greens will steam and wilt; toss with oil and garlic and serve.

Enjoy!

Fish Story

2010-05-19T13:09:00.000-07:00

We've been through it all in Northern Virginia this year -- 36-foot snow drifts, hail the size of strawberries, 45 mile an hour wind -- that I would not be at all surprised if we went up in a tornado straight to the Emerald City itself. In fact, up until last week, Oz might have been preferable to the saw-humming, hammer-banging hoosegow I formerly called home.

But now it is done -- aside from a little landscaping and outdoor painting, we are generally back in working order. No excuse not to cook, except weather more fickle than Jude Law. One day fine, a throw-a-chicken-on-the-barby kind of night, where we go from day to night in our swimsuits and pull asparagus from the garden, to a night fit for nothing but a fire and a stew.

Appetites, however, are confused by this 40-degree swing. Our palates crave something light, a duet of spring vegetables and herbs, but our bodies need sustenance against cold that seems even more abrasive with bathing suits still drying in the mud room. It's like coming home from the tropics after Spring Break; we'd much rather still be noshing pineapple.

As I have gotten older I have become the kind of person that checks the gas pump in the rear view mirror before I pull out, because I did forget to replace the hose once. I make mistakes, but try not to repeat them too often, at least the ones that matter, like leaving the kettle to burn black (sorry, mom) or getting caught in the latest local speed trap ($400 -- yikes -- that is a lot of landscaping!). If I miss your birthday I will send a note anyway.

So being flummoxed by weather is barely tolerable.

And yet, as a friend put it yesterday, it's as if we are all Rip Van Winkle this week. We went to bed Sunday with the lilacs blooming and woke up to sweater weather. Did we skip summer? I think I am not alone in stating: I certainly hope not. But back to dinner. What to feed my family in this wishy-washy weather?

Fish. Not a revolutionary answer, but an answer nonetheless. Many people eat fish on Friday, the origin of which I am unclear but will Google as soon as I finish here. But I think it the perfect answer for a Monday, when your tummies are a little hungover from the weekend's excess, in need of fare light enough to honor that and yet sturdy enough to amp up for the week's routine. I went to the local fish counter and there were no less than eight wild-caught options -- pretty good for this little hamlet. My son, who loves to operate the self-scanner at the grocery, wanted them all so he could flash the bar code, and I came close to obliging. Cod, firm and flaky and moist. Wild salmon flushed dark red by a flirtatious upstream swim. And shrimp the size of a laborador's paw, plump to bursting out of the shell.

Paired with a head of cauliflower near to languishing in my fridge, a big fat leek and a plastic clamshell of the most perfect organic Brussels sprouts I have seen since leaving Manhattan, I had the perfect gang to start a riot.

Roasted Brussels Sprouts

1 lb. Brussels sprouts

Olive oil

Sea Salt

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Grease or spray a cookie sheet with olive oil.

Trim Brussels sprouts: cut nub from bottom, trim any brown leaves and cut in half lengthwise.

Lay on sheet cut side down, sprinkle liberally with sea salt. Bake 10-15 minutes, or until bottoms are lightly browned.

Puree of Cauliflower

1 head cauliflower

water

sea salt and white pepper

Bring water to boil in a 2 quart pot. Trim cauliflower and cut into small pieces -- I cut the florets off and chop the stalks off into about 2 inch segments.

Boil until tender, about 15-20 minutes. When a knife sticks in easily, off the heat.

Pour cauliflower into colander, reserving cooking water.

Puree in batches in food processor, using cooking water until desired consistency. Season with salt and pepper.

Cod Braised with Leeks

Adapted from Mark Bittman's "The Minimalist Cooks Dinner"

Makes 2 generous servings, or 3 if you are feeding a small child as well

12 ounces cod

1 large leek

1 cup chicken stock

salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Slice leek thinly and scatter over the bottom of a heavy dutch oven.

Place fish on top, pour on chicken broth and sprinkle with sea salt and pepper.

Bake for 15 minutes, or until fish is white and flakes.

Serve with puree and spoon leeks and pan juices over top.

Enjoy!

Fate in chicken

2010-05-13T17:12:00.000-07:00

When I first met my husband we were both flying around for work. One evening we met at National Airport, having come from different planes, and he very sweetly asked what I would like to do for dinner. I was tired and wanted to stay in. I know it was a Wednesday, because I had read a recipe I thought would be fun in the New York Times food section. But before I could tell him that, he reached in his briefcase and pulled out a NYT folded to that very recipe: Beer Can Chicken.

No surprise, that is what we made for dinner. It did peg my then boyfriend as a beer snob, as he only had Heineken (in glass bottles, which wouldn't at all do) in his fridge, and he actually had kind of a problem with buying Budweiser.

I married him anyway.

Nearly a dozen years later, we still make it. If you can't guess from the recipe's title, it involves a beer can and a chicken, some spices and a grill. The kids love it -- the way the chicken hunches over the can like a Wisconsin ice fisherman waiting for a bite. It makes for poultry moist on the inside, with a coating of crunchy skin floating on the outside, kissed with cumin and paprika, which falls off the bone with a delicate steam like a woman fainting.

This method is reminiscent of a rotisserie chicken, but spiking the beer with herbs really ups the intensity of the flavor. On the rotisserie, we stuff the chicken with whatever herb is running away with the garden, in this case lemon balm and parsley, and always a ton of garlic.

Either way, it's a winner. While it sits on the can you have time to sit and catch up on the week, or you can leave it with a magazine and go do laundry. It is truly easy and delicious. Procure an organic chicken (thank you Elaine Boland at Fields of Athenry, AGAIN!) and you've got a home run.

Beer Can Chicken

(from the NYT food section, original recipe, Wednesday, July 7, 1999. I don't know whose copy this is, mine or his, but no matter. It's all ours now:)

1 cup wood chips, soaked in beer or water to cover for one hour then drained
1 can beer
1/3 cup barbeque rub ( this can be varied depending on your tastes. I like the cumin/paprika combo, as mentioned above, but you can easily use a store bought jar. Herbs will work for a more elegant bird, and it is lovely with just sea salt as well. I kind of go by what I want for sides)
1 3-4 lb. chicken

Set the grill up for indirect grilling. On a charcoal grill, this means lighting the charcoal, and when it is burning separate it into two piles with a foil drip pan in the middle the size of a pie plate. Position the grill above the coals and set the chicken on its pedestal on the grill. Toss the soaked chips on the charcoal to generate smoke. Cover the grill and cook for about an hour. If needed, toss more briquets on and keep the cover off until they ignite. On a gas grill, if it has two burners light one side and cook chicken on the other. If there are three burners light outer two and cook chicken in the middle. Wrap the chips in foil and poke holes on the top; put in on one of the burners. If you do use the rotisserie, lose the can.

Open beer can and pour half on the chips. Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of the spice in the can. Sprinkle half of the rest in the cavity of the bird, and the other half rub on its exterior.

Stand beer can on counter and lower each chicken on the can so it covers the main cavity. Pull the legs forward to form a tripod so the chicken will sit up over the can. Carefully put chickens on grill, over the indirect heat.

Throw chips on coals or slip into burners as mentioned above. No matter your cook method, roast chicken until browned and meatiest point of the thigh registers 165 degrees; juices will run clear. Take off grill and discard can, carve and serve.

Enjoy!

Too Hot to Chew

2010-05-02T18:30:00.000-07:00

It's been 90 degrees the past few days. The horses were knackered before we even set off this morning. They couldn't even get it up to canter the last hill back to the barn. When my mom asked what I was making for dinner I said, "It's too hot to chew." True, but we had ice cream for lunch (check out the homemade soft serve at My Deli and Cafe in Purcellville, Va., tangy like yogurt, airy and smooth, perfect for a summer lunch) and though I would have it for dinner as well (it's Sunday, after all), that would not make me Mother of the Year. Not that I am in the running anyway, but.

So when my mother (who doesn't even have a working kitchen just now, so really has a reason not to cook) said she had made gazpacho, I readily copied her. I already had the ingredients: pepper, onion, cucumber, tomato. Well, not good tomatoes, we're not quite there yet, but I always have San Marzano's finest canned in the pantry. So check it out. NO cooking, NO chewing. Mom and I both rang off to go to the pool. Done and done.

Gazpacho

1 28-ounce can San Marzano diced tomatoes
1/2 large white onion
1 yellow pepper
1/2 large English cucumber
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon cumin
1 Tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup fresh cilantro
dash Thai chile-garlic sauce or Tobasco

In a food processor, grate the onion, pepper, and cucumber. Switch to the blade, add tomatoes, salt, pepper, cumin, vinegar, cilantro and Tobasco sauce. Whiz once more to combine. Put in the refrigerator with ice cubes to chill. Serve cold with chilled shrimp or leftover grilled chicken for a meal.

Enjoy!

Herbivore

2010-04-21T14:02:00.000-07:00

I am a cheapskate. I hate buying the little plastic packets of herbs in the produce aisle, which cost north of two dollars and usually contain way more herb than I need. I parsimoniously buy only what a recipe calls for, sometimes limping along on thyme when it calls for both rosemary and thyme, or (horrors) substituting dried. At the end of the month, I clear out the odds and ends of the vegetable bin for broth, but inside the plastic packs of herbs is a greenhouse, generally brown and slimy, having traveled way to far in the first place to have any longevity.

And so I love when the herbs come in. I am a way less than diligent gardener, and yet back they come, year after year, bigger and better and lusher and fatter. I step out of my kitchen in my Uggs and grab a little sage, or thyme, for my morning egg. I tuck oregano into roasting chickens, and poke mint into juleps. When we are assured of no more freezing nights, I will plant basil to grow into big bushes for pesto, of which I freeze copious amounts each autumn.

It didn't take too much for my garden to grow. I excavated a small patch between the porch and the garage, hauled out wheelbarrows full of Virginia's red clay soil and filled in with loamy dirt mixed with compost and manure. Then I plopped in a few choice stepping stones and mulched. As I traveled through spring, I collected a sage here, a chive here and a dill another spot. Into the garden they went. Add water, sun, summer and boom.

Which made crafting this tenderloin all the more pleasurable. Because generally, in the dead of winter, I cheap out on either the thyme or the sage. But making it with the duo is infinitely more complex and satisfying.

Pork and herbs wrapped in Prosciutto

4 slices fresh prosciutto
8 portions pork tenderloin, 4 ounces each
sage leaves, sliced thinly
thyme leaves, pulled off the stalk
sea salt and ground pepper
2 T avocado oil

Cut proscuitto slices lengthwise in half. Spread a half strip flat on work surface and sprinkle with sage and thyme (about a half teaspoon each), put pork in the middle and wrap. Sprinkle with sea salt and pepper.

Heat avocado oil (I like avocado oil for sauteeing as it has the highest heat point of any monosaturated vegetable oil; grapeseed oil is also good). Cook pork pieces, turning once, until meat is brown and internal temperature reaches 160 degrees.

I served with fresh asparagus sprinkled with coarse sea salt, accompanied by jasmine rice. Yum.

Enjoy.

Dinner with Matt Lauer

2010-04-15T18:29:00.000-07:00

Last week I took my son to the dentist. While they were cleaning and flossing and answering his questions about plaque (the preschool took a trip to the dentist just a month ago, and since then my son has declared that instead of a marine biologist, he wants to be a dentist) I was perusing all the magazines I read only because my health care providers have subscriptions. Ladies Home Journal. Self. People. OK, mostly People. Because I have no idea who is breaking up with who, or shopping in their underwear, unless I get some People time.

Usually I do not find menu inspiration in People. In fact, the last recipe I clipped from a magazine was a quick cheesecake in an ad for Philly Cream Cheese, which I made with organic cream cheese just to make myself feel better about it. (Not that good: it also called for Cool Whip, for which there is no foodsource in nature to match.)

But this issue had a recipe that no lesser than Mr. Matt Lauer claimed as his favorite. This made me take notice. When I left home to work I watched the Today show every morning over coffee, and I know that Mr. Matt Lauer is right up there with the President when it comes to being feted with food. I mean, for how many years now have we gotten to guess "Where in the World is Matt Lauer?" (I just looked it up: this will be the 10th; he has circled the globe nine times.) And all those places probably served him three squares, with, plenty of tasties in between (worms, not so great; fried crickets, ok). Not to mention the meals that Mr. Matt Lauer eats out in real life (the man lives in New York)? Or dishes served up by famous chefs on the Today Show set?

My point is, he has a lot to choose from. This must be really something. I ripped it right out of the magazine. (April 12 issue, page 113. Sorry, Dr. Woodside.) Chicken Marbella, a Silver Palate classic.

The next day, my brother in law, who is also called Matt, was coming to town. Too perfect. I went down to the Home Farm Store and bought 5 pounds of assorted chicken parts, all fresh, raised on their farm right here. I got their home grown garlic and tossed it all about with Sterling Vineyard's organic Chardonnay, and a jar of Spanish green olives.

Easy peasy lemon squeezy. I picked up a bag of Ayreshire Farms arugula, an avocado, tiny fingerling potatoes and fennel. While the chicken cooked, we took a glass of the leftover wine to the garden and picked the first asparagus, so fresh much of it never even made it to the pan. Try this at home.

Chicken Marbella
adapted from Silver Palate Cookbook

1 whole chicken, 5 lbs., cut into 8-10 pieces
1/2 head of garlic, peeled and pureed
2 Tablespoons dried oregano
coarse salt
ground pepper
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 cup pitted prunes
1/4 cup pitted green olives
1/4 cup capers with a bit of juice
3 bay leaves
1/2 cup white wine
1/4 cup brown sugar (here is where I adapted: the original recipe calls for 1/2 cup, but I couldn't do it to all this fine chicken. Turns out, 1/4 was perfect.)
2 Tablespoons parsley, chopped

Combine chicken, garlic, oregan, salt, pepper, vinegar, olive oil. prunes, olives, capers and ay leaves in a large bowl. Cover bowl and marinate in refridgerator over night.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Place chicken in large, shallow baking pan and spoon marinade over it evenly.

Pour white wine over the chicken and sprinkle with brown sugar.

Bake for 50-60 minutes, basting frequently with pan juices.

Transfer chicken, prunes, olives and capers to serving platters with a slotted spoon. Moisten with pan juices and sprinkle with parsley.

******************************************************************

Grapefruit and Fennel Salad with Wasabi dressing

adapted from Su-Mei-Yu

Dressing
1/2 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
2 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 Tablespoon minced shallot
2 teapooons finely grated fresh ginger
1/2 teaspoon wasabi paste
salt

Salad
Large ruby grapefruit
1 fennel bulb, sliced thinly on a mandoline
1 avocado, sliced thin
6 cups of arugula

In a small bowl combine lemon juice and zest with shallot and ginger and wasabi paste and season with salt.

Using a sharp knife, peel the grapefruit, removing all the bitter white pith. Working over a large serving bowl, cut in between the membranes to release the sections. Layer grapefruit, fennel, avocado and arugula on a serving plate and drizzle with the dressing. Toss gently before serving.

Enjoy!

Easter crepes

2010-04-05T17:36:00.000-07:00

Easter means a lot to many people. When we lived in Greece, the whole country shut down and ate spitted lamb. In Japan, we wrapped blown out eggs in delicate washi paper. In Pittsburgh, one could buy gorgeous hand-decorated eggs at the Orthodox church crafts show.

In my family, we had an egg hunt and a big lunch. So that is what I strive for. That, and a bit of time set aside to just be.

Last Easter, my son (then 4) had a broken leg, and we pushed him around in a stroller to hunt eggs. But this year, he darted around, collecting them up, counting how many he had. Not surprisingly, he was going for the gaudy plastic eggs over the real ones we dyed earlier in the week, because they had chocolates hidden inside. I thought they were no where near as beautiful.

It is the same with crepes. You turn out thin, eggy circles and people can do what they like with them. Sweet, savory, just dotted with butter and sugar, whatever. My step-son, since he was very small, can eat an amazing number of these. He gets all the jellies out of the fridge and creates a veritable smorgasbord of fillings, making each crepe individual and luscious, sprinkled with a little vanilla sugar for a final touch.

We fried up some pork and maple sausages from Fauquier's Finest Country Butcher Shop, put out a bowl of the season's first strawberries, and voila. So yummy I was entreated to make an entire second round, of everything.

And we ate it all up.

Rice Flour Crepes

adapted from The Wheat-Free Cook

2 large eggs
pinch of sea salt
pinch of sugar
1 cup milk
1/3 cup white rice flour
1/3 cup cornstarch
2 Tablespoons melted butter

butter or coconut oil for skillet

In a blender, add eggs, salt, sugar and milk and whiz briefly. Add flour and cornstarch and process until smooth. Mix in melted butter with a spatula.

Heat a medium skillet over high heat until sizzling. Melt a dollop of oil or butter and swirl to coat pan. Pour about 2 tablespoons of batter into the skillet and swirl to spread out. When batter gets small air holes, it is ready to flip, literally about a minute. Flip with large spatula and brown on other side, about 30 seconds more. Repeat. Makes about 10 crepes.

To eat, spread with favorite preserves, or melted butter, and sprinkle lightly with sugar. Roll like a cigar and enjoy.

Because we ate so late and so long (and stopped to taste the new vintages at our local Vintage Ridge Winery, which come complete with nibbles of cheese and nuts and salamis -- more on them later!) we hardly needed dinner. But earlier that day a friend had given me a "small" chunk of fresh-caught tuna, which a friend from the South had brought her just the day before.

I agonized over how to treat it. I even made a marinade of fresh ginger and coriander. But in the end, I just sprinkled it with some Hawaiian lava salt another friend gifted me recently. It was so thick we had to slice it to sear it on the grill. We ate it with a simple salad of arugula and shaved parmesean, with just a touch of LuLu's fig balsamic, and a bottle of Vintage Ridge Syrah, of course.

I don't believe in the Easter bunny anymore. But man, do I believe in the Easter Tuna.

Vacation

2010-03-25T06:35:00.000-07:00

I am ignoring my work. There are many words for this - lazy, slipshod, dilettante, wastrel, indolent, idle, lethargic, sluggish, slothful - and I have been all those things in my life, truly, as well as sometimes even conscientiously unemployed. (There is another word for it too: Free-lance.)

This week, however, I am on vacation. Getting my ducks in a row, as it were.

And while I am not cooking, I am eating. Boy am I. Fresh strawberries as big as a small boy's fist for breakfast, crispy grilled salmon and avocado for lunch. Hand cranked gelato for a beach break. And for dinner, crab legs and fresh Gulf shrimp, steamed at the fishery, or on the boat just out of the water. You pick it up after 2, just off the boat, put it in the fridge. Pull it out with cocktail sauce (I add extra horseradish to mine) and uncork a bottle of Chardonnay.

And enjoy the sunset.