Ever feel the urge to celebrate, throw a last-minute wine and nibbles soirée? Something, you know, not so fancy-schmanzy. I nominate this week’s recipe, Tuna Rillettes, a pâté made from canned tuna, seasoned and combined with fat (creme fraîche), as your star appetizer.
Luckily this French Fridays with Dorie choice dovetailed neatly into what I needed to pull out of my back pocket last night. The past several days I’ve been in Denver to take a Bells-and-Whistles-Tutorial from Zoe Zuker, the president of the company that redesigned my blog.
Since my new blog went live last month, Zoe’s been in hand-holding mode until I could get to Denver for some hands-on instruction. We’ve danced through the “Don’t panic, Mary,” and “I’ve got your back.” routine. When I messed up, she steered me back on track. We each made our punch lists. Ready. Set. Go.
Tuna Rillettes
The four hour drive to Denver was dicey. When the Chain Law is in effect for trucks, you know that Vail Pass at 10,662 feet will be ugly. Howling winds provoked the falling snow, creating slippery roads and visibility problems. I turned off my audiobook, tightened my seatbelt, murmured “Blizzaks, don’t fail me now,” and eventually arrived in the mile-high city.
After that drive, Zoe-instruction seemed like a walk in the ballpark. Go Rockies!
Who can go to work without a good breakfast? Not us. Zoe poses before eating (and, working.)
When I arrived home last night, I was bone weary and mentally fatigued but exhilarated by this whole blog accomplishment. I needed to honor that…thus, the party. I would be both the host and the guest of honor.
Are you with me? After throwing my bags on the bed, I took a can of tuna, one shallot and lemon from the pantry. Creme fraîche from the fridge. And, curry powder, allspice, pepper and salt from my spice drawer. I blitzed the ingredients together, transferring the mixture to its serving bowl before slipping it into the fridge for some all-important flavor-blending.
Our Breakfast Fruit Platter
Savory French Toast (my choice because I’m into Vegetables) Yes, I admit it, that’s Hollandaise Sauce.
Pork Belly Hash for Zoe. (A girl needs her protein.)
I opened a bottle of Côtes de Paso Blanc from Halter Ranch Winery, dished some cornichons and Kalamatas into bowls and pondered my cracker assortment. Sorta Meh. Aw, well. Cocktail napkins? Check. By the time I changed my clothes, the rillettes was ready. Dorie is spot on. “This is soft, spreadable, and just a tad rich, and it’s also quickly made,” she says.
As many of you readers know, my blog began three years ago as a tool for me to insert structure, organization and some pleasure back into my Life. If that was the goal, it’s been accomplished. Although it seems like yesterday, my husband, Michael, died almost two years ago. Since then, and three self-diagnosed nervous breakdowns and a cancelled trip to Europe later, I’ve put my Life back together.
Working through a Coffee Break – women can multitask.
In doing that, Lights has taken on a Life of its own. The question I’m now most often asked is, “Where do you want this blog to go? Where are you taking it?” My answer to that is no answer at all. I’m willing to let this creation of mine lead me.
In the past three years this blog has enriched me with new relationships and experiences, professional and personal. I’ve had to re-sharpen my writing and cooking skills. The journalist in me can now add embellishment, exaggeration and humor to my stories. It’s my blog, after all. And, technically? The phrase, “I’m too old for this, Zoe” is not allowed. If Ms. Zuker can successfully run her own company, she seems to feel she’s up to the task of handling me!
What is Zoe thinking?
My Lights will stay on bright as long as I believe I have something worthwhile and positive to share with you readers. I appreciate beyond words your allowing me to do that. At my last night’s party I toasted my blog and myself (first glass of wine). The second toast was to all of you who read it (second glass of wine). And, then I went to bed!
Bonne Nuit.
French Fridays with Dorie is an international cooking group working its way through Dorie Greenspan’s Around my French Table. You can grab the recipe for your back pocket here. While I suspect some of my colleagues also enjoyed a glass of vino with this week’s recipe, you can check out our FFWD site to see. If you want a wonderfully delicious breakfast, go to Fooducopia in Denver.
This week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe, Green-as-Spring Lamb Stew, is the perfect entrée for the winter weary. “The dish is really meant for spring,” Dorie says. “The stew’s vibrant color and deep vegetal flavor will match the landscape.”
What an understatement, to call the sauce green. Composed of arugula, spinach, parsley, dill, and tarragon, this is a brazen, in-your-face, do-I-really-want-to-taste-this dish? Green eggs and ham, okay. A shamrock shake? Yum. Green stew? That’s a stretch. It’s tasty. An ugly duckling, perhaps, but unique in its greenish sort of way.
The lamb simmers for 90 minutes in its vegetable broth.
Although Dorie’s meat choice is veal, I opted for lamb. Otherwise, Mary Had a Little Veal would not have worked as a title. Before tossing the lamb into a broth to simmer for 90 minutes, Dorie had us boil the meat in water for one minute to rid it of impurities that might cloud the sauce. After draining and rinsing the meat, I put it into the chicken broth along with carrots, celery, onions, garlic, thyme and bay.
Once the meat is cooked and set aside, the remaining ingredients are discarded, leaving just the broth. Reduced by half, it becomes a rich base for the sauce. Now here’s where we go green. That fresh arugula, spinach, parsley, dill and tarragon (six packed cups) are added to the boiling broth and cooked for one minute. The entire mixture is then blitzed to a thick liquid. Whisk in creme fraîche and lemon juice. Pull it all together and you’ve got stew. Green stew.
Green stew tastes better than it looks. Served with boiled new potatoes and curried beets with orange zest, it was a good and nutritious dinner last night.
This recipe, which included eleven different herbs and vegetables, and last week’s Baby Bok Choy & Company En Papillote were the perfect recipes to assist me in another project this month. Last year when I returned to Aspen, I was invited to join a nature study group of five other women, all volunteer USForest Rangers. To be truthful, I was never really invited to join. I heard they were having a meeting at the local library. By coincidence, I needed to return some books. I lingered at the library meeting room’s glass window with my nose pressed against it until they, guess what, let me in.
The two Donnas, cooking with Food Families: radishes (Brassicaceae Family); asparagus (Asparagaceae Family) and Lettuce ( Asteraceae Family)
We all share a passion for the great outdoors. During the past year we’ve studied, in depth, Rocky Mountain geology and it’s flora and fauna. We are learning more about western expansion, beginning with Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase and the Lewis & Clark expedition. This month we explored twelve of the families from the edible plant kingdom by coupling the common and recognizable foods we eat everyday with their wild flowering relatives who thrive in their natural setting in the Rockies.
Cooking from our food families, Donna G made Grilled Eggplant Rounds with ricotta cheese, basil and Dorie’s Slow-Roasted Tomatoes.
Using Deborah Madison’s Vegetable Literacy cookbook and Janis Huggins Wild at Heart natural history guide, we cooked, we foraged, we read and we analyzed. Last Thursday, at our monthly meeting, we presented papers on our chosen families. One of my families, Brassicaceae (mustard family), includes arugula, bok choy, broccoli rabe, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, napa cabbage, cauliflower and turnips, all vegetables I used in my FFWD recipes this winter.
Our group sometimes needs taste testers. Donna C’s husband, Steve, is always a volunteer and good sport.
Twelve members of this mustard family grow wild in the Rockies. All of them, Cardamine cordifolia (bittercress) or Noccaca montana (mountain candytuft), for example, can be used as herbs. Yes, I am becoming a forager. (Note to future dinner guests: I will not poison you.)
At our meeting Thursday we tried to identify the plants that are just peeking their noses out to see if winter is really over.
Food for thought: In this week’s recipe isn’t it amazing to realize the many ingredients we used, all representing many different families or sources, each with its individual characteristics and edible parts: Carrots, Celery, Dill and Parsley – Umbelliferae or Apiaceae Family; Onion and Garlic – Amaryllidaceae Family; Thyme – Labiatae Family; Bay Leaf – Lauraceae Family; Arugula – Brassicaceae Family; Spinach – Chenopodiaceae Family; Salt – Maldon, Blackwater Estuary, U.K.; Meat, Broth and Cream Fraîche – Cow, Lamb or Chicken.
Just think about it.
The two Donnas are trying to decide what can be served safely at dinner parties and what cannot!
Bringing the outside inside and putting it under the microscope. (The microscope was an anniversary present for Donna C (standing) from her husband, Steve, who is pictured above. Group gift. We were all thrilled.
French Fridays with Dorie is an international cooking group working its way through Dorie Greenspan’s Around my French Table. You can grab the recipe and go green here. To see what my Dorista family cooked up this week, check out our FFWD site.
After 25 years of carrying a burden of veggie guilt, this week’s recipe, Baby Bok Choy, Sugar Snaps, and Garlic en Papillote, provided the opportunity to set things right. Having grown up in Iowa, I enjoyed the bounty of our family garden in the summer but winter vegetables were compliments of Bird’s Eye, the Jolly Green Giant and Del Monte.
Vegetables, seasoned and tossed in olive oil, sitting in their tinfoil home, ready to be wrapped.
Unfortunately, I never jumped on the veggie bandwagon. Throughout many years of entertaining, welcoming friends to the table, the vegetables I served were always an afterthought. That changed when I inadvertently invited Susan, who was a Vegetarian, to break bread at Chez Hirsch. Please understand 25 years ago there were very few vegetarians living in America’s heartland. Michael and I had been married 2 years. In the spirit of full disclosure, Susan and her husband, Steve, were his Des Moines friends who had become mine. Until four days before the above-mentioned dinner party, I didn’t know Susan’s dietary preferences.
Wrap the veggies loosely in their packets, leaving a small opening for steam.
After learning that tidbit from I-don’t remember-who, my downward spiral into tizzy-dom was instant. Everything on my entire menu possessed the taint of no-no’s. Later that day, when I ran into her at the drug store, I said, with a smile, “You know, Susan, you’re a real pain in the neck.”
To her credit she laughed. “Don’t worry about it, Mary, I’ll bring something. I’ll be fine.”
And, she did. And, she was.
Yes, Readers, I still cringe at that memory. Whether said with a smile or a snarl, it was an unkind remark on several levels. Susan and Steve continued to be dearest of friends and eventually also moved to Aspen. I couldn’t have muddled through the past ten years without them. But I am still groveling and asking forgiveness over something Susan hardly remembers.
Now that I’ve laid myself bare to the world, I feel better. Whew. Case closed.
Ready to serve, in packets, to your guests.
Admittedly, I’ve learn the most from Life’s missteps. Quite soon after that dinner party, I smartened up and vegetables became a food group in my kitchen. My education started with Mollie Katzen’s The Moosewood Cookbook: Recipes from Moosewood Restaurant, followed quickly by MoosewoodRestaurant Cooks at Home: Fast and Easy Recipes for Any Day. In 1997 I met Deborah Madison. Her cookbook, Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, weighed 4-pounds. There was more knowledge to-the-ounce crammed into that book than I can ever learn.
Today there are a plethora of notable vegetarian cookbooks by cooks such as Madhur Jaffrey, Patricia Wells, Martha Rose Shulman, Mark Bittman, Heidi Swanson, Paula Wolfert and Yotam Ottolenghi. Mainstream cooks like Alice Waters, Louisa Shafia, Thomas Keller, Deb Perelman and our own Dorie Greenspan do wondrously delicious things with vegetables.
My Caprese Salad, with fresh ingredients from the Cambria farmers market.
Caprese Salad by Chef Sean, the brother of my FFWD colleague, Teresa McCarthy
At French Fridays we’ve already featured more than 20 of the 25-or-so vegetable recipes featured in Around my French Table. As I recall, most received a thumbs up. That’s exactly how I feel about this week’s very delicious medley of Baby Bok Choy, Sugar Snaps and Garlic en Papillote. There was no baby bok choy in Cambria’s farmer market so I substituted broccoli rabe. To clean out my fridge before leaving California, I tossed in asparagus and cherry tomatoes. Although En papillote means food cooked in a paper wrapper, Dorie suggests tin foil for this veggie packet.
Farmers Market Fresh
I’ve just pointed out the genius of Dorie and her cookbooks. She gives you a recipe and technique which she has tweaked, expecting you, the home cook, to do the same. After 3 years of French Fridays, watching my Dorista colleagues cleverly put their own variations to hers, I’m trying to move from my by-the-book inclinations. Not going all crazy, just scooting out on that limb in my think-it-over-carefully sort of way.
Her technique, of course, was steaming. Her secret tweak, along with olive oil, was the seasoning. Mint. Orange zest. Salt and pepper. Added also, lotsa baby white onions. Mmmmmm, it was good. Easy to throw together. Served next to a delicious Caprese salad, inspired by colleague Teresa McCarthy’s brother, I had a meal. Leftovers became the inside of next day’s frittata.
The same picture as above manipulated by the Waterlogue App on my iPhone. (Thanks, Tricia)
French Fridays with Dorie is an international cooking group working its way through Dorie Greenspan’s Around my French Table. The recipe for this veggie packet is here. To see my colleagues’ bounty this week, check out our FFWD site. For those of you celebrating Easter, have a wonderful week-end with your family and friends.
This week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe is Quiche Maraîchère. What an appropriate choice for my last FFWD posting from Cambria. A loose translation of the french word, maraîchère, is truck farming. “When you see the word,” Dorie says, “you know market-fresh produce is in the mix.”
My quiche is ready for the 400-degree oven. Bake for 20 minutes before adding grated cheese.
Cambria’s Friday afternoon farmer’s market has been a constant delight. ( In Aspen our market begins in late-June.) This quiche, filled with celery, leeks, carrots, and red pepper, was a nourishing market bonanza for me. In the spirit of full disclosure, I purchased my tart shell. The flavorful filling, however, of fresh-grown veggies mixed with heavy cream and eggs masked the humiliation of store-bought. The grated cheese on top provided a needed punch.
I added extra cheese to give the quiche an added level of flavor.
I head back to Snow Country this weekend. You’ve already read about my central coast explorations and wine shenanigans. Now let me stroll down Cambria’s lane to show what’s made this winter so special. To my thinking every long-term living situation needs structure, routine and a support system. (Well, mine does.) This sleepy, generous community has provided that to me.
Although I had visited here before, I arrived in January knowing only Heidi and Janet Huff, the mother/daughter duo who owns Cambria Vacation Rentals and rented me my house. I’d often climb the 50-some steps to their office just for free red licorice and chit-chat, Cambria-style. Juanita Poff and Suzie Hiatt, who own Cambria Business Center, took care of my mail and business needs. A daily and friendly stop.
Janet Huff, who with her daughter, Heidi, owns Cambria Vacation Rentals.
It was also Suzie who helped me find my Gym. I wanted to continue Zumba this winter so she suggested the Dance Fitness class at Gym One. Why I thought Dance Fitness translated into Zumba, I will never know. I showed up for my first class with my Zumba shoes on! There were about 20 very fit women in the gym, ranging from annoyingly-young to 75 years old. They were barefoot. The instructor, Calico, who was also barefoot, explained that this was a sensory-based movement class called Nia and since the first class was free, why didn’t I just try it. I agreed to try it but I kept my shoes on.
Suzie Hiatt (l) and Juanita Poff (r) own Cambria Business Center
Calico is my Nia Instructor.
I may have walked into this class as a hotsy-totsy Zumba student from Aspen but I crawled out humbled. And, sweating. And, my knee hurt. But I decided I had 14 weeks, 3 lessons a week, to look like Calico so I joined up. Nia is not easy, my friends. There are 16 different hour-long routines, your hands are supposed to coordinate with your feet and you make guttural sounds. I never was very good but by class #3, I was barefoot. The best part – my fellow Nia-ers. I will miss them.
I tip my toque to the women in the Gym One Nia Class.
For the 6 years I previously visited Cambria, the town was always fund-raising for a new library. Every year I’d return to stop by the same cramped and small library. This year, Holy Andrew Carnegie, they’d raised the money, had just moved in and were soon to host a grand opening. I picked up my library card and planned to join the celebration, a 5pm-7pm Open House a week later. When I arrived the entire town was already jammed into the library for the reception. I’ve never seen a community so pleased and proud of an accomplishment.
The grand opening celebration at the new Cambria Library.
Although I usually prepared my own meals, when I’d run out to lunch, my favorite spots were the uniquely appealing Ruddell’s Smokehouse in nearby Cayugos or Boni’s Tacos, Cambria’s only food wagon, where their authentic tacos are $2. My scandalous snack of choice this winter has been the Caramel Glazed Kettle Corn. Every Friday I would buy a $6 sack at our farmer’s market and throughout the week, eat the whole thing. Yep, I did.
My souvenir t-shirt should read: I SPENT THE WINTER IN CAMBRIA AND SURVIVED THE DROUGHT RESTRICTIONS. It’s been a new experience to share my shower with a big black bucket but we’ve bonded and become friends.
French Fridays with Dorie is an international cooking group working its way through Dorie Greenspan’s Around my French Table, more than 300 recipes from my home to yours. The recipe for Quiche Maraîchère is here. To see if real Doristas eat quiche, check out our FFWD site. Next week I’ll be home, posting from Aspen, Colorado — where, since it is still snowing, I will not be going barefoot.
This week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe is Vegetable Barley Soup with the Taste of Little India. Très confus? Dorie admits this is neither French bistro fare nor authentically Indian. It’s a Greenspan concoction. While walking through a Parisian Indian neighborhood she spotted and bought several tiny sachets of mixed spices. Adding them to a rather conventional root vegetable and barley potage kicked its flavoring out of France and up a notch.
Author Brigit Binns, who has written 28 cookbooks, welcomes us to her first cooking class of the season.
The veggies are predictable: onions; carrots; and, parsnips. The spices are not: garlic; fresh ginger; turmeric; red pepper flakes; and, Garam Marsala (coriander, black pepper, cardamom, cinnamon, kalonji, caraway, cloves, ginger and nutmeg). Chicken broth and pearl barley complete it. The recipe for this heart-healthy dish is included in this recent ChicagoTribune article, Cook Along with French Fridays, giving we Doristas our 15 minutes of fame.
Vegetable Barley Soup with the Taste of Little India
The Two Cheese Mavens: Lindsay Dodson-Brown of Justin Vineyards & Winery (L) and Alexis Negranti of Negranti Creamery (R) prepare for class.
Last weekend I attended author Brigit Binn’s first cooking class of the season at Refugio, her home in Paso Robles. Binns‘ twenty-eighth cookbook, The New Wine Country Cookbook, Recipes from California’s Central Coast, has been my tour guide and culinary bible since arriving here in January. I barely made the cut of the chosen twelve but for two whining e-mails to Brigit and a last minute cancellation. Who says begging isn’t helpful?
The most difficult thing about making ricotta cheese in an outdoor kitchen on a windy day is to keep the burner’s flame lit. Brigit and her husband, Casey, try to block the wind!
Everyone in the class got to play.
The class was entitled Two Cheese Mavens. Lindsay Dodson-Brown of Justin Vineyards & Winery and Alexis Negranti who owns Negranti Creamery helped us make mozzarella and ricotta cheeses. But this was a teaching lesson with sideshows. While we were making cheese, Binns and her husband, Casey, were creating delicious, homemade flatbreads dressed in tasty toppings, roasted baby artichokes and those olives, all made in their wood-burning outdoor oven. Butler poured her 2013 Rosé as well as a 2012 Viognier, and a 2010 Carignan. (More about Winemaker Butler next week.) Do you understand why I humbled myself and groveled?
This flatbread is the best I’ve ever tasted. Briget shared the dough recipe so I will share also if you contact me.
Casey made his scrumptious olives in their outdoor oven. Mine tasted almost as delicious with my conventional one. Just as tasty the next day, served cold. Quoting from page 274 of Binn’s cookbook: “Toss brine-cured or oil-cured olives with a little olive oil, scatter with some springs of fresh thyme and rosemary, and a little lemon or orange zest. Roast in a shallow pan for 10 to 15 minutes at 425 degrees until the olives are shriveled, aromatic and slightly crisp.” [Between this recipe and Dorie Greenspan’s Herbed Olives, avoid the high-priced olive bars and turn plain, inexpensive olives into Fancy Nancys – Mary]
Casey’s Olives, roasted in the outdoor oven
My olives (a different kind) with herbs, olive oil and seasoning, ready for my 425 degree oven
Just Right
The cauliflower in my farmer’s market is gorgeous so I couldn’t resist this purchase. I recently found a recipe by Chef Chad Colby for Sauteed Cauliflower Wedges with Bagna Cauda on this blog. Since I’d never made the Italian dipping sauce, Bagna Cauda, before, it was worth a try. Yummy. More about Bagna Cauda-Love in a later Post.
Sauteed Cauliflower Wedges with Bagna Cauda
About my dessert. First, you milk a ewe. Now I didn’t have to do that because Alexis Negranti and her husband, Wade, already had. Negranti, who taught us how to make mozzarella, also chit-chatted about her passion, creating different flavors of sheep milk ice cream – Chocolate, Black Coffee, Raw Honey, Salted Brown Sugar, Pumpkin, Fresh Mint – using fresh produce from local farmers. There’s much to tout about this dish of deliciousness but, for now, be satisfied that its fat content is less than 8%. As I mentioned, this was a feast…with leftovers.
Blueberry and Cinnamon Swirl Sheep Milk Ice Cream. Killer. I’m a convert.
This week’s French Fridays with Dorie choice is Scallop and Onion Tartes Fines. Like its brethren we’ve already made, Tomato-Cheese Tartlets andFresh Tuna, Mozzarella, and Basil Pizza, here’s another recipe where our intentions are not honorable. What Dufour and Pepperidge Farm have devoted years to perfecting, we take five minutes to flatten.
Start with a thawed sheet of puff pastry. After flouring your work area and rolling the pastry to a 13-inch square, take a 6-inch wide plate and, using a sharp knife, cut out four circles. Lay these on a parchment-lined baking sheet and prick with a fork. Lay more parchment on top and then plop another baking sheet over them. Sorta has a crushing affect on the unsuspecting pastry.
For the next fifteen minutes, while the pastry is baking and not puffing at 400 degrees, you mix together the caramel onion-bacon layer (my favorite part of this recipe). Divide this mixture among the four crusts and arrange scallops, sliced into thirds, over it. Drizzle olive oil over the top before seasoning with salt and pepper.
Dorie recommends baking these tarts at 400 degrees for 3 to 4 minutes. Being cautious, I baked mine longer which resulted in my pastry base becoming a tad too brown. In hindsight, I would have seared my scallops first. Still, tasty and unique as an appetizer or lunch (with a salad).
You might note that I suggested no wine choice for this menu. Last weekend I attended Vintage Paso: Zinfandeland Other Wild Wines, a 3-day touring blitz of our wine area. Readers, you know I’m a trooper, but after devoting one full day to this festival, I was done. That’s why you’re on your own for this week’s beverage.
The festival was educational, tasty and hilarious. My friends, John and Susan Lester, who live in southern Cali and blog at Create Amazing Meals joined me for the weekend. We’d known each other virtually for two years and met inreality last year. John is especially knowledgeable about wines, they visit this wine country frequently and were perfect companions and guests.Pictures and just a few words, tell our story best.
We’ve had our coffee. Susan and I, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, are ready to roll. Last week we plotted our zinful itinerary and plan to visit five wineries today.
Our first stop was Peachy Canyon Winery. This was supposed to be our fifth stop but, unfortunately, John missed a turn. Which meant that Susan and I both grabbed maps, assisted with directions all day and drove John, well, to drink!
Memo to my Colorado brother who is casually concerned about my wine adventures this winter: a Lester purchase.
Winery #2, Tablas Creek. With our tastings we enjoyed small bites, shrimp on sweet corn polenta cake and a beef slider on a sourdough crostini.
Winery #3, Halter Ranch, my favorite, where we had our wine and paella in the ranch’s original barn. Susan and I are at the tasting-less-and-eating-more stage.
Winery #4, Adelaida Cellars. It’s 82 degrees, I’ve had it. Susan and I sit at a picnic table while John happily disappears.
Winery #5, Opolo Vineyards. Whoopee. We head to the barbecue tent for roasted lamb, carne asada tacos, beans and all the fixings. We girls rally. Friends forever.
We assemble the wine on the dining room table and take the pledge, “What happens in Cambria, stays in Cambria.”
After dinner at my neighborhood Sea Chest restaurant, we settled in for an evening of Gin Rummy and a Port tutorial. Since I had never tasted Port, John bought me a bottle at Adelaida Cellars. A very smooth evening.
