And, you thought Vegas only grew long-legged, well-endowed Show Girls.
Mark Ruben, director of the Gilcrease Orchard, packing up my asparagus purchase.
Not so. This year, for the first time, Gilcrease Orchard, located in North Las Vegas, is harvesting Spring’s harbinger, asparagus. Let me just say, these well-endowed spears have legs!
The FFWD recipe of choice this week is Asparagus and Bits of Bacon, an especially great idea for the Easter and Passover week’s menus. While “sourcing” fresh asparagus, I found that the orchard, only open now on Saturdays, is selling asparagus and garlic scapes, those curly tops of the garlic plants which are as edible and flavorful as the garlic bulbs themselves.
Gilcrease Orchard is located in north Las Vegas.
The fruit trees at Gilcrease Orchard.
In an e-mail to Mark Ruben, Gilcrease’s director, I explained that I needed the asparagus before Saturday, relayed my FFWD participation and dropped Dorie Greenspan’s name, well, two or three times. Shortly thereafter, Mark responded, “Mary, Come on out. I’m here,” giving me his cell phone number.
When I arrived, Mark had a dozen bunches of asparagus, standing tall and proudly, in a sink of cold water. “I’ll take them all,” I said. Although, surprised, he happily boxed them up. We toured and talked. I questioned, he answered. The orchard produces a myriad of fruits and vegetables, some, pick-your-own, and, in May, will be wide open for business.
Iowa girl meets Nevada boy. Buddies. Mark is as serious about growing good produce as I am about finding, buying and cooking with it.
Asparagus & Bits of Bacon, this week’s French Friday with Dorie’s recipe choice.
On to this week’s asparagus and bacon bits. I cannot explain it better than Dorie. “Toss boiled asparagus with nut oil and lemon juice,” she says, “then top the spears with onion and bacon, and you get sophisticated flavor, texture, and looks, all in about ten minutes.”
Bring home the bacon and throw it the pan!
Bacon bits and fresh diced onions. Warm in a dash of bacon fat, being careful not to color or cook the onion.
I used walnut oil. Perhaps you’d prefer hazelnut oil. While the recipe is simple, the key points here are peel the asparagus, no matter how young or thin the stalks, drain the bacon well, pat the asparagus dry after boiling in water, and, season (salt and pepper) generously.
As a dry run before Easter and Passover, (our family celebrates both), I made this for my dinner last night. I halved the recipe and managed to consume it all in one sitting. Delicious.
For my Easter gift sacks: California Olive Oil, California Shelled Walnuts & Locally-Grown Asparagus.
As for the other eleven bunches of asparagus. Luckily, my neighbors here are all about food. This year, in their Easter gift sack, I am including a bottle of Olea Farm Olive Oil, a California product grown and produced in Templeton. http://www.oleafarm.com/ Owned and operated by Yves and Clotilde Julien (Oui, ils sont français.), this Winter I toured, tasted and loved their products. My grandchildren are selling beautiful bags of shelled California walnuts as a fundraising project. I was all over that – a bag for everyone. The pièce de résistance? Fresh locally-grown asparagus for everyone’s holiday dinner. http://www.thegilcreaseorchard.org/
Whether honoring Easter, Passover or just the holiday week-end, may it include a celebration of family, friendship and, in my case, wonderful neighbors.
If you’re a vegetable gardener, and, I am, it’s probably not a great idea to live in the Rocky Mountains at an altitude of 8,000 feet and count on harvesting a wide variety of herbaceous plants. But, I’ve happily called the Rockies my home for more than 25 years, so you learn to sprout what the soil and climate will bear.
Hey, we’re talking potatoes!
Every year we would plant. Each Fall, before the snow started to fly, we would dig. Then, it was Potato Party time for all our friends.
I cannot do justice to explaining the thrill of sinking a pitchfork into the dirt to discover those little critters just waiting to be plucked. Check out Seamus Heaney’s poem, “At a Potato Digging” for that. I will admit it’s a cultivation-treasure hunt. We were the scavengers and, you bet, my fingers did sometimes ‘go dead in the cold‘, as Heaney eloquently explained.
Yukon Gold Potatoes and Lemons – Ready for the Pot
A Beautiful Scene, Simmering in the Pot
I thought I had served potatoes ‘every which way but up’. So, I was pleased to discover Dorie’s featured recipe for the week, a broth-braised version. While the preparation may be similar to mine, the result is more sophisticated and sublime. That translates to “Hold the butter!”.
In Dorie’s own words, “Think of these as energized boiled potatoes. They get the same high marks as boiled potatoes for playing well with others and extra points for having more flavor, since they’re cooked in chicken broth infused with garlic, herbs, lemon zest, and olive oil.”
I served these potatoes for Supper this week to my friends, Matt and his eleven-year-old daughter, Casey. They’d introduced me to Geocaching and we’d just returned from an afternoon of treasure hunting of another kind. (I’ll save Geocaching for a future Post.)
These potatoes deserved better than burgers but, hey, we were hungry.
Since we had hiked miles, exploring and in pursuit of caches, we were hungry. Starved. Famished. While I served turkey burgers with whole wheat buns and coleslaw to accompany the broth-braised potatoes, I might suggest planning a milder meal to compliment these spuds. However, this worked for us. In addition, the following morning, the hash-browned leftovers with the frittata were yummy.
The caveat to this meal is an apology, Readers, for the burger condiment bottles on the table. They were removed and then were mysteriously returned prior to picture-taking. Do not blame the eleven-year-old.
The 11-year-old Pre-Teen has already figured out that Men will always be Boys.
“Oh, Dad, I KNEW you were soooo going to get into trouble.”
A gratin refers to a dish that is baked with a golden-browned topping of seasoned breadcrumbs and cheese.We’ve all heard of potatoes au gratin, a very popular American dish. But, many of us don’t remember that vegetables such as cauliflower, green beans, eggplant or tomatoes can be prepared as a delicious and nutritious gratin, as well.
Let’s salute and wish Happy New Year to the cauliflower. For Christmas dinner, I served a Cauliflower Gratin that was quite different from this week’s recipe chosen by Dorie. Both are delicious but this was far easier to prepare.
Oven-Ready
Golden-Brown, A Wonderful Aroma, Ready for the Table
As Dorie relates, “Simply made, appealingly rustic and very tasty, it can sit alongside a main course or, with a little salad, take the stage for brunch, lunch, or supper.”
Happy New Year to all you Clever and Creative Cooks, who keep bringing good food to our tables.
French Fridays with Dorie – Chunky Beets with Icy Red Onions
Dream Dinner on the Côte d’Azur
It’s All About the Beets
It’s hovering around 105 degrees in Las Vegas these days so I hosted a Dream Dinner this week. My guests chose where they would rather be (Cote d’Azur) and I did the magic. The only caveat was it had to be a destination “involving” BEETS !
Since French home cooks often don’t roast their chickens themselves – they buy them off their butcher’s rotisserie – I did the same. To the menu I added French Potato Salad Niçoise (without the tuna), Dorie’s Beet Salad, Baguettes (de ma boulangerie très française), and a couple of bottles of Sancerre. For dessert, a Raspberry Sorbet with Madeleines. Now, what could be easier that that?
Chunky Beets with Red Onions, Individually Plated
If you like Beets, this is a simple salad that can be made early. Loaded with fresh herbs, the dressing is tangy. But, the recipe calls for a teaspoon of honey. That’s all the sweetness you need.
A Dream Dinner in the South of France? Try to beet that!
