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 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.
Mediterranean Swordfish with Frilly Herb Salad – French Fridays with Dorie
This week’s French Friday’s with Dorie recipe choice, a delicious Mediterranean Swordfish with Frilly Herb Salad, instantly brought to mind our family’s supper table chatter when I was a kid. Throughout these impressionable years, my parents would unwittingly and not-so-unwittingly toss out those nuggets of advice, wisdom and “I think’s”, that helped shape the adult I became. But that was then, the Midwest in the Fifties and the Sixties. This is now. To lighten my load (those nuggets get heavy), it’s time to recycle and reboot. For now, just 3. Number 1 and 2, I’m on my own. The last, it’s Dorie to the rescue.
First, my father always told me to never, never buy a new car. “You lose too much value just driving it off the Lot,” he’d often remind me. “Always buy a good used car.”
Whether that’s still true or not, I wouldn’t know. My friends, colleagues and even my son-in-law, buy those sexy, sparkly new vehicles always advertised on Superbowl Sunday. I’m almost sure if I purchased a new car, paid cash, (always), and drove it off the Lot, the heavens would open up and rock and roll in despair. (2008, Lexus RX350, 79,351 miles, Used).
The flavorful, South-of-France-spiced marinade which lets Mr. Swordfish know that Life is Good.
Two: always soar with the eagles. Again, my father. Translated, that means get up early: 5 A.M. Since I hailed from a rural Iowa farming community where many of the area’s residents soared, it seemed the norm. To this day, if it’s 5 A.M., my inner clock still insists the day must begin……or guilt rares its ugly head. That eagle-thing has plagued me my entire life. I’m currently working on a new inner-clock of my own. Haven’t I’ve earned the right (I ask myself)? Six A.M. is a win. Six-thirty A.M. is hedonistic. Sorry, Dad.
Third, my mom gets the credit here. If you look out your window and don’t see water, don’t buy, order or eat fish. No ifs, ands, fins or buts. Growing up in Iowa, we ate well but never anything that swam. Those were different times, before fish was shipped properly, safely and maintained its taste. You could, of course, buy frozen fish fillets-in-a-box. As I said, we never ate fish. My husband, Michael, was a midwestern boy and obviously his mother had served him fillets-in-a-box. The result? As an adult, if it was spelled f-i-s-h, he flat-out refused to eat it.
Swordfish Steaks
I like fish but am a newbie at cooking it. Although I look out my window here, see only mountains, no water, there is fresh fish to be caught. Since moving back to Aspen, my good friend, Judy Boyd, a talented caterer, has introduced me to her favorite purveyors and helped me source food products. That’s how I met Jose, the fishmonger at our local market two blocks away. He supplies me with sweet-smellin’ fish. This week’s swordfish was no exception.
For this recipe and because we’re going to cook it in a skillet, Dorie suggests 1/2 to 3/4-inch thick steaks, about 5 ounces each. (Jose was doubtful about this. A grimace. A frown.) The marinade, a combo of rosemary, lemons, capers, chiles and olive oil, provides it with the fragrance and flavor of the Côte d’Azur.
“It does double duty,” Dorie explains. “It moistens and boldly flavors the swordfish, then it turns it into a sauce, so that every last drop of goodness is captured.”
To marinate the swordfish steaks, use a plastic bag, combine all the ingredients and refrigerate for an hour (or, four).
After marinating it for an hour (I did four), remove from the marinade to cook it in a skillet warmed with olive oil. You want it to be opaque in the middle – not rare – so cook at least three minutes on each side.To serve, heat the marinade and pour it carefully over the four servings of fish. Top each piece of fish with herb salad tossed in lemon juice and olive oil. Any veggie will work but green beans are my choice. This is a fabulous entrée to serve to your family or guests. So simple. So elegant. So you see, I am learning from the best. Dorie “does” fish very well.
I’m driving to California this week-end to help my granddaughter, Emma, celebrate her twelfth birthday. And, yes, I just checked, wearing clean underwear! (Thanks, Mom.)
To see how my colleagues swam this week, go here. To make this wonderful swordfish entrée, here’s the recipe.
Wheat Berry and Tuna Salad (I substituted Israeli Couscous for the elusive Wheat Berry)
This Post almost didn’t meet the Friday deadline because I was waiting for this feed back.
“Oh, Mrs. Hirsch, that salad was great. We all loved it”
“Do you think I could have the recipe?”
“The dressing was just right, not too much. So often there’s too much dressing on a salad.”
“The tomatoes, avocados and hard-boiled eggs were perfect with it.”
It’s America’s Fourth of July Weekend. The Gant, where I live, is bursting at its seams with all 140 condos occupied by owners or paying customers. It’s a demanding weekend for the young people who work the front offices. That’s why I decided to make this week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe choice, Wheat Berry and Tuna Salad, for their lunch today. Keeping in mind that hungry kids will look favorably on almost anything that’s freshly homemade (think of Mom), they do take seriously the responsibility of critiquing my “Dorie” recipes. No negatives this week, however. This hearty-meal-in-a-bowl, is a true winner.
An Aspen Food & Wine Festival classic coversation,”The Chef & the Rancher”, with (l to r) Chef Chris Cosentino, businesswoman Anya Fernald, Chef Mario Batali and Editor Dana Cowin.
One adaption. Not only was there no fireworks display on Aspen Mountain this week (too dry), there also was no wheat berry to be found in local grocery stores. I easily substituted Israeli Couscous for Wheat Berry. Other grains, like quinoa and farro, would work also. What makes this extra-delicious is the Dijon mustard vinaigrette. Besides the tuna and grain, the many veggies – celery, onion, bell pepper, greens, tomatoes, avocado – in addition to an apple and hard-boiled eggs, make for a substantial and colorful salad.
Food & Wine Magazine’s Best New Chefs, hard at work during the Grand Tasting at the Aspen Food & Wine Festival.
Just because I have not written about Aspen’s 31stFood & Wine Festival, which took place in mid-June, doesn’t mean I won’t. During the next few Posts, I will comment – providing my goods, bads and uglies.
Let me start by saying the two most impressive, forward-thinking speakers/chefs I heard were Anya Fernald and Marcus Samuelsson. No one else, to my thinking, came close.
Following Chef Marcus Samuelsson’s cooking class entitled “Meatball Master” at the Aspen Food & Wine Festival
Fernald is the CEO of several innovative agricultural companies in California, Belize and Uruguay. As the San Francisco Magazine wrote earlier this year, Belcampo, one of those companies, is “the retail arm of a larger operation unlike any other in the United States — one that includes not just a storefront but also a 10,000-acre farm in Shasta Valley and a slaughterhouse designed by animal welfare expert Temple Grandin. As chief executive officer of this multilayered business, Fernald enjoys a luxury unknown to other sustainably minded meat producers: control of every step in an animal’s march to market. Forget farm-to-table. Think of it as pasture-to-processing-to-plate.
‘We’re pretty much going balls to the wall here,” Fernald says. “But if you want to do the right thing while delivering a consistently superior product, that’s the way to do it. You’ve got to own more of the supply chain.’ ”
Chef Marcus Samuelsson talking with food writer Corby Kummer at the Aspen Institute’s Ideas Festival 2013
I knew little about Samuelsson, the owner and executive chef at Red Rooster Harlem. In 1995 he became the executive chef at Aquavit, the famed Scandinavian restaurant in Manhattan and went on to win numerous culinary awards including being crowned a champion on both TopChef Masters and Chopped (which, unfortunately, I don’t watch so am clueless about these honors).
Samuelsson was arguably the most accessible celebrity chef at the F&W, willing to hang around after his appearances to answer questions, sign autographs and pose for pictures. No fan was left wanting. He also participated in a one-on-one conversation at this week’s Aspen Institute’s annual Ideas Festival 2013. He was interviewed by Corby Kummer, a Senior Editor at the Atlantic magazine and one of the most widely read, authoritative, and creative food writers in the United States. The topic was “Cooking and Eating Your Way to a New Community,” which was an underlying theme at the F&W Festival also and one I will discuss often. I encourage you to read, Yes, Chef, Samuelsson’s bestselling memoir. Called “One of the great culinary stories of our time,” by Dwight Garner of The New York Times, I just received a copy, my bedtime reading tonight.
Chef Thomas Keller being interviewed at the AllClad Booth at the Aspen Food & Wine Festival
Hopefully you’ll make Wheat Berry and Tuna Salad for your friends or family this summer. To see how my colleagues felt about this week’s recipe, go here. This salad was an assignment for French Fridays with Dorie, an international cooking group working its way through Ms. Greenspan’s Around My French Table.
I suspect you’re wondering, “Who is Anne Leblanc?”
Probably, you’re also dying to know if Pistachio Avocados are grown in the States?
In addition, Readers of my blog often ask me about food blogging. Who? What? Where? When? and How?
In this week’s short Post, I’m offering a 3-for-the-price-of-one Special by answering all these weighty questions.
Our French Fridays with Dorie recipe is Anne Leblanc’s Pistachio Avocado. As Dorie explains, this really can’t be called a recipe. It’s more about being a great idea followed by a list of ingredients.
My Ingredients
The late Anne Leblanc was of Huilerie J. Leblanc fame. According to Dorie, this French company still makes some of the finest, fullest-flavored nut oils in the world. Buy them here or in speciality food stores. More than a decade ago, Ms. Leblanc suggested that Dorie pair a ripe halved avocado with pistachio oil to be offered as a easy side to crab, shrimp and lobster salads or grilled meats. After halving the avocado, sprinkle with fresh lemon juice and Fleur de sel (sea salt) and pour Pistachio Oil into its hollow cavity in the center. It’s simple and simply delicious.
Avocado with Meyer Lemon olive oil and Dukkah
With apologies to Anne, I improvised with ingredients I had on hand. My oil was Sonoma Harvest Meyer Lemon olive oil. I sprinkled Dukkah, a Middle Eastern nut and spice blend, over the top. Although I bought my Dukkah at Trader Joe’s, I love this flavorful combo and will make my own in the future. Find the recipe for Dukkah here or here or here. This was a delightful snack.
Avocado with Meyer Lemon olive oil and Dukkah
The results of the State of Food Blogging Survey, conducted by Foodista and Zephyr Adventures, were released this week. Not surprisingly, our FFWD group mirrors the Survey profile.
Although not pretending to be uber-scientific, here’s a brief re-cap by Allan Wright of Zephyr Adventures: “Six-hundred and seventy-nine food bloggers completed a 32-question online survey. The respondents were primarily Citizen Bloggers (77%) with a minority of Entrepreneurial Bloggers promoting their own company (19%) and the remainder connected to corporations (4%). Based on the respondents, food bloggers tend to be from the United States, female, between the ages of 25 and 44, and either married or living with a significant other. [The number of food bloggers 65 or older, like me, isminiscule.] Forty-two percent are parents and 81% are employed or self-employed full or part time. Forty-two percent of respondents have no background related to food blogging while 58% have some related experience.
When asked “Why do you blog?” 87% of respondents replied, “Food is my passion.” Four additional answers that drew heavy response included: to make a name for myself in the food world; Writing is my passion [like me] ; In hopes of turning my blog into a job; and, to have a voice so I can say what I want to say.”
To see the entire survey’s interesting results, go here.
Many of my FFWD colleagues had their own interpretation of this week’s avocado recipe which you can see at our group Link.
Rumor has it this week the Norse God, Ullr, and Mother Nature got together over a simple supper of salad, farçous and grog to decide if it was finally time to usher Springtime into the Rockies. In Norse mythology Ullr (pronounced ooul-er), the handsome stepson of Thor of thunder fame, was the god of snowshoes, hunting, the bow and the shield. Swift on his skis, it was his mission each winter to cover the earth’s landscape to protect it from harm. Americans being Americans, we have enthusiastically adopted Ullr as our personal Snow God…… not such a stretch. Plus, it’s fun.
ULLR, a mythical Norse god drawing by npaganism.org
Last Monday, Winter’s last gasp brought heavy snows, continuing avalanche danger and record cold temperatures to the West. While this round after round of late-season snow has been frustrating, it’s tamped down the wild fire danger considerably. We need the moisture.
But the buds of spring are peeking through the soil, the ski mountains are weary from their winters work and the bears have had enough of this hibernating mumbo-jumbo. Yesterday, I shared Independence Pass road with a humongous (but harmless) black bear. If the bears are back, it’s a sign that Ullr and Mother Nature came to terms. Whoopee and Hooray.
Big-leafed Red Swiss Chard
It’s ironic, isn’t it, that this week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe of choice also is farçous, the same dinner dish chosen by MN and Ullr. (To answer your question, neither had I.) Dorie explains that this is a staple throughout Southwest France, their version of a crepe or galette. What makes this unique is that it’s made from a batter loaded with greens, in particular, swiss chard. (Keep reading, it’s delicious.) In her Around My French TableCookbook she calls them Swiss Chard Pancakes.
You will find the recipe here. Since I made pancakes of the silver dollar size, it was prudent to halve the ingredients. Although these freeze well, there are just so many pancakes one can eat, whether large or small.
The batter is made entirely in the food processor with the swiss chard being added last, bit by bit. If you are making the full recipe you might need to do this process twice. Pour your batter into a hot skillet of grapeseed oil. About 1/3 cup of batter for the silver-dollar size and 3/4 cup batter for a full-sized pancake. I cooked my little guys for 4 minutes before flipping them over for another 3 minutes. After transferring them to a paper-lined plate and patting-off the excess oil, I placed them on a foil-lined cookie sheet in the oven. In my opinion, they are only delicious when served warm.
You can embellish these pancakes with a topping of your choice and then garnish that topping for a pretty finish. I chose sour cream because that’s what I had on hand but crème fraîche would have been better. Notice that I didn’t garnish my topping with minced chives or another herb because the flavors in my accompanying salad were major.
Baby Spinach Salad with Dates & Almonds from Ottolenghi & Tamini’s cookbook “Jerusalem”
I paired these pancakes with a Baby Spinach Salad with Dates & Almonds, a recipe from Ottolenghi and Tamimi’s brilliant new cookbook, Jerusalem. Eileen, whose blog is cookbookimmmersionproject, raved about it in a recent post. It is absolutely delicious albeit totally different from any salad I’ve made. When serving it to dinner guests this week-end I plan to reduce the two teaspoons of the spice, sumac, to just one. Middle Eastern spices seem to “bite back” and I need to develop my taste buds a bit more (as will my guests.)
Again this week, the pancakes are more delicious than photogenic.
To see how my other FFWD colleagues flipped their yummy pancakes this week, go to our link. And, please, Think Spring.
