Eating Dirt

A Fun Thing to Do With Leftover Risotto

"Leftover risotto?" you ask, "why would I ever have that?"

For starters, risotto is an easy last minute dinner, requiring little thought, that is limitlessly flexible. It is the perfect solution to an overabundance of leeks or onions, freezer space that needs to be reclaimed from bags of frozen shrimp or a drawer full of green things preventing the fridge from closing. Many vegetables can be simply tossed into the pot as it cooks: asparagus, chard, spinach, squash. Even meat and especially seafood cook up with the toss-in treatment, when thawed and cut into smallish pieces. On special occasions, I sauté the meat or fish first, but in a pinch I just drop it in. And did I mention, risotto has the smell of fresh butterfly milk? Well, it does.

In addition, preparing a delicious risotto requires no timer, no exact amount of anything, and best of all, no skills whatsoever. All that aside, I now know that in addition to tomorrow's lunch, the extra risotto left after dinner can be fried up, into little balls, with mozzarella in the middle. Just right for a fancy weekend afternoon snack accompanimenied by a small glass of dry white wine, like the Canal House ladies suggest. Or dinner for the kids: even mine like these croquettes enough to eat them with some sausage and a few forced greens on the side.

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Risotto Croquettes or Supplì Al Telefono (adapted from Canal House Cooking v7):
(Click here for printable recipe cards)

Delicious, fun to eat and fun to make, if you have a fry-Daddy husband or wife. Rope him or her in for a special treat! You'll need a frying or candying thermometer.

1 cup cold risotto (leftover, please. See the recipe for easy risotto below)
2 eggs
1/4 cup parmaigian-reggiano
10 or so 1/2 inch cubes of mozzarella
1/3 cup flour
1 cup panko or fine dried bread crumbs
vegetable oil
salt

This recipe doubles easily...make it with one cup of risotto the first time, then adjust as needed in the future. There is nothing sadder than fried goods having to go into the fridge.

Mix together the risotto, 1 egg and parm in a bowl. Wet your hands with cold water, then put about 1 Tablespoon of the risotto mixture in your palm, flatten it and put a mozzarella cube in the middle. Form the rice into a ball around the cheese, and set it on a tray.

Put the flour, remaining egg, and panko in separate bowls. Beat the eggs with a little water. Roll each ball in flour, then in egg, then in panko. Arrange them on the tray again. Now you can refrigerate them until you are ready to fry.

Fill a heavy, large skillet with 2 inches of oil (that's 2 inches deep). Heat over medium-high heat to a temperature of 350˚. Be careful, because as my Mother says, "You might burn the house down!" Fry the supply in the oil, until golden brown all the way around. Let them cool on a wire rack, salt and enjoy!

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Super Easy Last Minute Risotto (adapted from Canal House Cooking v7):
(Click here for printable recipe cards)

2-4 Tablespoons butter
1 small onion, or some leeks, or some shallots, finely chopped
1 cup arborio rice (or double the recipe if you have a family of 4 and want leftovers)
4 or so cups of stock (I like chicken, you can water it down or sub in whatever)
1/2 cup or so parmesan-reggiano
salt and pepper to taste

Bring the stock to a gentle simmer in a small pot on the stove, reduce it to low and keep it hot.

Melt the butter in a second, slightly larger pan. Add the onion and 1/4 teaspoon salt and soften on medium-low heat, for about 8 minutes. Add the rice, stir it until it is well coated with the butter, and then add a ladle full of the hot stock. Stir, then wait until the rice pot is close to dry, and add another ladle full.

Continue like this until the rice is as soft as you like - usually twenty minutes or so. Taste and season with salt and pepper as needed.

Spoon onto a plate, sprinkle with parmesan and top with meat, fish, or whatever your main course is, if there is one. Serve with a salad or sautéed greens on the side.

Sweet Potatoes with Chard, Green Garlic and Spring Onions aka Indian Spinach

 

Sometimes dinner needs to be fast and furious, and a plan made in haste goes badly awry. But occasionally a crazed forage through the pantry yields exciting surprises, like last night. In this case, Nigel Slater's Indian Inspired Spinach and Potatoes were on the menu (from Tender, my second favorite kitchen garden cookbook), but after dumping my son in front of TV and gearing up for dinner, I found no spinach and only a single potato in the house. Luckily, we had some sweet potatoes leftover from a past CSA box, fresh chard, spring onions and green garlic, all of which remade a semi-traditional take on saag aloo into a delightfully Springy Californian version. For a little extra protein, and something besides rice that the kids would eat, I warmed some frozen chickpeas with a little bit of curry powder and tossed those on top.  

Here's the recipe below. For more info on what I did with the rest of this week's produce box, check out the CSA section of this site.

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Indian Inspired Spinach or Springy Californian Indianesque Chard (adapted from Nigel Slater's Tender)

1 large bunch spinach or chard

3 medium potatoes, sweet potatoes or a mix of both

2 T vegetable oil (I like canola)

1 large onion or 2 large spring onions

2 cloves garlic or stalks green garlic

1 inch piece of ginger

1/2 t black mustard seeds

1/2 t turmeric

1/2 lemon, juiced

1 c cooked chickpeas

1/2 t curry powder

rice to serve

Start by putting on a pot of salted water on to boil, enough to cover the potatoes. This is good over rice, or with naan, so start the rice now if you're having that or send someone to collect some takeout naan. In a small pot, stir the chickpeas and curry powder together and warm over low heat.

Wash and scrub the potatoes (peel the sweet ones), then slice into 1/3 inch rounds or so and put them in the pot. While the potatoes boil until tender (5-10 minutes, just keep poking them with a fork to check), wash the spinach or chard, remove and discard the spinach stems or  if using chard, separate the leaves from the stems (the easiest way to do this is just grab the stem with one hand and pull toward the outer edge of the leaf with the other, tearing leaf off the stem as you go).  Chop the chard stems finely and put them aside. Next wash and chop the onions, garlic and ginger.

By now the potatoes should be tender. Dump them in a strainer in the sink, wipe out the hot pot with a towel and put it back on medium heat. When it is dry, add the oil, then onions and sauté for a few minutes until softened and add just a pinch of salt. Next add the chard stems and cook for a few minutes, then add the garlic, ginger, mustard seeds and turmeric, stirring occasionally. Add the cooked potatoes and about 1/2 cup of water. Bring it to a boil and simmer until the liquid is absorbed, just a few minutes.  Add the spinach or chard leaves  and cook until they are wilted to your liking. Add a squeeze of lemon, salt and pepper to taste. Serve over rice, with chickpeas on top.

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Gnocchi Soup with Chard or Fun with Snakes

You will almost certainly think I am out of my head when I say this, but I had a really great time making homemade gnocchi with my three and a half year old son last week. It was the most enjoyable cooking experience I’ve shared with either of my kids, and there have been quite a few. While I like to get messy and watch my children engage their senses, I am not a particularly patient parent, so fully enjoying their help in the kitchen is, as shocking as it may sound, somewhat rare for me.

I should probably mention that I’d spent that afternoon planting pea seeds with my daughter’s boisterous Kindergarten class, something I suspect only a madwoman would take on. The day before, I’d planted some sort of native plant in the school’s garden with two classes of first graders, which while a little more mellow, was also fraught with insanity. These events may have clouded my judgement on the making of gnocchi, but I’m planning to do it again regardless.

If you don’t know this already, elementary school children love to dig in the dirt. If there is one thing they could choose to spend their fifteen minutes of recess doing, it would be that. Even the kids who cry when they get messy and don’t like to touch worms or eat mayonnaise like dirt, they just might not know it yet. Everyone I gardened with last week was itching to get their hands in the ground, so much so that they forget their manners, lunging for plastic shovels and throwing their classmates out of the way to be the first to dig in. They shrieked and beat watering cans on the pavement instead of sharing, and were so overzealous that some forgot their numbers and stuffed more than thirty seeds into planters meant for five. They hovered by the hose, hoping for a chance to spray themselves and others. Luckily, I outsmarted them and kept myself dry by turning the water off with a magic key given to me by a wise custodian. But we had fun nonetheless.

The gnocchi, in comparison, was a sweet, loving time I shared with my son, while his sister covered our deck in chalk. We put on our aprons, floured our hands and our table and rolled potato flour snakes together. He then took great pride in cutting them up all by himself. The wonderful thing about gnocchi is that the pieces don’t need to be perfect, or even close to the same size. Just smush them long ways with a fork, then use your fingers to sort of roll the dumpling off, turning it almost into a tube. That way they all look presentable. Sadly, my son refused to eat his gnocchi once they were made into soup. 

“Too slimy!” he yelled, “I don’t think its healthy!” 

I’m hoping, that like the tamales he formerly refused to eat and now asks for by name, he’ll come around in time.

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Potato Gnocchi (adapted from Cuisine at Home Magazine):

This is a recipe that should be done in two stages. Cook and mash the potatoes early in the day or even the night before, then make the gnocchi later.

 1 1/2 lb russet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1 1/2” chunks

2/3 c flour, plus more for dusting

1/4 c grated parmesan

1 egg

1 t salt

1 t olive oil

pinch grated fresh nutmeg

Preheat the oven to 350° and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Cook the potatoes in boiling water until tender, about 15 minutes. Drain into a colander in the sink, then spread the potatoes on the baking sheet and dry them in the oven until they look white and chalky, about ten minutes. Mash the potatoes. I like using a potato ricer, but you could also push them through a mesh colander or sieve. Leave them to cool. If you are going to be continuing the project more than a couple hours from now, put them in the fridge.

When you are ready to make the gnocchi, knead the rest of the ingredients into the potatoes to make a soft dough. Flour your work surface and hands well, then divide the dough into five pieces and roll each one into a thin log, or snake. Cut your snakes into 1/2” squares. The pieces don’t need to be perfect, but smaller seems to be better than larger. Shape each piece by pressing it with a fork, then roll the gnocchi off the fork with your fingers into a nearly tubelike little pillow.

Boil the gnocchi in batches for about two minutes, until they float. Drop them in cold water to stop their cooking, then drain them in a colander and toss with olive oil to coat. You can eat them a million different ways, but I tried the soup below.

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Gnocchi Soup with Chard (adapted from Canal House Cooking Vol 5)

1 large bunch chard

2 T butter

2 T olive oil

1 medium yellow onion, finely chopped

1 clove garlic, finely chopped

6 c chicken broth

1 bunch parsley leaves, chopped

1 recipe fresh cooked gnocchi

grated parmesan, for garnish

Trim the chard stems from their leaves, then wash both and finely chop the stems. Tear the leaves into small pieces and put them in a different bowl. Melt the butter and olive oil in a pot over medium-low heat, then add the onion, chard stems and garlic. Cover the pot and let it cook, stirring occasionally, for 15 minutes or so. Stir in the chard leaves and season to taste with salt and pepper. Add the broth and bring to a boil, then simmer until the vegetables are as tender as you want them to be. Taste and add salt if necessary. Then put some gnocchi in a bowl, ladle the soup on top of it and stir in a small handful of chopped parsley. You can grate some parmesan on as well, if you’d like.

Fideos with Greens

I have the most helpful children in the world, today. After a trip to the Bay Area Discovery Museum with their Dad, they came into the kitchen to assist me with dinner. The pasta needed breaking, the onion needed skinning, and my three year old son even chopped the onion with a knife from his play kitchen. He is a chef in training, I can tell, I just hope he doesn't grow up to do coke and smoke cigarettes like Anthony Bourdain. I'm sure their good behavior and unusual willingness to please had something to do with the fact that I did not see them all day long, other than meeting for lunch at Darla's down the street. Instead of taking care of my children this morning, I went to a class featuring Pam Peirce, author of everyone's goto book for gardening in the Bay Area, at the Garden for the Environment on seventh avenue.

After two information packed hours I now have new defense strategies for dealing with leaf miners and cabbage maggots and much more respect for planting things at the recommend time. My garden could be so much more fabulous if I could only get into gear and put seedlings in the ground earlier in the spring and summer, in the fall at all, and later in the winter. Perhaps the most exciting thing I came away with is how to avoid mildewy peas. They should be started from seed outdoors in the garden in November, so that they have time to produce food before the warmer days of late spring bring on the mildew, instead of just being planted whenever I feel like it (or manage to get around to it), as has been the case so far. I did, however, just pickup a packet of mildew resistant snap pea seeds from Rainbow Grocery the other day, so I'll give those a try with my usual method, for comparison. I'd be perfectly happy to eat snap peas year round, were that to happen.

At the end of class I got a great deal on brussels sprouts and romanesco seedlings, as long as I remember to plant them tomorrow after the two birthday parties and garage sale hosted by Gary Fisher my husband is taking us to. But the best part of all was the bunch of Magenta Spreen Pam Peirce gave me to take home. Related to spinach, packed with vitamins A and C along with other healthy things, I think it is usually thought of as a member of the Chinese Greens grouping of vegetables. I added it to the chard in today's dinner (you can see it above in the photo), and might have to plant some seeds of my own. I would love to serve up a salad with purple leaves. 

As for dinner, it was a big hit with my husband - he just loves whole wheat spaghetti, for reasons I am unable to comprehend. Next time I will use capelllini, whole wheat or otherwise, because the spaghetti takes too long to cook. The fideos was not such a big hit with the kids, but they did eat a few bites, which is a good start. Now that I know how much they enjoy preparing it, I'll definitely make it again. I have a feeling that leaving the greens out of their noodles would have had a different outcome, but really, I'm tired of that. They can pick it out themselves. At least then they'll get some of the residual vitamins, right?

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Fideos with Greens (adapted from America's Test Kitchen's 30-Minute Suppers):

3/4 pound capellini, broken into 3 inch pieces (whole wheat works, or spaghetti in a pinch)

2 Tablespoons Olive Oil

1 onion, chopped

5 garlic cloves, minced

1 cup dry white whine

1/2 teaspoon saffron threads

1 1/2 cups heavy cream

2 cups water

1 bunch swiss chard (or other greens), stems and leaves separated and chopped

1 cup drained jarred roasted red peppers, thinly sliced (if you happen to have fresh peppers around, roast them over your stove burner until charred, put them in a closed paper bag for a few minutes and then peel the skin off - viola! roasted peppers)

salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 375° with rack in upper middle position. Spread broken pasta on a cookie sheet and toast in the oven for about ten minutes, stirring once.

While the pasta is toasting, heat the oil in a dutch oven over medium heat. When it begins to shimmer, add the onions and a teaspoon or so of salt, cooking over medium low heat until they soften, about ten minutes. Don't let them take on too much color, though golden is OK. Add the chard stems and garlic and cook until fragrant, a minute or two, and then pour in the wine and add the saffron, simmering until the liquid is absorbed. 

Add the cream, water and pasta, then let it simmer until the pasta is tender. Add the greens (add chard and other tougher greens earlier in the cooking process, spinach closer to the end) and let it cook until they are bright green and the pasta is done to your liking. Stir in the red peppers and season with salt and pepper to taste.

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Hash Browns with Greens and Sausage

We spent the holiday in Sonoma, soaking up sun in the pool of the house our friends rented to escape summer in San Francisco.  What a great idea - while July third and morning of the fourth were warm and sunny here in the city, we returned to a chill wind and fog billowing down the street on the fifth. Yikes. I love our city, but really, the summer is just absurd.  That said, we harvested our best strawberry yet from the garden on friday - nearly as big as a toddler's fist, it was candy sweet and red all the way through, unlike most store bought strawberries that are white and tasty as a sponge on the inside.

Also in our "summer" garden, the new arugala is growing in and sunflowers are taking to their warm spot against the fence. We harvested plums last week - the yellow wild ones that are each about the size of a walnut. They are almost cloyingly sweet and great in cake. The favas are about done, the peas, as usual, have mildew. The giant pot holding sweet peas on the deck broke when the door banged it in the wind, and since then the flowers, unwatered, have wilted. I keep promising my son I'll replant them soon, but I fear they are doomed because of my lack of focus. The bean shoots are twining up the stakes of their teepees, asparagus stalks have grown tall and weedy and my seedlings are growing up and out of the cold frame. Maybe tomorrow I can get them in the ground, after we spend the day in the East Bay, escaping the fog.

On the way home from our trip I asked both my children about their favorite part of our weekend. We'd gathered with Sonoma's own on the town square to watch their parade Sunday morning and then reconvened that night for fireworks on a giant field of hay. We'd visited Sonoma's Traintown, discovered my daughter's love of ceviche at Maya on the town square and spent hours and hours in the backyard swimming pool, the two of them and their pals shrieking with delight as they jumped like cannonballs into the water and paddled endlessly in their La Petite Baleen tubes. After deliberating for quite a while, one busily picking his nose and the other staring vacantly out the window of the car, they replied.

"DragonWagon," said my three year old son, meaning the rickety tin roller coaster for kids he'd ridden at Traintown, similar to the rickety tin roller coaster for kids he'd ridden a few weeks back at the Giant's County Fair. I see on the web that we can even purchase our own used Dragon Wagon for the backyard, at only $75,000.00. Maybe next year, for his birthday.

And my daughter, who has recently turned a mature five years old, told me "candy. I liked eating candy". So there you go. The highlights of a trip filled with friends, quality family entertainment, summer activities and discussion about the birth of our nation are candy and a crappy roller coaster. I guess I shouldn't be too surprised.  

Tonight for dinner, in an attempt to get away from hot dogs and potato chips, we had sausage and fried potatoes. With a little side of sauteed kale and green beans, to round things out. A quick meal, probably not terribly healthy, but something to put on the table.

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Hash Browns (adapted from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything):

four medium potatoes

olive oil

salt and pepper

The secret to these is that if you fry them up right and serve them immediately, they are delicious. If not, they are terrible. So, set the table, pour the milk and wine, serve the sausage and greens and call your family as soon as you've put the first ones on the griddle. If yours are anything like my family, they should take about ten minutes to assemble, and by then you will have some crispy hash browns ready to serve.

For starters, grate the potatoes in a Cuisineart, with the grating disk. If you don't have one, use a grater with the largest holes you can find. Toss the potatoes with about a half teaspoon of salt and an equal amount of pepper. In a very large flat bottom pan, or on a stovetop griddle, pour two teaspoons of olive oil and heat it over medium low heat until it shimmers. Drop smallish handfuls of potatoes onto the pan, smush them gently with a spatula, and turn the heat down a bit so that you only hear a little bit of sizzle. The potato shreds should slowly turn golden brown, if things happen faster and they start to smoke or turn black, turn the heat down. 

Keep checking the underside of the potatoes until they are crispy and golden brown, probably seven minutes or so, then flip them with a spatula and brown the other side. It will take a bit less time than the first side. Sprinkle a little more salt on top, then serve them when the bottom matches the top. Eat them right away - cold, greasy potatoes are not very good.

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Sauteed Greens with Garlic and Chili:

The best greens for this are what our CSA calls "stir-fry mix". It is usually made up of small leaves of the heartier greens, like kale and collards. 

Fill a salad spinner with water, then go through the greens, pulling the leaves from their stems and putting them in the spinner. Discard the stems and any yellow or excessively wilted leaves. Swish them in the water, dump it and refill, swish again, then dump it and spin dry the greens. 

Peel and thinly slice a large clove of garlic. When that is done, heat about a Tablespoon of olive oil in a pot large enough to hold your greens. Toss in the garlic and stir it up, turning the heat down to low when the garlic starts to sizzle. When the garlic is turning a tiny bit golden (you don't want it to be brown or black), toss in the greens and stir them around. Add 1/4 teaspoon of salt and 1/4 teaspoon of chili flakes (for a standard bunch of greens), then let the greens sit until wilted, stirring occasionally. When they are cooked to your liking, turn the pot off.

If you have other veggies around that you'd like to eat up, like green beans, steam them for a few minutes and serve them with the greens.

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Quick Orecchiette with Green Things

 

Orecchiette is fast becoming my first stop lazy dinner, one step short of pesto with Trader Joe's dried tortellini, which is the one my kids will always eat under any circumstance. Pesto pasta is what we leave for the babysitter to cook, the one I am teaching my daughter to prepare for her little brother, or perhaps vice versa, as soon as he or she is old enough to operate the stove without needing to call the fire department. I recently taught my four year old how to turn the stove off - so she can quiet the tea kettle while I am indisposed - and consider that a major step toward dinner independence.

But until that time when I can have my children make dinner while I tend the garden, swap the laundry, read the paper or sit on the pot, I need something else to cook. Because I cannot possibly eat pesto pasta four times a week. I cannot even eat it twice a week. Not even when accompanied by salad. After seeing it day after day for five years, I cannot eat it at all. Don't get me wrong - I still adore pesto with other types of pasta - just not tortellini. Or those mini ravioli, tri-color or otherwise.

So now, thanks to the genius of Nigel Slater, I am training my children to eat orecchiette. My Italianate friend Jill will be the first to point out how clever it is to have one's children eat something called "little ears" in another language, and I am more than willing to take credit for simultaneously expanding their palates while teaching them to speak in a foreign tongue. And eating little ears?  That is nearly as exciting as snacking on boogers. So really, I win in three ways.

Except that they haven't quite taken a liking to this meal yet, but I can feel it coming. As long as I let them sit on my lap while I spoon it into their mouths, piece by piece, allowing at least three minutes in between each bite for chewing, eye rolling, gagging and, finally, swallowing, they choke it down. 

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Quick Orecchiette with Green Things (adapted from Nigel Slater's The Kitchen Diaries):

fava beans in their pods (a bag or so)

spinach leaves (about half a bunch or 4 cups, removed from the stems )

orecchiette for four (about four cups dry or half a pound or 8 oz)

2 cloves young garlic

1 Tablespoon olive oil

four to six sprigs of mint (or a small bunch)

8 oz or so ricotta cheese 

Start by putting a large pot of salted water on to boil. 

Next, remove the fava beans from their pods and queue them up to go into the pot as soon as the water boils - cook them for five to seven minutes, then remove them with a slotted spoon to a bowl full of cold water, leaving the boiling water in the pot.

In a smaller pan, heat the olive oil while you mince or thinly slice the garlic. Don't let the oil get too hot, and when the garlic is ready, put it in the pan to cook gently, not letting it brown. When it starts to color just a tiny bit, remove the pan from the heat and let it wait.

Now wash the spinach. Spinach tends to be sandy or muddy, so it (like lettuce) requires at least two washings. I like to fill my salad spinner with water, drop in the mesh basket and swish the greens in that, then pull out the basket, dump the water, replace the basket (with the greens inside) and fill and swish again. When it is clean (the rinse water won't be muddy anymore) pour it into a really big colander and let it wait in your sink. 

After the favas are out of the pot, dump in the pasta and cook it until it is soft but still chewy. It's package should give you some better guidelines for time. When the pasta is done, pour the water and pasta from the pot into the colander in the sink, where the clean spinach is waiting. Give it a good shake or two to remove excess water, then dump it all back into the pot and add the cheese. If you, like me, find that you have waited too long to use your ricotta (it will not smell right and will taste bitter), then throw the ricotta away and substitute with whatever cheese you have hanging around. Soft cheese is best, but cut off the rind because it won't melt nicely. If you need to use hard cheese, grate it over the pot. Pour in the garlic and oil and stir it all up.

Rinse the mint, roll it in a clean kitchen towel and pat it dry, then pull the leaves off the stems and chop them finely. Toss it into the pot after the pasta, greens, garlic and cheese have been added.

Now for the favas - squeeze them from their skins into a bowl, then add them to the pasta pot along with some salt (start with a half teaspoon or so) and stir it all up, tasting to see if it needs more. Add some pepper too.

Once the salt and pepper are right, serve. 

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Sesame Ginger Tofu with Greens

This is another old favorite from Deborah Madison that my husband and I have been making for years. We've tried many variations of the sauce, and often I'll make it without marinating the tofu ahead of time, simply because I don't get around to mixing it up before I need to cook dinner. Even then it is delicious. Often it serves as an end of the week produce clean up, just about any vegetable can go in, clearing out the fridge for our incoming Eatwell box. I've made it with pretty much every sort of green we've had - stir fry mix, spinach, chard, kale, mustard (one of my favorites, with a simplified marinade). It is good with turnips, broccoli, cauliflower, always snap peas if we have them and sometimes carrots, though I can usually find a better use for those.

Today it was a few snaggly stir fry greens I found hiding in the crisper, a bunch of chard, a bunch of spinach and one gigantic bokchoi. It never ceases to amaze me how much the greens shrink down when cooked - all that plus a brick of tofu and two cups of rice made dinner for four. Really more like two, since the kids only ate rice and a few pieces of tofu each.

The secret to this one is getting the tofu to carmelize a bit, then it is really good. Its sweet and gingery, with a touch of salty soy sauce to round things out. I can't figure out why our kids won't eat it, but I suspect they just have something against umami. Maybe that alleged fifth taste is really something one needs to grow into.

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Sesame Ginger Tofu with Greens (adapted from Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone): 

Greens - at least one, maybe two bunches, plus any other veggies you might like stir-fried. Carrots, turnips, snap peas, broccoli are all good.

firm tofu - 1 big block 

2 cups jasmine rice (or more if you'd like)

2 Tablespoons peanut or canola oil

3 large garlic cloves (or one small head green garlic), minced or put through a press

3 teaspoons finely chopped ginger

1/4 teaspoons red pepper flakes

2 Tablespoons dark sesame oil

4 Tablespoons sesame oil

8 teaspoons brown sugar

6 Tablespoons soy sauce

Early in the day, make the marinade by mixing together the garlic, ginger, red pepper flakes, dark and regular sesame oils, brown sugar and soy sauce. Stir until all the sugar is mixed in, then cut the tofu into slices, put it in a bowl and pour the marinade over the top. Put it in the fridge until you are ready to cook dinner, and if you get a chance, rotate the tofu around once or twice during the day. If you can't manage to marinate the tofu ahead of time, just toss it in the sauce quickly before cooking.

Begin the cooking process by starting up your rice cooker. If you don't have one, just cook the rice however you like to do it.

Preheat the oven to 200°, so that you can keep the tofu warm while you cook the veggies.

Wash and spin dry the greens and any other vegetables you are using. 

Heat the peanut oil in the bottom of a wok over medium high heat. I have a cast iron one that I really love - it holds the heat nicely and is huge enough to fit two bunches of greens and various other things. It also comes with a lid that is handy for steaming and works well on my stove, which I'm told traditional woks don't always do. When the oil is hot (you can tell by tossing in a piece of garlic or onion and waiting for it to begin to sizzle), add the tofu to the wok piece by piece, letting the marinade drain back into the bowl. Reserve the marinade. Spread the tofu one piece deep, let it cook for a few minutes until you can flip a piece over and see that it has turned golden brown, then flip the tofu to another side and repeat the process. You can do this again, for a third browning, if you want.

When the tofu is browned to your liking, remove it from the pan onto a plate and put it in the oven to keep warm.  Toss in any vegetables you have that need to cook longer than the greens (broccoli, carrots, turnips, but not snap peas), stir them around with a spatula or wooden spoon. When they are close to done (broccoli will be bright green, anything else you can taste for doneness) add the greens and stir them around too. Cover the wok for just a minute or so if you want your greens more tender. When the greens are done to your liking, scoop them out of wok onto a plate or bowl and into the oven. 

Now turn the heat off and pour the reserved marinade into the wok. Give it a quick stir and let it sit there while you dump the tofu onto the greens plate and serve the rice. Pour the rest of the marinade on top of the greens and tofu, and serve right away

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Pasta with Greens or the Easiest Dinner Ever

We had a busy day. In the morning we watered the garden and searched for pig wire and garden rocks, with no luck. In the afternoon we looked for a pinata for my son's birthday party and walked around our local mountain, Mount San Bruno. Later we rode bikes at Crissy Field and visited Baker Beach.

The kids dined on peanut butter and honey at the beach, and my husband and I waited until after they were in bed for our dinner. So I guess I shouldn't be too shocked that the grilled chicken with harissa and snap peas didn't happen. But the chicken is defrosted now, which means I'd better get on it and grill that up before too many days pass. In the end, we decided to eat something healthier than take-out chinese from down the street and used some produce while we were at it. A really easy dinner - so simple that I might make it every day for the rest of my life, or at least some version of it using whatever we have around.

On my way to bed an article in today's New York Times Travel section caught my eye - Pierre Terdjman's portrait of chef Petter Nilsson is wonderful. It has everything a great photo should - repetition, a warm and cozy color palette, perfect found lighting, an attractive and passionate subject, and even more repetition.  Sadly, the crop in the Times' web version is not nearly as fabulous. But whatever, I have the actual paper in hand. Check it out if you do too.

I'm excited to read that even in Paris food culture is taking a step back from its high-handed self, to reestablish a connection to good quality ingredients and simple cooking, in an affordable way. Is it the poor economy? Is it the new generation? Is it Barack O'bama? Is it Slow Food? Who knows - but I definitely sense a shift towards slower paced lives, where we measure our success in quality of experiences rather than quantity of stuff. Its about time.

And now that I have all that additional time, perhaps I can finally get around to learning French, so that I can read  Le Fooding. Otherwise, it appears, I'm just screwed, because there seems to be no English translation. And it doesn't look like they'll be paying a visit to San Francisco anytime soon, though they do seem willing to borrow our chefs, according to the New Yorker. 

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Pasta with Greens (adapted from Nigel Slater's Tender):

This is about the quickest, easiest way possible way to make dinner.  It takes no planning and virtually no prep and is less work than boxed mac and cheese. For starters, put on some salted water to boil. Next find enough pasta for two - whatever kind you're in the mood for tonight. I used whole wheat spaghetti this time. Then, wash up whatever fresh greens you have on hand - spinach, chard, stir-fry mix, whatever. If the greens are young and tender you can just dump them into a colander in the sink. When you pour the hot pasta water over them as you drain your noodles (or ravioli or orriecchette or whatever) the greens will get cooked enough. But if they are a tougher sort, like mustard or kale or the ancient monster spinach we had tonight, then put them in the boiling water with the pasta for a few minutes instead. 

Put the pasta in to cook, add the greens near the end of cook time if necessary.  Reserve a quarter cup or so of the pasta water, then drain the pasta. After draining, dump it and the greens back into the pot. Add a tablespoon or so of olive oil, salt and pepper.  Grate in some parmesan on top. Then stir it all together.  If it seems dry, add a bit of the pasta water until you are happy with the consistency. Serve and enjoy.

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Stir Fried Mushrooms, Spring Leaves and Lemon Grass

 

This morning I realized our butter was rancid, but only after I'd taken the first bite of my bagel.  I also realized that the whole wheat bagels I've been buying and pawning off on the kids are just downright nasty too - like a combination of chaff and Metamucil, and not the pink lemonade or berry blast flavor either. Thats how my day started, sadly, another one during which I would have preferred not to have eaten at all.

I did manage to do some cooking. For starters, the kids and I whipped up the promised energy bar recipe from the Chronicle a few weeks back. Making the bars was fun - mix lots of stuff, boil something from a jar, stir it in, pour into pan.  Very easy.  But the bars themselves, not so good.  The flavor is fine, I'm told, but they are a sticky mess and not barlike at all.  I guess there are different types of brown rice syrup in this world, and I bought the stickier one?  With a few adjustments I think it might be an OK recipe, and then I'll post it here.  But today, a total disappointment.

Dinner was a bummer as well - Nigel Slater's spring stir-fry started out fine, but halfway through I grew tired of eating mushrooms and started wondering if I'd given myself too much rice. That just isn't something that usually happens to me when I'm eating. Most of the time I inhale my food as quickly as possible and then waffle over whether eating more is a good idea. I'd consider making this again, except that mushrooms aren't a usual food in our house, I love them, but they are almost never featured in our produce box. So maybe next time I'll just leave them out.

One good thing I did recently, though, was to add a search function to my blog. Now I can easily pull up all the recipes containing greens or mushrooms or Hello Kitty. And now you Facebook readers have an incentive to actually go to my blog, so that you can be properly counted.  Here's the URL: http://eatingdirt.typepad.com/

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Stir Fried Mushrooms, Spring Leaves and Lemongrass (adapted from Nigel Slater's The Kitchen Diaries):

3 stalks green garlic, finely chopped

2 small dried red chilis

3 lemongrass stalks, inner soft part finely chopped

6 thin spring onions, thinly sliced

2 handfulls or so button mushrooms, quartered

3 Tablespoons peanut oil

1 bunch (about 4 handfulls) tender green leaves (spinach, mustard, mizuna, etc)

Sugar and Salt

soy sauce

toasted sesame oil

Get everything prepped, peeled and chopped, before you start to cook. When ready, put the peanut oil in the wok and heat until it just starts to smoke, then turn the temperature down a bit.  

First, add the garlic, chilis and lemon grass.  Stir it around and let it all cook for about a minute. Next add the onions, and when they are starting to wilt add the mushrooms and let them color, tossing them in the wok. Lastly, throw in the leaves, then stir and toss until they are wilted and bright green. Add a good pinch of salt and one of pepper, then the soy sauce, and finish with a drizzle of sesame oil over the top.

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Chicken, Orzo and Greens Stew

 I came across this recipe when looking through Jesse Ziff Cool's Your Organic Kitchen, thinking it was one I had made in the past and loved, but really I had something else that uses sun dried tomatoes in mind.  I'll have to find that one and try it out.  Chicken and Orzo stew is a good one for using up some greens and serving some pasta.  Its quick to make - my husband cooked it up while I shuffled about doing some other terribly important thing - and tastes pretty good, though I think I would leave out the wine if you're cooking for kids. At our house, at least, wine in food just seems to be a flavor they don't enjoy. So of course, neither of them ate it. We finally managed to convince them that the chicken wasn't so bad if removed from the stew and accompanied by a cream cheese sandwich.   

Early this afternoon I was lucky enough to have some culinary adventures of my own, in one of my favorite neighborhoods - Hayes Valley. I love the grassy green space filling the Octavia Boulevard's esplanade, especially for the really big art installations that change every year or so.  I love the sunflowers and black eyed susans that grow at its edge and the kids' climbing structure just beyond. We refer to it as The Spider Playground. On sunny afternoons I like to take my kids and stop at the Blue Bottle Coffee kiosk on Linden, then savor my coffee at the playground.  Next we cross Octavia Boulevard and pop into Miette for a treat to have after lunch and then continue on down the block for lunch and a loaf of bread to go at La Boulange.

But this morning, I was on my own.  I stopped for some beans and an iced coffee at Blue Bottle, and also picked up a tiny coffee cake made with Magnolia Stout from Magnolia Brewery.  Magnolia has been on the corner of Haight and Ashbury streets, in the upper Haight, for many years. Back in its early days my husband and I dined there weekly. Magnolia's brewmaster Dave Mclean makes really great beer and is an all around nice guy - so the cake was too great an opportunity to pass up.  Blue Bottle's pastry queen, Caitlin Williams Freeman, baked my little treat, and I'm told she and her husband, Blue Bottle founder James Freeman, are really nice too.

So back to my cake.  It was good - nutty and spicy and genuinely unusual with its caraway seed finish - but just begging to be eaten with a hot cup of coffee and not an iced one.  So with much anticipation, I'm saving it for tomorrow morning. 

While puttering about over there, I came across something else I haven't encountered before - Project Homeless Connect's Community Garden. Community gardens have been popping up like mushrooms lately, partially due to the Mayor's Healthy and Sustainable Food Directive of last year, I suppose. Which is all good and well - I am a huge fan of community gardens. However, its hard not to look at them with a more critical eye, simply because there are so many. They're just becoming too trendy for their own good. 

But this one is different - its focused on connecting homeless people and housed people, in an attempt to create community. Its a really intriguing idea. I can think of many reasons why homeless and housed people might not want to connect at all. Can a garden bring them together?  I'll be checking in on their website to see what develops.

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Chicken, Orzo and Greens Stew (adapted from Jesse Ziff Cool's Your Organic Kitchen):

6 oz orzo

1 1/2 teaspoons whole mustard seeds

2 Tablespoons olive oil

1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into thin strips

1 red onion or shallot, thinly sliced

3 garlic cloves, minced

1/2 cup dry white wine (I wouldn't add this if you're trying to feed young kids)

2 cups chicken broth

3 Tablespoons chopped fresh oregano

1 pound greens (chard, stir fry, spinach, whatever), thinly sliced

Parmesan or Asiago cheese, grated

salt & pepper

Cook the orzo according to the package directions, drain and place in a large serving bowl. 

While the orzo is cooking, place the mustard seeds in a large skillet over medium heat.  Cook, stirring often, for 5 minutes, or until lightly browned and fragrant.  Add to the bowl or orzo.

Heat the oil in the same skillet over medium-high heat.  Add the chicken and cook, stirring often, for 5 minutes or until browned and cooked through.  Remove with a slotted spoon to the bowl or orzo.

Add the onion to the skillet and cook for 4 minutes, or until soft. Add the garlic and cook for 2 minutes more. Add the wine, broth, oregano and greens.  Cover and simmer for 2 minutes, stirring occasionally, or until the greens are wilted.  Season with salt and pepper to taste and add to the bowl with orzo.

Toss to blend and garnish with cheese.