Eating Dirt

Pizza Pizza!

Summer has finally arrived in San Francisco. It's been in the high seventies for the past four days. If we're exceptionally lucky, this heat wave will continue through the weekend. If that's also the case in your town, then I have got the dinner for you!

A homemade pizza is not something that can be thrown together at the last minute, but this one is surprisingly easy and enjoyable, especially when the weather is good. My family and I make a point of calling over friends and thundering out into the yard anytime the temperature spikes above seventy degrees around here, regardless of what sorts of things we already have planned. And that is just what we did three times this past week, to hone our pizza grilling skills.

Over two week nights and one weekend, after school and swim class and soccer and track (and work), we perfected instructions and tested ingredients. Not only did we figure out how to reliably produce a near perfect, crusty, cheesy delight, but we also discovered that scheduling is equally important. Our advice?  Don't try this one on a school night. Gathering around the grill with friends on a beautiful late summer evening really requires good beer and pink wine, two things that lead to late bed times and slow mornings for all involved. So save your pizza grilling for the weekend.

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Grilled Pizza (adapted from Canal House Cooking: An Italian Summer):

The dough takes less than fifteen minutes to assemble (no kneading needed!), and a total of about three hours to rise, plus some time to roll and pre-cook before pizza assembly can begin. This is enough for dinner for four to six people. A salad is perfect alongside. If you're really ambitious, maybe some grilled peaches or homemade ice cream for dessert.

For the dough:

2 1/4 teaspoons (1 envelope) active dry yeast

3 1/2 cups all purpose flour, plus more for dusting

6 Tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

1/2 cup semolina flour 

1 1/2 teaspoons salt 

cornmeal for dusting (if using a pizza peel)

For the tomato sauce: (If you're short on time just use sliced tomatoes instead. I'm going to try it next)

1 1/2- 2 pounds ripe tomatoes

1-2 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 cup strained tomatoes or tomato purée

4-6 tablespoons good extra-virgin olive oil

salt and pepper

For the pizzas:

2 large balls fresh mozzarella or 2 cups grated mozzarella or a combination of both

extra-virgin olive oil

large handful of fresh basil leaves

pepperoni, if you want it

You'll need a charcoal grill. I'm going to guess that a gas grill will probably make a perfectly fine pizza, but one that is really delicious requires a wood fire underneath. Yes, it's bad for the environment, but it tastes good. Just take the kids to school on the bus for a week to offset the damage you've done. So back to the burning - buy some nice charcoal, made from actual wood. Skip the briquets and lighter-fluid powered varieties. If you're not confident in your grill management skills, check out Everyday Food's photo essay on setting up a charcoal grill . I'll review the steps later in this recipe.

To make the dough, dissolve the yeast in 1/2 cup warm water in a medium sized bowl. Stir in 1/2 cup of the flour and set aside in a warm location for 30-60 minutes. I turn on my oven to its lowest setting for about ten minutes, then turn it off and put my dough mix in there.

After 30-60 minutes it should be pretty bubbly. Stir in 1 1/4 cups warm water and 2 Tablespoons of olive oil into the yeast mixture. Put 1 Tablespoon of olive oil in a bowl and set aside. Pulse the remaining 3 cups of flour, semolina flour and salt together in a food processor with the steel blade. Keep the machine running and pour the yeast mixture in through the feed hole, letting it run until a loose ball begins to form. Process the dough for an additional minute after this happens. Put the dough into the oiled bowl and gently form it into a ball, if it isn't already. Roll it around to coat it with oil, cover the bowl with a damp kitchen towel and let it rise in a warm spot for about two hours. Your dough should double in size.

For the tomato sauce, Canal House recommends a raw sauce, which is delicious but too runny. I think thinly sliced raw tomato would work well, or you can make the canal house sauce and let it drain in a strainer lined with cheesecloth for a while. We cooked down some leftover tomato soup  by accident one time, and that worked fine too. To make the Canal House sauce:  grate the tomatoes over a box grater into a large bowl and throw away the skin. You'll want two cups of tomato pulp. Add the garlic, strained tomatoes or purée, oil, and some salt and pepper, until it tastes good.

As soon as the sauce is ready, assemble your toppings. Once your dough's two hours are up it's time to light the grill and roll out the dough. My husband likes to roll the dough in the house and then bring it out to the grill pre-prepared, piled up with sheets of parchment paper in between. I prefer to put a tablecloth out on our picnic table and have the kids roll the dough out (with some assistance) while the grill heats up. Either way,  you'll need a rolling pin, a pizza peel (just wing it with a cutting board or plate if you don't have one) a rolling surface (a cutting board is fine) flour for dusting, cornmeal to dust the peel,  tongs and olive oil for brushing.

To light the grill, crumple a few sheets of newspaper into a the bottom compartment of a chimney starter, place the starter on the bottom grate of the grill, fill the top compartment with charcoal, and light the crumpled paper in a few places. Let the charcoal burn for 20-30 minutes, until the top is ashy white. When it is ready, pour the charcoal out onto the grate and spread it evenly. An even spread is particularly important, so that the pizza crust doesn't burn. 

To roll the dough, flour your hands and divide it into four balls. If it seems too sticky just flour the outside of each ball. Spread a bit of flour on your rolling surface, then stretch and roll the dough to make a thin, flat round, about 1/4 of inch thick. Flip the dough frequently to make sure it doesn't stick.

When your dough is rolled out and the grill is ready, sprinkle some cornmeal on your pizza peel and drop the rolled dough on top. Gently slide it off the peel onto the grill, and brush some olive oil onto the top. Watch the bottom carefully, and when it looks cooked and has faint grill lines, about half a minute,  flip it over for another 15 seconds or so. Remove it from the grill and cook the next crust, you'll want to make all four. 

To finish each pizza, dust more cornmeal on the peel, put a pre-cooked crust on top, spoon some tomato sauce onto the crust and smear it around, then add cheese (grated or thin slices of fresh mozzarella) and top with pepperoni or a few basil leaves. Double check to make sure the coals are well spread and the fire is not too hot, then slide the pizza onto the grill. Put the lid back on the grill partially to help keep the top warm and check every minute or so to see if the cheese is melted and to make sure the bottom isn't burning. When the cheese is melted, remove it from the grill, let it set a few minutes and eat right away. 

A Little Motherly Love: Lamb, Carrots and Fava Salad

This year I made my desires for Mother's Day known well in advance: no gifts, just a day at home in the garden and a big dinner, cooked as a family.  It was delicious, and I got gifts anyway - three of Andy Goldsworthy's books, much loved by my kids after we watched his Rivers and Tides together a week or two back.

I spent the day puttering out in the yard, planting this, pulling that, occasionally enlisting the help of our kids and more occasionally having a glass of wine. Rose, of course, since the sun was shining. I collected favas, spring onions, mint, arugula and snap peas for the salad, which was the only part I had to make myself. Fresh favas are the best thing in the world, picked from the garden and eaten hours later. The flavor difference between them and the ones from the store, or even from the CSA box, is surprising. Perfect to go with some spring lamb.

These recipes are from David Tanis' A Platter of Figs, the first spring menu in the book. Its not something I would make every day, but a little fancy, with two kinds of meat (lamb wrapped in bacon) a salad, vegetable and a cake for dessert. All good springy things to enjoy with your Mom!

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Roasted Lamb and Saffron Carrots (adapted from David Tanis' A Platter of Figs):

(serves 4-6)

for the lamb:

 

1 boneless shoulder roast of veal, 2 to 3 pounds

salt and pepper

3 garlic cloves, sliced

olive oil

a few rosemary sprigs

a few thyme sprigs

3 ounces thinly sliced pancetta (or bacon)

1 T butter

2 spring onions, finely chopped

water or dry white wine

For the carrots:

1 lb carrots

1 T butter

2 cloves garlic

1/2 t grated lemon zest

Season the roast well with salt and pepper. Insert the garlic slices into the lose flesh on the underside of the roast. Drizzle a little olive oil over the meat. Lay the rosemary and thyme sprigs on the meat, then wrap the pancetta slices around the roast, tie it all together with kitchen string and place in a roasting pan. Refrigerate for a couple of hours or over night.

Bring the meat to room temperature and preheat the oven to 400°F. Roast the lamb for 45 minutes to an hour, until the internal temperature is 130°F. Let the meat rest on a platter, loosely covered, for at least 15 minutes before carving.

While the meat is cooking make the carrots and prepare the salad (recipe below). Peel the carrots and slice into thin coins. Sauté them in 1 T butter with a little crumbled saffron and a couple minced garlic cloves. Season well with salt and pepper and a half teaspoon of freshly grated lemon zest. Add 1/2 cup of water and simmer, covered for 5 minutes, or until the carrots are tender.

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Fava Bean Salad with Mountain Ham and Mint (adapted from David Tanis' A Platter of Figs):

2-3 pounds fresh young favas (sub in peas or snap peas if you don't have enough)

 

1 large fennel bulb

2 spring onions, thinly slivered

 salt and pepper

fruity olive oil

1/2 lemon

1/2 bunch mint

4 slices cured ham, such as jamon, serrano or prosciutto

arugula leaves

Shuck the favas, then blanch the beans in boiling water for 10 seconds, cool them in a large bowl of ice water. Pinch the skin and pop the bean out. This is a good task to share with kids.

Trim the top, stems and core from the fennel, and when you are ready to make the salad slice it into thin shreds or use a mandolin. Put them in a bowl with the favas (and peas), onions and some salt. Drizzle generously with olive oil to coat. Coarsely chop the mint leaves and add them, and squeeze the juice of half a lemon over the salad. Toss well, taste and correct if it needs more salt, oil or lemon.

 Pile the salad onto a large platter, surround with the ham or tear it into strips and scatter over the salad. Grind some pepper on top, garnish with some arugula and serve immediately.

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Salmon Cakes

 
I've been struggling with pan frying cakes and patties of all varieties for a long time now.  They never turn out right - sometimes they stick, sometimes they fall apart, sometimes they burn to a crisp. But tonight I asked my husband for advice, knowing that he has a tendency to remember everything he reads (but nothing I say) and that he read Russ Parson's How to Read a French Fry a thousand years ago when it first came out.  Parson's book is all about kitchen science, and  I seem to remember it deals with sticky patties.

"Protein molecules will stick to the pan until they have been cooked long enough to denature the protein," he told me. So this time I strictly followed the frying time recommended by my recipe, and actually set a timer to really get it right. And low and behold, it worked. The patties didn't stick, they didn't burn (once I turned the heat down low enough) and they didn't fall apart. 

And as an extra bonus,  both my children gobbled them up and asked for more. As usual, my daughter ate her salad and my son did not. "No," he told me, " salad has vegetables in it. I don't like vegetables".  I did manage to get him to swallow two bites after bribing him with strawberries, though.

But whatever, we managed to polish off nearly an entire bag of produce box lettuce, along with some cilantro and mint. I've found that sometimes the key to a really good salad is tossing in a couple small handfuls of whatever fresh herbs I happen to have around. They add just enough to push lettuce past the edge of humdrum and boring to unusual, exciting and delicious. So far I have yet to find an herb combo that falls flat, though really strong flavored ones (like sage) must be used in moderation.

As for the chives, grow a pot of them outside your kitchen door. Otherwise they molder in the bottom of the fridge and get slimy. Yuck!

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Salmon Cakes with Greens (adapted from Epicurious)

 1/4 cup mayonnaise

1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon chopped shallots

2 teaspoons Dijon mustard, divided

1/2 cup buttermilk

1 1/2 teaspoon fresh lemon juice

1 pound salmon fillet, skin removed, finely chopped

2 egg whites

5 tablespoons drained capers

1/2 cup plain breadcrumbs

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

2 teaspoon olive oil, twice

4-8 cups lettuce or mixed salad, depending on who will be eating

2 small handfuls of herbs

Mix together the mayonnaise, 1 tablespoon shallots, 1 teaspoon mustard, buttermilk and juice in a bowl, then set aside. This is the dressing for your salad.

Chop and wash your salad greens and herbs, dry them, wrap them in a towel, place in a plastic bag and put in the fridge. You can even do this a few days in advance.

In a larger bowl, combine salmon, egg whites, the remaining 1/4 cup shallots, capers, breadcrumbs, remaining 1 tsp mustard, salt and pepper. Mix well and shape into eight 3-inch-round patties. Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Cook four salmon cakes until their bottoms are golden, about 6 minutes. The cakes will not be easy to remove from the pan until they are fully cooked, so resist the urge to scrape at them if they don't come up in one piece, and make sure to turn down the heat if your pan starts to smoke. When your time is up, flip and cook until golden, 5 minutes more. Toss greens with half the buttermilk mixture; divide salad among 4 plates; top each with 2 salmon cakes. Garnish with a dollop of crème fraîche or mayo and a sprinkle of chives. Serve with remaining dressing on the side.

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A Bale of Straw and Some Sausage Salad

I finally figured out, after making a wrong turn on my way home from Berkeley last week, how to find Golden Gate Fields. This is where my friend Geoff, from the Edible School Yard, sent me to remedy my compost problems. My compost has been neglected for weeks now, growing slimy, stinky, and buggy, after running out of its only source of "browns" - a season's worth of dropped leaves from our ancient apple tree. 

"Can I just put newspaper in there?" I asked my friend. "What about cardboard? Paper towels?". 

But he just shook his head. "What you need is some straw". 

I feigned recognition when he told me how to find Golden Gate Fields, the only remaining horse racing track in the Bay Area now that Bay Meadows has been torn down to make way for condos, and figured I'd look it up on the Internet later. But magically, in just a few days, I stumbled on the track while driving further out of town when I really wanted to be driving further in to town. So I headed over for a visit. 

The woman at the front parking booth seemed relieved that all I wanted was straw and directed me to follow the road along the bay until I came to another parking booth. A man at that parking booth directed me to follow the grey pickup truck ahead as it continued to follow the road along the bay. "That's where he's going," the man told me. So I did. I followed it for nearly a mile, then right up to the water's edge, where the driver parked his truck, rolled down the window, lit up a smoke and peered quizzically over at me. 

"I'm looking for some straw," I told him, feeling very much like one of the three little pigs. 

"Go back over there," he drawled, politely removing the cigarette from his mouth. "You'll see it after you go through that gate".  He turned, gestured across a vast parking lot, then returned to contemplate the water. And I saw them - my fields of gold - shorn, baled and stacked on a flatbed, gleaming in the sun with the promise of a new day.

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Sausage Salad (adapted from Yvonne Milham):

This is a recipe given to me by my friend Yvonne a couple years back, when we were both in the throes of living with two children under the age of two. Or something close to that. I pulled it from memory tonight after realizing we had some thawed sausage, new potatoes and lots of salad needing to be eaten. Sausage is one of those things that saves well in the freezer, if it is the packaged kind. I like Aidell's.

This recipe feeds two adults, you can double the sausage and potatoes to feed two additional children, and adjust the lettuce according to how much you think they will actually eat. I have one child who eats the greens and one who throws them on the floor, so I increase the lettuce by half. You can get away with not doubling the dressing, just add more olive oil if you use it all and the salad still seems dry. 

For the salad:

two precooked sausages

two large fingerling potatoes or medium waxy potatoes

eight loosely packed cups salad greens (I would call that about six handfuls)

1 Tablespoon olive oil

1/4 teaspoon salt

For the dressing:

2 Tablespoons olive oil

1 Tablespoon champagne vinegar

1 Tablespoon Dijon mustard

1 teaspoon honey

Preheat the oven to 450°. 

Slice the potatoes into 1/4 inch rounds, cut them in half if they seem to large. Put the potatoes, olive oil and salt in a large bowl and, using tongs, toss to coat them with the oil and salt. Then lay them in a single layer on a cookie sheet. Use two cookie sheets if there isn't enough room. Put them in the oven and set a timer for ten minutes. 

While the potatoes are roasting, slice the sausages into 1/4 inch rounds. When the timer rings, check the potatoes and if they are golden on top, remove the cookie sheet from the oven, flip the potatoes to their other side, add the sausage in a single layer, then put it all back in the oven and set a timer for five minutes. If the potatoes are not golden, set the timer for another five and check again.

Also while the potatoes are roasting, wash and dry the salad (spin it, then spread it in a single layer on a clean towel and roll it up. It can go into the fridge like this for an hour or so, but if it needs longer then transfer it into a lidded refrigerator dish with a single paper towel). Next combine the dressing ingredients in a small lidded jar. Screw on the lid tightly and shake it up until they are blended. 

When the potatoes are golden on the other side, remove the cookie sheet from the oven to cool for a few minutes. Put the salad greens in a large bowl, add the potatoes and sausage and toss with the dressing. Serve right away.

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Gone To Seed

 "It's just gone to seed", my mother would say, shaking her head and referring to areas of our town she no longer liked, when they had passed out of fashion or become unacceptable.  "Don't touch anything, its so seedy!" She would shout about an untouchable location, like the public bathroom at the playground. Now my lettuce and arugula plants are going to seed. They are bolting, shooting up and flowering. After dinner tonight I can tell you for sure that they are no longer good to eat. Tougher, less flavorful, a little more difficult to chew than I like my salads to be. But they make a nice bouquet.

The Free Dictionary (which appears to be the only one online where I can find an entry for this phrase without using my credit card) defines "go/run to seed" as an idiom with two meanings:

1. To pass into the seed-bearing stage. 

and

2. To become weak or devitalized; deteriorate.

Which fits. Just as people's bodies grow old and wear out after they pass child bearing age, so do plants as they propagate. It makes sense that I'm worn out and will whither and die, after they've sucked all the life out of me and I'm no longer useful. The children, I mean. Have I already gone to seed? I suppose so. My house is surely seedy, but my Mother bites her tongue and knits sweaters for the children instead of mentioning it.

So tonight's dinner was surprisingly well received - both my husband and daughter gobbled the salad with no complaints, and I ate it up too, noting its lack of perfection. As usual, my three year old son did not eat the salad. He never does. But the egg and toast? Just the thing.

 

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Eggs on Toast with Balsamic Vinegar (adapted from The San Francisco Chronicle, May 9 2010):

 

2 Tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

2 large eggs

 

2 slices toasted bread, about 1/2-inch thick

 

1 1/2 Tablespoons balsamic vinegar

 

2 small handfuls of spicy lettuce (such as watercress, arugula or baby red mustard greens)

salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

 

 

 

Add the olive oil to a large skillet over medium heat. When the oil is hot but not quite smoking (it will look shimmery), crack each egg into the skillet. Cook them about half a minute, then tilt the pan to roll the oil around, so that it cooks the top of the egg. Season the eggs with salt and pepper and cook until they are done the way you like them. 

Place a piece of toast on each plate, then remove the eggs from the skillet and put them on top of the toast. Pour the excess oil out of the skillet, wipe any remaining oiliness out of the pan.

Put the pan back on the heat, pour the balsamic vinegar into it, and let it cook for just about a minute. Add some salad to on top of your egg, then drizzle with the balsamic vinegar. Salt and pepper to taste and serve immediately.

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Happy Mother's Day!

I know, its a day late, but I like to drag things on. It gives me more time to enjoy. My family gave me the greatest Mother's Day gifts yesterday. Naturally, they revolved around food, so I have to share them here.

For starters, I got to sleep in until nearly eight in the morning. Thats a really big deal. Then I was greeted in the kitchen with coffee, and blueberry pancakes fluffing on the griddle. Blueberry pancakes are my favorite. I love their purpleness and the burst of tart I get from any still whole berries that have survived the cooking (or is it baking?)  process. They make what has always been a somewhat cloying and humdrum morning ritual for me (the pancake) into an extraordinary awakening. Really, its that good. Something as simple as a handful of berries can make my whole day.

And when my name is written in blueberry pancake, well, it doesn't get much better than that. Except maybe lunch. Actually, lunch didn't even compare, but was still very tasty and most certainly a recipe I'll add to our striped books - where we keep the best of the best. My husband found it in the paper that morning, and we just happened to have some eggs (as usual) some salad (as usual) and some reasonably fresh bread from the bakery (not the norm, sadly). The bread was fig fennel from Arizmendi Bakery which I thought would surely be grotesque with an egg and salad on top, but it was very good. Probably any crusty bread from your local bakery will do, but try this if you're looking to up the ante in your sandwich. 

My husband oiled and toasted the bread, fried the eggs (two eaten by each of our kids!) on our stovetop griddle, and tossed some salad I'd brought in. We ate it with lettuce, but I think, as the recipe says, that a little rocket (aka arugala) would be perfect. 

I've been thinking about salad more than usual, after meeting Alice Waters on saturday. Her latest book, In the Green Kitchen, has a great opener on making salad, which I read again this weekend, after having a ball at the Edible Schoolyard's plant sale with my family. I pride myself on being able to make salad - I pull some greens out of our garden, whip up a dressing and toss it into something most of my family will enjoy (my son steadfastly refuses to eat anything green except kiwis, pesto and apples). But within the first few pages I'd discovered something new - combining garlic and vinegar kind of cooks the garlic a little bit, like a ceviche, tempering its zappy bite for a nice vinaigrette. 

So I swapped out my usual shallot/dijon/oil/vinegar/salt/pepper combo for garlic/vinegar, pause, oil/salt/pepper. And guess what?  It was really good, and my husband loved it. Far more than our standard fare, he said. If something as simple as waiting five minutes before adding the oil makes such a change in my dressing, I'm finally ready to stop washing my lettuces with the spray setting and swishing them vigorously like a small tornado.

Alice Waters warned me years ago, probably in her Chez Panisse Vegtables book, to be gentle so as not to bruise the lettuce, something I have been knowingly guilty of for years. It looks a little floppy, not quite as pretty as some other salads, and on close inspection has little lines all over the leaves. But does it really taste much worse for the wear?  I get a kick out of creating a tempest in my salad spinner and like to think it does a superior job of removing bugs and dirt. But after the garlic success, I'll give the gentle handling a try too.

But this weekend I didn't get a chance, because the kids also made me dinner.  Chili and cornbread, and for dessert - ice cream sandwiched between two homemade oatmeal cookies.  So decadent!

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Eggs on Toast with Balsamic Vinegar (adapted from The San Francisco Chronicle, May 9 2010):

2 Tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

2 large eggs

2 slices toasted bread, about 1/2-inch thick

1 1/2 Tablespoons balsamic vinegar

2 small handfuls of spicy lettuce (such as watercress, arugula or baby red mustard greens)

salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Add the olive oil to a large skillet over medium heat. When the oil is hot but not quite smoking (it will look shimmery), crack each egg into the skillet. Cook them about half a minute, then tilt the pan to roll the oil around, so that it cooks the top of the egg. Season the eggs with salt and pepper and cook until they are done the way you like them. 

Place a piece of toast on each plate, then remove the eggs from the skillet and put them on top of the toast. Pour the excess oil out of the skillet, wipe any remaining oiliness out of the pan.

Put the pan back on the heat, pour the balsamic vinegar into it, and let it cook for just about a minute. Add some salad to on top of your egg, then drizzle with the balsamic vinegar. Salt and pepper to taste and serve immediately.

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Garlic Vinaigrette (adapted from In the Green Kitchen):

 

1 garlic clove, finely chopped or put through a press

 

2 Tablespoons champagne vinegar

4 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

salt & pepper

In a small jar with a lid, combine the vinegar and garlic. Let it sit for at least five minutes. 

Add the olive oil and about a quarter teaspoon of salt and freshly ground pepper. Put the lid on and shake it up.

After washing and drying your lettuce, put it into a big salad bowl. Dress it with some of the vinaigrette, beginning sparingly and building up to the amount of dressing you like on your salad, tossing it with tongs as you add dressing.  When it is sufficiently dressed, grind a bit more pepper over the top and serve right away.

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Lemon Chicken Salad

 To come clean, lemon chicken salad makes our dinner sound more special than it actually was. Ina Garten's recipe in The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook calls for grilled lemon chicken, which I'm sure is delicious, but was just not in the cards tonight. I used the remainder of our roast chicken from earlier this week, and while slicing it up, marinating it and then cooking it again on the grill was enticing, it was also too ridiculous. 

Instead I made the dressing (it contains lemon - and so justifies the name), tossed the chicken in it, added  some peas, snap peas, lettuce and sliced red pepper. Hooray - easy! And the most amazing thing?  My semi-vegetablephobe daughter cleared her plate. Lettuce with vinaigrette, chicken, toast, those are easy things. But red pepper and cooked peas? Never! Until tonight, when after four years and ten months of withholding dessert unless she eats the rest of dinner, my ploy worked. All for two stale Girl Scout shortbread cookies (what are those called? Samovars?). Unbelievable.

My son, on the other hand, wouldn't touch it. But that's fine with me. I'm sure he'll love the next thing his sister hates, it just seems to work like that. And he'll surely gobble down breakfast tomorrow.

I'm not terribly familiar with Ina Garten, my friend Rosanna gave me her cookbook as a gift a couple years back, and from time to time I'll make something from it. Lots of tasty salads, beautiful desserts I haven't tried (its so hard to put in all that effort when my kids won't get any, which meansI have to eat half of the thing myself). She has a show on the food network, but, I have to own up, I don't watch the food network. I'm sure that if I did, I would never actually do anything. According to her Wikipedia Bio, she is a former White House nuclear policy analyst. That is very interesting. Does this influence her cooking? Does she make funny political references on TV? Will someone just tell me so I don't have to watch it myself?

For dessert, strawberries. And stale cookies, for those who finished the meal. These strawberries arrived in our Frog Hollow CSA box, following closely on the heels of strawberries from our Eatwell Farm CSA box, which followed the flat we bought for my son's birthday party from the UCSF Wednesday Farmer's Market. And now there are some in the garden!

Life is good when we have abundant strawberries, and production should be ramping up over the next month or two. We picked our first ripe-ish strawberry from our garden today. It was not, sadly, the beauty I mentioned earlier in the week. That wonderful, perfectly shaped, rosy red glowing first berry of the 2010 garden disappeared. Completely. The entire thing. I fear it it was a raccoon, but hopefully one of the tree pruners who visited us that morning ate it. I really don't want to be battling raccoons for my strawberries. That sounds like a losing battle. 

This morning we also tried some little tiny white berries that are growing on our largest plant, which we bought last summer at the Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market. It is an alpine strawberry plant, and I thought that meant it grew tiny red berries, but it seems they are tiny white berries. For weeks these berries have been dangling seductively, each about the size of the tip of my pinky finger, not changing in color or size. Not even a blush of pink. This is the plant that for a while seemed to be raising its own colony of fruit flies. And finally, this afternoon, I clued in. 

We tried the berries, and the kids loved them, but I'm not sure why. Maybe they stayed on the plant too long. Maybe our sandy soil (do I dare even call it soil?) needs more compost. To me they were strawberry flavored, but not terribly sweet - a little bit bitter. Now that I know, I won't wait around for the next batch of berries to turn red, we'll snatch them up right away. Maybe that will sweeten them up.

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Lemon Chicken Salad (adapted from The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook):

leftover chicken (a breast and leg, or whatever you've got)

1 lemon

2-3  Tablespoons olive oil

1 red bell pepper, sliced

lettuce, cut into approximately 2x1" pieces, washed and dried

1 cup sugar snap peas, shelling peas (shelled) or a combination

salt and pepper

First of all, make the dressing. Squeeze the lemon into a measuring cup, then, holding your spoon over a jar with a lid (but off, right now), pour the lemon juice into the spoon then dump it in the jar, to measure the amount. After putting all the lemon juice in the bowl, add an equal number of Tablespoons of olive oil. Add salt and pepper until it tastes good to you, I like about 1/2 teaspoon of each. Put the lid on the jar, shake it up, and set aside.

Slice the chicken meat into small strips - about 2" by 1/2". put them into a small bowl, then dump half the dressing on top and stir it around. Let that sit while you chop and wash the lettuce and wash the peas. While you're washing, put a small pot with about an inch of water in the bottom on to boil. When it is boiling, add the peas. If you have a combination of snap peas and shelled peas, add the shelled peas first, then the snaps after about five minutes. Let it cook for another three minutes, then pour them out into a colander in the sink and then into a bowl full of cold water to stop the cooking process. After a few minutes drain them into the colander. Shake as much water as you can off the peas, then get out a really big bowl. Put in the lettuce, peas, peppers and chicken - pour it in to get all the dressing. Toss it with tongs, then, if more dressing is needed, add some and toss again. Serve immediately, and grate some fresh pepper over the top.

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Joy of a Roast Chicken

Today was a near perfect spring day - fitting, since May Day was this past Saturday. We had no plans this morning, which allowed me to tidy the kitchen to near acceptable standards of cleanliness, something it hasn't achieved since early two thousand six. There was only one timeout for the kids while I swept and rinsed and scrubbed and sorted, they were largely good on their own, playing "camping" in the sunny living room by redesigning the sofa into a tent complete with special secret agent devices.

I opened the kitchen doors to the back deck and pulled the mildew smitten snap pea plants from their pots, harvesting their final bounty and readying the soil for something more hardy - perhaps mildew resistant snap peas? The kids and I went down to the garden and marveled at our one half red strawberry - if the weather gets warmer, it might be ready to eat this week. I only hope the slugs don't find it first.

We watered the garden and planted some thyme. We counted slugs and refilled the beer traps (many, but nothing to rival the ninety-seven dead slugs we counted last thursday). I noted the lack of carrots we have growing in all three carrot beds we've planted. The kids made mud pies. I wondered about the brown spots continuing to appear on potato leaves throughout the garden. The kids sprayed themselves with the hose. I puzzled over whether our largest strawberry plant has fruit flies or something more sinister. The kids took their clothes off and peed in the grass. We gathered up our dirty laundry and went back inside for bean and cheese burritos.

After preschool, my daughter's ballet class was cancelled. So we went home and I unwrapped the still frozen chicken that had been sitting on the counter since last night. Into the oven it went and again I threw open the doors to the yard and out we went. 

We added some rocks to the strawberry garden terraces and started collecting stakes for pea tepees. The kids sprayed themselves with the hose. I realized how snappy the blue and yellow violas look in the back beds - they've finally grown too tall for whatever flower munching insect has been eating them up. I went back inside to put some potatoes and carrots in to roast with the chicken and poured myself a glass of prosecco. The kids made mud cakes. 

Back in the garden, I stood in the warm sun assembling stakes for the pea plants while our ancient apple tree's branches rustled above me.  "Mommy, when will the apples be ready?" my daughter asked as she tried to sneak our sharpest scissors out of my pocket. "Me cut!" said my son, waving twenty-five feet of unrolled twine he had knotted into a roundish lump. This is it, I realized. This is what I love so much - the light in my eyes and the wind in my hair and the plants and my children all gathered around. 

"I'm cold" said my daughter, going into the house. "Me too" said my son, going into the house. And they left me there, to finish building pea teepees, as the sun settled down toward the ocean. 

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Roast Chicken with Potatoes and Carrots (adapted from The Joy of Cooking):

1 whole chicken, thawed and brought to room temperature (if possible)

1 to 2 pounds of small waxy potatoes, scrubbed and cut in half (fingerlings, yellow fin, yukon gold or something like that)

1/2 to 1 pound of carrots, scrubbed and cut in half lengthwise and crosswise

salt

olive oil

Preheat the oven to 400˚. Rinse and pat dry the chicken, making sure to remove the giblits if any have been stuffed inside the bird. Sprinkle the chicken generously with salt and rub it into the skin a bit. Sprinkle more salt inside the cavity. Put the chicken in a roasting pan, breast side up (or down if you'd prefer the breast meat not dry out and can handle the breast skin not getting crunchy and delicious). Put it in the oven and set a timer for 25 minutes.

A few minutes before the timer rings, put the carrots and potatoes in a really big bowl, then pour a couple tablespoons of olive oil and a half to one teaspoon of salt on top. Toss them together using tongs until all the veggies are coated with oil and salt. Put them on a cookie sheet and put them into the oven with the chicken when the timer goes off.  Set the timer for 20 more minutes. 

When the timer goes off, check the chicken for doneness - it should be nice and brown and crispy. You can take its temperature in the thickest part of the thigh, if you'd like. Your meat thermometer will tell you what temperature the chicken should be. You can also check for doneness by pulling the chicken partway out of the oven and using a knife to cut into the skin between the thigh and body. The juices that come out should be clear. If they are pink, it isn't done. If it isn't done, put it back in the oven for ten minutes, then repeat the check for doneness. Keep an eye on the veggies, and when they have a golden crust on them and are soft, take them out. If the chicken is just about ready you can always turn off the oven and let it finish as the oven cools off. This often allows me to pick up someone from school, throw some laundry in, or prevent howls of distress by letting the Thomas episode finish.

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Salad:

1 large or 2 small heads crisp green lettuce (romaine, little gem, whatever)

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon champagne vinegar

1 tablespoon dijon mustard

salt & pepper

In a small jar with a lid, combine the olive oil, vinegar and mustard. Put the lid on and shake it up, then add salt and pepper to taste. 

Remove any imperfect outer leaves from the lettuce, then cut it into horizontal slices and then vertical slices, like a checkerboard, so that the lettuce pieces are about 1x1'. Wash and dry them. 

Put the lettuce in a really big bowl and pour 2/3 of the dressing on top, then toss it with tongs. Taste, and add more if needed. Serve immediately and grate more pepper on top once it is on your plate.

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Doughies!

These little lovelies are something sweet my friend Steph reminded me of long ago. Steph and I go way back, before even high school, and today we still try to get together to cook and eat dinner frequently. For many years it happened once a week and often featured chicken pot pie, but now that we have three children between us, not nearly as often.

Steph is the pie making queen, but I have to say that although she can whip up a crust in no time at all, my Grandmother wins out in the flakiness category. She tells me her secret is to make the ice water as cold as you possibly can. I've struggled with crust making for many years - honestly, I just don't like to do it. Its not a difficult thing, but more a motivational problem. Once I get going its actually kind of fun and I'm always surprised at how little time it takes. So I make mine well in advance. They keep fine in the freezer, wrapped in plastic, and my recipe makes enough for two quiches or pot pies (if you only do a top crust).

Speaking of pie contests - I just heard about the San Francisco Giants County Fair yesterday. Its too bad that our city doesn't have a county fair, or at least I don't think it does, but this sounds like the next best thing. 2010 is the second year for the fair, and this time CUESA, the Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture (they run the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market, among other things) will host a program called Urban Eats that celebrates home grown produce and home made food. There will be contests for baked and preserved food, home food gardening, eggs, and more. I can't wait!  There will also be carnival rides and more crappy food than is usually served at the ballpark!  Hooray! The fair runs June 11-20 and will overlap with six Giants games, which I guess means run at the same time as. I'm so there.

Tonight for dinner we had ham and cheese quiche, with a salad. Doughies are what one makes from the leftover crust after the quiche crust is installed in the pan, so of course we had those too. I like the long, rectangular pans for purely pragmatic reasons - they fit better in the fridge, make a smaller quiche which means fewer leftovers and create slices that are easier to plop into a tupperware for lunches. Ours are 14x4.5", which feeds four or five. For any more than that I always make a second quiche, or just set out lots of bread. So its good to have two of these around.

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Ham and Cheese Quiche with Doughies (adapted from Joy of Cooking):

1 1/2 cups heavy cream (you can substitute whole milk, just increase the cooking time)

3 eggs

one pie crust

4 slices ham

1/2 cup grated cheese (jack is good)

salt and pepper

cinnamon (about 1/2 teaspoon)

sugar (about 1/2 teaspoon)

For starters, you'll need to roll out your crust. You can use a store bought crust, one from the freezer, one from someone else or one that you have just finished making. They all will work fine. Roll it until it is bigger than the pan it needs to fit into, then drape it over your pan. Gently press the dough down to sit on the pan, with the sides coming up over the edges.  Take a rolling pin and roll around the top of the pan - this trims the crust to make it fit just right. 

For the doughies, gather up the trimmed edges of the crust and roll them into a ball.  Using the rolling pin, roll the crust thin, then roll the crust up like you would a carpet.  Slice the dough carpet into 1/2 inch thick rounds, and lay each piece down on its side, on the cookie sheet, sprinkling cinnamon and sugar on top.

Next crack the eggs and pour the cream into a small mixing bown. Whisk it up, adding a little salt and pepper as you go. Chop the ham slices and add them to the bottom of the pan, then grate the cheese and put it in with the ham. Next, pour your quiche mixture into the pans. Its a good idea to put the pan or pans on top of the cookie sheet in case there are leaks, and it gives you a place to put the doughies. 

Bake for 45 minutes to an hour. The quiche should be puffy and golden on the top, and a toothpick inserted into the middle should come out clean. The doughies usually need to come out before the quiche is done, so keep checking them. Pull them out when the sugar starts to carmelize on top and they turn golden.

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Mock Cesar Salad (adapted from Canal House Cooking volume 3):

1 clove of garlic, finely chopped

2 anchovy filets, finely chopped

salt and pepper

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

juice of one lemon

5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1/2 cup grated parmigiano-reggiano

2 medium or 3 small head of romaine lettuce, washed and chopped

In a jar with a lid, add the chopped garlic and anchovy filets, mustard, half the cheese and juice of one lemon.  Put the lid on and shake it up.  Just before serving, toss the lettuce with some of the dressing - this recipe makes more than you need.  Add the remainder of the grated cheese on top.

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Tuna Melts with Cesar Salad

 

More fish is more fun - at least today at our house when I paired canned tuna sandwiches with a mock Cesar salad, which is basically romaine lettuce dressed with anchovies, lemon juice and olive oil instead of cream.  It takes about five minutes to make. 

Last night's dinner was another take on Nigel Slater's Pasta with Sprouting recipe, from back on March 16, this time with baby broccoli (I guess that would be the little side shoots after the main head is harvested) and taleggio cheese, and the same orecchiette.  I've grown really fond of them - they're a bulk pasta item at Rainbow Grocery, and really good. Jason made that dinner, while I recovered from a massage and heavy shopping.  Pasta with sprouting (or orecchiette and something leafy) is one of my current favorite recipes - especially good for using up at least one of our weekly bags of greens and whatever random cheese chunk is moldering in the fridge.

Tonight I really wanted to use the prize bread I brought back from Bouchon Bakery in Yountville,  and couldn't eat another cheese and avocado item after breakfast burritos and PB&J tortilla wraps for lunch.  Is it possible to have too much tortilla?  So we had tuna melts.  Really easy, really good, really popular.  I highly recommend them.  The kids ate up even after complaining about the crust not being cut off.

The salad was a nice surprise. I love Cesar salad, but I never make my own dressing.  It just seems too much trouble.  So when I saw this recipe a few weeks back I was really excited, but figured it wouldn't taste very good - boy was I wrong.  There is something truly magical about lemon, when paired with the right things, and this salad is a good example.

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Tuna Melts:

four slices rustic french bread

two 5 oz cans tuna (chunk light is my favorite - both for flavor and its lack of heavy metals)

four Tablespoons mayonnaise

one teaspoon dijon mustard

one Tablespoon capers, chopped

four slices monterey jack cheese

Open the tuna cans and drain most of the liquid (water, oil, whatever) off of them.  Dump the tuna in a small mixing bowl and combine it with the mayonnaise, mustard and capers.  Stir it up.  Divide the tuna up between the bread (you may have a bit more tuna than needed), then smear it evenly over each piece. Drop a slice of cheese on top, and put it in the toaster oven until the cheese is done - it should be bubbling and getting a touch brown.

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Mock Cesar Salad (adapted from Canal House Cooking volume 3):

1 clove of garlic, finely chopped

2 anchovy filets, finely chopped

salt and pepper

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

juice of one lemon

5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1/2 cup grated parmigiano-reggiano

2 medium or 3 small head of romaine lettuce, washed and chopped

In a jar with a lid, add the chopped garlic and anchovy filets, mustard, half the cheese and juice of one lemon.  Put the lid on and shake it up.  Just before serving, toss the lettuce with some of the dressing - this recipe makes more than you need.  Add the remainder of the grated cheese on top.

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