Eating Dirt

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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Community Supported Agriculture, Farm Shares and Spring Soup

Its spring again!  The plum trees have bloomed, asparagus is in the stores, the end of the school year is fast approaching and I am officially another year older. These are the usual markers of my favorite season beginning, or as is often the case, being halfway over by the time I get around to giving it my full attention.

With all the rebirth and new beginnings that come with spring I've done a little makeover on my blog. Like a good boob job I've added more, but not so much as to shock old friends.  This year I will focus on cooking from my (or your) CSA box or farm share. In case you don't know the jargon, a farm share is the produce delivery system more and more people are using these days, where you sign up ahead of time and support (thats the S in Community Supported Agriculture) a particular farm or group of farms by subscribing for a set amount of time. Paying ahead allows farmers access to funds for growing food in advance, locks in the price of that food and insures that there will be a market for it.

So what to do with all those cabbages, dandelion greens, collards, leeks, green garlic, celery roots, pomelos, dried peaches, eggs and various other goodies we get every week?  I haven't found too many cookbooks that offer up an unending supply of new and exciting ways to make delicious meals from leaves, eggs and roots, so I'm putting together an easily searchable collection. Plus, after more than a decade of CSA membership with Eatwell Farm, my husband and I have a few tricks for feeding ourselves and our kids healthfully, deliciously, and with the smallest amount of work possible.  So here it is - Eating Dirt 2.0, a lazy parent's guide to using up the produce.

There are some new tabs across the top - now you can keep up on the latest news in food and urban ag  by following my twitter feed, search for something to do in San Francisco on the urban ag calendar, see what's in my CSA box this week ( in case you don't get your own and need to know what to buy at the store), and follow what I'm making for dinner each week.  Soon you'll be able to read reviews of cookbooks and other food writing and access past recipes by searching the printable 4x6 card recipe box.

Seasonal, local, organic and delicious. Come on and join in the fun!

And now, a recipe.  I recently purchased Heidi Swanson's Super Natural Cooking.  I love Heidi's blog, and I now I love her cookbook too.  This soup is quick, simple and delicious, especially if you use your own homemade chicken stock. I'll cover the lazy way to do that later. Maybe tomorrow. 

-- Spring Soup (adapted from Heidi Swanson's 101 Cookbooks)

2 T olive oil

2 shallots, thinly sliced

1 clove green garlic, minced

3/4 cup brown basmati rice

6 cups chicken stock (of course you can substitute veggie if necessary)

1 cup sugar snap or snow peas, cut into small pieces

1 bunch asparagus, trimmed and diagonally sliced into 1 inch pieces

1/2 cup green peas

salt

pepper

Heat the olive oil over medium heat, add the shallots and sauté for a couple minutes. When the shallots are soft, add the garlic. Then add the rice and stir, cooking for a minute or two. Add the stock and bring to a boil, then cover and simmer over low heat for 35  to 45 minutes, until the rice is tender. Then, add the vegetables and simmer for just a few minutes. Add salt and pepper as needed.

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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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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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Grilled Chicken Pita Salad

 I have to say that the Easter Bunny has a tough job - hauling all that candy around, hiding all those eggs, I'm shocked he hasn't run out of creativity and taken the holiday off yet.  But I see that Paas has taken some sort of road out because this year there were only five colors in our box.  Pink, orange, yellow, blue, green. No purple.  No turquoise, or whatever that other one usually is.  But lots of Cars stickers - and three plastic egg wraps.  I guess that is supposed to take the place of the two missing colors.

Its a good thing our bunny took the high road in terms of candy this year, and shopped at Miette, the best candy store in the country.  Walking into the Hayes Valley Miette is like going back it time, to some magical candy store I never had as a child. I love it.  

The candy store I do remember from my childhood was up at the corner of my block and the cross street that would take us to school.  It was called Prospectors because it was on Prospect street.  They stocked ice cream bars and Bottle Caps, Twinkies and Snoballs and those weird snacks with Andy Capp on the bag that only highschoolers ate.  But the best treat of all - Wacky Packs.  And how wonderful if you spent 20¢ and ended up with one of the rare ones - like Hipton Tea Bags or Kook Aid.   I always seemed to have multiple copies of Chock Full o Nuts and Bolts or one of the cigarette spoofs, which my mother would confiscate.

Anyway, all this bunny prep necessitated an easy dinner - and it was.  The kids wouldn't eat the salad, but the pitas and chicken disappeared, which is good enough for me.

Grilled Chicken Pita Salad (adapted from Sunset Magazine April 2010):

2 chicken breasts

1 bunch asparagus

handful of snap peas (if you have them in your garden)

lettuce for four (one big head or a similar sized bag of mesclun)

2-4 pitas, sliced into 8 wedges each

3 Tablespoons olive oil

juice of 1/2 lemon

salt and pepper

Cook the chicken breasts on the grill.  Because grills are so different, its hard to estimate when yours will be done.  To test for doneness, cut into the thickest part of the breast.  If it is opaque and releases only clear juices, it is done.  If you don't feel like grilling, use a grill pan on the stove or just pan fry them in a bit of olive oil over medium heat.

Wash and dry the salad.  Bring a pot of water big enough for the asparagus to fit in to boil.  Wash and trim the ends of the asparagus, wash the snap peas, pull off any leafy bits you don't want to eat.  When the water is boiling, drop the asparagus and snap peas in for a minute, then drain them into a colander in the sink.  Brush the sliced pitas with olive oil, sprinkle salt on top and toast them, either in a toaster oven or regular oven, set to 450˚ or so.  Keep a close eye on them so that they don't burn. When the chicken is done, slice it.

In a small jar, put two Tablespoons of the olive oil, all of the lemon juice and some salt and pepper. Put the lid on and shake it up. Put the salad greens in a large bowl, shake the dressing again and just before serving, pour it over the top.  Toss the salad, then divide it into bowls.  Also divide up the asparagus, peas, pitas and chicken into each bowl.  Serve right away and eat!

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Chicken Tagine with Sweet Potatoes and Peas

 

Mmmm...spicy peas. 

How exciting that the San Francisco Chronicle answered my quest for a homemade energy bar in their Sunday food section this weekend!  Thanks Mr. Hearst, I promise I'll stop threatening to cancel my subscription whenever your delivery boy throws the paper through our window.  I'll test the Cherry Chocolate Energy Bar recipe out later this week.

Yesterday we dined at my friend Laure's house.  She served a delicious salt cod dinner and we brought a pea and asparagus salad from a recipe in the latest Canal House Cooking. I'll have to make the salad again soon, it was really tasty.  

Tonight I made a tagine with chicken and sweet potatoes. My Moroccan friend Khadesia showed me how to cook this, so its really her recipe. She usually makes it with frozen peas, but today I picked my first harvest of snap peas from our garden, so I'm putting those in at the last minute instead.  The best part of this dinner are the sweet potatoes.  They cook on top of the chicken, so basically are steamed over spices.

Today was a great day in the garden.  First of all, we finished planting the strawberries.  Sixteen of them (a few are leftovers from last year) in a terraced rock garden that should get enough sun, if I can find an arborist to lop a couple branches off our ancient apple tree.  I'm determined to have great berries this year so that my kids can feed themselves (I'm also planting a dozen raspberries). I'm debating whether or not to mulch with black plastic, then coconut hulls or straw on top. I'd love to hear about your strawberries, if you have any.

As for the peas, they have been growing like crazy over the sides of our deck.  I have to reel in the vines that hang down over the railing to pick the peas, as though I'm bringing in lobster traps.  Unfortunately all our pea plants have powdery mildew right now, so I'm planning to pull them as soon as their current flowers have turned into peas and are ready to eat. The mildew seems to start at ground level and then travel outward, so the newest growth is fine, while the part in the pot look horrible.  From now on I'll be more careful to buy only mildew resistant seeds. 

Now, back to the tagine.  One of the spices I use is a bit of a mystery to me - it is on the far right of today's photo. My friend Laure brought it to me from Cambodia.  It is labeled Imit or maybe 1mit.  It calls itself Khmer Safran and has a picture of a rootish thing, that looks like what turmeric comes from, basically an orange piece of ginger.  Khadesia called it "colorant", which appears to be a typical ingredient in a moroccan tagine, but she said it is not the same as turmeric.  My friend Laure told me it was "safran" and left it at that. I think it smells similar to turmeric. Wikipedia tells me that turmeric has been called Indian saffron in the past and used as a replacement for saffron (the kind from a crocus), so maybe that is why what appears to be turmeric is labeled safran. Go figure.  I'll  list it on the ingredient list, but good luck finding it.  Your tagine will probably be fine without it.  

You will need, however, the proper cooking vessel - a tagine. My favorite is the Emile Henry version, in red. Its kind of pricey.  I served this with cous-cous, which I made really quickly in a regular old pot. Khadesia tells me that to make couscous you need a couscoussiere to cook it properly, and would probably be horrified to see my instructions below.

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Khadesia's Chicken Tagine:

1 chicken, cut into parts

4 medium sweet potatoes

1/2 cup peas (or snap peas)

2 slices preserved lemon

1/2 bunch cilantro

1 Tablespoon olive oil

2 largish pinches saffron threads

1 teaspoon ground coriander

1 teaspoon ground turmeric

1 teaspoon paprika

1 teaspoon colorant (safran)

salt and pepper

Heat the oil in a tagine - be careful not to turn the heat up too high (I use a medium low setting) because you can crack the tagine .  The temperature is about right before you hear a lot of sizzling. Sprinkle a little salt on the chicken, then arrange it in a single layer in the tagine. Add the preserved lemon to the chicken - on top is fine. Sprinkle half the spices (1 pinch saffron, 1/2 t coriander, turmeric, paprika and colorant) on top of the chicken, salt and pepper it and add half the cilantro. Put the lid on the tagine and cook over  for about twenty minutes.

While the chicken is cooking, wash, peel and slice the sweet potatoes into long slices (I usually cut them in half, then half the halves longways).  Wash the peas.  When twenty minutes have passed, flip the chicken over, then sprinkle the remainder of the spices and cilantro on top. Lay the sweet potatoes on top of the chicken.  Cover and cook for another twenty to thirty minutes.  For the last few minutes, add the peas.

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cous-cous:

1 cup cous-cous

2 cups boiling water

1 tablespoon olive oil

salt

Bring the water to a boil in a teakettle or separate pot and keep it simmering.  Heat the oil in a large skillet (or low sided pot), then add the cous-cous and stir it around for a couple minutes until it browns just a little bit. Stir in 1/2 teaspoon of salt and remove the skillet from heat.  Pour in the water, it will bubble up and make some noise.  Quickly stir it one time, then cover the skillet with a lid and let it sit for ten minutes. Fluff the cous-cous before serving.

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