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.

---

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. 

Roast Beast

Well, here it is again, nearly the end of Summer. Our vacations are over, the kids are back in school, I'm expecting the fog to lift any day now and, as usual, my tomato plants have died. This time I blame it on not hiring an expensive service to water them while out of town: relying on my babysitter for one week and my husband for the next was, clearly, not the right decision. But Summer here extends through late October and really doesn't arrive until sometime in September anyway, so I've started afresh with two new seedlings. I'll let you know how that goes.

As for the strawberries, they are still in the freezer. The two five pound bags of sugar I measured out precisely for making two pots of jam still clog up the pantry, threatening to spring a leak or invite varmints to chew through their flimsy plastic casings every time my husband opens the door.

"When are you going to make that jam?"

"Honey, are those strawberries going to last another day in there?"

"Will you please make that damn jam so I can fit my spare beer on the shelf!"

As we who were lucky enough to come of age in the late 80's know, life moves pretty fast. If we don't stop and look around once in a while, we could miss it. So instead of blogging or making  jam this Summer, I've been busy looking around, mostly in other peoples' kitchens. I've watched my friends, family, a few people I barely know and myself struggle to cook for our own families and friends, and thought a lot about what makes home cooking so difficult.

For one thing, there is the problem of time. We are all very busy people. Slaving away over a hot stove is not the way most of us want to spend our minutes away from work and outside of the car. So today, I'm going fast and easy...get in and get out. Like Lightening McQueen, I am speed. And not only is this sandwich cool, quick and tasty, but it comes from my absolute favorite, the ladies of the canal house, who will be visiting San Francisco tomorrow!!!

Really, I don't want to gush, but I haven't been this excited for an event since I saw REM on their Green tour in 1989. So we ate their fast, easy and delicious suggestion of a sandwich with great excitement. Or at least I did. My husband loved it for the meat, as, shockingly enough, so did my daughter. And my son could be convinced to take a few bites if offered a bribe. So there you go, its a winner all around!

---

Summer Roast Beef Sandwich (adapted from Canal House Cooks Lunch): 

(makes 1 sandwich)

2 slices of whatever good fresh bread you have around

mayonnaise

1/16 lb roast beef (1/2 lb makes four sandwiches)

ripe tomato slices, as many as you want

ripe avocado slices, as many as you want

salt

pepper

 Slather some mayo on one slice of bread, layer the tomato on top, then on the opposing slice of bread smush the avocado into the bread and stack roast beef on top. Liberally salt and pepper both sides, then put them together and slice in half. Excellent with a glass of water or chilled white wine and an ice cream cone for dessert.

--

Ratatouille Wins One for Zucchinni, or Maybe Cucumber

  

As I've mentioned before, I don't love eggplant. But this is their season, so mixed with some good tomatoes, peppers, an onion and whatever zucchini you have cluttering up your counter (or fridge or garden), they're really not so bad. Especially when served over saffron rice. With lots of butter and salt. The rice is my favorite part of this dinner. Ratatouille is not hard to make, though its best done in stages, and can be made a day ahead and even served cold if you really don't want to cook. Which makes it especially well suited to the wacky weather we've been having around here. I can heat the house by cooking ratatouille when it is 55˚ outside, then serve it cold with a squeeze of lemon the next day when it is 95˚. 

My kids won't touch the eggplant, but they do love the rice. Of course eating rice in our house always makes for a huge cleanup, but I just try to serve the kids early, then make my husband fix the mess when he gets home. He's always good for that, with only moderate to severe grumbling. After dinner, their plates look about the same as before, but with rice strewn all over the floor and stuck to their clothing. Sometimes they eat the fruit, usually the sausage (if its Aidell's chicken apple) and always the bread (when there is bread). I force them to drink the milk under threat of whatever seems appropriate at the time and occasionally offer dessert for extra good behavior or three clean compartments and two bites of the fourth. 

 

Whoever came up with partition plates for kids should win a Nobel prize for promoting child health. Or better yet, a big statue on the Embarcadero, out in front of the Ferry Building. In addition to royalties from the sale of a new book, Feeding Kids for Dummies. Because that it what the plate does. Even at my most witless and sleep-deprived, I can still come up with a well balanced, unplanned meal at day's end. I simply fill one compartment with whatever my husband and I are having for dinner, then sort through the fridge to fill the rest - one vegetable, one protein, one grain, one fruit. Or whatever else is in there. The variety usually makes it healthy enough.

Similar to the partition plate, my kids' lunchboxes are those bento style boxes that have multiple little compartments. Since the beginning of this school year I have filled one compartment up with raw bits of different vegetables each day - carrots, cauliflower, radishes, snap peas. Sometimes red and yellow pepper, often broccoli, occasionally cucumber and on super special occasions, miniature purple carrots with orange insides. Sometimes I add a little container of dressing, most often a quickie vinaigrette (1/2 teaspoon champagne vinegar, 1/2 teaspoon mustard, 1 teaspoon olive oil, shake it up), or just a little container of salt, especially if radishes are included. 

About half of the veggies go uneaten, but even so, my daughter has been eating things I was certain she didn't like. Last week she ate some cucumber, for the first time ever, and she has tried pepper and snap peas too. Carrots are always a sure bet, with broccoli and radishes placing second and third in her hierarchy of vegetable love. The day she ate the cucumber was also Ratatouille day. After polishing off her berries, rice, sausage and then asking for another, I offered her two bites of ice cream if she would eat two bites of ratatouille. After great deliberation and with much fanfare, she selected a piece of zucchini as her first bite, and then another for her second. 

"I love it!" She announced. "I want this in my lunchbox...cucumber cooked just like this one, plain, with nothing on it. No tomatoes or eggplant or onions," she told me, disdainfully pushing the rejected vegetables around their tiny compartment. And now I plan to steam zucchini for her lunchbox. And call it cucumber. Because with a situation as tenuous and fickle as a Kindergartener eating vegetables, I can't afford to go wrong.

--

Ratatouille (adapted from The Joy of Cooking):

1/4 cup olive oil

1 medium eggplant (about 1 pound) peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes

1 pound zucchini, cut into 1-inch cubes

1 large onion, chopped

2 large red bell peppers, cut into 1-inch squares

3 cloves garlic, chopped

2 really big or 3 medium tomatoes, seeded and chopped (slice in half widthwise, then squeeze over the sink to seed)

3 or 4 sprigs fresh thyme

1 bay leaf

1/4 cup chopped basil (or 2 Tablespoons pesto if you don't have fresh basil)

Start by peeling and chopping the eggplant, then liberally cover it with salt and let it sit in a colander in the sink for twenty minutes or longer, if you need to. This step is especially important if your eggplant is on the older side, it will help remove the bitterness. While it sits in salt you can prep the rest of the veggies, and then rinse and dry the eggplant pieces before cooking them. If your eggplant is fresh off the plant, you can skip this step. 

When your eggplant has been salted long enough, rinse it off and pat it dry. Warm most of the olive oil (but not all, reserve two or three Tablespoons) in a skillet over medium high heat, then saute the eggplant and zucchini for about 10 minutes, until it is tender. Remove it from the pan. Add the remaining olive oil and the onions, garlic, and peppers. Saute those vegetables until the onions are translucent and the other veggies tender and fragrant. 

Add the tomatoes, thyme and bay leaf, then reduce the heat to low and simmer for about 20 minutes, until the vegetables are as squishy as you want them to be. Taste and season with salt and pepper, and stir in the basil or pesto. 

To make saffron rice, add a large pinch of saffron threads to your rice cooker, then add butter and salt to taste after it is cooked. Serve it with the ratatouille, hot or cold with a squeeze of lemon.

---

Quick Eggplant Chicken Curry and How to Cut an Onion

We came home late from school, again today. I started Sesame Street at 5:00, wanting the kids to be eating before 6:00, hopefully finished by 6:30, which is easy enough, since they either gobble dinner down or don't eat it at all. Today's scheduled recipe was eggplant curry with the leftover chicken from tuesday's paella. But, I hadn't salted the eggplant beforehand, and now twenty minutes of letting salty eggplant sit and drain into the sink seemed like a bad idea.

I have never understood the need for salting eggplant. In nearly every cookbook written before 2000, it says that one needs to salt eggplant and let it sit for twenty minutes, in order to get the bitterness out. But here's the thing - whether I salt and sit the eggplant or not, it doesn't taste bitter. Maybe the bitterness gene has been bred out of modern eggplant, or eggplant from our CSA is too fresh to be bitter, or perhaps I just don't have the capacity to taste the bitter in eggplant. 

Don't get me wrong - I don't love eggplant and have some special tolerance for bitterness. In fact, in years past, I've been perfectly happy to get only one or two from the CSA box per summer. That is really quite enough for me. But this year, we've had at least ten eggplant so far, and the season is just gearing up. Last week I roasted four of the ten, letting them collapse into a mushy brown paste, then mixed it with roasted garlic, salt, olive oil, and brought it to the preschool picnic. On crackers, the mush was very good. Even for someone who doesn't like eggplant.

Earlier in the week we ate something with chickpeas and tomatoes and basil and eggplant, from The Kitchen Diaries, but it was merely OK. Tonight I used one more for the curry, which was pretty tasty. Then four new ones arrived, glistening and globular, in today's produce box. What to do?

But back to the curry. It tasted good and was ready to eat in about 45 minutes, required no prep ahead or special ingredients. I served the kids' dinner up on a four partition plate: rice in the large section, three pieces of chicken extracted from the curry and half a banana on the two medium ones, a dollop of curried vegetables in the smallest space. Plus a cup of milk and their own access to the salt shaker, with my observation. All of it was eaten, except the veggies. My daughter ate one bite in exchange for a second helping of rice. To me, that's success.

---

Quick Eggplant Chicken Curry (adapted from Camellia Panjabi's 50 Great Curries of India):

For the rice:

2-3 cups basmati rice, depending on how much your family will eat

1 cinnamon stick, broken into 2 pieces

3 whole cloves

2 cardamon pods

pinch saffron

2 Tablespoons butter

salt (if you use unsalted butter)

For the curry:

4 tablespoons canola oil (or some other mildly flavored variety)

1 onion, finely chopped

2 garlic cloves

1 half inch piece of ginger, peeled and finely chopped (or 1 teaspoon powdered ginger, if thats what you have)

1 teaspoon ground coriander (or substitute 2 Tablespoons curry powder for this and the next 3 spices)

1/2 teaspoon turmeric

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon paprika

1 eggplant

2 poblano peppers (or other mildly spicy variety)

1 or 2 zucchini or other summer squash

2 tomaotes

leftover raw chicken, white or dark meat (as much as you want, 1 chicken breast's worth is plenty)

cilantro to garnish

salt

First of all, start your rice. The easiest thing to do is use a rice cooker. Add as much rice as your family will eat, 2-3 cups or so, add the required amount of water for your cooker, and drop in the cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, and saffron. Then turn it on. When the rice is finished, add the butter and a little salt (if the butter is unsalted). With a little sugar this could probably be dessert, but my kids love it with dinner. You can use plain old basmati if you'd rather.

Warm the oil in a really big pan. You can use a wok if you don't have one. When you cut the onion, follow the directions my good pal Chris taught me, after he spent a month learning to cook somewhere in Italy with his Mother: cut the onion in half horizontally. Slice a bit off the round end of each half, so you can get under the skin easily, then peel the papery skin off. For each half, lay it cut side down on your cutting board. Slice the onion, as thin as you want (thicker for chopped, thinner for finely chopped and minced) in one direction, holding it together as you go. Then turn the onion 90 degrees, and slice it again, the same thickness as before. Now, because of the layers of the onion, you are done. Pick it up and throw it into the pot of hot oil.

Give the onion a stir or two, set the heat to medium low, and let it cook while you prep the rest of the ingredients. Be careful not to let it burn, just let it get golden brown. If it gets that color before you are done prepping, just turn the heat off. 

Cut the eggplant into 1/2 inch or so pieces, put it in a colander in the sink and toss it with about 2 tablespoons of salt. Or don't, if you're not worried about the bitterness. Core and remove the membranes of the peppers, then chop them into 1/2 inch pieces. Chop the zucchini into 1/2 inch pieces. Chop the chicken into 1/2 inch pieces. Cut the tomatoes in half horizontally, then squeeze them over the sink to remove seeds and juice. You might need to squeeze them fairly hard, depending on ripeness, but don't squash the flesh. Then chop them into 1/2 inch pieces. Finely chop the garlic, then peel and finely chop the ginger. 

When the onions are golden brown, add the garlic, ginger, tomato, pepper, spices and a cup of water. Rinse the eggplant in the sink, shake the colander to get off the excess water and add it to the pan. Turn the heat to medium and let it simmer for a while, about 10 minutes or so. When the eggplant is soft, add the chicken and zucchini. If the pan is getting dry, add another cup of water or so and stir. Taste and add some salt. When the vegetables are as soft as you'd like them to be, and the flavors are as blended as you'd like them to be, it is done. Feel free to add more water and salt along the way. 

Serve over rice with chopped cilantro as a garnish.

---

Stephen's Summer Spaghetti

There are many days when I don't want to cook dinner. Today was one of them, so we ordered takeout. Last night we had big plans in the Castro and went out, but the night before that I was lucky enough to stumble onto a recipe that won my "Special Stripes" award, which means it gets filed into a set of four matching photo albums that I keep on a kitchen bookshelf, next to my archive of Saveur magazines and above a ratty collection of coloring books. As the award title implies, the albums are striped, and inside are my absolute favorite recipes that I make over and over, ordered by main ingredient. 

There are four qualifications for this award. First of all, the finished product needs to be reproducibly delicious, meaning it tastes fantastic every time, or at least most of the time. Second, it needs to use ingredients that will have either come from the CSA box or out of the garden, simultaneously. No impossible combinations like asparagus and fresh tomatoes are allowed. Third, it must be easy to make, hopefully ridiculously so. The more gems I stash away in the striped books, the more I realize that cooking is really performing magic: combine a few things, heat them up, sprinkle a special potion from the spice cabinet over the top, wave a giant spoon in the mix for a few minutes and poof - something entirely new appears. Last of all, it needs to be family friendly. That does not mean my kids and husband must love it as much as I, but that it can be easily transformed into a realistic meal for them. Often that is accomplished by leaving out a final ingredient or two in the kids' servings, or even throwing down a PB&J next to a single part I know they'll eat, like rice, pinto beans, raw carrots or sausage. 

This recipe is great for a midsummer night when the ten pounds of beautiful heirloom tomatoes you have are starting to leak their juices onto your counter, the fridge is packed with basil threatening to turn black and taunt you as waste and your energy level is at rock bottom. It's so easy you don't even have to put the garlic through a press. If your kids like tomatoes (and most do, just not mine) you will be set. Luckily my kids like pesto made with basil (actually they'll eat pesto made of anything, shockingly, even asparagus), so when I introduced dinner as "special pesto pasta" they reluctantly ate some. In time I'm sure that will improve. 

--- 

Stephen's Summer Spaghetti (adapted from Canal House Cooking volume 1): 

1 pound spaghetti 

1/2 cup olive oil 

4 cloves garlic 

Great big bunch of basil leaves, chopped (don't include the stems) 

6 tomatoes, halved, cored, squeezed of seeds and juice, chopped 

1 cup freshly ground parmigiano-reggiano 

Salt & pepper

Start by putting a big pot of salted water on to boil, for the pasta. Next heat the oil in a large frying pan or skillet, over medium-low heat and toss in the garlic cloves. You'll need to peel them first, but not chop them. The best way to peel garlic cloves is to smash them, pressing down on the flat side of a knife with your fist. Then the peel comes off easily. Keep an eye on the pan, you don't want the garlic to color much, just turn a little bit golden. 

When the pasta water boils add the pasta and set a timer for 3/4 of the time suggested on its package. When the timer rings, check to make sure the pasta is about 3/4 of the way done, then reserve about half a cup of the pasta water and pour the rest out into a strainer in the sink. 

While the garlic is cooking, wash and dry the tomatoes, then chop each one in have widthwise. Next take each tomato half and squeeze it over the sink (or a sieve over a bowl, if you want to save the juice), so that the seeds and juice comes out. Depending on ripeness, you may need to squeeze pretty hard, but you don't want to squash the flesh. This is the coolest quick trick I've learned recently. When all your tomatoes have been squeezed, chop them up, removing the core of the tomato, which is the too-white bit near where the stem attaches.

Next pull the leaves off the basil stems and chop them. When this is done, remove the golden garlic from your pan and add it to the compost, then add the basil and tomatoes to the hot oil, stirring them around until they are just warmed through. Next, put the drained pasta back in its pot, add the reserved pasta water and the tomatoes and basil. Stir it around and let it cook until the pasta is all the way done. Salt and pepper to taste and serve with the cheese.

---

Strawberry Pocky Sticks

This was one I just could not pass up today. I guess it says a lot, that I backpedaled halfway down the block after the "Giant" part of the Pocky package I'd seen in a window of Sakura made it into the active regions of my brain. Larger than normal food strikes me as an unusually American passion, I can't imagine people in Japan would want to trade their delicate packs of pocky for one of these huge curling iron sized items. But who knows. Maybe its the next big thing.

For those of you not familiar with Pocky, it is a sort of long, thin, dry biscuit of the type that come in long tubular shaped packages from the U.K., coated with chocolate or a strawberry stuff similar to the "yogurt" that sometimes covers American pretzels. Being Japanese, Pocky has a convenient handle that is free of chocolate or strawberry coating, so that your fingers do not get smudged. 

I first discovered Pocky back in the nineties, during my time working at a tech company affectionately called "The Rocketship" by our CEO, who was later jailed for investor fraud. Or maybe it was his right hand man who went to prison, I don't remember. But that detail is not important. What is important is the glitter and sparkle of the dot-com days. Everyone was rich back then, and we were all high on life, along with a variety of other things. 

My desk butted up against that of Ms. Pinky Weitzman, a woman who I believe is now playing electric fiddle for a band somewhere in New York City. She was long and lean, terrifically stylish with platinum blonde hair and pale creamy skin. "Daahhling..." she would croon, "You just cannot put your code in my database. It wheel not work..." Careening wildly about with a pocky stick dangling like Cruella Deville's cigarette, she would offer me one with a flick of her wrist and disappear back behind the screen of her monitor. Later in the day we would all head out to the incredibly sketchy bar next door for a gin and tonic, and months down the road she and another pal introduced me to my future husband.

Dinner tonight was uneventful - grilled seabass, corn and tomato relish on toast and a sort of zucchini salad. When I complained that the zucchini was too oily, my husband told me "that's because its Greek. Did you know that in Greece almost forty percent of their calories come from olives?" He liked the zucchini quite a bit. The kids loved the fish, toast and grilled corn, but wouldn't touch the rest. 

---

Smoky Corn and Tomato Relish (adapted from Tori Ritchie's Tuesday Recipe):

2 ears of fresh corn

1 lb tomatoes

1 garlic clove, minced

1 small red onion (or white or yellow if thats all you have)

1/8 teaspoon pimenton (smoked paprika)

1 semi-spicy pepper, an anaheim chile is a good candidate

2 Tablespoons olive oil, plus more for grilling

1 Tablespoon fresh lime juice

salt and pepper

Shuck the corn, then oil the outside lightly and lay the ears on a hot grill. Also put the tomatoes and pepper on the grill, slice the onion in half, oil the cut side of each half and lay them on the grill too.. You can leave the tomatoes there for five to ten minutes, or until they get nice charred grill marks, and the other veggies for longer, until they are a bit charred on all sides (you'll have to rotate them every now and then). If you're making fish to serve alongside this, it is a good idea to put the fish on the grill when you remove the tomatoes, leaving the corn, onion and pepper on the grill while the fish cooks.

After removing the veggies, let them cool for a bit, then cut the kernels off the corn into a big bowl, slice each tomato in half and squeeze each half gently over the sink to remove the seeds. Next chop the tomatoes into 1/2 inch chunks and add them to the corn. Remove the skin from the onion and chop it into 1/4 inch pieces. Peel the skin off the pepper, slice it in half, remove the seeds and membrane, and cut it into 1/4 inch pieces as well. Mix the veggies together and sprinkle with a little salt.

In a small bowl, mix the olive oil, lime juice and minced garlic. Stir it into the vegetables, add some freshly grated pepper and taste for salt.  This should be served on toast, either while still warm or at room temperature.

---

Zucchini with Harissa, Olives and Feta (adapted from Canal House Cooking Volume 1):

4 zucchini, sliced into thick rounds

a handful of cured olives

1/2 cup coarsely crumbled feta

a small handful of parsley leaves, chopped

rind of 1/4 preserved lemon, chopped

1/4 teaspoon caraway seeds (or a combo of fennel and cumin seeds)

1 clove garlic

juice of 1 lemon

2 Tablespoons harissa paste (you'll find it at mediterranean markets and Rainbow Grocery)

5 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil (the best you have)

salt

Bring a salted pot of water to boil, then add the zucchini and boil for about five minutes, until it is soft but not squishy. Drain the zucchini in a colander in the sink. Toast the caraway seeds in a frying pan over high heat, until they are fragrant, but before they start to color. Remove them from the pan and crush them in a mortar. Add the clove garlic and about 1/2 teaspoon salt and crush it all together with the pestle. If you don't have a mortar and pestle just chop it all finely. Stir in the lemon juice, harissa and oil. Season to taste with salt. 

Put the zucchini in a bowl, then add the dressing and toss to coat. Scatter the feta, olives, parsley and preserved lemon over the top and serve.

---

Grilled Fish:

2 steaks (or the fillet with skin) of any white fish (about 1 pound)

1 lemon, sliced in half

olive oil

salt & pepper

Lay out your fish in a glass dish, then cut the lemon in half and squeeze half of it over the fish. Sprinkle a Tablespoon or so of olive oil over the fish, then salt and pepper it - about 1/8 teaspoon of each. Flip the fish over and do the same to the other side. Let the fish marinate while you prepare the grill and whatever else you have to make for dinner (I like rice and arugala salad with this). Cooking the fish should be the last step, aside from dressing the salad.

Heat up the grill to whatever temperature you use for fish - our grill is particularly wimpy, so I blast it up to high.  

Lay your fish on the grill.  Close the lid and leave it for five minutes or so, then check to see if there are nice grill marks on the fish. If so, flip it over onto the skin side. If not, let it cook longer and keep checking until the grill marks are there.  After flipping, shut the lid again and come back in five minutes to check for doneness.  I think the easiest way is to take a sharp knife and slice into the thickest part of the fish. When it is opaque inside, it is done. Serve the fish right away.

---

Tomato Tart and a Little Gem Salad

The week we left San Francisco for Tucson, this summer's volume of Canal House Cooking arrived with the mail. You may already know this, but Canal House is my new favorite thing. Besides Nigel Slater, of course. I love its irreverence toward normal day to day life - for those at the Canal House, everything revolves around food. I also love its quick vignettes: trout from a friend of a friend fishing outside the window, a whole essay on why their pal likes to get a buzz on and a few words about Patricia Curtan (illustrator of Chez Panisse Vegetables) and her apricot jam.

The photos are beautiful, in an edgy foodie sort of way. Similar to the style I was first smitten by in Saveur Magazine (the two women behind Canal House both spent time there, one as a founder), there is calculated imperfection, telling me that this food is the real deal and what's for dinner, not just props prettied up for a photo shoot. I love that. And in this latest issue, the "Gone Fishin'" title page is just so spectacular. Two fish laying on a print ad for a vacation spa, wrapped in a bloody bag. It sounds gross, but really, its perfect. I want to hang it up on my wall. I'm so glad Elizabeth David made it OK to write and talk about food as something much more meaningful than simple calories. Without her, I'd be branded a moron for wanting to frame my cookbook.

But before I forget - the recipes. They are, for the most part, quick and easy, always seasonal and always stylish (I'm willing to bet kippers will be the next big thing this summer). I've found that the key to this particular one is which puff pastry to use. Pepperidge Farm was really tough to unfold last week, but this time Dufour Kitchen's pastry did me right. So use that one, if you can. I bought it at Rainbow Grocery.

The best place to get your lettuces is Star Route Farms, check their website to see if they come to a farmer's market near you. 

---

Tomato Tart (adapted from Canal House Cooking Volume 4):

1 sheet puff pastry, defrosted (follow the instructions on the box)

2-3 tomatoes, cored and sliced

2-3 branches fresh thyme

extra-virgin olive oil

salt and pepper

Line a cookie sheet with a piece of parchment paper and preheat the oven to 375°. Lay the puff pastry sheet on top of the parchment paper, and score the outline of the pastry, about 1/2 inch from the edge all the way around. Stab the middle section of the pastry with your knife tip many times, to prevent it from puffing up like the outer edge will. Lay the tomato slices on the pastry in a single layer, and sprinkle thyme leaves on top. Drizzle some olive oil, grate some pepper and sprinkle some salt on top. Bake until the edges of the pastry are browned, about 30-40 minutes.

Little Gem Salad:

Slice the bottom off each baby lettuce head, then cut them into chunks, roughly one inch by once inch. Wash and dry them in a salad spinner, then wrap them in a towel to finish drying. Let them sit while you mix up the dressing below, then put the lettuce in a big bowl, grate a carrot over them (if you have one around) and toss them with the dressing. Be careful not to use too much dressing, this makes enough for more than one medium sized salad.

For the dressing (adapted from Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone):

1/2 cup buttermilk

1/2 cup whole milk yogurt (or sour cream)

2 garlic cloves, minced or put through the press

1/4 cup finely chopped parsley

fresh lemon juice or white vinegar

1/4 teaspoon salt (or so)

For starters, pour the yogurt into a sieve (thats a fine mesh strainer) over a bowl to drain some of the water and thicken up the yogurt. After a while, combine it with the buttermilk in a bowl Whisk in the garlic and salt, then add the parsley and lemon juice. Stir it up and taste, adding salt if it needs more.

---

Tortilla Soup for 24

 Deborah Madison's tortilla soup recipe is a longtime favorite of mine. We meet up, the soup and I, from time to time, like childhood friends and reminisce about the old days. Back before my husband, way before the kids.  Long ago when tortilla soup's cookbook cover was new and shiny and its pages white and pristine. 

When this year's first bunch of tomatoes appeared in the CSA box last week, along with avocados and some cilantro. I knew it was time to get together again. Soup is perfect for a big group on a cool evening, so with a little multiplication and extra tomatoes I made a small vat for our Memorial day camping trip, where our family was responsible for one third of two different meals for twenty-four people. 

Half of the people were children, all under the age of eight, I believe, so this was really more a kids camping trip than a relaxing romp in the woods for grown-ups. But the beautiful thing about camping with a large group of children is that they entertain themselves. They broke into two bands of roaming beasts, the four and five year old girls, and the seven and eight year old boys, and conquered the campsites. 

There was a stream, with roaring rapids and horsetails, freshly stocked with trout. There was lots of dirt, for digging and throwing and rolling in. There was a stretch of road and a few bikes, for riding and arguing over. And lots of gold, oh so much gold. We were all rich! 

As parents, we spent most of our time by the firepit, where our weekend kitchen lay. There were lots of Chef-fy type people gathered together - a former caterer, a past restaurant cook, software geeks and a writer, all of whom liked to cook for their families. We got the fire going and feasted for three days.

We had a log of foie gras freshly smuggled from Paris. Quinoa salad and chicken grilled over the fire. Oatmeal and yogurt and crepes with a line of children reaching to the moon. Hummus (nearly entirely eaten by my son), polenta and more sausages than I've ever encountered before. And, of course, steaming bowls of tortilla soup.

---

Tortilla Soup (adapted from Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone):

This recipe is more involved than what I usually cook, so I like to think of it as a labor of love. I actually managed to whip the whole thing up, times four, in about two and a half hours last friday morning, so it doesn't really take that long. This recipe serves four.

For the broth:

6 cups Red Stock (see recipe below)

2-3 Tablespoons vegetable oil (canola is my favorite)

1 1/2 onions, sliced into half inch rounds

4 garlic cloves, unpeeled

2 jalepeno chiles

2 1/2 pounds roma tomatoes

1 teaspoon chipotle chile (the dried, ground kind)

salt

For garnishing the soup:

1/4 cup chopped cilantro

1 avocado, diced

tortilla chips

crumbled queso fresco cheese

1 lime, quartered

Start by making the red stock. You can prepare everything else while the stock simmers.

Preheat the broiler. Use half of the oil to toss the tomatoes, onions, garlic cloves and chiles. Put them on a cookie sheet and broil four to five inches below the heat. When the onions brown, turn them over and brown the other side. Remove the garlic when browned, and peel. Turn the tomatoes several times so that the skins pucker and brown. Remove vegetables as they finish cooking. When they are all done, puree them in a food processor -  remember to leave the top slot open so that it doesn't get too hot, explode and make a huge mess. This is why I don't like to use a blender for this - I'd rather not wait for the veggies to cool down before pureeing.

Heat the rest of the oil in a wide soup pot over medium heat. Add the vegetable puree and cook, stirring until it thickens, about five minutes. Add the strained stock and simmer, partially covered, for thirty minutes. Stir in the chipotle chile and taste for salt, add more if needed.

Ladle the soup into bowls, then add the avocado, tortilla chips, and crumbled cheese. Sprinkle with cilantro and serve with a lime wedge for squeezing into the soup.

---

---

Red Stock:

1 1/2 Tablespoons vegetable oil

2 onions, sliced

2 celery ribs, sliced

2 carrots, sliced

5 white mushrooms, sliced

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1/2 teaspoon dried thyme

2 Tablespoons tomato paste

6 garlic cloves

6 outer lettuce leaves

stems from 1 bunch cilantro

1/2 cup coarsely chopped parsley

2 teaspoons salt

Heat the oil in a soup pot over medium heat. Add the onions, celery, carrots, mushrooms and herbs. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions are browned, about ten minutes. Add the tomato paste and mush it around the pan for a bit, then add the rest of the ingredients and two quarts of water. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer, partially covered, for 45 minutes. Strain the stock when finished.

---

Beet Soup

 

Mmmm....Beetalicious!

I started building a bean teepee with the kids today.  We stuck the ends of some eight foot sticks into the ground, then lashed them together at the top with string.  The plan is to plant beans - scarlet runner and trionfo violetto - at the base of each stick so that they climb and make a tent for the kids to play in and beans for us to eat.  This will be our third year teepee, though last year's was a bit of a dud.  

Of course we didn't finish today, just like years past.  But this year I've solved my problem of bean seeds rotten from too long in their pre-planting soak or dry and dead from too long out of it.  After soaking them in water for a few hours, we put our seeds in a little plastic cup and covered them with a wet paper towel - pre-sprouting.  Now we can take our seeds in and out of the house without planting as often as we want, as long as the paper towel stays damp.  And when we finally get around to planting them in the ground, hopefully they'll be ready to go.  

Dinner tonight was a really simple soup from - you guessed it - Canal House Cooking.  This is a good one to make a few days ahead, because it reheats well. We only had a pound of beets, so I had to sub in an extra potato (neither of which were russet).  It was fine, but I think more beets would be better.  And I happen to know that waxy potatoes can make things gummy, so stick with a russet if you have one around. Red beets would probably be better too. Our soup was just a bit...pale.  Salad was on the side, essentially the same Niçoise-esque item from last week.  My kids turned their noses up at the soup, but they did eat the tuna, deviled egg and leftover pizza on their plates.  

In other news, I found a wonderful book today while stopping by Crissy Field to check out the early evening light.  Its called Back to Basics: Traditional Kitchen Wisdom and is a collection of old school how-tos (garden building, food storing, canning, winemaking, beekeeping) edited by Andrea Chesman, who I don't think I've encountered before.  She writes books, and a blog, all about seasonal cooking and making things easy for Mom - right up my alley!  Most of her books are about vegetables and grains (read vegetarian) and she has even got one containing 255 recipes for squash.  I'm so excited!  

However, my favorite part of the book so far - without having read it - are the beautiful watercolor illustrations.  I guess they are paintings by Bernard Chau, who is credited as "illustrator" on the copyright page.  I just can't find anything in the book that attributes the watercolors to anyone.  Is this what happens when you do work for Reader's Digest?  On his webpage, I see that Mr. Chau has more images of "crime" in his portfolio than "food". Huh.  Well, I guess thats work for hire - the art editor probably just set him up a still life and said "paint this".  I suppose I shouldn't be too broken up over it, I can't expect all artists to be Patricia Curtan, can I?

---

Beet Soup (adapted from Canal House Cooking volume 3):

4 beets (2 pounds)

4 Tablespoons butter

1 large yellow onion, chopped

1 large russet potato, peeled and chopped

rind from 1/4 preserved lemon (scrape out the fruity part inside the rind)

4 cups chicken stock

salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 375°. Wrap each beet in aluminum foil and bake until tender (1-2 hours).  Unwrap the beets, and when they are cool enough to handle, peel off their skins.  Coarsely chop the beets and set aside.

While the beets are baking, melt the butter in a large saucepan over medium heat.  Add the onions and cook until they are translucent and soft but not browned, about 10 minutes.  Season with salt and pepper. Add the potatoes, beets, preserved lemon and three cups of the stock.  Cover and simmer until the vegetables are soft, about an hour.  For a really smooth soup, let it cool and puree it in small batches in the blender.  (Really, you must let it cool.  Otherwise it will blow the lid of your blender and hot soup will blast into your face and all over your kitchen.  Its happened to me, its happened to the Canal House authors).  If you, like me, are a more impatient type who cannot be trusted to wait for the soup to cool, then just stick a hand blender in it for a while and call it good. If the soup is too thick, add the remaining stock in small amounts until you're happy with it.  Serve hot or cold.

---

---

Voila! Salad Nicoise (or a salad with something for everyone - serves 4-6):

4 oz spring mix salad

1 7oz cans of tuna (chunk light if you like less mercury)

assorted olives 

4 to six eggs

cherry tomatos (if they're in season)

1 avocado

2 Tablespoons olive oil

1 Tablespoons champagne vinegar

1/2 teaspoon dijon mustard

salt & pepper

For starters, hard-boil the eggs.  If you don't already have a favorite way, try this one:

Put the eggs in a pot, cover them with water.  Bring the water to a medium boil (thats not wimpy, but not hard enough to crack the eggs).  Let them boil for a full minute.  Turn off the heat, and let the eggs sit in the water until it is cool.  I've been told that adding vinegar to egg water makes them easier to peel, but I haven't tested this.  I have found that fresher eggs are harder to peel, so I like to stash some away in the back of the fridge to age for easier peeling.  I think too, that aging an egg for a day or two after boiling it makes the peeling easier.

When the eggs are cool, peel them, slice in half and put on each plate.  If you have kids who like deviled eggs but not plain old eggs, scoop the yolks out of the kids' eggs and, in a bowl, mix them with a bit of mayonnaise - usually one teaspoon per yolk.  Peel and slice the avocados, add some to each plate.  Add some olives, then some tuna.  Be sure to leave room on the plates for the lettuce, in the middle of all the other items. Slice the cherry tomatoes and plate them too.

Wash and dry the salad, then let it rest in the fridge while you mix up the dressing.  In a small jar, add the oil and vinegar, then a big pinch of salt and some pepper.  Put on the lid, shake it up.  Pour over the salad and toss it.  If it seems too dry, sprinkle on some more olive oil.  Its handy to keep some in a cruet just for situations like this.  Grind some more pepper over it, add it to the plates, and serve.  Be sure to put salt on the table for this one - I like to sprinkle it on the egg and avocado.

---