Is it Spring yet?

March 27. It's March 27. Wednesday. Snow on Monday. Snow on Tuesday. Today, the sun is out and I'm staring at the forsythia bush out my living room window and trying to see if new buds are starting to break. Once those break, that's when I'll know it's actually spring. I've been woefully remiss in updating this blog. Not that I haven't been experimenting in my kitchen. Recent culinary triumphs include Nutella Pie (yes, it is proof that God loves us) and Ginger Apple Pear Marmalade. It's one of the many projects on my list -- sharing with you all of the goodies I've been creating in my kitchen. Soon, my friends. Soon.

Spice, Spice Baby

One of the darling things I loved about my 99 year old house was the herb garden the previous owners had planted underneath the windows in the kitchen. Now, to be fair, I do not have the greenest thumb out there. Whatever is in my yard is survival of the fittest. I do well with containers, but actual yard? I'm still learning. The herb garden has sage, oregano, chives, and thyme. I added a lavender plant the first year, which started blooming a couple of years ago. This makes me deliriously happy. There's also a nice corner spot where I can stick a tomato plant every year that seems to do well.

Well, it seems that my general neglect of this herb garden is exactly what it likes. The sage bush that was so sweet and tame had grown to hip height and was covering the sidewalk. The oregano is choking out almost everything else. One year, I could barely even FIND the chives. The thyme was starting to spread into the driveway. So, of course, now I'm on a harvesting kick.

Last summer, we harvested a nice sized jar of thyme and two big jars of oregano. This year, we decided to tackle the sage. It was completely out of control. Someone suggested I make smudge sticks, but then I learned that this is the WRONG type of sage for that purpose. So, I started looking up how to make my own dry rubbed sage. Seemed simple enough, so my mother and I last weekend started hacking at this plant.

When we were done, we had rediscovered the sidewalk and I had a huge basket of sage leaves to pick through and get to drying. My sister came up and brought her food dehydrator to go along with the one that I bought. We cleaned and cleaned the sage, got it really dry and added it to the racks. Two days later, we had dried sage leaves. To turn that into rubbed sage, all you really have to do is push them against a sieve. It's taken me the better part of a week to get through it all (about 13-14 total trays of the dehydrator) and get it pushed through the sieve to store. But, I ended up with a beautiful jar of fresh rubbed sage to use. Since I have a plethora of oregano and thyme, I'm thinking it might be time to play around with my own type of blend -- I think it would be great to use to season a roast chicken. Pictures to follow..

A little nosh

I got a call that my sister was planning to visit me for the weekend. The weather in Cleveland has been BEASTLY hot. I started to plan what we could have for a little nosh. She was arriving a little late, so I didn't really want to do a lot of cooking (two reasons, didn't want to have a big meal very late and, mostly, it was too frippin' hot in my house to cook). I started digging through my fridge and freezer and looked for a few things to prepare.

1 -- Ol' Faithful -- Stinky Cheese. Can't go wrong with a nice, stinky blue cheese. Procured a wedge of a nice buttermilk blue.

2 -- Carb element -- Stinky cheese needs a carb delivery element. Procured some sea salt pita chips from Trader Joe's and got a loaf of french bread out of my freezer (which I bought during a church bake sale -- fundraiser for the parlor renovation). I grilled the bread on my grill pan, using a little olive oil for some extra flavor.

3 -- Salt element -- Olives. My particular favorite is picholine. I'm not a big black olive fan, but I adore these little picholines.

4 -- Veggie options -- Took a few minutes to consider my options. I had some pretty radishes, which I dolled up with butter and sea salt. I'd actually never had that before until about a month ago and my world has been changed. Cherry tomatoes, yellow ones, from my farm share, would look nice on my cheeseboard. I wanted a dippy thing of some sort, so I made a pea dip using english peas (one bag of peas I'd frozen, supplemented with a bag of frozen petit pois from the grocery store), ricotta, lemon and mint. (recipe courtesy of Michael Symon). I liked this dip, although next time, I would try making my own ricotta (which doesn't sound difficult) and I would prefer fresher peas. There was a real difference between the batch I froze on my own and the ones from the megamart.

By the time my sister arrived, I had assembled a nice little nosh for us to have with a glass of wine and start our sisterly weekend.

Eating Locally -- August 9, 2010

Monday night, and I'm always trying to figure out what to make for dinner. I was out of town this past weekend and haven't been to the store yet. So, last night, I went pilfering through the freezer to see if I had anything worth defrosting. I found a package of ground turkey. In the fridge, I found 6 green peppers, mushrooms, squash, and a few other things. Hmmm.. I'm never going to eat 6 green peppers on their own, so I need to do something with them. I decided to improvise a recipe for stuffed peppers. So, here we go, Stuffed Peppers a la Spice.

I grabbed a rectangular baking dish, preheated the oven to 375 and spread a thin layer of marinara sauce in the bottom of the dish. I cut the tops off 6 green peppers, seeded them and placed them in a baking dish. I discarded the tops.



I took the three small spring onions, a couple of hungarian (or maybe banana) peppers (whatever was in my farm share) and a couple of cloves of garlic and chopped those up. Side note, I wasn't paying too much attention after cutting up the peppers before scratching my nose. I spent the next 20 minutes googling remedies for pepper burns and remedies. I'll spare you the visual. It's been almost an hour, and there's still a slight tingling on my nose from my ill-fated sneeze earlier. So, please, kids, learn from my mistake.



I sauteed the aromatics in a couple of glugs of olive oil over medium heat, about 15 minutes, while I chopped up half an 8 oz. package of sliced mushrooms and a yellow squash. When the onion, pepper and garlic mix was done, I added the veggies and a nice pinch of salt and pepper. I tossed in some of my favorite multi-purpose seasoning mix (one by Penzey's called Tuscan Sunset) and cooked the veggies until they were done. I put them in a large bowl. I added one package of ground turkey and browned it until it was no longer pink in the middle. I drained off the fat, and added it to the veggie mix in the bowl.

For a binding agent, I didn't want to use eggs, and I didn't feel like cooking up some rice or anything. I eyeballed a 1/2 cup or so of plain, dried breadcrumbs, sprinkled on some grated parmesan cheese, and added about half of a 15 oz. container of low-fat ricotta cheese. I mixed things up thoroughly and filled each pepper with the mixture (and had just enough mix for the 6 peppers). I topped each with a spoon or two of marinara sauce and a little fresh parmesan for the top.



I baked the peppers for about 25 minutes (altho truthfully, they could have gone another 10, the peppers were still a little raw). I paired this one with a glass of King Family Vineyards 2008 Chardonnay. The filling has nice flavor, so I think this one will be a keeper! And, once again, most of the ingredients came from my farm share.

Eating Locally -- July 15, 2010

OK, I'm behind schedule on my blogging. I don't get paid for these little ramblings, so unless someone wants to throw some cash my way, the updates will come after I've taken care of my day job and other responsibilities. It's also been really. flipping. hot. I live in a house that's almost 100 years old and it doesn't have air conditioning. As much as I love roast chicken, the thought of having my oven on for 90 minutes when it's literally 85 degrees in my house just isn't appealing. Fortunately, the weather has eased a bit, so I got back in the kitchen today. I've been wanting to make a derivation on salad nicoise for some time now. I finally had everything together to make my own variation.

I got some gorgeous stuff in my farm share last week. Beautiful red potatoes, yellow beans, blueberries, tomatoes, etc. This whole thing probably took 90 minutes to put together, but it's me, myself and I in the kitchen. It might have gone faster if I'd had an extra set of hands to help me out.

Basic components of tonight's dinner -- hard-cooked eggs, red potatoes, beans, tomatoes, olives, fish, dressing..

I cooked the eggs by putting them in a pot of cold water, added a little salt, brought to a boil, then simmered for about 10 minutes. I ran the eggs under cold water until they were cool, then peeled them and set them aside. I also boiled the new potatoes for about 10 minutes, until they were tender. I removed them from the water and put them in a colander. I covered them with a dish towel to let them steam a few minutes and, because I'm lazy, used the same water (which was already salted) to blanch the yellow beans.



I also learned today that farm fresh eggs are a pain in the ass to peel. If anyone has any tips for that, let me know, or I may have to remember that for next time and buy a few conventional eggs.

I made a quick little vinaigrette using a tsp of dijon mustard, a splash of white wine vinegar, some salt and pepper and whisked in some olive oil.

I grabbed my grill pan and seasoned my salmon with a little salt and pepper and grilled until it was done the way I like it..


I assembled my dinner on a plate and added a half a tomato and some picholine olives (I didn't have the traditional nicoise olives). I drizzled some vinaigrette over the salmon, potatoes and beans. Grabbed a glass of a 2007 viognier from one of my favorite Virginia wineries, King Family Vineyards and had a great dinner.

Eating Locally -- Farm Share Week 2

Week 2 and it's another day to pick up my share of locally-grown organic produce. I still have a few things left over from last week (perishables like salad greens and onions and I still have some eggs, bread and popcorn). I'm really diggin' this CSA. I feel like I'm getting my $16 worth each week, that's for sure. In this week's bounty, my take ended up being:


Strawberries, pac-choy (like bok choy, just all green), spring onions, beets, kohlrabi, swiss chard, garlic scapes, some blackberry jam, a tomato, and of course, more lettuce -- beautiful red leaf and green lettuce this week. The heads were huge, so Robin and I just tore them apart to split.

I'm already plotting my grilled salmon with sauteed mushrooms and the pac-choy (sauteed with sesame oil, soy sauce and garlic) and a fantastic salad with roasted beets, goat cheese (or blue, whatever I have) and some toasted pecans (or walnuts, whatever I have in the freezer). I will say, tho, I've never bought, stored, prepped or eaten kolhrabi, so I'm looking for ideas there. I'm also not sure how I'll fix the red chard. I'll figure it out, tho.

In the meantime, anyone want some salad?

38-year-old virgin.... for rhubarb

Rhubarb is one of those mystery vegetables that just sounded weird to me as a child ("Roooobarb?! What the heck is roooooobarb?"). No one in my immediate family ever cooked with it. In my head, it was red celery. Stringy. Freak vegetable.

I also know that my palette has evolved considerably over the years. I also used to hate mushrooms, mustard, scallops, salmon, ahi tuna, etc. I still can't quite get on board with aspic, but at some point, I'll end up at a fabulous restaurant where I'll try it, then extol its virtues to anyone who will listen.

Since I'd gotten some rhubarb in my farm share this past week, I wanted to give it a whirl. How do I cook it? Do I peel it? I spent some time looking up rhubarb recipes that also used strawberries. I settled on a recipe for Rhubarb Strawberry crumble. I scrubbed my rhubarb and chopped it into 1/2 in chunks. I added 4 cups of strawberries (using up all the rhubarb and the strawberries from my farm share, plus some extra berries) that I tossed in 1/2 a cup of sugar and 1-1/2 tsp of my new favorite thing -- Vanilla Bean Paste (just vanilla seeds in liquid -- cheaper than buying vanilla beans and great flavor). I made a crumble topping with 3/4 c. flour, 2/3 c. sugar, 1/2 c. rolled oats, and 1/2 c. pecans. The recipe called for hulled hazelnuts, but I didn't have any of those. I have tons of pecans in my freezer from last year. I toasted these and chopped them coarsely. Put the rhubarb strawberry mixture into a greased 8x8 glass baking dish and topped with the crumble. Baked for 40 minutes at 375, until the topping was browned and the filling was bubbling.


I will also be the first to tell you that the equation of fruit + sugar + vanilla +
crumbly topping (equal parts butter and flour) + 45 minutes of heat = one of my favorite desserts. Peaches + gingersnaps and some lemon juice? Yummy. Blueberries and a biscuit topping? Nirvana. Apples + cinnamon? Proof that God loves us. So, I expected to like the strawberry rhubarb crumble, bubbling away in my oven. My house soon had the comforting smell of baking fruit and I couldn't wait for it to be done.


Really, all you need is a big spoon and a blob of vanilla ice cream. Rhubarb, I think you and I are going to be friends. With benefits.