We're Dishwasher People

Our dishwasher is out of order. For a couple of weeks, it went through a phase where it would only let us run it once a day. Generally not a problem.  Helpful, actually--an appliance with a conscience, reminding us to save water. Now it won't start up at all. It needs a new part that may or may not be more expensive than just getting a new dishwasher. We shall see.

Washing dishes can actually be a nice, meditative activity. Calming. Soothing. With a real sense of accomplishment at the end. Except that I can see it getting old very quickly. Once in awhile washing dishes by hand can be a real treat. But get a day where everyone is home all day. The dishes will add up. And every person in this family, including myself, is a dish, glass, and silverware junkie. We can't help but use a different glass at every meal, and two in between. Josh and I lived for years without a dishwasher. Now that we have one, we go out of our way to create dirty dishes. And why not? Guess we need to have some dirty dishes boot camp around here. And fast.

Autumn

Wow, no posts for awhile! Did you ever just get so bored of yourself you just couldn't stand it? I guess that's what's been happening with me.

Fall is here. In western NC, fall is pretty amazing. You're just driving along, and suddenly become overwhelmed by the beauty of a red-leafed maple. It's downright dangerous. School is in full swing, the nights are cool, you can wear a sweater, and pumpkins!  I have to talk myself into fall, because I love summer so much. But these are the things that make it bearable, and kind of wonderful.

I haven't been cooking too much, but I have been making a lot of soup. Our CSA ended a couple of weeks ago. Before it did, we received lots of winter squash: mostly delicata and butternut. Squash soup is the simplest and most delicious thing since tomato sandwiches (remember those....?) Really simple: roast your squash, slice and then boil up some apples, saute onions, mix it all together in a pot with some stock or just water. Then puree in a blender, add a little milk or cream, and that's it.  You can add a bit of brown sugar, salt and pepper. Or go wild with ginger and cinnamon.

Beautiful, simple soup. And it matches the trees.

Sunday Morning

I'm loving this three day weekend. We've had so many busy weekends in a row, Josh and I decided that we should make no big plans for this last weekend of summer. Not that we've been bored by any means. Just taking things as they come, a swim Friday evening, bike ride Saturday morning. Then lots of loafing Saturday afternoon, followed up by some ribs on the grill for dinner. This morning I woke up refreshed; a rare thing for Sunday mornings of late. I decided to make the kids some pancakes.

Sometimes, there is nothing better than a big pile of pancakes. It doesn't have to be Sunday morning. A big pile of pancakes can be great for a weeknight supper, or a Tuesday afternoon lunch. (note: this photo is from a Tuesday afternoon pancake pile that Willem and I decided to have one day while Josh was at work and Miles was at a friend's house.) I use the recipe from my old 1970's Betty Crocker cookbook, the one with the orange cover and very retro food photography. Page 57. Simple as can be. Well, using pancake mix might be simpler. But since I always seem to have the dry ingredients: flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, sugar--why not mix them up from scratch?

Willem was super excited when I mentioned pancakes. Miles, not so much (he wanted cereal.) But then I whispered "chocolate chips" and he was on board.

Something about my kids. I think I've mentioned this a few times already. They're pretty picky, and I think somewhat food spoiled. Meaning, they get great food all the time, and don't really appreciate it so much. Anyway, the reactions to the pancakes were as follows:

Miles rated them: Awesome!

Willem rated them: Why the hell are there chocolate chips in my pancakes?! I don't like chocolate chips. 

I had to find a couple of pancakes with fewer chocolate chips, and pick them out. Then I ate Willem's too-chocolaty ones myself. 

Josh had coffee only, and left to go fishing. I think he's on to something. 

Take the Peppers Out

In the interest of "getting organized" and "being more disciplined", I finally loaded the month's worth of photos from the camera to the computer. There were some from our beach trip. August really did have me in a heat-induced fog, I barely took any pictures at all during that trip. Not even one beach shot! Here's one of the boys from our last night of vacation:

After camping for four nights and cooking all our own food over a fire and on the camp stove, we treated ourselves to a nice dinner out. This was in front of the restaurant. As we were walking to the car, we noticed the sun sinking right across the way, over the water. Miles and I got our cameras and snapped some pictures of it.  This sign was advertising karaoke and congratulating someone for something. We were in South Carolina, south of Charleston, and the food was low country. They have a specialty in that particular area called Frogmore Stew, which does not involve frogs. Rather, it's shrimp, chorizo sausage, potatoes and corn in a sort of a broth. My mother-in-law tried it, and she loved it. I ate a bite of chorizo and it was amazing.

This sign has been posted on my oven door for several days now:

Josh has grown a ton of peppers, and he's working on drying them out. He makes his own crushed red pepper flakes, which are great to cook with. Apparently, he does not trust that I'll remember that he's left peppers in the oven, (he's right) and thinks that I'll turn it on to preheat without looking inside first, resulting in...well, I guess some burned up peppers. Though, surely he realizes how infrequently I've used the oven lately. He also informed me that the crushed red pepper flakes contain pepper seeds! Ack!

I guess he thought that since pepper seeds bother me so much, that he should disclose this information to me. Some things are better left unsaid. I'll enjoy them anyway.

When Hamburgers Fall From the Sky

I can't believe it's been almost a month since my last post! Shameful! August has been so busy though. A round of visitors, a beach trip, more visitors, the start of the school year. Not to mention my own general laziness and malaise. This was one seriously hot bitch of a month. I haven't been cooking so much as preparing food. Because we have to eat.

So now I'm back, and I'll have to take baby steps to get into this thing properly again. This afternoon it's (finally!) cool so I'll turn the oven on and make roast chicken. With CSA corn on the cob and potatoes. If I get motivated I'll prepare the edamame that's in the back of my fridge: it needs to be shelled and boiled for a bit in salted water. For some reason, eating edamame seems like a slightly pretentious thing to do. I guess because I live in a town where people say things like: "Little Rainbow just loves edamame. He brings it to preschool along with his organic applesauce and veggie crisps." You know. But I like it anyway.

I'll leave with one thought, with hopes to be back tomorrow. The other night the kids and husband and I were sitting at dinner, eating tilapia, and the kids were eating very slowly. Because this is what they do when they don't love the meal we're having.  It was really frustrating me, and I kept asking them to please just hurry up and eat! Then it dawned on me: I think the kids actually believe that if they stall at meal times, if they wait long enough, that maybe a McDonald's happy meal will fall from the sky and onto their plate. Nice thinking kids, but it ain't gonna happen. Not on my watch.

Maque Choux. Bless you.

There are certain foods that people like that I really wish I could like, but do not. Mushrooms fall into this category. Bleu cheese. Cantaloupe. Fennel. It's not a very long list. Oh, and there's one more. Okra.

I've been trying to like okra for awhile now. But like my problem with mushrooms, it's a textural thing. Mushrooms are spongy and odd. Okra is slimy.

I've tried it fried, added to soup, in gumbo. Slimy, slimy and slimy. But recently I've had two separate conversations with okra lovers, real born and raised Southerners. I approached it politely. "Don't you find okra to be a bit, you know, slimy?" I asked. Not at all they insisted. Both of these people suggested stewed tomatoes and okra. Okra turned up in our box this week, so why not give it a try?

I found this simple vegetarian recipe for Stewed Corn and Tomatoes, or maque choux, on Epicurious.  Maque choux is a Cajun dish, based on a Native American one. You're supposed to use fresh corn, but I only had frozen. Wrong and I'm sorry-- and I promise next time to use fresh.

But everything else was completely fresh.
Homegrown peppers.

CSA tomatoes.

I made a couple of other changes. We had a big leek so I used that instead of the scallions. And I left out the jalapeno seeds, being a wimp about spicy stuff, and a hater of seeds in my food. Seriously, pepper seeds drive me crazy. Any time I cut one up, any variety, I have to completely remove any and all seeds from the pepper and from the cutting board before I can move ahead with slicing or dicing, or whatever.

So now that you know about more about my food compulsions than you ever wanted to. The maque choux. It smelled wonderful. The corn was sweet, the tomatoes delicious. The jalapenos were just the right amount of spicy. The okra. It tasted good. The slime was still there though. But I admit: the whole of stewed tomatoes and okra is pretty much larger than the sum of its parts.

More Tomatoes

If you come to my house right now, you'll smell two things: sunscreen and garlic. The boys and I stayed at the pool as long as possible, and when we got home we were starving. As soon as I walked in the door I started cooking. There's a pile of cherry tomatoes on our counter that's been growing larger every day. And I can see more out there on the vines, ready to be picked; cherries, Romas, the works.  Makes a person a bit panicky. I'm happy to say that our indoor tomato pile just became a little sauce, simmering on the stove. This is a tomato sauce with the barest essentials: cherry tomatoes, garlic, basil and oregano, salt and pepper, crushed red pepper. (I've mentioned that my husband has a thing for peppers. He made the crushed red pepper with last year's batch of peppers.) I heated a pan, poured in some olive oil.  Just threw everything in at once. The result: a little taste of summertime.

We had a jar of Alfredo sauce too. I stirred this into the fusilli, and topped it off with the tomato sauce. Kind of Sandra Lee Semi-Homemade of me. But addictively good. An achievement for someone who  maybe got a little too much sun today. 

Tomato Sandwiches

I was plugging my digital camera into the side of my computer just now, and it reminded me of the scene in A Christmas Story where the dad goes to plug in his lamp, and there are so many cords. That's exactly how it looks. What the heck are they all for?

The friends we share our CSA box with went out of town this week, so we got the whole box to ourselves. It's quite the haul.

I've been celebrating the tomatoes with tomato sandwiches. I made basil mayonnaise: mayo, lemon juice, a bit of lemon peel, salt and pepper, a dash of Dijon mustard. And basil, of course. This has been my lunch every day this week.

And just in case you think I've run out of squash ideas, I have one more. I made this Summer Squash Gratin from 101 Cookbooks. I had stayed up way too late the night before, so I was struggling and every step of this recipe took twice as long as it should have. It turned out to be well worth the effort though.

Market Day

This morning the boys and I headed over to the North Asheville Tailgate Market to pick up our CSA box. This tailgate is held on the campus of UNC-Asheville every Saturday. We are really blessed to have many great farmer's markets around here.

Here are some photos of what's available at the market this week.

I love the idea of "Society Garlic". It was the tailgate's 30th anniversary today (!) so they were giving away free ice cream. The flavors were blackberry and apple butter. 

Happiness.

A Frittata

Somehow we ended up with too many eggs this week. I thought we were out of eggs and bought some, but it turned out there were a dozen in the fridge bought by Josh the day before. Sometimes the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing, and we both buy things we're out of. Then my friend Amber, who raises chickens, gave me a dozen fresh eggs. I'm so jealous of my friends with chickens. But the house, yard, kids--are all pretty overwhelming right now, so we'll hold off on introducing any feathered friends to the mix.

So what to do with all the eggs? Breakfast for dinner comes to mind first, and the boys had no complaints. Miles is pretty much obsessed with fried egg sandwiches; Willem likes his scrambled, with toast.

But for the adults: a Frittata. We had some Yukon Gold potatoes in our box this week.

Also from the box, an onion. And some fresh herbs from the garden.

No, we didn't eat the Black-Eyed Susan. I just noticed them blooming when I went out for the herbs, and had to pick one. 

I sliced the potatoes into circles, then fried them in a big pan with some butter and canola oil. Josh had just fried some bacon, so he suggested I add a little bacon grease. I did. The thing I've learned about frying potatoes is that, once they're in the pan, you need resist the urge to stand over them and stir them around. So I left them alone, and went out to pick herbs and look at the tomatoes. (Our cherry tomatoes are going wild, by the way.) 

Once the potatoes browned up, I added diced onion and salt and pepper. I scrambled up some eggs, and poured them over the potatoes. Then added crumbled bacon, shredded cheese (cheddar, dill Havarti and Gouda), the herbs (chives, dill, basil), and some cherry tomatoes. The pan went into the oven until the egg was cooked and the cheese was melted. 

Garden fresh, simple. Divine.

Berry Delicious

The boys and I finally got out to do some berry picking. We took a long drive (okay, under thirty minutes, but it felt longer) out to the country, to Long Branch Environmental Education Center in Sandy Mush, NC. I have to say, as much as we loved it when we got there, driving there was a little stressful. This is what happens when you leave Asheville: the view is fabulous; the roads are curvy and then little people in the back are complaining about their tummies. You're driving along, looking for your turn, and oh, there's a road! But it has no road sign. Was I supposed to turn there? This happens several times until you do find your road, and get where you need to go and all's well. Deep breath, enjoy nature.

So, the berries. Long Branch had blueberries, blackberries, and a few raspberries. We met my friend Maggie and her two boys and, after a visit to the compost toilet (hmmm), we got to work. We picked some of each. The boys liked it for about ten minutes, getting very excited and shouting to me every time they found a ripe blueberry; then they ran off to explore. They'd come back every once in awhile to check in and eat berries. Maggie reminded them, "For every berry you pick, one has to go in the bucket." Hard rule to follow, but they did their best. Picking berries gets kind of addictive. You think you're done, but then spot another branch with a few more, and then another and so on.

I didn't overdo it though, and brought home a pint each of blueberries and raspberries (which were a bit scarce, I think they were early ones) mixed with blackberries. Now, to find delicious ways to serve them. 

Two Summer Salads

There's so much great produce around right now that I couldn't resist making not one, but two gorgeous salads for last night's dinner.

My friend Maggie gave me a bag full of cucumbers (this is what people do with cucumbers, right? There's no ducking it.) Her farmer neighbor had given them to her, since they were too big to sell at the market. She suspected maybe they'd be seedy. I peeled a couple of them, and cut them open and scooped out the seeds.  With some sliced red onion, cherry tomatoes and dill from our garden, olive oil, rice wine vinegar and salt and pepper, I thought they tasted just fine. 

This beet salad had me up during the night thinking about it. In a good way, of course.

It's roasted beets with diced red onion and crumbled bacon over steamed beet greens with vinaigrette. You can find the recipe here. 

We ate the salads with breaded pork chops and roasted red potatoes. Pretty much stuffed ourselves silly. 

Fried Green Tomatoes

The tomatoes are coming! The tomatoes are coming! I've been saying this for weeks, and we are finally just on the cusp of a tomato onslaught. I say bring it on: the tomatoes are my favorite things of all from the garden.

Before the tomatoes are officially ready, meaning ripe, i.e, red, I like to pull some green ones. And fry them. That's right, fried green tomatoes. I grew up in New York, where they were most definitely not on the menu. I watched the movie Fried Green Tomatoes, but I never knew they were an actual thing. Sort of like how I'd watch that show Alice, and that one waitress would say "Kiss my grits!" and I never knew grits were a real thing either. I had no point of reference. But now I live in North Carolina, and I eat fried green tomatoes whenever I can.

One of my favorite cookbooks is Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant. My copy is battered and falling apart. The book is broken up into sections by countries and regions. There's a section about the Southern United States, and a great recipe for fried-green tomatoes.

I snuck a little greenie out of the garden, and sliced it up.

Salt, pepper, hot sauce.

Then a dip in some flour and cornmeal.

I like to use the "two forks" method when dredging things in flour. Keeps the hands from getting sticky. Then into the hot oil, and onto my plate. These are great as a side to almost any meal. Or on a sandwich with some bacon and goat cheese. (I stole the idea for this sandwich from Sunny Point Cafe, a West Asheville restaurant known for it's fabulous breakfast.)

Fried Green Tomatoes (From Sundays at the Moosewood Restaurant)


3 or 4 medium unripe tomatoes (very green--not red at all)
salt and pepper, to taste
cayenne, Tabasco, or other hot sauce (optional)
1/3 cup unbleached white flour
2 tbsp white or yellow corn meal
1/4 cup vegetable oil


Slice the tomatoes into quarter-inch slices. Discard the ends. Spread the slices out on a platter or cutting board and sprinkle generously with salt, pepper and hot sauce (if using). Turn slices over and season other side.


In a shallow bowl, combine flour and cornmeal. Dredge the tomato slices in flour mixture, one at a time, covering each side thoroughly. Shake any excess flour off the tomato slices.


Heat the oil in a heavy frying pan. When the oil is hot, but not smoking, fry the slices in batches; don't overcrowd the pan. Fry for about 3 or 4 minutes per side until golden brown. Drain on paper towels and serve immediately.

Summer Squash: A Second Way

I like to make summer squash like this: sauteed in a pan with onions, peppers and cheese. It's easy and tasty and allows you to use any leftover odds and ends of veggies and cheese you have lying around.

I used two yellow summer squashes and one zucchini. Slice them in half then slice again into these little half moon wedges

and slice a quarter or so of an onion (I like red) and some peppers. (The pale green ones are Cubenelles, grown by my husband. He has a pepper obsession.)

Saute in a pan. I like the squash to have a bit of crispness on the outside. Use a large enough pan so that everything has room.

I neglected to follow my own advice. You can't see them here, but we found a couple of ripe cherry tomatoes (yay!) so I threw those in as well. If you have a tomato, chop it up and add it to the mix. It makes a kind of sauce for the squash.

Sprinkle with shredded cheddar and Parmesan, and let the cheese melt. I usually just put a lid on my pan and let it melt while I attend to the rest of the meal, but you could also slide it into the oven and let the cheese brown up. We eat this as a side dish mostly, but it's also great over pasta.

So there you have it. Squash two ways, on two different days. Enjoy!

Summer Squash: One Way

I love how on Top Chef the contestants are always preparing things two ways.  Chicken, roasted and stuffed with figs and cheese on one side of the plate, and chicken liver with fig sauce and chestnuts on the other. (In case you're wondering, I just made that up.) It's always done with serious technique and plated in a fancy way, both things on the same plate, and topped with foam or a complicated reduction. Things I don't do in my humble little kitchen.

Summer squash has been in our box for the past couple of weeks. I've been feeling relief that we don't grow our own squash in our tiny garden. I've heard rumors of people with overwhelming amounts. You can't give the stuff away this time of year.

But we get just the right amount; enough to prepare squash one way this week, and a different way the next. Unlike gardeners and Top Chef contestants, there's no pressure on us to get it all on the plate at once.

Here's squash one way:

Josh made fried squash sticks that were pretty amazing. He cut the long yellow squash into sticks battered and deep fried them. He loves to do two things: grill (charcoal only, please) and fry. He does a lot of other cooking, but I suspect these are his two favorites. It balances out, because I don't like to do either.

I had him give me the recipe. True to form for us both, the quantities are vague. We really must get more disciplined about these things! Here's a run-down:

After cutting the squash into these nice little sticks, he dipped it in flour. He mixed one egg into a cup of milk, then soaked the squash in this egg wash for one hour. When the hour was up, he dredged the squash in a mixture of flour, corn meal, garlic powder, and salt and pepper, then deep fried them in hot oil until they turned golden brown. Drain on paper towels and enjoy. 

Not now kids, I'm photographing the beets

Yesterday I made a layer cake. You may be thinking, wow, who bakes when it's 90 degrees out? And that's exactly what I was thinking. Especially while I was icing the cake, and my cream cheese frosting was sliding down the side.

The farm boxes are getting more colorful. And finally: beets.

I had never tasted a fresh beet until a couple of years ago. I fell in love. Usually I roast the beets, then slice them and toss them with a vinaigrette and serve over salad greens with goat cheese. Last year I made up a hot/cold salad which used all of the above, plus sauteed beet greens and some toasted walnuts. Delicious.

But I wondered. What else can be done with beets? Are there new beet frontiers? My Internet search turned up loads of recipes, including lots of cakes. Red velvet and chocolate seem to be the most popular, but I wanted something a bit less heavy. I found this Beet Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting recipe from Cooking Light.

I considered following in the footsteps of Southern church ladies everywhere and making this a sheet cake, but decided I should try the recipe as written before making any changes. So I followed it to the letter. Even the part where they said to use wax paper in the bottom of the pan; normally a step I would ignore. The batter was this amazing (or amazingly weird, depending on your feelings about beets) pink.

It came out of the oven looking like a regular cake though. Golden with red beet flecks. Very moist, and not too sweet. Me and layer cakes are not on such great terms. Mine are always lopsided, and I never get enough frosting in between the layers. But the idea of a layer cake appeals to me, so I'll keep trying.

I think next time I'll make cupcakes instead, and maybe add a little goat cheese to the cream cheese frosting.

Strawberry Swan Song

Well, strawberries, I had big plans to pick lots and lots of you, and turn you into all kinds of things: ice cream, strawberry shortcakes, jam. Oh, the jam. My friend Amber and I made some last year, and it was heavenly. But time got away from us, and I never got to a farm to do any picking. We did get a couple of pints in our CSA box. And maybe a couple from the grocery store. These were eaten straight up, and also with ice cream and Nutella. And I froze the rest. The boys finished the last few frozen strawberries in this smoothie.

Three cups. Miles had a buddy over. The boys adore smoothies in the summer, and I try to have different types of frozen fruit on hand. This one had the strawberries, of course. Also, frozen blueberries and bananas, organic strawberry yogurt, and vanilla soy milk.

So, goodbye little red fruit. See you next year. Good thing there are still blueberries and raspberries to look forward to.

Brazilian Collard Greens

Thank goodness for the Internet, for teaching me about Brazilian Collard Greens. I had no idea that collards were a big deal in Brazil. According to Wikipedia:

In Portuguese and Brazilian cuisine, collard greens (or couve) are common accompaniments of fish and meat dishes. They are a standard side dish for feijoada, a popular pork and beans-style stew. The leaves are sliced into strips, 1 to 3 mm wide (sometimes by the grocer or market vendor, with a special hand-cranked slicer) and sautéed with oil or butter, flavored with garlic,onion, and salt. Sometimes, it is also eaten fresh.   

I read up a bit on the preparation of these greens, and the cigar-rolling and slicing into thin strips intrigued me. We've had greens galore these days, and it's been a challenge to find new ways to prepare them. This was a much-needed bit of inspiration. There are various recipes, some using pork fat. For my Brazilian collards, I decided to go simple vegetarian style, using this recipe. I loved that it had only four ingredients: collards, garlic, olive oil. Oh, and salt and pepper. 

To begin, I washed the greens, then cut off the stems and the spiny middles. Then I stacked them up into little piles, rolled and sliced them.  Making the garlic paste was fun too; the mortar and pestle just don't get used often enough. 

Since I had just come home from a yoga class where we did about a thousand down-dogs and my arms were tired, I let Josh help me pulverize the garlic.

The garlic paste went into the hot oil, then I threw in the greens and sauteed them quickly. The result was strands of crispy and garlicky collards. So new! Well, new to me.

More Sandwich Love

So I'm thinking maybe I ought to change this to a sandwich blog; sandwiches seem to be the only thing on the menu these days. Monday night: cheese and pickle sandwiches. Wednesday: sausage egg biscuits. Thursday: tuna sandwiches.

It's so hot today. I picked up the boys (Miles, school; Willem, friend's house), and I needed something for dinner. Since Green Life was right there, I guessed I'd better stop there. In the car on the way over, we all agreed on sandwiches. As soon as we got in the store, the kids started arguing. I headed for the wine department. Where I had this wonderful interaction:

Me: harried and sweaty, frowning at the shelves of wine, attempting to make sense of the labels. Pinot Noir? Sauvignon Blanc? Reds next to whites. What does it all mean? Also, calculating how long it will take to chill a bottle.

Green Life wine department employee: Can I help you find something?

Me: Um. Cold and refreshing?

GLWDE: Have you ever had Vinho Verde?

Me: Yes! Vinho Verde! I love Vinho Verde!

GLWDE: We have some chilled right here. And it's $7.99.

Wow, that guy made my day. And I think he knew he'd done his good deed.

Then I found two cans of tuna and a loaf of City Bakery"Traditional French" bread and headed home to make what will now be referred to as the "Most Expensive Tuna Sandwiches of All Time"(Green Life being too prohibitively pricey for regular shopping, at least for this family).

Confetti Tuna Salad

2 cans albacore tuna
1 celery stalk, chopped
1/4 of a red onion, finely chopped
1 carrot, shredded
fresh dill and chives, chopped
mayonnaise, to taste

You could also add cucumbers, olives, capers, pickles, eggs, whatever. I played it safe for the kids' sake. I've also found that Miles loves these lettuce tuna roll-ups. It's basically a lettuce leaf with a scoop of tuna, then fold up the sides. For a kid who resists salads, this is a win.

Meal Mishaps

Sometimes a meal gets away from you, and things go wrong.  You'd expect this to happen while cooking something fancy, like risotto. But a meal as simple as Brinner (breakfast for dinner) can just as easily go awry.

Case in point; tonight's meal. Store bought biscuits and frozen hash browns, breakfast sausage, eggs, fruit. The boys' sausage biscuits and eggs were simple. But I had to go for something fancier for myself; a food-lover's downfall. Plus, I have a fridge full of greens of all kinds that have to be eaten. So I sauteed some spinach and shallot. Good so far.  I read the directions on the hash browns and I swear they said to put them in an ungreased pan. So I did. They stuck all over that pan. That burning rubber you smell? My oven mitt pressed against the burner while I try in vain to unstick the hash browns. Okay, eggs. A different pan. More sticking. I tried to photograph my mess, but of course the camera batteries were dead.

I did manage to sit down to a nice meal: I mixed up the hash browns (I was able to unstick about 30% of them) with the spinach, and laid the scrambled egg and cheddar cheese on top. On the side: sausage and a biscuit with butter and orange marmalade. Not too shabby. But very messy.

Kohlrabi: The Ugly Cute Vegetable

Kohlrabi is one of those vegetables that I had never heard of (and most likely would still have never tried) until we started getting our weekly CSA box a couple of years ago. If kohlrabi were anything else, it would be one of those, "ugly in a cute kind of way" dogs.  I've seen it described as looking like a spaceship or "sputnik" or a hot air balloon.  It's such an interesting and healthy veggie, and I'm glad I've gotten acquainted with it.

A member of the cabbage family, kohlrabi has a mild broccoli- or radish-like flavor. We've eaten it raw, sliced up in a slaw with onions and cabbage and apple. We've had it cooked in kohlrabi cakes. These were quite good, and if I make them again soon I'll share the experience here.

This week we got one small red kohlrabi in our box. Very manageable for a salad. The small ones are great for eating raw. I looked up some recipes for inspiration. At least two of the recipes I found said to "slice thinly with adjustable blade slicer"-- making the assumption that I have one. (Hmmm, maybe it's time to get one of those Mandolin thingies.) My knife skills are not the best, but I peeled and sliced the kohlrabi as thinly as possibly.

Then I mixed up a little olive oil and lemon juice, salt and pepper and capers. That jar of capers has been sitting in my pantry waiting for its debut. I thinly sliced some red onion, and mixed everything together in a bowl. This little salad was tasty served over lettuce greens, which we have in abundance. I'm not sure if I should continue the dog analogy here, but I can't resist: the salad was way more French Poodle than Pug.

Here's our little fellow:

What do you think it looks like?

Potato Salad Secrets (finally) Revealed

Oh, dear. I promised potato salad secrets. Then was laid out flat all weekend with a headache. It took me three days to write this post, because I had to keep going to lie down. Much better today though.

So, what's better on a holiday weekend than a cookout? With potato salad? Nothing, in my estimation. I love potato salad, but I could never quite get it "right". It's one recipe that I've worked on for years, trying this and that. I think I finally have it, though there's always room for improvement. Sadly, I'm undisciplined and so I don't have the official amounts of things. It's all in my head, and I make it by taste. Helpful? Not really, but at least I can share some of my methods.

The flavor I like: vinegary, a bit sweet, a little crunchy. I like a lot of different flavors working together. Mine was never quite vinegary enough. Until one day I tried a friend's potato salad, and there it was. I had to know her secret. Turns out it was her grandmother's method, and when someone tells me something is her grandmother's method, I pay attention.

Secret #1: 
Sweetly engage friends in conversation. Then steal their grandmother's recipes. In this case, I found out about vinegar.

After you boil the potatoes, drain them and put them back into the pot. Then sprinkle them with a couple of tablespoons of cider vinegar. As the potatoes cool, the flavor seeps in. I should mention that any type of potato will work, russets are great, or red potatoes, or a combination of different types of potatoes. Cut them into bite-sized pieces. Also, that water that you boil the potatoes in? Salt it liberally.

Secret #2:
Don't just glop mayonnaise on top of your potatoes and call it a day.

Make a dressing. The one I like has about 11/2 cups mayo, 1/4 cup red wine vinegar and 1/4 cup sugar with salt and pepper to taste. Something like that. It's pleasantly pink and a little sweet. It also mixes in way better than just glopping in mayo. I get all the ingredients chopped up and in the bowl, then mix in the dressing.

Let's talk hard boiled eggs for a minute. I think they're a vital ingredient. I love these Appalachian Harvest eggs. They're from free range chickens raised by former tobacco farmers.

But here's the problem: when hard boiled, these fabulous, healthy, good cause brown eggs are a bitch to peel. Not sure why, and I'd love to know. Is it because they're super fresh and awesome? I'd love some ideas on this.

Secret #3:
Use regular old supermarket white eggs. Boil, cool, peel and chop.

Secret #4:
Is not really a secret at all. Just a list of other ingredients that I like.

Red onion
Celery
Fresh herbs: chives, dill, parsley
Bell peppers (red or yellow for sweetness and crunch)
Paprika, sprinkled liberally on top

So there you have it. Most of this is not really secret at all; anyone with Google and a couple of cookbooks could figure it out. But my salad has gotten the thumbs up from friends, and it got rave reviews from my mom and aunts last summer (they said it was "awesome").  Feel free to share any of your secrets with me. And if I ever get the actual recipe amounts straight, I promise to share. 

Radishes!

Lying in bed last night I remembered two things:

First, the strawberries. Yesterday afternoon I washed the strawberries, trimmed off their tops, laid them on some wax paper on a little plate, put the plate on the bottom shelf of the freezer, reminded myself to remember to get them out in an hour and put them into a freezer bag--and promptly forgot about them. For eight hours.

And the radishes. We had a large bunch this week in the CSA box, and I was completely ignoring them.

Thank goodness for Epicurious. (Thank double goodness for the Epicurious iPhone app.) I found this recipe for Pea Salad with Radishes and Feta Cheese. I liked it for several reasons. For one thing, I have an affection for peas. How do I love them? Let me count the ways: in my salads, pasta dishes, macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes; the list goes on. Sadly, no member of my poor, tortured family shares this affection.

For another, and more important thing, I had all the ingredients in my kitchen. Not only in my kitchen, but my herb garden. Much to my delight, last year's dill made a surprise reappearance this spring.

I couldn't figure out how the salad would taste. Cumin, lime juice and feta? But it's good. Sweet peas, spicy radish, salty feta.  When I finished making it, I realized I probably should have halved the recipe. Can I eat all these peas and radishes myself? I guess I can always take the salad to work tomorrow to share with my coworkers. They love my experiments!

Coming up tomorrow:  Potato Salad Secrets REVEALED!

Greens

This week's CSA box is full of beautiful spring greens: lettuce, spicy greens, spinach, arugula, kale.  Using them all in the most efficient and delicious way possible takes diligence. We don't want anything to go to waste.

But some days you just don't feel like being in the kitchen. The allergies are acting up, you feel fatigued, cranky. Today I fought the urge to feel sorry for myself, and I got in there and took care of business.  Music is a great motivator. As I cranked the salad spinner and chopped garlic, my soundtrack helped me along. (A combination of Beatles, Edie Brickell & the New Bohemians and the Avett Brothers.)

Check the kale off the list: we ate it on Sunday, along with a big southern meal: barbeque pork, baked beans, macaroni and cheese.  Also, some of the lettuce has gone into salads. But I still had several bags of greens waiting to be used.

I've been putting the arugula in sandwiches. I used what was left to make Arugula and Walnut Pesto, very simple:

1 bunch arugula (about 3 cups)
3 cloves garlic
1/3 cup walnuts, toasted
1/3 cup olive oil
salt & pepper, to taste
1/3 cup Parmesan cheese

This all goes into the food processor (except for the cheese; if freezing pesto, add the cheese when your ready to serve it) and zoom!  I packed this into two small plastic bags and put them into the freezer.  There were some strawberries from the box that might get past their prime soon; I got into those into the freezer too. We'll use them for smoothies.

The spinach will be part of tonight's meal; I'm thinking a salad with spinach and lettuces, walnuts, dried cranberries and goat cheese. As for the rest of the meal, that will take some thought. Also, what to do with the spicy greens? I'll probably steam or saute them, maybe with a little bacon fat. But for now, my fridge is feeling a bit more clear, and so is my conscience. Think I'll go put my feet up for awhile. 

Sandwich Love

Seriously long Saturday with the kids: farmer's market, walk at Botanical Gardens, home for lunch, soccer game (Miles), haircut (Willem), stop at a friend's house, quick grocery store trip. We got home at 6:00, and I immediately fixed myself a rum and coke. Much better. Then, I made sandwiches.

Now people who know me well know about my serious love of sandwiches. Like Joey from Friends, I find them irresistible. Anything tastes better wedged between two pieces of bread. Of course, I wouldn't put just anything on one of my sandwiches. It's a fine art.

Tonight's sandwiches: Roast beef with cheddar and Monterey Jack cheeses, arugula, thinly sliced red onion, mayo and horseradish Dijon mustard on a roll. With a side of Kettle Chips. So great with my rum and coke.

For dessert, rainbow sherbet, and a sampling of gluten free cupcakes. Why the cupcakes?  I helped my friend Mary on Friday morning. She owns Dolci di Maria: gluten free cupcakes, muffins, cakes, tarts and brownies. Gluten free desserts do not have a reputation for being delicious; these are. I helped her mix up some dry cupcake mixes, made up some boxes and bags, and assisted her while she baked the extra special chocolate pear cake that's served at The Corner Kitchen. (We both agree that Corner Kitchen is about the best restaurant in town.) Then she showed me how to ice cupcakes, exclaiming about what a great job I was doing. And sent me home with half a dozen "rejects" to share with the family.

I'll get them perfect next time.