Too warm for chili?

Hiya. I need a good chili recipe for a meeting tomorrow night. anyone got one? Easy is preferred!

-elisa

Citrus × meyeri

I have always had a fascintation with citrus trees. I have early memories of visiting my grandparents for the Christmas holidays and heading downstairs to see the lemon, lime and orange trees basking in the afternoon sun.

I bought my first citrus tree last year from The Tasteful Garden-- the Meyer Lemon (citrus x meyeri). I was so excited about it, thinking about all of the recipes I could make with it's extra sweet, slightly tart flavors. When it began to bloom in January, I could hardly contain myself. I was a bit discouraged when I read that it could take up to a year for the fruit to ripen - thinking this must have been a misprint. Not really.

Ten months later, my tree is heavy with golden fruit. The first recipe on our list, lemon curd. The recipe comes from Nigella Lawson's How to Eat.

MEYER LEMON CURD

Juice and zest from 4 meyer lemons

4 egg yolks

4 eggs

300 grams of fine sugar

200 grams of unsalted butter

We use a double boiler set-up, so start heating your water over medium low heat. Combine eggs, yolks and sugar in a large glass bowl, and mix until sugar is dissolved. Add juice, zest and butter and heat over simmering water. Wisk until curd begins to thicken...this could take a while (20+ minutes). Since you don't want scrambled eggs, be careful with the heat. Your patience will definitely pay off.

Recipe makes approximately 4+ small mason jars of lemon curd. Using standard canning method, simmer canning lids and rings in hot water for 10 minutes, while heating clean mason jars in an oven of 275 degrees. Remove the hot jars and let them cool briefly (no reason to waste your hard work by scrambling the eggs now). Fill with lemony goodness, finish with lids and rings and let cool.

I know you think you might share with your friends, but I wouldn't count on it.

Pollan for President?

A letter written to our future President from Michael Pollan concerning Food Policy. Find it here. Very interesting. I, for one, would love to hear where the candidates stand on Food Policy.

Check it out.

What are your thoughts on food policy and the governments involvement in the food we eat?

Musings on Fall and Food

The time is drawing near for my little honeybee to embark on a new adventure: solid food. (Well, it will be another three months or so, but that's relatively near.) I'm so looking forward to experimenting with butternut squash, avocado, sweet potatoes... It's a big joy, I've learned, to feed things. And not just people, but dogs and plants and birds as well. It must be some innate element of maternal instinct. And maternal instinct, in my opinion, is something you don't need a baby to have.

I'm also dreaming of fall food: pumpkin, apple, squash, wild rice (although why I label that as a fall food I don't know.)

Yesterday, I ate at the restaurant at the Botanical Garden and then took the bee on a stroll. Anyone ever eaten there? Chicken and polenta and barely-steamed haricot vert (oh, how I love a green bean with delusions of grandeur.) It was delicious. And full of little old ladies coiffed like rain clouds with big white poofs standing out from their little pearl-laden ears.

Do it. It was worth it.

Long Gone

Oh, little second Blog, how I have ignored you. Between travelling and illness and moving (yes, Again...it is becoming a hobby!) I haven't been able to think, much less write.

The season is changing slowly but surely. Fall is creeping in and I couldn't be more excited. To me, fall is the season that really starts the year. Maybe it was too long in schools, maybe it is because I abhor hot weather, but either way I always think of Sept as the beginning. This year feels that way especially. My life looks much different than I thought it would, both good and bad. I am hoping that as the leaves change and fall, so too will my sadness and grief. That chilly mornings and brisk afternoons will awaken me. Plus, the culinary possibilities are so different from Spring and Summer. Pumpkins and Apples everywhere! Root vegetables and warm soups. Football and chili.

I am ready.

Zucchini love

I must confess that I don't actually love zucchini. I just love cooking with it. With broccoli at something crazy a pound (for organic) I've been looking for cheaper ways to put green things in the diet. So I've started cooking with zucchini. I slice it for veggie stir fries and soups or shred it for pasta and meatloaf. One of my favorite things to do with zucchini right now is to shred a huge pile of it and add it to chopped onions that I've already got cooking in my deep cast iron skillet. I'll sautee the whole thing up with some grape seed oil until tender then mix in basil pesto, a sprinkle of red pepper flakes, and finish with a drizzle of olive oil. I put the whole thing over a plate of spaghetti smothered in sauce full of homemade turkey meatballs. With a side of Caesar salad you can't beat it. The other slightly inventive thing I do with zucchini is grate it up for meatloaf. Sometimes I'll do an Italian inspired meatloaf with plenty of garlic, onion, and Italian seasonings. This time around Allen has requested a bbq version with zucchini, onion, bell pepper, bbq sauce, and chunks of cheddar cheese. Yummy.

For not being a huge veggie person (gasp), I'm learning that there are some very tasty ways to cook up some of our humbler comestibles. The main thing I've learned from all this though is when in doubt pesto, olive oil, and fresh grated parm make just about anything better.

Adventures in cooking

Since David and I have both finished reading In Defense of Food, and returned from Scotland, I've been attempting to make more recipes completely from scratch, meatless, and whole food-ish. My finished products have been pretty successful and delicious, but this week has been pretty dissuading.
First, I made dal. It was horrid. This was my second attempt, with a different recipe, and although I keep telling myself that, although I am not of Indian lineage, it can't be that hard to make good Indian food. Wrong. I'm leaving that to Taj from now on.
Second, I made the peach crumble that Mrs. Hall posted. I completed the cooling process and dug in with reckless abandon and noticed immediately that something was very wrong. I was thinking, why is this supposed to be good. I then returned to the recipe and realized that I missed a pretty crucial ingredient - sugar. Not so good without sugar folks.
Yesterday I took on the task of making pizza. I made the dough and sauce, and got one of those soft mozzarella blocks to shred myself. 10 hours and much scrambling and cleaning later, it came out pretty good, but was it really worth it? Probably not. The dough was not too difficult, but that sauce was a pain.
So, there isn't really a lesson to the story, other than that being a amateur chef isn't as easy as it looks. But it never really looked easy. It just sucks when you slave away, soaking the beans, chopping those one billion veggies into fine chunks, and destroying your home, and in the end what you produce is mediocre at best and I have to call the husband and say "You might want to grab some food on the way home".

Simply Summer

One of our favorite summer recipes is a simple fruit crumble. It is a wonderful way to highlight seasonal fruit - without the fuss of pastry. With peaches at their August peak, our oven has been working over-time.

Simple Fruit Crumble

serves 6 to 8, 10 min. prep, 1 hr. total time

4-5 peaches (blueberries are another favorite)
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup + 1 teaspoon all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
pinch of salt
5-6 tablespoons of cold butter, cut in small pieces

1. preheat oven to 375 degrees
2. halve, pit, peel and thinly slice peaches
3. place peaches in 9-inch baking dish and sprinkle with 1 teaspoon of flour
4. mix remaining flour, sugar, salt and spices in bowl
5. add butter and mix with pastry cutter or hands until butter resembles course meal

6. for extra crunch, squeeze small bits of topping together - yummy!
7. refrigerate crumble topping for 20-30 minutes
8. top peaches with crumble and bake for 20-25 minutes, until bubbling and golden

Enjoy!

It's all gone Pear Shaped

I have a large, beautiful tree in the green space behind my apartment. I love this tree. As Spring approached I noticed that it was fruiting. To my chagrin, I could not figure out what these fruit were...crab apples, walnuts? Nothing quite fit, or tasted right (I have a habit of tasting green things). It has been baffling and, honestly, a bit frustrating.

Well, lately the squirrels and birds have been going absolutely crazy over this tree. I see them carrying fruit that is as big as they are to and from the tree. It is like Woodland Creature Land over there. So today I decided to go back and research some more. Wasn't I surprised when the the fruit looked a PEAR, albeit an underripe pear, but a pear nonetheless. So I bit into it...hmmm...tastes faintly of a pear. I went inside and cut it open. Seeds just like a pear, grainy texture like a pear, thick stem like a pear.

1/2 hour of research later I have concluded that they are in fact PEARS!!! I am still trying to figure out what sort of pear it is, but it is undoubtedly a pear tree. I believe it is a Bradford Pear Tree, or an Asian Pear. but I am not 100% sure. This is exciting news to say the least. I am not sure if the fruit is edible, but I intend to find out. The birds and squirrels certainly think so. Now if only they would leave my strawberries and lemons alone and gorge on Pears instead!

How to Eat Supper

In my days in the book world, I am lucky enough to get a LOT of books. Cookbooks are a weakness of mine and I have a hard time turning any down that come my way. Just today I recieved 2 (one about Goat Cheese and Gordon Ramsey's Fast Food).

My favorite these days is The Splendid Table's How to Eat Supper. The Splendid Table has a weekly podcast that I listen to whenever I can (you can download it for free if you don't catch the show on NPR). Lynne Rossetto Kasper is downright wonderful. She loves food and it shows in every recipe she shares, every story she tells. She and Sally Swift just came out with this cookbook, all about getting Supper to the table. Recipes that don't take more than 30 or so minutes but don't sacrifice taste, good ingredients or health. I have tried about 4 recipes and loved each one.

Today I will share the most recent one I tried (well, the white beans I have actually made twice, but who's counting?!).

Salmon Pan Roast with Garlic Shavings and Basil on Fresh Greens, coupled with Warm White Bean Salad with Fragrant Garlic and Rosemary.

Salmon Pan Roast with Garlic Shavings and Basil on Fresh Greens:
serves 4, 5 min. prep, 10 min stove time

1 5 oz. bag (or 4 handfuls) of fresh Spring Greens or mesclun mix
1/4 lb. Fresh sugar snap peas ( I used fresh green beans from the garden), coarse chopped
12 fresh basil leaves
4 small wild Salmon steaks of filets (1 inch thick), or other firm fleshed fish
Good tasting Extra Virgin Olive Oil (I used Publix generic!)
1/4 teaspoon salt (sea salt is always best)
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
3 large garlic cloves, sliced paper thin
12 fresh basil leaves, torn into large pieces
2/3 cup dry white wine
lemon wedges

1. divide the greens among 4 dinner plates. Scatter the peas and 12 torn leaves on top.
2. Rinse the salmon and pat to dry. Examine for any tiny bones and remove.
3. Lightly Oil a slant sided 12 inch skillet (I used regular skillet) with the oil, and heat is over medium high. Season the Salmon on both sides with the salt and pepper. Slip them into the skillet and sear for a minute on each side, turning carefully.
4. Sprinkle the garlic and basil leaves around the fish. Turn the heat down to medium low, cover skillet and cook 6-7 minutes, turning fish midway through, or until the fish is just firm when pressed. it should be barely opaque near the center.
5. Remove fish from skillet and keep it warm. add the wine to skillet, turn heat to high and stir, scraping up any brown bits from the bottom. Simmer until the pan juices are sizzling and syrupy.
6. Drizzle the hot sauce over the greens and top them with the salmon. At the table, squeeze the lemon wedges over the fish and greens.

Warm White Bean Salad with Fragrant Garlic and Rosemary
serves 3 to 4, 15 min prep, 10 min stove time.

I fixed this as a main course once and it fed 2 of us fully.

1/2 slice coarse whole grain bread, course ground in a food processor (2 generous tablespoons crumbs)
3 tablespoons fresh grated Parmigiano-Reggiano Cheese (NEVER scripm on Parm!)
Generous 1/4 tablespoon fresh ground black pepper
5 large garlic cloves, crushed with 1/2 tsp salt and coarse chopped
1/4 cup Good tasting Extra V. Olive Oil (again, I used Publix)
1/2 tight packed tblspoon fresh rosemary leaves, coarse chopped
Two 15 oz. cans Organic White beans (cannellini or Great Northern), drained and rinsed.
1 large handful salad greens
add'l salt and ground pepper

1. In a 12 inch skillet or saute pan over medium heat, toast the bread crumbs until lightly browned, stirring often. Transfer to small bowl and set aside to cool. Once cool, stir in the Parmigiano-Reggiano Cheese and pepper. set aside.
2. In the same pan, slowly warm the garlic in the olive oil over low heat for 30 seconds to 1 minute. Stir in the rosemary, blending together for another minute or so, taking care not to burn the garlic. It should be very fragrant and beginning to soften.
3. Immediately add the beans and fold them in VERY gently. Turn the heat to medium. Heat the beans through, about 3 minutes, occasionally lifting and turning them as they heat, as stirring with cause them to mush. Add the greens and gently move them around in the pan until the are slightly wilted, 30 sec to 1 minute. Turn into a serving bowl, top with the bread crumb mixture and season with salt and pepper.

These 2 recipes guarantee a great night! With a beer or some wine-Voila!

let me know if you try them and what you think.

welcome!

We have a new contributor-Kristen Hall.

She has a lovely garden and an adorable house and home! Plus a cute husband and daughter...

Yeah growing!

Eat your View

Last night I enjoyed beans from my own garden! Granted, it was only 2...but they were delicious. It was the first food from my own garden that I had grown from sead. You would have thought that I birthed these beans as excited and proud as I was. My garden is going crazy! I have zinnias in vases all over my house and basil out the...well, you know.

I need these things. I need to grow things and create life and beauty.

Now, if only I could get those damn chickens!!!

garden photos to come soon. Also coming soon: thoughts on sugar and ADD and society. they are brewing in me...

For your viewing enjoyment.

Wonderful!

Hey guys, I'm chillin in Edinburgh for a few months, so not much gardening or cooking is happening but there is one thing here that is absolutely amazing/wonderful/fabulous/life giving/etc....no corn syrup!!!! Or corn additives at all. Believe me I've been checking the ingredients and at the first realization I practically started crying. It is wonderful. And also a container of the most delicious baba ghanoush for a pound. I love it here.

Don't get between me and my dirt

This afternoon I was headed out the patio to grab my bag of dirt and haul it around front so I could finish planting my little herb garden. I'd opened the sliding glass door, picked up my very sad begonia to take it out on the patio on my way out there, turned my head to listen to something Allen was saying, and then proceeded to plow down the screen door on my way out. The whole thing just about flew off the tracks which I immediately proceeded to step on. Ouch. Still, moral of the story: Don't get between me and my dirt.

Incidentally I think my garden is about complete. I have five pots of herbs -basil, cilantro, oregano, thyme, and rosemary- along with several more pots full of flowers. Out on my back patio I have an old fashioned rose bush, a dwarf gardenia, and a confederate jasmine. Once my gardenia buds open all three will be in bloom. Mmmm, can't wait to smell that bouquet. I also have the requisite petunias and impatiens. I like to put my plants out on my shady back patio where I can see them from the living room, so I'm pretty limited as to variety. One day though.... When I wander through Lowe's or Home Depot or even Walmart I keep wishing I had the yard and the money to buy two or three of everything and scatter them around.

General Lee Rides Again

I have to say, I had a somewhat disappointing trip to the Pepper Place Market this Saturday. Well, I did thoroughly enjoy being out-of-doors and waddling around the stalls looking for the best produce I could find. I did come away with some summer squash and zucchini (perfect when roasted together with good olive oil and sea salt), some sad little early tomatoes (wishful thinking this early in the season) and some early Springcrest peaches. The reason for my disappointment, I have to admit, stems from the fact that I might never again get to taste a General Lee peach.

One Saturday several years ago, David and I were at the Other Farmer's Market. Do you know the one? The Alabama Truck Growers Market. I've been going there on Saturdays in the summer since I was a toddler. I dare say that most of my summertime baby food started out at the Alabama Truck Growers Market. Savvy hunters of Southern fruit know to steer clear of the shabby little huts at the rear of the market as well as the permanent-looking buildings where you can buy peppers and tomatoes and fruit—all grown in California. Cheap, yes, but most likely rejects from Publix dumped at the commercial docks on the other side of the market. My mother called these fruit-sellers "peddlers" and we never bought fruit from them.

The place to buy watermelon, tomatoes (green and red!), peppers, field-peas, okra, corn and most especially peaches is from the men in overalls sitting in lawn chairs in front of their trucks. There are even little signs hanging over the trucks stating the names of the growers and where they are from. They take pride in their little operations. And indeed, they should.

But back to the day I met General Lee. A very large man (might I even call him downright corpulent?) stood at the rear of an old Ford F250 overloaded with the largest most beautiful white-flesh peaches I've ever seen. When he found me staring mouth-agape at his bounty, he picked one from a basket, drew his pocketknife from his bib pocket and across his arm a few times and sliced one open. He handed it to me warm and most likely from some God-kissed orchard in Chilton County just a few hours earlier. I popped it in my mouth. I think I said something like "This is the most wonderful thing I've ever eaten and I would like another slice arm-hair and all." But what probably came out of my mouth was some kind of guttural and gastronomical noise of satisfaction most likely to originate in the belly of a mating moose. Needless to say, I bought two baskets. They went too fast and I never saw that man again.

Even now, as I wander around the posh stalls of the Pepper Place Market looking for early-season peaches (and waiting with baited breath for the Elbertas surely to emerge later this summer) I can't help but wonder if my experience with General Lee was only a figment of my imagination sprouted from some genetic predisposition to devour fruit and nurtured by too many Alabama summers and too much sun. I'll never know, but the farmer's market will never be the same.

cooking angst

I'm going to admit something here that just might get me banned from the blog. I don't really like cooking. (GASP!) I'm a pretty good cook, and I do it several times a week. It's just that day in day out I don't really enjoy it. First I have to clear away the dishes that I forgot to do earlier in the day to make room for all the dishes I'm going to dirty up tonight. Then I spend about an hour chopping and stirring. (Have I mentioned this is after I got distracted by my book so that supper is running desperately late?). Then my mad genius husband has a brainwave five minutes before it's ready. Taps foot. Gah! Forgot the broccoli! Another 15 minutes to get some veggies steamed. By now with one thing or another it's a quarter til nine, the kitchen is an absolute wreck, and we haven't eaten yet. It's enough to make me wish for fish sticks and mac 'n cheese. No this doesn't happen every day. There are plenty of times when Allen is the hugest help to me when I'm running behind and need an extra hand. But, you get the picture. It happens enough. Question is what to do about it. I'd say the first answer involves not making homemade potatoes au gratin and meatloaf for the same meal without a LOT of planning first -especially if bacon and fresh garlic is involved. I don't know how you make meatloaf, but in this household there's some serious veggie dicing going on when meatloaf is in the offing. Other thing -be more aggressive keeping the kitchen clean. Clean kitchen = happy cook. Finally though, I'm going to make a point of cooking more things just for fun -bean salad, muffins, homemade lemonaid- anything fun and tasty.

Dresser top nesting

Ok, this has nothing to do with dirt, but I thought I'd post some before and after pics of my dresser.

I should note that I actually did this about a month or so ago, but since pics tend to stay in my camera way too long after they've been taken....

This is my dresser before. Pretty crowded and chaotic.





Here is my dresser after I've organized my jewelry on my pretty new rack. All my pretty little doilies (all four of them-three in that pic) are grouped on top of the dresser. The mirror is thumbtacked to the ceiling. I wanted a tiny little mirror just to check my earrings and such. I was going to put it on the wall, but since my dresser is positioned at a slight angle it worked out better to hang it from the ceiling.


And here's a close up of some of my favorite earrings hanging in their new home.

By the way, that bigger, square doily on the right I got from my great-aunt Kathy who actually is Allen's grandmother's sister, but since they don't much care if you're in by birth or marriage it's pretty much all the same. That's a place mat that her mother-in-law hemstitched from a larger piece of lace. The amber earrings Allen gave me on my first married birthday. The fan earrings my cousin Rhoda gave my Christmas one year.

The time is right

I love this time of year. I am not sure I have loved it with this sort of intensity until this year. Eating is so wonderful! Yesterday, I went to Jones Valley Urban garden after work to pick up some (more) fresh produce. I am on a special diet that mainly consists of fresh vegetables, meant, some beans and nuts to try and cure a digestive issue I have. At JVUF, I picked up 2 sorts of radishes, leeks, greens, strawberries and the spiciest arugula I have every tasted. Plus, my CSA box every week, weekly trips to Pepper Place and the things growing in my garden (although, my vegetables are having issues...). It is quite a bounty.

I have never eaten this well, or enjoyed food as much. Each day I look at the veggies and wonder what I can whip up with them for dinner. Yesterday it was stir fry. Today I am snacking on homemade tzatzi sauce with cut up radishes, beans, carrots and cucumbers. Wednesday night was baked amerjack and fried Kohlrabi leaves. It turns out Kohlrabie is amazing! The bulb is a mild, crunchy veggie, but it the leaves that really get me. They do not wilt when sauteed! instead, they turn a deep green and crisp up. I love crisp greens so much, so this has been a real treat.

Each week I am picking up a new veggie from Pepper Place and experimenting. I can't wait to see what it will tomorrow!

Oh, and check out the Botanical Gardens soon...the roses are in bloom and gorgeous.

Holy Crap!

My family and I have joined the Growing Alabama Co-op. I am beyond excited! In preparation I have become a vegetarian. No meat or eggs, er, well eggs are still debatable. Is that not meat? I don't know, bit it is fun finding alternatives to eat. My garden has grown so much it looks a bit in disarray- all the tomatoes are bowing low and the beans are taking over the greens. Poor garden. We are deciding rather to move or not so i am not as committed to it. If we move i see chickens and large raised bed gardens in sight!