July 2008 Archives

Here is another side dish that uses the fabulous peas you can find this week at your local markets. I ordered extra this week from my CSA box so that I could both eat a bunch in salads and cook a bunch up for you (and for me).

This recipe was incredibly easy. In fact, the entire recipe from start to finish took 15 minutes, and that included the time to cut the ends off of the peas and remove the strings. We both loved it, and we threw the leftovers into some leftover fried rice for lunch the next day.

Sauteed Snow Peas, Sugar Snap Peas, and Pea Shoots, adapted from Epicurious

Serves 4

• 3 cups snow peas
• 4 cups sugar snap peas
• 6 cloves of garlic
• Oli of your choice
• 1/3 cup oyster sauce
• 1/4 cup chicken stock
• Pea shoots
• Sesame seeds

1. Cut the ends off of the peas and remove the strings.
2. Tear the pea shoots into small chunks.
3. Mince the garlic.
4. Heat the oil in a wok or large skillet over medium to medium high heat.
5. Satuee the garlic for a minute or so, but stir constantly so it doesn't burn.
6. Add in the oyster sauce and chicken stock (you can use water here instead of the stock).
7. Add the peas and fry for 2 minutes, or until some of the sauce has burned off.
8. With a slotted spoon, remove the peas and garlic from the pan and place them in a serving dish.
9. Top with the pea shoots and a mix of white and black sesame seeds.

Patricia's Notes:  This was a great dish. By only cooking the peas for 2 minutes, you retain so much of their fresh flavor and snap. Really, you're just warming them a bit and coating them with the sauce. I was hoping the sauce would be thicker, so I could just pour the entire skillet into the serving bowl, but since the sauce was still thin, I preferred to strain the vegetables out of the sauce. I think you could mix in a bit of cornstarch with the oyster sauce and get a nice thick sauce that would also work very well. Next time, I'll throw in just a tiny bit of hot sauce or red pepper flakes as well.

Let me get this off my chest.

I can't really stand Alton Brown.

Well, that's not entirely true.  He's not that bad.  He's personable, he gives good information, he's generally on point.  He (or his writers) has a sense of humor. 

Actually, I'm not entirely sure why I don't like him.  He's too smug maybe?

One of his drives is to 'banish the unitasker.'  At one point, I jokingly said to someone who is more in tune with Altonism 'I wonder... does Alton Brown own a waffle maker?'

Turns out, yes, and he admitted on a show that it was his secret shame, that one unitasker that he owns because, frankly, it just isn't something you can multitask with.  A pizzelle maker, sure.  You can make ice cream cones, rolled cookies, flat cookies.  But a waffle maker?  It is pretty much just a waffle maker.  He also admits that a fire extinguisher is a unitasker everyone should own.

At this point, there's probably two questions, maybe three, you're asking yourself.

1)  What in the hell does Alton Brown have to do with this post?

Good question.

Recently, we came into possession of a kitchen gadget called the GarlicZoom from Chef'n.

And, frankly, it's amazing.

It took:

and, about 10 seconds later, gave me:

Now, my knife skills are slowly getting better.

But not *that* good.

I was astounded.

And amazed.

And, to be honest, it's not that uni-function.  I used it to mince some red onion last night.  Unfortunately, you have to chop up the onion pretty small to get it to fit in the capsule, so while you can do it, really this thing is designed for garlic.

And it works in spades.

2)  And this is local... how?

Well... uhh... the company who makes it is actually based in Seattle.  In fact, the owner is the brother of our landlady's home assistant.  So, there.  It's local.  Ish.

We have a few other Chef'n products.  A PepperBall and SaltBall, a PalmPeeler, a VeggiSteam. 

And, in the interest of fairness, we received the GarlicZoom for free as a gift by way of our landlady.  It wasn't expected that we'd be reviewing it, it was simply a nice little gift from our landlady and her assistant.

3)  So where's the recipe?

You got me there.  No recipe here. 

...

Really?

...

You want a recipe and won't leave until you get one?

Fine.

1. Go buy a

Amazon.com: Chef'n Garlic Zoom: Kitchen & Dining

2. Wait until it arrives.
3. Wash the GarlicZoom.
4. Peel a garlic clove or two.
5. Put the clove in the GarlicZoom.
6. Run the GarlicZoom like it's a matchbox car.  Making VroomVroom noises is optional.  If you want a video lesson:

7. Open the GarlicZoom and empty it into a hot frying pan with some olive oil (or whatever oil is local to you).
8. Cook until garlic odor wafts up and it smells cooked.  Seriously.  You'll know it when it hits.
9. Pour oil and garlic into a cruet.  Add enough oil to get you 3/4 cup of oil.
10. Add a few pinches of oregano, rosemary or thyme.
11. Add in 1/4 cup of vinegar, red wine, white wine, balsamic, pear cider.  Use your imagination.
12. Shake and pour over your salad.

There's your damn recipe.  Hope you enjoy it.

No, really, I do.  Sincerely.

Geez, stop looking at me like that, I'm just giving you what you wanted.  A recipe.

Have you ever walked by a bakery right when the bread comes out of the oven? I'm getting hungry just thinking about it right now. A slice of hot, fresh bread, slathered in butter, is one of my great pleasures in life. I don't have it very often, though, for several reasons.

1. Hot, buttered bread isn't all that healthy.
2. Baking my own bread takes at least 3 hours from mix, to rise, to bake.
3. Home baked bread is rarely as tasty the second or third day as it is the first.

Given how much I love fresh bread, I was thrilled when read about a new book, Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day. Really? 5 minutes a day? Could it really be true? Could I have fresh bread every day? Or even a couple of times a week?

Well, the reality wasn't quite what I'd hoped, but it wasn't bad either.

I'll talk more about this cookbook over the next few weeks, both here and on the Cook Local Examiner site.

Today, I'll show you my first loaf of bread and tell you how I made it.

Isn't that pretty? It was probably about 8 inches across with a nice crusty exterior.

So, how did I do it? I used Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day's Master Recipe.

• 3 cups lukewarm water
• 1 1/2 Tbsp granulated yeast
• 1 1/2 Tbsp kosher salt
• 6 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• Cornmeal

The directions are exceedingly simple. Use water that's around 100 degrees. Put the warm water in a large bowl and add the yeast and salt. Give it a stir (but don't worry about getting it all to dissolve).

Mix in the flour with a spoon. You don't need to mix it too well, just until the mixture looks pretty moist and there aren't any large clumps of dry flour remaining.

Cover the bowl with a lid and let it sit on the counter for 2-5 hours. Then put the dough into the fridge and you're done for the day.

The next day (or any day over the next two weeks), take a pizza peel and cover it with cornmeal. Coat your hands with flour. Grab a decent lump of dough and "cloak" it. This was a new term to me, but it basically means that you take the dough lump and stretch the surface of the dough around to the bottom on all sides, forming a ball. Put the rest of the dough back in the fridge.

Let it rise for 40 minutes. About 20 minutes into the rising time, preheat the oven to 450 and put your pizza stone in there to preheat as well. On the bottom shelf of the oven, place your broiler pan (without the top).

Dust the top of the loaf with flour and make several cuts in the top of the loaf.

Slide the risen dough onto the pizza stone.

Take 1 cup of hot water and fill the broiler pan. CAREFUL! This will steam pretty heavily. Don't get too close.

Bake for 30 minutes, transfer to a cooling rack, and eat when the outer surface is (mostly) cool. 

The principle of Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day is that you only have 5 minutes of ACTIVE work each day. This, however, doesn't count the time you must wait for things to happen. While I was hoping to be able to come home, throw bread in the oven, and eat it as soon as it baked, the reality was that you still need to let the dough rise. You just don't have to let it rise, punch it down, and let it rise again. You can have fresh bread within about an hour and ten minutes of coming home. Not bad for fresh bread.

A few weeks ago, I attended a press event for a new cookbook - the Washington Local and Seasonal Cookbook. One of the authors, Becky Selengut, spoke on her passion for cooking locally and her successful website, Seasonal Cornucopia. I was lucky enough to grab a few minutes of her time over email a few days later for a more in-depth interview. I hope you find her responses as interesting as I did.

Patricia: You mentioned that most of the recipes in the cookbook were actually written by someone else, and you wrote the forwards for the recipes. As a chef, what was it like to work with someone else's recipes? Were you tempted to tweak them?

Becky: I love the opportunity to work with other chef's recipes. When I worked in restaurants I was constantly exposed to new ideas by both the head chef and my colleagues.  Now that I work for myself, it is something that I actively seek out to bring fresh ideas into my cooking. Yes I was tempted to tweak some of the recipes but through testing them and following what another chef recommends I often learn both a new perspective on food and further clarify my own style.

Patricia: As a follow-up, when cooking professionally, either for the Herbfarm or for your own business, how often do you come up with your own recipe as opposed to using a recipe from elsewhere?

Becky: Certainly when I worked in restaurants I would follow what the chef wanted - or risk getting something thrown at me :) , however most of the chefs I had the pleasure of working for were open to my ideas when I offered them. Now that I work for myself I find that I rarely use recipes anymore. There are a billion directions to take food but a much more limited set of fundamental cooking techniques. I find that once you really learn the techniques you are then able to let your creativity determine the direction of the food.  Of course, this took years of experience so I don't expect beginners to start at this point. That's why I feel that before you get all renegade with food, you simply must master the fundamentals first. 

Patricia: I've loved the cookbook so far, but one thing that has struck me is that many of the recipes use a lot of non-local ingredients. Soy sauce, lemons, limes, oranges, sugar, pistachios, vanilla beans, a banana, etc. Can you elaborate on your view of what "cooking local" means?

Becky: I'm so glad you asked me this question. I often tell people that I'm no "food nazi" when it comes to eating local. It's just so perfectly American of us to get so LITERAL and TRENDY with this concept. "Eating local" before it was a fad was and is an integral way of life in the great food cultures of the world.  My feeling is that if you stick with seeking out high-quality ingredients you will soon find that local food tastes better. Does this mean that I don't use lemons, mangos, vanilla beans? If we grew them here, you can bet I'd be using local but since we don't I am perfectly happy getting them from elsewhere. Most of my food comes from local sources but at least 25% comes from elsewhere. Life is so much more wonderful with spices, tropical fruits and citrus... why would I want to limit my food to food miles that strictly? For me, it's all about balance... and flavor. Weighing all the good reasons for eating local without going so overboard that you feel deprived of the treats that we get from other places.  Fair-trade coffee and chocolate? You can bet I'm not giving it up. Guilt and food are a terrible combination. I just tell people to educate themselves and follow their nose... it will- most of the time - lead right to a local farmer's market.

Patricia: Can you tell me about a favorite ingredient? What is catching your eye at the farmers markets right now? What are you anxiously waiting for?

Becky: I'm a big fan of briny, green sea beans.  Jeremy Faber forages for them along the coast.  He had a big huge pile of perfect ones last weekend at the University Farmer's Market. Many people are unfamiliar with them.  It's important to blanch them once or twice in UNSALTED water to leech some of the salt out of them. They can be pickled or just tossed with oil. They add this gorgeous pop of ocean brine to dishes. I like to scatter them over a roasted black cod dish with a wine sauce and morels.

Patricia: What is your comfort food (or one of them)?

Becky: Hmmm.  That's a hard one because I have so many and I'm an indecisive Libra who balks at just picking one. So here's my list: braised short ribs, french fries, macaroni and cheese with crusty bits of buttered breadcrumbs on the top, braised greens with olives and bacon with awesome toasted artisan bread, Dana Cree's salted caramel ice cream at Molly Moon's, and finally..... one perfect hamachi hand roll.

Patricia: Is it difficult to eat out? Do you deconstruct meals that you are served?

Becky: I like to eat out with other chefs or food-obsessed individuals because yes, I'm an insufferable downer to innocent diners not interested in tearing apart their meal with anything more than their teeth. Luckily my partner is a sommelier so while I sometimes critique the food, she occasionally scoffs at the wine :)  But seriously, often I'm very happy with eating out, especially when I go to inexpensive asian restaurants where I am often pleased and my pocketbook thanks me.  Where it gets dicier is when I'm paying a lot of money for something I feel I could make better at home. 
Patricia: Do you have one food that you hope people will try, even though it might not be "mainstream"? (I'm thinking of something like a mangosteen or tat soi.)

Becky: Funny you should say a mangosteen because I had one in Thailand. I believe there they refer to it as the "queen of fruit". It was one of the most amazing things ever.. but I recommend eating it in season in Thailand. I've had one imported here that just was a wisp of it's former self.  Locally I would recommend people try spring nettles. I've recently become the nettle poster child because they are so abundant here, so healthy and so, so tasty.  I make tea from them, pasta fillings, puree it like you would spinach, make soup from it... YUM.

Patricia: Anything else you'd like readers to know?

Becky: I would love readers to check out www.seasonalcornucopia.com  for info on local and seasonal ingredients.

Growing up, the 4th of July always required some sort of grilled meat, fresh, homemade ice cream, and a big bowl of mom's potato salad. I still make mom's potato salad on occasion, but I saw this recipe in the Washington Local and Seasonal Cookbook and had to give it a try.

The first step in making this potato salad was making my own mayonnaise. I admit, I don't really like mayonnaise. I use it very rarely, even on sandwiches. In fact, the only use I have for it is in a potato salad.

Mayonnaise

• 5 egg yolks (from Skagit River Ranch)
• 1/4 cup vinegar
• 2/3 cup olive oil
• Salt

1. In a medium bowl, whisk the egg yolks, salt, and the vinegar until the egg yolks lighten in color. The mixture might get a tiny bit frothy at this point and that's ok.
2. While whisking constantly (this is key), add the oil a drop or two at a time. The whisking will emulsify the oil, thickening the mixture.
3. When about half of the oil has been incorporated, start adding the oil in a thin stream, continuing to whisk.
4. Refrigerate for up to a week.

Patricia's Notes: My mayonnaise was a bit on the thin side. I think it would have been better if I'd used the Kitchen-Aid mixer instead of hand-whisking. You can add any sorts of spices you want to the mayonnaise, including garlic. I might splurge at some point and try making some mayonnaise with some garlic flavored olive oil. If you're worried about the cholesterol content of mayonnaise, make sure and use truly pastured eggs for the lowest cholesterol content and the highest level of Omega-3 fatty acids.

Full Circle Farms Potato Salad

Serves 6

• 2 pounds of potatoes (I used red potatoes from Full Circle Farms)
• 4 carrots (from Full Circle Farms)
• 3 stalks of celery
• 8 oz jar of artichoke hearts
• 1 Walla Walla sweet onion (from Growing Washington)
• 1 purple bell pepper (from Billy's Organic Produce)
• 3-4 dill pickles (Parker's Spicy Pickles from Woodring Northwest)
• 1/4 cup chopped parsley
• 1 Tbsp capers
• Sea salt and Pepper
• Mayonnaise

1. Boil the potatoes until they are just tender. They will continue to cook a bit as they cool, so don't overcook them.
2. Cut them into chunks and set aside.
3. Slice the carrots and cook for just a couple of minutes, draining and then plunging them immediately into cold water.
4. Slice the celery, quarter the artichoke hearts, and slice the onion, pepper, and pickles.
5. Mash the capers with the flat of a knife.
6. Mix all ingredients together, adding salt and pepper to taste and as much mayonnaise as you like.

Patricia's Notes: One of the things I love about potato salad is that it is very hard to screw it up. You can add just about any vegetables you want, or stick with only potatoes. I've always loved spicy dill pickles and sometimes I'll even add some of the pickle juice in as well. The capers were a nice touch in this dish. The original recipe suggested cooking the carrots for a full 5 minutes, but I found that left them too soft. I love my potato salad to have some crunch. Next time I might not cook the carrots at all. The original recipe also suggested peeling the potatoes, but I prefer to leave the skins on. You can add or remove just about any ingredient from the potato salad (except the potatoes and mayonnaise) and still have a tasty salad.

One of our favorite vendors at the market is Sea Breeze Farms.  Patricia has talked about them before, but I haven't.

We've gotten a little bit of everything from them.  Some lamb, porchetta, milk and cream, ricotta, kielbasa, pepperoni, wine.... Haven't tried their beef yet.  Or their wool.  Yes, they sell wool.  Really damn soft wool.

Once upon a time, we got some chorizo.  We had just found a taco truck... well, ok.  I found a taco truck while Patricia was out of town and she's hated me ever since for having gone there once without her, even tho she's been there once without me since.  Not to mention her trip to Lunchbox Laboratory without me.  Annnnyways.

The week after those first, delicious, greasy, fantastic chorizo tacos, at the Farmer's Market, we happened to see chorizo at .. I'm sure you figured out where by now.

It was, like everything else from them, fantastic.

But then it never showed up again.

Fast forward to two weeks ago, we were picking up some pepperoni for pizza, and ask offhandedly 'Are y'all ever gonna make the chorizo again?'  I had had a hankering, so we had to find out.

"Huh.  Yeah, that chorizo was pretty good, wasn't it.  We should do that again."

The week after, not really surprisingly, there's chorizo on the chalkboard.  Hot damn.  Links or bulk?

Uhh.  Bulk.  How about a pound.  We can put some into the fritatatatatatas.  We can... well, we can figure out what else to make with the rest.

So, now we're staring at a little over half a pound of chorizo.  What do we do.

What. do. we. do.

Well, we cook it.  Thanks, wise ass.

We had some squash from our CSA basket still.  Patricia remembered an old recipe we made last winter.

Except, we have no tomatoes, and it's too late to head back out to get some.  Time for some creative work.

Ingredients

• Chorizo
• Patty Pan Squash
• Onion
• Garlic
• Pasta
• White Wine
• Olive Oil
• Butter

1. Chop the patty pan, discarding the stems.
2. Chop the garlic and onion, saute in olive oil over medium heat.
3. Before they caramelize, once the garlic smells toasty, add the chorizo.
4. Once the chorizo has browned, add the patty pan and cook covered for a good 35 minutes.
5. Start some pasta cooking.  I think a good linguine or angel hair would be best suited for this dish.
6. Once pasta has finished, strain pasta and dump back in the pan you cooked it in.
7. Dump the chorizo, onion, garlic and squash mix into the pasta.
8. Deglaze the pan with some butter and white wine.
9. Pour over pasta and mix it all up and serve.

Over all, this was good.  I wish I could say it was quick (it wasn't).  I wish I could say it was simple (it isn't.. I mean, who has bulk chorizo on hand).  I wish I could say it was awesome (it wasn't).

But, for a spur of the moment recipe, it wasn't bad.

I've said, I think, that I want to start making our own recipes more.  Branch out into actual recipe creation. 

And this is a good start.  Look for us to flex our creative muscles more in the future.  But don't worry, we'll still be sharing recipes we find on all the blogs we read too.

Well, I think I've gotten most of the bugs out of the new software. The site will be undergoing some tweaks over the next few days as I configure the search box and possibly tweak the Google ads and add some other links on the side columns. If you have any feedback about the new look and feel, or find any bugs, please let me know by leaving a comment.

Our plan is to post here at least twice a week with new recipes and even potentially some cookbook reviews and author interviews. So please stay tuned.

Homer: Are you saying you're never going to eat any animal again? What about bacon?
Lisa: No.
Homer: Ham?
Lisa: No.
Homer: Pork chops?
Lisa: Dad, those all come from the same animal.
Homer: Heh heh heh. Ooh, yeah, right, Lisa. A wonderful, magical animal.

So... I love a good pork tenderloin.  I love a good pork kebab.  I love a good thinly sliced pork.  I love pork chops.  I love bacon.  I love sausage.

But I hate ham.

I do like a honey baked ham, or, at least, the sweet, crunchy exterior of it.  The interior, not as much.

But, I had something... a feeling... a wanting... Chicken Cordon Bleu.  Chicken?  Great.  Cheese?  Awesome!  Crispy outsides?  Love it.

Ham?  ...

So, why not find a way to make it better?  And by better, I mean less ham, but still chicken-y, cheesey goodnees.  The wife-unit doesn't like swiss, the traditional filling of a Chicken Cordon Bleu, so we need to swap that out.

I don't like ham, so we need to swap that out.

And it's hot out, so we are going to cook on the grill, where breading doesn't necessarily work quite well, so we need to swap that out too.

Let's start with cheese.

Gouda.  Gouda is good.  We like gouda.  Oh, look, there in the petite fromage bin.  That's a lovely bit of gouda.

Hmm.  No lomo.  No Iberian or Serrano jamon.  There's some nice prosciutto.  How about six slices of that.

And, over to the butcher section, a nice package of a couple boneless, skinless breasts.

Quick, to the SMART CAR!  To Home!  To the GRILL!

You might be wondering, by this point, where in the blue blazes the recipe is.

Well, honestly, there isn't one.  I made it up as I went along. So, here's the 'recipe':

1. Slice the cheese nice and thin.
2. Then, plop the chicken down on the cutting board, put a hand down on top of the breast and using a big ol' chef's knife, slice the breast in half almost all the way through, basically, imagine that you want to fold it open like a book.
3. And then, no surprise really, fold it open like a book.
4. Lay the thinly sliced cheese down on each side, then, atop the cheese, lay the prosciutto.
5. Fold shut, stick some toothpicks in so it stays shut and grill until cooked.
6. Then... eat.

You can swap out the cheese for some other cheese product.

You can swap out the prosciutto for some other pork product (Bacon? Soprasetta? Pancetta?)

And that's it.  Seriously.

Now, what's really funny is that, after grilling, it looked like an awesome low carb version of a Monte Cristo sandwich.  No, really.  Even tho the pictures don't show it, the chicken just looked like toasted bread.

Personally, I wanted more porky taste.  Patricia thought it was perfect.  Next time, I'd try cheddar.  And bacon.  Or... well, really, the pig is our oyster.

I will talk to just about anyone about the benefits of cooking and eating local. However, there are a handful of non-local ingredients in my kitchen and there probably will be for quite some time. So what foods or ingredients are important enough for me to go far and wide for them? Well, it wouldn't be a blog if I didn't tell you, now would it?

So here are my primary non-local ingredients in no particular order.

1. Sugar: If you bake at all (outside of breads), sugar is nearly an essential ingredient. Our climate in the Pacific Northwest just won't support sugar cane. I'm not sure where the nearest sugar is, but it certainly isn't in this state. Check back for more information on where the closest sugar really is. I buy organic sugar from Costco as it's about 1/3 of the price of the organic sugar you find in the average supermarket.
2. White Flour: We use Emmer flour for the vast majority of our flour needs. However, the Emmer flour does have a very different consistency and taste. It works in some things, but doesn't work in others. We don't use it for biscotti, for example, because we make the biscotti to help raise John's blood sugar after a workout. Using a high protein flour wouldn't help that very much. So we still buy white flour on a regular basis.
3. Soy Milk: I have a very minor dairy allergy and so we use soy milk in our coffee.
4. Cornmeal: Our favorite biscotti recipe uses cornmeal. Even though there are a lot of local farmers who grow corn, we haven't found any that produce cornmeal. tonight we experimented with using cracked Emmer in place of some of the cornmeal in the biscotti recipe, and we'll report on that in the next few days.
5. Lemons and Oranges: Citrus does not grow here, though logically, I'm not sure why. After all, my dad grows fantastic lemons in California and our winters are only slightly colder than where he lives. We use lemons and oranges for recipes that call for zest, as well as some of our marinades and salad dressings.
6. Olive Oil: There is a fantastic vendor at our local markets that sells Hazelnut oil. While this works for a number of recipes, it has a very distinctive flavor and is quite expensive. I'll use it in small quantities (like for our Garlicky Kale recipe), but for salad dressings and marinades that require a significant amount of oil, we still use olive oil. Our olive oil comes from California.
7. Balsamic Vinegar: We can find some local vinegars in the Pacific Northwest, but they are mostly cider vinegars. If we want balsamic, we have to go as far as California or even Italy. I have yet to find something to replace balsamic vinegar, so for now, we'll buy it when we need it.
8. Ginger: Ginger is another one of those items that really should be able to be grown in eastern Washington. But until I find a farm that has it, we'll buy it for marinades, desserts, and the occasional main dish.
9. Coffee: Non-negotiable. Enough said.

Those are the primary ingredients we buy from far and wide. There are others, of course. I'll buy a mango once or twice a year, either to eat raw or to cook with. Occasionally I'll have a real hankering for carrots out of season and I'll give up and buy them even though they are from California or even Mexico. I'll also buy wine from a variety of locations, even though I do tend to prefer Washington wines these days.

So if you've been thinking of cooking local, but it feels overwhelming, just realize that you don't have to go 100% local to make a positive impact.