Category: spring

Crostata Marmellata

~ Katherine ~ Leave a comment

Crostata Marmellata or jam tart is simply what its name describes. Jam, preserves or marmalade spread inside a baked tart shell. It’s then baked in a 350 degree oven for twenty minutes.

I made the marmalade from California-grown kumquats that looked shiny and cheery sitting in a box at Willy Street Coop, a Madison neighborhood grocery store.  They were so tasty with a thin sweet rind and a mildly tart juicy center, that I had to stop myself from eating “Just one more.”

Perhaps the most diminutive member of the citrus family, originally cultivated in China, the kumquat can be eaten whole…the peel, the tiny soft pit or two inside and the flesh.

Kumquats make a delightfully bitter and sunset-hued marmalade. The recipe of which I followed from Chez Panisse Fruit, a beautiful book by farm-to-table food pioneer, Alice Waters.

The tart crust or pasta frolla, a sweet pastry flecked with zest from either orange or lemon, I borrowed from my pastry hero, the late Gina DePalma (Dolce Italiano, Desserts from the Babbo Kitchen).

What I learned…when Ms. DePalma instructs us to make a lattice top across the tart, it is not a suggestion. This dessert needed more pastry to balance out the jam to pastry ratio.

As I write this, it is the end of April in Wisconsin and it is snowing. Seems fitting to have a little more citrus to enjoy while we wait patiently for the first fruits of spring to arrive. I think this is the way to do it.

 

 

 

Pink Snowballs—A Nostalgic Farewell to Winter

~ Katherine ~ 1 Comment

It’s the end of spring break. The kids go back to school on Monday. We have a small house guest for the week. A Yorkshire Terrier puppy not quite a year old. He’s barking right now at the window at nothing in particular as far as I can see which is why he’s made mention in this post.

Daylight is still pretty strong at 5:30 this evening, even with a thick cloud cover. A sure sign spring is asserting herself into our part of the world once again. I’ve noticed more cardinals creating flashes of color in the brown branches above and I’m on the look out for snowdrops and crocus.

Remember Hostess Snoballs when you were a kid? A few weeks ago, I made a version of them based on the recipe in one of my favorite cookbooks, The Back in the Day Bakery Cookbook. In place of the signature marshmallow frosting, Cheryl Day uses coconut buttercream. There were several steps involved from baking to assembling these chocolate cakes (they are actually cupcakes turned upside down) which included filling them, frosting them and finally coating them generously with beautiful fluffy pink coconut–the stuff of sweet childhood dreams.

I would gladly make these again. For now they were a perfect way to say good-bye to winter and Hello, spring!

 

 

 

All the little (dolce) things

~ Katherine ~ 4 Comments

Things are different now. The kids are getting older and don’t need me to remind them to shower, eat or even when to go to bed. The husband and I are still running them each to his and her activities: sports, music, a friend’s house. He and I see each other some days only in passing through this house, to drop off a bass, a baseball bag, soccer gear before making the next practice or game.

I gently ease my way out of this house before dawn, not unlike a cat burglar most mornings to make it in time for the opening shift of the cafe on the east side. I wash the floors and the toilets, put on the coffee, set out the pastries and switch on the open sign by 6:30. I note to myself that the kids and the husband are just now rising. The night before these shifts my bedtime is that of a well-scheduled toddler’s. I’m bathed and asleep most nights before 9 leaving the husband on the couch to watch a week’s worth of TV he’s DVR’d for us.

Auggie, our oldest, is about to become a licensed driver and is looking to have a summer job. Fritz and Harriet are still kids. All three now do their own laundry. And that, my friends, is going well. Except now there is chewing gum stuck to the inside of the dryer that the husband has been prying off for the past two days. I have since banned all gum from this house.

I am baking and cooking on my days off. I’ve recently purchased Dolce Italiano–Desserts from the Babbo Kitchen, a cookbook by the late Gina DePalma. I’ve made her baci di cioccolato (chocolate kisses) and pane di pasqua (Easter bread). In the past and not from this book, I’ve made her sausage and swiss chard soup, and her fig and walnut biscotti which I blogged about last year https://thelittleblueapron.com/2017/01/25/fig-walnut-biscotti/.

Her recipes bring me home to my Italian-American roots–to the family table. To a way of cooking and eating that I understand and know in my bones. Seasonal ingredients prepared simply by hard-working, thick hands. Nothing fancy, only good and made with passion, love and dedication to one’s family.

Whenever I feel lost or unsure of who I am, who I’ve become, I only have to go to my kitchen and I’m there with the women in my family wisely telling me to sit down and have a little something to eat. And asking “When’s the last time you went to the bathroom?” And when I reluctantly tell them, they say “Really? No wonder you have such problems. Go… try and go…you’ll feel better.”

And just when I think they’re all crazy–the problems of the world cannot be solved by a trip to the bathroom. I feel better and think maybe they’re on to something after all.

My Latest Interview: Melissa Clark, NY Times Food Writer

~ Katherine ~ 2 Comments

Recently Melissa Clark, food writer, author of the NY Times column: A Good Appetite and 38 cookbooks came through town promoting her latest work Dinner: Changing the Game.

I was able to sit down with the recipe maven responsible for creating both sweet and savory dishes for the NY Times on a weekly basis along with helpful and anxiety-reducing cooking videos. You can find my interview on Madison Magazine’s website here: http://www.channel3000.com/madison-magazine/dining-and-drink/cookbook-helps-those-in-a-dinner-rut/424537389.

The following are conversation bits left out of the original article for the sake of word count.

Clark doesn’t plan dinner for her husband and 8-year-old daughter ahead of time. It’s usually 4 o’clock in the afternoon when she gets around to thinking about it. Her family’s dinner staple (which her daughter won’t eat) is pasta with anchovies, garlic and chili peppers.

Dinner is her test ground–the starting point for her recipes. If it’s good she’ll make it again, this time measuring and taking notes. Then she’ll make it a third time to test it. It’s a keeper when her hired taste-tester makes it and approves it.

Dining out is part of her research. She says she will always order the “weirdest thing on the menu” and says, “It’s like a dare” to see if it works.

“I want to push myself. I’m testing. I’m changing. I’m trying to learn. I’m just there looking for what’s good.”

As for those weekly column deadlines she’s managed for ten years now, I wondered if she has a system, a schedule, a plan for getting it done. If it’s become an effortless process.

She answered a resounding No. “It’s always an assault every time. Every. Single. Time. That moment of looking at the empty page and the freezing of the muscles.”

And always she questions “What do I have to say? What do I have to say about this? I said that before. No one wants to hear that.”

Then she begins to talk herself down and instructs simply that you have to fight it.

“You have to. You have deadlines. Deadlines are lifelines.”

Finally, and this is when I think I got an opening into the most relaxed version of Melissa Clark. I told her how I had watched a cooking video where after she shows us how to grill a whole fish, she pops the fish’s eyeball into her mouth and chews it with delight.

I told her that I had to stop myself from gagging and she threw her head back and laughed so hard, a wicked, childlike laugh. At that moment it was like we were two kids out of ear shot from the grown-ups and she had won the What’s grosser than gross? contest.

Last I asked her what comforts her when she’s ill and unable to enjoy food. It’s her husband’s hot toddy and she happily shared the recipe.

  • 1 shot bourbon or brandy
  • 1/4 fresh lemon
  • big glug of honey
  • nutmeg
  • boiling water to fill the mug

She will take this in bed along with her lap top and says she doesn’t miss a day of work.

 

 

Apricot Pie and Ruth Reichl

~ Katherine ~ Leave a comment

Dear Friends,

Last June I interviewed writer, chef, cookbook author, past restaurant critic for The New York Times, and past editor-in-chief of the sorely missed Gourmet magazine, Ruth Reichl (http://www.channel3000.com/madison-magazine/dining-drink/meeting-ruth-reichl/33385840). I believe I promised to only take 40 minutes of her time. At the end of those agreed upon minutes, she offered to continue our conversation as we had gotten on the subject of fresh apricots and how they signal the beginning of summer and how now it was time to bake them into a pie.

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Oh just slice them in half, Reichl began, remove their pits, but leave the skin on and lay them in a pie crust. Make a streusel topping, pour it over them and bake.

Just like that?  Voila?

But how do I make a streusel topping I wondered later when reviewing my notes. How long should the pie bake for?

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Spring came and went, summer too, fall, winter–all without a trace of apricot pie. And then, not too long ago, Reichl actually re-posted a recipe for her apricot pie on her blog: http://ruthreichl.com/ and it happens to also appear in her book, Comfort Me With Apples, which although I’ve read, I missed. I made it and my baking repertoire has since expanded to include this method for just about any stone fruits coming into their season this summer.

And it couldn’t be easier..

  • 2 pounds of apricots (Trust me, get more. When ripe, they are irresistible eaten out-of-hand.)
  • 1 stick of butter, melted
  • 3/4 cup brown sugar
  • 3/4 cup flour
  • pinch of salt
  • grating of fresh nutmeg

 

Preheat the oven to 425°.

Roll out your pie crust, or use the frozen kind (Hey, it’s summer and life should be easy, right?). Place crust in a 9-inch pie plate, then pop it into the freezer for 15-30 minutes. Remove from the freezer. Using your fingers, break the apricots in half (this is rustic living, y’all), remove pits, and lay them down all snug-like. 

On the stove top, over medium-low heat, melt the butter, then combine the brown sugar, flour, salt and nutmeg. Spoon this all over the apricots (Oh my…is right).

Bake for 10 minutes, then turn the oven temperature down to 375° and bake for another hour or so, until the fruit is bubbling and the top is nicely browned. Remove pie and allow to cool for at least an hour.

Serve with fresh cream drizzled on top.

By the way, in the summer 2016 issue of Saveur magazine which just arrived in the mail yesterday, there is an encouraging article (Sweet Slice of Summer) about making pies as a way of preserving the bounty of the summer harvest. Authors Mitchell Davis and Laurent Gras give such nurturing instructions as “A good rule of thumb when making pie dough: Stop working it sooner than you think.”

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Epicureously yours,

Kathy

 

 

 

 

 

 

Luscious Lemon Bombshell Cakes

~ Katherine ~ 3 Comments

The husband loves this cake. Of course he does, at the end of the day, you’ll wind up zesting and juicing around a dozen lemons. I was only experimenting with this one. I thought for sure he would reject the pucker of it all, so when he said, “This is my favorite lemon cake.” I couldn’t believe it. He’s right (don’t tell him I said so). This cake is delicious. It’s buxom–the Mae West of dessert.

Before we begin, I need to ask you: Do you have it in you to zest and juice, while muttering to yourself, “This is too much lemon!” “This better taste good–all this friggin’ zesting and juicing”?

Are you still in? Then “getcha getcha lips wet, cuz it’s time to have Pep. On your mark, get set, go, let me go, let me shoop…” (A little Salt ‘n’ Pepa rhyme for you.)

First you’ll notice 1/3 cup of zest. What? That’s too much. Can’t be right. Next up is the full cup of fresh-squeezed lemon juice. Is she out of her mind? She wants me to stir it into the batter at the end? That’s too much liquid. It won’t incorporate. It can’t!

Stay with me, Grasshopper. That’s just the cake. Then there’s the lemon soaking syrup and boiling it for an extra 5 minutes does indeed turn it a glorious shade of gold. And I’m going to ask you to poke holes in the still-warm cake and spoon this syrup over the top, soaking the cake, not once, but twice. No mas! you’ll cry out.

The cake is done once the icing (more fresh lemon juice and zest) is on the cake.

adapted from The Back in the Day Bakery Cookbook

  • 3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon fine sea salt
  • 3/4 cup buttermilk, at room temperature
  • 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
  • 1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
  • 2 cups granulated sugar
  • 5 large eggs
  • 1/3 cup grated lemon zest (from 4-5 large lemons)
  • 1 cup fresh lemon juice (from 5-6 large lemons)

For the lemon soaking syrup

  • 3/4  cup granulated sugar
  • 3/4 cup fresh lemon juice (another 5 lemons or so)

For the lemon icing

  • 2 cups confectioner sugar
  • 4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted
  • 1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
  • 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice

Before we do anything else, let’s take out our buttermilk and unsalted butter and bring to room temperature.

I made these into mini bundt cakes, but feel free to use two 9×5 inch loaf pans instead. Butter them and lightly dust them with flour. Preheat the oven to 350°.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk to combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and sea salt; set aside. In a large measuring cup or a small bowl, stir together the buttermilk and vanilla.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or in a large bowl, if using a hand mixer), cream the butter and granulated sugar for 7-10 minutes, until pale in color and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating just until each is incorporated, scraping down the sides of the bowl after each egg.

Add the flour mixture alternating with the buttermilk mixture in 3 additions, beginning and ending with the flour. Stir in the lemon zest and lemon juice.

Divide the batter evenly between the prepared pans and smooth the tops with a spatula. Tap the loaf pans firmly, but carefully (I still have pumpkin pie filling stains on my ceiling from Thanksgiving) on the table to remove any air bubbles from the batter.

Bake for 50 minutes to an hour. My mini bundt cakes took approximately 12-17 minutes to bake. Always stay near the kitchen and begin checking as soon as you smell something delicious baking.

Poke the cake with a toothpick. If it comes out clean (a few moist crumbs clinging to it is ideal) then the cakes are done. Cool the loaves in the pans for about 10 minutes (any longer and they will steam) then release them onto a cooling rack.

Make the lemon soaking syrup in a small pan on top of the stove. Combine the granulated sugar and the fresh lemon juice and cook over low heat while stirring often. Once the sugar dissolves, continue cooking until the syrup turns a deep golden yellow (and it will) in about 5 minutes.

When the loaves are cool enough to handle, place them on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Poke holes in the cake using either a fork, or if you have a wooden skewer on hand, use that. Pour the lemon soaking syrup all over the tops of the cakes. Repeat until the cakes are completely moistened. Let the loaves rest for at least 10 minutes so the syrup is absorbed.

To make the lemon icing, combine all but the juice at first into a small bowl. Stir until nicely blended together. Next slowly add enough of the lemon juice to make it smooth and creamy (I used 3-4 Tablespoons only). Use a spoon to drizzle the glaze over the tops of the loaves, allowing it to drip down over the sides.

A sprinkling of lemon zest over the top is a nice touch. Serve warm or at room temperature.

The loaves will keep wrapped in clear wrap at room temperature for up to 4 days.

Shoop, shoop ba-doop.

 

 

 

 

Perfect vanilla cake with best chocolate frosting

~ Katherine ~ 2 Comments

This is the one my family loves. This recipe has brought me peace of mind at last. It’s the reason I’ve called off the search for the perfect vanilla cake. I’ve found it. This cake, paired with this chocolate frosting, is the cake of my childhood dreams. This is the one, my friends. This is the one.

And the timing is just perfect. Over here at The Little Blue Apron, we are celebrating four years of sharing recipes and living a handcrafted, delicious life. Thank you, thank you! to all our followers. I can’t think of a better way to look back on the last four years than with a cold glass of milk and a slice of this cake! I can’t wait to offer you more vintage cake and classic cocktail recipes as well as basic French cooking techniques in the weeks, months and years ahead!

Golden Vanilla Cake

Adapted from King Arthur Flour

  • 2 cups granulated sugar
  • 3 1/4 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour
  • 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder *
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 3/4 cup unsalted butter, soft **
  • 1 1/4 cups milk, at room temperature
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 4 large eggs

* Test your baking powder. In Julia’s Kitchen Wisdom: Essential Techniques and Recipes from a Lifetime of Cooking, a neat little paperback book by Julia Child meant to be used as a quick reference, I learned to stir a teaspoon of baking powder into 1/2 cup of hot water. Says Julia, “If it doesn’t bubble up in a lively way, throw it out.”

**By the way, soft means soft. Not just room temperature, but seriously soft.

Take the butter out of the refrigerator first and cut it into chunks.

Preheat the oven to 350°. Lightly butter (use your fingers!)  and flour two 9″ round cake pans.

In the bowl of a stand mixer whisk (by hand) together the sugar, flour, baking powder, and salt.

Add the butter and beat (using the paddle attachment) at low speed until the mixture looks sandy.

Combine the vanilla and milk and add all at once. Mix at low speed for 30 seconds, then increase the speed to medium and beat for 30 seconds.

Scrape the bottom and sides of the mixing bowl.

With the mixer running at low speed, add 1 egg. Increase the speed to medium and beat for 30 seconds (until incorporated). Stop the mixer and scrape the bottom and sides.

Repeat the above steps with the remaining eggs, adding each one at a time.

After the fourth and last egg is added, scrape the bottom and sides once more, then beat at medium-high speed for an additional 30 seconds.

Pour the batter into the cake pans (I use a scale to weigh each pan after filling them, trying to get them as close to even as I can).

Bake about 25-27 minutes. I always begin testing after about 18 minutes or so (this is also around the time when I first begin to smell cake in the air). The cake is done when a toothpick inserted an inch from the middle comes out clean, when it’s a golden brown and just beginning to pull away from the edge of the pan.

Remove the cakes from the oven and place it on a rack to cool for 5 minutes before removing them from the pans. Left in the pans any longer and the cakes will begin to sweat and toughen.

Best Chocolate Frosting

  • 1 3/4 cups unsweetened baking cocoa
  • 1 1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar
  • 1 teaspoon espresso powder or 1 1/2 teaspoons instant espresso coffee)*
  • 1 cup heavy cream
  • 1 cup unsalted butter, very soft
  • 1/8 teaspoon fine sea salt
  • 2 cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted (this means, measure 2 cups then sift)
  • 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

*http://www.thekitchn.com/pantry-basics-what-is-espresso-41586

Take the butter out of the refrigerator, cut into chunks to soften.

Bring the cream to a gentle simmer on the stove.

Sift the cocoa, 1 1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar and espresso powder (or instant espresso coffee), into a bowl.

Whisk the warmed cream into the cocoa mixture.

At first the mixture will look grainy but keep on going, about a minute longer until it becomes smooth and silky.

You’ll see the lumps disappear as the sugar dissolves and the cocoa hydrates. Set aside to cool to room temperature.

Place the butter, salt and 2 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar into the bowl of a stand mixer. Using the paddle attachment, beat until the mixture is smooth and fluffy. Beat in the vanilla (30 seconds).

With the mixer running on low speed, add the cocoa mixture a spoonful at a time until it’s all incorporated. Thoroughly scrape the sides and bottom of bowl, then beat at medium speed for one more minute.

Fill and frost cake.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rhubarb, Vanilla, Orange, Ginger Compote

~ Katherine ~ 2 Comments

So much rhubarb in this week’s CSA basket.  I still haven’t dealt with last week’s offering.  Green apple hued stalks with blushes of pink are piling up in my refrigerator.  What to do….What to do…?

 

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I worked in a couple of flower shops during high school and most of college.  My very first day on the job, come to think of it, was around this time of year.  Putting together bouquets of fresh ruffly ranunculus, cabbage roses, delicate freesia was the main purpose of my job and I loved it.  Even though I was indoors, the doors of every shop I worked in were always left wide open this time of year bringing in the scent of a grandmother’s garden from pots set on racks out front.  Traditional and maternal lilac and hyacinth flavored spring mornings.  Many years later and I still can’t walk past one of those heavily perfumed lovelies without being taken back instantly to my hard-working teenage years.  There was a small tropical section too.  Red and pink Ginger, Birds of Paradise, heavy heads held up by long and thick stems arrived weekly from Hawaii, Mexico and South America.  Not a day went by that I didn’t wonder what it was like to live so far away–so tropically far away.

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This afternoon, in the quiet of my house, while the kids were in class counting down the final days left of school and the husband at work most likely counting down the hours until the three-day weekend, I was making a vanilla and orange-scented rhubarb compote with the zippy-zing of fresh ginger.  And the floral smells that linger in this kitchen as I write to you are taking me back to those days surrounded by so much beauty.

This was the first time I cooked with a vanilla bean.  It was not what I expected.  I sliced it open lengthwise looking to find seeds that I would then pop out.  Instead I found a dark, fragrant, gooey center.  I put my knife down and headed over to this site for a quick education on working with a vanilla bean http://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-use-a-whole-vanilla-bean-cooking-lessons-from-the-kitchn-181511

After I carefully scraped out all the precious insides with the back of my paring knife and added it to the pot, I tossed in the vanilla bean pod because I can be reckless like that.

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Between the aromatic vanilla and the fresh and lively ginger, my kitchen smelled like a flower shop.  Combined with the bright scent of orange and rhubarb, I feel like I spent the afternoon blissed out in a aromatherapy session.

This recipe is inspired by http://www.pbs.org/food/fresh-tastes/rhubarb-compote/

  • 1 pound rhubarb stalks, cut into 1-inch pieces
  • 2 -inch piece of ginger, peeled and finely grated (original recipe calls for 4-in–but that was a little too zingy for me)
  • 1/2 cup granulated sugar
  • Juice from 1/2 orange, or if squeezing by hand, use a whole orange
  • a few tablespoons of water

All ingredients into a medium-sized pot on top of the stove.  Begin on medium-low and stir gently until rhubarb becomes soft but still has its shape (5 minutes or so).  Turn the heat up to medium, and stir continually for about 10 minutes until it has the consistency of a puree.  Take off the heat and let cool in the pot before transferring to a jar.  Will keep in the fridge for up to 2 weeks.

Final note: I swirled some into a bowl of plain Greek yogurt with some raspberries and it nearly knocked my socks off.  Seriously, by the time I had finished, I was asking out loud, “Where are my socks?!”

Have the Day You’re Going to Have

~ Katherine ~ 4 Comments

 

 

I just got home from the pediatrician’s office where I learned my child, my will-play- baseball-every-day-of-his-ten-year-old-life-son, does not have a hernia (which I feared) but has a pulled groin from, you guessed it, playing baseball this past weekend.

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radish greens, chives, ramps — all in season right now

Before checking him over, the young, female doctor describes to my fourth grader how she is going to perform a procedure on him wherein she will be feeling his testicles and scrotum for a hernia.

“Do you know what I’m talking about?” she asks him.  And when he gives her a look of complete ignorance, she looks at me and says, “Okay if I use lay terms?”

“Sure,” I say, shrinking in my seat, feeling terrible that I neglected to teach my middle child the basic terms related to his body.

“Balls.” she says quite clinically, “I’m going to be checking your balls.”  To which my son cracks up.  “And then I’ll have to feel around your ballsack while asking you to cough.”

On the drive home he says, “I knew what those words were, I just wanted to hear her say ‘balls’.”

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This was my morning, and I had a completely different story in mind to share with you.  A much more appropriate segue into the simple salad I’ve been enjoying the past few days.

But at this stage in my life, enjoying a salad, made with the young, tender greens that showed up in last week’s farm basket (CSA) somehow coincides with balls.  So be it.

I dressed our salad so simply using the Mustard-Shallot Vinaigrette recipe that I found online at The New York Times Cooking section.  I lightly poured it over the greens and then mixed it gently with my hands (ala April Bloomfield), ensuring every leaf got its fair share.

  • 1 shallot, minced
  • 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
  • 2 heaping teaspoons Dijon mustard ( I feel two regular teaspoons are more than enough.)
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper
  • 1 cup extra virgin olive oil, more to taste

My tip is to combine these ingredients in a 2-cup glass measuring cup.  Add the shallot, vinegar and salt first — the vinegar will help dissolve the salt.  Then proceed with the remaining ingredients.  Pour into a jar with a tight-fitting lid and then give a shake over the sink (I like to play it safe — I do not want to have to clean up olive oil off the tile floor.)

One other note is that, as I also mentioned a while back, I once had the pleasure to sit in on a news conference with Alice Waters of California’s Chez Panisse restaurant http://thelittleblueapron.com/2014/03/31/the-pleasure-of-work-what-i-learned-from-alice-waters and learned that after washing and carefully drying her lettuces she spreads them out on a sheet pan and chills them in the refrigerator before dressing them.

That’s love.

Roasted Cherry Tomatoes

~ Katherine ~ Leave a comment

 

I will be picking up my first CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) share of the year tomorrow.  I’m both excited and apprehensive about this.  As you know, it’s a commitment to cook and eat whatever is harvested each week and I don’t want to waste any of it.

The arrival of our first basket from the farm means spring is really here.  Days are becoming more and more filled with light.  Tiny leaves on the tree outside my kitchen window are beginning to unfurl.  I’m hearing birds sing at 5 am and I’m remembering how good spring feels on my body and how it makes me feel so very reassured that nature is paying attention.

These past few days I’ve been lingering over recipes that make the most of the early crops — tender lettuces, blushing stalks of rhubarb and rambunctious ramps.  I know you are too!  Salads tossed with olive oil, wine vinegar and lemon juice (maybe a spoonful of Dijon mustard), pesto, and rhubarb freezer jam is all I’m really after.  No fuss.  We must make quick work of these fleeting vegetables!

But before we begin celebrating everything green, I really want to share how easy it is to roast cherry tomatoes and how this method satisfied my craving for a taste of warm weather in the waning days of winter.

Roasted Cherry Tomatoes

  • 1 pint of cherry tomatoes, rinsed, dried with a clean towel
  • 1 – 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • kosher salt
  • a head of garlic (optional), cloves separated, their papery peels left on

Preheat your oven to 450 degrees.  Place tomatoes and garlic cloves, if using, onto a sheet pan.  Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt.  Roast until tomatoes are blistered and beginning to burst, about 20-25 minutes.

After the tomatoes are done, turn off the oven, but use the leftover heat to toast a few slices of baguette — lay them directly onto the oven grates.  Remove from the oven when they are a color you want to eat.

Smash a fresh garlic clove, rub it all over the top-sides of the hot toast.  Brush with olive oil, add the tomatoes, squeeze the roasted garlic onto the toast, releasing their sweetness from the peels.  Dollop a bit of ricotta cheese. Drizzle with a little more olive oil and perhaps a slight splash of balsamic vinegar.