Give It Away Now

~ Katherine ~ 4 Comments

 

Back in November of this year, I wrote a post about Banana Bread, a Spoon and Some Bourbon and probably the best recipe I found for it.  It called for Bourbon, an ingredient I didn’t have on hand, nor did I keep it in the house at the time.  I made it without and it was delicious.  But I have some now, some Bourbon and last week I baked a couple of mini loaves with it and it’s good.  The banana flavor is more concentrated, more caramel-y.   And, this may be the Bourbon talking, but more in love with this recipe am I.

Here’s a problem  opportunity.  I love to bake.  Why?  For the good, good smells it puts in my house.  Aromas that wipe out, if only momentarily, the stink of football equipment and teenage sneakers.  For the meditative quality–I cannot talk to /think about you, this or that because I’m measuring, kneading, counting, and God help me–figuring out some stuff that looks a lot like math in my head–temperatures, timing, doubling and what not.

For the challenge of producing something that will take me back to the comforts of my mother’s kitchen.  But baking a couple times a week means indulging in too much of a good thing and therein lies the problem  opportunity to give it away.  And so in a moment of enlightenment (probably from all that baking meditation I’ve done) I figure that I need to spread the love –give half of everything I bake away.

But I can’t do it alone and I need you to write to me and tell me who could use a little something sweet in their day.  So here’s my thought.  I’ll bake and then post the offering on The Little Blue Apron’s Facebook page.  You private message me (first “Like” my page to be sure to get my updates) with your top pick of who needs a sweet pick-me-up and I’ll deliver it before 3pm that day with a note from you (on a little birdie note card) unless you prefer to remain anonymous.

Here’s what happiness looked like last week.

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That’s all.  That’s One Love y’all.

Kat

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Swirls of Ice Cream & Rainbow Sprinkles

~ Katherine ~ 4 Comments

What’s been going on in my kitchen lately?  A lot of dreaming along with quick looks of longing from me in the direction of my silent stand mixer.  Warm August afternoons when I didn’t dare turn on the oven.  Long days that turned quickly into nights of cool sheets gathered around my exhausted body.

Chatter of children growing older.  Sons making reasonable arguments for more independence and freedom from their mother’s watchful eyes.   And the youngest, the daughter, in a daring feat on the monkey bars miscalculating a brave leap across four bars and breaking her arm completely.   A playground accident setting off a long night of ambulance rides and emergency rooms.   An open fracture requiring surgery at four am and a three-day stay in a children’s hospital.  Casted from her hand to her shoulder in mid-July.  A summer of swimming and soccer ends abruptly, becomes one of inside art projects, card games along with her intermittent melt-downs ending in tears.

Imprisoned in fiberglass, she shouts

“It’s hot!”

“It itches!”

And rubbing it hard back and forth against the kitchen table where I sit trying to describe something I had eaten recently for the magazine, she rages, “I want this off!”

And the boys, the 10-year-old and the 14-year-old talking over her, at me, telling me that they are leaving, heading off somewhere to ride their bikes.

The door slams shut.  I don’t think I heard what they said–where they were going.  But now my broken 8-year-old has climbed into an awkward pile upon my lap.  And I rock her while looking for a place against my body where I might keep her arm safe.

Why didn’t I make something in the kitchen with her?  In all that time we spent together in the cool house?  I don’t know. I thought about it.  But this summer, comfort didn’t come in the form of creating meals together.  In moments of calm, it came in swirls of ice cream and rainbow sprinkles.

 

 

 

 

 

Lemonade Wisconsin-style by way of cherry pie

~ Katherine ~ Leave a comment

 

 

I kept the juice from the cherries I bought to supplement the cherries given to me by a neighbor from her tree.  I should’ve made a straight-up cherry pie which is what I was craving, but the husband doesn’t like cherry pie, so I looked for a compromise.

There in my Pie:300 Tried-and-True Recipes for Delicious Homemade Pie book was a recipe for Dense Cherry-Almond Coffeecake Pie.  I figured I like coffee cake.  He likes coffee cake and the cherries would be so dispersed throughout that he could easily avoid them.  So I set to work on an all-butter crust, in the middle of a humid August afternoon, with the kitchen windows open.  I know, I know, all you pie crust makers out there.  What was I thinking?  See photo.  I don’t even want to talk about it.

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I will tell you that I egg-washed the crust to death to fill in the cracks hoping only at that point to save my back from all the scrubbing I would have to do to get a whole mess of leaked-out, cooked cake filling off the pie plate later.

As for the finished pie.  They say anything in a pie crust is delicious and I say, Delicious?  No.  Passable for a few mornings with coffee?  Sure.  And now I am a proponent of keeping your coffee cake separate from your pie.

Back to the cherry juice.  I made lemonade for the kids the other day and right before I served it to them in their little cups with paper straws (Pizzazz!), I added a good splash of sweet cherry juice (Double pizzazz!).

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After taking their first sips, Long live the Queen!–they chanted wildly.

One of, if not the very first recipes I clipped our first summer living in the Midwest was for, romantically so, fresh-squeezed lemonade. and is called Carson Gulley’s lemonade.  Mr. Gulley was head chef of the University of Wisconsin-Madison from 1927-1954 and had his own weekly cooking show, “What’s Cooking” on local television.

The recipe is for a full gallon, but here’s my version, cut in half.

Begin with four lemons and 3/4 cup of granulated sugar.   Thinly slice one of the lemons and place in a pitcher with the sugar.  Using a wooden spoon, lightly press the lemons into the sugar.  Leave rest for 30 minutes.

Speaking of rest…while the lemon slices and sugar are getting to know each other, I’ll be reading a book in my favorite chair outside beneath my favorite tree.

After 30 minutes is up, juice the remaining three lemons into the pitcher.  It’s easy to catch the seeds if you squeeze your lemons into a small strainer over the mouth of the pitcher.

Finally add enough water and ice to fill the pitcher (a half-gallon).

You have successfully captured one of summer’s fleeting moments!  Enjoy!

 

 

Last night’s last-minute pasta dinner

~ Katherine ~ 1 Comment

 

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Last night’s dinner was thrown together around 6:30 when everyone was beginning to get fidgety, taking turns opening the refrigerator door and cabinets.  Since I hadn’t had anything planned, I did the most sensible thing I know and set a pot of water on the stove to boil while I opened a box of spaghetti–the one ingredient the whole family can agree on (some will have it with butter, some with salt, another with olive oil and salt).  Then I began to look around for what would satisfy me.

I saw a couple of ripe tomatoes from our CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) share sitting on a dish on the kitchen table.  Next to them, a few stems of fresh basil I picked from our garden the other morning and arranged in a recycled jam jar, which got me thinking that I still had some of last summer’s pesto in the freezer.

Since I had frozen the pesto without the cheese and butter, a tip I learned from Marcella Hazen in her book Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking I got to grating a wedge of local SarVecchio Parmesan cheese from The Sartori Family of Wisconsin and began softening a couple tablespoons of butter.  The frozen cubes of pesto, parmesan and butter, I placed near the simmering pot of water, using the heat to warm it all nicely together.

In the meantime, I roughly chopped a couple of tomatoes and placed them in a large bowl.  Before I drained the pasta I added some of the pasta water to the pesto mixture a couple of tablespoons at a time, mixing it together until I had a nice not too thick, not too thin consistency.

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I placed the hot spaghetti on top of the fresh tomatoes, spooned the pesto, cheese and butter mixture on top and gave it all a gentle toss.

Within an hour, dinner was served.  The kids ate their bowls of pasta plain or buttered or oiled however they liked along with some string cheese on the side.  They munched on sweet carrots from our CSA while chatting to each other about this and that.

The husband had had a big lunch that afternoon so picked on a few carrots and called it a night.

Everyone seemed content and I got to eat something I enjoyed, so I called it a good night.

 

 

 

 

 

A 1970-Something Summer

~ Katherine ~ Leave a comment

 

 

When I was little and it was summer, I would run.  Run to get where I needed to go.  I was always up for a game of tag–of running bases between the sturdy poles of the clothesline.  I would run barefoot over the grass for as long as I could (before the grown-ups would insist I put my shoes back on).

You would think with all this running that I grew up on acres somewhere in the country.  But I didn’t.  I am from a small backyard, squished between two other small backyards each with their own secret things.

One side of my yard was a wooden wall–the color of mint chocolate chip ice cream.  It was the wall of the neighbor’s garage.  We had pussy willow growing against it.  And one day, Nick ran too fast–tumbled right into those woody branches and got one caught in his leg.  I followed him inside, while holding my ears against his screams as the flustered moms, interrupted of their coffee and cigarettes, pulled it out.

There was a low fence (made of chicken wire, maybe?) that lined the backside of the yard.  Along it grew our vegetable garden–peppers, tomatoes, eggplants.  This fence was not sturdy, and any strong, lithe and backyard-wise girl of eight or so, knew instinctively not to climb it.

The third side was built of a rusty cyclone fence softened with sweet, yellow and white honeysuckle. This belonged to Grandma and Grandpa.  Just on the other side grew rose bushes, blue hydrangeas and delicate Lily of the Valley–pretty things that don’t belong where children play.

Most days I was happy enough contained within a space of those sweet honeysuckle, blades of grass, bitter dandelion, and blushing clover.  I tasted it all, took sips from the hose and delighted in my self-sufficiency.  I didn’t know it then of course, but I was learning how to feed myself.

 

 

 

 

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.

Let it Snow, I’ll Eat Peas Anyway

~ Katherine ~ Leave a comment

It’s spring in the Midwest and therefore snow is falling in flurries.  Frosty stars punctuate the tangled curls in my hair and tickle my eye lashes.  At the same time, robins play on the tender lawn and squirrels hop along paint-chipped fence posts.

There is not a single fresh pea to be found just yet and that’s okay.  Fresh mint is wrapped in bundles at the grocery store and the frozen aisle has the little green morsels that I am craving.

This dish was more than I expected.  I was ready to welcome the lightness of the broth, the daintiness of the pasta, the grassiness of ricotta and the wakefulness of mint.  But I got so much more when, following the recipe, I added to the broth the full amount of cooked pasta.  It became less of a soup and more of a heartier couscous dish.  And you know what?  It was perfect.  Just right for this time of year that seems to want to hold on a bit longer to the chill, even as nights grow shorter.

With my leftovers, I’ll top it off with a poached egg, bring on that cracked pepper, that drizzle of olive oil and feel my weary winter bones soften into spring.

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Fregola with Green Peas, Mint, and Ricotta

Bon Appétit, April 2015

4 servings

  • 1 1/4 cups fregola (I used acini di pepe, or as I grew up calling it: acini di peep!)
  • kosher salt
  • 2 Tbsp. olive oil, plus more for serving
  • 2 oz. bacon (about 3 slices), chopped
  • 1 medium onion, chopped
  • 1 cup dry white wine (Sauvignon Blanc is a good one)
  • 2 1/2 cups low-sodium chicken broth (I like Swanson’s unsalted cooking chicken stock if I’m out of my own)
  • Freshly ground black pepper
  • 1 cup shelled fresh peas (from about 1 lb. pods) or frozen peas, thawed
  • 2 Tbsp. chopped fresh mint, plus leaves for serving
  • 4 oz. ricotta

First cook the pasta in a large pot of boiling water (watch it doesn’t boil over) until very al dente.  Start tasting after 4 minutes or so.  Scoop out about a cup of the pasta cooking liquid, then drain the pasta.  Do not rinse.  Put the pasta in a bowl right away, otherwise it will stick to the strainer and that’s a pain.

Heat 2 Tbsp. olive oil in a large skillet over medium and cook bacon, stirring often, until bacon is brown around the edges, about 5 minutes.  Add onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until bacon is crisp and onion is translucent, about 5 minutes.

Use these times as a guide only.  Use your senses to be sure. (Including smell — if you’re paying attention, your nose will tell you when something is about to go from golden to burnt.)

Add wine, bring to a simmer, and cook until skillet is almost dry, about 5 minutes.  Add broth and bring to a simmer.  Add pasta a little at a time, stopping when you feel it’s enough, and cook, stirring often, until pasta is just al dente and broth is thickened, about 5 minutes.

Taste and season with salt and pepper.  Add peas and chopped mint and cook, stirring until peas are warmed through, about 2 minutes.  Add pasta cooking liquid as needed to adjust consistency (I didn’t need any).

Here’s my favorite part!  Serve topped with ricotta, mint, cracked pepper and drizzled with olive oil.

Radish

~ Katherine ~ 1 Comment

When’s the last time someone told you everything will be alright?  Or maybe it wasn’t so much what she said but how she made you feel so very cared for at her kitchen table.  How she set before you a plate of crusty bread buttered and dressed with slices of blushing radishes.  The little salt she sprinkled sparkled in the small afternoon light, encouraged the crisp coins of white to glisten.  With every bite the wrinkles in your mind began to smooth.  How you ate eagerly, the two of you framed by the kitchen window.  And you felt warm with gratitude, despite Spring’s snow frosting the lawn.   You realized only later, after you had returned home, she never asked if you were hungry.