Diet for a Small Apartment

Farmer's Market Haul, 7/3/10

2010-07-03T19:39:00.000-04:00

Super-big midsummer haul!

VEGGIES
yellow crookneck squash
squash blossoms
red carrots
lemon cucumbers
maroon snap peas
flat-leafed parsley
bush basil
onions
Rocambole garlic (with attached scape!)

FRUIT
black currants
golden raspberries
apricots
Tristar strawberries

OTHER
milk from Milk Thistle Farm
yogurt from Milk Thistle Farm
butter from Ronnybrook Farm
mozzarella from Tonjes Farm
eggs from Flying Pig Farm
hot Italian sausage from Grazin' Angus Acres (for July 4th, just doing our patriotic duty!)
goldenrod honey from Tremblay apiaries

Friday cat blogging, true love edition

2010-07-02T15:48:00.007-04:00

This is still Oscar's favorite rug, even when it's rolled up to make way for a little house cleaning.

Thursday: It's been so long, beans

2010-07-01T20:07:00.020-04:00

Long beans cooked with mustard seeds and red pepper, served with toor dal and basmati rice.

It's been quite a while since long beans last appeared on the blog - but it'd be more often if we could find them more frequently! These relatives of black-eyed peas have a deep, delicious flavor with less of the harsh greennness of green string beans, and have an almost dry but chewy texture. In this recipe from Madhur Jaffrey's World of the East, they were flavored with asafoetida, mustard seeds, cumin, toasted urad dal, dried red chilies and cayenne pepper, and at the end of cooking we added grated coconut. If you have those ingredients on hand, you could try this preparation with normal green beans too. We really loved this dish.

Farmer's Market Supplement, 7/1/10

2010-07-01T14:56:00.007-04:00

Today Lizz picked up yellow sweet cherries from the Columbia greenmarket. (Not Queen Anne cherries, the ones that are bright yellow with blush-red patches - these are a different variety which are a solid, slightly translucent light yellow.)

Wednesday: Trouts and tarts

2010-06-30T21:00:00.014-04:00

Rainbow trout baked with fennel, carrot and sweet peppers.

We improvised this bake to take advantage of the sweet, fatty flavor of upstate rainbow trout, which bears some resemblance to salmon. (On the basis of that resemblance, we also added a generous amount of dill.) We sauteed the vegetables with some onion before layering them over the fish in a casserole, and then baked it at 350F for about fifteen minutes. We probably could have gotten away with a minute or two less - but this all depends on the size of the fish.

We also had a special dessert tonight: a red currant tart, cooked in the brand new ramekins we acquired thanks to Giselle's end-of-law-school Westlaw Points redemption extravaganza.

Farmer's Market Supplement, 6/30/10

2010-06-30T13:33:00.010-04:00

Today's supplement, from the Union Square Wednesday greenmarket: eggs, three whole rainbow trout, sweet yellow and purple peppers, green and purple long beans (!), red raspberries, black raspberries, and red sweet cherries.

Tuesday: Spaghetti alla carbonara....sort of

2010-06-29T20:27:00.016-04:00

"Spaghetti alla carbonara" with summer squash.

This recipe, from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything, substitutes summer squash and an onion for the bacon or pancetta that gives spaghetti alla carbonara its artery-clogging goodness. Never fear, cholesterol lovers: this recipe still calls for some eggs and Parmesan, so we trust it's not TOO healthy.

Monday: Re-Roti

2010-06-28T20:34:00.028-04:00

Warm black-eyed pea and golden chard salad, served with roti.

Elizabeth Schneider's Vegetables: From Amaranth to Zucchini attributes this recipe to Cyprus. Chard leaves and stems are just simmered briefly and tossed with black-eyed peas, lemon juice, and olive oil. We were enamored of the roti we made on Friday (why haven't we made it in so long??) so we made another short stack. Roti is really not that hard:

ROTI

Put 1 cup whole wheat flour into a bowl, and slowly add up to 1/2 cup water, mixing until the dough adheres and you can knead it. Knead 7-8 minutes. Then roll into a ball, put it back in the bowl, and cover with a damp cloth. Leave it there for 1/2 hour to 3 hours.

Put a cast iron skillet on a medium flame to let it heat up. Meanwhile, knead the dough again and then divide it into eight balls. Roll each one out on a floured board until it's about five inches in diameter (it should be pretty thin). Then place each roti directly on the skillet and within about 30 seconds it should start to puff up. If this doesn't happen, the griddle probably isn't hot enough yet. Flip the roti and let the other side cook about 30 seconds again. Remove and gorge.

PS: this recipe, from Madhur Jaffrey's Invitation to Indian Cooking, is technically for "chapati." But that is apparently the same as roti.

Farmer's Market Supplement, 6/26/10

2010-06-26T14:49:00.012-04:00

VEGGIES
fennel
golden chard
Treviso radicchio
zucchini
spinach
spearmint
onions
Rocambole garlic

FRUIT
sweet cherries
black raspberries
purple gooseberries
red currants

OTHER
milk from Milk Thistle Farm
chocolate milk from Milk Thistle Farm

Friday: Caldo Verde

2010-06-25T21:51:00.018-04:00

Caldo verde, made with lamb's quarters.

"Caldo verde" is a Goan, Portuguese-influenced dish, which calls for kale along with the potatoes, but here we substituted lamb's quarters instead. You basically simmer the vegetables together for a long time and then puree - the only seasoning is onion and a huge amount of garlic. It had a very thick, viscous texture because of the starch of the new potatoes.

We also made fresh roti - an unleavened flat bread, cooked on a cast-iron skillet - as an accompaniment.

Thursday: Barley salad

2010-06-24T15:47:00.019-04:00

Pearl barley salad with summer squash and almonds.

This tasty grain salad actually included two types of summer squash: some left-over Cousas, as well as the shiny green "avocado" squash. You can see the distinctly yellow flesh of the avocado squash in the picture above. Up until now, we had really only used barley in soups, but we thought its chewy texture was nice here punctuated by crunchy red onions and toasted almonds.

Farmer's Market Supplement, 6/24/10

2010-06-24T11:26:00.009-04:00

Today's supplement from the Columbia greenmarket: fava beans, "avocado" (or "Korean") squash, whole wheat sourdough bread from Buon Pane, milk and yogurt from Ronnybrook Farm, red sweet cherries and blueberries.

Tuesday: "Snow" peas?? In the middle of June? Take that, Al Gore!

2010-06-22T21:12:00.015-04:00

Stir-fry of purple snow peas, carrots, crimini mushroom and tofu, served over rice.

If you have vegetable odds and ends on hand, a stir fry is usually within reach. We actually bought these beautiful purple snow peas in contemplation of a stir fry, so we picked up some mushrooms as well.

Monday: Summer squash for a summer night

2010-06-21T20:48:00.003-04:00

Yogurt with cousa squash.

In this World of the East recipe, Madhur Jaffrey directs you to cook shredded summer squash with onion and mustard seeds, and then stir the mixture into yogurt. It's a bit like a large raita or a yogurt and cucumber soup - appropriate for a very hot day.

Sunday: Simmered flounder and kohlrabi

2010-06-20T20:39:00.023-04:00

Simmered flounder with sauteed kohlrabi shreds and white rice.

This fish recipe comes from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything, although it was intended for a whole fish rather than a fillet. Garlic, ginger, soy sauce, sesame oil and vinegar are brought to boil in a shallow skillet, then lowered to a simmer and the fish is added and cooked for ten minutes. For the simplicity of the recipe, we actually thought this fish turned out beautifully - simmering on only one side of the fillet produced a pleasant "crust" of strong flavor. The shredded kohlabi was just sauteed with a little ginger to serve as a crunchy foil. It would probably have been a bit plain on its own, but it went well with the strongly sesame-flavored fish.

Farmer's Market Supplement, 6/20/10

2010-06-20T14:19:00.004-04:00

A small supplement from the Columbia greenmarket: flounder from Pura Vida, strawberries, and purple kohlrabi.

Saturday lunch: Saag story

2010-06-19T14:33:00.041-04:00

Saag and hulled moong dal, served with basmati rice.

We're a little shocked that we haven't made saag for an entire year, since it's a classic and one of our favorite comfort foods. It can take many forms: made with spinach (as we did here) or some other local greens; pureed or merely cooked down to a soft texture; studded with paneer, meat, or something more unconventional, like tofu. This spinach had a particularly deep, rich flavor - it seemed to be a different variety than the usual one you find in salad mixes, as it had slightly lance-shaped, angular leaves.

Dessert was this beautiful bowl of black raspberries (not the same as blackberries), which are so soft and easily ruined in transit that they are hard to find in grocery stores, but are widely available at the farmer's market during this season:

Farmer's Market Haul, 6/19/10

2010-06-19T12:34:00.003-04:00

VEGGIES
lamb's quarters
red snow peas
new potatoes
multicolored carrots
Cousa squash
crimini mushrooms

FRUIT
black raspberries
Queen Anne cherries
apricots

OTHER
milk from Milk Thistle Farm
yogurt from Milk Thistle Farm
Russian Olive honey (apparently similar in taste to Tupelo honey, which is only made in Georgia and Florida)
more beeswax lip balm (good stuff!)

Farmer's Market Supplement, 6/17/10

2010-06-17T14:40:00.002-04:00

From the Columbia greenmarket: spinach, shelling peas, and cherries.

Thursday: Twist and trout

2010-06-10T20:32:00.015-04:00

Puntarella salad with smoked trout and lemon juice, served over quinoa.

We spiced up our normal puntarella salad by substituting smoked trout for the usual anchovy. This truly delicious trout from Max Creek Hatchery comes in the form of a whole fish, which can be flaked into a salad or eaten over toast. We highly recommend it to our New York readers.

Wednesday: Mind your p(ea shoot)s and q(uiche)s

2010-06-09T21:30:00.015-04:00

Pea shoot quiche.

You can make a quiche approximate a balanced meal by adding in a generous quantity of greens, as we did here. You may want to precook any greens that will release liquid, so that they don't change the baking time. Same goes for frittatas.

Farmer's Market Supplement, 6/9/10

2010-06-09T13:38:00.008-04:00

Mini-supplement from Union Square Wednesday: cherries, eggs, and one packaged whole smoked trout from Max Creek Hatchery.

Tuesday: Gingery watercress-topped tofu

2010-06-08T20:27:00.018-04:00

Gingery wild watercress-topped tofu.

This recipe comes from Elizabeth Schneider's Vegetables from Amaranth to Zucchini: we simmered tofu slices in a mixture of dashi, soy sauce and sesame oil, and then set the tofu aside. The cresses were tossed in a bowl with cornstarch and a little sugar, and then added to a skillet in which we had already fried ginger and scallion. Finally we added the stock back in and allowed it to thicken, adding sesame seeds as a final touch.

Sunday: Pea is for porgy

2010-06-06T21:24:00.013-04:00

Pan-fried porgy, served with peas with mint.

Fresh shelling peas are a refreshing treat at this time of year - they don't need much other than a very brief saute in butter, and here we added some fresh spearmint and a little sugar to play up their sweetness.

Farmer's Market Supplement, 6/6/10

2010-06-06T14:04:00.002-04:00

Supplement from the Columbia market: porgy from Pura Vida Fisheries.

Saturday: The other "C" word

2010-06-05T20:21:00.016-04:00

Delfino cilantro pesto.

As we mentioned previously, we recently learned that the original pesto may in fact have been cilantro rather than basil. When we picked up this lacy varietal of cilantro, we decided we'd try taking pesto back to its roots.

Otherwise, this is just a standard pesto with Parmesan, garlic, walnuts and a generous amount of olive oil. Despite her cilantrophobia, Lizz gave this dish her seal of approval.

Farmer's Market Haul, 6/5/10

2010-06-05T13:06:00.004-04:00

VEGGIES
pea shoots
puntarella
Delfino cilantro
kentucky spearmint
garlic scapes

FRUIT
cherries
rhubarb

OTHER
milk and yogurt from Milk Thistle Farm

Friday: An oldie but a goodie

2010-06-04T19:19:00.015-04:00

Cucumber-purslane salad with chickpeas and pink radish.

This is our first purslane of the season - we like to make this cool salad with it, dressed in some lemon juice and olive oil.

Farmer's Market Supplement, 6/4/10

2010-06-04T13:38:00.000-04:00

From the Union Square market: wild watercress, shelling peas, and San Francisco sourdough bread.

Thursday: Jackson Pollock soup

2010-06-03T21:15:00.028-04:00

Chilled sorrel and spinach soup (with a little drizzled yogurt).

For this recipe, the greens are simmered together for about five minutes:

The sorrel turned a pretty olive-green color after a few minutes in the pot.

When the greens are soft, they are pureed. Finally, the soup is reheated and thickened with a little cornstarch, and flavored with some nutmeg, lemon juice and a little zest. As you can see above, we "decoratively" drizzled in a bit of yogurt to serve.

Farmer's Market Supplement, 6/3/10

2010-06-03T14:30:00.006-04:00

Today's supplement: spinach, purslane, "burpless" cucumbers, eggs and cheddar cheese from Millport Dairy, milk and yogurt from Ronnybrook Farm, and strawberries.

Wednesday: Udon and fishballs

2010-06-02T20:12:00.033-04:00

Sardine "meatball" soup with pink Asian radish, mibuna and udon noodles.

We found this recipe for a noodle soup with mibuna, which is apparently a characteristic vegetable of Kyoto, Japan. The meatballs are made of chopped sardine (we used tinned, but fresh would probably have produced a better texture), flour, miso paste and ginger. The vegetables are simmered in a dashi broth, and then the "meatballs" are added and simmered until they are warmed through. The soup broth is finally flavored with a bit more miso.

Dashi is one of the basic ingredients in Japanese cuisine - it is a stock made of simmered seaweed and bonito fish flakes. We purchased an "instant" dried dashi powder to save a little labor, but one of these days we should probably invest in the real ingredients. For what it's worth, we had been making miso soup for years with just miso paste added to the water, and it REALLY is better with the dashi.

Monday: Springtime standard

2010-05-31T21:08:00.014-04:00

Roasted asparagus with a white bean salad with almond, scallions and dill.

Farmer's Market Haul, 5/29/10

2010-05-29T13:16:00.000-04:00

VEGGIES
mibuna
asparagus
scallions
sorrel
long pink Asian radishes

FRUIT
strawberries
sweet cherries!

OTHER
milk and yogurt from Milk Thistle Farm
buttermilk from Tonjes Farm Dairy
"Rambler" aged farmstead cheese from Tonjes Farm Dairy
eggs
whole wheat levain bread

Thursday: Left behind

2010-05-27T21:05:00.015-04:00

Fried rice with bok choy, garlic chives and pink radishes.

Lizz was out of town for her college reunion, so I threw together an easy dinner which had the bonus of using up leftover rice: a quick stir-fry of day-old rice and fresh veggies, with a beaten egg mixed in to transform it into fried rice.

Farmer's Market Supplement, 5/26/10

2010-05-26T14:54:00.001-04:00

On the way home from bar review, just picked up a bunch of bok choy from the Union Square Wednesday market.

Monday: A frittata for Caitlin (in spirit)

2010-05-24T20:03:00.015-04:00

Broccoli rabe frittata.

We quickly blanched the broccoli rabe for this recipe before mixing it into the eggs and cheese and putting it in to bake.

Farmer's Market Supplement, 5/24/10

2010-05-24T15:45:00.002-04:00

A little supplement from the Union Square Monday greenmarket: green garlic, strawberries, and organic spelt bread from Bread Alone.

Sunday: Tentacle tagine

2010-05-23T20:59:00.033-04:00

Squid and chickpea tagine, served over couscous.

We modified this recipe from Paul Johnson's Fish Forever. This was our first experience cooking squid at home, and we have deemed it a success. Squid is tricky - it has a tendency to get too tough and chewy, because the proteins in the tissue can form tight bonds when it's cooked. To compensate, Paul Johnson says you must either cook it extremely briefly over high heat (so that the tissue doesn't have enough time to toughen up) or for a very long time over low heat (so that it tightens, but then becomes soft again over a long period of cooking).

This tagine, a North African stew, employs the second method, allowing the chopped squid to simmer until it is tender and has picked up the flavor of the spices in the tomato broth.

Farmer's Market Supplement, 5/23/10

2010-05-23T18:41:00.000-04:00

Supplement from the Columbia market: red radishes, milk and yogurt from Milk Thistle Farm, eggs, sun cheese from Raindance Farm, and cleaned squid.

Farmer's Market Haul, 5/22/10

2010-05-22T13:41:00.010-04:00

VEGGIES
garlic chives
broccoli rabe
yellow potatoes
mixed lettuce
lamb's quarters
onions

OTHER
trefoil honey
beeswax lip balm (! from the honey place, of course.)

Friday: Cold cuke salad

2010-05-21T20:56:00.017-04:00

Cucumber-dill-yogurt salad.

This was our improvised cool dinner for a rather hot evening. We ate it with some crusty bread and Pawlet cheese, and followed up with strawberries. It's quite similar to this soup, except we didn't bother with marination and didn't add quite as much liquid.

These "burpless" cucumbers had a funny gradient-like coloration.

Friday cat blogging, baghab edition

2010-05-21T14:59:00.005-04:00

Oscar finally kicked the box habit, but sadly now he's into bags.

Thursday: Asparagus pasta

2010-05-20T21:54:00.015-04:00

Whole-wheat pasta with purple asparagus and Parmesan, tossed with lemon.

After many weeks of being foiled by the early-morning greenmarket shoppers, we finally got our hands on some beautiful purple asparagus.

yes, asparagus too can be purple.

Elizabeth Schneider, in her Vegetable Book, claims that she has found purple asparagus to be uniformly good, and indeed we thought this bunch was particularly sweet and tasty. It was good in this pasta, but if you happen to get your hands on some we recommend that you just roast it and eat it plain in order to experience its full flavor.

Farmer's Market Supplement, 5/20/10

2010-05-20T13:29:00.002-04:00

Today's supplement: just milk from Ronnybrook Farm.

Wednesday: Yet another vegetable that can be purple, continued

2010-05-19T20:49:00.018-04:00

Stir-fry of purple bok choy, tofu, and roasted cashews.

Bok choy (which you may also encounter as "pak choi" or other variations thereof) is yet another member of the illustrious brassica dynasty. We think all the brassica go well with cashews, so we roasted a few and threw them in to this improvised stir-fry, which was also flavored with garlic, ginger, and soy sauce.

We couldn't let these particular bok choy go because they were purple:

We had never encountered this color before. Like many purple veggies, these leaves shed their color into the dish during cooking. As you can see up top, the tofu ended up a little worse (or maybe just weirder) for the wear.

Farmer's Market Supplement, 5/19/10

2010-05-19T13:22:00.003-04:00

Today's supplement, from the Wednesday Union Square market: purple asparagus and purple bok choy, strawberries, and eggs.

Tuesday: Tamago

2010-05-18T21:13:00.020-04:00

Tamago (Japanese sweet omelet) with mizuna in sesame oil and soba noodles.

Mizuna is a type of mustard green which originated in China, but is most commonly found in Japanese cuisine. Smaller leaves can be eaten raw, but large mizuna benefits from cooking, and - like other mustards - can stand up to braising or boiling. We boiled this mizuna until tender, chopped it fine, and then tossed it with some good sesame oil and soy sauce to taste.

Tamago (just the Japanese word for egg) may be well-known to you as a type of nigiri sushi, but it also does well on its own. We followed this recipe and it turned out delicious and light. Don't be intimidated if you don't have a "tamago pan" - we just used a standard frying pan.

Monday: Skating along

2010-05-17T21:12:00.030-04:00

Skate with brown butter, served with roasted asparagus and couscous.

A skate is a type of ray, and the cut seen here is skate fin. It's sometimes sold with the cartilage layer still included, but this fillet had been cleaned for us by the good folks at Pura Vida Fisheries. In this recipe we poached the fish in wine vinegar and water, and topped with with crushed capers and brown butter. (Brown butter is just butter that is heated until it darkens.) The skate was interesting - its texture was more like that of lobster than a normal fish. It was a little rich...though of course that could be because we poured butter all over it.

Farmer's Market Supplement, 5/17/10

2010-05-17T15:19:00.009-04:00

Big supplement today at the Monday Union Square market...

VEGGIES
asparagus
green garlic
cucumbers

FRUIT
strawberries

OTHER
organic whole wheat sourdough bread
local apple cider vinegar (the first time we've seen this!)

Farmer's Market Supplement, 5/16/10

2010-05-16T23:27:00.000-04:00

Just a mini-supplement from the Columbia greenmarket today: skate wing from Pura Vida Fisheries and milk and yogurt from Milk Thistle Farm.

Sunday: Radical radishes

2010-05-16T21:09:00.020-04:00

Braised heirloom radishes with moong dal on basmati rice.

These mixed heirloom radishes were too pretty not to buy: the bunch contained red, purple, pink and white small radishes, plus a few that were light brown and had a rough texture, like a "golden russet" apple. We didn't realize until now that radishes are actually a spring vegetable. To tone down their spiciness, we braised the radishes along with their tops, which were in good shape. Balsamic vinegar is not a traditional Indian ingredient but this still worked well as a vegetable dish to pair with moong dal.

Tuesday: Re-pesto

2010-05-11T21:26:00.015-04:00

Sorrel-garlic chive pesto.

We've been making a lot of pestos, including one with sorrel, but this was another nice variation: we threw in garlic chives, instead of garlic or ramps. As part of our pesto experimentation, we've just been substituting whatever allium we happened to have around the house for the standard garlic cloves. So far they've all passed muster.

Monday: Emptying the winter larders

2010-05-10T21:22:00.017-04:00

Braised celery root with chickpeas, almonds and saffron, served on basmati rice.

We supplemented this recipe with almonds, which we thought would pair well with the somewhat Mediterranean flavors of chickpea and saffron. The saffron dyed everything a warm yellow. These knobs of celeriac were some of our last overwintered vegetables.

Sunday: Tap that bass

2010-05-09T21:06:00.023-04:00

Black sea bass fillets braised with olive and lemon, served with roasted asparagus and brown rice.

This recipe comes from Paul Johnson's Fish Forever. Like the Vegetable Book, it's both a comprehensive reference and a reliable recipe source. We absolutely loved this dish, in which this very strongly-flavored fish is balanced by the acidic lemons and the salty bite of olives. This is definitely one to make again.

As you can see, asparagus season is now in full swing, and we will be taking advantage of it while we can!

Farmer's Market Supplement, 5/9/10

2010-05-09T16:14:00.001-04:00

Today's supplement: milk and yogurt from Milk Thistle Farm, spelt bread, and black sea bass fillets from Pura Vida.

Farmer's Market Haul, 5/8/10

2010-05-08T12:17:00.002-04:00

Lizz had an event today, so I did the marketing solo this morning. For a change, I decided to hit up the Abington Square market, not too far from Union Square, which is where Bodhitree Farm goes on Saturdays. If I keep following them around like this, I think they might begin suspecting that I'm a farm groupie.

VEGGIES
sorrel
mizuna
asparagus
garlic chives
mixed heirloom radishes

FRUIT
strawberries!! (first of the year!)

OTHER
eggs from Bodhitree Farm
Pawlet cow's milk cheese from Consider Bardwell Farm

Friday: Mac and cheese, Esq.

2010-05-07T21:03:00.008-04:00

Friday cat blogging, affirmation edition

2010-05-07T16:14:00.008-04:00

Oscar has finally found a bag that encapsulates his philosophy.

Wednesday: Beet + goat cheese + X = tasty

2010-05-05T20:01:00.016-04:00

Salad of beets, goat cheese, and wilted chickweed, served on quinoa.

We improvised this second use for chickweed: a simple sautee in olive oil with some garlic, to which we added pre-roasted beets. We also crumbled in some goat cheese. Beet + goat cheese + greens is a pretty standard combination which is easy to change up by throwing in seasonal foraged greens.

For leftovers the next day, we actually supplemented this dish with some sauteed left-over wild arugula we hadn't used yet.

Tuesday: Kinpira redux

2010-05-04T19:57:00.017-04:00

Carrot-burdock kinpira with pan-fried tofu and rice.

Kinpira has already appeared on the blog: we're officially on the market for another burdock recipe, though this one is pretty great.

In other burdock-related news, we were walking through the park the other day and realized that a few plants looked strangely familiar. In fact, they looked just like the burdock tops we cooked recently. As it turns out, burdock is growing all over the park! We found several first-year plants, with their smaller, edible leaves, as well as a few second-year plants, which send up a huge stem and grow flowers and burrs. One of them is about our height.

Monday: Escarole soup

2010-05-03T19:54:00.013-04:00

White bean and escarole soup.

We weren't quite sure what to do with escarole, but vegetable soups like this one are pretty foolproof. Escarole, a type of chicory (which puts it in the daisy family), stands up well to braising or being thrown into soups.

Sunday: Dinosaur food

2010-05-02T19:50:00.030-04:00

Baked monkfish with chive-topped boiled fiddlehead ferns and wild rice.

Fiddleheads are the curled-up young form of the ostrich fern. In other countries, some other types of ferns are used as well, but apparently some of them are a little toxic. There is just a brief window each year in which fiddleheads are available, so they are a special treat. We thought they smelled very similar to asparagus, but the texture is a little firmer and they have their own unique taste.

The monkfish was dredged in flour and herbs, then browned in a pan, after which we added some stock and put the whole thing into the oven to bake. Monkfish has an interesting lobster-like moist texture.

eating ferns makes you feel like a dinosaur

Farmer's Market Supplement, 5/2/10

2010-05-02T19:05:00.002-04:00

VEGGIES:
all-blue potatoes (overwintered)

FRUIT:
rhubarb

OTHER:
monkfish fillets from Pura Vida Fisheries
Doolan goat cheese from Ardith Mae Farm

Saturday lunch: Sprout sandwich

2010-05-01T14:02:00.001-04:00

Sandwich of sheep's milk cheese and mixed sprouts on sourdough bread.

These sprouts were very interesting. The buckwheat sprouts are the ones with bright pink stems - which isn't too surprising, considering that they're related to rhubarb (as well as sorrel, which shares its relatives' sour flavor). The darker purple sprouts were radish, and there may have been some pea shoots and other greens sprinkled throughout.

Farmer's Market Haul, 5/1/10

2010-05-01T12:03:00.003-04:00

VEGGIES:
chickweed
stinging nettles
wild arugula
mixed sprouts (buckwheat, radish, baby mustard, etc.)

OTHER:
milk and yogurt from Milk Thistle Farm
San Francisco sourdough from Our Daily Bread
Oldwick Shepherd sheep's milk cheese from Valley Shepherd Creamery

Friday: Springtime feast

2010-04-30T21:53:00.006-04:00

Sauteed pom pom mushroom and roasted asparagus over couscous.

"Pom pom" mushrooms, technically the hericium species, are a cultivated variety also known as bear's head or Pompon Blanc. These little creatures are truly bizarre: instead of having gills like many other mushrooms, they are spongy globes covered all over with a layer of downy "fingers," giving them a texture (and capacity for absorption) reminiscent of terrycloth:

Roving herd of pom poms

The mushroom man advised us that the pom pom's flavor is similar to that of lobster or other shellfish, and that they're substitutable for the fish in seafood recipes. We elected to do a simple sautee in butter for our first try. Our only advice after our first pom pom experience: don't rinse them first. We did, and they seemed to remain a little waterlogged even after we tried to drain them.

We'd be remiss if we didn't also mention that this was our first asparagus of the year! One of our favorite treatments for asparagus is a simple roasting in the oven at 450F with a little olive oil and salt. If they're good quality and fresh, that's really all they need.

For dessert, in keeping with the springtime theme we cooked up a little stewed rhubarb:

I'm melting! What a world, what a world...

We just sliced it thinly and then simmered with a very small amount of water and a good amount of sugar. It was tasty on yogurt, though some worthy alternate serving suggestions are to use it as a topping for pancakes, crepes or ice cream...

Friday cat blogging, nocturnal edition

2010-04-30T14:01:00.002-04:00

Would someone please turn off the sun so that Oscar can get a decent afternoon's sleep?

Farmer's Market Supplement, 4/30/10

2010-04-30T11:20:00.002-04:00

Special extra visit to the Union Square Friday market today - it has a different mix of stands than Saturday's market, and is a bit smaller, but Giselle made an expedition just to visit Bodhitree farm, source of the best eggs in New York City.

VEGGIES:
ramps
asparagus (first of the year!!)
escarole
garlic (new, not overwintered!)
fiddleheads

OTHER:
eggs from Bodhitree Farm
pom pom mushrooms

Thursday: Where's the chicken?

2010-04-29T20:50:00.004-04:00

Polenta with braised maitake mushrooms and parmesan, served with sweet-spiced carrots with chickweed.

What would we do without Elizabeth Schneider's Vegetables: From Amaranth to Zucchini? We don't know. Both of these recipes come from her book, which is always our go-to source when we encounter a wholly new veggie (or fungus, as the case may be). Chickweed, another foraged spring green, has a flavor reminiscent of cornsilk when raw, but it wilted into a mild, chewy mass when mixed with simmered carrots, ginger powder and allspice. It was traditionally given to chickens, who apparently like it - hence the name. Maitake, also known as "hen of the woods," has a meaty - even gamy - flavor and aroma. Here it was braised with garlic, rosemary and sherry, and used as a topping for soft polenta.

(We suppose the use of chickweed and hen-of-the-woods mushroom makes this a chicken-themed meal, despite the lack of actual chicken.)

As a belated celebration of Giselle's last-EVER day of law school classes, we cracked open this pretty bottle of dandelion wine:

Bottle of wine, fruit of the dandelion

Giselle has been curious about dandelion wine for years, ever since reading the Ray Bradbury book of the same name. It really is made with dandelion petals, mixed with sugar, a souring agent, and some other substances which assist in fermentation. (As the man at the Chateau Rennaisance stand told us, "it takes a lot of flowers.") Dandelion wine did not disappoint: it was lightly herbal but not over-sweet like some fruit wines can be, and not at all flowery. It was more similar to a mildly sweet white grape wine than you might think.

Farmer's Market Supplement, 4/29/10

2010-04-29T15:16:00.003-04:00

Just milk from Ronnybrook today. Now you know.

Tuesday: A not very nettlesome soup

2010-04-27T20:47:00.003-04:00

Barley-nettle soup with chives, topped with Parmesan.

This was our second go with nettles, and another success. Nettles are traditionally wilted into soups, and after seeing how well they held up to sauteeing last week, we understood why. We loosely based the soup on this recipe, but it's not really rocket science - it's a very basic veggie and grain soup. Here, we thought the nettles had a more spinach-like taste than they did in the stir-fry, where they tasted more herbal and reminded us a little of black tea.

Monday: It's not delivery, it's D4SA!

2010-04-26T20:45:00.002-04:00

Homemade pizza with mozzarella and sunflower sprouts.

Pizza made from scratch on a Monday night might have been a challenge, but Lizz whipped up the dough early in the morning so that it could rise in the fridge during the day. With the dough already made and a jar of tomato puree from Norwich Meadows Farm at the ready, this wasn't a difficult meal. The sunflower sprouts, which were new to us, really do taste a bit like sunflower seeds. They were pretty strong raw, but mellowed when baked.

Sunday: Just a fluke

2010-04-25T21:44:00.002-04:00

Broiled fluke with baby mustard greens and quinoa.

Back to our usual fish meal, though the lovely mustard green mix from Monkshood Nursery livened things up a bit.

Farmer's Market Supplement, 4/25/10

2010-04-25T21:26:00.002-04:00

Largeish supplement today:

VEGGIES:
baby mustard greens salad mix

FRUIT:
rhubarb!! (ok, not technically a fruit, but is treated as one)
apples

OTHER:
fluke from Pura Vida Fisheries
milk and yogurt from Milk Thistle Farm
maitake mushrooms

Farmer's Market Haul, 4/24/10

2010-04-24T11:21:00.001-04:00

VEGGIES:
celeriac (celery root)
sunflower sprouts
chickweed
burdock root
stinging nettles

OTHER:
whole wheat sourdough bread from Our Daily Bread

Wednesday: D4SA fusion night

2010-04-21T20:43:00.002-04:00

Idli with stir-fried pea shoots in garlic-black bean sauce.

Idlies are small, steamed South Indian cakes made from a fermented rice and lentil (urad) batter. As you can see from the picture, they have a spongy texture which is perfect for sopping up sauces and chutneys. They also have a pleasant, slightly sour taste. In some parts of India they might serve as a breakfast food.

We had been hoarding some idli batter ever since our recent trip to Jackson Heights, but hadn't decided what to pair it with. We finally settled on this odd combination - the pea shoot recipe is actually Vietnamese. It was a great excuse to use the black bean sauce that Lizz impulse-purchased not too long ago at M2M. We don't know the current status of diplomatic relations between India and Vietnam, but these two dishes got along quite well!

Tuesday: Another new veggie

2010-04-20T20:39:00.004-04:00

Japanese-influenced soup of burdock greens, barley and mushroom.

We improvised this soup as a vehicle for another veggie that is new to us - burdock greens. Burdock root (Japanese "gobo") is a long, brown taproot with an earthy flavor. This is the first time we had seen the greens for sale. Apparently, during the plant's first year of its two-year life cycle, the young greens and stems are soft enough to be edible. The stems just need a little peeling to remove any fibrous skin. We paired the greens with two common Japanese ingredients - barley and mushroom - and flavored the soup with garlic and soy sauce.

Monday: Where the wild greens are

2010-04-19T22:31:00.003-04:00

Whole-wheat spaghetti with anchovies, Parmesan, and wild Italian arugula.

This is yet another simple pasta based around an interesting-tasting green. Like a few veggies faithful readers will have seen on the blog lately, some wild arugula is a foraged green, albeit one with a familiar cultivated relative. However, according to Elizabeth Schneider's Vegetables: From Amaranth to Zucchini, a cultivated form of "wild arugula" has been introduced. We're not actually sure which one we have. In either case, the taste of wild arugula is not too different from that of its better-known relative - maybe a bit spicier. Wild arugula has thinner stems, much smaller leaves, and a darker color.

The arugula in this recipe is briefly sauteed to tame its heat and then folded into the pasta. A small amount of the raw greens made a nice garnish.

Sunday dinner: Pollock frolic

2010-04-18T20:30:00.003-04:00

Pan-fried pollock on quinoa with kale.

Here's a D4SA take on fish-and-~~chips~~ quinoa. The pollock was dredged in flour before shallow-frying, and since pollock is related to cod, it had that familiar firm but flaky texture.

Farmer's Market Supplement, 4/18/10

2010-04-18T15:37:00.002-04:00

Today's small supplement: pollock from Pura Vida and crimini mushrooms.

Saturday lunch: Grasping the nettle

2010-04-17T14:27:00.007-04:00

Stir-fry of stinging nettles, ramps, carrots and chickpeas, served over basmati rice.

We've seen nettles at the market over the last year or two, but we've been too intimidated to try them out - until now. Yes, they really are "stinging" nettles - if you brush against the leaves, you will get a painful sting which can linger from hours to days. According to Wikipedia, these little leafies have micro-needles which inject you with formic acid, serotonin, histamine, and a couple other nasty chemicals. Luckily, mincing (VERY fine), sauteeing, soaking or boiling the leaves destroys the chemicals that cause the sting. Humans must have figured that out pretty early on, because nettles are a rather ancient food: they are useful as yet another veggie that appears early in the season when few other things are ready for harvest.

We swiped this recipe idea from the excellent food politics blog La Vida Locavore. It's simple - which is what we wanted for our first nettle experience. You may be wondering how one prepares nettles, given that you can't touch them without being stung. The answer: latex gloves. No, seriously.

Nettle leaves separated from inedible stems

It sounds like a lot of trouble to wear gloves just to prep some greens, but these guys were really worth the fuss. They have a deep, interesting flavor once cooked (when raw they smell haylike), and they retain a pleasantly chewy texture even after sauteeing.

Farmer's Market Haul, 4/17/10

2010-04-17T14:08:00.005-04:00

VEGGIES:
stinging nettle
pea shoots
chives
ramps
garlic (this was "take your chances garlic," overwintered from 2009...but 6 for $1)
burdock greens
wild Italian arugula

OTHER:
milk from Milk Thistle Farm
yogurt from Ronnybrook Farm
mozzarella from Tonjes Farm
dandelion wine from Chateau Renaissance
eggs

Friday cat blogging, profile edition

2010-04-16T16:39:00.001-04:00

Oscar is ready for his closeup.

Thursday: On a Ramp-age

2010-04-15T20:26:00.003-04:00

Macaroni and cheese with sauteed ramps.

This is just our typical mac and cheese recipe - quick-sauteed ramps made a sweet, oniony side dish.

Farmer's Market Supplement, 4/15/10

2010-04-15T14:35:00.002-04:00

Today's supplement: yogurt from Ronnybrook Farm, bread from Buon Pane, cheddar cheese from Millport Dairy, and some apples.

Wednesday: Sorrel-ramp pesto

2010-04-14T21:24:00.004-04:00

Sorrel-ramp pesto.

You might be unaware, faithful reader, that sorrel is a leafy green had you only encountered it on our blog last year. Thankfully our improved camera can do justice to the beautiful, bright parrot green color of this early spring veg.

Although we used to think that pesto was synonymous with basil, we've come to realize that any leafy green with a strong flavor can serve as the base of this sauce. Here, we take advantage of the bright, tart flavor of sorrel. Since basil pesto typically includes a few cloves of garlic, we instead threw in a handful of ramps, which added another complex but not overpowering flavor. A quarter cup or so of walnuts and a half cup or so of grated Parmesan were the final ingredients. Delicious.

P.S. Speaking of pesto, if you haven't seen this recent article by Harold McGee on the great cilantro debate, you might want to check it out. Apparently it was cilantro, not basil, that served as the base of "traditional" Mediterranean pesto!

Tuesday: Ramping up

2010-04-13T20:21:00.004-04:00

Ramps scrambled into eggs.

Meet the ramp:

Ramp: faithful reader. Faithful reader: ramp.

These lovely alliums are a wild relative of the leek. Each spring, they pop up on the banks of riverbeds up and down the east coast, especially in the Appalachian region, where they hold the honor of being the traditional harbinger of spring. Here, as we alluded to in our most recent greenmarket post, they are the traditional harbinger of foodie mayhem. Ramps have become a favorite of chefs and marketgoers in the last few years, especially since their season is very short - only a few weeks.

The funny thing about ramps is that they apparently refuse to be cultivated. They like to grow in forest climates, but once the trees are in full leaf, it's too shady for the ramps. People have tried to transplant them to gardens, but they just don't like that climate as much, and they will not grow well. Luckily, they're very common in eastern deciduous forest regions, so many of the farmers at our market go on ramp-gathering expeditions and sell buckets of the things in the spring along with their other cultivated goods.

Ramps are a pretty mild allium: like other members of their family, they have a light oniony taste, but they also have a hint of garlic and an overall distinctive flavor. Since they're relatively small, they cook up quickly - the broad green leaves are also edible and can be wilted in separately from the white bulbs.

From what we can tell, ramps and eggs are a popular combination, so that's where we started with this new veggie. After sauteeing the ramp bulbs, we briefly tossed in the greens, and then added beaten eggs and stirred until they were scrambled to a fine grain.

Monday:

2010-04-12T21:19:00.001-04:00

Potatoes with whole spices and sesame seeds and mung dal.

You might be saying, "But, faithful bloggers! Doesn't mung dal look more like this?" Well, on our recent Jackson Heights shopping spree we picked up this pack of mung dal, which was missing its green hulls and which had a brighter yellow color overall. To be honest we have not been able to sort out what's going on there, but they are definitely skinless, and maybe something has been done to change the color (like a light roasting). Regardless, they have a slightly less distinctive but definitely still tasty flavor, they're a bit quicker-cooking, and they have a creamy texture since they're lacking their skins.

Sunday dinner: Sea Scallops

2010-04-11T21:33:00.000-04:00

Pan-seared scallops on watercress served with couscous.

Another D4SA first, brought to you by the good folks at Pura Vida Fisheries: sea scallops. As we'd been stopping by the fish stand at the market recently, we'd been noticing a bin of "big" looking scallops as well as a bin of "small" looking scallops. When we finally investigated, it turned out that these were actually two different creatures. The sea scallops are rather larger, and the smaller ones were "bay scallops," around here mostly fished in the Peconic Bay on Long Island. They apparently have a slightly sweeter flavor.

We were intrigued, so we decided to try bay scallops first - but unfortunately, we seem to have missed the window of opportunity. Around here, their season is about November to early April. Something good to keep in mind for next winter...

Sea scallops, on the other hand, are pretty plentiful and are available year-round. So we quickly pan-seared these guys, doused them in a lemon-thyme dressing, and served them over some fresh spring watercress.

Farmer's Market Supplement, 4/11/10

2010-04-11T10:46:00.003-04:00

Just a nano-supplement from the Columbia greenmarket today: sea scallops from Pura Vida.

Farmer's Market Haul, 4/10/10

2010-04-10T17:09:00.019-04:00

Behold: the fruits of our triumphant return to the Union Square Greenmarket for the very first time this spring!!

...Ok, there aren't really any "fruits" yet, but the earliest spring greens appeared at the greenmarket this week and we got up nice and early to make sure we'd snag a few. The ramps, in particular, caused quite a scene, with market-goers pushing and shoving to grab a bunch of this wild allium, traditionally celebrated as the first harvest of spring.

VEGGIES:
ramps
watercress
sorrel

OTHER:
alfalfa honey
Aged Bloomsday cheese from Cato Corner Farm
milk and yogurt from Milk Thistle Farm

Welcome back, springtime!

Friday cat blogging, unflattering edition

2010-04-09T17:26:00.005-04:00

It's not really his best angle.

Farmer's Market Supplement, 4/8/10

2010-04-08T14:33:00.000-04:00

Simple supplement this week: whole wheat bread from Meredith's Bakery and a few apples.

Wednesday: Frittata frittata bo bata banana fana fo fata fee fi mo mata....

2010-04-07T21:22:00.004-04:00

Bell pepper and Parmesan frittata with wild rice.

Giselle has an evening class on Wednesdays this semester, so this is just a quick dinner which is easy to make with our frozen CSA peppers.

However, it is NOT easy to play "The Name Game" with the word "frittata"......just FYI.

CSA haul, 4/7/10

2010-04-07T15:25:00.000-04:00

This was our final Merchant's Gate CSA distribution, and in fact our final winter CSA of the year! Hooray! Now we just have to make it last until the farmer's markets are in full swing...

VEGGIES:
carrots (5 lbs...)
potatoes
beets
kale

OTHER:
eggs
milk
maple yogurt
pickled red sweet peppers
maple-pecan granola
5 lb of half-white bread flour

Tuesday: These are a few of our favorite things

2010-04-06T20:21:00.001-04:00

Karela pulao (bitter gourd and cashew curry).

Three amazing new entrants to the D4SA universe are featured in this meal: bitter melon, curry leaves, and jaggery. We've used these ingredients many times, but for some reason they haven't made it onto the blog until today. (Apparently we haven't been shopping in Jackson Heights frequently enough in the past year...)

Bitter melon (also called bitter gourd or karela) is one of the weirder vegetables you may ever encounter. In this country, it comes in two common varieties: the Indian, smaller and bumpy version, which is dark green and might remind you of a crocodile, and the Chinese, larger and smooth type, which is a lighter green and looks something like a puckered cucumber. Its most important characteristic is its flavor: a shocking, strong and fascinating bitterness which is utterly unlike the flavor of any other food. (The closest analog might be the taste of quinine in tonic water, but even that is a pretty impoverished comparison.) In both of our experience, the first time you try a taste of bitter melon, the flavor spreads through the mouth and seems totally overpowering. That first bite must trigger some kind of reaction in the brain that renders subsequent encounters permanently less intense. The next few times we cooked bitter melon after that fateful first taste, we still had to select recipes that include methods of dulling its flavor, such as draining it using salt and turmeric. But these days we could eat plain sauteed bitter melon and not find it overly strong. We're not really sure why the human brain would experience bitter melon this way, but we promise you have to try it to believe it.

Curry leaves are less dramatic, but they are one of our favorite food flavorings. We don't have them as often as we'd like, so we pick them up every time we see them. Apparently they're a Mediterranean member of the lettuce family, but they have a potent, spicy and complex flavor that plays a role more like bay leaf when added to a dish. (Note: don't confuse curry leaves with curry powder, which doesn't contain any of this leaf, and is instead a widely varying mix of ground spices.) This is the characteric flavor of many South Indian dishes, which can't really be replicated with any substitution.

Finally, jaggery is just palm sugar. It's sold in a large brown block, and pieces can be broken or grated off for use. Like molasses, it has its own totally distinctive aroma in addition to being a sweetener. We ran out of jaggery quite a while ago and had been using brown sugar as a substitute, which is acceptable, but this recipe made us remember how much flavor we had been missing by doing so.

That was all quite a mouthful for describing a simple pilaf (regionally known as pulao, pillau, paella, etc). This Mahanandi recipe may be pretty easy to put together, but your three new BFFs above are more than enough to make it totally distinctive.

Monday: Pale Green Things

2010-04-05T20:19:00.046-04:00

Methi chole (fenugreek and green chickpea curry).

Lizz's parents visited us in New York this past weekend, and since they had a car, we took advantage of the opportunity to stock up on Indian groceries in Jackson Heights. In addition to two gigantic ten-pound bags of Lal Qilla brand deradunhi basmati rice, tons of dal, and a block of jaggery (more on that later), we brought home a lovely harbinger of spring: fresh green chana in their shells!

These little guys are only available in the springtime at Indian grocery stores, though the frozen and shelled version is widely available. They are fresh, only partially mature chickpeas, and they grow in cute little pods that look like green peas:

Also like peas, they have a "green" note and a slightly sweet flavor, and cook very quickly - more like a fresh vegetable than like a dried legume.

This recipe pairs the chana with fresh methi - fenugreek greens. These are the greens of the same plant that gives us fenugreek seeds (the source of fake maple sugar flavor, and a frequent component in curry powders). The flavor of methi is hard to describe, but the greens are noticeably fragrant and herbal - in fact, the dried version is used as a flavoring in some other Indian dishes. We highly recommend trying them out if you've never had them: they're easy to wilt into vegetable or legume dishes of many kinds.

Friday cat blogging, things that are not pillows edition

2010-04-02T15:31:00.002-04:00

AC/DC computer adapter: not a pillow.

This has been another edition of "things that are not pillows."

Farmer's Market Supplement, 4/1/10

2010-04-01T12:40:00.004-04:00

VEGGIES:
onions
butternut squash

FRUIT:
apples

OTHER:
milk and yogurt from Ronnybrook Farm
eggs