It’s almost officially summer. Which in Michigan means that any given time, it is either thunderstorming or it’s 85 degrees.  For me, late spring is an important time.  The students leave and campus is nice and quiet.  The markets open.  The farm shares begin.  The hot dog stands come out.  The garden gets planted.  My electricity bill goes way down…for a while.  But it also means one very, very important thing: baby vegetables.

I love baby vegetables.  They’re tender and sweet and delicate and tiny…and we all know that making food smaller automatically makes it both cuter and delicious-er.  My absolute favorite is the elusive baby turnip, which is starting to reach nearly mythical status in my household because I can never find them.  I’ve seen them at the market exactly twice in about six years and never in a regular grocery store.  They are so delicious, sautéed with butter and chicken stock and then sprinkled with salt and pepper, almost like very delicate Brussels sprouts.  If you find any, buy them immediately!  Also, send them my way.

But when I can’t have baby turnips (which is apparently all the time), I like to make do with my second favorite option: baby artichokes.  I love artichokes in general and the young ones are even more tender and have a nice light flavor.  I rarely cook full grown artichokes (I like to order them, but I don’t cook them often) but the baby ones I like to fry in oil until crispy and then sprinkle liberally with salt and pepper, dip them in tzatziki sauce and go all “Nom nom nom!”

I had actually originally intended last night’s dinner to be just a bowl of baby artichokes, fried and sprinkled with lemon.  I wasn’t super hungry, it was warm out and I was on my own, so why not?  However, about halfway through preparing this dish, I changed my mind a bit and added one more thing–Mexican chorizo.  Thus my dinner consisted of: baby artichokes, olive oil, chorizo, lemon, salt and pepper.  And it was delicious.  If you don’t count the salt, pepper or olive oil (standard recipe items), then it really only had three ingredients.  #win

Artichokes with Chorizo
Serves 1 (main dish) or 2-3 (side dishes)

1lb baby artichokes
the juice of 1 lemon
water for soaking
olive oil
1 link fresh Mexican chorizo
salt and pepper to taste

Prepare the artichokes: Squeeze half the lemon juice into a bowl of cold water.  Cut off the bottom and then peel away the first few layers of tougher outer leaves.  You want just the tender inner leaves and the heart.  Cut the artichoke in half and place it in the bowl of water.  This will keep the artichoke from turning brown.

In a medium-sized skillet over medium high heat, pour in just enough olive oil to cover the bottom of the skillet.  When the oil is pretty hot, drain the artichokes and dry them thoroughly (very thoroughly–you don’t want excess water hitting that super hot oil; it’s fun to watch but it burns) before adding them to the pan.  Fry them until the outer edges are good and crispy, around 5 minutes.  Scoop them out of the pan and let them drain on a paper towel, sprinkling them with the rest of the lemon juice and some salt and pepper to your liking.

Keeping the pan on the heat, add in the raw chorizo and sauté until brown and thoroughly cooked through.  Add artichokes back into pan, tossing with the chorizo, and then slide the mixture off onto a plate or a bowl.  If that’s not enough fat flavor for you, drizzle the whole thing with a bit of basil oil.

I know you’re going to ask, “Why not just cook the chorizo first and then fry the artichokes in the leftover grease?”  And I’m going to answer, “Because I don’t want the artichokes to be overpowered by the flavor of the chorizo.  I still want them to taste artichoke-y and chorizo has a very, very strong flavor that I’m afraid would soak into the artichokes while they were frying and then it would be like eating a bowl of crispy green chorizo.  Which, while it does sound intriguing, wasn’t what I was going for.” 

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And as someone who also loves potatoes–I do love potatoes, they are the perfect vegetable, gastronomically–of course I’ve had a lifelong dream to dip slices of soft baking potatoes into clear, sizzling hot beef tallow, remove said starchy delight, coat it in salt, pepper and mountains of cheese and eat it–I mean, who doesn’t have that dream?  Maybe vegans.

But either way, I can proudly say to you that indeed, I have conquered this beefy potato mountain.  I have stood on its peak and raised my foodie flag to the sky and proclaimed, “It is done.”  And it was good.

What’s that you ask?  What’s the big deal about beef fat?  Let me tell you.  Beef tallow is rendered fat, generally from suet which is often found around the loins and some organs of the cow.  Suet melts at over 113F, a fairly high melting point, which makes it excellent for frying.  However, suit (being raw fat) will go rancid if not refrigerated properly.  The beef tallow you make from rendering down suet, though, does not need to be refrigerated as long as it’s kept in an airtight container.  While tallow is often used for soap or cheap candles (you can easily see why it’s used for candles–if you dip your finger into it while it’s cooling down, it will start to form a thin, persistent cover on your digit just like regular candle wax), it’s most deliciously used for frying things.  I’ve started with potatoes, but next will be other things—eggs, chicken, artichokes, ravioli, beer….you get the idea.

I thought at first, when looking for advice on how to make tallow, that it might be a horrendously long process and I would regret it dearly, but actually it wasn’t too bad.  Hiday Farms was nice enough to sell me some of their leftover suet at the Lunasa market one day a few weeks ago, just a couple pounds so I could try it out.  And the internet provided me a bevy of blog posts about other likeminded individuals who also enjoy essence of cow, as it were, and made their own tallow.  I was pretty excited when I realized I didn’t have to stir a pot for hours on end, or use up my gas oven for hours on end (although you could), but that I could let the suet render down slowly in my crockpot.  How delightful is that?

Basically what I did was this: thawed the suet ever so slightly (it was frozen when I bought it), just enough so that I could chop it into smaller pieces.  Then, bit by bit, I fed into the shredder in my food processor, keeping the un-shredded bits cold while I worked.  The idea behind this was to create tiny suet pieces that would overall have more surface area and hopefully melt down faster and easier.  However, I will probably never do it again.  I saw a lot of discussion back and forth as to whether the step was really necessary or not, and I’m going with not–plus it was a bit of a pain.  And messy.  And as the suet inevitably warmed up thanks to the quick-spinning nature of the processor, it gummed up the blades and was just sort of a hassle.

But no matter.  Eventually I got it all done into nice little shreds.  Then it went into the crockpot, on low.  Now, one variable that will always exist is how long the suet actually takes to render down.  I saw estimates for about one and a half to two hours a pound but most seemed to say it depends on the method, the suet, the weather, some butterfly in India flapping its wings, whatever.  Basically, you let it cook until all, or 98% of, the solids have melted down and the tallow is nice and clear.  For me, for a couple of pounds, it took just under 4 hours.  Then strain the liquid, so you don’t get any of those icky little bits in there, and let cool.  Congratulations, you’ve made beef tallow.  I covered mine and put it in the fridge.  I know, you don’t have to.  But I forgot and just did it anyway.

Fast forward a couple of weeks and I finally get around to having Josh buy some potatoes so I can try out the tallow.  I sliced two large baking potatoes into rounds, put them into a pot, covered them with water and simmered them at medium heat for 20 minutes, to get them soft.  I get out my grandma’s good cast iron skillet, slide the solid disc of tallow into it (it was in the fridge, after all) and turn the heat on medium.   I drained the potatoes and patted them dry.  By the time I’d done that, the tallow was completely liquid, clear and beautiful.  I let it get sizzling hot and carefully dropped in the slices, one potato at a time, not overcrowding.  Five minutes on each side, one flip, and then they were drained on paper towels and sprinkled with a mix of salt, pepper and Turkish oregano.  And then, of course, I had to eat one right then and there, still hot and steamy from the pan…

…and it was delicious.  Crispy, soft on the inside, nicely salted.  The tallow doesn’t make them taste like beef.  It just makes them taste better.  No burning, no darkening, just little rounds of potatoes surrounded by delicious flavoring liquid.

Mmm.

Related posts:

1. Farm Share Goodies: Sept 4-Purple Mashed Potatoes
2. All Taste, No Fuss: Broccoli Almond Soup and Red Pepper Beef
3. Coconut Beef

One of the questions I get asked on a regular basis is—how do you do it?  And no, they’re not asking me how I remain so effervescently awesome–it’s clearly obvious that’s a trade secret.  No, they’re asking me, “How do you put a meal together?  And not a meal from a recipe you’ve searched for and pored over and planned out and executed with ninja-like precision (speaking of, there are at least 5 ninjas in this article.  But you can’t see them).  No, a meal from just whatever you have on hand.  How do you do that?”

It occurs to me that somewhere along the line, cooking became some sort of mysterious alchemy to a disturbingly large amount of people.  Food goes in one way, and deliciousness—or for some, vast amounts of thick black smoke–come out the other.  What happens in between is a mystery.  But it really doesn’t have to be that way.  You don’t have to go down the long, dark path to Frozen Foodland most nights, or make the same safe spaghetti and meatball dish every single night.  Not that I’m hating on meatballs–I love meatballs, some of my best friends are meatballs–or anything like that.  But of all the things in the world to fear, making dinner shouldn’t be one of them.  You don’t always have to have a plan.  It works to just toss in what you have.

And what you have doesn’t need to be a lot.  Some of the best recipes (and the best non-recipe recipes) are made with just a few ingredients.  For instance: cream of broccoli soup.  I was sick over the weekend–darn those college students and their germs–and with the very little energy I had and apparently very high fever, I decided I was going to get out of bed long enough to make myself lunch.  And I really wanted cream of broccoli soup.  I don’t know why.  But there you go.  I’ve never made it before and while I’m sure there are thousands of varieties, but I just wanted to make something really simple.  I sauteed a bit of garlic in butter, added a ton of broccoli florets and some chicken stock (cooking things in chicken stock always makes them better), cooked it a few minutes until the broccoli was bright and relatively tender and then pureed it in the blender with a touch of cream, salt, pepper, a bit of red pepper flakes and…a handful of roasted almonds.  I had almonds, I like almonds, I especially like almonds with broccoli, and I figured they would add a bit of texture, some healthy fat and a nice crunch to the soup…and they did.  And that was that.  Threw a bit of shredded cheddar on the soup and I almost felt human again.  Cheese will do that to you.

Or try this: get a few whole red bell peppers.  Cut off the tops, drizzle them with olive oil, salt and pepper and roast them at 450F until the skins blacken.  Dump them into ice water, peel the skins off and puree them with a touch of olive oil.  There you have an amazing sauce that will make almost any meal delicious—and with almost no effort.  Got some chicken or cubed beef stew meat in the fridge?  Season it with whatever you got (I like garam masala), toss it in a hot pan and sear it, then pour in the red pepper sauce, a touch of cream or milk and whatever herbs you have on hand.  Pair it with rice or a steamed veggie or eat it off bread or in a house, with a mouse, off a cat, in a hat, whatever you like.

Ok?  Feel better now?  Go on.  Try it.  Report back.  Bring me leftovers.

Broccoli Almond Soup
2 cloves garlic
1 tbsp butter
8 c. broccoli florets
3 c. chicken stock
2 tbsp heavy cream
salt, pepper and red pepper flake to taste
1/2 c. whole roasted almonds

In a large pot, melt 1 tbsp of butter.  Add in the garlic and stir it around in the butter until it’s lightly browned.  Add in broccoli and chicken stock and simmer for 5-7 minutes.  In batches if necessary, pour the broccoli and broth into a blender with salt, pepper, red pepper flakes, almonds and cream and puree together.  Serve.  With Cheese.  And then eat.  With relish.  Not real relish.  Unless you want real relish.

Red Pepper Beef
3-4 large red bell peppers
olive oil
salt and pepper
2 tbsp cream
1 tbsp dried oregano
1 pound cubed beef stew meat, cut down further into bite-sized pieces if necessary
1 tbsp garam masala

Preheat oven to 450F.  Line a baking sheet with tinfoil.

Cut the tops off the bell peppers and clean out their insides.  Drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper, and place them on the baking sheet.  Roast them in the oven until the skins have blackened and the peppers are soft, maybe around a half hour depending on your oven.

Place peppers into a bowl of ice water.  This will help cool them down, as well as make the skins easier to peel off.  Peel off skins as best you can.  Place peppers in a blender along with a tablespoon or so of olive oil, the cream and the oregano.  Puree.

Heat a skillet over medium high heat.  Season stew meat with the garam masala (or whatever spice mix you like).  Sear the meat in the skillet, 3-4 minutes on either side.  Turn the heat down and pour the red pepper sauce over the beef.  Simmer until the beef is tender, about 20 minutes or so.

Related posts:

1. Coconut Beef
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Ever since we got a couple of adorable little pie pumpkins in our farm share back in October, I’ve planned on making this dish.  Sure, it’s two months after that, but thanks to the wonders of living in a 150 year old brick house that doesn’t retain heat very well, the pumpkins were still good and ready to go.

Like most of my…life in general, I didn’t really have a plan, more a set of guidelines: fill pumpkin, bake.  I happened to have some hot Italian sausage I picked up from Steinhauser Farms at the Lunasa market a while back.  I thawed it out to use in a pasta dish earlier this week and wanted to use up the rest of it and this seemed like a good way to do that.  I also had some extra sharp white cheddar and thanks to a stocking-up trip to the store, I got mushrooms and arugula as well.  That’s it.  That’s all there is to this recipe–five main ingredients and some seasonings and olive oil.  You put it together, you let it do its thing in the oven and you have these adorable little self contained meals.

Not to mention, I think your taste buds are really the limit on the filling options here.  My next experiment I think is going to deconstruct this pasta I’ve made before–penne with pumpkin-gorgonzola sauce.  I loved it.  Josh wasn’t a fan, because he doesn’t like gorgonzola.  (Between you and me, I think that’s a bit nutty.  Josh, not the gorgonzola.)  I’m going to fill the pumpkin with pasta–maybe goat cheese ravioli or some small shaped pasta, I don’t know yet–and cream and some sort of creamy cheese (gorgonzola if Josh isn’t home, something else if he is).

Speaking of Josh, the hilarious thing is that part of the reason I made this dish is because Josh likes pumpkin.  Well, no.  Josh likes pumpkin pie.  He doesn’t like pumpkin–or squash of any kind, really–unless it’s been coated with sugar.  He did like the dish, but he’d like it more if I had sprinkled brown sugar into the pumpkins before putting in the filling.  So keep that in mind if you have a fellow fickle eater in your home.  The rest of you, however, will probably love this dish as is.  It’s got everything you could want on a blustery winter night: spicy sausage, sauteed mushrooms, cheesy goodness in a soft pumpkiny bowl.

I made two pumpkins but Josh and I just split half of one and it was enough; the other went into the fridge for leftovers.  A hungrier person might want an entire pumpkin to themselves.  I think a half a mini pumpkin and a salad, maybe a little bread, is an excellent meal for a dinner party.  I mean, once you’ve made one of these, it’s pretty easy to scale.  You could also just stuff a larger pumpkin, cook it longer and then serve slices of it.

Baked Stuffed Mini Pumpkins
Serves 2-4

2 2-lb pie pumpkins
olive oil
10oz spicy Italian sausage
4oz shiitake mushroom caps, roughly chopped
3 c. fresh arugula
4oz shredded extra sharp white cheddar
salt and pepper to taste
fines herb, or other herb mix, to taste

Preheat oven to 375F.

Cut the tops off the pumpkins, set aside, and remove the innards, scraping the inside walls to get rid of extra stringy guts.  Save the seeds for baked pumpkin seeds later.  Sprinkle the inside of the pumpkins with a bit of olive oil.

In a medium skillet, brown the sausage.  Add in the mushrooms and arugula, as well as any salt, pepper and herbs you’ll be using, and sauté until the mushrooms are softened.  Sprinkle in 3oz of the shredded cheese.

Split the stuffing between the two pumpkins.  Top each with half of the remaining ounce of cheese.  Put the tops back on the pumpkins, place in a casserole dish or on a cookie sheet and put in the oven.

Bake for 2 hours or until pumpkins are fork tender.  Let cool slightly and then slice and serve.

Pumpkin

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Chickens are jerks.

But they do produce tasty, tasty eggs.  And I’ll admit that deep down I always hope that I’ll someday get to raise some chickens in my backyard that will be as awesome as Billina, the talking chicken from Return to Oz or even Chicken Boo from the Animaniacs.  That silly Chicken Boo.  He thinks he’s people.  But mostly, I really just like eggs.

Unlike other breakfast foods, which are often greasy or absolutely bursting with sugar which is not a good way for me to start off the morning, eggs are just complete little packages of deliciousness.  I like them scrambled, fried for sandwiches, hardboiled, deviled, baked with herbs and olive oil, and occasionally I like to go all out on the weekend and I very slowly scramble them over low heat for about 10-15 minutes with olive oil, butter, a touch of cream and shavings of my favorite flavored Monterey Jack cheese.  That last one, by the way, is deadly but delicious.  Eat lovingly but sparingly.

But I also like to make Eggs in Purgatory, which is basically eggs cooked in spicy tomato sauce.  One of my favorite egg breakfasts.  And you know what breakfast is really good for?  Dinner. 

I was on my own last night, as Josh was out buying me a baby elephant doing freelance somewhere.  It was cold, so I wasn’t going to walk anywhere, and I had no car.  I also had been too lazy to defrost any meat during the day and we have no microwave so something vegetarian was the order of the day.  Inspired by something I’d read earlier in the day about incorporating more veggies into your breakfast, I decided to do just that and make a souped-up version of eggs in purgatory–eggs reprieved, if you will.  I had a lot of canned tomato sauce, since Josh had, over the past two weeks, just canned about 75-80 pounds of tomatoes.  And I had onions, garlic, potatoes and bell peppers from our very last Needle Lane farm share box of the week (sob!). And I had olive oil and butter on hand because…well, I always have olive oil and butter on hand.

So it went like this, and again–this is really more of a guideline.  A method, per se.  You can mix and match just about whatever you like in this dish; it’s very versatile.  It’s one of those clean-out-the-veggie drawer sort of things and if there happens to be more than one person at your dinner table, it’s very easy to scale.

First I heated a couple drizzles of olive oil in a skillet over medium high heat while I sliced a couple small Yukon gold potatoes and one small onion into half inch rounds.  Then I added a bit of butter to the skillet and placed the potato and onion slices in.  I let them fry there for about the length of two classic Motown hits, or about 7 minutes, until golden on the bottom side.  While they fried, I diced a clove of garlicand one small bell pepper and added them to the pan as well.  After the end of the second Motown song (Bring It On Home to Me by Sam Cooke if you must know), I flipped the potatoes over.  Then I added in two cups of tomato sauce (just cooked, pureed tomatoes—diced tomatoes, salsa, anything similar would also work) and a couple tablespoons of Sriracha sauce (to your taste, of course), and a pinch of salt and pepper.  This I covered and let simmer for 8 minutes or so, until the potatoes were almost tender.  Then I cracked two eggs on top of the tomatoes, sprinkled with olive oil, salt and pepper, re-covered and let cook for 5-7 more minutes, or until the yolks were set.  I grated a bit of my favorite jack cheese over the top, sprinkled on some chopped green onions and served to myself with a side of cornbread (ain’t nothing wrong with that).

Dinner for one and delicious.

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First, Josh and I had breakfast with my friend Jessica and her mom at Beezy’s in Ypsilanti, which is my favorite restaurant in the entire city, I’m pretty sure.  We stopped at the Depot Town Farmer’s Market to do a bit of shopping and to pick up our farm share with Needle Lane Farm.  I love this share so much.  It’s ending soon and I know from last year, I’m going to miss it so much over the winter.  Plus, I love the people at the farm, so I’ll miss seeing them.  But anyway, we picked up our share and got some good peppers and cabbage and beans and a big bag of tomatoes.  Remember that, because it’s going to come up again later.  And you will be tested.   Anyway, after the market, we wandered up to Beezy’s for some delicious breakfast food with which to celebrate Jessica’s passing out on the bar…exam.  (Love you, Jess )  I am convinced that Beezy’s has the best breakfast sandwiches in Washtenaw County at the very least.  I got the breakfast eggel—-asiago bagel with scrambled eggs, ham and provolone cheese.  And a hot chocolate.  Which, by the way, was not a cup of hot water or milk with powdered mix thrown in.  Or syrup.  Oh no.  This was Calder Dairy chocolate milk that was steamed and frothed.  It was amazing.  I live three blocks from Beezy’s.  I think it’s safe to say that if you can’t find me this winter, it’s because I’m down there, face-down in a cup of their hot chocolate, trying to make it through the winter.But I digress.  After bidding adieu to Jess and Helen, Josh and I bundled up and headed off to Eastern Market in Detroit.  I’ve talked about this before, so you know how much I love Eastern Market.  It was pretty late at this point–11am or so (late for us, ya slackers)–and it was cold, overcast and occasionally rainy, so I wasn’t sure much would be going on.  I was, of course, totally wrong.  It was bustling and busy.  People were picnicking under umbrellas and in plastic ponchos.

It was row upon row of beautiful, colorful end-of-summer and fall veggies.  Some guy was carving a 500 pound pumpkin.  You don’t see that too often.  Unless you come back to this blog post every day and look at the picture.  Then I guess you can see that pretty often.

We also picked up one more thing.  More tomatoes.  Roma tomatoes.  About 30 pounds worth, maybe.  For $8.  Seriously.  I can barely buy  burger someplace or $8, let alone get 30 pounds of fresh tomatoes so it was a pretty good deal.  We picked them up because Josh was just itching to can something.  Which brings us to Sunday…

Actually, that didn’t bring us to Sunday.  The steady march of time brought us to Sunday.  But whatever.

I won’t go into detail about Josh’s canning process, except it was hot, messy and produced delicious results that hopefully won’t kill us, much like all canning processes.  But you can see the delicious results in the pictures below.

Inspired by the terrific treasure trove of tasty tomatoes (alliteration!), I decided that for the (super simple) dinner of nachos I made Sunday night (because who wants to do something complicated after all that exhausting work of watching Josh?), I would use the tomatoes from the farm share (told you!) to make my own salsa.  Only instead of just throwing everything in the blender and making a fresh salsa, I wanted some really good tomato-y flavor.  I opted to roast everything instead, because roasting is the best cooking technique there is.  It’s easy, it’s low maintenance and it produces amazing flavor in just about everything.  So there you go.  That tip is my gift to you.

So I made the salsa, which turned out even tastier than I had expected, and made a batch of nachos that had ground beef, a bevy of bell peppers, onions and sauteed spinach.  I added a bit of the salsa into the meat while it was cooking and served the rest on top.  We piled the meat mixture onto white corn tortilla chips, sprinkled them with shredded cheddar and some of the morel-leek jack cheese that I love so much and put on everything and popped them into the oven to bake and get all melty and gooey.  It was delightful, and exactly what I needed after a long day of watching Josh work.    Maybe next time I’ll have him can my salsa too.

Super Easy Roasted Tomato Salsa
2lbs. tomatoes (romas are especially good)
1/2 large onion, quartered
3 cloves garlic, whole
1 chili pepper, whole
olive oil
salt and pepper
1 tbsp lemon or lime juice
2-3 tbsp chopped fresh cilantro, to taste
1 tbsp sriracha sauce, or to taste

Place tomatoes, onion, garlic and chili pepper on a baking sheet.  Sprinkle with olive oil, salt and pepper and roast in the oven at 400F for about 30 minutes or until tomatoes are well softened and a bit charred.  Let cool for a couple minutes, then place everything in a blender (squeeze the garlic out of the paper husk if you left it on) and blend until mostly smooth.  If you like hotter, use more sriracha.  If you absolutely don’t want any heat at all, leave it out.  Pour into a dish and serve–warm is best, but not required–or can and save.

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I needed something to make and wanted something simple, that could feed a lot of people but without a lot of effort on my part and this recipe I had tucked away for an 8 layer Mediterranean dip did just the trick.  I got the recipe from Whole Food’s website, but ended up tweaking it a bit because I didn’t want certain layers, wanted to add others and in one case couldn’t find the ingredients for one so I mixed things up.

That’s the beauty of this recipe–it’s infinitely customizable.  And not to get all Sandra Lee on you, but it’s great for those of you who don’t want to make something from scratch because all you have to do is layer and assemble.  Layer and assemble.  And eat.

The original recipe is here, but my modifications are below:

Layered Mediterranean Dip

16oz roasted red pepper hummus
2 c. chopped baby spinach
1 jar artichoke hearts
2 diced tomatoes
1 c. lowfat Greek yogurt
4oz crumbled feta

Layer first hummus, then spinach, then artichokes and tomatoes.
Spread yogurt over the veggies and then top with feta.  Eat.  With
pita chips.

What are you doing for Vegetarian Awareness Month?

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Our farm share started up again–finallly!  One of the best days of my year is the day that I can start picking up our produce box from Needle Lane Farms. This year has the added bonus of us being able to pick up our box at the Depot Town Farmer’s Market in Ypsi on Saturdays, which I love, being that I love a 1 minute drive or 10 minute walk from Depot Town.  Love.  It.  Also, I appreciate local organizations giving local love to Ypsi.

So yeah, last Saturday was a banner day.  Not only had we just come back from our trip to Alaska, but I was all geared up to make my own food and the arrival of the farm share was the culinary equivalent of choirs of angels heralding the dawn.  Well, close anyway.  I was prepared for the usual late spring suspects: the garlic scapes, the radishes, the lettuces, the rainbow colored Swiss chard.  But once again, Needle Lane blew me away and introduced me to something I had never even considered being a possibility:

stinging nettles.

Seriously.  Like, fo’ realz.  Stinging nettles.  The perfect dish for people who like food that fights back.  For some reason, I thought people only ate those back in like the 1300s, when it was that or death.  But no!  People actually still eat them, even in an age of year-round strawberries, fast food, PopTarts and 30-minute or less pizza delivery.  Apparently I’m the only one who thought that, though.  One of Josh’s coworkers even makes tea out of them, which is a common usage.  They’re also used for making soup and when cooked, taste kind of like spinach but with less of a bite and more, I dunno, feathery-textured.  I liked them.  Josh, who does not like greens of almost any sort except the occasional spinach stirred into pasta, was not a huge fan.  Although he did eat them.  Nettles are a good source of vitamins C and B, calcium, magnesium, iron potassium, beta carotene and other good-for-you tidbits.  Medicinally, it’s also used to treat inflammation of the urinary tract and kidneys.

There is one, teeny, tiny downside, though.  You have to use gloves when handling them.  Because stinging nettles really do sting.  Or at least, that’s what I’ve been told.  I wore gloves.  I don’t need to test that theory.  I’ll take the name for face value.  The leaves are covered with little hairs that, if touched by human skin, produce a stingy, burny effect.  Yes.  Burning.  That means it’s working!  But cooking the nettles, or drying them out, gets rid of that nasty little habit.

Having no idea how to even remotely approach these perplexing new greens, I used one of the recipes provided by Needle Lane in their weekly newsletter, and then amped it up with a bit of hot sauce.  I also used my garlic scapes instead of regular garlic in the recipe.  I then served them the way all veggies should be served…under a pile of pork. 

Steamed Nettles with Garlic
from Needle Lane Farms

Gently fry a crushed clove of garlic in an oiled pan until tender.  Add nettles and enough water to cover bottom of pan. Cover and steam until tender. Dress with tamari and freshly ground black pepper.

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1. Farm Share Goodies: June 23
2. Farm Share Goodies: June 30
3. Farm Share Goodies, Sept 16: I’m gonna make you a steak you can’t refuse

No, really.  I just got back this weekend from a cruise to Alaska and I really did stand on top of a mountain.  Not a very tall mountain, mind you, and it’s not like I was climbing up it, huffing and puffing with my faithful sherpa, Hodgkiss, a few patient yards ahead of me, doing all the real work.  No, I was very comfortably ferried up there by bus, 3300 feet up into one of the most beautiful landscapes anywhere.

So yes, Alaska was fantastic.  I was looking forward to it (I wanted to see whales—and did!) and it did not disappoint.  I mean, who knew that me, Little Miss Sunshine who is always either in front of a computer or iPhone screen, could enjoy being completely wifi-free in the frozen northwest?  Although I will be honest…it wasn’t exactly “frozen.”  Well, parts of it were.  We did see the Sawyer Glacier and that was pretty frozen, as you can imagine.

But the rest of the time, we were blessed with 70 degree, sunny weather.  And the highlight?  Part of me (the cheeky part) wants to say that it was seeing a street performer dressed as Darth Vader playing the violin.

But in reality, it was probably the couple of occasions where I was laying in bed in our room and out of the window I could see a whale frolicking in the water, with a beautiful blue sky and white-capped mountains in the background.  Now that is at least fifty-three kinds of awesome.

Yet like with every trip, there’s always at least a couple little lowlights.  What was it on this trip?

The food.

Here’s the thing about cruise food.  There is an ungodly amount of it, for one thing.  And for most people, it’s fantastic, decadent, delicious stuff.  And a lot of it really is.  There’s also always a good variety—for instance, every kind of breakfast food imaginable every day and for lunch and dinner, a variety of American, Mexican, Italian and even Jain Indian food (what Josh and I mostly ate over the week).  And that’s just at the buffet—quality restaurant fare can be found in the dining hall too.  It is indeed a positive smorgasbord.  But if you’re like me and you make your own meals all the time, even that great amount of excess can be lacking.  You just can’t get the same kind of quality making meals for over 2,000 people as you can just making something for yourself, in your own kitchen, with good quality ingredients.  That and I have a feeling that most of the food on display looks and tastes so good because of the use of copious amounts of butter.  Not that I’m disparaging butter in any sense—I mean, butter is a food group—but I don’t want to bathe in it.  (Or do I?)  So you can imagine that by the end of the cruise, I was really, really looking forward to making my own food.

I was especially looking forward to simple, healthy food.  The first meal I made when we got back was pasta, on Saturday night, with just some sautéed mushrooms, onion, tomatoes, a bit of spice and garlic bread (made with garlic scapes from the first box from our farm share this season!).

But then I felt like I needed to go a bit further.  I wanted food that was light and fresh, healthy, but still embodied the nice relaxed air that surrounded me on the trip.  I wanted something that reminded me of Alaska without being fish (which I don’t eat), something that was healthy but still indulgent.  Something like….strawberries.

Because strawberries are like mini mountains.  No, seriously.  Pick up a giant strawberry and hold it upside down.  It’s got a mountain-y shape.  Heck, you could put a few in a row, sprinkle them with powdered sugar and you’ve got the Andes.  Well not exactly, but basically and more deliciously.

The first dish I made was a dinner salad inspired by one that I often get at Grizzly Peak in Ann Arbor.  It was piled high with lettuce (from the farm share!) and spinach, cucumbers, sliced strawberries, couscous (yes, couscous), broiled and sliced chicken, chives, walnuts and a strawberry vinaigrette (recipe below) made of fresh strawberries, olive oil, lime juice and balsamic vinegar.  I know it seems a bit odd to put couscous on top of a lettuce salad, but it was delicious, light yet filling and pretty much an entire meal with all the important components.

But last night–last night was the best.  No, I didn’t make dinner.  We got treated to Beezy’s by a friend and had dinner there with her and her awesome kids.  When we got home, I was itching for dessert but as I had not yet gone to By the Pound, a local bulk place, to stock up on things, I was lacking in the “bake a dessert” area.  Besides, baked goods felt too heavy and I’m still on my “nice and light” kick.  I did, however, still have about two pounds of strawberries and a bunch of chocolate in the fridge, left over from making a fairly recent batch of pecan turtles.  And that, my friends, is all I needed to make a dessert that would bring even the gods themselves down from Mount Olympus: chocolate covered strawberries.

You may think these are difficult; they’re not.  You may think they’re messy; nope.  You may think that these are delicious and you should make a batch of your own tonight and you’d be right in that one, at least.  All I did was put the bowl of chocolate on top of a small saucepan that was filled with an inch or so of water, placed on the stove over medium heat, and let the water steam and slowly melt the chocolate into a shiny, delicious pool of goodness.  Then I washed and dried 8 large strawberries, held them by their green tops (don’t cut those off, they’re useful handles), dipped and rolled them in the chocolate and then placed them on a plan that had been covered with a sheet of wax paper.  Into the fridge for an hour to harden the chocolate and voilà!  Delicieux.

Have a good week, from the top of Mount Strawberry, all covered in chocolate.

Strawberry Vinaigrette

1 c. olive oil
2 tbsp lime juice
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
2 tsps sugar
1 tsp dried thyme
salt and pepper to taste

Mix all ingredients in a blender until smooth.

Chocolate Dipped Strawberries

1 lb semisweet or dark chocolate
1 tbsp butter
1 pound whole strawberries, washed and patted dry
wax or freezer paper

Melt chocolate and butter together in a heat-proof bowl by setting it atop a small saucepan filled with an inch or so of water over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally.

Dip strawberries one at a time into chocolate, letting the excess drip off.  Place gently on a cookie sheet covered with wax paper. Refrigerate for at least an hour, so that chocolate hardens.

Related posts:

1. Strawberry Tiramisu
2. SnackTime!
3. Kebabled

It’s been a busy spring.  So busy that I’ve fallen behind in my Recipe Experiments. But there’s one thing I never fall behind on:

Glee.

Yes, it’s true.  I’m a Gleek.  A huge one, too.  But I’m not alone.  There’s many of us.  We are legion.  We are loyal.  And we love to throw Glee parties and drink mojito slushies.  In fact, we had one such occasion this past Tuesday at the house of my fabulous friends, Brian and Rita.  We had a potluck dinner, complete with chicken marbella (delicious), quinoa (delicious), homemade bread (delicious), a corn-feta salsa (supremely delicious), more potato and corn chips than is probably healthy, homemade wine, the mojitos (of course) and these zucchini sticks.

Chase signed up to be the taster for this particular recipe experiment and he approves.  I’m in fact going to order a stamp that says “Chase Approves” and use it accordingly.  Seriously.  Well maybe not seriously.  But maybe seriously.  How much do stamps cost anyway?

This was a Parmesan zucchini recipe that I found originally on Cooking Light and then adapted a bit.  It makes a good appetizer, crunchy, delicious, and in there underneath the awesomeness and the bread crumbs is a vegetable.  So that counts towards your daily 5.  Just FYI.  And these are in fact so easy that I just prepared the parts of the recipe at home, brought it all to Brian’s and then assembled and baked them there.  About 5 minutes of prep, 20 minutes of baking and that’s all there is to it.

Romano Zucchini Sticks
Serves 8

3 large zucchini
1.5 c. panko
1/2 c. grated Romano cheese
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tbsp pepper
1 tbsp dried oregano
1 tbsp red pepper flakes
2 eggs, whisked
cooking spray

Preheat oven to 400F.

Cut each zucchini in half cross-wise and then cut each half into 8 sticks.  Combine panko, salt, pepper, oregano, red pepper flakes and Romano cheese in a medium bowl.  Dip the zucchini sticks first in the egg, letting the excess run off, and then dredge in the panko mixture, pressing as much of the mixture into the sticks as possible.  Place sticks side by side on a large baking sheet that’s been coated with cooking spray.  Bake for 20-25 minutes or until browned and crispy.  Serve!  Eat.  Share.

Related posts:

1. the Great Recipe Experiment: #7-Red Pepper Cannellini Dip
2. the Great Recipe Experiment: #5-Asopao de Pollo
3. the Great Recipe Experiment: #4-peanut butter cups