Winter Doldrums or Excuse to Eat?

So, by now, you might be finished with winter, or you may be embracing it as an opportunity to eat comfort foods.  Today is Super Bowl day and while the traditional urges to eat snacky foods is there a little bit, we will be bucking tradition and eating some fresh-from-the-garden goodies in the form of comfort food goodness.  This is comfort food that doesn't do what most comfort food does: makes you feel uncomfortable.  We won't be watching the Super Bowl, either (gasp!), so we will be breaking all the rules today.  Yesterday I was the proud recipient of some fresh, just-picked produce from my friend James Henderson of The Brickhouse at Lilac Hill Farm.  Since I was gone during winter garden planting time period and returned to find my garden ravaged by stink bugs, I am having to depend on James for my regular winter produce.  He, or rather his dad, brought me some beautiful red oak romaine lettuce, some broccoli, kale, parsley and cilantro!  I was excited about the cilantro, so I will probably make some guacamole, but that is as close to football fare as we will get.  I also have some beautiful okra purchased at Fresh Market because I was craving it, so using that, some chick peas, bi-color eggplant and  cilantro, I will make a yummy Indian dish of some sort.  I usually just make it up and cook it in the crockpot.  Then the whole house will smell like an Indian market.  So comforting on a cold day.

Last night, I made some Italian comfort food, a ribollita.  This hearty soup is a great use of what's in the fridge and pantry already.  It always contains cannellini beans and leftover bread.  Other typical ingredients include: celery, onion, garlic, carrot, cabbage or other winter green, and tomatoes.  I had some ham that I added and used some leftover ciabatta for the bread crumbs.  For the greens, I used kale, since I had just gotten a delivery of it.  Had I been thinking, I would have tossed in the arugula I had that needed to be used.  Maybe I'll throw that in when I reheat it today for some bright green color, since the kale has lost it's vibrant green after simmering in the crock pot.

So while everyone else is eating 7-layer dip, salsa, wings, and whatever else people eat on Super Bowl Sunday, we will be feasting like Italian peasants.  I made some macaroni and cheese the other night, so maybe I will heat that up as homage to the day.  Then we'll curl up with a good movie and be glad we're not stuffed full of cheese and sauce, corn and beer!

For your pleasure, the recipe I used for last night's soup.  I used lots of carrot and am lucky enough to have tons of rosemary all over my yard.  The ham was good, but I think next time I'll just use bacon.  A nice crusty rosemary bread was good alongside this and a drizzle of some citrus olive oil (I used one with lemon) added some brightness to the soup and made for good bread dipping.  It's also a good idea to thrown some park rind in the soup while cooking it and then remove it before serving. Don't forget a grind of fresh pepper before serving!

Enjoy and mangiatta!

3 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed

1 small onion, peeled and roughly chopped

1 carrot, peeled and chopped

1 celery stalk, chopped

4 ounces pancetta or ham, chopped

1/2 cup olive oil

1 15-ounce can whole peeled tomatoes

3 15-ounce cans cannellini or great northern beans, drained and rinsed

2 cups chicken broth

1 sprig fresh rosemary

1 bunch kale, roughly chopped

1/2 cup toasted bread crumbs

Grated parmesan

1 In a large pot over medium heat, sauté the first five ingredients in 2 tablespoons of the olive oil for 5 minutes.

2 Add the tomatoes and their juices, along with the beans, broth, and rosemary. Simmer, covered, until the beans break apart, about an hour.

3 Add the kale and cook for 5 to 7 minutes more. Stir in the bread crumbs and serve, drizzled with the remaining olive oil and sprinkled with the cheese.

Recipe care of: Epicurious.com

Black Mission Figs and cheese for dessert!! Wonderful washed down with a meritage from Orin Swift called "The Prisoner".

Dinner Last Night: chicken and homegrown eggplant parmigiana/scarpariella light!

Adventures in Food, Travel "Flu" and Rainy, Productive Sunday!

So, I've been gone for a bit, traveling it seems for a month with a few days in between locations for buffers and have spent those buffer days stewing with an illness of some sort each time.

The first trip was to Ecuador and Galapagos for a dive trip and I returned with dysentery.  The food on the live-aboard dive boat was good as always.  I tend to use dive trips as a type of "fat camp", since we are eating "out" and diving and even though one burns a lot of calories diving, there's no exercising in between dives, so I feel like a slug.  So, I make smart choices, don't pig out and take advantage of the extra calorie burn.  This trip was full of diving that required much more exertion since we were fighting strong currents (2-3 knots), raging surge and chasing whale sharks.  Unfortunately, the chef prepares yummy snacks in between meals and dives like fresh cinnamon rolls, empanadas, brownies and rich hot chocolate.  I'm not one to turn down a cinnamon roll.  His desserts were also great, but I avoided those mostly and tried to eat veggies, fruits and drink lots of herbal tea.  I couldn't have anticipated the dysentery, though (who can?) or the raging fever and body aches.  Armed with antibiotics and not sure what exactly was going on, I chose from my antibiotic medley, the amoxicillin, carried in case of ear infection.  I loaded up on tylenol and started the antibiotic immediately.  That night (the last night on the boat, thankfully, so I didn't miss any dives or land tours), the boat was traveling and the seas were pretty rough.  After a terrible night's sleep, by fever finally broke, but I was still having "issues".  The next two days were pure hell, sitting in the airport and then having to spend a day and a half in a hotel in Guayaquil as we awaited our flight home. The flight was a red eye and just as torturous.  I finally felt better enough to eat some breakfast, but after two bites, realized there was no way I could eat airport food.  The dysentery got worse and I finally gave in and called a doctor who sent me to the hospital.   Incidentally, if you get a "bug" like that in the Southern hemisphere, your better bet for an antibiotic is Cipro.  If you're not better after two- three days, the antibiotic won't help and can irritate your stomach.

Don't get me wrong, the trip was great, the diving magical, the food was really good, the company was entertaining (hubby, brother and our videographer friend), and the weather cooperative.  Food poisoning can happen anywhere.  TGIF, Mc D's, Pizza Hut, a four star restaurant.  Don't let my story prevent you from traveling to far-flung places.

The good thing about that episode?  A twelve pound weight loss!!!  So, two days after I started feeling normal again, but still on a bland diet, we headed to Philly for work for hubby.  A little dining extravaganza and some clothes shopping and I was better.  Then less than a week later we were off to the capital of all culinary adventuring: Italy.  Hubby had a meeting outside Milan, so I was left to my wanderings solo and then we took a few days at Lake Como for a belated anniversary trip.  Heaven, pure heaven and highly recommended!

Let's just say it's a good thing I arrived with a 12 pound weight deficit, because I made up for it!!  How do the Italians get anything done?  The food!  The wine!!  The cheese!!  The gelato!! The fresh pasta!! The wine!  Oh, already mentioned that one, didn't I?
We ate and ate, and I drank a lot of coffee, wine and aberol spriz's, prosecco and limoncello.  So I think the 12 pounds is back!  Needless to say, I also came back with a sinus infection or bad cold or something.  Heck, it might even be allergies.

So, today, feeling better and inspired, I'm going to try my hand at some of that wonderful homemade pasta.
Also, want to make some risotto milanese and husband is asking for osso bucco, which I've made before and love. I might just pick one thing to make today.

Oh and update on the garden: the cole crops I put in were not happy with the spate of dry, hot weather and were wilting a bit, also under siege by harlequin beetles.  The scarlet okra is coming in, I still have some dainty eggplants and managed two teensy yellow squash before they caved to the torrential amounts of squash bugs.  My second planting of beans that were fruiting when I left were decimated by bean beetles and obliterated when I returned.  The cucumbers, cantaloupe and watermelon were already on the way out, thanks to the heavy rain that came while we were gone to SA (late August) and the vine borers and squash bugs.  I managed to salvage two watermelons and three cantaloupes.

What I do have lots of to use and give away?  Peppers!!!  Still, tons and tons of peppers coming in, mostly hot peppers: super chilis, jalapenos and anaheim.

In a week, I am going to try to start digging sweet potatoes.  I dug one and roasted it with some regular potatoes and pesto and it was really good!  They have to cure once you dig them up so that they become sweet and also hardy for storage.

I'll keep everyone posted as things come in and post pictures of any creative dishes to come.  Last week I managed to squeak out one dish, Chicken Scarpariello, which was excellent!

Happy cooking and happy gardening and here are some pictures of food from our recent travels!

Three pastas at Osteria in Philly: clockwise, from bottom right: beet and goat cheese plins, postage stamp ravioli with trumpet mushrooms and thyme, lamb sausage with gamelli

Fish (don't remember what kind. rockfish?) with Israeli couscous and green beans also at Osteria

Pineapple mojito at Cuba Libre

Cappuccino at Vanini cafe in Lugano, Switzerland

Snapper Veracruz Style

This will give you a way to use up those last tomatoes of the season, the ones you've saved from the stink bugs.  Yes, the stink bugs!  They are sucking the juice from them right on the vine and then passing some sort of bacteria or virus on to the vine.  I think there are still some questions about what exactly they are doing with them.  Anyway, the tomatoes don't look so pretty anymore, so why not cook them up in a yummy dish like this.

This is taken from the Queen of homemaking and insider trading, so it should be pretty perfect, just like her. (tongue firmly planted in cheek).  It's pretty close to what I do and since I don't have a recipe for what I do (for anything except baking), I am posting this one for you.  Personally, I like to add strips of sweet bell pepper to mine, usually yellow since there's already red and green in the dish.  Saute or grill your snapper with a touch of salt and pepper in butter if sautéing and with oil if grilling.  By the way, Canela is Spanish for cinnamon, but you can use regular cinnamon.  They usually use one that's from Ceylon, but it really doesn't matter unless you're grinding your own.  Cinnamon is cinnamon, lady.

Makes 6 to 7 cups

• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 10 garlic cloves, 6 left whole, 4 very finely chopped
• 2 medium white onions, finely chopped
• 8 to 10 large ripe tomatoes, (about 4 pounds), finely chopped, or two 28-ounce cans Italian plum tomatoes (preferably San Marzano), coarsely chopped, with their juice
• 24 pimento-stuffed green olives, sliced if large
• 4 to 6 pickled jalapeno chiles, stemmed, seeded, and cut lengthwise into thin strips
• 2 teaspoons small capers
• 4 dried bay leaves
• 1 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves
• 4 sprigs fresh thyme, or 1/2 teaspoon crumbled dried thyme
• 4 sprigs fresh marjoram, or 1/2 teaspoon crumbled dried marjoram
• 4 sprigs fresh oregano, or 1/2 teaspoon crumbled dried Mexican oregano
• 2 teaspoons coarse salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground canela
• 1 cup dry white wine

Directions

1. In a medium stockpot, heat oil over medium-high heat. Add whole garlic cloves, and cook, stirring, until golden on all sides. Remove garlic and discard. Add minced garlic and the onion. Cook, stirring frequently, until onions are translucent, about 3 minutes. Stir in tomatoes. Reduce heat to medium-low and cook, stirring occasionally, until slightly reduced, about 15 minutes.
2. Add olives, chiles, capers, bay leaves, parsley, thyme, marjoram, oregano, salt, canela, and wine. Cook until the sauce has thickened to desired consistency, 15 to 20 minutes. Taste and adjust for seasoning. If using fresh whole herbs, remove and discard before serving.

NEXT TIME: POTATOES!!!!  Including roasted, almost potato chips and mashers!

I'm Finally Getting Melons!!

Anyone who knows me, knows how funny that title is, but the reality is, I've never successfully grown melons.  HA!  That's funny, too.  Seriously, folks, (because you know I'm always serious), this year the melon patch is doing really well. (From here on I will refer to the melon patch, not melons).
"What did you plant," you ask.  I have no idea.  Well, let me clarify.  I know I planted a type of cantaloupe (orange fleshed) and a type of watermelon.  I just don't know the variety.  I'm guessing Muskmelon or Crenshaw cantaloupes and Sugar Bush or Sugar Baby seedless watermelon.  The fun thing is that they will be coming in toward the end of August, maybe middle of September, way after all the others are done.  Maybe any cool nights will make them extra sweet, who knows?  

The only other time I did have mild success with a melon patch was also the year I had a very successful groundhog.  He was extremely good at assessing the ripeness of a cantaloupe which proved to be his favorite thing in my garden.  I was growing a French variety.  (Oui, oui, hunh, hunh)  I would look at the cantaloupe and smell it and say, "One more day and you should be just right" or "Two more days", etc.  Well, Mr. Groundhog was obviously trying to be helpful and just wanted to teach me how to judge a melon's ripeness.  Sure enough, the next day, I would find the carnage in my melon patch.  Usually there would be a half eaten or mostly eaten cantaloupe either still in the patch or right by the gate.  He was crawling under the gate to enter and exit, so I imagined him dropping the melon in a mad dash to escape.  Either that, or he was full, considering he was also eating beans that year.  And by eating beans, I mean he started out with groundhog ADD and ate the bottom half of each bean and then he just mowed the plants down.

I'll take a whole herd of deer over one groundhog. The one time a buck jumped the fence, he only ate a cucumber.  Thankfully, I have a nice fence apron buried down in the ground about two feet and it goes out another four feet or so, so they're discouraged and I have a board buried in front of my gate, so they can't dig under it.  I have my fingers crossed that they won't climb the fence because they can climb.

In the meantime, it's cucumber heaven out there and would be squash heaven if it weren't for the squash bugs (an evil variant of the stink bug) and the worm vine borers.  If you have any leaves just wilt and fall or break off, you've got worm borers.  No real solution.  I used my last organic resort last night.  After finding a dead bumblebee in my cucumbers I worried that it was from the spinosid I sprayed the night before.  I tried to keep it off the blooms and fruits, but it's really hard to do that when the bugs you're trying to eradicate are in that spot.  Also, squash and cucumber blooms close up at night, so I thought they were safe.  I always wait until I don't see any bees buzzing around.  So last night I just did some direct spraying of the bugs with some Espoma Earth Tone.  It contains pyrethrums, an extract of chrysanthemums, but also has canola oil which smothers eggs. I use this only as a last resort because it effects the nervous systems of bugs and I worry about the beneficials getting hit.

If anyone has some suggestions for how to use all these cucumbers, let me know!

Thanks! Happy Gardening!

Provencale vs. Veracruz

And the winner is......

They're both winners because they're easy, tasty and will make people think you've been cooking for hours!!

Following are the two recipes for Provencale and Veracruz that I use.  The first one is for Chicken Provencale but you don't have to make it with chicken the way it describes.  For instance, I made the sauce earlier and used a TBL of butter in place of the chicken fat.  The next day, I flattened a chicken breast, grilled it and then heated my sauce and poured it over, followed by some freshly grated parmesan.  You can also serve it over fish, like grilled halibut.  And you can dump all the ingredients in a crock pot on top of some chicken, set it and forget it and come home to a house that smells incredible and a finished dinner.

Pasta is great with it, too.

Chicken Provencal - Poulet Provencal
Adapted from Cook's Illustrated

6 - 8 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs
1 tsp of olive oil
1 small onion, chopped
6 cloves of garlic, minced
1 anchovy fillet, minced or 1 1/2 tsp. anchovy paste
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
1 C dry white wine
1 C chicken stock/broth
1 14 oz can of diced tomatoes, drained
2 1/2 TBL tomato paste
1 1/2 TBL fresh thyme leaves, chopped
1 1/2 TBL fresh oregano1 bay leaf
1 tsp herbes de Provence (optional)
1/3 C nicoise olives, pitted and roughly chopped
Zest from 1 lemon
2 Tbsp fresh parsley

Heat 1 tsp of olive oil in a Dutch oven over medium high heat. Cook the chicken thighs in batches (4 at a time if you’re cooking 8, since I was cooking 6 small thighs, I squeezed them all in there). Add the thighs skin side down and cook until the skin is crisp and golden brown, about 5 minutes. At first the skin will stick to the pot but when they start to brown, they'll release easier from the pan. Turn the thighs over and brown the second side until golden brown, another 5 minutes. Remove the chicken thighs and set aside. Drain all but 2 tsp of fat from the pot.

Add the onions to the pot and cook over medium heat until browned, about 4 minutes. Add the garlic, anchovy, tomato paste, and cayenne and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds to 1 minute. 

Add the wine and scrape up the brown bits and then add the chicken broth, tomatoes, thyme, bay leaf, and herbes de Provence (if using). 

Remove the skins from the chicken thighs and nestle them into the pot with any accumulated juices. Bring to a simmer then either cook in the oven at 300ºF for about 1 hour or barely simmering over low heat for an hour. 

Remove the chicken and set aside and discard the bay leaf. Cook the contents in the pot over high heat until thickened and reduced, about 5 minutes. Stir in olives and cook for 1 minute. Then off heat stir in the parsley and lemon zest and spoon the sauce over the chicken. Serve with crusty bread. 

Gardenitis Gangbusterus

The cucumbers are coming hot and heavy, so I don't know where the "cool as a cucumber" thing fits in!  Well, of course, I do: after you get them in the fridge and it's too hot to eat anything but frozen grapes and cucumbers!

Speaking off hot, what a great year for peppers!  My hot peppers are gangbusters, too.  Trying to find fun things to do with them, but they are SO hot, that's it's challenging.  Give 'em away and freeze them is about the only thing I can do.

I don't even want to think about the beans I have to go out there and pick...RIGHT NOW!!!  It'd be a shame to waste them and I will be wasted if I don't beat the heat.  I already hear the cicadas and katydids, so I better get out there pronto.  I just wanted to let you know that if your tomato plants are looking terrible, that's perfectly normal for this time of year, especially if you planted them early, like April.  Plus, the heat is hard on them.  Any temperatures over 95 and they're irritated little campers.

A warning, too, about a new pest for tomatoes: our friend the Stink Bug.  Yep, they are crawling all over those last little fighting fruits and leaving little white spots on the skin.  I'm looking into finding out exactly what they're doing, so I will be back on that.

If you have any seeds left over, plant them now!  Especially broccoli, cabbage, brussel sprouts, beets, and any other cole crop.  That's cole, not cold.  I always thought it was cold, too, but it's actually cole:

“Cole crops” is a general term used to describe several vegetables in the mustard family, including broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, collards, kale, and kohlrabi. All cole crops are cultivated varieties of the species Brassica oleracea. They are cool-season vegetables that prefer 60° to 70°F temperatures for optimal growth and can withstand light frosts without injury.

So there you go.  It's kind-of like: "a hard row to hoe".  Most people mistakenly say, "a hard road to hoe" which actually combines two idioms.  "It will be a hard road ahead" and "a hard row to  hoe".  Of course you cant hoe a road!  Silly.  But most people have never had a garden, so they don't know what that refers to and they only know the word "hoe" in one illicit context with a different spelling.  So there ya go!

It just so happens that cole crops are also "cold" crops in that they do well in cold weather.  Cooler weather also makes them sweeter, so that's something you got going for you.  But beware the harlequin beetle!  He is so pretty, but when my broccoli was dying off, they were covered with tons of them "Getting down" if you know what I mean (kind-of like "hoeing") and then when I dug my potatoes, I saw millions of leeeetle baby ones all over the place.  They're going to have a field day when they see my little broccoli coming up.  So just be aware and get that Spinosid ready.  And remember spray spinosid only after all the bees and butterflies have bedded down for the night and are no longer feeding.  Spray the leaves of the plant only.

So plant your cole crops, your spinach, lettuce, arugula, etc. and enjoy veggies straight into October.  With our long Indian Summers, you're really not limited very much by growing seasons.  Pick up some old sheets and you can cover them when there are frost warnings.  I'll have more information on this stuff as it gets closer, but for now, enjoy those cukes, squash, eggplants, beans, whatever you have coming in and check the Farmer's Market for anything you need.   Buy local, eat seasonally for better taste and better health!!! (And it's a whole lot cheaper, too!)

Happy gardening!