Guilt by Herbs

I've been very bad.

Summer has us itching to leave the apartment for dinner. (Have I mentioned yet that we have no A/C? Maybe a few times...) And though I'm doing a pretty good job bringing a lunch salad with me to work each day, one particular ingredient has been building up.

Sitting there in a little glass with a piece of plastic on top.

Taunting me.

"We're wiiiilting..."

Yes, the herbs. So tonight, in a hypomanic love affair with Bon Appetit, I made three herb-centric dishes.

(1) Summer Squash Quinoa

- cook quinoa (WOW I've been doing this with way too little water all these years!)

- while quinoa cooking, set aside chunks of squash covered in liberal salt x 15min

- whip up tasty dressing consisting of olive oil, vinegar (I used apple cider), lemon zest, parmesean

- combo quinoa, squash, walnuts

- add chopped flat parsley

- add lemon basil (recipe calls for basil, but lemon basil was both available and better)

- dress!

(2) Zucchini with Potatoes and Thyme

- pan fry potatoes in olive oil, season w salt and pepper, mix w thyme and remove

- pan fry zucchini

- combo

(3) Sage Butter - okay fine, on something... how about chicken

- blend a stick of butter, 1/2 cup sage, some lemon zest and juice, and some black pepper

- realize you have made an entire tub of butter; start thinking about other uses for next week...

A CSA of our own--roasted tomatillo salsa

So we did not quite mobilize on the CSA front this year. But we are doing the next best thing...window box gardening!!! There's been some trial and error and adaptation to deal with our light situation (For example: cilantro wants light. Also, believe it or not, just throwing your coffee grinds and banana peels into the window box does not quite count as compost. In fact it makes your soil look gross and attracts bugs.). On the East window, some Cowhorn peppers. We got them as seedlings in June, and one has grown and the other has remained...well...stunted (I trimmed the top off and it's never grown in height.). Below you can see it's little stunted peppers. But, in it's defense one of the peppers turned red, which means it is mature and less spicy and prettier than the other peppers (And we can all agree, prettier = better.)! Next to it is some cilantro, which we'll use to make Roasted Tomatillo Salsa later (recipe below). We are growing that from seed, and its about 2 weeks in (with some help from fish fertilizer.).

Above is the happily growing Cowhorn plant. Note how tall the plant is, and how long and thin and downward growing the pepper is, as opposed to how squat and upward growing the others are. Nature is weird.

Inside, we've got some basil growing (from seed, 2 months in), and--DID YOU KNOW THIS TRICK? If you put your green onions in a cup of water after you've used them they will continue to grow and regenerate. Again I say NATURE IS WEIRD! Scrambled eggs with green onions any time we want!!!

And finally, our pride and joy, our coup de coups,  our low light window box. Which thanks to Tom's extensive research and thoughtful care  (and perhaps over-fertilization) is doing quite well. Spinach is on the right and left, radishes on the far side, and kale on the inside. 2 weeks old. In a few months we'll have salad!

OK, so now the delicious roasted tomatillo salsa--with, count 'em ONE item from our window box CSA. (but when the cilantro grows up, there will be two).
You need
9-10 tomatillos (green tomatos with husks on them)
garlic
white onion
cilantro
lime
cumin
pepper (we used cowhorn, you use jalepeno, or any chile really)

Preheat the oven to 400. Husk the tomatillos. Put them, four cloves of garlic, white onion (quartered), and the pepper in the oven for 15-20 min until roasted. Remove, and throw in the food processor. add some lime juice, lots of cilantro, cumin, salt and pepper to taste. And voila. You won't be sorry.

Vegetables got you down?

Enough roughage already. It's time to get working on the fruit share.

A couple weeks ago, a friend of mine decided to undertake the pulling of a pork. So we went on a Sunday morning excursion out for a pot. Walking in to sur la table, my friend commented on all the unnecessary stuff you can buy in there that one should never possess.
15 minutes later, we both left the proud owners of a $50 popsicle maker. Each, that is.

To the person who says that a popsicle maker is a superfluous kitchen appliance never to be taken out of a box is obviously lacking a certain joie de vivre (like how Annie is so devoted to karate she refuses to take me out for a sprinkles laden waffle cone). $50 is a small price to pay for such popsicle happiness. So, really I don't even know how this relates to the intro. There is lots of stuff you don't need at Sur la table, but this isn't one of them. The reason I even knew what they were is because a friend of mine in Haiti had one. If you have one in Haiti, it's probably not a luxury item.

I know what you're thinking-- can you put alcohol in them? Sort of, is the answer. Apparently beer and wine work, hard liquor obviously does not, but you can make a sort of mild mixed drink and then make that into a popsicle. And then eat like 12 of them.

But the real question you should be asking is can you put Jell-o pudding in them-- and the answer to that is also sort of. At least, you can't the way I attempted it. And let me tell you, screwing up a popsicle by making a mix that gets stuck in the machine is a devastating blow that will leave you popsicle-less for more than 24 hours. It involves defrosting the machine and then refreezing it. The contraption is a like an ice cream maker, and freezes the popsicles in about 3 minutes. The day I got burned by the pudding pop was a sad one. The mix was too thick and the stick got pushed out of the machine a little and then I was unable to extract the popsicle.

So it was with a good amount of trepidation that I advanced on to the fruit puree version. This is where the CSA finally comes in. First, I made some backup pops in case I screwed something up again, I wouldn't be without. The no-assembly required ones were just lime aid, a boathouse farms chai protein shake, and chicken broth for the dog. Although zico chocolate coconut water seems like it would be good, it wasn't FYI. This also gave me something to eat while I made the other popsicle.

Ok, now the CSA gets involved for real. I pureed up those apricots and put in a leaf of basil (I'm not sure why) with some water and agave, popped that up in the zoku and kept my fingers crossed.

Out emerged this ugly, but relatively tasty pop. I suspect a lot of my fruit will meet this end. My goal is to actually take the whole five minutes to gussy these things up to make them look like they do in the recipe book with fruits and faces and stripes and stuff. Not just orange blobs. But on the other hand you just eat them as they come out of the machine, so what's the point?

Oh, don't stick your tongue to the machine. That's another good thing to know.

Rare Moments of Unbridled Enthusiasm

I think innately, I am an incredibly lazy person. I will take any excuse to devolve in being totally non-functional, particularly if others are picking up the slack. I'm nothing like this at work, mind you, but I feel that working too hard gives me license to not need to function in any capacity outside of it. So, in two years I have made a righteous mess of my apartment and have sub-optimally managed a bikini readiness campaign. In a pre-planned summer turnaround program, some days have gone better than others in terms of enthusiasm for the mission. Annie can tell you that I harass her on a near daily basis to go to the Big Gay Ice Cream shop, and she does not oblige, maybe because, now that I think about it, she's concerned about seeing me in a bikini. She's pretty judgmental. Anyway, yesterday was an exception to the rule. I basically rocked it all. After hitting the gym for well over an hour and riding my bike there, I came home extremely hungry. So I whipped this up:

That is sideways. But that's dinner for 1. Even the dog got a chicken breast out of this cooking mayhem. Here's what else was on the menu:
 Chicken breast with peri-peri (usually available at those street fair spice guys) CSA escarole sauteed in olive oil, garlic and chili peppers (is there another way to cook it, because according to the internet, this is the only use for escarole?)
 CSA grilled zucchini and onions- better than previous attempts at zucchini usefulness I guess
 yogurt dip with CSA herbs- greek yogurt, herbs. Good all over everything
 herbed potatoes- herbfest 2012 continues

I smoked out the entire apartment and scared the dog into hiding in the bathroom. She probably now has zucchini lung or something. I even used Cecils for the first time amid this flurry of productivity. There was dessert to boot! This will be covered in a subsequent post. Right now I'm too exhausted to go on.

Eating Weeds

What the eff is purslane?

According to some searches I did, purslane is a green succulent that goes good in salad. Green, crispy, healthy, a little citrus-y. Lots of recipes with purslane-potato-salad. Sounds good to me!

You know what doesn't sound so appealing? Eating weeds off the sidewalk. Because that's what I read about here. The more I read, the more entertained I was - would love to see the neighbors' reactions - but I persevered and went ahead with the potato salad.

Purslane - leaves, buds.
Potatoes - boiled, smashed up.
Chives.
Salt and pepper.
Squished up sardines in olive oil.

Surprisingly delicious. And, as is evidenced by the fact that I ate the salad three days ago, not deadly.

Huzzah.

Great Salad Dressing

Planned on making lobster salad inspired by this recipe.

Then found out three things:
(1) Lobster is expensive
(2) Crab is also expensive
(3) Tuna is NOT expensive

Substituted tuna. No problemo.
Used various other CSA things.

But most important thing is the perfect salad dressing:

1/2 cup minced shallots

1/2 cup white wine vinegar

1/2 cup coarsely chopped fresh dill

2 tablespoons Dijon mustard

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1 teaspoon ground black pepper

1 cup vegetable oil (I used olive oil)

Everything but Kitchen Sink

Headed out of town this weekend, in mad rush to Eat Veggies...

(1) 6 pieces of okra
(2) Escarole
(3) Tomatoes (granted, not CSA)
(4) Parsley (uh oh... turns out we don't like parsley... well, it was worth a shot)
(5) Some beans
(6) Some chicken stock
(7) Salt, pepper, crushed red pepper flakes, cumin

Madame Greig's Manhattan Clam Chowder

No matter how disinterested your mom may be in cooking, everyone probably has some kind of favorite mom dish that cannot be replicated. My mom's manhattan clam chowder is that for me. It is my favorite thing on earth. Despite Manhattan clam chowder being the red headed step child of clam chowder, what few people know is that it is actually the best. New England clam chowder is a total waste of time compared to manhattan. If you had been to my mom's, you would know this to be true. I have never replicated it truly successfully. That is somewhat situational, as when my mom makes it, I dont have to, which automatically makes it better. In that scenario I've spent all day in the pool and then eat this in a bathing suit. Today, I interrupted my busy Cesar Milan Dog Whisperer marathon to whip up a batch. And it was a tremendous success, thanks to CSA Summer Savory. Get over yourself Summer Savory. You are thyme. But I am still grateful because it was my best clam chowder ever. Most ingredients were procured at union square, with the clams from costco (best seafood and year round fruit in manhattan- it cannot be denied). CSA provided the summer savory/thyme. Had with Eve's Cidery Northern Spy cider (union square). Delish. Manhattan clam chowder 4 tablespoons butter - melt in pan 2 onions 1 cup of chopped celery in with the onion until soft then add: 1 28oz can of chopped tomatoes 5 cups (or if you're lazy, 1 box of chicken broth which is 4 cups) 1.5 tbs thyme or summer savory if you belong to a douchy csa and it is available (I also added a little bit of dried thyme today too) 2 bay leaves 2 large diced potatoes or a bunch of super cute little potatoes available now at farmers markets handful of parsley salt and pepper to taste. I undersalt until the end because the clams are pretty briny cook 30 mins or so until the potatoes are tender Steam 3 doz clams or so, whatever came in your costco pack and then add shelled clams (I took the extra step to chop them today which was good) to broth. It would have been better with the pool and my mom and everything, but this was pretty damn good.

Ina, let's do the Hamptons

I have always firmly believed that Ina Garten and I would be fast friends. Particularly when visiting her Hamptons home, eating whatever she made me for dinner. So, in an effort to be closer to Ina, I felt that joining a CSA would be somewhat Ina-esque, like that episode where Ina joins a CSA. Whether she would be proud of my accomplishments this week, I don't know. It was my first week. However, her spirit of not working very hard, not really knowing how to use a knife, incorporating bizarre liqueurs (is that how you spell that? there are so many "u's") and sparing no expense, I most certainly embodied. Things I need to work on remain-- using a stand mixer for all recipes being one of my most immediate goals. Starting off, after picking up the CSA contents, I determined that a trip to Costco, union square, and a fresh direct delivery were all in order. I went to sur la table twice. I also ordered takeout twice and went out to dinner once. Note, I currently live only with a small dog who eats dog food exclusively. Then I set about my business of making food. I tried desperately to figure out some kind of super-meal that would incorporate all the vegetables simultaneously with a liqueur, but didn't come up with anything. It was my first week so maybe I have to build to that. I started out easy-- mostly eating leftovers on top of vegetables. Steak fajita on romaine. Chicken shish kabob on romaine. Throwing away arugula. Two down. The best I got was a two ingredient combo. I made a chicken spinach soup with garlic scape pesto. Dirt was a key ingredient here, and I would recommend washing your spinach for upwards of 45 minutes. I made a greek inspired swiss chard and mint in tomatoes thing halfway between this: NY TIMES Stewed greens and mint and this: Barefoot Contessa Shrimp and Feta Where the nytimes recipes for health omits alcohol and a large pile of cheese topping, the Barefoot Contessa does not. And with my current mantra of WWID, obviously I opted for both. And it was not wrong, because no one wanted to eat swiss chard this week unless there were some more persuasive factors. I wont bore you with the zucchini story like I just bored myself with dinner. I dont want Ina to Google me and have something stupid come up. So I will just finish with this in case she does-- remember that time we ran into each other at Grace's and nothing happened? I do. Also I stood next to your friend TR on the subway and asked Eli Zabar what kind of soup he recommended at Zabars. Ah we have so much in common.

Radishes and Lemon-Anchovy Vinagrette

Radishes are showing up in our CSA, adding a splash of fresh color to our very green CSA pickings this early in the season.  But I'll be honest, sometimes I shy away from that intense, peppery flavor of fresh radishes and simply resort to adding thin slices into some salads.

We recently just came back from a trip to Spain including a stop in San Sebastian, home to one of the best city-beaches in Europe, mouth watering pintxos (Basque tapas), and the highest number of Michelin stars per capita...so yes, they take their food very seriously.  There, they had countless little dishes that paired up very intense flavors, and rather than clashing, made for some very delicious eating.  Briny salt cod or anchovies with creamy goat cheese or foie gras, sweet pickled peppers with olives and cured ham, and so on.


For this recipe, we match up with the peppery quality of the radishes, with some some briny and citrusy flavors from anchovies and lemon juice, along with some softer garlicy notes from our garlic scapes.


Radishes and Lemon-Anchovy Vinagrette
3 packed anchovies (salt-packed or in olive oil or herbs)  rinse, remove bones and chop
one garlic scape, minced
1 tsp Dijon mustard
pinch of red pepper flakes
lemon zest and lemon juice (1/2 to 1 lemon to taste)
optional (dash of red wine vinegar)
salt and pepper to taste
1-2 bunches of radishes, washed with tops attached, and split into halves or quarters

Mix everything together and whisk in the olive oil and seasonings and spoon over the halved radishes w/ the tops attached. Enjoy!