Reviews, Recipes, and Random Slices of Life

Basic recipe adapted from Smitten Kitchen's "Pasta with Garlicky Broccoli Rabe," which was itself adapted from Gourmet September 2006. Fascinating, seeing how recipes evolve!

Salt note from Smitten Kitchen: Please don’t use table salt. Most table salt is iodized and that iodine can turn your garlic a weird bright blue/green color. It will still be safe to eat but look… disturbing.

This is a great recipe to use whatever wilting or stir-fry greens your CSA gives you. My kids loved it, which is a huge victory for eating greens! I used a combination of broccoli rabe and tat soi, but any spinach-like green would do--kale or collards would be too tough.

Ingredients:
1 Tbsp. Kosher salt
1 lb. penne or other chunky pasta
1/2 - 1 lb. greens
1/2 cup olive oil
6 garlic cloves, peeled and minced or pressed
1 dried red pepper, minced
1 tsp. Kosher salt
15 oz. ricotta cheese (small container)
Lemon juice to taste

Instructions:
1. Bring a large pot of unsalted water to a boil. (It will heat faster this way.)

2. Chop greens into roughly 1" squares. Separate and mince stems if necessary.

3. Add 1 Tbsp. kosher salt and penne to boiling water.

4. 5 minutes before the pasta's cooking time is up, add the greens. They will wilt and cook alongside the pasta.

5. Drain greens and pasta together.

6. In the same pot, heat the olive oil with the garlic, pepper flakes and 1 tsp. Kosher salt over low-medium heat, stirring frequently for 3 to 4 minutes, or until the garlic becomes lightly golden.

7. Add pasta back to pot, along with ricotta cheese. Stir just until cheese is melted.

8. Serve with lemon juice to sprinkle on lightly immediately before eating.

No picture because I was in a hurry.

Spring salad

* 1 bag salad mix
* 1/2 bag baby spinach
* 4-5 medium radishes, sliced thinly
* 2 carrots, peeled and sliced thinly
* 3/4 c. parmesan, in large shavings
* 5-6 spears asparagus, grilled (next time, might try brushing with butter/oil before grilling - did fine without, though)
* Romano-cheese-based salad dressing (keep to the side for people to add themselves)

Combine half the salad mix and the spinach. Add half the toppings. Mix slightly, trying not to let all the toppings sink to the bottom.

Add the rest of the salad mix and spinach. Add the rest of the toppings. Mix gently.

I actually took the asparagus with us to the BBQ, grilled it there, and then snipped it into bite-sized pieces and mixed it into the salad. Also, that was a huge bowl of salad and it all got eaten. As Phil said, our social group eats pretty damn healthily these days.

CSA for salad mix, spinach, radishes, and asparagus.

Oz Cake

I'm calling this Oz Cake because it's golden and green and magically delicious, and making it involves whirling things around like a tornado. I don't usually like fennel's licorice taste, but in this cake, it doesn't really have that flavor. This makes a sweet, moist, dense cake.

Ingredients:
2 c. flour
3/4 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 c. butter, melted
1 1/2 c. sugar
2 eggs, beaten
1 c. yogurt
1/4-1/2 c. milk
2 overripe bananas
1 fennel, bulb and fronds
3 Tbsp. lime juice
3 tsp. vanilla
powdered sugar for dusting on top

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour a 13x9 metal baking pan.

In food processor, blend fennel, bananas, yogurt, and milk.

In large bowl, combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.

In small bowl, mix sugar, melted butter, eggs, vanilla, and lime juice. Add this to the dry ingredients, along with the blended fennel/banana mixture. Beat until well-blended.

Bake cake until top is golden and tester comes out clean, about 30-35 minutes. Dust top with powdered sugar.

Notes:
* This is good with a lemony cream cheese frosting, but works just fine on it's own, too.
* Sometimes you can substitute celery and fennel seed for fennel bulb and fronds. This is not one of those times. Trying that made the cake way too moist and thick.



Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting

1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup butter, softened
2 tablespoons lemon juice (possibly decrease to 1 1/2 Tbsp.)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 cups confectioners' sugar, add more if you want it thicker

Directions

Beat cream cheese, butter, lemon juice, and vanilla together until smooth and fluffy. Add confectioners' sugar. Beat until creamy. Add more icing sugar or water as needed for easy spreading. Makes more than is needed for the cake recipe--probably 1/2 recipe would be a bit on the thin side.

"No need to head to the Farmer's Market! Head to Cub Foods, to fill your basket with fresh produce picked at the peak of the season!" - Pandora ad that just played at me.

I find it very interesting that Cub is trying to lure back the people who shop at farmer's markets. I wonder if the group is actually large enough to hurt their bottom line these days? I was listening to a Splendid Table episode that was discussing the impact of the recession on food purchasing habits, and one of the more interesting bits was that farmer's markets and producers of organic foods have not really been impacted.

I hope it's significant. I hope it's an enduring trend.

This may also say something about Pandora's ability to target demographics based on song taste--seems a little far-fetched, but possible, given how good they are at targeting songs I may like.

x-post fb/lj--

My current, consistent (okay, consistent-ish--most of the time, but not always) schedule has me at the day job afternoons until 6 PM. This means two major things (in addition to a host of minor things like, "Oh lord, I hope the roomba didn't hurl itself off the stairs while I was gone," and, "I'm so pleased City Center lets people waiting for the bus hover inside by the door and doesn't kick us out into the cold," and, "I have to figure out my optimum schedule again?"):

1. Cooking is a problem. I'm the main cook, I don't get home until 7, which means food wouldn't be ready until 7:30-8:00, and I have a husband who practically self-destructs if he isn't fed immediately upon arriving home. Sometimes he has been cooking, but he's got a really limited repertoire, about where I was at 6 years ago. Sometimes he eats before I even get home, which is great for marital bonding. Sometimes I have been using the slow cooker. But here's the thing. Most of the slow-cooker recipes I have kinda suck. They're from a midwestern cookbook that's all about mixing together stuff in cans, especially canned cream-of-stuff, and the results are not great. So I ask you--what are your favorite slow cooker recipes and/or cookbooks? Bonus points if it's not soup.

2. Mornings are for working on writingy things. Right now, that means lots of editing. I can edit in company just fine. So if anybody'd like to socialize by co-existing in a coffee shop and working on projects, let me know. I'd love to hang out in a coffee shop with friends some morning.

Spiced Surprise Brownies
I am involved in ongoing experiments in how to cook the fennel in our CSA. Neither Phil nor I are at all fond of black licorice, which is what it tastes like, so this is a challenge. In a fit of brilliant madness, I decided to make fennel brownies. I processed the raw fennel to smithereens and added it to my standard double-chocolate brownies recipe, plus cloves and craisins. Then I was forced to substitute mashed bananas for the eggs in the recipe. The results were promising but not ideal, which is why there's no recipe here! The craisins were a mistake. Next time I'll cut the cloves down to 1/4 tsp. and try adding some other spices--maybe nutmeg, cinnamon, or allspice. Or I'll go crazy and add orange extract too. Still--something one can cook involving fennel that's actually pretty tasty!

Root Vegetable Biscuit Bake
(based on this Epicurious recipe)

Of all the words in a recipe, take it from me, the one you least want to miss is "covered." I did. As a result, this got too browned on top and didn't look very good, though it tasted fine. Also, I had to cook the biscuits separately because I didn't want to put it back in the oven and I was trying to follow the original recipe's instruction to cook the veggies for 50 minutes and then with the biscuits for another 45. This is not actually necessary. On the other hand, at least I'm learning to check how many servings it's supposed to make before I start cooking. I've had a few too many vats of leftovers lately!

( The recipe )

Tamarind-Teriyaki Stir-Fry Sauce
Make with vegetable and protein sources of your choice, but this is a good sauce.

2 c. tamarind drink (we used off-brand tamarind kool-aid)
1/2 c. garlic teriyaki sauce
3 dried red chilies, minced
4 cloves garlic, minced
4 cubes bouillon (I used chicken, but it depends on what your protein source is)