Potato Blues

The potato harvest is in, about a month or so early due to the unforeseen circumstance of deciding to move to Western Massachusetts with about 3 weeks' notice (!). According to my notes, I planted 1 lb of All Blue potatoes back in mid-May, which should have yielded 15-20 lbs of potatoes... but I only dug up 7 lbs. Admittedly, most of them are quite small and would surely have increased in bulk if I had waited long enough to harvest them. But not even half the expected yield??? It's also true that they were in a less sunny part of the plot this year. This is only my second year of growing potatoes and last year's crop also got pulled early due to the much-bemoaned late tomato blight of 2009, so I'm just not sure what to think, although I am grateful for what I got. Seven lbs of potatoes is still...seven pounds of potatoes! An abundance of potatoes by anyone's count.

I may try potatoes again next year, although since our new living situation includes all meals, vegetable gardening would be a gratuitous exercise. If I do, I probably won't grow blues again. I have to say, even though these are considered "gourmet", I find them just a bit creepy to look at! The blue is actually more like grey once cooked, and their insides lost their color completely. Fortunately, they are quite tasty in the various ways I've served them so far.

Below is a very simple, delicious recipe that requires almost no time to prepare: roasted rosemary potatoes. I've shamelessly borrowed the method from another blogger who posted it back in 2007. The recipe is reproduced below with a few small changes, including using fresh instead dried rosemary since it was all I had.

Rosemary Blues

Preheat oven to 425.

Combine in a cast-iron skillet or other large, shallow, oven-safe dish:

1.5 lbs blue potatoes, washed and cut into bite-sized pieces
1/4 cup olive oil

Cook 20 minutes in the middle of the oven, then turn off heat, stir potatoes to loosen their bottoms and let sit in the oven 10 more minutes.

Now toss with:
1 tablespoon sea salt
2 tablespoons dried (crushed) or fresh (chopped) rosemary

Serve alongside another dish with some nice color, like a tomato salad!

Great Greens! Part IV

This summer I have discovered through sheer garden neglect exactly how much of a superstar kale really is. Not only does it top out with the highest ANDI score of all the vegetables, the kale plants in my garden that started off as a decent fall crop last year, then overwintered in my zone 6 garden to produce an abundant spring harvest - drumroll, please - grew whole new plants this summer from the scraggly stalks I had let go to seed, each one producing a full size bunch from one little side shoot! Which presents me with an unexpected opportunity to enjoy even more super-local kale. Yippee! If only my children were so excited about the prospect.

I decided to utilize a strategy that has served me well in the past when entertaining guests who are skeptical about the potential pleasures of whole-grain, vegetarian cooking. Rather than disguise the item in question, I like to package it in such a way as to be irresistable. In this case, kale-pine nut spanikopita to the rescue! For those unsure about "spanikopita", it simply means spinach pie in Greek. It is often made into bit-sized triangles and passed around as an hors-d'oeuvre. I love two things about spanikopita: the buttery flakiness of the phyllo and its ability to incorporate ridiculous amounts of greens into a very tasty dish. While spinach is the typical green used, in Greece there are often other greens added, particularly in the springtime when all the wild greens are out. Then the little triangles are called hortapita (horta meaning wild green). Here's a funky recipe for hortapita from FarmPlate, a most excellent blog. I say funky because it has fennel in it (bleh!)

Hmm, maybe I should call my version KALEPITA! Oh, and the other nice thing is that it can easily be made vegan-style, without the feta cheese and using olive oil in place of butter. Finally, don't be afraid to use phyllo dough! The main thing is to let it thaw properly. If you rush it, you may end up with a crumbly mess as I did with this last version! But it still tasted delicious anyway.

Kale-Pine Nut Spanikopita (Kalepita)

1/2 package of phyllo dough, thawed according to package directions
1/4 cup butter, melted
2 T olive oil

2 T olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, pressed or minced
1 large bunch kale or other greens -collard, chard, spinach - leaves stripped from stems, chopped into 1 inch pieces and washed well (salad spinner works great for this)
1/4 cup chopped fresh dill or 2 T dried dill (less if you're not sure how you feel about dill)
1/4 cup chopped fresh speariment leaves or 2 T dried mint

1/2 lb firm tofu, crumbled
1/2 to 3/4 lb feta cheese, crumbled (Trader Joe's is quite good, imported from Greece - save the fancy feta for your mezze plate)

1/4 cup pine nuts, lightly toasted (toaster oven or dry skillet on med-low heat - don't let them burn!)

1. Heat 2 T olive oil in a large skillet on medium heat. Saute onion 5 minutes, then add garlic and cook 2 minutes more. Stir in kale pieces, cover and cook over med-low heat for 25 minutes.
2. Stir dill, mint, tofu, 1/2 lb feta and pine nuts into the kale mixture. Sprinkle in 1/2 t black pepper and taste to see if either salt or more feta seems needed. It should be pretty tasty at this point. But it will get tastier when tucked inside the phyllo!
3. Warm the butter and add 2 T olive oil. Hunt down a pastry brush. Get out the phyllo dough and lightly oil the bottom of a 9" x 12" or so casserole dish. Preheat your 350 degree oven.
4. Working quickly but carefully, begin to butter and layer half of the phyllo sheets in the bottom of the casserole dish. It doesn't matter if they get torn, and any part of the sheet that hangs over the edge should be folded down into the dish. And don't stress if exactly half don't make it into each layer - this is not an exact science.
5. When half of the phyllo has been layered, spread the entire kale/cheese mixture over the top of it. Make sure the whole surface is covered or someone will get a disappointing piece of the pie.
6. Repeat Step #4 until the remaining phyllo sheets have all been used, brushing the top sheet with butter. If you run out of the butter/oil mixture, just add more butter or oil to the bowl as your conscience allows. Some people - or so I've heard - sometimes take the lazy way out and use spray olive oil instead of brushing each sheet. But please don't tell my Greek inlaws!
7. Bake the dish in the middle of the oven for 35-40 minutes. It's done when the top is lightly browned and your home smells like a village plateia at around 10pm when everyone is out enjoying their supper.

Zucchini Monster Muffins

 

Whether monster zucchinis lurk in your garden under big leaves or are piled high at the produce stand, when huge summer squashes start showing up they have to be dealt with one way or another. In general, muffins are a great way to hide all kinds of fruits and vegetables. They are highly portable and great for snacks, brown bag lunches or road trips. I typically freeze half and leave the rest on the counter. They disappear within a day or two.

This recipe originated from the Food Network website. With significant modifications it is still tasty and quite a bit healthier than it started off.

 

1. Mix in one bowl:

• 1-1/2 cup whole wheat flour
• 1-3/4 cup white flour
• 1 t salt
• 1 t nutmeg
• 1 t cinnamon
• 2 t baking soda
• 1-1/2 cups sugar (some people like a bit more than this)

 

2. Mix in another bowl:

• 1/4 cup raisin or other dried frut puree (dried fruit can be reconstituted in boiling water, then pureed, or you can use baby food)
• 1 ripe, mashed banana
• 2/3 cup canola oil (half the oil still yields good results)
• 1/3 cup applesauce
• 3 eggs, beaten
• 1/4 cup ground flaxseed
• 1/3 cup soymilk, milk or whey drained from yogurt
• 2-4 cups grated zucchini or summer squash, drained (1 monster zucchini or 2 medium ones)
• 1 t lemon juice

3. Pour liquids into dry ingredients.

4. Stir in 1 cup ground walnuts or pecans

 

If batter seems quite a bit wetter than usual muffin batter (e.g. it drips off your spoon rather than coming off in big glops), add some more flour and/or a cup of oats. The wet batter may be a result of not draining the squash enough.

 

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees and spray muffin tins with non-stick spray or wipe with oil.
Bake both muffin trays together for 30 minutes, switching trays in the oven halfway through. Or bake a loaf for 1 hour or until a toothpick in the center comes out clean. Makes approx. 24 muffins.

Bringing Lunch

There are A LOT of places to eat in the neighborhood where I work. Fortunately, most are sit-down restaurants and as a working parent, lunchtime has to be maximized, so I don't frequent them very often. And for some reason, the Boston area hasn't yet seen the rise of gourmet food trucks that I keep hearing about in other urban centers. So for now, it's bring your own lunch for me.

But who says bringing your lunch has to mean peanut butter and jelly in a paper bag? Below are some photos of my favorite lunch containers and a few comments about how I use them. Sure, an old-school insulated Thermos food jar would also work just fine, but until the foods trucks come rolling into Harvard Square, I like to have something to look forward to as I eat my leftovers each day. Incidentally, none of these containers can be microwaved, so I keep a dinner plate, soup bowl and utensils in my office and wash them each day. No escape from dishes!

Above is an Indian "tiffin", which is made of stainless steel. It contains two levels with a plate in between, and when assembled, has its own handle. Shown is a favorite meal of frozen blueberries and mangoes on the top (they thaw by lunchtime) and a quinoa-black bean-feta-pepita salad on the bottom. The tiffin fits nicely inside my Built lunch bag, with some extra room for an afternoon snack. The little bag is made by me out of PUL (polyurethane laminated) cotton fabric; I call it my "almond bag" and it reminds me to eat healthy nuts each day instead of heading for the vending machine!

This next photo is of a Japanese "bento box". It has an image of a rabbit on it so I call it my "bunny box." The top has a handy removable divided insert for condiments. Since the top has a lid and the bottom doesn't, I usually put grains or pasta in the bottom and the sauce or veggies on the top.

Below is what it looks like assembled. The other one is a "male bento box" whereas the bunny one is a "female" version. Not surprisingly, the male box is about twice as big so the big, strong, hungry man can eat more food! Ha, not in my house! I do sometimes use this one but don't like it as much because it looks so boring. I think these used to be made of lacquered bamboo, whereas now they're just plastic.

Finally, a photo of my latest acquisition: a plastic 4-tier, tiffin-style container from of all places, Target! We haven't given it a name yet, but fell in love with its great colors and large capacity. On Mother's Day we took it for a picnic and it carried enough food for everyone in the family to have lunch! What I also like is how the different levels serve as a reminder to include a range of food groups. Since this was a picnic, I wasn't too concerned with nutrition, but we had one level with veggies and dip, another with fresh fruit salad, another with cheese and crackers, and finally a level for that all-important dessert food group. Each level could probably hold a person's sandwich and veggies or a decent-sized serving of pasta salad if you wanted to divide the food that way. This thing is definitely coming to the beach with us this summer!

On a last note, we are also big fans of the Laptop Lunchbox, a modular plastic lunchbox that has four different sized colorful inserts to help remind us to include a variety of food groups and veggie/fruit colors. Enjoy your lunch today!

Foraging at Home

Each year around this time, I begin to get excited about the first round of harvest. Sure, there was the overwintered harvest, a bit worse for wear, and I've been picking individual radishes, lettuce and chard leaves, flower petals, green onions and herbs throughout the spring. But at the beginning of June when the farmer's markets re-open in New England, it's time to start thinking again about how to manage and make best use of the glut of fresh vegetables. Specifically, the big bunches of greens, and there will be several more posts about that.

But for now, it's time to start making space for the first harvest. Check the pantry and dig out the last few jars of green tomato salsa and chutney to mix with beans and fresh herbs as a salad or to serve warmed over rice. Stir a jar of quince jam and some cinnamon into a container of plain yogurt. Open the freezer and pull out that last bag local corn (remembering what a pain it was to cut it all off the cob last August!), the last container of pesto for a pasta salad, bake the last bag of chopped up fall apples into a pie. Decipher which re-used yogurt containers have mushy vegetables from making vegetable stock all winter long, thaw them out and mix with curried lentils for stuffing handheld veggie pies. Bake any remaining bags of blueberries into muffins.

This activity reminds me that it's been a while since I evaluated our stock of raw nuts and seeds, cold-pressed oils, whole-grains and whole grain flours. Many of these are kept in the fridge or freezer, but those stored at room temperature need to be checked for rancidity (easy to smell/taste it!) and if they are still okay, use them up as soon as possible.

It may not be quite as exotic as combing the deep forest for rare mushrooms, but foraging at home has its own rewards. It's a great way to save money by not wasting food, it facilitates buying local on as big a scale as your household can manage, and you may receive some culinary inspiration along the way. That said, I'm off to put together a black bean-corn-mango chutney-cilantro salad!