Mmmmmm CSA is finally here!

The summer is finally in full swing and we've been enjoying the harvest from Groundwork Organics. I'm still trying to learn how to cook freestyle by rummaging through the fridge and throwing things together. Last night's dish turned out a-ok! Hard to go wrong with farm fresh summer veggies - garlicky tomato sauce with sauteed shrimp and zucchini topped with parmesan and basil on a bed of spaghetti.

Puree a can of whole peeled tomatoes (or use fresh). Pour into a hot pan with some garlic and olive oil. Add a pinch of chile flakes. Let simmer until thickened.

Use vegetable peeler to slice very thin slices of zucchini. Saute in olive oil and garlic on medium high heat. Add salt and pepper. Remove zucchini and add more oil. Add peeled, deveined shrimp and saute until just cooked through.

Toss zucchini with spaghetti. Add shrimp, and tomato sauce. Top with basil and parmesan. Voila! It's not fancy but at least it tasted really good. It's kind of liberating not having to follow a recipe and still end up with something that is edible!

Beets and freestyle cooking.

I used to cook like I was doing a science experiment, down to the exact detail. One day I realized that I don't really know how to cook cook and lacked any improvisation at all. I envy those who are able to whip up something delicious based on leftovers and whatever they find in the fridge. So here I am trying to freestyle cook. It's not like I don't go with recipes anymore but I've now allowed myself to be a bit free-er and spontaneous so to speak. There have been successes and oh there have been failures. Like big ones. Ones that resulted in ordering out for pizza. I suppose it's still important like a learning experience. Freestyle cooking has been especially useful when we started subscribing to a CSA. I just didn't feel like filtering through recipes that had the most of the veggies I had on hand, then realizing that I needed to go to the store to pick up the rest.  

It's beet season and I was able to pick up gorgeous Chiogga and red beets this past weekend. Normally I don't buy beets but there were so many I figured I could try to add them to my regular menu. Here is what I came up with, it's not original nor fancy but tasty anyways. 

Roasted beet salad

2 bunches of small beets, washed and trimmed

juice from half an orange

splash of white wine vinegar

extra virgin olive oil

salt and pepper

chevre

orange zest

Wrap beets in tin foil and roasted them at 400F until fork tender, ~45-60 minutes. 

Allow to cool.

Cut in wedges or slices and place into a bowl.

Add orange juice and white wine vinegar to the beets. Taste and season. 

Add olive oil and toss thoroughly to coat the beets.

Top with chevre and orange zest.

The salad would probably look even prettier with chopped parsley too but I didn't have any in the fridge!

mmmm chocolate chip cookies...

About a year ago I discovered the best chocolate chip cookie recipe ever. The only downside to it is that it requires 2 different kinds of flour and 24 hours chilling time before you can bake and eat it. Indeed it makes a very good, chewy, not-too-sweet dark chocolatey chip cookie. But it is very rare that I have the patience to allow the dough to chill and to always have cake flour and bread flour on hand. I am an unbleached all-purpose flour gal. I have yet to be the hard-core baker that can taste the differences among the different types of flour or keep 3 or more different flours in the pantry. I've been tinkering around with the recipe to simplify it a bit and adjust the sweetness. I thought I had it but tried the new version and was underwhelmed to say the least. Fail! I'm not sure what happened but I think I did not let the butter come up to room temperature for proper creaming resulting in a curdled dough before I added the dry mix. The actual cookie ended up being very crumbly and not chewy at all. Back to the drawing board. Until then make the New York Times one, you won't regret it!

Green garlic pasta

I picked up some wonderful looking green garlic from the farmers market this afternoon. I've never cooked with it before but thought I'd give it a go. I tried a very basic recipe - garlicky pasta. I like to keep the recipe really simple when I use an ingredient for the first time, this way its true taste can come through. So this picture doesn't do the dish justice. It's not just an ode to the flying spaghetti monster. The pasta was flavourful with a hint of richness and mild garlic. I should've added a bit more stock though, the pasta absorbed a lot of it by the time we were seated at the table. My 4 yo loved it even though she claims she doesn't like garlic or anything green. I served it with some sauteed rainbow chard and breaded herbed tilapia fillets.

Green garlic pasta

pasta of your choice (enough for 2 servings)

3-4 stalks green garlic, white and light green parts sliced thinly

1 cup stock (chicken or veg)

several tbsp of unsalted butter

shredded parmesan

Cook pasta according to directions

Saute garlic in 1 tbsp butter until translucent 

Add 1/4 c warm stock and continue cooking a few minutes

Whisk in several tbsp of butter and stir until slightly thickened

Toss in pasta, add more stock to loosen it up

Top with parmesan cheese

Farmers Market season

Just got back from the Tuesday Farmers Market. I'm such a newbie here and got caught in a downpour. Note to self, never leave the house without an umbrella. On the bright side, I actually ran into an acquaintance and had a lovely chat huddling under a big umbrella. This was kind of nice since I still feel like a newcomer in the city. Despite the sogginess, baby and I got a great haul of produce from our CSA farm. Chiogga beets, baby carrots, green garlic, basil, mesclun greens, red russian fingerling potatoes and 2 honey sticks (for my older daughter) and a slice of rhubarb coffee cake all for $20. I'm really looking forward to the CSA season which starts in about 3 weeks. Too bad we miss our first box since we'll be in Canada! Lucky for our friends who share our subscription, they will get the entire box. Now the fun begins, what to make...

Thai inspired dressing

So I'm still on the simplify everything phase so here's my latest speedy dinner. The dressing turned out pretty tasty, it was inspired by a food sample I tasted from the Saturday Market. Dinner was ready in 20 minutes!

Peanut dressing

2 tbsp coconut milk (unsweetened)

2 tbsp lime juice (or lemon)

1 tbsp peanut butter

a splash of soy sauce (or until desired tastiness)

1 tbsp water

tiny drizzle of toasted sesame oil

Mix it all together and just keep tasting and adding components until delicious.

It went perfectly with grilled shrimp on a bed of greens and a sprinkle of sesame seeds.

Happy birthday mini-muffins!

I used to miss the days where I could spend loads of time preparing a meal with lots of finicky details. I have now accepted that I don't necessarily need to do that and still have a great meal time. Now I'm switching gears and learning to bake and cook with my daughters. And it's been brilliant. She loves to help and the end result is so satisfying and delicious.

I'm gearing up for my daughter's 4th birthday this weekend so we've been baking up a storm. Here's a little peek at the blueberry mini-muffins we made for her preschool class tomorrow.

Blueberry muffins (Cook's Illustrated, May/June 2009)

2 cups blueberries (fresh or frozen)

1 1/8 c sugar

2 1/2 c flour

2 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

2 large eggs

4 tbsp unsalted butter, melted and cooled

1/4 c vegetable oil

1 c buttermilk

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 425F.

Spray muffin tin with cooking spray.

Whisk flour, baking powder and salt in large bowl.

Whisk sugar and eggs together in medium bowl until thick and well mixed.

Slowly whisk in butter and oil until combined then whisk in buttermilk and vanilla until combined.

Fold egg mixture and blueberries into flour mixture until moistened.

Do not overmix.

Fill muffin cups and sprinkle with streusel topping (see below for recipe).

Bake until muffin tops are golden and just firm, about 17-19 minutes. 

Check doneness with toothpick.

Cool muffins and serve.

Streusel topping

Combine 3 tbsp of sugar, 3 tbsp brown sugar, pinch of salt, 1/2c plus 3 tbsp of flour in a small bowl. Mix in 5 tbsp of melted butter until large chunks form.

Cut out cookies for preschoolers

So a few weeks ago I was surprised at how tricky cutting out butter cookies can be. Chilling the dough and cutting them was much more effort than I thought it should be. After some searching, my 4 yo daughter and I found the best cookie recipe that is essentially foolproof especially under preschooler conditions. I mixed the dough and then she took over as the leader. It's not too sweet, rolls out perfectly, no chilling required, easy schmeasy. Best of all, it even tastes good to both kids and adults.

Roll out cookies (based on a recipe found on the back of a cookie cutter packaging)

1 cup unsalted butter, softened

1 cup plus 1 tbsp white sugar (I decreased the amount of sugar by almost a 1/2 cup)

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 1/2 tsp almond extract

2 3/4 cup flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 400F. Cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Beat in eggs and extracts. Mix rest of ingredients in another bowl. Add flour mixture to butter mixture 1 cup at a time, mixing well after each addition. No need to chill dough. Divide dough in half and shape into a ball. Roll each ball to 1/8" thick, flouring board and rolling pin as necessary. Cut out cookies and bake until lightly browned (~ 10 minutes).

Cookie Glaze

1 tbsp cream cheese

3/4 cup icing sugar

enough milk to reach desired consistency. I start with 1 tbsp and see how it looks.

food colouring

Mix all ingredients and frost cookies with whichever tool you like. 

Simplicity

Making dinner can get pretty monotonous and I feel like I need to make something fancy. Other times I relish in letting the food speak for itself. Like last nights dinner - a simple grilled wild salmon fillet drizzled with olive oil, lemon juice and garnished with dill and lemon zest. Full of flavour, super satisfying and quick so I can do other important things like relax. 

Let's hear it for simple foods.

Why have I never discovered this before?

So the Saturday Market is overflowing with radishes - red, French breakfast, and Easter egg ones. This week we bought beautiful French breakfast and Easter egg ones. Honestly I had been spoiled with the year-round farmers markets in California. Now that the Eugene Saturday Market has opened, I realize how much fresher and better the produce is than from the regular grocery store (organic or not). You can only eat so many fresh, raw radishes then I discovered butter glazed radishes. Where have they been all my life? So easy, tasty and a great way to eat up radishes. An excellent vegetable side dish to grilled salmon and some kind of grain pilaf (rice, quinoa, bulghur, couscous).

Butter glazed radishes (Molly Stevens, All About Braising)

1 bunch of radishes, trimmed, washed and scrubbed

1 tbsp butter

1/4 c water or stock

pinch of sugar

salt and pepper

Place it all in a skillet and heat on medium. Once boiling, cover and reduce heat to low. Simmer for 20-25 minutes or until radish is easily pierced with a knife. Uncover, shake the pan and continue cooking until the moisture has reduced into a glaze.  Sprinkle more freshly ground pepper to taste. Serve immediately. 

Breaducation

My breaducation started about a year ago. I decided that I needed to learn how to make bread. I thought that the kneading the dough would be meditative. Wrong! Besides that I still wanted to make a good loaf. There is something so elegant and simple about bread. So much complexity in taste with using only 3 ingredients. After a few one tonne bricks, 1 dutch oven and a stand mixer later, I have been able to make some decent loaves of bread. From hearth bread to no-knead to sandwich loaf. Funnily enough, the family favorite loaf is the plain ol' white sandwich loaf. Fluffy, rich and so delicious. The best first kind of bread to try is the no-knead as long as you have the patience.
http://www.sullivanstreetbakery.com/recipes/noknead.html. It's surprisingly easy and yields fantastic results.

Nothing says spring like pink duckies

My daughter and I baked some butter cookies today. We called them spring cookies to welcome back all the birds and the ducks that show up in the weirdest places. Of course they had to be frosted with pink icing. I'm not much of a cookie baker especially cut cookies. I was surprised how difficult it was to manage the dough and producing good looking cookies. What's the secret? colder dough? more patience than a 4 year old? Maybe I'll stick with the drop cookies. 

GO DUCKS!

Another grilling day

The beautiful weather continues and so is our grilling menu. Tonight was skewers of orange-ginger tofu and cumin shrimp with asparagus. The orange-soy marinade was tasty and probably would've gone well with the shrimp too. 

Orange-ginger-soy marinade

1/4 c freshly squeezed orange juice

1/4 c soy sauce

1 tbsp minced ginger

1 tbsp toasted sesame oil

zest of 1 orange

2 tbsp vegetable oil

pinch of chili flakes

Whisk together the ingredients. Pour over cubed tofu (~1 lb), marinate for a few hours in the fridge. Skewer tofu. Grill.

There's not much of a recipe for the shrimp. I just salt and pepper the shrimp and add a pinch (or 2) of ground cumin. Then stir in some oil. You can add some minced jalapeño for some heat.

Mmmm.

Burger, potato salad, beer, the ultimate trio

It was a hot, hot weekend! If this is spring, I'm liking it. My husband promptly went out and bought a new gas barbeque. We have never owned one before and the last bbq was a mini charcoal one about 3 years ago. Needless to say our grilling technique is a bit rusty. Since I don't cook meat too often, I am always paranoid of under cooking meat. The second photo is my sad burger after multiple cuts to see if it was done. Yes I do have a meat thermometer but somehow I don't fully put my trust into it yet.  I've noticed many restaurants serving their burgers medium rare. Now I love a medium-rare steak that's fine. But medium rare ground meat is another thing. I trust that searing the surface of a steak will get rid of E. coli and other nasties but you never know about the condition of pre-ground ground beef. Last summer I got take out from a BBQ joint down the street from my home. It was completely pink and raw on the inside! Ew. And I was 8 months pregnant at the time. Double Ew.

I tried a new salad today, it was a non-mayo potato salad with radishes, red onion and capers with a dijon-white wine vinaigrette. Pretty tasty but not quite enough oomph in the dressing. I'll have to tinker with it and post the recipe in the future.

ps. I had sparkling apple juice instead of beer and it was almost as good.

Small bites

So I had extra shrimp left over this week so in a rush, I threw together some shrimp wontons for dinner. They are surprisingly fast and simple to make and most delicious to eat. So good that we immediately dug into dinner and I forgot to take a picture. I served about 6 wontons per bowl with noodles and baby bok choy in a brothy soup. Ok so they were instant sichuan noodles from a package with shrimp soup flavouring! But I did add the wontons and bok choy to make it somewhat more nutritionally redeeming.

Shrimp wontons (adapted from K. Kwong, Simple Chinese Cooking)

~3/4 lb peeled, deveined shrimp, cut into 4 pieces

1 tbsp green onions, minced

1 1/2 tsp ginger, minced

1 tsp dry sherry (optional)

1 tsp soy sauce

1 tsp oyster sauce

1/4 tsp white sugar

1/4 tsp sesame oil

wonton wrappers

Mix together the above ingredients (except the wonton wrappers)

Put about a teaspoon of filling in the middle of the wrapper

Using your fingers, wet edges of wrapper with water

Fold wonton wrapper in half forming a triangle

Press edges firmly then take two ends of the triangle and bring them together, dab with water to seal shut.

The wonton will kind of look like a tortellini. If you are in a super rush and don't care terribly about how it looks, you can shape the wontons by pinching up the edges and sealing it shut. They'll look like little balls with a squishy top. 

Drop wontons into boiling water for about 4 minutes, lift out with slotted spoon and serve immediately in noodle soup. Or serve as a starter with soy-chili sauce.

If you make more than you can eat, you can place them on a cookie sheet and freeze them. Transfer into a freezer bag once they're frozen. 

Comfort foods

The cold/flu has descended on the family like the plague this past week so I was in desperate need of some comfort food. There's nothing like a hot, steamy bowl of brothy noodles to satisfy the soul. Throw in some shrimp and tofu and it's like heaven. I don't have a written recipe for this but the main idea is below. Most of the prep is done in advance so you can throw it together really quick whenever hunger strikes.

Tofu, shrimp and vegetable noodle bowl with soy-ginger broth

Udon noodles

Extra firm tofu, sliced

Peeled, deveined shrimp

Broccoli, cut into florets

Carrots, sliced 

Chicken broth

Soya sauce

Ginger

Green onions, sliced

- Boil udon noodles for 4 minutes. Set aside.

- Pan fry tofu slices

- Steam broccoli florets and carrot slices

- Fill pot with chicken broth (or water), add a dash of soy sauce, a knob of ginger and let it boil

- Add peeled, deveined raw shrimp to boiling broth and cook until done (about 4 minutes)

- If eating right away, add all the other cooked ingredients and give it a whirl. Taste broth, add more soy sauce if needed

- Garnish with sliced green onions and a drizzle of toasted sesame oil

What's your comfort food?

Mmmmm tacos

It's been a while since I had a really good burrito, not since living in California! So I try my best at cooking Mexican at home. Tonight's dinner really hit the spot: soyrizo, mushroom and potato soft tacos (adapted from Rick Bayless). Saute soyrizo (vegetarian chorizo, yes it exists! and no I am not a vegetarian) until nicely browned, toss in sliced onions and mushrooms and continue sauteeing until soft. Add grated potatoes and cook until soft. Tonight I served it with soft flour tortillas, topped with mozzarella and cheddar cheese, arugula, avocado and fresh tomato salsa. 

My new farmer's market

 In my quest for good simple food, I am also trying to live and eat sustainably and locally. Being recent newcomers to Oregon, I finally had the opportunity to hit up the Saturday Farmer's Market. This summer I will try to see how much I can stretch $20 at our local farmer's market each week and what delicious things I can make. This week I got 1 lb of rosemary garlic lamb sausage, arugula, rainbow chard, and red radishes - all for $18. So far I've kept the menu pretty easy: radishes on buttered bread, arugula bianca pizza and soyrizo, mushroom and potato soft tacos topped with arugula. Just thinking about it makes me hungry!