10 simple spring suppers

Ever wish you had a dinner fairy? A shimmering apparition to cook your food and whip up sauces? If such a creature existed, I would gladly import him or her into my kitchen, but in the meantime, I've compiled a list of my I-don't-want-to-cook-dinner-right-now healthful-easy recipes. Since it's spring time, I've stuck to spring-y foods, things you can get cheaply in season right now, and alternated between hot and cold dishes, since the fickle evenings are alternately cool and sweltering. Look for a summer list in a month or two!

1. Asparagus Scramble: mix up eggs, cream, and salt in a bowl. Cut up asparagus and scallions and saute for 1-2 minutes in butter - they should still be crispy fresh when you add the eggs. Add the egg mixture and cook slowly over medium heat, constantly stirring in slow circles to get fluffy eggs. Dollop with goat cheese.

2. Mock Pad Thai: mix peanut butter, soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, salt, and sugar together. Toss in chunks of vegetables (cucumber, cabbage, broccoli, onion, peas, whatever's on hand) and chicken or shrimp (or not, if you prefer to be vegan for the evening), and serve over lettuce or pasta.

3. Ethiopian lentils: boil red lentils in a 1:3 lentils:water ratio (ie, 1 cup of lentils and 3 cups of water) for 30 minutes. Add berbere spice mix and a little salt and cook for 10 minutes more. If you don't want to toast the spices, don't worry - mixing them together without toasting works just as well, and you can leave out a spice or two if you're missing it (I almost never have fenugreek). Serve with injera or naan.

4. Slice an eggplant in half lengthwise. Make diagonal cross-hatches in the eggplant flesh, and salt the eggplant. Go read a book for 30 minutes (I'm reading As Always, Julia and just finished Salt Sugar Fat). Come back, squeeze out the eggplant juices. Cut up a clove or two of garlic and slip the garlic into the eggplant cross-hatches. Put some olive oil and rosemary or thyme on top of the eggplant flesh, flip the eggplant flesh side down onto a baking dish, and roast at 400 degrees for an hour. Once out of the over, let cool for a bit before you serve. Eat a green salad with it!

5. Green eggs, ham optional: boil green lentils in a 1:2, lentil:water ratio (ie, 1 cup of lentils to 2 cups of water) for approximately 45 minutes (stick a bay leaf in if you have it). Add salt, olive oil, and either some lemon juice or vinegar. Add a fried egg on top. If you're feeling porcine, dice up some ham, bacon, or pancetta to go with it. Or, crumble some feta on there for a kick.

6. Caesar with a Twist: cut Tuscan kale into bite sized pieces, and top with parmesan, anchovies, olive oil, lemon wedges, and bread crumbs.

7. Root Vegetable Rockout: roast some beets (and see my first blog post from last year!), once cooled, toss with cleaned and cut radishes and carrots, olive oil, salt, and vinegar. Add some feta if you're feeling fancy.

8. Sweet Potato Swoon: roast sweet potatoes at 425 degrees for about an hour, or til you can stick a fork easily in the potato. Pull out of the oven and let rest about 5 minutes. While it's resting, saute a green vegetable (broccoli, spinach, snap peas, kale). Cut open the potato, and top with the greens. If you have cheese or leftover chicken in the fridge, top it up. Or, if you're feeling saucy, add salsa to the potato and greens for a Mexican flavor.

9. Italian Stallion: arugula topped with shaved parmesan and olive oil. Add prosciutto for a "kick."

10. Bean Bonanza: if you're super well prepared, stick black beans in water before you go to bed. If you forgot, stick them in cold water before you go to work. Come home, drain the beans, and boil them for an hour or so. Once they've finished boiling, heat a saute pan with olive oil and get some onions and garlic going. And the boiled beans and cook over low heat for about 30 minutes. Grate some cheddar on top, grab salsa and an avocado, and dig in.

Cherry Blossoms sing "SPRING!"

sugar shock

I love sweet things. I don't think I'm alone in my sugar-happiness, but recently, my stars are aligning to bring sugar awareness to the forefront of what I eat. When I make a meal or a dessert, I am aware of how much sugar I add, and aware of just what it is that I consume. It's harder to realize, I think, how much sugar might be in every day products, like baked beans or hot dog buns. And that's where this awesome video from buzzfeed comes in - I saw it on Mark Bittman's excellent blog on the NYTimes.  Take a look and a listen, and share your thoughts!

http://bittman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/09/the-sugar-hiding-in-everyday-foods/

And if you liked that video, I highly recommend Michael Moss' Sugar Salt Fat, an eye-opening story of how food companies use knowledge of our taste buds to create food that you literally can't stop eating.

What are your crave-able foods? And is it the taste you crave, or is it the memory of an experience eating the food?

lettuce, grow!

I have a secret.

I love vegetables and fruits and all things verdant, but I cannot grow them. I mean that quite literally. I have never been successful at maintaining a plant - each and every one ends up yellowed, browned, dried-out, or drowned with my futile attempts at love and water.


But yesterday, I went shopping for plants - lettuces and herbs. I may just be Charlie Brown, continually kicking the football of plant hope, but here I am again, striving to cultivate green things.  There is hope in these seedlings, young things, stretching towards the light. I can't help but invest in the promise of the seeds, even though their failure to launch is an almost absolute.



Almost. See? I can't even believe with my whole heart that these seedlings will not turn in to full vegetables with some careful tending. And the end result, reaping the joy of healthy green energy from my window ledge garden, outweighed the memory of many past garden fiascos.  My down-to-earth sensibility succumbed, sending me soaring for the potential of a soon-to-be-garden.





There is a good chance that I will be crushed when my lettuce wilts and my rosemary crumbles (again), but I will start with hope, and proceed accordingly.

apple carrot muffins: cinnamon, spice, and everything nice

Occasionally, I am forgetful. For instance, a few weeks ago, I saw a bunch of beautiful locally grown carrots in my supermarket, and I snatched them up, conveniently un-remembering that I was picking up my community supported agriculture order (the super fabulous Winter Harvest CSA) later that evening.  And that I had a giant bunch of carrots in my CSA order. Oops.

I don't like to waste food, so I immediately started planning all things carrot: soups, salads, roasted, and with lentils. And then I looked over at the apples nestled next to the carrots in my CSA bag, and started thinking about dessert.  I tried them in a cake, and although it was good, it wasn't quite sweet enough, and so I experimented, and arrived at these spice-full, tender, moist apple-carrot muffins.

Spiced Apple-Carrot Muffins
makes one dozen

1 cup white whole wheat flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon cloves

1/4 teaspoon cardamom

1/4 teaspoon ginger (optional)

2 tablespoons butter, softened

2/3 cup white sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

2/3 cup Greek yogurt (I use 2%)

2 eggs

1/4 cup 1% milk

1 medium apple, grated (about 2/3 of a cup)

2 medium carrots, peeled and grated (about 2/3 of a cup)

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

2. Butter a muffin pan or fill it with cute cupcake liners.

3. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in bowl, add the spices, mix, and set  aside.

4. In a separate bowl, mix together the butter and sugar, forming a chunky paste. Add the yogurt, mixing well to form a smoother paste, then the eggs and the milk, stirring well at each step.

5. Fold the wet ingredients into the dry, ensuring everything is thoroughly combined.

6. Add the grated apple and carrots, stirring to combine fully.

7. Pour the batter into the lined or buttered muffin pan, filling each muffin about 2/3 of the way full.

8. Bake for 22-26 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into a muffin comes out clean.

The muffins can be served warm, and hold up well in the fridge for 5-6 days after baking. Bon appetit!

cheddar cheese and chewy chive biscuits

Gene Kelly in Singin' in the Rain was my hero and first crush. I didn't really know the difference between Gene Kelly and Don Lockwood, but I thought both were dreamy, particularly because they sang and danced and were movie stars.  Quotations from the movie are etched into my lexicon, and dances and images from the movie are imprinted in my mind. And a few weeks ago, thinking about savory biscuits, a lightbulb flashed above my head when I remembered a tongue twister from the movie. "Moses Supposes" was dancing about my brain, and inspired cheddar cheese and chive biscuits to became a part of my lunch. Several batches later, I found the "shimmering, glowing" biscuit combination, a light, fluffy, cheese-filled concoction best eaten straight out of the oven.

Cheddar Cheese-Chive Biscuits
makes 10-12 biscuits

Ingredients:

1 cup white whole wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons white sugar
3 tablespoons cold butter, diced
1/2 cup Greek yogurt (I use 2%)
2/3 cup freshly grated cheddar cheese
1/4 cup chives, thinly diced

1. Preheat the over to 375 degrees.

2. Mix together the flour, salt, baking powder, and sugar.

3. Toss in the diced butter, stirring just until the mixture is pleasantly lumpy.

4. Add in the Greek yogurt, mix, then add the cheddar cheese and chives and mix again.

5. Mold the dough into a ball, then roll it out to about an inch thickness.

6. Using either a floured cookie cutter or something with about a two inch diameter (I used a mason jar), cut out circles of dough, and place on top of a parchment paper-covered cookie sheet. You will have between 10 and 12 biscuits.

7. Bake the biscuits for 10-12 minutes, or until the edges are slightly golden brown.

8. Dance and recite tongue twisters while eating.

ready, set, swap!

Mayhem. Men and women running around with food products tucked under their arms, running up to strangers and haggling for other food items. Was it a run on the food supply before another apocalyptic weather disaster?

No.  It was a food swap.

Last Monday, I went over to the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, ten jars of cinnamon-pear jam in tow in my canning pot. I was (very) early, on edge about finding a parking spot and feeling very much like a first date: anticipatory, nervous, highly aware of my own exaggeratedly awkward tendencies when confronted with strangers.  In a way, this was my first public date with food. I've had friends over to my house for dinner frequently, cooked for my family, brought food to my office. But friends and family and work colleagues are appreciative of the gesture of bringing food, and are uniformly nice about the food, whether it is one of my successful concoctions or one of my more "interesting" dishes. Dates, one hopes, are nice, but ultimately, they do not need to like you (or your jam).

So what is this food swap that had my confidence playing hide-and-seek? It's sort of like a homecook and foodie extravaganza. At this Philly Food Swap, about 50 people brought homemade foods and crafts to trade with each other. The rules are simple: bring something you want to trade, and when the hosts say "GO!", start trading.

The preparation, however, is complex, as is the strategizing. Each participant was set up either on a table or on top of the short bookshelves. These foodies know how to make their food look good - display boxes, posters, beautiful tags, nice packaging, and, best of all, samples. Ever wonder what it's like to taste 50 different artisanal products? Heaven. We got an hour to taste before we swapped, and I meandered about soaking in the variety of flavors and products. From the simple and scrumptious to the inspirationally unusual and delicious combinations, the tastes were a story map of what a good home cook can do.

Beyond the tasting, however, was the strategy: what do I want the most, and will anyone trade for my jam? And that was the part that had me nervous. I walked around, seeing cards on the table with the name of the product, and the name of an interested swapper underneath. Was my card getting full and would anyone take my jam home for the night?

I strolled with a fake casual air back to my corner to check my card, and... yes! There were people who wanted to trade! The organizers opened the swapping, and hungry foodies began swarming. Grabbing an armful of jams, I started following my fellow food lovers as they zoomed from table to table, offering and receiving gifts.  I scored with sauerkraut, preserved kumquats, homemade butter, sweet jams, spicy jam, hot peppers, orange-cardamom ice cream, fudge, and chicken-pork belly sausage.

Happy, sated, and exhausted, I packed my canning pot once more with this abundance, and headed back home. One week later, I'm still making my way through the jams, butters, and kumquats, though the fudge and ice cream were long gone by the next morning. Every time I open another container, I start smiling. Cooking and eating are wonderful, but add on the joy of sharing completely unique food that you couldn't find in a store? Food-lovers bliss.

shortbread: theme and variation

Tis the season to bake cookies, and December was a cookie-full month. Sugar and butter entered into the kitchen and left at a rapid rate, whisked and beaten and frothed and suspended into crumbly-soft morsels. They were duly dispatched to friends by good old fashioned post, delivered to family throughout the holidays, and devoured at the office by sugar-happy coworkers. I added a recipe to the Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap of 2012, and on the way, experimented with several gazillion cookie recipes, finally settling on Almond Butter Cookies.  One evening, though, I had a crisis when I discovered I'd used up the last of the eggs: what's a girl to do with no eggs, no egg-substitute, no open grocery store, and a desire to bake something? Shortbread, of course. Few ingredients, flexible additions, and satisfyingly rich, the high butter-to-flour ratio provides a crumbly, lush cookie best savored in small, slow nibbles.  Shortbread is a rare creation, shining both in its simplest and more elaborate forms. Try plain shortbread, and let the richness of the flavor melt over your tongue, add chocolate chips and nuts for some spice, melt chocolate and dip shortbread in it, or experiment with your own wild flavors.

Shortbread, theme and variation

Theme:
2 sticks (8 oz or 1 cup) unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup of granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups of white whole wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon salt

Variation:
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
2/3 chocolate chunks
2/3 chopped pecans or walnuts


1. Sift the salt and four together and set aside. Cream the butter and sugar in a separate bowl, then add vanilla (and almond extract, if using). Mix in the flour about 1/2 a cup at a time, until the dough is lightly mixed together. It will be crumbly and may not hold together very well.  If you are using the variation, add the nuts and chocolate now.

2. Form the dough into a ball, then flatten and shape into two loaves about half to three-quarters of an inch thick. Refrigerate for at least two hours and up to overnight.

3. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Take the molded dough and either put it on top of wax paper in a small loaf pan or on top of wax paper on a cookie sheet. Bake for 16-18 minutes, until the edges look barely browned. Let the dough cool and then slice up the cookies into large bite-sized pieces.