Life is Funny That Way

It might have seemed strange that after months of blog silence, I filed two posts in quick succession without any explanation. It was just easier to jump back in if I didn't get myself bogged down in explaining why I haven't been posting. I guess I am a chicken and not a real writer, for if I was not so much the former and more of the latter, I'd have shared more of my last four months.

The not-so-terribly interesting reason is that I've not been cooking much new and exciting. The effort and anxiety associated with low-grade chronic pain, medications and visits to various doctors, sapped my creative juices, my focus and my energy. I have been cooking, but mostly old favorites that I could make in my sleep, which it sometimes seems I'm doing.

While I'm fortunate to be free of anything life-threatening, I am, nonetheless, still not myself. However, while I can't control my muscles and nerves, and the unwanted side effects of the various medications I am given, I decided that it is more than time for me to better control my attitude. Not so easy, I find. And so I continue to take a long walk each day, both to remain sane and to increase blood flow at the back of my head, go through the motions of my normal life and try to find my way back to cooking more creatively.

One piece of exciting news that I can report is that Trader Joe's finally signed the Fair Agreement with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers so the boycott is off! I am now officially a Trader Joe's shopper once more. We are now replete with dark chocolate covered almonds!

Just the other day, a beautiful sunny, almost 60 degree day, I remembered it's been too long since Maddy and I made Irish soda bread. So, in light of the upcoming St. Patrick's Day, here is my favorite, very easy and relatively healthy recipe. It's from Merrill Stubbs over at food52 and it has a great consistency and flavor. The only change we make is to add 1 Tablespoon of brown sugar after the other dry ingredients. Serve with a very thin skimming of really great butter, some smoked salmon or your favorite jam. It's also delicious with dry cheeses.

Many thanks to Maddy for spending the afternoon making soda bread with me and for her lovely photos!

Kale and Farro in One Dish - and You'll Love It!

Two of my favorite foods, that are not two of my family's favorite foods, are kale and farro. They do not actively despise either, but neither gets them excited, particularly kale. Kale is usually something that I blend into a dish, often with a little spinach, rather than feature. This dish, however, is one that my kale challenged family can really get behind.

I've been making this for some time, probably since I first purchased Olives & Oranges, a terrific cookbook by Sara Jenkins and Mindy Fox. Sara Jenkins is a chef in NY and the daughter of well known food writer Nancy Harmon Jenkins. Sara grew up all over the Mediterranean and absorbed the food culture highlighting simple preparations using fresh ingredients. Her recipes are not fussy and chef-y, but rather, homey and comforting with a simple elegance. In fact, in an article in the Atlantic, she bemoans how many people, "foodies" in particular, equate restaurant food with the best food. She asserts that in an effort to make their food taste "exquisite," many chefs overuse butter, salt and stock. She admits that in her restaurant, she does this too, but then says "as proud as I am of the food I put out professionally, I know the best food of mine you can ever eat is what I serve you at my home table."

This recipe is most definitely home cooking. Apart from sourcing farro which I now find in most stores, there is nothing remotely exotic about this recipe. Put a fried or poached egg on top and serve with some fabulous bread and you will have a delicious dinner that is both easy to prepare and filled with healthy vegetables and whole grains. And, please don't leave off the egg. Once you cut into the yolk, the creamy golden goodness oozes out into the soup and makes a richer, and more flavorful sauce to sop up.


Just make sure you buy semi pearled or in Italian, demi-perlato so that the cook time is correct. I've written about farro quite a bit over the years, but anyone new to this blog, check out my first farro post if you'd like some background.

This recipe is so straightforward and elegantly simple as written, that there is little I do to change it. I'm giving it to you as written, with the permission of the publisher. One little change I make is that I rarely put the vegetables into the food processor. I almost always just dice more finely than coarsely and use them as is. Saves a step and saves on clean up.


In the headnote, the authors suggest that a Tuscan farmwife might add a little prosciutto to the onion mix or a a little diced potato in with the farro. I do neither (without the prosciutto this is a vegetarian dish) but I have been known to add some already cooked (or canned, drained and rinsed) cannellini beans to the dish.


Farro and Kale Soup

Recipe excerpted from OLIVES AND ORANGES, (c) 2008 by Sara Jenkins and Mindy Fox. Reproduced by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. All rights reserved.

(The authors say this makes 8 servings. In my experience, this might serve 8 as a starter but more like 4 -5 as a hearty dinner)

1 leek, white and light green parts only

2 celery stalks, coarsely chopped

1 large carrot, coarsely chopped

1 small onion, coarsely chopped


1 garlic clove


1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling

Medium coarse sea salt

6 cups water

2 teaspoons tomato paste, preferable double concentrate (look for the kind in the tube)

1 1/2 cups farro

3 bunches lacinato kale, stemmed and chopped into 1/2 inch wide strips (my note: this is also called Tuscan kale. When I buy this in the supermarket the bunches are so huge that I only use 1 or 2! Also, stemmed just means to cut out the stems.)

Freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano or Pecorino Romano cheese for serving

Coarsely ground black pepper


-Cut leek lengthwise in half and rinse well; coarsely chop. Pulse leek, celery, carrot, onion, and garlic in a food processor until finely chopped.

-Heat oil in a large Dutch oven or other heavy pot over medium-high heat. Add chopped vegetables and a generous pinch of salt; cook, stirring occasionally, until vegetables start to soften, about 4 minutes. Add 1 cup water and tomato paste, and stir to dissolve paste. Continue to cook, stirring occasionally, until liquid has almost evaporated, about 20 minutes.

-Add remaining 5 cups water, farro, and kale, and bring to a simmer, and cook, stirring occasionally, until faro and kale are tender and flavors have blended, 20 to 25 minutes. Season to taste with salt.

-Serve with a drizzle of olive oil, a little grated cheese, and a sprinkle of coarse salt and pepper.

Mardi Maigre?

For some of us, Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday, is not what we really need, healthwise. That's why I came up with my slightly healthier version of a New Orleans favorite, Jambalaya. I'm turning Mardi Gras into Mardi Maigre. This version cuts back on the fat, uses brown rice and tastes quite as good as the authentic version. It's even been vetted by a New Orleans native with whom I correspond on food52 and was recently declared a Wildcard winner by the powers that be at food52!

Here's the link to my post last year this time for Jambalaya-ish, and here is the link to that same recipe, with comments and Wildcard winner banner, on food52.

For those of you not as fortunate as my sister-in-law and son who will be in New Orleans to partake in some local cooking, give this one a try! Laissez les bons temps rouler!

I have Nothing For You but a Reminder

It's been about six weeks since I last wrote and though time generally flies, this time has not. I had a busy week or two at the end of August after my mother fell during a blackout caused by Hurricane Irene. She is OK now and comfortably resettled in a new place with many more eyes on her, hands able to help her and activities that she both enjoys and that stimulate her.

It's the period after that that really rankles. I feel like I fell into a haze of dizziness, medication and headaches that has lasted for over a month now. What began as a viral inner ear condition causing dizziness, turned into weeks of headaches which are only now starting to be under control. At least I can drive some, and sit at the computer without seeing cross eyed. I still feel like there's an alien living in my head some of the day (and night) and by 9 pm I'm exhausted.

I think I've turned a corner, because after weeks of just-get-it-on-the-table dinners, I made a favorite from food52 last night, alongside some roasted local rockfish and some pasta for my non-fish eating daughter. This morning I slow roasted some tomatoes to freeze for the winter and roasted a piece of salmon to use tomorrow in some easy salmon cakes. To top it all off, I even broke out the wok and used up some vegetable odds and ends and some leftover rice and actually made myself some fried rice for lunch!

So, instead of further whining and complaining that I have no new recipe for you yet (I hope to get to that point soon:)), I'd like to remind you of a terrific recipe I linked to last year at this time. These are great cookies, easy to make and not too terrible on the health scale for a cookie that is truly a treat. Head over to Coconut and Lime to check out these pumpkin oat chocolate chip cookies! You can also read my post from last year on these cookies here. Just a thought - I use white whole wheat flour to great effect in these.

Happy Halloween!

Chiles and More Chiles

We just returned from a trip to New Mexico where we ate chiles everyday, often at every meal. Green chiles, red chiles and sometimes, a ladle of the sauce of each, side by side, which is known there as "Christmas." We enjoyed a string of casual, local meals including huevos rancheros, enchiladas, chile rellenos, and burritos, punctuated by sides including posole, polenta, and blue corn muffins. We feasted on carne adovada, blue corn and pinon pancakes, migas, and blue corn muffins.


In Chimayo, a town along the High Road to Taos, we bought some local chile powder after visiting the Santuario. I'd been to Chimayo 21 years ago, and though there are many more people coming through now, Vigil store is still there selling chiles. I bought some ground, sun dried red chile powder and some ground green chiles as well. We were days too early for the fresh New Mexico chiles, though they seem to be becoming available as I'm writing. They also sell local pinons, but there were also none to be had yet, as harvest is still a couple of months away, and there were virtually none last year.



It's funny, I took the same picture of Vigil Store 21 years ago!

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Many thanks to Maddy for her lovely photos!

I used some of my red chile powder to make this chorizo. Don't get scared off - this is no more complicated than making meatballs! No need to stuff the meat into a sausage casing as Mexican (or New Mexican, in this case) is often used outside of the casing anyway. This style of chorizo is not cured and dried like the Spanish type of chorizo. It's left raw until cooked for your recipe.

I used most of this batch in this delicious recipe of Pati Jinich's, and then used the rest for a New Mexico style breakfast of scrambled eggs with green chiles and chorizo.

I'm also thinking that this would be great using ground chicken if you don't eat pork. I will try it soon and report back. I use pork from locally raised, grass fed pigs so I'm not sure there's much fat differential between the two meats.

Also, please notice that there is virtually no salt in this recipe and you will not miss it!

New Mexican Style Chorizo

(with thanks to Mrs. Wheelbarrow, and several New Mexican cookbooks)

1.5 pounds pork shoulder, coarsely ground (you can ask your butcher to do this for you - Whole Foods' in-house ground pork is shoulder meat - or you can grind it yourself if you are so inclined. If you'd like to grind the pork shoulder yourself, I recommend checking out Mrs. Wheelbarrow's advice)

1 small white onion, minced

1 fat garlic clove, minced

2 Tablespoons New Mexico ground red chile (I know that most of you do not have this, so sub 1 Tablespoon sweet smoked paprika and 1 Tablespoon hot smoked paprika. Do not use commercial chili powder!)

3/4 teaspoon cumin seed (or sub 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin)

1 Mexican cinnamon stick (or sub 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

3 whole cloves ( or sub two pinches of ground clove)

10 whole black peppercorns (or sub a few grinds of fresh black pepper)

pinch or two of salt

1/2 teaspoon Mexican oregano

1/4 cup red wine vinegar

2 - 4 Tablespoons water, as needed


1. If you are using the whole spices, not ground, toast the cinnamon stick, cumin seed, cloves and peppercorns in a dry pan over medium heat. Shake the pan frequently until you can smell the spices, about 2 or 3 minutes. Don't walk away - you don't want them to burn!

2. If using the whole spices, grind the spices in a spice grinder or clean coffee grinder or with a mortar and pestle.

3. In a bowl mix the spices with the meat and add a pinch of salt, the oregano and the vinegar. Mix using a large spoon or your hands until everything is well combined. If it feels very dry, add the water a little at a time.

4. Heat up a skillet and make a tiny little meatball out of your mix. Cook it until cooked through so that you can taste for spice. If it is not as spicy as you like, add a pinch or two of cayenne or some more hot paprika.

5. Keep refrigerated for one day for flavors to build, but use within the next day or so. You can freeze the chorizo for a month or so as well.

Loss and Cooking and Peanut Butter Pie

I don't really know Jennifer Perillo, though I met her briefly during Eat, Write Retreat, and there heard her speak from the heart about blogging. But, I feel I know her much more intimately than that limited contact, as I've read her blog for years and she's a person who shares herself on her blog, much more than I tend to do. I've made her recipes (she cooks everything from scratch) and I've read her posts about her family: her challenging relationship with her now deceased father, her two sweet little girls, and her husband, Mikey, and how his love has helped heal her childhood wounds.

I feel all the more involved in her life since Monday morning when I learned via Twitter, that her husband had died the night before, of a sudden heart attack. It was, as she put it on Twitter, a "sucker punch." I felt for her, for the loss of the man who helped her so, whom she loved so deeply and with whom she had every expectation of spending the next 30 or 40 years.

I haven't inserted my story into any notes that I've sent her or posted on food52 or Twitter as this is her pain and it's not about me. I don't presume to know how she feels as everyone's grief is different and every unique person handles grief differently. And I haven't lost a husband, in my thirties, with two little girls who've lost their very special dad. What I do know is the kick-in-the-gut shock of an unexpected loss that changes your life. Sitting on a kitchen stool eating lunch on a sunny afternoon, still in the no longer sweaty exercise clothes from earlier in the morning, when a phone call comes and it's like the Towers fell right in your house. Worrying how other loved ones will react, cope, worrying how your children will react.

And Jennie's loss brought me right back there, to a place I remember with a physicality that surprised me. The teary eyes, the constant weight on the chest, the effort it requires to take each breath. And yet, amid her grief, Jennie paused to write on her blog, a tribute to her husband and a regret that she had not yet had time to make his favorite, peanut butter cream pie. She asked that others make this pie today, Friday, the day of his memorial service, in support of her and her girls, and as a symbolic gesture of carpe diem love and appreciation for loved ones.

Though I didn't make that pie, I did cook for my family, as I do each day, with the same love and as mindfully as I ever have. Hundreds of other bloggers made, photographed and blogged about that pie. There are links to posts on CNN, food52, Food Network and all over Twitter and Facebook. Jennie's post was a reminder to show our love and live fully every day, the blogging community has shown that it heard her and that for most of us, we show our love through sharing our food.

How Jennie was able to write, let alone think up such a lovely tribute to her husband and a reflection of her love is astonishing and a testament to her strength. I can only thank her for her most meaningful message and hope that this community outpouring helps buoy her through this time.

Summery Salads

I thought I'd take this opportunity to link to some cool, summer salads appropriate for a lighter dinner. One of my all time favorites is Salade Nicoise. There is a little stove top simmering involved, but no need to heat up the oven. Just make sure to buy a jar of really top quality tuna in oil - this is not the place for Bumble Bee solid in water. Really.

Last night I served two salads alongside each other and they really complemented each other well. The first, a Spanish flavored chicken salad, is one that I've made numerous times since Amanda first posted it on food52. The mix of artichoke hearts and peppadew peppers with the almonds is irresistible. Last night, I improvised a little, adding the kernels of a leftover ear of corn, as well as some sliced heart of palm for some of the artichoke after I ran out. If it's hot and you don't want to roast a chicken, just use a store-bought rotisserie chicken. Some stores sell "naked" or seasoning free roasted chickens, which are preferable here.

The second was something really different. I pulled it out of the New York Times the day I made a dish requiring the tops of the broccoli. I eagerly cut out this recipe using the broccoli stalks in a lemony salad with creamy avocado. Together, this and the chicken salad made a delicious summer meal with a piece of garlicky bruschetta and a glass of vinho verde.

Enjoy and stay cool!

What to Do With Those Preserved Lemons

I was recently speaking to a fellow food blogger about preserved lemons. Not usually a topic of conversation with friends, but it seemed perfectly normal with a foodie friend. We discovered that we had both made 2 quarts over the winter and neither of us had used them yet. Preserved lemons are a specialty item that most of you will never desire and never miss, but if you ever have a good one quietly mixed into a dish, you'll notice a more concentrated essence of lemony flavor than even fresh zest can provide.

I had also preserved two quarts last year, but had to throw them out after we had an extended power outage. Although the lemons are preserved in a ton of salt, the recipe I used specified to keep them refrigerated, and I just wasn't sure they were still OK after a being unrefrigerated for so long in the summer heat. This year, I vowed not to waste these golden orbs a second time. Like last year, I used Meyer lemons from California, which are a little sweeter than the usual lemon we get around here. They are actually a hybrid between a lemon and an orange or tangerine.

I hadn't had home preserved lemons before, just packaged ones from the specialty store, so I wasn't completely sure how they would taste. Some of the jarred ones I'd had before were rather bitter and not particularly appealing.

I am happy to report that mine are delicious and I can now imagine a myriad of uses for them.

The first taste test occured when I made this recipe using a really fresh piece of wild Alaskan halibut that I lucked in to at Costco, of all places. I adapted what Goin calls the "salsa," really more of a vinaigrette, and got creative with the leftover vinaigrette the next day. I had a couple of cups of cannellini beans I'd cooked from dried a few days earlier, and some beautiful French green beans or haricots verts from the farm market. I also added some yellow grape tomatoes and some thinly sliced, red cippolini onion. I didn't add any other herbs as I wanted to be able to really taste the lemon vinaigrette.

So while I realize that many of you will never make this recipe, I'm posting it for those of you still hoarding quarts of preserved lemons in your fridge. I'm talking to you, Kim! Even if beans are not your thing, if you've got the lemons, try this on fish, pork, beef, chicken, or even vegetables such as spinach and peas.


Bean Salad in Preserved Lemon Vinaigrette

vinaigrette adapted from Suzanne Goin

(serves 4)

For the vinaigrette:

1 Tablespoon finely chopped shallot
1 Tablespoon red wine vinegar
1 preserved lemon, lightly rinsed and flesh discarded, rind thinly sliced
1/2 teaspoon agave nectar
1/3 cup olive oil
freshly ground pepper

For the salad:
2 cups cannellini beans, either cooked from dried or from one can of no sodium added beans
1 dry pint French green beans (haricots verts), stem ends trimmed and cut in two
a handful or two of yellow or red cherry or grape tomatoes, halved lengthwise
3 Tablespoons thinly sliced red onion

1. To prepare the vinaigrette, place the shallot and vinegar in a bowl and let sit for about 5 minutes. Whisk in the agave nectar, and then the oil. Add in the preserved lemon rind and a couple of grinds of pepper. Set aside

2. Combine the two kinds of beans, the tomatoes and onions in a serving bowl. Spoon about half the dressing over top and mix gently to combine. Add more Tablespoon by Tablespoon until you achieve a balance you like. You might not use it all and can save the rest in a tightly sealed container in the refrigerator for a couple of days.

Time Well Spent

Sometimes you do things you don't expect to find yourself doing, and which virtually nothing in your life suggests you'll either be good at or even enjoy, just to spend time with your teenager. I'm not talking about skydiving here, just making a cooking video, but still.

Making the video was my son, Ted's, idea. He is a musician (and college student), who not only writes his own music, but performs it, records it, mixes many tracks of himself playing multiple instruments, films video, and puts the finished products up on his You Tube channel. Working with a bare bones set-up in our house, and sometimes with a band he put together this summer, he has created a body of steadily improving works. While he is a great guitarist, singing is only a relative strength (think Bob Dylan or Neil Young) of his. Yet, he continues to record, finding songs that he can cover in his range and writing others that play to his strengths. He's always improving and just doesn't let his singing hold him back.

His idea was to film me cooking and put it up on You Tube and then here, on my blog. He suggested that this would be a good tie-in with my recipes and blog and make me more marketable. Since I'm a little camera shy, I was hesitant about a video. I worried that I'd be nervous, speak too fast and look completely ridiculous. I finally went ahead with the idea not because I think my future is in tv cooking, but because it was a great opportunity to work on a creative project with my son as his peer, rather than as his parent.

Our first attempt was not quite a polished Food Network product, but not completely horrible either. My eyes darted frantically from side to side as I improvised the opening lines and then there was the nervous shoulder-shake and hair flip, which we have, thankfully, removed. On Ted's end, he found that filming a subject not anchored in front of a mike was somewhat more challenging than filming himself sitting on a stool in front of a strategically placed camera tripod. We've decided to make another video together before he goes back to school, to work out some of the kinks in the first, sort of practice video.

So, while he works on camera angles, moving with me, close-ups that don't make me look ten years older and ten pounds fatter, and smooth transitions, I'll be learning to keeping my eyes steady and not smack the cutting board with a knife while I'm talking, and not to care that I look my age and not 25. Most importantly, I'll be appreciating what I can learn something from my amazing, creative son.

So, here is the result of our collaboration. I hope you'll take it for what it is and know that we spent some quality time together filming it.

You can find the recipe on which I based this summery pasta with fresh tomatoes here. Just add the kernels of two ears of corn if you like.

Also, since the margins on blogspot seem to cut off the right side of the video, just double click on the video to watch it in full screen.

It's Cooler!

Not until I was leaving the house this morning full of energy with three errands to accomplish before my exercise class, did I realize how completely lethargic I've been for the last week. I really didn't even want to cook, grill, drive, it was so hot. So, though I made it to the farmstand on Sunday morning before the heat was too oppressive, by the time I got home I was didn't even have the motiviation to admire my market finds. Whatever had I been thinking as I bought a couple of pounds of Persian cucumbers? I could barely make dinner that night, let alone make pickles.

It took until today, a beautiful sunny, humidity-free day, for me to finally get out the Ball jars. Last year, I made some unbelievable tangy, sweet and sour pickles that crunched when you bit in even months after I made them. But those take 8 days to make, not even counting sitting time, and although I've regained some of my heat-suppressed energy, I haven't regained some of my much needed ability to focus on something for longer than a couple of minutes. So lacto-fermentation it was, with food52 to the rescue with the perfect recipe. Lacto-fermentation sounds scary - it conjures up pictures of bulbous, cartoon like, blue-green-purple bacteria (and what's with the "lacto"? Milky?), but it seems to mean that I just put the cucumbers in a jar with some garlic, dill and salt water and let them sit for three days. At the end of three days, I am supposed to check the jars and make sure the water seems fizzy, which will indicate that lacto-fermentation is successfully underway and that I can refrigerate my pickles for later use. Piece of cake on an 85 degree day!