Blood Orange, Watercress and Frisee Salad

Dressing:
juice of 1/2 a blood orange, about 2 tablespoons
1 T red wine vinegar
4 T olive oil

1 blood orange, peeled and sliced
12 hazelnuts, lightly dry toasted in an iron pan on top of the stove and then cut in half
6 slices of goat cheese (soft, chevre)
1/2 c frisee
1/2 c watercress

Mix together the dressing. Toss greens with dressing separately in a large bowl. Arrange in bowls starting with a bottom layer of frisee topped by the watercress. Arrange orange slices, goat cheese slices and hazelnuts on top of the greens.

Serves 2.

California Dreamin

It's that time of year when I wonder how on Earth I've managed to live in the Midwest all these years. To not see the sun for, like, 39 days straight would certainly crank up anyone's seasonal affective disorder. But the infernal succession of ice, sleet, snow, slush, melt, snow, ice, sleet is a certain counterindication for the little Vitamin D capsules I add to my battery of supplements this time of year. The groundhog used to provide some solace, but the last few years spring is delayed well past his groggy worst-case scenario.

Our attempts to eat within a tristate "local" radius yields little more than squash and beets this time of year, of which we have eaten plenty. Oh to be in the land of year round citrus and greens growing in your own backyard! So while the organic broccoli at Trader Joe's is Californian and looking wan, it's among the many other not-squash-or-beets that must round out my diet. Perhaps someday I'll do some canning and try to really live it old-school, but until then my only truly local and seasonal food options are venison and racoon scampering out of the woods and into the nearest 4 lane highway. That reminds me, let's hear it for dried beans!

An additional food challenge is the 21 month old who lives with us. This baby who up until recently so gloriously counted among her favorite foods tabouli, goat cheese, and salmon will, to take today for example, only eat crackers, bread, toast (apparently its own category of food), O cereal, and waffles (plain, don't even try to sneak a fruit in it or on top of it). She does get on kicks for a certain food and these foods are seldom local or in season, but like heck if I don't go to the ends of the earth to find organic seedless grapes this time of year if it's The Thing she's decided to permit past her lips. The most recent kick had been for raspberries but without warning the kick ended and I was left with two containers which I have been enjoying in the mornings with yogurt, my summertime breakfast cutting a little swath of comfort through this bleak season.

Other food friends that have helped to beat the blahs lately are--

-Humboldt Fog goat cheese paired with an earthy red, a chance to enjoy some new-to-me varietals out of South America, much more booming than my usual Loire preferences, but with this cheese they're perfect

-Homemade waffles smeared with melted chocolate

-J's tomato-tarragon soup

-This Amish cottage cheese from Iowa-- the best cottage cheese I've ever tasted! It was twice as good the week we had some very ripe, sweet pears.

-An-Mok stone ground wheat crackers. Since crackers are V's go-to food I've been exploring all kinds and this brand is really tasty.

-Lima bean-fennel soup

While we're in exile a few months longer from any foodie destination whatsoever, it remains homecooking every day, all the time. This, coupled with the gluten-minimal, dairy-now-somewhat-permissible, almost entirely vegetarian stipulations have brought my game up a notch, I must say. A few memorable meals include fried plantains with mojo and garlicy black beans with avocado tacos; polenta (the first time I've ever made it) with a ragout of zucchini, spinach, garlic and shallots, tomato-basil sauce and pecorino romano cheese; slow roasted salmon fillets on a bed of fresh tarragon.

It'll be June before our CSA share kicks in, and hopefully it will be slightly sooner than that that we will be returning to the city and to the land of restaurants I actually want to eat in and well-supplied, non-corporate grocery stores.

Until then, I'm taking my Vit D with a hearty helping of flax and keeping my picky eater enthusiastic about helping in the kitchen by letting her "chop vegetables" with her own cutting board and knife... a butter knife.

Roasted Root Vegetable Potage

I love the word "potage." It makes my homey soup of whatever I happen to have going limp in the refrigerator drawer sound downright sexy. Here's what got whipped up into a creamy soup today. (The blended soup kick is partly my preference, partly a way to increase the odds that a formerly omnivorous toddler who lately prefers crackers to vegetables will consume something flavorful and nutritious.) I used some homemade chicken stock I had in the freezer, but as a most-of-the-time vegetarian, I would have otherwise made this with vegetable stock.

4 carrots, peeled and chopped into 1" pieces
4 parsnips, peeled and chopped into 1" pieces
4 turnips, peeled and chopped into 1" pieces
4 stalks of celery, chopped into 1" pieces
3/4 of a yellow onion, diced
6 cups of chicken stock
1/4 c olive oil
salt and white pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Toss carrots, parsnips and turnips in olive oil, reserving a little but of the oil for the soup pot. Roast for 45 minutes or until brown.

When vegetables are out of the oven, saute onion and celery in olive oil in a large soup pot over medium-high heat for 2-3 minutes, until onion is fragrant and translucent. Add chicken stock and roasted vegetables. Reduce heat. Let all the ingredients simmer together for 20 minutes or so. Transfer to blender and blend into a smooth consistency for a creamy soup. Season to taste with salt and white pepper.

Post soup note: the carrots give this soup a beautifully pale, orange color, while the sweetness of the parsnips and the pepperiness of the turnips are a great flavor pairing. I estimated the amount stock I used and so when I blended it it was still a bit thick. A little water brought it to the perfect consistency, however.

Fool Madamas

One thing about where we are currently living, the Middle Eastern food is outstanding. One suburb over there is a large community of people from Palastine, Lebanon, and Syria that there are no shortage of mom-and-pop restaurants fulfilling my frequent dolma/hummus/shawirma cravings. One such place also does a tasty "fool," sometimes also spelled "ful." This is like hummus but made with fava beans instead of chickpeas.

Since I have been using up the dried beans I dug out of the pantry a few days ago, decided to try my hand at a "fool" to use up some dried fava beans that have been hanging around unloved for far too long.

1 1/2 c dried fava beans
1 clove crushed garlic
juice of 1/2 lemon
1/4 c olive oil
1/2 t cumin

Soak fava beans overnight. Then cover with water and boil for 45 minutes to an hour. Let cool. Shell fava beans. Toss into a blender with remaining ingredients. Blend until desired consistency is reached. I added a little bit of water to make mine into a smooth puree, but some people may like their "fool" on the chunkier side.

This is good with toasted pita bread wedges, but since we didn't have any of those, and we are still primarily gluten-free in this household, I made myself a fried egg and topped it with fool. This is apparently a traditional breakfast in Egypt. And man is it good-- the runny yolk and the garlic and the fool's creaminess all combine into a nice variety of flavors and textures. What a good protein wallop to start the day!

Wine & Cheese

A current favorite evening nibble--

Meinklang Burgundenland & a goat gouda

Delicata Squash Stuffed With White Beans, Spinach and Sage

This meal evolved over the course of a day and a half, but it's hardly THAT laborious. This is the first time I'd ever cooked, and perhaps eaten, delicata squash. And it's one of the first times I've cooked with dried beans, besides throwing them into a soup, that is. It's a nod to using up what was around, and tweaking an existing recipe I found elsewhere online to make it gluten-free. Omitting the sprinkling of cheese I added at the end would make it dairyfree as well, but the picorino romano added lots of punch here and complemented the sage and the garlic quite nicely.

1 delicata squash, halved and seeds scooped out
1 c dried white beans, soaked overnight
1 large garlic clove, minced
extra-virgin olive oil
2-3 c baby spinach leaves, chopped
1 tablespoon minced fresh sage leaves
1 c leftover brown rice
1/4 cup grated piccorino romano cheese


Bring a pot of water, about 4 cups, to a light boil over medium heat. Add beans. Cook for about 1 1/2 hours or until beans are tender but not splitting. Drain (but reserve some of the liquid) and set beans aside.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place the squash halves (cut side up) on a sheet pan or in a baking dish. Drizzle the surfaces with some olive oil, and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Bake in the oven until the flesh is tender when pierced with a knife or fork, about 1 hour. Remove the squash halves from the oven and set aside.

For the filling, heat a little extra-virgin olive oil (about 1-2 Tbsp) in a saute pan over medium heat until hot, then add the minced garlic and saute for about 30 seconds, until fragrant. Add the greens and saute until wilted. Now add leftover rice and the cooked white beans and continue cooking the mixture until the beans and rice are heated through. The leftover rice is probably dry from being in the refrigerator, so add a few tablespoons of the bean liquid to the pan. Stir in the chopped fresh sage, season to taste with coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper, and set aside to cool slightly.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Fill the squash halves with rice mixture. Sprinkle freshly grated piccorino romano cheese over each squash half. Since everything is cooked this is really just a 5-10 minute cook time to warm up the squash and to melt the cheese (if using).

Serves 2

A Season for Drinking

lots of notable wines have crossed our table in the last few weeks.

Chateau Haut Peyruguet 2008 is my favorite white Bordeaux yet

Saracco Moscato D'Asti 2009 was delicious with Jeff's marzipan birthday cake

Perrin Reserve Cotes du Rhone 2007 was a nice, nice red for all ocassions

I don't usually like straight-up Pinot Noirs (too boomy) but Meinklang's Pinot is much more subtle and balanced, earthy and jammy.

Mas de Gougonnier Reserve du Mas 2004 les Baux de Provence was one of Jeff's favorites to date

And, I think we may have had this one before, but in case it hasn't been previously noted, a solild Gewurztraminer from Oregon: Montinore Estate 2007.

Cheers! Happy 2010!