Crispy Greens

The past few Saturdays Farmer Paul and Nick have been going out to a CSA farm and lending them a hand. In exchange, they bring home a box full of produce. These boxes of produce have made me realize that I’ve not been very adventurous comes to veggie choices.

I know that I’m not an adventurous meat eater. I’m fine going through life never knowing what things like goat, snake and gator taste like. I am at peace with the knowledge that a piece of bear meat will never cross my lips. (and no, Paul, that is NOT a challenge!)

But I’m surprised that there are so many common veggies I’ve never eaten. The unusual veggies I’ve received in my home have been things like Swiss Chard, Sorrel and Kale.

I was informed these nutritious greens are wonderful when lightly mixed with olive oil, sprinkled with salt and roasted to a potato-chipy crispness. I tried this one night for dinner. I set the bowl on the table, explained what it was as I passed the bowl to Mom. Mom took her “Thank You” portion, passed the bowl on to Dad, took a quick taste test, and took the bowl back from Dad to transform her “Thank You” portion into a “Hey, this is pretty good” portion. I don’t know how to describe it, but the crispness is that of a very fragile potato chip, while the bitterness of the green and the sprinkling of salt combine for a very unique, and addictive flavor. Even the kids ate it!

Unfortunately, we were so busy eating it that I didn’t take the time to make sure I had good pictures (and really, the mashed potatoes in the background are just a white blur – ugly!) So I’ll have to make it again. Soon. Really, really soon.

First, Take a Zucchini the Size of Manhattan…

This time of year you start dividing your friends into two groups. Those that have it and those that don’t. The “it”, of course, is zucchini. Cause if they’ve got zucchini, chances are you’ll get zucchini. So if you don’t want a bagful of random squashes (what is the plural of squash? squeesh?) you know who to avoid for the next couple of months.

If, however, you have a KILLER recipe for zucchini bread, then welcome your friends wholeheartedly into your home and drop hints like crazy and you may just get lucky!

In order to take out some of the more processed ingredients (mostly white flour), I made a couple of substitutions from the original recipe. But this is excellent, and as Austin and Ryan will testify to, it doesn’t taste AT ALL like zucchini.

Zucchini Bread
makes 2 9×5″ loaves

3 1/4 c whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp salt
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon
2 Tbsp grated lemon zest
1 3/4 c sugar
3 c grated zucchini
3 eggs, lightly beaten
1 c butter, melted
2 tsp vanilla
1 c chopped nuts (pecans or walnuts are excellent in this)

Preheat oven to 350. Grease 2 loaf pans.
Combine all ingredients in large bowl.
Divide batter between the loaf pans.
Bake 50-60 minutes until tester inserted in middle comes out clean.
Enjoy!

Family Trip to the Market

Needing a nice family outing to get everyone out of the house and away from each other’s throats, we decided today to load up in the car and drive the 1/2 hour to Seattle’s Pike Place Market. I did have a vague hope that we would have a pleasant stroll through the market, find some perfect veggies and seafood for a delicious, seasonal meal. What was I thinking!?!?! It’s a Saturday in August, the market’s crowded and noisy and it’s hot.

After fighting through the traffic, we actually found a great parking spot that wasn’t too outrageously expensive and only involved climbing the equivalent of Mount Everest to get to the market. We started wandering, but it seemed like no matter where we were, it was in the midst of a chaotic mess of people. about an hour into it, I started to get crabby. It was time to find lunch.

Seattle. Waterfront. Tourists. Fish & Chips. Ivar’s. One seems to lead strait to the next, doesn’t it? We asked a couple of people where we could get good fish & chips, and we got 2 suggestions, one of which was Ivar’s. I know…you don’t have to lecture me. There are Ivar’s everywhere and totally commercialized, but I kept reminding myself that it wouldn’t be a chain if people didn’t like it. So they must be good. Seattle! Waterfront! Tourists! It had everything going for it!

Everything, that is, except comfort, value and taste. The fish was fine, but didn’t have much of a fish flavor, and the chips were limp and greasy. The only place to sit was in an outdoor seating area that had me telling the boys not to touch the table with their hands after they’d washed them. So I’m going to have to get me some cod soon and do fish & chips right.

We never did go back and get stuff for dinner. I didn’t want to face that crowd again. We just came home and made chili. So much for seasonal! But it was soul-comforting.

The Student Surpases the Teacher

There comes the realization in a parent’s life that the child is starting to connect the dots. The big lessons and the little lessons that you’ve taught over the many, many, many years start to lose some of their randomness in the child’s minds and becomes a cohesive mass of knowledge. And then they use that newly realized knowledge and perform beyond what you perceived their capabilities to be.

I have been concerned for several years now that we really messed up when raising Nick. Don’t get me wrong…he’s a great kid. He’s got an ever-ready sense of humor, a tenacity and work ethic that exceeds that of many grown men, a kind heart and a quick and sharp intelligence that makes conversing with him very enjoyable. Not the perfect child, but a perfect part of our family.

So where did we mess up? Well, he has grown up with a gourmet’s palette. Because of my love for and talent for cooking, he believes, with all his heart and soul, that food should always be great. An occasionally great meal isn’t sufficient for him. Pizza really ought to be homemade, or at worst the best (read expensive) of the takeouts. Spaghetti sauce should NEVER come from a jar unless it’s a jar of my homemade sauce that I’ve canned. I never need to bother with buying canned soup which is a completely unacceptable substitute for homemade. We don’t need to bother buying the pre-made cookie dough ’cause he would rather spend the extra couple of minutes making his own recipe that includes a touch of maple and is so much better. Even Rice Krispie Squares must be homemade. How did we manage to create this monster?

Last Spring he decided that he wanted to apply for the culinary program at the high school. It’s an alternative program that has the kids spend 1/2 of their day at a distant campus learning culinary skills and cooking, and the other 1/2 day in their regular classrooms. With kids (11th and 12th grades) from 14 school districts applying for the 40 openings, the competition is tough. During his interview he was asked what his first choice destination would be if he could go anywhere in the world to eat. You know what my gourmet child replied? Paris? Rome? New York? Wrong! He answered that he would go home for his Mom’s (that’s me!!!!) cooking. And he got accepted into the program. One of the very few Juniors who were accepted.

This rave of pride for my oldest child leads me to the photo you see above. It’s a cobbler filled…loaded…with peaches and blackberries. I bought a couple boxes of peaches for eating and canning purposes and of course, our property is covered with blackberry bushes. So while Farmer Paul and I were out for our Anniversary dinner, he recruited Austin as his sous chef and modified a peach cobbler recipe to include blackberries. And it was a total, complete, ultimate success.

So join me in recognizing the skill of my son who won’t let me get away with convenience if it sacrifices taste and who has been helping me in the kitchen since he was tall enough to peer over the edge of the counter. Here’s his Peachy Blackberry Double-Crusted Cobbler. The one thing we did decide that needed to be changes, was that the filling should be cooled down before putting the cobbler together to bake. Otherwise the butter in the pie crust melts as soon as it hits the fruit, and the crust doesn’t end up flaky.

DOUBLE CRUSTED PEACH COBBLER

FOR THE CRUST:
3 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for shaping and rolling
2 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
16 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
7-10 tablespoons ice water
FOR THE FILLING:
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup water
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon maple flavoring
Pinch salt
6 ripe peaches, peeled, pitted, and cut into 1/4-inch thick slices
2 cups blackberries
4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons heavy cream (for brushing top)
cinnamon-sugar (to sprinkle on top)

TO MAKE THE CRUST:
Place flour, sugar, and salt in a food processor and process for 5 seconds. Add butter and process until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Add water, a few tablespoons at a time, until the dough just comes together.

Remove dough and knead lightly on a lightly floured surface until it just comes together. Divide the dough in half and form into disks. Wrap each disk in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

Once dough is chilled, remove from the refrigerator and roll each disk into a the approximate size of a 9×13″ pan, approximately 1/4-inch thick. Place on parchment paper-lined baking sheets and return to the refrigerator to chill until ready to assemble.

TO MAKE THE FILLING:
Melt butter in a large high-sided saute pan over medium heat. Add the sugar and water and cook until sugar is dissolved. Add remainder of ingredients and cook for 15 minutes until thickened. Refrigerate until chilled (1 hour or more)

TO MAKE THE COBBLER:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Place half of the peach mixture in the bottom of a 9×13 buttered baking dish using a slotted spoon. Top the peaches with 1 layer of dough.

Bake until the crust is light golden brown.

Remove from the oven and top the crust with the remaining peaches and cover with the other crust. Brush the top crust with heavy cream, sprinkle with cinnamon-sugar, and return to the oven.

Bake until the crust is golden brown and the juices are bubbly. Let cool for at least 30 minutes before cutting and serving.

Yield: 12 servings

A Cobbler from the Wild

Life up here just keeps getting better and better. First the garden started coming in, then the chickens and now blackberries.

When we moved in, there were wild blackberry bushes everywhere and getting them under control was one of the first tasks that they guys tackled. They knocked down tons of bushes with the tractor and then we got six goats who have been eating them and keeping them from growing back. But we still have plenty left.

A couple weeks ago, Farmer Paul took a hike around the property to collect enough blackberries for dessert and came back with a dozen. That’s is…12 berries in the bottom of the 2 gallon bucket. So we waited. And waited. For two weeks. And then today happened. I came home from work to a bowl on the counter overflowing with the luscious, sweet fruit.

But then I had to make the most difficult decision of my entire day. What to do with them! Just eating them with some whipped cream was tempting, but didn’t seem celebratory enough. After all, at this point I can walk out my back door and eat as many berries as I want. It needed to be better than that. What Farmer Paul wanted was a wedge of pie crust tucked into a bowl of berries and topped with whipped cream. What Nick wanted was pound cake covered in berries and cream. Austin and Ryan are easy, they just wanted dessert. Pie crust and pound cake take too long for a weeknight dessert and since I didn’t want to have to wait until 10 before we had dessert, I still had to decide what to do. I started going through my cookbooks.

Then Mom swooped in and rescued me from my indecision. She brought in an old cookbook of hers and flipped it open to a Quick Fruit Cobbler recipe. Quick and easy to whip together…bakes in 40 minutes. Works for me.

Unfortunately, the 40 minutes was more like 60, so it was still later than I wanted before we had dessert, and it was just O.K. Everyone else liked theirs, but I didn’t even bother finishing mine. It wasn’t good enough to waste the calories, especially with our anniversary weekend coming up. I’ll save my calorie allowance for that!

Quick Fruit Cobbler
from the More-with-Less Cookbook
Preheat oven to 350.
Combine in bowl:
3/4 c sugar
3/4 c flour
3/4 c milk
1 1/2 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
Pour into 9×9 greased baking pan.
Add:
3 c. fruit – fresh, frozen or canned.
Bake for 40 minutes. (or an hour!)
I also added about 1/4 c rolled oats to the batter because I was afraid that the fresh berries would add too much juice to the batter.