Don't cut the cheese - grate the cheese!

Each Wednesday The Brockton Enterprise features a "Good Taste" section which highlights food and recipes. The May 18th edition included a story called "Grilled Cheese Grows Up", which originally appeared in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette as "Grilled Cheese: What's Old is New Again". I did not specifically prepare any particular recipe that the article provides, however, I did follow this advice from Laura Werlin, author of Grilled Cheese Please! 50 Scrumptiously Cheesy Recipes, whose book according to the article, "is full of good ideas, starting with her time-tested tips on making the brest grilled cheeses, such as always grate the cheese." On Friday I made myself a grilled cheese, fried egg and tomato sandwhich for lunch (what we call in Brazil a "mixto quente") and grated a mixture of mozarella, cheddar and monterrey jack. I must say, Werlin was dead on. The result was one of the creamiest, evenly melted grilled cheese sandwiches I have ever had. I will never go back!

BTW - This is not our "nueva recipe" for the week. James will be posting about the Bean Bible for that one!

Class of Ambition

Each spring semester, I teach a course called Geographic Frameworks for future teachers of geography. I treat the course as an adventure in learning how to find geographic lessons in just about any context. To help keep variety in the course year to year, connect the students to the broader community, and ensure some depth in the conversation, I usually build the course around the current selection of the One Book One Community program that takes place twice each year in our town and campus.

This semester, the book chosen is Ben Hewitt's The Town that Food Saved, about efforts to promote local and regional food in a northern Vermont town. The book itself would not really be suitable for the students these future teachers hope to work with -- mainly elementary -- but it explores many interesting aspects of the geography of food that are ideal for teaching students of any age.

In our conversations about how we would involve children in lessons about their connections to food, the idea of preparing food with students has been a recurring theme, so we decided to try it as a class. Fortunately, the class is small and -- more importantly -- has great camaraderie. So I was willing to suggest bringing the entire class of five to our house to prepare a meal together. (It is also fortunate that Pam had already undertaken something similar with a larger group in the winter -- they ended up creating an entire blog about the experience at Como Agua Para Chocolate Recetas. 

Since our class meets only twice a week and since we put this plan together rather hastily, menu planning was not as integral as it probably should have been. I did bring in a few of our many cook books for some preliminary discussion. We identified a few kind of dishes we were interested in trying, and figured out foods we needed to avoid. But in the end, I hastily chose three dishes, consulting a bit with Pam. The students then arrived a bit ahead of the official 3:20 start time and stayed a bit past the 4:35 end time, so that we prepared and enjoyed the meal in about two hours.

The students arrived with a mix of nerves and curiosity, and a range of cooking experience. We started with popcorn from Hanson Farm (an ear of corn, microwaved in a paper bag), and then got to work. Every student jumped right in to the process, however, dividing up to concentrate on the three recipes I had chosen -- a warm pasta salad, a grilled-cheese sandwich, and a frittata. I mainly provided tips on where to find things, and answered a few how-to questions along the way. Each dish ended up having one or two students who focused on it, but students also helped with other dishes, especially as some required a bit more time than others. Over all, though, the timing of the meal worked out amazingly well!

The recipe for Pasta Salad with Grilled Marinaded Chicken and Sugar Snap Peas comes from 365 Ways to Cook Pasta, which followers of this blog will recognize as a favorite stand-by in this house, though we had not tried this recipe before. This book must have the longest titles of any cookbook we own -- more an ingredient list than a title! The delicious grilled cheese is The Wisconsinite (in honor of our Cheese Head cousins) from grilled cheese, please!, another new recipe from one of our household standards. We found the frittata recipe in the Brockton Enterprise, our regional daily newspaper that is a remarkably good source of recipes.

(Note: My students are not fuzzy, though my camera phone is!)

The Wisconsonite grilled-cheese sandwich includes Colby cheese (the recipe calls for this plus blue cheese, but we all agreed to skip the latter) and a blend of cranberry sauce and Dijon mustard. Marbled-rye and shredded cheese were used, to delicious effect!

The frittata was a bit unusual, calling for a base made of potatoes. The Gruyere  cheese  was tart, contrasting with the smoked ham and asparagus.

The pasta salad called for pasta, marinated chicken strips, and steamed pea pods. We used pea pods from last year's CSA -- the last bit was in the freezer -- and hormone-free chicken from Paula Dean (of all people). Reading the recipe this morning,, I could see that the marinating process was a potential bottleneck, so I prepared that part of the meal ahead of the students' arrival. That one piece being completed allowed for the entire meal to come together at roughly the same time, though the frittata took a bit longer than the other two dishes.

The result: Some good lessons about teaching and cooking ... and a very satisfying meal. In fact, the students were so full that they refused the offer of dessert from nearby Peaceful Meadows.

Lagniappe

Just before the students arrived for the meal, I noticed this photo online -- sorry, no location or citation at this time -- and I offer this colorful "tire farm" as a lagniappe to the students who participated. The week before, they had enjoyed the many varieties of small gardens that appear at the end of the delightful film Truck Farm.

National Grilled Cheese Day

 For this year's celebration (we seem to manage this one fairly often), we found a recipe whose name practically is the recipe: Blackberry Bacon Grilled Cheese. Anybody who knows how to make a grilled-cheese sandwich need only add these details:

• blackberry refers to blackberry jam
• bacon refers to crispy bacon, cooked before assembling sandwich
• cheese refers to Swiss cheese (I used a nice, soft, lacy Swiss)
• sliced, fresh jalepeños are the only component (aside from cooking butter) not implied in the title
• grilled refers to sourdough bread (which was hard to find in these days of supply-chain challenges)

We had only Canadian bacon on hand, so I substituted that. It was leaner and less crispy than South-of-the-49th Bacon. This somewhat lighter alternative made for a nicely balanced sandwich.

Photo: Lemon Tree Dwelling

The recipe is accompanied by photos that are far superior to any I could have taken of these somewhat messy sandwiches. The recipe itself helps me to understand why so many people whine about overlong, meandering food-blog posts. 

Nothing in the author's discussion of this recipe related at all to the recipe, unless the reader is aware of the coincidence between National Grilled Cheese Day and National Only-Child Day. 

Arugula Grilled Cheese?

Yes, arugala grilled cheese! As Pam wrote rcently, we learned about a new grilled-cheese cook book from our local paper. Although this blog is mostly about using cookbooks we already have, I could not resist Laura Werlin's grilled cheese please!, and added it to our collection.

Learn more at
GrilledCheeseSandwich.org

http://grilledcheesesandwich.org/Many of the recipes involve relatively obscure cheese and/or meats. One recent evening, I was looking for a vegetarian meal that would use something from our local farm box, and I found just the thing on page 7. The "burrata with roasted peppers and arugula" recipe calls for an unfamiliar cheese but suggests fresh mozzarella as an alternative. It also calls for French bread and olive oil instead of butter for the outside of the sandwiches. Piled with arugula and roasted red peppers, Pam and I found these sandwiches savory, creamy, and delicious.

It was not, however, a hit with our resident vegetarian, so I will let her choose the next selection from this fun book.

Another winner from Grilled Cheese, Please!

Chapter 7 of this book, on Regional American Grilled Cheese would have served me well during my Celebrating the States project. On Sunday I prepared the "Californian" which, according to the book reflects California's "agicultural bounty." This includes raisins, almonds, goat cheese, Monterrey Jack cheese, and chiles. The chile and cheeses go between slices of cinnamon-raisin bread, upon which butter is spread and then topped with slivered almonds before grilling. I wasn't sure about including the chiles in this one, but the sweetness from the raisins made a perfect complement with the spicy chile pepper. Another magnificent contrast was the gooey cheese and the crunchy almonds. A perfect sandwich, especially when served with sweet potato chips.

Classic Grilled Cheese with a Twist

We knew it had been a while since we posted a new recipe, but we didn't realize how long! Seems we've gotten lax about finding a recipe, making a shopping list, enjoying (or not) a meal, and then writing about it. For this long overdue post I went to Grilled Cheese, Please in search of something easy, yet enticing.

In addition to shredded cheddar this sandwich has bacon,sliced tomato, and red onion. The onions were sliced and soaked in cold water while the bacon baked (we've recently taken to making bacon in the oven on a foil lined cookie sheet which makes clean up a lot easier). Once the bacon was done the sandwiches were assembled and then grilled on the stove top. The recipe called for sourdough bread, but I just used plain white bread since I had some leftover from the loaf I'd bought for a recent breakfast of french toast. The sandwiches were hearty and full of flavor and texture. We ate them with a side dish of mashed potatoes, and paired with Malbec.

Beans for the Birds

My contribution to Nueva Receta this week was a simple and satisfying bean dish, based on a recipe for Bird-Style Beans (Fagioli all'Ucceletto) from page 208 of Aliza Green's comprehensive classic, The Bean Bible: A Legumaniac's Guide to Lentils, Peas, and Every Edible Bean on the Planet! (Note: the exclamation point is part of the title.) It is appropriate that the author of this book is named Green, an aptonym given the prevalence of vegetables in the book!

This recipe calls for dried borlotti (or cranberry or pink) beans, chicken stock, olive oil, plenty of garlic, sage, fresh plum tomatoes. I chose the pink beans (from Goya -- similar to pintos), because I had no idea how to find the other two. I used vegetable bouillon in honor of our resident vegetarian, and I used "fresh" regular tomatoes from the grocery store. I will be sure to try this recipe again when local tomatoes are available. I also used minimal salt, rather than the two teaspoons called for. I found that a dash of Tabasco sauce worked very well in place of excessive salt. When I prepare this next, I will try to find a way to avoid using both a stock pot and a Dutch oven, as this created more dish-washing than seemed warranted.

The result was a warm, satisfying, if very simple meal. I dipped a bit of tortilla in mine, and would have welcomed some more substantial accompaniment, but it did work well with a salad for a light meal. After we ate it, I noticed that the author recommends serving this with grilled meat or poultry -- something we will definitely be trying. It is worth noting, though, that the Tuscan originators of this recipe apparently prepared it as a substitute for game birds that they could not afford.

This was a perfect book for our project, as it has been displacing significant shelf space without inspiring a proportionate number of meals. Using our underused cookbooks is precisely what this blog project is about, and now that I've used the book (not for the first time, but for the first time in a long while), I expect to be tucking into it again and again. It is interesting that one of the Amazon.com reviewers notes that she purchased this book after borrowing it from the library and determining that she would actually use almost all of the recipes.

The same reviewer notes something else interesting: no pictures accompany any of the recipes in this volume. We had just noted the exact opposite phenomenon in our newspaper, which sometimes includes photos of dishes for which it does not include recipes. The most recent example was in the grilled cheese article that Pam reviewed recently, which included a photo of a decadent grilled cheese dessert with no clue as to its contents.

Aliza Green has done just the opposite: providing text that so fully prepares a cook that no images are needed.

Melty Tuna Melty

As Pam noted in the "Best Tuna Melt" section of her New Jersey entry on Celebrating the States, my usual open-mindedness with respect to food (and most other things, other than Dunkin' Donuts), generally fails me when it comes to tuna. I do not eat tuna salad unless I am at home, and then only if I have made it or a trusted family member has made it under my supervision. For me, incidentally, it is not really a "salad" since it only has tuna, mayo, and ground black pepper.

As Pam rightly predicted in that same entry, my willingness to eat -- and even enjoy -- a tuna melt in which the tuna was polluted with celery and onions did not mean I had turned over a new leaf in this area of gastronomy. Strict limits are still in place. (Sorry to call onion a pollutant -- in its proper place, of course, I love it! Its proper place is anywhere but tuna salad.)

The bottom line, I suppose, is that I have some issues with the preparation of tuna. I rarely prepare tuna melts, but for some reason today I had a hankering for them, and arriving home for lunch just a few minutes ahead of Pam, I decided to surprise her with one (one each, that is).

I made tuna "salad" in my conventional way -- a can of tuna in water (squeezing the water in our dog's food dish -- all of our dogs have loved that) with a minimal mix of reduced-calorie mayonnaise (Hellman's: let's not even talk about Miracle Whip, since this is a family blog) and fresh-ground black pepper. I grilled this on regular whole wheat sandwich bread with freshly shredded Cabot cheeses (Monterrey Jack and extra sharp cheddar), in the style of grilled cheeses about which we've been blogging of late.

Nothing terribly innovative so far, except that this is the first tuna melt I have made since we got grilled-cheese religion, and I stacked the shredded cheese as high as it would go, giving it plenty of time to melt down before flipping the sandwiches.

Here is the innovation, though: on my own sandwich, I added a couple tablespoons of what I call "hots" -- jarred, crushed red pepper. I often order this on deli sandwiches, but never thought to get it for home use until I recently noticed it on a grocery shelf. In this case, it is Gouveia brand, imported to New Bedford from the Azores (an Atlantic archipelago that is part of Portugal).

I would never have thought to blog about this, because it was a simple recipe, but Pam pointed out that we have not posted much lately, so to keep up a weekly pace, I should mention it. Though the meal (which included milk, tortilla chips, and canned peaches with cinnamon) was not fancy, it did meet the main criteria for lunch: nutritious, delicious, easy and cheap!

That no pregnant woman should ever have to travel 200 miles to satisfy a craving again

I craved two foods during my only preganancy. Early on I wanted lots of grape juice, although prior to that I was happy to take it or leave it. I accepted this yearning as part of my pregnancy, and towards the end of my first trimester, when James noticed we were out of grape juice and asked if he should go out for more, I thought and minute, then replied "no, I guess I'm done with that." It was not until about two months later that I experienced my only other craving: a Monte Cristo sandwich. James picked me up from work at lunchtime one Friday and asked what I was in the mood for. When I told him I wanted a Monte Cristo, he wondered aloud if there was any restaurant in the Rio Grande Valley that might have them on the menu. Dejectedly, I told him that I doubted it. I don't remember what we ended up eating that day, but I do know that following day, we drove 3 hours to get to Corpus Christi where we thought our chances might be better at finding the sandwich I wanted. I also remember that by the time we got there I was so hungry I was more interested in having any food, than continuing the Monte Cristo quest. We went into a seafood restaurant, mostly because it was open, and were prepared to order anything that looked appetizing. As luck would have it though, the Monte Cristo sandwich was on the menu! I ordered it and ate half, then asked that the other half be wrapped to go. A few minutes later the waiter came out to confess that the other half had accidently been thrown away, and that they would take half the price of the sandwich off our bill. In a rather uncharacteristic move on my part, I explained about waiting a whole day, and traveling 200 miles to get the meal, and inisted that another sandwich be prepared instead. My request was obliged. Later, when one of my co-workers asked if I'd craved anything during my pregnancy and I told her the story about the Monte Cristo, she said me she'd never heard of a Monte Cristo, so I explained that it was an egg-batter fried ham and cheese sandwhich, topped with powered sugar, and served with jam for dipping. She pursed her lips, and said "well, that sounds like something a pregnant woman might crave."

In honor of that day 14 years ago, today we made our own Monte Cristos using the recipe from our new Grilled Cheese, Please cookbook. The one thing this recipe specifically says is that one should NOT grate the cheese "because dipping the sandwiches in the egg mixture is a messy affair." We strayed slightly from the recipe in the book in that we did not use both turkey and ham, only ham, and did not use mustard. Didn't see the point in that at all.  These really are simple, and I don't know why I didn't just make one for myself that day, but that's all amniotic fluid under the bridge now.

Grilled Cheese and Fig Jam sandwiches

Sometime in the recent past I found a recipe on the web for this sandwich. I don't remember now where it came from, but it didn't matter too much as I didn't really need a "recipe" since knowing the the name of the dish sufficed for instructions. I won't explain here what I did either, but I will elaborate to say that I used Fig and Ginger jam, and cheddar cheese to make the sandwiches. We ate them with a side of nachos made from the leftover filling of the sloppy joe's we had the night before. The meal was complemented with sangria. All good.

Blueberry-Vanilla Goat Cheese Quesadillas

We have been rather remiss in 2015 with following through with the weekly recipes. I don't feel bad about it. The New Year started with a death in the family, and one snow storm after another, so getting out  cookbooks and finding something to blog about has fallen to a low priority after mourning, traveling, and cleaning up snow.

The dish I made for breakfast this morning didn't come from a recipe book. I was simply inspired to make it when I happened to notice the two main ingredients next to each other in the refrigerator. We bought the blueberry vanilla cheese from Trader Joe's last week. It is something we usually pick up there and I enjoy it on English muffins or crackers, but yesterday I realized it would make a jim-dandy breakfast quesadilla. The cheese is crumbly and hard to spread, so getting it onto a tortilla shell was more a matter or pressing down on the crumbles with the flat part of a knife rather than spreading. I covered one half of a round tortilla shell with the cheese, folded and then grilled it on the stove-top for a few minutes in each side. As a side dish I sauteed some banana slices.

We topped the quesadillas with some flavored vinegars from Lebherz Oil and Vinegar Emporium. I took a selection of likely pairings from the cabinet and tried them all. I found the Dark Chocolate to be especially tasty. The Wild Blueberry, and Ripe Peach were also good. James tried Wild Blueberry and called it "delicious". 

These were super easy, and super yummy.

Not-ordinary Turkey Burgers

A few years ago, we discovered that mixing in a shredded apple greatly improves the texture of turkey burgers, which can often be a bit dry and crumbly. So I was intrigued by the recipe for Turkey & Spinach Burgers in our Big Green Egg Cookbook. I was even more intrigued by the inclusion of a tomato-based pesto.

Lazy blogger alert: I went to a bit of trouble to photograph the ingredients lists, rather than type them. The basic list is:

I followed this pretty carefully, except that I used one bag of spinach, which might have been 10 ounces, and one pound of ground turkey. I've never seen white and dark ground turkey sold separately. I don't measure salt and pepper, but I'm pretty sure I used a lot less salt than called for. I mixed these, along with the garlic, in a bowl and then formed them into four patties.

I started by lighting the grill, because that takes a while, and then I wilted the spinach. To do this, I rinsed it and then placed it in a large pan over medium-high heat on the stovetop. Stirring occasionally, the full pot of spinach was quickly reduced to something like a cupful. I used "regular" spinach; next time I will use baby spinach so that it is more leafy and lest stemmish.
I blended the mayo and mustard in a small serving bowl, as this is a topping for the table.

I then started the pesto. so that it would be ready before I began grilling.

The recipe calls for draining the tomatoes, reserving 1/4 cup of oil, and then adding back another 1/4 of oil. I simply used the whole jar (8.5 ounces) and added oil until it looked right. The recipe calls for using a food processor, which we do not have. In such cases, we always use knives or our blender; in this case, the blender did not work very well. Next time I will chop and mix these ingredients in a bowl before smoothing them in a blender.

I cooked the burgers on a cooking stone -- rather than directly on the grill, because I always end up with 1/3 of the burger stuck in the grill. The stone works great -- I just need to be sure it is quite hot when I am ready to put something on it. In this case, of course, it was the patties. I think I grilled them at 450-500 for about 8 minutes on one side, 4 on the other, then another minute or so with swiss cheese on top. I seem to have gotten the doneness right, which for me remains mostly a matter of luck.

I took set the burgers aside on a plate and then brushed the pesto onto each half of the wheat buns (I used large kaiser rolls -- highly recommended for this messy meal), set them on the grill, and closed the egg.

I then went inside to finish up my mac-and-cheese comfort-food side dish. This led to my only real error -- for buns directly on the grill, two minutes was much too much, and they were a bit charred by the time I retrieved them.

The end result, though: absolutely delicious turkey burgers with several vegetable groups well represented!





NOTE: The cookbook is essential for Big Green Egg owners who want to get the most interesting results from their grills; some of its best recipes can also be found on the recipe section of the manufacturer's web site.

It's Maryland Day!

Maryland holds a special place in the hearts of the Nueva Receta bloggers. Not only is it the land of Pam's birth, it is where we met and fell in love. See the whole story here. We started celebrating Maryland Day a few years ago, which then morphed into a year long project of recognizing the anniversary of each state with food, books, and movies. We no longer do every state, but do try to remember Arizona, Texas, and Maryland every year, and often our honorary home in Wisconsin as well. We began this year's celebration with coffee in our Maryland-themed mugs, accompanied by fresh-baked basil-corn muffins from the Dishing Up Maryland cookbook.

I began by mixing 1 1/4 c. Flour with 1/2 c. Cornmeal. I used twice the amount of cornmeal that the recipe indicated because I did not have the fresh corn kernels called for. I mixed this with 2 T. sugar, 3 t. baking powder, and 1/2 t. of salt. Once these were mixed I added 1 c. milk, 1 egg, 1/4 c. Canola oil and 1 T. chopped fresh basil (which was harvested right out of our windowsill). I divided the batter into 12 muffin cups and baked in my convection oven for 20 minutes at 375. James and I enjoyed these warm from the oven with a pat of butter. Savory taste with a wonderful texture, we will definitely make these again - perhaps late in the summer when we can be sure to add the fresh corn kernels.

(Note from James:  Pam was the  "I" who prepared the muffins above and the shrimp pate below. The muffins were even better than I thought they would be. Light and airy, sweet and just slightly savory. Much more suitable for breakfast than it might sound.)

Dinner comprised two more recipes from Dishing Up Maryland - an appetizer of shrimp pate and a chicken salad. The pate was easy to make, and put James in mind of the old Bass-o-Matic gag from the original Saturday Night Live. The cooked shrimp (about 3/4 lb.) was put into a blender along with  2 T. softened cream cheese, 3 T. softened butter, a healthy dollop of mayonnaise, the juice of one lime, 1 chopped garlic clove, a bit of dill, a generous helping of Old Bay (what would Maryland Day be without that!) and a few shakes of Tabasco sauce. I used the pulse setting until everything was finely chopped and evenly distributed. We spread the pate onto some good artisan bread. Delicious, and with plenty of leftovers so we can enjoy more tomorrow.

We picked this cookbook up in Nantucket!

Dinner was a delicious salad from the same book. We could not use ingredients from Washington County's Rinehart Orchards, as suggested at the top of the recipe, but managed to make quite a tasty salad with the store-bought apples and pears we can get this time of year. To make the salad, we (James taking the lead on this one, both in the kitchen and on the blog) modified the recipe entitled Apple and Pear Salad with Grilled Chicken and Pecans, on page 160.

We were fortunate to have firm apples and pears. I sliced the top and bottom off of each so that some skin would be retained, but not too much. I sliced them thin and set them aside. I then heated blood-orange-infused olive oil in our indispensable cast-iron skillet, to which I added three boneless, skinless chicken breasts, also sliced fairly thin. The recipe had called for grilling chicken, but at the end of a long -- though beautiful -- day this was not in the cards. The high-temp saute worked well with this tender, organic chicken.

Meanwhile, Pam rinsed spinach greens and arranged them on plates, adding the fruit slices, crumbled feta, and chopped walnuts (pecans having not made it onto our shopping list). We then added the chicken and a dressing I had made by vaguely following the recipe and whisking together about 3T each of the blood-orange olive oil and regular canola oil, together with about 1T each of Dijon, honey, and serrano-honey balsamic vinegar and a pinch of salt.

The result was a salad that was both sweet and substantial, with many vibrant flavors. We paired it not-so-perfectly with a Snake Dog IPA from Flying Dog Brewery in Frederick, Maryland (home of our favorite oil and vinegar emporium). We had found it this afternoon in a shop in Concord after we had celebrated the day with a nice jaunt around Walden Pond. We had been hoping for a Maryland wine -- which would have paired beautifully -- but were happy to find several beers and ales from a brewery we have already enjoyed. The beer/wine clerk was delighted to learn it was Maryland Day, so that he could let his wife and father-in-law (from Bethesda) know that he had marked the occasion. We chilled the ale thoroughly and it was delicious -- more like an extra course than a side beverage.

Leftover plans: Maryland Day will be the culinary gift that keeps on giving. Monday morning's breakfast will feature omelets made with some Vermont extremely sharp cheddar cheese, some eggs from a friend in Bridgewater, and the remainder of the pear and apple slices. We had a bit of chicken left over, which we stored in the dressing -- a kind of post-cooked marinade. We do not know quite how we use this, but it will be put to a good use, and the delicious shrimp dip will of course not be lingering long in the fridge!

Lime Jubilee

Prelude
(written by James, May 25)

For Pam's Jubilee Birthday (that number is biblical -- look it up) she wanted a lime variation on the coffee-infused cake she made for James' Jubilee Birthday (biblical types differ on how to count the Jubilee years -- this May we covered them both).

As we sometimes do, we got a bit carried away with a theme, so that the menu now reads:

Beer-Lime Grilled Chicken 
Lime Biscuits 
Cilantro-Lime Slaw 
LimeAde
Lime Sherbet, natch, as our only store-bought offering
A Lime Variation on our Award-Winning Mocha Cake

Margaritas may also be involved, and perhaps Corona, which is only palatable with a wedge of lime.

Lime Cake
(written by James, May 26)

Of course it is appropriate to begin the preparations for Pam's Big Day on her Attainment Day, when she has already attained her newly-earned aged. After preparing some famous queso dip for an unrelated event this afternoon, we prepared two items that are best completed a day ahead, both to clear the kitchen for other activities and because neither of these has any last-minute steps.

The first of these is Pam's kidney bean salad -- a gift to herself each birthday. No limes are involved. Then James began the lime cake, varying the Molly Katzen pound cake that has become our standard. I followed the recipe in the original Moosewood Cook Book, using Katzen's suggested variations for a lemon cake as a starting point to create a raspberry-lime cake.

Rather than using butter and flour on the Bundt pan, I prepared it with lime-infused olive oil (brought in from Lebherz just for the occasion) and flour. I replaced the vanilla extract in the original recipe with raspberry extract, adding the freshly-squeezed juice of three limes and the zest of two. After the batter was prepared, I gently mixed in a small package of fresh raspberries.

I usually do not sample batter, but if it is any guide, this is going to be a really nice cake!

Slaw
(written by James, May 27)

I started the slaw -- perhaps only the second I have ever made -- fairly early this morning so that it could chill and the flavors could meld. I must confess to cheating, using one of those ubiquitous bags-o-veggies that have taken over produce shelves recently. Perhaps a bit later, when our CSA presents us with actual cabbage, I will do this again with fresh ingredients. But on a busy cooking day early in the season, I was happy to have the shortcut.

Since the bag had about 6 cups of cabbage rather than 4, I increased the ingredients in rough proportion -- lighter on the mayo and heavier on everything else. I could not imagine what I would have done with a partial bag of shredded cabbage, so I used it all. I also made a few minor substitutions, as described below.

I used one cup of Light Hellman's, the only mayo that crosses our threshold. It has 60 percent of the calories of regular. We tried Lowfat Hellman's once, which is 50 percent, and learned our limits! We had scallions on hand, so I used these for a very mild onion taste, rather than buying red onion. I used a serrano-honey balsamic in place of the rice vinegar, and probably used more than was called for. I have no idea what "sweet chili sauce" is, so I used deli-style crushed red peppers. I whisked all of this together before stirring in the vegetation (using our silicon scraper-spoon to good effect).

The result was a nearly perfect slaw -- not too creamy or too vinegarish, and just tangy enough for a nice late spring meal outdoors.

Chicken
(written by James, May 27)

Speaking of which, after a few days of unseasonably cold, windy, and wet weather, the skies lifted, the sun came out, and the angels sang off in the distance, for the occasion of Pam's birthday. This meant that recent landscaping preparations were worthwhile, and that grilling outside was part of the festivities, rather than a frozen exile. I prepared the marinade just as directed in the aptly-named Beer Lime Grilled Chicken recipe,  except that I used some flat pale ale from the back of the fridge rather than the light-colored beer it calls for. (Those who are not hop-heads might be surprised to learn that "pale ale" is actually much darker than most mainstream beers.) The extra flavor certainly did not harm the outcome -- the pre-packaged, boneless, skinless organic chicken breasts turned out moister and more delicious than would have been thought likely.

(Incidentally, neither margaritas nor Corona were involved after all -- each diner enjoying some combination of limeade, ginger-ale, and home-brew.

Limeade and Biscuits

(written by Pam, May 28)

I adapted a favorite recipe for ginger-lemonade I clipped out of a newspaper years ago to make mint-limeade. I started with making a mint-infused syrup with chopped fresh mint from the garden, 1/4 c. of water, and 1/2 c. of sugar. All of this was heated until boiling, then removed from the stove top to steep. While the syrup cooled I juiced 9 limes. The lime juice, 4 cups of water, 1/4 of sugar and the mint syrup all went into a pitcher and were stirred until well mixed. Our friends brought over some lemon-lime seltzer water which when mixed with the limeade made a refreshing spritzer.

The lime biscuits were pretty simple -- much like other biscuit recipes I used, but with added lime zest and a bit of lime juice. I did think that the 10 tablespoons of butter the recipe called for seemed like overkill and used about 7 instead. They were plenty buttery, and quite tasty with just a hint of lime.

To round out the meal we also had some macaroni and cheese, and Tostitos Hint-of-Lime chips which were delicious with the leftover dip. Everyone was well satisfied when the meal was done.

Sautéed Jerusalem Artichokes with Sunflower Seeds

Earlier this month we began picking up our annual CSA farm box from Colchester Neighborhood Farm. This week we received Jerusalem Artichokes (or Sunchokes). We had never had these before and looked to Deborah Madison, author of Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone for guidance. Her cookbook is over 700 pages long and has recipes for every kind of vegetable you've never heard of. I decided to try the sautéed with sunflower seeds recipe for the jerusalem artichokes. This root vegetable looks a lot like ginger, but is bitter in flavor. I cut the 'chokes into rounds and sautéed in canola oil. I added salt and pepper, then topped with toasted sunflower seeds and parsley and some other herb (the parsley and unknown herb also came from our farm box). James pointed out that I should have shelled the sunflowers first. Well, yes. I was so glad to be using the sunflower seeds that have been in our cupboard for over a year that I didn't think about this part. Mostly we ended up eating around them. I was glad to use the ingredients from the farm box, but I have to say I wouldn't buy jersusalem artichokes on purpose. This was used as a side dish to an old favorite - grilled cheddar, bacon and red pepper sandwiches. We got the recipe from the newspaper a few years ago. We were glad to find it as we were not sure what to do with the red pepper jelly we got in the big basket of  homemade jellies we won at our church auction that year. We ended up liking these sandwiches so much that red pepper jelly has become a "staple on Maple". Of course we made the change of grating the cheese this time! And prepared them on fresh yogurt bread, still warm from the bread machine. We paired this with sweet pineau de pinot from from Westport Rivers vineyard.

Hail, Caesar!

This week's story is about a salad so simple that it barely deserves the term "salad," yet I cheated on the recipe! When we reached the end of last week, however, we realized that we had not chosen a blog-worthy recipe, but we had a cookout invitation in hand and a full head of organic romaine lettuce from our CSA in the fridge. So we decided that this simple salad would be our featured recipe this week. Fortunately, though the salad is simple, the story is not!

Caesar salad is my favorite salad -- plenty of cool romaine, shredded or shaved Parmesan, croutons (which I love on any salad) and decadent dressing. I repeatedly delude myself into thinking that the fiber and vitamins from the lettuce offset the saturated fats of the dressing. Many restaurants offer a grilled chicken version that I will sometimes order as a main course, but usually I have just the salad. I remember at least one restaurant that offered a "half" version. When I inquired, I learned that this meant "only" a half a head of romaine was used! I also found a restaurant that did not include any form of Parmesan cheese, which is just wrong.

My friend Rob enjoyed the salad I prepared yesterday, but insists that it was not "real" because it did not include anchovies. According to Susan Stamberg's Roots of Caesar Salad story, however, anchovies were a later addition to the Prohibition-era dish. Actually, anchovies are almost always present in almost homeopathic concentrations, because anchovies are an ingredient in Worcestershire sauce, and that sauce (a.k.a. "Woostah-shur") is present in Caesar dressing.

Helen & Cesar Chavez with RFK
read more at Latino Like Me

But I've gotten a bit ahead of the story. Caesar is not only a favorite salad; it is a treasured word in our house. My middle name is Kezar, a Maine variant of the German variant Kaiser (Wilhelm II probably having something to do with my family's creative spelling). It can also be spelled Cesar, as in the great labor leader Cesar Chavez (see also RFK/Cesar connection).

Because we had determined not to name a child James Kezar V,  in fact, we had decided that if ever we had a son, "Cesar" would have been his name.

What does Prohibition have to do with this salad? Quite simply, Tijuana was an easy get away for Los Angeles film stars at the time, and a group that dropped in on chef Caesar Cardini in 1924 were looking for something filling to go with their booze. Cardini scrambled to put together something from what he had on hand, which explains the odd combination ingredients that are found in the salad to this day. Apparently the name of the salad (connoting an emperor) and the lettuce (connoting his empire) are just coincidental!

The Tijuana connections are interesting for me as well. My first foray into Mexico was in Tijuana in the 1980s, and it is the scene of much of Kerouac's On the Road. The stereotypes -- some well earned -- arising from its various vices are sent up in Manu Chao's amazing and satrical Welcome to Tijuana, an essential element in my teaching. I am looking forward to seeing a new documentary film of the same name.

Finally, just a bit about the salad at hand. Despite the fact that I had already purchased Newman's Own Creamy Caesar Dressing, making this the simplest possible salad, I lacked confidence at the last moment. Should I cut or tear the romaine, for example? Our usual mainstay, author Deborah Madison, was of no help, apparently considering this too simple even for her book of basic recipes. Or maybe she does not consider this salad vegetarian, given the fishiness of the dressing.

Based on the Caesar Salad I recipe on AllRecipes.com, I decided to rinse and then tear the entire head of romaine (after chopping off the hardest part of the heart), toss it with about 1/3 cup of the dressing, a generous handful of freshly-shredded Parmesan, and nearly an entire bag of croutons (specifically sold as Caesar).

Bread Machine Pesto Bread

We've had our bread machine for 16 years. It came with a bunch of recipes, but we tend to stick with the same half dozen or so. Occasionally, though we go ahead and try something new, and so I did this week. James baked biscuits to go with the minestrone soup he made earlier this week. When we had some of the leftovers the next day I made some pesto bread to go with it. The pesto was prepared by me over the summer with some of the basil from our CSA farm box, and then frozen. I thawed it easily under running water. The ingredient list otherwise included 1 c. water; 1T. sugar; 1t. salt; 1 2/3 c. each white and wheat flour;and 1 t. yeast. Of course once everything goes into the machine one simply waits for the finished product, and hopes that it doesn't cave in before it's done. In this case I have to say that I don't believe I have ever seen a more perfectly rounded loaf, and in such a  beautifully even brown tone. A sight to behold. And tasty too. A perfect complement to the soup, and it made for a delicious grilled Provelone cheese sandwich for lunch yesterday.

Feast with Friends

Cranberries (James)

The day before Thanksgiving, as an icy drizzle began to fall on our town, I called a friend a few blocks away, to let her know I would be driving to her house. She waited at the door, so that she would be ready to trot out with a precious cargo -- a large bag of large cranberries -- so that I could rush them from her freezer to ours.

During this year's harvest, she had been moonlighting in quality control at Ocean Spray, the grower-owned cooperative that markets our region's most important crop. Work in QC means taking samples that cannot be put back into the commercial supply chain, so our friend has more delicious cranberries than she can handle, and she rightly surmised that we would put some of them to good use. 

Image: Chiltepin was Chile of the Month last April for the World of Chiles online chile club.

Rather than our usual rum-based preparation, we decided to try something from our previous home in Arizona, from a survey of Thanksgiving culinary traditions recently published in the NY Times. Of course cranberries do not grow in Arizona, but chiles do, so this would be another entry in our sweet-hot series.

I made a few substitutions in the recipe; if it is successful, I'll invest some time next year in getting it right. First, whereas our local grocery store in Tucson had an entire aisle dedicated to chile peppers, here our options are much narrower. I am certain I could have found the chiltepin called for in this recipe, but used some dried peppers of unknown provenance we keep on hand for just such emergencies. Two other omissions I cannot blame on geography: I simply forgot to put a lime and an orange on my shopping list, and decided four grocery runs in two days would have to be my limit. So I omitted the lime-zest garnish and substituted a splash of Triple Sec for the orange zest.

Preparation was quite simple, actually: I brought everything (including the cranberries directly from the freezer) to a simmer in our indispensable cast-iron skillet and then kept it on a very low simmer for about 20 minutes. I then transferred it back to the fridge.

I am especially intrigued by the chiltepin, which resembles both coffee and cranberry fruits. We have a good location for chiles in the sunny front yard of our house, so hope to have some harvested and dried by this time next year.

The Bird (James)
As we have for the past couple of years, we purchased a free-range turkey from Misty Knoll Farms in Vermont, delivered as part of our regular dairy order from Crescent Ridge. Among the many things for which we are thankful are companies such as these, and our financial ability to support them. One should not ask why ethical, healthy food is so expensive, but rather what corners are cut to make so many other foods relatively cheap. A few years ago, we learned that we could free up room in the ovens -- and have better turkey -- if we prepared the turkey outside. Rob began preparing the coals in an ordinary grill early in the morning, and when we arrived he put a pan on them to hold some white wine and to catch drippings. I had rubbed the turkey with a paste of paprika, garlic, and olive oil, and we set it right on the grilling surface, but over such low heat that it just roasted in a winy mist. As it neared the safe-food target temperature, Rob added a couple of slivers of milled oak for smoking. (Stuffing, by the way, was prepared in separate baking pans.)

Roasted, not grilled.

Beets from the Farm Box (Pam)
Our last farm box pick up for this season was several weeks ago. We had eaten and/or frozen most of what we had from this year's "harvest," except for the last of the beets. We are not crazy about beets, and have tried all manner of ways of preparing them to hide the flavor. Some recipes have turned out better than others. I ran a search on allrecipes.com for beets to see if there was something new to try and found a recipe actually called Thanksgiving Beets which was pretty simple, and made use of a lot of spices. so I figured it would do a good job in covering the bitterness that we don't like. Although there were not a lot of beets, and there was a fair number of people (13) at dinner, only about half of this dish was eaten. We did have one true beet lover at the meal though, who was happy to take all the leftovers.

Dessert (Pam)
One of the special things about Thanksgiving dinner is that there are so many desserts to try. This year's options included homemade double-crust apple pie; homemade pumpkin pie; homemade bread pudding; homemade Dark Chocolate Guinness Cake with Bailey's Cream Cheese Icing (Pam's contribution). I emphasize that all of these are homemade because virtually all those who partook in yesterday's meal also had a hand in preparing it.

We got the Bailey's Bristol Cream a few months ago from an estate sale (the same one where I got the biggest bottle of wine. Ever. Which was also enjoyed at yesterday's dinner). The cake was rich, but not too sweet, and appeared to be a bigger hit than the beets.

It was a feast of foodies, with many of the victuals grown locally, in some cases at the same house where they were prepared.

Franksgiving Follow-Up

Thanksgiving is the holiday that keeps on giving -- in the form of leftovers -- and as we continue to reflect with gratitude on our many blessings, we also continue the feast, beginning with our Franksgiving hash.