The Maine Event

Got back from Maine & New Hampshire last Sunday and am finally catching up on my blogging. I was amazed to find that after coming back I've had almost no desire to cook for a bit. Maybe going out to eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner is habit forming.

In any case, we had 4 lovely days of backpacking in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Tam, I must say, it goes UP there!!

After emerging from the wild and showering, we went out for Clam Chowdah in Camden and then on to the Farnsworth Museum in Rockland. It is a superb testament to Andrew Wyeth's work, as well as having quite a few nice works from other contemporary artists.

We stayed three nights at a B&B in Boothbay Harbor, taking in the local color at the Opera House where we watched a charming open mic event. Boothbay before the season is really quite lovely as there are no crowds and it really is a beautiful little town.

We hit two different crab houses while there and also took advantage of the Glidden Point Oyster Farm being right down the road. Paired with a Seal Cove mixed sheep and cow milk Olga, they made for a wonderful lunch by the sea in the fog.

I highly recommend the Botanical Gardens in Boothbay. Be prepared to walk a lot, but they just opened 2 years ago and they are already gorgeous. The café at the Botanical Gardens serves local food whenever possible and the food is quite tasty.

It was fiddlehead season as you can see, so we bought a bunch and sauteed them with a bit of garlic butter. Turns out you are supposed to cook fiddleheads for more than just a couple of minutes. Tasty things fiddleheads, but boy did we get sick.

Anyway, the trip was fantastic, now let's just hope I get inspired to cook again.

Summertime and a New Camera

In preparation for our trip to Maine next week I got a new camera. I had to try it out, and since CBC is this Friday, I wanted to try it out on food. I got a Cannon PowerShot A1000IS. I chose it because it was cute and only weighs 7oz (important in backpack world). Turns out that it is rated number one on many levels thus my sweetie was excited as well. Played with it for a few days, nice night photo of my Japanese maple.


In order to try out a camera one must cook. Hitting the Trader Joe, I came across some brats. Now being from WI, I'm pretty picky about my brats (think Usinger's, maybe Johnsonville...), but they were pink (and sitting there) so I decided to give them a try. I boiled them in beer and we grilled them up. Note to self, do not get Trader Joe brats again, they were not so good.


Tuesday night we decided to have warm weather food. I managed to pull a few radishes from my garden, (need to work on garden) and made grilled kofte meatballs, tequila lime shrimp, tomato cucumber salad and some hors d'oeuvers. Paired with a Efes, a Turkish beer, it was a lovely meal.

For dessert I made coffee ice cream with chocolate espresso beans chopped up in it and paired it with a chocolate sauce. Last time I made ice cream I managed to do it wrong, this time I decided not to make a custard and managed to put the plastic thing in the maker correctly. Here's the recipe I made up.

Chocolate Covered Espresso Bean Coffee Ice Cream

3 c heavy whipping cream
1 c whole milk
3 tbsp instant espresso
1/2 vanilla bean sliced in 2 lengthwise scraped and the scrapings and bean put into small saucepan
3/4 c sugar
1/4 c chopped chocolate covered espresso beans

Take 1 cup heavy cream and put into saucepan with vanilla bean and sugar. Slowly bring to a simmer and turn off. Whisk in instant espresso and let sit 5 minutes. Take out vanilla bean and
combine with 2 cups whipping cram and 1 cup milk. Let chill and put in ice cream maker following manufacturer's directions. Add espresso beans 5 minutes before the end.

Chocolate sauce
1 cup half & half
8 oz 72% dark chocolate (or bittersweet)

Heat 1/2 and 1/2 in the pan you heated the last milk in. When hot, turn off and add chocolate. Let stand for 1 minute and whisk until smooth.

15 Minute Lunch - COUSCOUS!!!

We had nothing prepared to eat this morning and I had to be to work in 20 minutes so I decided, with 15 minutes to spare (gotta love the 5 minute commute) that I would make lemon couscous. Couscous is a fantastic quick meal, I make it for when we go backpacking all the time. Usually I need to dehydrate the chickpeas and the lemon zest for backpacking, and there are, of course no fresh herbs in it, but it makes a fantastic veggie dinner in minutes. The basil at the Waverly Market was fantastic this weekend, thanks Alison!!! Here is my recipe:

Whole wheat lemon couscous with chickpeas & fresh basil.

1 1/2 cups whole wheat couscous (I use Trader Joe's, you can use regular couscous too)
1 1/2 cups water
1 tbsp olive oil
2tbsp chopped sweet onion (on the trail I use a shallot as one is the perfect size)
juice and zest of 1/4 lemon
1/2 can of chickpeas
pinch of dried thyme
pinch of dried rosemary
salt & pepper
julienned fresh basil
1/4 cup crumbled chevre or feta (on the trail I travel with a hunk of parmesan and put that in instead)


Fry the onion for 2-3 minutes in the olive oil, add the chickpeas and saute 1 minute, while you zest the lemon peel into the pot. Add dried herbs and salt. Add water, bring to a boil and add couscous. I always bring the couscous back to a simmer, turn off and let stand for 3-5 minutes. Fluff with fork and add basil and chevre and pepper to taste. You can also squeeze the 1/4 lemon into the couscous at this point. Pack up and cart off to work. This is good warm or cold.

La Bourride Provençale

We had family from Scotland over for dinner Saturday night and in talking to them, I knew they’d been eating a lot of red meat this past week so I decided to do something with fish. It’s been really cold so a warm garlicky fish stew with potatoes sounded just right. Bourride takes about 3-4 hours to make but can be made in advance. Bourride is made with an aioli, and if you make enough, you can start the meal off with some crudités. I served it a few hard boiled eggs, asparagus, carrots and green onions.

La Recette

Marinate a large pinch of saffron in ¾ cup white wine while stock is cooking

For the Stock

Bones of 5lbs firm white fish (I used tilapia) (reserve meat for stew)

1 medium onion rough chopped

2 stalks celery rough chopped

2 carrots peeled and rough chopped

2 bay leaves

3 sprigs thyme

1 sprig rosemary

2 tbsp parsley

Peppercorns & Kosher salt

Place everything in stockpot, add 10-12 cups of cold water and simmer for 3 hours. Strain through cheesecloth, discarding boiled food, return to stockpot and simmer for ½ hour to an hour to reduce to 7-8 cups and flavor of broth is well developed.

For the Aioli

10-12 garlic cloves

Pinch of salt

3 egg yolks

2 cups extra virgin olive oil

Juice of ½ lemon

Mash garlic cloves to a paste, combine with egg yolks and salt. Gradually add olive oil, whisking continuously until all two cups are incorporated. Add lemon juice at the end.

For the Stew

Fillets from the fish

2 leeks

½ fennel bulb

Stock

Saffron wine infusion

1 ½ lbs small red potatoes

2 tbsp chopped parsley for garnish (optional)

clean leeks by chopping in ½ and rinsing under cold water, making sure to remove the grit. Chop into ½ moons. Cut fennel bulb in ½ lengthwise, core and chop in ½ moons and then cut to size of leeks.

Saute leeks and fennel on medium low heat in 1 tbsp olive oil in a heavy bottomed pan for 20 minutes or so until almost soft. Turn up heat and add saffron infused wine, cook until liquid is almost evaporated. Add 5 cups of the stock and let the leeks and fennel cook for 20 minutes more. Chop fish into 2 inch square chunks, add carefully to broth ½ at a time, removing when almost cooked. Put aside in a covered dish until ready to serve.

Wash and chop (do not peel) red potatoes into ¾ inch cubes. Cook in boiling salted water until firm but cooked.

Put 1 ½ cups of aioli in a large bowl, gradually add 1 cup of hot stock, whisking to combine. Add this slowly to the leek fennel broth. Add potatoes and bring to a simmer. Thin with more broth if a thinner stew is desired. Place fish in bottom of individual serving bowls, ladle soup over fish. Sprinkle with parsley and serve.

Spring Quiche & Salad

Yesterday I was sitting at work wondering what to do with my asparagus. I thought about soup, then putting it in a salad, something easy and quick so I could go to the gym beforehand.

Instead, I decided to bag the gym and make an asparagus quiche. I cobbled together a couple of recipes and my own ideas and came up with this.

Asparagus Quiche

Crust
1 stick unsalted butter
1 1/4 c. all purpose flour
dash of salt
3-4 tbsp water

Place butter, flour and salt in the food processor with plastic blade if you have one. Process until the size of small peas. Open lid and add water all at once but around the bowl. Process a few more times until still somewhat crumbly but sticky. Wrap into a flat disc in plastic wrap and refrigerate 45 minutes. Roll disc out using flour, put into 10 inch removable bottom tart pan.

Filling (preheat oven to 350 at this point)

1/2 medium onion chopped
4 slices bacon, in 1/2 inch strips
Fry these together on low in a small pan
when onions are translucent add the bottom 1/2 of 3/4 lb asparagus to the pan, chopped in 3/4 inch lenghts, fry for 3-4 minutes longer

In a 4 cup measure mix together:
3 eggs
1/2 c. heavy cream
1/2 c. milk
1/4 c. sour cream
1/4 tsp salt, black pepper and nutmeg to taste

Prick dough and line bottom of tart pan with:
1/2 c. gruyere cheese grated
add the bacon/onion/asparagus mixture
Place top 1/2 of the asparagus in a radius pattern neatly into tart pan
sprinkle with 1/4 c. grated parmesan

Slowly and carefully pour in the egg/cream mixture, making sure to distribute evenly. Put immediately into a hot oven. Note you may want to put tart pan on a jelly roll pan before filling as this makes for easier transport and clean up if overflow happens.

Cook for 35-45 minutes or until golden brown on top. Let cool 5 minutes Serve warm with a salad.

Finally Spring... though it doesn't feel warm enough

We did the first bit of spring pruning and planting last week. Very exciting for me as we're starting to plan the garden, think about the yard and get ready for our summer of plenty. We started by trimming the climbing hydranga from the top of the house and off of the windows. Hopefully the flock of birds will not come back.

While he was up on the ladder doing this (I don't know why he doesn't want me on the 16 foot ladder...) I was planting French breakfast radishes. I had never eaten these radishes until living in France. I like them much better than their hotter round counterparts here in the U.S. Eaten with a bit of butter and salt and some of my sweetheart's homemade bread, delicious.

Last year the patch of ground that I put the radishes in sat fallow until I planted the tomatoes so Radishes have to be planted in early spring in Maryland as otherwise they just go to seed. I thought this would be a good use of the space next to the sorrel that is starting to come back. So I put them in last Wednesday and every day I keep hoping to see little sprouts, but it was 29 this morning and I think those little sprouts have decided it is much much too cold to make an appearance. Hopefully we'll have radishes by Pam's birthday though so I can put the tomatoes in the week after. Obviously the radishes above are not mine, but they certainly look like the ones on the package.

I have also started the plan for ripping out ivy. I spent a good hour Sunday morning ripping. Filled up a garbage can full and there's more to go. I'm hoping to rip out most of the ivy in the yard. Mandi, if you want to help, let me know. ;-)

Black Bean Soup - Revisited

So the last few days I've been rushing around like crazy but haven't had time to prepare myself lunch. We had nothing at home to eat and I ended up with cold cafeteria pizza on the run yesterday as I raced back into work.

This morning I was groaning thinking I didn't have anything for lunch again and remembered the black bean soup I had made and frozen last month. I pulled it out, thawed it out, dished it up with some scallions, cilantro and muenster and lunch was good to go. Good thing too as I was starving!!!


Black Bean Soup Recipe
~2.5 hours

1 lb. dried black beans
2 medium onions
1 lb. carrots
2 tsp. chopped garlic
2 tbsp. olive or vegetable oil
bay leaf
6 c. chicken stock
~6 c. water
2 tsp. cumin
1 tsp. cayenne
Salt Pepper and extra water to taste.

Toppings:
cheddar or muenster cheese
sliced green onions
chopped cilantro


Bring black beans to a boil in 8-10 cups water for 10 minutes then let sit one hour (or let soak for 8 hours in cold). Drain and rinse. Meanwhile, peel carrots and onions and chop in food processor or by hand until minced. Saute on low heat for 10-15 minutes until carrots and onions are soft, season with salt and pepper. Add garlic and saute for 2 minutes. Add cumin, cayenne, & chicken stock (add water up to 1 inch above beans) and bay leaf. Bring to a boil and let simmer for 45 minutes or until beans are cooked. Remove bay leaf and process with immersion blender until 3/4 of the beans are pureed. Put the bay leaf back in and Let simmer 10-15 more minutes until thickened slightly. Serve with toppings. Makes about 12 servings (freeze some).