I have the perfect recipe for your last heirloom tomato – I hope you’ve been saving it. When all of our beautiful, Striped German tomatoes ripened seemingly simultaneously at the end of September, I was sort of at a loss for what to do with them all. I like tomatoes but I don’t love tomatoes, at least the way some people do. You will probably never catch me eating a tomato like an apple. I’m a little bit embarrassed to admit it but you might actually find me picking the tomato out of a sandwich now and then, if it’s a particularly bad tomato. So I was a bit stressed by the idea of using up 12 pounds of beautiful homegrown tomatoes before they went bad.

I was flipping through my favorite cookbooks, looking for tomato-inspiration, when I came across a recipe for Spaghetti with Heirloom Tomatoes, Basil and Bottarga Breadcrumbs in Sunday Suppers at Lucques, which is my very favorite cookbook, at least currently (all of Suzanne’s recipes are so spot on, and seemingly timeless, given that the flavors still sound incredible over 10 years after the book was published). While I wasn’t looking for anything as complicated as making homemade breadcrumbs flavored with cured tuna roe on this particular evening, the other flavors in the recipe sounded just right, so I made a few quick modifications and tried it. It was good, but not mind-blowing. But I loved the idea of the dish, and there were elements that were really strong – I loved the mellow sweetness of the onions melding with the tangy-sweet tomato, the way the rosemary fried in olive oil seemed to perfume the whole dish, and the process of cooking the spaghetti in the sauce so it would soak it up. It just needed more body and more salt. So I kept trying the recipe, adding a spoonful of capers here, toning down the chile heat, and finally, the move that sealed the deal, stirring in a generous spoonful of mascarpone cheese, which transformed the sauce into something silky and luxurious that coated every noodle.

Now that it’s perfect, I want to eat this spaghetti every day. Which is why, although I considered it, I couldn’t wait until next tomato season to share this with you. I want you to be able to try it now, with those last tomatoes. And after this I promise that it’s going to be all soups and roasts and dumplings and pumpkin-y things around here.

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Heirloom Tomato and Sweet Onion Spaghetti

Inspired by Sunday Suppers at Lucques. Serves 2-3.

• 2 TBS olive oil
• 1 TBS chopped fresh rosemary leaves
• 1/2 small red chile, seeded and finely minced OR 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
• 1 large sweet onion, peeled, halved, and cut into very thin half-ring slices
• 2 large heirloom tomatoes (about 2 pounds total), cored and cut into 1 inch pieces
• 1/2 lb. spaghetti
• 2 TBS butter
• 1 TBS capers
• 1/4 c. mascarpone cheese
• 10 leaves fresh basil, rolled and julienned
• 2 TBS chopped fresh parsley leaves
• 1 oz. parmesan cheese, shaved into flakes with a vegetable peeler

1. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil over high heat.
2. Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan over medium heat. Add the rosemary leaves and the minced chile or red pepper flakes. Saute until fragrant and sizzling, about 60 seconds. Lower the heat to medium-low, add the onion slices and saute, stirring frequently until very tender and translucent, about 5-7 minutes. Add the tomato pieces and stir. Cook, stirring frequently, until tomatoes have softened into a sauce and the sauce has thickened, about 10-15 minutes.
3. When your sauce is almost ready, add the spaghetti to the boiling water. Cook until it is almost al dente – drain the pasta about 1-2 minutes before it is done (you are going to finish cooking it in the sauce). Transfer the hot pasta to the pan with the tomatoes and toss to coat. Add the butter and capers and toss with the pasta and sauce. Cook for 1-2 minutes longer then remove from the heat. Stir in the mascarpone cheese until it has coated all of the pasta. Sprinkle the sliced basil and parsley over the top of the pasta and stir to mix. Divide the pasta between 2 or 3 plates and top each serving with some of the flaked parmesan cheeese. Serve immediately.

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Summer seemed to depart all at once this week. Suddenly, or at least it seems sudden, there’s a hint of frost on the grass in the mornings, and the sun is setting at 6:15. Sweaters and scarves aren’t a luxury but a necessity and the air has taken on that brilliance that only comes with cold. September is the month where summer lingers, sweetly, warmly, with just a few hints that she’s on her way out. But in October, summer evaporates, tucking her head away under the covers of autumn leaves, settling in for a long rest.

I still have a handful of summery, tomato-heavy recipes to share with you, and I feel as though I’m running out of time to post them. Are you still eating tomatoes? Can you even still get corn at the farmer’s market? I meant to check this week, to snap up whatever summer produce was still lingering, but I didn’t make it to the market. Next week. Today I’m going to clean up the garden – pick the last melon and a few tomatoes, pull up the cucumbers and the zucchini (which would probably keep growing until December if I let it, but I’ve had my fill of zucchini for this year), chop up the leaves for compost. It may be the final farewell to the vegetables of summer, although I’m sure the tomatoes will linger on my counter for another week or so before they are really, truly gone.

This salad was the third recipe we tested from Around the Fire, a new cookbook that I reviewed a few weeks ago. This dish – with it’s smoky-sweet grilled corn, buttery triple cream cheese, bitter radicchio leaves bluntly charred on the grill, and bursts of roasted cherry tomato punctuating each bite – was an instant favorite. For me it captured all of the flavors of the end of summer and crammed them together into a few, harmonious bites. I hope you’ll give it a try before you put away your grill for the summer, maybe with the last handful of cherry tomatoes from your garden.

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Grilled Radicchio, Corn, and Roasted Tomato Salad

Recipe adapted from Around the Fire. Serves 4.

• 1 pint cherry tomatoes
• 6 TBS olive oil, divided
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 2 TBS balsamic vinegar
• 2 heads radicchio, quartered lengthwise through the stems
• 4 ears corn, husks and silks removed
• 6 oz. triple cream cheese (such as Mt. Tam) sliced into thin wedges
• handful of fresh basil leaves

1. Preheat the oven to 400°F. Toss the cherry tomatoes with 2 TBS of the olive oil and the sea salt and spread on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Roast until tomatoes are slumped and beginning to char, about 12 to 15 minutes. Remove from the oven. Pour the oil from the pan into a small bowl, add 2 more TBS olive oil and the balsamic vinegar, and whisk until well combined. Add the roasted tomatoes and set aside.
2. Prepare a grill to medium. Rub the remaining 2 TBS of olive oil all over the radicchio and the ears of corn. Grill the radicchio and corn at the same time, turning occasionally, until the radicchio leaves are charred in spots (about 3 minutes per side) and the corn kernels are tender and beginning to char (about 10 minutes total, rotating regularly). Remove vegetables from the heat. When the corn is cool enough to handle, hold it vertically and slice the kernels off the cob in strips.
3. To serve, separate radicchio leaves slightly and spread on a plate. Top with the grilled corn and several pieces of triple cream cheese. Spoon the roasted tomatoes and vinaigrette on top and serve while warm.

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It’s hard to believe it’s already September. Even when you’re not a student and/or don’t have school-age kids, September still has that back-to-school feeling, doesn’t it? Maybe it’s just ingrained in us to start buying jeans and sweaters and new notebooks once September hits. Or maybe that’s mass marketing at it’s finest. Either way, September always feels like a little bit of a new start.

So, since I’m feeling the September-vibe as much as I did as an eager high school freshman, and since I have the luxury of being at home for a few more weeks, I’m launching a little health challenge here and on Instagram for the next few weeks. Every day I’ll be eating (and sharing!) some form of “bowl food,” whether it’s a smoothie bowl topped with fruit and coconut or a full-on meat+grain+veg combo like this one.

“Bowl food” seems to be all the rage right now, a trend that places like Sweetgreen and Dig Inn have really been able to capitalize on. Trevor thinks it’s a dumb trend – he argues that any food placed in a bowl becomes “bowl food” – and I see where he’s coming from. But to me a bowl is a distinct culinary thing, a combination of healthy but filling ingredients, placed together in a bowl but each maintaining their own flavors and textures. It’s different than a salad, and I can’t seem to get enough. In a nutshell, it’s going to be healthy around here, and it’s going to be delicious. Follow along on Instagram with #dailybowlchallenge (by the way, most existing permutations of #DailyBowl on Instagram were primarily about pot, which didn’t even cross my mind until I searched it. Sigh.)

This first bowl is one that even Trevor grudgingly acknowledges is delicious (primarily because it contains steak, which can pretty much warm him to any meal). For me, the star of the show is the corn, which is so good at this time of year that I’m always nibbling it off the cob without cooking it. Elote, which is a Mexican street snack of grilled corn topped with mayonnaise, lime juice, chile powder, and grated cheese, is one of our all time favorite things to eat, so converting it into bowl form is a big win. Sweetgreen did offer an Elote Corn Bowl earlier this summer, but it had too many other vegetables and not enough cheese for my taste, so I had to make it my own. And by make it my own I mean add rosemary-and-olive oil grilled steak, barely cooked green beans, nutty farro, and tons of mint and basil. It’s summery and nourishing and a pretty good start to this little challenge, I think.

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Steak and Elote Corn Bowl

Inspired by Sweetgreen and Bon Appetit. Serves 4.

• leaves from 2 sprigs rosemary, roughly chopped
• leaves from 3 sprigs thyme
• 1/3 c. plus 1 TBS olive oil, divided
• 1 tsp coarse sea salt
• 1 1/2 lb. skirt steak
• 2 c. cooked farro
• 1 lb. fresh romano or green beans
• 3 large ears fresh corn
• 3/4 c. grated parmesan or pecorino cheese
• 2 TBS butter
• leaves from 3 sprigs mint, cut into thin strips
• 4 sprigs basil, cut into thin strips
• 1/4 tsp. smoked paprika
• sea salt to taste
• pepper to taste

1. In a small bowl, whisk together 1/3 cup of olive oil, rosemary leaves, thyme leaves, and sea salt. Place steak in a a shallow baking dish, pour marinade over steak, cover dish with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 6-8 hours.
2. About 30 minutes before you are ready to serve, preheat the grill to medium-high. Grill the steak until medium-rare, about 3-5 minutes per side. Remove from the grill and let rest for 10 minutes before slicing on the bias.
3. While you are grilling the steaks, also grill the corn. Place the ears of corn, still in their husks, directly on the grill, and grill for about 15-20 minutes, turning the corn every few minutes to char on all side. When the corn is done, remove it from the grill and let cool for a few minutes before removing and discarding the husks. Use a serrated knife to cut the kernels from the cob. I find that the easiest way to do this is to hold the corn by the cob vertically, with the tapered tip in a bowl, and slice down the length of the corn. Mix the warm corn kernels with the grated cheese, butter, mint, basil, and smoked paprika, stirring to evenly incorporate. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
4. To assemble the bowls, mix the cooked farro with the remaining 1 TBS of olive oil then divide between four bowls. Top the farro with a handful of green beans on one side of the bowl, and several scoops of the corn mixture on the other side of the bowl. Spread 3-4 pieces of sliced steak on top and serve.

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I’m on vacation this week, and after four solid days, I’m finally starting to relax into it. It’s so amazingly quiet here in Maine right now, it’s helping me let go of some of my anxieties, one by one. I love it. Even though vacation can sometimes be an excuse to drink more than you normally would, I want to leave this vacation feeling healthy and refreshed, so I’ve been trying to cut back, only grabbing a beer or pouring a glass of wine when I want that specific thing, not just accepting any drink that’s available or offered. Drinking less makes the quality of each drink I do have that much more critical, so I’ve been leaning on wines and beers I know I love, and delicious, not-too-sweet cocktails… like this one, the “Green Derby,” which is to celebrate the fact that I’m joining Drizly’s Top Shelf blogger program.

Drizly, a Boston-based start-up turned full-fledged company, is an alcohol delivery service that partners with local liquor stores to deliver beer, wine, and booze to your front door in an hour or less. You’ll pay the same price as you would at the store, plus a small delivery fee in most regions, for the convenience of having your party ingredients dropped off at your door. It’s the perfect solution for that last minute pre-party panic moment: “Are we going to run out of beer? Who’s going to get more beer?!” or for those of us city-people without cars where the prospect of walking home with four bottles of wine and a case of beer is not pleasant.

When thinking about what I’d want to feature for my first Drizly post, I took stock of our borderline-overflowing bar. Trevor and I love to experiment with different spirits from our travels, so our bar is quite a hodgepodge – myrtle liqueur from Italy, sake from Japan, Maple liqueur from Vermont, aguardiente from Colombia. One thing conspicuously missing, however, was absinthe, that famed, anise-scented green spirit banned for nearly a century for it’s reported hallucinogenic properties. It has only been allowed in the US since 2007, and only in the past year or two have I started to see it on cocktail menus. With Drizly’s help, we added a bottle to the top shelf.

It took a bit of experimentation to get a cocktail that we were both happy with – I wanted this drink to be strong and reserved, more refined and mature than my typical booze + juice + champagne-to-top-it-off approach to cocktails. The absinthe is strong in both flavor and alcohol content, so our first attempt had an overpowering amount of absinthe. We tried mixing it with pisco, but it didn’t quite work, so we moved on to bourbon, which was a much better match. Absinthe is traditionally served with a sugar cube, so we muddled some coarse sugar with basil and grapefruit for sweetness and additional herbality. We topped the whole thing off with just a splash of tonic to smooth out the drink. It’s a drink that’s worth drinking.

Disclosure: As a Top Shelf blogger, Drizly provided me with the absinthe for this post free of charge, but I was not otherwise compensated. As usual, all opinions are my own!

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Green Derby Cocktail

A Katie at the Kitchen Door original recipe. Serves 1.

• 8 leaves fresh basil
• 2 pieces grapefruit peel
• 1 TBS turbinado sugar
• 1 TBS fresh lemon juice
• 1/2 oz. Absinthe
• 2 oz. Bourbon
• Ice
• Tonic water

1. Add basil, grapefruit peel, and sugar to a cocktail shaker. Use a muddler to crush the sugar into the basil and grapefruit peel until the basil is crushed into small pieces. Add the lemon juice, Absinthe and Bourbon to the shaker, along with 2-3 ice cubes. Put the top on the shaker and shake vigorously for 60 seconds, until the outside of the shaker is frosty. Strain into a coupe glass and serve immediately.

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While Trevor works on his Comp-Sci masters, he’s started working part time, primarily hosting at a local restaurant. Unfortunately for me, he works nights, which means I suddenly have an abundance of evenings to myself. I’d much rather have him to hang out with, but I’ve been trying to make the most of it by alternatively being productive and indulging in things I wouldn’t otherwise. One night last week, one of the indulgent nights, I was flicking through Amazon Prime looking for something to watch, and Out of Africa popped up, with a little footnote saying it was leaving Prime at the end of the month. I knew nothing about the movie, other than that it was old, and that it had Meryl Streep and Robert Redford, so I figured I’d watch it and write at the same time. Needless, to say, the writing didn’t happen – I was not prepared for how sexy an eighties movie about Africa could be! All this to say, if you have any recommendations for more movies I can watch on my solo nights in, preferably accompanied by a big salad and a glass of chardonnay, send them my way. I’m planning on enjoying my nights for one as much as possible.

Solo dinners at home have proved to be mostly positive for my diet – I’m much less likely to cook something major when it’s just me (although I will admit that I also feel less guilty ordering take-out). This salad is inspired by the spring offerings at Sweetgreen, an establishment I have a love-hate relationship with. How do they continually get me to pay $12 for a salad? Why do people wait in line for over an hour when you can order online 15 minutes ahead of time and walk in front of those poor suckers waiting in line, glaring at you? Why is it that their salads are so much better than any other salad offering within walking distance of my office? Whatever the answers, I love the new combination of salmon, new potatoes, and asparagus that they offer. I took it a step further at home, adding a pesto dressing, feta cheese and a soft-boiled egg. It’s not the world’s lightest salad – I wanted the potatoes almost poached in olive oil – but it’s got lots of good nutrients, it’s seasonal, and it makes a very satisfying meal. And it goes really nicely with Meryl Streep movies.

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Salmon, Asparagus, and Roasted Potato Bowl with Pesto Dressing

Inspired by Sweetgreen. Serves 4.

• 4 small Yukon Gold potatoes, washed and cut into 1/4 inch round slices
• 1/4 c. plus 1 TBS olive oil
• sea salt and pepper to taste
• 1 lb. salmon fillet, deboned
• 4 large eggs
• 1 bunch of fresh asparagus, woody ends trimmed
• 4 oz. feta cheese
• 8 oz. fresh spinach or arugula
• pesto salad dressing, such as this, or store-bought pesto thinned with olive oil

1. Preheat the oven to 400°F. Toss the sliced potato rounds with the 1/4 c. of olive oil and spread in a single layer on a roasting pan. Season with salt and pepper, and roast until tender, about 20-25 minutes, flipping potatoes once halfway through cooking. Remove the potatoes from the oven and set aside.
2. Increase oven temperature to 425°F. Line a small roasting pan with tin foil. Drizzle half of the 1 TBS of olive oil on the tin foil, then place salmon fillet skin side down on foil. Drizzle remaining olive oil on top of fillet and season with salt and pepper. Roast until cooked through, about 12-15 minutes depending on the thickness of your fillet.
3. Bring a large pot of water to a rolling boil. Reduce heat so water is at a rapid simmer, and gently add eggs. Set timer for 6 minutes. Remove the eggs precisely at 6 minutes with a slotted spoon and run under cold water. Once eggs have reached room temperature, peel eggs and set aside.
4. Add the asparagus to the simmering water that you cooked the eggs in. Simmer the asparagus until bright green, about 2-3 minutes, then remove the pot from the heat, drain the asparagus, and rinse with cold water. Set asparagus aside.
5. To assemble the salads, divide spinach or arugula between plates. Top with a generous piece of roasted salmon, a few potatoes, the blanched asparagus, and a sprinkling of feta cheese. Drizzle with pesto dressing and serve immediately.

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I’m home! It’s lovely to be here, truly. I have one more trip to Chile the last week of August and then it looks like I might be here for six weeks. Six weeks! After the year I’ve had, that is my idea of the ultimate luxury – it will be the longest stretch of time that I’ve had at home all year. Fingers crossed that nothing changes and it actually happens.

I needed this weekend. A weekend with no work, no house projects – just hanging out with Trevor and doing summery things. I think it might be the first weekend we’ve had like that all summer – June and July were consumed with packing and moving (and a long weekend in Colombia thrown in there), plus a few trips to Maine which is one of my favorite favorite things to do but is not the same as being at home, doing home things. We checked on the garden, spent a few hours at the beach, took a long Sunday afternoon nap, and ate plenty of good, summery food. It’s really nice just to be together, too – absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that stuff.

After visiting the garden, which is sort of in disarray since it hasn’t exactly been a priority this year, we used the handful of tomatoes we picked and the eggplant my dad brought us to make a quick caponata for lunch. Caponata is a lovely way to use up August produce – it’s easy, herbal, doesn’t require you to turn on the oven, and is as good cold as it is hot. It can be tossed with pasta, or simply slathered on a good piece of sourdough along with a dollop of creamy ricotta. We opted for the latter serving method and it was perfect.

Sicilian Eggplant Caponata

Adapted slightly from Green Kitchen Travels. Serves 4.

• 1/4 c. olive oil
• 1 large eggplant, cut into 1-inch cubes
• 1 sweet red pepper, seeded and cut into 1-inch pieces
• 2 tsp dried oregano
• 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
• sea salt
• 4 garlic cloves, peeled and thinly sliced
• 1 small onion, minced
• 1 large handful basil leaves, torn into pieces
• 1 large handful parsley leaves, roughly chopped
• 1 large handful mint leaves, roughly chopped
• 4 medium tomatoes, cut into large pieces
• 3 TBS capers, drained
• 16 green olives, cut in half
• 1 TBS apple cider vinegar
• 1 loaf sourdough bread, for serving
• 1/2 c. ricotta cheese, for serving

1. Heat the olive oil over medium heat in a large frying pan. Add the eggplant, red pepper, oregano, and red pepper flakes. Season with sea salt. Saute until eggplant is beginning to brown, about 5-8 minutes.
2. Add the garlic, onion, basil, parsley, and mint to the pan. Saute until onion is soft and herbs are wilted, about 3-4 minutes. Add the tomatoes, capers, olives, and apple cider vinegar and cook until veggies are soft and saucy, about 15-20 minutes. Taste and adjust seasoning as desired.
3. Cut sourdough into thick slices, and spread each slice with a thick layer of ricotta. Top with a heaping spoonful of the caponata and serve. Caponata will keep in the fridge for 3-5 days.

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Hello from JFK’s terminal B! I am on my way home from Bogota, where I spent most of last week for work. It was the first of several trips I’ll take there this year, and while I didn’t have much free time to explore, I did get to explore the food. And it’s good – hearty stews of chicken, rice, and plaintain; lime and coconut shakes that taste like key lime pie in a glass; and big bowls of beans, beef, corn, and chorizo. Plus a little bit of avocado on top of almost everything for good measure. Despite the difficulties of exercising at 8,600 feet, I struggled through a few workouts just so I could keep indulging.

As much as I enjoyed eating my way through the city, I will say that I’m looking forward to a few vegetable-driven meals this weekend to recover. I’m thinking that perhaps another batch of these Soba Noodles with Asian Pesto will be just the thing The light, bright flavors of these noodles are just right after a weekend/week of heavy eating – and getting an eyeful of color on your plate in the middle of January doesn’t hurt, either. The pesto is adapted from a favorite Ming Tsai recipe – it skips the garlic and cheese, adds jalapeno and ginger, and complements the basil with cilantro and mint. It’s a little bit sweet and a little bit spicy, and a whole lot of green. Here I’ve mixed it with soba noodles, edamame, raw carrot “noodles,” and red pepper, but other vegetables would not be out of place either. It’s a flexible recipe, just right for reminding ourselves that eating vegetables can be delicious, even in the middle of winter.

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Soba Noodles with Asian Pesto

Pesto recipe adapted from Ming Tsai. Serves 4.

• 1/3 c. canola oil
• 1 jalapeno, stem removed and pepper cut into chunks (remove seeds if you don’t like much heat)
• 1 1/4 c. salted and roasted cashews, divided
• 1 inch fresh ginger, peeled
• 1/4 c. freshly squeezed orange juice
• 1 c. fresh basil leaves
• 1 c. fresh cilantro leaves
• 1/3 c. mint leaves
• 1 TBS honey
• salt and pepper to taste
• 8 oz. soba noodles
• 1 c. frozen shelled edamame
• 2 carrots, cut into “noodles” using a julienne peeler or spiralizer
• 1 red bell pepper, seeded and finely diced

1. Make the pesto: add 1 TBS of the canola oil, the jalapeno, 1 cup of the cashews, and the ginger to a food processor and pulse until finely chopped. Add the orange juice, basil, cilantro, mint and honey, and begin processing, slowly drizzling in the rest of the canola oil until a smooth consistency is reached. Stop the processor and season to taste with salt and pepper.
2. Cook the soba noodles according to package directions. 2 minutes before they are done, add the edamame to the boiling water. Drain and set the noodles and edamame aside. Roughly chop the remaining 1/4 cup of cashews. Toss the noodles with 1 cup of the pesto, the carrot “noodles,” the chopped cashews, and the chopped red bell pepper. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve room temperature or chilled.

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I could not be more ready for the weekend. I had one too many 7am meetings this week, each one followed by long days working frantically toward a major deadline Thursday afternoon. The minute the deadline passed, I felt a wave of exhaustion wash over me. I was spent. But now the weekend has arrived and I have two full days to sleep in, not think about insurance, and enjoy the beautiful weather we’re supposed to have. We’re going to head out to the garden to check for tomatoes and squash and blueberries, try and catch a showing of Chef, and hopefully head up to Maine to look for chanterelles with Trevor’s uncle.

One thing that helped me keep my head up during this hectic week was coming home to these delicious basil panna cottas in the fridge – I won’t lie, I had a few bites every night this week. When it comes to basil, my eyes are often bigger than my stomach. I find the scent of basil truly intoxicating, and am seemingly unable to walk by a box in the store or a patch in the garden without taking some home. But its shelf life is shorter than I think, and more often than not I use up a little right away and then end up with a bunch of slimy black leaves a week later, which feels like such a terrible waste. One solution is to mix up and freeze a big batch of pesto, but after a while, as delicious as pesto is, it feels boring.

On the ride home from our garden the other day, a bag of freshly picked basil sitting in my lap, I tried to think of things other than pesto that I might make to use up leaves on their last leg. When I got to basil ice cream, I moved backwards a few steps to basil-infused heavy cream, and then jumped forward again to settle on basil panna cotta. Since I had a few overly ripe apricots in the fridge that needed to be used up as well, I decided on rosé-poached apricots as a topping. I read up on my panna cotta theory in The Best International Recipe (a great resource for knowing how and why recipes work), then changed things up a little, and the result was sublime. Not too sweet, extremely light and smooth, and with delicate, floral flavors, it tasted like a restaurant quality dessert but was extremely simple to execute. It might be my new dinner party go to. If you also have an abundance of basil and quickly ripening stone-fruit sitting on your counter (’tis the season!) I encourage you to give this recipe a go – you won’t be disappointed, and you’ll have spared yourself the sadness of wasted produce.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

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Basil Panna Cotta with Rosé-Poached Apricots

Serves 4.

• 1 1/2 c. heavy cream
• 1/2 c. basil leaves, washed and dried
• 1 c. sugar, divided
• 1/2 vanilla bean
• 1/2 c. milk
• 1 1/2 tsp gelatin
• 3/4 c. rosé wine
• 4 fresh apricots, halved and pits removed

1. Add the heavy cream, basil, and 1/4 cup of the sugar to a small saucepan. Split the vanilla bean lengthwise and scrape the seeds out into the cream with a small spoon, then add the vanilla bean pod to the cream as well. Heat the cream over medium heat, stirring gently to dissolve the sugar, until the cream just comes to a simmer. Remove from the heat and let sit for 15 minutes, then strain the cream through a fine mesh strainer into a bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and chill until cold, at least 30 minutes. Discard the basil.
2. Add the milk to a small saucepan and sprinkle the gelatin over the top of the milk. Stir gently to combine. Let the gelatin sit for 10 minutes to hydrate, then heat over medium-low heat just until the gelatin dissolves, which should take about 90 seconds to 2 minutes. Remove from the heat, whisk to combine, then pour into the chilled basil-infused cream. Whisk the mixture for 1 minute to fullly combine and to begin to chill the gelatin, then divide the mixture between four ramekins or glasses, cover each with plastic wrap, and chill until firm, at least two hours.
3. For the apricots: add the remaining 3/4 c. of sugar and the rosé to a small saucepan. Bring to a simmer, then gently place the apricot halves into the pot, submerging in the simmering liquid. Let simmer until soft, about 3-4 minutes, then remove with a slotted spoon to a bowl. Continue simmering the liquid until it is reduced by half and slightly syrupy, about 10-15 minutes. Remove from heat and pour over the apricots. Cover the apricots and syrup and chill until cold.
4. Serve each panna cotta with one or two apricot halves and a few spoonfuls of syrup poured over the top. Serve cold.

The post Basil Panna Cotta with Rosé-Poached Apricots appeared first on Katie at the Kitchen Door.

It’s been ages since I’ve done an Ingredient of the Week series, mostly because it’s been ages since we’ve had any hint of life in our garden. But even though the garden is several weeks behind where it was last year, thanks to the weirdly cold spring we had, it’s finally starting to move out of that frustrating stage where everything’s tiny and you use all your time weeding and waiting, into that lush, productive stage I dream about during the depths of winter.

The first crop to really come into its own this year was the strawberries. We planted 75 little plants last spring, and although it was torture to pick off the blossoms last summer, allowing the plants to establish themselves but forgoing the chance of fruit, we’ve been rewarded several times over for our patience, with pounds of fruit ripening on an almost daily basis this summer. In just a little over a week we’ve already picked over 8 pounds of gorgeous berries, which is a lot for just two people. I’ve done a little canning, a little baking, and a little drink-making, but we still have a lot of berries to work through, so we’re going to do strawberry week – i.e. I’ll be posting new strawberry recipes here every day this week, until you all are completely sick of hearing about them.

Although strawberries are usually recognized for their sweetness, we’re kicking things off with a savory recipe. Strawberry gazpacho is not a new idea, but it is certainly a good one, as the balance of acid and sweetness in fresh strawberries  is actually pretty similar to the balance in a very ripe tomato. I did a little research on strawberry gazpacho recipes, but ultimately decided that none of the recipes out there had quite the mix of flavors I was looking for, so I came up with my own. Fortunately, I was really pleased with how well it turned out. It has a little bit of everything red in it – strawberries, tomatoes, red pepper, red onion and red chilies, plus a bit of cucumber, garlic, and basil (not red, but very necessary). Marinated in olive oil and champagne vinegar, then pureed into a smooth and frothy soup, it’s well-balanced and refreshing.  I topped it with red grapes, for sweetness, a goat cheese cream, for richness, and a handful of toasted pine nuts. I liked it so much I had some for breakfast yesterday – it definitely meets my serving of fresh fruit or veggies at every meal requirement, so that’s an added bonus. It’s also super easy, so I imagine we’ll be blending up several more batches of this before the summer is over.

Past Ingredients of the Week

Rhubarb: Rhubarb-Prosecco Spritzer; Rhubarb Custard Fool; Rhubarb Recipe Round-Up; Persian Rhubarb and Beef with Rice; Rhubarb-Ginger Bars

English Peas: Smashed Pea, Dill, and Feta Crostini; Green Pea Fritters with Herbed Creme Fraiche; English Pea Recipe Round-Up; Green Pea Rum Cooler; A Salad of Bacon, Peas, and Fennel

Carrots: Savory Carrot, Feta, and Almond Baklava; Carrot Cake Crepe Cake; Carrot, Grapefruit, and Mango Smoothie; Moroccan Carrot Panini with Olive Tapenade

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Strawberry Gazpacho with Grapes and Goat Cheese

A Katie at the Kitchen Door original recipe. Serves 4-6.

• 3/4 lb. fresh strawberries, hulled and sliced (about 2 1/2 c. sliced)
• 1/2 medium red onion, chopped (about 3/4 c. chopped)
• 1 large red bell pepper, seeded and chopped (about 2 c. chopped)
• 1 small cucumber, peeled, seeded, and chopped
• 1 large heirloom tomato, cored and roughly chopped (about 3/4 lb.)
• 2 medium cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
• 1-3 tsp red fresno chili, seeded and finely chopped (taste for heat and adjust amount accordingly)
• 1/2 c. packed fresh basil leaves
• 1/2 c. olive oil
• 1/4 c. champagne vinegar
• 1 TBS sea salt
• 2 oz. goat cheese
• 1/4 c. heavy cream
• 1 small bunch grapes
• 2 TBS pine nuts, lightly toasted in a dry skillet

1. Combine first 11 ingredients (strawberries through salt) in a large bowl and stir to coat all ingredients with the oil and vinegar. Cover and let marinate at room temperature for three hours. Transfer to a blender and blend on high until smooth and frothy. Serve at room temperature or chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.
2. Just before serving, whisk together the goat cheese and heavy cream until smooth. Pour the gazpacho into bowls and top each with a swirl of the goat cheese cream, a handful of grapes, and a few toasted pine nuts. Serve with crusty bread.

The post Ingredient of the Week: Strawberries // Strawberry Gazpacho with Grapes and Goat Cheese appeared first on Katie at the Kitchen Door.

A few weeks back Trevor and I were raiding the North Andover Market Basket on a trip home for cheap meat and ethnic produce (think yuca, hot peppers, plaintains), basically grabbing everything that’s particularly overpriced at Wholefoods and throwing it in our cart. As we strolled the aisles, I saw a container of tiny, spotted quail eggs, and for some reason had to have them. I had no idea what I was going to cook with them, but they were so delicate and pretty I knew I wanted a good reason to photograph them and share them here.

Since then, every time I open the fridge the quail eggs are staring at me, questioning me. What will you make with us? Hard-boiling quail eggs seemed way too tedious for me, although I’m sure you could make an adorable plate of deviled quail eggs if you’re the patient type (the internet confirms, and with caviar nonetheless). Baking seemed inappropriate, as the whole point is their tiny cuteness, and who wants to convert “2 large eggs” into quail eggs? Basically, the only option that was both visually appealing and non-tedious was frying them, so that’s what I decided to do, although really, that only limits the recipe choices to things you would put a fried egg on, which isn’t limiting at all.

Since Easter is just around the corner, and eggs, particularly tiny spotted ones, are a harbinger of spring and new life (plus these quail eggs mostly just made me crave Cadbury Mini Eggs), the rest of the recipe evolved into something that would be a pretty appetizer for Easter brunch. Inspired, too, by our recent trip to Au Pied de Cochon’s Sugar Shack in Montreal, where practically every course involved duck fat, I unearthed our giant vat of duck fat from the freezer. Baguette was sliced and crisped in the duck fat, basil and asparagus were blended into pesto, and the tiny eggs were fried in the duck fat drippings. A few slices of Trevor’s home-cured guanciale (which, to be honest, I haven’t tried yet, due to fear of botulism) rounded out the springtime spread. The resulting toasts were pretty, seasonal, finger foods, that crunch and smush when you bite into them in a very satisfying way. If you’re looking for something to put out with the champagne this  Sunday that will have everyone licking their fingers, consider these.

I should probably call out right now that I realize this recipe is a little bit ridiculous. Plain toast too boring? Add duck fat! Regular eggs too big? Find tiny quail eggs! Basil pesto been done? Add asparagus! But hey, sometimes what I want is food that’s quick and simple and sometimes I want something over the top and chef-y. And you know what? If you wanted to make this with big eggs, regular pesto, and full-sized slices of toast, it would probably be just as good. I do insist on the duck fat, though – it does magical things to toast.

Duck Fat Toasts with Quail Eggs and Asparagus Pesto

Serves 6 as an appetizer.

• 1 clove garlic, roughly chopped
• 1/4 c. pine nuts, lightly toasted
• 1/2 c. cubed parmesan cheese
• 1/4 c. olive oil
• 10 thin stalks asparagus, woody ends trimmed
• 3/4 c. packed basil leaves
• 3-5 TBS duck fat
• 1 baguette, sliced on a diagonal into at least 12 slices
• sea salt to taste
• 12 quail eggs
• 12 small slices guanciale or prosciutto (optional)
• black pepper to taste

1. Make the pesto: add the garlic, toasted pine nuts, parmesan cheese, and olive oil to a food processor, and pulse until very finely chopped. Add the asparagus and the basil and pulse until fully blended, adding additional olive oil if needed. Set pesto aside.
2. Heat 2 TBS of the duck fat in a frying pan over medium heat. Once melted, add as many slices of baguette as will comfortably fit in the pan. Cook until golden brown on both sides, about 2-3 minutes per side. Repeat with remaining toasts, adding more duck fat as necessary to ensure that crisp, golden outside. Lightly salt the toasts with sea salt as soon as they finish cooking. Set finished toasts aside.
3. Lower the heat to medium-low, and let pan cool off slightly, before carefully cracking quail eggs into pan. Shells are a bit harder to crack then chicken eggs – using a knife may help you crack them neatly. Fry until whites are set, about 1 1/2 to 2 minutes, then carefully transfer to a plate.
4. To assemble: spread a spoonful of pesto on each toast. If you’d like, top with a small slice of guanciale, then place one of the fried eggs on top. Grind a small amount of fresh black pepper on top. Serve within 30 minutes (you can make everything in advance except the fried eggs).

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I’m writing this after a particularly frustrating run because I need to give myself some perspective. It’s a cold Tuesday night at the end of March, and I’ve been cranky since my miserable WWE-fan filled train ride back into the city from Andover. I really don’t want to go for a run but I still have 10 miles left to meet my March goal, and only five days to complete them in, so I talk myself into going with the old “I promise you can stop after two miles” trick, which works every time, surprisingly. I start out, and I feel OK, if a little cold, and at about a quarter mile shy of my two mile mark, I realize that I’m going fast enough that I’m within striking distance of my 5K PR, and I pick up the pace and go for it. Eight minutes later, I stop, wheezing like I haven’t since high school cross country races, and look at my iPod. Ten seconds short of my 5K PR. Eight seconds short of my 1 mile PR. I’m incredibly frustrated, in pain, and in an even worse mood than when I started. The wine is poured as soon as I walk in the door.

As frustrated as I am, I know in the back of my mind that I’ve made a ton of progress this month, and I need to take a minute to recognize that. My mile time tonight was 7:13, and my 5K time was 23:50. My fastest mile in February? 8:24. And 8:37 in January. Earlier this winter it was even slower. That’s a big improvement. Last Saturday I ran 5.3 miles, which is more than I’ve run in one go since my half-marathon training two years ago. I’ve really been pushing myself this month, in large part because of this 40 mile goal I’ve set, and it’s paying off. I’m faster and stronger, and (bonus!) I’ve lost 7 pounds since January, which feels like the first meaningful weight loss I’ve had in years. So despite nights like tonight, I’m sticking with these monthly goals!

Writing the above a few weeks ago was really empowering – it’s the kind of thing I need to write down so that I can go back to it as I encounter the inevitable fitness frustrations the future will bring. Later that week I did beat my 5K record, and I managed to run 43 miles in total in March. A big success, and a goal that really made me focus on what I wanted to achieve.

My goal for April is to take 8,000 steps a day, at least on all the days when I’m not traveling (you don’t really have full control over your activity levels when you spend an entire day on a plane). I’ve been using the Moves app as a pedometer in my phone since January, when I decided I wanted a FitBit but wasn’t sure which model. A few Google searches and I came across the free app which serves my purposes very adequately, negating the need to buy a new device. As I did my research, I also came across the “10,000 steps” goal that most pedometer users strive for – it was mentioned on almost every website I read. I consider myself a pretty active person, so I wasn’t expecting reaching 10,000 steps to be hard, but I was sort of shocked by the low numbers in my first few weeks of tracking. To be fair, I don’t bring it with me when I’m running, but still, I don’t run every day, and it was particularly eye-opening to see that on most weekend days, I barely take 1,000 steps out of the house. Since I’ve only gone above 10,000 a handful of times, I decided that 8,000 would be challenging enough to do every single day, and if I can hit that, I can move up from there.

This month is off to a bit of a rocky start, as I whiffed on the 8,000 number last Sunday, racing to the grocery store in the dark after a long day in the garden, trying to get those last 3,000 steps in before our friends came over. I only made it to 6,000 that day, but in a way, that means I’m setting goals that are hard enough. On weekdays it’s fairly straightforward to hit my goal – I just replace my subway transfer with a 15 minute walk through the park on either end of my commute, a pleasant addition to my day now that it’s finally warm. But those weekend days are hard! So wish me luck with the next few weeks.

As for this month’s healthy recipe, I’m celebrating the return of green to the world by packing as many green spring vegetables and herbs as I can into one bowl of couscous. I mentioned last week that I had caved and bought some of the not-local-at-all fava beans and asparagus I’ve been seeing at the grocery store, and my consumption of spring greens hasn’t slowed down at all since. This salad is mostly vegetables, dressed lightly with lemon, herbs, and salt. You can add as much or as little couscous as you want – just a cup or two and you’ll have something akin to a tabbouleh; the full amount listed below and it will be more like a pasta salad. The ingredients are good in almost any ratio, so feel free to interpret the recipe loosely and incorporate whatever spring greens are currently inspiring you.

Past Fitness Challenges

January: 10 Visits to the YMCA; Recipe: Gluten-Free Olive-and-Feta Corn Muffins
February: One vegan meal every day; Recipe: Pakistani Chickpea Pulao with Sweet-Hot Date-Onion Chutney
March: Run 40  miles in 20 days; Recipe: Chocolate-Dipped Almond Butter Cookie Bites

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Herb-Flecked Spring Couscous

Serves 8-10.

• 1 1/2 c. chicken or vegetable stock
• 1 1/2 c. couscous
• 2 TBS basil olive oil or regular olive oil
• sea salt to taste
• 2 c. shelled fresh fava beans (from about 2 lbs. in their pods)
• 1 c. shelled fresh English peas
• 1 c. very thinly sliced asparagus rounds, from about 1/3 lb. asparagus stalks
• 1/3 c. finely minced fresh basil leaves
• 1/3 c. finely minced fresh parsley leaves
• 1/3 c. finely minced fresh chives
• juice from 1 lemon

1. Bring chicken stock to a boil over medium heat in a medium saucepan. As soon as it reaches a boil, add the couscous, cover with a lid, and remove from the heat. Let stand, covered, for 10 minutes, then remove the lid and fluff the couscous with a fork. Add the basil olive oil and stir to coat the couscous, then season to taste with sea salt.
2. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the shelled fava beans and the peas, and blanch until peas are bright green, about 3-4 minutes. Drain and rinse the beans and peas in cold water, then drain again. Remove the skin from the fava beans by slitting one end with your thumb and popping the bright green bean out by squeezing the other end. Roughly chop the fava beans, and place in a large bowl with the peas.
3. Add the asparagus rounds, the basil, the parsley, the chives, and the lemon juice to the bowl with the favas and peas. Stir to mix. Add the couscous to the greens and stir to coat. Season to taste with sea salt. Serve room temperature or chilled.

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This soup came about as a result of the confluence of two forces – an end-of-summer head cold, and an overdue fridge clean out. Perhaps it’s just that all of the travel and hubbub of the summer have caught up to me, but my body is telling me that it needs a few days of doing nothing before it begins cooperating with me again. So I’m taking it easy at home (especially since I want to be in fighting form for my trip to IFBC this week! Will I see any of you in Seattle?) and eating comforting, nourishing things. As for the fridge, it’s really not so bad, but we’ve hidden lots of garden produce away in it’s drawers and it’s easy to forget about it – and there’s nothing sadder then seeing something that you’ve grown from seed go to waste. We still have a glut of tomatoes, and since we also had half a container of stock, I decided that soup was the perfect solution to both my problems.

This turned out just right for the situation and the weather – a little spicy to clear my head, smooth and comforting on a sore throat, warming on a cool fall day, but still packed with the fresh taste of summer. I wrote down there that this recipe serves 2 to 3, which it could, but I’m not going to lie to you – I ate the whole pot in one go, bowl after bowl, sitting on my couch and watching chick flicks. It helped a lot. Of course, I added a healthy dose of heavy cream to the pot after pureeing, and the mix of the bright acidic tomatoes and rich cream was too much for me to resist. Since I didn’t bother to peel the tomatoes before throwing them in the pot, the strained puree was quite thin – almost drinkable – but you could thicken it up with a bit of couscous, rice, or some croutons if you wanted. I chose to serve it with a slice of homemade sourdough toasted with grated parmesan and caraway seeds – an open-faced grilled cheese of sorts. It was a perfect comfort meal – I might even make it again tomorrow.

Spicy Fresh Tomato-Basil Soup

Adapted loosely from Stir. Serves 2-3.

• 2 TBS butter
• 1/2 medium onion, diced
• 3/4 tsp red chili flakes
• 3 cloves garlic, peeled and diced
• 5 medium tomatoes, cored and quartered
• 2 cups chicken stock
• 1/3 c. heavy cream
• 8-10 leaves fresh basil, chiffonaded
• salt

1. Add butter to a large saucepan and melt over medium heat. Add onions and chili flakes and saute for 6-8 minutes, stirring occasionally, until onions are soft and translucent. Add diced garlic to pan and saute until fragrant, about 1 minute longer.
2. Add the tomatoes and chicken stock to the saucepan and bring the mixture to a boil. Lower the heat to a simmer, and simmer, uncovered, for about 30 minutes, or until the tomatoes have fully broken down. Carefully puree the hot soup in a blender, then strain through a colander or mesh strainer back into the pot to remove the seeds and skins (if you use a colander, you will have a thicker soup with some seeds; a mesh strainer will result in a thin soup with no seeds). Add the heavy cream and basil to the soup, season to taste with salt, and heat over low heat for 1 minute, just to fully warm the soup. Serve hot with Caraway-Cheese Toasts, recipe below.

Caraway-Cheese Toasts

Inspired by Stir. Serves 3.

• 1 tsp caraway seeds
• 1/2 TBS butter
• 3 slices fresh sourdough bread
• 1/3 cup grated parmesan cheese

1. Heat a large frying pan over medium-low heat. Add the caraway seeds to the dry pan and toast until fragrant, about 1-2 minutes. Add the butter, melt it, and swirl it around the pan. Place the 3 slices of bread in the pan, and toast in the butter until golden brown on both sides, flipping each piece once or twice.
2. Remove the bread from the pan and set aside. Turn the heat down to low. Sprinkle the cheese directly onto the hot pan in the size and shape of the three pieces of bread. Allow the cheese to melt and crisp for 20-30 seconds, then place the slices of bread on top of the cheese and press down. Wait 20 seconds, then carefully flip the slices of bread over without disturbing the cheese layer (using a fork or your fingers is probably your best bet). Serve hot. (You could also do this more easily in the oven under the broiler, sprinkling the grated cheese on top of each slice of bread and broiling until melted, but I didn’t want to get more than one pan dirty!)

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The idea for this pasta came to me after reading a post on Not Without Salt that had absolutely nothing to do with green beans, or pasta, or pesto. The post was about apricot pie, and it’s a beautiful post and a beautiful pie, but the sentence that stuck with me was the one about what preceded the pie – “a picnic dinner with steak sandwiches, horseradish butter, pesto laden green beans with capers and an onion-spiked salad of tomatoes and peaches.” A) I was reading this on a plane, and even though I got to fly business class for the first time and the food was quite good, (and I totally took advantage of every single offer of champagne), that picnic meal made me want to run off that plane and drive immediately to an idyllic country house and picnic in a meadow. B) Pesto-laden green beans with capers? What an amazing idea. We’ve had pounds and pounds of beans come out of the garden, and have tried several yummy recipes (we especially liked this one with romesco sauce), but this one sounded like it could top them all.

This is my first batch of pesto this summer – sadly, our basil plants never really took off this year. I usually make pesto by throwing the five ingredients – pine nuts, parmesan, garlic, olive oil, and basil – into the food processor all at once, blending, then tasting, usually adding more cheese, and blending again. The thing is, I’m never quite happy with the results – it’s inconsistent, and it’s never as good as my mom’s pesto. So this time, I did a little research into “best pesto” recipes, and take a more methodical approach. Two recipe caught my eye – this one, by The Best Remedy for A Cup of Jo, and this classic Marcella Hazan recipe. The two recipes aren’t so different from one another, so I followed the Marcella Hazan recipe and borrowed The Best Remedy’s idea of toasting the pine nuts first. The extra steps – grating the cheese by hand and stirring it in at the end, pre-chopping the garlic, and the little bit of butter added to the final product – made a huge difference. It really was perfect pesto. Tossed with the quickly blanched green beans, a few spoonfuls of capers, lightly toasted almonds, and hot pasta, it was a perfect and light summer lunch. And a really good way to use up some green beans.

Green Bean Farfalle with Pesto, Capers, and Almonds

Pesto recipe adapted from Marcella Hazan. Green Beans inspired by Not Without Salt. Serves 4.

• 2 cups fresh basil leaves, tightly packed
• 1/2 c. olive oil
• 3 TBS pine nuts
• 2 garlic cloves, peeled
• salt
• 1/2 c. finely grated parmesan cheese
• 3 TBS butter at room temperature
• 2 lbs. green beans, ends trimmed, sliced in half on the diagonal
• 1 lb. farfalle
• 1/3 c. almonds, roughly chopped
• 1/3 c. capers

1. Wash the basil gently, then pat completely dry with a paper towel.
2. Toast the pine nuts until they are fragrant in a dry skillet over medium heat. Stir frequently to prevent them from burning.
3. Finely chop the garlic by hand.
4. Add the basil, olive oil, pine nuts, garlic, and a pinch of salt to a food processor. Blend until smooth and creamy. Stir in the parmesan cheese by hand, then stir in the butter.
5. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Blanch the green beans until bright green, then remove with a slotted spoon and set in a large bowl. Add the farfalle to the boiling water and cook according to package directions, then drain.
6. Lightly toast the chopped almonds in a dry skillet over medium heat until they are golden brown and fragrant. Stir frequently to prevent them from burning.
7. Toss together the green beans, pesto, farfalle, capers, and almonds, until everything is equally coated. Serve hot.

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As you might imagine, a lot has changed in our not-so-little garden since I last wrote about it in May. Now we’re in the thick of things, and walking through the vegetable garden, where perhaps we were a bit too aggressive with our plant spacing, is like being in a jungle. The tomatoes tower over my head, the beans brush against my legs, and the whole space is filled with the hum of busy pollinators.

We’ve had a number of huge successes this year. Starting in May, the rhubarb has been prolific, so much so that I’d have to bake three pies a week just to use it up. In July we were picking blackberries by the gallon off our one sprawling bush, with enough leftover after baked oatmeal and blackberry cheesecake bars to make a huge, bubbling batch of blackberry wine that we’ll savor all winter. Cucumbers seem to ripen by the dozen, and pounds and pounds of green beans fill our fridge. Last weekend alone, we picked 20 pounds of tomatoes, which have already been turned into canned sauce, pickled cherry tomatoes, and gifts for coworkers. The lesson the garden seems to be telling us, is go with what what works. Blackberries and rhubarb? They grow easily in New England with no care at all. Green beans and cucumber? Same story. Tomatoes are known to be fussier, but they do fantastically in my dad’s soil.

On the other hand, there have been disappointments. Perhaps it’s only because we set our hopes so high this year, but it does feel as though this season has had more than it’s fair share of setbacks. It seems as if every week I say to Trevor, maybe next year, as we discover another failed crop. Every single peach (of dozens!) picked off the trees one by one by raccoons or possums or some other critter a week before they were ripe.  No flowers on the apple trees. A measly pound of fava beans from 20 plants. Daily flowers on the pumpkin but no baby pumpkins to speak of. A broccoli harvest of approximately .15 pounds. All but one bunch of grapes falling off the vine. Of course, with every failure comes a wealth of knowledge, but in the moment, that doesn’t dampen the sting of disappointment.

But whether or not a crop is successful does little to dampen our enthusiasm for the process. I feel so much joy when I’m in the garden – all this childhood energy and excitement comes rushing over me when I’m standing outside in our gorgeous clearing on a beautiful summer morning or sunny afternoon. I feel connected to my surroundings, to my dad, to Trevor, and maybe most importantly, to myself. I’m engaged and moving and living. I love it. And it’s given me so much respect for the people who do this everyday, who struggle with the same challenges we have but grossly multiplied, who grow enough food not just to feed themselves, but the whole country. A part of me thinks that everyone who touts the local/free-range/organic lifestyle should have to try growing their own food, just to more fully understand the effort that goes into creating that resource. If three people with a fairly generous supply of time, money, and land, struggle to raise enough food to make a few weeks’ worth of summer meals, imagine the challenge for those with no land, no time, and limited finances. My thoughts are getting away from me – I truly don’t have well-formed opinions on these matters, but they’re worth thinking about. And also, they make me want to read The $64 Tomato. A fascinating concept.

And that brings us back to something that I do know something about – tomatoes. Eating them, cooking with them. What to do when you have 20 pounds of them. Besides the sauce, and the toss-everything-in-a-pan-pastas, and the pickled cherry tomatoes, I also  made this beautiful panzanella, a salad of toasted bread and fresh tomatoes, tossed with salt, olive oil, basil, and fresh mozzarella. It’s both filling and fresh, a burst of summertime flavor in every bite. I read in Nigel Slater’s Tender that his trick for the perfect panzanella is to toast the bread first, and so that’s what I did, to excellent effect. It really couldn’t be a much simpler meal, and if you use tomatoes in a variety of sizes and colors, it’s a stunning dish as well.

Heirloom Tomato Panzanella with Mozzarella and Basil 

Serves 4.

• 6 thick (1-inch) slices sourdough bread, cut into bite-sized cubes
• 6 TBS olive oil, divided
• coarse sea salt
• 2 pounds heirloom tomatoes, cut into bite-sized pieces
• 3/4 c. small fresh mozzarella balls (cillegine)
• 15 leaves fresh basil, torn into pieces by hand

1. Toss 4 TBS of the olive oil with the bread cubes in a large bowl, then transfer to a wide frying pan or dutch oven, sprinkle with sea salt, and toast bread cubes over medium heat, stirring frequently, until bread is golden brown on much of it’s surface, about 5-10 minutes.
2. Toss the warm bread cubes with the tomatoes, mozzarella balls, and torn basil. Drizzle with the remaining 2 TBS of olive oil and season to taste with sea salt. Serve at room temperature.

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I may have found a new favorite cookbook. When I look through upcoming cookbook releases and think about which books I want to include in my reviews, some are obvious choices – books that have received a lot of advanced praise, like Vegetable Literacy or Gran Cocina Latina, or books that were written by my favorite bloggers, like the upcoming Vegetarian Everyday from the blog Green Kitchen Stories. Others I choose on more of a whim, and the fact that The Chef’s Collaborative Cookbook ended up on my desk is the happy result of one of those whims.

The Chef’s Collaborative is an organization founded by a group of like-minded chefs in the early 90’s to promote the ideas surrounding sustainable food. The organization now has 6,000 members, 115 of whom have contributed recipes which celebrate local, sustainable ingredients to this collection. Personally, I was happy to see so many local Boston and Cambridge chefs contributing to this book – Jody Adams and Brian Rae of Rialto (Pan-Seared Black Bass with Pepper Stew and Spicy Green Pesto), Ana Sortun of Oleana (Sweet Potato Chickpea Dolmas with Spinach and Crispy Mushrooms), Barry Maiden of Hungry Mother (Heirloom Beet and Upland Cress Salad with Apples, Grapefruit, and Fennel-Buttermilk Dressing), and a dozen others. (Side note: I feel really lucky to be able to walk to so many incredible restaurants. I need to start branching out beyond the Indian place around the corner.) In line with the organization’s mission, this book brings a lot of helpful information about navigating “ethical” eating in today’s world to the table – there are many side-bars with information about label-reading, understanding GMOs, why you should choose grass-fed, and more. Of course, some of these topics are controversial, so you should always read with a critical eye, but this book does begin to answer a lot of the most common questions about food politics.

Now, on to the food: I want to cook everything in this book – the Asparagus, Spinach and Spring Pea Lasagna, the Chestnut Waffles with Roasted Apples and Cream, the Smoked Rabbit and Andouille Gumbo, the Wild Ramp and Farmstead Cheese Strata with Roasted Tomato Wine Butter, even the Spicy Calamari with Tomatoes and Saffron Aioli (I don’t eat seafood…). Every recipe makes me drool a little bit. I think the book really benefits from having contributions from so many talented chefs with different aesthetics – all the recipes are creative but in slightly different ways, meaning each recipe seems fresh and the collection of recipes doesn’t feel the least bit tired. Just flipping through it is getting me beyond excited for our growing season to start in earnest. The first recipe I tried, these Thai Pork Sliders, was a slam dunk on all accounts. I’ve been craving a burger for a while (OK, let’s be honest, I’m always craving a burger), and these little umami-packed bites where just the ticket – craving 100% satisfied.

I went all out on this recipe, guys – homemade slider buns, homemade pickles, homemade aioli. It was all surprisingly easy. The slider buns only took 40 minutes from start to finish, with a quick ten minute rise built-in that gave me time to do the dishes before popping them in the oven. The pickles were an essential part of the recipe, but really required nothing more than making a quick salad. The Sriracha aioli was a last minute decision, based on a hunch that these might need something a little creamy to tie them together, and it made all the difference in the world. It’s addictive stuff.

I have to add – Trevor told me while eating these sliders that he gives this book a rating of “seven forks and a spoon.” When I asked what scale this was on, his answer was “the scale of silverware.” I’m pretty sure this means he approves, as well as that he finds himself very amusing. (I suppose he should also get credit for frying the burgers and doing the dishes…)

The bottom line: The Chef’s Collaborative Cookbook is an instant favorite for me. The creativity and quality of recipes in this book – all of which truly celebrate local, seasonal produce, from  quinces and fava beans to fiddleheads and wild crab apples – really help it stand out from the crowd. It’s not a book that will explicitly teach you the basics, but it will bring exciting, restaurant-worthy food down to a level that’s accessible for a home cook. Recommended for anyone who is looking to explore the principles of local, seasonal cooking, or who simply wants to bring a new level of creativity into their kitchen.

Disclaimer: Taunton Press sent me a review copy of The Chef’s Collaborative Cookbook, but I was not otherwise compensated for writing this review and all opinions are my own.

Thai Pork Sliders with Pickled Cucumbers

Recipe adapted slightly from The Chef’s Collaborative Cookbook. Contributed by Chef Helene Kennan. Makes 8-10 sliders.

Note: the only changes I made to this recipe where to include a little bit more of various seasonings – more garlic, more ginger, more herbs in the pickles. This was simply a matter of taste, but I liked the little bit of extra flavor boost. Also, you will have leftover pickles, but they’re delicious straight out of the jar, so don’t worry about using them up!

• 1 lb. ground pork
• 2 cloves garlic, finely minced 
• 2 TBS finely minced fresh ginger
• 1 TBS sesame oil
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
• 2 tsp soy sauce
• 1/4 tsp white pepper
• 1/4 c. rice vinegar
• 1/4 c. honey
• 2 TBS freshly squeezed orange juice
• 2 medium or 1 large cucumber, peeled and thinly sliced
• 1/2 bunch fresh cilantro, coarsely chopped
• 8 large fresh basil leaves, coarsely chopped
• 16 fresh mint leaves, coarsely chopped
• 1 TBS vegetable oil
• 1/2 c. roasted salted peanuts, coarsely chopped (optional)
• 8-10 slider buns (see below for recipe)
• Sriracha aioli (see below for recipe)

1. Combine the pork, minced garlic, minced gigner, sesame oil, cinnamon, red pepper flakes, and soy sauce in a medium bowl and stir together until meat is seasoned evenly. Set aside while you prepare the pickles to let the flavors meld.
2. Whisk together the rice vinegar, honey, and orange juice in a medium bowl until the honey is dissolved. Stir in the cucumbers, chopped cilantro, basil, and mint, and thoroughly coat all the cucumbers with the dressing. Set aside.
3. Lightly coat a griddle or cast-iron pan with oil and warm over medium heat (if you don’t have a cast-iron pan, use a regular pan but use more oil). Form the pork mixture into 8-10 small burger patties. When the pan is hot, add the patties and cook for 3 minutes per side, or until firm to the touch and cooked through.
4. Serve the burgers with the pickled cucumbers and Sriracha aioli on top of the slider buns. Serve the extra pickled cucumbers on the side with chopped peanuts, if desired.

Sriracha Aioli

Makes about 1 cup of aioli.

Note: I used an immersion blender to make this aioli. There are lots of other ways to do it – including by hand, or in a food processor, if you don’t have an immersion blender. Just be sure to slowly drizzle in your oil so the emulsion doesn’t break!

• 1 egg yolk
• 1 TBS of lemon juice
• 1 tsp water
• 1 tsp Dijon mustard
• 1 c. olive oil
• Sriracha, to taste (we used about 3 TBS)
• sea salt, to taste

1. Place egg yolk, lemon juice, water, and mustard in the bottom of a vessel in which your immersion blender fits snugly. Pulse the blender a few times to blend the ingredients so that they are smooth. Very slowly drizzle in the olive oil as you pulse the blender, pausing the drizzle occasionally to make sure that the aioli is coming together and turning creamy white. Continue drizzling in the olive oil while blending until you’ve used all the olive oil.
2. Remove the immersion blender and stir Sriracha and sea salt into the aioli a little at a time, tasting as you go, until your aioli has the desired flavor and heat. Refrigerate leftovers in an airtight container for a few days.

40-Minute Homemade Slider Buns

Recipe adapted slightly from Taste of Home. Makes 16 slider buns.

• 2 TBS active dry yeast
• 1 c. plus 2 TBS warm water (110°F to 115°F)
• 1/3 c. vegetable oil
• 1/4 c. sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp salt
• 3 1/2 c. flour
• egg wash – 1 egg beaten with 2 tsp water
• sesame seeds

1. Preheat oven to 425°F. In a large bowl, combine yeast, water, oil, and sugar. Let sit and proof for 5-10 minutes – yeast should dissolve and get slightly goopy. Stir in egg and salt, then stir in flour a half cup at a time until you have a soft dough. Turn out dough onto a floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic, about 5-8 minutes. Break into 16 equal sized pieces and roll them into balls. Flatten slightly and place on a greased baking sheet. Cover and let rise for 10 minutes.
2. Brush the top of each bun with a small amount of egg wash, then sprinkle with sesame seeds. Bake buns for 10-12 minutes, or until golden brown.

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