June has proved itself to be a serious test of my tolerance for both drinking and socializing. It started with our 10-year high school reunion, progressed into a work offsite, and is culminating in a trip to Iceland with my girlfriends. After more beers than I’ve had since college, my body hates me and so does my wedding dress. It’s been good for my soul, though, full of enriching conversations and laughter and long nights enjoying the perfect June weather.

Reunion in particular was a whirlwind. Trevor and I both went to Andover, and our reunions are a weekend-long marathon. Friday night was a bit awkward – lots of “hey! So what do you do now?” conversations and liquid courage courtesy of Sam’s car bar. But by Saturday, everyone had slipped right back into their old friendships. We spent the day playing flip-cup and slosh-ball and hanging out in an old soccer field on the edge of campus. This morphed into dinner and dancing and 3-am lawn hangouts before we stumbled home. With very little recent practice for this sort of all day event, I’m amazed at the stamina we brought to the table – 28 and going strong.

On Sunday morning, after we groggily hugged our friends (and my amazing parents who let us take over the house all weekend) and slowly drove ourselves back home, we needed grease. Grease and HBO. There are only 3 or 4 restaurants within walking distance of us that are any good, but thankfully one of them is Tenoch. Tenoch is a small fast-food style restaurant that makes the most incredible tortas, griddled Mexican sandwiches. A torta usually consists of a big squishy bun called a telera, slow-cooked meat, a spicy sauce, refried beans, avocado, something bright and pickle-y like pico de gallo or pickled onions, and melted queso fresco. Basically it has all the elements of a taco but with a larger volume of filling and more carbs.

As per usual, I got a torta de carnitas, piled high with shredded pulled pork, and promptly demolished it. I then collapsed into a state of complete sloth and binge watched Silicon Valley. It was kind of glorious. While in this lethargic state, in a rare moment of perfect foresight, I decided this sandwich was something I needed to make at home.

The next weekend I made a giant pot of carnitas, baked homemade telera buns, and whipped up a quick guacamole and pico de gallo. The resulting tortas de carnitas were just as good as the Tenoch version. Plus, we had tons of leftovers. This proved to be an incredible boon as I went into drinking week, round two, at my offsite. The carnitas recipe I used comes from a great little book called Tacos, Tortas, and Tamales. It has tons of flavor and is quite easy. Give it a try whether or not you’re going all in on the tortas!

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Torta de Carnitas

The inspiration for this comes from our local torta shop, Tenoch (amazing sandwiches!) and the carnitas recipe is adapted from Tacos, Tortas, and Tamales, which is a great little book on Mexican street cooking.

• Author: Katie at the Kitchen Door
• Yield: 5
• Cuisine: Mexican

Ingredients

For the carnitas:

• 8 cloves garlic, peeled
• 1/2 medium white onion, peeled and chopped into quarters
• 1 TBS fresh thyme leaves
• 2 tsp dried oregano
• 3 tsp kosher salt
• 3 lbs. boneless pork-shoulder, cut into 2-inch chunks
• 2 dried bay leaves
• 3/4 cup coke

For the tortas:

• 5 telera rolls, store-bought or homemade
• 2 TBS room-temperature butter
• 3 lbs. prepared carnitas
• 1 15-oz. can of refried black beans
• 1 c. spicy pico de gallo
• 2 c. prepared guacamole

Instructions

For the carnitas:

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Place the garlic cloves, onion, thyme, oregano, salt, and half a cup of water in a blender and blend until smooth. Place the pork and the bay leaves in a large dutch oven or oven-safe pot with a lid, and pour the garlic and onion mixture on top of the pork. Add the coke and use tongs to toss the mixture a few times to make sure everything is well coated.
2. Cover the pot and place in the oven. Cook until the pork is so tender that it falls apart when you press it with a fork, about 2 to 2 1/2 hours. When it is very tender, remove the lid. Use tongs to stir the pork and make sure a few pieces are above the liquid line. Return to the oven for 15 minutes, browning the exposed pork. Repeat the process once more, bringing new pieces of pork above the liquid and browning those for 15 minutes.
3. Once you have browned the pork, use tongs to transfer the pieces of pork to a glass bowl or storage container. Let the remaining fat and juices left in the pan cool and solidify, then discard. Coarsely shred the pork meat with a fork. Refrigerate the pork overnight, allowing the flavors to intensify.

For the tortas:

1. Cut the telera rolls in half as you would a hamburger bun. Spread the cut side of each half lightly with butter. Heat a large frying pan over medium heat and toast the telera halves in the pan, butter side down, until golden brown. Do this in batches to prevent overcrowding the pan.
2. Once the buns are toasted, add the shredded carnitas to the frying pan in a single layer (you will likely need to do this in batches). Cook the pork, stirring frequently, until it is browned and crispy all over. This should take 5-10 minutes, depending on how much pork you are doing at once.
3. Spread the bottom half of each toasted bun with a few spoonfuls of refried beans. Top this with a spoonful of guacamole, spread out evenly. Spoon some of the browned pork on top of the guacamole, then add pico de gallo to top off the sandwich. Put the top half of the bun on the torta and serve immediately.

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People ask me all the time if I like to travel. I think the answer is supposed to be, “yes, I love it!” but honestly it’s a hard question for me to answer. There are parts I love – meeting and working with people from all over the world, spending hours wandering through a city that’s hundreds of years old, the food, experiencing more climates and geographies than I ever thought I would, and there’s even a small part of me that loves the glamour of “jetsetting,” of being handed a glass of champagne when I sit down and watching my passport fill up with stamps. Importantly, I also love my actual job, the reason I travel so much.

But there are also parts of travel that I hate – packing and unpacking, something that even with hours of practice still stresses me out. Airports, and canceled flights, and planes that catch on fire while you sit on the tarmac. The unavoidable low-level anxiety that accrues before any trip. Being perpetually tired, because days on the road start early with breakfast with our team and end late with long work dinners. The up and down, here and there frenzy of visiting two or more countries each month. Being always on. The constant tension between taking the weekend to explore whatever country I am in and going home to decompress and spend time with Trevor. The chaos of packing everything else I need to get done at home into the few days I have between trips. Mostly, I hate being gone, away, not at home. For me, this is less about the physical aspect of being in my house, although that’s important too, and more about being away from Trevor, my family, and my friends.

This weekend, though, I am home, and I am loving it. I am home and it is thrillingly sunny, the birds are chirping, and we slept with the windows open just a crack. I puttered about in the garden, planting flowers of every shade in our increasingly whimsical border garden, a grand experiment in color. I sat on the porch and drank pink lemonade and sunburned my legs because it’s shorts weather! And I made these biscuits, with ramps, because ramps are available now (and only now) and I am home now. These biscuits made the house smell incredible, and they are flaky and buttery and just cheesy enough. I had two of them, spread thickly with ramp butter, for dinner, along with half a bottle of rosé. It’s nice to be home.

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Ramp, Bacon, and Cheddar Buttermilk Biscuits

Recipe adapted from Serious Eats. Makes 10-12 biscuits.

• 3 pieces bacon
• 4-6 fresh ramps, thoroughly washed. roots trimmed and discarded, and white and green parts of ramp thinly sliced
• 2 c. all-purpose flour
•  1 TBS baking powder
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1 1/2 tsp kosher salt
• 1 stick butter, frozen, plus 2 TBS melted butter for brushing biscuits
• 1 c. buttermilk, cold
• 4 oz. sharp cheddar cheese, grated

1. Preheat the oven to 425°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside
2. Heat a frying pan over medium heat. Add the bacon and cook until crispy and brown, about 3-4 minutes per side. Remove the bacon to a paper-towel lined plate and lower the heat to low. Add the sliced ramp whites and greens to the bacon grease and saute for 60 seconds, then use tongs or a slotted spoon to transfer the ramps to the plate with the bacon. Set plate aside; remove the pan from the heat and let cool.
3. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and kosher salt until evenly combined. Use a box grater to grate the frozen butter into the flour mixture, then use your hands to quickly toss the grated butter with the flour so that the flour fully coats the butter. Use your fingers to break up any large chunks of butter so that the entire mixture is coarse. Pour the cold buttermilk into the flour-butter mixture, and use a fork to gently mix the dough until it is shaggy and damp.
4. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and use a rolling pin to roll it into a 12 inch by 12 inch square, about 1 inch thick. Sprinkle the grated cheddar cheese and ramps over the top of the dough. Finely chop or crumble the cooked bacon and sprinkle over the top of the dough, pressing the bacon bits in slightly. Fold the dough like you would fold a letter – fold the left third of the dough over the middle then fold the right third of the dough over the first two thirds, making a stack of three layers. Repeat this motion from top to bottom, so you have a small square. Gently roll the dough back out into a 12 inch by 12 inch square. Use a biscuit cutter or glass to cut 3-inch rounds out of the dough, re-rolling or hand-forming any scraps into additional biscuits. Place the biscuits on the baking sheet and brush with the melted butter. Bake until golden brown, about 15-17 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool slightly. Best served warm. Store any leftovers in the fridge.

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Can you believe there are only 2 more weeks until Thanksgiving? And you know that after that it will be a whirlwind four weeks until Christmas, New Year’s and then 2016 will be off and running. I don’t mean to diminish the last two months of the year, but it’s a season that’s both joyous and a little exhausting, making the end of the year fly by.

We still go to our parents’ houses for thanksgiving, so I’m usually benefiting from other people’s good cooking rather than contributing my own. This is perfectly fine with me, as I cook enough the rest of the year – being fed a delicious meal prepared by someone else is a nice treat. Still, there are a few thanksgiving dishes that I like to cook on their own, and this year I’m collaborating with Cambria Wines to bring you a lovely stuffing recipe, featuring rich duck confit and sweet apples. I have to admit, I love store-bought stuffing, but when a homemade version is studded with juicy duck and cider-sauteed apples and flecked with sage and thyme, it’s at least equal, if not greater than, the stuff that comes out of a box.

Since duck is a gamey meat, this stuffing pairs equally well with Cambria Pinot Noir or Chardonnay, which is perfect if you’re planning on giving your guests multiple wine options on Thanksgiving. For the test run, I went with Cambria Julia’s Vineyard Pinot Noir, since it was a cold and rainy night and I was craving a juicy glass of red.

Find the recipes for this Duck Confit and Apple Stuffing over on the Cambria Wines blog!

Disclaimer: This post is sponsored by Cambria Wines. All opinions are honest and my own.

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The Book: Iceland is at the very top of my travel wishlist. The dramatic landscapes and vast, untouched wilderness have me aching to throw my hiking boots in a bag and hop on a plane across the Atlantic. In reality, I’ll be getting on planes to a lot of different places in the next few months – Colombia, Chile, and Charleston for starters – but none of them will be going to Iceland. I certainly can’t complain about the wonderful places I will be going, but that doesn’t mean I can’t daydream about Iceland at the same time. The book North: The New Nordic Cuisine of Iceland, is one way to amp up my daydreaming. It’s a cookbook, sure, but I have to say that it feels like more than a cookbook to me. The interviews with food producers and stories of life on the island are as important to the book as the recipes themselves. The book is organized not by meal or by region, but by producer – a chapter for the arctic char smoker, one for the salt maker, and for the birch and mushroom forager. It was truly fascinating to learn about rugbraud, the hearty rye bread that is baked in underground geyser ovens, and about Siggi Henningson, a fisherman who spends his afternoons rapelling over cliffs to collect seabird eggs, not for himself, but for the entire town. The structure of the book and the stories paint a clear picture of where Iceland’s food comes from, on both land and sea.

I knew in advance that many of the recipes in North would be too esoteric to ever make at home, but was thoroughly intrigued anyway. The flavors throughout the book are consistent and coherent: smoke, salt, rich dairy, bright pickles, oily fish, and grassy herbs, the foods of a cold and isolated island. The fact that some ingredients may be hard (or impossible) to find outside of Iceland (seabird eggs, anyone?) is readily acknowledged, and many substitutions are offered – the authors have even provided an email you can reach out to with questions. The recipes also skew towards fine dining more than rustic eating – one of the authors is, after all, the chef at Dill. But although I know that I will never go to the trouble of making Lumpfish Roe with Smoked Mayonnaise, Beer Vinegar Jelly, and Horseradish Cream (smoke your own oil to make your own smoked mayonnaise, make your own beer vinegar and then turn it into jelly, you get the picture), other recipes can certainly be tweaked to fit into my repertoire – like Fennel Salad with Cottage Cheese and Spiced Nuts, or Poached Cod Cheeks in Roasted Cod Soup. Whether or not I find myself cooking from this book regularly, it’s so full of general inspiration that it deserves a place on my bookshelf, esoteric recipes or not.

The Food: One of the recipes that felt approachable enough to try was for Bacalo Potatoes with Fennel Ribbons and Sorrel Ash. I had to be a bit generous with my interpretation of this recipe, taking inspiration as much from the headnote and author Jody Eddy’s description of the ways they ate this throughout their trip, as from the recipe itself. The base of this recipe is creamy mashed potatoes mixed with bacalo, or salt cod, a combination sometimes called brandade. As written, the potatoes and cod are served topped with sorrel ash, roasted carrots, fennel ribbons, soft boiled eggs, and freshly grated horseradish. Since both sorrel and horseradish are hard to come by without planning ahead, I nixed them and decided to take a more rustic approach to the meal – serving the mash on hearty whole grain bread spread with mustard (a decent replacement for the pungent horseradish). I also skipped the eggs, as once you smear potatoes on toast you don’t feel like you need that many more things on top. Although I usually try to stick to the letter when testing recipes for cookbook reviews, here, I don’t feel bad about it. Eddy writes ” One night, Gunnar served it on toast; another, he substituted smoked haddock, an ideal replacement for the cod. The profusion of herbs he added was dictated by whatever we foraged that day.”  It’s a recipe that is more idea than science. I’ve written it here the way I made it, inspired by the instructions in North.

Recipe Shortlist: Salted Cod Tartar, Dill Mayo, Dulse Powder; Parsnips Three Ways with Arctic Char Roe; Cauliflower, Seabird Eggs, Burned Butter; Roasted Lamb Shoulder, Braised Cabbage, and Pickled Onions; Smoked Lamb with Skyr and Nutmeg; Stone Bramble and Cottage Cheese with Whey Caramel and Whey Granita; Red Beet and Rosemary Sorbet, Almond Cake, and Sugared Almonds

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Disclaimer: I received a review copy of North: The New Nordic Cuisine of Iceland from Ten Speed Press, but I was not otherwise compensated and all thought and opinions are my own.

Bacalo Potatoes with Carrots and Fennel

Recipe adapted from North: The New Nordic Cuisine of Iceland. Serves 4.

• 1 lb. salt cod
• 4 large carrots, peeled and cut into bite-sized pieces
• 2 TBS olive oil, divided
• sea salt and pepper to taste
• 1 lb. waxy potatoes
• 1/2 c. heavy cream
• 4 slices whole grain bread
• 2 TBS mustard
• 2 fennel stalks, peeled into ribbons using a vegetable peeler

1. Place the salt cod in a bowl and fill to cover with cold water. Soak in the water in the refrigerator for 24 hours, changing the water 2 to 3 times. When you are ready to prepare the meal, drain and rinse the soaked fish. If it has them, remove and discard the skin and bones. Set the fish aside.
2. Preheat the oven to 400°F. Toss the carrot pieces with 1 TBS of the olive oil and sea salt and pepper, and spread on a rimmed baking sheet. Roast, stirring every 10 minutes, until tender all the way through, about 20-30 minutes depending on the size of your pieces. Transfer the roasted carrots to a bowl and set aside.
3. Add the salt cod to the roasting pan and roast until warmed through, about 8-10 minutes. Break into flakes and keep warm.
4. Peel the potatoes and cut into chunks. Add to a large pot and cover with cold water. Salt water generously. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, and boil until potatoes are tender, about 5-8 minutes. Drain the potatoes and mash with a potato masher. Add the heavy cream and mash until incorporated, then stir in the warm salt cod pieces. Season to taste with pepper.
5. Rinse and dry the roasting pan, then brush the bread slices with the remaining 1 TBS of olive oil. Reduce the oven temperature to 350°F and toast the bread until golden brown, about 5-7 minutes per side. Remove the bread from the oven and spread with the mustard. Top with a generous heap of the potatoes and cod, and several pieces of roasted carrot. Just before serving, shave the fennel stalks into thin ribbons using a vegetable peeler and place on top of the potatoes. Serve immediately.

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Finding the time for these Sunday Dinner posts is harder than I would like it to be. Perhaps part of the problem is that I tend to choose rather elaborate menus that take all afternoon to prepare and shoot, but that’s also part of the fun. When we finally did another Sunday Dinner a few weeks back, its origins were mixed – it grew partly out of the feeling that it had been far too long, partly out of the need to use up the huge stacks of garden produce in our fridge, and partly out of a desire to celebrate that same summer produce at its very peak.

This Sunday Dinner is the first we’ve done that is entirely vegetarian, but with gorgeous stacks of Eggplant Napoleon as a centerpiece to the meal, meat was not missed in the slightest. I’ve been eyeing this particular eggplant recipe since early spring, when I reviewed Olives, Lemons, and Za’atar. Back in March, the bright stacks of fried eggplant layered with baba ghanoush and pesto seemed impossibly summery, products of a season that felt like it might never come. But come it has, and now the sun-soaked afternoons and baskets of tomatoes are too quickly fading into cool breezy evenings and the first ripe pumpkins. We do still have plenty of nice weeks ahead of us – it won’t do to get nostalgic prematurely – and we’re still cooking up a storm with the weekly haul from the garden. Our homegrown eggplant was the star of the show in this meal, and we rounded things out with piles of maple-roasted cherry tomatoes on ricotta-slathered crostini and a gorgeous pie made with the last of our blackberries.

Eggplant can be a little labor intensive to prepare well, and this recipe was no exception. A lengthy process of salting, drying, marinating, breading, and frying may feel a little like overkill, but results in an incredibly flavorful and tender eggplant. There are a number of other components to the recipe as well – the pesto marinade, the baba ghanoush, and a tomato and pesto salad that gets served on top of the final dish. The recipe calls for about seven lemons – we felt that using three was sufficient – and the acidity of the final dish is powerful, but works nicely with the savory crunch of the eggplant slices and the smokiness of the baba ghanoush. I’ve written the recipe here with a few shortcuts to save time and effort, but the end result should be equally flavorful and elegant as the original.

On the other end of the labor intensive spectrum are the super easy crostini we had as an appetizer. We make a big batch of maple-roasted cherry tomaotes pretty much every week during August and September, roasting them the day they’re picked then using them on top of pastas and meats and eggs throughout the week. Once the oven is on, I sometimes throw another vegetable or two in to avoid heating up the house more than once – the week I made these crostini, that other vegetable was a few heads of our freshly harvested garlic, roasted into a sweet paste. The roasted garlic got mixed into some good thick ricotta, slathered on hot baguette, and topped with the candy-sweet tomatoes. It was so good and so easy.

The final element of our dinner was a big slice of mixed berry and maple syrup pie, which I wrote about in detail a week or so ago. It was a pie that I had been dreaming about since the first blackberries ripened, and it exceeded all my expectations for it. A big slice of the juicy pie, supported with a flaky buttery crust and topped off with a melting scoop of vanilla bean ice cream was the perfect close to our late summer dinner feast.

The Menu

Roasted Garlic, Ricotta, and Maple-Roasted Cherry Tomato Crostini – see recipe below
Eggplant and Pesto Napoleons – see recipe below (adapted from Olives, Lemons & Za’atar)
Maple Mixed-Berry Pie

Past Sunday Dinners:

May 26, 2013: Coffee-and-Chile Rubbed Strip Steaks with Chimichurri Sauce; Charred and Smoky Belgian Endives; Oven-Roasted Potatoes; Strawberry-Sour Cream Ice Cream

July 1, 2013: Strawberry-Lime Agua Fresca; Smashed Pea, Dill, and Feta Crostini; Chilled Asparagus Soup with Meyer Lemon Yogurt; Mustard Spaetzle with Mushrooms; Ricotta Bavarese with Red-Wine Poached Rhubarb

October 28, 2013: Braised Lamb Shanks with Gremolata; Creamy Polenta with Fresh Corn and Blue Cheese; Roasted Brussels Sprouts; Classic Apple Pie

March 31, 2014: Fried Halloumi with Spring Veggies and Strawberry-Basil Gastrique; French Gnocchi with Watercress Sauce; Strawberry-Rhubarb Meringue Pots

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Roasted Garlic, Ricotta, and Maple-Roasted Cherry Tomato Crostini

Serves 6-8 as an appetizer.

• 1 recipe of maple-roasted cherry tomatoes
• 3 heads of garlic
• 1 c. of ricotta
• 1 baguette
• olive oil
• sea salt and pepper

1. Prepare the maple-roasted cherry tomatoes. While they are roasting, roast the garlic as well: slice the tops off the garlic heads so the cloves are partially exposed. Place the heads in a piece of tinfoil and drizzle with olive oil, then sprinkle with sea salt. Close the foil into a pouch, and roast until soft, about 45-55 minutes at 350°F.
2. Remove the garlic from the oven, and let cool until comfortable to handle. Squeeze the roasted garlic out of the papery shells into a bowl, and mash with a fork. Mix the roasted garlic with the ricotta, and season to taste with salt and pepper.
3. Preheat the broiler. Slice the baguette into thin rounds, then place on a baking sheet. Brush the tops and bottoms lightly with olive oil. Broil the toasts until golden brown, about 5 minutes total, flipping once halfway through. Remove from the oven and let cool to room temperature. To serve, spread the ricotta mixture onto the toasts and top with a spoonful of roasted cherry tomatoes.

Eggplant Napoleon

Recipe adapted from Olives, Lemons, and Za’atar. Serves 4-6.

Note: This version of the recipe is slightly simplified. The full original recipe is available on Epicurious.

For the baba ghanoush:

• 2 medium eggplants (2 lbs total)
• 1/2 c. tahini paste
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• juice from 1/2 lemon
• 2 TBS pomegranate molasses
• 3 TBS olive oil

For the fried eggplant:

• 2 medium eggplant, cut into rounds
• sea salt to taste
• 1/4 c. basil pesto
• 1/2 c. olive oil
• 6 cloves garlic, minced
• juice from 2 lemons
• 1/2 c. flour
• 2 egg whites, lightly beaten
• 2 c. panko
• 2 TBS grated parmesan cheese
• 2 TBS dried parsley
• 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
• vegetable oil for frying

For the tomato salad:

• 4 plum tomatoes, cored and roughly chopped
• 1/4 c. of finely chopped red onion
• 1/2 c. basil pesto
• juice from 1 lemon
• 3 TBS olive oil
• sea salt to taste

1. Prepare the baba ghanoush: Preheat the oven to 450°F and line a baking sheet with aluminum foil. Pierce the eggplants all over with a fork and place on the baking sheet. Roast until skin is blackened all over, turning the eggplants with tongs every 5 minutes. Remove from the oven, slice in half lengthwise, and scoop the soft eggplant flesh out into a large strainer. Let drain for 20 minutes, then transfer to a bowl. Mash the eggplant with a fork, then stir in the tahini, garlic, lemon, pomegranate molasses, and olive oil. Adjust seasoning to your taste.
2. Prepare the fried eggplant: Place the eggplant rounds on two large baking sheets and salt liberally. Set aside for 30 minutes, then pat the slices dry with a paper towel. In a large bowl, whisk together the pesto, olive oil, garlic, and lemon juice. Add the eggplant slices to the bowl, toss to coat, and let marinate for 1-2 hours at room temperature.
3. To bread the eggplant, prepare your workspace: place the flour on a large plate, whisk the egg whites together with 1 cup of water in a shallow bowl, and mix the panko, grated parmesan, dried parsley, and black pepper together on a large plate. Set a piece of waxed paper to the side of your workspace. Working with one slice of eggplant at a time, dredge the marinated eggplant slices in the flour, gently shake off the excess, dip it in the egg mixture, then dredge in the panko on both sides. Set on the waxed paper and repeat with all of the eggplant slices.
4. Heat a large frying pan filled with 1/4 inch of vegetable oil over medium heat. Fry the eggplant slices in batches, frying 2-3 minutes per side or until golden brown all over. Remove to a paper towel lined platter and repeat until all eggplant is fried.
5. To prepare the tomato salad: mix together the chopped plum tomatoes, chopped red onion, pesto, lemon, and olive oil in a large bowl. Season to taste with salt.
6. To serve, place one slice of the fried eggplant on a plate, then spread with a few tablespoons of baba ghanoush. Repeat twice more, building a layered stack of eggplant, then top with a few large spoonfuls of the tomato salad. Serve immediately.

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I’m taking a quick break from new strawberry recipes tonight to dig up some strawberry-themed posts from the archives. It’s been a long week, and I’m feeling a little short on words, so I’m going to let the pictures do most of the talking here. Hopefully if you picked a few pounds more berries than you know what to do with, this will provide some inspiration!

Drinks

Strawberry-Lime Agua Fresca

An incredibly refreshing drink for a hot summer day, it’s also a little bit gorgeous.

Strawberry and Rosewater Lassis

Strawberries, buttermilk, cardamom, and rosewater come together for a Middle-Eastern take on a milkshake. Not too sweet, but still feels like dessert.

Savory Strawberries

Strawberry Balsamic Salad with Candied Pecans and Goat Cheese

This salad is almost like dessert, it’s so sweet and delicious. For times that you need to trick yourself into consuming raw spinach.

Fried Halloumi with Spring Veggies and Strawberry-Balsamic Gastrique

An unusual appetizer that packs a lot of flavor into a little bite. Perfect for that moment in March when you get prematurely excited about spring produce, but are still craving foods like fried cheese.

Breakfast and Baking

Waffles with Strawberry Sauce

The only acceptable breakfast on my birthday…

Strawberry-Sage Muffins

My favorite basic muffin recipe, with the unusual (but delicious) pairing of sweet juicy berries and fresh sage leaves.

Strawberry Cornmeal Breakfast Cake

A quick one bowl cornmeal cake, perfect for snacking on or for serving mid-morning with a steaming cup of tea.

Strawberry Bourbon Bread Pudding with White Chocolate Sauce

Ridiculously rich and addictive dessert. Carb-y and boozy, it’s terrible for you but oh so satisfying.

Other Sweets

Strawberry-Rhubarb Meringue Pots

A quick and simple spring dessert, lighter than a pie and without the hassle of making crust.

Strawberry Sour Cream Ice Cream

Still the best ice cream I’ve ever made, and maybe the best I’ve ever eaten. Incredibly rich, but worth every calorie.

Strawberry, Chocolate, and Whipped Mascarpone Parfaits

Layers of creamy sweetness, fresh sweetness, and crunchy chocolate sweetness. Pretty and elegant.

Strawberry Almond Cream Tart

A classic, and deservedly so. All your friends will ooh and ahh when they see it, as an added bonus.

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This recipe for Pan de Yuca with Guava-Chile Butter is actually not something I’ve tried while in Ecuador, but when I saw the recipe in the Ecuadorian section of Jose Garces’ book The Latin Road Home, I wanted to give it a try. Although I can’t say from personal experience whether this is a particularly common recipe in Ecuador, all the ingredients – yuca, queso fresco, guava – are very typical. These rolls are a tasty little snack, salty and savory from the addition of an entire pound (!) of queso fresco to the dough. Served with the sweet guava paste, which is tempered by the deeply savory flavor of black vinegar and the spice of sriracha, it’s a new and interesting way to dress up your pre-dinner bread and butter.

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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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Part of me wishes I had never discovered this recipe, because now I’m kind of obsessed with these tasty little pan-fried breads. Seriously. They are the best thing that I’ve made in a long, long time. You know that feeling where even as you’re putting something into your mouth your belly is telling you “too much! You will regret this!”? And yet you do it anyways, because whatever you’re eating is really tasty or somebody put a bowl of oreos in front of you or you’re just bored and noshing mindlessly? Well that has happened to me all three times I ate these, except when I’ve finished them and am sitting on the couch with a very full belly, instead of regretting it, I think “that was so worth it.”

Parathas are a type of stuffed, Indian flatbread. You make a filling – in this case a mildly spiced mixture of smashed potatoes and green peas – plop some into the center of a piece of simple whole wheat dough, fold the dough over the filling twice, and then roll it out again so that the potatoes and peas get all mushed into the dough itself. You fry it in a little hot oil for a minute or two, until the dough is cooked and the inside is hot, then you tear it open and devour it, potentially pausing to dip it in a sweet chutney if you have that sort of self control. They’re soft and doughy, addictively salty and spicy, and just so full of savory goodness. They’re a little bit messy to roll out, but even as someone who hates cleaning sticky dough off counters, these are worth the trouble. This particular recipe for parathas is another hit from Mangoes & Curry Leaves – I’m so glad I finally bought myself a copy of this book! For those of you who know me in person, don’t be surprised if I serve you Indian food anytime you come over to my house in the next few months.

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Spiced Potato and Pea Parathas

Recipe adapted very slightly from Mangoes & Curry Leaves. Makes 8 parathas, serves 4-8.

• 1 c. whole wheat flour
• 1 c. AP flour
• 1 tsp salt
• scant 1 c. lukewarm water
• 2 c. Spiced Potato and Pea filling, recipe below
• 2 TBS vegetable oil

1. Mix flours and salt together in a medium bowl. Stir in lukewarm water, then turn dough out into floured surface and knead until smooth, about 5 minutes. Return to bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and let stand for 2 hours.
2. Split dough into 8 equal sized pieces, keeping the ones you are not working with loosely covered. Roll a piece of dough out to an 8-inch round. Spread 3-4 TBS of the potato filling over one half of the dough. Fold the dough in half to cover the filling, then fold in half again in the other direction so that you have effectively folded the dough into quarters. Roll out again into an 8 inch circle, smushing the filling into the dough. Don’t worry if you’re filling starts to break out of the dough and gets a little messy. Repeat with the remaining pieces of dough and filling.
3. Heat 1 TBS of the vegetable oil in a skillet over medium heat. Once the oil is hot, add a partatha to the pan and cook for 1 minute. Flip over and cook for 1 minute on the other side. Both sides should be golden brown. If they aren’t, cook for another 30-60 seconds on each side. Remove to a plate, add a little bit more oil to the pan, and repeat with remaining parathas. Serve immediately with sweet chutney.

Spiced Potato and Pea Filling

Recipe adapted very slightly from Mangoes & Curry Leaves. Makes 3 cups.

• 1 lb. Yukon Gold potatoes, scrubbed and cut into 1 inch cubes
• 2 TBS vegetable oil
• 1/2 tsp black mustard seeds
• 1/2 tsp turmeric
• 2 tsp minced garlic or garlic mashed to a paste (1 large clove)
• 1 c. finely chopped onion
• 2 jalapenos, seeded and minced
• 1 c. frozen peas
• 1 tsp salt, or to taste

1. Place diced potatoes in a large pot and cover with cold water. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, and boil potatoes until tender, about 15-20 minutes. Drain, let cool slightly, and roughly mash potatoes with a potato masher or a fork. Leave some chunks.
2. Heat oil in a large frying pan on medium-high. When oil is shimmering, add mustard seeds, cook for 45 seconds, until they stop spluttering, add the turmeric and garlic and stir-fry for 30 seconds, then add the chopped onion. Lower heat to medium. Cook, stirring frequently, for about 5-8 minutes, until onion is soft and staring to brown. Add jalapenos and cook for 2 minutes longer, then add potatoes and peas and stir to mix thoroughly together. Cook just to heat peas and potatoes through, about 2-3 minutes, then remove from heat. Season to taste with salt. Let cool and use as filling for parathas or samosas. Also tasty on it’s own, or shaped into cakes and pan-fried.

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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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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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“All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another”

-Anatole France

That quote has been running through my head all week. I actually heard it at a change management workshop at my real job, but it resonated so strongly with the mental state I’ve been in for the past few weeks, that I’ve been repeating it to remind myself that everything I’m feeling is normal. Although more than half the work of moving into our new place – washing, sanding, painting, packing, unpacking – is done, I’m still feeling a little overwhelmed and, honestly, sad whenever I think about leaving my house. So I think it’s important to take a moment to reflect, to have my melancholy, but then start to focus on the positive, on all the changes that I really have longed for.

Things I’ll miss:

• My roommates. I have three great roommates, and it’s nice to have people to chat with at the end of the day. We mostly sit and talk in the kitchen, or crash on the couch at the same time to watch trashy TV. Having someone to watch trashy TV with is not to be taken for granted. I hope that I’ll still be friends with them, but friendships are never the same as when you share day to day concerns and experiences. I’ve been lucky to have such a happy living experience with them!
• My house. It felt like home the very first night I slept here, and it’s breaking my heart a little bit to leave it behind. It’s a beautifully maintained single-family home, full of light and interesting architectural details. It was such a great find – I think it would be a miracle to find something that was so great with so little work again.

• Morning runs on the bikepath. I’m less than a quarter mile from the start of the Minuteman Bikepath, a flat, 11-mile path that goes through some beautiful parts of Greater Boston. It’s super convenient for running, and now that I’ve finally been converted to morning running, I’ll miss how quiet and peaceful it is at that time of day.
• Davis Square restaurants. Dave’s Fresh Pasta. Five Horses Tavern. Boston Burger. The Painted Burro. Mr. Crepe. Of course, I can still go to these places – I’m only moving two miles away! – but they won’t be as readily accessible. And the Davis neighborhood in general is just a fun, lively place to be, with more great restaurants opening all the time.
• My backyard. While it’s not huge, it has a fence that makes it feel private, and a lovely shady patio with a table for eating out on nice days. I use it to garden, to work-out, and just to look out at from the kitchen as I wash dishes or eat my breakfast. Our new place also has a small yard, but it needs a lot of work before it will look like this one.

Things I’m looking forward to:

• Seeing Trevor every single day. Of course, this is the whole reason for moving. After 3 years of long-distance dating, and 2 years of living separately in the same city, I think we’re both excited about being even closer to one another. It may mean less independence, but it will mean more sharing, in a good way. I’m sure there will be challenges, but I’m hopeful that the whole experience will make our relationship stronger and even happier than it already is.
• Having my own fridge and freezer. If there’s one thing that’s not great about living with three roommates, it’s the amount of fridge space you get allocated. After spending a good hour cleaning in and around our new fridge, it is pristine, and awaiting much delicious produce. Hopefully from our garden.
• New restaurants. This one is pretty much an even trade – well-loved Davis restaurants will be replaced by new well-loved restaurants. The Biscuit, for coffee and savory croissants. Thai Hut, for late night takeout. Dali, for lively dinners of delicious tapas and lots of wine. And maybe even the restaurant my new landlords are opening next year.
• Living less than half a mile from a brand new Wholefoods. I’m so looking forward to being able to run out and get pretty much any ingredient I want (especially since I’m also a stone’s throw from Savenor’s).
• Trevor making me dinner. Like he was doing as I wrote this. Seriously, the boy can cook.

And now goodbye to you guys too, but only for a few days – I’ll be on a business trip to Russia for the rest of the week! Don’t worry, I’m leaving you with a treat, the last thing I’ll make in my old kitchen. These little tartines are from Le Pain Quotidien, which I reviewed the other day, and they are so good! The spicy corn cream is super tasty – I love how rich it is and the heat is just strong enough to make your lips tingle. Together with the fresh tomato salsa and the goat cheese, these tartines make an excellent celebration of summer flavors. Just be warned – these should be eaten with a knife and fork. You’ll make a total mess if you try to pick them up whole.

And when I get back, I’ll make you a little something from my new kitchen.

Corn, Jalapeno, and Goat Cheese Tartine

Adapted slightly from Le Pain Quotidien. Serves 2.

• 1 large tomato, diced
• 1/2 onion, finely chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, divided
• 2 TBS + 2 tsp finely chopped cilantro leaves, divided
• juice from 2 limes, zest from 1/2 a lime
• 1 slice cooked bacon, crumbled
• 4 TBS creme fraiche
• 1 tsp finely chopped jalapeno pepper (seeds removed)
• 1 ear fresh corn, kernels removed
• 2 big slices sourdough bread
• 2 oz. soft goat cheese

1. Make the tomato salsa: combine the diced tomato, chopped onion, 1 of the garlic cloves, finely minced, 2 TBS of the cilantro, and the lime juice in a bowl. Stir together, cover, and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
2. Add the crumbled bacon, creme fraiche, lime zest, and jalapeno to a small saucepan, along with 1 TBS of water. Crush the remaining clove of garlic and add to the pan. Stir, and bring to a simmer over low heat. Simmer for 1 minute, then add the corn kernels and simmer for 1 minute longer. Remove from heat.
3. Place the bread slices on a baking sheet. Divide the corn cream between the two slices – the liquid will soak through the bread. Dot the top of each slice with goat cheese. Broil on high for 3-4 minutes, or until the goat cheese is melty and beginning to brown. Sprinkle with the remaining 2 tsp of cilantro leaves. Serve immediately – with a knife and fork!

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I’m home! We had a great trip – lots of eating, walking, photographing, exploring small villages and oohing and ahhing at all the famous monuments. We even managed to spend a little bit of time, you know, relaxing. Ten days was just long enough, and so far I’m enjoying being home just enough to offset post-trip depression. I will definitely have food stories to share, but I have lots of thoughts and notes and photos to sort through first. In the meantime, I wanted to share this somewhat overdue book review of Try This At Home, the new(ish) cookbook from Top Chef winner Richard Blais that I’ve been meaning to write about since it came out in February.

Try This At Home is a challenging and exciting cookbook. In contrast to many of the books I tend to gravitate towards, its focus is not on seasonal vegetable-based cooking (e.g. Vegetable Literacy, The Chef’s Collaborative), nor is it a photography-driven travel-cum-recipe regional book (e.g. Venezia in Cucina, Every Grain of Rice, The Latin Road Home). Instead, its appeal lies in the new-to-me, modernist techniques and creative twists that it brings to familiar recipes like hamburgers and ice cream. Both during Top Chef and at his restaurants, Blais is known for using molecular gastronomy to elevate classic dishes into something unexpected and exciting. This may sound like a skill that would be difficult to translate into a book designed for home cooks, but Try This At Home makes it surprisingly accessible.

There are certainly recipes that will challenge the home cook, like Spaghetti Carbonara made with Chicken-Flavored Agar-Agar Noodles, but there are many more that require no special tools or ingredients, only an open mind about how flavors work together. Some of his ideas are so creative yet so simple that my reaction is not intimidation, but something more along the lines of “What?! That’s awesome, I’m doing that immediately.” A good example? Freezing blue cheese sauce into ice cream and serving it with a hot steak. So simple, yet if you did that at a dinner party, your guests would be amazed. It’s a book that expands your imagination and you will definitely learn a thing or two from it.

When things do get a bit more complicated, Blais calls it like it is by designating these recipes as “2.0” takes on the simpler version. For example, the Sweet Tea Ice Cream recipe is creative but easy to do at home with a standard ice cream maker; it gets taken to the 2.0 level with the addition of dry ice in the freezing process. If this next level of cooking appeals to you, there are some tools and special ingredients that you may find yourself searching out after reading this book. Some items I’m considering purchasing are an iSi Siphon for creating foams and mousses, a pressure cooker (especially since so many of the recipes call for the delicious sounding Pressure-Cooker Braised Bacon), and maybe someday, a sous vide machine. Before I make any major purchases, though, I’m going to keep testing out the equipment-free recipes – the Vidalia Onion Rings with Beer Mustard, the Lemon Curd and Black Pepper Roasted Chicken, and the Sticky Pudding with Scotch Sauce are all on my shortlist.

I did try out one of these simpler but creative recipes to share with you here – these Cinnamon Brioche French Toast Skewers. It’s a basic french toast recipe except for three clever changes: one, adding dried hibiscus and lavender to the butter in the frying pan or griddle, two, adding the Moroccan spice blend ras el hanout to the batter, and three, skewering the french toast on cinnamon sticks, making a super-fun treat for kids (or maybe even grown-ups at a weekend brunch party). They didn’t have any hibiscus or lavender at my Wholefoods, so I ended up sprinkling a few sachets of Tazo’s Passion tea into the pan (it’s largely hibiscus-based) and I LOVED the effect it had. The dried flowers coated the french toast and gave it a sophisticated and floral tang that was unexpected but so delicious. I would absolutely make it this way again.

The bottom line: Try This At Home is a fun and creative introduction to some of the techniques of molecular gastronomy, made accessible through the use of simple and easy to find kitchen tools and well-loved flavor combinations. Some of Blais’ recipes are challenging, but many of them are simply new ideas that could be executed by any motivated home cook. I’d recommend it to experienced cooks with an urge to explore new methods and new flavors.

Disclaimer: A review copy of Try This At Home was provided to me free of charge by Clarkson Potter, but I was not otherwise compensated and all thoughts are my own.

Cinnamon Brioche “French Toast” Skewers

Reprinted with permission from Try This At Home. Serves 4.

I made this French toast for a very sophisticated audience when I did a cooking segment on the PBS Sprout kids’ program The Sunny Side Up Show, where I appeared with the resident star, a squawking chicken puppet named Chica. The recipe is standard egg-dipped French toast, but I cut slices of day-old brioche into long rectangles and use cinnamon sticks to skewer them, so the overall effect is of French-toast-on-a-stick.

• 4 large eggs
• 1 cup whole milk
• 1 vanilla bean, split, seeds scraped out, and seeds pod reserved
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon ras el hanout (Moroccan spice blend; optional)
• Four 2-inch-thick slices brioche
• 12 cinnamon sticks
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, plus (optional) more for serving
• 2 dried hibiscus flowers, crushed (optional) [Katie’s note: I used two sachets of Tazo Passion tea in place of the hibiscus and lavender flowers to wonderful effect]
• 1⁄2 teaspoon dried lavender flowers (optional)
• Pure maple syrup, warmed, for serving

1. Preheat the oven to 300°F. Place a cooling rack over a baking sheet and set aside.
2.  In a shallow dish, whisk the eggs, milk, vanilla seeds, salt, and ras el hanout together.
3. Cut the crusts from the brioche slices and cut each slice crosswise into 3 strips. Insert a cinnamon stick into one end of each strip. Dip each piece of bread in the egg mixture, letting it soak for at least 5 seconds on each side, and transfer to the cooling rack to drain.
4. Heat a pancake griddle or electric skillet over medium-low heat. Add the butter, the vanilla pod, and hibiscus and lavender flowers, if using, and cook until the butter is melted and bubbling. Add half of the soaked bread pieces and cook, turning once, until golden, 2 to 3 minutes per side. Transfer them to the rack-lined baking sheet and keep warm in the oven while you cook the remaining bread.
5. To serve, stack 3 skewers on each of four plates. Spread a little more butter on them, if desired, drizzle warm syrup over them, and serve.

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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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Breakfast for Dinner is a cute, approachable book. While I’ll never escape the part of me that, as a little girl, used to like nothing more than to page through encyclopedias, atlases, and 1,000 page collections of literary classics, I’ve found that I tend to actually use physically small, focused cookbooks much more than the huge glossy tomes I like to collect. At 160 pages, Breakfast for Dinner fits this bill, and is small enough to throw in my purse (yes, I sometimes travel with cookbooks as reading materials). It is also beautifully designed – between the type, the layout, the paper, and the beautiful full page photographs that accompany every single recipe, it’s a pleasure to read.

The recipes included in Breakfast for Dinner are divided into three categories – Main Dishes, Sides & Starters, and Drinks & Desserts. Since I was expecting a lot of truly breakfasty recipes scaled up for dinnertime, I was pleasantly surprised to find a much broader interpretation of “breakfast for dinner.” In particular, I loved the inclusion of recipes where typical breakfast staples (cornflakes, breakfast sausage) are re-purposed in decidedly dinner-like meals (cornflake-crusted chicken, breakfast-sausage ravioli). The recipes run the gamut from tried-and-true breakfast staples, such as Steak and Eggs Benedict, to more creative dishes, such as Grapefruit Risotto with Seared Scallops. One thing all the recipes have in common is that they are crowd-pleasers – I can’t imagine you’ll find many people who would turn down Bacon Fried Rice, Burgers topped with Fried Eggs, Hashbrowns, and Apricot Jam, or Mocha Ice Cream Pie with Biscotti Crust. (Except, in retrospect after writing that list, maybe vegetarians. Don’t worry, they’ll probably go for the Polenta Cakes with Shiitake Mushrooms and the Parmesan Beignets).

To test out this book, I made two recipes, one sweet, and one savory. On the sweet side, I made Chocolate Brownie Waffles with Blackberry Sauce. Sounds amazing, right? Sadly, I couldn’t get the waffles to come out right – the batter seemed very thick, and once it went into the waffle iron, I couldn’t get any waffles to stay together. They were super delicate, and at the same time dried out quickly. So, not perfect, although my roommates were happy to devour the waffle crumbs. As I started the savory recipe – Italian-Style Stuffed French Toast – I was a little nervous. Would this one work? Thankfully, it came out great. I could barely stop myself from eating all the lemon-scented spinach and ricotta filling before stuffing the bread, and the marinara sauce was easy to make and well-spiced. It was a little tricky stuffing the toast, but I eventually got the hang of it. I also tried it grilled cheese style, and by just toasting the bread and then spreading it with the ricotta – all three ways worked great. Served with a green salad, this would make a fantastic family dinner recipe, especially if you’re tired of spaghetti and lasagna but still craving Italian food.

The bottom line: Breakfast for Dinner is a cute, focused, well-designed cookbook full of crowd-pleasing dinner and dessert recipes that utilize traditional breakfast ingredients, like bacon, eggs, coffee, and maple syrup. Lindsay and Taylor, who are also the duo behind the popular blog Love and Olive Oil, create tasty, easy, and accessible recipes and stunning photographs. I did have a little trouble getting one of the recipes I tested to come out right, but the second recipe was phenomenal. Recommended for beginner cooks looking to expand their repertoire and those looking to mix up their daily dinner routine with some delicious comfort food.

Disclaimer: Quirk Books sent me a copy of Breakfast for Dinner free of charge, but I was not otherwise compensated and all opinions are my own.

Italian-Style Stuffed French Toast

Recipe from Breakfast for Dinner. Makes 8 slices (serves 4).

• 4 TBS olive oil, divided
• 2 garlic cloves, peeled and minced
• 4 c. fresh baby spinach (about 6-oz.)
• 1/2 c. whole-milk ricotta cheese
• 1/4 c. grated parmesan cheese
• zest of 1 lemon
• 1 tsp dried basil
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• salt and pepper, to taste
• 1 loaf soft french bread, cut into 8 slices 1-1/2 inches thick
• 3 egg
• 1/2 c. whole milk
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 2 c. marinara sauce (store-bought, or see recipe below)

1. Heat 2 TBS of the olive oil in a frying pan over medium heat. Add the minced garlic, and saute for 30 seconds, then add the spinach, and saute, stirring, until it has all wilted, about 2 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool, then coarsely chop.
2. In a medium bowl, stir together the chopped spinach, ricotta, parmesan, lemon zest, basil, and oregano until evenly mixed. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
3. In a small baking dish, whisk together eggs, milk, garlic powder, and 1/4 tsp salt. Use a serrated knife to cut a slit into each piece of bread, and then use the knife to stuff 2 TBS of filling into each slit. Heat the remaining 2 TBS olive oil in the frying pan. One at a time, dip each slice of bread into the egg mixture for 30 seconds on each side. Add to the frying pan, but don’t overcrowd the slices. Cook for 3 minutes on each side. (Alternatively, if you’re having a tough time stuffing the bread, you can make these grilled cheese style, or simply dip and toast the bread, then spread with ricotta afterwards.) Serve with warm marinara sauce.

Easy Marinara

Recipe from Breakfast for Dinner. Makes 2 cups.

• 2 TBS olive oil
• 1/2 medium yellow onion, peeled and diced
• 2 garlic cloves, peeled and minced
• 1 15-oz can of diced tomatoes
• 1 tsp dried basil
• 1/4 tsp dried oregano
• salt and pepper, to taste

1. Heat oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add onion, and saute for 3 minutes, or until onion has softened, stirring occasionally. Add garlic and cook for 1 minute longer. Add tomatoes, 1/4 c. of water, basil, and oregano. Let simmer for 20 minutes, or until sauce has thickened slightly, stirring occasionally. Season to taste with salt and pepper before serving.

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