Greatest Hits of 2011

So what clicked the most with my readers this year? A few conspicuous trends, heavy on the cannin’ and jammin’ as you would expect from a blog with the word “pantry” in the title. It was definitely a good year for the pantry, with over 250 jars added, not counting the ones I already gave away. Drum roll…here are this year’s winners:

How to Eat Your Lawn

This mini-series topped the charts, especially the violet jelly and dandelion jelly from flowers that grow in our so-called lawn (otherwise known as the prairie).  The violets went viral, with over 800 clicks in one day alone.  The jellies were delicious and went fast. Continuing the flower theme later in the season, I made Queen Anne’s Lace jelly, which was pretty special, and another jelly with electric blue borage blossoms.  Mint and rosemary jellies were right up there in the ranks, 5^th place this year. More herb jellies (like lemon basil and rose geranium) were part of my “Preserving Herbs” series.

Mo’ Marmalade Momma

Yup, once again on top of the charts are the three versions of Meyer lemon marmalade that I made for the inaugural month of the Tigress Can Jam of 2010. The lemons were a gift hand-carried from California and were made memorable by the addition of rosemary and ginger. This holds the all-time record as my most popular post.

Sweet ‘n’ Hot

Another all-time winner, again one of my entries in the 2010 Tigress Can Jam, is Sweet ‘n’ Hot Red Pepper Jam. I made a couple of cases of 4-ounce jars again this year to rave reviews. No one seems to have a favorite among the three versions: a plain one spiced with ginger, ditto but with a dab of adobo sauce (smokin’ good), and a third with star anise and cardamom (in the holiday spirit).  Tomato Salsa with Ancho Chili also made it onto a favorites list, probably since it’s been featured on other blogs like Punk Domestics.

Pickle Projects

A couple of pickle projects made the top ten, stealing votes from each other. One is a sweet ‘n’ hot bread and butter pickle and the other a group of three in one post: pickled garlic scapes, dill pickles, and more bread and butter pickles. Luckily I made a lot more of these this year than last so no one should complain.  A certain person I know eats them straight from the jar. For dinner.

Party Fare

Just when you thought that I cook only for the pantry, along comes a beautiful salmon terrine wrapped in leeks and stuffed with mushroom vodka cream, pretty enough for a party. This is the second most clicked-on post in the past two years and fourth this year. It was my entry in the monthly Paper Chef international challenge, which sadly has now folded. It had been the long running blog contest (over five years) before it faded away. I miss you guys.

Waste Not Want Not

Not a new concept for me, but called out explicitly in a series of posts about frugal cooking. On the theme of “use the whole plant,” I made a very popular Celeriac Soup in a post called “Roots, Stalks and Leaves” and a version in my new Waste Not Want Not series. While many people know this vegetable only by its knobby root, which is how it most often found in the supermarket, it actually has a useful stalk (substitute for Pascal celery if you want to eat locally) and leaves when you can get them from your CSA or the farmers’ market. As part of my Preserving Herbs series, I made celery salt from the leaves (for the pantry of course).

Auld Lang Syne

Much to my delight, Sour Cream Blueberry Bread made the cut. I used to be known for the volume and variety of quick breads that I made, a sucker volunteer for every bake sale and charity event involving food. I literally cooked my way through graduate school with recipes like this, producing wares sold at a weekly departmental lunch.

Happy New Year everyone!

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Paper Chef: Nectarine Upside-Down Cake with Green Tea Ice Cream

With the ingredients nectarines, cornmeal, almonds and green tea for this month’s Paper Chef, I immediately thought of an upside-down cake that I used to make — every summer it seems — but forgot about in the last couple of years. I’ve made it with both plums and nectarines. Nectarines are in full season now, with local orchards and farmers’ markets burgeoning with fruit. It’s all we can do to keep up with the produce these days.

Managing your food is a pretty challenging task, whether it’s in season or in the pantry. And of course it’s related to time and money, with health and quality of life taking first priority for us. Our CSA offers the highest quality organic produce at about a fifth of what it would cost in a supermarket chain, if you could even get it. For me, with the motto “waste not want not” as my middle name, I need to restrain myself from harvesting anything that might go to waste.  Or not make myself crazy if it simply needs to go to the compost heap.  The bounty of last summer and early fall taxes my willpower.

Many people use the recent long Labor Day weekend to catch up on reading, gardening, sleep. I used it to catch up on tomatoes, peaches and other produce, cooking and preserving them for the pantry. I was planning on making a nectarine and raspberry jam when Paper Chef came out with this challenge, so I already had the non-pantry ingredients on hand.

I like this cake. The batter, with ground almonds and cornmeal, is substantial enough to hold the fruit and is not too sweet, creating a taste and textural contrast. I don’t have much of a sweet tooth myself, and so still find the tart too sweet.  I thought that the addition of green tea – in the form of Japanese matcha, green tea powder – would do the trick. I thought of adding it to the batter but decided it would not have the same effect as a green tea whipped cream, or ice cream. (Not to mention it would look like a St. Patrick’s Day trick.) I was right about the taste combination: the grassiness of the matcha counteracted and complemented the sweet fruit.  For the ice cream, I consulted David Lebovitz’s The Perfect Scoop but adjusted the dairy to a lower fat content.

My only regret is that I should have sprinkled toasted almonds on top after the cake was unmolded, which would have added a welcome level of crunch.

Nectarine and Raspberry Upside-Down Cake

This consists of a fruit topping layered into a baking pan, a batter poured on top, and garnishes that are added after the cake is unmolded.

Fruit topping

2 tbsp melted butter

1/3 c brown sugar

Juice of ½ lemon

5-6 nectarines, ripe but still firm

Handful of raspberries

Batter

¼ c stone ground yellow cornmeal

¼ c almond flour (or finely ground blanched almonds)

¾ c all-purpose flour (can use gluten-free)

1 tsp baking powder

½ tsp salt

7 tbsp butter

½ c milk

1 egg

½ c granulated sugar

Garnishes

Additional raspberries

Toasted almonds (optional)

Whipped cream or ice cream

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Prepare the fruit topping. Spread the 2 tbsp melted butter in a 10-inch round baking pan and sprinkle the brown sugar on top. Squeeze the lemon juice onto a dinner plate. Halve the nectarines, one at a time, removing the pit and cutting each half into 6 wedges. Slide the nectarines in the lemon juice and arrange them in the pan in concentric circles, starting with the center.  Intersperse a few raspberries. Sprinkle any remaining lemon juice on top.

Make the batter. Stir together the dry ingredients, sifting it if it appears lumpy (almong flour may not sift, so add it afterwards.) Place the butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. As soon as the butter is half melted, remove the pan from the heat and stir in the milk, eggs and sugar. Mix in the dry ingredients and stir until the batter is smooth. Pour the batter over the fruit, smoothing to make sure everything is covered,

Bake 35-40 minutes, until the cake is golden and firm to the touch. Let cool in the pan for 10-15 minutes and unmold.  (If you wait longer to unmold, place the bottom of the pan in hot water for a few minutes to help the unmolding process.)

Garnish with a few raspberries and toasted almonds. Serve warm with whipped cream or ice cream.

Green Tea Ice Cream adapted from David Lebovitz

1½ c heavy cream

4 tsp green tea powder (matcha)

1½ c milk (I used low fat)

¾ c sugar

Pinch of salt

6 egg yolks

Whisk the matcha into the cream in a large bowl. Place a strainer on top.

Warm the milk in a medium saucepan and stir in the sugar and salt, continuing to stir until the sugar dissolves. Heat the milk until hot but not scalding (140 degrees if you have a thermometer handy). Lightly beat the egg yolks in a medium bowl and pour a small amount of the hot milk into the yolks, stirring. Gradually add more milk, taking care not to cook the eggs. When all of the milk is incorporated, return the milk mixture to the saucepan and cook, stirring, over medium heat until a custard forms, thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. Add the custard to the matcha cream mixture and whisk to make sure that the tea powder is fully dissolved. Stir until cool over an ice bath.

Chill the mixture thoroughly – for several hours in the refrigerator. Freeze in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

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Paper Chef 60: Lamb Kofte on Flatbread with Grilled Apricots and Goat Cheese

I like playing with words as much as I like playing with food. So it struck a chord when Paper Chef suggested that a fourth ingredient for this month’s challenge — joining lamb, goat cheese and flour — would be an “A” word that evokes August. I immediately started a list: amaranth, angelica and arugula (all currently in my garden), apple, apricot and aubergine (in season here in August), and anise, artichoke, asparagus and avocado (available but from somewhere else).

 In the same way that a single word acquires meaning in the context of a sentence or paragraph or a whole story, a single ingredient becomes transformed into something greater within a dish or a meal. That transformation – whether in words or in food – is an inherently cultural act. Some people regard basic foodstuffs, especially vegetables and fruits, as nature. To me, any food is culture, as is the combination of words to make literature. We take conscious actions regarding what we eat: whether we forage it from the woods, fish it from the sea, grow it in our gardens, cook it in combinations, serve it to others, consume it ourselves. So as close as we can get to the source, the more we can exercise our own values and not someone else’s, hence our (at least my) preference for less processed, more local ingredients. 

Food is a great means of communication and connection within our own society and among cultures. The association of Paper Chef’s three chosen ingredients with the idea of a fourth sent me down a particular path. Lamb and goat cheese (though sheep would be more in line with the flock) pair well with aubergines, known here as eggplants, a combination that suggests the cooking of the eastern and southern Mediterranean and the Middle East. The week that Paper Chef #60 was announced, I had already prepared baked eggplant halves stuffed with a tomato and lamb sauce and topped with feta. I also canned an amazing batch of apricot jam from just-picked fruit and had some left over, so I decided that apricots would become the A for August.

 In preparing this meal, I thought of the Berbers, nomads who carried metal pans that they could heat over fires to make flatbread, the many regional traditions of cooked lamb, sweet-sour pomegranate molasses that I’ve been favoring lately, and serving fruits with meat. Mine are not authentic recipes (in other words, I did not learn them from people of the region who’ve been doing this for generations) but I thought that they worked in combination and were reasonably close to tradition, at least within my context.  

I served lamb meatballs flavored with cumin, Aleppo pepper (Yay A) and mint on flatbread that was coated with yogurt-tahini sauce and caramelized onions, and topped with a relish of red pepper and pomegranate molasses (a simplification of a traditional muhammara, which I thought would be too rich). The side dish was composed of pan-grilled apricots with goat cheese and pistachios served on top of chopped mint and arugula (another A word). Delicious.

Lamb Kofte (Meatballs)

1 lb ground lamb

1 medium slice of white bread, crust removed

1-2 tbsp milk or yogurt

1 tbsp grated onion

1 tsp crushed garlic

½-1 tsp ground cumin

½-1 tsp Aleppo pepper

1 tbsp chopped mint

Salt

Flour

Vegetable oil

Crumble the lamb lightly in a mixing bowl. Break the bread into small pieces and soak it in milk or yogurt until soft. Squeeze out excess moisture and add to the lamb. Add the onion, garlic, cumin, pepper, mint and salt, combining thoroughly but lightly. Form the meatballs into ovals about 1 x 1 ½ inches and set aside for a few minutes (in the refrigerator if longer) to set.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Dredge the meatballs in flour, shaking off the excess. Brown them in batches in vegetable oil for a few minutes, using medium-high heat, transferring them to a baking sheet as you go. Finish cooking them in the oven for about 10 minutes.

Yogurt Tahini Sauce

1 c plain yogurt (whole milk or low-fat)

2 tbsp tahini

Squeeze of lemon

Pinch of salt

Pinch (or more to taste) Aleppo pepper or cayenne

Pinch (or more to taste) ground cumin

Combine all ingredients, stirring to create a smooth sauce. Set aside for a few minutes to allow the flavors to meld.

Caramelized Onions

1 medium onion per serving

Vegetable oil

Sugar

Slice the onion in half through the stem end and then cut it horizontally into ½-inch slices. Saute it slowly in vegetable oil for about 15 minutes until it turns light brown. Add the sugar and continue to cook for another 5-10 minutes until dark and aromatic.

Red Pepper and Pomegranate Molasses Relish

1 medium red bell pepper

1-2 tbsp water

2 tbsp pomegranate molasses

Char the red pepper over a gas flame until blackened on all sides. Transfer it to a paper bag or covered bowl to steam for a few minutes. Remove the blackened flesh. Do not rinse. Chop into ¼-inch pieces. Place the chopped peppers in a small saucepan and add a tablespoonful of water and heat the pepper to cook it. Stir in the pomegranate molasses and cook the mixture until thick.

Grilled Apricots with Goat Cheese and Pistachios on Greens and Mint

1 ½ – 2 apricots per serving

Vegetable oil

Goat cheese

Pistachios (or walnuts) shelled and chopped

Arugula and mint leaves

Optional: olive oil, lemon juice, honey

Cut the apricots in half along the seam line (pole to pole). Place them cut side down in a hot frying pan with vegetable oil. Cook for a minute or less and remove to a plate. After the fruit is cool, add a small spoonful of goat cheese to the center, sprinkle chopped nuts on top and serve over mixed arugula and mint leaves. The greens can be dressed with a lemon vinaigrette, but I personally thought they were fine with just the juices coming from the apricots.

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Paper Chef 59: Barbecued Quail with Cabbage Cucumber Slaw

July here on the East Coast U.S. means hot days with long lasting light, when we often cook outdoors for informal gatherings of friends and family, with meals served in our garden. As the sun goes down, the oil lamps and candles are lit, and we watch fireflies flitting across the flowers and grass.  These can be lazy days, when spending too much time in the kitchen just doesn’t seem quite right. It’s the season when casual menus mean quick-cooking meat and vegetables on the grill and make-ahead wilt-proof salads from the fridge.

So when Paper Chef announced the theme of “July” and three ingredients – quail, cabbage and lime – it was obvious what to do. Lime epitomizes the refreshments of summer, being grated and squeezed to lend its citrus tang to all manner of dishes and drinks. Just-harvested cabbage too is a staple of summertime entertaining, with so many possibilities raw or cooked — even grilled. Quail is an interesting choice, and certainly lends itself to the grill but ever so quickly and gently since its tiny frame can cause the meat to dry out in the blink of an eye. I considered making the quail indoors in a sauce since it’s surely the smallest bird I’ve ever cooked. Even smaller than a Poussin. It measures 2 x 4 inches and at that is considered “jumbo.” A quail makes a Rock Cornish Game Hen look like a turkey! 

I happen to live near Griggstown Quail Farm, an environmentally friendly producer of poultry that ranges from quail, pheasant and partridge to chicken, duck and turkey.  Outside of our community, people would recognize the poultry by the name of its distributor D’Artagnan, also local. According to the website, the 75-acre farm accommodates 70,000 quail, 35,000 pheasants, 150,000 chickens as well as, seasonally, Mallard and Muscovy ducks, turkey and partridge. They’re all grain-fed and allowed to range freely. The processing is supposedly meticulous and happens onsite, a good thing.  So for me, with a quick trip to the farm (or farmers’ market), I had four little quail. I prepared a marinade and basting sauce of honey, lime juice and ginger and cooked the little birds over a medium low grill for less than 5 minutes a side or until a tiny cake tester showed the juices running clear. Stay right next to them or they will burn, or petrify.

I served the quail with a shredded cabbage and cucumber salad — coleslaw – tossed with a miso-lime dressing. Raw, crunchy and slightly sweet, tangy with the lime juice, a good counterpoint to the gamey deepness of the quail. To balance things, I roasted some potatoes with a little oil combined with lime zest, salt and chili pepper. The texture of the potato, soft and yet crunchy and slightly hot from the peppers, contrasted beautifully with the slaw, and both worked with the morsels of tender quail meat.

Cabbage and Cucumber Salad with Miso Lime Dressing

½ head small cabbage

1 Taiwan or other small cucumber

1-2 scallions

Miso Lime Dressing

Core and shred the cabbage finely. If using a small cucumber with tender skin, slice it in half lengthwise and cut into half-moon slices. If using a larger cucumber, partially peel it (stripes), remove the seeds and slice finely. Slice the white, light green and a little of the dark green portions of the scallions. Toss with the Miso Lime Dressing and set aside for about ten minutes before serving.

Miso Lime Dressing

3 tbsp freshly squeezed lime juice

1 tbsp brown rice miso

1 tbsp brown sugar

½ tsp mustard powder

1 tbsp light olive oil or other vegetable oil

Combine all ingredients and set aside for a few minutes before using.

Grilled Marinated Quail

4 quail

2 tbsp lime juice

2 tbsp honey

1 tsp lime zest

1 tsp grated ginger

½ tsp chili powder

1 tsp rice vinegar

Optional: a few drops of sesame oil

Prepare the quail by tying them into little bundles. Combine the rest of the ingredients and pour over the quail in a bowl to marinate for about 10 minutes. Do not marinate too long or the lime juice will “cook” the quail. Grill over medium-low coals for 3 minutes a side (3 sides – right breast, left breast, bottom), watching them carefully so they don’t burn. Test for doneness with a sharp cake tester or turkey truss. They’re done when the juices run clear.

Lime and Chili Roasted Potatoes

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Slice the potatoes and toss them with a sprinkling of olive oil. Sprinkle on chili powder, a little salt and lime zest. Roast, turning  once, until both sides are brown, about a total of 12 minutes.

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Chocolate Bread Pudding with Lime Custard and Strawberries

Paper Chef is back!  I’ve been following and sometimes participating in Paper Chef for years. It has been the longest running monthly blog challenge, but recently took a break to re-group. The challenge takes place over the first weekend of each month. Four randomly chosen ingredients are posted on Wednesday and due a week later. This month’s ingredients are chocolate, bread, lime and berries. These are a lot friendlier than some of the previous picks. In the past, we might have had duck or anchovies in there with the chocolate. Hmmm.

I was planning a bread pudding this weekend, since I’d bought a loaf that my husband described as “bunny bread,” meaning that it was too soft. I had been considering a savory mix of leeks and spinach or asparagus, but when Paper Chef arose, I thought I would try a sweet pudding.  This was a complete experiment and I’m lucky that it worked out the first time since I’ve been racing around on deadline for a week out of the country. Once I had the idea for my submission, I had to get into “go mode,” and hope for the best.

 

When I make bread puddings, I typically use a substantial “country loaf” or sourdough cut into large chunks and this allows the bread to be noticeable in the final version. Given that I was using bunny bread and no substantial added ingredients, I let the bread dissolve in heated milk, which I also used to dissolve the semisweet chocolate. This created a mush to which I added vanilla (to spark the chocolate) and egg yolks. The other big deviation from my typical method is that I beat the egg whites until stiff and folded them in. Another lightener. The texture of the chocolate bread pudding was good, but I think that the stouter bread would have been interesting… maybe even toasted?

 

I cooked the puddings in 8 ramekins filled ¾ full, but you could use 6 since the mixture did not rise, or if it did, it sank again. I decided to make a lime crème anglaise, which was probably the most delicious part of this dessert. Simple, elegant, served cold over the tepid pudding, and topped with strawberries that I picked this morning at our CSA.

I’m happy. This was a successful dessert, and Paper Chef is back. Now I get to pack to leave town.  Yikes, am I ever late!

 

Chocolate Bread Pudding with Lime Custard and Strawberries

Make the bread pudding. While it is baking, make the lime cream. To serve, top with sliced strawberries and dribble the lime cream on top.

Chocolate Bread Pudding

1 c milk

2 c finely torn fresh bread

¾ c semisweet chocolate bits

½ tsp vanilla

2 eggs, separated

Pinch of salt

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Put a kettle of water on to boil. Butter 6-8 one-cup ramekins. Locate a roasting pan or other shallow pan to hold the ramekins while baking.

Bring the milk to a scalding point (just before it boils). Remove from the heat. Add the bread and stir to dissolve it.  Add the chocolate bits, a few at a time, stirring to melt. Let cool somewhat and add the vanilla and egg yolks.

Beat the egg whites and a pinch of salt with an electric hand mixer at high speed until stiff but not dry. Add some of egg white to the chocolate mixture to lighten it up and then fold in the rest.

Spoon the chocolate mixture into the prepared ramekins. Place them into a roasting pan, pour in boiling water to come halfway up the sides of the ramekins and bake for about 25-30 minutes until set. Remove from the water and let cool on a rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Lime Crème Anglaise

¼ c milk

¼ c heavy cream

Zest of 1 lime

2 tbsp sugar

2 egg yolks

Place a metal bowl inside a larger bowl or pot full of ice.

In a small saucepan, heat the milk, cream and lime zest just to the scalding point. Beat the sugar and egg yolks together, and add a little of the hot liquid to the yolks, taking care not to cook them. Continue to add the milk to the eggs until at least half is combined. Then mix all remaining ingredients together into the saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, for 3-4 minutes, or until the custard coats the back of a spoon. Pour into the bowl set inside the pot of ice, stirring it until cool. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

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Kale and Pasta Ribbons with Croutons and Butternut Squash

At this time of year, when the weather’s turning to autumn, we have a bounty of hearty greens and winter squashes at our farms and markets. Kale and chard are often served with dried fruits such as currants, raisins and dates, so the October Paper Chef challenge ingredients – kale, currants, dates and bread – seemed perfectly in line with our seasonal fare.  But Paper Chef is a challenge after all, so I made a riff on a related classic dish and ended up with a spunky, well-balanced and delicious meal. (Sorry about the dark photo… the light was dull around here.)

I cut the kale – lacinato or “dinosaur” kale in this case – into long ribbons about the dimensions of the lovely wide pasta that my daughter brought back from Italy, and combined the two with olive oil and garlic plus snipped dates and dried currants (sorry no fresh ones around here at this time of year). To put some oomph into the dish, I roasted tiny cubes of butternut squash and sourdough bread in garlicky olive oil and salt. Tossed with the kale and pasta, the combination offered crunch to the soft, sweet to the savory, and orange to the green. Complementary, seasonal, nutritious and tasty.

Kale and Pasta with Croutons and Butternut Squash

1 bunch lacinato (flat-leaf) kale

½ small butternut squash

1 slice of good quality bread, (I used sourdough), 3/8”inch thick

¼ c olive oil

2-3 cloves garlic, minced

2 tbsp dried currants

1-2 large dried dates, snipped into 1/4-inch pieces

1/3 lb + wide pasta (like tagliatelle)

Salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Prepare the ingredients. Remove the center stem from the kale and slice the leaves lengthwise into long strips the same width as the pasta.

Peel the squash and dice it into 3/8-inch cubes.  Remove the crusts from the bread and dice it into the same size pieces as the squash.

Heat the garlic slowly in the olive oil but do not let it brown. Remove from the heat and set aside to cool.

Pour a little hot water over the currants and let them sit to plump up, then drain and combine with the dates.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil.

Toss the bread cubes in a little of the garlicky olive oil and place on a baking sheet. Sprinkle with salt. Place the butternut squash cubes on the baking sheet (do not comingle with the bread) and drizzle a little olive oil over them (I used plain olive oil here), stirring to coat and sprinkling with salt. Reserve the remaining olive oil for finishing the dish. Roast in the oven for about 7-10 minutes, turning a couple of times.  When done, remove to plate and reserve.

Meanwhile, when the water’s boiling, add the kale ribbons and blanch for a few minutes. The cooking time will depend on the age of the kale.  Mine was young and fresh and cooked in about 3 minutes. In the winter, it might take 5-7.) Remove and separate the ribbons to cool (over the edge of a colander). Add the pasta to the pot and cook until al dente. Drain.

Return the pasta and kale to the pot and toss with the remaining garlicky olive oil.  Add the reserved dates and currants, and salt and pepper to taste.

When ready to sit down for the meal, toss in the squash and bread cubes and serve immediately.

Serves 2-3 as a main course.

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Zucchini Lemongrass Pancakes with Fresh Peach Salsa

Late summer suppers draw from the wonderful farm produce that still abounds. Since this is Labor Day weekend here in the U.S., which signals the transition into fall, I wanted to celebrate the fruits and vegetables of summer. So when Asa from Miss Meister’s Mat announced the four Paper Chef 56 ingredients – capers, peaches, pumpkins/squash, and lemongrass – with the stipulation that the meal be vegetarian, I immediately decided the direction I would go. Peaches are at their peak here now and we still get summer squash such as zucchini from our CSA farm. The farm also allows us to harvest herbs every week, including lemongrass and a variety of basil. Lucky me.

Although I was in the middle of canning peach salsa for the winter, I decided to make a fresh salsa for this meal. Seasoned with sweet and hot peppers, red onions, capers, lime juice and … especially nice… Thai basil, I served it alongside zucchini pancakes made with lemongrass and scallions. Since the peach salsa benefits from sitting in the refrigerator for about an hour before serving, and since the zucchini needs to be drained, you can start both dishes at the same time and go about your business for a little while. In the heat of late summer, the least time in the kitchen is a plus.

This was a truly delicious combination and, with the addition of some freshly picked corn on the cob, we had a perfect, refreshing summer supper.

For those unfamiliar with cooking with lemongrass…. Lemongrass grows in big clumps and you harvest individual stalks at the very base. The part that you eat is the inner core of the base of the stalk, so you first need to remove the tough outer husk (making a vertical slice at the base helps to reveal the layers). Then mince the tender, fragrant inner core. The lemongrass that I harvested from our local CSA farm was pretty small so I needed two stalks to yield the teaspoonful that I added to the pancake batter. What we find here in the grocery market is typically larger so one stalk would be more than enough.

Zucchini Lemongrass Pancakes

¾ lb (2 medium) zucchini

Salt

1-2 stalks lemongrass to yield 1 tsp minced (or use grated lemon zest)

3 tsp chopped scallions (or finely minced onion)

Thai basil, 1-2 leaves, shredded (or use another herb like parsley)

1/3 c flour

½ tsp baking powder

Pinch of salt

2 eggs

Butter and/or vegetable oil

Grate the zucchini on the large holes of a box grater. Place the shreds in a colander and lightly salt them, setting aside to drain for about 30 minutes or so. Squeeze in a towel to get as much liquid out of them as possible.

To prepare the lemongrass, make a vertical slice in the base of the stalk, remove the tender, fragrant inner core and mince, yielding about a teaspoonful, or to taste. Prepare the scallions and the basil.

Mix together the flour and baking powder, adding a pinch of salt.

Lightly beat the eggs, add the grated and drained zucchini, the lemongrass, scallions and Thai basil, and stir to combine. Fold in the flour mixture until no traces of four remain.

Heat a griddle or large flat sauté pan, add a little butter and vegetable oil to coat and spoon on the zucchini batter to form about 2-2 ½ inch cakes. Cook over medium heat for a few minutes until the bottom is browned, then flip them to brown the other side. Keep the cooked pancakes warm while you prepare the rest.

Makes about 12 2 ½-inch pancakes.

Fresh Peach Salsa with Thai Basil

2 peaches

Juice of 1-2 limes (enough to fully coat the peaches)

2 tbsp finely chopped red bell pepper

1 tsp finely chopped jalapeno or other hot pepper (more or less to taste)

2 tsp capers

Thai basil, a few leaves, shredded

Peel the peaches by dropping them into boiling water for a few minutes then transferring them to a bowl of ice water. The skins will slip right off. Remove the pits and chop the flesh into 3/8-inch pieces. Immediately pour on the lime juice to keep the peaches from browning. Add the remaining ingredients and place the salsa in the refrigerator to chill for about an hour before serving. Makes about 1 ¼ cup salsa, depending on the size of the peaches.

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Date-Nut Bread with Cranberry Orange Cream Cheese

Teatime! This old-fashioned Date-Nut Bread reminds me of my Scottish grandmother. That and shortbread, and fruitcake, sliced very thin. When I, as a kid, visited her siblings in Scotland, I was treated to tea or high tea, always with an assortment of sweet and savory treats. Now teatime may seem quaint, but then it seemed gracious and even elegant as a ritual. Actually it could again if we’d just slow down.

I haven’t made Date-Nut Bread in years but at one time it was a regular part of my large repertoire of quick breads. The ingredients for this month’s Paper Chef challenge – dried dates, cranberries, flour, and candied orange peel – inspired me to revive it. I associate these ingredients, especially the cranberries, with a later time of year when they’re grown locally, but I had some dried ones in my pantry. I also had candied mandarinquats, a hybrid of mandarin oranges and kumquats, which I preserved last winter.  If I had had fresh cranberries, I would have made cranberry nut bread with the candied orange, and then we really would have had a tea trolley full of treats! Instead, I mixed the dried cranberries and candied mandarinquat, plus some of its syrup, into cream cheese as a sprightly spread. I thought that the ingredients in the cream cheese would need to get acquainted (and I was right), so I let the mixture sit for a few hours before serving.

One of the interesting aspects of the method for this quick bread is that the dates, nuts, and the shortening and leavening (baking soda) are covered in boiling water and left to sit for 20 minutes, which dissolves much of the date material. This bread is best eaten the second day, since it makes a while to become dense enough to slice.  I’m not sure of the origin of the underlying recipe since I must have copied it – in loopy kid’s handwriting — from an old cookbook of my mother’s (Good Housekeeping?) and have since tinkered with it.

Old-fashioned Date-Nut Bread

1 cup chopped pitted dates (6-8 oz weighed with pits)

¾ c chopped walnuts

1 ½ tsp baking soda

½ salt

3 tbsp butter

¾ c boiling water

2 eggs

1 c sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 ½ c sifted all-purpose flour

Place the dates, walnut, baking soda, salt and butter in a mixing bowl and stir, breaking up the dates so they do not clump. Pour the boiling water on top, stir to combine, again separating the dates and let sit for 20 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease two 7 ½ x 3 ½ x 2 ½ inch loaf pans, or an eight-section mini-loaf pan, or a 9 x 5 3 inch pan.

In a separate bowl, lightly beat the eggs, add the sugar and vanilla and combine with the date mixture, stirring to blend well. Fold in the flour until just blended.

Bake at 350 degrees, 40-45 minutes for the 7 ½ x 3 ½ x 2 ½ pans, 25-30 minutes for the mini loaves, or1 hour for the single loaf. Remove from the pans after about 10 minutes to finish cooling on a rack. Wrap and store the bread for a day before serving.

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Paper Chef 54: the Winner

Oh how I love a good read, and good ideas about food, so this monthly cooking event always gets the juices flowing. From a master list posted on Paper Chef, I randomly selected three ingredients – raspberries, zucchini/courgettes, and beans — and I added grains. The ingredients seemed innocent enough, but it seems that the raspberries were a challenge. Not for long since the Paper Chefs each came up with an inventive and delicious entrée. I picked  some green zinnias at our CSA to congratulate you all on another stunning episode of Paper Chef.

All of the contestants are known for their great stories, and I could well imagine each of them as they recounted their culinary adventures.  Kizzy of Culinary Annotations always has interesting quotations and literary references and I savored the image of her running the grains of couscous between her hands a la Claudia Roden, as she made an ambitious dish of stuffed courgettes baked over tomatoes and raspberry oil.

Trish from Jonski Blogski made a delicious salad – similar to mine – but with snippets of herbs that you could imagine tasting from the description.  I enjoyed the link to her CSA and cracked up over her forgetting the pine nuts on the way out the door to middle son’s baseball game and then coming back to finish the post and reporting the score. Yay! Reminds me of the fun times with the good little athletes in my household.

And there was Alessio from Recipe Taster, whom I was pleased to see submitting again for Paper Chef.  I judged it the last time he submitted and still remember the great chocolate sauce that I made from his recipe. He  has outdone himself  with the musings of several possible ways to use the ingredients. What a way to inspire imagination. I could cook with that list for quite some time. In addition to the flavorful cowpeas and zucchini-rice timbale, he roasted salmon with a raspberry sauce. The list of ingredients for the sauce sounded odd –cumin, raspberries, marmite, soy sauce etc. — so once again, I had to make it to find out. It was another amazing and provocative result.

Congratulations Alessio, Recipe Taster wins this month’s Paper Chef challenge.

This was a lot of fun and I hope to see you and a bunch of other folk back here for the August challenge even though you’re probably mostly on vacation.

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Wheat Berry Salad with Zucchini, Fava Beans and Raspberry Sauce

For Paper Chef 54, I randomly drew three ingredients – raspberries, zucchini/courgettes and beans – and got to choose a fourth – grains. I was interested in the theme of seasonality, with a liberal interpretation, knowing that participants in Paper Chef come from all over the world. When the selections came up, I was pleased that they would be seasonal – at least for me. However, when I went to make something with this group, it wasn’t obvious what to do. Uh-oh. Would that cause a drop in participants like some of the other weird combinations of  ingredients?

I had beautiful pale green zucchini from the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm that I belong to, fresh fava beans from the local health food store, all kinds of grains in my pantry, and fresh raspberries regrettably from the other side of the country. The weather here is unbearably hot and humid and therefore the most summery, refreshing dish was called for.

The grains were a toss-up of farro, wheat berries and wild rice and I ended up with wheat berries, which frustratingly can take forever to cook until you soak them overnight.  I thought the crunchiness and shape would work, and it did, though many other grains would work with this combo.There’s no real recipe here since it’s totally adaptable, but here’s what I did to serve as a room-temperature “salad.” I separately cooked the grains (the night before), and the vegetables. I dressed them all with a sauce of mascerated and sieved raspberries with a little balsamic vinegar, and then served the salad with snipped herbs, additional raspberries and roasted apricots.

Wheat Berry Salad with Zucchini, Fava Beans and Raspberry Sauce

Salad ingredients

½ cup wheat berries or other grain, cooked and set aside (2 cups)

6-8 fava bean pods, small pods extracted and boiled, popping out the inner bean

1 small pale green zucchini, diced and lightly sautéed in olive oil over low heat

3 scallions, diced and lightly sautéed in olive oil over low heat

Dressing

¼ c raspberries, mascerated with a little sugar for 1 hour and sieved

1 tsp or two of balsamic vinegar

1 tsp olive oil

Garnish

Herbs (I used chives and lovage)

Fresh raspberries

Lightly roasted apricot halves

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