cooking beets: June 2011

Mom's Potato Salad Recipe ♥

My mother's recipe for a traditional American-style homemade potato salad -- it's the one I make again and again without needing a "recipe". While not "diet food," the recipe calls for cooked eggs and cottage cheese so the potato salad contains a good measure of protein too. Fresh herbs really brighten the flavors!

~recipe & photo updated 2011 & 2013~
~first published 2006, republished 2011~
~more recently updated recipes~

2006 Original: A few weeks back, Michelle from the food blog 'Je Mange la Ville' shared her Secrets to Amazing Potato Salad (scroll down, they're near the end). It got me to wondering why I'd yet to post my mother's potato salad "recipe" here on A Veggie Venture, despite making a big batch several times a summer.

So. Without further ado, here are my Mom's tricks for a classic potato salad and now, as mothers pass important things to daughters, my own "recipe" and tips too. Always.
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Keeping it Real: Do you care if it's "authentic"?

Google search: authentic cuisine

Insert "...'s" in front of each web site's Google link:

Authentic Recipes, Food, Drinks and Travel
Natural Authentic Indian Cuisine
Authentic Mexican Food
Authentic Russian Recipes, Cuisine and Cooking
Authentic Thai Cuisine
Authentic Italian Cuisine
Authentic Greek Cuisine

...and on and on, for about 50,000 pages (just an estimate) of restaurants, recipes and articles.

What is "authentic cuisine" once you have left the country of origin? Hell, once you have left the region in the country of origin, the neighborhood in the region of the country of origin, or the grandmother's house in the neighborhood of the region of the country of origin you're totally out of the context of "authentic". Not to mention points in history. Or "terrior". It's not just the ingredients but where they were grown that counts towards "authentic".

"Escoffier didn't add it." Alex Guarnaschelli (here) doesn't render an opinion, but in this context, her sauce speaks for itself.

Michael Bauer (here) believes the "not authentic" card is played is when the dish when, "...the one we deem as “authentic” is the one that is most familiar or appeals to us."

Recently I read a blog entry about Vichyssoise which included the statement that it was an American invention. I hadn't thought about Vichyssoise as not being a French dish (and I'm definitely not a food history scholar). It's named after a city, but then again so is a Niçoise salad and about a million other dishes. Zipping immediately to Wikipedia, (...where I am reminded of the day I told my much younger-than-now nephew that information found on the internet was not necessarily factual and he looked at me like I was a complete idiot) and looked it up. According to Wikipedia (and a couple of other sources), Louis Diat, in 1917, presented Vichyssoise on the menu at the Ritz Carlton in New York. He is quoted as saying, "In the summer of 1917, when I had been at the Ritz seven years, I reflected upon the potato and leek soup of my childhood which my mother and grandmother used to make. I recalled how during the summer my older brother and I used to cool it off by pouring in cold milk and how delicious it was. I resolved to make something of the sort for the patrons of the Ritz." He called it, "Crème Vichyssoise Glacée".

It also notes that Jules Gouffe published a similar soup (although served hot) in a cookbook in 1869. Antoine-Augustin Parmentier (1737-1806) personally presented a potato to Louis XVI as an example (in a contest, yet) of "vegetables that can replace those currently used" based on his time as a prisoner of war in Dresden. Louis made him wait 14 years before he was granted permission to grow potatoes (longer than Parmentier was a prisoner of war). Parmentier worked hard to prove to the powers that be that potatoes were a great way to feed large numbers of people (as well as a source of nourishment to cure dysenteric patients) when many in France believed that the potato caused leprosy or was suitable only as hog food. He also started soup kitchens to feed the poor. Interesting guy - he has a Facebook page (natch) here that links to his Wikipedia page.

Did hot potato leek soup become authentic when the recipe was published? If you don't find and follow Jules Gouffe's recipe to the letter, are you an unworthy sham?

I have no problem with fusion cuisine (although the phrase makes me shudder a little), deconstructed classics, ethnically-eclectic menus, high-tech preparations and I don't care if you include the word "authentic" in the name or description of your restaurant. It's so ubiquitous as to be pretty meaningless anyway unless you have the balls to back it up with documentation down to the nonna, γιαγιά, abuela or grand-mère's name who made it - and even then, what if nonna was a crappy cook? If I am looking for the origins or a recipe, I won't take yours at face value, I'll do some research and if I think my modifications will taste better, I'll make them.

Even if Escoffier came back from the dead to personally tattoo "Authentic" on your ass, your food has to be honest and good. That is all that matters.

Saturday Breakfast: Potato and Sausage Hash Topped with an Egg

...or "Put a Bird (Egg) on It"

Really, there's no egg theme here, nothing to look at, eh? - even though this is my second post in a row with an egg-topped dish. There will be more egg-topped food upcoming (Uovo in Purgatorio) but not right away.

Last Friday night we made chicken breasts stuffed with pancetta/tarragon chicken sausage, mushrooms, leeks, garlic and thyme. With some of the mixture left over it seemed like a good time to revisit breakfast hash on Saturday.

Yeah, the rolled-up stuffed chicken breasts were delicious, but we were cooking up a storm with no time for pictures. I'm not holding out on you. I wouldn't do that to the few people I know who read this plus the two people I don't know. Next time we'll document it.

Recipe: Potato and Sausage Hash Topped with an Egg

There are no hard and fast amounts of ingredients called-for. You can add herbs,garlic, roasted chiles, substitute green onion for onions, add-in some cheese at the end - it's up to you. The really important thing is that your diced potatoes are beautifully browned. Balance the heat so that you can spread them out and leave them alone for a few minutes before you turn them.

Serves 4

Equipment: A really big saute pan/skillet or two big pans - you want color on the potatoes and don't want them so deep in the pan that they steam to the point of collapse before they have browned.

Ingredients:

5 medium-sized russet potatoes diced (small, approximately 1/3"). Unpeeled is just fine (and preferred!) as long as you've thoroughly scrubbed them.
Approximately 2 cups fresh sausage of choice (we used two sausages) removed from their casing.
1 small onion, diced
Oil - neutral oil with a high smoke point (we used canola)
4 large eggs - fried or poached
Salt and pepper

Preparation:

Place the diced potatoes in a microwave-safe glass bowl large enough to be able to stir them easily. Microwave on 50% power for about 5 minutes. Stir and repeat - for 2 minutes. Set aside. You can skip this step - it will just take the potatoes longer to cook.
Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a saute pan or skillet in which you will ultimately be cooking the potatoes over medium/medium-high heat until the oil is shimmering and there are little wisps of smoke coming off the surface. Add the sausage, breaking it up with a spoon or heat-proof spatula but don't move it around so much it doesn't color. You want to brown, not 'gray' the meat. Adjust the heat as necessary to keep it from burning. As the sausage browns, break it up to the extent that pleases you.
When the sausage is browned and cooked through, take the pan off the heat, spoon out the sausage from the pan and drain. Pour the oil and left-over fat from the sausage into a heat-proof bowl and reserve - any solids will end up on the bottom of the bowl after a couple of minutes. Use a crumpled paper towel to thoroughly wipe out the pan. Replace the pan on the burner, add 1-2 tablespoons of the reserved fat in which you cooked the sausage and heat on medium until the oil shimmers. Add the diced onion and a dash of salt and pepper.
Cook the onion, adjusting the heat if necessary, until the dice is translucent and most of the edges are light brown. Scrape those out of the pan over top the sausage you cooked and drain. Again, pour the remaining oil/fat out of the pan and wipe it out thoroughly.
Add enough oil to the pan to coat the bottom. Start with 2 tablespoons. Add potatoes to a depth of no more than 1/2". Toss to coat and then adjust the heat so that you can leave them for about 4-5 minutes at a time until you turn them with a wide spatula. Continue until the potato cubes are tender on the inside with a golden brown crust and then add the sausage and onions back into the pan to warm.
Cook the eggs to order - fried or poached is best. Serve the hash topped with an egg.

Olive Oil-Fried Egg with a Balsamic Glaze on Arugula

I saw a picture of this dish along with a reference that it was on the brunch menu at Foreign Cinema restaurant in San Francisco. The dish looked delicious! I've never eaten brunch there but have had a few very good and (one in particular) very memorable dinners there. Shortly after I saw the picture, I made the egg, sans arugula (delicious!) and declared it a winner preparation but wanted to see what it tasted like with delicate, bitter greens. I really love the taste of the greens combined with the egg yolk and the (very) slight sweetness of the balsamic glaze. You can use arugula, endive, cress or young dandelion greens or something less bitter like butter lettuce or mache torn in small pieces if you're not a fan, as I am, of the aforementioned greens.

This can be served solo, on top of the greens or on a piece of grilled or toasted bread - or on a slice of grilled toasted bread topped with the greens... I've seen variations that include mushrooms as well. How runny I like my eggs depends somewhat on what accompanies them. For this dish I like them just barely over. It works best when the yolk is somewhere between completely runny and somewhat runny - it's up to you.

Like any quick-cooked egg dish, it should be served immediately so it's good to have the greens ready (not too far in advance) and on the plate when the egg is ready. Reducing the balsamic vinegar takes just seconds. Make sure you wipe out the skillet thoroughly to mitigate the splatter - there will likely be some balsamic splatter no matter how careful you are.

If you're using delicate greens here are a couple of tips that apply to this - or any other similar preparation. To clean them, after picking off the thicker stems, submerge the greens in very cold water and VERY gently swish them around. Dry them thoroughly in a salad spinner.

One of the best ways to dress them is a 'broken' (not emulsified) vinaigrette where the greens are tossed with the oil before the vinegar is added. In this case, right before you start cooking the eggs, wash and dry your hands thoroughly and then place the greens in a large enough bowl so that they are not crowded.

Pour 1/2 to a scant 1 teaspoon of olive oil in the palm of one (impeccably clean) hand, rub your hands together and then use them to gently toss the greens and distribute the oil on the leaves. Add a little more at a time if you think you need it. Season with a pinch of salt.

Note - it took me far too long to learn - and remember - the difference between a skillet and a sauté pan, and if you don't know you can find out here.

Recipe: Olive Oil-Fried Egg with a Balsamic Glaze on Arugula

Visually inspired by Foreign Cinema's version
Serves 2
Equipment: 8" skillet, well-seasoned or non-stick

Ingredients:

Arugula Salad

2 handfuls of arugula, washed and thoroughly dried with any thicker stem ends pinched off
1 generous teaspoon extra virgin olive oil
Salt

Olive Oil-Fried Eggs with a Balsamic Glaze

2 large, fresh eggs (remove from the refrigerator 30 minutes in advance of cooking)
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Salt and freshly ground pepper
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

Preparation:

Toss the prepared arugula gently (by hand - as described in the head notes) with the olive oil 1/2 teaspoon at a time. The leaves should be very lightly dressed. Season with a pinch of salt and toss to combine. Taste to confirm the seasoning. Divide the arugula between two plates and set aside.
Heat 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil in a non-stick 8" skillet over medium heat until it shimmers. Crack the eggs into the skillet (or into a small bowl and then into the skillet) and let them cook for about 30 seconds to set the whites swirling the pan very gently once or twice. The white will get bubbly the edges will begin to brown. Season the eggs with salt and pepper. Tilt the pan carefully and baste the yolks with the oil and cook the eggs until you're happy with them. Place one egg on top of each plate of arugula.
Remove the pan from the heat, pour out the oil and thoroughly wipe out the interior with a crumpled paper towel. Before placing the pan back on the heat, pour in the 2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar (remember that it will splatter) and reduce for about 15 seconds. It's likely that you won't have to put the pan back on the heat source and that it will retain enough heat to reduce the balsamic.
Drizzle each of the eggs and arugula with the reduced balsamic glaze and serve immediately.

Sweet Potato Wedges with Rosemary & Lime Juice ♥

Sweet Potato Wedges with Rosemary & Lime Juice

Finally, a summer-y way to cook sweet potatoes. You're going to love these, I think!

Do you think of sweet potatoes as a summer vegetable? Me either. Growing season aside, sweet potatoes always seem just a little heavy for summer, don't they? But they're so good for us, so easy to find, so many people like them – I'm thrilled to have a good way to cook sweet potatoes in the summer – easy, quick, fresh and light. So good!

Just cut sweet potatoes in half and rub the cut sides in a little oil and butter and snips of fresh rosemary, then toss them in the oven. I love how the flat sides get slightly crispy and caramelized, how leaving the jackets on during baking keeps the sweet potatoes moist and ever so sweet.

You could serve them hot, I suppose, but it's summer. Just let them rest at room temperature and serve later – drizzled with a squeeze of lime juice. Heaven! How heavenly? Well I'm adding it to this small collection of My Favorite Sweet Potato Recipes. And I've decided they are "the" summer vegetable this year, the one to serve again and again.
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Cold borscht with hot potatoes and yoghurt

Cold borscht with hot mashed potatoes? Think of hot apple pie with ice cream. The sensation is similar, but savoury rather than sweet.

Cold borscht with hot potatoes and yoghurt

Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients:

2 medium beets

4 cups water

2-3 sprigs fresh dill for borscht, plus 1 sprig for garnish

2 teaspoons brown sugar

2-3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

¼ teaspoon sea salt

2 medium potatoes, boiled, whipped

½ tablespoon butter

2 tablespoons milk

Greek yoghurt

Preparation:

1. Thoroughly wash beets under running water to remove sand and debris. Remove any wilted or discoloured tops and roots. Place whole beets in the basket of a food steamer or pressure cooker. Steam according the instructions in your steamer or pressure cooker manual. When cooked, remove beets to a heat-proof container and set aside to cool. Reserve cooking fluid for use in this borscht.

2. When beets are cool enough to handle, slip the peels away. Dice. Place in a non-reactive cooking pot. Strained the reserved cooking fluid and top it up with fresh water to make 4 cups of liquid. Add whole sprigs of dill. Bring to the boil, then reduce heat to simmer for 5 minutes.

3. Remove and discard dill. Add lemon juice, sugar and salt. Stir to combine. Turn off heat and allow borscht to cool until the borscht is no longer steaming.

4. Pour borscht into a blender. Pulse to a thin puree.

5. Remove borscht to a lidded container and place in the refrigerator to cool completely.

6. Prior to serving borscht, cook potatoes with skins on. While still hot, mash them. Add butter and milk, then whip them to a smooth paste.

7. Ladle cold borscht into bowls. Place a dollop of hot whipped potato into each bowl of borscht, and top it off with a tablespoon of soured cream and a small slip of fresh dill.

Sautéed Summer Squash Julienne with Garlic, Hot Pepper Flakes, Lemon and Shaved Parmagiana

Summer squash season makes me sad. Mostly because there are mounds and mounds of BEAUTIFUL shapes and colors of summer squash all over the place. Why am I sad amidst such a bounty?

Because I mostly hate summer squash. I don't mind it raw, diced up in a salad, diced small and sautéed in a smoking hot pan for a blink of an eye or (duh!) zucchini bread. It's when it is in chunks and cooked until it's soft and watery (I blame the seeds) that I start to hate it. A lot. I loved "Ratatouille" but do not like the dish. [Note: based on this recipe, the previous sentence is no longer true.]

A few weeks ago I saw Jacques Pépin make a yellow and green zucchini 'spaghetti'. He cut off each side - down to but not including the seed cores, julienned the planks and sautéed those fast, in a hot pan. I would trust Jacques Pépin with my very life so I thought I'd give it a shot. Now, I don't like wasting food. I use my produce scraps for stock that I will either use immediately or freeze and the only time the scraps go into the compost bin is when the freezer door becomes difficult to close. I save the heels of hard cheese to thrown into soups and stews. I use the water in which I cooked the chickpeas to cook the barley, and then I throw my onion/leek, carrot and celery produce scraps in that to make a broth.

Throwing the seedy cores of a couple of zucchinis into the compost bin? Zero guilt.

I didn't cut my own julienne, I used a Messermeister julienne-ing thingy. Worked like a charm. There are other small tools out there that are advertised as doing the same but this is the only one I've used and I'm happy with it and yes, my mandoline still scares me a little which is why I didn't use that. The Messermeister cut really beautiful, delicate julienne - and it's easier to clean up than the mandoline.

The ones I cut by hand were a little more like linguine but I think would have been just fine. Thinking after the fact, if I had hand-cut them, I might have cut thin slices, down to the core on each side, stacked those and then cut the strips - resulting in a more consistent julienne. The process using the peeler was very, very fast.

Messermeister julienne-ing thingy (left) and hand-cut julienne (right)

Will I make it again? Absolutely. Next time I'll pan-roast some cherry tomatoes too. I think it would taste great hot or at room temperature. Top with shrimp? Tofu? Yes and yes. This has possibilities.

Recipe: Sautéed Summer Squash Julienne with Garlic, Pepper Flakes, Lemon and Shaved Parmagiana

Inspired by Jacques Pépin
Serves one for lunch or two as a side.

Ingredients:

2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil + extra to drizzle on the finished dish
1 clove garlic, minced
1 pinch red pepper flakes (may be increased, decreased or left out if you're not fond of heat)
2 summer squash (about 6" long each and 1" in diameter), thoroughly washed and julienned (including the skin) - not including the seed core.
Kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper
Juice of 1/2 small lemon
Parmigiana or another hard aged cheese (romano, grana padana, asiago, etc.) to shave or grate on top of the finished dish.

Method:

Heat the olive oil in a 10" or 11" sauté pan or skillet on medium. When the oil shimmers, add the minced garlic and let it cook for a minute. Add the red pepper flakes and cook for until the garlic is a light straw-color.
Turn up the heat to medium high and add the julienned zucchini, stir to pick up the garlic from the bottom of the pan and toss to coat the zucchini and distribute the garlic and red pepper flakes.
After a minute, taste a couple of strands of the zucchini - it should be tender (pliable) but still feel a little crisp under your teeth. Season with salt and pepper to taste. If it's not done yet, cook one more minute - tossing the zucchini to keep it moving and taste again.
Take it off the heat, squeeze the juice of the 1/2 lemon and toss to combine.
Plate immediately. Drizzle a little olive oil over the top and shave or grate some of the cheese over top.

Saturday Breakfast: A Tasty (Dutch) Baby - the Seattle Treat

Why did so many Seattle breakfast places serve Dutch Babies (do they still?) and why did I cook them so regularly when I lived there? I really didn't know until I looked it up for this post. A couple of weeks ago I suggested that my CPIC Lynn (cooking partner in -delicious- crime) and I make one for Saturday breakfast. Well, yesterday Lynn did the cooking using a recipe from Gourmet that I found on the Epicurious site, and we garnished our servings with the boysenberries and tayberries that I'd purchased earlier that morning at the market.

Back in the late 1800's Victor Manca, a restauranteur from Utah, moved to Seattle and opened a family-run restaurant (Manca's Cafe) that was in business until 1952. He introduced the Dutch Baby dish within a few years of its opening and it was even trademarked in 1942. Victor Manca's great granddaughter recounts the history of the cafe here.

2nd Avenue & Cherry Street (Seattle, WA) c. 1902-1903. Manca's Cafe is shown at the far left. Door sign (to the left) reads, "Ladies Private Dining Room" and the sign next to the cafe name on the top reads, "Oysters, Steaks & Chops". The original image is here. The current view of 2nd Avenue & Cherry Street (via Google Maps/Street View) is here.

I don't think the original recipe exists but it's more or less a sweet version of Yorkshire pudding and similar to the German Apfelpfannkuchen. Dutch Babies are a delicious, crispy and custard-y delivery system for fresh fruit but a dash of maple or fruit syrup is certainly called for if you don't have fruit.

Recipe: Dutch Baby with Powdered Sugar, Lemon Juice and Berries

Serves 4
Adapted (slightly) from Gourmet/2009

Equipment: 10" cast iron skillet.

Ingredients:

3 large eggs at room temperature 30 minutes
2/3 cup whole milk at room temperature
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon grated nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 stick unsalted butter, cut into pieces (it works just fine w/2 tablespoons, but not less than that)
Powdered sugar
1/2 lemon
Berries or other seasonal soft fruit

Method:

Preheat the oven to 450F / rack in the middle.
Beat eggs with an electric mixer at high speed until pale and frothy, then beat in milk, flour, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt and continue to beat until smooth, about 1 minute more (batter will be thin).
Heat the skillet in the oven for about 10 minutes - but test it after 5. When you take it out, test it by dropping just a dab of butter in the bottom. It should sizzle madly, but not immediately smoke.
Add butter to hot skillet and melt, swirling to coat. Add batter and immediately return skillet to oven. Bake until puffed and golden-brown, 18 to 25 minutes.
Serve immediately dusted with powdered sugar, lemon juice and berries.

Cold beet and kohlrabi soup

The sweet flavour of kohlrabi blends well with the earthy, full flavour or raw beet in this summer soup which is quickly made in your food processor or blender.

Cold beet and kohlrabi soup

Ingredients:

1 beet, peeled, chopped

1 kohlrabi, peeled, chopped

½ cup chopped kohlrabi greens

1 small shallot, peeled, quartered

2 tablespoons grated white radish

pinch of fresh thyme

pinch of fresh tarragon

1½ - 2 cups hemp milk or almond milk

sprigs of fresh thyme

Beets, kohlrabi, thyme, and white radish

Preparation :

1. Having washed the vegetables, peel and coarsely chop them. Put them in a food processor or blender.

2. Wash and spin-dry the herbs. Crush them and add to the vegetables.

3. Add the shallot, the radish and the hemp or almond milk, then process or blend to a smooth puree.

4. Decant into two soup bowls. Garnish with a sprig of fresh thyme.

Friday Dinner: Barbecued Country-Style Boneless Pork Ribs + Al Bergez's Sauce

I wrapped-up some of the warmed-up leftovers and sauce in a slightly crisped 4" corn tortilla for lunch.

(Another catch-up post) Back in early May, I was (as I am quite frequently) at my best friend and cooking partner-in-crime's (a/k/a Lynn) house for dinner. We barbecued country-style boneless pork ribs. No biggie, except... EXCEPT... we were done before dark - which is a giant improvement and the ribs were especially good. Her method for prepping the pork resulted in very, very good barbecue.

I acquired one of these for each of us earlier this year. Many a night we have barbecued well after dark, with one of us holding a flashlight. The ones I bought were through woot.com, but you can get your own here. They are fantastic. The light can be adjusted so that (in our case) what you're cooking, or checking on is brightly lit and you have both hands free.

...and no, there shall be no pictures.

One note - it's a really bright light and you need to be careful not to temporarily blind your cooking partner by looking up too quickly.

She made, not for the first time, a very good sauce, by way of Mike's friend Al Bergez. It's on the vinegar-y/tangy side (which we all like). I'm pretty happy with any kind of sauce or mop, except the mayonnaise-based sauces which I find to be kinda nasty. This sauce isn't hot (but it could be made hotter) or too sweet.

We had a problem keeping a consistent temperature - definitely user error. Sometimes our barbecue temperature control mojo is very strong - but not that night. Our overall karma came through like gangbusters though because when we were going to take the pork off to finish it in the oven, we found that it was done perfectly. This recipe/method requires some time before you fire up the coals (or turn on the gas) and I'm convinced it that the pork was even better than usual because of the order in which Lynn prepared it prior to grilling it.

Recipe: Barbecued Country Style Boneless Pork Ribs + Al Bergez's Sauce

I'm guessing this could serve 6-8 people
- wood charcoal (mesquite, alder, hickory)
- we used a 28" diameter Weber kettle grill
- a barbecue thermometer to monitor the temperature of the barbecue 'oven'.

6 lbs boneless country-style pork ribs, trimmed and cut into 3"x2"x6" chunks
1/2 cup brown sugar, lightly packed
1-2 tablespoons of kosher salt

Mix the brown sugar and the kosher salt. Lay the pork ribs out on a baking sheet or platter and rub each on all sides, as well as the nooks-and-crannies with the sugar/salt mixture. Let these sit for an hour before applying the following:

Mix together (it will be a rather dry paste):

4 very large cloves (or 6 regular cloves) of garlic, mashed into a paste
1 tablespoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon dry mustard
2 tablespoons of sweet paprika
1 1/2 to 2 tablespoons of ground cumin

Slather this paste all over the ribs and let them sit covered, in the fridge for at least four hours and up to 8. Take the ribs out no less then an hour before you plan to start cooking them, leaving them covered while they come up to temp.

This two-step method is (I'm pretty sure) what made this extra-good. When you take a bite, you get a slightly sweet, caramelized taste and then the flavors from the paste come through separately - and porky goodness abounds.

Prepare the Barbecue
You want enough coals or wood charcoal - we used mesquite - to cover about 1/2 the grill + a few big chunks. Make sure you have more to add on if your temperature drops. When the wood is ashy on the outside but you can see glowing red under the ash, spread the coals over one-half of the bottom of the grill. We didn't do this last Friday, but we have done so in the past - pour 1/2 bottle of beer (a good beer mind you, like Anchor Steam) in a foil tray and set on the bottom of the grill, opposite the coals. You made need to replenish this 1/2 way through (I don't have to tell you do drink the other half, do I? No? Good.)

This is a good time to espouse the benefits of a barbecue thermometer to keep track of the heat of your 'oven'. You want to cook this meat between 250 and 325 F (the lower the temp, the longer your cook time) but we were looking for about a 3-hour cook time. You can buy inexpensive barbecue thermometers pretty easily.

Clean off the grill and lightly brush it with a little canola oil on a paper towel (Do I need to remind you to hold this oil-soaked paper towel with a pair of tongs? No? Good.). Lay the pork ribs on the side of the grill opposite the heat and over the pan o'beer. Cover the grill, positioning the holes (open) over the side with meat to draw the heat over it. Open the bottom vent about 3/4 of the way.

Your starting temperature should be between 275 and 300 F. Monitor this and adjust your vents or add some more fuel if necessary. When the meat is done, it shouldn't be fall-apart tender, but when you stick a fork in it and wiggle it around, you don't meet too much resistance.

It's probably a fine time to make the sauce, if you haven't already done so (see below).

now's the time to throw the ears of corn on the hot side and get some nice brown color all around. Not too long - you are grilling for color and to just barely cook the corn.

I like my sauce served on the side but your house/your rules so do what you want.

Al Bergez's Vinegar-y Barbecue Sauce

2 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons ground black pepper
2 teaspoons dry mustard
2 cloves garlic minced finely
1 1/2 cups apple cider vinegar
2 tablespoon olive oil
2 teaspoons of A-1 Sauce
1/4 cup Worcestershire Sauce
2/3 cup tomato ketchup

Simmer for 20 minutes.

(Nearly) Last Minute Pozole Rojo Con Pollo

Back when I made these pan-seared chicken breasts, I saw the recipe on SFGATE for Nopalito's Posole Rojo. I made the adobo part of the dish and stuck it in the fridge thinking I'd use the leftover chicken for some posole on Cinco de Mayo. You can make this (nearly) at the last minute if you make the main components in advance: the meat, hominy and adobo can all be cooked in advance and refrigerated for a short period. If you do that, the bulk of the work you'll have to do is to assemble the posole components and prep the garnishes. This dish is wonderful.

Along came Thursday morning, May 5 - Cinco de Mayo and I hadn't cooked the hominy. No, not the canned hominy. I never understood why (generally) I didn't like dishes like posole, or others that included canned hominy -- and canned was the only hominy I knew about. I liked the corn-y taste and the texture but there was some off-flavor that I couldn't identify that ruined (for me) whatever dish it was in. One morning at the market, I stopped by Rancho Gordo's stand (I have a lot to say about beans and about Steve Sando and Rancho Gordo, but that will be another post) and there was a bag of dried hominy (White Corn Posole/Hominy). I thought that I couldn't hate it more than canned hominy so I took it home and stared at it for a while trying to figure out what I'd make.

Ultimately I used it in a bean dish (that I cannot quite reproduce as I cooked it, damn it, because it was delicious) that I adapted from Heidi Swanson (who adapted it from a Nopa recipe by Laurence Jossel). I combined Christmas limas, some chickpeas and the dried hominy from Rancho Gordo. I cooked the hominy in advance and when it was tender took one and ate it hoping that I would like it (it smells pretty freaking amazing while it's cooking)...

Yes, yes and YES! It tastes intensely corny and has a chewy-tender texture. This is good stuff. Also it's important to cook them until (as I refer to it) they 'bloom', kind of like the way that popcorn opens up. I was thrilled that I could love something I'd previously given up on. I'm pretty sure it was mostly the canned taste. If you have to use canned hominy, I recommend that you rinse and drain it very thoroughly.

So, back to the last minute Cinco de Mayo posole and the hominy I hadn't cooked. It was a busy work day (I was working from home) and I didn't have any time to tend anything in the kitchen so I dumped them in the slow cooker with a lot of water and a thin-sliced medium onion, set it on high and went back to work checking on them every couple of hours. I don't know how long it took, but by 4:00 pm, I had beautiful hominy ready for my posole. At that point I had a little time and cooked-down the left-over hominy water and reduced it in a sauce pan on the stove - I used this as part of the liquid in the posole, but it's not necessary.

RECIPE: POSOLE ROJO CON POLLO
- Serves 6
Adapted from Nopalito's Posole Rojo, published on SFGATE

Ingredients:

Hominy

2 cups Rancho Gordo dried hominy

Adobo

7-8 dried chiles (I used 4 ancho, 2 guajillo and 2 New Mexico chiles)
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 onions, medium dice
1-2 teaspoons whole cumin seed, crushed (but not powdered) with a mortar and pestle
2 teaspoons dried Mexican oregano
4 stems cilantro
1 teaspoon salt (or to taste)

Chicken & Stock (for the Posole assembly)

2 tablespoons corn oil or neutral oil
4 cups shredded pre-cooked chicken meat
2 1/2 quarts chicken stock (I used a combination of 2 cups reduced hominy cooking water, 1 quart vegetable stock and 1 quart chicken stock because that's what I had. If you cook the meat from scratch - as in the Nopalita recipe - your stock will come from the posole section of that recipe)

Garnishes

2 cups thinly shredded cabbage - I like napa or savoy cabbage for this
8 radishes, julienned
2 small-medium avocados, diced
3 limes, quartered
1/2 a small red onion, diced
baked tortilla chips = about 8 6" corn tortillas
dried Mexican oregano
1/3 cup chopped cilantro
1 tablespoon ground, toasted chile de arbol mixed with kosher salt, to taste.

Method:

Hominy (at least the day before you plan to serve)

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Pick through the hominy then place it in a heavy casserole and cover with at 3" inches of water. Bring this to a gentle boil on the stove. Cover and place in the oven on the middle rack. Cook until the hominy has 'bloomed' but is not falling apart - about 2-3 hours. It should double in volume. Strain and store in the refrigerator, covered.

Adobo

Remove and discard chile stems and seeds and place in a bowl large enough to hold the chiles and hot water. Completely cover the chiles with very hot water for about 15 minutes until they are completely soft. You may place a plate (smaller than the diameter of the edge of the bowl on top to keep the chiles submerged) on top of the chiles. Once they are soft, remove the chiles and taste the soaking water. If it is not bitter (sometimes it is) ladle off about 1-2 cups and reserve. If it is bitter, have the same volume of water or stock at hand.
Add the chiles, garlic, onion, cumin seeds, oregano and cilantro to a blender and puree, adding enough of the soaking liquid to form a smooth puree. Season to taste.
The adobo can be made in advance and refrigerated.

Assemble the Posole

Heat the stock in a sauce pan, reserving 1 1/2 cups.
Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil on medium in a heavy pot or Dutch oven. When the oil is shimmering and on the verge of smoking, add the adobo (be careful - watch for splatter!) and 'fry' it in the oil for 2-3 minutes while stirring - you don't want to burn the adobe. Adjust the head down the heat as necessary.
Add 3 cups of the shredded chicken and adjust the heat so that the adobo and chicken is simmering.
Puree 1 cup of the hominy with the reserved stock.
Add the hominy puree and the remainder of the hominy to the pot.
Add one-half of the stock to the pot and stir. The consistency of the dish can be anywhere from soup-like to stew-ish - your preference. Continue to add stock until you are satisfied. Simmer the posole for about 20 minutes, covered. Taste and adjust the seasoning. If making ahead, let it cool, cover and refrigerate.

Serve

If you made the posole ahead of time, heat it up on the stove and prepare the garnishes.
Serve in bowls topped by the cabbage and radishes.
Serve the remainder of the garnishes on the side in bowls for your guests to add as they wish.

Cauliflower "Potato" Salad ♥ Low-Carb, Low-Cal Light "Potato" Salad

Cauliflower

Potato salad made not with potatoes, but with cauliflower so a great choice for low-carb for dieters and diabetics -- and anyone who just loves cauliflower! Weight Watchers? You are going to love this salad!

When my friend Lyn from the poignant and inspiring weight loss blog "Escape from Obesity" posted a recipe for Low Carb "Potato" Salad last year, a light went on. Wow -- cauliflower just might be a dieter's best friend.

Cauliflower has virtually no calories; it's easily available year-round; pound for pound, it's an inexpensive vegetable. But most of all, cooked cauliflower creates a creamy mouthfeel that's akin to both potatoes and rice, so can either substitute for potatoes or rice or supplement potatoes or rice for a lower-calorie, lower-carb dish. Without realizing, I've collected several of these "potato" and "rice" dishes that aren't made with either potato or rice but instead with cauliflower. There's the Cauliflower Spanish "Rice" from A Veggie Venture and Cauliflower Mashed "Potatoes" from Kitchen Parade.
Keep Reading ->>>

Tayberry Cornbread

I saw a recipe for Blueberry Cornbread in the weekly newsletter from CUESA (the Center for Urban Education and Sustainable Agriculture) - the folks who make the San Francisco Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market happen - and bookmarked it immediately.

Odd, because 99% of my cooking is savory and I tend to avoid having desserts around unless I'm going to distribute all but a serving to others. I'm no saint, and I'm very well acquainted with my weaknesses - but this dish spoke to me. I like that it does not have much sugar and there was something about that juicy, bubbly fruit nestled in the cornbread that I could not resist.

...and I had tayberries that weren't getting any younger. Tayberries are a cross between a logan berry (itself a cross between a blackberry and a red raspberry) and a black raspberry, developed in Scotland in 1979. It is a very fragile berry when ripe and I've never seen them in the grocery store. The taste is a bit more wine-y and a lot more subtle than a raspberry and I absolutely love them. They make a fantastic jam - even a little sugar makes the already lovely flavor intensify exponentially. Normally, I buy them in smaller quantities and just eat them (my default mode for summer fruits).

I purchased them on Saturday and by Sunday I knew I'd have to either make something, eat them all or risk them developing mold - even in the refrigerator stored in as shallow a layer as possible to keep them from being crushed.

One note: I used the cornmeal that I had in the pantry - a coarse grind that is better suited to a hearty polenta than to this cornbread. I will use a fine grind the next time. I think it affected my batter and cooking time (it took about 12 more minutes to cook than the recipe specified).

Blueberries, blackberries, raspberries - any juicy berry will do the trick if you don't have access to tayberries. And definitely cook it in a cast iron skillet if you have one - I love the way the crust turns out. If not, a Pyrex 8" square casserole will do the trick.

Oh - I used twice the amount of berries called for - very smart move on my part.

The remainder are wrapped tightly as individual servings in the freezer but I ate every last speck of the serving I had. I think this dish would make a great base for a shortcake-type dessert. A square split horizontally would not be perfect due to the clumps of berries but who cares about perfection when it's topped with more tayberries lightly sugared and just slightly macerated under a dollop of whipped cream and more berries?

Recipe: Tayberry Cornbread

Adapted from Kimberly Hasselbrink's (The Year In Food) adaptation of a Sunset Magazine recipe.

Yield: about 9 servings

Ingredients:
1 cup buttermilk
2 large eggs
4 tablespoons butter, melted, divided
1 1/3 cups cornmeal
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon sea salt
2 cups fresh tayberries, divided (...or blueberries, raspberries, blackberries...)

Method:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees - oven rack middle.
In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the eggs, buttermilk and 3 tablespoons of melted butter. In a separate bowl, combine cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Fold dry mixture into wet. Gently fold 1 cup berries into the batter.
If using a skillet, warm it over a low flame and pour the remaining tablespoon of butter in the skillet – enough to coat. If using a 8" square Pyrex baking dish, pour the remaining tablespoon of butter in the backing dish and use a pastry brush, or crumpled piece of paper towel to butter the inside of the dish.
Pour batter into skillet. Distribute the remaining 1 cup of berries over the top of the batter and push them down into the batter, but leave a little showing on top.
Bake at 375 degrees for about 20-25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Remove from oven and let cool for 10 minutes. Cut into 9 wedges (round skillet) or squares (8" square pyrex)

Beet Smoothies ♥ Two Recipes

Beet Smoothie

Today's new smoothie recipes, both starting with beets. The first is an unusual smoothie, just two-ingredients long, with cheek-pink color that would make a peacock blush. The second pairs mango with beets, with no added sugar, just plant-based sweetness.

But stick with me here, okay? Give me 30 seconds to make the case for making a smoothie with beets.

We know that beets have a natural sweetness – hence the garden beet's cousin, the sugar beet, accounts for a third of the world's sugar production. (Source: Wikipedia.)

The first recipe starts with pickled beets – that means that there's sweetness but a welcome note of sharpness, too.

This means that taste-wise, a beet smoothie isn't as outlandish as its admittedly outlandish pink color!

Tastes differ but I gotta tell you, I love beet smoothies. I didn't set out to create a beet smoothie recipe but one day I was out of fruit and wanted a morning smoothie – the Quick Pickled Beets in the refrigerator called to me. So simple! But if you're not ready to go for an all-beet smoothie yet, try the recipe for a Beet and Mango Smoothie!
Keep Reading ->>>

Grated beet with mashed yam

Steam the beet and yam, and leave them to cool. Then make this nutritious, highly-coloured alternative to the common potato salad normally served in Canada's summer picnics.

Grated beet with mashed yam

Ingredients:

1 medium-sized beet, stalks removed

1 medium-sized yam or sweet potato

2 cups water

¼-½ cup plain Greek yoghurt

2 tablespoon fresh lime juice

¼ teaspoon ground ginger

sea salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste

Preparation:

1. Wash beet and yam. Place them in the steamer basket of a pressure cooker. Add 2 cups water. Bring the pressure cooker to a boil (following instructions in your manual). Reduce heat to medium and cook the vegetables for 10 minutes. Turn off the heat and leave pressure cooker to rest until the safety latch is released. Remove vegetables to an air-tight container to cool. Discard pot liquor.

2. When cool, slip skin off beet. Discard the skin. Grate the beet. Set aside.

3. Peel the yam. Discard the skin. Place the yam in a mixing bowl. Mash it with a potato masher or use a beater to whip it to a puree.

4. Add grated beet, yoghurt, lime juice, and ginger to the mashed yam. Mix.

5. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve immediately.

How to Eat More Vegetables: Tip #14

We all know we should eat more vegetables. But how, how do we do that, really? What real-life tips and ideas work? How can we build our lives around the healthiest of all foods, vegetables? Most Saturdays, the 'veggie evangelist' shares a practical tip or idea from her own experience, from her readers' experience, from other bloggers.

Today's image, of course, comes from the new logo unveiled by the USDA this week. It's the new "plate logo" that divides a plate in half for vegetables and fruit, the other half into protein and grains, with a glass for dairy. Check the new website, ChooseMyPlate.gov and click the five areas, see the easy lists of what fits into each one.

So what's today's tip?

Keep Reading ->>>

Tunip and Beet Soup - Pink Food! With Bacon!

...taken with my cell phone - the battery contact problem well known to Canon for years before I bought my Powershot got me.

I am so far behind with posts it's not funny. Very soon, we'll be celebrating Cinco de Mayo with a Posole post - see? In the mean time, since we've been having a (very) cool, cloudy and rainy spring (for us - I don't want to hear any bitchin' from the NW or wherever your weather's crappy, okay?) a root vegetable soup seemed like a good idea.

I made this soup because I had a bunch of leftover beet scraps from my failed baked beet chip experiment. Failed because while I have awesome knife skills (it's true), I am not (yet) a human mandoline able to cut identical, perfect even slices and the chips were either leathery (too thick), too crispy (too thin - read: burned on the edges) or uneven (leathery on one side, burned on the other). I also had the scraps from three turnips I cubed and roasted - in total about 3/4 cup of leftover diced beets and 1 1/2 to 2 cups of diced turnip. What to do? Make soup.

Oh - I think the golden turnips are referred to as rutabagas. The purple and white turnips are, turnips.

I like beets, but a huge bowl of exclusively beet soup can be a little overwhelming as much as I admire the earthy taste. The turnips do a nice job of mellowing that out a little. Oh and I garnished it with bacon and two of the too-leathery but perfectly good tasting beet chips. This is very simple but it was very satisfying.

Recipe: Turnip and Beet Soup Garnished with Bacon

Serves 2 as a starter - easily doubled

Blender or food processor. An immersion blender will do, but the soup will have a little more texture
Sauce pan 2 quart
Small saute pan

Ingredients

1 3/4 cups peeled, diced turnip (I used golden turnips a/k/a rutabagas)
3/4 cups peeled, diced beets
2 medium garlic cloves, minced
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, divided (plus a little extra)
hot water (about 1/2 cup)
2 cups stock (vegetable or chicken - water will do just fine, too)
3 slices smoked bacon cut crosswise in 1/4" lardons, i.e. strips.
salt
ground pepper

Method
Heat a little over one tablespoon of the olive oil in the sauce pan on medium-high. When the oil starts to shimmer, add the diced beets and turnips along with a couple of pinches of salt. Adjust the heat down if necessary and cook the turnips and beets but don't let them caramelize (brown) for about 5-6 minutes or as long as the pan doesn't dry out. Clear a spot in the middle of the sauce pan and add the minced garlic. Pour about two teaspoons of olive oil on top of the minced garlic and let it cook until the underside is the color of light straw - watch that it doesn't burn.

Stir to incorporate the garlic with the turnips and beets (Burnips? At least it's better than "Teets", agreed?) and cook 3 more minutes on medium low. Add one-half cup of hot water, cover and turn the heat down until the water is at a low simmer. Cook until the turnips and beets are quite tender - maybe about 5 to 8 minutes.

Heat up the small (8" will do) saute pan with a teaspoon or so of olive oil on medium high. When the oil shimmers, add the bacon lardons and cook until done. Drain on paper towels.

Stir-in 2 cups of stock, bring the mixture back to a full simmer (uncovered) and cook for 5 more minutes. Taste and adjust the seasoning - definitely add some pepper. If you do add seasoning, simmer for a couple more minutes. The vegetables should be quite soft.

Take the pan off the burner and let it cool down or even refrigerate it up to a day ahead of time. Make sure your soup has cooled down considerably. Don't fill the food processor or blender more than halfway and start it on a very low speed and hold a folded up towel tightly on the lid (if you're using a blender) before you start the machine. THAT kitchen accident would look like a bad road accident with you as its primary -and scalded- victim. You know, I was going to reference "wood chipper" in that last sentence, but since we're talking about food and all, now that you have that lovely image in your head...

Puree the soup until very smooth. Taste and adjust the seasoning and reheat. Serve in bowls garnished with a generous handful of the crispy bacon.