Ripe Summer Tomatoes

Walking through the Greenmarket this time of year, you can't help but realize that tomato season has arrived.  The big gleaming beefsteaks are everywhere, and the heirlooms are just now making their noble debut.  Despite the fact that the vendors are actually selling these things, as I stroll through the stalls I somehow feel as though I'm the lucky recipient of a bumper crop, and thus grab at the bounty indiscriminately, thinking of the money exchanged only after I find myself lugging pounds and pounds of tomatoes home.

So once home I must think like an Italian mama during the summer harvest season.  What to do with the red orbs taking over the kitchen counters?  Tomato sauce, quite obviously.  But it's been so obscenely hot in New York lately that I can barely bring myself to turn on the stove, so long, slow cooking has been out of the question.  I was in a bit of a quandary.  How long would these things last before exploding all over my countertops?  Could I stand being in the equivalent of a sweat lodge while they simmered down into sauce on the stove?

Turns out, thanks to John Tuturro of all people, I didn't have to make the hard choice.  Upon reading his recipe for pasta with raw tomato sauce in the Wall Street Journal last weekend, I knew I had found the recipe that would save me and my overrun kitchen.

The sauce is once of those stunningly simple but amazingly delicious things that Mediterranean cultures do so well...skinned and seeded tomato chopped finely (I know blanching and peeling tomatoes can be fiddly, but I always do it as I cannot stand tomato skin in sauces), mixed with some grated garlic, basil leaves, salt (Maldon is perfect here) and olive oil and left to macerate for as long as you have (I usually give it at least a half hour).

And then throw in some hot pasta, stir, et voila.

Summer in a bowl.

Luckily the heat has broken for a wee moment so the remainder of my stash is, as I speak, bubbling away cheerfully on the stove with a chopped onion and a few basil stalks, as the tomato maven Paul Bertolli suggests in his cookbook, which has become a favorite of mine.  Given that his is the only tome I've seen thus far that devotes and entire chapter to tomatoes, I'm prepared to follow his lead in the area.  I'm even thinking a few jars of conserva are next...one needs diversity after all.

The Great Funk

Talk to just about anyone in New York at this time of year, and they'll tell you that they're sick of everything.  Three months of cold and snow will get a person down.  In fact, this is probably about the only time of year when 9 out of 10 New Yorkers will tell you that they would happily move to L.A.

I am not immune to the great funk, I admit.  As much as I rhapsodize about the seasons, the end of winter is not my favorite time of year.  I drag myself around, living my life, going through the motions, but by the end of the day I have very little interest in much of anything but the TV and the couch.  And when Paul is out of town, as he is now, that tendency is only amplified.

Sadly, this means that food becomes a bit of an afterthought.  For all of the talk one hears of wonderful winter braises, I have no interest in initiating such an undertaking these days.  But at the same time, takeout somehow only makes things more pathetic, so some sort of a compromise is called for, and that compromise is miso soup.

It requires so little effort I'm not even sure it could be called cooking, but I enjoy it immensely just the same.  Just boil a couple of cups of water, add a tablespoon or two of miso paste (the amount varies wildly depending on the miso you use, taste as you go), perhaps some soy sauce if, like me, you ended up with some organic miso that has almost no salt (rookie mistake, obviously) and you have your base.  Throw in whatever you've got in your refrigerator next.  Chicken, tofu, mushrooms, I absolutely must have some sort of leafy green...and then, most importantly, the noodles.  I find it critical to have those crinkly, guilty pleasure ramen type noodles, but this is a highly personal decision, so I leave it to your own good judgment to choose your carb.

And then, after no more than five minutes of effort, I once again sink into the couch, in front of the TV, with a steaming bowl of goodness, contently waiting out the cold.

Genius in Tomato

Wall of passata at Eataly

When it comes to home cooking, there's not much new and different to discover.  It's all pretty much been done by the many generations that came before.  Of course, the Microplane changed everyone's life for the better a few years back, and the rice cooker was quite a revelation for me once I got over my snobbery and finally took it down out of the cabinet to try it out, but these are rare occurrences.  Usually as a home cook I just go along, happy to find nothing more than a new cheese that I enjoy melting on toast.

But the other day I came across something new and exciting enough (to me) to put a bit of a spring in my step.  Have you heard of passata before?  Usually packed in tall thick bottles, it is essentially tomato puree.  I don't know if the puree is a more pleasing texture or taste than what you normally find in cans, or if I just like the packaging better than a can (love being able to dump out a few tablespoons here and there and reseal), but I'm absolutely obsessed.

A recipe calls for a few ripe tomatoes in the dead of winter?  No matter, throw in a bit of passata.  It gives the color and taste of tomato without having to deal with those hard specimens at the supermarket or that unpleasant texture that canned tomatoes often have if you end up biting the wrong part (am I the only one totally grossed out by the remnants of tomato skin and stems?).  It's like summer in a bottle.  And at this time of year, we can use all of the fortifications against winter available.  

This Time of Year

I seem to forget each year how utterly exhausting January can be.  After lounging around in California for a week and a half at Christmas, working here and there but by no means all day, and taking a few days off back in New York with my beloved for New Year's, spending a full day in the office and then going out for evening activities is terribly difficult.  And somehow every year the days are busier in January than you ever expected they could be, and everyone wants to "catch up after the holidays" so evenings are booked solid.

But at the same time it's bitterly cold outside and all you really want to do is hunker down in cozy clothes under a cozy blanket, eat cozy food and watch movies or perhaps bad wedding reality shows on the WE channel.  Perhaps emerging only if properly dressed to do some outdoor activity in a pristine location as we did last weekend when we went snowshoeing up at the Mohonk Mountain House.

There's a very unique culinary feeling about January...I'm not in the mood for anything elaborate, just satisfying food with few ingredients that can simmer away, untended, as I snuggle down on the couch.  But at the same time, after the excesses of the holidays I'm not looking for anything as serious as braised short ribs or cassoulet...I want something cleansing and nourishing and light.

It is this unique need that develops at specific times of the year that has made me fall in love with Nigel Slater's The Kitchen Diaries (I have already fallen in love with all of his other books after all).

My parents bought it for me some time ago as a gift and I had periodically flipped through it in a rather cursory way, knowing that I liked the book but not really understanding why.

But now that I have pulled it off of the shelf in a more serious way, I see that Mr. Slater's diary about what he ate throughout one year of his life (and the accompanying recipes) is wonderful to cook along to in real time.  Just as I yearn for something hearty yet easily digested on the first day of the new year, so does he, and he provides just the recipe to fill that yearning (an indian scented pumpkin soup in case you are wondering).

One evening when I was looking for something hot (not an unusual desire at this time of year) but easy and clean, I took his lead and threw together a pot of thai scented mussels and was absolutely sated.

The other night I even transgressed and wandered a bit into February to make some chicken (in my case pork, as I could find no reasonably priced ground chicken) patties in broth (served over rice in my case) which were delightfully easy and delicious and homey.

And this evening, in addition to the bulgar with eggplant and mint that I made for dinner tonight and for lunches this week, I was in the mood for something aromatic and sweet, so I immediately flipped to his ginger cake.

And came out with this

which I will not be, as Mr. Slater suggests, letting mature for a day or two.  Rather, I'll be cutting into it in short order, reveling in it's warmth and spice and January-ness.

This cooking alongside a seasonal cook thing may be a full-year endeavor for me...or perhaps when the sun comes out and the warmth comes rushing in I'll lose interest entirely?  I certainly hope not...I'd be missing out on loads of excellent and appealingly easy recipes.

Back at the Market

It goes without saying that this is a fabulous time of year for those who haunt farmers markets.  Usually I wax on about my local greenmarket starting sometime around the end of June, but this year I was so distraught about missing cherry season that I just couldn't bring myself to even speak of the place.  By the way, I have no idea how I missed out on my favorite fruit this year...I was out of town for a few weeks of course, but was the season unusually short this year?  Anyone know?

Anyway, last Saturday the bounty was just too, well, bountiful, to ignore, and I felt compelled to buy up half the market.  I could barely carry all of my loot, the weight of it was so great.  I came stunningly close to hailing a cab rather than taking the subway, but my utter and absolute abhorrence of New York City cabs won out in the end and I struggled home like a poor beaten down pack mule instead.  But just look at the treasures I was able to gather.

I had lost a few window box herbs during one of my trips out of town, so picked up a couple of new pots...new thyme, marjoram and tarragon (out with the dead sage and lemon verbena).  They would be well pampered in the Lower East Side Ecological Center's potting soil...

...the product of all of those food scraps I bring every week to be composted.

And these San Marzano tomatoes from the ladies at Cherry Lane Farms were just to die for.

I later cooked them down into the sweetest, most delicious tomato sauce for a gorgeous pasta dinner.

I may have to start canning them though, they really are quite special.

It is clearly kirby cucumber season!  The cukes are all over the market, and the prices are incredibly low, not just by Greenmarket standards, but by any standards at all.  I picked up a few pounds for pickles.

As we speak I've got a massive jar of bread and butter pickles in my fridge and an even bigger jar of Michael Ruhlman's pickles fermenting in the bedroom (I put them on my side of the bed, let's just not tell Paul about them, shall we?  Last time I cured/fermented anything in the bedroom I hung various bits of meat from his bike and he was less than pleased).

The best peaches in the market are from the Cheerful Cherry.  Last summer it was a quirky older woman and her husband handing them out.  This year, I believe that, sadly, the woman has passed away.   But she quite oddly has been replaced by a gaggle of the most stylish English girls you've ever met.  Tall, thin, gorgeous and with impeccably unstudied style a la Kate Moss, they will I'm sure be discovered in absolutely no time.

Wonderful for them of course, but I will miss that je ne sais quoi that they add to the market experience.

These peaches and the intensely sweet blueberries (from a very nice vendor who's name escapes me) made it into just about every breakfast I ate for several days afterwards.

With ricotta and honey,

and then along with this incredible bread (a malted prune loaf spread with ricotta).

Often times Flying Pigs Farm has sold out of sweet Italian sausage by the time I get to them, but this day was different, so I happily picked up a package.

Now I find the sanctimonious free range people just as irritating as the next guy, but I have to tell you they do (annoyingly) have a point.  This humanely raised pork is really like nothing you've had before, and is completely worth the price.  I put one or two of these sausages in with some pasta and plain tomato sauce once and Paul proclaimed it to be the best thing he'd ever eaten.  I'm not sure I would go that far, but it was far better than such a simple dish had any business being, and I attribute that completely to the sausages.

Thanks to my very crafty sister I have the pleasure of a new market bag (my old one, which she also made for me officially died).

The outside is a natural canvas and the interior is lined with the cutest oilcloth (to avoid any persistent staining from overripe fruit you see).  She has occasionally threatened to make these bags en masse and sell them.  I think she should, don't you?

All of my veggies and dairy products were in the bag.  The milk was presently made into yogurt, the zucchini made its way into a few pastas, and those beets are destined for Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's beetroot and chocolate brownies.  What became of the tuscan kale?  This:

Turns out that if you've got good kale to begin with it is actually quite nice raw in a salad with a few other veggies, some pumpkin seeds and a nice garlicky vinaigrette.  And if you mix up a big batch of this, it makes a wonderful ready-made pasta sauce to have on hand.  Just throw the lot in a pan and saute, maybe with a few tomatoes if you have them around and some nice cheese and pasta and voila!  Readymade dinner.

Heirloom tomatoes are really starting to take over the market these days, as are the plums.  I fear the peaches may be on their way out soon, but I suppose that just makes room for other gorgeous things...

Odds and Ends

This summer my time in New York has largely been spent indoors, avoiding the wall of heat just beyond my front door.  Rather than skipping through the streets in sundresses and kicky sandals in the pure bright sun, my activities have resembled those I might undertake in the deep of winter more than in the height of summer.  So to that end, I have spent most of the last week immersed in DVDs of Season 1 of Friday Night Lights, which is my excuse for the light posting this week.

I came to this show late...Season 4 I believe...but became instantly obsessed.  A friend of mine from Texas turned me onto it, promising that the show resembled his adolescent experience in the great republic to a frightening degree.  Watching Season 1, seeing where it all began for the cast of characters I've come to know and love, is like listening to a successful yet enigmatic acquaintance with a knack for storytelling reveal to you how they got to where they are today.  Engrossing and illuminating in equal measures.

But that said, the crippling heat has broken, which means that I can tear myself away from the TV and once again face cooking.  This time of year makes me yearn for full vegetable drawers, counters piled with delicate summer fruit but oddly, a relatively empty freezer and pantry.  I like to stock up when the cold weather is approaching, and I like a clean slate against which to do it.  Which means that I spend a lot of time over the summer months trying to figure out how to use odds and ends in creative and delicious ways.

There aren't too many food traditions in my family...everyone has always like to experiment so repeated dishes were few and far between.  But I have inherited the delicious poppyseed bread recipe, a love of farmers markets and the inability to throw out a banana.  The majority of my family members have almost always got a bunch of blackened overripe bananas in the freezer.  I am of course no different, so the other day set out to figure out a home for a bunch of my own.

 
I was also trying to figure out a use for a stray bit of quinoa, so turned to my favorite source of whole grain quickbread recipes, Deborah Madison.  She of course had the perfect recipe...quinoa muffins.  I made a loaf rather than muffins and threw in some bananas in place of some of the yogurt.  Perfectly crunchy exterior, golden (in look and taste) interior, I was very pleased with the home I'd found for my dwindling supplies.

Quinoa Banana Bread
adapted from Deborah Madison's Quinoa Muffin recipe


1 cup cooked or 1/2 cup raw quinoa
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 cup quinoa flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup butter, melted, or vegetable oil
3/4 cup yogurt or buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 ripe bananas, mashed

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Spray or oil one loaf pan.

If cooking quinoa, rinse it well, put it in a small saucepan with 1 cup of water, and bring to a boil.  Simmer, covered, until the water is absorbed, about 15 minutes, then drain.

Meanwhile, combine the flours, salt, soda and sugar in a mixing bowl (sift if you so desire).  Beat the egg with the oil, buttermilk and vanilla, and then mix in the mashed banana.  Stir the wet ingredients into the dry, add the quinoa, and mix with a spatula, scraping up from the bottom so that the flour is mixed in thoroughly.  Pour the batter into the loaf pan and bake until firm and light brown on top, 50-60 minutes.

A Lull

After the initial euphoria that comes with the dawning of spring, there comes a lull.  The novelty of asparagus and peonies has worn off, and as welcome a sight as the arugula, chard and mustard greens are, they cannot stand up to the sexiness of the coming summer fruits and vegetables.  So it is at this time of year that I always turn to rhubarb for a little pick-me-up.

Is it a fruit, is it a vegetable?  Who knows, who really cares in the end.  It's the oddity of it that I like, the bracing tartness disguised as a rosy celery.

In past years I've always stuck to roasting or slow cooking it to make a compote, to be eaten with yogurt for breakfast or for a particularly austere dessert.  And this year I did allocate a bit of my stash to that use, as I find it comforting to have a jar of this astringent mush in the refrigerator.  A bit of white wine (perfect way to use up that last bit of a bottle that's been in the fridge a smidge too long), sugar and orange zest mixed together and then a half hour in a 350 degree oven and I had some gorgeous, restorative spoon food.

But I had gone a bit overboard at the farmer's market and had armloads of rhubarb stalks in my refrigerator.  With the sparkling, warm weather of late I've had summery cocktails on the brain, so it seemed only appropriate to make a bit of rhubarb syrup that might be added to prosecco, gin rickeys or whatever else strikes your fancy.  Perhaps a rhubarb Italian soda would be nice for those non-imbibers?

I simmered pieces of rhubarb with enough water to nearly cover the stalks, some orange rind and a sprinkling of sugar until all of the pink had been leached from the rhubarb.  Once the mixture had been strained I added a bit more sweetness via my favorite new discovery, agave syrup (I know I'm late to the party on this one but I do love it just the same) and decanted into a cute little bottle I picked up at the Container Store.  I think this may be my obsession for the summer...fruity syrups.  Hibiscus syrup is next on my list.

And lastly, more to use up some tart dough I had in the refrigerator from this recipe over at 101 Cookbooks than anything else, I made a rhubarb and ricotta crostata.  And just because I was feeling my domestic goddess bones at the time, I made the ricotta.  The undertaking was not particularly hard (I have to say the lemon juice method you may find online did not work at all for me, but the buttermilk method was a breeze), and is most certainly worth the effort if you don't have access to outstanding ricotta, but frankly Di Palo's ricotta was better than mine.  But at least my curiosity about the matter has now been satisfied.      

So after a bit of rolling, stirring, chopping and baking, I was left with this, to be enjoyed morning noon and night, whenever the mood might strike.

Perhaps onto Jamie Oliver's rhubarb-stuffed duck next?


Rhubarb Crostata

1 batch of tart dough (I often use Martha Stewart's incomparable pate brisee recipe, but I love the whole grains in this recipe as well)

Ricotta Filling

7 oz fresh ricotta, drained in a colander lined with a paper towel or cheesecloth unless your ricotta is already quite dry

2 teaspoons sugar

zest of 1/2 of an orange

Rhubarb Filling

9 oz rhubarb (1 1/2 stalks, about 2 cups), sliced into 1/4 inch slices

3 tablespoons sugar

zest of 1/2 of an orange

pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Stir together the rhubarb filling ingredients and leave to macerate.  Stir together the ricotta filling ingredients, making sure to smooth the ricotta as you do so.

Roll dough into a circle of about 1/4 inch in thickness, and transfer to a parchment lined baking sheet.  

Spread the ricotta in a circle in the center of the dough, leaving an approximately 2-inch border on all edges.  Then pile the rhubarb on top of the ricotta, including any juice that may have accumulated.  Fold edges of the dough over the side, partially covering the fruit.

Bake for approximately 40 minutes, until the fruit is bubbling and tender.

The Rich Nut

I come from a family that cooks together, so I like to have company in the kitchen.  Sadly, in my tiny kitchen (and in the kitchens of most of my friends) company causes more stress than pleasure.  But it was not always so.  While in graduate school I, along with many of my friends, lived in the land of big kitchens and affordable apartments.  So communal cooking did actually occur, and quite harmoniously.  

One time in particular I recall three friends and I pooled our efforts and prepared a feast for many.  It was a banner day because it was the first time I realized that those that I had previously assumed were unfamiliar with the kitchen were in fact excellent cooks.  Vivian provided the decadent restaurant-worthy dessert, and Laia introduced me to a main dish from her native Spain that I had never had the pleasure of tasting before...her great aunt's pork in tomato and almond sauce.

I was thinking back on the meal fondly the other day...so fondly in fact that I set out to recreate the dish.  I could not simply ask for the recipe, as during the night in question she had been working off of a few scribbled notes that she had taken from a phone conversation with her mother.  Quantities were not included in said notes.  It was all trial and error and the results were wonderful.

So I set about searing, sauteing, simmering and blending,

enjoying the process of tasting my way through a dish.  Tasting in such detail was a revelation as it highlighted what a wonderful addition the almonds are to the sauce (a stark before and after).  They provided a heft and richness, yet the sauce remained light, I suppose due to the lack of dairy products.  Gotta love that Mediterranean diet.     

It occurred to me that the Italians use walnuts in much the same way that the Spanish apparently use almonds...or in some cases they use them as the main feature in the sauce, rather than as a supporting player (demonstrated very deliciously here).  My head is fairly spinning with all of the other nut possibilities...cashews with some sort of indian sauce, peanuts with some spice...far too many good options!

Pork Chops in Almond Sauce (which may or may not resemble that of Laia's great aunt)

Serves 4

4 pork chops, bone in (Laia used thin boneless slices of loin, I leave the choice up to you)

2-3 tablespoons olive oil

1 carrot, diced

2 ribs of celery, diced

1 medium onion, diced

1-2 bay leaves

3-4 sprigs of thyme, leaves striped of stem

1/2 cup white wine

28 oz can of whole peeled tomatoes

1 cup raw almonds (or to taste)

salt to taste

Heat olive oil in a dutch oven or other heavy bottomed pan.  Salt chops generously and brown on each side until golden.  Remove chops to a plate.  Saute carrot, celery and onion in remaining fat until onion is translucent.  Add bay leaves and thyme and saute for a minute or two.  Deglaze the pan with wine, and add tomatoes, breaking up with a spoon.  Bring to boil and reduce to simmer.  Simmer for 10 minutes, and add chops back to sauce, simmering at low heat for another 20 minutes.  

With a large spoon, remove as much of the sauce as you comfortably can to a food processor or blender. Blend almonds with the sauce, adding a bit at a time and tasting, so that you add only enough to satisfy your own palate.  Return sauce to the pan with the pork chops, simmer for a minute or two and serve.

In the Raw

I spent many years feeling ambivalent towards asparagus.  It may have had something to do with the fact that I grew up in California and therefore had little sense of the seasons.  Near perfect weather year round (and access to great produce year round) makes the idea of a spring awakening seem absurd.

But now that I've been on the east coast long enough to have internalized the rhythms of a more extreme weather zone, spring and I have become very close friends indeed.  And as asparagus is one of the first harbingers of spring (and is considerably more delicious than ramps, another of the main indicators of spring), it has become one of my favorite vegetables.

In an effort to take full advantage of the asparagus season I have gotten in the habit of picking up a bunch of two at the Greenmarket each week, which means I have quite a few spears to contend with at any given time.  I've steamed them, poached them, blanched them, roasted them and thrown them in no end of pasta and risotto dishes.

But one evening as I was preparing the asparagus for dinner, washing the bunch and snapping off the tough ends, I noticed myself employing a "one for me, one for the pot" philosophy.  Crunching away on the raw asparagus I wondered why on earth I'd been bothering to cook it...asparagus is so delicious raw!  Assuming, I guess, that you have good farm fresh asparagus that is.

So I decided to take advantage of my access to such enviable asparagus and make a salad featuring the stuff.  Arugula (adult please, I can't take any more baby greens), a lemon vinaigrette and loads of parmesan cheese are, as it turns out, gorgeous accompaniments to my favorite vegetable of the season.

Arugula and Asparagus Salad

Vinaigrette

(I always make this in the bowl that I plan to serve the salad in to save washing up)

Juice of half of a lemon

Good pinch of salt

Olive oil to taste (I like it quite tart, but find the dressing is right once it becomes translucent assuming you are whisking consistently as the oil is added)

half a bunch of asparagus, tough ends snipped off, sliced in half inch intervals
a few handfuls of arugula, roughly chopped
a handful of grated parmesan

Whisk together vinaigrette in a good sized salad bowl.  Toss in asparagus and arugula, toss in vinaigrette.  Throw in parmesan and toss thoroughly.

Greenery

I find very little joy in eating most of the produce that is available during the winter. Much of it is limp and tasteless, having spent far too long on a plane coming from whatever distant locale is lending us northeasterners its warmth for the season.


I spend much of those dark cold months eating like an eastern European serf...lots of potatoes with the odd carrot thrown in. I treat myself here and there with some butter lettuce and a piquant vinaigrette. You can imagine that come springtime my body is screaming for some serious green.


But unfortunately, while my body is screaming the greenmarket is not yet providing much relief. So I was forced to pick up something quite unfamiliar the other day to sate my craving.

Unfamiliar to you as well? Chickweed my darlings, chickweed. As I stood a the Paffenroth booth mulling over the purchase a woman came up next me to and whispered "It reduces you". Done. I could use some reducing as swimsuit season starts to creep up on me.


Inspired by Jen's fabulously healthy (and admirably green flecked) breakfasts over at Simply Breakfast, I began by mixing my new leafy green into an omelette on Sunday. Tasted just like a fresh, grassy version of spinach. I adored it.


As the week began I integrated it, sauteed, into my daily poached egg.


By 7:30 a.m. I had already fulfilled at least one of my veggie servings for the day. Then it is onto the braised collard greens I've been eating at lunch. Delicious. And oh so green.

Peas and Cockles

Work took Paul to the west coast recently (to an RV in Palm Springs more specifically) so I was on my own for dinner for a night last week. I believe that it is incredibly important to indulge myself when I'm on my own...after all, who else will? And as you may have deduced, food is often involved when I do so.


As Judith Jones' new book dedicated to recipes for one has not yet come in for me at the library, in planning my solitary home cooked meal I opted for my favorite standby: shellfish. As you may recall, I often rely on mussels for an elegant, solitary weekday meal. They take no more than five minutes to prepare, most preparations include booze of some sort, and Paul's not the hugest fan so it makes perfect sense to eat them while he's away.


But spring is upon us...the scenery around me is changing by the day at this point so I was in the mood for something new and different. When I saw the New Zealand cockles at the fish counter I simply couldn't resist. And the pea shoots in the produce section were just too green and seasonally appropriate to ignore, so I picked them up as well.


Now Suzanne Goin's Sunday Suppers At Lucques is one of my absolute favorite cookbooks, but not the one I would normally turn to for anything quick and easy. I tend to reserve her gorgeous dishes for company (how absurd of me now that I think about it...why should I feed company better than I feed myself?), but when I came across this recipe how could I possibly resist?

And after laying eyes on this image of the cute little striped cockles laced with green, any doubt I may have been harboring about the undertaking was erased immediately.

Obviously a few tweaks were made...I ignored calls for green garlic champ and brown scones, threw in frozen petite pois rather than freshly shelled garden peas and as I only had lamb stock in the freezer substituted that for chicken, but the result was just as delicious as all of her other recipes are (and considerably easier).

I officially love the idea of greens with shellfish now...it reduces my need for bread (I have been known to go through the better part of a baguette with a bowl of mussels), obviates the need for a salad and, perhaps more importantly, makes me feel as though I'm eating a true, well thought out meal. A luxury, solitary or not, we all deserve.

Buttered Cockles With Peas and Pea Shoots

Adapted from Suzanne Goin's Sunday Suppers at Lucques

Note: I found 1 pound of cockles was enough for one serving, so adjust the quantities (although frankly there's no need to be particularly precise with this recipe) depending on how many mouths you're feeding.

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

1 1/4 cups thinly sliced spring onions plus 1 cup thinly sliced spring onion tops

1 tablespoons thyme leaves

3 pounds cockles, or small Manila clams, well scrubbed

1/2 cup white wine

1 cup chicken stock

1 3/4 cups peas (2 pounds in the pod)

6 tablespoons unsalted butter

1/2 lemon, for juicing

1/4 cup chopped parsley

4 ounces pea shoots

Heat a large wide-bottomed saute pan or Dutch oven over high heat for 2 minutes. Swirl in the olive oil and wait 1 minute. Add the spring onions, thyme, 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Cook about two minutes, stirring often until the onions are just wilted. Add the cockles to the pan and stir well to coat them with the onions and oil. Cook 2 minutes, add the white wine and cover the pan.

Steam the cockles for 3 to 4 minutes, until they open. Remove the lid and pour in the stock. When the stock comes to a boil, add the peas. Cook 1 minute (I do less if using petite frozen peas) and then add the butter, stirring to incorporate. Season with a squeeze of lemon juice and taste for seasoning. Discard any unopened cockles.

Bread In An Instant

I thoroughly enjoy exploring new cookbooks, especially the ones that give me a new perspective on familiar dishes or techniques. I am just as happy today with my trio of British cookbooks as I was when I bought them two weeks ago, especially with Mr. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.

My lunches for the past two weeks (I am a very dedicated brown bagger) have come from his River Cottage Everyday, and his recipes have even made it into friends' dinner parties after a few dishes caught the eye of my various visitors as they idly flipped through the book as it lay about in my living room.

But the real revelation that he has facilitated for me has been regarding bread...one of my favorite subjects...soda bread to be exact.

As the dear Mr. F-W points out in the preamble to the recipe, sometimes when the bread box is empty, all you want to is replenish it quickly. No rising, no waiting, no starter, no proofing. Just immediate fresh bread. His solution of soda bread is one I would never have thought of.

I've always considered soda bread to be a component appropriate strictly for the breakfast table, as the versions I've had generally seem to have currants, which somehow makes me think of scones, which in turn makes me think of early morning pastries. But this does not have to be the case! Raisins may be omitted, savory elements may be added, and you have a bread appropriate for any time of day.

Simply combine flour, baking soda and yogurt (along with a few other choice ingredients),

stir like mad, but not for too long!

Knead for a few seconds at most, cut a hot cross bun like cross in the top (although perhaps not so deep as I did...my loaf opened up a bit dramatically) and voila, you have your daily bread in less than an hour.

Classic Soda Bread

from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's River Cottage Everyday

500 g flour (or enough to make a sticky but not too sticky dough)

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon fine sea salt

400 ml buttermilk or yogurt thinned with milk

A little milk, if necessary

Sift the flour and bicarbonate of soda into a large mixing bowl and stir in the salt. Make a well in the center and pour in the buttermilk, stirring as you go. If necessary, add a tablespoon or two of milk to bring the mixture together; it should form a soft dough, just this side of sticky. Tip it out onto a lightly floured work surface and knead lightly for about a minute, just long enough to pull it together into a loose ball but no longer--you need to get it into the oven while the baking soda is still doing its stuff. You're not looking for the kind of smooth, elastic dough you'd get with a yeast-based bread.

Put the round of dough on a lightly floured baking sheet and dust generously with flour. Mark a deep cross in it with a sharp, serrated knife, cutting about two thirds of the way through the loaf. Put it in an oven preheated to 200 degrees C and bake for 40-45 minutes, until the loaf sounds hollow when tapped underneath.

Cool on a wire rack if like a crunchy crust, or wrap in a clean tea towel if you prefer a soft crust.

Varition: Six-seed soda bread

Mix together 2 tablespoons each of sunflower, pumpkin, sesame, poppy and linseeds (I just used whatever I had in the house, which did not include this full list!), plus 1 teaspoon of fennel seeds; set aside. Follow the main recipe but use half white flour and half wholemeal flour. Add all but 1 tablespoon of the seeds to the dry ingredients before proceeding as above. After cutting a cross in the top of the loaf, brush it with buttermilk or ordinary milk and sprinkle with the remaining seeds. Bake as above.

Welcome Additions

There is a certain sort of Anglophile that I can't help but make fun of. Those who have spent precious little time either in England or in the company of the English, for instance, as they have little concept that certain imperfections accompany those beguiling pubs and charming accents. Or those who feel that being American is somehow shameful and believe that the English are a more respectable people, and thus simply cannot bring themselves to shower anything but praise over the island and its inhabitants.

But that said there is a lot that I adore about England and I love many of its inhabitants (my dearly beloved most of all). Despite the invariably dodgy plumbing that the country is plagued with, the English do music festivals like no one else can, their members clubs are, as a rule, much more enjoyable than those in New York (prime example: Soho House here and there) and I find there is something a bit magical about their cookbooks.


I like that they tend towards weights rather than measures, and although the food is not hugely exotic, I do find that it is just different enough from American food to be exciting. So I was thrilled with the Amazon.uk gift certificate that I received from Paul's parents at Christmas, as it meant I had an excellent excuse to add to my burgeoning collection of "cookery books".


I've now got three new additions



...and so far they've brought me no end of joy.


When I first cracked open Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's River Cottage Everday I felt a bit as if I had somehow come home. Although the great Mr. F-W usually writes more intense cookbooks covering subjects like nose to tail butchering/cooking/eating and the like, this one is considerably more whimsical.


I felt as if I was reading the musings of a kindred spirit.


I adore rhubarb compote, just as he does...





and homemade yogurt...



and pan con tomate...



and Scottish oakcakes!



I was momentarily lulled into thinking that we create food of similar caliber. Until, of course, I came across this gorgeous and creative "thrifty" fish soup (thrifty gets me every time).



I adore all manners of bouillabaisse and cioppino so was completely taken with it.


And these "bacon" chops.



Unusual, easy and tasty from the looks of it.


And this neck of lamb stew is incredibly intriguing...



I do believe that neck is about to come the new "hip" cut of meat, I feel as though I'm starting to see it all over the place!


It was all too much, I needed a break so headed for Nigel Slater's Tender V. 1. Now I already adore this man's work...the Kitchen Diaries is just to die for. And this tale of man and his urban vegetable patch was too alluring to resist.


His backyard is so envy-worthy...difficult to image that this exists in London, no?



This seems like something out of the Hamptons...



Mr. Slater picks all sorts of luscious crunchy bits from his little patch of heaven and makes the most divine sorts of things with them. And none of it oppressively healthy, although none of it offensively artery clogging either.


One of my favorite things in life is deeply charred spring fresh eggplant...



and here it is elevated with a pungent greek yogurt sauce.


I adore fava beans (during the short time they are in season, there is nothing more disappointing than an off season fava) but do occasionally become bored with my repertoire. Now I shall be adding serrano ham to the mix on Mr. Slater's recommendation.


And of course I'm always up for a good stew, especially when pork sausage is involved...

and he has not neglected the morning baked goods either...

...pumpkin scones are making me long for fall!

But as we are currently in the depths of winter with nothing but potatoes at the farmer's market, I could not bear to read any more of all of the fresh recipes with fresh vegetables...I am months away from such bounty!

So I moved on to Ottolenghi, a cookbook which describes the dishes of these charming London food shops (and perhaps restaurant? I admit I don't know). The food is fragrant and light with a vaguely middle eastern bent, and all of the dishes seem to be something I could whip up in no time and still be thrilled with.

I could make this simple lentil and rice dish on a Sunday afternoon to take for lunch during the week...

...and this recipe is an excellent excuse to continue my tahini fascination.

I am not always so taken with the idea of making a dessert, but these beautiful confections had me at first glance.

Off to the kitchen now...