in purée form and its sweet juice is used as a seasoning.

~Dumas, Grand Dictionnaire de Cuisine

Living in Santa Cruz, I am used to cool summer mornings. Usually the fog burns off fairly early in the day and afternoon sunshine and warmth prevails. This summer has been unusually cool and damp, with these low temperatures lingering throughout the day.  A victim to these times has been my tomato crop. The wilting plants looked so pathetic that I finally gave up and started pulling them out. Despair. Of course, one should never despair. My lovely neighbor, at the first sign of prolonged cool days, set up a makeshift greenhouse over her tomato plants. (Must remember greenhouse fix next year.) Her tomato crop was thriving and she was leaving town for a week!!!! Could I please water the garden?” And please help yourself.” Ah, things are looking up…

This is what I like doing with a good tomato. And when I work at home, this is my instant tomato pasta lunch. Cook the pasta of your choice according to instructions on the package. While the pasta is cooking, roughly chop garlic and tomato. Add some capers and fresh herbs. Today I used fennel fronds since that is something I have plenty of in the garden. Toss in a bowl with a nice pinch of coarse salt and a generous pour of your favorite olive oil. Gently mix. Toast your pinenuts. When pasta is done, drain and place in bowl. Add your tomato sauce and sprinkle with pinenuts. You are encouraged to add red pepper flakes.

This cookie was inspired by a recipe in Meeta Khurana’s  What’s for lunch honey? and my own C is for Chocolate Cherry Cookies. My daughter and I love the combination of dried cherries and chocolate and also nut/seed butters. Meeta’s recipe reminded me of the deeply delicious taste of tahini, though I prefer the roasted kind! After thinking about it for a few minutes, I decided to give it a go. I made two batches. One with regular all purpose flour, the other with gluten free flour. My fiancé has gluten issues and my great love for him has lead me to explore gluten free pastas (er, um… trying to like!) and jump into the world of gluten free baking. My daughter and I loved the batch made with all purpose flour but she declared the gluten free ones “wonky.” I will keep experimenting and I am positively certain that with my trusty assistant/taster by my side, a gluten-free non-wonky cookie will be produced in our house.

Tahini Cherry & Chocolate Cookie

• 3/4 cup toasted tahini
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/3 cups brown sugar
• 1 2/3 cups unbleached all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 cup dried cherries
• 3/4 cup your favorite chocolate bar, I chopped up a dark chocolate bar.

1. Preheat oven to 350º
2. In a large bowl, mix the tahini, eggs, and vanilla
3. Add the sugar, mix well
4. Add the flour and baking soda, mix well
5. Add the cherries, mix. Add the chocolate, mix.
6. I use a small sized cookie scoop and this recipe makes 36 cookies.
7. Place about 2 inches apart on a buttered cookie sheet (or use a Silpat, or non-stick spray)
8. Bake for 15 minutes

Result? Well, I always make my cookies small in an effort to control my daughter’s sugar intake. Umm,  she ate 3!

I never thought of myself as a difficult teenager. I never stayed out late, got into trouble, disrespected my parents, talked on the phone for hours on end, had a messy room, etc… But, I was difficult and rolled my eyes when it came to my mother’s fiery eggs. As a teenager, I just couldn’t stand the sight of fiery eggs served again and again. My sisters came to visit and it was all they ever wanted. The eating of these eggs was always accompanied by lots of sniffing and use of Kleenex! I NEVER touched them…. Fast forward 15 years, I served myself a plate. I don’t know what possessed me…what made me take that first spoonful of that wonderfully spicy elixir! But when I did, I was so angry at my mother for keeping me from it for so many years! I mean, why had she never insisted I taste it? How could she have made it day after day and not kept offering me some? Yes, I rejected it. So what? It was her job to push me to become a better person. Fortunately,  I don’t hold grudges and quickly forgave her…

My father passed away a few months ago. I am fortunate to have an army of loving, kind, capable sisters. They took excellent care of my father, and mother, especially these past few tough years. And after my father passed away, everyone needed a break. A break usually means sending my mother somewhere. And this time it was to me. I was glad for it. I needed to spend some time with her, and knew a visit here would provide a much needed break for her. My mother is a dynamo! Busy, opinionated, capable, strong, a fabulous cook, and at the same time incredibly frail and forgetful. A perfectly real matriarch.

How does one prepare for a month long visit with one’s mother? By surrendering, completely… and hiding the bleach! I cleaned the refrigerator, made sure I had a sack of beans on hand, and lots of fruit. The rest we could buy when she arrived. Her visit happened to coincide with my fiance’s month long visit (!) and I couldn’t have planned it better. My mother cooked and cooked and cooked, and my fiance had a personal chef for a month! It was beautiful and they got along fabulously. And my little girl and I oscillated between complete glee and shock at having two such very important people in our cozy little cottage. Did my mother ask what special thing I wanted her to make? Of course she did and of course I said huevos con chile. An elixir every time.

Mom’s Fiery Eggs

• tomatillos
• chiles de arbol
• garlic
• olive oil
• eggs
• salt

For the Sauce:

Heat a skillet, add a few drops of olive oil, the tomatillos and chiles. (I just eyeball this recipe). The chiles will brown and start releasing their oils, prepare to cough. When browned, remove from heat. Turn the tomatillos carefully until all sides are slightly browned and soft. This will just take a few minutes. Place tomatillos and chiles in blender with 2 cloves of garlic, a 1/4 cup of water, and a teaspoon of salt. Blend… listo!

For the Eggs:

In a bowl crack and whisk a few eggs. Add a pinch of salt. Heat a skillet. Add a generous amount of olive oil. Ok, this is my mother’s trick. She heats the oil until it is very hot, and when she pours in the eggs, they puff! Pull the outer edge of the egg mix toward the center of the pan, and let the runny part coat the free dspace. Do this a few times, and then scramble. When the eggs have set, pour in some chile sauce. Enough to coat the eggs thoroughly and then some.

I, and my sisters,  can eat this breakfast, lunch, or dinner. With beans and tortillas.

I have many books on my shelf but few that I turn to over and over again. There are some books one can just trust… knowing that the recipes will be simple, delicious, and always work! Like you, I have followed many recipes and been annoyed by errors, especially when costly ingredients have been used and company is expected. And then there is Marcella Cucina, a book of  pure magic. This book came out in 1997, when I was first married and I was learning how to cook for more than one and on a slightly higher budget than my student days.  It is filled with solid practical advice and hints on shopping for basic pantry ingredients. Marcella’s price analysis of investing on a good finishing olive oil, for example, changed the way I shop and eat!.  I cooked many recipes from it and they are all brilliant. Beautifully written, very accessible, always delicious and they always worked! There are a handful of dishes that I have cooked so often that they have become ‘family’ recipes. They are part of my kitchen just as they are part of Marcella’s.

This is a recipe for cauliflower tossed with olives and tomato. It is no longer exactly Marcella’s recipe but it is! So simple and delicious. I love making it in the summer, when I fill my refrigerator with a variety of vegetable and grain dishes… perfect for a quick lunch for one or company.

This can be quickly prepared and keeps well. Core and separate the florets of one cauliflower. Drop into boiling salted water. Cook until just tender. When ready, remove from heat and drain. Heat a large skillet, and add a nice splash of olive oil. Add a couple of thinly sliced garlic cloves and about 2 cups of  cherry tomatoes, cut in half. When the tomatoes are soft, add 1/3 cup of good olives (black or green), also cut in half. Add the cooked cauliflower and gently toss. Finish with salt and pepper,  finely chopped Italian parsley, and a pinch of red pepper flakes. So very good…

June 24 is the Feast day for St. John the Baptist. This day represents three of my great loves. Foraging, vin de noix, and feasting! And every year I face the same dilemma, what to do with 20+ pounds of green walnuts. I always toy with the idea of pickling the walnuts but, quite honestly, I don’t like pickled walnuts! And since my daughter was born, I’ve had very little time to make things just for the sake of making them. This year, once again, all systems were a go for vin de noix.

Off I went with my baskets to my favorite and easily accessible grove of walnut trees. I had every intention of foraging even more walnuts than before since I am making preserves using vin de noix. But it seems the gods, or the saints, were conspiring against me! All the lower branches of my “secret” trees had been picked clean. Whereas it would normally have taken me about 30 minutes to fill my baskets, yesterday it took  an hour to get my pathetic haul… and it involved some tree climbing.  Anyone who knows me knows that I DO NOT CLIMB TREES! But I am not discouraged. I do have some friends with walnut trees on their property…

If you can get green walnuts, this is a simple recipe, and worth making. Here is the recipe for St. Jean’s vin. This year, to celebrate, I made crepes and filled them with walnut thyme butter… Oh, and the foraging wasn’t a complete loss. Nearby was my favorite pine tree, the Cedrus deodora, with it’s rosette like cones. I got a few of those…

When I was growing up, beans were a way of life. They were not only at every meal but, I think, achieved cult status in my family. And that was a good thing! My mother had 10 mouths to feed on a very low budget. As I look back I think she must have been so relieved that we all liked beans so much, for if we hadn’t, it would have made life even more difficult for her. And to this day, when the kids come to visit, all we want is beans. Well, maybe, a little chili, too. And this dish was always always a treat.

Frijoles de la olla (beans from the pot) refers to beans that are freshly cooked. In my family beans were cooked twice a week. My mother cooked a big olla. We always had our beans refried as a side dish, ok, maybe a main dish, and with every meal. Except when she cooked a fresh pot. On that day, we all knew what was for dinner. Beans with their broth, simply salted, and sprinkled with diced red onion and cilantro. And tortillas. I don’t really understand the chemistry behind freshly cooked beans and reheated beans but there is a difference. When beans are freshly cooked, they are sweet and plump and succulent and just gorgeous!

Since my household consists of my daughter and myself, I make one small pot (about 2 cups dried) a week. Beans are not at every meal but we do eat a lot of bean and cheese burritos for lunch, and my daughter likes her frijoles de la olla with a fried egg and sprinkled with fresh oregano. Ok, I let her deviate from the tradition… This week is different. My fiancé arrives on Friday and I need to make sure there are enough cooked beans in the house! Normally I just cook my weekly beans with a couple of bay leaves. I like to keep the flavor simple since I never know what they might be accompanying. But today I decided to make him a pot of my festive beans! And I just couldn’t resist eating a bowl straight from the olla…

Festive Beans:

• 2 1/2 cups pinto beans
• one yellow onion, peeled and quartered
• 2 chipotles in adobo (they keep forever, open a tin, and store the unused amount in a glass jar in your refrigerator)
• 3 bay leaves
• 6 cups of water
• finely chopped red onion
• finely chopped fresh cilantro

1. Rinse your beans.
2. Place all ingredients in a pot, I prefer a clay pot.
3. Bring to a boil, lower heat, and simmer for about 2 hours. (Cooking time depends on the age of the beans, so make sure to keep an eye on them. One burnt bean can ruin the whole pot!)
4. Give the occasional stir and make sure they always remain covered with about 2 inches of water.
5. They are ready when soft. Salt to taste.
6. Ladle into a bowl, sprinkle with onions and cilantro. Serve with warm tortillas.

The artichoke
of delicate heart
erect
in its battle-dress, builds
its minimal cupola;
keeps stark
in its scallop of
scales.
Around it,
demoniac vegetables
bristle their thicknesses,
devise
tendrils and belfries,
the bulb's agitations;
while under the subsoil
the carrot
sleeps sound in its
rusty mustaches.
Runner and filaments
bleach in the vineyards,
whereon rise the vines.
The sedulous cabbage
arranges its petticoats;
oregano
sweetens a world;
and the artichoke
dulcetly there in a gardenplot,
armed for a skirmish,
goes proud
in its pomegranate
burnishes.
Till, on a day,
each by the other,
the artichoke moves
to its dream
of a market place
in the big willow
hoppers:
a battle formation.
Most warlike
of defilades-
with men
in the market stalls,
white shirts
in the soup-greens,
artichoke field marshals,
close-order conclaves,
commands, detonations,
and voices,
a crashing of crate staves.

And Maria
come down
with her hamper
to make trial
of an artichoke:
she reflects, she examines,
she candles them up to the light like an egg,
never flinching;
she bargains,
she tumbles her prize
in a market bag
among shoes and a
cabbage head,
a bottle of vinegar; is back
in her kitchen.
The artichoke drowns in a pot.

So you have it:
a vegetable, armed,
a profession
(call it an artichoke)
whose end
is millennial.
We taste of that sweetness,
dismembering scale after scale.
We eat of a halcyon paste:
it is green at the artichoke heart.

Ode to an Artichoke, Pablo Neruda

I am fortunate to live where I live for many reasons, one of which is my love of artichokes. I am 5 minutes away from artichoke fields.  Great big fields along the coast, and these fields are often the only thing that separate the road from the Pacific Ocean. Magical, really. Young artichokes, cleaned, and sliced into 3 or 4 pieces are delicious fried and dusted with a coarse salt. This is a real treat and one I’ve only experienced from homegrown artichokes (getting small specimens can be…challenging!) But more often than not I cook them in the old family way,  on a bed of fresh thyme. If you can get your hands on fresh artichokes, this method will result in soft tender hearts that coat your mouth with a particularly delicate and lingering sweetness that is unforgettable.

Sweet Artichokes

• Artichokes, medium sized as you will want nice halves to cook.
  
• Fresh thyme
• Garlic
• Olive oil
• Coarse salt

1. I like using a terracotta pot for this dish, so if you have one, use it!
2. Line the bottom of the pot with a layer of fresh thyme
3. Peel and slice fresh garlic, one to two cloves (depending on size and love of garlic…), and sprinkle over the thyme.
4. Drizzle with olive oil.
5. Prepare the artichoke by trimming away top, bottom, and outer leaves. When you get to the inner blanched part, cut in half. Once they are halved, you can cut away the top just above the choke. The choke is the ‘hairy’ bit between the heart and the inner purple leaves. Remove the choke, and you are ready! If you have never prepared an artichoke, look for videos on youtube. It really is quite simple… really! Remember, you want prepared artichoke halves.
6. Place artichoke halves, face down, on the bed of thyme.
7. Drizzle with more olive oil and add about 1/2 inch of water.
8. Cover and cook over medium heat for about 25 minutes, or until tender.
9. Carefully slide the artichokes, with thyme, onto a serving dish, and sprinkle with a good coarse salt.

This dish is great hot or cold,  as a side dish or on its own. You can’t go wrong!

Chocolate Beet Cake

I am always on the lookout for a few things. Vintage ikats from Central Asia,  chocolate recipes, and new ways to get my daughter to eat vegetables (she is a real steak frites kind of kid). When I read Maria Verivaki’s recipe on chocalate beet muffins I was intrigued. Unlike Maria, I didn’t have to hide the beets from my daughter, she was very interested in the very redness of it all. After all, red is mommy’s favorite color. But, she is not so keen on nuts. Or, I should write she is very keen on peanuts, and putting them up her nose so deeply that expensive doctor visits are required… So, I hide nuts and not veggies in recipes!

The first cake I made had walnuts, following Maria’s recipe. They were detected and the cake refused. So, I tried again and altered the recipe. Maria’s recipe worked beautifully but, as always, I felt the need to change it up a bit! The addition of beets makes a beautifully deep brown cake that is incredibly moist and a little earthy tasting! And just in time for that dreaded Valentine’s Day….

Chocolate Beet Cake

The Cake:

• 6 ounces unsalted butter
• 6 ounces bittersweet chocolate
• 1 1/2 cup sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup beets, cooked and pureed
• 1 1/4 cup all purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking power
• a pinch of salt
  

The Glaze:

• 1/2 cup whipping cream
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 5 ounces bittersweet chocolate
• 1/4 cup confectionar’s sugar

1. Preheat oven to 400º
2. Prepare a 10″ pan, or the equivalent
3. In a bowl, mix all the dry ingredients.
4. In a large bowl placed over a pot of boiling water, melt the butter and chocolate. The bowl gets hot, so handle with with care!
5. Once melted, remove from heat. Stir in the sugar.
6. Add the eggs and then the beets and mix.
7. Add the dry ingredients and thoroughly mix.
8. Pour into your prepared baking pan and bake for 35 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean.
9. Let cool and turn out onto your serving dish.
10. To make the glaze first scald the cream, then add the butter and chocolate. When the chocolate is melted, add the sugar and quickly stir. Let the glaze cool a bit before pouring over the cake.

Who said chocolate cake couldn’t be the slightest bit healthy?

a tuna melt

I never manage to grow, and thus pickle, enough jalapeños. This year was no exception and I finally broke down and bought a giant tin of jalapeños en escabeche. Life is alright now. And after a late night and full morning of working, jalapeños have a special way of perking up the rest of the day.

A tuna melt. Or, a glorified grilled cheese sandwich. Tuna, cilantro, onion, capers, and lots of pickled jalapeños. Add barely enough mayonaisse to bind. Slice your favorite cheese and your favorite bread. You know what to do…

my 10 minute soup

A few days of sunshine after a week of rain created the perfect weed pulling opportunity. The ground was so saturated that weeds came out clean from the roots with the gentlest of tugs. The most prolific weed is the oxalis, the sour grass known and loved by children, with its bright yellow florescent flowers that really clash with just about everything. But more important than clashing colors is their very tallness. In the right conditions, they can grow very long stems and engulf  “proper” plants.  This weekend I liberated my one bed of winter greens from the suffocating yellow blooms,  and excavated a bed of Italian greens I planted from seed in the late fall. Suddenly, my garden became a treasure trove of greens! Mizuna, bok choi, Russian kale, Lacinato kale, frisee, mustard greens, radicchio Treviso, the beautifuly variegated radicchio Castelfranco, a few very small  puntarelles, and a two perfectly blanched pan di zuccheros. Yes, I love winter greens and chicories. Except for some of the chicories, most of the other greens are of the cut and come again variety. In fact, except for the puntarelle and the pan di zucchero, I treat the chicories as cut and come agains, too! Freshly harvested winter greens are fantastic alone but especially when you can just have a nibble from this plant and that one. And with a nice mix on hand, this is a perfect soup to make.

This is a very humble soup. Bread, garlic, olive oil, greens, and parmesan. If you want to add pancetta to the greens, go for it. Toasted pinenuts are also a great addition. I guess, this is a gardener’s soup. It taste best when a variety of greens are combined. I happened to have a jar of truffle paste given to me by my friend Franco, Mr. Exotic Edibles, which I added.

Green Winter Soup

• Leafy winter greens, and lots of them. I filled a salad bowl and it served 3!
• A good bread, I used a miche from Trader Joe’s
• Olive oil
• Garlic, 2 cloves peeled and chopped
• Grated parmesan
• Salt and pepper

1. Thoroughly wash your greens, spin, and finely chop.
2. In your largest sauté pan, heat some olive oil and gently cook your garlic.
3. Add the greens and about a cup of water.
4. They will cook quickly, with a gently stir once or twice. Salt and pepper as you like.
5. Once perfectly wilted, turn off the heat. Do not drain! You will use the “broth.”
6. While greens are cooking, thickly slice and start toasting the bread. (This happens to be a great soup to make on the open hearth) I usually make two slices of bread per person.
7. When all the bread has been toasted, you can start assembling the soup.
8. Place one piece of toast in each bowl, add some greens, repeat.
   
9. I added a big dollop of truffle paste to the broth, gave a quick stir, and then poured the broth evenly in each bowl.
10. Add the grated parmesan.
11. Serve immediately!

Once the greens are washed and chopped, this is a very fast soup to make. This isn’t just a recipe for the Frugal Foodie but also one for the Busy Foodie!  It is hearty and satisfying, and a perfect meal with your favorite bottle of red wine. Some guests have even been known to  pour a little of their wine on top, but I never do…