All I am Saying, is Give Peas a Chance

Growing up, my sister Michelle and I hated peas.  My mom always said that it was just because our dad didn't like them, and he got away with not having to eat them.  She figured we were just trying to get out of eating them, too - and so the story of "control" among mom and daughter began!

It's funny how a childhood idea/memory can stay with you well into adulthood.  I also thought I hated coconut until I was well into my 30's, when I realized that I actually liked it (German Chocolate Cake will do that to you!).   Turns out when I was a little kid, my crafty dad TOLD me I didn't like coconut, so that he could eat all my Mounds and Almond Joy bars at Halloween.  But hating peas was MY idea, not my dad's (or so I told myself), so I held onto that one for quite a while. 

But about a year ago when I was at the farmers' market, I met a particularly passionate pea farmer.  He gave me some English pea pods and told me to just eat them right out of the pod.  So here's what happened in my head.....A) Gross; those are peas! and B) Don't you have to cook them first, preferably in a ton of butter??? and C) I wonder if he'll fall for the old "hey, what's that over there?" trick.  But instead I tried it......and they were delicious!  We're not talking frozen peas here, people!  These sweet little gems are truly a perfect food, with more protein than other veggies and full of iron, vitamin C, fiber and lutein (great for your eyes).  I dig 'em......don't tell my mom. 

Here's a delicious way to eat them....my Sweet Pea Crostini.  This will make any pea hater a pea lover.  I fixed this in a cooking class last week and the overwhelming response was, "This is soooo fresh!"  Well yes it is....and yet another example of why cooking/eating "in season" is the way to go.  It doesn't get better than fresh produce eaten in season.

P.S. you could add a little more olive oil, mixed with some water to loosen this up even further.... then it would be delicious tossed with pasta or over grilled fish or chicken.  I'll be giving that a go before these beauties disappear until next year.

Sweet Pea Crostini                                                                                                                         Makes 18

18 slices French baguette

4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, divided

2 cloves garlic, halved

1 cup shelled English peas, blanched and shocked

½ cup baby arugula

2 ounces goat cheese

1 tablespoon fresh dill, plus extra for garnishing

1 teaspoon lemon zest

1 teaspoon lemon juice

Pinch salt

·         Preheat oven to 375⁰.

·         Brush baguette slices on both sides with 2 tablespoons of the olive oil and rub cut side of garlic cloves on both sides.

·         Place on parchment paper-lined baking sheet and cook for 7-10 minutes until lightly browned.

·         Meanwhile, bring a large pot of water to boil and add peas.

·         Cook 2-3 minutes, until bright green, then plunge into a bowl of ice water to stop cooking.

·         Shell the peas and place in a blender along with arugula, goat cheese, dill, lemon juice & zest, and salt.  Blend until smooth paste forms.  With motor running, drizzle in remaining couple tablespoons of oil to loosen up the spread slightly.

·         Top on warm baguette slices, garnish with dill and serve immediately.

 

 

Yum it up!!

There's an App for That.....

...not that kind, you techie geniuses.  I'm talking appetizers! 

This is my favorite time of year, because appetizer parties are all the rage during the holidays.  This pic was taken at a Holiday Appetizer class I taught recently: Procsiutto, Arugula & Fig Roll-ups on the left, Vegetarian Potstickers next to it, and Field Green Salad in a Parmesan Cup.  Soooooo yummy!!

But no appetizer party is complete without crostini.  It's the most versatile appetizer on the planet because you can top them with any single dingle thing you like.  My new obsession is a Shiitake Mushroom Crostini:

There are two key things to remember when making crostini:  1) They get crispier (not in a good way) the longer they sit, so don't make too many at once or too far in advance.  You can make a bunch of your filling ahead, but toast the bread as you need it,  They only take about 8 to 10 minutes to toast, so it's not time consuming.  2) Brush both sides of the bread with olive oil; this helps them stay nice and soft right out of the oven.

I like to buy chiabatta baguettes and cut them into 1/4" slices.  Bake them at 350 for about 8 minutes until lightly toasted.

While they're baking, saute some sliced shiitake mushrooms, sliced shallots and chopped garlic in a little bit of almost-browned butter over medium high heat until the mushrooms are soft and brown.  Add chopped thyme leaves, a splash of balsamic vinegar or marsala, a pinch of salt and pepper and remove from the heat.

Place the toasted bread on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet and top with the mushroom mixture. 

If you want to....and you know you do.... add a little dollop of Pt Reyes bleu cheese and pop back in the oven for another five minutes or so until the cheese melts.

Soooo dang good!!  I can't get enough of these little nuggets!  Give it a try at your next dinner party and you'll start the night off right!  Or do what I did the other night.....just make this for dinner with a big ol' salad.

Great..... now I'm hungry all over again.  So tell me, what's your favorite appetizer to make or eat???

Yum it up!!

Mushroom Pate.....c'est magnifique!

Let's get a little wack-a-doo, shall we?
I was cleaning out my fridge today in preparation for a big week: two cooking classes and a wedding to cater.  I discovered a lot of mushrooms in the crisper, so I needed to figure out how to put them to good use.  The usuals came to mind: mushroom stroganoff, puff pastry pockets with creamy mushroom filling, roasted mushrooms, rosemary, and madiera over chicken.   But I'm in the mood for a challenge today....

So I got out my favorite culinary helper, The Flavor Bible, to look up what other ingredients mushroom like to hang out with, besides the ones I usually use.  There was a little blurb about a classic French pairing, called persillade: fresh parsley and garlic.  After sauteing mushrooms in butter, you add the parsley and garlic, hit it with a pinch of salt and call it a day. "That's all a mushroom needs most of the time."

This immediately took me back to my grandmere's kitchen.  She always had a bowl of fresh chopped parsley, diced onion, and minced garlic ready to go.  It was the foundation of her cooking.  These smells still take me back to the little girl in her kitchen wanting to learn and help...and eat!  So in honor of my grandmere, I decided to get my "French" on today. 

I grew up eating pate and other rich dishes from our French heritage.  As a kid I loved pate; I think it was because my grandmere and grandpere got such a kick out me enjoying such an adult food.  As an adult, however, I've lost my taste for it.  Too rich for me.  So with my wack-a-doo beret on, I came up with.....

Mushroom Pate!

I started out sauteing shallots and garlic in butter until softened.

Then I added crimini and shiitake mushrooms and cooked them until nicely browned.  To that I added parsley, thyme and a bit of red wine, and cooked that down to reduce the liquid and infuse the mushrooms with all that gorgeous flavor.  Lastly, I hit it with a bit of All Star Organics' French Herb Salt and fresh cracked pepper.

While the mushrooms were sauteing, I blended a cup of walnuts and some olive oil in the food processor to help make a base for the pate.  Process it until it become a soft paste.  This helps give you the consistency of an actual pate.

Add the mushroom mixture to the food processor along with a teaspoon of sherry and let 'er rip until completely smooth.  I couldn't wait to dig in, but the flavors only get better as it sits.  My friend Corinne came by, and I served us up a plate of pate and Grace Baking Chiabatta bread.   After her first couple bites she said, "good thing I ate before I got here or I would eat that entire bowl."  Yep, it's that good!!

Mushroom Pate
Makes 1 1/2 cups

2 tablespooons butter
1/2 cup chopped shallot
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
1 1/2 lbs crimini mushrooms
4 ounces shiitake mushrooms
1/4 cup red wine
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme leaves
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
pinch cayenne
1 cup walnuts
3 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon sherry

• Melt butter over medium heat in a large skillet.
• Add shallot and garlic and cook 2-3 minutes until softened.
• Add mushrooms and cook 5-8 minutes until browned, stirring occasionally.
• Add wine, parsley, and thyme.  Turn heat up to high and continue cooking until liquid evaporates.
• Meanwhile place walnuts in bowl of food processor and pulse to break down into breadcrumb consistency.  With motor running stream in the olive oil until a paste forms (you may need to stop and scrape down sides).
• Add cooked mushroom mixture to food processor along with sherry and blend until completely smooth.  Season to taste with additional salt and pepper, if necessary.
• Serve with crackers or baguette slices.

yum it up!

A Scrumptious Season

Pretty soon it'll be all root vegetables, winter squash and kale, but right now the season is giving us a nice bridge.  So I put together a yummy Farm to Table class tonight.  Let's start with Dill-Spinach Dip, getting rid of my old childhood friend, mayo, and substituting Greek yogurt.  So creamy good.... dill and lemon zest gives it a bright flavor, and water chestnuts give it a nice crunch.

Next, I'm back in soup mode with Butternut-Apple Soup.  There are so many great ways to make a butternut squash soup: with curry, with cream, with green chiles, with sage, with roasted red peppers.  My favorite remains the old stand-by, with apples.  I like Granny Smith for their tartmess.

For the main dish, we made Orange Glazed Salmon with Basmati Brown Rice and Herb & Panko Stuffed Tomatoes.  I'll be so sad when tomtoes go away.  It's a loooong lonely winter and spring without these lovelies, so get them in while you can.  I'll still let canned tomatoes into my house every once in a while for tomato soup, but I'll miss eating the real thing in salads, salsas, on crostini, and roasted like tonight.

Couldn't imagine giving you just one recipe, so here they all are..... Enjoy!

Spinach-Dill Dip

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 tablespoons chopped shallots

2 scallions, thinly sliced

1 teaspoon minced garlic

6 ounces frozen spinach, thawed and drained (or 5 bunches fresh leaves)

1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice

½ teaspoon fresh lemon zest

½ cup Greek yogurt

1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill

Pinch salt

¼ cup chopped water chestnuts

·         Heat oil in a skillet over medium heat. 

·         Add shallots, scallions and garlic and cook, stirring often, until fragrant, about 1 minute.

·         Stir in spinach and cook about 2 minutes.

·         Place spinach mixture into a food processor; pulse until roughly puréed, about 5 pulses.

·         Add lemon juice, zest, yogurt and dill, and pulse to combine.

·         Add water chestnuts and season with salt to taste.

Butternut Squash Soup     Serves 6

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 tablespoon butter

1 cup chopped onion

2 stalks celery, chopped

1 teaspoon minced garlic

1 3-lb butternut squash, peeled, seeded and cubed

2 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and chopped

4 cups vegetable broth

2 teaspoons maple syrup

1 teaspoon minced ginger

Salt & pepper to taste

Pinch nutmeg or cayenne

·         Heat oil and butter in a medium stock pot over medium heat.

·         Add onion and celery and sauté 5-8 minutes until tender; careful not to let them brown.

·         Add garlic and sauté 1-2 minutes more.

·         Add squash, apples, and broth.  Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer 20-25 minutes.

·         Add maple syrup and ginger, stirring to combine and cook 5 minutes more.

·         Season to taste with salt & pepper, and add a pinch of nutmeg (for sweet) or cayenne (for spicy).

·         Use an immersion blender to puree (or a blender or food processor).

Orange Glazed Salmon   Serves 6

1/3 cup orange marmalade

1/3 cup fresh squeezed orange juice (from 2 valencia oranges)

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

2 teaspoon orange zest

1 teaspoon minced garlic

1 teaspoon minced ginger

1 teaspoon maple syrup

1 ½ pounds salmon, cut into 6 pieces

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon pepper

·         In a small bowl, combine marmalade, juice, mustard, zest, garlic, ginger, and maple syrup.

·         Season salmon with salt and pepper and place in a large Ziploc bag.  Cover with marinade and refrigerate for 1 hour. (Citrus juice begins to “cook” protein, so don’t marinate for more than 1 hour)

·         Preheat broiler and place salmon (discard marinade) on baking sheet or roasting pan.

·         Broil 6-8 inches from heat for 5-8 minutes until opaque and cooked through.

Roasted Stuffed Tomatoes   Serves 6

3 large heirloom tomatoes

1 ½ cup panko

1 teaspoon minced garlic

1 tablespoon chopped fresh oregano

1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon pepper

2 tablespoons+ olive oil

Parmesan cheese

·         Preheat broiler.

·         Cut tomatoes in half horizontally and scoop out the seeds and flesh.

·         Place in a baking dish or pan and broil until lightly browned, just a few minutes.  Let cool.

·         Set oven temp to 350˚.

·         In a bowl mix panko, garlic, oregano, thyme, salt and pepper; add enough olive oil to moisten the mixture.

·         Fill cooled tomato halves with panko mixture, drizzle with a little olive oil, and top with a shaving of parmesan cheese.

·         Bake 5-10 minutes until browned.



Oooh-La-La!

I taught a French Bistro cooking class the other night... French Onion Soup, Roasted Beet Salad, Leek & Goat Cheese Souffle.  But my favorite was the Salad Nicoise Bites.  A traditional Salad Nicoise generally is a bed of lettuce covered with boiled new potatoes, steamed green beans, tomato wedges, hard boiled eggs, nicoise olives, then topped with tuna and garnished with anchovies and vinaigrette.

I wanted to make an appetizer out of this hearty salad. , since I already had the roasted beet salad on the menu.  I created a little tuna salad with albacore tuna, blanched haricot vert, capers, kalamata olives (easier to find and cheaper than nicoise olives), hard boiled eggs, and chives (or you could use chopped scallions).  I made a tangy vinaigrette and blended it into the tuna mixture.  The longer it sits, the more the flavors develop.....sooooo good!  Then I sliced the boiled red potatoes and topped them with a little of the salad.

It's a fun appetizer and can easily be made ahead.  It's also a perfect blend of protein, healthy fat, and complex carbs so it's fillling and keeps your blood sugar balanced at the same time.  Best of all, if you have leftovers (I make sure I make enough to have some the next day), the tuna makes a yummy sandwich - slice a baguette or use a sandwich roll, hollow out a well in the middle to hold the salad and spread with a little of Trader Joe's dijon mustard..... heaven on a plate!  I've never been a big tuna salad girl, but this tasty blend has changed all that!

Salad Niciose Bites                                                                              

8 small red potatoes

1 cup haricots vert

2 eggs

¼ cup white wine vinegar

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

1 tablespoon chopped shallot

1 tablespoon chopped chives

¼ teaspoon salt

Pinch pepper

¾ cup olive oil

One 6 ounce can light tuna, packed in water and drained

10 pitted Kalamata olives

2 tablespoons capers, plus a little juice

·         Place the potatoes in a medium saucepan and cover with water by an inch.  Bring to a boil and cook 12 minutes.

·         Add haricot vert and continue cooking 3 minutes.  Remove haricot vert and run under cold water to stop cooking process.

·         If potatoes are fork tender, also drain and rinse in cold water to stop cooking.

·         Meanwhile place eggs in saucepan and cover with water by an inch.  Bring to a boil.  Immediately cover and remove from heat.  After 15 minutes, drain and rinse with cold water to stop cooking.  Peel and chop; set aside.

·         In a small bowl combine vinegar, mustard, shallot, chives, salt and pepper.  Slowly whisk in the olive oil.  Stir in chopped chives.

·         Coarsely chop the haricot vert, olives and capers.

·          In a medium bowl, combine the tuna with the vinaigrette, then stir in the bean mixture and fold the eggs in; season with salt and pepper.

      Cut the ends off the potatoes and discard. Cut each potato into 3-4 rounds and arrange on a platter. then top with the tuna mixture.

Hello Fava Bean

My sister took me to a book signing for Marie Simmons at Greens in the city.  Annie Somerville interpreted a few dishes from Annie's new vegetarian cookbook, Fast and Fresh Vegetarian.  One of the dishes was a creamy polenta with fava beans, English peas, and I forget what else - but it was fabulous!! I don't think I'd ever had a fava bean before and certainly had never cooked them ...Anthony Hopkins' Hannibal Lecter had made me completely uninterested.  When my sister said that she's never cooked them because "they're too much work," I heard a triple dog dare.

I was doing a cooking demo at the Sebastopol farmers' market the next weekend, so I asked one of the farmers that had fava beans, "I heard these are hard to deal with?"  He said, "yes."  Dang, could my sister be right?

Not giving up yet (sibling rivalry is great, isn't it?!), I approached another farmer later that week in Corte Madera.  When I said the same, "I hear these are hard to deal with," he quickly said "no."  And then he explained to me  that all I had to do was blanch them for a few minutes and the skins will easily break open and out comes the bean. Maybe late in the season the bean inside has a bit more coating to it and you would have to peel that off, but still, that doesn't seem like a lot of work to me.

I bought a bunch of beans and went home wondering what the heck to do with them.  Got to love Google.  After looking at a ton of recipes  (well, 4 or 5 is about my limit, really) I found an idea for a dip/spread and made a few adjustments to make my new Springtime friend....Fava Bean & Arugula Spread on Watermelon Radish:

By the way, watermelon radishes were new to me, too....but oh, how I love them .  Sooo pretty.

Oh yeah, and I win the triple dog dare.

Fava Bean & Arugula Spread                                                                             Makes 1 cup

1 pound fava beans

1 cup chopped arugula, divided

2 ounces goat cheese

2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill

Zest and juice from one lemon

¼ teaspoon salt

Pinch cayenne

¼ cup chopped radish

·         Bring a large pot of water to boil and add fava beans.

·         Cook 3 minutes, then plunge into a bowl of ice water to stop cooking.

·         Shell the beans and place in a food processor along with ½ cup arugula, goat cheese, dill, lemon juice & zest, salt and cayenne.  Blend until smooth paste forms.

·         Place mixture in a bowl and fold in remaining ½ cup of arugula and chopped radishes.

·         Serve on radish slices. (crostini works, too, but I always try to keep it veg-based)