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And Now For the Sequel! Coming Soon, Susie’s Second Book, The Fresh & Green Table

by Susie Middleton on February 3, 2012

“Never look a gift horse in the mouth.” A goofy saying maybe (definitely something I could hear coming out of my mother’s mouth), but who can argue with the message: When good stuff comes your way, be grateful, and don’t question it.

Something good came my way at the end of the summer of 2010. Fast, Fresh & Green, my first cookbook, had hit a high note, fresh off the presses earlier that spring. It found an enthusiastic audience (that’s all of you—talk about gratitude!), prompting my editor at Chronicle Books to call me up one day in August. We had a nice chat while I sat in the parking lot of Alley’s General Store, watching the President’s motorcade go by, on his way to the “summer” White House.

My editor asked me if I thought I might have a “main-dish” Fast, Fresh & Green up my sleeve. I told him I’d definitely been thinking about all the ways to move veggies to the center of the plate, and that I could work up a proposal for him. “You do that,” he said. Alrighty then. Yeah, just in case I was wondering what I was going to be doing with myself for the next several months (!)…the upshot of that conversation, and several that followed, was that I signed a contract to write a “sequel”—due in February (2011). It was October by the time we actually signed on the dotted line, but fortunately I was well underway with recipe testing, since I had gotten a hint that the deadline would be short and I knew that completing a cookbook in that window of time would mean an all-out sprint.

But just because you turn in a book manuscript in February doesn’t mean you get to hold a finished book in your hands by spring time! Doing a book right—great photography, solid copy editing, careful and creative design, and lots of proofing and fitting—takes time, and then the book has to go to the printer. In the meantime, a particular seasonal “release” date is chosen for the book, a date when the bulk of the first printing will have arrived in the warehouse and will be ready to ship out. At several points during this whole process, the author gets to see (and make edits to) the updated manuscript. And at each stage, the author gets a stronger and stronger sense of what the finished book will look like, which is very exciting. (Especially for me this time around, as The Fresh & Green Table is stuffed with beautiful photographs by San Francisco photographer Annabelle Breakey, like the couple I’ve included here.)

But while I’ve had a good idea about how my book is shaping up at every step of the way, the process has been puzzling to other people (like my mother, sister, best friend, and oh, a few others) who are anxious to see the book. So I am very happy to now say that though The Fresh & Green Table is still months away from its official pub date (June 20, 2012), it has, in fact, gone to the printer, and is therefore available for preorder on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Indie Bound (please support independent bookstores whenever possible!). And likely there will be some sneaky early copies let loose, perhaps like the copies of Fast, Fresh & Green that Anthropologie displayed last time around. And just yesterday, my favorite PR and marketing guru guys at Chronicle Books gave me the thumbs up to start promoting The Fresh & Green Table (see beautiful cover above). Yay! So, first, please do me a favor and hop on to Facebook and “like” my new page “Susie Middleton Cooks.” I’m going to phase out the Fast, Fresh & Green Facebook page now that there will be two books! You can also follow me on Twitter @sixburnersue.

Okay, now for the good stuff—what’s in the book? The short answer is this: Main-Dish Salads, Hearty Soups, Veggie Pastas, Frittatas & Savory Bread Puddings, Gratins & Galettes, Rustic Tarts, Sautés, Ragouts, Pizzas (Baked & Grilled), Main-Dish Grains, and even a chapter on sides for veggie main-dishes, like polenta, popovers, and pilafs. Every chapter focuses on two or three types of dishes (that feature veggies in a big way) that I think you can easily add to your repertoire—by following the detailed recipes I’ve given you until you begin to improvise on your own. I chose each of these kinds of dishes to showcase veggies because they are broadly appealing (especially to non-vegetarians, though most of the recipes are meatless) and because they are the kinds of things I’ve learned to cook over the years that make me giddy with joy. (Grilled Pizza—my number one favorite!) To me, cooking from scratch has to be fun and full of “a ha! moments.” I think this—the fun and delicious factor—is the secret to convincing folks that vegetables can star at the center of the plate.

I also had a blast pairing vegetables with “bridge” flavors and other main-dish ingredients to help bring veggies into focus in important ways without turning folks off. Dishes like “Warm Wheatberries with Roasted Brussels Sprouts, Toasted Walnuts & Dried Cranberries” and “Chile Rice with Green Beans & Toasted Pecans” as well as “Seven Treasure Roasted Winter Veggie Tart” and “Spaghetti with Roasted Cherry Tomatoes & Spicy Garlic Oil” do this particularly well. (I promise everything in the book is not roasted!) But my very favorite chapter (softie as I am when it comes to all things leafy) is the Main-Dish Salads. For winter, I pair roasted veggies (yes!) with hearty greens; for summer I pair grilled veggies with lighter greens. And always with interesting vinaigrettes and fun extras like grilled bread. The result? Recipes like “Warm Winter Salad of Roasted Root “Fries” with Shallot & Sherry-Maple Vinaigrette” and “Grilled Zucchini, Bell Peppers, Goat Cheese & Grilled Bread with Double-Tomato Dressing.” Yum.

I need to stop there as I am getting hungry, but there is so much more to tell you about The Fresh & Green Table, and I promise I will post about it (and preview a recipe or two) in the coming months. In the meantime, yes, preordering is something to be grateful for!

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Winter Whites and Something Bright—Roasted Cauliflower with Double-Lemon Ginger Dressing

by Susie Middleton on January 25, 2012

Guess I am a little late to the party. Here I have been thinking I have some extra-special arugula-growing talent, because mine is still alive in the garden in late January. (Yes, and I’ve reminded everyone of this in nearly every recent blog.) And never mind that it’s been incredibly mild this year—we  had 8 inches of snow on Saturday, so now we can officially call it winter. (Though it’s already back up to 45 degrees!) I got a huge kick out of digging under the snow (and the row cover) on Sunday to find the arugula still percolating  away underneath.

But it turns out that I don’t have a special talent—apparently arugula is about the heartiest green you can grow. And with just a little protection, you can keep it going through the coldest months around here if you give it a good head start in the fall. It will do most of its growing before December, but if you’ve planted enough, you can just keep harvesting it all winter. This is a very exciting concept for me—having salad greens all year ‘round. The arugula was more or less an accident this winter, but come this fall, I’ll deliberately plant mâche (also called lamb’s lettuce—mild, nutty, and delicious) and spinach, too, for winter harvesting.

Right now, though, I am eating arugula with everything that will stand still long enough. Today that meant roasted cauliflower, which I’ve been craving something bad. I’m not sure why, though I do have a thing about winter whites. I love the color white (I collect Ironstone dishes) and when the snow started falling, cauliflower and endive and baby turnips and pearl onions began floating through my mind. I finally bought a head of cauliflower today, and decided to pair it with something bright and zingy. I love citrus with veggies this time of year, and I remembered a great dressing I put together for a carrot salad (of all things!) in Fast, Fresh & Green. It stars one of my favorite ingredients—crystallized ginger—along with lemon zest, lemon juice, and orange juice. Just the combo to counter the intensely sweet, nutty flavors of roasted cauliflower. So I gave it a go. Turns out the dressing is terrific with cauliflower—but even better with arugula. (I used the greens as a bed for the roasted veggies). So I will use the dressing again with hearty winter green salads. But the cauliflower combo was just right today—a bright spot on a cool (not exactly cold) winter day.

Roasted Cauliflower with Double-Lemon Ginger Dressing and a Spritz of Arugula

For a printable version of this recipe, click here.

For another way to dress up roasted cauliflower, see the compound butter idea in this post. You will probably not use all of the ginger dressing—save any extra for a green salad. In summertime, the dressing would also be a great marinade for shrimp before they hit the grill.  A few toasted chopped almonds would make a nice addition to this dish. You could also pair the whole thing with some cooked whole grains, such as wheatberries, farro, or brown rice, to make a delicious vegetarian main dish salad.

1 pound cauliflower florets (from about 1 small head), each cut into pieces about 1 ½  inches long with one flat side (see photos)

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

3/4 teaspoon kosher salt

Double-Lemon Ginger Dresssing

2 cups (more or less) arugula leaves, washed and dried

Heat the oven to 475 degrees F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. In a mixing bowl, toss the florets gently but thoroughly with the olive oil and salt. Spread the florets out on the sheet pan in one layer, flat side down. (Scrape any remaining salt and oil out of the bowl onto the florets). Roast until the bottom of the florets are well-browned and the tops are starting to brown, 20 to 24 minutes. (You can turn them once with tongs about ¾ way through cooking, but do leave the flat side in contact with the sheet pan for about the first 12 to15 minutes so that it will get nicely caramelized.)

Gently transfer the warm florets to a mixing bowl and drizzle with as much dressing as you like (start with about half; you will not use it all). Toss the arugula leaves with a teaspoon or two of the dressing and arrange the leaves on a platter or plates. Top with the dressed, roasted cauliflower and serve right away (the cauliflower cools quickly.)

Serves 3 to 4 as a side dish.

Double-Lemon Ginger Dressing

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 tablespoon finely minced crystallized ginger

2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

2 teaspoons orange juice

1/2 teaspoon freshly grated lemon zest

pinch of kosher salt

Combine the olive oil, the ginger, the lemon juice, the orange juice, the lemon zest and the salt in a small bowl and whisk well. Re-whisk before dressing. Store any leftover dressing covered in the fridge.

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Armchair Farming

by Susie Middleton on January 18, 2012

This winter I am home-schooling myself—about farming. This started out as a light-hearted endeavor. I figured I’d brighten up the dark days of winter by reading memoirs; you know—funny, it-changed-my-life farming stories. Couples who fell in love on farms, worked 26 hours a day, and lived happily ever after. (Oh, and had a thriving, profitable, vegetable growing business at the same time!) Surprisingly, there are actually a few books like this out there. (Try this one.) Perhaps the authors are not being completely truthful, but they’re charming, nonetheless. After finishing these books, the expected wet-blanket effect did not occur. The whole farming idea seemed strangely more appealing, not less.

Next and just for fun, I bought myself this adorable book, Farm Anatomy. Julia Rothman is a New York illustrator married to a farm boy, and her colorful depictions of everything from how to shear a sheep or milk a cow to the history of the tractor and the basic steps of cheese-making are fascinating and easy to absorb. Eye candy and fun facts all in one. Did you know that a cow drinks 10 to 25 gallons of water a day? Or that there were so many different kinds of chicken combs? (See Rothman’s illustration, above, and for more great books about country living, visit Storey Publishing.)

But lately things have gotten serious (and so has my reading). At night Roy and I look at our expanded garden design for this coming season—our third already!—and talk about where things will go. (I’ve now ordered all my seeds and am working on the potato and onion orders.) Even with our plan to double the growing space to supply the farm stand, that’s not enough room for everything we want to do. Roy wants to grow gladiolus like he did two years ago, so my zinnia bed has now shrunk (on paper, at least). We’re slowly gathering the parts for a hoop house, and I’m beginning to think about when (and where) we’ll start all the seeds, and how much of a jump I might be able to get on lettuce and greens. My mind races ahead to the succession plan, too—what will fill the beds when early crops, like peas and spinach, are done.

Meanwhile, Roy has introduced the idea of getting (a lot) more laying hens and building a second, bigger coop. The goal, of course, would be to sell more eggs. But creating a viable egg business requires more than just extra space for the hens, so I’ve been on the phone with our friends at Free Bird Farm in upstate New York, talking with them about economics—everything from grain prices and pasturing hens (that’s one of their hen tractors in the photo at left) to the wisdom of buying pullets vs. baby chicks. And of course, all my chicken books are now strewn all over the living room floor.

And up on the couch lies my serious homework. I’ve started a self-designed Eliot Coleman tutorial that features a trio of his books—The New Organic Gardener, The Four-Season Harvest, and The Winter Harvest Handbook (thank you, West Tisbury Library!). This guy would drive me crazy (he’s so logical and efficient) except that he reminds me of my father, who I happen to like. Actually, his whole discussion of crop rotation reminds me of the IQ tests my father used to give me from Readers’ Digest when I was a little girl. Apparently I was much smarter then, because when Eliot Coleman starts in on the various permutations of crop rotation (which would number in the zillions if you let your brain go there), I freeze. I’m taking lots of notes, but clearly this is the kind of thing that only works into your bones with years of practice.

Which is why, as much fun as reading is, it is frustrating not to be able to act immediately on new-found knowledge. So this week I did the only thing I could do after reading A LOT about season extension—something I’m particularly interested in. (Having our own salad at Christmas dinner was awesome.) Eliot Coleman grows through the winter in unheated hoop houses by choosing cold-hearty crops and putting them under row cover within the hoop house. A gardener I know here on the Island uses this same double-insulating, heat-trapping idea, by placing cold-frames within her hoop house. All I have right now is the little cold frame Roy built for me, but it is situated over a patch of very rich soil in the garden, and currently radicchio and mustard are still limping along in it. (The arugula outside of the cold frame is still thriving too, thanks to the mild weather and a double-thickness of row cover.)

So I decided to experiment with the plants in the cold frame to see if I can get them through February and March using this layering principal. I surrounded the existing plants with hay and covered them with fabric row cover, then popped the glass back on the cold frame. It’s a very moist environment, so I don’t expect to have to water much, and we’ll see if they survive and grow slowly in the next few weeks.

If nothing else, this little project gave me something to do outside in the garden this week—other than cleaning the chicken coop. What the heck, learning about growing food is totally stimulating, both for the brain and the body. Works for me, anyway.

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Try Broccoflower in a Versatile Dutch-Oven Ragoût

January 11, 2012

If it’s January, I must be cooking Broccoflower. I picked some up at the grocery the other day because, frankly, our vegetable larder of turnips, rutabagas, kale, and beets is starting to freak me out. Plus, I can never resist the lime-green color of Broccoflower, and I love its nutty flavor when browned, too. (Also, [...]

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Cow-Spotting, Garden-opoly, A Girl, & A Dog–Reasons to Forgo New Year’s Resolutions

January 4, 2012

Lately I’ve been accomplishing nothing and enjoying everything. This may seem like a small matter, but for me it is a big deal. For years I rushed from one thing to the next; I couldn’t stay still long enough to appreciate and experience the good stuff right in front of me. I thought being goal-oriented [...]

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Easiest, Quickest, Most Delicious Brussels Sprouts Ever

December 27, 2011

Yes, I know I am fond of hyperbole, and that the headline at the top of this blog is a bit over the top. But honestly, when something so tasty takes only two minutes to cook (and I am not kidding about that), I can’t help but enthuse.
Out of necessity, I had to deconstruct our [...]

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On the Wings of Christmas

December 22, 2011

Two fields over and across Scotchman’s Lane lies the house of our friend Katherine Long. Less than a half-mile as the hawk flies. (And fly it does. More on that in a minute.) We trekked over to her Mermaid-and-Starfish-festooned place on Sunday for her famous Solstice potluck. Actually, we drove, though we would’ve walked if [...]

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Tiny Roasted Beets, A Winter Garden Salad, And A Dog that Likes Both

December 14, 2011

You would think that at some point I’d reach my limit with this whole veggie thing. But it seems I can never get enough. On Saturday I threw Libby and Farmer in the car (this was not hard, as where one goes, so goes the other) and headed off to Whippoorwill Farm. I’d heard a [...]

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Hoop House Dreams and Chocolate Christmas Cookies

December 8, 2011

All I want for Christmas is a hoop house. I’m not expecting Santa to fit one of these in my stocking or anything. I’m not even really thinking the UPS truck is going to trundle down the driveway with a big box from the Farm Tek catalogue. Mostly because we try very hard not to [...]

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An Early Christmas Present From the UK—Roasted Veggie “Bundles” (Bacon-Wrapped, Of Course!)

December 2, 2011

While I am not (as many people ask) related to Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge (formerly known as Kate Middleton), I am fond of many things British, especially in the “cookery” world. Two of my favorite cookbooks from this year are Plenty—Vibrant Vegetable Recipes from London’s Ottolenghi, and Tender—A Cook and His Vegetable Patch, by Nigel [...]

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